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Buying a Historic Home: What’s Your Style? (Part 2)
Part Two of our architectural style digest (read Part One here) offers definitions and examples of houses from approximately 1855 up to 1960.
When you’re looking at historic houses, it’s important to remember that many are not exactly a single kind of style. You’ll discover that some have used other materials or details not found in the technical definition, or alterations, additions, and updates have melded two different styles together.
These nuances and variations are what make each historic house special and oftentimes historically significant. So preserve them, celebrate them, and enjoy them!
1. Second Empire. This style is most common in the Northeast and Midwest, but you can find examples throughout the country. Look for a mansard roof with dormer windows on a steep slope, molded cornices along the top and bottom of the roof, decorated brackets under the eaves, and windows and doors that are rounded at the top. Inside you may find gilding, patterned wallpaper, and stenciling.
* Dormer: Projection in a sloped roof usually containing a window.
* Eaves: The underside of a sloping roof overhang at a wall.
Example of a Second Empire style house in Petersburg, Virginia.
2. Stick Style. Defined primarily by decorative detailing, you’ll find ornamental trusses at the peak of gables, large overhanging eaves, and clapboard walls with horizontal and vertical wood banding (stickwork) raised from the wall surface. Found primarily in the Northeast and San Francisco Bay area, this style is considered a transition from Gothic Revival to Queen Anne.
* Gable: The triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof.
* Truss: Triangular framework, typically consisting of rafters and posts, supporting a roof.
3. Queen Anne. A very popular style across the country during the last quarter of the 19th century, you can identify these houses by their steeply pitched, irregular, or cross gable roofs, classical detailing at the cornices, and double-hung windows that often contain stained or colored glass.
4. Shingle Style. Exterior walls of wood shingles, often mixed with clapboard, stone, or patterned brick, and irregular pitched roofs covered in wood shingles give this style its name.
5. Richardsonian Romanesque. Named for the American architect H. H. Richardson, who was the leading practitioner of the Romanesque Revival style in the late 19th century, this style was favored for public buildings and churches. Richardson designed few houses in this style, but elements of his work, like heavy rusticated stone exterior walls with arches over doors and windows and squat porch columns, found their way into many residences during this period.
* Rusticated: Stone cut in massive blocks separated by deep joints, giving a rich texture to the wall.
This house, built in 1886, is an example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. It's located on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
6. Colonial Revival. As its name implies, this style is derived from the styles popular during the American colonial period, particularly Georgian and Late Georgian, so a Colonial Revival is often hard to distinguish from these two. The major difference lies in the manufacture of construction materials -- earlier styles were made by hand, giving them a slightly irregular appearance; Colonial Revival houses were machine-made, so they are precisely shaped.
7. Tudor Revival. The major distinguishing features of this type of house are wooden half-timbered and stucco walls, large decorative gable ends or side chimneys, and slate or asphalt shingleds roofs designed to look like thatch.
8. Mission. Predominantly found in California and the Southwest, the Mission style is derived from the Spanish Colonial. Look for smooth stucco walls and low-pitched roofs covered in mission tiles. You’ll also often find large front and wrapped porches supported by heavy square piers or squat columns.
9. Prairie Style. Developed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, this style is often called the first truly American style of architecture. These houses have open floor plans, low ceilings, and prominent central fireplaces. They are mostly concentrated in the upper Midwest, but can be found across the country.
The Eugene A. Gilmore House (also known as the "Airplane House") is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Madison, Wisconsin, and an example of Prairie Style architecture.
10. Bungalow or Craftsman. A compact plan, limited hallways, low gable or hipped roof, exposed rafters at the eaves, and a large front porch are all identifying characteristics of this style. You’ll also often see double-hung windows that have a multi-paned upper sash and single-pane lower sash.
* Hipped roof: All sides slope downwards to the walls (generally a gentle slope), thus it is a house with no gables.
We can’t leave you hanging on some last few architectural styles you may come across when looking for an older or historic house. So today’s toolkit has a few extras for you:
11. Mediterranean Revival. Combining Italian, Spanish, Moorish, and North African elements, these houses are characterized by light color stucco exteriors, low-pitched tile roofs, archways and arcaded entrances, wrought-iron grill work, and small balconies.
12. Art Deco and Art Moderne. Both of these styles feature open floor plans, flat or very low-pitched roofs with low profile parapets, smooth stucco walls, and horizontal groupings of metal casement windows. The main difference is on the exterior -- Deco houses utilize geometric motifs, while Moderne houses have streamlined, usually horizontal detailing.
* Parapet: A low wall at the top of a façade usually hiding a flat or low-pitched roof.
Example of an Art Deco style house in Hollywood, Florida
13. International or Modern. Often associated with high-rise offices and apartment buildings, buildings in this style are almost always rectangular in shape, have exterior walls of glass or smooth stucco, and have a flat roof with a minimal parapet. You’ll find houses in this style primarily in California and the Northeast. | <urn:uuid:ff56b153-3cb4-4e7c-9455-521978a653f5> | {
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The MICADO camera, a first light instrument for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), has entered a new phase in the project: by agreeing to a Memorandum of Understanding, the partners in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy, have all confirmed their participation. Following this milestone, the project's transition into its preliminary design phase was approved at a kick-off meeting held in Vienna. Two weeks earlier, on September 18, the consortium and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which is building the telescope, have signed the corresponding collaboration agreement.
As the first dedicated camera for the E-ELT, MICADO will equip the giant telescope with a capability for diffraction-limited imaging at near-infrared wavelengths.
MICADO is the Multi-AO Imaging Camera for Deep Observations, which has been designed to work on the 39-m European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). This revolutionary telescope will be the largest optical/near-infrared telescope in the world, gathering about 15 times more light than the largest optical telescopes existing today.
The MICADO camera will provide the capability for diffraction-limited imaging at near-infrared wavelengths, taking the power of adaptive optics to the next level. To correct for distortions due to the Earth’s atmosphere, MICADO is optimized to make use of adaptive optics (AO): a simple single conjugate AO mode (SCAO) for correction of individual targets and a powerful multi-conjugate AO mode provided by the MAORY (Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics RelaY) instrument to obtain sharp images over a wide-field of view.
The key capabilities of MICADO are matched to the unique features of the new telescope, and will lead to dramatic discoveries of new or unexplored astrophysical phenomena. To name but a few: Its high sensitivity will allow it to detect the faintest stars and furthest galaxies. Its unprecedented spatial resolution will reveal structures in nebulae and galaxies in detail far beyond what is currently possible.
For instance, by resolving stellar populations in distant galaxies their star formation history and evolution can be studied. And with the superb astrometric precision achieved by MICADO, many astronomical objects will no longer be static – they will become dynamic. Measuring the tiny movements of stars will reveal the presence of otherwise hidden black holes in star clusters, and tracking the motions of star clusters will lead to new insights about how our Milky Way formed.
In addition, MICADO includes a special mode that will allow it to directly observe and characterize extrasolar planets, and another that enables it to take spectra of compact objects.
“It’s an incredibly exciting prospect, the measurements we’ll be able to make with our camera and this giant future telescope,” says Ric Davies, the Principal Investigator at MPE. “But this is also a very challenging project, and I am glad to have such a capable and enthusiastic team.”
The MICADO instrument will be developed and built by a consortium of European institutes in collaboration with ESO. All partners have a strong tradition of working together to design and build world-class optical and infrared instrumentation. The project is expected to last nearly 10 years from the beginning of the current design phase to the end of commissioning, with the first light of both the E-ELT and MICADO planned for 2024.
As the lead institute, MPE is responsible for the overall project management and system engineering, and represents the consortium towards ESO. In addition, the team at MPE takes the lead in the developing and constructing the MICADO cryostat and the cold optics.
The main contributions of MPIA to MICADO are the high-precision Instrument-De-Rotator and the Calibration Units. The De-Rotator compensates the rotation of the field of view caused by the rotation of the Earth during observations. The Calibration Units will support the detector calibration of both the imaging camera and the spectrograph. A particular challenge is the long-time calibration of astrometric imaging errors unavoidable for a wide- field instrument like MICADO.
"The combination of the never before achieved resolution and light collecting power of the 39m-E-ELT will allow us to unravel for the first time the transition area between the low-mass stellar black holes and their supermassive counterparts in the centers of galaxies," says Jörg-Uwe Pott from MPIA, Instrument Scientist for the entire MICADO project, and adds: "We will win important insights into the innermost processes of active galaxies and the star- and galaxy formation in the early universe."
ESO supports the development of the MICADO instrument as an associate consortium member. It is responsible for two key areas: development and procurement of the science detector systems and the design of the adaptive optics wave front sensing and guide camera system with its associated real-time computer. Both activities are carried by ESO for all E-ELT instrumentation projects. In addition ESO is responsible for and manages the crucial interface between the MICADO science instrument and the multi-conjugate adaptive optics instrument MAORY.
The MICADO consortium comprises:
MPE: Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (Germany); PI: Ric Davies
MPIA: Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (Germany); Co-PI: Jörg-Uwe Pott
USM: Universitäts-Sternwarte München(Germany); Co-PI: Florian Lang-Bardl
IAG: Institute for Astrophysics of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany); Co-PI: Harald Nicklas
NOVA: Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (vertreten durch University of Groningen, University of Leiden, NOVA optical/infrared instrumentation group based at ASTRON in Dwingeloo) (Niederlande); Co-PI: Eline Tolstoy (at Univ. Groningen)
INAF-OAPD: National Institute for Astrophysics at the Observatory of Padova; Co-PI: Roberto Ragazzoni (at OAPD)
CNRS/INSU: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers (für MICADO vertreten durch LESIA, GEPI und IPAG) (Frankreich); Co-PI: Yann Clenet (at LESIA)
A*: Eine österreichische Partnerschaft (für MICADO vertreten durch die Universität Wien, die Universität Innsbruck, die Universität Linz und RICAM Linz [Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften]); Co-PI: Joao Alves (Uni. Wien)
(Original text including high resolution images:: Hannelore Hämmerle (MPE) and others, http://www.mpe.mpg.de/6460495/News_20151006 )
Dr. Jörg-Uwe Pott (CO-I of MICADO)
Tel: (+49|0) 6221 528-202
Dr. Klaus Jäger (Scientific Coordinator)
Tel: (+49|0) 6221 528-379
Contact at MPE:
Dr. Hannelore Hämmerle
(+49|0) 89 30000 3298
Dr. Klaus Jäger | Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
From the cosmos to fusion plasmas, PPPL presents findings at global APS gathering
13.11.2018 | DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
A two-atom quantum duet
12.11.2018 | Institute for Basic Science
Biochips have been developed at TU Wien (Vienna), on which tissue can be produced and examined. This allows supplying the tissue with different substances in a very controlled way.
Cultivating human cells in the Petri dish is not a big challenge today. Producing artificial tissue, however, permeated by fine blood vessels, is a much more...
Faster and secure data communication: This is the goal of a new joint project involving physicists from the University of Würzburg. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research funds the project with 14.8 million euro.
In our digital world data security and secure communication are becoming more and more important. Quantum communication is a promising approach to achieve...
On Saturday, 10 November 2018, the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport of Bremerhaven, bound for Cape Town, South Africa.
When choosing materials to make something, trade-offs need to be made between a host of properties, such as thickness, stiffness and weight. Depending on the application in question, finding just the right balance is the difference between success and failure
Now, a team of Penn Engineers has demonstrated a new material they call "nanocardboard," an ultrathin equivalent of corrugated paper cardboard. A square...
Physicists at ETH Zurich demonstrate how errors that occur during the manipulation of quantum system can be monitored and corrected on the fly
The field of quantum computation has seen tremendous progress in recent years. Bit by bit, quantum devices start to challenge conventional computers, at least...
09.11.2018 | Event News
06.11.2018 | Event News
23.10.2018 | Event News
13.11.2018 | Life Sciences
13.11.2018 | Life Sciences
13.11.2018 | Awards Funding | <urn:uuid:f04808c2-057e-4a1f-b7b1-929c2f8eeb12> | {
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On average, teachers are with children about seven hours a day. What about the other 17 hours? Education doesn’t just happen in the classroom. Success in school is a family affair.
Parents are the most important teachers a child will ever have, said Renette Wardlow, human development specialist for University of Missouri Extension. Parental involvement will assure better grades, improve behavior and make school a more positive experience.
“Parents need to be very involved in their children’s education, and that starts with a positive attitude about education,” Wardlow said. When parents have a bad attitude about the entire school environment, that attitude tends to carry over to their children. “Just stay positive about it. Keep those negative comments to themselves.”
Don’t just tell your children; show them, she said. Demonstrate the value of learning by reading to your children. Have books available for them and model persistence and hard work.
“Parents are tremendous role models, whether they believe that or not,” Wardlow said. “Children often mirror what their parents say and do. And we all know that oftentimes young children, especially, will say what’s on their mind, or repeat what they had heard in the past. So we have to watch what we say and do.”
Wardlow suggests that parents set aside time every day to talk about school. Whether it’s during the drive to and from school, or during the family dinner, make sure your children know you are very interested in what they’re learning and how they’re doing in class.
She also encourages parents to help their children learn the things they need to succeed at school.
“Good study habits are absolutely essential,” Wardlow said. “I think that it’s important at the beginning of school time to set a plan—this will be study time, this will be the study place. It’s just a good idea to get the child tuned into a regular routine and a regular habit every day so that the homework really is a priority each night.”
Children can get very frustrated when they are trying to understand new concepts, Wardlow said.
“It’s important for parents to maintain that positive attitude and encourage their child,” she said. It might require sitting down with them to try to explain further what the assignment is about. “Frustration is just part of life and trying to minimize it as much as possible will help that child feel better about their school experience.”
Learning is a partnership between parent and teacher, Wardlow said. Be there for every parent conference and school event. If you see your child struggling, make an appointment with the teacher right away, and maintain good communication with both the teacher and school.
Page 2 of 2 - Staying active and involved in your children’s education will help them succeed at school, prepare them for a lifetime of learning and prevent the awful surprise of a bad report card. | <urn:uuid:677e7628-b369-495c-8746-0dca9a3176f6> | {
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Taima mandala (depicting the Western paradise presided over by Amida Buddha)
early 14th century
Pure Land sect
The 'Taima mandala' is one of the most celebrated of the group of works of early Japanese Buddhist art known as the Pure Land mandalas. The prototypes for these mandalas, sacred diagrams of the cosmos, were established in eighth-century China when the Paradise sutras and the realms of Amitabha (Amida) Buddha were gaining widespread popularity. The Chinese sense of order and design is pervasive in the complex layout of gardens, landscape, temples and architecture, all occupied by numerous Bodhisattvas, deities and divine attendants. This painted version of the 'Taima mandala' faithfully replicates the silk original, which according to legend was woven in the eighth century, and is still housed in the Taima-dera monastery south of the ancient capital of Nara. The design is dominated by the central figure of Amida Buddha, attended by his Bodhisattvas Kannon (Avalokiteshvara) and Seishi (Mahasthamaprapta), along with a rich host of deities, attendants and celestial musicians, all presiding over their Western Paradise. The borders also follow the original layout. Depicted on the left side is the story of Prince Ajatasatru. On the right are thirteen of the sixteen contemplations embodying the essentials of Shakyamuni Buddha's teachings. These teach the devotee how to visualise and thereby realise within himself the glories of the Pure Land. Along the lower edge the three remaining contemplations are divided into the nine possible degrees of rebirth into the Western Paradise.
Art Gallery Handbook, 1999. pg. 269.
Place where the work was made
Kamakura period 1185 - 1333 → Japan
early 14th century
hanging scroll; ink and colour with gold on silk
146.0 x 138.0 cm image; 255 x 144 x 153 cm scroll
Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation Purchase 1991
Not on display
Where the work was made
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Referenced in 9 publications
Bruce James, Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, 'Asian Collection: East Asia', pg. 246-287, Sydney, 1999, 269 (colour illus.).
Jackie Menzies, AGNSW Collections, 'Asian Art - India, South-East Asia, China, Tibet, Korea, Japan', pg. 173-228, Sydney, 1994, 212, 213 (colour illus.).
Adrian Snodgrass, Orientations, 'The Taima Mandala', pg. 110-113, Hong Kong, Sep 2000, 110 (colour illus.), 111 (colour illus.), 112 (colur illus.), 113 (colour illus.). fig.1, 1a -1e (details)
Michael Wardell, Look, 'Foundation building', pg.14-17, Sydney, Sep 2004, 15 (colour illus.).
Michael Wardell, Look, 'Foundation Building', pg. 14-17, Sydney, Sep 2004, 14, 15 (colour illus.), 17. The colour illus. on page 15 is a detail of this work.
Buddha: Radiant awakening, Sydney, 2001, 106 (colour illus.), 116, 117 (colour illus.), 186. cat.no. 83. The colour illus. on page 106 is a detail of this work.
Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation Annual Report 1997, Sydney, 1997, 18 (colour illus.).
The Asian Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'The art of Buddhism and other worlds', Sydney, 2003, 192-193 (colour illus.). The colour illus. on page 193 is a detail of this work.
Great gifts, great patrons: an exhibition celebrating private patronage of the Gallery, Sydney, 1994. no catalogue numbers | <urn:uuid:c9327214-0470-4d79-ab65-492a9a3ef417> | {
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To contribute to urgently needed large scale adoption of sustainable agricultural practice, Avalon focuses on the following activities:
Growing Sustainable Initiatives in Healthy Soil
Agriculture is one of the most vital pillars of sustainable development. Without more environmentally acceptable forms of agriculture it is unlikely that worldwide sustainable development will be possible at all.
Agriculture is unique in many aspects. It is a multiple objective activity, producing much more than just food, feeds and raw material for industry. By providing employment and income, agriculture remains the social and economic foundation of many rural communities.
More than just food
Based on natural resources and dependent to a large extent on natural processes, agriculture connects people with the land, plants and animals. Agriculture has a profound, both positive and negative, impact on the countryside, ecosystems and the environment. It results in landscapes, biodiversity, water, soil and air of varying quality. However, contrary to most other economic sectors, agriculture is both the source and victim of pollution and environmental degradation. | <urn:uuid:7830c28b-9be1-452b-95e8-0df646175e09> | {
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What is Repentance?Learn more about...
Is it Essential to Salvation? The three words of this title come from Luke 13:5, which reads, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Plainly, then, the tragic alternative to repentance is eternal perdition. In view of this fact, it is extremely important that everyone know what repentance is and how it is accomplished. Repentance Is More Than Reformation To reform is "to improve one's character or conduct; to become better, to behave better; to give up misconduct; to make better by removing faults or defects." One who genuinely reforms will, from that moment on, live a better life. And certainly this is to be desired. However, reformation falls short in at least one vital particular-it does nothing about the past. It leaves upon the pages of God's record all the sins that a person has committed. Consequently, it leaves the sinner still under the sentence of eternal death. Suppose that a criminal who has been guilty of many and various offenses against the law decides to reform. From that moment on, he determines to be a law-abiding citizen. This would be commendable, but it would not absolve him from the guilt of his past crimes. If he is apprehended, or if he surrenders himself, he will still be called upon to pay for his past crimes, unless he is given a pardon. The same is true of the sinner in relation to his past sins. What Is Repentance?
Repentance is, first of all, a turning away from all sin. And, so far as this first aspect is concerned, it closely resembles reformation. But repentance further involves turning to God, in believing prayer, for forgiveness and cleansing from all sin. Such prayer is not necessarily vocal, but it usually is. The repentant person confesses to God that he is a sinner and asks for forgiveness. If he obeys the gospel, he can rest assured that God will forgive, for His Word promises, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins", (I John 1:9). The Basis of Repentance
How is genuine repentance brought about? Paul explained, "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation" (II Corinthians 7:10). Before a person can repent, he must feel sorrow for his sins. And this must be godly sorrow. For someone to be sorry merely because his sins have been found out, or because they have brought trouble upon him, is not enough. He must be sorry because he has broken the commandments of God, spurned His gospel, and thereby grieved Him days without number. Such godly sorrow is the only motivating force for real repentance. Repentance and the Holy Ghost Baptism
A person cannot receive the Holy Ghost before repentance. Jesus said that the "world" could not receive this experience (John 14:17). He meant that those who were unwilling to give up the carnal things of the world, through repentance, could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Peter made this plain in Acts 2:38-"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." It was no accident that he mentioned repentance first. In God's divine order, repentance must precede water baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost. The requirements for receiving the Holy Spirit are repentance and faith. In many cases, those who tarry for this spiritual experience without receiving it simply have not repented. If and when this is true, it is useless for such a one to praise God with the expectation of receiving the Holy Ghost. He should first repent and claim God's promise of forgiveness. As his burdens lift because of his confession of sin and as he feels God's love and mercy, he will naturally begin to worship God. And God will pour out His Spirit upon this repentant, believing worshiping soul! Time for Repentance is Limited
The time to repent is strictly limited by the extent of earthly life. There can be no repentance after death. Since in the normal course of events no one knows how long he will live, it is perilous indeed to procrastinate. The Bible declares, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement" (Hebrews 9:27). The time of repentance is further limited by the duration of a person's capability of being impressed by conviction. A continued refusal to repent when called by God's Spirit brings hardness of heart. Paul spoke of people who were "past feeling" (Ephesians 4:19). Such people no longer feel god's Spirit leading them to serve Him. They have lost all desire for repentance. The apostle also asked this question: "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2:4). Think of the goodness of God to you, and surely your heart will be inclined toward repentance. The Lord is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance"(II Peter 3:9).
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The Maths in Context project was developed as the result of previous research that identified a need to help teenagers further understand money matters and financial contexts, and how gaining this knowledge may positively influence their maths attainment and engagement at GCSE level.
Studies indicate that in an average maths GCSE paper, around a quarter of questions contain a financial or ‘real-life’ mathematical context, such as calculating the cost of a gas or electricity bill or working out the interest on a bank account or credit card bill. However research shows that students generally perform poorly on these questions as they do not understand the financial context or vocabulary surrounding these questions, and so are unable to apply the correct maths to answer these particular questions.
With this in mind, The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has provided funding for the Maths in Context project, which will run for four years and test if teaching pupils ‘real-world’ maths skills can improve their GCSE results and overall engagement in maths lessons. The overarching aim of the project is to measure the impact in terms of mathematical attainment and financial capability of those students involved.
The project will look to recruit 130 secondary schools across England to take part, working solely with Year 10 students and teachers, with recruitment taking place in clusters across England. Following recruitment, the schools will be randomized and split to so that there are 65 schools in an ‘active’ group and 65 in a ‘control’ group. The ‘control’ group schools will receive £1,000 as a reflection of their involvement in the project, and once the project has finished will have access to the full set of lesson plans and resources used in the active group.
The ‘active’ schools will receive full support from a Young Enterprise education consultant and resources to implement with students for a full academic year. Those schools involved in the intervention will elect a lead teacher to attend an external training day, where specific training will be given on the aims and expectations of the project, as well as some training on the approaches to take when teaching maths in context.
A series of 12 specially designed lesson plans will be provided to teachers, which focus on a range of particular maths topics with a practical, financial focus, to be planned into the maths programme of study and delivered in class.
The lead teachers will be fully supported by a Young Enterprise specialist financial education consultant throughout the academic year in order to embed and subsequently deliver the lesson plans with students. Delivery in schools will begin in September 2017 and run for the full academic year, until the following July.
The evaluation of the project is being designed and led by the University of Nottingham, and will be a full academic evaluation. The evaluation is set up as an efficacy trial. Efficacy trials aim to test whether an intervention can work under ideal conditions and when there is close involvement from the original developer.
Schools in the treatment arm will send a lead teacher to receive one day of external training. The training day outlines the pedagogical approach to teaching maths in context, and will provide a set of lesson plans focused on a number of specific maths areas. Schools will be required to adhere to this evaluation process as part of the project.
These lead teachers will then be supported within their own schools to deliver and embed the lesson plans as part of their maths programme of study. Prior to the trial, there will be a phase of development work to refine and pilot the training and materials. These will be piloted in 10–15 schools.
For more information please contact [email protected] | <urn:uuid:888c9545-e8fa-414a-8be6-c2f35a7199d0> | {
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Everyone should have access to a toilet they are able to use safely.
However, according to Stonewall’s LGBT in Britain trans report – 48% of trans people do not feel comfortable using public toilets.
This means that many trans people, when outside their homes, are faced with a choice of using toilets where they don’t feel safe or welcome, or going home before they need to use the loo. Alternatively, they may not eat or drink all day so they don’t have to go. This situation has a huge impact on how trans, including non-binary people, navigate public space and how comfortable we feel out in the world.
In the UK, we might assume that access to basic sanitation is a given, but a UN statement on the right to sanitation on World Toilet Day reminds us that sanitation goes beyond merely access to a toilet, “Sanitation is not only about constructing toilets or sewerage. It is about understanding people’s needs and finding safe and sustainable solutions that ensure everyone’s dignity.”
It’s important to state that not all trans people have identical needs. While some people would rather use facilities designated male or female, others – particularly non-binary people – would feel far more comfortable with the option of gender-neutral facilities. Individuals whose gender expression does not conform to society’s expectations – whether trans or not – could also benefit from the option of a gender-neutral toilet.
It should go without saying that all men and women should be able to access facilities appropriate to their gender and the Equality Act 2010 gives trans women and trans men the right to do so. Employers and service providers should make sure that all employees, service users and customers are able to access appropriate facilities, without fear of harassment. The Equality Act does not explicitly mention non-binary people. Nonetheless, taking the needs of non-binary people into account is vital if you’re aiming to provide trans inclusive services in general.
The answer is architectural. We believe that a model for all new buildings should be purpose-built, single cubicle facilities that offer privacy and comfort for all, regardless of gender identity or gender expression.
We’re seeing more and more toilets designed as floor-to-ceiling cubicles, like small rooms in themselves, avoiding the potential awkwardness of partially enclosed cubicles that are standard in gendered facilities up and down the country.
However, it’s not always so easy to change older infrastructure to install these unless you’re having a general refurbishment.
A good second option is to make your accessible facilities explicitly gender neutral so that everyone knows it’s OK to use them. It’s a family-friendly step as well as inclusive of people with non-binary identities and any trans people who may simply feel safer and more comfortable in a non-gendered space.
Doing this is just a matter of re-labelling. There’s a range of gender neutral toilet signage available on the market, including braille versions.
If you are looking for a short-term solution to labelling or need to create a gender-neutral toilet for an event, you can download our printable toilet signs. We’ve seen them being used across the UK at events!
If you are going to have a refurbishment or new-build, make sure gender neutral facilities are part of the design! Thoughtful design can offer privacy, dignity and safety.
Links to useful resources
Gendered Intelligence Transforming Spaces podcast episode #1 – “Not another talk about toilets!”
Francis Ray White, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Westminster (they/them), Cara English, founder of Open Lavs and Policy Engagement Officer & Research Coordinator at Gendered Intelligence (she/her) and Irina Korneychuk, FaulknerBrowns Architects (she/her) discuss the context of the fascination around trans people in toilets, and provide some community based and architectural solutions to the toilets challenge
Open Lavs –project mapping gender neutral toilets in the UK
Downloadable all-gender toilet signs from Gendered Intelligence.
Stalled – a US-based advocacy project working on the design, legal and educational barriers to inclusive bathrooms. | <urn:uuid:fdb62291-0725-4945-ad1c-7b498138721d> | {
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What would you do if your homeland were taken from you?
1. For millenia Jews, Arabs, and their Semite ancestors have lived in the area we now call Israel/Palestine. (Since both Arabs and Jews are Semites, does the term ‘anti-Semitic’ have any usefulness in a consideration of the people affected in the Israel/Palestine conflict?)
2. Jericho (in the West Bank), which we are told is the oldest inhabited city, was built about 10,000 years ago by ancestors of Arabs.
3. Early Jews moved from Ur in Sumer (Mesopotamia, now Iraq) to Canaan (inter alia, Israel/West Bank) about 4,000 years ago.
United Kingdom of Israel about 1020 BC – about 922 BC, then
Israel (northern Kingdom ) about 922 BC – about 722 BC
Judah (southern Kingdom) about 922 BC – about 586 BC
4. There was a Jewish diaspora over time; however, many Jews remained in Palestine.
5. In Jerusalem during the First Crusade (1096 – 1099 ) thousands of Muslims, Jews, and Arab Christians suffered. Palestine was their home.
6. The Balfour Declaration, in November 1917, stated in part “His Majesty’s Government” (that is, the Government of Great Britain) “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, … it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine….”
7. The declaration was accepted by the League of Nations in July 1922 and was embodied in the mandate given Great Britain for temporary administrative control of Palestine.
8. In 1947 the British Government turned the Palestine question over to the United Nations.
9. In November 1947, partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state was recommended by the United Nations.
10. Many Arab Palestinians had to leave, many fleeing, their homes — many settling in, or becoming refugees in, the West Bank or Gaza, and many settling or becoming refugees outside Palestine. In May 1948 Israel proclaimed independence.
What would YOU do if YOUR homeland were taken from YOU? In such a case, what do YOU think SHOULD be done?
Source: ‘The Nation,’ June 28, 2010
Implementation of the 2002 Nusseibeh-Ayalon Plan for the creation of two states — with June 1967 borders (with small, one-to-one adjustments) and Jerusalem being the shared capital of both states.
Negotiations are planned to begin again in September 2010 and to cover ‘issues like the borders of a new Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, security guarantees for Israel and the right of return for Palestinian refugees,’ reported in the “New York Times, August 20, 2010.” Will there be a just outcome? Make your views known to the White House
e-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact; comments: 202-456-1111; switchboard: 202-456-1414.
A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin (New York: Henry Holt and Company – Owl Books, 1989).
Arabs & Israel for Beginners, Ron David (New York and London: Writers and Readers, 2001).
Fateful Triangle – The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press, 1999).
One Palestine Complete – Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, Tom Segev (New York: Henry Holt and Company – Metropolitan Books, 1999).
The Balfour Declaration – The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jonathan Schneer (New York: Random House, 2010).
– Barbara Walker
for the Granny Peace Brigade | <urn:uuid:5a32939e-2155-4c61-9081-8d21dae3846c> | {
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Goal / Objective - With support from The Student Excellence Foundation, Kelly Woods and her colleagues at Lowell Elementary are now using newly purchased Longman Dictionary/Thesaurus resources to support 3rd grade English Language Arts instruction. These take the place of the none-too-student friendly reference resources that had otherwise been collecting dust on classroom shelves.
The goal was to improve students’ basic literacy skills, not just by having them learn new words, but by having them learn to navigate and use effectively basic reading and writing resources like a dictionary and thesaurus. With confidence in using such resources, students improve their self-efficacy as readers and as writers.
Impact - Students began by comparing the new dictionaries to older resources, and further investigated what information a dictionary and thesaurus might contain: not just definitions and spelling, but synonyms, antonyms, part of speech, and some entries included illustration. The class went on to create their own “autobiography dictionary” in which each student created an entry for him- or herself, complete with definition, synonym, antonym, and part of speech.
Woods reports that many students now, of their own initiative, use the dictionaries to expand their vocabularies, increase their reading level, and to check on spellings when necessary.
Perhaps even more valuable is that students have learned how a resource like a dictionary and thesaurus work, how to navigate them, and what information they contain.
“I like the newer dictionaries better because they have a lot of color and they are kid friendly. The old ones have huge words and too many. The new one has more pages of words that we use. You can understand the new ones more than the old ones. It is much easier to translate what the words actually mean. That is why I like the new one better.” -Addy
“I like the yellow dictionary better because it has more description so if I look up a word I will get the whole meaning. I also like the pictures because it shows examples of the word.” -Kaylee
“I like the new one because it has a thesaurus at the back and it highlights the word.” -Olivia
“I like the elementary dictionary better because it has little white letters with a blue background on the side so you can look at those instead of flipping each page so it was way easier.” -Mary
“I like the yellow dictionary better because the words are written bigger so they are easier to read.” -Emme | <urn:uuid:bd66e25b-90a4-454a-b14e-d7b3a315b750> | {
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Much like the rest of the denizens of this land, the Curd are primarily quadrupeds. They move about most comfortably on four limbs, but are also able to stand erect and move in an erect gait, but without the same speed and surety of their four-legged gait.
The average Curd is 14 to 16 feet long, with about 1/3 of that length being tail. They do not have the same lizard-like splayed legs of a terran crocodile, but instead have their legs under their body like a mammal. This gives them significantly more ground clearance. They also have a central ridge in their spine where powerful muscle groups are anchored. This allows the curd to stand on its rear legs, and move its heavy upper torso. During the mating season, male curd will rear up on their hind legs and crash head first into one another, mouths agape in a display of masculine power. This is resolved in the manner of a game of chicken, or until a potential rival submits to the dominant male. In normal life, this sledgehammer attack is irresistable to opponents.
Given the soft-skinned nature of amphibians, the Falling jaws attack crushes bone, shreds flesh, and even a glancing hit can cripple an Anura warmaster for the rest of its life.
The Curd tail deserves mention. It is heavy, and flexible, but not the loose flexibility of a monkey tail, but the heavy articulation of a tank tread. The tail is used in a sculling motion to propel the curd through the water. It can also be used as a third point in a tripod stance that curd take when standing but not moving. In times of hostility, curd will often use the tail as a battering weapon. This is to ensure their own survival, as mating contests do not end with the death of young curd. Coupled with the superior mass of the curd, the tail is able to bowl over any of the other resident races.
Ancient traditions and way of life
Traditionally, the Curd have been simple hunters and fishers that live in small family groups, wondering the vast swamps that they call their home. Each family group typically consists of a male Curd with his mate and offspring, congregating together in large groups only during the seasons of mating, when young male Curd warriors spar with each other for the hand of a desirable female. The victor was then subjected to careful scrutiny by the female and if she was satisfied, they would join together in a simple but profound bonding ceremony symbolised by the twin tooths that each of them extract out of their own respective mouths.The agony that ensues when the a tooth is ripped out from their gums, serves to remind them to honor this bond through even the hardest times. For this bond is eternal. Curds mate for life and neither will take another mate, should one die.
Their faith is extremely primitive, mostly revolving around the worship of ancestral spirits and the guardian nature spirits that are said to look over each family. There are no shamans or priests,with each each head of the family being able to call upon his ancestors and guardian spirits when in need due to the innate bond with the spirits of his ancestors that is carried in his blood. Daily prayers and offerings are often used to to let the deceased elders understand that their descendents have not forgotten them. All Curd live in fear of a vengeful elder returning as some dangerous form of nature to strike them down for their lack of filial piety. For this reason, worship to the memory of one's elders is never neglected, forming the closest thing they have to a true religion. Even the spirits that rule nature are never shown this attention, for the spirits of nature are capricious and self-absorbed, their ears closed to whatever prayer or pleas the creatures of the earth might offer them.
They are extremely fond and protective of their children and will kill anything that threatens them. This mean that one would not wish to find himself between a male Curd and his hatchlings. This is due to the fact that throughout her life, the female Curd only lays five eggs. To even lose one to to predators would be a crushing blow. For this reason, the death of a child is considered an unforgivable crime and the father will never rest until he has collected the head of the killer as a trophy, be it beast or sentient being. If the father fails to accomplish this in his lifetime,the blood debt is passed on to his sons who must now carry on the task of finding the killer of their sibling. Hence their deep and powerful hatred for the murderous priests of the self-proclaimed Brave People that callously use Curd females and infants as victims for their foul sacrifices. Many Curds see in these foul rituals a cunning plan to eliminate their race, given the low rate of reproduction that their race is afflicted with, at least in comparison to the teeming numbers of of the others peoples that wander Tarrod.
Possessed with a powerful loathing of any kind of potent power that stems from the work of anything other than the simple forces of nature, they are unsurprisingly terrified of anything that appears unnatural in their innocent eyes, viewing it as the work of evil summoned into existence by their hated oppressors and are quick to blame any unusual disaster that befalls them on the sinister clerics of the Eshal. Almost anything, from devastating outbreak of disease that kills the heart-breakingly precious infants, to savage attacks by some monstrous horror hitherto unseen within the darkness of the swamps, are attributed to these accursed sorcerers among the enemy.
And yet the supposed atrocities inflicted on them from afar by the Eshal priests simply cannot compare to those which the more secular among the ranks of those feorcious and ruthless people have imposed on them. Uprooted from an ancient way of life by hordes of Eshal settlers slithering into swamps wrested from the hands of the Curd, many of of the swamp aborogines are now forced by Eshal warriors to live in squalid, cramped settlements, as their traditional fishing grounds are stripped of anything edible, or dammed so that gold on the river beds can be collected. Curds that resist the enslavement of their race by fighting back are punished by being forced to witness the Eshal slay their mate and brood slain outright or reserve them for the far grimmer fate of sacrifice. As far as the Brave People are concerned, the Curds with their very conspicious absence of what most would term material civilization, are scarcely better than most of the other beasts lurking in the watery wastse of Tarrod.
The Curd abbhor this as a mortal insult and crime, one that further fuels their obssesive urge to honor the traditional vendetta. Escaped male Curds that have seen their mates and offspring taken away by the Eshal priests, now bond together with other vengeful male Curds in the deepest parts of the swamps and form war-bands of resistance that ferociously attack the concentration camps and free their prisoners. All Eshal defeated, are quickly slain and their heads are taken as ritual trophies by the Curd fighters, with especial preference showered on the much hated priests found among the enemy. The rest of a fallen foe's body is mutilated and left behind as a warning to their oppressors, one that demonstrates that a the male Curd who looses his family will not be denied his sacred revenge. Driven by grief and hatred, these bands are utterly fearless and will not hesitate to take great risks that sometimes border on the sucidal.
Language and technology
Curd build large mounds to make the defence of their eggs easier, with there being multiple mounds in a given area. Eshal often have to hunt through a dozen or more mounds before they can find the eggs or younglings they seek for their sacrifices.
Much larger and stronger mounds are erected and scattered throughout the domains claimed by a Curd family. These stronger structures imitate the basic cone-shaped design of the ones built to shield the eggs from Eshal raids, but differ in some significant ways. The mud employed in their construction is reinforced with large chunks of driftwood and river boulders that afford them protection against any dangerous rise in water-levels as they make various stops along the shores of their aquatic hunting grounds. Should they be deemd adequate for habitation , a narrow tunnel is dug deep beneath the mounds, serving as an netrance htrough which the Curd family can crawl through and shelter during the nights when sleep overtakes them. Should the parents wish to leave their offspring behind prior to embarking on a somewhat risky trek, a large rock is rolled across the entrance, barring all entry to would-be raiders, and a series of small holes for ventilation are scooped out from the top of the mound, allowing some air to enter. Though undoubtedly lacking aesthetic appeal to the eyes of any viewer, the Curd would shrug off such an opinion, attaching as they do, very little importance to what is merely a temporary lodge to these mobile people who often swim wide and far in their native waters.
This crude variety of Curd innovation also extends to simple but effective tools carved out of cypress wood, which is a resource plentiful in their domains. A favorite one is their all-purpose long spear that is crafted from cypress wood. Huge and heavy, they are tipped with a razor keen flint that can penetrate even the tough hide of a Dunkleosutous, and require tremendous arm strength to wield. A Curd warrior employs this massive weapon with lethal ease, making good use of his powerful arms to impale his quarry right through the body, be it a large armored fish or a puny Eshal standing in his way. Extremely proud of their huge singature weapon, Curd warriors on a quest for vengenace have often been known to mock the weaponry of their enemies by picking their large, snaggled teeth with any weapons found on Eshal that they have slain.
In keeping with their cherished status, these spears are often strung around with river clam shells, a practice that is borne out of the Curd belief that by doing so, a hunter might attract the attention of a deceased but benovalent ancestor that upon espying the dangling clam shells, understands that his descendant is in search of the river's bounty, and intervenes appropriately by sending a suitable meal in the way of the former. Should a hunt end successfully, the grateful hunter never ceases to reverently offer thanks to his many ancestors, wary as he is of accidently leaving out the one who had brough him such good fortune.
Contrary to what the Eshal belief, the Curd do possess a language, one that consists of numerous growls and whistles, each varrying in pitch and thus carrying a different meaning, ranging from the hungry cries of a hatchling to the enraged bellow of a male Curd whose wrath has been incurred. Though a usually quite people, the Curds never hesitate to create a cacophony of shrill whsitles and deep growls when offering a prayer to the ancestors. Elaborate embellishments on the victories of the dead are often favored, with the Curd intoning them non-stop, ceasing only when his breath threatens to run out. Such a pointed display of reverance
is often looked upon with much affection by the ancestors. | <urn:uuid:ce4a9cc5-cef8-4a9b-b87c-f61863a59be2> | {
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Voters must be offered a real choice.
- Authentic elections provide voters with a possibility based on the constitution and the laws to choose between candidates. With authentic elections, there are a real political pluralism, an ideological variety and a multi-party system that are exercised through functioning of political parties, which legal activities are under a legal protection of the state.
- The participating States recall their commitment to the rule of law in the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting and affirm their dedication to supporting and advancing those principles of justice which form the basis of the rule of law. In particular, they again reaffirm that democracy is an inherent element in the rule of law and that pluralism is important in regard to political organizations.
- A genuine election requires an open and inclusive registration process for political parties and candidates from across the political spectrum, contributing to presentation of a real choice to the electorate.
- Democratic elections can only take place within a pluralistic environment, which has a range of political views and interests. | <urn:uuid:169819cb-31b3-42c2-b722-bee7a046f3eb> | {
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“Engineered systems increasingly derive their behavior from complex interactions between tightly coupled parts, covering multiple disciplines. It is therefore important to develop a scientific foundation that helps us to understand the whole rather than just the parts, that focuses on the relationships among the parts and the emergent properties.” – A World in Motion, System Engineering Vision 2025.
Our research goal is to establish scientific foundations for complex systems engineering and design by developing and synergistically integrating theories from different domains. Especially, we place the decision-centric philosophy at the center of our research, which drives for understanding and discovering fundamental concepts, mechanisms and theories in System Science and Design Science. Our view on the systems goes beyond the physical artifacts but also considers human factors in the loop. Through the framework, methodologies, approaches and tools developed with such a decision-centric philosophy, we aim to solve problems which have impeded the modeling of large-scale complex systems, the promotion of social design and manufacturing, and the realization of artificial design intelligence. Our research also facilitates and scales up the engineering design education, especially in the study of learning behaviors in design, and the development of learning environment for STEM innovation. For a taste of our research, the following HOW and WHY questions that we are interested are provided , but not limited.
- How and why do complex systems, such product-customer systems, as air transportation systems and Internet, come to the structure you observe in real world?
- How to model and then forecast such systems’ evolution through the modeling of individual entities’ decision-making behaviors?
- How can the estimated behaviors of individual entities’ be used to design or improve the performance of existing systems?
- How to guide the design activities of crowd as well as the their design decisions through incentives and mechanism design?
- How can human design knowledge and design creativity be measured, extracted and be further utilized to enable the artificial design intelligence?
- How to accurately estimate customers’ preferences in supporting product design and development?
- How do customers’ preferences diffuse across different regions and how such diffusion patterns can be learnt and modeled in supporting the product design and new product launching strategies?
- How can the estimated designers’ and/or customers’ behaviors be used in engineering design optimization, facilitating design decisions, refining design processes and even guiding technology-push directions? | <urn:uuid:a7ea3e91-70b4-4953-836d-3dce3aed1ab8> | {
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Public Health Agency of Canada investing in projects to address Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
OTTAWA, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ – Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can result in a baby being born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which includes a range of physical, mental or behavioural difficulties that last a lifetime. No amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy.
Today, the Honourable Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, announced $3.6 million in federal funding for five projects aimed at preventing and screening for alcohol use in pregnancy. Project leads will work with medical and allied health professionals, social service providers and researchers to equip frontline care providers with the tools, information and best practices they need to help screen, counsel and treat women at risk of using alcohol during pregnancy.
The funding will also improve surveillance of FASD in Canada to better identify individuals and population groups most in need of support, help direct future prevention and diagnostic services, and improve care for those living with FASD.
There is no single solution to prevent FASD and that is why the Government of Canada is investing in education, prevention and screening, as well as partnering with internationally recognized experts, to help reduce the incidence of FASD.
- FASD is the leading known cause of preventable developmental disability in Canada.
- While the disorder is present from birth, people are often not diagnosed with FASD until later in life when symptoms related to learning challenges and social problems emerge.
- A number of conditions, such as hearing loss, visual impairment and conduct disorder, have been found to occur more frequently among individuals with FASD than in the general population.
- While the exact prevalence of FASD in Canada is not known, the Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that one in every 100 Canadians is affected.
“The use of alcohol during pregnancy during pregnancy can have devastating consequences. The funding announced today is an important step toward fostering a national conversation about FASD, and action in a wide range of settings, by a variety of health care providers.”
The Honourable Jane Philpott, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Health
“Alcohol is not harmless. It is a mind-altering drug and there are health risks associated with drinking, especially during pregnancy.”
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Andrews Geyser, a massive artificial fountain located near the town of Old Fort in McDowell County, was created as a dramatic tourist attraction during the early years of the Western North Carolina Railroad (WNCR). In 1855 the North Carolina legislature issued a charter to the WNCR to run from Salisbury to "some point on the French Broad River, beyond the Blue Ridge," and eventually farther west. Hoping to achieve commercial success as well as bring the state's mountain-dwelling citizens closer to the rest of North Carolina, the company reached Old Fort, at the foot of the mountains, in 1869. But the steep grades of the Eastern Continental Divide thwarted the builders and, unable to provide through service, the railroad soon foundered. In 1875 the state bought it at auction, hired builders, and legislated the leasing of convict labor to take the track over the hills.
By 1879 rail had been laid through Swannanoa Gap and into Asheville, though the process had cost numerous lives due to accidents and disease. The grade required seven tunnels between Old Fort and Black Mountain, passages cut with the first use of nitroglycerine in the southeastern United States. Around 1885 in Round Knob, a secluded cove looped by the railroad, private investors built a five-story resort hotel that quickly became a popular stop on the new rail line. A pond was dammed above the hotel and buried pipe dropped down the mountain, feeding a seemingly natural geyser that shot nearly 80 feet into the air in front of the lodge. When Round Knob Lodge burned in 1903, both the cove and its geyser fell into disuse.
In 1910 George Fisher Baker, a wealthy New York City banker, missed seeing the geyser on his train rides through the area. He asked the Southern Railway, then owner of the line, to let him restore it in honor of his friend, Alexander Boyd Andrews, who had served as president of the WNCR. By 1911 Baker had bought the land at Round Knob and restored the geyser, now named Andrews Geyser, constructing a five-lobed pool around its base. He donated the set-up to the Southern Railway, which promised to maintain it.
Economic conditions led the railroad to cease upkeep of Andrews Geyser in the early 1970s, soon after which the pipeline broke in pieces, the basin filled with mud, and the cove became overgrown. In 1975 the town of Old Fort asked the railroad for the property so it could be reclaimed, and the Southern complied. In May 1976 a restored Andrews Geyser and its surrounding area were opened to the public. The lake that supplies the modern-day geyser's water belongs to the Inn on Mill Creek.
Burke Davis, The Southern Railway: Road of the Innovators (1985).
Luke Dixon, "The Mountain and the Fountain," Sky-Land 1 (October 1913).
"Andrews Geyser" North Carolina Historical Highway Marker Program. 1976. http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?sp=Markers&k=Markers&sv=N-37 (accessed August 31, 2012).
"Adventures: Andrews Geyser." McDowell County Tourism Development Authority. 2009. http://www.mcdowellnc.org/links/1/169 (accessed August 31, 2012).
Little, Steve. "Andrews Geyser- McDowell County Oral History." McDowell County N.C. Tourism Authority. http://mcdowellhistory.com/2009/08/14/andrews-geyser/ (accessed August 31, 2012).
Andrews Geyser and Round Knob Lodge, ca. 1890s. North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
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Space Telescope Science
A solitary frozen traveler has been journeying for millions of years toward the heart of our planetary system. The wayward vagabond, a city-sized snowball of ice and dust called a comet, was gravitationally kicked out of the Oort Cloud, its frigid home at the outskirts of the solar system. This region is a vast comet storehouse, composed of icy leftover building blocks from the construction of the planets 4.6 billion years ago.
The comet is so small, faint, and far away that it eluded detection. Finally, in May 2017, astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii spotted the solitary intruder at a whopping 1.5 billion miles away — between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. The Hubble Space Telescope was enlisted to take close-up views of the comet, called C/2017 K2 PANSTARRS (K2).
The comet is record-breaking because it is already becoming active under the feeble glow of the distant Sun. Astronomers have never seen an active inbound comet this far out, where sunlight is merely 1/225th its brightness as seen from Earth. Temperatures, correspondingly, are at a minus 440 degrees Fahrenheit. Even at such bone-chilling temperatures, a mix of ancient ices on the surface — oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide — is beginning to sublimate and shed as dust. This material balloons into a vast 80,000-mile-wide halo of dust, called a coma, enveloping the solid nucleus.
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OTTAWA — Hop cultivation, which has been dormant in Quebec for more than 60 years, could see a revival, thanks to a $400,000 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Quebec Ministry of Agriculture research project in a rural part of the province.
The study will help two farmers in Pontiac Country, near the Ontario border, grow 10 varieties of hops to determine which ones grow best and are most disease-resistant. The research project is expected to last three to five years.
Jacques Lance, who has a 364-hectare farm on Grand Calumet Island, said hop cultivation could help Quebec cattle and cash crop farmers diversify their crops and increase their incomes.
Richard Gravel, an Agriculture Canada spokesman, said scientists suggested the project in 2005 when the price of hops doubled. Gravel said almost all Quebec microbreweries are interested in the Pontiac study because they want locally produced hops.
Lance said the price of hops — green cone-shaped flowers that give beer a bitter tang — recently increased by more than 400 per cent in one year. He said even though the price has since declined he hopes to receive at least $10 a pound for this year's crop from a small, experimental plot.
An Agriculture Canada explanation of the project said it would transfer hop-growing techniques to other farms, improve regional economies and meet the needs of microbreweries.
Lawrence Cannon, MP for Pontiac and foreign affairs minister, and Jean-Pierre Blackburn, the minister of state for agriculture, announced the government investment in hop production at Lance's farm about 100 kilometres northwest of Ottawa on Thursday.
Lance said a shortage of hops has forced the price up and made it difficult for some microbreweries to find a reliable supply.
"The basic plan is to help farmers diversify their incomes and help microbreweries," Lance said. "The Quebec microbreweries are looking for a made-in-Quebec product because some growers told them they might not be able to supply them with hops any more.
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Earth from Space: Gulf of Guinea
This Envisat image shows West Africa around the Gulf of Guinea, with parts of Nigeria to the north and Cameroon to the east visible.
Cameroon’s largest city of Douala is located near the Wouri estuary near the centre of the image. This tidal estuary contains extensive mangrove forests, but its ecology is under threat from industrial, farming and household pollution.
Over 90% of Cameroon's industries are based in or around Douala, and liquid waste is often released into the waters with little or no treatment.
North of the Wouri estuary, the Mount Cameroon volcano is clearly visible. Rising over 4000 m from the coast through a tropical rainforest, it is one of Africa’s tallest mountains.
Mount Cameroon is part of a chain of volcanoes known as the Cameroon Volcanic Line. The island of Bioko – pictured here just off the coast – is also part of the line. Home to three volcanoes, Bioko used to be attached to the mainland in what is now Cameroon, but was cut off when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age.
The volcanic line also continues inland with the Bamboutos Mountains, a group of volcanoes in Cameroon’s Western High Plateau.
Reflections of Envisat’s radar signal appear like specks of white throughout the image. They are particularly concentrated around cities such as Malabo on the island, Douala near the Wouri estuary and the populated areas of southern Nigeria. These white specks are the typical appearance of built-up areas in radar images, owing to the multiple reflection of the radar beam by buildings and especially metal constructions.
This image is a compilation of three images from Envisat’s radar, acquired on 6 February, 7 March and 6 April 2012 – just two days before communication with the satellite was lost.
Ten years of archived data from Envisat’s radar and other instruments are still being exploited by scientists for a variety of applications.
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Is identity theft just a problem for people who submit information online?
You can be a victim of identity theft even if you never use a computer. Malicious people may be able to obtain personal information (such as credit card numbers, phone numbers, account numbers, and addresses) by stealing your wallet, overhearing a phone conversation, rummaging through your trash (a practice known as dumpster diving), or picking up a receipt at a restaurant that has your account number on it. If a thief has enough information, he or she may be able to impersonate you to purchase items, open new accounts, or apply for loans.
The Internet has made it easier for thieves to obtain personal and financial data. Most companies and other institutions store information about their clients in databases; if a thief can access that database, he or she can obtain information about many people at once rather than focus on one person at a time. The Internet has also made it easier for thieves to sell or trade the information, making it more difficult for law enforcement to identify and apprehend the criminals.
How are victims of online identity theft chosen?
Identity theft is usually a crime of opportunity, so you may be victimized simply because your information is available. Thieves may target customers of certain companies for a variety of reasons; for example, a company database is easily accessible, the demographics of the customers are appealing, or there is a market for specific information. If your information is stored in a database that is compromised, you may become a victim of identity theft.
Are there ways to avoid being a victim?
Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that you will not be a victim of online identity theft. However, there are ways to minimize your risk:
Just making a few small changed to your desk space can maximize your performance and productivity at work. Try these simple desk hacks and see how much you improve your focus.
1. Add a Plant!
2. Purchase a better light
3. Use Peppermint Oil
4. Chew Gum
5. Use Noise Cancelling Headphones
6. Use a Gaming Keyboard
7. Have a Throw Blanket
8. Add a Letter Tray
9. Get a Stopwatch
10. Gaze into the Distance
11, Install a Notification-Blocking App
12. Get a Stress Toy
Check out the infographic for more details.
Realizing your PC or laptop might be infected with a virus or malware is worrying, but with careful and decisive action, removing a virus is quicker and easier than you might think.
How do I detect a virus?
It’s not always obvious that your computer is infected. Some of the warning signs your PC or laptop might have a virus are:
If your PC or laptop does have a virus, take the following actions (we have Mac info at the bottom):
#1 Remove the virus
If need be, remove a virus manually
Some viruses must be removed manually. You should only attempt this if you are experienced at using the Windows Registry and know how to view and delete system and program files. If you’re not sure, contact an IT expert like Hands of Support who specialize in removing viruses.
#2 Recover or reinstall any damaged files or software
Assuming the scan detected and removed the virus, you might need to reinstall any files or programs that were damaged by the virus.
This is where backups come in handy, and we strongly recommend you make them regularly.
#3 Improve your defenses
Keep your protection up to date
Updating your antivirus software will help protect your laptop or PC against viruses and malware. Keeping it up to date is critical because new viruses are being created all the time – so even if you bought your antivirus a month ago, it might need updating now.
Make regular backups of your files and store them on an external hard drive. This can help prevent the loss of important information should you get another virus. If you haven't been making backups before, now is a good time to start.
#4 Take proactive steps to prevent getting another one
Here are some quick and easy things you can do to avoid downloading a virus again:
Getting rid of a virus or malware on a Mac
Many Mac users think they can’t get viruses or malware. This isn’t true, even though the amount of viruses and malware targeting Mac computers is lower than for PCs and laptops.
Some well-known examples of malware for Mac computers include:
The two main risks Mac users might face are false alert messages and previously installed malware. If you see any kind of message while browsing the internet along the lines of “a problem has been detected with your Mac” – this is highly likely to be an attempt to get you to download malware.
It’s critical to have the latest antivirus installed if you want to stand the best chance of removing a virus or malware and keeping your computer safe and personal data protected. If you’re not sure when you last updated your antivirus, now is the time to check and update it.
Computer maintenance checklist to keep your computer like new. 10 easy tips for regularly scheduled PC maintenance on your computer. Once a month to a Happy Computer.
1. Update your Virus Definitions
2. Complete Data Backup
3. Do a complete Anti-Virus Scan
4. Do a Malware/Spyware Scan
5. Update Windows
6. Delete Unused Programs
7. Delete Unused Files
8. Run Disk Clean up/Defragment
9. Update Your Programs
10. Clean Dust / Organize Cords.
Hands of Support offers a monthly managed program for as low as $39.99 per month. We can keep your computer happy and running smooth, removing all hurdles that keep you from being productive. After all, most managers surveyed say its 75% more disruptive to have a computer go down than have an employee call out sick.
Celebrate President's Day with our votes on the best technological milestones ushered in by our nation's leaders.
It may not seem like a big deal now, but the telegraph was the first way to send messages across the country in a flash. The telegraph was invented around 17 years before a President used it. But Abraham Lincoln modernized communications in the government when he forced its members to use the telegraph. Before Lincoln, if someone in the government needed to send a telegram that person would walk over to a public telegraph office just like anyone else. By 1865, the telegraph would be one of the major reasons (along with railroads and manufacturing) that the North won the Civil War.
Only a year after Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words on the phone to Mr. Watson, Rutherford B. Hayes installed a phone in the White House. It was a direct line to the Treasury. The phone number was 1. Just the number 1. I guess that was the first "red phone" in the White House, because the country was in significant debt after the Civil War. President Obama erroneously quoted Hayes as not liking the phone. But Hayes was way ahead of the times.
First Electronic Computer
It is entirely debatable which computer you want to crown as the first electronic computer. Many credit ENIAC, but other computers date back to the 1930s. I'm picking the Harvard Mark I, which was put into use for the Navy in 1944. That means FDR was the first sitting President when the government used a computer. Because of FDR's long tenure, chances are if you prefer an earlier machine, you will still find FDR was in office.
This one is tough to call, but we're going to go with Harry Truman. FDR made remarks at the World's Fair in New York in 1939 that were broadcast on TVs on the fairgrounds. But the first over-the-air TV broadcast by a President was by Truman in 1947. What took so long? Even when Truman made his broadcast, there were only about 44,000 TVs in America.
First Satellite Communication
While many give JFK credit for starting the space race with his guarantee to put a man on the moon, it was Eisenhower's quick response to Sputnik -- Explorer I -- that truly got it off the ground. While it only broadcast for four hours, the mission was the first to discover the Van Allen radiation belt. Eisenhower began the satellite program four years before Explorer I successfully launched in 1958.
First Personal Computer In The White House
It is widely agreed that the first personal computer in the White House was the Xerox Alto during Richard Nixon's term. It is highly unlikely he used it, however. Even Bill Clinton and George Bush did not use computers.
Bill Clinton famously didn't use email for security reasons (though I'm sure he used it at various points socially) leaving George W. Bush to be the first one to officially use it. Though, as previously noted, the Oval Office still doesn't contain a computer, so email is not a major part of any President's day it seems.
Obama famously fought to keep his BlackBerry. It also became news that he gave a thumbs up on an iPhone prototype. I can only assume that in addition to using the first smartphone, he took the first selfie, sent the first text, and probably was the first to play Candy Crush Saga in the office, too.
What technology will we see the future Presidents debut? Will Presidents be driven by Google Cars or protected by robots? Tell us your favorites -- and any we missed -- in the comments section below. If you or your office are looking to upgrade your technology then you've come to the right place since that is what Hands of Support specializes in.
When it comes to new technologies, many experts felt that 2017 was a bit of a letdown. But that doesn’t mean that 2018 won’t be a benchmark year for new technologies. Often times, that great new item in the tech world appear out of the darkness and overwhelm us in an exciting way. This could very well happen once again in the upcoming year.
With that said, let’s check out these 4 new technologies that could make news in 2018:
There are lots of things going on when it comes to improving digital cameras. It is not that all those high-end sensors and incredibly fine glass lenses are in danger of getting replaced, but new software development are allowing brand new methods that improve small affordable cameras in a big way.
Every day we are seeing Smartphones get thinner and thinner, and amazingly we see that images they take just keep getting better and better. And software is the main reasons for this. Samsung and Apple have employed both software and dual lenses to offer amazing depth of field on their newest phones. In fact, we are seeing more and more professionals using iPhones for preliminary shooting because of their enhanced quality.
Augmented and Mixed Reality
Virtual reality (VR) didn’t catch on in 2017 in the way that many had hoped. But it is far from being dead, as Oculus is looking to get more people into the world of VR via a headset that is standalone and relatively cheap. But there still are a few minor issues like the lack of eye-tracking, and the tendency to cause nausea in a few people.
Mixed reality is a lot more interesting as it intends to incorporate virtual objects along with real world experiences. This will solve many problems of VR and offers new possibilities. 2017 did move the ball down in the field in these kinds of technologies.
Now Apple is looking to include augmented reality on some its new iPhone models and a ARkit for developers. Initially the iPhone’s AR capabilities will not go much beyond the Pokemon Go-style overlays on top of real-world environments, but they will be adding more sensors in the future.
Adobe gets a bad rap. They happen to be one of the most exciting tech companies out there but that very few people consider them to be exciting. Actually, Adobe has already altered the world’s technological landscape dramatically. If there was no Photoshop, many of the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and even Youtube wouldn’t be anywhere as interesting.
In 2017, Adobe tweaked many of its current products and gave us a taste of a few new ones. It unveiled a brand new version of Lightroom that has been embraced by the Tech community, and it killed Flash finally.
Adobe has shown a real commitment to using artificial intelligence when it can really enhance the quality of its products. Subtle changes like empowering Lightroom’s automatic settings using AI really improved a feature that wasn’t very useful into something that is pretty awesome. Photoshop is enhancing its “select subject” tool that will make the tedious masking and lassoing into something that will be obsolete whenever we try to cut main subjects from photos. And there is the new “Cloak” project that will allow for the removal of subjects and elements from videos.
And the most amazing thing will be the “VoCo” tool we saw demonstrated last year. It will be like a Photoshop designer for sound and will be capable of making a person’s voice say most anything. Yes, this is pretty terrifying to think about, but it is also quite amazing.
Smartwatches as Medical Devices
While the Apple Watch could have been the most boring device that Apple ever created, but there is a grand plan for its future. These have paved the way for smartwatches, which aren’t boring in the least. In fact, these little devices could actually save our life someday.
Actually, 2017 was the year where Apple Watch got good. It was the year when FDA first approved a medical device accessory. This was the Kardiabandis which is an add-on that is able to detect a heart rate this is abnormal. Even further, a study from UCSF discovered that Apple’s heart monitor is capable of detecting abnormal heart rates at 97% accuracy when an algorithm known as DeepHeart was used along with this device. The very same research team found that this Apple Watch-DeepHeart combination could also detect sleep apnea at 90% accuracy, and even hypertension at 82% accuracy. What is amazing if that both of these conditions are difficult to detect using traditional methods.
So watch out for 2018, it could very well be a banner year for new technologies.
Hands of Support specializes in improving efficiency through the use of current and NEW technology resulting in an overall reduction in spending. Let us help you upgrade!
Love is in the air, and in our technology as well. At least, that is what the survey says—specifically, a survey of over 13,000 adults in relationships that use digital devices daily.
The results on a recently conducted survey proved that as much as we love each other, we’re starting to fall even more in love with technology. And as we use our connected devices more and more each day, our relationships are impacted, both positively and negatively, by that use.
On average, adults spend an equal amount of time at home online (38%) as they do interacting with others face-to-face. In fact, 40% of our survey respondents felt their significant other paid more attention to their own device when they were together one-on-one. You could even say that, for many, our devices have become the “other (wo)man” in the relationship.
And the same goes for blossoming relationships as well, with approximately a third (33%) of those surveyed saying they’ve had to compete with their date’s device for attention on a first date.
When it comes to setting parameters around device usage, the consensus is decidedly split, with 45% of respondents claiming they don’t set rules about device usage when together, and another 45% reporting getting into an argument with a friend, significant other, or family member over being on a device in another’s presence.
Though devices have managed to cause some minor riffs between couples, that doesn’t stop couples from sharing even when they shouldn’t. Out of those surveyed, nearly 30% of couples share passwords to social media accounts, 28% share passwords to personal email accounts, and most shockingly, more than 20% share their work-specific devices and accounts with their significant other.
So, whether you’re handing a password out to a loved one, or just using your device to stay connected to them, remember: it’s always important to make sure your devices are secure. Here are a few tips for staying safe while staying in love:
Sitting at a desk all day can cause tension within your body and mind. Here are some yoga poses to help counteract the negative effects of stress and constant sitting.
7 Easy Yoga Poses for Office Workers
Sitting behind your desk every day can wreak havoc on your body. Sitting can be relaxing, but it may not be the best for your health. The negative effects of sitting for too long include back pain and potential injury, and you could face a fair amount of pain if you don’t take steps to make sure you stay healthy.
A little bit of exercise or stretching every day can go a long way. Today’s infographic shows how to do simple yoga exercises that can help alleviate office aches and pains. If sitting all day is getting in the way of you living a healthy and active life, try to incorporate these poses into your routine. Even if you don’t feel any back pain, yoga can be a fantastic way to relax and stay focused throughout the work day.
These office yoga exercises are designed to allow you to do them in the break room, your cubicle or at your desk. Stretching your muscles and activating your nervous system is going to help you feel better and give you the extra energy needed to get through the day.
A mere 10 to 20 minutes a day is going to have you feeling better and release built up tension.
A slow running computer can cause stress. Let us help.
Do you find it difficult to locate photos or documents on your computer? Does your laptop freeze often or take forever to load your favorite programs and software? If either of these is true, it may be time to declutter and upgrade your machine! Keeping your computer free of unnecessary info and organized will make your life much easier – and less frustrating when you need to find something. Are you ready to declutter your computer? Here’s how!
1. Remove icons from your desktop. If there is one thing that will slow down your computer or make it difficult to find anything, it’s a fully loaded home screen. Consider only keeping five icons on your desktop (your most used programs or folders) and delete the rest. You can always get to other things you need from the start menu. When you use the latest Windows 10 on your new machine, you can have virtual desktops. If you’re a gamer, it’s simple to stream games. The operating system is clean and familiar, and it is a cinch to install.
2. Change the location of where items are saved when downloaded. Often the default is your desktop or main documents folder. If possible, create a “Downloads” folder on your desktop and set photos and files to automatically be saved there. You can easily find them and they won’t clutter up your computer that way. Then change the location of where your downloads go monthly. Make sure to download all files to the current month’s folder.
3. Folders are your friend – use them! The “My Documents” folder can easily become a stockpile of every PDF, Word document, and image you wish to save for future reference. Creating subfolders in this section will make things much more organized, and allow you to sort through the unneeded documents much faster. Idea: Have separate folders for things you save most, including recipes, schoolwork, bills, family photos, and more.
4. Schedule time to remove old files each month. Create a time to go through your computer monthly so you keep the clutter to a minimum. Use this clean to uninstall programs you no longer need and browse through your folders to delete any files you don’t want. Regular maintenance of your home computer keeps it neat and tidy!
5. Store your most used documents online. Keeping frequently used files on the Internet is a great way to free up space on your computer. Trust the cloud!
6. An external hard drive is another great storage option. If you have family photos or other documents that do not need to be looked at often, consider moving them off your home computer completely. This not only frees up your device’s memory, but makes it easier to find what you need, when you need it. An external hard drive easily connects to your computer so you can move the files over and keep them safe until they are needed again.
These Time Management techniques can boost your efficiency and shorten your to-do list.
The Pomodoro Technique
Create periods of intense focus and reduce procrastination
Eat That Frog
Complete your most challenging or unpleasant task first
Getting Things Done
Gather all tasks - big, small, personal, professional, immediate, long term - in one place
The Action Method
Organize to-do lists into the following buckets:
Slow and virus infected computers slow down productivity exponentially. We can directly help your office productivity but getting your computers up to speed. Contact Hands of Support for a | <urn:uuid:712fec3d-c088-466d-83af-49bb6d9fecfc> | {
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Personal Note: In 2013, I attended my first PyCon in Santa Clara, CA. At the time, I was a complete novice at programming, but interested both because my partner had been a Python geek for a long time and because I was embarking on a new career as a freelance tutor, writer, and educator, and wanted to learn about the educational potential of the open source tech movement. At the end of the conference, the announcement of a surprise gift to be given to each attendee was met with the kind of enthusiastic, almost frenzied joy I have only seen previously at rock concerts when an unexpected superstar steps onto the stage to accompany a lesser known headliner (I would give an example here, but it would certainly date me).
At the 2013 PyCon, each attendee got a Raspberry Pi—a tiny, adaptable, extremely affordable ($25-$35 USD), yet very powerful, single-board computer that would prove to be a catalyst for the spread of computer literacy to young and young-at-heart people worldwide.
Image credit: "Raspberry Pi B+ top" by Lucasbosch - Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Raspberry Pi Foundation created the first marketable device in 2011. Their mission, "to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing” makes them a natural ally of the PSF. According to PSF Director, Marc-André Lemburg, “The PSF board thinks it's a great idea to get the PSF and the RPF working together more closely, since we share similar goals and there's a large overlap in communities, especially on the education and young coders side.” Furthermore, Raspberry Pis have been used to teach coding primarily in Scratch and Python, and they are rapidly gaining in popularity. Currently, over 4.5 million Raspberry Pis have been produced and shipped.
One of the most imaginative and exciting of the RPF's educational programs currently underway in the UK is a competition that will allow UK primary and secondary school students a chance to do real scientific research in space. For the competition, teams of students will devise experiments and/or create software for Raspberry Pis that will be deployed aboard the International Space Station by British European Space Agency Astronaut,Tim Peake. The data collected will be downloaded to the students conducting the winning experiments.
The RPF's and the UK's commitment to teaching computing skills is further reflected in their providing teaching resources to aid students in creating their contest submissions. These resources will be further linked to current teaching curricula in order to enhance education in STEM fields. Funding and collaboration are coming not only from educational institutions like the UK Space Agency, UKspace, ESERO-UK and ESA, but also from UK industry. For more details, see AstroPi.
Stay tuned for a future post on another education project involving Raspberry Pi: UNICEF's Learning Initiative, as well as some info on the newly released, quad-core, Rasberry Pi 2. | <urn:uuid:1f04e52f-69a7-4a9f-b5b5-32ce6247c7f9> | {
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Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
Felipe Huaman Poma de Ayala (ca. 1535 – after 1616), also known as Guamán Poma or Wamán Poma, was a Quechua nobleman known for chronicling and denouncing the ill treatment of the natives of the Andes by the Spanish after their conquest. Today, Guaman Poma is noted for his illustrated chronicle, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno.
The son of a noble family from the central Southern Peruvian province of Lucanas located in the modern day department of Ayacucho, he was a direct descendent of the eminent indigenous conqueror and ruler Huaman-Chava-Ayauca Yarovilca-Huanuco, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala was a fluent speaker of several Quechua and Aru dialects, who probably learned the Spanish language as a child or adolescent. He went on to become literate in the language, although he did not achieve a perfect grasp of Spanish grammar. He described himself as "eighty years of age" in his 1615 manuscript, leading many to deduce that he was born in the year 1535, after the 1533 Spanish conquest of Peru. It seems that he used the figure "80" as a metaphor for old age, however, and many other references in his text indicate a possible birthdate of 1550 or shortly thereafter.
The information known about Guaman Poma's life comes from a variety of written sources. Most likely he was born in the Lucanas province and spent most of his life in or near Huamanga, a central Peruvian district. It is believed that the first time he left his hometown was when he served as an interpreter on a church inspection tour of a Spanish priest named Cristóbal de Albornoz, who was attempting to eliminate idolatries in the small Quechua towns. In the late 1580s to early 1590s, he was an assistant to Fray Martin de Murua, another Spanish cleric. In 1594 he was employed by the Spanish judge of Huamanga who was in charge of land titles. In late 1600, however, all of his property was confiscated and he was banished from Huamanga, an event that led to his travels throughout the country and most likely to the construction of his masterpiece.
Based on a published work, in 1967, by archaeologist Edward P. Lanning, "Peru before the Incas", one of the first references of an organized culture around the Huaman Culture, was between 1000 CE - 1476 CE, known as the "Late Intermediate", before the Inca Empire expanded, forming alliances with the most powerful empires.
The Huaman Family, per stirpes, belonged to the wealthy among the Inca Empire, before and after. As it used to be common, the marriages among the ruling families took place, to remain in control and current. At the time, the Huaman (or Waman, in Quechua; or Guaman after the Spaniard conquest) were a selected family of warriors, and land owners in several regions of the pre-Inca empire. They venerated the wild bird (similar to a Falcon), that only grows in the Andean Region of Peru, above 4,000 meters above sea level.
There can be found, among the Inca's family tree lines: a)Tarco Huaman Inca, son of Inca Mayta Capac, cousin of Capac Yupanqui, and grandson of Lloque Yupanqui. b) Huaman Achachi, brother of Tupac Inca Yupanqui. c)Inca Huaman Taysi, son of Inca Rocca. d)Landowner Don Antonio Huaman Cucho, in Huamanga City, in 1570 declares ownership of several cities for the descendent of the Huaman Family as an Inca descendent.
During the occupation of the conquerors, the Huaman Family, being a very extensive family, were fiercely prosecuted, fearing the overtake of the Andean government, the impeachment of the Hispanic occupation and land ownership claims. Reasons for which most of wealth in pure gold, and ornaments were hidden and re-distributed among the descendants. Most family members moved to different areas from Peru and Ecuador. The most prominent landowners were located in Pariamarca, Santiago de Huaman, Quito and Huamanga.
There is a tale that says that direct descendants from the ruling Inca Huaman, are protected and secretly maintained as of "ready" to overtake the Peruvian empire and re-impose the supremacy of order over chaos. There are tales among the Andeans that one day the "...Hawk will fly high, where the Sun surrenders..."
A handful of sixteenth-century documents attest that Huaman Poma served in the 1560s-70s as a Quechua translator for Fray Cristóbal de Albornoz in his campaign to eradicate the messianic apostasy, known as Taki Unquy, from the Christian doctrine of local believers.
Huaman Poma appeared as a plaintiff in a series of lawsuits from the late 1590s, in which he attempted to recover land and political title in the Chupas valley that he believed to be his by family right. These suits ultimately proved disastrous for him; not only did he lose the suits, but in 1600 he was stripped of all his property and forced into exile from the towns which he had once ruled as a noble.
Huaman Poma's great work was the El primer nueva corónica [sic] y buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government), a 1,189-page document. He wrote Corónica instead of Crónica, a form of the word common in the Middle Ages. His book remains the longest sustained critique of Spanish colonial rule produced by an indigenous subject in the entire colonial period. Written between 1600 and 1615 and addressed to King Philip III of Spain, the Corónica outlines the injustices of colonial rule and argues that the Spanish were foreign settlers in Peru. "It is our country," he said, "because God has given it to us." The king never received the document.
The Crónica is remarkable in many ways. First, it has brilliant melding of writing and fine line drawings (398 pages of the book consist of Huaman Poma's famous full-page drawings). Second, the manuscript expresses the view of a provincial noble on the conquest, whereas most other existing expressions of indigenous views from the colonial era come from the nobility of Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas). Third, the author frequently uses Quechua words and phrases in this primarily Spanish work, which provided material for scholars to learn more about Quechua.
Huaman Poma proposed a new direction for the governance of Peru: a "good government" that would draw from Inca social and economic structures, European technology, and Christian theology, adapted to the practical needs of Andean peoples. He writes that indigenous governments treated their subjects far better than the Spaniards and pleads with King Phillip to instate Indians to positions of authority. It is important to note that, although he rejects Spanish rule, he does not reject the Spanish king. During that time, monarchs were typically seen as descendants of God and being strongly Catholic, Guaman Poma holds the Spanish monarch in the highest regard. In his writing, he not only wants to propose changes in society, but also to bring perceived injustices to the attention of the king, who, as representative of God, surely would not have allowed them to occur had he known.
The original manuscript of the Corónica has been kept in the Danish Royal Library since at least the early 1660s, though it only came into public view in 1908, when it was discovered by the German scholar Richard Pietschmann. After many aborted facsimile-projects, a heavily retouched facsimile edition was produced in Paris in 1936, by Paul Rivet. In 1980, a critical transcription of the book, based on autopsy of the manuscript rather than on the 1936 facsimile, was published by John Murra and Rolena Adorno (with contributions by Jorge Urioste) as Felipe Huaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva crónica y buen gobierno (Mexico City: Siglo XXI). A high-quality digital facsimile of the original manuscript was published online in 2001 by the Danish Royal Library, with Rolena Adorno as scholarly editor.
Fray Martín de Murúa and Guaman Poma
Twentieth-century scholars had often speculated that there was some relationship between Guaman Poma's Corónica and Fray Martín de Murúa's Historia general del Piru (1616), assuming that Guaman Poma served as an informant or coauthor to Murúa. In 1967, Condarco Morales compared the texts and concluded that Guaman Poma followed Murúa's work. A direct relationship between Guaman Poma and Murúa was confirmed in 2007-2008 by a project at the Getty Research Institute. The project's principal scholars included Juan de Ossio, Thomas Cummins, and Barbara Anderson, with collaboration by Rolena Adorno and Ivan Boserup. After comparing the two existing manuscripts of Historia general del Piru (one owned by the Getty and the other by a private collector in Ireland), these scholars proved that Murúa's chronicle includes illustrations by Guaman Poma. They concluded that Guaman Poma was one of a team of scribes and artists who worked for Murúa. While Murúa's project began sometime in the 1580s, Guaman Poma became involved only as an illustrator and only shortly before 1600. Still, his contribution to Historia general del Piru is very significant. These findings were the basis of an exhibition and symposium at the Getty Center in October 2008.
Guaman Poma notably attacks Murúa in his Corónica, including depicting the friar's striking and kicking an indigenous woman seated at a loom. This image is entitled "The Mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa abuses his parishioners and takes justice into his own hands." According to Rolena Adorno, "...when he became an author, after 1600, [Guaman Poma] was highly critical of a work by Murúa that he had recently illustrated. Guaman Poma was prompted to write his own account against what he understood to be Murúa's limited perspective, which he had encountered in [the original manuscript of Historia general del Piru].
Guaman Poma wrote about Andean history back to the era predating the Inca. He also elaborated a long and highly critical survey of colonial society, unique among other manuscripts of the era. Guaman Poma's artistic range, displayed in his nearly 400 drawings, was based on his experience gained while working with Murúa, but it also developed in new directions. He revealed a strong polemical and satirical bent that he directed against colonial abuses. "Although the evidence suggests that they worked independently after 1600, the efforts of Murúa and Guaman Poma can never be separated, and their talents, individually and together, produced three distinctive testimonies to the interaction between missionary author and indigenous artist-cum-author in early colonial Peru."
Guaman's name means "Falcon" or "Aguila" when translated into English and Spanish respectively. At the time, a Falcon, had the meaning of a representation of a "Supreme Existence". Someone, with the "designation" of a "Falcon" had the highest regards within the Inca and predesecing cultures. Poma's name meant "Puma" in Quechua dialect. In modern Quechua orthography, it would be spelled Waman Puma, and it is sometimes listed as such. Other variants include Waman Poma, Huamán Poma, and Guamán Poma (the latter two with a Spanish accent; the Quechua stress is on the first syllable). In his own writing, he signed with his Quechua name put between his Spanish baptismal name, Felipe (or Phelipe, as he spelled it) and the family name of a Spanish conquistador connected to his family history, Luis Ávalos de Ayala. Guaman Poma writes about the symbolism of all his names in his book. He seemed to consider the form of his name as a statement that his Quechua identity remained his core, although it was surrounded by Spanish names.
- Fray Martín de Murúa
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
- Taki Unquy
- Dr. Augusto Huaman Velasco
- Tarco Huaman
- Fane, 165
- Adorno, Rolena. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva crónica y buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government). Early Ibero/Ango Americanist Summit: New World Antiquities and Histories. (retrieved 8 Sept 2009)
- Fane, 166
- Hamilton, Roland. Table of Contents and Excerpt, Guaman Poma de Ayala, the First New Chronicle and Good Government. University of Texas Press. 2009 (retrieved 8 Sept 2009)
- Adorno, xix
- Guáman Poma and Dilke, 204
- Fane, 239
- Adorno and Boserup, pp. 7–75
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom Cummins. Native Traditions in the Postconquest World. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 1998: 101. (retrieved through Google Books, 8 Sept 2009)
- Adorno, lvi
- Adorno, xii
- Adorno, 17
- Adorno, Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-292-70503-6
- Adorno, Rolena and Ivan Boserup, "The Making of Murúa's Historia General del Piru" in The Getty Murúa: Essays on the Making of Martin de Murúa's 'Historia General del Piru,' J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig XIII 16. Edited by Thomas Cummins and Barbara Anderson. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008.
- Fane, Diana, ed. Converging Cultures: Art & Identity in Spanish America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0-87273-134-0.
- Garcia Castellon, Manuel. Guaman Poma de Ayala, pionero de la teología de la liberación. Madrid, Editorial Pliegos, 1991.
- Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe, author. Christopher Wentworth Dilke, ed. Letter to a King: A Peruvian Chief's Account of Life Under the Incas and Spanish Rule. Boston: E. P. Dutton, 1978. ISBN 978-0-525-14480-9.
- Guaman Poma, The First New Chronicle and Good Government, trans. Roland Hamilton. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-292-71959-0
- "Guaman Poma - El Primer Nueva Corónica Y Buen Gobierno" – A high-quality digital version of the Corónica, scanned from the original manuscript in the Royal Library, Copenhagen. This site includes a corrected, searchable version of the critical transcription and commentary of John Murra and Rolena Adorno, coordinated throughout with the facsimile.
- The First New Chronicle and Good Government a translation by Rolena Adorno | <urn:uuid:839d36ed-f8ab-4d15-8701-9807d16a52cf> | {
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A study published earlier this month found that a group of scientists have developed brain implants that can backup memories for later use.
In their experiment, actual lab rats were required to hit a lever in order to obtain water while the implants recorded the impulses. The rats were then given drugs to erase the memories of the action, so they were dumbfounded as to how to quench their thirst. Then, the implants were activated and thus, the impulses replicated, allowing the rats to once again obtain the water.
The implants will be tested on primates next, but it will be sometime before human testing, due to the complexity of nerve impulses comparative to the signals found in the brains of rats. Yet despite the simple-minded of rats, they still managed to take over Manhattan. | <urn:uuid:0afca515-bd61-4c0c-baa0-382704a58d6b> | {
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Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in the coming centuries. Democracy has only existed for about 200 years. It started out with the American Declaration of Independence. The Americans got their ideas from the Europeans, in the main from the French, the Dutch and the British. | <urn:uuid:d41f55e7-1c2b-4f76-8e12-b52552feb277> | {
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It's really tempting to reduce the sugar in a cake recipe. The average vanilla layer cake recipe is made with at least one cup of granulated sugar. A whole cup of sugar to make two layers of vanilla cake does seem like a lot, but that sugar does more than just sweeten the cake layers. Here are the most important ways sugar impacts your cakes.
The most obvious role sugar plays in a cake is to sweeten it, which also helps enhance or bring out some flavors and suppress others, making desserts baked with sugar more appealing.
Moisture and Tenderness
Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water, and by doing so, it helps prevent your cakes from drying out when you store them. Without sugar, your cakes would go stale much quicker. The presence of sugar in a cake batter also interferes with the formation of gluten, preventing those proteins from arranging into a network. Less gluten formed means a softer, more tender cake with less "chew." Chewy bread is great, but chewy cake? Not so much.
GBD (Golden-Brown Delicious)
If you've ever baked something with little to no sugar in it, you've probably noticed that it didn't brown much (unless you left it in the oven for a long time). Sugar is essential to two key processes that contribute to the flavor and appearance of the cake crust: caramelization and Maillard browning. Caramelization occurs when sugars are subjected to high heat (around 340°F), which transforms them into various flavorful, golden-brown compounds. Maillard browning happens at lower temperatures than caramelization, and requires the presence of proteins (from milk, flour, or eggs), which react with sugars to produce complex brown compounds. Whenever caramelization and Maillard browning occur, those colored compounds that form also change the flavor of the crust, leading to a more complex flavor in the crusts of cakes, with caramel, toasted, and nutty notes.
To make a cake batter, the first step is usually to cream the butter with the sugar, beating them together for several minutes. This step aerates the butter, lightening it and incorporating lots of tiny air bubbles and pockets that will make your cakes lighter and more spongy. The same goes for foam-based cakes (like génoise and sponge cakes), where the eggs are whipped with the sugar. The eggs lighten with the tiny bubbles that form as you whip the mixture, and the sugar helps stabilize the foam as it forms. Sugar helps you get air into cake batter.
When you list off all the roles that this one seemingly simple ingredient plays, you can imagine how reducing the sugar in a cake recipe can greatly impact how the recipe turns out. It's understandable why most recipe writers don't recommend to reduce the sugar in cake recipes.
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The Khas-Mahal (‘private house’) consists of three parts. The set of three rooms facing the Diwan-i-Khas is called the Tasbih-Khana (‘chamber for telling beads’) and was used for private worship by the emperor. The three rooms behind it are known as Khwabgah (‘sleeping chamber’). To its south a long hall with its painted walls and ceiling and a perforated screen on west is known either as Tosh-Khana (‘robe chamber’) or Baithak (‘sitting room’). There exists a beautiful marble screen at the northern end of these rooms carved with a ‘Scale of Justice’ suspended over a crescent surrounded with stars and clouds.
General view of the palaces: from left: Diwan-i-Khas, Tasbih-Khana, and the Rang Mahal, Red Fort
Depiction of “Scale of Justice” on a marble panel in between the Tasbih Khana and Tosh Khana, right above the Nahr-i-Bihisht, Red Fort
Below this and other palaces were organised animal fights, such as between lions and elephants, which could be viewed by the emperor and royal ladies from these palaces.
There is an inscription over the southern arch of the Khwabgah, from which we learn that the building was begun in 1048 A.H. (1639) and completed in 1058 A.H. (1648) at a cost of fifty lakh of rupees, which probably refers to the expenditure incurred on all the palaces. | <urn:uuid:330e684e-8f2b-472f-bf01-daca051bc544> | {
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Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, what is it?
By Linda Calhoun RSD Rebel
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy aka RSD is a disease caused by an injury (unusually minor) or surgery done due to an injury. Everyone has a Reflex nerve. What occurs is when you are injured your Reflex Nerve does not shut off. When someone gets hurt they feel pain, than some burning as the healing process starts the pain goes away as well as the burning. With RSD it's a progressive disease of the Autonomic Nervous System. It involves the nerves, skin, muscles, blood vessels (causing constriction and pain) as well as bones. When the injury occurs instead of the symptoms going away the pain gets worst.
The burning sensation within the injury site is so bad you feel like your on fire underneath the skin. The way to explain the burning is if you have a cut and gasoline gets in it, multiple by 10 dealing with this 7/24. Other RSDers describe the burning as a red hot poker being inserted into the effect site. The sympathetic nerve does not shut off. RSD spreads as well in 75 % of people that have it. Many people with RSD develop full body RSD. This means when I hit my R. tibia within a month RSD spread to my left leg. There is no cure for this disease. On the McGill Pain Index, Arthritis is 18, a fracture is 19, Cancer pain is 26, Chronic pain is rated at 27, and RSD is rated at 42. It has the highest rating for pain. Anyone can get RSD. At the time I was DX with it there were 7,000,000 report cases in the US alone. This number has increase in the year 2000 to over 12,000,000 people in the US. Put this number together with other countries and we are talking over 50,000,000 with RSD.
Symptoms of RSD are: Constant chronic burning pain, present 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Inflammation in the form of Edema (I have Edema +2), discoloration of the skin called mottling. (When I first got injured the site was purple within a few weeks I had purple and pink mottling on both legs), you bruise extremely easy and rashes appear. I also get what they call RSD lesions. Spasms in blood vessels and muscles of the extremities. I call the spasms Grippers. When they occur it feels like your muscles are crushing your bones. My doctor also writes down Grippers. They cannot be rubbed out or touched at the time they occur. I have found Zanaflex or Klonpin helps with the Grippers extremely well. Due to the pain being so bad the air touching your skin hurts. I could not lay down on sheets. I have not worn pants since 1994. I go to doctors in zero degree weather with shorts on. With all the pain comes Insomnia, Emotional Disturbance and of course depression.
Anyone can get RSD it seems to strike women more than men, but each day I am meeting more men with RSD. The age group is 3 years of age to 103. What is important about all the above is if you have any of these symptoms it's important to realize you are not crazy, nor are you losing your mind. There is more awareness of RSD today than there has been in years. There are many doctors that treat RSD. The best treatment is with opiates. It's very important to keep the pain under control. It's very important to stay active as possible. Without pain meds. there is no way of functioning. When you have RSD light bothers you, sound bothers you, clothing, sheets, a breeze, loud noises or even vibrations can cause an extreme amount of increased pain to a RSDer.
Many RSDers were very active before being afflicted with this disease. Extremely hard workers, always on the go. I have RSD in both legs and upper body as well. When you touch the skin it's ice cold, yet when tested for pulse rates <knock on wood> all was normal. How do I deal with RSD. I have started a support group on line along with two other RSDers. They also have support meetings in many areas. RSD is difficult to deal with due to family and so call friends. I find this with many people with any type of chronic pain. No one believes you in the beginning and you find out that you must listen to your own body and take what ever will help you.
If you have any more question on RSD feel free to write me at the address after my name. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Linda Calhoun, RSD Rebel | <urn:uuid:c66d5ebb-1595-4c28-b06c-3145e559df69> | {
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retinaIn the central nervous system generally, the relay of impulses from one nerve cell or neuron to excite another is only one aspect of neuronal interaction. Just as important, if not more so, is the inhibition of one neuron by the discharge in another. So it is in the retina. Subjectively, the inhibitory activity is reflected in many of the phenomena associated with adaptation to light or its...
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The “generations” in cellular standards refer to dramatic shifts in mobile technology infrastructure that are generally not backwards-compatible, use new frequency bands, have significantly increased data rates, and have occurred in roughly 10-year increments. First-generation mobile networks were the original analog cellular technology deployed in the early ’80s, second-generation refers to the transition to digital networks in the early ’90s, and third-generation was the circa-2001 shift to spread-spectrum transmission that was considered viable for multimedia applications.
So far so good, but the leap to fourth generation is getting confusing. The International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication sector (ITU-R) is the body that manages and develops standards for radio-frequency spectrum, and as such is the most official arbiter of concepts like “4G.” But the ITU can’t make up its mind.
Originally the ITU-R defined 4G as technologies that could support downstream data rates of 100 Mbps in high-mobility situations and 1 Gbps in limited mobility scenarios. The next versions of both LTE and WiMax networks (LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced/802.16m) promise these kinds of speeds, but neither is expected to be available commercially until 2014 at the earliest. However “4G” has been widely used by vendors to label other technologies that don’t meet the ITU-R definition, including the original versions of LTE and WiMax, and that’s where things start getting messy.
Apparently bowing to pressure from carriers on this topic, the ITU-R issued a statement last December backing down from the requirements of its original definition of 4G. Stephen Lawson wrote in Network World that the original ITU-R definition caused chaos by stepping on the vendors who had been already using the term:
After setting off a marketing free-for-all by effectively declaring that only future versions of LTE and WiMax will be 4G, the International Telecommunication Union appears to have opened its doors and let the party come inside.
But loosening the definition of what can be called 4G hasn’t pleased everyone and has added to the sense of confusion over what the term really means. Besides being used for what many consider 3G technologies like LTE and WiMax, T-Mobile has also been referring to its HSPA+ technology, which can support up to 42 Mbps downstream, as 4G.
Sascha Segan writes that he wishes there were some “4G police” to enforce the matter in a scathing PCMag article about AT&T’s slippery usage of the term. PCMag recently tested some of AT&T’s supposedly 4G devices and found them underperforming their 3G counterparts.
AT&T has reached a new low, though, by delivering “4G” devices that are actually slower than the carrier’s own 3G devices. Yes, you read it correctly: for AT&T, 4G is a step backwards … AT&T recently confirmed it is crippling the upload speeds on its two 4G phones, the Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire.
AT&T has responded that they’re still in testing mode on these higher-bandwidth capabilities and will be enabling advanced features at some point in the future. But they don’t seem to have any issue calling them “4G” today. Not all of their customers are happy about this. Zack Nebbaki has launched an online petition that has more than 900 signatures, asking AT&T to explain (and presumably stop) the bandwidth-capping they appear to be doing to the Motorola Atrix 4G phones.
Bandwidth-capping seems to becoming more widespread. Clearwire is currently being sued for throttling the download speeds of its WiMax offering while advertising “no limits on data usage.” (And the trend isn’t just restricted to mobile networks, AT&T recently announced that it will institute data-capping for its DSL and U-Verse services.)
Regardless of the terms the industry uses (or abuses) or whatever bandwidth-limiting practices are put in place, it’s the users’ perceptions that will determine the success of these future technologies. That’s what at least one mobile carrier says it’s focusing on. When asked by Network World about the controversy around their use of the term 4G, T-Mobile’s senior director of engineering Mark McDiarmid said, “For us, 4G is really about the consumer experience.” | <urn:uuid:ed3a1e0c-fedd-4a91-ac23-d9288ed49d30> | {
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Stem cells that can turn into any type of tissue have been discovered in the bone marrow of adult mice, say US researchers. If similar cells exist in humans, they could theoretically be extracted from a patient's own bone marrow and multiplied to make fresh tissue for any damaged organ.
Many scientists thought such 'pluripotent' stem cells could only be found in embryos.
Other stem cell researchers are sceptical about the discovery, however. "It has some aspects that are very incredible to other researchers," says Irving Weissman, a stem cell expert at Stanford Medical School in California. "The study must go through the process of duplication and verification by other researchers," he says.
Weissman, and even the researchers who made the discovery, fear that the results will be seized upon by anti-abortionists to justify banning research on embryonic stem cells.
But if the breakthrough is real, it will turn much accepted wisdom about stem cells on its head.
"It's the final nail in the coffin of the idea that adult cells are irreversibly fated," says Neil Theise, co-discoverer of the "ultimate" stem cells at the New York University School of Medicine.
"The new paradigm is that any cell that has the entire genome can theoretically become any other cell type," says Theise. "The old idea about cells being restricted to predetermined lineages is essentially dead."
Theise's team contends that adult stem cells like those from the bone marrow will be just as useful as embryonic cells.
But, he adds: "I wouldn't like my breakthrough to be used as an excuse for shutting down embryonic stem cell research," he says. "We need to keep all options open."
Saul Sharkis and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, first purified the stem cells from the bone marrow of male mice. They then destroyed the bone marrow of female mice using radiation, and transplanted just one of the stem cells into each mouse.
Because the donor cells all came from males, the cells, and any tissue they turned into, were easy to distinguish from native, female cells. Eleven months after the transplant, Theise and his team searched for cells with the male Y chromosome in the mice.
"We found cells all over the place which must have come from the graft," says Theise.
As well as being present in blood and bone marrow, as expected, they also popped up in tissue from the lung, gullet, stomach, gut, liver and skin.
Now, Theise is searching for the ultimate stem cells in humans.
Last July, Theise and his colleagues proved that human bone marrow stem cells could become liver cells. He says he now wants to prove that human bone marrow stem cells can become other tissue as well.
More at: Cell (vol 105, p 369). | <urn:uuid:df07b1ad-b352-4817-92fc-6827def3718d> | {
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Uncle and auntieSemantic differences between kinship have direct impacts on the construction of social relations in Nepal
The two English terms ‘uncle’ (Nepali: ‘ankal’) and ‘auntie’ (Nepali: ‘anti’) are increasingly used in cities of Nepal, especially among young people belonging to the middle class, to address the elderly in everyday conversation or interaction. Interestingly enough, these terms are not only used to address foreigners, as observed some years ago by the linguist Mark Turin, but also among Nepalis themselves. These two borrowed words, which are derived from the nineteenth century Anglo-Indian language, express a close, familiar as well as respectful relationship with somebody older, and generally much older, than oneself. They are used inside and outside the family and may refer both to kin and to non-kin. ‘Uncle’ is sometimes even extended to other domains. For example, a policeman or a tiger can also be addressed as ‘uncle’, or by the corresponding local term.
Uncle, not father
This new usage is worth noting and deserves some comment. Let us recall, firstly, that such a practice is widespread in South and South-East Asia where, whether in English or in the local language, the local lexical item ‘uncle’ denotes a respectful person who deserves this term and is therefore included in a quasi-familial relationship. ‘Uncle Ho’ (Ho Chi Minh), ‘Uncle (U) Thant’ (U Thant) are well-known expressions that have been applied to former prominent Vietnamese and Burmese leaders respectively. In Nepal, in a number of communities and castes, local words for ‘maternal uncle’ are used colloquially in this sense to address a wide range of elder persons. Frequently, in an urban setting, unrelated persons are not called ‘sir’ (sar) or ‘madam’ but are addressed by these closer, more familiar words.
In all these cases, the term ‘uncle’ is used instead of ‘father’, which implies a more authoritarian relationship. The two collaterals of the immediate ascendant kinship generation are thus clearly identified. As a matter of fact, relationships with uncles are much more affectionate and more easy-going than filial relationships.
Here, English terms are bent to fit in with local kinship usage. Extending kinship terms to older non-relatives is in itself a highly significant phenomenon. This realm of ‘fictive’ kinship reveals a ‘familisation’ of society, which is very different from the more impersonal Western view and usage.
What is even more interesting is that such loanwords from English blur the essential distinction in most of Nepal’s kinship terminologies between kaka and mama, that is, between the father’s brother and the mother’s brother, two types of uncle that are not recognised in most European kinship systems. This distinction is related to the eminent position held by the maternal uncle. The mama is a very close relative. He plays a vital role when his nephew performs his rites of passage, to an incommensurably greater degree than kaka. Yet, differences exist between the groups. In contrast to Newars and other Nepali groups, the sister’s son, bhanij, is for instance considered to be an honoured guest, almost of divine status, among high Hindu Parbatiya castes. The uncle has to bow down before him. In these castes, a nephew’s visit to his maternal uncle is so relaxed and enjoyable for the guest that mama ko ghar, the ‘maternal uncle’s house’, is used to refer satirically to ‘prison’ in Nepali, a place here you simply have to wait for food to be prepared for you!
Such a discrepancy between Nepali kinship words and English ones is just one of many others. People in Nepal address all their cousins (as well as a number of non-kin persons) as ‘brother’, daju for elder or bhai for younger, according to one’s age, as well as sister, didi/bahini for the same. What is more, daju/bhai are also used as reference terms in Nepal for cousin, in contrast to European terminologies where cousin and brother, who belong to the same generation, are referred to by different terms.
Nevertheless, here again, dissimilarity prevails among communities. In a number of Tibeto-Burmese languages, such as Tamang, cross cousins (descendants from parents’ opposite-sex siblings) are distinguished from parallel cousins (descendants from parents’ same-sex siblings), who are referred to by the same terms as siblings (own brothers and sisters), in accordance with cross-cousin preferential marriage that is in usage in these groups. By and large, in the two above-mentioned examples, Nepali kinship terminology is alternatively more precise (descriptive) than European terminology regarding the father’s generation upwards, in distinguishing different kinds of uncle and auntie, and more classificatory in the ‘Ego sideways’ generation, by merging different sorts of kin.
These semantic differences between kinship terms are not merely pedantic distinctions reserved for experts. They are of great import in social life. They have a direct impact on the construction of social relations and they denote a specific way of interacting with others and classifying unrelated persons. In addition, they echo a society based on kinship, patrilineal clans and lineages that is slowly adapting to the new globalised social fabric of the planet. When reflecting on the unity and diversity of Nepal, as well as issues related to citizenship, all these features need to be borne in mind. Marxism and economic liberalism, both exogenous systems in Nepal, as well as foreign experts often fail to understand these basic features of Nepali society.
Toffin is Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, France | <urn:uuid:aec8504f-c03a-46a5-9249-a788edf12f10> | {
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About Early Childhood
The Bay School offers Waldorf programs for children 18 months to 6 years old. Our Early Childhood programs honor the dream-like consciousness and sense of wonder that live in the young child. Our classrooms are designed in soft colors that reflect the beauty and light of the natural world. Teachers express a joy for life, and children are nurtured by kindness and predictability that allow them to fully experience childhood.
Our early childhood program encourages spatial awareness and fine and gross motor skills while awakening a sense of beauty and connection to the natural world. Through play, meaningful work, imitation, and a consistent daily rhythm these essential dimensions of the child unfold. This enables them to be truly ready for our academic program, which begins in first grade.
Play is at the center of our Early Childhood program. Through imaginative play children develop artistic and creative abilities which promote later symbolic thinking and healthy brain development. Simple toys and natural objects encourage children to draw on their imaginations. The power of fantasy allows the children to see endless possibilities in the plain wooden blocks, colorful silks, shells and stones as they become bridges, homes, campfires, wings or streams..
Every child in the Bay School early childhood program takes part in the care of the classroom. . They may sweep, wash and fold, prepare and serve snack, garden and participate in other tasks of the household. Through the daily care of their environment they develop pride and a sense of interdependence with their teachers and classmates.
The young child learns through imitation, and teachers strive to be worthy of the child’s imitation through their enthusiasm for their daily work, warmth for the children and compassion for one another.
Rhythm is an essential part of our Waldorf Early Childhood program. Each day is balanced, as active times are followed by more quiet times, allowing the children’s day to almost breathe in and out. Nature projects and festivals reflect the rhythms of the seasons, and give the children a sense of security, order and inner strength. | <urn:uuid:4381a75b-6b03-4b55-9a77-bca33126f423> | {
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Common Brown Lemur
The Common Brown Lemur lives in western Madagascar north of the Betsiboka River and eastern Madagascar between the Mangoro River and Tsaratanana, as well as in inland Madagascar connecting the eastern and western ranges. They also live on the island of Mayotte, although this population is believed to have been introduced there by man.
The Common Brown Lemur has a total length of 84 to 101 centimeters, including 41 to 51 centimeters of tail. Weight ranges from 2 to 3 kilograms. The short, dense fur is primarily brown or grey-brown. The face, muzzle and crown are dark grey or black with paler eyebrow patches, and the eyes are orange-red.
Similar lemur species within their range include the Mongoose Lemur, E. mongoz, in the west and the Red-bellied Lemur, E. rubriventer, in the east. They can be distinguished from these species by the fact that E. mongoz is more of a grey color and E. rubriventer is more reddish. There is also some overlap with the Black Lemur in northeast Madagascar in the Galoko, Manongarivo and Tsaratanana Massifs. There is also overlap and hybridization with the White-fronted Brown Lemur, E. albifrons, in the northeast portion of the Common Brown Lemur's range.
The Common Brown Lemur's diet consists primarily of fruits, young leaves, and flowers. In some locations it eats invertebrates, such as cicadas, spiders and millipedes. It also eats bark, sap, soil and red clay (see geophagy). It can tolerate greater levels of toxic compounds from plants than other prosimians can.
Consistent with its large range, the Common Brown Lemur occupies a variety of forest types, including lowland rainforests, montane rainforests, moist evergreen forests and dry deciduous forests. They spend about 95% of their time in upper layers of the forest and less than 2% of their time on the ground.
They normally live in groups of 5 to 12, but group size can be larger, especially on Mayotte. Groups occupy home ranges of 1 to 9 hectares in the west, but more than 20 hectares in the east. Groups include members of both sexes, including juveniles, and there are no discernible dominance hierarchies.
In the western part of its range, the Common Brown Lemur overlaps that of the Mongoose Lemur, and the two species sometimes travel together. In the areas of overlap, the two species also adapt their activity patterns to avoid conflict. For example, the Mongoose Lemur can become primarily nocturnal during the dry season in the areas of overlap.
The Common Brown Lemur's mating season is May and June. After a gestation period of about 120 days, the young are born in September and October. Single births are most common, but twins have been reported. The young are weaned after about 4 to 5 months. Sexual maturity occurs at about 18 months, and females give birth to their first young at 2 years old. Life span can be as long as 30+ years.
Five additional currently recognized species of lemur were until 2001 considered subspecies of E. fulvus. These are:
- White-fronted Brown Lemur, E. albifrons
- Gray-headed Lemur, E. cinereiceps
- Collared Brown Lemur, E. collaris
- Red-fronted Brown Lemur, E. rufus
- Sanford's Brown Lemur, E. sanfordi
However, a number of zoologists believe that E. albifrons and E. rufus should continue to be considered subspecies of E. fulvus.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eulemur fulvus|
- ^ Groves, C. (2005). Wilson, D. E., & Reeder, D. M.. ed. Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 115. ISBN 0-801-88221-4. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=12100040.
- ^ a b Andrainarivo, C., Andriaholinirina, V. N., Feistner, A., Felix, T., Ganzhorn, J., Garbutt, N., Golden, C., Konstant, B., Louis Jr., E., Meyers, D., Mittermeier, R. A., Perieras, A., Princee, F., Rabarivola, J. C., Rakotosamimanana, B., Rasamimanana, H., Ratsimbazafy, J., Raveloarinoro, G., Razafimanantsoa, A., Rumpler, Y., Schwitzer, C., Thalmann, U., Wilmé, L. & Wright, P. (2008). Eulemur fulvus. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on 07 October 2008. Listed as Near Threatened (NT v3.1)
- ^ a b c d e Russell Mittermeier et al. (2006). Lemurs of Madagascar (2nd ed.). p. 272-274. ISBN 1-881173-88-7.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Nick Garbutt (2007). Mammals of Madagascar. p. 155-156. ISBN 978-0-300-12550-4.
- ^ Russell Mittermeier et al. (2006). Lemurs of Madagascar (2nd ed.). p. 288. ISBN 1-881173-88-7.
- ^ Russell Mittermeier et al. (2006). Lemurs of Madagascar (2nd ed.). p. 282. ISBN 1-881173-88-7.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Noel Rowe (1996). The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates. p. 40. ISBN 0-9648825-0-7.
- ^ Lisa Gould and Michelle Sauther (2007). "Lemuriformes". in Christina J. Campbell, Agustin Fuentes, Katherine C. MacKinnon, Melissa Panger and Simon K. Bearder. Primates in Perspective. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-19-517133-4.
- ^ a b Robert W. Sussman (1999). Primate Ecology and Social Structure Volume 1: Lorises, Lemurs and Tarsiers. p. 186-187. ISBN 0-536-02256-9.
- ^ a b Russell Mittermeier et al. (2006). Lemurs of Madagascar (2nd ed.). p. 251. ISBN 1-881173-88-7. | <urn:uuid:20bfbb44-d8a3-4ecf-91e0-6da4cd0c3d82> | {
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This School was formed in 2004 by the merger of the mathematics departments of the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). The merger brought together two schools that were of similar size and academic strength. Find out more about our current research and staff, or how to study at the School.
Many famous mathematicians have worked in both schools and their achievements set a standard for us today.
Alan Turing (1912 – 1954)
Alan Turing is considered to be the father of modern computing and artificial intelligence. His concept of the Turing machine is still one of the most widely examined theories of computation.
His early work was undertaken at King’s College, Cambridge where he was elected a Fellow in 1935 based on the strength of a dissertation on the central limit theorem. From 1936 to July 1938 he studied mathematical logic at Princeton University, in the world-leading research group led by Church. Turing obtained his Ph.D. in June 1938. His dissertation introduced the notion of relative computing, where Turing machines are augmented with so-called oracles, allowing a study of problems that cannot be solved by a Turing machine.
From September 1938 Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) on the problem of the German Enigma machine; on 4th September 1939, the day after the UK declared war on Germany, Turing reported to Bletchley Park, the wartime station of GCCS. Within weeks of arriving, Turing had designed the bombe, named after the original Polish designed bomba kryptologiczna (or cryptologic bomb). The bombe, with an enhancement suggested by mathematician Gordon Welchman, became one of the primary tools, and the major automated one, used to attack Enigma-protected message traffic.
After the Second World War Turing worked on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory. In 1948 he was appointed Reader in the Mathematics Department at Manchester. Soon afterwards he became Deputy Director of the Computing Laboratory at the University of Manchester, and worked on software for one of the earliest true computers - the Manchester Ferranti Mark 1. During this time he continued to do more abstract work, addressing the problem of artificial intelligence; he proposed an experiment now known as the Turing test, an attempt to define a standard for a machine to be called `intelligent‘. The idea was that a computer could be said to `think’ if it could fool an interrogator into believing that the conversation was with a human.
In 1952 Alan Turing turned his attention to the then emerging field of morphogenesis, proposing a new hypothesis for pattern formation in biological systems. Tragically, Turing did not have time to further develop his ideas in this area; he died on the 7 June 1954, at the age of 41. | <urn:uuid:f547cc80-4338-46d5-9f20-63caebaea7a8> | {
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Trevor L. Kane, Katelyn E. Carothers and Shaun W. Lee* Pages 111 - 127 ( 17 )
Background: Staphylococcus aureus is a major bacterial pathogen capable of causing a range of infections in humans from gastrointestinal disease, skin and soft tissue infections, to severe outcomes such as sepsis. Staphylococcal infections in humans can be frequent and recurring, with treatments becoming less effective due to the growing persistence of antibiotic resistant S. aureus strains. Due to the prevalence of antibiotic resistance, and the current limitations on antibiotic development, an active and highly promising avenue of research has been to develop strategies to specifically inhibit the activity of virulence factors produced S. aureus as an alternative means to treat disease.
Objective: In this review we specifically highlight several major virulence factors produced by S. aureus for which recent advances in antivirulence approaches may hold promise as an alternative means to treating diseases caused by this pathogen. Strategies to inhibit virulence factors can range from small molecule inhibitors, to antibodies, to mutant and toxoid forms of the virulence proteins.
Conclusion: The major prevalence of antibiotic resistant strains of S. aureus combined with the lack of new antibiotic discoveries highlight the need for vigorous research into alternative strategies to combat diseases caused by this highly successful pathogen. Current efforts to develop specific antivirulence strategies, vaccine approaches, and alternative therapies for treating severe disease caused by S. aureus have the potential to stem the tide against the limitations that we face in the post-antibiotic era.
Staphylococcus aureus, virulence, antivirulence, MRSA, review, pathogenesis.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 | <urn:uuid:32da7d82-f3a6-48fa-9a5d-d4b47e8c7fad> | {
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It's heading into the 4th of July Weekend, which means that it's time for a couple well meaning articles on the reasons why the United States is a terrible idea. Vox serves one up with an article listing three reasons why the author thinks a world in which the American Revolution never happened would have been a better place. His reasons are:
1) Abolition would have happened faster if the colonies were still controlled by Britain. (Britain passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1834.)
2) The American Indians would have been marginally better treated if the US had been like Canada. (This seems like a bit of a reach in that Canada was pretty rough on its native peoples when they were on land they actually wanted. I also was amused when he cited Mexico being less hard on the Comanches than the US was since sane people, including other Indian tribes, generally wanted to be hard on the Comanches. The Comanches were bad news.)
3) A British America would probably have been a parliamentary democracy, and the author thinks they are superior to republican forms of government because they are less prone to deadlock and less likely to descend into dictatorships.
That last one I'll leave alone as it's just another example of the odd fixation of the American left with the idea that if only we had a parliamentary for of government they'd get their own way. What I found tantalizing about the piece was, of course, the chance to think alternative history for a bit, which is always fun.
I think my favorite scenario for how his scenario would play out is:
The Southern Colonies stage successful a late American Revolution in the 1830s to protect slavery. Without the North to restrain them, the American Republic expands into Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America in a slave economy empire. Slavery is eventually abolished in name around 1900 in the American Republic, but it's replaced with a rigorous apartheid regime.
When the Great War breaks out, Britain is able to draw on the manpower reserves of the North American Dominions, which include the northern colonies, which remained loyal to the crown but are also less populated, less industrial, and less rich than the Northeast US in our timestream.
However, Imperial Germany allies with the American Republic in order to open up a second American front against Britain. While the Western Front descends into trench warfare, the massive American Front sees freewheeling warfare along the lines of the historical Eastern Front in WW1. The Allies and Central Powers fight to exhaustion and reach an armistice, but with both Europe and America decimated. Roll the dice to decide who gets socialist revolutions, and Japan becomes the major power in the Pacific even earlier with no American counterweight.
I suppose it shows Britain really has totally lost its imperial power cred now, if people are fantasizing about how giving the Empire more land, people, and resources would have made the world a kinder and gentler place. It's fun trying to imagine the reaction to this piece around 1900.
Two Poem Drafts
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Increased intracranial pressureZainab Ramzan Ali
1. INCREASED INTRACRNIAL PRESSURE
"Brain swelling with edema and blood collects within the brain."
2. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF BRAIN:
* Brain the most critical organ of human body.
* Protected through three protective structures;
A. Skull-bony structure
B. Meningies-Dura, Arachnoid, Piamatter
C. Cerebrospinal Fluid.
3. PHYSIOLOGY OF INTRACRANIAL PRESSURE:
Intracranial pressure is normal at 4-15mmhg and 50-300mmof water. Skull is not flexible structure. If pressure of any of the above three will increase compensatory decrease in other two. If exceed the compensatory efforts increased intracranial pressure.
A. CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW;
Brain injury can result from brain stem compression and reduction in cerebral blood flow.
CBF = (CAP-JVP) \ CVR
CAP=CAROTID ARTERIAL PRESSURE
JVP= JUGLARVENOUS PRESSURE
CVR= CEREBROVASCULAR RESISTANCE
B. CEREBRAL PERFUSION PRESSURE;
A clinical surrogate for the adequacy of cerebral perfusion. CPP is defined as mean arterial pressure (MAP) minus ICP
Oedematous brain tissues lead to inflammation\hematoma formation
o increase pressure in the cranial cavity
o compensatory decrease in cerebral blood flow
o cerebral blood flow
o cerebral hypoxia
o ischemia of vasomotor centre
o CUSHING'S sign (increase B.P, decrease pulse) - late sign of increased intracranial pressure suggest irreversible brain damage.
a. Mass lesion abscesses
b. Extadural hematoma
c. Subdural Hematoma
d. Subacutesubdural intracerebral hemorrhage
f. Hepatic encephalopathy.
g. Brain Herniation
6. CLINICAL MANIFASTATION;
• a. Severe Headache (e.g. head trauma, subarachnoid Hemorrhage)
• b. Confusion or Diminished responsiveness
• c. Hemiparesis
• d. Seizers
• e. Spontaneous periorbital bruising
• f. Bradycardia
• g. Respiratory Depression
• h. Contra lateral papillary dilation
• i. Loss of gag reflex
• j. Glass cow coma scalelessthen or equals to 8
• k. Temperature may rise
• l. Cushing triad: increased systolic blood pressure, widened pulse pressure and slow heart rate.
• m. Decorticate or decelerating posturing.
• n. Occasional transient elevation associate with Sneezing, Cough,
7. ROLE OF COMPUTED TOMGRAPHY:
CT scan may suggest elevated ICP based on the presence of mass lesion, midline shift. Since ICP monitoring is also associated with a small risk of serious complication that is CNS infection, intra cranial hemorrhage.
8. TYPES OF MONITORS
Intraventricular monitors are considered the 'gold standard' of icp monitoring catheters. They are surgically placed into the ventricular system and a fixed into the drainage bag and pressure transducer with a three way stopcock .It allow the treatment of some elevated ICP via drainage of csf.
Consist of a thin cable with an electronic or fiber optic transducer at the tip. The most widely used device is the fiber optic Camino system. These monitors can be inserted directly into the brain parenchyma via a small hole drilled in the skull. It cause ease of placement and lower the risk of infection.
Subarachnoid bolts are fluid coupled systems within a hollow screw that can be placed through the skull adjacent to the dura. The dura is then punctured, which allows the CSF to communicate with the fluid column and transducer. The most commonly used subarachnoid monitor is the Richmond bolt. It has low risk of infection and hemorrhage.
D. TRANSCRANIAL DOPPLER:
Measures the velocity of blood flow with in the proximal cerebral circulation. TCD can be used to estimate ICP based on characteristic changes in waveforms that occur in response to increased resistance to cerebral blood flow. TCD is poor predictor of ICP, although in trauma patients. TCD finding may correlate with outcome at six months.
9. GENERAL MANAGEMENT:
Evacuation of a blood clot
Resection of a tumor
CSF diversion in the management of hydrocephalus
Treatment of underlying me
10. SYMPTOMATIC TREATEMENT:
a. SEDATION AND BLOOD PRESSURE CONTROLING:
Keeping the patients appropriately sedated can decrease ICP by reducing metabolic demand, venous congestion and the sympathetic responses of hypertension and tachycardia.
Patient with elevated ICP should be positioned to maximize venous out floe from the head. Important maneuver including excessive flexion or rotation of the neck avoiding restrictive neck taping, minimizing stimuli that could induce valsalva responses, such as end tracheal suctioning. Keep head elevated above the heart level at 30 degree to increase venous outflow
Elevated metabolic demand in the brain results in increase cerebral blood flow and can elevate ICP by increasing the volume of blood in the cranial vault .Conversely; decreasing metabolic demand can lower ICP by reducing blood flow. Fever increase brain metabolism, and has been demonstrated to increase the brain injury in animal model. Aggressive treatment for fever includes acetaminophen and cooling.
Use of mechanical ventilation to lower paco2 to 26 to 30 mmhg has been shown to rapidly reduce ICP through vasoconstriction and a decrease in the volume of intracranial blood
e. THERAPEUTIC HYPOTHERMIA:
Hypothermia decrease cerebral metabolism and may reduce ICP and cerebral Blood flow.
11. PHARMACOLOGICAL TREATEMENT:
a. ANTIEPILEPTIC THERAPY:
Seizures can both complicate and contribute to ICP Anti convulsant therapy with EEG done
It reduces brain volume by drawing free water out of the tissues and into circulation, where it exerted from the Kidney.
The use of barbiturate s is predicated on their ability to reduce brain metabolism and cerebral blood flow, thus lowering ICP and exerting a neuroprotective effect.
12. SURGICAL TREATEMENT:
a. REMOVAL OF CEREBROSPINAL FLUID:
When hydrocephalus is identified, a ventriculostomy should be inserted, Slow removal can also be accomplished by passive gravitational drainage through the ventriculosomy.
b. DECOMPRESSIVE CRANICTOMY;
Decompresive cranictomy removes the rigid confines of the bony skull, increasing the potential volume of the intracranial content, cranictomy alone lowered ICP 15 PERCENT, but opening of the bony skull resulted in an average decrease in ICP of 70 percent.
13. NURSING DIAGNOSIS AND INTERVENTIONS:
a. NURSING DIAGNOSIS
Ineffective breathing pattern and ventilation related to hypoxia.
a. NURSING INTERVENTION:
• Reassure person that measures are being taken to ensure safety.
• Distract person from thinking about anxious state by having him or her maintain eye contact with you; say, "Now look at me breathe slowly with me like this".
• Explain that one can learn to overcome hyperventilation through conscious control of breathing.
• Discuss possible causes, physical and emotional and methods of coping effectively.
b. NURSING DIAGONSIS:
Altered Nutrition less than body requirement related to metabolic changes and inadequate intake.
• Determine daily caloric requirements that are realistic and adequate. Consult with dietitian.
• Weight daily, Monitor laboratory results.
• Explain the importance of adequate nutrition. Negotiate with client intake goals for each meal.
• Plan care so that unpleasant or painful procedures do not take place before meals.
• Provide pleasant, relaxed atmosphere for eat in (no bedpans insight).
• Arrange plan of care to decrease or eliminate nauseatic odors.
• Maintain good oral hygiene.
• Try commercial supplement available in many forms (liquid, powder, pudding).
• Establish intake goals with client, physician and nutritionist.
c. NURSING DIAGNOSIS:
Altered temperature related to damage to temperature regulating mechanism.
• Teach the person the importance of adequate intake (> or = 20,000ml per day unless contraindicated by heart or kidney disease)
• Monitor intake and output.
• Assess whether the clothing or bed covers are too warm for the environment.
• Teach the importance of increasing fluid intake during warm weather and exercise.
• Explain the need to wear loose fitting clothing.
• Teach the early sign of hyperthermia or heat stroke.
• Flushed skin.
• Loss of appetite.
d. NURSING DIAGNOSIS:
Potential for impaired skin integrity related to bed rest and hemi paresis.
• Assess the integrity of skin.
• Identify the stage of pressure ulcer development
• Assess the status of ulcer: size, depth, edges, undermining.
• Assess necrotic tissues, type, (color, consistency, adherence) and amount.
• Wash reddened area gently with a mild soap rinse thoroughly to remove soap and pat dry.
• Gently massage healthy skin around the affected area to stimulate circulation.
• Increase protein and carbohydrate intake to maintain a positive nitrogen balance.
• Weight the person daily.
• Determine serum albumin level weekly to monitor status.
e. NURSING DIAGNOSIS:
Altered thought processes (deficit in intellectual function, communications) related to brain injury.
• Explain attitude about confusion (in self, caregivers, significant others) Provide education to family, significant others and caregiver regarding the situation and method of coping.
• Maintain standard of empathic, respectful care.
• Encourage significant others and care givers to speak slowly either low pitch and at an average volume.
• Provide respect and promote sharing
• Pay attention to what person is saying.
• Pick out meaningful comments and continue talking.
• Call person by name and introduce your self each time.
• Use name the person is prefers, avoid "pops" or "moms"
• Convey to person that you are concerned (through smile and unhurried pace).
• Use memory aid if appropriate.
• Use pad, pencil, alphabets, letters hand signals, eye link head nodes and bell signals.
• Make flash cards with pictures or words depiciting frequently used phrases (Move my foot, glass of water).
• Use normal loudness level, speak unhurriedly in short phrases.
• Encourage person to take plenty of time talking and to enunciate word carefully with good lip movement.
• Delay conversation when the person is tired.
f. NURSING DIAGNOSIS:
Impaired physical mobility related to increased intracranial pressure.
• Perform passive ROM exercise on affected limbs.
• Support the extremity above and below the joint.
• Use a footdrop.
• Avoid a prolong period of sitting or lying in the same position.
• Change the position of the shoulder joints every 2 to 4 hours.
• Use a small pillow when in fowler's position.
• Support the hands and wrist in natural alignment.
• If the client is supine or prone, place a rolled towel or a small pillow under the lumbar curative or under the end of the rib cag.
• If the client is in the lateral position, place pillow to support the leg from groin to foot and a pillow to flex the shoulder and elbow slightly; if needed, support the lower foot in dorsal flexion with a standing.
• Use hand and wrist splints.
o Back Care
o Hand and foot care
o Deep breathing exercise
15. REHABILITATION THERAPY:
o Speech therapy
o Continuous GCS monitoring
o Memory orientation and repetition
o Swallowing therapy
o Use of assistive devices range of motion and walking
o Continues lab monitoring, aggressive chest physiotherapy
o Family teaching sessions
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About the Author | <urn:uuid:79c856b7-7023-4a29-9c23-2106b76e2db5> | {
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The latest numbers suggest that the Antarctic sea ice may be heading toward a record high this year.
While changes in weather may play a big role in short-term changes in sea ice seen in the past couple of months, changes in winds have apparently led to the more general upward sea ice trend during the past few decades, according to University of Washington research.
The new modeling study shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even in a warming climate.
"The overwhelming evidence is that the Southern Ocean is warming," author Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, said.
"Why would sea ice be increasing? Although the rate of increase is small, it is a puzzle to scientists," the researcher said.
His new study shows that stronger westerly winds swirling around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in Antarctic sea ice volume in the past three decades.
The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it has more convergence, meaning it shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging.
Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging.
This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth.
In a computer simulation that includes detailed interactions between wind and sea, thick ice - more than 6 feet deep - increased by about 1 percent per year from 1979 to 2010, while the amount of thin ice stayed fairly constant.
The end result is a thicker, slightly larger ice pack that lasts longer into the summer.
The study is set to be published in the Journal of Climate.
--ANI (Posted on 19-09-2013) | <urn:uuid:cdbcd1fe-6643-4c1b-9bf0-bcd3a18965df> | {
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A new video details a supernova’s incredible rise as well as its sudden death. The video is a compilation of images of the supernova SN 2012fr in galaxy NGC 1365, also known as the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy.
Astronomers captured the images of SN 2012fr by using the Télescope à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires, or TAROT, at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory, located in Chile. The supernova was discovered by Alain Klotz on Oct. 27, 2012, according to the news release.
The images capture the supernova, the incredible explosion of a star that leads to its death, over the course of three months, from Oct. 28, 2012, until Jan. 17, 2013. SN 2012fr is believed to be a Type Ia supernova, which is when a white dwarf star becomes unstable after consuming too much matter from its companion star, leading to a massive explosion and its eventual destruction. Supernovae only last for a short period of time, a few weeks or a few months. According to the ESO news release, Type Ia supernovae can be used to measure distances to distant galaxies and also led to the discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.
The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy is approximately 60 million light-years from Earth and was home so far to four observed supernovae, the most recent being SN2012fr. In ESO’s video, the supernova is located just above NGC 1365’s center and can be seen getting brighter before fading away. SN 2012fr reached its peak brightness on Nov. 11, 2012, notes ESO, and was so bright that if an observer was looking at the supernova and the sun from the same distance, and at the same, the explosion would be 3,000 million times brighter than our sun. | <urn:uuid:33300d5d-27c5-4e56-9087-7dd46a688bd0> | {
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Air pollution is both natural and man-made, but only people can change what they do to the air. Find out more in this photo-filled book that looks at the sources and solutions to a major problem.
Completely redesigned for today's young investigative reader, True Books are an indispensable addition to any collection. Each book guides readers through the facts that nurture their need to know.
• Superb age-appropriate introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects
• Covers all studies, from Animals to Geography to Science
• "Words to Know" glossary clarifies subject-specific vocabulary
• "Learning More" section encourages independent study
• Index makes navigating subject matter easy | <urn:uuid:77e7bbe1-0786-4676-b38c-6aca7fb6a606> | {
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Mice engineered to produce high levels of the antioxidant catalase live significantly longer than their wildtype counterparts, according to a report published online by
The results lend support to the free-radical theory of aging, which attributes many of the infirmities of old age to accumulated cellular damage caused by ROS and the free radicals they generate. Although such damage increases with age, previous attempts to manipulate it have yielded contradictory results. "Until this study, it wasn't clear that it was truly a cause [of aging in mammals] or an effect that correlated with age," David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School, Boston, who was not involved in the study, told
Peter Rabinovitch, of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his team created transgenic mice that overexpressed human catalase. This enzyme is usually found in the peroxisome, where it breaks down hydrogen peroxide produced during lipid metabolism. Unless it is neutralized, hydrogen peroxide can go on to generate free radicals.
The researchers also incorporated short peptide sequences that marked the catalase for uptake by the peroxisome, by the nucleus, or by mitochondria. They verified that the mice with a mitochondrial target, referred to as MCAT, expressed large amounts of human catalase in heart and skeletal muscle. The median lifespan of these MCAT mice was about 20% longer than that of wildtype mice, a modest but highly significant increase. Catalase targeting the nucleus and peroxisome had little effect.
In addition to longer lives, the MCAT mice had fewer pathological changes in their hearts, lower levels of hydrogen peroxide, and less damage to nuclear DNA. In addition, the MCAT mice showed fewer DNA fragments resulting from mitochondrial deletions and were less susceptible to peroxide-induced inactivation of aconitase, which is a key enzyme in the Krebs Cycle. Some researchers believe that damage to these mitochondrial components leads to a vicious cycle, as the disrupted metabolic pathway generates even higher levels of ROS.
Rabinovitch said that the new results don't say for sure whether the protective effect arises because the free radicals are made in the mitochondrion or because mitochondria are more sensitive, or both. Still, Toren Finkel of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, who did not participate in the research, told
In spite of its importance, the research provides little direct support for the use of dietary or pharmaceutical antioxidants, since the catalase is only effective at a specific location within the cell. Rabinovitch also noted that catalase was unevenly expressed among tissues, and even among individual cells within each tissue. With further research, he said, the lifespan enhancement might be made even larger.
Indeed, larger lifespan extensions have already been seen in mice, for example, in response to caloric restriction. Researchers like Sinclair suspect that oxidative stress is just one of a several mechanisms that lead to aging, all of which may be controlled by a common signalling pathway, such as the one involving SIR2.
Leonard Guarente, who studies SIR2 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that he was "surprised that it worked," but that the method used by Rabinovitch was "a good demonstration that fixing a cause can have an effect on a mammal."
"My hunch would be you could get even a larger effect by harnessing the effect of [calorie restriction]," Guarente told
Rabinovitch considers the relation among the various mechanisms as an open question. "Proponents of the free-radical theory can come up with explanations for a very broad spectrum" of age-related problems, he said, including DNA damage, cancer, and diseases like Alzheimer's. | <urn:uuid:2175babb-a9cd-47ac-87e6-448ef8294757> | {
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#1-When the going gets tough
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difficult to understand
Abby found her professor's lecture on non Euclidian geometry abstruse; she doubted anyone else in class understood it either
emotionally hardened; unfeeling
Callie's callous remark about her friend's cluttered room really hurt his feelings.
The directions were so convoluted that we became hopelessly lost.
a puzzle, mystery, or riddle
The emu was an enigma; you culd neber tell what it was thinking.
difficult to fathom or understand; impenetrable
The ancient poet's handwriting was so inscrutable, that even the most prominent Latin scholars could not read the manuscripts.
inclined to keep silent; reserved
Rosanna's reticent behavior caused the interviewer to think her incapable of conversing with other students.
Mr.Estado was well known for his staid demeanor; he stayed calm even when everyone else celebrated the team's amazing victory.
What would you like to do?
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Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Lampreys (sometimes also called lamprey eels) are an order of jawless fish, the adults of which are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. The common name "lamprey" is derived from lampetra, which translated from Latin means "stone licker" (lambere "to lick" + Greek πέτρα "stone").
While lampreys are well known for those species which bore into the flesh of other fish to suck their blood, most species of lamprey are not parasitic and never feed on other fish. The lampreys are a very ancient lineage of vertebrates, though their exact relationship to hagfishes and jawed vertebrates is still a matter of dispute.
Adults physically resemble eels, in that they have no scales, and can range anywhere from 13 to 100 centimetres (5 to 40 inches) long. Lacking paired fins, adult lampreys have large eyes, one nostril on the top of the head, and seven gill pores on each side of the head. The unique morphological characteristics of lampreys, such as their cartilaginous skeleton, suggest they are the sister taxon (see cladistics) of all living jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes), and are usually considered the most basal group of the Vertebrata. Parasitic lampreys feed on prey as adults by attaching their mouthparts to the target animal's body, then using their teeth to cut through surface tissues until they reach blood and body fluid. Although attacks on humans do occur, they will generally not attack humans unless starved. Non-parasitic lampreys, which are usually freshwater species, do not feed as adults; they live off reserves acquired as ammocoetes, which they obtain through filter feeding.
Lampreys provide valuable insight into the evolution of the adaptive immune system, as they possess a convergently evolved adaptive immunity with cells that function like the T cells and B cells seen in higher vertebrates. Lamprey leukocytes express surface variable lymphocyte receptors (VLRs) generated from somatic recombination of leucine-rich repeats gene segments in a recombination activating gene-independent manner. Northern Lampreys (family Petromyzontidae) have the highest number of chromosomes (164-174) among vertebrates.
Pouched Lamprey (Geotria australis) larvae also have a very high tolerance for free iron in the body, and have well-developed biochemical systems for detoxification of the large quantities of these metal ions.
The lamprey has been extensively studied because its relatively simple brain is thought in many respects to reflect the brain structure of early vertebrate ancestors. Beginning in the 1970s, Sten Grillner and his colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have used the lamprey as a model system to work out the fundamental principles of motor control in vertebrates, starting in the spinal cord and working toward the brain. In a series of studies, they found neural circuits within the spinal cord are capable of generating the rhythmic motor patterns that underlie swimming, these circuits are controlled by specific locomotor areas in the brainstem and midbrain, and these areas, in turn, are controlled by higher brain structures, including the basal ganglia and tectum. In a study of the lamprey tectum published in 2007, they found electrical stimulation could elicit eye movements, lateral bending movements, or swimming activity, and the type, amplitude, and direction of movement varied as a function of the location within the tectum that was stimulated. These findings were interpreted as consistent with the idea that the tectum generates goal-directed locomotion in the lamprey as it does in other species.
Lampreys are used as a model organism in biomedical research where their large reticulospinal axons are used to investigate synaptic transmission. The axons of lamprey are particularly large and allow for microinjection of substances for experimental manipulation.
Lampreys live mostly in coastal and fresh waters, although some species (e.g. Geotria australis, Petromyzon marinus, Entosphenus tridentatus) travel significant distances in the open ocean, as evidenced by their lack of reproductive isolation between populations. Some species are found in land-locked lakes. They are found in most temperate regions except those in Africa. Their larvae (ammocoetes) have a low tolerance for high water temperatures, which may explain why they are not distributed in the tropics.
Lamprey distribution may be adversely affected by over-fishing and pollution. In Britain, at the time of the conquest, Lampreys were found as far upstream in the River Thames as Petersham. Reduction of pollution in the Thames and River Wear has led to recent sightings in London and Chester-le-Street.
Distribution may also be adversely affected by dams and other construction projects disrupting migration routes, obstructing access to spawning grounds. Conversely, the construction of artificial channels has exposed new habitats for colonisation notably in North America where Sea lampreys have become a significant introduced pest in the Great Lakes.
Life cycle Edit
Adult lampreys spawn in rivers and then die. The young larvae, also called "ammocoetes", spend several years in the rivers, where they live burrowed in fine sediment, filter feeding on detritus and microorganisms. Then, ammocoetes undergo a metamorphosis that lasts several months. Some species do not feed after metamorphosis, while others migrate to the sea or lakes, where they feed on different species of fish and even on marine mammals. Species whose adults migrate to the sea begin preying on other fish soon after metamorphosis, even as they begin swimming downstream.
Taxonomy and systematics Edit
Taxonomists place lampreys and hagfish in the subphylum Vertebrata of the phylum Chordata, which also includes the invertebrate subphyla Tunicata (sea-squirts) and the fish-like Cephalochordata (lancelets or Amphioxus). Recent molecular and morphological phylogenetic studies place lampreys and hagfish in the superclass Agnatha or Agnathostomata (both meaning without jaws). The other vertebrate superclass is Gnathostomata (jawed mouths) and includes the classes Chondrichthyes (sharks), Osteichthyes (bony fishes), Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves (birds), and Mammalia.
Some researchers have classified lampreys as the sole surviving representatives of the Linnean class Cephalaspidomorphi. Cephalaspidomorpha is sometimes given as a subclass of the Cephalaspidomorphi. Fossil evidence now suggests lampreys and cephalaspids acquired their shared characters by convergent evolution. As such, many newer works, such as the fourth edition of Fishes of the World, classify lampreys in a separate group called Hyperoartia or Petromyzontida, but whether this is actually a clade is disputed. Namely, it has been proposed that the non-lamprey "Hyperoartia" are in fact closer to the jawed vertebrates.
The debate about their systematics notwithstanding, lampreys constitute a single order Petromyzontiformes. Sometimes still seen is the alternative spelling "Petromyzoniformes", based on the argument that the type genus is Petromyzon and not "Petromyzonta" or similar. Throughout most of the 20th century, both names were used pretty much indiscriminately, even by the same author in subsequent publications. In the mid-1970s, the ICZN was called upon to fix one name or the other, and after much debate had to resolve the issue by voting. Thus, in 1980 the spelling with a "t" won out, and in 1981 it became official that all higher-level taxa based on Petromyzon have to start with "Petromyzont-".
The following taxonomy is based upon the treatment by FishBase as of April 2012. Within the order, there are 10 living genera in three families. Two of the latter are monotypic at genus level today, and in one of them a single living species is recognized (though it may be a cryptic species complex):
- Family Geotriidae – Pouched Lamprey
- Genus Geotria
- Family Mordaciidae – southern topeyed lampreys
- Genus Mordacia
- Family Petromyzontidae – northern lampreys
Fossil record Edit
Lamprey fossils are rare because cartilage does not fossilize as readily as bone. The first fossil lampreys were originally found in Early Carboniferous limestones, marine sediments laid down more than 300 million years ago in North America: Mayomyzon pieckoensis and Hardistiella montanensis, from the Mississippian Mazon Creek lagerstätte and the Bear Gulch Limestone sequence.
In the 22 June 2006 issue of Nature, Mee-mann Chang and colleagues reported on a fossil lamprey from the same Early Cretaceous lagerstätten that have yielded feathered dinosaurs, in the Yixian Formation of Inner Mongolia, laid down around some 120 million years ago. The new species, morphologically similar to Carboniferous and modern forms, was given the name Mesomyzon mengae ("Meng Qingwen's Mesozoic lamprey"). The exceedingly well-preserved fossil showed a well-developed sucking oral disk, a relatively long branchial apparatus showing branchial basket, seven gill pouches, gill arches and even the impressions of gill filaments, and about 80 myomeres of its musculature. Unlike the North American fossils, its habitat was almost certainly freshwater.
Months later, in the 27 October issue of Nature, a fossil lamprey even older than the Mazon Creek genera, dated 360 million years ago, was reported from Witteberg Group rocks near Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This species, dubbed Priscomyzon riniensis still strongly resembled modern lampreys despite its Devonian age.
As food Edit
Lampreys have long been used as food for humans. They were highly appreciated by ancient Romans. During the Middle Ages, they were widely eaten by the upper classes throughout Europe, especially during fasting periods, since their taste is much meatier than that of most true fish. King Henry I of England is said to have died from eating "a surfeit of lampreys."
Especially in southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, and France), larger lampreys are still a highly prized delicacy. Petromyzon marinus, the sea lamprey, is the most sought species in Portugal and one of only two that can legally bear the commercial name "lamprey" (lampreia): the other one being Lampetra fluviatilis, the European river lamprey, both according to Portaria (Government regulation no. 587/2006, from 22 June). Overfishing has reduced their number in those parts. Lampreys are also consumed in Sweden, Finland, Russia, New Zealand, the Baltic countries, Japan and South Korea.
The mucus and serum of several Lamprey species including the Caspian lamprey (Caspiomyzon wagneri), River Lampreys (Lampetra fluviatilis and L. planeri) and Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), are known to be toxic, and require thorough cleaning before cooking and consumption.
As pests Edit
Sea lampreys have become a major plague in the North American Great Lakes after artificial canals allowed their entry during the early 20th century. They are considered an invasive species, have no natural enemies in the lakes and prey on many species of commercial value, such as lake trout. Lampreys are now found mostly in the streams that feed the lakes, with special barriers to prevent the upstream movement of adults, or by the application of toxicants called lampricides, which are harmless to most other aquatic species. However, those programs are complicated and expensive, and do not eradicate the lampreys from the lakes, but merely keep them in check. New programs are being developed, including the use of chemically sterilized male lampreys in a method akin to the sterile insect technique. Research currently under way on the use of pheromones and how they may be used to disrupt the life cycle has met with some success. Control of Sea lampreys in the Great Lakes is conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The work is coordinated by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Lake Champlain, bordered by New York State, Vermont, and Quebec, and New York's Finger Lakes are also home to high populations of sea lampreys that warrant control. Lake Champlain's lamprey control program is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. New York's Finger Lakes sea lamprey control program is managed solely by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Lampreys are called "nine-eyed eels" (i.e., per side) from a counting of their seven external gill slits on a side with one eye and the nostril. A German word for lamprey is Neunauge, which means "nine-eye".
- ↑ (1971) The Biology of Lampreys, 1, Academic Press.
- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ Liem, Karel F.; William E. Bemis, Warren F. Walker, Jr., Lance Grande (2001). Functional Anatomy of the Vertebrates, The United States of America: Thomson: Brooks/Cole.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Haaramo, Mikko Mikko's Phylogeny Archive. URL accessed on 26 January 2009.
- ↑ Alaska Department of Fish and Game (2004). Lampreys. URL accessed on 8 July 2012.
- ↑ DOI:10.1038/nature02740
- ↑ (2007). Antigen-receptor genes of the agnathan lamprey are assembled by a process involving copy choice. Nature immunology 8 (2): 206–13.
- ↑ Template:FishBase family
- ↑ (1988). Exceptional iron concentrations in larval lampreys (Geotria australis) and the activities of superoxide radical detoxifying enzymes. Biochemical Journal 252 (1): 167–172.
- ↑ DOI:10.1038/nrn1137
- ↑ DOI:10.1152/jn.00639.2006
- ↑ DOI:10.1007/s00441-006-0216-2
- ↑ Template:OpenDomesday
- ↑ includeonly>"Prehistoric bloodsucker in Thames", BBC News, 1 July 2009. Retrieved on 27 September 2012.
- ↑ includeonly>"Giant blood sucker found in River Wear", 25 June 2009.
- ↑ Evans, Thomas M. (2012). Assessing Food and Nutritional Resources of Native and Invasive Lamprey Larvae Using Natural Abundance Isotopes. Thesis. Ohio State University.
- ↑ Silva, S., Servia, M. J., Vieira-Lanero, R. & Cobo, F. (2013). Downstream migration and hematophagous feeding of newly metamorphosed sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus Linnaeus, 1758). Hydrobiologia 700: 277–286. Doi: 10.1007/s10750-012-1237-3
- ↑ Beamish, F. W. H. (1980). Biology of the North American anadromous sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 37:1924−1943. doi: 10.1139/f80-233.
- ↑ Nichols, O. C. & U. T. Tscherter, 2011. Feeding of sea lampreys Petromyzon marinus on minke whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata in the St Lawrence Estuary. Journal of Fish Biology 78: 338–343.
- ↑ Silva, S., Servia, M. J., Vieira-Lanero, R., Nachón, D. J. & Cobo, F. (2013). Haematophagous feeding of newly metamorphosed European sea lampreys Petromyzon marinus on strictly freshwater species. Journal of Fish Biology. doi:10.1111/jfb.12100.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Nelson, J. S. (2006). Fishes of the World, 4th, 601 pp., New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
- ↑ (2000) Shaking the tree: readings from Nature in the history of life, 251–266, University of Chicago Press; Nature/Macmillan Magazines.
- ↑ DOI:10.2108/zsj.25.1045
- ↑ Template:FishBase order
- ↑ DOI:10.1038/nature04730
- ↑ Discovery of the Oldest Fossil Lamprey in the World. University of the Witwatersrand. URL accessed on 8 June 2008.[dead link]
- ↑ Scientists find lamprey a 'living fossil'. University of Chicago Medicine.
- ↑ DOI:10.1038/nature05150
- ↑ Green, Judith A. (March 2006). Henry I King of England and Duke of Normandy, Queen's University Belfast.
- ↑ includeonly>"Gloucester lamprey pie is fit for the Queen", BBC News, 20 April 2012.
- ↑ Template:FishBase species (citing (30 April 1992) The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fishes, London: Chancellor Press.).
- ↑ Deshpande, S. S. (29 Aug 2002). Handbook of Food Toxicology, CRC Press.
- ↑ DOI:10.1038/nchembio739
- ↑ includeonly>Black, Richard. "Sex smell lures 'vampire' to doom", BBC News, 20 January 2009.
- Renaud, C.B. (2011) Lampreys of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of lamprey species known to date FAO Species Catalogue for Fishery Purposes. No. 5. Rome. ISBN 978-92-5-106928-8.
- ITIS report on the lampreys. ITIS. URL accessed on 27 September 2012.
- Lamprey. Inland Fisheries Ireland. URL accessed on 27 September 2012.
- The Tree of Life. URL accessed on 27 September 2012. A Tree of Life diagram showing the relation of Lampreys to other organisms
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Black vultures congregate at the Bull Shoals Dam on Monday. An estimated 1,500 vultures have taken up residence at the dam, causing significant damage. Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are using a noise-making cannon in an attempt to disperse the birds. / Kevin Pieper/The Baxter Bulletin
Joe Raines, senor mechanic at Bull Shoals Dam, prepares to set off a 'scare cannon' Monday at the dam. An estimated 1,500 vultures have taken up residence at the dam, causing a significant damage. Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are using the noise-making cannon in an attempt to disperse the birds. / Kevin Pieper/The Baxter Bulletin
A black vulture hangs out on the Bull Shoals Dam. / Kevin Pieper/The Baxter Bulletin
BULL SHOALS — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying to deter hundreds of black vultures from roosting near the Bull Shoals Dam and Powerhouse because they are causing significant damage to structures and vehicles.
An estimated 1,500 vultures congregated in the area Monday morning, said Steve Hernandez, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers powerhouse supervisor. This is the first time Corps officials have seen vultures in such high numbers in the area. Typically, 40 to 50 vultures live near the dam during this time of the year, officials said.
The Corps has resorted to blasting a noise-producing “scare cannon” at 16-minute intervals on weekdays in an attempt to deter the vultures.
“One of the biggest issues is the damage that they cause,” said Bruce Caldwell, supervisory natural resource biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mountain Home Project Office.
The vultures have been destructively pecking on soft, pliable materials, including rubber membrane roofs on structures, spacer material in the sidewalks and windshield wiper blades and weatherstripping on vehicles.
The vultures may be attracted to the area because of the warm updrafts coming off the dam and the fish washing through the generators, Caldwell said. Officials guess the vultures like to peck rubbery material because the texture reminds the birds of the carrion they eat.
But, the damage is adding up.
Vultures demolished the rubber membrane roofs of the dam’s two towers at an estimated repair cost of $60,000, Hernandez said. Two weeks ago, the Corps hung netting over the powerhouse’s lower parking lot to protect employee and contractor vehicles. Still, several of the vehicles had stains on the metal from the vultures’ droppings and peck marks on the weatherstripping.
Vulture droppings are caustic, and it discolors concrete and corrodes paint and metal, Caldwell said. The droppings completely cover the top of some of the dam’s concrete spillways.
About a week ago, the Corps started firing a Zon Electra Electronic Scare Cannon — which uses propane — to deter the vultures from roosting in the area.
The cannon is automatically programmed to make three blasts, which sound similar to gunshots, every 16 minutes from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.
While the cannon is moved to different spots on Corps property, the vultures don’t seem to be leaving.
After a blast, the vultures disperse and circle high above the trees but eventually return, Hernandez said.
Corps officials have spoken with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission about how to deter the birds. Hernandez indicated there isn’t much else they can do, and they do not have a long-term solution to the problem. Vultures are federally protected migratory birds, he said.
Corps officials are hoping for some relief when the cooler weather is here to stay.
Once there is an extended period of cold weather, the majority of the black vultures will migrate farther south, Caldwell said.
But, the vultures may be hanging around for a little while.
The Twin Lakes Area has experienced unseasonably warm temperatures so far this month.
Monday’s high temperature was in the 70s, and the highs for the rest of the week are predicted to be in the 60s, according to the National Weather Service.
By early next week, the highs are predicted to be in the mid-40s.
“With 70-degree weather, there’s no reason for them to go anywhere,” Hernandez said. “They’ve got it pretty good here.” | <urn:uuid:b971e0cb-0108-4737-9746-99f14707d4d8> | {
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OLYMPIA – Newborn wildlife found in the wild should be left alone, for both the health and safety of the animal and the people who find them.
That’s the word from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff who are fielding calls regularly now across the state about young “abandoned” animals that need “rescuing.”
Deer fawns, seal pups, baby birds and other young wildlife are visible now and too often become the victims of well-intentioned but uninformed people. Deer fawns are most commonly discovered alone, assumed orphaned or abandoned, and picked up.
“Deer often leave their fawns for hours at a time to avoid drawing predators by their own adult body scent,” said Dave Brittell, assistant director of the WDFW wildlife program. "They’re usually nearby and may even helplessly watch their fawns be removed from the area.”
Brittell said that most people have no idea how to care for a wild animal with “fight or flight” instincts.
"Even with the best intentions, people who remove animals from the wild reduce their chance of survival and put human handlers at risk,” he said. “It also violates state law that prohibits taking wildlife out of the wild, only allowing licensed wildlife rehabilitators to hold wildlife in captivity.”
Injured or truly orphaned wildlife is cared for and may eventually be returned to the wild by skilled rehabilitators, mostly veterinarians. Even then, Brittell noted, some don’t make it successfully back into the wild.
“The best way to help young wild animals is to leave them alone, give the animals a wide berth to avoid stressing them or their parents, and restrain pets that might harass them," he said.
Holding wildlife in captivity is a misdemeanor with a standard bail of $540.
For more information, see "Wildlife Viewing Ethics" on WDFW's website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/viewing/ethics.htm. | <urn:uuid:9043c586-88be-4a8c-9bfd-48b254af46b1> | {
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The Subterranean Hypogeum
Ancient Shaman Civilization of Malta
In 1940, on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean, a group of elementary school children entered a hallowed prehistoric underground shaman temple called the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni with their teacher. Entering the lowest levels of the temple, the class passed a "burial" chamber on part of the lowest 3rd level never before explored, entering a vast maze like complex. Suddenly part of the passage collapsed, trapping the children and teacher in the underground city below.
Search parties were unable to search for the class due to the cave in. The parents of the children later claimed that they could hear the cries and pleas of their children under the ground in several places around the island for weeks until finally...they ended. After the terrible incident, the government of Malta officially closed off the underground passages permanently thereafter; all entrances into the mysterious underworld below Malta were barred with iron gates.
Locals affirm that the passages and maze of corridors beneath the island is so large and complex, that it is said, that in the recent past it was possible for one person to walk from one end of the island to the other without being above ground.
Evidently, a British Embassy worker, Miss Lois Jessup had explored the same burial chamber that the children had visited. She had squeezed past it into the underground city beyond only a few weeks earlier than the tragic event.
An Unusual Story in the Hypogeum of Malta
The Hypogeum hall
Jessup recounted that after leaving her three companions in the burial sepulcher close by, she entered into a large chamber, where a steep chasm dropped off into unending darkness below. Jessup held her candle higher up to peer down into the pit. Across that deep chasm, far below, she claims to have seen "twenty figures of giant stature emerging from an opening walking single file along a narrow path. They walked slowly in long strides, then stopped and seemed to gesture up to Jessup to leave the complex." A gust of wind blew out her candle when a draft blew through the narrow passage behind her, prompting one of friends to pull her back into the burial chamber.
Spiritual "Vibrations" in the Hypogeum
A number of other theories have propped up around the mysterious Hypogeum over the years with the help of such tales, some even believing that the cave realm acts as a special gateway to parallel dimensions.
More serious studies done in recent times are no less intriguing. Several scientists have studied characteristic acoustic resonance patterns that reverberate throughout the underground complex. Researchers found that frequencies residing in the range of 110 to 111 hertz echo around the entire temple complex. "It sounds as if you're in a big bell," visitors have often stated.
This particular frequency zone it turns out registers in a special part of the brain, deactivating the language center and activating key areas of the prefrontal cortex dealing with mood, empathy, and social communion. That an ancient culture knew of its special potency to induce trance like states over 6000 years, is definitely surprising.
Temple monuments thought contemporaneous to the Hypogeums constructions dot the island landscape on the surface above, all of which are aligned in numerous astronomical sight lines, including summer and winter solstices, perceived through small windows cut into the stone walls.
Long before the Romans conquered the Mediterranean, there was a thriving ancient civilization that built temples throughout the island, just off the eastern coast of Tunisia, and south of Sicily. Sometimes called the "Serpent People" the diviners of this unusual ancient temple cult worshiped snake figures and mother goddesses. Over 7000 skeletons of this peculiar culture was found in the Hypogeum cave system in 1910 by archaeologist Themistocles Zammit, the "godfather of Maltese archaeology", Curator of the Valletta Museum. All the remains were tangled up and mashed together, leaving not one complete skeleton body. The chamber was jam packed with earth, and broken pottery. For many years it was thought that the site was part of some strange burial custom, although now it seems that the remains simply had been washed into the underground structure by a large inland flood from a surface cemetery.
Strange Case of the Hypogeum Skulls
What is so bizarre about the skeletons is that virtually all the remains have somehow mysteriously disappeared over the years, so that by 1971 only 11 skulls were left. And by 2001, only six of the original 7000.
Of the skulls that do remain, the heads contain a unique deformed profile often seen in ancient cultures that prized an elongated skull achieved through binding infants heads with boards and padding. The deformed dolichocephalous skull type, an enlarged cranium, was seen as a sign of greater status in many ancient cultures, not just in Malta, but in South America and Meso America. It appears the ancient Egyptians performed the binding of the skull in its earliest prehistory as well.
Later in life, such deformation must have caused nausea and migraines, and difficulties with voluntary motor functions. However, it may have "enhanced" their capacities to receive visions the natives thought vital and important to the daily lives of the people of the island.
With such a long skull, the features of the face would surely have been pulled further back over the scalp, causing the temple priests and elite shamans to appear as possessing the face of a viper. Perhaps this was viewed as the main reason for the binding effect, as the ancient Malta temple cults that flourished on the island from 5000BC to 2800BC, venerated the serpent and a fertility goddess, a religious figure that reoccurs throughout the ancient Mediterranean, from the Minoans to the Phoenicians.
It has been estimated that the shamanic snake cults at Malta may be additionally linked to an earlier shamanic civilization that ruled the Middle East as early as 12,000 BC and eventually found refuge on the isolated Maltese islands around 5000 BC (incidentally the name Malta stems from the Phoenician "Malat" meaning refuge. The Shamans of an earlier culture were notoriously remembered in myths as "The Watchers", the "Nephilim Fallen Angels" and perhaps the "Neteru" animal spirits of primordial Egypt (Shamans have always been known as the spiritual mediators of animal spirits), which according to ancient Egyptian texts such as the Turin Papyrus, governed Egypt many millennium before Egypt's first Pharaohs ruled the Nile in a mystical time called Zep Tepi.
The oldest stone temple in the world at Gobekli Tepe may be an ancient predecessor of the vast stone temples at Malta, as snakes often also feature on the stone pillars carved at the site in Turkey. Artifacts found at the site suggest that the Gobekli Tepe Shamanic Elite also practiced skull deformation just as the priests did in Malta.
When Malta was originally settled is still very unclear to archaeologists. Only twenty seven samples of datable C14 have been retrieved from the entire island from secure stratigraphic layers at three temple sites. Eight come from Skorba, and fourteen from Xaghra Circle and five from Mgarr, dating from around 3600BC. Whether the materials date to restoration phases much later, rather than the original construction, no one can say.
Tracks of an Ancient Civilization on Malta
Throughout the island, a series of cart ruts, or tracks carved through the solid limestone bedrock remain undatable by scientists. While some believe that a later Sicilian Bronze age culture or the even later Phoenicians dug the tracks, others suggest that the temple culture of the island used the ruts as a transportation system for easily moving the megalithic stones to the different temple sites around the island. What is interesting about the cart ruts, is that others like them even deeper and wider, lie under the sea right off the southern coast of the island, between Malta and the tiny islet of Filfla and additionally in the Sliema bay at the northern part of the island.
This may or may not suggest a contemporary age within the late glacial period, c.12,000BC. Further research on tectonic movements in the recent past may invalidate such claims. Evidence for a major tectonic fault line is being studied by geologists which may have caused parts of the Maltese land mass to sink into the sea c.2800BC, including parts of the area stretching between Malta and Filfla. Some scientists, including Anthony Mifsud, believes the event simultaneously caused the abrupt end of the temple culture on Malta.
When did the island become first inhabited though?
The earliest samples found on the island are seen at the Ghar Dalam cave, amongst older prehistoric and pleistocene stratigraphy, including extinct dwarf hippos and pygmy elephants. Excavated from the layers, taurodont human teeth were found, a common dental profile of Neanderthals, along with Ice Age red deer bones, suggesting that the island had been inhabited far back into the prehistoric era. Carbon dates still have not been retrieved from the samples, leaving the prehistoric question of Malta at the present, in limbo.
It is known that a land bridge connected the mainland of Europe via the boot of Italy with Sicily and Malta up until about 12,000 BCE.
At the time, Malta resided at the furthest extent of the European mainland, even further south than some parts of Africa, lying in desirable mid latitude sanctuary zones in the Mediterranean. During the pleistocene, Europe was in the coldest grips of the Ice Age. Malta, on the other hand, was a veritable haven, providing gentler climes to migrants escaping the harsh environs to the north.
Huddled in small zones, hunter gatherers met for mutual advantage, pooling resources together in the most desirable locations in the world. Civilization thus possibly sprang out of some of the darkest parts of the Ice Age, as we see at such sites as Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, far earlier than the fertile crescent of Mesapotamia, which flourished over 7000 years later.
Large swathes of Malta's coastal shelf lay above the surface of the ocean during this remote time period, many explorers theorize that much earlier temples of the culture that thrived on Malta lie still yet undiscovered beneath the sea.
- Interesting bit of a doc on the science of chi energy, or bioelectric energy conducted through the lower dan tian... http://t.co/JrylkZ46Vs
- This is pretty amazing stone work, but the location is near the shore of the sea of Japan. During the Ice Age,... http://t.co/OpzW8cS9D8
- I think of the underground cave city of Derinkuyu, looking at these photos. Also reminds me of the cliff... http://t.co/ao88sDpUrC | <urn:uuid:524d8470-3fe9-4f44-9d7e-334b308ba81a> | {
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Canola is the third most important winter grain crop in Australia, behind wheat and barley. It is mostly grown in winter-dominant rainfall environments with spring type varieties, which do not need vernalisation (winter chilling) to flower although vernalisation speeds up flowering.
Over 2 million hectares of canola is planted each year cross south east Australia and Western Australia, which produces over 3.5 million tonnes of seed.
Canola is grown principally as a source of edible oil, however it is being used more frequently in the production of biodiesel. Canola meal, the main by-product of crushed canola, is used as a high protein feed for intensive livestock, mainly in the pig, poultry and dairy industries.
As well as being profitable in its own right canola is an important break crop in Australian cereal production systems.
According to the Canola best practice management guide for south-eastern Australia, [PDF, 6.4 MB], produced by the Grains Research and Development Corporation, canola oil has the lowest level of saturated fatty acids and is second only to olive oil in its high level of monounsaturated oleic acid.
Canola oil is marketed as a healthy choice because it is low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats, including Omega-3 fatty acids, which all help lower cholesterol levels.
Several types of canola are being developed for different end-uses. These include types with high levels of lauric, stearic or oleic acids, which can be used for detergents, solid margarines or shortening and cooking oils. Other modified canola types with petroselinic and ricinoleic acids may be used for plastics, lubricants and pharmaceuticals but not for human consumption.
Evaluating the economics of growing canola
World canola production and trade have grown rapidly over the past five years as the demand for canola oil and meal has increased. Australia plays an important role in this trade, as the world’s second largest exporter of canola seed.
Western Australia produces roughly 40 per cent of the nations canola, most of which is exported into Asia for human use and to Europe for biofuels.
Almost nine million tonnes of biodiesel were produced in 2011 in Europe mainly from canola oil.
Studies in Western Australia [PDF, 245 kB] suggest producing biodiesel from canola oil in a small scale plant would cost up to 190 cents per litre.
Farmers need to investigate the relative costs and benefits of plant size and feedstock to assess the chances of success with biodiesel production.
Most common canola varieties typically contain between 35% and 50% oil. The oil is the most valuable component of the seed, usually accounting for 65%–80% of the seed value, with the meal component accounting for the remainder.
The meal remaining after the oil has been extracted can be sold to the livestock industry as feedstuff (canola meal) and/or can be used as a soil amendment or fertiliser.
Traditionally, the canola meal was absorbed by the feedlot industry. However, there is a limit to how much vegetable protein, i.e. canola meal can be utilised in the livestock industry.
In the longer term, canola meal could be used as a source of specific proteins that could be the raw material for the production of several products with industrial applications. These include soil amendments, soil fertilisers, bio-polymers, surfactants and adhesives.
The Canola best practice management guide for south-eastern Australia, [PDF, 6.4 MB], produced by the Grains Research and Development Corporation provides details on everything you need to know when growing canola.
It has information on:
- crop rotation and paddock selection
- crop rotation
- crop establishment
- row spacing
- crop nutrition
- pest, disease and weed management
- post harvest management.
The Australian Oilseed Federation’s Agronomy Centre also provides information on agronomy issues you need to consider when growing canola.
The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries also provides a Canola Planting Guide for northern NSW growers [PDF, 263 kB] as to the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries for Victorian growers.
Pollination is an essential step in the seed production of canola. It is achieved with the assistance of various pollen vectors, particularly honey bees. Pollination management for canola in Australia [PDF, 498 kB], produced by RIRDC, provides information on what factors within the field have on pollination efficiency of honey bees.
The Canola best practice management guide for south-eastern Australia, [PDF, 6.4 MB], produced by the Grains Research and Development Corporation provides details on how to harvest canola via:
- direct heading
- chemical desiccation.
The Direct Heading Canola fact sheet, [PDF, 540 kB] produced by the Grains Research and Development Corporation provides further details on how to harvest canola via direct heading.
Physiological maturity occurs when the seed moisture content reaches 35–45 per cent. Growers are advised to check the crop regularly from 14 days after the end of flowering (10 per cent of plants with flowers). Look for seed colour change from 40–60 per cent on the main stem from pods at all levels.
As of 2014, approximately 750 000 tonnes of Australian canola seed is crushed domestically. According to the report Variability of quality traits in canola seed, oil and meal [302 kB], produced by the Department of Primary Industries, New South Wales, a new plant at Wagga Wagga in New South Wales is expected to double Australia’s oilseed crushing capacity.
At present there are two locally based canola crushing operations in Western Australia, located at Pinjarra and Kojonup. They process 60,000 tonnes of canola seed per year – representing about eight per cent of the State’s total canola production.
The Australian Oilseeds Federation (AOF) has established a juncea canola working group to oversee market and quality issues.
When trading canola, a bonification system exists in Australia so that seeds with higher oil content receive a price premium, while those with lower oil content are given a deduction. Current Australian standards indicate that the base oil content is 42%, with a 1.5% price premium (or deduction) for each 1% above (or below) the 42% threshold.
Dunsborough, WA. 6281,
Phone: 0447 393 363
50 Willowvale Drive, Willow Vale , Queensland 4209 | <urn:uuid:8a2ae31e-df35-4234-b265-cbe508ec00a3> | {
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Controls for Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Exam 70-305
Terms you'll need to understand:
- CSS (cascading style sheets)
- HTML controls
- HTML server controls
- Input validation
- Web server controls
Techniques you'll need to master:
- Adding controls to ASP.NET pages
- Customizing control appearance and behavior by setting properties
- Dynamically loading controls at runtime
- Using cascading style sheets to customize the look of a Web site
- Validating user input
Controls are the building blocks of a graphical user interface (GUI). Visual Studio .NET allows you to work with the following types of controls on Web Forms:
HTML ControlsTraditional HTML elements displayed as controls.
HTML Server ControlsHTML elements that can be programmed on the server, marked with the runat="server" attribute.
Web Server ControlsThese new controls are specifically designed to integrate well with the ASP.NET programming model. They support data binding and other advanced capabilities and might render as multiple HTML controls.
Validation ControlsValidation Controls are Web server controls that contain logic to validate input in other server controls.
Web User Controls and Web Custom ControlsThese are two types of controls that you can create yourself. You can learn more about these controls in Chapter 8, "Creating and Managing Components and .NET Assemblies."
HTML controls represent common HTML elements. You can access all the commonly used HTML controls through the HTML tab in the Visual Studio .NET Toolbox. You can drag these controls to a Web Form and set their properties in the Properties window.
Controls from the HTML tab of the Toolbox such as Text Field and Label are converted to their appropriate HTML equivalent such as <INPUT> and <DIV> elements, respectively, in the source code of the ASPX file. All the HTML controls are automatically placed inside an HTML <FORM> element. These controls are saved exactly as they'll appear when they're sent to the user's browser.
You probably won't make much use of HTML controls on ASP.NET Web forms. That's because there's no good way to programmatically interact with these controls from your Visual Basic .NET controls. ASP.NET provides two other sets of controls that are much better suited for server-side programming: HTML Server controls and Web Server controls. | <urn:uuid:bcc0bfe3-7ad9-43b6-a28e-c2b782ba5ada> | {
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There’s no doubt about it, ticks are nasty little buggers. Any creature that attaches itself to your skin and sucks your blood is high on the list of things you want to avoid. Worse yet, ticks present a health risk for both dogs and humans. They can transmit a number of diseases, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, and — in the case of the female wood tick — something called tick paralysis.
As unsavory as they are, ticks are remarkable parasites that can live for years. They wait patiently for a host to pass by, then leap onto it. Within a few hours, the tick attaches itself to the host by burrowing its head into the skin, engorging itself with blood. They can feed for a few hours or a few weeks (go ahead and say it — yuck), then drop off the host to lay thousands of eggs. They are categorized as hard ticks or soft ticks, and each has its own unique way to turn your stomach.
Different ticks have distinct lifestyles that influence when they’re most active. Most present a higher risk during warmer months, but they’re a year-round threat in many places.
Home treatments for ticks
Examine your dog each time you return from a walk in the woods or a field. Ticks like to settle between the toes and around the ears on dogs, although they can latch on just about anywhere.
Ticks may be very small black dots, about the size of the head of a pin; or they can be larger and more easily seen, about half the size of a ladybug. When engorged with blood, the tick’s body swells and it holds firmly to the dog’s skin. Unfortunately, it’s often easiest to find a tick when it’s already latched on: by feeling your dog’s skin, you can find a tiny lump that feels much like a small burr, except you can’t brush or pull it off easily.
If you find a tick that’s unattached, you can remove it with a pair of tweezers. Because the blood of a tick can be dangerous, don’t crush it between your fingers. Also, flushing it down the toilet will not kill it — putting it in rubbing alcohol, then flushing it will do the job. It’s best to wear rubber or surgical gloves when you handle ticks.
If the tick has already burrowed its head into the dog’s skin, use a pair of tweezers and gently grasp the tick by the head, not the body. Pull gently, straight outward (though occasionally vets recommend twisting clockwise). Dip it in rubbing alcohol and flush it down the toilet.
If the head remains in the skin, you may be able to remove it with the tweezers. If not, it will likely come out on its own, but you should check with your vet for advice on whether to try to remove it or simply leave it and watch for signs of infection.
If your dog has had ticks, particularly a severe infestation, you’ll need to thoroughly clean her bedding area. Luckily, ticks — unlike fleas— usually don’t spread beyond the dog or her bed, although they do present an obvious danger to other animals and people in the house.
When it’s time to see a vet
Sometimes tick infestations become severe, with hundreds of ticks on the dog’s body. When this happens, the dog must be treated with an insecticide dip and may require multiple treatments to completely eradicate the ticks. If your dog has a severe infestation, you should go to your vet for help.
Other reasons to see a vet:
- One or more ticks can be seen deep in the ear canal.
- Redness or swelling at the site of the tick bite that lasts beyond two or three days after removal.
- Your dog’s behavior or health changes after a tick bite.
How to prevent ticks
If you use a wide-tooth comb for fleas on your dog after a walk, chances are you’ll discover any ticks in the dog’s coat, and they’ll probably not have attached themselves yet. (To protect yourself, tuck long pants into your socks during walks in woods and fields, and wear a hat.)
Around your house, be sure to keep tall grass mowed to discourage ticks from setting up camp in your yard. Pet-approved insecticides may be used on your lawn to control ticks, but its benefit may be short-lived since some ticks spend part of their lifecycle underground, safely away from any treatment.
There are many treatments available to help keep your dog safe from ticks:
Topical treatments. These products are commonly used and are very effective. You apply a small bottle of solution to the back of the dog (directions vary, as does the dosage based on the dog’s weight). They last for a month or so. Some will also kill fleas, but not all, so read the label carefully. Frontline and Advantage are popular brands. Active ingredients include permethrin, imidacloprid, pyrethrin, or fipronil.
Sprays. A bit more work, sprays require that you cover all areas of the body. Be careful around eyes and ears; it’s best to spray a cotton ball and dab the solution on those areas. How long the sprays remain effective varies, so read the label, and be sure to spray in a well-ventilated area. Active ingredients include pyrethrin or permethrin.
Powders. Easier than sprays but messy, to be sure. Not recommended for dogs that suffer from asthma. Again, read the directions carefully for how to apply and how long the powder remains effective. These contain pyrethrin.
Shampoos and dips. Shampoos and dips may have some residual benefit but are most often used for a dog already infested with ticks. Work up a good lather across the entire body, and leave it on for at least 10 minutes. To protect your dog, place cotton in his ears, and be very careful around the eyes. These contain pyrethrin.
Collars. Tick collars can be effective, but they may not be useful for a dog that likes to swim — they become less effective after getting wet. Read directions carefully to see how long the collar remains active. When fitting the collar, make sure it’s snug but with enough room to get two fingers between it and your pet’s neck. These typically contain carbamates and pyrethroids.
A recent product called Preventic, available as a collar, has proven itself effective in killing ticks on dogs. It contains an ingredient called Amitraz, which kills the tick before it can attach itself. Some dogs have an adverse reaction to the collar, so it’s a good idea to ask your vet about it first and watch your dog carefully when you first use it. Also, the collar isn’t effective at killing fleas.
Post Credit goes to DogTime | <urn:uuid:45343f98-b4b4-4d87-95f4-955d015efdbf> | {
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The bacterium Micavibrio aeruginosavorus (yellow), leeching
on a Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium (purple).
What’s the news: If bacteria had blood, the predatory microbe Micavibrio aeruginosavorus would essentially be a vampire: it subsists by hunting down other bugs, attaching to them, and sucking their life out. For the first time, researchers have sequenced the genome of this strange microorganism, which was first identified decades ago in sewage water. The sequence will help better understand the unique bacterium, which has potential to be used as a “living antibiotic” due to its ability to attack drug-resistant biofilms and its apparent fondness for dining on pathogens.
Anatomy of a Vampire:
- The bacterium has an interesting multi-stage life history. During its migratory phase it sprouts a single flagellum and goes hunting for prey. Once it find a delectable morsel of bacterium, it attacks and irreversibly attaches to the surface, and sucks out all of the good stuff: carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, DNA, etc.
- Sated, the cell divides in two via binary fission, and the now-depleted host is left for dead.
Hungry for Pathogens:
- M. aeruginosavorus cannot be grown by itself; it must be cultured along with another bacteria to feed upon. A 2006 study found that it only grew upon three bacterial species, all of which can cause pneumonia-like disease in humans. A more recent study showed that it can prey upon a wider variety of microbes, most of them potentially pathogenic, like E. coli.
- These studies also found that M. aeruginosavorus has a knack for disrupting biofilms, the dense collection of bacteria that cause harmful plaques on teeth and medical implants alike, and can be up to 1,000 more resistant to antibiotics than free-swimming bugs.
- The bacteria can also swim through viscous fluids like mucous and kills Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the bacterium that can colonize lungs of cystic fibrosis patients and form a glue-like film.
- These qualities have caught the eye of researchers who think it could be used as a living antibiotic to treat biofilms and various types of drug-resistant bacteria, which are a growing problem in medicine. Sequencing the organism’s genome is an important step in understanding its biochemistry and how it preys on other microbes.
Clues From the Vampire Code:
- The new study found that each phase of life involves the use (or expression) of different sets of genes. The migratory/hunting phase involves many segments that code for flagellum formation and genes involved in quorum sensing. The attachment phase involves a wide variety of secreted chemicals and enzymes that facilitate the flow of materials from the host.
- Micavibrio aeruginosavorus possesses no genes for amino acid transporters, a rather rare trait only seen in a few other bacterial species that depend heavily upon their host to help them shuttle these vital protein building-blocks. This absence helps explain the bacterium’s dependence on a narrow range of prey, from which it directly steals amino acids. Although it remains unclear exactly how the microbe attaches to and infiltrates other cells.
The Future Holds:
- The range of microbes upon which Micavibrio aeruginosavorus can survive is expanding; after being kept in laboratory conditions for years it has apparently evolved a more diverse diet. If this expansion continues, that could be a real problem for its use as an antibiotic; it could begin to eat beneficial gut bacteria, for example.
- Researchers claim it is harmless to friendly gut microbes, but it hasn’t been tested on all the varieties of bacteria present in humans.
- Several important steps must be taken before testing in people, like learning more about what traits makes another bacteria tasty to Micavibrio aeruginosavorus. Researchers speculate the bacterium may need to be genetically altered in order to go after specific pathogens, or to reduce the risk of it causing unforeseen complications.
Reference: Zhang Wang, Daniel E Kadouri, Martin Wu. Genomic insights into an obligate epibiotic bacterial predator: Micavibrio aeruginosavorus ARL-13. BMC Genomics, 2011; 12 (1): 453 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-12-453
Image credit: University of Virginia | <urn:uuid:d904d662-9bf2-45c5-84ed-06cf69edb907> | {
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By mid- to late March, hundreds of thousands will be feeding in farm fields between Grand Island and Kearney during the day and resting in shallow waters of the Platte each night for several weeks. The cranes are making their way north from Texas, Oklahoma or Mexico.
"We're looking at hundreds and not thousands at this point," said Bill Taddicken, director of the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, told the Lincoln Journal Star ( http://bit.ly/WO275R). "We will continue to build numbers from now on."
Despite the continuing drought, there's plenty of water for the cranes, said Kevin Poague, an organizer of the Rivers and Wildlife Celebration. Warm weather and dry conditions may attract more birders or eco-tourists, but it won't affect the birds, whose migration dates back millions of years.
"They've been through this before," said Poague. "Actually, they can probably handle whatever weather conditions you can throw at them. They've been doing it for a long time."
The cranes' Nebraska stopover has been compared to that of the migration of wildebeest in Africa and the march of the penguins in Antarctica.
Each spring, between 20,000 and 25,000 people visit Rowe Sanctuary near Gibbon or the Crane Trust Nature & Visitor Center near Alda to see the migration, said Brad Mellema, executive director of the Grand Island/Hall County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The direct area economic impact of the crane season is between $4 million and $10 million, Mellema said, citing studies done by the University of Nebraska.
Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com | <urn:uuid:4fb55270-05da-45f0-94b3-e512b0291f0e> | {
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How hormones affect you all month long
Wondering why you feel so tired or have tender breasts at certain times of the month? We asked an expert to explain the impact of hormones and your monthly cycle
The ups and downs of “Aunt Flow”
Hormone changes during your monthly cycle affect you all month long. We asked Dr. Guylaine Lefebvre, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, to explain what happens to your body during the typical monthly cycle.*
*Also applies to women on hormonal birth control, so long as it’s the type that does not interfere with or prevent ovulation.
Day 1 of your cycle is the first day you get your period. The textbook cycle is 28 days in length, but a normal one can be anywhere from 21 to 40 days.
Your period occurs because, in the absence of a pregnancy, levels of estrogen and progesterone have fallen. (Progesterone falls to zero and estrogen is low.)
Some women may experience estrogen-withdrawal headaches in the first few days of bleeding, but these go away as the hormone begins to rise.
During menstruation, the uterus has contractions due to the release of chemicals called prostaglandins. This can also affect the bowels and some women may experience diarrhea or constipation, says Lefebvre.
Estrogen continues to rise, releasing endorphins, while progesterone levels remain at zero. This makes pain centres less sensitive. (Do you get eyebrow or bikini waxes? Schedule them for this week.)
In some women, libido peaks near the end of this week, which may be nature’s way of encouraging intercourse just before ovulation-when you’re most likely to conceive. According to a 2013 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the clitoris grows up to 20 percent larger and is more easily engorged around day 14.
Ovulation occurs. Estrogen levels drop for a day or two. Sometimes this reduction is enough to cause a bit of vaginal spotting and some women may experience ovulation pain.
Progesterone starts to rise after ovulation, and that can make breasts tender and pain centres more sensitive. At its peak, progesterone may sap your energy, and leave you feeling bloated and cranky.
At this point, many women will be able to sense that their period is coming, due to breast discomfort, bloating and other PMS symptoms, says Lefebvre.
Progesterone and estrogen levels begin to fall 48 hours before the new period (which marks the start of the next month’s cycle). The fall of these hormones can spark food cravings. (Back away from the potato chips and ice cream!)
Want to monitor your cycle more closely? Use an app like Period Tracker (find it at iTunes), which helps predict when you’ll get your period. | <urn:uuid:d1f71fef-19c3-44df-876a-428db7fa48cb> | {
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The Catholic Church has, for two millenia, in keeping with the Incarnation, defended the dignity of all human beings. One example of this is the Papal Bull issued by Pope Paul III in 1537, Sublimus Dei, regarding the “enslavement and evangelization of Indians“.
The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith.
We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.
This is an inconvenient truth for those who would have us believe that Christopher Columbus’ Catholicism had something to do with the mistreatment of Native Americans after the arrival of Europeans to North America. Indeed, though men may fail, the teachings of the Church never have, never do, and never will.
Just as the Church defended Native Americans 474 years ago this month (May 29, 1537), so today the Catholic Church continues to defend — through Her very clear teaching — the most vulnerable of all, the unborn child. Just as in the time of Sublimus Dei there were Catholics who protested the Church’s guidance, so today there are Catholics who deny the humanity and dignity of the innocent unborn child.
Most, if not all, Americans today understand the evil of slavery precisely because of the good work of Christendom, but most particularly the Catholic Church which stands as a visible beacon to the world. Satan devises his manner, but the Light continues to shine. So it is that I have hope that some day, Americans will look back upon this time as the brutal age of abortion, and Catholic politicians who did not stand against it will have the most shameful place of all in the annals of history.
Matt Rooney of The Save New Jersey Blog apparently enjoyed watching this video of what I believe to be a liberal reporter being put in his place by Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie. | <urn:uuid:90e271a0-99f3-4327-96c3-c7312678f3dd> | {
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Aaron Hart has long been recognized as pre-Confederation Canada’s first Jewish immigrant. A commisary officer with the British troops at the time of Jeffrey Amherst’s 1760 capture of Montreal, Hart settles in Trois- Rivières, where he played a prominent role developing the town into a leading trade centre. To avoid intermarriage he returned to England and married his cousin, Dorthea Rivieres. By the time Hart died in 1800 he was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the British colonies.
Susan Glickman’s novel begins 22 years before Hart took up permanent residence in Trois-Rivières. Then belonging to New France, Quebec was a province where non-Catholic immigrants — or those who refused to convert — were forbidden entry. A young woman, disguised as a boy named Jacques Lafargue, arrives on a ship from France. An interrogation reveals she is Esther, the daughter of David Brandeau, a merchant Jew. Five years previous, Esther was sent by her parents to Amsterdam, but the boat on which she sailed was lost on the sandbanks of Bayonne. The rest is history, and also where Glickman’s whimsical plot takes flight, driven by Esther’s insatiable quest for freedom and adventure.
Glickman portrays a female hero who loathes having to conceal her Jewish faith. Both Esther and her father are descended from anusim, Jews who were forced to abandon their observance of Jewish rituals. After the Spanish Inquisition, some of these anusim fled Spain for France and subsequently succeeded in establishing themselves as merchants essential to the colonial shipping industry. Success came at a price — a life filled with restrictions, including higher taxes for similar incomes earned by French compatriots.
Esther, a lonely teenaged girl, morphs into a version of the legendary Scheherezade; she tells stories to avoid deportation. The reader is riveted by the depth of knowledge acquired during her early education in Bayonne and supplemented by her voracious reading in the libraries of people among whom she lives as a hidden Jewess. While telling her fantastical tales, she closes her eyes, seducing her listeners with the flow of her poetic language, and often an accompanying drink of chocolate whose ingredients are always miraculously within her grasp. All this changes when after one year in New France, she is forced to tell her real story. We learn the Ladino proverb La ija del Djudio, no keda sin kazar, which translates as “no daughter of a Jew remains unmarried.” Esther explains this means that all hidden Jewish daughters of anusim have a duty to go forth and multiply, which is the reason she was sent to Amsterdam at age 15 to an arranged marriage that she desperately did not desire.
Reminscent of the apochryphal Esther, who disguised herself as a non-Jew to marry King Ahasueras of Persia, fictional Esther Brandeau says, “I did not run away from my faith. I ran away from the limitations that faith subjected me to.” The numerous stories, imaginatively invented to fit each situation in which she finds herself, bring to mind the Talmudic tradition of midrash, tapping into legends and weaving nobler alternatives. In Esther’s quest, she discovers that although she may be the first young woman who came to New France disguised as a boy, she is certainly not the first of New France’s anusim.
Glickman is also an established poet, and earlier this year she released her sixth book of poetry, The Smooth Yarrow. Like Margaret Atwood, Glickman’s intelligence and superior narrative abilities have enabled her to transition skilfully from one genre to the other, and she is at the top of her game in both.
• Sharon Abron Drache’s third collection of short fiction, Barbara Klein Muskrat Then and Now, was just released by Inanna Publications. | <urn:uuid:9b82f8fc-0dc0-4326-bc28-1f0162ebc227> | {
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Your daily oral hygiene routine needs to be founded on thoroughly brushing your teeth each morning and night, as well as making the conscious effort to floss each day. Any inconsistencies in this basic daily practice can lead to tartar formation on the bases of your teeth near the gumline.
When this happens your chances of suffering periodontal inflammation and gum disease can gradually increase. The early inflammation of gingivitis typically starts out with gums to appear red or inflamed. This might also be accompanied by gums that bleed easily when brushing and flossing. Many people struggling with gingivitis issues also struggle with chronic bad breath.
Without professional diagnosis and treatment from the oral care specialists at Raul Ramirez DDS the mild periodontal inflammation of gingivitis can gradually worsen into the serious periodontal infection, which is known as periodontitis.
This chronic and severe form of gum disease can cause pockets of infection in your periodontal tissues can gradually cause your gum tissues to recede from your teeth. In time this could potentially lead to a loss of structure in the bones that anchor your teeth in your mouth.
You should also take note that a growing body of research has found a possible link between the systemic inflammation of untreated periodontitis and other medical conditions. This can cause complications with diabetes, increased risk of stroke, and heart disease. While periodontitis can’t directly cause these conditions, it can potentially impact your treatment options.
If you live in the Metairie, Louisiana, area and you suspect you have periodontal disease, you should call 504-885-3255 to seek treatment at Raul Ramirez DDS’s dental offices. | <urn:uuid:b1be135e-dde3-4bf0-9a4d-f4e46a792b30> | {
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Global-warming skeptics: Is it only the news media who need to chill?
Some who discount humans' role in altering Earth's climate point to the 'global-cooling' scare of the 1970s.
In the 1970s, mainstream media outlets published stories about a coming age of "global cooling" and the climate disaster it would trigger. Headlines of the time proclaimed "The Cooling World" (Newsweek, 1975), "Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing: Major Cooling May Be Ahead" (The New York Times, 1975), and "Earth Seems to be Cooling Off Again" (The Christian Science Monitor, 1974).
Today, skeptics of global warming sometimes point to what they call the "global-cooling scare" of the 1970s as a reason to discount what they hear now. If the news media 30 years ago hyped "global cooling" and were wrong, skeptics say, doesn't it follow that "global warming" coverage might prove equally wrong?
But those who have looked closely at the two eras or have been part of the scientific community then and now say the comparison is unfair. William Connolley, a sort of self-appointed historian of the global-cooling theory, says that although global cooling was briefly but prominently covered in some speculative news articles,
the idea never got much traction within the scientific community. New data and research over the decades has convinced the vast majority of scientists that global warming is real and under way.
Dr. Connolley's full-time job is climate modeler for the British Antarctic Survey. But on his personal website, and as a contributor to RealClimate.org (a website written and edited by working climate scientists), he's authored a number of articles that try to clarify the place of global cooling in the history of science.
In the mid-1970s, scientists were researching the possibility that the nearly three decades of cooling experienced in the Northern Hemisphere since World War II might be the beginning of a new ice age. Data suggested that perhaps the huge increase in dust and aerosols (tiny airborne particles that reflect sunlight back into space) from pollution and human development might be stepping up the cooling process.
The investigation didn't last long. Temperatures began to rise. Improving climate methodologies revealed that, although aerosols did indeed have a cooling effect, CO2 and other greenhouse gases were more potent in bringing about atmospheric change on a global scale. Once this became known, scientists moved on to other things.
Scientists change their minds as data change
Today's global-warming contrarians have resurrected the short-lived theory as a reason to doubt what the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report calls "unequivocal" evidence that global warming is happening.
"Scientists are criticized by global-warming skeptics for making new claims and revising theories, as if we are required to stay politically consistent," says Stephen Schneider. As a young scientist, Dr. Schneider served as second author of a 1971 paper in the journal Science that discussed the cooling effects of aerosols.
"But that goes against science," Schneider says now. "We must allow for new evidence to influence us." His 1971 paper, called "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate," was one of the first studies on the issue and was soon overtaken by further research.
"For some, the original speculation was that dust and aerosols would increase at a rate far beyond CO2 and lead to global cooling," says Schneider, now a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Institute for International Studies there. "We didn't know yet that such effects were so regionally located. By the mid-1970s, it was realized that greenhouse gases were perhaps more likely to be shifting climate on a global scale."
Adds climate-modeler Connolley: "Climate science was far less advanced [in the 1970s], only beginning in a way, and ideas were explored in a tentative way that have later been abandoned."
Theory never embraced by scientists
Today some global-warming skeptics portray the news media of the 1970s as "hysterical" over the prospect of global cooling, publishing stories warning of growing glaciers and widespread famine.
The article perhaps most often cited by skeptics was in an April 28, 1975, issue of Newsweek magazine. The author wrote that a dramatic climatic shift to cooler temperatures would bring about massive crop failures and famine – "perhaps only 10 years from now."
Although the Newsweek article exhibited some journalistic caution – "meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend..." – it ultimately sounds a grave warning. "[Meteorologists] are almost unanimous that the trend will reduce the agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," the 1975 story says. "If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic."
The Newsweek article hardly made a splash (it appeared on page 64), however, and while a few other mainstream publications also ran global-cooling articles, the subject never became a major topic in the popular media. Nor did it ever achieve the kind of scientific consensus that now surrounds global warming, as noted in the IPCC report.
Connolley and Schneider say that if the public had looked directly at the peer-reviewed scientific papers, and not at the popular media coverage, they would not have found any basis for a global-cooling scare.
Even Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent global-warming skeptic, wrote in a paper published by the conservative Cato Institute that "the scientific community never took the issue [of global cooling] to heart, governments ignored it, and with rising global temperatures in the late 1970s the issue more or less died."
By contrast, an abundance of scientific articles today point to evidence of human-induced global warming. Unlike the 1970s, Schneider says, a true scientific consensus now exists on global warming. "Global warming was a good theory [even in the 1970s], and now it's good fact backed by empirical evidence," he concludes.
Let us hear from you.
Do you think climate-change skeptics are raising persuasive points or ignoring strong scientific evidence? Write us at: [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:3fcfdf49-f481-479b-b1c5-e6ef6e719fd6> | {
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Ask anyone about Haiti and they’ll most likely tell you a tale about poverty, tonton macoutes, and political instability.But if you care to delve more deeply into the heart of this unique and historic nation, you’ll be rewarded with a treasure trove of remarkable discoveries., Bicentennial: Haiti’s Gift to the Worldis filled with such findings.
The African Connection To begin with, no other country in the Caribbeean (or in the entire world for that matter) preservesmorefaithfully its connection to Africa.Elders in Haiti will tell you that upon death, their soul will return to “Ginen”, its African birthplace. So well preserved are Haiti’s African ties, that many families can trace their lineage to specific ethnic groups like the Ibo, Nago, Ewe, Kongo and so forth. Places in Haiti like Labadi, Lenbe, and Makaya are named forregions in Africa. Haiti’s rich oral traditions even preserve the names of African rulers who ruled in Ginen from as far back as the 13th Century. Some songs feature Shango, a ruler of the Oyo Empire in what is today Nigeria.Other songs praiseLa Reine Kongo,QueenNzinga, who fought against Portuguese occupation in the 16th Century. The spiritual tradition of honoring ancestors( lwas) seems to ensure continuity with the past. The Zonbi Allegory The greatest tragedy to befall the people of “Ginen” Africa is captured in the allegory of the Zonbi. It is through this tale of horror that Haitian storytellers have orally transmitted the ravaging details of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. A zonbi is one who is cought between life and death alluding to the fact that when a person was kidnapped in Africa he/she would never see anything familiar again. Such a fate is experienced only in death, yet one was alive.
TheBattle for Haiti While many know that the Spaniards tried to establishthe first Spanish colony in Haiti,fewer know thatSpanish forces evacuated the island in 1795, after failing to secure it for the slave trade.On their departure, the Spanish Crown supposedly unearthed and shipped Columbus’ remains back to Spain before cedingtheentire island to embattled France in the Treaty of Basel.Unable to recapture the island from Haitian forces, the French were defeated, and in 1804, Haiti went on to become the first modern state to uphold the universal rights of all people.
The Haitian Legacy Haiti’s gift ofabolishing slavery and upholding human rights has been embraced by the entire world. In recognition of this, the United Nations celebrates the end of slavery on August 23, the date marking the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.The challenge for Haiti today is to build upon this rich legacy. | <urn:uuid:86f49ec5-e1a3-45a8-98de-bb8e3cbb4778> | {
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A flexible, rubber-like robot that can operate in sub-zero temperatures, walk through fire, and withstand being run over by a car has been created by American researchers. The team, from Cornell and Harvard universities, believe their design will help create the next generation of robots for use in search and rescue missions. Jim Drury reports.
This robot is certainly durable. It can also operate in extreme conditions - something its designers hope will help inspire future soft robots for use in search and rescue missions. Made of various materials and composites including silicone elastomer, it has no rigid skeleton, and can crawl into tight spots. Pneumatically powered by an electrical air compression system, in its current format its battery lets it move for up to two hours. Its creators at Cornell and Harvard universities say it's the first soft robot to work unattached outside a laboratory setting. The team, led by Harvard's Michael Tolley, plan to embed its currently exposed electronics inside the 65 centimetre long wriggler, as well as adding feet and improving its speed. The future of robotics may yet have a softer side. | <urn:uuid:2c6268b6-e983-4937-b3be-81f0ae9ee691> | {
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Glossary -- Albania
A political union of Geg clans under a single head, the bajraktar
(q.v.). Term literally means "standard" or "banner".
The hereditary leader of a bajrak (q.v.).
Term literally means "standard bearer".
An order of dervishes of the Shia branch of the Muslim faith
founded, according to tradition, by Hajji Bektash Wali of
Khorasan, in present-day Iran, in the thirteenth century and
given definitive form by Balim, a sultan of the Ottoman Empire
in the sixteenth century. Bektashis continue to exist in the
Balkans, primarily in Albania, where their chief monastery
is at TiranŽ.
ruler of a province under the Ottoman Empire.
Title of honor adopted by the Ottoman sultans in the sixteenth
century, after Sultan Selim I conquered Syria and Palestine,
made Egypt a satellite of the Ottoman Empire, and was recognized
as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Term literally
means "successor"; in this context, the successor of the Prophet
- Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic
A multilateral economic alliance headquartered in Moscow.
Albania was effectively expelled from Comecon in 1962 after
the rift in relations between Moscow and TiranŽ. Members in
1989 were Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic
Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania,
the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon was created in 1949,
ostensibly to promote economic development of member states
through cooperation and specialization, but actually to enforce
Soviet economic domination of Eastern Europe and to provide
a counterweight to the Marshall Plan. Also referred to as
CEMA or CMEA.
- Cominform (Communist Information Bureau)
An international organization of communist parties, founded
and controlled by the Soviet Union in 1947 and dissolved in
1956. The Cominform published propaganda touting international
communist solidarity but was primarily a tool of Soviet foreign
policy. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was expelled in
- Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe (CSCE)
Furthers European security through diplomacy, based on respect
for human rights, and a wide variety of policies and commitments
of its more than fifty Atlantic, European, and Asian member
countries. Founded in August 1975, in Helsinki, when thirty-five
nations signed the Final Act, a politically binding declaratory
understanding of the democratic principles governing relations
among nations, which is better known as the Helsinki Accords
Originally a Greek city, Byzantium, it was made the capital
of the Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great and was soon
renamed Constantinople in his honor. The city was captured
by the Turks in 1453 and became the capital of the Ottoman
Empire. The Turks called the city Istanbul, but most of the
non-Muslim world knew it as Constantinople until about 1930.
- cult of personality
A term coined by Nikita Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 to describe
the rule of Joseph Stalin, during which the Soviet people
were compelled to deify the dictator. Other communist leaders,
particularly Albania's Enver Hoxha, followed Stalin's example
and established a cult of personality around themselves.
- democratic centralism
A Leninist doctrine requiring discussion of issues until
a decision is reached by the party. After a decision is made,
discussion concerns only planning and execution. This method
of decision making directed lower bodies unconditionally to
implement the decisions of higher bodies.
- European Community (EC)
The EC comprises three communities: the European Coal and
Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC,
also known as the Common Market), and the European Atomic
Energy Community (Euratom). Each community is a legally distinct
body, but since 1967 they have shared common governing institutions.
The EC forms more than a framework for free trade and economic
cooperation: the signatories to the treaties governing the
communities have agreed in principle to integrate their economies
and ultimately to form a political union. Belgium, France,
Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the Federal Republic
of Germany (then West Germany) are charter members of the
EC. Britain, Denmark, and Ireland joined on January 1, 1973;
Greece became a member on january 1, 1981; and Portugal and
Spain entered on January 1, 1986. In late 1991, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Poland applied for membership.
- European Currency Unit (ECU)
Instituted in 1979, the ECU is the unit of account of the
EC (q.v.). The value of the ECU is determined by
the value of a basket that includes the currencies of all
EC member states. In establishing the value of the basket,
each member's currency receives a share that reflects the
relative strength and importance of the member's economy.
In 1987 one ECU was equivalent to about one United States
- European Economic Community (EEC)
- GDP (gross domestic product)
A measure of the total value of goods and services produced
by the domestic economy during a given period, usually one
year. Obtained by adding the value contributed by each sector
of the economy in the form of profits, compensation to employees,
and depreciation (consumption of capital). Only domestic production
is included, not income arising from investments and possessions
owned abroad, hence the use of the word domestic
to distinguish GDP from gross national product (GNP--q.v.).
Real GDP is the value of GDP when inflation has been taken
Public discussion of issues; accessibility of information
so that the public can become familiar with it and discuss
it. The policy in the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980's
of using the media to make information available on some controversial
issues, in order to provoke public discussion, challenge government
and party bureaucrats, and mobilize greater support for the
policy of perestroika (q.v.).
- GNP (gross national product)
GDP (q.v.) plus the net income or loss stemming
from transactions with foreign countries. GNP is the broadest
measurement of the output of goods and services by an economy.
It can be calculated at market prices, which include indirect
taxes and subsidies. Because indirect taxes and subsidies
are only transfer payments, GNP is often calculated at a factor
cost, removing indirect taxes and subsidies.
- Helsinki Accords
Signed in August by all the countries of Europe (except Albania)
plus Canada and the United States at the conclusion of the
first meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, the Helsinki Accords endorsed general principles
of international behavior and measures to enhance security
and addressed selected economic, environmental, and humanitarian
issues. In essence, the Helsinki Accords confirmed existing,
post-World War II national boundaries and obligated signatories
to respect basic principles of human rights. Helsinki Watch
groups were formed in 1976 to monitor compliance. The term
Helsinki Accords is the short form for the Final Act of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and is also
known as the Final Act.
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Established along with the World Bank (q.v.) in
1945, the IMF has regulatory surveillance, and financial functions
that apply to its more than 150 member countries and is responsible
for stabilizing international exchange rates and payments.
Its main function is to provide loans to its members (including
industrialized and developing countries) when they experience
balance of payments difficulties. These loans frequently have
conditions that require substantial internal economic adjustments
by recipients, most of which are developing countries. Albania
joined the IMF in October 1991.
Soldiers, usually of non-Turkish origin, who belonged to
an elite infantry corps of the Ottoman army. Formed a self-
regulating guild, administered by a council of elected unit
commanders. From the Turkish yeniÁeri; literally,
A province of the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia that shares
a border with Albania and has a population that is about 90
percent Albanian. Serbian nationalists fiercely resist Albanian
control of Kosovo, citing Kosovo's history as the center of
a medieval Serbian Kingdom that ended in a defeat by the Ottoman
Turks at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. Residents of
Kosovo are known as Kosovars.
- lek (L)
Albanian national currency unit consisting of 100 qintars.
In early 1991, the official exchange rate was L6.75 to US$1;
in September 1991, it was L25 = US$1; and in January 1992,
the exchange rate was L50 = US$1.
- machine tractor stations
State organizations that owned the major equipment needed
by farmers and obtained the agricultural products from collectivized
farms. First developed in the Soviet Union and adopted by
Albania during the regime of Enver Hoxha.
The ideology of communism, developed by Karl Marx and refined
and adapted to social and economic conditions in Russia by
Lenin, which guided the communist parties of many countries
including Albania and the Soviet Union. Marx talked of the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat after
the overthrow of the bourgeoisie as a transitional socialist
phase before the achievement of communism. Lenin added the
idea of a communist party as the vanguard or leading force
in promoting the proletarian revolution and building communism.
Stalin and subsequent East European leaders, including Enver
Hoxha, contributed their own interpretations of the ideology.
- most-favored-nation status
Under the provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT), when one country accords another most-favored-
nation status it agrees to extend to that country the same
trade concessions, e.g., lower tariffs or reduced nontariff
barriers, which it grants to any other recipients having most-favored-
nation status. As of January 1992, Albania had not been a
member of GATT and had not received most-favored-nation status
from the United States.
- net material product
The official measure of the value of goods and services produced
in Albania, and in other countries having a planned economy,
during a given period, usually a year. It approximates the
term gross national product (GNP--q.v.) used by economists
in the United States and in other countries having a market
economy. The measure, developed in the Soviet Union, was based
on constant prices, which do not fully account for inflation,
and excluded depreciation.
- Ottoman Empire
Formed in thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when Osman
I, a Muslim prince, and his successors, known in the West
as Ottomans, took over the Byzantine territories of western
Anatolia and southeastern Europe and conquered the eastern
Anatolian Turkmen principalities. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated
at the end of World War I; the center was reorganized as the
Republic of Turkey, and the outlying provinces became separate
Title of honor held by members of the Muslim ruling class
in the Ottoman Empire.
- perestroika (restructuring)
Mikhail S. Gorbachev's campaign in the Soviet Union in the
mid- to late 1980s to revitalize the economy, party, and society
by adjusting economic, political, and social mechanisms. Announced
at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in August 1986.
- Shia (from Shiat Ali, the Party of Ali)
A member of the smaller of the two great divisions of Islam.
The Shia supported the claims of Ali and his line to presumptive
right to the caliphate and leadership of the Muslim community,
and on this issue they divided from the Sunni (q.v.)
in the first great schism within Islam. In 1944, when the
communists assumed power in Albania, about 25 percent of the
country's Muslims belonged to an offshoot of the Shia branch
known as Bektashi (q.v.).
The authoritarian practices, including mass terror, and bureaucratic
applications of the principles of Marxism-Leninism (q.v.)
in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and in East European
- Sublime Porte (or Porte)
The palace entrance that provided access to the chief minister
of the Ottoman Empire, who represented the government and
the sultan (q.v.). Term came to mean the Ottoman
The supreme ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Officially called
the padishah (Persian for high king or emperor),
the sultan was at the apex of the empire's political, military,
judicial, social, and religious hierarchy.
- Sunni (from Sunna, meaning "custom," having
connotations of orthodoxy in theory and practice)
A member of the larger of the two great divisions within
Islam. The Sunnis supported the traditional (consensual) method
of election to the caliphate and accepted the Umayyad line.
On this issue, they divided from the Shia (q.v.)
in the first great schism within Islam. In 1944, when the
communists assumed power in Albania, about 75 percent of the
country's Muslims were Sunnis.
A follower of the political, economic, and social policies
associated with Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav prime minister from
1943 and later president until his death in 1980, whose nationalistic
policies and practices were independent of and often in opposition
to those of the Soviet Union.
- Treaty of San Stefano
A treaty signed by Russia and the Ottoman Empire on March
3, 1878, concluding the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. If implemented,
would have greatly reduced Ottoman holdings in Europe and
created a large, independent Bulgarian state under Russian
protection. Assigned Albanian-populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro,
and Bulgaria. Substantially revised at Congress of Berlin
(q.v.), after strong opposition from Great Britain
- Uniate Church
Any Eastern Christian church that recognizes the supremacy
of the pope but preserves the Eastern Rite. Members of the
Albanian Uniate Church are concentrated in Sicily and southern
Italy, and are descendants of Orthodox Albanians who fled
the Ottoman invasions, particularly after the death of Skanderbeg
- Warsaw Treaty Organization
Formal name for Warsaw Pact. Political-military alliance
founded by the Soviet Union in 1955 as a counterweight to
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Albania, an original
member, stopped participating in Warsaw Pact activities in
1962 and withdrew in 1968. Members in 1991 included Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and
the Soviet Union. Before it was formally dissolved in April
1991, the Warsaw Pact served as the Soviet Union's primary
mechanism for keeping political and military control over
- World Bank
Name used to designate a group of four affiliated international
institutions that provide advice on long-term finance and
policy issues to developing countries: the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International
Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation
(IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
The IBRD, established in 1945, has the primary purpose of
providing loans to developing countries for productive projects.
The IDA, a legally separate loan fund administered by the
staff of the IBRD, was set up in 1960 to furnish credits to
the poorest developing countries on much easier terms than
those of conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, founded in 1956,
supplements the activities of the IBRD through loans and assistance
designed specifically to encourage the growth of productive
private enterprises in less developed countries. The president
and certain senior officers of the IBRD hold the same positions
in the IFC. The MIGA, which began operating in June 1988,
insures private foreign investment in developing countries
against such non-commercial risks as expropriation, curl strife,
and inconvertibility. The four institutions are owned by the
governments of the countries that subscribe their capital.
To participate in the World Bank group, member states must
first belong to the IMF (q.v.).
- Young Turks
A Turkish revolutionary nationalist reform party, officially
known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), whose
leaders led a rebellion against the Ottoman sultan and effectively
ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 until shortly before World
Established in 1918 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes. The kingdom included the territory of present-day
Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia,
and Slovenia. Between 1929 and 1945, the country was called
the kingdom of Yugoslavia (land of the South Slavs). In 1945
Yugoslavia became a federation of six republics under the
leadership of Josip Broz Tito. In 1991 Yugoslavia broke apart
because of long-standing internal disputes among its republics
and weak central government. The secession of Croatia and
Slovenia in mid-1991 led to a bloody war between Serbia and
Croatia. In the fall of 1991, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Macedonia
also seceded from the federation, leaving Serbia (with its
provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina) and Montenegro as the constituent
parts of the federation. Under the leadership of President
Slobodan Milosevic, however, Serbia retained substantial territorial
claims in Bosnia and Hercegovina and Croatia at the beginning | <urn:uuid:08595aab-c4cf-4ff4-b538-4a2ce21635cc> | {
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The multiplicative weights or hedge algorithm is the most well known and most frequently rediscovered algorithm in online optimization.
The problem it solves is usually described in the following language: we want to design an algorithm that makes the best possible use of the advice coming from self-described experts. At each time step , the algorithm has to decide with what probability to follow the advice of each of the experts, that is, the algorithm has to come up with a probability distribution where and . After the algorithm makes this choice, it is revealed that following the advice of expert at time leads to loss , so that the expected loss of the algorithm at time is . A loss can be negative, in which case its absolute value can be interpreted as a profit.
After steps, the algorithm “regrets” that it did not just always follow the advice of the expert that, with hindsight, was the best one, so that the regret of the algorithm after steps is
This corresponds to the instantiation of the framework we described in the previous post to the special case in which the set of feasible solutions is the set of probability distributions over the sample space and in which the loss functions are linear functions of the form . In order to bound the regret, we also have to bound the “magnitude” of the loss functions, so in the following we will assume that for all and all we have , and otherwise we can scale everything by a known upper bound on .
We now describe the algorithm.
The algorithm maintains at each step a vector of weights which is initialized as . The algorithm performs the following operations at time :
That is, the weight of expert at time is , and the probability of following the advice of expert at time is proportional to the weight. The parameter is hardwired into the algorithm and we will optimize it later. Note that the algorithm gives higher weight to experts that produced small losses (or negative losses of large absolute value) in the past, and thus puts higher probability on such experts.
We will prove the following bound.
Theorem 1 Assuming that for all and we have , for every , after steps the multiplicative weight algorithm experiences a regret that is always bounded as
In particular, if , by setting we achieve a regret bound | <urn:uuid:6b906b22-f30c-4369-92fa-bc36d908d43b> | {
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Materials -- unit cell question "In terms of the atomic radius, R, determine the distance between the centers of adjacent atoms for the BCC crystal structure along the direction." I got the answer 4R but it is wrong. I came up with this by assuming that atoms touch each other in the direction in a BCC structure. In this direction there is one atom that goes through the (1/2,1/2,1/2) position and half an atom at the origin and half an atom at the (1,1,1) position summing to 4 half's of an atom in length. using the answer 4R I got the lattice parameter a=4R/sqrt(3) which is the true lattice parameter of BCC. I also answered another question: "In terms of the atomic radius, R, determine the distance between the centers of adjacent atoms for the FCC crystal structure along the direction. " and got the answer 2R*sqrt(2) which was right. This was derived by saying FCC has atoms that touch along the direction, and then doing geometry to calculate the direction. any help on this would be great, thanks. | <urn:uuid:b077b59e-1927-4fa8-9d9d-830f554be29d> | {
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Go to: P2
where you will learn about how much energy an inductor holds, called
INDUCTANCE. And some of the amazing things an inductor can do when an
alternating voltage is applied.
||An inductor can be a single turn of wire:
||or many turns:
It can be wound on a plastic former (plastic spool)
. . . on a metal core, or an air core:
An inductor can be almost any size or shape and is
the most complex component in electronics.
Even winding a toroid is an amazing process. Here is a diagram of a toroid
The theory of an inductor is so complex, it could fill a book. And the theory is very
complex. That's why we will only
cover the basics. We will not go into magnetic fields or North or South
poles or Left or Right-hand rules as these do not involve us when we
talk about a coil of wire in an electrical or electronic circuit. The most important thing is the
MAGIC of an inductor. It produces a large voltage of opposite polarity when
operating under certain conditions.
There are 3 main symbols for an inductor:
Inductance is measured in Henries.
One Henry is a large unit.
An inductor of 1 Henry would be a few cm in diameter and a few cm long
and have many turns of wire on a ferrite core.
An inductance of one Henry (or any value of inductance) does not tell you
anything about the size of the device, its current capability (the amount of
current that can flow through the winding without the device overheating) or
any of the other features we need to know about it. That's why you need to know the PRACTICAL side of selecting an
In electronics, we normally use smaller units: mH ÁH and nH
(m = milli Á = micro n = nano)
Surface mount inductors are measured in nH - nanoHenries and "ÁH" - microHenries.
See the table below for the very important way chip inductors are
identified. Take special note of the letter "R" in the 3-digit code, for a
100nH or 1,000nH device. Do not get confused with a chip resistor as the two
devices look almost identical and a resistor of "1R0" is one ohm.
|1,000mH = 1H
1,000,000ÁH = 1H
1,000,000,000nH = 1H
1,000ÁH = 1mH
1,000nH = 1ÁH
Here are some typical values:
1nH = 0.001ÁH = 1N0 on a surface-mount component
10nH = 0.01ÁH = 10N "
100nH = 0.1ÁH = R10 "
1,000nH = 1ÁH = 1R0 "
10,000nH = 10ÁH = 100 "
100,000nH = 100ÁH = 101 "
1,000,000nH = 1,000ÁH = 1mH = 102
10,000,000nH = 10,000ÁH = 10mH = 103
100,000,000nH = 100,000ÁH = 100mH = 0.1H = 104
1,000,000,000nH = 1,000,000ÁH = 1,000mH = 1H = 105
3.3nH = 0.0033ÁH = 3N3 on a surface-mount component
33nH = 0.033ÁH = 33N "
330nH = 0.33ÁH = R33 "
3,300nH = 3.3ÁH = 3R3 "
33,000nH = 33ÁH = 0.033mH = 330
330,00nH = 330ÁH = 0.33mH = 331
3,300,00nH = 3,300ÁH = 3.3mH = 332
33,000,00nH = 33,0000ÁH = 33mH = 333
Note: 102, is the 3-digit identification on a surface-mount inductor.
It means the figure "ten" and "two zero's" = 10 0 0 = 1,000ÁH =
Surface mount inductors are measured in nH - nanoHenries and
"ÁH" - microHenries.
((All surface mount capacitors are measured in "p" - picofarads))
Note: 102 is not 102 102 is 10
to the power "2" or "ten squared."
102 or 103 or 105 is "ten" then the third digit gives the number
Here are some inductors and their value:
150 = 15uH (15 and no zero's)
471 = 470uH (47 and 1 zero)
100 = 10uH (10 and no zeros)
102 = 1,000uH = (10 and two zeros) = 1mH
Here are some more inductors:
The 6 inductors above give you some idea of the number of turns needed to
produce a particular value of inductance. This is only a guide as you are
not shown the size of the inductors or the core material. In fact the same
value of inductance can be produced with more turns or less turns on a
different core material and a different core-shape - such as a bobbin.
In addition, the thickness of the wire has very little effect on the
inductance and is only used to allow a high current to flow.
The value of an inductor cannot be determined by the way it looks. The value
depends on a number of things including the core material, number of turns and the type of magnetic path. The best type of
magnetic path is a closed loop such as the toroid (doughnut) shown in
the photos at the top of the article or other type of closed magnetic path
such as a pot-core. If the magnetic path contains an air
gap, a lot of the magnetic flux will be lost when it "crosses the air gap" and the value of
inductance will be reduced. For a simple inductor, a rod will be ok.
Inductors can have lead termination (called fly-leads), wire termination for through-hole
mounting or as a "chip" for surface-mounting on a PC board.
The inductors above are identified in microHenry
(ÁH), but the value marked on a surface-mount "chip inductor" can be nH -
nanoHenries or "ÁH" - microHenries and you need to refer to the
table above for the complete range of values as the letters N and R are also
used to assist with the decade ranges (from 1nH to 9,999nH).
An inductor can be called a "coil." There is no particular difference
between a "coil" and an "inductor" and it mainly depends
on where and how it is used. A coil generally refers to turns of wire on
a former with an air core. When the core is metal (such as ferrite or soft
iron or simply "iron"), it becomes an INDUCTOR.
In certain applications an inductor is called a CHOKE.
The term choke is used when the inductor is designed to prevent a
signal passing through the winding or when the coil is designed to reduce a
particular waveform - such as ripple. The following circuit shows a choke in
operation. The circuit is called an L-C filter (or more-accurately a pi
filter). The waveform on the left of
the inductor (L) contains ripple as shown by the sinewave. The voltage
emerging from the inductor has a smaller value of ripple. This is partially
due to the filtering provided by C1 and C2 and also the effect of the choke.
The voltage entering the choke is mainly DC and this passes through the
winding without any alteration. Any ripple contained within the DC creates
an increasing magnetic flux and this cuts the turns of the winding to
produce a reverse voltage. This acts against the ripple and effectively
reduces it. The result is a lower value of ripple emerging from the
A resistor could be used in place of the inductor. The inductor has two
advantages. It will produce a lower output ripple and a smaller voltage will
be "lost" across the inductor.
An inductor is not the preferred choice for modern designs as a voltage
regulator such as 7805, will provide the same results at a lower cost
and will take up less board space.
We have used the inductor as an example, to show one of its characteristics.
It has fallen out of favor with the introduction of the "3-terminal
regulator" (we are talking about 50Hz power supplies).
A choke can also be used to prevent an AC
signal entering a component. In other words, the signal can be passed to
another part of the circuit while the choke provides a low-resistance path
In the following circuit, the signal emerges from the transistor and is
prevented from flowing to earth by the "choke." The inductor provides a low
resistance path for the biasing of the transistor while preventing the
signal flowing to the 0v rail.
If the choke is replaced by a resistor, some of the signal will be lost in
the resistor (we say "across the resistor") and the voltage dropped across the resistor will be higher than
If a winding on a coil or
"former" is designed to pull a metal rod into the centre of the coil
when a current flows, it is called a SOLENOID.
If the coil is wound on a metal core and attracts metal objects (such as the
contacts of a relay, picking up scrap metal in a junk-yard, or to make a bell ring), it is
called an ELECTROMAGNET.
The following diagram shows the operation of the electromagnet in a bell:
HOW A BELL WORKS
When the contacts are closed, current flows through the two windings
(this is called a horseshoe electromagnet) and creates magnetic flux that pulls the arm
(called the clapper) towards the
electromagnet. This makes the hammer hit the bell and at the same time
the contacts are opened. This causes the current to stop flowing and the
magnetic flux ceases (collapses). The arm is returned (via a small piece of
springy wire at the pivot-point) to a position where the
contacts are closed and the current flows again to repeat the
There is one important thing you need to know when you see an inductor in a
circuit - even a one-turn inductor!
When it is operating (when an increasing voltage is applied), it produces a voltage in the opposite direction to
the applied voltage (actually due to the increasing current) and the size of this voltage makes the inductor do
This voltage is called a back-voltage or back-EMF. Its size depends on how the inductor is
manufactured and its value in Henries (or millihenries, microhenries or
nanohenries) and how it is activated in the circuit.
When an inductor is used in electronic circuit, the ratio of the
back-voltage to the applied voltage is called the "Q-factor."
This voltage can also be detected as the "spark" between the contacts of the
bell above and it can be felt as a "kick-back" between your fingers when you
remove an inductor from the supply voltage.
This voltage can be used to produce a very high voltage and is sometimes
called a "fly-back" voltage.
This voltage is not wanted in some circuits and must be suppressed. The
voltage produced by the coil of a relay (when it is de-energised) can damage
the driving transistor and must be "snubbed" (removed) by placing a
reverse-biased diode across the coil as shown in the diagram below:
So, there we have it.
In many instances an inductor will produce a high "reverse-voltage" when
it is de-activated. The size of this voltage depends on the way the
inductor is manufactured and many other things.
You cannot work out the size of the voltage from any formulae, so
experimentation is the only way.
At last we can put aside mathematics and get out the soldering iron.
There are basically two ways to use an inductor.
1. Pass a magnet over one end and detect (read) the voltage. A
voltage is only produced when the magnet is moving. This is the basis of a
2. Apply a voltage to the coil. This voltage can be a
steady voltage (called DC) or a varying voltage (called AC). Different
results will be produced in each case. This is the basis of a MOTOR.
If the voltage is steady (DC) the coil will produce STEADY magnetic flux and
create an ELECTROMAGNET. We draw this flux as concentric lines around each
conductor. They pass through the centre of the coil an emerge at one end.
The emerging lines are said to create the NORTH pole of the electromagnet.
The "magnetism" (the magnetic lines) are strongest in the centre of each
turn of the coil and if the coil has air in the centre, only a small number
of lines can be present before the air is SATURATED. If a metal such as iron
(called soft iron) or ferrite (they are basically the same thing - with
ferrite suitable for high frequency inductors) is placed in the centre, the
magnetic lines can become more concentrated (1,000 - 2,500 times or more)
before the core is saturated.
If the driving voltage is AC (such as a sinewave) an electromagnet will
be produced but the magnetism of the electromagnet will increase and
decrease as the voltage varies.
Hundreds of different
results can be produced from the examples above, by creating inductors with a
different number of turns, different shape, different core material,
different speed of movement of the magnet and different frequencies for the
Watch the needle on the meter when the loop changes
from a "forward" direction to a "reverse" direction. This
is when the flux changes direction.
Continued Page 2
When the two coils are stationary, the
meter indicates "zero." This is because the magnetic
flux in not increasing or decreasing. | <urn:uuid:9990c466-6e83-4a44-82ce-cd77ad49fa85> | {
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New genes are those that originated relatively recently and are only present in a subset of species in a phylogeny. Evidence from humans and other species has demonstrated that, despite their young age, new genes can exhibit novel functions that are essential for the survival of an organism. One potential mechanism by which new genes gain essential functions is through the acquisition of many new interactions with pre-existing genes. This hypothesis is consistent with well-established observations that genes with many interaction partners are more likely to have essential functions. However, the accumulation of gene-gene interactions is, on average, a slow evolutionary process. This raises the question of how, in a short evolutionary time, new genes can acquire multiple novel interactions and how this might lead to their essential roles in the survival of an organism.
The aim of this proposal is to formally test the hypothesis that new genes become essential through the acquisition of novel gene-gene interactions, and to elucidate the underlying evolutionary process. This proposed research will use Drosophila as a model system and focus on characterizing the functional importance and evolutionary history of a young gene (CG7804) that is less than four million years old and is essential for the survival of Drosophila melanogaster. CG7804 duplicated from TBPH, which is known to regulate the alternative splicing of a large set of genes in Drosophila. Unlike the evolutionarily highly conserved TBPH, CG7804 has been under strong positive selection since its origination, especially in protein domains mediating protein-nucleic acid interactions. This suggests that CG7804 likely has evolved novel essential functions through the acquisition of new interaction partners by regulating the alternative splicing of a distinct set of genes from that of TBPH. In order to test test whether CG7804 has evolved novel functions that are divergent from TBPH, this project will use tissue-specific RNA interference to compare the functional impacts of CG7804 and TBPH on D. melanogaster fitness, transcriptome regulation and alternative splicing. Nucleic acid binding profiling will identify direct functional targets of CG7804 and TBPH, enabling a formal test of the hypothesis that the acquisition of new interaction partners of new genes has led to their essentiality. Finally, ancestral CG7804 sequences will be reconstructed and functionally tested in order to identify the sequential formation of new gene-gene interactions and elucidate the dynamic process by which CG7804 became essential. This proposed research will provide a detailed functional analysis of a young gene essential for survival and, more importantly, be the first to directly characterize the underlying evolutionary processes leading to new genes'novel essential functions.
Despite their young age and presence in only one species, many human-specific genes have essential functions and are associated with complex human diseases. I will investigate how newly arisen genes quickly become essential through the acquisition of novel gene-gene interactions that rewire the gene-gene interaction network. This research will advance our understanding of the evolutionary process that leads to disease-causing human-specific new genes. | <urn:uuid:33cf0d4c-1d37-46ed-b0b5-bb96762d4ec6> | {
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parasitizing resources as, e.g., mistletoes do. Others live on the ground, often, in shaded places. Almost all the species rely heavily upon mycorhizal associations with various fungi that decompose surrounding matter, freeing up water-soluble nutrients. Most orchid seeds are extremely tiny, with no food reserves, and will not even germinate without such symbiosis to supply nutrients in the wild. Techniques have now been devised for germinating seeds on a nutrient-containing gel, eliminating the necessity of the fungus, and greatly aiding the propagation of rare and endangered species.
It is in their reproductive methods that orchids truly shine. The Paphiopedilums (Lady Slippers) have a deep pocket that traps visitors, with just one egress, which leads to pollination. A Eurasian genus has flowers that look so much like female bumble bees that males flying nearby are irresistibly drawn in. An underground orchid in Australia never sees the light of day, but manages to dupe ants into pollinating it. The Masdevallia stinks like a rotting carcass, and the forest flies it attracts assist its reproduction. A species Darwin discussed briefly actually launches its viscid pollen sacks with explosive force. Some Phalaenopsis species in Malaysia use subtle weather cues to coordinate mass flowering.
There are a great number of tropical and subtropical orchids, and these are the most commonly known, as they are available at nurseries and through orchid clubs across the world. There are also quite a few orchids which grow in colder climates, although these are less often seen on the market.
One orchid is used as a foodstuff flavoring, the source of Vanilla see below. The underground tubers of terrestrial orchids are used in the manufacture of ice cream in Turkey. With these exceptions, orchids have virtually no commercial value other than for the enjoyment of the flowers (see also Botanical Orchids, below).
A selection of Orchid genera follows:
Aerangis[?]; Aerides[?]; Anacamptis; Angraecum; Anguloa[?]; Ascocenda[?]; Barkeria[?]; Bletilla[?]; Brassavola[?]; Bulbophyllum; Catasetum[?]; Cattleya[?]; Cirrhopetalum[?]; Coelogyne[?]; Cymbidium[?]; Cypripedium[?]; Dactylorhiza; Dendrobium[?]; Disa[?]; Dracula; Encyclia[?]; Epidendrum[?]; Epipactis[?]; Eria[?]; Eulophia; Gongora[?]; Goodyera[?]; Gramatophyllum[?]; Gymnadenia; Habenaria[?]; Herschelia[?]; Laelia[?]; Lapanthes[?]; Liparis[?]; Lycaste[?]; Masdevallia; Maxillaria[?]; Miltonia[?]; Mormodes[?]; Odontoglossum[?]; Oncidium[?]; Ophrys; Orchis[?]; Paphiopedilum[?]; Phalaenopsis[?]; Phragmipedium[?]; Platanthera[?]; Pleione; Pleurothallis; Renanthera[?]; Restrepia; Rhynchostylis[?]; Saccolabium[?]; Sarcochilus[?]; Satyrium[?]; Serapias[?]; Spiranthes[?]; Stanhopea[?]; Stelis; Sophronitis[?]; Stanhopea[?]; Trias[?]; Trichoglottis[?]; Vanda; Vanilla; Zeuxine[?]; Zygopetalum[?]. | <urn:uuid:b9cd3e49-d339-4b06-a1ba-417d3c0772f0> | {
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Mate pair sequencing involves generating long-insert paired-end DNA libraries useful for a number of sequencing applications, including:
Combining data generated from mate pair library sequencing with that from short-insert paired-end reads provides a powerful combination of read lengths for maximal sequencing coverage across the genome.
Following DNA fragmentation, the DNA fragments are end-repaired with labeled dNTPs. The DNA fragments are circularized, and non-circularized DNA is removed by digestion. Circular DNA is fragmented, and the labeled fragments (corresponding to the ends of the original DNA ligated together) are affinity-purified. Purified fragments are end-repaired and ligated to Illumina paired-end sequencing adapters.
Additional sequences complementary to the flow cell oligonucleotides are added to the adapter sequence with tailed PCR primers. The final prepared libraries consist of short fragments made up of two DNA segments that were originally separated by several kilobases. These libraries are ready for paired-end cluster generation, followed by sequencing utilizing an Illumina next-generation sequencing (NGS) system.
Efficient protocol enables the highest genomic diversity of any next-generation platform.
Simple workflow with limited hands-on time and multiple stopping points.
Requires as little as 1 μg of starting material. | <urn:uuid:2c7a7a1a-6f36-4286-941c-f9bba0c145f1> | {
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Like many Pokemon Go players, National University of Singapore life sciences undergraduate Sean Yap, 24, goes out as often as possible.
But, unlike such gamers whose eyes are glued to their phones in an effort to catch the virtual characters, Mr Yap looks up and around - at plants, birds and, especially, insects. The insect researcher is now on a mission to get others to do the same and learn to appreciate local biodiversity, and his strategy is to ride on the current popularity of the mobile game.
He has produced a Facebook album - called Real Life Pokemon of Singapore - that shows the similarities between Pokemon characters and native plants and animals.The water Pokemon Staryu, for example, resembles the knobbly sea stars that dot Singapore's shores, and the plant Pokemon Victreebel looks like the Raffles pitcher plant.
Mr Yap's comparisons include a tongue-in-cheek write-up about the native plant or animal.
He says, for instance: "Like Victreebel, pitcher plants are living toilet bowls, complete with a lid and a disgusting rim/seat... Except (they) eat bugs. Some species of pitcher plants even have symbiotic, resistant insects that live in the liquid and feed on the drowned bugs, and the pitchers get the nutrients from their excrement, so they are actually toilet bowls."
He points out that numerous Pokemon are based on real plants and animals, many of which can be found in Singapore. City dwellers often do not realise this, he says, and he hopes his project will enlighten them and prompt them to look out for these plants and animals.
"If Pokemon Go can be used as a marketing tool for shopping malls to attract customers, then it can probably do the same for science and biodiversity," Mr Yap said.
Besides raising awareness of Singapore's native biodiversity, he wants to highlight the plight of wildlife too. For example, in writing about Sandslash, a Pokemon which resembles the critically endangered Sunda pangolin - which is native to Singapore - he says: "Unlike Sandslash, the pangolin's large claws are not used for combat but for digging into ant or termite nests. And while Sandslash's signature move, Defense Curl, may work against predators like tigers (before they went extinct here), humans can just pick them up.
"It is humans that make the pangolin such a rare Pokemon worldwide: Poaching is the No. 1 threat to their existence."
Project manager Adriane Lee, 41, said he never knew that real animals were the inspiration for Pokemon until he saw Mr Yap's album.
"Sean's project is a refreshing take on educating a person on local biodiversity, as Pokemon is the latest craze and the game draws audiences normally not knowledgable of or interested in nature to have a more intimate knowledge of the topic," he said.
Nature groups such as the Herpetological Society of Singapore, which studies reptiles and amphibians, also plan to use Mr Yap's project at the upcoming Festival of Biodiversity educational fair to be held at the Singapore Botanic Gardens next weekend. The society's co-founder Sankar Ananthanarayanan said: "We want to show that Singapore has biodiversity that is pretty cool too, and that appreciating wildlife is just as fun and interesting as playing the game."
LURING MORE TO NATURE
If Pokemon Go can be used as a marketing tool for shopping malls to attract customers, then it can probably do the same for science and biodiversity.
UNDERGRADUATE SEAN YAP
Mr Yap has so far matched about 40 out of the 721 characters in the Pokemon universe with native flora and fauna. He hopes to do so for as many Pokemon as possible.
But unlike the Pokemon Go game in which the aim is to catch them all, he stressed that handling and capturing wild animals in Singapore is illegal.
He cautioned: "Do not try to catch them. Do observe and marvel from a respectful distance. You can join guided walks, many of which are free, for a higher chance of seeing these real-life Pokemon."
Although he has been a fan of the Pokemon universe since he was a boy, Mr Yap does not play Pokemon Go. In fact, he deleted the app barely four hours after he first downloaded it on the day of its launch.
"I realised I was walking in the forest and constantly checking my phone instead of looking out for wildlife," he explained.
During a recent visit to Pasir Ris Park for a glimpse of a rare spotted wood owl, Mr Yap said he saw many people who missed the majestic bird because they were busy catching Pokemon.
But getting people out in the open is a first step, he pointed out.
"Some people may not visit the parks in the first place, and completely miss the opportunity to see our native wildlife, but having them outside presents us the opportunity to reach out to them."
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The effects of wading birds on the erosion, properties and ecosystem services of estuarine intertidal muddy sediments
My name is James, and I am studying part time for a PhD in the School of Environmental Sciences at the UEA. My research topic is “Biosedimentological Cascades: the effects of wading birds on the erosion, properties and ecosystem services of estuarine intertidal muddy sediments”. Wading birds are key to the functioning of estuaries, mediating processes that help deliver ecosystem services that humans rely on. I am investigating this by excluding wading birds from 2m x 2m sections of mudflat in the Colne estuary Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve in Essex, so I can compare areas of mudflats where birds feed with areas where they are prevented from feeding. This will enable me to quantify the contribution of wading birds to the delivery of services, by measuring key sediment properties such as erodibility and microalgal biofilm abundance, which underpin ecosystem service delivery (a biofilm is a layer of millions of microscopic organisms covering the surface of the sediment, acting a bit like skin).
I’ve tested two different methods of excluding wading birds from areas of a mudflat, adapted from previously used designs. The idea of species exclusion is not new in ecological studies, but testing the methods is vital to ensure that the exclosures can withstand the harsh and unpredictable conditions of the intertidal environment. Both exclosures withstood the elements for three months, which was a huge relief. One also successfully excluded all wading birds from areas of the mud which gives me hope that a larger scale deployment within a well-designed experiment will produce the data needed to test the effects waders have on their habitat.
I took some preliminary measurements during this testing, learning how to use the equipment whilst sinking knee deep in the mud! Insufficient measurements were taken to perform a detailed statistical analysis, but it appears that changes to the sediment properties occurred more quickly than I was expecting. Algal blooms appeared rapidly among exclusion plots, but by the time I had managed to organise sampling the site, an army of mudsnails had arrived in my study area and eaten much of the biofilm. Measurements taken later suggested that temporal differences between plots were great enough to mask any differences caused by bird presence/absence. These findings raise questions about the interaction of different species on mudflats, which I hope to shed more light on as my research progresses. I’ve not yet managed to find any other published research which has investigated the link between wading bird presence/predation to changes in sediment characteristics. I would be very interested to know whether anybody else has, do get in touch at my e-mail below if you know of any such research.
This work was undertaken at Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve in collaboration with Essex Wildlife Trust and with permission from Natural England. Many thanks to Louise Beary and Matt Cole at the reserve for their cooperation and advice.
James Booty, EnvEast PhD student [email protected]
Project supervisors: Drs Trevor Tolhurst and Richard Davies (UEA), and Prof. Graham Underwood (University of Essex). | <urn:uuid:983c481e-bbb4-4662-ad71-193ed50a5379> | {
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It’s a good idea to do some prep before the ACT, even if it’s last-minute.
Science: For students familiar with the SAT, the ACT’s Science section may come as a big surprise on test day. While the Science section is not terribly difficult, most students mismanage time the first time they try one. (To help with time management, skim the passages (one at a time) and quickly get to the related questions. The questions will only require that you refer back to, and fully understand, specific sections of the text. Thus, reading the entire passage in detail is not the best use of the time allotted.)
Math: The ACT math section is much more straightforward than SAT math. Unlike the SAT, however, the ACT covers more advanced topics like trigonometry. (Practicing before test day is a great way to refresh your memory on concepts you may have forgotten over the years and to learn essential topics that you may not have covered yet in school.)
Reading: The ACT Reading section does not include sentence completion questions like the SAT. The ACT Reading section includes only a series of passages with linked questions. Unlike the SAT passage based questions, however, some ACT questions go beyond reading comprehension. They require the test-taker to make decisions regarding the structure or function of specified portions of the text provided. (It’s a really good idea to expose your mind to these types of questions before test day.)
English: In concept, the ACT English section is much like the SAT Writing section. (Because the format is different, however, it would behoove you to take a practice test before you sit for a real ACT.)
Good luck on Saturday to all taking the ACT! | <urn:uuid:97e96efa-b320-41de-8959-d5ab4d9b115d> | {
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A new study has found children exposed to second-hand smoke have elevated blood pressure, putting them at risk of ongoing cardiovascular problems and heart disease later in life.
Quit Acting Executive Director, Luke Atkin, said it was a timely reminder for smokers to provide smoke-free environments for their children at home and in cars.
"It's just over a year since we've seen smoking in cars with children banned in Victoria and the evidence just keeps growing on why we need this policy."
"We know that second hand smoke is associated with a higher incidence of many health problems in children, including asthma attacks, meningococcal disease, pneumonia and SIDS. This study adds to evidence that second-hand smoke is leading to cardiovascular problems in children that stay with them into adulthood."
"This study confirms parents and all smokers need to think twice before lighting up around children," Mr Atkin said.
The new study, in Circulation, examined 4,236 preschool -aged children in Germany and found the children of smokers had higher blood pressure. This was still true even when the results of the five and six year olds were adjusted to take in other risk factors such as obesity.
Children of smokers were 21% more likely to have blood pressure readings in the upper 15% of their age group, when compared with children of non-smokers.
Cancer Council Victoria research suggests four out of ten smokers still smoke around children.
Heart Foundation (Victoria) CEO Kathy Bell said the legislation in place since January 2010, banning people from smoking in cars with children, was an excellent start. But smokers needed to take responsibility for protecting children in other places.
"Having a smoke-free home is an excellent step, while the study's authors conclude implementing additional smoke-free areas in public places would help. Frankston City Council has taken great steps in this regard introducing a smoke-free outdoor mall, and we'd love to see other councils taking similar steps in alfresco dining areas, parks and sporting fields."
"Smokers need to be aware that their actions are impacting on their children not only now, but well into the future. The best thing you can do for your children and yourself is quit."
ph: (03) 9635 5498
mob: 0438 714 264 | <urn:uuid:a296c963-8286-4597-9515-6269f9d3b21b> | {
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The Washington Post reported below that Google has patented a way for self-driving cars to understand the hand signals it sees from cyclists.
It uses a combination of the sensors on the car, LIDAR, RADAR and the camera to get the data and then processes it to identify the cyclist, the cyclist’s arms and legs and then if the arms are signalling.
In itself, this is a very interesting algorithm and it will be interesting to see how accurate it is in a real-world scenario. I can see it having some difficulty in Amsterdam though.
There is though a wider issue here with respect to patenting an AI algorithm. Suppose the machine learns about recognising cyclists through some method of supervised learning. Having come up with the model of the world, is the patent for the learning machine or the mathematical model that it has learned?
Patenting a learning machine would seem to be rather broad, while the mathematical model is not patentable.
Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to expect to see a rash of patent applications with variations on the title “A method to do X with an Artificial Intelligence”.
In the meantime, let’s hope the Google Autonomous Car doesn’t knock down any cyclists. | <urn:uuid:0d0cd634-7f0f-4a2c-9a09-62d5ef522325> | {
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Every community has the right to self-determination. That indisputable fact is and will always remain the anchor on which any growing community that represents the future operates from. This principle of life does not only ring true in the African American community, but also others such as the Jewish community, where there is an unbreakable bond to always promote Jewish culture as a catalyst for social and economic transformation. The long history of Jews and Blacks in the evolution of Detroit, and how they suffered, battled racism and worked together cannot fit into the pages of this newspaper. And by all accounts the Jewish community remains heavily invested in Detroit today, informed by the bitter history of their culture and identity. I received an intimate definition of that culture last Tuesday when a dear friend and colleague, Arthur Horwitz, publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, invited my family to join his for Seder dinner, the ritual meal marking the start of the Passover holiday.
At the home of the Horwitzes, close friends and relatives came out to recognize and celebrate what is the most important religious holiday in the Jewish calendar.
Because Passover represents the Jewish Exodus from captivity in Egypt and their eventual freedom, the Seder dinner was an interesting and educational experience.
We spent the evening reading from a modified version of the Hagaddah, an ancient text that explains the Seder customs and retells the story of the Exodus. The reading of the Hagaddah was punctuated with the singing of special Passover songs, drinking wine, eating matzo and other symbolic foods that graced the Seder table that night.
As we engaged in the evening ritual that served as a powerful reminder of an individual’s ability to break the barriers of life and become an agent of change, I was observing the participation of the young people around the table. They demonstrated a mastery of the dictates of the Seder customs and songs and having a clear-cut understanding of the Hagaddah. Their participation that night showed that the history of their culture and identity has been embedded in them since infancy.
The children have a strong perspective of and pride in the essence of Judaism as the bedrock of their presence and future. For children to make a difference in society, they have to be rooted in the history of their people, have a strong sense of identity and a vision for the collective well-being of their community. If you feel connected to a whole, you feel a sense of identity, belonging and safety that empowers you as you reach out for higher goals.
Let’s be clear there is no way one can effectively engage the outside without having a good understanding of the inside and a dynamic support base from within.
This explains why Arthur Horwitz during our lunch meetings makes a point to underscore the importance of empowering young people today for a better Detroit. He believes that a growing Southeast Michigan is tied to the extent to which we empower tomorrow’s leaders to assert themselves as the masters of their destinies and communities.
This discussion should not make anyone in our community who believes in the future uncomfortable. Every adult in this city should be measured by their ability to understand, motivate and encourage young people to become better representatives of the future. We cannot say we believe in a future where the principle figures have been demoralized, discouraged, and despised and yet we still expect a vibrant tomorrow.
Show me young people you have empowered, invested in and delegated responsibility to and I will show you your legacy in gold. Every organization, church and civic group should have a youth policy that is rooted in programs with verifiable results.
For example each organization should commit in the next five years to ensure that school enrollment increases, drastically reduce school dropout rates, reduce crime, address incarceration and create meaningful educational and job opportunities for young people. That is the future. That is one way of getting out of the socioeconomic morass.
It is an indictment on us whenever we see young people starved of opportunities decide to leave the area in search of greener pastures.
If you are in a position of authority, whether it’s in the family, community level, politics, education, church or wherever, you should think about the following questions when you begin to reflect on your legacy.
What will you be remembered for? Did you appropriate and create opportunities for tomorrow’s state drivers? Have you created an atmosphere that allowed young people to make use of their talents and develop a sense of achievement? What concrete investments have you made in the life of a young person that bodes well for the future?
Bankole Thompson is the author of the new book, “Obama and Black Loyalty, Vol. 1,” a trilogy on President Obama. Listen to his weekly analyses Thursdays at 11:15 a.m. on “The Craig Fahle Show,” WDET-101.9FM-NPR affiliate. You can also hear him Sundays 10 p.m. on the “Obama Watch” roundtable broadcast on New York’s prominent radio station WLIB, 1190 AM, hosted by Gary Byrd. E-mail him at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:8c11c12b-7ed7-4c03-940b-248fca61fa85> | {
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For a conservation event with potentially apocalyptic connotations, Thursday’s “Pledging Responsibility for Oceans and Environmental Change Today” in Brendle Recital Hall was frank, optimistic and self-aware: panelist and scientist Nancy Knowlton even pledged to keep audience members “not utterly depressed,” to noticeable titters.
The panel, an effort to engage the public on the importance of oceans and their nascent fragility as a result of climate change, garnered a sizable crowd, perhaps partially due to the celebrity of the panelists speaking: Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic oceanographer; Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Science at Smithsonian’s Natural Museum of Natural History; and Amanda Leland, vice president for Oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Despite the preliminary call for optimism, the scientists made the audience aware of the current dire state of the world’s oceans. Overfishing and pollution have ravaged our oceans to noticeable decline: species are becoming extinct, including New England’s famed Atlantic cod. Forty percent of fisheries are in jeopardy.
The implications, Leland stated, are as environmental as they are economic: Somali pirates originated as fisherman who ran out of fish to extract. In addition, three million of the world’s population depends on the oceans as its only source of protein.
Knowlton and Leland revealed that the solution to ocean deterioration lies largely in policy, and that increased management of fishing policies can improve fish quantities in the ocean and decrease overall waste.
However, in a visit to an undergraduate and graduate lab classroom earlier that day, Earle argued that extracting any organisms from the ocean would be problematic to the structure of the food chain, according to Wake Forest professor Dr. Katie Lotterhos, who attended the earlier session and whose area of research is marine biology.
Hope for ocean renewal is within reach, the scientists said, with policy and attitude change: “Fish are not just clumps of meat waiting for us to extract them,” said Earle.
Instead, proper fishing and ocean regulations have the capacity to revitalize communities, ecosystems, and expose the “ocean’s natural resilience.”
Lotterhos, who invited the three scientists to campus, hoped the event left people “feeling cautiously optimistic.”
“We will have to take responsibility soon if we want to have sustainable ocean ecosystems, but it is not too late yet,” she said.
By Elena Dolman (’15), Staff Writer | <urn:uuid:e9eaf021-63b8-4f3d-b8b9-f06db8c307c2> | {
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While history cannot pinpoint who created the first mannequin, they progressively made it to the stage of life size models over thousands of years and begin to circulate in France. Mannequins are realistic doll models that are used to model clothes and accessories. Mannequins give designers and consumers an ideal of how certain clothing, material or accessories will look on an individual. Mannequins are made from a variety of materials.
Other People Are Reading
The first mannequins were manufactured from wood. Wood is very sturdy and may have been used primarily for this very reason. Wood mannequins are made with balls and sockets to make joints to form leg and arm function. Wood mannequins can be painted to present a lifelike image. Some disadvantages to wood mannequins are the heaviness of the material, which may cause the transport cost to rise. Although wood can be painted to be lifelike, the wood itself does not offer this look, due to it being an abstract material. In time, wood cracks and tears, which is almost impossible to repair or even hide.
Polystyrene is a hard plastic that is indestructible and has a long-lasting shelf life. It has been used to manufacture mannequins for roughly the past 15 years. It is also lightweight and transports cheaply. This type of material may be injected with dyes to create a variety of eye-pleasing colours. Companies in need of many mannequins at one time benefit from purchasing polystyrene mannequins the because material is cheap and easy to transport. Some disadvantages to polystyrene are that it cannot be sprayed over and can be expensive due to the restrictions on styles and moulds. Prolystyrene also looks cheaper than a wood mannequin.
Fibreglass is currently the most widely used material for manufacturing mannequins. This material has a balanced ratio of weight and sturdiness. Fibreglass mannequins also transport for a reasonable price and can last for a long time with proper care. Fibreglass is easily painted or painted over and can be changed into different looks when necessary. Paint smoothly covers fibreglass to make simple lifelike renditions on the fibreglass model. This material can also be affixed with balls and joints---enabling the model to look even more realistic. Though fibreglass is mostly sturdy, if it falls, it will completely shatter---making clean-up difficult and dangerous if proper precautions are not taken.
- 20 of the funniest online reviews ever
- 14 Biggest lies people tell in online dating sites
- Hilarious things Google thinks you're trying to search for | <urn:uuid:f6d8a348-205e-48f8-ad4d-2365f748fe09> | {
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The National Park Service maintains a number of historic sites associated with black history. Ten of those sites are featured here, each with a link to visitors information from the park service.
Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site commemorates the Supreme Court's landmark decision to end segregation in the country's public schools.
The Black Heritage Trail on Boston's Beacon Hill pieces together the story of the free African American community that lived here during the decades leading up to and during the Civil War.
Fort Davis is important in understanding the presence of African Americans in the West and in the frontier military because the 24th and 25th U.S.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1818, and was given the name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Baly), after his mother Harriet Bailey.
On October 16, 17, and 18, 1859, John Brown and his "Provisional Army of the United States" took possession of the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. | <urn:uuid:6e793c40-99aa-41dd-9090-28044f8eb355> | {
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Raising four boys on the farm means a lot of groceries and a lot of hungry kids to feed. Just as I carefully measure the ingredients for my recipes in the kitchen, we carefully manage the fertilizer and crop protection products we use to feed and protect our crops.
And whether it’s in the kitchen or the field, more of any one ingredient isn’t always better.
Using Data and Technology to Find the Right Recipe
As the cook in our family, I’m thankful that I have an easy place to find or tweak recipes – the internet. I’m constantly improving what I put on the table because of it.
Precision agriculture helps do the same thing for our farm.
Technologies like GPS, sensors and computer monitors help us track our yields and more precisely manage the inputs (or ingredients) for our crops and our fields. We can change our seeding and application rates to be sure we’re applying the right amount of seed, fertilizer and crop protection products to each area of our fields.
Fertilizer is one of the most important ingredients to growing healthy crops. We test samples of our soil on a regular basis to better understand the fertility of different areas of our fields. With this information and the use of precision agriculture technology, we can be sure we’re only applying fertilizer where it’s needed and when it’s needed.
Important Information at Our Fingertips
We can’t be in all our fields all the time. Fortunately, with precision agriculture technology, a lot of information from our fields is available on our smartphones and tablets.
I can be sitting in the bleachers of my son’s baseball game and pull out my phone to see how much rain we got in a field, understand its fertility levels and monitor the overall health of our crops. This remote access to data helps us make decisions about what our crops need, and when. For example, we can tell whether we may need to work in a particular field the next day and whether the soil conditions will be right for field activity.
This type of technology changes and advances all the time. While we usually aren’t the first farmers to implement the latest technology, I would consider us early adopters. We know data and technology are key ingredients to producing more and better crops using fewer resources.
Want to learn more? Visit the CommonGround website to hear from other farmers and see how they are using technology to promote sustainability on their farms. | <urn:uuid:72573328-3ef3-47eb-8d40-529d190c99e0> | {
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The existence of the sixth continent theoretically people know from the beginning of the XVI century.Amerigo Vespucci Expedition 1501-1502 gg.It explored the polar latitudes of the southern hemisphere and landed on the shores of the island of South Georgia.Move on to the pole navigator prevent a cold, solid ice and hummocks.After that, the mysteries of Antarctica attracted to her discovery.On the maps of the continent appeared long before man set foot there, and even up to the time that the first people saw the land covered by ice.Previously it was believed that this continent is the southern tip of South America or Australia, for example, to draw up in 1513 a map Pirireisa.
But who first discovered Antarctica?And what does "discovered"?I Saw?He stepped ashore?I hoist the flag?In this regard, there is no consensus.Russian believe that the continent had the honor of opening the expedition Bellingshausen and Lazarev (January 1820), while the British believe that Antarctica discovered Edward Bransfild (i
The Dutch have their own answer to the question of who discovered Antarctica.According to them, it made the ship's captain Dirk Geeritts even in 1559.After the storm that raged in the Strait of Magellan, the ship lost contact with the squadron and mistakenly gone to the south.When cleared up, the Dutch saw the "high ground" and identified their coordinates - 64 ° S.w.However, the Geeritts never claim to be the discoverer of the continent, and we do not know what he meant by "high ground" - perhaps it was one of the islands, which are many on the shelf of the continent.
In January 1773, James Cook approached on ships «Resolution» and «Adventure» to the 67 ° 'S.w., where he was stopped by ice.Not rest on our laurels, he returned the following year and reached 71 ° 15 'south latitude, however, as he moved to the south-west of Tierra del Fuego, the land he never reached, and did not even see.But closer to the coast of the mainland US was lucky enough to ship "Cecilia" a year after the Russian expedition in 1821.But people do not go ashore.If the judge, who discovered Antarctica upon landing, and here we find a discordance.
official date of the first landing on continental rather than ice shelves this mysterious part of the land is considered to be January 23, 1895.That honor fell to two Norwegians: the captain of the fishing ship "Antarctica" Christensen and passenger Karlstenu Borhgrёvinku, a teacher of natural sciences.The teacher, in fact, far from persuaded the ambitious claims of industrial ship captain pull the boat into the water and stop at the bank.There Borhgrёvink collected samples of rocks and described what he saw the Antarctic lichen.But scientists dispute the Argentine championship Norwegians, saying that to find out who discovered Antarctica, is impossible, because these people are not left behind no written evidence.Archaeologists have discovered on the shores of the mainland remains of buildings and artefacts that date back to the beginning of the XVIII century.Obscure whalers unknown nationality have taken his secret to the grave.
Whatever it was, the merit of the Russian expedition to mankind is undeniable.Bellingshausen and Lazarev skirted the mainland and proved that he is surrounded by seas.Weather in Antarctica is not conducive to the promotion of deeper: even in summer it does not melt the ice cover.It was thanks to him that the continent is the highest - its average height of more than 2 thousand meters and the highest point (Vinson Massif) - 5140 meters.The discovery of Antarctica resulted in the least risky and ambitious plans for humanity to get to the South Pole.Laura detect the most southern point of our planet belong Amundsen (1911-12.). | <urn:uuid:06394391-514e-4aba-b3ea-8ae0100d5280> | {
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Every year, in the United States alone, more than 230 million tons of waste ends up in landfills. By some estimates, more than 70% of this waste could be reused or recycled. Teaching the next generation how to effectively separate trash in a way that is both waste reducing and fun could ultimately have significantly positive effects on environmental, economic and public health problems. Helping them to understand the overall impact of our consumer culture -- that trash doesn't simply disappear once it leaves our hands -- can be a first step in helping to reduce our culture of disposability.
With all this in mind, we created Trash Dash, a fast paced game in which players race to put more trash into their own appropriate recycling bins than their opponents, while minimizing the amount of trash left in their "landfill" at the end of the game. "One Person's Trash Is Another's Treasure" cards give players a bonus while reinforcing the idea that much of what we think of as useless in our own lives still holds great potential utility for others. | <urn:uuid:320074c9-1473-479c-a9fe-7aeb231b04d0> | {
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Settled in 1858 and known as Mud Creek, it was named about 1860 for the biblical Abilene (which means “grassy plain”). Development was slow until Joseph McCoy, a cattle entrepreneur and later mayor of Abilene, selected it as the northern terminus of the Texas cattle drives in 1867, the year the Kansas Pacific Railroad reached this point. At their peak in 1871, cattle drives over the Chisholm Trail brought some 700,000 cattle and more than 5,000 cowboys into Abilene. With the prosperity of the cattlemen came an era of lawlessness. The famed gunman Wild Bill Hickok served as the town’s marshal in 1871 and is reputed to have killed more than 50 alleged lawbreakers during his brief tenure. The appearance of homesteaders and fenced ranges discouraged the Texas cattle trade, much of which was diverted to Wichita. Winter-wheat cultivation was introduced in Abilene in the mid-1870s and remains economically important. Abilene is still a shipping point for livestock, as well as for grain and other agricultural products, and it has some light industry.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent his boyhood in Abilene, and he is buried in the Place of Meditation at the Eisenhower Center, which also encompasses his family home and library. Other popular attractions include the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Greyhound Hall of Fame, dedicated to the history of the dog since ancient times. Inc. 1869. Pop. (2000) 6,543; (2010) 6,844. | <urn:uuid:9644621c-3fec-4b3e-83cd-49836353e2de> | {
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The Sanlihe Greenway in Qian'an City, Hebei Province, used to be a polluted land fill and sewage drainage facility along the foul Sanlihe River, a tributary of the Lu'an River.
Today land and water have been cleaned up, replanted and landscaped as an ecosystem; now there are flowers in bloom, lush greenery and clean, gurgling water.
The 13-kilometer-long Sanli River is considered the "mother river" of Qian'an. Before the 1970s, the river bed was covered with pebbles and springs bubbled up; people used to go fishing along its banks.
But as the area developed and industry expanded, the river was badly polluted by sewage and industrial discharge. The Lu'an River's water quality declined sharply and the Sanlihe River dried up, its channel blocked by waste.
In 2007 the government decided to reclaim and revive the area through the Sanlihe Ecological Corridor project, which includes three sections: upstream water source, the city section in the middle and a wetland park downstream.
"The river is like a paradise for locals who spent their childhood catching fish and insects along the river," says Shi Chun, a landscape architect with Turenscape, a Beijing-based design institute that carried out the project.
"We aim to revive the feeling of nature and make the river an area of joy," he says. | <urn:uuid:673dd889-fd99-4c33-9234-a57f166e5c99> | {
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How do you draw God’s picture?
Famous underground illustrator R. Crumb took a marvelous, gutsy stab at the question on Oct. 19, when “The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb” hit the bookshelves. His antic style is channeled into a gruelingly faithful 224 pages. Murder, incest, power struggles, family fights, and betrayals – it’s all graphically rendered.
The results are subversive and affirming at the same time. Subversive because they dodge none of the text’s ugly incidents or confusing lurches of tone and doctrine.
Even the boring stretches, those long lists of begats, are transformed into strings of absorbing, carefully wrought portrait cameos. Affirming because it takes the document seriously. Of course, any depiction is a de facto interpretation of the text, but Crumb doesn’t go for laughs or satirical comments, nor does he posit an alternative interpretation of it.
After so many decades of being categorized as a countercultural artist, Crumb’s impulse to portray one of Western civilization’s founding sacred texts is understandable. Although he first found fame as a rebellious figure, Crumb’s work as a whole ranges far more widely. In tackling Adam and Eve and all that follows, he follows centuries of tradition, from the Book of Kells down to today.
The power of the graven image cuts both ways. Prohibitions against and mistrust of images is strong in monotheistic cultures. The word “iconoclast” means “image breaker”; it stems from a struggle over the use of images in Christian Byzantium in medieval times. During the Reformation, too, statues, images and altars were shattered, torn apart or burned.
Statues at the cathedral of St. Martin in Utrecht, the Netherlands, damaged by Reformation iconoclasts.
Islam has long frowned on images as well. During the three-day 1977 Hanafi Siege in Washington, D.C. 12 members of an Islamic extremist group took 149 people hostage, and killed two. One of the incident’s causes was its leader’s opposition to the pending release of Moustapha Akkad’s “Mohammad, Messenger of God,” aka “The Messenger,” a feature film about the founder of Islam.
(Ironically, in the film the prophet was never shown, and his speech never heard, in accordance with the strictures of the Hadith.) In 2005, the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy led to the deaths of over 100 worldwide.
Yet the Bible, like most other religious texts, is a bottomless font of visual inspiration – and, particularly in Christian history, the use of visual storytelling aids, such as murals, paintings, panels, stained-glass windows . . . and illustrated Bibles.
The fundamental artist for me in this tradition is French illustrator Gustave Dore (1832-1883). The huge, impossibly heavy Bible in my grandparents’ home was tempting to pore through not because of the crabbed, unreadable Fraktur typeface verses but because of the staggering visions of the artist, whose engraving abilities are historically unmatched.
The tormented physicality of Dore’s figures and the fantastic landscapes in which they coil and stretch are endlessly fascinating, and they drew me into the words behind the pictures. As intended.
Another publication that still floats around my subconscious is “Picture Stories from the Bible,” a 1943 work by the enterprising Education Comics.
It was created under the direction of Maxwell Gaines, nee Maxwell Ginsburg, who created the size and look of the comic book itself in 1933.
Gaines’ All-American Comics launched the careers of the Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkman and the Green Lantern characters. He broke away and started EC with only the “Bible” material, and began diversifying before his sudden death in 1947. (Son Bill is best known for his creation of such sci fi/horror/war/humor comics classics as Tales from the Crypt, Frontline Combat and Mad magazine.)
For all of Gaines’ faith (no pun intended) in the material, “Picture Stories” is a severely neutered and distorted version of the goings-on in the Good Book. The six-panel page standard is rarely swerved from, and all the drawings by Don Cameron are functional, the strip equivalent of a movie made entirely out of medium shots. A brilliant visual analysis of the still-in-print work can be found here, penned by Kristy Valenti at Comixology.
God manifests himself as a sunburst or cloud of speech, delineated with all capitals, with squiggly text, as though the Deity was equipped with a mighty sub-woofer to go with his Mister Microphone.
All the women characters are dressed in standard-issue Hollywood B-movie Arabic gowns, all with eyeshadow and perfect perms, even immediately after giving birth.
The men are interchangeable, the action is non-stop, with many of the stories streamlined and condensed under the heading of the main character involved – the editor’s revenge at last on the unwieldy original! (The back cover, studded with cameos of Bible heroes, is paraphrased entertainingly in Crumb’s version.)
No one gets it on in “Picture Stories.” We don’t get to read about Noah’s drunkenness, Lot’s incest with his daughters. Ruth busts in on Boaz when he’s in bed – and, well, she tucks him in. “Rest well, Boaz, I shall lie at your feet all the night!” she chirps. No wonder we needed sex education in schools.
After Dore’s elegant lines and Gaines’s brash, brightly colored freemaking, everything else seems tame. Mass-produced evangelical publications tend to toe the aesthetic and doctrinal line. A mantle of propriety puts the kibosh on close, hard visual depictions, leading to lots and lots of sanitized kitsch. Much is forgiven in the name of faith.
Only exceptions such as the harsh, crude figurations found in the Chick Publications gospel cartoon tracts – those nifty little pamphlets you find in the men’s room in bus stations, tucked in random books in the library, gracing some fried chicken joint in the middle of nowhere.
The past 50 years have seen secular culture knock Biblical conceits from their pedestals. If we absorbed any spiritual information from the Judeo-Christian tradition, it was probably in the form of a comedy routine like Bill Cosby’s “Noah” trilogy from his first album:
Flip Wilson’s “David and Goliath” routine, and film comedies such as “The Life of Brian” and the much less funny comedy “Wholly Moses!”.
Going to the other end of the spectrum, the grotesque is emphasized in films such as “A Clockwork Orange,” in which the sociopathic protagonist Alex turns to the Old Testament in prison to trigger and feed his sexual and violent fantasies. Others were dazzled or enraged by the hallucinatory epic of “The Last Temptation of Christ” or torture porn of “The Passion of the Christ.”
A standout independent film from 2003, “The Real Old Testament,” goes for the vernacular with a rendition of most of Genesis in the style of a TV reality show, complete with pull-out interviews, a strong dose of improvisation, and a reliance on the overturning of strongly branded, stock conceptions of the Bible as literature.
And now, we even have the Bible illustrated with Legos! The Brick Testament boasts that it is "the world's largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible." It's pretty nifty.
Crumb’s innovation comes in facing his material head-on, engaging in extensive research and thought. Unyoked from organized religion’s concerns, or the compulsion to mock, he finds what is powerful and sacred by showing us real people and real feeling, warts and all.
Most importantly, he makes those confounding passages clear. Some might argue that forbidding, bumpy roads such as Crumb’s Genesis can also lead us to God. | <urn:uuid:82eeb906-7a34-407b-8ee1-079fe53236a7> | {
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Agnathans: Jawless Fishes
The superclass Agnatha describes fish that lack jaws and includes the extant species of hagfish and lampreys.
Differentiate between the taxa of jawless fishes
- Most agnathans are now extinct, but two branches exist today: hagfishes (not true vertebrates) and lampreys (true vertebrates).
- The earliest jawless fishes were the ostracoderms, which had bony scales as body armor.
- Hagfish are eel-like marine scavengers in the clade Myxini that produce slime and can tie themselves into knots.
- Lampreys are in the clade Petromyzontidae and appear morphologically similar to hagfish, but contain cartilaginous vertebral elements as an adult; thus, they are considered true vertebrates.
- hagfish: any of several primitive eellike creatures, of the family Myxinidae, having a sucking mouth with rasping teeth; considered edible in Japan, their skin is used to make a form of leather
- lamprey: any long slender primitive eel-like freshwater and saltwater fish of the Petromyzontidae family, having a sucking mouth with rasping teeth, but no jaw
- agnathan: a member of the superclass Agnatha of jawless vertebrates
Agnathans: Jawless Fishes
Jawless fishes or agnathans are craniates that represent an ancient vertebrate lineage that arose over one half-billion years ago. “Gnathos” is Greek for “jaw” and the prefix “a” means “without,” so agnathans are “without jaws. ” Most agnathans are now extinct, but two branches still exist today: hagfishes and lampreys. Hagfishes and lampreys are recognized as separate clades, primarily because lampreys are true vertebrates, whereas hagfishes are not. A defining feature of agnathans is the lack of paired lateral appendages or fins.
Some of the earliest jawless fishes were the ostracoderms (Greek for “bone-skin”). Ostracoderms were vertebrate fishes encased in bony armor, unlike present-day jawless fishes, which lack bone in their scales.
The clade Myxini includes at least 20 species of hagfishes. Hagfishes are eel-like scavengers that live on the ocean floor and feed on dead invertebrates, other fishes, and marine mammals. Hagfishes are entirely marine and are found in oceans around the world, except for the polar regions. Hagfish have slime glands beneath the skin that constantly release mucus, allowing them to escape from the grip of predators. Hagfish can also twist their bodies into a knot to gain a mechanical advantage while feeding and are notorious for eating carcasses from the inside out.
The skeleton of a hagfish is composed of cartilage, which includes a cartilaginous notochord that runs the length of the body. This notochord provides support to the hagfish’s body. Unlike true vertebrates, hagfishes do not replace the notochord with a vertebral column during development. Since they have a cartilaginous skull, they are classified in the clade Craniata.
The clade Petromyzontidae includes approximately 35–40 or more species of lampreys. Lampreys are morphologically similar to hagfishes and also lack paired appendages. However, lampreys develop some vertebral elements as an adult. Their notochord is surrounded by a cartilaginous structure called an arcualia, which may resemble an evolutionarily-early form of the vertebral column.
As adults, lampreys are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. Many species have a parasitic stage of their life cycle during which they are ectoparasites of fishes. Lampreys live primarily in coastal and fresh waters. They are distributed worldwide, except for the tropics and polar regions. Some species are marine, but all species spawn in fresh water; eggs are fertilized externally. The larvae differ distinctly from the adult form, spending 3 to 15 years as suspension feeders. Once they reach sexual maturity, the adults die within days of reproduction.
Gnathostomes: Jawed Fishes
Gnathostomes, jawed vertebrates, can be divided into two types of fish: Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) or Osteichthyes (bony fish).
Differentiate among the types of jawed fishes
- Early jawed fish (gnathostomes) were able to exploit new nutrient sources because of their jaws and paired fins.
- Chondrichthyes includes all jawed fish with cartilagenous skeletons, such as sharks, rays, skates, and chimaeras.
- Osteichthyes includes all jawed fish with ossified (bony) skeletons; this includes the majority of modern fish.
- Osteichthyes can be further separated into Actinopterygii (the ray-finned fishes) and Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes).
- The majority of modern fish species are actinopterygii, from trout to clownfish.
- Early Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes) evolved into modern tetrapods, including reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
- ossified: composed of bone, which is a calcium phosphate matrix created by special cells called osteoblasts
- operculum: a covering flap or lidlike structure in plants and animals, such as a gill cover
- Chondrichthyes: a taxonomic class within the subphylum Vertebrata: the cartilaginous fish
- Osteichthyes: a taxonomic class within the subphylum vertebrata: the bony fish
Gnathostomes: Jawed Fishes
Gnathostomes or “jaw-mouths” are vertebrates that possess jaws. One of the most significant developments in early vertebrate evolution was the development of the jaw, which is a hinged structure attached to the cranium that allows an animal to grasp and tear its food. The evolution of jaws allowed early gnathostomes to exploit food resources that were unavailable to the jawless animals. In early evolutionary history, there were gnathostomes (jawed fishes) and agnathans (jawless fishes). Gnathostomes later evolved into all tetrapods (animals with four limbs) including amphibians, birds, and mammals.
Early gnathostomes were jawed fishes that possessed two sets of paired fins, which increased their ability to maneuver accurately. These paired fins were pectoral fins, located on the anterior body, and pelvic fins, on the posterior. The evolution of the jaw combined with paired fins permitted gnathostomes to expand from the sedentary suspension feeding of jawless fishes and become mobile predators. The gnathostomes’ ability to exploit new nutrient sources led to their evolutionary success during the Devonian period. Two early groups of gnathostomes were the acanthodians and placoderms, which arose in the late Silurian period and are now extinct. Most modern gnathostomes belong to the clades Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes.
Chondrichthyes: Cartilaginous Fishes
The clade Chondrichthyes consists of sharks, rays, and skates, together with sawfishes and a few dozen species of fishes called chimaeras, or “ghost,” sharks. Chondrichthyes are jawed fishes that possess paired fins and a skeleton made of cartilage. This clade arose approximately 370 million years ago in the early or middle Devonian.
Most cartilaginous fishes live in marine habitats, although a few species live in fresh water for part or all of their lives. Most sharks are carnivores that feed on live prey, either swallowing it whole or using their jaws and teeth to tear it into smaller pieces. Shark teeth probably evolved from the jagged scales that cover their skin called placoid scales. Some species of sharks and rays are suspension feeders that feed on plankton.
Sharks have well-developed sense organs that aid them in locating prey, including a keen sense of smell and electroreception. Organs called ampullae of Lorenzini enable sharks to detect the electromagnetic fields that are produced by all living things, including their prey. Only aquatic or amphibious animals possess electroreception. Sharks, together with most fishes and aquatic and larval amphibians, also have a sense organ called the lateral line, which is used to detect movement and vibration in the surrounding water. It is often considered homologous to “hearing” in terrestrial vertebrates. The lateral line is visible as a darker stripe that runs along the length of a fish’s body.
Rays and skates comprise more than 500 species and are closely related to sharks. They can be distinguished from sharks by their flattened bodies, pectoral fins that are enlarged and fused to the head, and gill slits on their ventral surface. Like sharks, rays and skates have a cartilaginous skeleton. Most species are marine and live on the sea floor, with nearly a worldwide distribution.
Osteichthyes: Bony Fishes
Members of the clade Osteichthyes, also called bony fish, are characterized by a bony skeleton. The vast majority of present-day fish belong to this group, which consists of approximately 30,000 species, making it the largest class of vertebrates in existence today.
Nearly all bony fish have an ossified skeleton with specialized bone cells (osteocytes) that produce and maintain a calcium phosphate matrix. A few groups of Osteichthyes, such as sturgeons and paddlefish, have primarily cartilaginous skeletons, but retain some bony elements. The skin of bony fish is often covered by overlapping scales. Skin glands secrete mucus that reduces drag when swimming and aids the fish in osmoregulation. Like sharks, bony fish have a lateral line system that detects vibrations in water. All bony fish use gills for gas exchange. Water is drawn over gills that are located in chambers covered and ventilated by a protective, muscular flap called the operculum. Many bony fish also have a swim bladder, a gas-filled organ that helps to control the buoyancy of the fish.
Bony fish are further divided into two extant clades: Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish) and Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish). Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fish include many familiar fish, such as tuna, bass, trout, and salmon, among others. Ray-finned fish are named for their fins that are webs of skin supported by bony spines called rays. In contrast, the fins of Sarcopterygii are fleshy and lobed, supported by bone. Although most members of this clade are extinct, living members include the less-familiar lungfishes and coelacanths. Early Sarcopterygii evolved into modern tetrapods, including reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. | <urn:uuid:10a7c139-235e-4790-8967-0afc515ddcaa> | {
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With health and well-being increasingly important considerations in towns and cities, Yvonne Rydin and Helen Pineo discuss how surveyors can contribute to healthier lives.
14 JAN 2019
Walking makes people fitter, cities cleaner and businesses stronger – yet we are walking less. Planners and developers can play a big part in designing healthier streets.
It is something you do every day; and as a professional working in the built environment, it is highly relevant to your working life. But how often do you actually think about walking?
For many, walking is just something that happens when we put one foot in front of another. However, it is both a valid mode of transport in its own right, as well as a part of virtually all other journeys, whether by bike, bus, train or car. It brings great benefits – for individuals, for business and for cities.
Yet we are walking less than we used to. The distance people walk has gone down by about a tenth over the past ten years. According to Department of Transport 2017 statistics people in England walk an average of about four miles per week, or just under 200 miles a year. But averages can be misleading: every month, four out of 10 adults aged 40 to 60 in England spend less than 10 minutes walking continuously at a brisk pace. What’s more, nearly a third of all car trips are shorter than two miles. So, there is potential for change.
The mayor’s aim for 2041 is that 80 per cent of Londoners’ trips will be on foot, by cycle, or on public transport.
Public Health England (PHE) is clear about the health benefits of getting every adult active every day. As little as ten minutes of physical activity at a time benefits both bodily and mental health. Persuading inactive people to become more active could prevent one in ten cases of stroke and heart disease in the UK, and one in six cases of death from any cause. It could reduce levels of depression by 30 per cent and reduce the risk of dementia – now the leading cause of death in England and Wales – by 30 per cent. As PHE states, ‘if physical activity were a drug it would be classed as a wonder drug’.
Having healthy streets that encourage active travel is now enshrined in government policy. A key section of the draft London Plan, the capital’s spatial development strategy, is the Healthy Streets Approach, which is designed to improve air quality, reduce congestion and help make the city’s diverse communities greener, healthier and more attractive places to live, work and play. The mayor’s aim for 2041 is that 80 per cent of Londoners’ trips will be on foot, by cycle or on public transport.
This means that development proposals will need patterns of land use that enable residents to make shorter, regular trips by walking or cycling. Specifically, development proposals will need to demonstrate how they support the indicators developed by the Healthy Streets initiative, such as encouraging pedestrians from all walks of life, and creating shade, shelter and places to stop and rest. They will also need to reduce the dominance of vehicles on London’s streets, whether stationary or moving, be permeable by foot and cycle, and connect with local walking and cycling networks as well as public transport. For developers, this means thinking as much about the spaces between developments as the developments themselves. It means creating high-quality, attractive public realm that designs physical activity back into our everyday lives.
Employers are finding that to attract new staff, particularly millennials, they need to be based in vibrant, walkable areas.
The Healthy Streets Approach can reduce air and noise pollution and help combat social isolation. Having people walking through urban spaces also makes those areas safer for others and is a great social leveller. It is people on foot who make urban centres vibrant, and they support economic activity. Transport for London discovered that people who walk to town centres across London spend more per week than those who come by bus, train, tube, bike or car. And employers are increasingly finding that to attract new staff, particularly millennials, they need to be based in vibrant, walkable areas. Companies are therefore starting to incorporate walkability into their building layout, with some having their offices designed to encourage walking.
Samsung’s US headquarters in San Jose, California is based on a walking layout, so employees are never more than a floor away from stepping outside for a walk. Google’s plans for its ‘landscraper’ headquarters at King’s Cross in London include a 200m-long ‘trim trail’ that runs through the roof to enable staff to exercise. Other companies are incorporating a ‘daily mile’ route to encourage employees to get out for a walk; for example, Saga’s group headquarters at Sandgate near Folkestone has a marked-out mile in its grounds that staff can use for a meeting or a stroll at lunchtime.
Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, made a habit of the walking meeting. Anecdotal evidence suggests that such meetings lead to more honest exchanges with employees and are more productive than traditional sit-down sessions.Getting more people walking at work would make for a healthier workforce, and not just by reducing the risk of diseases linked to physical inactivity. Research also shows that absenteeism rates are lower among staff who walk, and that active commuters are better able to concentrate and under less strain than those who travel by car.
Moving towards a walking world requires the transformation of our towns and cities, many of which suffer from being designed around the car. We need to place walkability at the heart of our towns and cities. The walkable city is a city that puts people first and shapes itself in accordance to its citizens’ needs and desires. To address the complexity of the urban issues, a kaleidoscopic set of actions and policies is required, diversified both by nature and dimension.
The starting point is to have a vision and strategy. Urban policies, involving city plans and innovative interventions, can promote a diffused, walkable approach. But this does not have to be a lengthy strategy: Greater Manchester’s recent Made to Move report aims to double and then double again cycling in the conurbation and make walking the natural choice for as many short trips as possible. The city intends to do this by putting people first, creating world-class streets for walking, building one of the world’s best cycle networks, and fostering a culture of cycling and walking, and the document has 15 steps to transform the way people get around.
We need to act to provide safe and efficient transport systems and improve street networks. Examples of such measures include improving walkable connectivity, pedestrianisation, better integration with public transport, reducing vehicle speeds, improving crossings and signage.
We need to create more liveable environments, with improved urban quality and redesigned public space that prioritises people on foot. This can include re-using redundant infrastructure, improving street design and furniture, creating pocket parks, improving micro-climates and having active frontages at street level such as shops and cafes.
We can help to create a sense of place and community that encourages the active and emotional participation of people in everyday life, for example through open-street events, public art, street fairs and inclusive design. Smart and responsive cities also enable us to create playful, interactive environments, providing wayfinding systems, monitoring the city and using digital evaluation tools.
The good news is that we can design physical activity back into our everyday lives by encouraging walking as a daily means of getting around. The measures can range in size from a single parklet to major schemes such as the New York High Line public park, which was created from a former elevated freight-rail line. That means walkability can be improved from today and tomorrow, as we well as in 10 or 20 years’ time.
We can all play a part to help improve walkability in our actions and decisions, as well as by encouraging walking in our businesses and creating walkable places as part of the developments we create in our professional lives.
So, let’s all think more about walking – and as it boosts creativity, what better way to do that than going for a walk? As Nietzsche wrote: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
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Best of times ahead
Aside from being one of the best writers in the history of the written word, Charles Dickens gave us such grand opening lines in his “Tale of Two Cities” that they have been employed in other writing to the point of ridiculousness.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …”
Virtually every writer and critic on the planet knows it’s cliché to use these words, yet there they are time and again, and it’s because they are so easily applied to describe a period’s ups and downs, its successes and failures, as well as its good, its bad and its preposterous.
Pick a year, any year, and we can find examples of all these things with virtually no effort. And that is why for the past 4,000 years or so, humanity has looked at the new year as a clean slate and another chance to get it right.
Historians say the ancient Babylonians were the first to come up with an annual calendar, making the spring equinox the first day of the new year. Julius Caesar oversaw a revamping of the calendar so it was more astronomically correct and set January 1 as the new year’s first day.
Assorted revisions to the calendar occurred over the centuries until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII presided over the creation of what it now known as the Gregorian calendar, which much of the world uses today.
While most of us are not concerned or even aware of whether our timekeeping matches celestial movements, we do believe that having a point when we can hit the reset button and get another opportunity to do better and to get it right is important.
The old year is history, while the new year is hope and resolve. And why we celebrate each new year is because we believe that the best of times lie ahead. | <urn:uuid:5888ebeb-4775-452d-8218-3b05051f6981> | {
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and Sites of interest at Anuradhapura
205 km from Colombo is Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's first
capital founded about the 4th century BC. According to the Mahavansa, the
Sinhala Buddhist chronicle, the city was a model of planning. Precincts
were set aside for huntsmen and scavengers and even heretics and
foreigners. There were hostels and hospitals, separate cemeteries for high
and low castes. A water supply was assured by the construction of
Anuradhapura was to continue for six hundred years as the national
capital. But internecine struggles for the royal succession grew, and it
became more and more vulnerable to the pressures of South Indian political
expansion. The city was finally abandoned and the capital withdrawn to
more secluded areas.
But the monuments of Anuradhapura's heyday survive, surrounded by the
solemn umbrage of trees, scions of an ancient parkland.
This sacred city was established around a
cutting from the "tree of enlightenment", Buddha's fig tree, brought there
in the 3rd century B.C. by Sanghamitta, the founder of an order of
Buddhist nuns. Anuradhapura, a Ceylonese political and religious capital
that flourished for 1,300 years, was abandoned after an invasion in 993.
Hidden away in thick jungle for a long time, the splendid site, with its
palaces, monasteries and monuments, is once again accessible.
World Heritage Site
Anuradhapura has been classed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The following is an extract from a research project by the Bradford University
Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences has found itself
linked with a number of ongoing and new collaborative research projects in
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. One of these projects, working in Sri Lanka,
has been working at the ancient city of Anuradhapura, which is one of UNESCO's World
Heritage Sites. In the summer of 1994 four members of Bradford University, Dr
Robin Coningham, Mr Rob Janaway, Steven Cheshire and Gary Dooney, spent six
weeks working at the site with members of the Government Department of
Archaeology and the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka..
Home to the royal court
Anuradhapura or 'the city of Anura', is the earliest capital of Sri Lanka and
was home to the royal court from 437 BC to 1017 AD. However it is not only a
city, but one of the great centres of Buddhism in South Asia visited by
thousands of pilgrims and tourists each year. The site consists of a central
ten metre high mound covered in jungle, marking the old urban core, surrounded
by over thirty square kilometres of Buddhist monasteries and huge reservoirs.
Amongst the most spectacular of the Buddhist monuments are four great stupas,
solid domes of earth and brick built over a Buddhist relic, which reach heights
of over eighty metres and dominate the landscape of paddy fields and coconut
Work at this World Heritage site has been based on the research orientated
question of how and when the first recognisable urban form emerged in Sri
Lanka. According to most scholars, Anuradhapura was expected to have been
founded in c.250 BC as a direct result of contact with north Indian cities,
which themselves had emerged some two hundred years earlier in the Ganges. The
results of the research project's collaborative work have, however, overturned this belief and
show evidence of the presence of an urban form at the site as early as c.400
BC. This suggests that the mechanism which were responsible for the emergence
of cities in north India were presumably a subcontinental wide phenomena.
Indeed antecedents for the first city at Anuradhapura can now be identified in
its archaeological sequence which stretches as far back as the Iron Age.
Another task of the above-mentioned research project was to help the Government
Department of Archaeology of Sri Lanka to define the full extent of the ancient city so that
it could be adequately protected and managed. This was because there is a major
threat to the site from an encroachment of the site by modern settlements
and farming land. The group due to restraints of time and resourced limited
their research to an archaeological geophysical survey.
Through a combination of old land maps and surviving topography areas were
identified in the surrounding paddyfields where shallow linear depressions suggested
the presence of a silted moat. Areas of jungle were cleared at the edges of the
mound and set up grids which stretched down into the paddyfields and used a
resistivity meter to survey areas on the east, south and north of the mound.
This survey identified substantial anomalies which were then tested with a hand
auger. The auger confirmed that a silted
rock-cut moat some 5 metres deep and 40 metres wide surrounding the city had
been successfully identified. This
work has enabled this UNESCO World Heritage site to be protected and curated.
Another important area of Bradford University's research programme at Anuradhapura has
been in connection with the early
development of writing in South Asia. For over a hundred and fifty years
scholars have believed that the first script was developed c. 250 BC in the
north of the subcontinent as a result of interaction with the Persian empire.
The emergent script was first used a royal medium and then became widely
available for other uses such as helping merchants keep accounts. Following
this initial development in the north it was assumed that the use of this
script slowly spread south until it reached Sri Lanka one hundred years later.
However, the group's work at Anuradhapura has overturned this theory by yielding
evidence that the earliest script, known as Brahmi, was present in Sri Lanka
from as early as c.450 BC. Moreover, there was evidence of a developmental
sequence which saw the script alter in form from large irregular and rather
crude characters to small, well formed ones. This early date of this sequence
suggests the very development and adoption
of the script itself. All the early inscriptions were found inscribed on
ceramic vessel and consist of personal names in the dative cases - signifying
ownership. It is suggested by the researchers that the names do
not necessarily refer to the owner of the ceramic vessel but of the contents.
Ceramic vessels are often used today in Sri Lanka as containers and goods are
often transported in them. It is also suggested that the initial
adoption of a script was connected with a demand for means of ownership to
facilitate long distance trade and exchange and was only later adopted as a
The Bradford University's collaborative work at Anuradhapura in the summer of 1994 has helped to
preserve one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites as well as to strengthen
Bradford's academic links with South Asia.
Ruvanweli Seya Dagoba
The Elephant wall of the great Ruvanweli Seya Dagoba. The
elephants carry the dagoba just like in Buddhist cosmology elephants
Some useful tips and hints to the
tourist to Anuradhapura.....
The ruins of Anuradhapura, the great capital city
from which the Sri Lankan kings reigned for over 1000 years, are spread out, so
if you don't have a car, you have the usual options of taking an expensive taxi,
hiring a bicycle or your using your two feet.
It is recommended that
you around in the Museum first. It'll give you a good insight into the history of the
place, and will show you how all those great monuments were constructed. The
museum caretaker is a very friendly and helpful guy.
The first place to go to
after the Museum, should be the Sri Maha Bodhi, the Bo tree grown from a sapling
of the original tree under which the current Buddha gained enlightenment in
India. The tree has been guarded 24 hours a day for the last 2000 years ! Also
visit the adjacent temple.
After the Bo tree, you can pretty much wander
around at will. Be sure to see the following :
- The Ruvanweli Seya Dagoba
- Considered the greatest dagoba of Anuradhapura. With its 55 meters (180
feet) in height and snowy white colour, it can be quite a hurt to the eyes in
the direct sunlight. Explore the terrace around it. You will also be impressed
by the magnificent
Elephant Wall which carries the
terrace and the dagoba.
- The Thuparama Dagoba
- The oldest dagoba of the country. It is especially noteworthy for the
splendid example of the remains of a vatadage (a mostly wooden construction
covering a dagoba).
- Jetavanarama Dagoba
- The brick Jetavanarama is a mighty sight. It is massive, and there are
enough bricks in it to build a three meter high wall, running all the way from
Edinburgh to London ! Near the dagoba the best executed Guard Stone of the
country can be seen.
- Abhayagiri Dagoba
- One of the oldest dagobas in the country, strongly resembling the
- The Kuttam Pokuna
- Translated : the 'Twin Ponds'. The most beautiful ancient pools of
Anuradhapura, and possibly of the country.
- The Samadhi Buddha
- Don't miss the Samadhi Buddha ! It's one of the best executed Buddha
statues in the country, dating back to the 4th Century. Interesting detail is
that when looked at from the left, the Buddha appears to be smiling, but not
from the right.
- The Ratna Prasada
- There's not much left of this old monastery, but if you want to see some
more excellent guard stones, check out this place.
- Mahasen's Palace
- Here's to be found the best Moonstone of the entire country. A moonstone
is the semicircular stone that is placed on the ground at the entrance to a
- This rock temple (and adjacent museum) is very beautiful and interesting
for the great bas-reliefs that have been found here. Most of them can be found
in the museum, the most important of them the 'Isurumuniya Lovers', but some
are still in place on the living rock, especially noticeable is the depiction
of a joyous, bathing elephant. From the top of the rock, there's a great view
Isurumuniya and its surroundings.
The ruins of Anuradhapura are amidst some
beautiful nature, which will make the visit very enjoyable.
|Dvarapala, vihara near Thuparama dagaba
||Moonstone, vihara near Thuparama dagaba
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Decades ago, before organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving fought to educate the public and get stricter drunk driving laws passed, the annual number of DUI accident deaths was much higher than it is today. In fact, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the yearly number of fatal DUI accidents in the U.S. has been reduced by half since 1980, when MADD was founded.
Education and enforcement are the keys to continuing the reduction in DUI accidents, which still injure far too many people in Ohio each year. That means each new generation of young people, along with their adult counterparts, must be made aware of how drunk driving can devastate lives.
We’re reminded of these important issues after a recent head-on collision on the campus of Kent State University.
The Ohio State Patrol reports that a Kent State student driving a car admitted that she had consumed alcohol and drugs prior to the collision. According to authorities, her car crossed the center line of the road and collided head-on with a Jeep occupied by three men, also Kent State students.
Two of the students in the Jeep were ejected, and they and the young woman were taken to hospitals to be treated for injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening. The third occupant of the Jeep reportedly declined to be treated at the scene.
Educating motorists about the dangers of drunk driving is one important component in making Ohio roads as safe as they can be. Another key aspect of driver education is emphasizing the dangers of distracted driving.
For more on that issue, please see Chester Law Group’s previous post, “Distracted driving accidents are utterly preventable.” | <urn:uuid:f4c0c45a-8c2d-49a3-af85-1d092b6c918c> | {
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Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection is the title of a TED Talk given in March by Reshma Saujani, the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code – a nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in the fields of technology and engineering.
The message is that girls need to be encouraged to be adventurous and take chances – that they shouldn’t be afraid of not being perfect. Psychology Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Lawner didn’t give the talk, but she could have written it.
Lawner and co-authors Harriet S. Mosatche and Susan Matloff-Nieves have written the recently published book: Breaking Through! Helping Girls Succeed in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. And, while the book is not autobiographical, it reflects many of the challenges and experiences Lawner encountered herself as a girl growing up with high academic aspirations – some of them in the fields included in the book’s title and commonly referred to as STEM.
“My parents were always supportive of my varying career choices,” Lawner says, “even when I kept changing my mind. When I was about nine, I wanted to be a molecular biologist. I wasn’t quite sure what that was, but it sounded like fun. I also thought about being an architect, a journalist, a writer and illustrator of children’s books, and a psychologist, like my mom. My parents just told me I needed to choose my high school courses wisely, and find a college where I would fit in.”
And even though Lawner was one of the lucky ones, with parents who encouraged her to explore all sorts of career options,when she took an interdisciplinary course in computer science during her freshman year at Duke University, something that all too typically happens to young women also happened to her.
“The first semester was devoted to the logic behind computer coding. It was the usual lecture class, with periodic quizzes and exams. I did really well. But in the second semester, we had to actually write Java – a programming language – and although I continued to do well on homework and class assignments, a lot of the time the code I wrote just didn’t seem to work.”
When she asked for help from TAs, they invariably found and corrected her errors, seemingly with ease. Lawner says she just assumed that the problems she was encountering were all her ‘fault,’ and she was happy that she hadn’t planned on getting a degree in computer science.
“I thought I just didn’t have the talent for writing code,” she says, “but then I eventually learned that virtually everyone has problems at one time or another – that the slightest deviation can make it seem that the code is all wrong, when sometimes all that is necessary is a minor modification. I also learned that even the boys in my class had occasional problems making their code work, but they didn’t take their failures personally, as I had done. They just tried again!”
As an undergraduate psychology major, Lawner just happened to be taking a course on the psychology of gender at about the same time she was feeling frustrated by her computer class. The psych class was transforming.
“I had always felt math was a strength of mine, and I began to wonder why people like me don’t end up in science. That’s what started me on this quest to find out why there aren’t more women in STEM … whether it’s computer science or engineering or any of the other related fields.”
Tips for helping girls succeed
In Breaking Through! Lawner and her co-authors concentrate on telling parents how they can help their daughters succeed in the STEM fields. Some of their advice is intuitive, such as providing girls with gender-neutral toys, encouraging involvement in science fairs and nature programs, and recognizing that opportunities to experience science, technology, engineering, and math are everywhere.
They say that when girls are asked what they think will happen in a given situation, they are creating a hypothesis; when asked how they’d make something better, they become product engineers, and figuring out how much time commercials take up while watching television gives them non-threatening exercises in math.
But, says Lawner, there are other obstacles to girls entering STEM fields due to gender biases still found in schools and in the media. These are the areas where parental involvement is critical. This may mean getting involved with primary and secondary school curriculum development, working with teachers to assure that girls are given the same exposure to science and math classes as the boys, and stepping in to make sure their daughters learn to stand up – and speak up – for themselves.
Her undergraduate work on the psychology of gender influenced Lawner’s ultimate career choice to pursue a Ph.D. in social psychology. Her current research involves the study of how gender stereotypes affect responses to success or failure in the STEM fields.
And while she doesn’t write Java, she does use the exact same skills to write code/syntax for statistical analysis programs such as R and SPSS that she needs for her research. So that early coding class really did pay off.
By: Sheila Foran | Story courtesy of UConn Today | <urn:uuid:4adb7456-78d3-453c-8896-f979d28f798b> | {
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When is it safe to turn the child seat to face forward?Posted on Mar 12, 2010
When children are in a Washington car accident the forces they experience are more extreme when in a forward facing car seat. Impact forces can jerk a child's head away from their immature bodies causing injuries to the spine. While rear-facing seats are safer because the entire back of the body absorbs the impact force.
Children are safer if they remain in rear-facing car seats until the upper height and weight limits of their car seat. Many seats top out at 35 lbs. in the rear-facing position, which many children don't reach under they are 3-4 years old. Current AAP and NTHSA guidelines state its okay to turn the car seat to forward facing when kids are 1 year old and weigh at least 20 lbs.
A 2007 article in Injury Prevention showed that U.S. children are five times less likely to be injured in a car crash between their 1st and 2nd birthdays if in a rear-facing car seat. The study found that its rare to find spine injuries in accidents with kids in rear-facing seats. The vast majority of serious injuries where seen in crashes with kids in forward-facing car seats.
Don't view switching the seat around as a rite of passage, which is common for parents. Instead be slow to switch and only when necessary. Switching from rear-facing to forward-facing to booster all result in the loss of some safety, so only switch when necessary. | <urn:uuid:4f418e35-ff23-447b-a8a3-012949ecca9b> | {
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February 1997 Issue
Recent E. coli Outbreak Spurs Change for "Fresh" Juices
Q. I heard fresh juice is no longer safe to drink. Is that true? A. You're probably referring to a highly publicized E. coli outbreak from juice that occurred in October, sickening dozens of people and killing one child. Not surprisingly, it has intensified concerns about the safety of freshthat is, unpasteurizedjuice, which is certainly riskier than pasteurized juice, particularly for specific groups of people. A large fresh juice manufacturer, Odwalla, of Half
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While dogs have always been a popular subject to write about, because of their warmth and gentleness, they're not often regarded as the bravest of animals. Then again, not many dogs can be combat canines, leading the way to war. In National Geographic magazine's June issue, the cover story is called Hero Dogs, A Soldier's Best Friend. Layka, the proud dog featured on the cover, was recently recognized by an Air Force unit for her heroics in Afghanistan. The 3-year-old Belgian Malinois was dispatched to inspect a building for explosives and search for enemy combatants. She was ambushed, receiving several gunshot wounds to the abdomen and right front leg. Despite being gravely wounded, she protected the lives of her team by attacking and subduing the assailant. Though she did not pass away, her injuries were so severe, that doctors had to amputate one of her legs.
"What these dogs do, day in and day out, is phenomenal. They do save lives. Layka was shot and still attacked the person shooting her. She's been through a lot, and what she did is nothing less than heroic," stated Maj. Jason Harris, 341st TRS commander who presented Lyka with a medal of heroism.
You can read more inspiring stories of war dogs at National Geographic. Here are a few excerpts:
"At the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military had a force of roughly 2,500 military working dogs (MWDs). Some have entered our national lexicon as heroes in their own right..."
"This age-old bond between man and dog is the essence of our fascination with these teams: The human reliance on superior animal senses—dogs are up to 100,000 times more alert to smells than humans are. The seriousness of the serviceman’s endeavor, in contrast to the dog’s heedless joy at being on the hunt or at play. The selflessness and loyalty of handler and dog in putting themselves in harm’s way—one wittingly and one unwittingly—to save lives."
Above: Marine Cpl. John Dolezal poses with Cchaz, a Belgian Malinois, at Twentynine Palms in California. Dogs bred at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the military’s primary canine facility, are given names that begin with a double letter.
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Kristopher Knight conditions Ronnie to the sound of gunfire at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, so that the dog will learn to remain calm during firefight. Some trainers don turbans, play calls to prayer, and bring in farm animals to prepare dogs for the sights, sounds, and smells of Afghanistan.
Sergeant Cartwright has Isaac sniff for weapons and explosives in a basement in Kandahar. A dog is trained to sit or lie down and not bark when it locates a target scent. The handler rewards the dog by letting it chew on its toy.
Army Staff Sgt. Jason Cartwright bonds with his Labrador retriever, Isaac, during a mission to disrupt a Taliban supply route. Dogs are very sensitive to their handlers’ emotions. Says Jay Crafter, a trainer for the military, “If you’re having a bad day, your dogis going to have a bad day.”
Sergeant Bourgeois clips Oopey’s toenails before a mission in Afghanistan. Handlers care for their dogs’ every need, learning canine CPR as well as how to spot canine post-traumatic stress disorder, which afflicts some 5 percent of deployed dogs.
Eliana and Jose Armenta relax with their Boston terriers, Oreo and Sassy, and their German shepherd, Zenit. A retired Marine dog handler, Jose lost his legs in an IED blast while on patrol with Zenit. In 2012 he adopted Zenit. “Dogs complete our family,” he says, a family soon to include a baby.
National Geographic website
Photo credit: © Adam Ferguson/National Geographic | <urn:uuid:9dfba5a6-34fe-476a-ad95-0694313fe474> | {
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1. Eat a healthy, balanced diet. Fatty foods break down and create ketones, a byproduct of fat that sits in your stomach and ferments; the odor of ketones then come back up through your esophagus and can stick to your tongue. That's why it's important to add healthy carbs like broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, and fresh fruits into your diet, which balance out the fats and promote better breath.
3. Snack on more apples or any other crunchy, healthy foods. The hard texture of apples, celery, carrots, etc., can remove food caught between your teeth and rub away bacteria that sit on them, creating that "sweater" feeling when you run your tongue over your teeth. Hard, crunchy foods act like a natural toothbrush.
4. Drink lots of water. H2O lubricates your mouth, keeping bacteria at bay, and also keeps your body functioning normally. Bottled sports drinks, sodas, and some bottled iced teas are preserved with citric acid, which not only contributes to bad breath but wears away the enamel on your teeth. Soda is even more acidic and can literally take paint off wall, so lower your intake of drinks of the sort and replace them will good, old water.
5. Drink more green juice and less coffee. Green juice contains low levels of acid, while coffee contains high amounts, which can lead to bad breath. And keeping your body at an alkaline level rather than an acidic level will make it function better overall.
6. Chew on fresh mint leaves or parsley. If you want to naturally freshen your breath, stash one of these herbs in a sandwich bag and take them to go. The mint will help freshen your breath and up your greens intake, and the parsley contains chlorophyll, Dr. Jablow says, which works against the creation of volatile sulphur compounds, aka the rotten egg smell (caused by hydrogen sulfide) and the barnyard smell (caused by methyl mercaptan).
7. Eat yogurt. Probiotics, which are in foods like yogurt, give you the proper enzymes you need to break down foods sufficiently and decrease the chance of food fermenting in your stomach. They help you get all the nutrients out of your food as well.
8. Brush and floss every single day. Sure, flossing is an extra step, but it's an important one. Brushing your teeth helps eradicate the plaque and bacteria on your teeth, but flossing helps dislodge anything that your toothbrush couldn't get to. If you don't floss regularly, the food in between your teeth will feed the bacteria in your mouth, and the more nutrients you give the bacteria, the more the bacteria will give off stinky acids that cause bad breath.
9. Clean your tongue. Bacteria stick to your taste buds, then release a waste byproduct that causes a gross stench. When you use a tongue scraper or brush your tongue, you remove any bacteria, byproducts from the bacteria, or plaque that form.
"It's also important to pick up an alcohol-free mouthwash with a zinc compound in it, since zinc kills the volatile sulphur compounds," Dr. Jablow says. She recommends from her oral care product line Intelliwhite IntelliFresh Oral Rinse Fusion, which also contains peroxide that kills the bacteria that sits under the gum line.
11. Chew sugarless gum that contains xylitol. Chewing gum increases salivary flow and helps remove some bacteria and staining, but you want to make it's sugar-free so you're not feeding the bacteria in your mouth and contributing to bad breath. Opt for a brand that contains the sweetener xylitol, which is antibacterial. It helps fight cavities and bacteria while improving the health of your teeth and gums. Try SuperSmile Whitening Gum With Xylitol.
12. Pop a breath gel in your purse. If you have temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders (TMJ) and can't chew gum, use an on-the-go breath gel with xylitol to freshen you breath in a snap. Try IntelliWhite IntelliFresh Breath Gel — it contains xylitol, zinc chloride, eucalyptol, and vitamin C, which all promote healthy gum tissue on top of keeping your breath fresh. You can also opt for mints that contain the same ingredients for fresher breath. Try Spry Xylitol Mints.
13. Steer clear of cigarettes. You already know all the reasons cigarettes are super, super bad for you, but here's another reason never to smoke: Smoking not only dries out your mouth and body tissues, the nicotine actually squeezes the blood vessels so you're not getting healthy saliva flow. This combo is what disrupts your mouth's normal functioning process and leads to bad breath. To avoid this from happening, stop smoking or never start. Ever.
14. Apply flavored lipgloss. This isn't going to turn your garlic breath into the most amazing-smelling breath ever, but it will help mask the odor until you get the chance to brush and floss your teeth.
15. Visit your dentist regularly. Especially if your bad breath isn't going away and you've tried all of the above, since you could be dealing with something more serious.
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André, my name is Isabelle, do you get homesick? Over...
Space is not all high-tech. Standard radios operated by amateur enthusiasts can be used to communicate with the International Space Station. ESA astronaut André Kuipers talked to children this week using handheld-radios.
Students, aged 11–14, from three international schools in the Netherlands were invited to submit a question they would like to ask André.
ARISS, or Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, is an organisation that promotes contact with the Space Station through basic radio technology. Volunteers set up the radio contact yesterday between André and the students in the Erasmus Centre of ESA’s technical site in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
Since the Space Station circles Earth at over 28 000 km an hour, only ten minutes of direct radio contact are available at a time, after which it flies out of range.
The tension grew as the Station flew into range of a home-built relay station in northern Italy. Everything went as planned and reception was loud and clear as André used his call sign ‘PI9ISS’ to make contact.
André had time to answer almost all the children’s questions. He replied to Isabelle Meyers from the American School of The Hague: “It is so special here in the Space Station, the floating and the view of Earth is so fantastic that I do not get homesick.”
Listen to the full radio contact by clicking on the play button.
The schoolchildren and André used the same technology as in normal walkie-talkies. Radio waves travel easily over thousands of kilometres, whereas the Space Station orbits Earth at around 400 km above sea level.
Radio contact is one way to interest students in the science used in everyday technology. A teacher from The British School in the Netherlands explained: “This event brought the concepts behind radio waves down to Earth. This practical demonstration was easy for the kids to understand.”
Before speaking with André, the schools introduced themselves and the work they are doing for science class.
Students demonstrated cars powered by mousetraps, tested the tensile strength of plastic shopping bags and explained radio waves by asking the audience to participate in a ‘Mexican wave’ and by using springs.
The opportunity to speak with an astronaut highlights how spaceflight is inspiring children to consider a career in science, while illustrating the principles behind everyday phenomena.
More than 700 school contacts have been made in the 11 years that ARISS has been involved with the Space Station. Any school can sign up to have a ten-minute contact with an astronaut using the link to the right. | <urn:uuid:21797168-e24c-4fbe-bb35-20bf719755fe> | {
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What if Charles Babbage's steam-powered computational engines had actually been built in the 1840s, bringing modern processing power online in the Victorian era? If the fantastic automobiles, airships and submarines imagined by Jules Verne had ushered in an age of high-tech adventure 100 years before such technological marvels became possible? The sub-cultural movement known as Steampunk is based upon just such musings, and it's gaining adherents by the day.
Self-styled "contraptors" like Richard Nagy and Jake Von Slatt take Steampunk's Neo-Victorian, clockwork aesthetic and apply it to their various hand-crafted creations, among the most prominent of which are contemporary computers custom modified, or modded, to look like artifacts from an age when form was at least as important as function. Von Slatt's lovingly crafted "Victorian All-in-One PC," shown here, is a prime example. But Steampunk isn't just an old-timey look slapped onto modern technology, says Ann VanderMeer, co-editor with her husband Jeff of "Steampunk," an anthology of Victorian-inspired fiction.
"Steampunk is much more than an aesthetic," says VanderMeer, who is both an award-winning publisher and software manager at a leading computer company. "It's also about putting your hands on something that you've made yourself. It's not simply a wide-eyed nostalgia for another time, but more about being more closely connected to what you create." | <urn:uuid:a3ae71de-1a8e-4717-8c6d-70ad783d136e> | {
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Adolescence, these years from puberty to adulthood, may be roughly divided into three stages: early adolescence, generally ages eleven to fourteen; middle adolescence, ages fifteen to seventeen; and late adolescence, ages eighteen to twenty-one. In addition to physiological growth, seven key intellectual, psychological and social developmental tasks are squeezed into these years. The fundamental purpose of these tasks is to form one’s own identity and to prepare for adulthood.
Puberty is defined as the biological changes of adolescence. By mid-adolescence, if not sooner, most youngsters’ physiological growth is complete; they are at or close to their adult height and weight, and are now physically capable of having babies.
Most boys and girls enter adolescence still perceiving the world around them in concrete terms: Things are either right or wrong, awesome or awful. They rarely set their sights beyond the present, which explains younger teens’ inability to consider the long-term consequences of their actions.
By late adolescence, many youngsters have come to appreciate subtleties of situations and ideas, and to project into the future. Their capacity to solve complex problems and to sense what others are thinking has sharpened considerably. But because they are still relatively inexperienced in life, even older teens apply these newfound skills erratically and therefore may act without thinking.
If teenagers can be said to have a reason for being (besides sleeping in on weekends and cleaning out the refrigerator), it would have to be asserting their independence. This demands that they distance themselves from Mom and Dad. The march toward autonomy can take myriad forms: less overt affection, more time spent with friends, contentious behavior, pushing the limits—the list goes on and on. Yet adolescents frequently feel conflicted about leaving the safety and security of home. They may yo-yo back and forth between craving your attention, only to spin away again.
Until now, a child’s life has revolved mainly around the family. Adolescence has the effect of a stone dropped in water, as her social circle ripples outward to include friendships with members of the same sex, the opposite sex, different social and ethnic groups, and other adults, like a favorite teacher or coach. Eventually teenagers develop the capacity for falling in love and forming romantic relationships.
Not all teenagers enter and exit adolescence at the same age or display these same behaviors. What’s more, throughout much of adolescence, a youngster can be farther along in some areas of development than in others. For example, a fifteen-year-old girl may physically resemble a young adult but she may still act very much like a child since it isn’t until late adolescence that intellectual, emotional and social development begin to catch up with physical development.
Is it any wonder that teenagers sometimes feel confused and conflicted, especially given the limbo that society imposes on them for six to ten years, or longer? Prior to World War II, only about one in four youngsters finished high school. It was commonplace for young people still in their teens to be working full-time and married with children. Today close to three in four youngsters receive high-school diplomas, with two in five graduates going on to college. “As more and more teens have extended their education,” says Dr. Joseph Rauh, a specialist in adolescent medicine since the 1950s, “the age range of adolescence has been stretched into the twenties.”
Reflect back on your own teenage years, and perhaps you’ll recall the frustration of longing to strike out on your own—but still being financially dependent on Mom and Dad. Or striving to be your own person—yet at the same time wanting desperately to fit in among your peers.
Adolescence can be a confusing time for parents, too. For one thing, they must contend with their children’s often paradoxical behavior. How is it that the same son given to arias about saving the rain forest has to be nagged repeatedly to sort the recycling? Or that in the course of an hour your daughter can accuse you of treating her “like a baby,” then act wounded that you would expect her to clear the table after dinner?
But beyond learning to anticipate the shifting currents of adolescent emotion, mothers and fathers may be struggling with some conflicting emotions of their own. The pride you feel as you watch your youngster become independent can be countered by a sense of displacement. As much as you may accept intellectually that withdrawing from one’s parents is an integral part of growing up, it hurts when the child who used to beg to join you on errands now rarely consents to being seen in public with you, and then only if the destination is a minimum of one area code away.
It’s comforting to know that feeling a sense of loss is a normal response—one that is probably shared by half the moms and dads standing next to you at soccer practice. For pediatricians, offering guidance and advice to parents makes up a considerable and rewarding part of each day. | <urn:uuid:99f5d37c-e292-4d66-bb8c-2d1e58e47bb5> | {
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Bermuda is a tiny British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean, some 600 miles from the East Coast of the United States (population: 64,700). Even though Bermuda is 1000 miles from the Caribbean Sea, there are a number of sociological similarities between Bermuda and the Caribbean island nations; it is an associate member of the Caribbean Community. Its economy, much like the Cayman Islands and The Bahamas, is largely based on finance and tourism, and it likewise enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world.
According to the 2000 census, Bermuda is 54.8% black and 34.1% white. IQ and the Wealth of Nations (2002) did not include intelligence data for Bermuda, but IQ and Global Inequality (2006) reported an IQ of 90, as the average of two studies. In this post I discuss some overlooked data which suggest that Bermudian blacks have an IQ that is very close to 100, and that there is no IQ gap between black and white Bermudians. There is also some overlooked test data which suggest otherwise, and we are left with some uncertainty over the meaning of the conflicting research.
Sandra Scarr is one of the very few social scientists to offer serious, original research into the causes of race differences in intelligence. Her Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study might be the single best empirical work on the topic. She also, improbably, managed to remain mostly respectable among other social scientists by walking a careful line with her hereditarianism. In her tribute to Arthur Jensen, she admitted that this acrobatic feat involved summarizing her own research in ways that weren’t entirely scrupulous:
My colleagues and I reported the [MTRAS] data accurately and as fully as possible, and then tried to make the results palatable to environmentally committed colleagues. In retrospect, this was a mistake … We should have been agnostic on the conclusions. (Scarr, 1998)
Indeed, Scarr’s research on race is cited by her “environmentally committed colleagues” just as readily as it’s cited by Jensenists. Part of this is because the new behavioral genetic methods for examining race differences were so crude, that her results were ambiguous and open to conflicting interpretations.
But one of Scarr’s findings has fallen into obscurity, and hasn’t been cited by environmentalists or hereditarians. The only rhetorical use of this finding was by Scarr (1987), in which she boasted about her contributions to the non-genetic theory of black-white IQ differences:
…In 1967, I began a program of research that continues today, employing five previously unused strategies to study the sources of racial differences in intellectual performance: (1) studies of individual differences within the U.S. black population by the twin method; (2) the study of genetic markers of degrees of African ancestry and their relation to intellectual differences within the U.S. black population; (3) the study of transracial adoption, with Richard Weinberg, by which socially classified black children are reared in the cultural environment sampled by the tests and the school; (4) cross-cultural studies in which black children are or are not socially disadvantaged; and (5) educational intervention programs with young children to test idea about reaction range and malleability. Evidence against a racial genetic hypothesis … has come from all five sources. (p. 222)
Evidence for the racial genetic hypothesis also comes from all five sources. Scarr proceeds to describe her cross-cultural evidence against the genetic hypothesis:
In Bermuda, we found that black children have IQ scores at the norm for white children in the United States at age 2; at age 4 their average IQ score is 99, and by sixth grade they score 2 years above U.S. white children in vocabulary, reading, and math on the California Achievement Test, a culturally loaded instrument to be sure! These findings amazed Bermudian officials as much as us.
Results from cognitive tests before the age of 3 are more often described as Developmental Quotients (DQs) rather the Intelligence Quotients (IQs), because these scores are influenced by non-cognitive dimensions like motor development. While white children typically score higher than black children on some test measures, like vocabulary, before the age of 2, black children often match or exceed white children on developmental cognitive tests (Bayley, 1965). But African-American deficits on IQ tests are large by the age of 3 (Peoples et al, 1995), so if Bermudian children are, in fact, exceeding white American children on cognitive tests at age 4, that is certainly an underappreciated challenge for hereditarians. Unfortunately, Scarr provided no citations in her article, and when I first read this article (2004-ish), Google Scholar and Google Books weren’t around to help me search for this Bermudian mystery study. However, several years later, in 2007, I found a different study, which strongly supported Scarr’s assertion.
Bermuda and The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey
“Literacy” is typically measured as a binary trait: either you can read or you can’t read. Lynn and Vanhanen (2006) correlate this kind of literacy with national IQ in IQ and Global Inequality:
The adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement related to their everyday life (Human Development Report, 2002, p. 272). Statistical data on adult literacy are in most cases estimations, which may be based on censuses or school enrollment statistics. (p. 82)
The correlation between national IQ and literacy is 0.66 (p. 103). But their data show that some undeveloped nations with the lowest IQs have high literacy levels. The ability to read and write is something that humans appear to be capable of across the entire nonpathological spectrum of IQ differences, but this does not preclude qualitative differences in literacy:
According to our hypothesis, differences in national IQs may explain a significant part of the contemporary global inequalities in literacy, although it is quite possible that, ultimately, the adult literacy rate will rise to near 100 percent in all societies. It should be taken into account, however, that there may be significant differences in the quality of literacy between countries, although the percentages are the same. (p. 111)
“Quality of literacy”, like the phrase “quality of schooling” used in some economics papers, is really a euphemism for ability differences. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has already created these kinds of “functional literacy” tests for national and international comparisons. Linda Gottfredson (2002) makes the argument that these tests are “a surrogate measure of g” (pp. 359-367). The tests are not measuring the ability to read (performance does not improve when the questions are delivered orally) but core mental faculties such as comprehension and reasoning:
… the [Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey] defines skills along a continuum of proficiency. There is no arbitrary standard distinguishing adults who have or do not have skills. For example, many previous studies have distinguished between adults who are either “literate” or “illiterate”. Instead, the ALL study conceptualizes proficiency along a continuum and this is used to denote how well adults use information to function in society and the economy. (Desjardins et al., 2005, p. 15)
Americans were surveyed with the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) in the early 1990s, and large samples were subsequently tested in nearly 30 countries with its modification, the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL), another international successor to the NALS, is a comparison of representative adult population samples in 6 world regions: Bermuda, Canada, Italy, the United States, Norway, Switzerland, and Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
The four ALL sub-tests are prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem solving.
Bermuda gave a strong performance on the ALL, placing third, behind Norway and Switzerland. Bermuda’s scores were slightly ahead of Canada and the United States, and far ahead of Italy and Nuevo Leon.
Three of these nations—the US, Italy, and Norway—also participated in the TIMSS 2003 international achievement test, which included our “Greenwich IQ”, the United Kingdom. Using these three nations as a bridge between the two tests, gives us an Achievement Quotient (AQ) of 99 for Bermuda. (Table I below.)
Table I: Achievement test scores in Bermuda
|2003||A||16-65||2696||ALL||99||Desjardins et al., 2005|
Should the functional literacy test count as an achievement test or an intelligence test? At the very least the ALL and PISA include problem solving sub-tests that are not obviously related to learned material. These sub-tests seemingly have a greater conceptual claim on intelligence than, say, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the 10 item WORDSUM test from the GSS, or even a number of the sub-tests from the Wechsler tests. From a psychometric standpoint, these tests are also better constructed for international comparisons (e.g. more thoroughly checked and corrected for test bias). I will nevertheless classify them as achievement tests for now since they are not validated or popularly recognized as intelligence tests among specialists. But the ALL certainly still qualifies as evidence that Bermuda has an intelligence level comparable to Western Europe and its global diaspora.
Furthermore, the ALL classified Bermudians and Americans according to race, which allows us to see the functional literacy scores of blacks and whites in both nations on the same test. (Riley, 2006, p. 11 ; Rivera-Batiz, 2008, p. 16 ). Black-white gap? Nope. Table II shows the Achievement Quotients for all four groups, normalized against the UK TIMSS results. The U.S. gap is .74 SD, while the Bermuda gap is an invisible .03 SD.
It is perhaps noteworthy, though, that the subtest scores still show a pattern familiar in cross-cultural testing: Bermudian blacks scored highest on verbal, lower on numeracy, and lowest on abstract thinking. The only statistically significant difference between blacks and whites in the Bermuda sample was that whites scored higher on problem solving (likely the most g loaded subtest).
John Loehlin once noted that even though fullscale IQ scores did not vary with ancestry in Sandra Scarr’s crude admixture study (Scarr et al, 1977), the subtest patterns did, in fact, show a genetic correlation. Black ancestry correlated with memory performance, while white ancestry correlated with abstract problem solving (Loehlin 2000, pp.187-188). Compare this with the international sub-test patterns:
African blacks show the same test profile as US and Jamaican blacks, for example with strengths on perceptual and short term memory tasks and weakness on tests of abstract reasoning (this is for matched total IQ, remember).
The ALL survey also shows that functional literacy is strongly related to income and education in all the nations. Additionally, the data reveal no sex difference in Bermuda.
Finally, the ALL survey shows performance differences among adults aged 16-65. The average ALL score increases between the two cohorts roughly born between 1947 and 1982 by 7.46 AQ points (this is further evidence that the ALL is an intelligence test, since math and reading tests have not been shown to exhibit performance gains). This is also close to the 0.3 IQ points per year inflation rate shown on standard intelligence tests. Bermuda and the United States show the smallest score gains of the seven nations (6.51 and 3.48 points, respectively). Bermudian scores have even dipped somewhat among the youngest cohort (Riley, 2006, p. vi ).
(I can find nothing to suggest that Scarr’s California Achievement Test data for Bermuda has ever been published. But, at least through the 1980s and into part of the 1990s, the CAT was routinely administered to all the government school children in Bermuda. There is no good reason to reject Scarr’s assertion that Bermudian middle schoolers exceeded American children on this test of reading and mathematics.)
Intelligence Test Results From Bermuda
Lynn first summarized Bermudian data in IQ and Global Inequality (2006, p. 311):
Bermuda. A study by Sandoval, Zimmerman, and Woo–Sam (1983) reported an IQ of 88 for a sample of 161 7–11-year-old children in Bermuda tested with the WISC–R. Scarr and McCartney (1988) have reported a study of 125 4 year-olds given the Stanford Binet. The sample was approximately representative of the racial mix, consisting of 61 percent Africans and 37 percent Europeans (Phillips’, 1996). The IQ of the sample was 92. The average of the two studies gives an IQ of 90 for Bermuda.
Sandoval et al. (1983 ) take their data from an unpublished doctoral dissertation (Astwood, 1974). I have requested this document from its University library, and I will update this post in the future if it contains any data unreported by Sandoval. Lynn incorrectly reports the sample size from this paper, which is 92, not 161. He also incorrectly reports the IQ, which is 89, not 88. Sandoval et al, analyze the verbal subtest responses for item difficulty bias, and conclude that the test is fair for use in Bermuda.
Sandra Scarr and Kathleen McCartney collaborated on several different studies in Bermuda, which used different samples of children. The first published IQ data comes from McCartney et al (1982 ). The purpose of this research was to study the effects of day care quality on child outcomes. Bermuda was chosen as an ideal environment for examining this issue, because most Bermudian children are raised in common day care facilities for the majority of the day while their parents work (50% were found to be enrolled in day care in the first year of life, 84% by age 2, and 90% by age 3). Additionally, the parents choose day care facilities based on proximity to their workplace, and not on reputation or quality. Both of these help filter out unknown selection effects that might contaminate typical day care studies. 159 Children who had attended 9 different day care centers since infancy were tested at age 4 with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. Their guardians (almost all mothers) were also given the same test. 130 of the children were black, 21 were white, and 7 were Portuguese.
The IQ of the children was 82.8, and the IQ of the mothers was 85. Data are not reported by race, but the authors state that “White mothers scored higher on the PPVT” (p. 138), and mother’s IQ was highly correlated with mother’s ethnicity (.33). For comparison, the correlation between race and Wordsum IQ is .22 in the General Social Survey. The authors find that the mother’s race is highly correlated with child IQ, while day care variables are not:
Age of entry into group care and number of hours spent in group care in the first three to four years of life had no significant effect of [sic] PPVT scores, nor did differences in the qualities of the day care environments (p. 140)
Scarr & McCartney (1988 ) report Bermudian data for the Mother-Child Home Program. This is an experiment where trained teachers visit mothers at their home dozens of times over a period of two years and tell them ways to play and interact with their children that are hypothetically beneficial for IQ development.
Lynn reports a sample size of 125 for this study. But some of the children dropped out or died, so the child sample is actually 117. Further, the mothers were also tested with the vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, so there is additional data here for 117 more people. Lynn reports an IQ of 92, but the IQ scores reported in this paper are nowhere close to this number. The SBIS IQs are actually reported as 106.6 for the treatment group and 103.1 for the control group (p. 539). If we apply a Flynn adjustment of 2 points, this gives us an IQ of 101 for the control group. The maternal scores on the WAIS subtest were significantly lower (see Table III). The MCHP treatment program showed no significant effects on child intelligence.
Scarr’s third and largest IQ study on the island, in cooperation with the Bermuda government, involved testing nearly every 2 and 4 year old with the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. This was the Islandwide Screening, Assessment, and Treatment Program. 1020 children were tested, representing some 86% of children in the targeted age range on the entire island. This is almost certainly the study Scarr was referring to in her 1987 editorial, but the full data from this study was never published.
Data from smaller subsamples of this screening program are reported by Scarr et al (1994 ). 75.5% of Bermudian children passed the screening assessment for cognitive and language disabilities (p. 206). The SBIS IQs of a small random sample who passed screening was 102.5. 10.1% of children failed the screen for cognitive disability. The average IQ of two small intervention groups who failed the cognitive screening was 82. 14.4% of the children failed the screen for language disability. The average IQ of two small intervention groups who failed the language screening was 92. A weighted average of these subsamples gives us an IQ of 100 for Bermuda—very close to the value reported by Scarr (1987). However, the Stanford-Binet norms used by these researchers were outdated by 12 years, and there is no indication the reported data were corrected for this. A Flynn adjustment of -3.6 points gives us a somewhat lower IQ of 96.
These 4 studies give us 8 IQ samples for Bermuda (Table III). A weighted average of the 6 normal samples gives us an IQ of 89 for Bermuda.
Table III: IQ test scores in Bermuda
|1980||A||4||159||PPVT||83||McCartney et al, 1982|
|1975||A||7-11||92||WISC-R||89||Sandoval et al, 1983|
|1978||SA||4||78||SBIS||104||Scarr & McCartney, 1988|
|1985||A||4||108||SBIS||96||Scarr et al, 1994|
My own IQ average for Bermuda is actually a little lower than Richard Lynn’s. The weighted average would obviously be higher if Sandra Scarr would’ve published her data from the islandwide screening of Bermudian children. I have requested unpublished numbers from Scarr (who has so far ignored my emails), but I’m not going to freely extrapolate study details from the vague claims in her 1987 article (which doesn’t even clearly indicate she is referring to the data from the screening project). But even assuming that Scarr’s 99 IQ claim was for the islandwide screening sample (N=1020), the deviation IQs from this project reported by Scarr, et al (1994 ) do not suggest a Flynn correction was made for the outdated Stanford-Binet norms. This correction would actually give us an IQ of 95 for the screening project, and the weighted average IQ for Bermuda would still only be 92. Given the approximate demographics of the island, this would be consistent with a white IQ of 100 and a black IQ of 88.
The ALL adult literacy scores are a significant obstacle to this interpretation. This test is seemingly more like an IQ test than an achievement test, and the study is so much larger and better conducted than all the other intelligence studies that it feels like it should be weighted accordingly. On the other hand, we might somewhat reconcile the conflicting data points if we assume the ALL is an achievement test. Large IQ-achievement test discrepancies were also found for Cuba and the Dominican Republic (Which is not to imply that these discrepancies aren’t a huge problem as well). This would also be consistent with Sandra Scarr’s (unverifiable) claim that Bermudian sixth graders were outscoring US norms on the California Achievement Test during the 1980s.
The lack of race differences in the ALL are yet another problem. The ALL showed no Bermudian race differences in functional literacy, even among 60 year olds. However, there are large sociological gaps between blacks and whites in Bermuda, much as there is in the United States (I don’t intend to summarize non-cognitive gaps in my HVGIQ series, but a detailed review of black-white differences in Bermuda can be found in (Mincy et al, 2009 ). A more recent and concise summary can be read here: an article from a major Bermuda newspaper). There are large B-W differences in earnings, crime, employment, and educational attainment in Bermuda. It seems implausible that all the same racial gaps would show up in Bermuda and the US, and yet have almost completely opposite causes. (Of course, someone might similarly argue that this makes discrimination-type explanations more plausible for both places!)
Further, even though the precise gaps were not reported, race was the strongest predictor of IQ scores in McCartney et al, 1982 (p. 138 ). Which brings us back to the question of why five out of six samples showed the IQ scores that one would more reasonably expect for an island that is two-thirds black and one-third white. Given this and the large B-W social disparities in Bermuda, I’m inclined to accept these results over the ALL, but I confess to a significant amount of uncertainty over all these conflicting test scores.
Astwood, N.C. (1974). A comparison of American and Bermudian children on the Wechsler intelligence scale for children-revised. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Adelphi University, USA.
Bayley, N. (1965). Comparisons of mental and motor test scores for ages 1-15 months by sex, birth order, race, geographical location, and education of parents. Child Development, 379-411.
Gottfredson, L.S. (2002). g: Highly general and highly practical. In R.J. Sternberg & E.L. Grigorenko (Eds.), The general factor of intelligence: How general is it? (pp. 331-380). Mahwah, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Loehlin, J.C. (2000). Group differences in intelligence. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of Intelligence (pp. 176-193). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McCartney, K., Scarr, S., Phillips, D., Grajek, S., & Schwarz, J.C. (1982). Environmental differences among day care centers and their effects on children’s development. In E.F. Zigler & E.W. Gordon (Eds.), Day care: Scientific and social policy issues (pp. 126-151). Boston, USA: Auburn House.
Mincy, R.B., Jethwani-Keyser, M., & Haldane, E. (2009). A Study of Employment, Earnings, and Educational Gaps between Young Black Bermudian Males and their Same-Age Peers. NY, USA: Columbia University School of Social Work.
Peoples, C. E., Fagan III, J. F., & Drotar, D. (1995). The influence of race on 3-year-old children’s performance on the Stanford-Binet. Intelligence, 21, 69-82.
Scarr, S. (1987). Three cheers for behavior genetics: Winning the war and losing our identity. Behavior Genetics, 17, 219-228.
Scarr, S. (1998). On Arthur Jensen’s integrity. Intelligence, 26, 227-232.
Scarr, S., Pakstis, A.J., Katz, S.H., & Barker, W.B. (1977). Absence of a relationship between degree of White ancestry and intellectual skills within a Black population. Human genetics, 39, 69-86. | <urn:uuid:7307f495-263d-4688-8550-9cc041ae244f> | {
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Sources conflict as to how this triangular parcel at Broadway, Columbus Avenue, and West 63rd Street became parkland. It may have been acquired from John A. Bunting in 1852, or it may have been acquired as a public place by condemnation in 1868. For many years the site and the parcel to its north were both considered part of Empire Park. The two parcels were eventually separated into two parks. The north portion of Empire Park became Richard Tucker Triangle, and in 1921 the south portion of Empire Park was officially renamed by the Board of Aldermen for Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).
Italy's greatest poet, Dante Alighieri was born to a noble Florentine family. After the death of his beloved Beatrice in 1290, he immersed himself in the study of philosophy and Provençal poetry. In 1302 Dante was banished from Florence for his political views and became a citizen of Italy. While in exile, he composed The Divine Comedy, the first vernacular poetic masterpiece. It tells the tale of the poet's journey from Hell to Heaven, presenting a changeless universe ordered by God. Through The Divine Comedy and his many other works, Dante established Tuscan as the literary language of Italy and gave rise to a great body of literature.
The New York branch of the Dante Alighieri Society had intended to erect a Dante monument on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Italian unification in 1912. Carlo Barsotti, editor of Il Progresso (the first Italian daily newspaper in the United States), urged subscribers to contribute towards the creation the statue. He had already raised funds for four other New York City monuments honoring Italians: Giuseppe Garibaldi (c. 1888) in Washington Square, Christopher Columbus (1892) in Columbus Circle, Giuseppe Verdi (1906) in Verdi Square, and Giovanni da Verrazano (1909) in Battery Park. Sculptor Ettore Ximenes, however, did not complete the statue until 1921. The monument was dedicated that year, which was the 600th anniversary of Dante's death. In the early 1990s the Radisson Empire Hotel funded the conservation and repair of the sculpture and sponsored horticultural improvements and public programs in the park.
In 1999 "TimeSculpture" by architect Philip Johnson was installed in the northern point of Dante Park. The work reinvigorates the surrounding geometries of the Lincoln Center area and updates the tradition of sidewalk pedestrian and town square clocks that dot New York City. The bronze sculpture rests on a granite base three-and-one-half feet off the ground-level with the base of the Dante monument and the Lincoln Center Plaza. Prismatic in form, "TimeSculpture" features four clock faces oriented to the west, north, and southeast. The piece was donated by Sonia and Gedalio Grinberg and placed in Dante Park with the cooperation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and City of New York/Parks & Recreation. | <urn:uuid:1f829eaa-e4db-4976-8156-a8e020e86c4e> | {
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Pt. 210, App. B
Appendix B to Part 210
—Categories of Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value
(a) Foods of minimal nutritional value—Foods of minimal nutritional value are:
(1) Soda Water—A class of beverages made by absorbing carbon dioxide in potable water. The amount of carbon dioxide used is not less than that which will be absorbed by the beverage at a pressure of one atmosphere and at a temperature of 60 °F. It either contains no alcohol or only such alcohol, not in excess of 0.5 percent by weight of the finished beverage, as is contributed by the flavoring ingredient used. No product shall be excluded from this definition because it contains artificial sweeteners or discrete nutrients added to the food such as vitamins, minerals and protein.
(2) Water Ices
—As defined by 21 CFR 135.160
Food and Drug Administration Regulations except that water ices which contain fruit or fruit juices are not included in this definition.
(3) Chewing Gum—Flavored products from natural or synthetic gums and other ingredients which form an insoluble mass for chewing.
(4) Certain Candies—Processed foods made predominantly from sweeteners or artifical sweeteners with a variety of minor ingredients which characterize the following types:
(i) Hard Candy—A product made predominantly from sugar (sucrose) and corn syrup which may be flavored and colored, is characterized by a hard, brittle texture, and includes such items as sour balls, fruit balls, candy sticks, lollipops, starlight mints, after dinner mints, sugar wafers, rock candy, cinnamon candies, breath mints, jaw breakers and cough drops.
(ii) Jellies and Gums—A mixture of carbohydrates which are combined to form a stable gelatinous system of jelly-like character, and are generally flavored and colored, and include gum drops, jelly beans, jellied and fruit-flavored slices.
(iii) Marshmallow Candies—An aerated confection composed as sugar, corn syrup, invert sugar, 20 percent water and gelatin or egg white to which flavors and colors may be added.
(iv) Fondant—A product consisting of microscopic-sized sugar crystals which are separated by thin film of sugar and/or invert sugar in solution such as candy corn, soft mints.
(v) Licorice—A product made predominantly from sugar and corn syrup which is flavored with an extract made from the licorice root.
(vi) Spun Candy—A product that is made from sugar that has been boiled at high temperature and spun at a high speed in a special machine.
(vii) Candy Coated Popcorn—Popcorn which is coated with a mixture made predominantly from sugar and corn syrup.
(b) Petitioning Procedures—Reconsideration of the list of foods of minimal nutritional value identified in paragraph (a) of this section may be pursued as follows:
(1) Any person may submit a petition to FNS requesting that an individual food be exempted from a category of foods of minimal nutritional value listed in paragraph (a). In the case of artificially sweetened foods, the petition must include a statement of the percent of Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for the eight nutrients listed in § 210.11(a)(2)
“Foods of minimal nutritional value,” that the food provides per serving and the petitioner's source of this information. In the case of all other foods, the petition must include a statement of the percent of RDI for the eight nutrients listed in § 210.11(a)(2)
“Foods of minimal nutritional value,” that the food provides per serving and per 100 calories and the petitioner's source of this information. The Department will determine whether or not the individual food is a food of minimal nutritional value as defined in § 210.11(a)(2)
and will inform the petitioner in writing of such determination. In determining whether an individual food is a food of minimal nutritional value, discrete nutrients added to the food will not be taken into account.
(2) Any person may submit a petition to FNS requesting that foods in a particular category of foods be classified as foods of minimal nutritional value as defined in § 210.11(a)(2)
. The petition must identify and define the food category in easily understood language, list examples of the food contained in the category and include a list of ingredients which the foods in that category usually contain. If, upon review of the petition, the Department determines that the foods in that category should not be classified as foods of minimal nutritional value, the petitioners will be so notified in writing. If, upon review of the petition, the Department determines that there is a substantial likelihood that the foods in that category should be classified as foods of minimal nutritional value as defined in § 210.11(a)(2)
, the Department shall at that time inform the petitioner. In addition, the Department shall publish a proposed rule restricting the sale of foods in that category, setting forth the reasons for this action, and soliciting public comments. On the basis of comments received within 60 days of publication of the proposed rule and other available information, the Department will determine whether the nutrient composition of the foods indicates that the category should be classified as a category of foods of minimal nutritional value. The petitioner shall be notified in writing and the public shall be notified of the Department's final determination upon publication in the Federal Register
(3) Written petitions should be sent to the Chief, Nutrition Promotion and Technical Assistance Branch, Child Nutrition Division, FNS, USDA, 3101 Park Center Drive, Room 632, Alexandria, Virginia 22302. Petitions must include all information specified in paragraph (b) of this appendix and § 220.12(b) (1) or (2)
[53 FR 29147, Aug. 2, 1988, as amended at 54 FR 18465, May 1, 1989; 59 FR 23614, May 6, 1994; 77 FR 4153
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Guinea has 147 forest reserves, encompassing more than 1.2 million hectares, managed by Guinea’s Direction Nationale des Eaux et Forêts (DNEF). Most of these reserves have experienced severe resource degradation and human encroachment. From 2005 to 2008, the Landscape Management of Improved Livelihoods (LAMIL) project operated in four of Guinea’s forest reserves. The project— managed by DNEF, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)—was designed to improve forest governance and raise the incomes of farmers and foresters. A recent study by researchers from Virginia Tech and CIFOR assessed the impacts of this forest co-management project on forest cover and indicators of household well-being. | <urn:uuid:b2acc33f-3d0d-43af-94cc-5908862a0ca4> | {
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Girls, in some parts of England and the United States, say, or rather chant, while bouncing a ball: “One, two, three, alairy, four five, six, alairy,” and so on. According to an “eyewitness report,” they say so, while bouncing a ball on the ground, catching it with one hand, keeping the score, and accompanying each alairy with a circular swing of the leg, so as to describe a loop around but not obstruct the rising ball. Each time alairy is said, another author explains, the player lifts her right foot over the ball, crossing the right leg over the left, but where I wrote alairy, she heard aleary, changed by folk etymology to O’Leary. Other people knowledgeable in such matters also report that the nonsensical word sometimes rhymes with airy and sometimes with eerie. O’Leary may be left to his (her?) ghostly fate, but where did girls learn the word alairy/aleary?
Counting out rhymes and children’s verbal folklore is astoundingly conservative. Empires collapse, rulers come and go with promises of the kingdom of heaven on earth, but Russian girls keep saying: “Eniki, beniki, sikolisa/ Eniki, beniki, ba!” (The stressed syllables are highlighted.) Only a hopeless dullard will try to find the etymology of such gibberish. Right? Not really. Those who have read The Annotated MOTHER GOOSE know how deep the roots of such gibberish may be. Children’s games are sometimes the last resort of ancient customs that have lost their religious significance.
Several scholars have tried to guess the origin of alairy/aleary, and, as often happens in etymology, have offered the same explanation, unaware of the attempts of their predecessors. In a long and famous poem by William Langland (ca.1332-1400), titled Piers Plowman, a gang of impostors is described. They are beggars feigning bodily defects. Some leide here leggis a-lery, as suche losellis cunne, that is, “some laid their legs a-lery, as such abandoned wretches (louts, scoundrels) know how to do…” There is some disagreement over how they “laid” their legs, but, apparently, the result was that the beggars looked as though they had only one leg or no legs at all. They pretended to be cripples, in order to arouse compassion and extort alms. The trick is no secret to actors who have to impersonate a one-legged character, for example, Long John Silver in Treasure Island or invalids with one limb amputated. It must have been practiced by mountebanks since the beginning of creation. Alery never occurs in other Middle English texts, and even contemporary scribes seemed to have trouble with it, for they wrote a leery, a liry, a lyrye, a liri, and alery or substituted another word for it. According to a plausible suggestion, Langland used a cant term badly understood outside the circle of professional mendicants.
The meager information we have about Langland has been culled from his poem. He was born in Shropshire (in the west of England) but later moved to London. According to one of the histories of English literature, he was a kind of clerical vagabond and earned his bread by singing Paternoster, Placebo, Dirige, the Psalter, and the Psalms for the souls of those who contributed to his support. He must have spent days and months on the road and acquired firsthand knowledge of the ragtag and bobtail he described.
The prefix a- in a-lery, etc. goes back to on (as in Modern Engl. atop, aboard, and so forth). The Old English noun lira has also been attested, and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has the entry lire “flesh, muscle, brawn” (obsolete except Scotch and northern dialectal). Whatever the status of alery in Middle English might be, Old English lira was not a chance word. It turned up several times and had unquestionable Scandinavian cognates. But “on the flesh” is hard to interpret, and the line from Piers Plowman has been tentatively translated “made their legs lame, acted as if paralyzed” and “crossed their legs or thighs.” The second translation, suggested by Walter W. Skeat, the author of the poem’s first academic edition, fits the modern girls’ chant perfectly (he offered his translation, without referring to the chant, which he had probably never heard), but it takes the edge off the beggars’ trick, for what is so pathetic about crossing one’s legs? I think Skeat was right, even though we do not quite understand what the cross-legged posture meant.
Is it possible that an obscure, extremely rare word should have come down to us in a children’s game? To begin with, lire, as we have seen, is not obsolete in the northern part of Great Britain. Second (and here I can add something to what I have found in the works of other researchers), while reading Charles Mackay’s 1877 book The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe and More Especially of the English and Lowland Scotch, and of their Slang, Cant, and Colloquial Dialects, I ran into the curious cant word chickaleary “aged pedestrians on winter mornings” (evidently, a collective noun). The book, as one can conclude from its title, is useless (a ludicrous tribute to Celtomania in etymology), but Mackay knew both branches of Gaelic and northern English, very well, so that all the forms he cites are reliable. I was struck by the amusing specificity of the word chickaleary, a word that Mackay, predictably, derived from a Gaelic compound.
In light of what has been said above, the origin of chickaleary is almost obvious. It designates elderly people, unsteady on their feet because they are still drowsy and because on a frosty morning roads are slippery (I assume that chickaleary is indeed a collective noun). Criminals’ wicked sense of humor is famous. Those potential victims of robbery were “chicks.” Their legs were often “aleary,” they stumbled and fell down. While helping them rise from the ground, one could pick their pockets. The a in the middle of the word is the same as in jack-a-napes, rag-a-muffin, and cock-a doodle-doo. It may be a relic of on or of, but sometimes it is inserted for rhythmic purposes.
If my idea has merit, Middle Engl. alery has survived as a cant word (it has been vulgar throughout its history) and in an innocent girls’ game. Let us note that the scholar who suggested that Langland’s word must have been cant did not know Mackay’s book, while Mackay was, most probably, ignorant of the occurrence of alery in Piers Plowman. It remains to be said that leer “malicious look,” leery “distrustful” (derived from leer), and German leer “empty” have nothing to do with the word discussed here.
Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins…And How We Know Them. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears here each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to [email protected]; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.” | <urn:uuid:db1079e6-6f8c-4299-9c17-81dec3b0979f> | {
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Here are pair of articles by Tom Standage, drawn from his forthcoming book on the 2,000-year history of social media, Writing on the Wall. In Share it like Cicero, Standage writes about how Roman authors used social networking to spread and publish their work.
One of the stories I tell in "Writing on the Wall" is about the way the Roman book-trade worked. There were no printing presses, so copying of books, which took the form of multiple papyrus rolls, was done entirely by hand, by scribes, most of whom were slaves. There were no formal publishers either, so Roman authors had to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations and social distribution of their works via their networks of friends and acquaintances.
In the late 1600s, a particularly effective social networking tool arose in England: the coffeehouse.
Like coffee itself, coffeehouses were an import from the Arab world. England's first coffeehouse opened in Oxford in the early 1650s, and hundreds of similar establishments sprang up in London and other cities in the following years. People went to coffeehouses not just to drink coffee, but to read and discuss the latest pamphlets and news-sheets and to catch up on rumor and gossip.
Coffeehouses were also used as post offices. Patrons would visit their favorite coffeehouses several times a day to check for new mail, catch up on the news and talk to other coffee drinkers, both friends and strangers. Some coffeehouses specialized in discussion of particular topics, like science, politics, literature or shipping. As customers moved from one to the other, information circulated with them.
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The most fundamental political right in our society is the right to vote. Today (Sept. 21) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco will hear arguments in a case (Farrakhan v. Gregoire ) that accuses the state of Washington of stripping that fundamental political right from citizens in a racially discriminatory manner. The provision in the state constitution that accomplished this appears neutral; in operation, however, its discriminatory effect is not disputed.
Like many states, Washington disfranchises people convicted of felonies. But what makes Washington exceptional is the presence of substantial racial bias in Washington's criminal justice system. The key fact in this case, one that the state has never denied, is that racial minorities are treated differently than are similarly situated whites at every stage of Washington's criminal justice system -- from stops and arrests, to charging and prosecution, to sentencing and incarceration.
African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans represent only 12 percent of Washington's population, but they constitute 36 percent of the state's incarcerated population. Even after controlling for variables such as seriousness of offense, defendants' criminal histories and various aggravating factors (for example, the use of a weapon in the commission of a crime), there are substantial racial disparities evident in Washington's criminal justice system that can be explained only by systemic racial discrimination:
* Racial profiling. Native Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched, while blacks and Latinos are, respectively, 70 percent and 50 percent more likely than whites to be searched.
* Prosecution. In King County, where Seattle is located, whites who are arrested are significantly less likely to have charges filed against them than are minority arrestees.
* Length of confinement. A statistical analysis revealed that prosecutors recommend that black defendants spend approximately 50 percent more time in prison than white defendants convicted of the exact same crime. In addition, black defendants are 75 percent less likely than whites to be recommended for an alternative, non-incarceration sentence. These differences persist, even when factors such as the criminal history of the offender are taken into account.
* Incarceration. A black person in Washington is more than nine times more likely to be in prison than a white person. This disparity can be attributed in part to crime rates, but only a small part. The ratio of black-to-white arrests for violent offenses (which are the crimes involving the least amount of police and prosecutorial discretion) is only 3.72 to 1. In other words, differences in rates of criminal activity cannot account for the vast racial disparities in incarceration rates.
The trial judge hearing this case wrote that the record demonstrated "uncontested," "compelling" and "persuasive" evidence of racial bias, and concluded that there could be "no doubt that members of racial minorities have experienced discrimination in Washington's criminal justice system."
As early as the 1980s, the Washington State Legislature was aware that Washington led the nation in racially disproportionate incarceration rates, having commissioned its own study on these issues. The state of Washington did not contest any of these facts before the trial court.
The federal Voting Rights Act provides that a state may not deny its citizens the right to vote on the basis of race. Washington, however, strips the right to vote from people upon conviction of a felony, despite knowing that the process that leads to those convictions is tainted by racial discrimination.
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit have never objected to the right of states to disfranchise individuals for certain criminal offenses. Nor have they argued that racially disproportionate outcomes are, by themselves, enough to demonstrate a violation of federal law.
But what the evidence shows is that the racial disparities in Washington's criminal justice system do not reflect actual rates of participation in criminal activity, but rather are attributable to racial bias. As a panel of the Federal Court of Appeals concluded earlier this year, the Voting Rights Act "demands that such racial discrimination not spread to the ballot box." The 9th Circuit should affirm this basic principle: that racial discrimination should play no role in determining who may exercise the most precious right that a citizen has in our democracy.
John Payton is director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). LDF and University Legal Assistance at Gonzaga School of Law represent the plaintiffs in Farrakhan v. Gregoire. | <urn:uuid:3e699a1a-37d9-4800-912a-5aaeb76d1be4> | {
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According to a study conducted by pediatricians and researchers at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center (Sainte-Justine) and Université de Montréal published online in the prestigious medical journal Nature Medicine on September 14, 2014, the activation of a receptor that migrates to the nucleus of nerve cells in the retina promotes the growth of blood vessels. The finding opens the possibility of developing new, more selective drugs to control the abnormal growth of blood vessels and prevent blindness including retinopathy of prematurity, a disorder that may result in retinal detachment due to abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina of the eye.
“This study shows that a single receptor may play various roles depending on whether its site of action is in the nucleus or on the cell membrane,” states Dr. Jean-Sébastien Joyal, MD, PhD, a pediatric intensivist at the Sainte-Justine UHC and an assistant professor at the Université de Montréal. The groundbreaking discovery has significant clinical implications, since many drugs act on this family of receptors irrespective of their site of action in the cell. “Our results are extremely encouraging. They indicate that drugs formulated to target this nuclear receptor may one day prevent retinopathy in premature babies,” continued Dr. Sylvain Chemtob, a neonatologist at Sainte-Justine and a full professor in Pediatrics, Ophthalmology and Pharmacology at the Université de Montréal.
Abnormal proliferation of blood vessels may lead to a number of disorders. Therefore, the finding may offer therapeutic potential for other conditions, particularly proliferative diabetic retinopathy and cancer. This potential still needs to be explored.
About the study
The study entitled “Subcellular localization of coagulation factor II receptor-like 1 in neurons governs angiogenesis” was published in Nature Medicine on September 14, 2014. It was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, March of Dimes, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé. The researchers Gregor Andelfinger and Christian Beauséjour from Sainte-Justine and the Université de Montréal also contributed toward the development of the study.
About the researchers
Dr. Sylvain Chemtob, MD, PhD, FRCPC, FCAHS is a full professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Ophthalmology and Pharmacology at the University of Montreal, and holds a Canada Research Chair (vision science) and the Leopoldine Wolfe Chair in translational research in age-related macular degeneration. He is also a researcher in the Fetomaternal and Neonatal Pathologies research axis at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center
Dr. Jean-Sébastien Joyal, MD, PhD, is a pediatric intensivist at the Sainte-Justine UHC and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Université de Montréal. He is also a researcher in the Metabolic Health axis at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center | <urn:uuid:816b53fb-f041-4f9c-9375-17167a21b47a> | {
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