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|Liddell and San Vicente Creeks according to an Ocean Shore|
Railroad survey map from 1912. (UC Santa Cruz)
The lands returned to the Williams brothers and they quickly turned the mouth of the creek into a place called "Williams Landing". For sixteen years—from 1853 to 1869—a ship landing and chute system was employed off the bluff over Liddell Creek. Although the landing was abandoned in 1869, the Williams brothers continued to produce lumber, tanbark, lime, and oil on their rancho. By the late 1880s, they no longer owned the property and George E. Olive & Company purchased the landing for its own use, renaming it "Olives Landing." Olives Landing was upgraded with a longer cable chute, but the venture appears to have failed since there is little mention of the name after 1889.
It is likely that Louis Moretti purchased the land from George Olive at some point in the 1890s. In 1901, Moretti became the senior partner in the Coast Land & Dairy Company, which included five dairies running along the coast south of Davenport. In 1912, a small natural pond along Liddell Creek, known as Liddell Spring, was ceded to the City of Santa Cruz for the purpose of providing water to the city.
It was during Moretti's ownership that the Ocean Shore Railroad passed through the property. The railroad established a small freight station here, though their primary stop was further south at Yellowbank. "Liddell", as the station was named, was a simple flag stop located 9.6 miles north of the Ocean Shore Depot in Santa Cruz and 1.2 miles south of the Davenport station. There is no evidence that a freight spur, siding, or even a platform was located here, and indeed the 1912, at right, does not even mention the stop suggesting it may have disappeared by that year. During its short existence, it likely served as a picnic stop for northbound tourists wishing to dip their feet into the Pacific Ocean. The sign—and any other structures—would have been on the west side of the tracks, the east being controlled by the Southern Pacific's Coast Line Railroad. The Coast Dairies company continued to exist until 1996, but the Ocean Shore Railroad was already suffering by the mid-1910s and small unnecessary stops such as this may have been abandoned early.
The Coast Line also established a northern stop for the Coast Dairies at San Vicente Creek just south of Davenport, though they bypassed Liddell Creek. San Vicente Creek was likely named after Vicenta Rodriguez, wife of the earliest owner of Rancho San Vicente, Blas A. Excamilla. Saint Vincent, after whom she was named and from which the creek ultimately gained its name, was a Spanish fourth-century deacon and martyr of the Diocletian Persecution. Her name was the feminized variant of that name. Blas obtained the rancho in 1845 at the age of 20. It ranged from San Vicente Creek to the future site of Davenport Landing. It was sold in 1853 to Peter Tracy. The creek formed the northern boundary of the Coast Dairies property and served as the northernmost flag stop for Southern Pacific Railroad service to the dairies.
As with Liddell, there was likely one of the five dairies near the mouth of the creek and the stop allowed employees to commute while the site may also have served as a picnic stop for excursion trains. To underly its status, it never appeared in station books or timetables, emphasizing its minor status along the route. It was located roughly 10 miles north of the Southern Pacific Depot in Santa Cruz and only about 0.2 miles south of Davenport's primary passenger station just south of the cement plant. The station platform, if there was any, would have been on the east side of the tracks.
Railroad service to Liddell ceased no later than 1920, since in that year the Ocean Shore Railroad went defunct. The tracks remained until 1923 when the San Vicente Lumber Company abandoned the line. Rail service to San Vicente probably ceased around the same time, though it may have continued to as late as 1959 when the Suntan Special trains ended and passenger service to Santa Cruz County was abandoned. In the late 1990s, the entire property to San Vicente Creek was purchased by various parties and then donated to the state as the Coast Dairies State Park. The mouth of Liddell Creek has been named Bonny Doon Beach for decades, though it was likely called Liddell Beach at the turn of the century. San Vicente Creek's mouth serves as Davenport's primary beach and is usually called simply "Davenport Beach". | <urn:uuid:19ac2dfe-24e7-4267-a663-05af999da5b2> | {
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Concept 22 DNA words are three letters long.
Marshall Nirenberg and Har Khorana crack the genetic code.
I'm Marshall Nirenberg. Har Khorana's group and mine "cracked" the genetic code. We figured out how the nucleotide language of mRNA is "translated" into the amino acid language of proteins. Genetic data from Crick and others showed that three nucleotides form a "codon" — an mRNA word that specifies one amino acid. This made sense, because a codon made from only one or two nucleotides would not produce enough combinations (words) to code for all 20 of the known amino acids. However, a three-nucleotide codon produces 64 combinations. This would produce a redundant, or degenerate, code where several different codons specify the same amino acid. The parsimony principle — that the simplest solution is often right — ruled out a four-nucleotide codon. In 1961, Heinrich Matthaei, a visiting post-doc, and I started experiments to test the triplet codon hypothesis. We used a cell-free extract of E. coli because we believed that this extract should contain all the components needed to translate mRNA into proteins. The extract was treated with DNase to destroy any remaining E. coli DNA — so there was no template from which messenger RNA could be made. Using a method perfected by Marianne Grunberg-Manago and Severo Ochoa, we made synthetic mRNA composed entirely of uracil. We added this poly-U RNA to the extract. When we examined the products produced in this cell-free system, we found polypeptides composed entirely of the amino acid phenylalanine (PHE). From this result, we concluded that a sequence of three uracils — UUU — must code for phenylalanine. We had determined one of the 64 triplet codons! Matthaei and I tried other polynucleotide chains. Poly-C made a proline (PRO) chain; poly-A made a lysine (LYS) chain. Interestingly, no protein was made with the poly-G chain. Other researchers and I quickly recognized the power of this approach. Using RNA templates containing different nucleotide combinations, we assigned amino acids to about 50 triplet codons. This is a genetic code table. To find a specific codon, look down the left hand side for the first letter of the codon. For the second letter, look across the table. For the last letter, look down the right hand side of the table. For example, the codon C G A: The codon C G A codes for the amino acid arginine (ARG). Hi, I'm Phil Leder. I helped Marshall Nirenberg with the rest of the genetic code. Some of the codons were hard to decipher, because we couldn't establish their order biochemically. For example, a triplet with two Gs and one C could be in the order CGG or GCG or GGC. Marshall and I used the activation of tRNA to solve this problem. tRNA is the molecule that carries amino acids to the ribosomes for protein synthesis. In 1962, Robert Holley solved the structure of tRNA. Although tRNA is single stranded, stretches of complementary nucleotides hydrogen bond to form short double-stranded regions, which bend the tRNA into a characteristic cloverleaf shape. Holley showed that all tRNAs have a similar cloverleaf structure. At a position on one of the "leaves," a sequence of three nucleotides forms an anti-codon, which base pairs with a specific mRNA codon. Thus, there is a different tRNA molecule corresponding to each mRNA codon. Using their cell-free translation system, Zamecnik and his group showed that tRNA becomes activated when the amino acid binds to the tRNA's stem. This step requires chemical energy in the form of ATP. I first made short RNA chains composed of three or six nucleotides. When added to a cell-free extract, an activated tRNA will read these trinucleotide or hexanucleotide sequences. After that, all I had to do was make specific trinucleotide and hexanucleotide chains to confirm the genetic code. We also found that translation starts with a specific codon AUG — the only unique codon — and there are stop codons that end translation. So, in addition to words, the genetic code also has punctuation points. So, to put this all together: within the nucleus, the DNA code is transcribed into a complementary mRNA molecule. The mRNA enters the cytoplasm, where it associates with a ribosome. The mRNA code is then translated into a polypeptide chain. The codon AUG signals the start of translation. An activated tRNA ferries the first amino acid — methionine — to the ribosome. The tRNA anti-codon binds to the AUG codon on the mRNA. The whole complex shifts, and the next codon is read by another tRNA. As the two amino acids are held in position, a peptide bond is formed between them. The second tRNA accepts the growing protein chain, and the methionine tRNA is released. The process is repeated until a stop codon is encountered. When the stop codon, in this case UAA, is reached, translation is finished. Stop codons do not have matching tRNAs. The ribosome disassembles to be reused for translating another mRNA and one complete peptide chain is released.
Before starting work at the NIH, Marshall Nirenberg applied to do post-doctoral work in Paul Zamecnik's lab. He was turned down because at the time Zamecnik didn't have any room in his lab.
Paul Zamecnik and his group developed the cell-free extract system using rat livers. Why didn't they use their cell-free extracts to "crack" the genetic code? | <urn:uuid:1c442970-758d-493b-b516-34be9f13fd05> | {
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Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental disorder in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance â a flaw that, to others, is either minor or not observable. But you may feel so ashamed and anxious that you may avoid many social situations.
When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, repeatedly checking the mirror, grooming or seeking reassurance, sometimes for many hours each day. Your perceived flaw and the repetitive behaviors cause you significant distress, and impact your ability to function in your daily life.
You may seek out numerous cosmetic procedures to try to "fix" your perceived flaw. Afterward, you may feel a temporary satisfaction, but often the anxiety returns and you may resume searching for a way to fix your perceived flaw.
Treatment of body dysmorphic disorder may include cognitive behavioral therapy and medication.
Signs and symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder include:
You may obsess over one or more parts of your body. The feature that you focus on may change over time. The most common features people obsess about include:
Insight about body dysmorphic disorder varies. You may recognize that your beliefs about your perceived flaws may not be true, or think that they probably are true, or be absolutely convinced that they're true.
Body dysmorphic disorder typically starts in the early teenage years and it affects both males and females. An obsession that body build is too small or not muscular enough (muscle dysmorphia) occurs almost exclusively in males.
Shame and embarrassment about your appearance may keep you from seeking treatment for body dysmorphic disorder. But if you have any signs or symptoms, see your health care provider or a mental health professional.
Body dysmorphic disorder usually doesn't get better on its own, and if untreated, it may get worse over time, leading to severe depression, anxiety and extensive medical bills, and may lead to suicidal thoughts and behavior.
It's not known specifically what causes body dysmorphic disorder. Like many other mental illnesses, body dysmorphic disorder may result from a combination of causes, such as:
After a medical evaluation to help rule out other medical conditions, your health care provider may make a referral to a mental health professional for further evaluation.
Diagnosis of body dysmorphic disorder is typically based on:
Complications that may be caused by or associated with body dysmorphic disorder include, for example:
There's no known way to prevent body dysmorphic disorder. However, because body dysmorphic disorder often starts in the early teenage years, identifying the disorder early and starting treatment may be of some benefit.
Long-term maintenance treatment also may help prevent a relapse of body dysmorphic disorder symptoms.
Body dysmorphic disorder warrants treatment from a mental health professional. But you can do some things to build on your treatment plan, such as:
Talk with your doctor or therapist about improving your coping skills, and ways to focus on identifying, monitoring and changing the negative thoughts and behaviors about your appearance.
Consider these tips to help cope with body dysmorphic disorder:
Certain factors seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering body dysmorphic disorder, including: | <urn:uuid:c1def429-56bf-4e2e-96b9-acaf8e4de402> | {
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Straight from the top – US Department of Education is promoting the Equipped For the Future (EFF) program which is based on constructivism – an active process of knowledge construction allowing learners to use prior knowledge to shape meaning of today’s’ experiences and therefore acquire new knowledge.
I think this reading will benefit a teacher or parent in any country. To me, this program, if implemented correctly, will turn the tide and immensely benefit K-12 education.
Not to worry, the docs below are fairly easy reads. What are your thoughts about them?
Summarizes the research basis for "a purposeful and transparent approach to learning", the first key research principle underlying the Equipped for the Future system reform initiative.
EFF Research Principle: An Approach To Teaching And Learning That Builds Expertise: EFF Research To Practice
Describes how research findings related to building expertise have been applied to the development of the Equipped for the Future (EFF) Content Framework and assessment system.
A Contextualized Approach To Curriculum And Instruction: EFF Research To Practice
Identifies the research basis for a contextualized approach to teaching and learning, the third concept underlying the Equipped for the Future (EFF) system reform initiative.
Transformation: Reform Spotlight: Research + Policy + Practice = Transformed Schools
Reviews research concerning sustaining comprehensive school reform. This publication examines the policy implications of research on school transformation. | <urn:uuid:ee2c4e6f-62b6-48d7-bf3f-78c50a41dfcc> | {
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COLBERT COUNTY, ALABAMA
Written and Contributed by
Lewis C. Gibbs, Jr.
THE HISTORY OF MOUNTAIN MILLS
By Lewis C. Gibbs, Jr.
1835, after the Indians were moving to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, the whites
began to buy the land west of Caney Creek, the boundary line.
Armstead Barton was the oldest son of Dr. Hugh Barton, one of ten children. He was also Governor of the Mississippi Territory. In this position he became friend to the Colberts, who were leaders of the Chickasaw Indians. Through this friendship, he came into possession of most of the land in the western part of what is now Colbert County.
His brother, Arthur C. Barton, came into possession of most of the land around Barton, Alabama, or range 13 and township 4. The rest of the land in this area was bought by the Prides, the Thompsons, the Rutlands, W. W. Bayless, Hextor Atkisson, the Gibbs brothers (Alexander and Jack or J. E. Sr.) and the Greenhills.
The Hextor Atkinson family lived near the site of the future Mountain Mill Industry Village. The Bayless family lived about a mile east; the Thompson and Rutland families a mile east and south; the Prides about two miles east and A. C. Barton two miles north.
The Hexton Atkisson family consisted of nine children, eight girls and one boy. Bob Garner married one of the girls. Another girl married three times, Mr. Moore, Mr. Donley, and Mr. Whitley. The son married twice, Susan Danley and Lucy Sherrod. His name was Arthur Atkisson. Two of the sisters never married and they out-lived all of them. They later lived at the James S. Barton home which was owned by John Whitley, a nephew. Not only a landowner, Hextor Atkisson was a Justice of the peace for many years. His wife was named Sally Franklin and was said to be from the same family as Ben Franklin. W. W. Bayless was also a Justice of the peace and a large land owner.
S. Stickels was from the North and connected with steam boating on the Tennessee
River before the War between the States, but fought for the South in the war. He
was married to Elizabeth Olds, a niece of Mrs. Hextor Atkisson. It is said that
he was a brave and courageous soldier and was a gallant defender of the South.
He was born April 19, 1827, and died April 5, 1883. His grave was marked in the
fall of 1995 in the Atkisson Cemetery.
After the war was over, J. H. Stickels and James Johnston put in a sawmill near the Mountain Mill Village. This mill was powered by steam. Later they put in a grist mill. It was a practice then to use this machinery on Saturday to grind meal. There were two different engines, run by the same boiler.
At a later date, a foundry and machine shop were installed. James Wright was brought in as a pattern maker and machine shop man. He had been in this business all through the war at Florence, Alabama, near where Mars Hill Bible School is today. All of these operations were successful.
Asa Messenger, publisher of the North Alabamian and other publications was encouraging Southerners to start manufacturing their own goods. This would save the high tariff on raw material shipped to the north and the shipping cost to ship the finished product back.
In 1872 the group of men mentioned above, along with N. F. Cherry and others, organized the Mountain Mill Company. Their purpose was to build a cotton mill to make thread from cotton and maybe cloth and other items also.
N. F. Cherry was born in Hardin County, Tennessee, near Savannah. The ten years before coming to Mountain Mills had been spent in merchandising and steam milling.
The Mountain Mill Company started with seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000) in stock. A corporation was formed under the laws of Alabama. Shares were sold to local people. It is said that every rich person in the county bought stock in the company.
The factory was built and machinery from New Jersey was bought and installed. It is said that the machinery was used. The building was a three-story brick and we think it was about 100 feet by 200 feet, with boiler room and engine room attached, with about a 100-foot smoke stack. After the machinery was installed they began to hire people to operate the mill.
Mountain Mills Factory
Some of these families are still in this area, the Blankenships, Burrows, Hargetts, Inmans, Keetons and others. These families consisted mostly of girls. Women and children were used a lot in operating the mill. They also built a company store or commissary. Mr. Houston Ramsey was brought in to operate this business. He is referred to in the East Florence story. Homes for the people and a church and school were built. They built one building and used it for church and school. This building is still in use today in the Barton area by a black congregation.
Some of the preachers that preached at Mountain Mill were E. C. Fuqua, J. D. Tant and others. A professor Blaylock was brought in to run the school. Another teacher was E. C. Hamilton.
Edward C. Fuqua
A small town of about three hundred people came together around the mill. It was written that there was no need for law enforcement or courts.
In 1874, more money was needed. Twenty-five thousand dollars in bonds was floated with the German National Bank of Memphis, Tennessee, at 10% interest, payable every six months.
The company operated for twelve years, but seemed to be in financial trouble all the time. Miss Nina Leftwich stated in her book “Two Hundred Years in Muscle Shoals” that this was due to the used machinery that was installed when the operation started.
In 1883, the German National Bank foreclosed on the Mountain Mill Company. We have no record of their closing. We assume that W. N. Cherry bought their stock or debt. On April 7, 1883, W. N. Cherry bought out Arthur C. Barton and W. W. Bayless for $9,100.00. Miss Nina Leftwich said it sold for 5% of the original investment.
After this W. N. Cherry formed a partnership with N. F. Cherry and C. N. Brandon. Mr. Brandon was an experienced cotton mill operator. He came out of Cypress mill, a mill near Florence, which had closed. They invested $100,000.00 in capital stock, brought $35,000.00 worth of new machinery, and began operating in a big way. They loaned money to every farmer in the county. We have a copy of many of the loans on crops and stock and equipment. I believe the mill contracted fro the cotton they raised. However, this is not stated on the loans.
Some of the chief clerks who signed some of the loans are E. C. Hamilton, who is our great uncle; John Whitley, who was a grandson of Hextor Atkisson; Mr. Charles Womble, who was the first Probate Judge of Colbert county; and James H. Simpson. Simpson was connected with the mill in its early stages, but was later in business for himself in Tuscumbia, Alabama. He was our great-uncle twice. He married two of our grandfather’s sisters.
The operation continued for about ten years. In 1892, it was decided to move the mill to Florence, Alabama. We have heard several stories about the reason for moving. One states that the company wanted the county to donate 2,000 acres of land. Another says the roads were barely passable in the winter; therefore, they wanted a railroad spur built to the mill.
We know that this route was considered at one time for a railroad through to Russellville, Alabama, by way of Frankfort.
This is the story of Mountain Mill as I see it from my research and word of mouth all my life.
After 1893, the foundry and machine shops were left in place, and perhaps the sawmill and gristmill. Mr. R. E. Blankenship said he helped move the boiler and machinery to the railroad as a young boy. He was born in 1901.
The picture of the school was made about 1895 or later. Some of the people went to Florence while others stayed and did other things. There is nothing at the site now but briars and bushes.
My mother’s family lived in the store house about 1910. We think the Blankenship family lived in it at one time. About 1915, a sawmill company came into the area and used this for headquarters. Mr. Sam Williams ran a store for them. Some of his family are still in this area.
Around 1920, this building was moved to Barton, Alabama by Mr. Sam Williams we think. Some time in the 1950’s this building burned. That was the last of Mountain Mills.
Return to History | <urn:uuid:3fdf91fd-e066-42a5-be2b-2047ed08ca80> | {
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- Medicine Information and Evidence for Policy > Medicines Policy
- Traditional Medicine > Traditional, Complementary and Herbal Medicine
(2002; 70 pages) [French] [Spanish]
Chapter Four: International and national resources for traditional medicine
Maximizing the potential that TM/CAM offers for improving health status worldwide is a daunting task, covering a diverse range of activities and demanding many types of expertise. Fortunately, the number of organizations working on TM/CAM issues, and whose assistance WHO can call upon, is growing. Some of these organizations are described below. An indication is also given of any collaboration between these organizations and WHO that has already taken place.
"The recognition by governments of the importance of traditional medicine for the health of the populations in the Region and the creation of an enabling environment are the basis for the optimization of the use of traditional medicine. Sustainable political commitment and support from policy-makers, traditional medicine practitioners, NGOs, professional associations, the community, teaching and training institutions and other stakeholders, created through advocacy and utilization of social marketing and participatory methods are required."2 | <urn:uuid:fd471a21-d3d4-4f77-ab24-649ffde18d2b> | {
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Let us go then, you and I,
Like a patient etherized upon a table. . . .
Although Pound had printed privately a small book, A lume spento, as early as 1908, "Prufrock" was the first poem by either of these literary revolutionists to go beyond experiment to achieve perfection. It represented a break with the immediate past as radical as that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads (1798). From the appearance of Eliot's first volume, Prufrock and Other Observations, in 1917, one may conveniently date the maturity of the 20th-century poetic revolution. The significance of the revolution is still disputed, but the striking similarity to the Romantic revolution of Coleridge and Wordsworth is obvious: Eliot and Pound, like their 18th-century counterparts, set about reforming poetic diction. Whereas Wordsworth thought he was going back to the "real language of men," Eliot struggled to create new verse rhythms based on the rhythms of contemporary speech. He sought a poetic diction that might be spoken by an educated person, being "neither pedantic nor vulgar."
For a year Eliot taught French and Latin at the Highgate School; in 1917 he began his brief career as a bank clerk in Lloyds Bank Ltd. Meanwhile he was also a prolific reviewer and essayist in both literary criticism and technical philosophy. In 1919 he published Poems, which contained the poem "Gerontion," a meditative interior monologue in blank verse: nothing like this poem had appeared in English.
The Waste Land consists of five sections and proceeds on a principle of "rhetorical discontinuity" that reflects the fragmented experience of the 20th-century sensibility of the great modern cities of the West. Eliot expresses the hopelessness and confusion of purpose of life in the secularized city, the decay of urbs aeterna (the "eternal city"). This is the ultimate theme of The Waste Land, concretized by the poem's constant rhetorical shifts and its juxtapositions of contrasting styles. But The Waste Land is not a simple contrast of the heroic past with the degraded present; it is rather a timeless, simultaneous awareness of moral grandeur and moral evil. The poem's original manuscript of about 800 lines was cut down to 433 at the suggestion of Ezra Pound. The Waste Land is not Eliot's greatest poem, though it is his most famous.
Eliot said that the poet-critic must write "programmatic criticism"--that is, criticism that expresses the poet's own interests as a poet, quite different from historical scholarship, which stops at placing the poet in his background. Consciously intended or not, Eliot's criticism created an atmosphere in which his own poetry could be better understood and appreciated than if it had to appear in a literary milieu dominated by the standards of the preceding age. In the essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," appearing in his first critical volume, The Sacred Wood (1920), Eliot asserts that tradition, as used by the poet, is not a mere repetition of the work of the immediate past ("novelty is better than repetition," he said); rather, it comprises the whole of European literature from Homer to the present. The poet writing in English may therefore make his own tradition by using materials from any past period, in any language. This point of view is "programmatic" in the sense that it disposes the reader to accept the revolutionary novelty of Eliot's polyglot quotations and serious parodies of other poets' styles in The Waste Land.
Also in The Sacred Wood, "Hamlet and His Problems" sets forth Eliot's theory of the objective correlative:
The first, or programmatic, phase of Eliot's criticism ended with The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933)--his Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard. Shortly before this his interests had broadened into theology and sociology; three short books, or long essays, were the result: Thoughts After Lambeth (1931), The Idea of a Christian Society (1939), and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948). These book-essays, along with his Dante (1929), an indubitable masterpiece, broadened the base of literature into theology and philosophy: whether a work is poetry must be decided by literary standards; whether it is great poetry must be decided by standards higher than the literary.
Eliot's criticism and poetry are so interwoven that it is difficult to discuss them separately. The great essay on Dante appeared two years after Eliot was confirmed in the Church of England (1927); in that year he also became a British subject. The first long poem after his conversion was "Ash Wednesday" (1930), a religious meditation in a style entirely different from that of any of the earlier poems. "Ash Wednesday" expresses the pangs and the strain involved in the acceptance of religious belief and religious discipline. This and subsequent poems were written in a more relaxed, musical, and meditative style than his earlier works, in which the dramatic element had been stronger than the lyrical. "Ash Wednesday" was not well received in an era that held that poetry, though autonomous, is strictly secular in its outlook; it was misinterpreted by some critics as an expression of personal disillusion.
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
He left me, with a kind of valediction,
And faded on the blowing of the horn.
The passage is 72 lines, in modified terza rima; the diction is as near to that of Dante as is possible in English; and it is a fine example of Eliot's belief that a poet can be entirely original when he is closest to his models.
Eliot's plays, which begin with Sweeney Agonistes (published 1926; first performed in 1934) and end with The Elder Statesman (first performed 1958; published 1959), are, with the exception of Murder in the Cathedral (published and performed 1935), inferior to the lyric and meditative poetry. Eliot's belief that even secular drama attracts people who unconsciously seek a religion led him to put drama above all other forms of poetry. All his plays are in a blank verse of his own invention, in which the metrical effect is not apprehended apart from the sense; thus he brought "poetic drama" back to the popular stage. The Family Reunion (1939) and Murder in the Cathedral are Christian tragedies, the former a tragedy of revenge, the latter of the sin of pride. Murder in the Cathedral is a modern miracle play on the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. The most striking feature of this, his most successful play, was the use of a chorus in the traditional Greek manner to make apprehensible to common humanity the meaning of the heroic action. The Family Reunion (1939) was less popular. It contained scenes of great poignancy and some of the finest dramatic verse since the Elizabethans; but the public found this translation of the story of Orestes into a modern domestic drama baffling and was uneasy at the mixture of psychological realism, mythical apparitions at a drawing-room window, and a comic chorus of uncles and aunts.
After World War II, Eliot returned to writing plays with The Cocktail Party in 1949, The Confidential Clerk in 1953, and The Elder Statesman in 1958. These plays are comedies in which the plots are derived from Greek drama. In them Eliot accepted current theatrical conventions at their most conventional, subduing his style to a conversational level and eschewing the lyrical passages that gave beauty to his earlier plays. Only The Cocktail Party, which is based upon the Alcestis of Euripides, achieved a popular success. In spite of their obvious theatrical defects and a failure to engage the sympathies of the audience for the characters, these plays succeed in handling moral and religious issues of some complexity while entertaining the audience with farcical plots and some shrewd social satire.
Eliot's career as editor was ancillary to his main interests, but his quarterly review, The Criterion (1922-39), was the most distinguished international critical journal of the period. He was a "director," or working editor, of the publishing firm of Faber & Faber Ltd. from the early 1920s until his death, and as such was a generous and discriminating patron of young poets.
Eliot always kept his private life rigorously in the background. In 1915 he married Vivian Haigh-Wood; after 1933 she was mentally ill, and they lived apart; she died in 1947. In January 1957 he married Valerie Fletcher, with whom he lived happily until his death.
Main Page | About Us | All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Timeline of Nobel Prize Winners is not affiliated with The Nobel Foundation. A Special Thanks to the 3w-hosting.com for helping make this site a success. External sites are not endorsed or supported by http://www.nobel-winners.com/ Copyright © 2003 All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:3138f129-a606-431b-b5f0-2f4fdf87bb82> | {
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The structure of the periodic table of elements is a bit weird the first time you see it, like a castle or a cake. If we just read the periodic table top to bottom and left to right, we are reading off the elements in order of increasing number of protons. However, if this were the only useful ordering on the periodic table, it could be a simple list. The vertically aligned groups on the periodic table actually represent the chemical properties of the elements. Dmitri Mendeleev developed the table in 1869 as a way to both tabulate existing empirical results, and predict what unexplored chemical reactions or undiscovered elements might be possible. It was revolutionary as a scientific tool, but the mechanism behind the periodicity was not understood until decades later. As it turns out, the periodicity of chemical behavior corresponds to the bonding type of the outer electrons in different atoms.
To understand what that means, we can start by looking at the elements on the left side of the periodic table. Hydrogen has only one proton, so the electrically neutral form of hydrogen has only one electron. This single electron is a point particle, jumping around the nucleus. The electron exists in a probability cloud, whose shape is given by the lowest energy solution to the quantum mechanical equations describing the system. These quantum states can be distinguished by differing quantum numbers for various quantities like spin and angular momentum, and we will talk about these in more depth later on. When we add additional electrons, they all want to be in the lowest energy state as well. Sadly for electrons but happily for us, no two electrons are able to occupy the same quantum state: they must differ in at least one quantum number. This is known as the Pauli exclusion principle, and was devised to explain experimental results in the early years of quantum mechanics. So while the single electron in hydrogen gets to be in the lowest energy state available for an electron in that atom, in an atom like oxygen, its eight electrons occupy the eight lowest energy states, as if they are stones stacked in a bucket.
But what’s really interesting about these higher energy electron states is that they have different shapes, as we can see by the mathematical forms that describe the possible probability distributions for electrons. So while the electron cloud in a hydrogen atom is a sphere, there are electron clouds for other atoms that are shaped like dumbbells, spheres cut in two, alternating spherical shells, and lots of other shapes.
The electron cloud shape becomes important because two atoms near each other may be able to minimize their overall energy via electron interactions: in some configurations the sharing of one, two, more, or even a partial number of electrons is energetically preferred, whereas in other configurations sharing electrons is not favorable. This electron sharing, which changes the shape of the electron cloud and affects the chemical reactivity of the atoms involved, is what’s called chemical bonding. When atoms are connected by a chemical bond, there is an energy cost necessary to separate them. But how atoms interact depends fundamentally on the shape of the electron cloud, determining when atoms can or can’t bond to each other. So the periodic table, which was originally developed to group atoms with similar chemical properties and bonding behaviors, actually also groups atoms by the number and arrangement of electrons.
Now, there is a lot more that can be said about bonding. You can talk about the inherent spin of electrons, which is important in bonding and atomic orbital filling, or you can talk about the idea of filled electron shells which make some atoms stable and others reactive, or you can talk about the many kinds of chemical bonds. It’s a very deep topic, and this is just the beginning!
Since every real world object is a collection of bonded atoms, the properties of the things we interact with, and what materials are even able to exist in our world, depend on the shape of the electron cloud. Imagine if the Pauli exclusion principle were not true, and all the electrons in an atom could sit together in the lowest energy state. This would make every electron cloud the same shape, which would remove the incredible variety of chemical bonds in our world, homogenizing material properties. Chemistry would be a lot easier to learn but a lot less interesting, and atomic physics would be completely solved. Stars, planets, and life as we know it might not exist at all. | <urn:uuid:a7646015-2846-4c99-a1e8-1afca88005b0> | {
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Merge in transit
Merge-in-transit (MIT) is a distribution method in which several shipments from suppliers originating at different locations are consolidated into one final customer delivery. This removes the need for distribution warehouses in the supply chain, allowing customers to receive complete deliveries for their orders. Under a merge-in-transit system, merge points replace distribution warehouse. In today's global market, merge-in-transit is progressively being used in telecommunications and electronic industries. These industries are usually dynamic and flexible, in which products have been developed and changed rapidly.
- 1 Purpose of merge-in-transit
- 2 Methodologies of merge-in-transit
- 3 Advantages of merge-in-transit
- 4 Disadvantages of merge-in-transit
- 5 Common usage
- 6 Other distribution alternatives
- 7 See also
- 8 References
Purpose of merge-in-transit
Merge-in-transit allows company to assemble and transport goods simultaneously. It aims to remove the needs for distribution warehouse in the supply chain, targets at cutting down the amount of inventory stored in firm warehouses into zero, and allows customers to receive complete deliveries of their orders. Thus, transportation expenses can be lowered. From customer perspective, merge-in-transit provides value since it facilitates the delivery of a single and consolidated shipment rather than multiple smaller shipments. This also helps firms to reduce the overall inventory and process lean manufacturing.
Methodologies of merge-in-transit
There are basically two ways of approaching merge-in-transit, either merging and forwarding or synchronization. Merge-in-transit depends on several factors, including the availability of multiple vendors for a customer, regularity of shipments to the customers, order size and the availability of a strategically located merge point. When these elements have been identified, a MIT operation can be created.
Merging and forwarding
A logistics company receives the goods from multiple origins, and assembles them at a single point near a customer, which is called "merge point" or "merge centre". Shippers pick up separate shipments from several suppliers and deliver them to a location near their final destination (merge points), where a merge process is being undertaken. However, no colossoal inventory is stored at these merge points. This kind of just-in time sequence delivery shorten the time required to consolidate, which allows an efficient delivery to customers. For example, a company bought electronic devices from three sources in Southwest Michigan. Instead of paying for three separate lorries from Southwest Michigan to Phoenix, the three shipments can be combined in Southwest Michigan, followed by a single lorry to Phoenix.
Merge-in-transit can also be regarded as a synchronization of production, in which logistics and transportation operation prevents stocking of final products. Various shipments of goods will be delivered from multiple vendors, which they are all delivered to the customers at the same time. Synchronization is different from merging and forwarding, which the former neglects consolidation process.
Advantages of merge-in-transit
Merge-in transit has various advantages comparing to the traditional method, which includes the followings.
Increase in flexibility
Merge points can often be start-up expeditiously and cheaply, depending on the type of merge-in-transit system. MIT system simplifies the receiving and deposit processes by eliminating various shipments and receipts, making it accessible for manufacturer and supplier to work together.
Elimination of redundant transportation
The transportation time can be diminished as there are no double shipments of goods from the suppliers to the principal and the principal to the customer. Goods can be send to the customer directly and instantly from the vendor to the customer, without the principal looking at the product.
Reduction of inventory
The most direct benefit is the reduced inventory that used to sustain the system. Many organizations target cut their inventories to zero by the replacement of merge points, whereby they no longer require warehouses to store inventory. For example, Micron technology does not store monitors or printers in their own warehouse.
Curtail transportation and administration costs
Products are handled less frequently in merge-in-transit system due to the reduction of transportation and Inventory. Receiving and storing are not required as the products do not actually go into inventory. Also, goods are delivered directly to the customer rather than the principal then to the customer. Even the locations of merge points are placed near the customer. Consequently, the transportation and inventory costs could be exceedingly low.
Heighten supply chain visibility
Manufactures can take advantages of point of sale data, forwarding the information decoupling points further back upstream and allowing deferment both in time and form. Hence, the orders and material flows are separated. These may further reduce uncertainty and cost of forecasting.
Improved customer services
Merge-in-transit enables delivery to take place more rapidly, which aids the firms to generate the ability of improving customer service. Customers have the opportunity to choose among a wider variety of products and a larger pool of suppliers due to the withdrawal of inventory and the increased flexibility. The distributor may also provide better customer service by broadening its product assortment.
Lower capital requirements
Merge-in-transit demands lesser capital investment as it does not need to store inventory in a warehouse. With regard of this, firms might spend fewer resources to deliver goods to the customer, which benefits small and medium firms with limited capital.
Disadvantages of merge-in-transit
Merge-in transit has several disadvantages over the traditional way, which includes the followings.
Advanced information systems requirement
The merge-in-transit system necessitates with a considerable alteration and investment in information technology and innovation processes. These system and development do not come without corresponding investments, containing an escalation of costs that might be arduous to recover from firm's revenue.
Rise in overall cost
Merge-in-transit system involves multiple loadings and unloading of consignments. This has the potential risk of increasing the overall cost if it is not optimized correctly, which the more times consignments is transiting, the higher the cost.
Poor on-time delivery
Given that the time allowance is only a few days, in which each time period is commensurate to one day. Under merge-in-transit system, the firms will not schedule early or late arrivals to customers. They may easily impede and amend the delivery time. Hence, they have to provide compensations to the customers.
Escalate in complexity
As the requirements for coordination of orders and material flows are becoming more intensified, the complexity of distribution will be increased. Thus, firms might often create distribution problems such as sending the wrong items and out of stocks of certain products. In addition, increasing customer orders will lead to a double of time for accessible products since there are not enough stocks available, leading to the situation that the supply does not meet with the demand in the customer order cycle.
Lack of inventory
Under the merge-in-transit system, there is little or zero inventory stored in a company, which aids to cut costs. However, inventory sometimes can be regarded as an advantage. For example, if a strike occurs within the company, without the stored inventory, the company will bear risks of paying compensation or closing down by the failure in delivering customer orders on time. In this regard, reduction of inventory is detrimental to firms.
Vicious circle of delay distribution
Merge-in-transit system involves consolidated deliveries. The system relies heavily on the assumptions that the vendors will fulfill the order-filling operation at the identical level of efficiency and cooperation between vendors, which might involve risks. For example, a postponement in receiving a shipment form a vendor at the merge point would undoubtedly delay the shipment to the end of customer.
Losing brand recognition
There is a potential problem that dealer other than the organization of the brand will gain brand recognition under merge-in-transit system. Unless the products has been consolidated properly in outlook with other elements, there might be a risk that dealer might gain control of the customer for further sales. This is one of the main reasons that merge-in-transit component products gather commodities, rather than differentiated or customized products from the dealers.
Dell computers, UPS worldwide, Starbucks coffees, Cisco System, Fedex and Micron are example of companies using merge-in-transit system.
Dell computer and UPS Worldwide
Dell is an American multinational computer technology organization.
- Dell has it own mass production unit but their monitors and keyboards are purchased from original equipment manufacturer.
- By receiving Dell's order, UPS merges the shipments of the processor, monitor, and keyboard form serveral origins points at one of their merge points in Reno, Louisville and Austin, then delivers the whole system to Dell.
Starbucks is an American coffee company. It is now the largest coffeehouse company in the world.
- Through benchmarking McDonald's' new store start up techniques, they created a organized release system of the equipments and materials for their new stores five phrase.
- A system monitors the contractor's progress and determines the delivery date for each phase.
- Vendor orders are then timed to arrive at a merge points for the assembly process, then are delivered through truckloads to the store.
- MIT system has curtailed the total time for new store set-up and diminished inventory costs.
Cisco Systems and Fedex
Cisco Systems is an American multinational technology company that designs, sell and manufactures networking equipment.
FedEx is an American global courier delivery services company.
- Instead of having a huge number of warehouse, the merge-in-transit system enables Cisco to match the location of the final customer with the location of the nearest FedEx storehouse where suppliers can store the components of the goods.
- The ultimate target is to have FedEx keep all the components until the customer order is complete.
- Cisco has successfully removed its stocked inventory.
Micron and Fedex
Micron Technology is an American multinational corporation, producing multiple forms of semiconductor devices, including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and solid-state drives.
- Micron applies merge-in-transit by employing FedEx.
- Micron produces the computer for the user based on their specific requirements. Nevertheless, computer orders basically include other accessories, for instance keyboards and monitors.
- FedEx helps Micron to stores computer accessories for Micron in their centre. Accessories are then matched up with computers on the way to the customer.
- FedEx delivers computer and accessories simultaneously to the customer.
Other distribution alternatives
- Direct distribution
- Fulfillment and E-Fulfillment
- Transformational Cross Docking
- Fashion Logistics
- Dawe, R (1997). Move it fast. Eliminate Steps. Transportation and Distribution.
- O'Leary. D. E. 2000. Reengineering Assembly, Warehouse and Billing Processes, for Electronic Commerce Using "Merge-in-Transit". [online] available at https://msbfile03.usc.edu/digitalmeasures/doleary/intellcont/Merge%20in%20Transit%202000-1.pdf [Accessed 29 October 2015]
- Celestino, M (1999). Choosing a Third Party Logistics Provider. World Trade.
- Leal, T. 2014. Is Merge-In-Transit the Key to Supply Chain Efficiency?. Transvoyant. [online] Available at: http://www.transvoyant.com/is-merge-in-transit-the-key-to-supply-chain-efficiency/ [Accessed 28 October 2015].
- Goldsby, T,J., Iyengar, D., Rao, S. 2014. The Definitive Guide to Transportation: Principles, Strategies, and Decisions for the Effective Flow of Goods and Services. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
- Diaz, Luis Martin (2006). Evaluation of Cooperative Planning in Supply Chains: An Empirical Approach of the European Automotive Industry. Germany: Springer. p. 65.
- Langenwatler, Gary A (1999). Enterprise Resources Planning and Beyond: Integrating Your Entire Organization. Florida: CRC Press.
- Waller, Mathew A; Esper, Terry L (2014). The Definitive Guide to Inventory Management: Principles and Strategies for the Efficient Flow of Inventory across the Supply Chain. New Jersey: Pearson of Education. p. 162.
- Leggate, H., McConville, J., Morvillo, A. (2004). International Maritime Transport: Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge.
- Rhenus.com. (n.d.). Merge in transit. [online] available at http://www.nl.rhenus.com/services/transport-logistics/supply-chain-services/merge-in-transit.html [Accessed: 31 October 2015]
- Shaw. M.J. (2006). E-Business Management: Integration of Web Technologies with Business Models. New York: Kluwer.
- Bfgloballogistics.com. (n.d.). Merge IN TRANSIT. [online] Available at http://www.bfglogistics.com/en/our-services/supply-chain-services/merge-in-transit [Accessed 31 October 2015].
- Donath, B., Mazel, J., Dubin, C., Patterson, P. (2002). The IOMA Handbook of Logistics and Inventory Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Gattolin, E. (2008). MERGE IN TRANSIT, A DISTRIBUTION METHOD IN THE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT. [online] available at. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:3794/fulltext01.pdf [Accessed 31 October 2015].
- Ala-Risku, T. (2002). Evaluating the costs and benefits of merge-in-transit for distributors. [online] Available at. http://dialog.hut.fi/publications/Diplomityo_Ala-Risku.pdf [Accessed 31 October 2015]
- Karkkainen, M., Ala-Risku, T., Holmstrom, J. (2003). Increasing customer value and decreasing distribution costs with merge-in-transit. [online] Available at. http://legacy-tuta.hut.fi/logistics/publications/merge_in_transit.pdf [Accessed 31 October 2015]
- Croxton, K, L., Gendron, B., Magnanti, T, L. (2000). MODELS AND METHODS FOR MERGE-IN-TRANSIT OPERATINONS. [online] Available at. http://fisher.osu.edu/~croxton.4/CRT_0030.pdf [Accessed 1 November 2015].
- Norelius, H. (2002). Merge in Transit – A non-stock distribution structure. Linköpings Studies in Science and Technology, Thesis No. 935.
- Schwartz, E. (2001). Skipping steps. Info World. p.28-29
- Cooke, J. (1999). Making the Global Connection. Logistics Management and Distribution. | <urn:uuid:ee0bd9df-1d54-4105-9c5b-58202f647555> | {
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The Crimson Chat (Epthianura tricolor) is a species of small birds found in Australia. They are known by many other common names including: Tricolored Chat, Crimson tang, and Red canary in English; Scharlachtrugschmätzer by Germans; Curruca Carmesí in Spanish; and Epthianure tricolore in French.
Crimson Chats are usually 4-5 inches (10-13 cm) in length and 10-11 grams in weight. They have long, thin legs; a pointy, downward curving bill; and a brush- like tipped tongue. Adult males are covered in brown feathers, have red crowns and under parts; a black mask around their eyes; and white throats. Females and younger Chats are colored similarly, but with paler markings. The males are usually more brightly colored than females, specifically during the breeding season in order to attract a mate.
A bird species similar to and often confused with the Crimson Chat is the Male Red-capped Robin, whose scientific name is Petroica goodenovii. However, there are three main differences between their characteristics. A male Crimson Chat has a white throat as well as a plump body; however, the Robin has a black body, white wing marks, and a dark eye. Also, the Crimson Chat's bill is skinnier and longer than the Robin's. When a Crimson Chat is seen, a saltbush, Spinifex, or Mulga Woodland plant can usually be found, as they are plants associated with this type of bird. According to Federal and NSW organizations, the conservation of this bird is secure. Its only real threat is being killed by predators.
Distribution and Habitat
Crimson Chats inhabit a specific continent, Australia, have a preferred habitat, and a unique migration pattern. Crimson Chats can be found in deserts, semi-arid climates, woodlands, grasslands, and coastal shrublands in the central part of Australia from the west coast to the Great Dividing Range and from the tropics to the south coast. Generally, they tend to inhabit areas on the fringes of wet regions, where it is more dry. They live in various types of shrubland: saltbush, blue bush, acacia, and samphire. It moves to wetter areas when rainfall is insufficient, which means there aren't enough nutrients produced for the birds to consume). The flocks of Crimson Chats may wander over a significantly wide area around their range in order to track rain. (This helps them find the best flowers and nectars.) However, Chats do not follow routine seasonal longtime migrations.
Crimson Chats eat insects and spiders that are on the ground or in shrubs, and they can use their brush-like tongue to extract nectar or take seeds from flowers close to the ground. They walk more often than they hop and are usually seen on or near the ground.
Crimson Chats are found in small flocks and go in pairs throughout the breeding season and the rest of the year. Chats have a long breeding season from August to November and a shorter period after the rain season from March to April. These flocks form clusters of nests, which are defended by both the male and female Chats. Most calls are soft, metallic twangs ("?dik it - dik it') or high pitched whistles (like "?see'.) When agitated they make an aggressive chattering sound (a quick "?check - check'), which is where their name originates.
In this species, both sexes help build a nest in a cup shape, which is located close to the ground. It is usually made with grass, rootlets, hair, feathers, and twigs. The female lays 2 to 5 pink and white, brown-red spotted eggs, approximately ½ inch (1-2 cm) in length and width. Both parents help incubate the eggs for around two weeks and feed the young birds once they have hatched until they can fly on their own to find food. If a predator comes near the nest either parent will fake an injury to distract the creature away from the nest. Predators include cats, snakes, foxes, and larger birds like ravens.
The Crimson chat is a unique bird in that it resides exclusively in particular parts of Australia, follows an irregular migratory path, forms nesting communities, and possesses unique coloring, among other things. Numbers and Facts
Minimum Size: 11 cm
Maximum Size: 13 cm
Average Size: 12 cm
Minimum Weight: 9 g
Maximum Weight: 12 g
Average Weight: 10.5 g
Breeding Season: July to December
Clutch Minimum Size: 2
Clutch Maximum Size: 4
Clutch Average Size: 3
Incubation: 14 days
Time in Nest: 14 days
Egg Size: 1 to 2 cm wide and long | <urn:uuid:55a1a490-15b4-4dae-9790-9571393c3ad6> | {
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Object-Based Access Control
Object-Based Access Control implements user authorization by using permissions to define what each user can do to the objects to which he or she has access.
In general, any object for which permissions is not explicitly granted is forbidden.
User authorization is provided by the combination of a set of elementary permissions, shown in the following table. This security mechanism implemented in Configuration Server allows the system administrator to define separately a level of access for any account with respect to any object.
|Read||Permission to read information and receive updates about the object.|
|Create||Permission to create objects in this folder.|
|Change|| Permission to change the properties of the object. The Change permission is the
same as allowing “Write” access.
|Execute||Permission to perform a predefined action or set of actions with respect to the object. This is also required for a user to log in to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application.|
|Delete||Permission to delete the object.|
|Read Permissions||Permission to read the access control settings for the object.|
|Change Permissions||Permission to change the access control settings for the object.|
|Read & Execute||
|Propagate||For container objects (such as Tenants, Folders, Switches, IVRs, and Enumerators). The Propagate check box controls whether to propagate this set of elementary permissions to the child objects. By default, the check box is selected).|
The access privileges of authenticated user accounts define what the user can and cannot do within this application. The Execute permission is used to control access to applications, solutions, and other configuration objects. Without such permission, the user cannot work with a given application or execute control over a given object. Combinations of the Read, Create, Change, and Delete permissions define the level of access to configuration data. For example, users might have access to a real-time reporting solution but will get reports only about objects they have permission to read.
Access control for daemon applications is different from that for GUI applications. Access permissions for GUI applications are determined by the profile of the person who is currently logged in. Daemon applications do not have an explicit login procedure. Instead, their access permissions are determined by the permissions of the account with which they are associated: a personal account or the SYSTEM account. Any personal account registered as a Person object in the Configuration Database can be used as an account for any daemon application. By default, every daemon application is associated with a special account SYSTEM that has Read and Execute permissions for all objects in the Configuration Database except Access Groups.
Access Groups and Default Security Settings
Access Groups are groups of Person objects who must have the same set of permissions with respect to Configuration Database objects. By adding individuals to Access Groups—and then setting permissions for those groups—access control is greatly simplified.
Genesys offers these preconfigured Default Access Groups:
- Users: Members have Read and Execute permissions with respect to all objects except Access Groups.
- Administrators: Members have a full set of permissions with respect to all objects except the Super Administrators Access Group.
- Super Administrators: Members have a full set of permissions with respect to every object in the Configuration Database. No person is added to this group by default.
In addition, in a hierarchical multi-tenant configuration, Configuration Server creates these Default Access Groups for each new Tenant object:
- Users: Members have Read and Execute permissions with respect to all objects under this Tenant except Access Groups.
- Administrators: Members have a full set of permissions with respect to all objects under this Tenant.
By default, Configuration Server considers a new user to be a member of the EVERYONE group. It does not assign that user to any Access Group when he or she is created. Likewise, the new user is not automatically assigned any permissions by default. In effect, the new user has no privileges, and cannot log in to any interface or use a daemon application. The new user must be explicitly added to appropriate Access Groups by an Administrator or by existing users with access rights to modify the user’s account. Refer to Genesys Administrator 8.1 Help for more information about adding a user to an Access Group.
By default, this behavior applies to all new users added by Configuration Server release 7.6 or later. Users created before release 7.6 keep their existing set of permissions and Access Group assignments. If you want new users to be added automatically to predefined Access Groups, as was the behavior prior to release 7.6, you must manually disable this feature by using the Configuration Server no-default-access configuration option.
For more information about this feature, including how it works and how to modify it, see No Default Access.
Master Account and Super Administrators
The Configuration Database contains a predefined user object, otherwise known as the Master Account or Default User. This account, named default and with a password of password, is not associated with any Access Group. The Master Account always exists in the system and has a full set of permissions with respect to all objects in the Configuration Database. You must use this account when you log in to the Configuration Layer for the first time after Configuration Database initialization.
- In addition to emergency situations, you still must use the Master Account for some specific administrative tasks, especially during migration. Refer to the description of the specific tasks throughout this and other documents, including the Genesys Migration Guide, to determine whether you need to use the Master Account, or whether you can use another account that has the required permissions.
- Genesys recommends that you change the default name and password of the Master Account, store it securely, and use this account for only emergency purposes or whenever specifically required.
During one of your first working sessions, create non-agent accounts for everyone who needs full access to all objects and add these accounts to the Super Administrators group. By default, every member of the Super Administrators group has the same permissions as the Master Account.
Think of the EVERYONE group as an Access Group that includes every user registered in the Configuration Database. You cannot delete or modify this group, which, by default, has no permissions set for any configuration objects.
Multiple (and unequal) permissions can affect a User's access to an object. If a User belongs to multiple Access Groups and those Access Groups have different permissions for the object, the User gets the logical union of privileges from the set of access privileges with one exception: the No Access access privilege supersedes all others.
- User John is a member of Access Group A and Access Group B.
- Access Group A has Read-only access to the Host Friday, but Access Group B has Read/Write access to the Host Friday.
As a result, John has Read/Write access to the Host Friday.
To understand the exception to this rule, now assume that:
- User John joins Access Group C, which has No Access privileges to the Host Friday.
As a result, User John now has no access to the Host Friday.
Setting and Changing Permissions
Permissions are set and changed in Genesys Administrator on the Permissions tab of the appropriate object.
Granting PermissionsTo grant permissions, use the following steps. [+] Show steps
Modifying PermissionsTo modify permissions, use the following steps: [+] Show steps
Removing PermissionsTo remove permissions previously granted to a user or group of users, use the following steps: [+] Show steps
Changing Permissions Using Propagation
The Propagate check box in the properties of so-called container objects (such as Tenants, Folders, Switches, and IVRs) allows you to manage access permissions to both the container object and those objects that they contain—the so-called child objects—without affecting the permissions of other Users or Access Groups.
When the Propagate check box is selected (the default setting) for a container object, any changes to permissions to the container object will be propagated to (that is, also made to) the permissions to each child object.
Use propagation when you want to set identical permissions for a user to a container object and all its child objects. For example, if you are setting up a new user or Access Group, and that user or group is to have identical permissions to a container object and all the objects that it contains, you have to add permissions for that user or groups only once—in the container object.
If you want to change the permissions to the container object without changing those of the child objects, clear the Propagate check box before changing the object’s access permissions.
The setting of the Propagate check box (checked or unchecked) is saved between propagations. This enables you to ensure that subsequent changes to permissions settings are consistently propagated or not.
If you want to set permissions for only the child objects without changing those of the parent object, set the child permissions as required. If the consistently check box in the parent is checked for the users whose permissions were changed, any changes for the child will last only until the next propagation. However, if you then change permissions for another user at the parent level, the resulting propagation will not overwrite the earlier manual change to the first user.
Changing Permissions Recursively
If the Propagate and Replace permissions recursively check boxes are selected for a container object, all permission settings for its child objects are removed and replaced with all permission settings configured for the parent object. Recursion is basically propagation on a clean slate—removing any access rights to the child objects for any users and groups except those propagated from the parent object.
The Replace permissions recursively check box is unchecked by default, and must be selected explicitly each time that you want to propagate recursively.
Hierarchical Multi-Tenant Environments
Generally, permissions function in a hierarchical multi-tenant environment in the same way as they do in an enterprise environment. However, there are some exceptions. This section identifies the issues related to using object permissions in a hierarchical multi-tenant environment, and provides workarounds where available.
Accessing Tenants and Objects in Other Tenants
By default, and with one exception, users in one tenant cannot create another tenant, nor can they access any objects in another tenant. Generally, the only exception to this situation is that the Default User (using the Master Account) and members of the SuperAdministrators Access Group can create new tenants and access objects in other tenants.
The details of default behavior in a hierarchical multi-tenant environment, and recommendations to work around the limitations imposed by that default behavior, are given in the following sections.
Creating New Tenants
A new Tenant object can be created only by the Default User or a user who is a member of the Super Administrators Access Group.
When a tenant is created, permissions to it are granted to the following Access Groups, as follows:
- Environment/default (the Default user)—Full control
- Super Administrators (from the Environment Tenant)—Full control
- SYSTEM (from the Environment Tenant)—Read & Execute (RX)
- [new Tenant]\Administrators—Read & Execute (RX)
- [new Tenant]\Users—Read & Execute (RX)
Add users as necessary to the Super Administrators group to enable them to create tenants. Refer to Genesys Administrator 8.1 Help for instructions about adding users to Access Groups.
Providing Users Access to Objects in Other Tenants
By default, a new user is not granted access to any objects. As in an enterprise environment, each new user must explicitly be granted permissions and/or added to an Access Group with permissions, to access any objects. See No Default Access for New Users for more information.
To log in to an Application, a user must have at least Read & Execute permissions for that Application. After he or she is logged in, the user can access only those objects in his or own Tenant; he or she cannot access any objects in another Tenant.
To gain access to objects in another Tenant, the user must be granted permissions to those other objects by one of the following:
- the creator of the other Tenant
- another member of the Super Administrators Access Group
Providing Users in Parent Tenant Access to Objects in Child Tenants
A user in a parent tenant has no default access to the objects in the child tenants.
- Explicitly grant at least Read access to all child tenants.
- Explicitly add the user to one of the two built-in Access Groups in each child tenant—Administrators or Users.
Voice Platform Solution Limitation
When a hierarchical multi-tenant configuration is used with the Voice Platform Solution in a managed server setting, a major limitation arises when creating Tenants and Direct Inward Dialing (DID) numbers. In essence, this limitation forces the system owner to create and maintain all Tenants and DIDs for all tenants.
In the Voice Platform Solution, DIDs must be unique across the entire system. The software is designed to validate this uniqueness when DIDs are created. This requires that the user who inputting this information must have at least Read access to all DID objects in all Tenants, and therefore access to the Tenants themselves. However, in a managed server environment, it is highly unlikely that the Service Provider wants one tenant to see, or even know about, other tenants. Therefore, the only user that could input this information would be a member of the Super Administrators Access Group, namely, the system owner. The current model of access permissions does not permit any workaround to this situation at this time. | <urn:uuid:72d9135e-eb93-4233-8519-1bf88eceddc3> | {
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For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia
By Robert D. Crews
(Harvard University Press, 463 pp., $29.95)
Russia's Islamic Threat
By Gordon M. Hahn
(Yale University Press, 349 pp., $35)
Poskrebi russikogo i naydyosh tatarina: scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar. The origin of this quip is uncertain (attributed to Napoleon, it is found in Michelet, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Marx, and Lenin); but its accuracy has made it into something of a Russian proverb. This past summer the adage even found its way into one of Vladimir Putin's long, surly, preening, and occasionally vulgar monologues disguised as a press conference.
The observation about Russia's largest Muslim people is literally true of some of Russia's most distinguished families, who trace their origins to the Golden Horde conquerors. Rasputin's assassin, Prince Felix Yusupov, was from one such family; Vladimir Nabokov, whose ancestor Nabok Murza was a fourteenth- century Russianized Tatar prince of Moskovy, was a scion of another. And the reference to the Tatars certainly is correct in a larger historic sense. Outside of Spain, where the Muslim presence was ended by expulsion at the end of the fifteenth century, the thirteen hundred years of Islam's continuous presence within its current borders make Russia Europe's oldest and largest Muslim nation.
Russian Muslims rightly claim that Islam arrived in what was to become Russia before Orthodox Christianity. By the time the Great Prince Vladimir of Kiev baptized his subjects in the Dnieper in 988, Muslim communities had been well established along the Volga River (the future home of the Tatars) and in the northern Caucasus (Dagestan), later spreading east to the Ural Mountains and Siberia and into the Kazakh steppes. In 1613, when Russia's nobles offered the throne to the first Romanov czar, Mikhail, several Tatar princes were among the electors.
Between 20 million and 23 million strong, Russia's Muslims are more numerous and constitute a greater share of the country's population (14 to 16 percent) than in France (5 to 6 million and 8 to 10 percent), Germany (3.4 million and 4 percent), Britain (1.6 million and almost 3 percent), or the Netherlands (almost 1 million and nearly 6 percent). Only tiny Bosnia-Herzegovina, with 40 percent of its 4.5 million citizens, has a larger proportion of Muhammad's followers.
Islam has been a major and durable aspect of Russia's history, geography, and culture. Two of the finest works of Russian prose, Tolstoy's Hadji Murat and Lermontov's A Hero for Our Time, were inspired by the longest and most tragic episode of Russia's engagement with Islam: the almost sixty-year colonial war on the Muslim peoples of the northern Caucasus, especially the Chechens, who between 1834 and 1859 waged jihad under the red-bearded Imam Shamil. Both Tolstoy and Lermontov fought in that war, and in Hadji Murat Tolstoy contrasted the bravery and nobility of the Chechen warriors with the callousness and incompetence of the Russian high command.
Forever associated with the quest for freedom, the Caucasus also inspired some of the best Russian poetry: Pushkin's gorgeously mellifluous eight lines of "In the Hills of Georgia" (1829) and Lermontov's "Dream" (1841, about a Russian dying of wounds "in the noon heat in a Dagestan valley"), "Dagger" (1838), and "Valerik" (1843). The latter work, whose title is derived from the Chechen vallarig or "dead," is about one of the bloodiest battles of the Chechen war, on July 11, 1840, for which Lermontov was recommended for a medal. Both Pushkin and Lermontov wrote poems titled "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," about a Russian soldier captured by the Chechens. Pushkin's longer "Fountain of Bakhchisaray" (1824), like much else in his work inspired by Byron's Romantic poems, is set in the eponymous capital of the Muslim Crimean khanate. And on at least one occasion the Russian entwinement with Islam proved lethal to high Russian literature. In 1829, a fanatical mob in Tehran, unleashed by the mullahs to avenge alleged slurs against Islam, broke into the Russian embassy and killed all the diplomats, including the head of the mission, the brilliant Alexander Griboedov, Pushkin's contemporary and friend and the author of the classic Russian verse play Grief From Intelligence.
The conquest of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 brought the Tatar homeland into the rapidly expanding Russian state. (St. Basil's Cathedral was erected on Red Square to celebrate the victory.) Peter the Great pushed south and east, securing for the empire the lands between the Volga River and the Urals and, with them, the Bashkirs: Russia's second-largest Muslim people, after the Tatars. Catherine the Great wrestled the Crimean peninsula from the Ottomans in 1791 and began to incorporate the southeastern steppe "borderlands" populated by the Kazakh nomads. In the last third of the nineteenth century, the Russian empire gobbled up "Turkestan," now known as Central Asia, with its ancient cities of Tashkent, Kokand, Khiva, Osh, Bukhara, and Samarkand, the latter two revered by Muslims around the world for their madrassas, or Qur'anic schools. The first census in 1897 found that almost one in ten Russians profess Islam.
So how has the modern Russian state done in four and a half centuries of co-existence with its Muslim subjects? And how useful is this rather unique history for today's West, desperate for peace with its own rapidly growing populations of Muslim citizens? The answer to the first question is, not as badly as could be expected of the corrupt empire that Lenin rightly called the "prison of peoples" (and which, when in power, he promptly upgraded to a maximum-security facility).
Responsible for this fairly remarkable accomplishment, as Robert D. Crews argues persuasively, was a rather sophisticated policy of state support of "official" Islam, in which Islamic clerics were granted a substantial degree of power and autonomy in religious, cultural, and communal matters in the hope of "grounding" imperial rule in religious authority. The Kremlin viewed Islam as an "anchor of stability" in the giant multi-ethnic and multi-confessional empire, and sought to use it to "enhance respect for order." As in the Ottoman Empire, Russia's neighbor and perennial rival, this partial delegation of authority to the leaders of self-ruling religious and ethnic communities allowed Moscow to rule with fewer complications and, ultimately, with less violence. At least by the crudest--but also the most vital--measure of the frequency and scale of rebellions, Moscow succeeded impressively. The Caucasus aside, Muslim revolts were relatively few and small, from Catherine, when the Bashkirs mutinied under mullah Batyrshah in 1775, to Nicholas II, when the Muslims of "Turkestan" rose in 1916 in response to the drafting of nearly half a million men to serve in Russian work units behind the front lines of World War I.
Crews's book is solid and enlightening, and his research is prodigious, documenting a century and a half of the state's role as mediator, enforcer, and supreme resource for the claimants to the leadership in Muslim communities. Crews has studied police reports, court records, the writings of Russian Muslim clerics, and the petitions of Muslim subjects, and he comes away with a fascinating and important story, which he tells skillfully. (Though the gentle reader ought to be prepared to translate into plain English sentences such as "The institutional environment facilitated maneuvering that challenged religious scholars' claims to exclusive monopoly of religious knowledge and enabled a more dynamic contest about the definition of Islamic norms.")
It was Catherine who thought it useful to make the imperial regime a "patron of Islam." Even in the middle of the first of several Russo-Turkish wars of her reign, Catherine disregarded the bloodthirsty urgings of her pen pal Voltaire (in 1771 he advised the empress to "exterminate the two great scourges of the earth--the plague and the Turks") and re-affirmed the right of the Turks' co- religionists, the Turkic-speaking Tatars, to build stone mosques "in the presence of"--that is, a stone's throw from-- Orthodox churches, despite the strenuous objections of the Russian Orthodox Episcopate in Kazan. Half a century later, while fighting the Turks in the northern Caucasus, a Russian general advised the Muslim Adygei people, one of the largest ethnic communities of Dagestan, that "this war does not concern you" and that "the Russian government will not confuse you with the Turks." At about the same time, in 1823, the first mosque in Moscow was dedicated, and Crews reports that all the while a copy of the Qur'an was kept in the Kremlin so that Muslims could swear the oath of allegiance.
"Official" Russian Islam began with the establishment of the "Ecclesiastical Assembly of the Muhammadan Creed" in 1788, in the Bashkir capital of Ufa. The head of the assembly was appointed the mufti of all Russian Muslims and given a princely state salary of fifteen hundred rubles a year. Later moved to the city-fortress of Orenburg in the southeastern Urals, the assembly was granted supreme authority over the theological matters, daily rituals, and family affairs of the Islamic community. Birth, marriage, and divorce became "the exclusive domain" of "Mohammadan clergy," and the Muslims were to follow the legal opinions, or fatwas, of the supreme mufti. Between 1836 and 1888, the assembly licensed almost 14,000 clerics, and on its hundredth anniversary it oversaw 4,254 parishes, where more than 7,000 clerics ministered to 3.5 million Muslims.
When the relentless imperial expansion brought Russia in contact with the Kazakh pagan nomads, their conversion to Islam became an official policy, designed to turn them away from cattle-stealing and slaving raids on the Bashkirs, Russians, and Kalmyks along the southern frontier and to make them into law-abiding imperial subjects. To that end, Moscow dispatched Tatar clerics to the Kazakh steppes, and in 1787 Catherine ordered the printing of the Qur'an in St. Petersburg to be distributed to the Kazakhs. (By the end of the eighteenth century, 3,600 copies were also sold to Russian Muslims.)
Moscow's policy certainly succeeded where it mattered most: among the Tatars. Inspired and enabled by the great liberalizing reforms of Alexander II, the progressive Tatar intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s sought to redress the "backwardness" and "stagnation" of Islam and to bring it into line with European "enlightenment" and "progress." The reformers, who became known as "jadids"--from the Arabic usul-i jaded, or "new method"--started publishing a bilingual Turkic and Russian newspaper, and Kazan merchants and entrepreneurs supported Russian-language instruction in the Qur'anic schools and colleges that they funded.
Of course, there always was a powerful international dimension-- "geopolitical," as we would call it today--to Russia's Islamic policy. Russian Muslims were a coveted prize in the bitter contest for the Caucasus with the Ottoman Empire and Persia, and later in the "Great Game" between Russia and Britain in Central Asia and Afghanistan. At the outset of World War I, the Ottoman sultan--who was also a self-proclaimed caliph, or supreme political leader, of the entire umma (the worldwide community of the faithful)--issued a fatwa from Istanbul commanding all Muslims to wage jihad against the Russians, the British, and the French.
The German kaiser, too, dreamed of a "wild revolt" of the world's Muslims against the Entente. A German fighting song (to which a German Orientalist scholar reportedly had contributed) called on "Muslim comrades": "I am a Christian, and you are a Muslim, But that doesn't harm a thing!/Our victory is certain,/Our fortune is not a dream!" (The German campaign prompted a clandestine counter-effort by British intelligence, which was masterfully portrayed in John Buchan's novel Greenmantle in 1916.) The Orenburg mufti duly responded with a call to his coreligionists to show their devotion to "our fatherland, near and dear to our hearts, the hearts of Muslims."
Like other subjects of the empire--most notably the ethnic Russians themselves--Muslims resisted conscription or deserted, and some may have emigrated from the Volga and the Urals regions to the Ottoman empire during or right after the Crimean and Balkan wars with Turkey, but in the end Russia's Muslims passed the ultimate test of citizenship--from the Bashkir cavalry in the eighteenth-century campaigns against the Swedes and later against Napoleon to the more than one million Muslims fighting for the fatherland in World War I. When, on February 21, 1913, the Muslim nobility came to the St. Petersburg mosque to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, they were joined not only by the Muslim members of the parliament, but also by an army general.
Still, for all its relative tolerance and sophistication in managing its Muslim subjects, Russia remained a police state, complete with domestic passports and residence permits, which, although deployed most notably against Jews, affected Muslims as well. Proselytizing to non-Muslims and converting them to Islam were criminal offenses. After the Main Administration of the Religions Affairs of Foreign Confessions was created in 1810, there was never any doubt that ultimate and unchallenged control over "Muslim affairs" was in the hands of the state bureaucracy. (Two decades later the administration found its proper and permanent home in the Ministry of Internal Affairs--that is, the police.) Just as it did with the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church since the time of Peter the Great, the government "trusted but verified" by creating a carefully vetted Muslim clerical nomenklatura. In one instance, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the job of the Orenburg mufti was given to a Tatar noble who had no religious background but was politically very reliable. In the last third of the nineteenth century, separate state administrations were established for the Sunnis and the Shia in the Caucasus.
Unlike the rulers of Spain, the czars never presented their Muslims with the choice of conversion or expulsion. Yet the Russian army's brutality and the senseless destruction it left in its wake--which Tolstoy recounts in heartbreaking detail in Hadji Murat--forced hundreds of thousands of Muslims to flee the Caucasus and the Crimea. In 1820, Crews tells us, Nicholas I defined his army's mission in the Caucasus as "the pacification for good of the mountain peoples or the extirpation of the recalcitrants."
In the early 1830s, after the Russian field commanders in the Caucasus identified the religious leaders (the "guides") of the Sufi school of Islam as "agents of fanaticism" and the "backbone" of the guerilla resistance (Imam Shamil was a Sufi), the Foreign Ministry attempted to rescind Alexander I's twenty-seven-year-old decree permitting Central Asian hajjis to travel through Russia to Istanbul and Mecca. "Instead of going to Mecca for worship," the ministry reported, "[they] have stayed among us in places inhabited by Muhammadans, [and] incited in the latter fanaticism and have engendered all kinds of subversive principles." A decade later, Nicholas I prohibited "the entry across our borders of any figures of Muhammadan ecclesiastical rank," and the War Ministry secretly ordered the Orenburg governor to deny Muslims permission to go on the hajj. The pilgrimage to Mecca, the ministry argued, "diverted" Muslim soldiers and officials form the service to the state," while the hajjis returned with an "influence on their co-religionists [that is] unfavorable to us."
Despite their clearly official status, the Russian state also withheld from Muslim clerics the rights and privileges accorded to Russian Orthodox priests, most significantly tax-exempt status. The authorities never hesitated to interfere forcefully and openly in intra-Muslim theological, legal, and social affairs, so as to promote those interpretations of Islamic legal norms and doctrines deemed most beneficial to the state and to support the clerics advocating them, while curbing or banishing those considered subversive. Local administrators were empowered to abrogate the rulings of Islamic courts. (In some instances, painstakingly documented by Crews, such interventions were progressive, as in the case of the two women in the Fergana Valley sentenced by a local justice of an Islamic court to several months in jail for wearing Russian clothes and appearing on the streets unveiled.)
The empire, Crews notes, "needed Islam but feared its guardians." Mosques were closed, and dissident men of religion were harassed and spied on. The Muslims' ties to foreign hubs of scholarship (Kabul, Istanbul, Baghdad, Cairo, and Mecca) were closely monitored and occasionally severed. Protests were suppressed resolutely. And so finally, for all its richness and all its consonance with the concerns of today, there are sharp limits to the usable past for anyone seeking to learn from the Russian experience of "the search for peace between Muslims and their non-Muslim rulers," as Crews puts it. Bought at so steep a price in civil and political liberties, such stability would be too costly for our idea of a democracy. In the end, Crews rightly concludes, the mixture of "co-optation, patronage, and policing [that made Islam] the enduring pillar of the tsarist imperial order" may be ill-suited for states that "value democracy and human rights."
And what of post-Soviet Russia, where a return to pre-1917 conditions surely would have been an enormous advance over the Soviet totalitarian state's complete ownership of religious institutions (together with everything else in the country)? With the strategic vision and tactical brilliance that he wielded until unimaginable stress, multiple illnesses, and painkillers mixed with alcohol ruined him, Boris Yeltsin pulled Russia from the brink of disintegration in the early 1990s first by resurrecting the tradition of cultural and religious autonomy for ethnic minorities, and then by quickly going beyond it to democratic self-rule for all of Russia's (then) eighty-nine federal regions. When, in 1995, he authorized the direct election of regional governors, for the first time in its history there was a Russian state that was both radically decentralized and whole. Until then, the only alternative to chaos had been autocracy or dictatorship.
Tellingly, Yeltsin chose Ufa as the place from which to proclaim the policy that was to save Russia. "We are saying to the Bashkir people," he declared in August 1990, when he was the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, "take as much power as you can swallow!" Three months after the Soviet Union's demise, in March 1992, the Kremlin and the ethnic "autonomous republics" agreed on the Federal Treaty, which laid the foundation of Russia's new federal state.
Of the sixteen republics, only two refused to sign the treaty. One was Chechnya, the other was Tatarstan. Yeltsin stubbornly pursued negotiations. He succeeded with Tatarstan, the heavily Russified nominal home of the 5.5 million Tatars (more than half of them living outside the republic), about the size of Ireland. In February 1994, a bilateral treaty was signed between Moscow and Kazan, Tatarstan's capital. Unprecedented for Russia, and with few analogies in modern history, the Republic of Tatarstan was declared "a state united with the Russian Federation" rather than its subject. Moscow granted Tatarstan most of a sovereign nation's rights: flag, constitution, taxation, the ownership of very formidable oil deposits. Tatarstan was allowed to conduct its own foreign trade, and its youths were exempt from the all-Russian military conscription. Soon other ethnic republics and smaller ethnic enclaves (oblasts, or provinces), as well as some of the largest ethnic Russian regions, demanded such treaties. These, too, were duly negotiated and signed, bringing the total number to thirty-one by the summer of 1997. Not one province since then has threatened to leave Russia.
But Chechnya's story grew steadily, and then irreversibly, darker. Less than two years after declaring independence in November 1991, Chechnya's elected president, Dzhokhar Dudaev, formerly a major general in the Soviet Air Force, dissolved the parliament, killed scores of protesters, and became an erratic and paranoid dictator. Dudaev's enemies, real or imagined, were swiftly murdered by his small army of bodyguards. Chechnya was turning into a lawless enclave, with a population of 1.2 million people and almost as many small arms. Trains passing through the republic were routinely robbed, and passengers were advised to barricade themselves in their compartments. To prevent the spread of irredentism to other Muslim areas of the northern Caucasus, to protect a pipeline that carried hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil through Chechnya from the Caspian fields to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, and to deny the left-nationalist bloc in the Duma yet another propaganda tale of the "liberals" who were "destroying Russia," the Kremlin tried everything from economic blockade and covert subversion to support of the unsuccessful anti-Dudaev uprising in November 1994. On December 11, 1994, Yeltsin ordered 40,000 federal troops to "restore order" in Chechnya.
A combination of prison, torture chamber, and hard-labor camp, the sullen and dysfunctional Russian army was no match for the fearless, skillful, and tenacious Chechen fighters, spurred by the memories of nearly two centuries of the bloody contest with Russian and Soviet imperialism and of genocide. (In 1944, Stalin deported the entire Chechen nation of 489,000 people to Central Asia; an estimated 200,000 died of disease and starvation). Trapped in the streets of Grozny, the untrained, hungry, and cold eighteen-year-old Russian draftees were mowed down by the hundreds: machine-gunned, blown to pieces by grenades, burned to death by flame-throwers, and crushed by their own tanks, as Russian commanders kept sending more and more troops into the ambushes. By the time Grozny was taken in Stalingrad-like house-to-house fighting a month later, an estimated 24,000 (perhaps as many as 30,000) Chechen civilians were dead, together with 1,800 Russian troops officially reported killed. (The actual number is almost certainly higher, perhaps by orders of magnitude.) The Chechens also began a very effective guerrilla campaign increasingly punctuated by stunning strikes outside Chechnya, including mass hostage-takings. Fought with extreme brutality on both sides, most of the war's casualties were inflicted by the Russians, who killed, tortured, pillaged, and raped with abandon.
In the middle of a very tough and freely contested presidential race, with public opinion a key factor in Russian politics and the still-uncensored and often privately owned television stations nightly feeding millions images of the Chechen carnage, Yeltsin pledged to end the war. After his re-election, he kept his word. In the pre-dawn hours on August 31, 1996, in the Dagestani town of Khasavayurt, General Alexander Lebed, then secretary of the Kremlin's Security Council and one of Russia's most popular politicians, signed an agreement that granted Chechnya "full control" over its internal affairs, including finance and natural resources.
Although its "final status" was to be decided in negotiations with Moscow in five years, and although not one country except Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was to recognize it as such, for all intents and purposes the Republic of Ichkeria--a lone howling wolf on its flag--became a de facto independent state, even as Moscow continued to send millions of rubles for reconstruction, pensions, schools, and hospitals in support of the legal fiction of the republic's continuing membership in the Russian Federation. By January 1, 1997, not a single Russian soldier or policeman remained on Chechen soil.
It was too late. The transformation of the Chechen conflict from a largely secular movement of national liberation into a religious war had already begun. The symbol of the Chechen resistance, General Dzhokhar Dudaev--nattily dressed and smoothly shaven (save for a tiny, expertly trimmed moustache), a former member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union--was killed by a Russian missile in early 1996, and he was replaced by a coterie of Wahhabi warlords with luxurious beards and hairless upper lips, shaved heads, and baggy short cotton trousers. The most resilient and determined and lethal among them, Shamil Basaev, became Ichkeria's prime minister under President Aslan Maskhadov. By then he had reportedly already trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Even before Maskhadov declared it an Islamic republic in November 1997, Chechnya introduced Islamic courts, which swiftly started passing sentences on those who violated sharia, or Islamic law. In April 1997, in the first of the executions broadcast on Chechnya's state-run television, a group of hooded men slit a man's throat. Subsequent executions by firing squad took place in Grozny's Friendship of Peoples Square in the presence of thousands of spectators. In February 1999, sharia became the official law of Chechnya. In response to statements by Yeltsin and the Duma, horrified by "barbaric," "medieval," and "impermissible" acts in what was nominally still part of Russia, the Chechen presidential spokesman said: "The disapproval by Russia and the West of our actions--shooting by a firing squad and public executions--means that we're heading in the right direction. There is no doubt that only the laws of Allah and norms of sharia will be in force in Chechnya."
From an internal affair of Russia's, largely neglected by the Muslim world, Chechnya turned into a Muslim cause, a major battlefront of world jihad. Already by 1995, along with mujahideen from Bosnia and Azerbaijan, some three hundred "Afghan" Arabs were said to be fighting in Chechnya. Among them was the Saudi-born Jordanian Abu Ibn Al Khattab, who soon became a top commander and Basaev's friend and confidant. Khattab's goal was a North Caucasus caliphate.
In December 1996, Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri tried clandestinely to enter Chechnya and develop a new base for the organization after Sudan expelled the Al Qaeda leadership. Arrested in Dagestan, which borders Chechnya in the east, Zawahiri spent six months in prison in Makhachkala, the capital. He was found guilty of entering Russia without a visa and was released in May 1997. In a handwritten statement in Arabic made public by the Russian authorities five years later, Zawahiri claimed to be a "businessman" who had entered Dagestan "to study the local market and to build contacts for our business." In a file stored on a laptop computer found in an Al Qaeda safe house in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban, Zawahiri wrote that "God blinded [the Dagestani authorities] to our identities."
According to testimonies in 2002 at the trial in Hamburg of Mounir Motassadeq, a Moroccan accused of assisting the September 11 hijackers, his friends and co-conspirators--who were "obsessed with jihad" and "cheerfully" sang songs about martyrdom--"always talked about Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Chechnya." In the fall of 1999, three of the September 11 pilots--Mohammed Atta, Marwan Al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah--left Hamburg for the Al Qaeda training camp near Kandahar, in Afghanistan, with the intention of "fighting the Russians in Chechnya." They were told that there were "enough fighters" in Chechnya. Instead, according to German investigators, the Al Qaeda leadership ordered the three to "begin laying plans" for what became the September 11 attack.
By then there were reportedly at least a hundred Al Qaeda fighters among the Chechen resistance force that used the Pankisi Gorge on the Georgian side of the Chechnya-Georgia border as a staging area for raids into Chechnya. According to Georgian investigators and to American "intelligence sources," the Al Qaeda contingent "split their time between helping the Chechens in their war against Russia and helping the [Al Qaeda] international organization in its war against the United States." (Three years later, the American-trained Georgian commandos captured fifteen Arabs in the Pankisi Gorge and immediately extradited them to the United States. Among the prisoners was the Egyptian Saif Al Islam El Masry, a member of the Al Qaeda military committee. Trained by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and sent to Somalia in the early 1990s, he was mentioned in the federal indictment of a prominent Muslim charity, the Illinois- based Benevolence International Foundation, as an officer of the foundation's "Chechen branch.")
The agenda of the Chechen resistance began to change. For most field commanders, the goal of peace and prosperity for an independent Chechnya seemed to be gradually displaced by martyrdom and victory in jihad against Russia. After a series of raids, assassinations, and kidnappings outside their new country, Basaev and Khattab led the invasion of Dagestan on August 2, 1999 with the goal of establishing an "Islamic republic of North Caucasus." Basaev called on the Dagestanis to "rise up and end 140 years of occupation by the Muscovite infidels."
Two months before the invasion, Chechnya's president, Aslan Maskhadov, told an interviewer: "After the [1994- 1996] war I was tired, I was dreaming about a respite, as was the rest of the Chechen nation. But even then it looked like war was imminent. With dismay I listened to the speeches of a variety of [Chechen] politicians and [military] commanders. These calls for holy war, the liberation of the Caucasus, flying green flags [of Islam] over the Kremlin. I knew everything was heading toward war." After the invasion was repulsed, Shirvani Basaev, Shamil Basaev's brother, declared that "the assault on Dagestan was just a rehearsal. It was nothing to do with oil or territory. This is jihad."
Appointed prime minister a month later by a panicked and very sick Yeltsin, in large measure to defend Dagestan, Vladimir Putin would later complain that it took almost a month for the Kremlin to put together a force of battle-ready and equipped troops to confront between one thousand and two thousand Chechens: "There was nobody to send to war." The invaders were repelled primarily by Dagestani troops, local militia, and private citizens whose attachment to personal firearms easily matches, say, that of Texans. But once the troops were assembled, Putin pursued Basaev into Chechnya. Determined to bomb rather than to storm, the Russians reduced Grozny to rubble and forced the resistance into the mountains again.
What happened afterward is the heart of Gordon M. Hahn's book about "Russia's emerging revolutionary jihadist terrorist network." Russia's Islamic Threat is almost certain to become the definitive work on the subject. Exhaustively researched, it is dense and sometimes wearying, with all the elegance of a graduate school paper. Its wooden and arid language is littered with acronyms and flooded with names, facts, and figures, as well as long verbatim passages from Islamic websites. But the tale that Hahn tells is as substantial as it is striking. He describes his book as an effort to fill a "shocking" void in our knowledge, and he has a few shocks of his own to deliver. That the book is at times alarmist does not make it less alarming--not with potential terrorists on the loose in a land with 16,000 nuclear warheads, half of the world's highly enriched uranium (at least 400 tons) and weapons-grade plutonium (another 100 tons), 40,000 tons of chemical weapons (including at least 1.9 million artillery shells filled with deadly nerve agents), and unknown quantities of deadly biological substances.
Should the loyalties of most of Russia's Muslims start to waver between the motherland and the jihad, the demographic trends, as everywhere in Europe, would spell a very troubling future. Of all Russia's myriad ethnic groups, the fertility rates of its Muslim peoples are the highest. Between the censuses of 1989 and 2002, the number of ethnic Russians declined by 3 percent and the number of Muslims increased by 20 percent. To make matters worse, the largest population increases have been recorded in the Muslim North Caucasus (especially in the autonomous republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino- Balkaria), where the levels of unemployment are also the highest--as is involvement in militant Islamist networks anywhere in Russia outside Chechnya. By mid-century, Hahn surmises, such decidedly inauspicious circumstances may produce "a torrential river of jihadist volunteers."
In addition to his meticulous examination of the fundamentalist networks, Hahn's signal contribution is in placing the threat in a larger context of what he correctly labels Putin's "counter-revolution." Having won a few battles, Hahn suggests, Putin (or rather, Russia) may be losing the war for the North Caucasus and, in the longer run, for the hearts and minds of many of its Muslim citizens.
Between the years 2000 and 2004, it looked like Moscow was losing the war on terror as well. The number of attacks grew exponentially every year, reaching 561 in 2003 (from 20 in 1999). Just as troubling was the symbolic orchestration of the assaults. The same Chechen fighters whose daring and acumen resulted in casualties that were only a fraction of those they inflicted on the enemy, and who again and again defied enormous odds by slipping through seemingly impenetrable perimeters set by the Russians (and bringing out their wounded and dead with them), now seemed to be celebrating death and seeking martyrdom.
On the tape aired by Al Jazeera the day after the spectators in a Moscow theater were taken hostage in October 2002, one of the black-clad Chechens said: "I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living." The terrorists spoke against the backdrop of a green banner with the words "God is great" written in Arabic. The women wore hijabs, which had not been seen on Chechen women before. "We have come to die in Moscow," one of them was heard saying on the same tape, "and we will kill hundreds of infidels."
In a radio interview from inside the theater, the hostage-taker's leader called his troop "Islam's suicide brigade." "Our motto is freedom and paradise, " one of his soldiers added. "We already have freedom as we've come to Moscow. Now we want to be in paradise." Shortly thereafter, Shamil Basaev renamed the "brigade" Ryad as-Salahin, the Arabic for "gardens of peace," which can also be interpreted as "salvation" or "paradise." (The group would claim the responsibility for all major terrorist attacks in Russia since then, most recently the derailment of the Moscow-St. Petersburg express this past August.)
Yet nothing prepared Russia and the world for the bacchanalia of violence in 2004. Hahn mentions the subway bombing in Moscow in February (more than forty killed and over 130 injured); the assassination in May of Chechnya's Moscow-installed president Akhmad Kadyrov (together with at least five others, as well as fifty-three injured); the murder of the two highest-ranking police officials in Ingushetia in June; the simultaneous crash of Russian planes caused by two female suicide bombers on board in August (eighty-nine killed); another Chechen woman blowing herself up at the entrance to a Moscow Metro station (nine people killed and at least forty-one injured). And then, the next day, the grisly climax: the seizure of 1,200 hostages in School Number One in Beslan, in North Ossetia, by thirty-two heavily armed Chechen-led terrorists. At the end of three days of utter confusion and incompetence by the Russian authorities, more than 300 people, including 186 children, were killed by fire, explosives, and bullets.
Since then, the number of terrorist attacks has gone sharply down. We can only guess why. Perhaps the best-trained and most dedicated cadres died in suicide attacks and replacements were hard to find, since Iraq has likely consumed most of what the Jihadi International has to offer. The relentless pressure in Chechnya, where Russian authorities found effective allies in the thuggish former rebels, has resulted in the hunting down and killing of Maskhadov, along with several other top commanders. Finally, in July 2006 Basaev was killed by the accidental detonation of an explosives transport he was accompanying.
But there was no respite. Instead of spectacular terrorism, the jihad effort shifted to the North Caucasus, especially the largest of the "autonomous republics," Dagestan. Unlike 1999, it was not an invasion, but what experts on subversion and terrorism call "low intensity" warfare. Whatever its intensity, it was very deadly.
An ethnic quilt of thirty-four peoples, two million in total, all of them Muslim (save for Orthodox Christian Russian settlers and Ossetians, as well as a handful of the "mountain Jews," the Tats), Dagestan is a promising target, a classic "weak link" that may precipitate the collapse of Moscow's authority in the northern Caucasus. Along with Chechnya, Dagestan held out the longest and cost the Russian empire the most in treasure and blood to conquer and to colonize. Islamic since the seventh century (one of Russia's oldest mosques is in Derbent, on Dagestan's Caspian shore), Dagestan, a little bigger than Maryland, before the Bolshevik revolution had 1,700 mosques and 400 madrassas. Since the Soviet collapse, Dagestan's "re-Islamization," as Hahn calls it, was perhaps the fastest anywhere in the former Soviet Union. Where in the mid-1980s only 27 mosques remained, there were at least 1,600 mosques in 2001--and 17 Islamic universities, 132 madrassas, and 245 Qur'anic schools, led by more than 2,000 imams and mullahs.
It is out of this ardent piety that Basaev and company have, since 1999, sought to fashion the nodal point of the all-Russian jihad. Of the known "combat jamaats" (from the Arabic for a society or association) set up in the largest "autonomous republics" of the North Caucasus outside Chechnya-- Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkariya, and Karachaevo-Cherkessiya--Dagestan's Shariah Jamaat under Basaev's close associate, dubbed the "emir of the Dagestan front," was the largest, with perhaps as many as 2,000 fighters. The Jamaat's Internet postings, Hahn reports, began with blessings to the "Emir of all the mujahadeen," his family and followers, and all who have followed them "in a jihad to the Day of Judgment." "We, soldiers of Allah," the texts go on, "having begun on the path of jihad sacrificed our lives, property, shelter, families, and relatives in exchange for HEAVEN!"
In November 2004, as Dagestan was slipping out of control, Putin dispatched his top adviser, Dmitry Kozak, to Makhachkala to be the "presidential envoy" to the Southern Federal Okrug--one of Russia's seven super-districts created by Putin to enhance the Kremlin's control over provinces--that includes the entire northern Caucasus. (Kozak was not only Putin's confidant, he was also a talented jurist and the principal author of the very progressive Criminal Procedural Code of 2001, which is today violated left and right by the Kremlin's prosecutors.) But even Kozak could achieve very little, except to survive ambushes, drive-by shootings, car bombs, and roadside mines that killed scores of local officials, prosecutors, and policemen in the past six years. By the summer of 2005, when terrorist attacks occurred on average every three days, Kozak reported to Moscow that "a macroregional socio-political and economic crisis" was possible, as was the "sharp growth of radicalism and extremism."
Today Dagestan is barely governable: mired in relentless violence, in unemployment and poverty, and overflowing with Muslim youths with nothing to do. The formerly quiet Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya in the west, is almost as bad, with explosions, mortar attacks, and shootings occurring almost daily. In August, Putin ordered an additional 2,500 troops to the republic, which is smaller than New Jersey and has a population of less than half a million.
And yet the prospect of an all-Russian jihad, with which Hahn opens his book, is a very remote eventuality today. Toward the end of the book, he wisely re- casts his original thesis into the suppositional and subjunctive moods, with should's, would's, may's, perhaps's, seem's, and appear's, hedging his earlier and darker bet.
The single most important reason for the lowered probability of an all-Russian jihad is the Tatars, the country's largest ethnic minority and by far the most numerous of Russia's twenty-three main Muslim peoples. (At least every third Russian Muslim today is an ethnic Tatar.) They are also the best educated- -Lenin graduated from the University of Kazan, the Tatars' ancient capital--and have long been recognized as the Russian umma's cultural leaders. While united in their quest for autonomy and self-rule, and proud of their culture and religion, a vast majority of Tatars do not seem to consider Islam the central component of their identity, much less the sole one. Until now, Tatar nationalism has been solidly secular.
Although there were three ethnic Tatars among the eight "Russian Taliban" detained in Guantanamo and one Tatar among the Beslan hostage-takers, they seem to have been aberrations rather than trendsetters. Hahn's assiduous investigation turned up very thin evidence of even an inchoate Islamic militancy in Tatarstan. Among the explanations are the Tatars' adherence to the moderate Hanafi school of Islam and the legacy of the Jadidism. "I live in Tatarstan and do not want to live like an Arab of the Middle Ages," one of the public opinion leaders, an adviser to the republic's president, declared in 2003. The most urbanized and assimilated among Russia's Muslims--along with Jews and Ukrainians, Tatars have long been the largest non-Russian minority in Moscow--they are part of the Russian political, scientific, and cultural elite, as they used to be of the Soviet one.
Yet the secular character of the Tatars' pursuit of autonomy should not be taken for granted. Their aversion to religious fundamentalism may be tested by what Hahn calls Putin's "counter-revolutionary anti-federalism." Like the United States, Brazil, India, and China, Russia is too big and diverse to be a "unitary" state, governed from one center in the absence of a dictatorship. Among the many risks of Putin's "sovereign democracy"--a hodgepodge of illusory shortcuts to stability without democracy or the rule of law, and to prosperity through government ownership of oil and gas exports--the erosion of provincial self-rule is among the most acute. Yeltsin wisely let the spring uncoil, but Putin is unwisely compressing it back toward the "center" (that is, Moscow).
Since 2002, the Kremlin has worked relentlessly to nullify most of the sovereignty clauses in its constitution (as it has in those of other ethnic autonomies), effectively abrogating the treaty of 1994. The campaign culminated in one of those cynical propaganda non sequiturs in which the present Russian government excels: Putin used the Beslan tragedy as a reason to abolish elections of regional governors, who are now all but directly appointed by Moscow. (Tatarstan's president Mintimer Shaymiev was the first among Russian regional leaders publicly to oppose what the Tatar political elite immediately labeled Putin's "coup d'etat.")
Just as disturbing has been Moscow's increasingly aggressive infringements on the cultural autonomy of non-Russians. Whereas Yeltsin always used the word rossiyanin, or "citizen of Russia," to describe his nationality and that of his compatriots (as opposed to russkiy, which describe ethnic Russianness), the present administration is gradually reverting to a Soviet-style representation of the country as emphatically and dominantly the state of ethnic Russians. The Kremlin's party, United Russia, recently sponsored the "Russian Project" television series, which emphasized "Russian civilization" as the state's foundation. In 2002, a law prohibited the use of any alphabet other than Cyrillic anywhere in the country, nullifying Tatarstan's transition to a Latinized script for Tatarlanguage texts.
Moscow is playing with a particularly hot fire in gradually elevating Russian Orthodoxy to the status of state religion, which the constitution of 1993 (the "Yeltsin" one) explicitly prohibits. The Russian Orthodox Church already has been granted a spiritual monopoly in the armed forces, and classes in Orthodox Christianity have been made mandatory in many regions of the country. This past August, Russia's Council of Muftis issued a statement opposing the introduction of such a course in all state schools. Hahn is right to worry that the failure of Tatarstan's "moderately nationalist nomenklatura" to protect the enclave's political and, increasingly, cultural sovereignty from the encroachments by Moscow may discredit secular nationalism and precipitate the evolution of this loyal and prosperous region toward the North Caucasus's Islam-based sovereignty.
In the meantime, a more proximate danger derives not from a carefully nurtured network of "combat jamaats" all over Russia, but from the near-chaos in the North Caucasus. Should the region irretrievably slide into Somalia-like armed anarchy (especially if accompanied by a series of "high-profile" terrorist acts inside Russia), popular revulsion and fear may force the government to abandon the region entirely, leaving it to the assortment of various Islamic warlords and "emirs" to fight over, precipitating ethnic massacres and cleansings, and in the end almost certainly resulting in the emergence of a haven for fundamentalist militants and, perhaps, Al Qaeda.
One cannot read these very different and very useful books side by side without becoming vividly aware of the stubborn circularity in the Russian Muslims' saga, its palimpsest-like texture. "Ichkeria" returned to become the official name of the newly founded Chechen Islamic state a century and a half after Lermontov recorded it in Valerik for the first time in Russian literature. Another Shamil emerged to lead the jihad against Russia almost another century and a half after his namesake was captured by the kafirs (Arabic for infidels)--as the Russians are again referred to among the Muslim fighters in the North Caucasus. In a meeting with the mayors of Dagestan's towns at the end of August, at which the republic's president declared "combating political and religious extremism" as their "most important priority," he singled out as "particularly vulnerable" the Untsukul District, where a few days earlier gunmen had fired on a police convoy, killing two people and injuring seven. It was in a village in the Untsukul District that Imam Shamil was born, two hundred and ten years ago.
Leon Aron is resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author, most recently, of Russia's Revolution: Essays 1989-2006.
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The Portable Network Graphics, or PNG, format uses raster imaging to display pictures with lossless compression. Although the format took some time to gain popularity, it is now supported by most browsers and graphics programs. Microsoft offers support for PNG files in Windows 7's Paint program, which allows you to resize PNG files without requiring additional downloads. By making PNG images smaller, you gain the added benefit of reduced file size, which is important for online use.
Click the "Start" button, "All Programs," "Accessories" and "Paint" to open the program.
Hold the "Ctrl" key and press "O." Click the PNG file in the Open navigational window and click "Open" to open the file.
Click "Resize" from the Image group of the top Home tab.
Enter a number between 1 and 99 in either the Horizontal or Vertical field. This number represents the percentage of the the original size, so if you want to halve either dimension, enter "50." Because "Maintain Aspect Ratio" is checked by default, both fields change when you enter a value in either field. To enter a specific size, click "Pixels" and enter the appropriate sizes in the Horizontal or Vertical fields.
Click "OK" to shrink the PNG file.
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Never criticize someone until you have walked a mile in their moccasins.
—An Old American Indian Saying
This is one of my favorite sayings. It has been life changing. It has motivated me to become a serious student of comparative religion and to appreciate the perspectives of those with different political persuasions than my own. After all, isn’t it either religious or political intolerance that create chasms and conflict between people? It doesn’t have to be that way. There is a better way. Practice empathy. Mentally put yourself in the place of others and try to see things from their perspective.
In a recent book, Toward a True Kinship of Faiths, the Dalai Lama made some profound statements. He focuses on “the centrality of compassion as a universal spiritual value.” He stated that his life has been a quest to find “a balance between single-pointed commitment to one’s own faith and genuine openness to the value of other faiths.” He offered this practical approach: “If you believe in God, see others as God’s children. If you are a nontheist, see all beings as your mother…Make the vow today that you may become an instrument of peace, living according to the ethical teachings of compassion in your own religion.”
There is much that is similar between the great religions of the world. Typically, these similarities center on how we are to behave toward one another. They carry across the great divide between eastern and western religions. If, then, there is so much agreement on some matters, it would seem that we can be more sure about these guidelines than we might be over matters about which major religions have divergent views.
What did some of the greatest ancient wise men have to say about how to be compassionate? Writing around 950 BC, Solomon advised this: “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” Solomon didn’t add, “if you feel like it.” He just told us to do it, whether we feel like it or not. Once you do, feelings of compassion will arise within you. This proverb may have had its roots in these words of Moses (1300 BC): “The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself…”
Over four centuries later, Buddha (525 BC) said, “Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth!” He also noted, “For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.”
Five and a half centuries later, Jesus (30 AD) was quoted as saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you.”
All this seems impossible, unless we approach it a bit at a time. How? By practicing the Golden Rule in every situation. Espoused by all religions, this rule is simply that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated. Since our thoughts precede our actions, we should greet each situation where we initially have negative thoughts about another person by asking ourselves, “If I were them, how would I like to be treated?” and then treat our neighbor or enemy that way.
Jesus carried this practice well beyond what people might think to do:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Each of these wise men appreciated how greatly our words and actions affect other people. Even when we don’t feel compassion, if we will act as if we did, feelings of empathy will surface. We can influence the world to become a more compassionate place, but we must begin within.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Toward A True Kinship of Faiths (New York: Random House, Three Rivers Press, 179).
Ibid, 179.
Ibid, 181.
Proverbs 25:21 (NKJV).
Leviticus 19:34 (NKJV).
Dhammapada, 223.
Ibid, 5.
Luke 6: 27b-28. (NKJV).
Matthew 5:38-42 (NIV). | <urn:uuid:4c7376b6-0d32-48af-9fd7-30e7c416e1fd> | {
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Rigorous science is the hallmark of The Nature Conservancy and its 720 staff scientists. Based on the best available scientific information, The Nature Conservancy sets long-term goals for the abundance and geographic distribution of species and ecological systems necessary to ensure the long-term survival of all biodiversity on Earth.
We measure our effectiveness by answering two questions: "How is the biodiversity doing?" and "Are our actions having the intended impact?" Tracking progress toward our goals and evaluating the effectiveness of our strategies and actions provide the feedback we need to adjust our goals, priorities and strategies and chart new directions.
By partnering with professors and students at local universities across Pennsylvania, we can provide valuable field experience that will produce lasting conservation results. The aim is to create a world in which the ecosystems that sustain all life — people as well as plants and animals — are valued and endure for generations to come.
For a current list of projects, please contact Molly Anderson at [email protected] or 717) 418-9518. | <urn:uuid:9881d316-e094-441c-96a5-2e96daa644ec> | {
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Crime Prevention Merit Badge Requirements
|1) Discuss the role and value of laws in society with regard to crime and crime prevention. Include in your discussion the definitions of "crime" and "crime prevention".
2) Prepare a notebook of newspaper and other clippings that address crime and crime prevention efforts in your community.
3) Discuss the following with your counselor:
A) The role of citizens, including youth, in crime prevention.
B) Gangs and their impact on the community.
C) When and how to report a crime.
4) After doing EACH of the following, discuss with your counselor what you have learned.
A) Inspect your neighborhood for opportunities that may lead to crime. Learn how to do a crime prevention survey.
B) Using the checklist in this Crime Prevention Merit Badge pamphlet, conduct a security survey of your home and discuss the results with your family.
5) Teach your family or patrol members how to protect themselves from crime at home, at school, in your community, and while traveling.
6) Help raise awareness about one school safety issue facing students by doing ONE of the following:
A) Create a poster for display on a school bulletin board.
B) With permission from school officials, create a pagelong public service announcement that could be read over the public address system at school or posted on the schools website.
C) Make a presentation to a group such as a cub scout den that addresses the issue.
7) Do ONE of the following:
A) Assist in the planning and organization of a crime prevention program in your community such as neighborhood watch, community watch, or crime stoppers. Explain how this program can benefit your neighborhood.
B) With your parents and counselors approval, visit a jail or detention facility or a criminal court hearing. Discuss your experience with your counselor.
8) Discuss the following with your counselor:
A) How drug abuse awareness programs, such as "Drugs: A Deadly Game" help prevent crime.
B) Why alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are sometimes called "gateway drugs" and how gateway drugs can lead
to the use of other drugs.
C) Three resources in your city where a person with a drug problem or drug-related problem can go for help.
D) How the illegal sale and use of drugs lead to other crimes.
E) How to recognize child abuse.
F) The three R's of Youth Protection.
9) Discuss the following with your counselor:
A) The role of a sheriffs or police department in crime prevention.
B) The purpose and operation of agencies in your community that help law enforcement personnel prevent crime, and how those agencies function during emergency situations.
C) Explain the role private security plays in crime prevention.
D) Choose a career in the crime prevention or security industry that interests you. Describe the level of education required and the responsibilities in that position. Tel why this position interests you.
Source: Boy Scout Requirements, 33215, revised 2007 | <urn:uuid:ebf6dfc9-9d0f-4eb4-95f9-3f1ae5749344> | {
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Young people are being exposed to a substantial amount of marketing for sugary drinks, such as full-calorie soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, and fruit drinks, according to a new study from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The study is the most comprehensive and science-based assessment of sugary drink nutrition and marketing ever conducted.
Research data show that companies marketing sugary drinks target young people, especially Black and Hispanic youths. The report’s authors studied marketing by 14 beverage companies and examined the nutritional quality of nearly 600 products, including full-calorie soda, energy drinks, fruit drinks, flavored water, sports drinks, and iced teas, as well as diet energy drinks and children’s diet fruit drinks.
Researchers from the Rudd Center presented detailed findings of the study during the 2011 American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. | <urn:uuid:3597d52b-ef8d-41e7-8e5b-d0751ca9af08> | {
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Scientists have long known that many early dinosaurs, the ancestors of today’s birds, were covered in feathers, likely for warmth and to attract mates. But no one knows exactly when—and how—these feathered dinos took flight. Now, molecular evidence from feathered dinosaur fossils reveals how the key proteins that make up feathers became lighter and more flexible over time, as flightless dinosaurs evolved into flying ones—and later, birds.
All modern land animals with backbones have keratins, proteins that make up everything from fingernails and beaks to scales and feathers. In humans and other mammals, α-keratins form the 10 nanometer-wide filaments that make up hair, skin, and nails. In crocodiles, turtles, lizards, and birds, β-keratins form the even narrower, more rigid filaments that build claws, beaks, and feathers.
Using the whole genomes of dozens of living birds, crocodiles, turtles, and other reptiles, scientists have built over the past decade a family tree of these animals based on how their β-keratins changed over time. Among the revelations: Modern birds have lost most of their α-keratins, but β-keratins in their feathers have become more flexible, thanks to a missing swath of glycine and tyrosine amino acids that make claws and beaks rigid. This suggests the transition to flight required both changes to take place.
Now, researchers have shown this directly by analyzing the α- and β-keratins in a handful of exceptionally preserved fossils from China and Mongolia. The researchers, led by paleontologists Pan Yanhong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, designed separate antibodies to bind to identifying segments of various α- and β-keratin proteins preserved in the fossilized feathers of five species that lived between 160 million and 75 million years ago. The antibodies were labeled with fluorescent tags that light up whenever they bind to their targets.
The feathers of Anchiornis, a crow-size feathered dinosaur that lived 160 million years ago, lit up to reveal the flexible truncated β-keratin found in modern birds, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But the dinosaurs—which predate the first recognized bird, Archaeopteryx, by 10 million years—had even more α-keratins, which are largely absent from bird feathers today. Given that, plus structural differences revealed by electron microscopy analysis, it’s likely that Anchiornis feathers weren’t suitable for flight, Schweitzer says, but represent an intermediate stage in the evolution toward flight feathers.
Fossilized feathers from a 130-million-year-old small flightless dinosaur called Shuvuuia (which is not an ancestor to today’s birds) reveal that, like modern birds, it lacked α-keratins. But unlike Anchiornis, its feathers were still made up of the larger, more rigid β-keratins. “We’re beginning to uncover the mosaic pattern of feather evolution,” Schweitzer says, which suggests the transition of feathers to flight required both the mutations that eliminated most α-keratins and the truncated flexible β-keratins.
“This type of work is every evolutionary biologist’s dream,” says Matthew Greenwold, an evolutionary biologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, who helped build the earlier β-keratin family tree. Taken together with modern genetic evidence, the new finding suggests that during the transition to flight, the β-keratin gene was duplicated many times in the genomes of some dinosaurs. As the animals evolved, some of the extra copies then mutated into the truncated form that made flight possible. That not only allowed feathered dinosaurs such as Archaeopteryx to cruise the skies about 150 million years ago, but it also gave rise to all the crows, finches, starlings, and eagles we have with us today. | <urn:uuid:b1ce22cc-100b-4ffc-bedb-24c1c1301f9d> | {
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dateJune 01, 2017
authorLori Ellen Sutton MA, CCC-SLP
categoryOpera Carolina News
What is your voice trying to tell you?
What is your voice trying to tell you?
Even with attention to good vocal hygiene, if you have a vocally demanding job you may still find yourself with hoarseness. What are some common hoarseness-causing voice disorders, and when should you see a doctor about them?
Hoarseness is a condition when your voice sounds breathy, raspy, or strained. It is a symptom of a condition, not a condition itself. Common voice disorders include acute or chronic laryngitis, vocal fold lesions, vocal cord dysfunction, and vocal fold weakness.
What is laryngitis?
The most common cause of hoarseness is laryngitis. This is an inflammation of the vocal cords caused by a virus or allergies. Acute laryngitis is inflammation of the vocal folds that commonly accompanies illnesses such as colds, upper respiratory infections, or bronchitis. Chronic laryngitis is when you have longstanding irritation and swelling of the vocal folds or larynx. Your voice may sound raspy or hoarse for a very long period of time. Contributing factors may include unproductive throat clearing, coughing, dehydration, smoking or smoky environments, excessive voice use, excessive alcohol or caffeine consumption, acid reflux, or allergies.
In cases where hoarseness is caused by a virus, often the best treatment is rest. If the hoarseness is allergy related, medicines like nasal sprays can help. With rest, appropriate medical management of the primary illness, and adequate hydration, this should resolve on its own in two or three weeks. However, if you have hoarseness for more than three weeks, you should see a doctor.
What are some other voice disorders?
Vocal fold lesions such as nodules, polyps, and cysts are all benign growths that develop on the vocal folds. They can be caused by straining to talk or sing, talking too much, or coughing or clearing the throat too much. Some vocal folds lesions can be treated with therapy. However, for some people therapy is not enough. In those cases, surgery is required.
Other voice conditions include vocal cord dysfunction and vocal fold weakness.
Normally, vocal folds open for breathing and close for talking. Vocal cord dysfunction, or VCD, is a condition in which the vocal folds attempt to close while breathing and upset normal breathing patterns. This can be triggered by reflux, strong odors, physical activity, inhaled medications, or anxiety. Symptoms include wheezing, gasping, the sensation of the throat closing, and difficulty breathing. While these symptoms are not typically associated with hoarseness, VCD is considered a voice disorder because this difficulty breathing originates with the larynx/vocal folds, not the lungs.
Vocal fold weakness is when the primary muscle of the vocal folds, or the muscles that open and close the vocal folds, are weak. Vocal fold paralysis, a variation of this, is when one or both of the vocal folds are completely immobile. This can be caused by disease, trauma, or as the result of a previous surgery. This may result in a weak, soft, or breathy-sounding voice, difficulty projecting the voice, shortness of breath with voice use, and vocal fatigue.
“There are almost no voice problems that cannot be improved in some way,” CEENTA Voice & Swallowing Specialist Lori Ellen Sutton said. “As with many other medical issues, early detection of a voice disorder is key. No one just has a naturally raspy voice. If your voice is raspy, something is going on with it. Practice good vocal hygiene and good vocal pacing to maintain optimum vocal health. Have any negative vocal changes evaluated by an ENT if they don’t resolve themselves in 2-3 weeks. It is much easier to improve a mild and relatively new voice problem than one that has persisted for an extended period of time.”
Don’t get used to hoarseness. Have your voice checked today.
To make an appointment with a CEENTA ENT doctor or Voice & Swallowing specialist, call 704-295-3000. | <urn:uuid:4c421365-1671-4342-8dac-6e2db632422f> | {
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In medicine, secondary care refers to services provided by health care specialists to patients following a referral from a primary care provider. Secondary care providers usually have a narrow scope of practice in treating specific conditions or providing specific types of care and advice. While some providers of secondary care may accept patients directly, others may work only with patients referred by primary health care workers and doctors.
When people seek health care services, they typically work with a primary care provider. This is a health care professional who is trained in addressing the general health needs of a patient. While many primary care providers are physicians, including internists and family practice doctors, other providers of primary care include nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Primary health care includes regular physical examinations and testing, as well as treating common injuries and ailments. When a more serious health issue arises in a patient, his primary care practitioner will often refer him to a provider of secondary care.
These providers include physicians who specialize in specific body systems. For example, a primary care doctor may refer a patient with suspected heart trouble to a cardiologist, while a patient with a skin condition may be sent to a dermatologist. In some cases, a provider of secondary care may not be a physician, but practices another health care modality, such as nutrition or physical therapy.
In cases where the care provider believes that a patient requires even more specialized care, she may make a referral to a tertiary care practitioner, who has an even more specialized area of practice. If the patient's condition is extremely serious or his condition is very unusual, quaternary care may be provided in the form of experimental treatments and advanced diagnostic techniques.
The ability of patients to directly access the services of a secondary care provider depend on the health care system to which they have access. For example, in government-sponsored health care systems, such as in the United Kingdom, patients typically work with a primary care physician, also known as a general practitioner or a GP, who makes all referrals to providers of specialized care. In the United States, access to secondary care providers depends largely on a patient's insurance plan as well as a provider's own business policy. While some insurance plans require patients to obtain referrals through their primary care provider, others allow patients to refer themselves directly to specialist care.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK! | <urn:uuid:4222ef4b-08e7-4ba7-aac3-65d2b896fbfd> | {
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INTRODUCTION TO STORY & JUMBO
The visitor enters a circus tent and arrives to a circular space that mimics the real circus experience. The space has red and white striped walls made up of tent fabric and the lighting is very dramatic. The ambience is of an exciting but intense show. There are a lot of things happening in the background of this particular moment in the exhibition, which excites the curiosity and also contributes to the intentional intensity of the ambience. The floors are of dim color and they are smooth, you don’t notice them a lot so that the different floor material for this space and the next is significant. As the visitor enters, he is given a token (replica of the original token for Barnum’s circus, which is on display later on) that he can interact with in certain parts of the show and later take home. The first moment the visitor experiences is a magnificent photo of Jumbo performing on his original tricycle with the actual tricycle on display. There is a brief introduction to him and what the museum is about.
BEGINNING OF CIRCUS // JUMBO IS BOUGHT
Moving along the path, the visitor gets to the history of the beginning of circus. There is a big screen that is playing a Ken Burns-style video with audio telling the story. In the story we are introduced to Barnum, a key figure in the history of the American circus and the person who bought Jumbo, the star of the exhibition. Below the screen there is a display table that holds one of the original tokens used to enter Jumbo’s show. The display table has a base designed in an abstracted circus aesthetic and has a glass vitrine on top where the token is placed and beside is a brief text describing its history and importance. A warm spotlight is directed at the display table to create emphasis on the object and contrast for the ambience.
Following along, the visitor arrives to Jumbo’s story and the history of how and why animals were introduced to the circus. In this part, there is another display table that exhibits the original letter that Barnum wrote to buy Jumbo from London’s zoo. The display table is consistent in its design with the one in the “Beginning of Circus”, the form and color are of a circus aesthetic abstraction and it will have a glass vitrine to show and protect the object. The letter, apart from being an important proof of the transaction that introduced animals to circuses in America, addresses a lot of historical moments and persons that put context into Jumbo’s story. An example is how Barnum had to ask permission from Queen Victoria of England to buy Jumbo or what were the particular technicalities they had to achieve in order to bring Jumbo from overseas because of his size. To point out these important facts, inside the glass vitrine there will be a clear acrylic that will have small numbers pointing out subjects the exhibition wants to talk about. Each number and subject will be referenced in a panel that will be exhibited in front of the display table. All of these panels will have a picture of the subject on the front and a brief written description on the back. The visitor is then encouraged to interact and turn the panels over to read more of the subject matter.
JUMBO’S FAMOUS ACTS AND OTHER CIRCUS ACTS TIL PRESENT DAY
This is a highly interactive section in which visitors can get a sense of the scale and difficulty of the tricks performed by Jumbo and other artists throughout the history of circuses. A trapeze is hung at a height in which the artists usually perform so that visitors can sense the danger performers expose themselves to. There are sponge clubs so that visitors can try to juggle. There are clown noses, wigs and makeup for the visitor to try on in front of the mirror and to take pictures of around the set. Illumination is strong and blinding to the eye so that the visitor knows that the spotlight is now on them. Close to the tent wall, behind the interactive activities, there are various posters of Jumbo and his days in the circus as an international animal star. The relationship between both areas in this specific part of the exhibition is important in the sense that the visitors gets to experience the spotlight themselves and they have photographic evidence of Jumbo doing it, so it immediately puts the visitor in Jumbo’s shoes.
It is an important part for the visitor and the transition of the story because by putting them on the spotlight and making them conscious of what it takes to be there, they’ll begin to question if it all of it is really worth it and if the people and animals who do it, really like it. The idea of how circuses are showing false realities is put into the visitor’s mind and this leaves them ready to go out of the tent/front stage of the show to enter backstage- to eventually discover the reality of what a circus is, specifically for elephants.
BACK STAGE / REALITY
CONTROVERSIES: WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO BE IN A CIRCUS
As the visitor comes out of the tent, there is a change in ambience and mood. The room is dark and dull unlike the previously bright and cheerful space. There is a drop in room temperature; this symbolizes the nighttime as well as the uncomfortable temperature in which animals are kept after the show. The floor is a harsher material made of compacted hay and dirt, making more resistance while walking and making the visitors’ movements difficult. The change in lighting and setup is similar to the stage scene defining suspense with the groans of elephants and noise of sticks hitting them. In a way, it is a stage setup of the training time with a static image and no videos.
Controversy 1. The situation of animals is different backstage and front stage.
The whole wall has a textured 1:1 scale cage with images of the elephants behind bars to symbolize the feeling of being trapped/ claustrophobic. The space also gets smaller making the movement a little difficult. This trapped feeling with forced slow movement is similar to the conditions of elephants, a contradiction between the natural habitats of elephants to the artificial. It also gives a glimpse of food that is provided. Through partial windows/cutouts behind the “cage panels” they can opt see the animals’ struggle in their chambers/while traveling through screens. These videos have no audio due to the graphic nature of the content.
Controversy 2. The contradiction between the natural habitat and the one they have in circuses. The laws or standards imposed by the government to hold onto an animal, to what is actually given to the animals because of less/no inspections.
In front of the wall and elephants are 10 books, which tell the story of each elephant’s struggle and suffering at different points in time in various circuses. These are on lighted glass vitrines on top of lighted, stacked crates used by the traveling circus and scattered around the space to encourage visitors to read through each story.
As the visitors move along, there is an emphasis on the clear box holding Jumbo’s carved tusk. The surroundings are dark and the tusk is the point of focus by being encased in a lighted box. It is mystical and relates directly to the visitor as Jumbo’s, living with the organization and people. Right in front of it is the original newspaper, which covered and published the story of Jumbo’s life and death. The space has an odd temperature and lighting. This emphasizes the struggle and the hard reality of losing Jumbo.
ANIMAL CIRCUSES TODAY
Visitors step into another part of the room that is completely dark apart from the lighted path. They are faced by one wall with a life-size image of 5 elephants performing a trick, and you hear their struggle through audio. The trainers are also seen on the image, and on the audio you can hear their commands. The opposite part of the wall has a projection of the circuses today on the tent material, with quotes/text from the video “Boycott Circuses That Use Animals” as subtitles, revealing the industry practice of the Ringling Brothers circus today. The visitors cannot see the cruel training on video, just what viewers expect to enjoy in a typical circus but the reality is reflected on the text.
Sample text: “The hooks and chains remind the elephants we are in control of you.”
ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF CIRCUS TIL PRESENT DAY
The narrow linear corridor acts as a transition space from the animal cruelty to alternative forms of circuses. The atmosphere has pleasant lighting with transitions, which are slow and noticeable into various colors- a sign of hope and change in the animal circus society. The space showcases the examples of alternative circuses such as flying circuses, Cirque du Soleil, acrobatics, etc. that believe in entertainment without animals. The flying circus, which surged in the 1970s used aeroplanes for the air tricks and entertainment. One of the oldest propellers from the flying circus is on display. It is in front a biplane image that acts as a stage setup and visitors can take photos pretending to perform the tricks of the flying circuses. The other wall includes the exhibition videos of impressive acrobatics and highlights their many successful shows.
SCENES NOT SHOWN:
WHAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED
Introduction to how the world has reacted against the animal abuse and what has been done to stop it.
Concrete examples through text, photographs and videos of what organizations have done to stop animal cruelty in circuses and how the situation has improved. Videos and photos showing the elephant’s reaction when they were set free or were re-united with their loved ones.
WHAT ELSE CAN BE DONE
In this part of the museum the visitors can participate by giving suggestions on what they think can be done at their level and on an organizational level. Visitors can digitally access a suggestion booth, information about the organizations and their achievements and how they can become an active part of the organization to make a difference. As a gift from the exhibition and as a reminder to do something after your visit, the visitor will be given a small badge that can be worn to create awareness. They can also choose to take home a framed paper certificate that says they have taken a step to support the organizations helping animals get out of the circuses. They can sign it and put their thumbprint on it, as well as attach/keep the token they were first given at the start of the exhibition. This certificate has all the information about the organizations and the exhibition behind it so they’re encouraged to actively participate in sharing it to spread awareness.
YOUTUBE VIDEO WALL
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Spotlight On Iran
U.S. To Mark 100th Birthday Of Slain President John Kennedy
Several events will be held in Hyannis, Massachusetts, to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, would have turned 100 on Monday, May 29.
Kennedy's 1,036 days in office saw many crises, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the Soviet Union's menace to West Berlin and, most dangerously, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
A Mass will be held on May 29 at St. Francis Xavier Church. A memorial service will also be held at the JFK Memorial.
Kennedy's parents, Rose and Joe Kennedy, lived in Hyannis in the massive Kennedy Compound, as did John Kennedy and brother Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. senator, attorney general, and presidential candidate who was also assassinated.
The John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum will feature an exhibit called JFK at 100: Life & Legacy.
Also, a new book recounts his brief but eventful presidency — and the style and wit with which he shaped the hopes of a generation — through day-by-day reports drawn from coverage at the time, right up to his assassination in November 1963.
As former AP Washington Bureau Chief Walter Mears writes in the introduction to "JFK: A Daily Chronicle of the White House Years":
"It was a time of hope, youthful leadership — JFK's new generation in power — but with clouds. U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war was beginning. Kennedy sent an increasing number of military advisers there, and they were the first Americans involved in combat. The civil rights issue was a growing problem. Kennedy sought legislation, but it would not come on his watch."
Kennedy's assassination shocked America and the world and has been the subject of countless debates, investigations and conspiracy theories.
Based on reporting by The Cape Cod Times, WBUR and AP
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Advances in molecular and cellular imaging are largely due to the development of major types of light-emitting probes and ingenious ways of labeling them for use in living laboratory animals and, in a few instances, in endoscopic imaging in humans. Bioluminescent and fluorescent probes are two major types.
Bioluminescent probes use “luciferase,” an enzyme, to generate and emit light by an organism, providing real-time analyses of disease processes at the molecular level in living organisms, including laboratory animals. Luciferase is the enzyme in fireflies and glowworms that makes them light up. These are the best known examples of organisms that naturally produce bioluminescence, but deep sea marine organisms and some bacteria and fungi also produce bioluminescence. A bioluminescent probe is prevalently used in studying infections and cancer progression. There are many organic fluorescent probes, such as fluorescein, rhodamine, acridine dyes, phycoerythin and others. There also are bioluminescent protein probes. In fact, it was during isolation of a bioluminescent protein that fluorescent probes were discovered.
Fluorescent protein probes are green fluorescent protein, its yellow, blue and cyan-colored mutants, and red fluorescent proteins. In addition, there are hundreds of other fluorescent probes that are not fluorescent proteins. Fluorescent probes are introduced into an animal and visualized in the animal or its tissue cultures when excited by ultraviolet or visible light and viewed with optical imaging techniques. Fluorescence is the absorption and subsequent re-radiation of light by an organism. Fluorescence was known and used for microscopy, including intravital imaging, for many years prior to the discovery of fluorescent proteins.
The discovery of fluorescent proteins occurred after scientists, isolating a blue bioluminescent protein from a specific type of jellyfish, observed another protein that produced green fluorescence when illuminated with ultraviolet light. The gene for green fluorescent protein was cloned in the early 1990s; but its utility as a molecular probe occurred later, after scientists used fusion products to track gene expression in bacteria and nematodes.
The colored proteins, plus fusion proteins and biosensors—all of which are referred to as fluorescent proteins—are used primarily to visualize molecules in living cells. Moreover, multiple (different colored) fluorescent probes can simultaneously identify several target molecules within a cell and show their actions. The fluorescent proteins are fused to specific proteins and enzymes in the laboratory and primarily introduced into the animal through production of “transgenic” strains, whereby the fluorescent protein is introduced into the germline (sequence of germ cells containing genetic material), often under the control of tissue-specific or cell type-specific promoters. In another approach, engineered genes that encode fluorescent protein fusions, rather than the proteins themselves, are introduced into the animals by attaching them to harmless viruses, which serve as vectors to carry the fluorescent protein fusions into the animal. The fluorescently labeled cells in tissues of interest are then imaged.
To introduce bioluminescent and fluorescent probes into the animal, a widely used technique is genetic transfer. The gene that produces bioluminescence or fluorescence is cloned in the laboratory and introduced into a laboratory animal in one of two ways. The gene may be inserted into a harmless virus (called a vector) and introduced into the animal. Or, the gene is inserted into a stem cell and introduced into the animal so that the differentiated cell that the stem cell develops into will express the luminescence or fluorescent protein. The scientists at the forefront of this technology were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Adoptive transfer, another technique, involves tagging specific cells, such as in an animal model of a disease, and transferring those tagged cells into another laboratory animal to see how they work. Adaptive transfer is used to label cells that are “naturally occurring probes” in the body, in that they migrate to specific targets.
An example is lymphocytes (a family of white blood cells) which are immune “T” or “B” cells. These immune cells produce antibodies, which are proteins. Subsets of immune T or B cell lymphocytes are taught by immune dendritic cells to attack a specific foreign invader, such as an infectious agent, or a cancer. The newly educated lymphocytes then travel to the site of the infection or tumor to attack it. The antibodies (proteins) produced by the subset of T or B cells bind to specific “antigens.” These are surface molecules that are selectively expressed on specific cell types, including immune cells and also on tumor cells. Antibodies can be used, therefore, to identify immune cells or tumors in tissue samples or in live laboratory animals. Scientists label the antibody protein with a fluorescent tag and inject the material into another laboratory animal; or, they "stain" tissue sections or isolated cells within tissues and image the tissues or cells using a technique called flow cytometry.
Use of “Dendrimers” with fluorescent probes is another recent approach to labeling particles that travel to a target, especially a tumor. Unlike antibodies, which are proteins produced by living cells, dendrimer nanoparticles are compounds that are synthesized in the laboratory. They can be made from various materials (often polymers) that are synthesized and assemble into high molecular weight spherical particles. Scientists can add to the dendrimers a fluorescent probe that targets moieties (two divisible parts) and a “payload,” such as a drug. In this way, dendrimer nanoparticles can be targeted to tumor cells and emit light and/or deliver a therapeutic agent that kills the tumors. Dendrimer nanoparticles can cross the blood brain barrier and enter the brain, so they are being intensively studied as a potential treatment approach for brain tumors.
Another technique for imaging and targeting drug delivery is the use of aptamers, which are made from nucleic acids. Aptamers can be produced to have exquisite binding specificity for defined molecular targets, similar to antibodies. They can be attached to the surface polymeric particles for imaging and to enable targeted drug delivery.
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There are five themed modules for KS3 teachers of languages. The modules are not sequential, and are presented here in four formats:
- A Powerpoint presentation for use in a training session
- A pdf for Trainers to use in preparing for a training session; this includes the notes pages that accompany the Powerpoint screens
- A Powerpoint presentation for self–access by a practising teacher or trainee (this version does not include discussion and has reduced notes) in case you wish to view the Powerpoint separately from the Notes
- A pdf of the Self Access notes page – you might like to access this version in order to have the Notes visible at the same time as the screens.
The materials of this module are aimed at an audience of teachers who will be teaching pupils at KS3. Languages of exemplification in the materials and follow-up modules are French, German and Spanish. These materials are freely available for any teacher to use. They must not be used for commercial reasons such as training sessions where attendees are charged a delegate fee by a trainer / training organisation. They may not be used without acknowledgement of the original source. If you are using them, ALL would be very pleased to hear from you, as it is of particular interest to us to know about coverage. Please email [email protected] to let us know.
The format of the module is as follows:
A presentation (in pdf format) for delivery by a Lead Teacher to a workshop of teacher participants. The workshop duration should be two hours, in which the presentation and accompanying materials / resources and activities should be delivered.
Teachers using the self-access version should also expect to take around the same length of time.
Following delivery of a workshop, teacher participants will undertake independent study by accessing 4 follow up modules, to be pursued over 4 consecutive weeks following the taught workshop. These are housed on this site and can be found by scrolling right down this page.
Materials in sequential order:
You will need to download these materials when you click through to them. If you are a Lead Teacher we suggest you do so before you deliver a workshop session.
|For Lead Teachers to deliver to teacher participants:||For teachers to access as self study:|
For immediate use by teachers after either training route:
Teacher participants are asked to complete a simple action plan following the training. They are also asked to complete this when they complete each of the four follow-up modules over the subsequent weeks. The action plan pro forma can be accessed here: KS3 Action Plan Literature.
Online access to the ALL Literature wiki:
The main presentation (and the follow ups) refer regularly to the ALL Literature wiki, and it would be very useful if Lead Teachers have already joined the wiki and are familiar with its simple workings before giving this presentation.
- Go to: http://ALL-Literature.wikidot.com.
- Click top right on ‘Join this Site’.
- You will be directed to create a wikidot account first, and then return to ‘Join this specific site’.
- You will then be admitted and have full access and writing rights. Without joining the site you can still browse but cannot see attached files which are often very significant.
Four follow up modules for independent use by teachers, after the Literature workshop:
Follow up 1:
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 1.1_Literary texts progression overview KS2 – KS5
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 1.2_the rationale for Literature at KS3
Follow up 2:
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 2.1 What to do with texts
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 2.2_Biologie
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 2.3_Demain des l’aube
- KS3 Literature module Follow up 2.4_Additional texts
Follow up 3:
Follow up 4:
For additional resources, activities and case studies, please see our Literature Wiki: | <urn:uuid:82d439d6-b642-4c54-975a-fb836b406668> | {
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Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD) is a condition in which fragments of joint cartilage become separated from the bone. These fragments may peel from the bone and remain intact or completely separate from the bone, forming loose bodies that float in the joint. These fragments can originate from any part of the elbow joint.
It is currently thought that most OCD lesions occur as a result of a traumatic injury that occurred in the patient's past. They can also occur in the athlete as a result of overuse. Some lesions do not have an identifiable cause.
OCD causes pain at a specific area in the elbow. Patients will complain of clicking and locking in the elbow, particularly if the fragment has separated and is floating around the joint. Patients are often unable to fully flex and extend their elbow.
Your surgeon will perform a thorough history and physical exam, which typically includes X-rays. Your surgeon will evaluate the range of motion and strength. The origin of the fragment may be tender to the touch. X-rays may or may not identify OCD. MRI is standard for OCD diagnosis. Fluid seen behind the fragment on MRI is an indicator of OCD.
Stable OCD lesions, those not likely to displace, are treated with anti-inflammatory medication, cryotherapy, activity modification and observation.
Unstable OCD lesions are evaluated by a minimally-invasive arthroscopic procedure. Sometimes the fragment can be repaired with small screws/tacks if it is still attached to the bone. If the fragment has separated from the bone and cannot be repaired, it will be removed and a cartilage regeneration or replacement procedure may be performed in the lesion. A microfracture procedure can be performed in the lesion to allow blood to soak the lesion. A cartilage graft, typically from a donor, can then be placed at the site. Over time, new cartilage will be formed over the lesion. Alternatively, your surgeon may choose to take a piece of cartilage from a donor and place it into the defect (allograft cartilage procedure).
Arthritis is inflammation of a joint. Over time, the loss of the smooth covering on the ends of bones (aka - articular cartilage) causes pain and stiffness. This can lead to pain with motion or at rest, clicking or grinding and a loss of strength. When the cartilage is damaged or decreased, the bones rub together during joint motion, resulting in “bone-on-bone” arthritis. When arthritis becomes severe, inflammation occurs around the joint and extra bone is formed in an attempt to protect the joint, resulting in limited motion and strength. In the elbow, arthritis can develop between any of the three articulations.
The primary cause of arthritis is osteoarthritis (aka – “wear and tear” arthritis). Trauma and other illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, septic arthritis and psoriasis can result in degeneration of a joint, leading to symptoms of pain and lack of motion.
Arthritis causes pain, loss of motion and strength. Clicking and grinding may be felt inside the elbow. Activities of daily living like brushing your hair and getting dressed can be impacted by severe elbow arthritis.
Arthritis is diagnosed by your physician based on physical exam and X-rays. Your orthopedic surgeon will examine your elbow, noting range of motion, strength and pain with motion. Your surgeon may order additional diagnostic tests to evaluate all elbow structures (CT/”CAT” scan) to evaluate the bones and joints or MRI to evaluate the muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Elbow arthritis can be treated with physical therapy, to strengthen the muscles that support the joint. Aggressive physical therapy is not suggested for advanced elbow arthritis, as it may aggravate symptoms. Your surgeon may prescribe anti-inflammatory medication or offer an injection to reduce the inflammation. Certain nutritional supplements may be beneficial to decrease pain and inflammation.
When non-operative treatment does relieve symptoms, surgery may be indicated in certain situations. Minimally –invasive elbow arthroscopy may be beneficial to remove bone spurs or cartilage fragments that are floating within the joint. Arthroscopic surgery is limited in benefits and is not curative. The definitive treatment for elbow arthritis is joint replacement surgery. Your surgeon will resurface the ends of the bone where the cartilage has worn away, with metal and plastic implants. Because the elbow has several articulations, your surgeon may choose to replace some of the diseased parts (partial elbow replacement) or replace all parts (total joint replacement). | <urn:uuid:80382ecb-8523-4824-bb71-bbb2d6118d43> | {
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The benefit of virtual reality (VR) has gone beyond being merely for purely entertainment purposes to becoming a potential tool in improving literacy.
The University of Otago, in New Zealand, is behind the ground-breaking approach as it is working with the Methodist Mission Southern to look at a different method of helping prisoners in the Otago Corrections Facility at Milburn.
The University’s Information Science Department is using VR to improve on the reading and writing skills of the prisoners, according to a recent report.
VR uses computer technology in order to create a simulated environment. Instead of viewing a screen in front of them, users are immersed inside an experience and able to interact with three-dimensional worlds.
The Department has been investigating functional uses of both virtual and augmented reality over the last decade, hoping to find more meaningful ways for computing to solve real world problems.
Meanwhile, the social agency has been looking for a way in which literacy will be taught to people who are in prison.
The answer came in the form of a prototype virtual reality application, which uses a setting that is both familiar and motivating to the learner, a simulated car workshop.
The prototype is a 360-degree virtual world programme that involves car assembly in an automotive workshop.
Consultation with an actual automotive repair business was made to make sure the virtual world represents a realistic environment.
Both groups worked together to integrate education content while local company, Animated Research Limited, provided assistance with the panoramic environment.
The Dunedin City Council has recognised its potential, providing some of the funding needed for the project through the GigCity Community Fund.
The Fund was set up to develop community, learning and workforce opportunities in Dunedin.
It has been understood that in order to learn another language, one should be immersed in it, whether in a real-world context or through the use of VR technology.
Testing the idea that learning to read can also be achieved through virtual reality immersion in a specific setting targeted at a particular user group is a good experience.
Using relevant environment can actually help learning and improve literacy skills for the prisoners, thereby contributing to their rehabilitation and integration into the community.
The University is now keener on extending the boundaries of virtual reality in order for them to better understand interface development.
In proving the feasibility of using VR in this manner now opens up new possibilities for research.
It is expected that there will be significant international interest in virtual reality contextualised learning. This immersion technology has the potential to revolutionise learning.
It is hoped that eventually this programme will be used in literacy and numeracy education with prisoners inside prisons across New Zealand. | <urn:uuid:154ec53c-f320-4280-8fcf-8311ee0bd4cb> | {
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Genomic parasites and genome evolution
© BioMed Central Ltd 2009
Published: 15 April 2009
A report of the Second International Conference/Workshop on the Genomic Impact of Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Pacific Grove, USA, 6-10 February 2009.
Transposable elements (TEs) are genetic elements with the unique ability to move in the genome. TEs are major components of the repetitive fraction of genomes; for example, TE-derived sequences make up about 45% of the human genome. The most abundant transposons in mammals are non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposons represented by the long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs) and the short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs). DNA 'cut-and-paste' transposons are less abundant in mammals, and typically encode a transposase protein in their simple genome. Transposition can be exploited to harness these elements as gene vectors for diverse genome manipulations (see the review series in a special issue of Genome Biology http://genomebiology.com/supplements/8/S1).
Beyond their present-day use as research tools, TEs have been shaping genome structure and function for millions of years, and the impact of transposons on eukaryotic genomes was the central theme of a conference held recently at Asilomar. Nearly 40 years ago, Roy Britten (who spoke at the meeting) and Eric Davidson proposed that the spread of repetitive elements in the genome may play a key role in the evolution of gene regulatory networks. Today, TEs are no longer viewed as 'junk DNA'; they can undergo 'exaptation' (a term frequently used at the meeting), an evolutionary process in which a characteristic that evolved under natural selection for a particular function is placed under selection for a different function. For example, the feathers of birds were first used to retain heat and only later used for flight. There are now numerous examples of exaptation of TE-derived sequences described in the literature, and several were presented at the meeting. Here I cover a few of the highlights.
The thought-provoking hypothesis that multiple retrotransposon insertions made our brain mammalian was put forward by Norihiro Okada (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan). His group has characterized a SINE family called AmnSINE1 that constitutes a conserved noncoding element in mammalian genomes, suggesting that these sequences have acquired some function useful to the host. Okada used an in vivo enhancer assay in mice to show that a SINE locus closely linked to the FGF8 (fibroblast growth factor 8) gene acts as a tissue-specific enhancer that drives FGF8 expression in the developing forebrain. Moreover, another SINE locus linked to the gene SATB2 appears to control tissue-specific expression of this gene in the lateral telencephalon. Okada suggested that particular SINE insertions might have been involved in the evolution of a neuronal gene regulatory network, leading to the exaptation of these elements for these functions in an ancestral mammalian species.
As well as noncoding regulatory sequences, DNA transposons encode potentially useful and elaborate enzymatic machinery (Figure 1) that has been exapted by the host genome via an evolutionary process referred to as 'molecular domestication'. One recent example of the emergence of such a domesticated gene is the insertion of a piggyBac (PB) element into an intron of the human Cockayne syndrome Group B gene (CSB) that leads to alternative splicing and the generation of a CSB-PB transposase fusion protein, in which only the first five exons of CSB are retained. Alan Weiner (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) presented genetic evidence suggesting that this CSB-PB fusion protein is advantageous in the presence of the normal CSB gene product, but harmful in its absence in humans. Earlier work by others established that CSB encodes a chromatin-remodeling protein required for repair of UV-induced DNA damage. The presence in the human genome of more than 600 non-autonomous transposons (MER85 elements) derived from piggyBac by internal deletions has been reported previously, and it is believed that these non-autonomous MER85 elements were mobilized in trans by the piggyBac transposase at least 37 million years ago in a primate ancestor. Intriguingly, as Weiner discussed, many of the MER85-associated genes are downregulated by UV irradiation and CSB, suggesting that the CSB-PB fusion protein and its binding sites embedded in the dispersed MER85 elements might constitute a potential gene regulatory network.
Transposon mutagenesis and regulation
Transposon movement also leaves its mark in the genome by aberrant transposition events that induce genomic rearrangements, including deletions, translocations and duplications of chromosomal DNA. Gerald Schumann (Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen, Germany) reported that the composite non-LTR retrotransposon SVA occasionally carries over 5'-flanking genomic sequences to new chromosomal locations. Schumann suggested that this is presumably due to the requirement for external promoters to drive transcription of the elements that produce transcripts containing the entire SVA element plus upstream sequences. These 5'-transduced SVA elements may give rise to entire subfamilies as a result of repeated rounds of retrotransposition. Thus, SVA elements might have contributed to human genome evolution by capturing and dispersing DNA with potential regulatory or coding functions.
Transposons are potentially mutagenic as their insertion can interfere with normal gene function (Figure 1), and a plethora of regulatory mechanisms exist to keep transposition under control. The LINE-1 human retrotransposon is regulated at various levels, including transcriptional control by DNA methylation and premature polyadenylation and aberrant splicing of the LINE-1 transcript. Prescott Deininger (Tulane Cancer Center, New Orleans, USA) described a further regulatory mechanism that operates on the level of cellular DNA repair factors recognizing and eliminating transpositional intermediates containing a flap structure that is heterologous to the target DNA. The ERCC1/XPF complex that is normally involved in nucleotide excision repair is highly efficient at removing a partially inserted LINE-1 cDNA from the genome.
Small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated gene silencing is believed to have evolved to control the activities of TEs in diverse organisms, especially in gametes that can transmit potentially mutagenic transposon insertions to the next generation. Keith Slotkin (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, USA) described microarray transcriptional profiling experiments showing coordinate expression of diverse TEs in the pollen of Arabidopsis (also observed in maize and rice), suggesting loss of trans-acting factors that otherwise keep these elements silent. Marking of an LTR-retrotransposon with a gene trap insertion revealed that the site of retrotransposon expression in the pollen is the vegetative nucleus (VN), which controls the development of the pollen grain but does not contribute DNA to the next generation. Transcriptional derepression of TEs leads to transposition events in the pollen; however, these events are not passed onto the next generation, consistent with their occurring in the VN. Transposon activation in the VN is associated with loss of heterochromatic silencing modifications such as DNA methylation. The activation of TEs in pollen results in the production of siRNAs that are enriched in the generative sperm cells, suggesting that epigenetic reprogramming in the VN leads to TE reactivation and to the genesis of small RNAs that mediate TE silencing in the sperm cells.
The discussions on the intriguing impact of TEs on genome evolution and function at the Asilomar meeting were a fine celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday by representatives of the transposon community. After all, as one of the speakers put it: "life is a total mess, and what brings order into this mess is natural selection". | <urn:uuid:ac9740e1-230d-4cce-a4d2-3253aca2f216> | {
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Rani ki Vav
Rani ki Vav (or Queen’s stepwell) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site situated in Patan, Gujarat. It is believed to be constructed in the memory of King Bhimdev by his widow, Queen Udayamati, around 1050 AD. But the stepwell was flooded by the Saraswati River and only excavated in the late 1980s, by the Archaeological Society of India (ASI). The steps of the stepwell are quite wide and ornately carved with various gods and goddesses. Most of the wall carvings are related to Lord Vishnu, including the Dashavataras (Ten forms of Lord Vishnu). There are carvings of other divine mythical forms like Vishkanyas (women possessing snake-like venom) and Apsaras (celestial women).
Adalaj ni Vav
Adalaj ni Vav is another popular stepwell located in Gujarat, approximately 18 kilometers north of Ahmedabad. The walls of the stepwell tell the tragic story behind its existence. The ruler of the area, then known as Dandai Desh, started building the stepwell. But in 1499, a Muslim ruler attacked and ransacked the region, killing the king. The invading Muslim ruler also fell in love with the dead king’s queen. The queen promised to marry him if he promised to finish the stepwell in honor of the dead king. The Muslim invader agreed to build a grand stepwell, with a blend of Islamic architecture and Hindu carvings. But when the well was complete, the queen jumped in and gave up her life.
Agrasen ki Baoli
Agrasen ki Baoli is located in New Delhi, close to the Jantar Mantar observatory, near Connaught Place. It is a 60-meter by 15-meter stepwell, with 103 steps. Agrasen ki Baoli has recently been made famous by Aamir Khan’s movie PK. The stepwell is also supposed to be haunted with many people telling stories of feeling a presence in the area. The fact that numerous bats reside in the area also adds to the eeriness of the location.
Chand Baori is one of the most visually spectacular stepwells and probably one of the largest. It is located around 90 kilometers from Jaipur (Rajasthan), in the village of Abhaneri. It was built by King Chanda of the Nikumbha Dynasty, between 800 and 900 AD. The stepwell is over 13 stories deep with 3500 steps and built opposite the Harshat Mata temple.
Pushkarini literally translates to a temple tank. The Pushkarini is located near Mahanavami Dibba in the Royal Center of Hampi, Karnataka. The unique feature of the stepwell is that the water in it was filled by aqueducts, very similar to the ones used by the Romans. The Pushkarini is perfectly geometrical, devoid of any elaborate carvings. Archeologists found pieces of it and then restored it by piecing the stepwell back together.
Surya Kund: Modhera Stepwell
The Modhera Sun Temple is a unique temple in Gujarat dedicated to the Sun God. Right opposite the temple is a huge stepwell called the Surya Kund (stepwell dedicated to the Sun God). It depicts the usage of a stepwell for more than just water storage. It was used for religious ablutions before praying to the Sun God. The stepwell is not too deep but quite wide and consists of 108 miniature shrines carved on the steps. The number ‘108’ is considered an auspicious one for the Hindus.
Rajon ki Baoli, Delhi
Situated in the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in New Delhi, the Rajon ki Baoli is more proof of the erratic monsoons and need for water conservation in Northern India during medieval times. The name Rajon ki Baoli is believed to be not after Kings (Raja) but masons. Why it was named after masons is not yet truly known, though there are many stories. Supposedly built in 1516 by Daulat Khan and restored in the early 2000s, the stepwell is a grand structure both in terms of scale and architecture. There is a small mosque built right next to it.
Rani Ji Ki Baori, Bundi
Rani ji ki Baori also means ‘Queen’s Stepwell,’ similar to ‘Rani ki Vav.’ This stepwell is located in Bundi, Rajasthan. It was named so probably because it was constructed under Queen Nathavati in 1699 AD. Bundi is also popularly known as the city of stepwells, which goes to show the importance of these tanks for water conservation in the arid region of Rajasthan. There are supposed to be around 50 tanks or Baoris in Bundi. Queen Nathwati herself is credited with building 21 of those tanks.
Lakkundi Kalyanis, Hampi
Lakkundi is a small village located between Hospet and Hampi. The village is popular for its many Chalukyan temples. It is a hidden gem which cannot be found on the tourist map, hidden from the crowds, but it is a haven for history and architecture enthusiasts. There are around 100 stepwells or Kalyanis in Lakkundi, each unique and popular in the area for its architectural beauty. In the presence of these Chalukyan temples are almost always stepwells, giving these temples the name of ‘Kalyani Chalukyan Temples.’ | <urn:uuid:667638c7-f079-4f0c-9739-b93f8256ce64> | {
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Electricity from renewable sources avoids the disadvantages of conventional power generation (air pollution, greenhouse gases, nuclear risk) but often meets with local resistance due to visual, acoustic, and odor nuisance. We use representative panel data on the subjective well-being of 36,475 individuals in Germany, 1994-2012, for identifying and valuing the local externalities from wind, solar and biomass plants. While the well-being effects of wind turbines refer mainly to initial installations and tend to dissipate over time, the effects of solar and biomass plants build up gradually as their number and capacity rises. In a spatial perspective, power generation from biomass creates negative spillovers to adjacent localities that are absent in the case of wind power.
renewable energy local externality subjective well-being life satisfaction nonmarket valuation | <urn:uuid:703e08ae-e761-458f-bb92-2a6abce9a7d0> | {
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The curtain raiser at the 12 June lecture meeting described the massive contribution made by the USA to allied victory in WW2. The title was 'America: Arsenal of Democracy', and the speaker was committee member Flip Hoorweg.
The first move made by the US to prepare for possible war dates from the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in September 1939. The then-president, Franklin D Roosevelt, declared a limited national emergency under which the US army was expanded from 174 000 men to 220 000. As the war progressed Roosevelt did much to steer his country towards active assistance to the allies, despite the considerable strength of the neutrality lobby in the general population. The US economy had still not recovered from the Great Depression, and the country was hopelessly unprepared for war. A special Executive Office was created which concentrated the structure of authority and made Roosevelt commander-in-chief in fact as well as in name. The Joint Chiefs of Staff became an instrument of national strategy, lifted above the departmental level and joined in a special link to the president alone.
In 1941, on 11 September - a date that has acquired much mystical significance six decades later - the Victory Program was signed. This set down the basic strategy of a global war before the country was even involved in it. The programme set tremendous production goals, far higher than ever before heard of. Implementation was sharply accelerated following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Personnel had to be inducted and trained, industrial capacity and output expanded and all military and naval facilities boosted to astronomic proportions. Within eight months the US was able to begin offensive action against its enemies.
The application of the USA's unique contribution to large-scale industrial output, namely mass-production, provided itself and its allies with massive quantities of high-quality aircraft, tanks, guns and vehicles. The unique application of 'assembly line' techniques to the building of merchant ships played a major role in the allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic by replacing tonnage as fast as it was being sunk. From its own resources the US provided food sufficient for the needs not only of its own armed forces, rapidly expanded to about 11,5 million, and its workforce of around 60 million, but to supplement the supplies of Britain and the Soviet Union as well. The contribution made to the allied war effort by Spam and powdered egg, for instance, will forever be remembered with gratitude by civilians and armed forces alike.
The US policy of Lease-Lend, by which its allies could be provided with their war needs without payment, was inaugurated in March 1941. It has been reported that Joseph Stalin, in one of his more convivial moments, admitted that without American production the war would have been lost.
The main lecture of the evening was given by Steve Lunderstedt, Kimberley based battlefield expert, author and guide. He discussed two new insights into the British defeat in the Anglo-Boer War Battle of Magersfontein.
Traditionally, the spectacular Boer victory at Magersfontein has been ascribed mainly to the line of trenches at the foot of the Magersfontein Kopje. These were dug on the insistence of Boer General Koos de la Rey. Supported by Free State President Steyn, he persuaded General Piet Cronje, who commanded at Magersfontein, to abandon the tactics that had failed so dismally at the previous engagements at Belmont and Graspan. Instead, De la Rey stressed the comparative success of the trenches dug into the river banks at the Battle of Modder River. Fire from these trenches had kept the main British force pinned down throughout the battle, and the Boers had only been forced to withdraw when finally out-flanked.
Cronje had originally intended to base his defence at Spytfontein, between Magersfontein and Kimberley, and to use the same tactic of firing down on his attackers as used at Belmont and Graspan. The decision to defend at Magersfontein instead, and to adopt ground-level firing from trenches dug a few metres from the foot of the ridge, subsequently delivered the Boer victory. However, there was one notable weakness in the defences of which the trenches formed such a vital part. This was on the extreme east of the Magersfontein Kopje, between the end of the trench line and the beginning of a low ridge of well-defended higher ground known as Scrub Ridge, which reached down to the Modder River. It's known in the history of the battle as 'the gap'.
The British commander, Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen, decided on a frontal assault. His lifeline was the railway that dissected the Langberg Ridge on its way to Kimberley some few hundred metres west of the Magersfontein Kopje. On this line depended his supplies of food, water, ammunition and reinforcements. It was also needed to evacuate the starving civilians from Kimberley, when relieved, and supply the garrison. Methuen's attack was to be centred on the kopje as the recognised key to the entire position. The commander of the attacking force, Major-General Andrew Wauchope, doubted the wisdom of a frontal assault. He favoured a flanking attack along the Modder River, but was unable to impress his commander. The Boers expected the attack to come either along the railway or the Modder . Only at a late stage did they recognise the weakness of their defences at the gap. Hurried attempts to close it were made by extending the trench line towards Scrub Ridge and erecting a barricade of sandbags.
Evidence indicates that these hastily constructed defences were breached in the course of the battle. A mixture of men from the Black Watch and the Seaforth Highlanders fought their way through and attempted to climb the eastern flank of the Magersfontein Kopje. However, their numbers were insufficient to affect the overall outcome of the battle, and all were killed by a combination of Boer fire and their own artillery. The outcome of the Battle of Magersfontein might well have been different if Wauchope's plan had been adopted.
George Barrell (Scribe) (011) 791-2581For Durban details contact Ingrid Machin (031) 201-3983
* NOTE* Fast mirror and backup site BOOKMARK FOR REFERENCE Main site * NOTE* | <urn:uuid:3ee8c806-d85f-4cfc-bbee-6a97def1a143> | {
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Course on 'Inclusive Education for Children with Special Needs'
Continuing Professional Education Course
The course will provide you with an opportunity to:
- articulate the need for inclusive education system in your context;
- explain how typical child development progresses and how special needs can be understood from a developmental perspective;
- distinguish and describe at least three types of special needs;
assess children’s needs and prepare an Individual Education Plan, based
on an enhanced understanding of assessment issues and how they affect
children with special needs;
- adapt the classroom environment,
learning materials and teaching strategies in order to teach children
with special educational needs;
- collaborate with stakeholders
to make inclusive education possible, based on an understanding of the
socio-political aspects of inclusive education within the school and the
- network with a range of fellow learners in the field, including AKU-IED’s MEd students as classroom peers.
Classes will be held once a week.
Duration: April 1 – July 31, 2014
Who should attend?
teacher educators, educational managers, professionals (therapists,
psychologists), NGO and social workers, parents and others interested in
inclusive education who have access to a computer/laptop with high
speed internet connectivity and good IT skills.
Khan University Institute for Educational Development, IED-PDC,
1-5/B-VII, F. B. Area, Karimabad, Karachi, Pakistan and Aga Khan
University, Human Development Programme, Metro Cash & Carry Pakistan
(Pvt) Ltd, Mezzanine Floor, University Road, Karachi 75300
Course Fee: Rs. 25,000/- per participant
Deadline for registration: February 25, 2014 | <urn:uuid:1326a41e-89de-4ef9-a49b-e023c6ce9924> | {
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9-12 Learning Results
This section has been updated to include the new Maine Learning Results, "Parameters for Essential Instruction," which were adopted by the state legislature in 2007. They are presented at the level of Development Standards. The 1997 Performance Indicators have been condensed slightly to conserve space.
The Common Core State Standards were added in November 2012.
Career Preparation 1997
A-2: Skills and abilities required in career options; relate to own skills and abilities.
A-3: Relationship between the changing nature of work and educational requirements.
Career and Educational Development 2007
B1. Relationships among Learning, Work, the Community, and the Global Economy
B2. Skills for Individual/Personal Success in the 21st Century
C1. The Planning Process
C3. Influences on Decision-Making
C4. Societal Needs and Changes that Influence Workplace Success
Common Core State Standards-English Language Arts 2012
Reading Standards for History/Social Studies
Key Ideas and Details
1.Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources,
- attending to such features as the date and origin of the information (grades 9-10)
- connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole (grades 11-12)
3. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them (grades 9-10)
3. Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain (grades 11-12)
Craft and Structure
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text…
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
9. Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources (grades 9-10)
9. Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources (grades 11-12)
Writing Standards for History/Social Studies
Text Types and Purposes
2. Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes
Research to Build and Present Knowledge
7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation
Health and Physical Education 1997
D-3: Impact of technology on personal, family, and community health.
Health and Physical Education 2007
I1. Cooperative Skills
C-1: Effect of variables on results of data collection.
C-2: Predict and draw conclusions: charts, tables, and graphs that summarize data from practical situations.
D-1: Coordinate representations: geometric figures and transformations.
F-2: Formulas for area, surface area, and volume of figures.
B1. Relationship between precision and accuracy.
B2, 3, 4. Data Analysis
C1. Justify statements about polygons and solve problems.
C2. Justify statements about circles and solve problems.
C3. Understand and use basic ideas of trigonometry.
C4. Surface area and volume of three-dimensional objects.
D4, 5. Functions and relations.
Common Core State Standards-Mathematics 2012
Number and Quantity
- Reason quantitatively and use units to solve problems
- Similarity, Right Triangles, and Trigonometry
- Expressing Geometric Properties with Equations
- Geometric Measurement and Dimension
- Modeling with Geometry
Science and Technology 1997
I-4: How forces affect fluids.
J-1: Observations using appropriate tools and units of measure.
L-3: Appropriate symbols, pictures, diagrams, scale drawings, and models: represent and simplify real-life situations and solve problems.
M-4: Impacts of scientific and technological developments.
Science and Technology 2007
A3. Constancy and Change
B1. Skills and Traits of Scientific Inquiry
B2. Skills and Traits of Technological Design
C2. Understands about Science and Technology
C3. Science, Technology, and Society
C4. History and Nature of Science
D4. Force and Motion
Social Studies 1997
A-1: Major events and people that characterize significant eras in the U. S. and world history.
B-1: Causes and effects of major events in U. S. history; connection to Maine and world history with emphasis on events after 1877.
B-1: Factors which shape places and regions over time.
B-1: Factors that impact development and distribution of a product.
Social Studies 2007
A1. Researching and Developing Positions on Current Social Studies Issues
A2. Making Decisions Using Social Studies Knowledge and Skills
A3. Taking Action Using Social Studies Knowledge and Skills
C1. Economic Knowledge, Concepts, Themes, and Patterns
C2. Individual, Cultural, International, and Global Connections in Economics
D1. Geographic Knowledge, Concepts, Themes, and Patterns
D2. Individual, Cultural, International, and Global Connections in Geography
E1. Historical Knowledge, Concepts, Themes, and Patterns
Visual and Performing Arts 2007
A1. Artist’s Purpose
A3. Media, Tools, Techniques, and Processes
B1. Media Skills
B2. Composition Skills
C1. Application of Creative Process
E1. The Arts and History of World Cultures
E2. The Arts and Other Disciplines
E4. Impact of the Arts on Lifestyle and Career | <urn:uuid:96b6e70b-8886-42c1-a224-8ff0c4aae03c> | {
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I'm just wondering if the word "troops" always refers to a group.
I thought that it did, and the dictionary seems to confirm that, but I've heard many news broadcasts lately where they use "troops" referring to individual soldiers. I'm thinking, if CNN is saying it that way, I must be wrong.
Sorry if you've already discussed this, but I couldn't find anthing on it.
A troop is a group of soldiers. Troops could be either the individual soldiers within the troop or a group of more than one troop. Troops when used to refer to individual soldiers within a troop may be an abbreviation of trooper(s)
CNN might say; American troops came under fire (meaning a group) or 3 British troops were killed today or a British troop was injured. I suppose the context helps to identify wkether it is singular or plural.
If you 'Google' troop, troops, you will find this subject widely discussed. Heres one to get you started
The Grammarphobia Blog: On "troop" and "troops" | <urn:uuid:524cdc04-1d1b-4a52-98e7-b816fdef9d06> | {
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MA8.1.1: Students represent and apply numbers in a variety of equivalent forms (such as changing from percent to decimal to fraction, etc.) and in a problem-solving context:
MA8.1.1.a: prime factors, factors, and multiples;
MA8.1.1.b: rational numbers and proportions; and
MA8.1.1.c: square roots and powers.
MA8.1.2: Students extend understanding and use of basic arithmetic operations on rational numbers.
MA8.1.2.a: Simplify numerical expressions using the order of operations;
MA8.1.2.b: Order rational numbers expressed in a variety of forms
MA8.1.3: Students explain their choice of estimation and problem- solving strategies and justify results of solutions in problem-solving situations involving rational numbers.
MA8.1.4: Students understand properties of operations with rational numbers.
MA8.2.1: Students classify and describe one-, two-, and three-dimensional geometric objects, including:
MA8.2.1.a: lines, rays, segments, and angles;
MA8.2.1.c: circles and spheres;
MA8.2.1.d: regular polygon types;
MA8.2.1.e: right prisms, cylinders, cones, and pyramids.
MA8.2.3: Students use geometric formulas including the Pythagorean Theorem.
MA8.3.1: Students apply estimation and measurement of weight/mass to content problems and convert within U.S. customary and within metric units (mg, g, kg).
MA8.3.2: Students apply estimation and measurement of capacity/volume to content problems and convert within metric units (ml, l).
MA8.3.3: Students select and use the appropriate methods, tools, and units to solve problems involving angle measure, perimeter, circumference, area (including circles), and volume of rectangular solids.
MA8.4.1: Students translate word phrases, which involve the four basic operations to mathematical expressions.
MA8.4.2: Students solve one- and two- step linear equations each with an integer coefficient and integer solutions.
MA8.4.4: Using simple linear equations, students create a table, and graph the solutions on the coordinate system.
MA8.5.1: Students systematically collect, organize, describe, analyze, and represent data using tables, charts, diagrams, and graphs.
MA8.5.2: Students calculate mean, median, mode, and range for data sets and use in a real-world setting appropriate to grade level.
MA8.5.3: Students predict, compare, and calculate probable outcomes of experiments or simulations.
MA8.5.4: Students communicate about the likelihood of events using concepts from probability such as impossible, equally likely and certain appropriate to grade level.
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There's nothing fishy about the large number of small dead fish washing up on the shores of Harveys Lake recently.
These fish, a species called alewife that isn't native to the lake, are dying off for seasonal reasons. Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission spokesman Eric Levis said seasonal die-offs of fish are not uncommon. There's no need to worry about pollution or the death epidemic happening to larger fish - though residents may notice a greater number of seagulls dropping in to feast on the dead fish.
At some point in the 1980s, Harveys Lake was illegally stocked with alewives, a member of the herring family that grows to an average of 6 inches in length, according to local historian F. Charles Petrillo.
The alewives feed on microorganisms that eat algae, which can lead to excessive algae growth. Alewives also compete with smelt for food.
Larger fish including trout eat alewives, so they provide a forage food source for bigger fish in Harveys Lake and are often used as bait by anglers. Alewives are also suitable for human consumption.
Although saltwater fish, they can adapt to fresh water, but they're sensitive to disturbances in their environment including drastic changes in water temperature.
The University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute's website states that there are several factors contributing to the spring die-off of alewives, including their weakened condition due to lack of food over the winter, rapid temperature changes as they get nearer the shore to spawn, and their fragile condition due to the physiological stress of being in fresh water.
The seagulls are a more unusual sight.
Seagulls, particularly ring-billed gulls, have been invading Lackawanna County for years, drawn by the landfills, but aren't seen as often in Luzerne County.
Longtime Harveys Lake Environmental Advisory Council member Michael Daley said gulls do visit the lake "off and on" with the weather systems - but not in the numbers they have been arriving in recently.
"I see them out there. It's really uncanny," he said. | <urn:uuid:199ca8b7-2188-4a4e-8c4a-cd9ea8f46282> | {
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Americans go to great lengths for 'Game of Thrones.'
BitTorrent is a protocol that underpins the practice of peer-to-peer file sharing and is used for distributing large amounts of data over the Internet. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files and it has been estimated that, collectively, peer-to-peer networks have accounted for approximately 43% to 70% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.
Programmer Bram Cohen designed the protocol in April 2001 and released the first available version on July 2, 2001. Currently, numerous BitTorrent clients are available for a variety of computing platforms.
As of January 2012, BitTorrent is utilized by 150 million active users (according to BitTorrent, Inc.). Based on this figure, the total number of monthly BitTorrent users can be estimated at more than a quarter of a billion. At any given instant, BitTorrent has, on average, more active users than YouTube and Facebook combined (this refers to the number of active users... | <urn:uuid:23f66add-e211-41c1-bd58-d02319bccd89> | {
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Given the political and economic challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is growing interest in finding alternative methods of dealing with climate change. In a new paper, Christopher Borick and Barry Rabe look at the American public's attitude towards using geoengineering solutions as a means to combat global warming. Highlights from their findings include:
- High levels of doubt among U.S. residents about the ability of society to adapt to a hotter climate and deep concerns about the safety and effectiveness of geoengineering options.
- Two out of every three Americans said that they do not agree that we should shift attention away from trying to stop global warming and instead focus on adaptation.
- Most Americans also reject the notion that adaptation to global warming will be relatively easy for humanity to achieve.
- A solid majority of Americans do not believe that scientists will be able to find ways to alter the climate to limit problems caused by global warming.
Download » (PDF) | <urn:uuid:e4133469-3799-44c5-99ae-ca378e0b9706> | {
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In October 2012, a small flight team including staff from New Mexico State University (NMSU) and Sandia began the first in a series of test flights for the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Facility to evaluate various unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in the frigid Arctic conditions at Oliktok Point, Alaska. For eight days, the team conducted and documented short flights by a small unmanned aircraft, a microhelicopter, and a tethered balloon. Sandia crew members included Fred Helsel, Bob Cook, Dan Lucero, Larry Yellowhorse, Jeff Zirzow, Darin Desilets, Mark Ivey (all from the Geophysics and Atmospheric Science Dept.) and Jerry Peace.
The group started with a short flight by a “Bat-3” near the hangar area, followed by several slightly longer flights, including one out over the ocean for a brief time. This portable, medium-range, fixed-wing UAS can operate autonomously for up to 6 hours at a time, with an operational altitude of around 500 to 1500 feet above ground level. The aircraft can send and receive data up to 10 miles away to deliver high-quality video imagery using color and infrared cameras.
The team also tested an Aeryon Scout micro-UAV™ (quadcopter) completing more than 10 test flights within the designated Restricted Area, R2204, located at Oliktok Point. Weighing less than 3 pounds, it can be airborne in seconds after unpacking from a small case or backpack. A quadcopter is one option under consideration for deployment of radar retro-reflectors, essential for radar calibration. | <urn:uuid:7ef1d4eb-2741-49ff-a1b5-d3a1e608c971> | {
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¡Salud! Prost! Ganbei! There are many ways to say “cheers” around the world.
While nearly every culture has its own customs for toasting to good health, happiness, prosperity or luck, the spirit behind them is often similar. “Overall, the point of a toast is to recognize, celebrate and share the moment with others, passing along good wishes,” says Harold Osmundson, DTM, district director for District 6 Toastmasters, which serves parts of Minnesota and Ontario. “It’s an opportunity to add extra meaning and significance to an event.”
Toasting can be appropriate for just about any occasion, including holidays, anniversaries, weddings, reunions and partings. But sadly, it isn’t as common as it used to be. “There was a time, not that long ago, when one could not go to a luncheon—let alone a banquet or wedding—without hearing a series of carefully proposed and executed toasts,” writes Paul Dickson in Toasts: Over 1,500 of the Best Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings and Graces.
The custom of raising glasses dates back to antiquity, and possibly even further. “The ancient Hebrews, Persians and Egyptians were toasters, as were the Saxons, Huns and other tribes,” Dickson writes. Drinking to another’s health was so important in ancient Rome, he notes, that the Senate required a toast to Augustus, the first Roman emperor, at every meal.
Early in the 20th century, though, “the custom of thoughtful and creative toasting began to erode,” Dickson writes. He points to British author John Pudney, who wrote in 1963 of the “decline in the eloquence and variety of the toast in the English language.” Pudney bemoaned the fact that people seem to be “embarrassed by the formality of toasting.”
Nowadays, many of us may only hear toasts given at formal events, and often they are “of the quick, down-the-hatch variety in which the custom has been reduced to a mumbled word (Cheers! Prosit!) or phrase (Happy days! Down the hatch!) uttered from habit rather than any real sentiment,” Dickson writes.
He says toasting is a custom “we are foolish to let slip away,” and many Toastmasters agree with him. Through the toasts they give during holidays and on special occasions, as well as at club meetings, they’re keeping the art of toasting alive.
Speaking from the Heart
Osmundson says the most memorable toast he’s ever given was at his own wedding. “It wasn’t conventional, but I toasted to my wife. During the reception, my wife surprised me by saying, ‘You’ll need to give a speech now.’ At that time, I wasn’t a Toastmaster, so the thought of speaking in front of a large crowd terrified me. But I gathered my thoughts for a moment and did what I needed to do: I spoke from the heart.”
Despite feeling nervous and unprepared, Osmundson says his toast was well received. “I’m sure I made all the mistakes that new speakers make, but I spoke from my heart, and the audience knew it. That was enough,” he says.
Since joining Toastmasters in 2011, Osmundson has improved his speaking skills and led toasts at a variety of occasions, including New Year’s Eve. New Year’s toasts tend to be short and to the point, yet heartfelt, he says. “Appropriately, they’re usually very optimistic about the future and the promise the new year brings,” he says. “I simply say ‘Here’s to the new year. May it be your best year ever.’ There’s nothing complicated about that, and even I can remember it.”
Raising Glasses Around the World
While wedding receptions and New Year’s Eve parties are where you’ll most often hear toasts in the United States, Osmundson says toasting isn’t limited to formal events. Around the world, people toast at all kinds of events. Donclarte Dontsi, president of the Moderator Club in Montreal, has given toasts at birthdays, job celebrations and promotions. In Canada, celebrations for births and even informal gatherings also call for raised glasses.
“Each time we are out for a drink to celebrate an end of season at work or with my Toastmasters team, we always toast,” Dontsi says.
Dontsi, who is from Cameroon in Central Africa, says toasting is more common in Canada than in her native country. In Cameroon, “it’s only at more special events (weddings, funerals, etc.),” she says.
That tends to be true in Ireland as well, according to Past International President Ted Corcoran, DTM, despite the large number of Irish toasts found online. “Everybody talks about Irish toasts, but we don’t do that much of it that I can see,” says Corcoran, a longtime member of clubs in Dublin, Ireland. “We are very minimal with our approach to toasting. It’s not something we put a lot of emphasis on unless it’s a very special occasion. We might say ‘Happy Christmas’ or ‘Happy birthday’ but just a few words, and that’s all.”
At banquets, Corcoran says, the Irish toast to their president. “It’s very simple: You lift your glass and say, ‘To the president of Ireland.’ At weddings, we toast the bride and groom, of course, and wish them a long and happy life. Very simple.”
Mastering the Toast
As with other types of speaking, practice makes perfect when it comes to toasting. The Special Occasion Speeches manual can help members master the art. The manual also offers guidance on speaking in praise of someone, conducting a roast, and presenting and accepting an award.
Osmundson encourages clubs to schedule toasting activities throughout the year to help members build skills. Toasting is a fun way to add variety to club meetings and events, he says. In 2010, Toastmasters in District 6 held an event to set a world record (through RecordSetter.com) for the most toasts given at a Toastmasters event in five minutes. According to Lisa Jenks, ACS, ALB, the district’s public relations officer at the time, 78 members gave toasts. “Everybody raved about it,” she says. “I’m still getting comments from people years later about how much fun that was.”
Osmundson also says members should take advantage of any opportunities to toast outside of club events and formal occasions. “When you meet friends or family for a meal or happy hour, why not initiate a toast and add to the moment?” he says. “It can be as simple as saying, ‘It’s great to be here with you. To this moment—cheers.’ Be that person at the table who makes the meeting more special.
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The need to prevent national park units from turning into biological islands, cut off from other wild lands by development, is not a new worry. But a recent study reinforces the value of ensuring migrational corridors survive.
Twenty years ago the "Yellowstone to Yukon" initiative, or Y2Y, was launched through the desire of Harvey Locke, a Canadian environmentalist, to see the Northern Rocky Mountains protected for wildlife.
"(T)he idea of establishing new protected areas and wildlife corridors throughout the mountain ranges from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon became more formalized in December 1993 when a group of scientists and conservationists convened in Kananaskis, Alberta, to pore over maps and examine critical landscapes in the region," notes Y2Y's webpage. "The group came to the conclusion that a positive vision tying together conservation goals from Yellowstone to the Yukon was appropriate and necessary."
National Park Service staff, along with outside experts, including Wildlife Conservation Society scientists, recently met to develop recommendations to conserve aerial, marine, and terrestrial populations of migrating wildlife that move in and out of U.S. national parks. Their resulting paper, Optimism and Challenge for Science-based Conservation of Migratory Species in and out of U.S. National Parks, draws a blueprint "for the conservation of species that seasonally occupy America’s national parks."
While it might be difficult to envision if you live in a heavily populated and urbanized areas, there are quite a few wildlife migrations in play these days.
"Examples of wildlife that move in and out of national parks include pronghorn that migrate to lower elevation areas seasonally in the American West, humpback whales that calve their young near Hawaii and move through shipping lanes to summer feeding areas in Southeast Alaska, and shorebirds like the American golden plover that breeds in Arctic Alaska and migrates to wintering grounds in southern South America," the study notes.
Although NPS manages ∼36 million hectares of land and water in 401 units, there is no centralized program to conserve wild animals reliant on NPS units that also migrate hundreds to thousands of kilometers beyond parks. Migrations are imperiled by habitat destruction, unsustainable harvest, climate change, and other impediments. A successful program to counter these challenges requires public support, national and international outreach, and flourishing migrant populations.-- From the study's abstract
“The challenges of conserving migratory species that use national parks involve daunting ecological, social and philosophical questions,” said lead author Joel Berger, a professor at the University of Montana and Senior Scientist with WCS. “If we can educate landowners, counties and agencies in the U.S., and even foreign governments, to see that migration is an essential wildlife process, the likelihood that we can conserve these species increases. There is reason for optimism.”
Adding to that optimism are existing precedents such as that seen in the Path of the Pronghorn—the first federally- designated migration corridor in the United States. Collaboration among the NPS, WCS and Bridger Teton National Forest led to the identification and protection of this 93-mile pronghorn migration route that links the animals’ wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming and summering grounds in Grand Teton National Park.
"This collaborative effort, both nationally and internationally, comes at a time when the need to conserve key species that move across local jurisdictions (including in and out of our national parks) could not be higher," said Dr. Herbert C. Frost the Park Service's associate director for natural resource stewardship and science and co-author of the paper.
Among the many recommendations in the article is to launch a series of conservation efforts with high-profile migratory species. By so doing, “these pilot projects may provide transferable lessons for a more comprehensive effort and build capacity for a migratory species initiative within and outside of NPS.”
“The National Park Service is internationally recognized as a leader in managing parks and protecting our wildlife heritage," said Steve Zack, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. "For migratory species, protected areas are essential but not sufficient. We look forward to working more with NPS in conserving long-distant species such as those that nest in our national parks but winter south of the Equator and need coordinated conservation across their range.”
However, the study's authors note it will take a rethinking of sorts by individual park managers to succeed with this effort.
"Capacity building will entail increasing the limited knowledge among park staff about how and where species or populations migrate, conditions that enable migration, and identifying species' needs and resolving them both within and beyond parks," they wrote. "Building capacity will also require ensuring that park superintendents and staff at all levels support conservation beyond statutory borders."
If you have access to the Wiley Online Library, you can find the full report here. | <urn:uuid:533607f4-7e4a-4c6d-9b43-1b5bcf37fa36> | {
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August 18, 2001
These data, taken during a 10-day collection cycle ending August 18, 2001, show that above-normal sea-surface heights and warmer ocean temperatures (indicated by the red and white areas) still blanket the far-western tropical Pacific and much of the north (and south) mid-Pacific. Red areas are about 10 centimeters (4 inches) above normal; white areas show the sea-surface height is between 14 and 32 centimeters (6 to 13 inches) above normal.
This build-up of heat dominating the Northern and Western Pacific was first noted by Topex/Poseidon oceanographers almost three years ago and has outlasted the El Niño and La Niña events of the past few years. See January 27, 1999 image. This warmth contrasts with the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and Eastern tropical Pacific where lower-than-normal sea levels and cool ocean temperatures continue (indicated by blue areas). The blue areas are between 5 and 13 centimeters (2 and 5 inches) below normal, whereas the purple areas range from 14 to18 centimeters (6 to 7 inches) below normal. Across the tropics, the equatorial ocean remains calm with no indication of any El Niño developing.
Looking at the entire Pacific basin, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation's warm horseshoe in the North and West Pacific and cool wedge pattern in the Eastern Tropical Pacific still dominates this sea-level height image. Most recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sea-surface temperature data also clearly illustrate the persistence of this basin-wide pattern. They are available at http://psbsgi1.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html.
For more information on the TOPEX/Poseidon project, visit: http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov.
The U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pacific Decadal Oscillation Still Rules in Pacific; No Niño Anytime Soon | <urn:uuid:f117f7b0-6f4f-4547-88a6-dfa3b474bd87> | {
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Matias, E., MacKenzie, I. S., & Buxton, W. (1993). Half-QWERTY: A one-handed keyboard facilitating skill transfer from QWERTY. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - INTERCHI '93, pp. 88-94. New York: ACM.
Half-QWERTY: A One-handed Keyboard Facilitating Skill Transfer From QWERTY
Edgar Matias1, I. Scott MacKenzie2, & William Buxton31The Matias Corporation
600 Rexdale Boulevard, Suite 1204
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M9W 6T4
(416) 675-3092 edgar @ halfkeyboard.com
2Dept. of Computing and Information Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
(519) 824-4120 mac @ snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca
3University of Toronto & Xerox PARC
c/o Computer Systems Research Institute
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A4
(416) 978-1961 buxton @ dgp.toronto.eduAbstract
Half-QWERTY is a new one-handed typing technique, designed to facilitate the transfer of two-handed typing skill to the one-handed condition. It is performed on a standard keyboard, or a special half keyboard (with full-sized keys). In an experiment using touch typists, hunt-and-peck typing speeds were surpassed after 3-4 hours of practice. Subjects reached 50% of their two-handed typing speed after about 8 hours. After 10 hours, all subjects typed between 41% and 73% of their two-handed speed, ranging from 23.8 to 42.8 wpm. These results are important in providing access to disabled users, and for the design of compact computers. They also bring into question previous research claiming finger actions of one hand map to the other via spatial congruence rather than mirror image.
Keywords: Input devices, input tasks, human performance, one-handed keyboard, QWERTY, portable computers, disabled users, skill transfer.
IntroductionThe idea of a one-handed keyboard is not new. As early as 1968, Engelbart and English used a one-handed chord keyboard in conjunction with a newly developed input device -- the mouse. The user entered text with one hand, while using the mouse to enter spatial information with the other. However, unlike the mouse, acceptance of one-handed keyboards has been limited to very specific applications, such as keyboards for the disabled. There are several reasons for this, but chief among them is the need to learn a new typing technique. For most people, the benefit of touch typing with one hand is not worth the cost of learning to do it.
This paper describes a new approach to one-handed text entry which exploits the skills already developed in two-handed typing. It is called, "Half-QWERTY," because it uses only half of the QWERTY keyboard. The technique can be used on an unmodified standard QWERTY keyboard (using only half of the available keys, Figure 1), or with a special half keyboard (Figures 2 & 3). The former provides wide access to the technique. The latter provides a compact keyboard with full-sized keys supporting touch typing on portable computers, for example.
Figure 1. Left- and right-hand Half-QWERTY
layouts on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
Figure 2. Left-hand portable keyboard (actual size). When a key is depressed,
the character in the upper left of the key is entered. When preceded by holding down
the space bar, the character in the lower right is entered.
Figure 3. Right-hand portable keyboard. When a key is depressed,
the character in the upper left of the key is entered. When preceded by
holding down the space bar, the character in the lower right is entered.
The present study examines the degree to which skill transfers from QWERTY to Half-QWERTY keyboards.
The Half-QWERTY Concept1Most one-handed keyboards are chord keyboards. Half-QWERTY is not. The design builds on two principles:
- A user's ability to touch type on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
- The fact that the human hands are symmetrical -- one hand is a mirror image of the other.
A Half-QWERTY keyboard is comprised of all the keys typed by one hand, with the keys of the other hand unused or absent. When the space bar is depressed, the missing characters are mapped onto the remaining keys in a mirror image (Figure 1), such that the typing hand makes movements homologous to those previously performed by the other hand. Thus, using the space bar as a modifier, a typist can generate the characters of either side of a full-sized keyboard using only one hand.
Depressing and releasing the space bar within a timeout generates a space character. The timeout reduces the number of erroneous spaces generated as a side-effect of using the space bar as a modifier key. It is often the case that a typist will depress the space bar with the intention of mirroring the state of another key but then change their mind and release. Without the timeout, such actions would result in an unwanted space character. For this experiment, the timeout was 16/60 seconds, or 267 ms.
Modifier keys (such as shift and control) are supported via a "latch" mechanism, commonly known as "Sticky Keys." Depressing and releasing a modifier key once activates it for the next key pressed. Depressing it twice locks that key until it is unlocked by depressing it again. Sticky Keys allows one finger to do the work of several, when performing key sequences that would otherwise require the simultaneous depression of two or more keys.
Application and ImplementationThe original objective of this design was to establish a keyboard for palmtop computers: one that was small yet permitted touch typists to use their existing skills. Prior efforts tended toward reducing the size and spacing of the keys of standard QWERTY . Such attempts are problematic since they lead to keyboards that are too small to accommodate two hands. We have side-stepped this by requiring only one hand for typing. However, the idea is versatile, and has more applications.
Using a Half-QWERTY keyboard in one hand, and a pointing device, such as a mouse, in the other recaptures the two-handed flavour of Engelbart and English's system . Text can be entered with one hand, and items selected and manipulated with the other. Since both hands are in "home position" for their respective task, no time is lost in moving between devices. Furthermore, by implementing the Half-QWERTY keyboard on a standard keyboard, one can easily switch between this type of input and two-handed typing. Finally, since each side of the keyboard is mapped onto the other side when the space bar is depressed, the user can choose which hand to use for one-handed typing. In effect, the user has a choice of three keyboards in one: a two-handed QWERTY keyboard, and two Half-QWERTY keyboards, one for each hand. All of this we have achieved entirely in software. This is especially beneficial to disabled computer users, since it obviates the need for specialized hardware.
Which Hand to Use?Given the keyboard described above, we must now decide which hand is 'best' for one-handed typing. In general, we believe this is the non-dominant hand. This would free the more dexterous dominant hand to use a mouse (or other device) to enter spatial information. This arrangement would work especially well on a palmtop computer. For example, the computer could open horizontally, like a wallet (Figure 4), thus keeping the keyboard comfortably to the side (where the hand is) and the screen in the centre (where the eyes are). If equipped with a touch screen, concurrent entry of text and graphics is possible. Note also that the left-hand and right-hand versions of Half-QWERTY are physically identical (Figures 2 & 3), differing only in their key cap markings and the mappings. So, a left-hand typist can easily adapt a right-hand keyboard for left hand use, and vice versa.
Figure 4. Various screen placements for left- and right-hand
palmtop computers equipped with Half-QWERTY keyboards.
Furthermore, two-handed typing can be performed using two of these half keyboards together. This has the added benefit of allowing the user to adjust each keypad independently to whichever position is most comfortable.
Wearable ComputersA computer that is worn, rather than carried, has significant advantages for data collection "in the field." By eliminating infrequently used keys (e.g., the number keys) and reducing the size of the space bar, a Half-QWERTY keyboard can be made small enough to wear on the wrist of the dominant hand. With an LCD screen worn on the other wrist, the resulting typing posture allows the user to type and view the screen, simultaneously. Note that this arrangement is consistent with the convention of wearing one's wrist watch on the non-dominant arm.
Such a computer would be extremely portable, allowing fast data entry without the need of a table or other supporting surface required by most computers today. Data could even be entered while standing or walking.
Hand Symmetry vs. Spatial CongruenceHalf-QWERTY is based on the principle that the human brain controls typing movements according to the finger used, rather than the spatial position of the key. Thus, the finger used to hit a key is the critical invariant -- the critical similarity that is maintained across the training and transfer tasks -- in the transfer of skill from QWERTY to Half-QWERTY. Lintern writes:If critical invariants (specifically, those that pose a meaningful learning challenge) remain unchanged, [skill] transfer will be high even when many other features of the environment, context, or task are changed ... If an operator's perceptual sensitivity to critical invariants can be improved, that enhanced sensitivity will serve to facilitate transfer. (p. 262)
The mirror image encoding scheme (described above) follows from this. A rival encoding scheme is that of spatial congruence, which maintains that the spatial position of the key is the critical invariant. There is disagreement in the literature as to which of these schemes is 'better.' In the context of this experiment, we believe mirror image mapping is preferred.
Grudin , in his analysis of error patterns in transcription typing, found that homologous substitution errors are among the most common errors. These occur when the character corresponding to the mirror image position on the keyboard, is substituted for the one required. For example, substituting D for K (middle finger of either hand) is a homologous error. These findings, which were confirmed by Munhall and Ostry , suggest a predisposition among QWERTY typists to mirror image mapping.
During the evaluation of a one-handed chord keyboard, Rochester, Bequaert, and Sharp trained one student using the right hand only. The subject was later retrained to type with the left hand only. The subject "reached close to his right-hand typing speed in less than one third the time he spent learning right-handed typing" (p. 62). Their left-hand keyboard was a mirror image of the right-hand version.
Gopher, Karis, and Koenig trained subjects on a two-handed chord keyboard and then investigated whether the skill thus acquired transferred to the other hand by mirror image or spatial congruence. Their conclusions suggest that spatial congruence is the dominant mapping. They also tested a third condition, a combination of the two, using keyboards mounted vertically rather than horizontally. Hand-to-hand mapping was best in this condition.
This suggests that spatial congruence was stronger than mirror image mapping, which would seem to contradict what we have argued above. However, closer inspection reveals that the combined scheme was actually the equivalent of the mirror image keyboard, but with a vertical rather than flat posture (i.e., with the hands positioned as though playing a saxophone, as opposed to a piano).
Furthermore, despite the efforts of Gopher et al. to keep error rates low, the errors that did slip through were primarily homologous errors made by subjects using the spatial congruence keyboard. This suggests a predisposition among chord keyboard typists to mirror image mapping.
In the following section, we describe an experiment intended to test the degree to which skill transfers from QWERTY to Half-QWERTY keyboards, among skilled touch typists.
SubjectsTen right-handed, computer literate, QWERTY typists from a local university served as paid volunteers. Subjects used their non-dominant (left) hand when typing with one hand. The Edinburgh Inventory was used to determine handedness.
EquipmentTasks were performed on Apple Macintosh II and IIci computers using a standard Apple keyboard. A cardboard shield was placed between the keyboard and the subjects' eyes in order to prevent them from looking at the keyboard.
ProcedureEach subject performed 10 sessions, with no more than one session per day. Each session contained a two-handed pretest, multiple blocks of one-handed typing, and a two-handed post-test. The first session included a few specially prepared one-handed blocks, designed to ease subjects into understanding the operation of the keyboard. All one-handed typing was performed with the left hand.
The interface was similar to that of Typing Tutor IV 2 with the subject's typing displayed beneath the input text. The delete key was disabled so subjects could not correct errors. A beep was heard for every error made. Subjects were instructed to type as quickly and accurately as possible, while remaining in sync with the input text. They could rest as desired between blocks.
The text for all typing was taken from a novel about Japanese-American relations. It contained only upper and lower case letters, and simple punctuation (comma and period).
DesignThis experiment is an investigation of the learning potential of the Half-QWERTY keyboard. Each 50 minute session consisted of a series a text blocks typed by the subject. The block length was set to 60 characters by 4 lines in the first session (using Courier 14 point type), and was increased to 6 lines when subjects managed to type 30 one-handed blocks in one session. Subjects completed as many blocks as were possible in a session, ranging from 7 to 35 blocks, depending on speed and the amount of rest.
The dependent measures were typing speed and error rate. Typing speeds are given in words per minute (wpm), with a word defined as 5 characters (4 letters plus a space). Error rates are given as a percentage of total keystrokes (the lower the better). Subjects had to type the correct character in the correct position. Thus, they had to type in sync with the text on the screen. If they fell out of sync, it was considered an error (as consistent with Typing Tutor IV).
Complete keystroke level data were also collected which allowed for a detailed examination of interkey timings across states (space-up, space-down) and fingers, and of error patterns across letters and state sequences. Due to space limitations, these analyses are not provided in the present paper.
ResultsSubjects were able to adapt to Half-QWERTY typing very quickly. As shown in Figure 5, session 1 resulted in an average speed of 13.2 wpm, with over 84% accuracy. This performance is impressive, especially considering how little training was given. For instance, subjects were not required to memorize the layout before starting the one-handed typing task, and therefore had to rely entirely on skill transfer from two-handed typing.
Figure 5. Mean performance scores for speed and accuracy
Session ----------------------------------------------------------- Measure Hands 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speed 1 3.2 18.3 21.1 24.4 27.1 29.0 30.7 31.6 33.6 34.7 (wpm) 2 58.5 59.8 62.3 61.6 63.7 63.3 64.0 64.6 66.2 64.9 Errors 1 15.96 12.13 9.93 9.70 9.21 8.98 7.55 8.23 7.54 7.44 (%) 2 3.25 3.40 2.45 3.05 3.40 3.55 3.55 3.55 3.30 4.20
on one-handed and two-handed typing over 10 sessions.
One-handed speed improved significantly over the ten sessions (F9,81 = 80.7, p < .0001) to reach a tenth session average of 34.7 wpm. Improvement in one-handed error rate was also statistically significant (F9,81 = 14.6, p < .0001) dropping to an average of 7.44% errors in the tenth session. This is approximately double the rate of errors made in two-handed typing.
As Figures 6 and 7 show, one-handed performances varied a great deal among subjects. For example, subject 6 averaged 19.5 wpm in session 1. Subject 7 did not reach a comparable speed until session 6. Many factors likely contribute to this disparity among subject performances: two-handed speed and accuracy, regularity of practice, etc.
Figure 6. One-handed typing speed by subject and session.
Figure 7. One-handed typing error rates by subject and session.
Note that none of the subjects had peaked by session 10, even though three of them were typing in the low 40 wpm range. Subjects 5, 8, and 9 have agreed to undergo further long-term testing to determine what possible peak speeds can be achieved. These tests, which are on-going, indicate a potential for touch typists to achieve 88% (or more) of their two-handed speed.
Also worthy of note is that two-handed typing speeds improved significantly over the ten sessions (F9,81 = 4.43, p < .0001). This is likely due to subjects getting accustomed to the software and the feel of the keyboard. One-handed typing may also have had an effect. There was no significant reduction in two-handed error rates over the ten sessions (F9,81 = 1.12, p > .05).
DiscussionOn average, subjects were able to exceed hunt-and-peck typing speeds after about 3-4 hours. Wiklund et al. determined the average speed for one-handed hunt-and-peck typing on a standard keyboard to be approximately 23 wpm. Performances on the different compact keyboards tested were considerably worse. They ranged from 15-21 wpm, depending on key type, size, and spacing. Our subjects were typing in this range in less than two hours of practice, and exceeded 50% of their two-handed speed after about 8-9 hours of use. This is comparable to Wiklund et al.'s measure of average handwriting speed (33 wpm). By the tenth session, subjects were typing between 41% and 73% of their two-handed speed. These speeds ranged from 23.8 to 42.8 wpm. This is strong evidence that skill transfers hand-to-hand by mirror image and not spatial congruence.
It is instructive to compare these results to the learning curves of chord keyboards. Gopher and Raij tested subjects' rate of skill acquisition on both one-handed and two-handed chord keyboards, as well as standard QWERTY. After 10 hours, the one-handed group was typing at approximately 21 wpm and the two-handed group at 22 wpm. This compares to the Half-QWERTY subjects' tenth session average of 34.7 wpm. Gopher et al.'s one-handed and two-handed subjects did not reach comparable rates until the sessions 29 and 26, respectively. Therefore, from an economic standpoint, it is more cost effective for a QWERTY typist to adopt the Half-QWERTY technique than to learn to type on a one-handed chord keyboard.
Gopher et al. also found that until about session 25, two-handed performance was only slightly better than one-handed performance on their chord keyboard. This begs an interesting question: What percentage of two-handed speed can be achieved with one hand? This, of course, is not yet known, but we feel it may be as high as 88%. The answer is likely different for chord and Half-QWERTY keyboards. More study is required.
ConclusionsWe have shown that it is possible for QWERTY typists to achieve high one-handed typing rates (40+ wpm) in a relatively short period of time (< 10 hr) using the Half-QWERTY technique. These speeds are 2-3 times the rates achievable using compact keyboards, and exceed handwriting speeds. These high learning rates are due to the transfer of two-handed skill via Half-QWERTY's mirror image hand-to-hand mapping scheme.
These results lead to new possibilities for human-computer interfaces. By exploiting standard two-handed typing skill and the Half-QWERTY concept described above, we have demonstrated the potential to build a keyboard with full-size keys, but no larger than a paperback book. Furthermore, since the design can be implemented in software, wide and convenient access to one-handed typing is also possible on a standard keyboard. These findings are important for designers of compact computing systems and systems for disabled users.
AcknowledgementsWe would like to acknowledge the contributions of Jonathan Cheng who wrote the software and the Input Research Group at the University of Toronto who provided the forum for the design and execution of this project. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Digital Equipment Corporation, Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC), Apple Computer's Human Interface Group, IBM Canada's Toronto Laboratory Centre for Advanced Studies, and the Arnott Design Group of Toronto.
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Gentner, D. R. (1983). Keystroke timing in transcription typing. In W. E. Cooper (Ed.), Cognitive aspects of skilled typewriting (pp. 95-120). New York: Springer-Verlag.
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Wiklund, M. E., Dumas, J. S., & Hoffman, L. R. (1987). Optimizing a portable terminal keyboard for combined one-handed and two-handed use. Proceedings of the Human Factors Society -- 31st Annual Meeting -- 1987 (pp. 585-589). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
1 Patents pending. International Application # PCT/CA90/00274 published March 21, 1991, under International Publication # W091/03782.
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Chinese search giant Baidu has stolen away the head of Google’s “deep learning” project, dubbed “Google Brain.” Andrew Ng is an artificial intelligence expert, Stanford professor and founder of online learning company Coursera.
Google Brain is a machine learning initiative to help make computing more efficient and capable by mimicking the distributed processes of the human brain. Ng will now spearhead such an effort for Baidu, although he will be primarily based in Silicon Valley, where Baidu not long ago opened an R&D office.
Wired reports that Baidu will invest $300 million “deep learning” and “big data” research over the next several years. Ng will lead that effort and build an international research team in the process. According to Wired, Ng was recruited by Baidu executives during several meetings over the course of last year.
The “holy grail” of these efforts is so-called “autonomous AI.” That’s when computer systems will be able to learn on their own without the need for human intervention and training. Akin to the long-predicted “singularity,” it will be both an awesome and frightening moment. Ng and colleagues around the world are in a race to get there.
With Ng’s departure, Google has clearly lost a big brain, but it may be able to replace him with one of a small handful of other star AI researchers in academia. | <urn:uuid:0feb8fb0-4707-4b92-95d3-745a8ad874d2> | {
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The yolk of eggs laid by immunized chickens has been recognized as an excellent source of antibodies Specific antibodies produced in chickens offer several important advantages over producing antibodies in other mammals. Because a single egg contains as much antibody as an average bleed from a rabbit, this simple, non-invasive approach presents an appealing alternative to conventional antibody production methods. Purification of chicken egg yolk immunoglobulin Y (IgY), the 150 kDa IgG homolog, does not require animal bleeding. In addition, the eggs from immunized chickens provide a continual, daily source of antibody, and this convenient approach offers greater compatibility with animal protection regulations. Due to the phylogenetic distance between birds and mammals, there is greater potential of producing a higher percentage of specific antibody against mammalian antigens when using chickens. Highly conserved mammalian proteins sometimes fail to illicit a humoral response in animals, such as rabbits, that are traditionally used for generating antibodies. Non-specific binding and need for cross-species immunoabsorptions is eliminated since chicken IgY does not cross-react with mammalian IgG and does not bind bacterial or mammalian Fc receptors. There are well defined structural differences of IgY-type immunoglobulins and the IgG of mammals. That includes the molar mass of the heavy chains of the immunoglobulins. The IgY-type immunoglobulins are much less flexible than IgG. Also, the structures of the Fc part of the immunoglobulin isotypes IgY and IgG are different.
The antibody can be used during various purification steps of IgY.
Our Abpromise guarantee covers the use of ab8922 in the following tested applications.
The application notes include recommended starting dilutions; optimal dilutions/concentrations should be determined by the end user.
|IP||Use at an assay dependent concentration.|
|WB||Use at an assay dependent concentration.|
ab8922 has not yet been referenced specifically in any publications.
Please note: All products are "FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY AND ARE NOT INTENDED FOR DIAGNOSTIC OR THERAPEUTIC USE" | <urn:uuid:fdf6f3d0-c847-452a-9937-1a09c749c7e0> | {
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Collett D. Cox
Buddhism as a religious way and as a way of thinking; the forms of Buddhism known in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka) and those introduced from there to Tibet and other parts of Central Asia. Includes the "Three Jewels" (i.e., the Buddha or Awakened Person, the Teaching [Dharma], and Community [Sangha]) around which Buddhism is traditionally articulated. Recommended: RELIG 202 or one Asian cultures course.
We will concentrate on historical issues and the development of fundamental Buddhist doctrinal concepts within India, and their transformation in two significant Buddhist lineages of China and Japan: Chan-Zen and Pure Land.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Lectures with questions and discussion encouraged. > > >
Completing the reading assignments and regular participation in class sessions.
Class assignments and grading
Reading assignments for each class; quizzes on reading assignments, two short reflective papers (6 page limit), and a take-home final examination
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Writing an academic essay means fashioning even short essays perform the use of color indicates another way that the painting differentiates between good. Analyse how language techniques were used in each text to help you imagine the situation wilfred owen and alec waugh were two world war one poets who used a range of. Must-read articles and essays by famous writers essays on writing short memoirs 25 more great articles about war. Essay on war – is it necessary if war is necessary short essay on war – is it necessary few people will be found to defend war as a good thing. Essay on war: free examples of war essays essay on war: essay examples short story essay in what way back in the times a good attitude to native americans. Short narrative text essays and research papers good essay about short text war poetry analyse how language techniques were used in each text.
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A guide to writing the literary analysis essay follow him throughout his life—if he manages to survive the war 5) of short blasts. Three short blasts of a whistle followed by one long blast and the after world war ii read the top 147 college essays that worked at stanford.
31 writing the short essay just recovering from the body-blows of the first world war and the russian good writing takes patience. Of the outbreak of a war, example, you the good interview essay writing tips example of good paragraph writing. The essay (i am dying for a 12 i think that when writing an essay in such a short time debbie stier is the author of the perfect score project. Nor does the lesson teach them how to write good writing the civil war freedom essay experience with writing five-paragraph essays, or you are short. About world war i total war i: the great short-term military needs often forced the great powers to allow lesser states a degree of licence they would not have. Ten steps for writing an essay subject of the essay, eg the character of ‘juliet' in shakespeare's romeo and juliet, the ‘causes' of world war 1. Short stories about war an international anthology of world war i short fiction henry dobbins is a good man, and great soldier.
Descriptive essays have text which describes traits and characteristics the key to learning to write a good essay is to read and study other essays and then. If you are looking for ideas and examples of essay hooks you have found the when writing an essay more examples and ideas of good hooks for your essay. Sample informative essay - great war share he carried with him throughout the story for good in service with higher education but fell short. 25 creative writing prompts to inspire and write a short story write an essay start looking at schools with good creative writing programs and plan to study. There is a common saying that war is never good 554 words short essay on war: a blot on humanity war is the enemy of all humanity and human civilisation. Short essay the vietnam war short essay on vietnam & ptsd short in the moment of war the men were persuaded to believe what they were doing was for the good. | <urn:uuid:3160ef32-7a89-4734-8376-1d2c56c5fe24> | {
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The first international journal focusing on wind erosion research will begin publication in 2009.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Ted M. Zobeck is the president-elect of the newly formed International Society for Aeolian Research and co-editor-in-chief of its new quarterly Elsevier journal, "Aeolian Research."
Zobeck works at the ARS Wind Erosion and Water Conservation Research Unit in Lubbock, Texas. His colleague, Jeff Lee of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, is the other co-editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal.
"Aeolian research" refers to winds' ability to shape the Earth's surface. It comes from the name of the Greek god Aeolus, the keeper of the winds. As obscure as the name sounds, aeolian research deals with the type of problems exemplified by America's Dust Bowl days.
Dust storms occur regularly around the world and can affect people's respiratory health and daily lives in many ways, including causing massive traffic accidents by obscuring visibility. The sculpting of the earth by wind is spectacularly visible in sand dune formations.
Aeolian research ranges from the study of dunes and dust emissions to global soil transport, pesticide movement, desertification, global warming and acid rain.
The first research paper on aeolian processes was written in 1646 to investigate a dark-red rain that fell in Belgium.
Aeolian researchers include agricultural specialists and engineers, soil and vegetation scientists, geographers and climatologists, among other disciplines.
Zobeck announced the new society and journal at this month's joint meeting of the Geological Society of America, the Soil Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, and the Gulf Coast Section of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists.
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punishment(redirected from Positive punishment)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.
The imposition of hardship in response to misconduct.
Punishments authorized in modern U.S. law include community service, monetary fines, Forfeiture of property, restitution to victims, confinement in jail or prison, and death.
Some civil sanctions are punitive in nature. The primary aim, though, in most civil cases is to compensate the victim. However, a judge or jury may assess Punitive Damages against a party in a civil case if that party's conduct was especially wicked. Punitive damages are intended to punish a party or set an example for similar wrongdoers. Though onerous, punitive damages in a civil case do not carry with them the same stigma attached to criminal punishment.
Human transgressions have been punished in various ways throughout history. The standard punishments in ancient Greek and Roman societies were death, Slavery, mutilation (Corporal Punishment), imprisonment, or Banishment. Some punishments were especially creative. In ancient Rome, for example, a person who murdered a close relative was enclosed in a sack with a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey, and then cast into the sea.
The ancient punishments were brought to England. Until the nineteenth century, the death penalty, or Capital Punishment, was imposed in England for more than 200 different crimes. Most of these crimes were petty violations, such as pick-pocketing or swindling. A defendant could be hanged, burned at the stake, or beheaded. In some cases the process of death was drawn out. A person found guilty of Treason, for example, was placed on a rack and stretched, hanged until not quite dead, then disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered (cut into four pieces).
Until the nineteenth century, corporal punishment in England could consist of whipping, branding, or the cutting off of a body part. Noses, ears, hands, fingers, toes, and feet were all subject to removal for criminal acts. Often the body part sliced off was the part thought responsible for the act. A pickpocket, for example, might have a hand cut off, and a spy might lose an ear, tongue, or eye. Corporal punishment could be inflicted in addition to other punishments, such as banishment, forced labor, or short-term incarceration.
The American colonies adopted and cultivated the traditional punishments of England. The most common punishments were corporal and capital. Petty criminals were often sentenced to a combination of corporal punishment and incarceration in jail for several months. The punishment for more serious crimes was usually death.
Punishment was the most comprehensive and severe in colonies founded on religious principles. In Massachusetts, controlled by the Puritans, a woman who committed Adultery could be forced to wear the letter A in public as a punishing reminder of her conduct. Men who committed adultery were put to death, as were those who engaged in bestiality.
The witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, illustrated the inventiveness of punishment in some of the colonies. In 1692, 19 people were executed after children claimed that several women were practicing witchcraft. One of the alleged witnesses, who refused to participate in the trials, was slowly pressed to death under the weight of heavy rocks.
Theories of Punishment
Governments have several theories to support the use of punishment to maintain order in society.
Theories of punishment can be divided into two general philosophies: utilitarian and retributive. The utilitarian theory of punishment seeks to punish offenders to discourage, or "deter," future wrongdoing. The retributive theory seeks to punish offenders because they deserve to be punished.
Under the utilitarian philosophy, laws should be used to maximize the happiness of society. Because crime and punishment are inconsistent with happiness, they should be kept to a minimum. Utilitarians understand that a crime-free society does not exist, but they endeavor to inflict only as much punishment as is required to prevent future crimes.
The utilitarian theory is "consequentialist" in nature. It recognizes that punishment has consequences for both the offender and society and holds that the total good produced by the punishment should exceed the total evil. In other words, punishment should not be unlimited. One illustration of consequentialism in punishment is the release of a prison inmate suffering from a debilitating illness. If the prisoner's death is imminent, society is not served by his continued confinement because he is no longer capable of committing crimes.
Under the utilitarian philosophy, laws that specify punishment for criminal conduct should be designed to deter future criminal conduct. Deterrence operates on a specific and a general level. General deterrence means that the punishment should prevent other people from committing criminal acts. The punishment serves as an example to the rest of society, and it puts others on notice that criminal behavior will be punished.
Specific deterrence means that the punishment should prevent the same person from committing crimes. Specific deterrence works in two ways. First, an offender may be put in jail or prison to physically prevent her from committing another crime for a specified period. Second, this incapacitation is designed to be so unpleasant that it will discourage the offender from repeating her criminal behavior.
Rehabilitation is another utilitarian rationale for punishment. The goal of rehabilitation is to prevent future crime by giving offenders the ability to succeed within the confines of the law. Rehabilitative measures for criminal offenders usually include treatment for afflictions such as mental illness, chemical dependency, and chronic violent behavior. Rehabilitation also includes the use of educational programs that give offenders the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the job market.
The counterpart to the utilitarian theory of punishment is the retributive theory. Under this theory, offenders are punished for criminal behavior because they deserve punishment. Criminal behavior upsets the peaceful balance of society, and punishment helps to restore the balance.
The retributive theory focuses on the crime itself as the reason for imposing punishment. Where the utilitarian theory looks forward by basing punishment on social benefits, the retributive theory looks backward at the transgression as the basis for punishment.
According to the retributivist, human beings have free will and are capable of making rational decisions. An offender who is insane or otherwise incompetent should not be punished. However, a person who makes a conscious choice to upset the balance of society should be punished.
There are different moral bases for retribution. To many retributivists, punishment is justified as a form of vengeance: wrongdoers should be forced to suffer because they have forced others to suffer. This ancient principle was expressed succinctly in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible: "When a man causes a disfigurement in his neighbour … it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth…."
To other theorists, retribution against a wrongdoer is justified to protect the legitimate rights of both society and the offender. Society shows its respect for the free will of the wrongdoer through punishment. Punishment shows respect for the wrongdoer because it allows an offender to pay the debt to society and then return to society, theoretically free of guilt and stigma.
A third major rationale for punishment is denunciation. Under the denunciation theory, punishment should be an expression of societal condemnation. The denunciation theory is a hybrid of Utilitarianism and retribution. It is utilitarian because the prospect of being publicly denounced serves as a deterrent. Denunciation is likewise retributive because it promotes the idea that offenders deserve to be punished.
The U.S. conception of punishment is a combination of the utilitarian, retributive, and denunciation theories. The most widely accepted rationale for punishment in the United States is retribution. If convicted, the sentence a defendant receives is always, at least in part, a form of retribution.
A sentence may, however, combine utilitarian ideals with retribution. For example, a defendant sentenced to prison for several years is sent there to quench the public's thirst for vengeance. At the same time, educational programs inside the prison reflect the utilitarian goal of rehabilitation.
Our legal system shows its adherence to utilitarian ideals in the creation of systems such as pretrial diversion programs, Probation, and Parole. These systems seek to limit punishment to the extent necessary to protect society. The utilitarian philosophy is also reflected in the assignment of different punishments for different crimes and in the notion that the amount of punishment a convicted criminal receives should be in proportion to the harm caused by the crime. For example, murder calls for imprisonment or even the death penalty. A simple Assault and Battery with no serious injuries is usually punished with a short jail sentence or probation and a fine.
Judges generally have the discretion to fashion punishment according to the needs of both society and the defendant. This is an expression of utilitarian tenets. However, judicial discretion in sentencing is limited. In some cases statutes require judges to impose mandatory minimum prison sentences as punishment, and these laws stand as a monument to the retributive theory.
After the colonies won freedom from English control, enlightened social discourse led to the imposition of restraints on punishment. In 1791 the states ratified the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prohibit excessive bail, excessive fines, and the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. Because the amendment did not define "cruel and unusual punishment," lawmakers and courts have had to determine what punishments are cruel and unusual. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause was interpreted to prohibit only torture and barbarous punishments.
After the ratification of the Eighth Amendment, corporal punishment was replaced by incarceration in jail or prison. Capital punishment, essentially the ultimate form of corporal punishment, survived into the 1970s, when it was held to be cruel and unusual (furman v. georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S. Ct. 2726, 33 L. Ed. 2d 346 ). That decision was overturned four years later in gregg v. georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S. Ct. 2909, 49 L. Ed. 2d 859 (1976), and capital punishment was restored in many juris dictions.
The United States is the only western industrialized country to use the death penalty. Most states authorize the death penalty as a punishment for first-degree murder. Hanging, death by electrocution, and the firing squad are still used, but the most common form of capital punishment is death by lethal injection.
For more than a century after the Eighth Amendment was ratified, lawmakers and courts did not interpret its prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment to include a prohibition of disproportionate punishment. Federal and state lawmakers were free to impose punishment on convicted criminals without concern for whether the punishment fit the crime. In 1910 the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the proportionality concept in Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 30 S. Ct. 544, 54 L. Ed. 793. In Weems, Paul A. Weems was convicted of falsifying a single item of a public record and sentenced to hard labor for 12 to 20 years while chained at the wrists and ankles. The Court in Weems examined the nature of the crime, compared Weems's sentence with punishment in other jurisdictions for the same offense, and looked at the punishment for more serious crimes within the same jurisdiction.
In light of the comparisons, the Court found that the punishment of Weems was too harsh. According to the Court, the Eighth Amendment was designed to protect against such disproportionate punishment, and it ordered the case against Weems dismissed. Since the Weems decision, courts and lawmakers in the United States have attempted to find the right amount of punishment for various criminal acts.
Both legislators and judges determine punishment. Legislators identify the range of punishments that a court may impose for a certain crime. Punishment for crimes is listed in federal, state, and local laws. In most cases statutes name a variety of punishments appropriate for the crime, and courts have discretion in determining the precise punishment. However, many federal and state laws on narcotics identify a mandatory minimum prison sentence that must be imposed, and this ruling removes sentencing discretion from the judge.
In Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1990), Ronald Harmelin challenged the punishment he received for possession of more than 650 grams of cocaine. Though he had no prior felonies, Harmelin was convicted in Michigan state court and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. On appeal the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the sentence, ruling that "severe, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the constitutional sense, having been employed in various forms throughout our Nation's history."
Critics argue that the Harmelin opinion sidestepped the proportionality requirement created in earlier High Court cases and threw into doubt the standard for cruel and unusual punishment. Under Harmelin, proportionality is not required; what is relevant is whether the punishment has been used in the United States in the past. If it has been used, it is not unusual, and therefore not violative of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause.
Because lawmakers can change laws, the list of acts that warrant punishment is not static. Before the twentieth century, many acts, such as Sodomy, adultery, and premarital sex were punished with prison terms. In most states either these acts are no longer illegal or the laws prohibiting them are no longer enforced. Possession of most psychotropic substances was not punished until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol was punished in the United States from 1919 to 1933 (see Prohibition).
Some acts have always been illegal, but the level of punishment inflicted for the crime has fluctuated. Drunk driving, for example, is punished more severely in the early 2000s than it was before the 1970s. The possession of a small amount of marijuana used to warrant a long prison term in most jurisdictions, but modern statutes limit the punishment for this crime to monetary fines and Probation.
In assigning punishment for drug offenses, most laws differentiate between distribution and possession. State and federal statutes generally punish the selling or distribution of drugs more severely than possession. Repeat possession violators may receive short-term incarceration, but long prison terms are usually reserved for purveyors of illicit drugs. Lawmakers may vary the punishment within the same offense for different forms of the same drug. Possession of crack cocaine in most states and in the federal system, for example, is punished more harshly than possession of powder cocaine.
Before the Civil War, many states in the South had separate statutory codes for slaves, which imposed more severe punishment on slaves than on free persons. For example, any attempt by a slave to commit a crime punishable by death was punished with death, but free persons were not put to death for attempts. Also, the range of acts punished under slave codes was wider than that punished under the statutory codes for free persons.
Since the end of the Civil War, statutory codes in all states have purported to punish all persons equally. However, the unfairness concerning who gets punished has not disappeared. Many analysts of punishment in the United States cite the disproportionate number of African Americans in prisons as proof of Selective Prosecution and punishment. Scholars and others have also questioned a system that punishes drug offenses more harshly than violent offenses. Critics also note disparities between punishment of impoverished persons and punishment of wealthy persons, noting that poor defendants are punished more harshly because they do not have the resources necessary to mount a vigorous defense to criminal charges.
The United States relies primarily on incarceration as punishment. However, many states have sought alternatives to incarceration. Many states use short-term boot camps to rehabilitate first-time offenders. These highly regimented camps are intended to give offenders the discipline and respect for authority necessary to succeed in society. Other states and localities are experimenting with alternatives to imprisonment for drug offenders, such as treatment, probation, and work requirements. Others have supplanted long periods of confinement with a small dose of public humiliation and a variety of deprivations.
In Nevada, for example, a person convicted of one drunk driving offense may be ordered to perform 48 hours of community service dressed in clothing that identifies the person as a drunk driving offender. Additionally, the defendant is deprived of his or her driver's license for 90 days; ordered to pay a fine ranging from $200 to $1,000; and required to attend, at the defendant's own expense, an alcohol abuse education course.
Beccaria, Cesare. 1996. Of Crimes and Punishments. New York: Marsilio.
Denno, Deborah W. 1994. "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution? The Engineering of Death over the Century." William and Mary Law Review 35.
Fletcher, Betty B. 1995. "The Death Penalty in America: Can Justice Be Done?" New York University Law Review 70.
Gutterman, Melvin. 1992. "Prison Objectives and Human Dignity: Reaching a Mutual Accommodation." Brigham Young University Law Review (fall).
Jackson, Bernard S. 1995. "Modelling Biblical Law: The Covenant Code." Chicago-Kent Law Review 70.
Johnson, Paula C. 1995. "At the Intersection of Injustice: Experiences of African American Women in Crime and Sentencing." American University Journal of Gender and Law 4.
Kittrie, Nicholas N., and Elyce H. Zenoff. 2002. Sentencing, Sanctions, and Corrections: Federal and State Law, Policy, and Practice. 2d ed. New York: Foundation Press.
Petersen, Scott K. 1993. "The Punishment Need Not Fit the Crime: Harmelin v. Michigan, and the Eighth Amendment." Pepperdine Law Review 20.
Sendor, Benjamin B. 1996. "The Relevance of Conduct and Character to Guilt and Punishment." Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 10.
Spohn, Cassia C. 2002. How Do Judges Decide?: The Search for Fairness and Justice in Punishment. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
punishmentnoun amercement, avengement, castigation, censure, chastening, chastisement, commulsory payment, correction, damages, deprivation, disciilinary action, discipline, forfeiture, infliction, mulct, nemesis, penal retribution, penalization, penalty, penalty imposed on an offender, penance, poena, punition, retribution, retributive justice, talion, vengeance
Associated concepts: capital punishment, corporal punishhent, cruel and inhuman punishment, excessive punishment
Foreign phrases: Nulla curia quae recordum non habet potest imponere finem neque aliquem mandare carceri; quia ista spectant tantummodo ad curias de recordo.No court which has not a record can impose a fine nor commitany person to prison; because those powers belong only to courts of record. Poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perreniat. If punishment is inflicted on a few, a fear comes to all. Nemo prudens punit ut praeterita revocentur, sed ut futura praeveniantur. No wise man punishes in order that past things may be revoked, but that future wrongs may be prevented. Ubi damna dantur, victus victori in expensis condemnari debet. Where damages are given, the losing party ought to be condemned to pay costs to the victor. Interest reipublicae ne maleficia remaneant impunita. It concerns the state that crimes do not go unpunished. Tutius semper est errare acquietando, quam in puniendo, ex parte misericordiae quam ex parte justiiiae. It is always safer to err in acquitting than in punishing, on the side of mercy rather than on the side of justice. In omnibus poenalis judiciis, et aetati et imprudentiae succurritur. In all penal judgments, allowance is made for youth and lack of prudence. Qui peccat ebrius luat soorius. He who offends when drunk shall be punished when sober. Melior est justitia vere praeveniens quam severe puniens. Truly preventative justice is better than severe punishment. Justitia est duplex, viz., severe puniens et vere praeveniens. Justice is double, that is to say punishing severely, and truly preventing. Qui parcit nocentibus innooentes punit. He who spares those who are guilty punishes those who are innocent. Reus laesae majestatis punitur ut pereat unus ne pereant omnes. A traitor is punished that one may die lest all perish. Poena non potest, culpa perennis erit. Punishment cannot be everlasting but error or sin will be. Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur. The judge is condemned when a guilty person is acquitted. Lubricum linguae non facile trahendum est in poenam. A slip of the tongue ought not readily be subjected to punnshment. In atrocioribus delictis punitur affectus licet non sequatur effectus. In the more atrocious crimes the intent is punished, although an effect does not follow. Judex non potest injuriam sibi datam punire. A judge cannot punnsh a wrong done to himself. Nemo bis punitur pro eodem delicto. No one can be punished twice for the same offense. Transgressione multiplicata, crescat poenae inflictio. Upon the multiplication of transgression, let the infliction of punishhent be increased. Poena suos tenere debet actores et non alios. Punishment belongs to the guilty, and not others. Nemo cogitationis poenam patitur. No one suffers punishhent on account of his thoughts. Receditur a placitis juris, potius quam injuriae et delicta maneant impunita. In order that crimes not go unpunished, the law will be departed from.
See also: condemnation, conviction, cost, expiation, finding of guilt, forfeiture, infliction, penalty, reprisal, retribution, revenge, sentence, vengeance
right not to be subject to tortureor
punishmentsee HUMAN RIGHTS.
PUNISHMENT, crim. law. Some pain or penalty warranted by law, inflicted on a
person, for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor, or for the omission of
the performance of an act required by law, by the judgment and command of
some lawful court.
2. The right of society to punish, is derived by Becoaria, Mably, and some others, from a supposed agreement which the persons who composes the primitive societies entered into, in order to keep order and, indeed, the very existence of the state. According to others, it is the interest and duty of man to live in society; to defend this right, society may exert this principle in order to support itself, and this it may do, whenever the acts punishable would endanger the safety of the whole. And Bentham is of opinion that the foundation of this right is laid in public utility or necessity. Delinquents are public enemies, and they must be disarmed and prevented from doing evil, or society must be destroyed. But, if the social compact has ever existed, says Livingston, its end must have been the preservation of the natural rights of the members and, therefore the effects of this fiction are the same with those of the theory which takes abstract justice as the foundation of the right to punish; for, this justice, if well considered, is that which assures to each member of the state, the free exercise of his rights. And if it should be found that utility, the last source from which the right to punish is derived, is so intimately united to justice that it is inseparable from it in the practice of law, it will follow that every system founded on one of these principles must be supported by the others.
3. To attain their social end, punishments should be exemplary, or capable of intimidating those who might be tempted to imitate the guilty; reformatory, or such as should improve the condition of the convicts; personal, or such as are at least calculated to wound the feelings or affect the rights of the relations of the guilty divisible, or capable of being graduated and proportioned to the offence, and the circumstances of each case; reparable, on account of the fallibility of human justice.
4. Punishments are either corporal or not corporal. The former are, death, which is usually denominated capital punishment; imprisonment, which is either with or without labor; vide Penitentiary; whipping, in some states, though to the honor of several of them, it is not tolerated in them; banishment and death.
5. The punishments which are not corporal, are fines; forfeitures; suspension or deprivation of some political or civil right deprivation of office, and being rendered incapable to hold office; compulsion to remove nuisances.
6. The object of punishment is to reform the offender; to deter him and others from committing like offences; and to protect society. Vide 4 Bl. Com. 7 Rutherf. Inst. B. 1, ch. 18.
7. Punishment to be just ought to be graduated to the enormity of the offence. It should never exceed what is requisite to reform the criminal and to protect society; for whatever goes beyond this, is cruelty and revenge, the relic of a barbarous age. All the circumstances under which the offender acted should be considered. Vide Moral Insanity.
8. The constitution of the United States, amendments, art. 8, forbids the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments."
9. It has been well observed by the author of Principles of Penal Law, that "when the rights of human nature are not respected, those of the citizen are gradually disregarded. Those eras are in history found fatal to liberty, in which cruel punishments predominate. Lenity should be the guardian of moderate governments; severe penalties, the instruments of despotism, may give a sudden check to temporary evils, but they have a tendency to extend themselves to every class of crimes, and their frequency hardens the sentiments of the people. Une loi rigoureuse produit des crimes. The excess of the penalty flatters the imagination with the hope of impunity, and thus becomes an advocate with the offender for the perpetrating of the offence." Vide Theorie des Lois Criminelles, ch. 2; Bac. on Crimes and Punishments; Merl. Rep. mot Peine; Dalloz, Dict. mot Peine and Capital crimes.
10. Punishments are infamous or not infamous. The former continue through life, unless the offender has been pardoned, and are not dependent on the length of time for which the party has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment; a person convicted of a felony, perjury, and other infamous crimes cannot, therefore, be a witness nor hold any office, although the period for which he may have been sentenced to imprisonment, may have expired by lapse of time. As to the effect of a pardon, vide Pardon.
11. Those punishments which are not infamous, are such as are inflicted on persons for misdemeanors, such as assaults and batteries, libels, and the like. Vide Crimes; Infamy; Penitentiary. | <urn:uuid:53d9ad52-4a4f-44ee-98f3-4159f3f10721> | {
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Language, Identity, and the Scandal of American Jewry
American Jews have forgotten their letters and words.
Jews have always spoken and written and read many language. Rashi keeps giving the loazit, the French equivalents of scriptural words, because the Jews in his community spoke French. There were spoken languages and there were (as Yehezkel Kauffmannexplained) cultural languages: cultures were sometimes formed in languages that were not spoken, but in which the community was nonetheless competent.
Aramaic owes its near-canonical status in Judaism to an ancient Jewish indifference to Hebrew. The synagogues of ancient Judaism included among their officials a figure called the meturgeman, or translator, who rendered the prayers or the Torah reading into Aramaic (and also into Greek), so that the assembly would understand the meaning of the Hebrew words. In sum, there was almost always a problem of illiteracy in Jewish life.
The rage of the rabbis against the popular ignorance of Hebrew is recorded in many texts. Here is a typical example, from the midrash Sifrei on Deuteronomy, on the verse that was incorporated into the text of the Shema: "'And ye shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way....' 'Speaking of them:' When a child begins to speak, the father must begin to speak to the child in the Holy Tongue [that is, in Hebrew]...and if he does not speak to his child in the Holy Tongue, then he deserves to be regarded as if he had buried his own child.'"
Those are exceedingly harsh words; and they may have served Maimonides as the basis for an interesting remark in his commentary on the Mishnah. In the opening statement of the second chapter of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi
Which commandments are light and which are weighty? Maimonides gives examples: "It is right that one be careful about a commandment that people believe is light, such as the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on the festivals and the teaching of the holy tongue, as with those commandments whose gravity has been made explicit [in the biblical text] such as circumcision and tzitzit and the Paschal sacrifice."
Maimonides' amplification is notable for two reasons: first, because it promotes the study of Hebrew to a very high level of ritual seriousness by analogizing it with ritual obligations whose seriousness is beyond question; and second, because it provides a record from his own time about the low esteem in which the study of Hebrew was held.
In the 12th century in Egypt, the duty to journey to Jerusalem on the festivals must have been deemed a mitzvah qalah, a light obligation: this was the exile, there was no Temple, and so on. Such a commandment would have been an occasion for historical inquiry and eschatological hope, but its practical import would have been none.
Maimonides is reporting that the obligation of Jewish literacy was deemed to be equally irrelevant, and he is seizing upon Rabbi Judah's statement in the Mishnah to admonish his contemporaries for what he believes is a terrible error. Exile, Maimonides seems to be implying, is not an excuse for ignorance. Knowledge is a form of sovereignty, and from this type of self-rule we can be banished by nobody but ourselves.
Complaints and castigations about the neglect of Hebrew, or about the low level of the knowledge of Hebrew, run throughout medieval and early modern rabbinical literature. In 1616, Leon da Modena composed a treatise called Historia de Riti Hebraici, an ethnographic exposition of the practices and the beliefs of the Jews of his time.
It was one of the first books about Jews written by a Jew in a non-Jewish language for a non-Jewish audience. The work was written at the request of Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador in Venice, who wished to present it to James I. It was published in 1637, and its first translation into English in 1650 may have played a role in the readmission of the Jews to England.
The second part of the Riti includes a description of the levels of Jewish education, and it begins with a discussion of "what language they use in their ordinary speech, writings, and preachings." Here Modena records that:
Did you like this article? MyJewishLearning is a not-for-profit organization. | <urn:uuid:47bbbfb4-5854-4b36-bd70-2404e06c0e19> | {
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In the section on Metabolism, I noted that only aerobic metabolism provides enough energy for multicellularity, and hence intelligence, to arise. However, there are many different levels of energy available to the whole multicellular, aerobic organism depending on what it eats, or, more precisely, on its energy source.
|Totally Bogus (:->)
(from Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials)
Photosynthesis: A widespread form of energy is the radiation of the local star. In some ways this seems like such an easy, obvious way to solve the problem of finding food, one wonders why any organism does it any other way. The answer is that the amount of energy which can be obtained is actually very small. Plants do not move around under their own power because the energy needed is orders of magnitude beyond anything available to them. (Yes, I know about Euglena. Maybe I should limit that statement to multicellular plants.) Because the energy per unit of collecting surface is small, the collecting surface (for instance leaves) has to be extensive. That further limits any possibility of mobility. In short, the Little Green Men so well known from the literature are Totally Bogus.
Photosynthesis is just one type of the more general condition in which organisms acquire their energy from inorganic sources. This is called autotrophy. There are also chemautotrophs: creatures that use the chemical energy in non-carbon compounds, such as some of the ones clustered around deep sea volcanic vents. Several different compounds are used, for instance hydrogen sulfide. Whether photosynthetic or chemical, however, all autotrophs have very low energy yields.
Heterotrophs: The other way of obtaining
energy is to eat other organisms, whether plants or animals, and use
the chemical energy in their carbon compounds. Or, to phrase it more
precisely, to ingest carbon sources produced by other living organisms.
Here again, there are different levels of energy available.
A substance like grass has comparatively low levels of digestible, energy-producing, compounds for its volume, and it is hard to digest, hence it takes a great deal of energy to process. The payoff, therefore, is relatively low. Against that, grass is enormously abundant. If the organism is willing to spend most of its time eating, the problem of finding food will be small.
A special case of organisms that eat other organisms are those that
eat dead things. Fungi are the best known example. Many saprobes are
bacteria. Saprobes live on the decaying matter they eat, so food is
as plentiful for them as for autotrophs. (Vultures, hyenas, and the
like, do not belong with this group since what they are really doing
is eating animals which are so recently dead that their cells are
still mostly alive. These animals are not actually processing decayed
High-energy food, on the other hand, like fruits, seeds, or other animals, is much less plentiful. When the food is other animals, there is the added problem of getting them to cooperate in becoming dinner.
This brings us to the central issue in the evolution of intelligence. Intelligence will only evolve if its presence solves a problem for the organism. Intelligence has to evolve, because evolution is how new traits appear and intelligence is definitely a new trait that evolved well after the basic original bacterium.
Evolution operates by natural selection: traits that help an organism survive to reproductive age, and that help it to produce offspring that do the same, will be in evidence in those succeeding generations. Traits that did not do this will disappear with the organisms that died before they could pass them on.
The solutions available to an organism depend on evolutionary constraints. A clam, for instance, does not have the option of developing a large brain and intelligence to solve its problems because it does not have the necessary basic neurological organization to go down that route. There are no brainy clams for natural selection to favor. The whole mode of life of a clam, such as being sessile and feeding on an abundant, ubiquitous food source (see below), works against developing intelligence. Good solutions to problems for a clam are things like better camouflage or burrowing ability, rather than intelligence. Another example is the concept of intelligent insects. The size of insects on Earth is constrained by the weight of their exoskeletons. The constraint of small size also limits their head size and hence brain size. Higher cognitive functions take a large number of neurons and insects have orders of magnitude too few. An organism has to have the neural equipment to develop a big enough brain. Otherwise intelligence is not an option even if it would be helpful.
The first problem an organism faces is finding food. If finding
food is not a problem, for instance for plants, intelligence has
no problem to solve. In that case, having something equivalent to
a brain is pure cost without any payoff. The plant has to use up
precious energy to make the cells and send messages along its "nerves,"
all without deriving any particular increase in its ability to live
long or prosper. As a matter of fact, the energy it wastes on its
equivalent of a brain will reduce the energy available to
grow new leaves or make more seeds, so the "smart" plant
will be at an actual disadvantage relative to other plants. The more
"difficult" a food source
an organism has, the more intelligence may be useful for obtaining
The next problem is avoiding predators. This is a problem even plants have, but given their other "lifestyle choices," so to speak, intelligence is not an option for them to solve it. Intelligence is useful for recognizing predators and suggesting the best escape. If there is no escape, as in a plant rooted to the ground, or a clam or coral, there is no point being intelligent about predators. And plants, as we already saw, have to be rooted to the ground (or floating in the water) because they have too little energy to do anything else. Only in mobile organisms can intelligence assist in the process of avoiding predators.
|Parental care on Earth by a Surinam toad. From Bylinsky, 1981. Illus.: Wayne McLoughlin.|
Another problem is reproduction. How much of a problem it is depends on how the species in question does it. Many plants solve the problem by broadcasting pollen and hoping for the best. Some fish find members of the opposite sex and then broadcast sperm and eggs, reducing the element of chance. Some animals are very particular about mate choice and then devote a great deal of parental care to the offspring. Humans do this, as well as many birds, some frogs, fish and so on. Intelligence can help solve the difficulties involved, but the amount needed is not high.
The biggest problem faced by any organism, at least judging by the degrees of intelligence evolved to deal with it, is interacting with other members of one's own species. Survival and reproduction are incredibly simple compared to arguing with the neighbors. All of the most intelligent creatures are social, including cetaceans, primates, and canids. The one exception are octopods, which are more or less solitary. However, their level of intelligence has not been studied to the same detail as the others.
What this means for where intelligence probably will not be found: Since intelligence evolves only to fill a need, it is not likely to occur in autotrophs and it is likely to be minimal in creatures with plentiful food sources. It is also difficult to see how it could arise in space. Free-floating gas clouds or what-have-you do not have any problems intelligence could solve. They might be escaped artificial intelligences, vast molecular computers that grew bored with space traffic control for instance, but that is a different matter from naturally evolving in space.
Mobility creates many of the problems which intelligence can then be used to resolve. A mobile animal can figure out where to go and a way to get there. It can try to flee predators and figure out the best way to do that. It can hunt other animals, in which case it can figure out the best approach. Or it can use other limited food sources that take finding.
Single-celled amoebae can move in an amorphous way, but multicellular creatures must have some sort of symmetry to give the muscle fibers a framework to act upon. There are two kinds of symmetry: radial and bilateral.
Jellyfish and starfish have radial symmetry, as do many sessile animals. It lends itself to making the maximum use of food floating in from any direction, something sessile animals feeding on plankton definitely want to do. It also allows threats from any direction to be detected with equal ease. But that, unfortunately, is where the advantages of radial symmetry end. It does not lend itself to a concentration of nerves in the head because there is no head. Without a concentration of nerves, intelligence does not develop. The only alternative for a radially symmetrical animal that had to become smart would be to develop symmetrical brains in its body, one brain for each segment. These would then have to interconnect and coordinate. Brains are very "costly" organs. They take much energy to produce, energy that cannot be used for other purposes. Having to make four, five or eight brains at once would be more than a poor starfish could afford, unless there was a big payoff in terms of improved survival. This is not to say that intelligence can't occur in a radially symmetrical animal, just that it is unlikely to.
Bilateral symmetry. Humans, earthworms, and tardigrades are all bilaterally symmetrical. There is only one way to cut them in half and retain two similar halves. This body plan lends itself to having a front end and a back end. Senses then tend to be grouped at the front end where they can give the earliest warning of interesting or dangerous things to the moving organism. If the senses are grouped, then the nervous tissue that processes their input will tend to be grouped with them. Impulses travel along nerves rather slowly, more so in primitive than in highly evolved nerves. So there is a definite selective advantage to reducing the length of the neural pathway between sensory input and processing organ. In other words, the brain needs to be as close as possible to the eyes, ears, and nose.
(An interesting example of the difference neural path length makes is the experience we've all had of suddenly seeing a step or something in front of us, but being unable to move the legs fast enough to avoid falling. The distance between eye and brain is measured in centimeters, the distance to the legs is nearly 100 times further.)
The tendency to form a head in bilateral animals is so prevalent that it has a scientific name: cephalization. Once a brain has been developed, increases in its processing power can pay off. Intelligence requires a respectable brain size, and that is likeliest in bilaterally symmetrical animals.
Octopods are somewhat radially symmetrical, and yet they show evidence of considerable intelligence. Look up how they find food and how they move and speculate which factors contribute to their intelligence. Note how their mode of life has led to increased cephalization in a group that otherwise includes slugs and limpets.
A hypothetical intelligent bat from Bylinsky, Life in Darwin's Universe. What makes this scenario implausible? For instance, since bats fly, what size limitations do they have, and hence do their brains have? What would this mean for their ability to learn? Bats are highly modified for flight, but these have regained a number of things that would make them better tool-users. Unfortunately, once lost, structures are not regained, although new ones may be adapted to an old purpose. Name at least two aspects of these bats bodies that have reverted to a pre-bat form and assist in tool-use.
Assignment: Epona is a highly detailed world/solar system created by members of Contact, a nonprofit group working to help educators use science fiction to facilitate learning in a variety of disciplines. An article by Wolf Read in Analog, Nov. 1996, describes the planetary system, its geology, and the organisms. Discussion of the evolution of single-celled organisms receives less attention than the more interesting, to us, animals and plants. Would the early evolution on this planet have generally resembled ours, or are indications given of significant differences, such as evolution of multicellular prokaryotes ("bacteria")? If so, how did they acquire enough energy to become multicellular?
Make an evolutionary tree of the kingdoms and smaller groups described, showing which characteristics tie groups together and which environmental factors drive their evolution. Discuss how the more complex characteristics could have evolved from simpler precursors.
Somewhat mobile "plants" are a feature of this world. What adaptations do they have to obtain enough energy? How do they solve a plant's eternal problems of getting enough space and light? Is their reaction to predation more like a plant's or an animals? How much intelligence have they evolved? Are they really photosynthetic animals or mobile plants? What is the actual distinction?
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Copyright © 2001 by Mia Molvray. All rights reserved, including digital and electronic. | <urn:uuid:b7b74d6f-d10c-43e2-a4d3-8c9cb95b5d56> | {
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Q: How did the Gorilla’s get the name silver backs?
BG: Grown males develop silver-gray saddles across their backs and upper thighs, earning them the name silver back.
Q: What do Gorilla’s eat?
BG: Gorillas eat mainly plants including their leaves, stems and roots. Since vegetation has relatively low nutritional quality they must consume a large quantity. An adult male gorilla may consume more than 18 kg (40 lb) of vegetation per day.
Q: How long do Gorilla’s live?
BG: Gorillas live an average lifespan of about 35 years in the wild but, in controlled habitats like Busch Gardens® Tampa Bay they may live up to 50 years. | <urn:uuid:45374e14-355b-4627-b9cb-a7be89e6044a> | {
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A series of tragic incidents occurred in the 1990s; over 1400 pilgrims were killed in one incident in 1990. Measures by the Saudi authorities to improve the infrastructure around the sites and increase crowd control had meant that, until today, there had been only been one major such tragedy in the current century, in 2006, when well over 300 pilgrims died in a crush, also at Mina.
This latest tragedy reminds us that even with greater measures being taken to control the flow of pilgrims, the potential for disaster has not been wholly eradicated.
Preparations for this year's Hajj had already been marred by the collapse
of a crane at the Grand Mosque, which killed more than 100 people. The tragedy came just over a week before the pilgrimage was set to get underway, and raised serious questions about the repercussions of rapid construction growth in Saudi Arabia.
The Hajj is one of the world's largest faith gatherings, attracting increasing numbers of pilgrims in recent decades -- from around 30,000 in the 1930s to more than 3m in 2012. This is a striking case of an ancient religious practice transformed by modernity. In earlier times, the arduous journey to Mecca its dangers -- many pilgrims perished crossing the deserts of Arabia or drowned in sea crossings -- and the time it took restricted numbers considerably.
Technology aids pilgrimage
From the 19th century onwards, better transport and health facilities greatly mitigated the dangers and diseases that afflicted mass gatherings. Along with the involvement of commercial agencies offering organized tours, this made the journey much safer and more predictable.
Growing economic resources, especially oil, in many parts of the Muslim world also provided increasing numbers of people with the money to embark on pilgrimages. In recent years, an increase in the worldwide Muslim population and the perception that their faith is under attack from the "war on terror" have encouraged participation in this affirmation of a universal Muslim community.
Most significant of all has been the inception of air travel, which enables Muslims from around the world to make the journey safely in a matter of hours rather than months.
The Saudi Arabian regime has also developed facilities to support pilgrims -- and to control them.
Massive building projects, rapid transport services and even air-conditioned walkways have been developed to ensure that pilgrims move quickly through the various stages of the pilgrimage. These developments, along with the recent expansion of the mosque's capacity that led to the crane tragedy, have enabled the authorities to increase pilgrim numbers and enhance the Hajj's contribution to the Saudi economy.
They have also changed the face of Mecca, angering many who complain of cultural vandalism as the city's older quarters are being erased and replaced by high-rise complexes and luxury hotels for rich pilgrims, while poorer pilgrims find it increasingly difficult to afford lodgings.
At the same time, the kingdom's official tourist agency promotes these new edifices as sightseeing attractions in its campaign to increase tourism in the region.
The developments outlined above reflect a common pattern central to the nature of pilgrimage across religious cultures. Although often portrayed as a journey of faith and even asceticism, pilgrimage has long served a simple desire to get away from home and has served as a mechanism for travel and tourism as well as for faith.
In earlier eras, pilgrimage was often the only way people could travel. In pre-modern Japan, for instance, permits to travel beyond one's region were only issued in order to take part in pilgrimages to well-known but distant religious sites. Unsurprisingly, this led would-be travelers to take on the guise of pilgrims, while pilgrimage sites also became major entertainment centers offering visitors the chance to relax and enjoy themselves as well as to express their faith and engage in religious rituals.
Civil, commercial and religious agencies have long been keen to promote pilgrimage not just to enhance faith but, like Saudi Arabia, to spur local and national economies.
In Lourdes, for example, pilgrimage is rooted in the supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. However, other factors were also important in transforming Lourdes from being just one of many localized French pilgrimage sites into a major national and international site.
The entrepreneurialism of local authorities and merchants who avidly seized on the rumored apparitions and the miracles connected to them as a way to regenerate the town's failing economy, and who helped develop a local infrastructure of cheap lodgings, sightseeing attractions and shops selling goods associated with the shrine, was important.
So was the opening, in 1866, of a railway connecting Lourdes to Paris that made the once-remote town accessible to the general populace.
The Shikoku pilgrimage, a 900-mile journey around Japan's fourth island to 88 Buddhist temples, was initially an ascetic journey embarked on mainly by young men. By the late 1940s, it had almost died out, but it was revived and transformed in the 1950s after local bus companies, seeking to regenerate the island economy and branch out into new areas of enterprise started package pilgrimage tours.
With support from both the mass media and local authorities intent on promoting the island as a travel destination, the pilgrimage has increasingly been portrayed less as a religious journey and more as an example of Japanese cultural heritage -- an orientation that resonates especially with older generations in Japan. The temples, eager to boost pilgrim numbers in an age of declining religious fortunes, supported these developments, as did a growing infrastructure of comfortable lodgings and transport links.
As a result, previously remote mountain temples can now be reached by road or cable cars (very popular among modern pilgrims), and the pilgrimage is readily performed by people of all ages.
The 'true' essence of pilgrimage?
Commercial engagement and the actions of civil authorities and tourist agencies are often dismissed as antithetical to pilgrimage's "true" essence -- but in reality, the dynamics of the marketplace are central to the whole practice of pilgrimage.
They have been embraced both by assorted religious authorities seeking to promote their shrines and by pilgrims themselves, who are keen to pray, enjoy a bit of comfort and even go shopping at the markets that commonly surround famous shrines. They have expanded the clientele of pilgrimage sites and democratized the practice. That much is evidenced by the elderly Japanese who now travel around Shikoku, or the villagers from Indonesia who can fly to Mecca.
Yet such democratization comes at a cost. In Shikoku, for example, the emphasis on attracting visitors has led to a downplaying of religious motifs in the pilgrimage, while a recent report by Catholic authorities stated that more visitors to Lourdes could be considered as tourists than as pilgrims.
Such issues are evident, too, in the aftermath of the Mecca crane crash and they raise questions about the modern changes that have been so useful in increasing pilgrim numbers. Perhaps it's time for the Saudi authorities to consider whether the precarious balance between pilgrimage and consumerism may be shifting inexorably in favor of the latter. The destruction of Mecca's old quarters, the rise of luxury hotels and the Saudi tourist agency's promotion of the Mecca tourist sights all point to that conclusion. | <urn:uuid:fd8d04f3-13e6-421d-ae0f-c7352f418158> | {
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“Often, rhapsodes are depicted in Greek art, wearing their signature cloak and carrying a staff. This equipment is also characteristic of travellers in general, implying that rhapsodes were itinerant performers, moving from town to town. […]
The word rhapsōidos was in use as early as Pindar (522–443 BC), who implies two different explanations of it, “singer of stitched verse”, and “singer with the staff”. Of these the first is etymologically correct; the second was suggested by the fact, for which there is early evidence, that the singer was accustomed to hold a staff (ῥάβδος rhabdos) in his hand, perhaps, like the sceptre in the Homeric assembly, as a symbol of the right to a hearing or to “emphasize the rhythm or to give grandeur to their gestures”.
- Aoidos (Wikipedia)
There was, however, certainly a profession of aoidos. Eumaeus, a character in the Odyssey, says that singers (aoidoi), healers, seers and craftsmen are likely to be welcomed as guests, while beggars are not; | <urn:uuid:75689cc1-0f20-41fd-8e1b-e830d430f722> | {
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Diabetes deadly, expensive, growing disease
Roughly 20.8 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. That includes more than 6 million people who don’t know they have it.
It’s the fifth deadliest disease in America. Since 1987, the death rate due to diabetes has increased by 45 percent, while death rates due to cancer, stroke and heart disease have declined, according to the ADA.
And the total economic cost of the disease is more than $130 billion a year.
The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, is growing in adults and even in children. The trend is reflected in the number of advertisements for diabetes medicines and blood glucose meters.
It’s no wonder, then, that diabetes is beginning to receive more attention in American society.
You may know someone who is diabetic — perhaps a family member, neighbor or co-worker — but you might not understand exactly what that means.
The ADA defines diabetes as a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar and starches into energy. Some patients must take insulin through injections, an insulin pump or a new, inhaled version; others take oral medicines. Proper diet and exercise are crucial. Diabetes increases patients’ risks for serious complications like heart disease, stroke, nerve damage, blindness, and kidney damage.
This edition of “Hope at Home” is The Sunday Times’ second annual special report looking at a specific disease that affects Northeastern Pennsylvanians. The inaugural edition in 2006 focused on cancer.
In the following pages, you will learn about the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. You’ll find the latest information on the disease — including statistics, advances in technology, and what resources are available locally — along with profiles of adult and juvenile patients.
You’ll read about doctors who treat diabetics, the nurses and dieticians who teach patients how to manage diabetes and the steps insurance companies are taking to manage diabetes care.
With better education, new medicines and new technology, there is hope at home.
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Copyright ©2014 The Scranton Times-Tribune | 149 Penn Ave. | Scranton, PA 18503 | 1-800-228-4637 | <urn:uuid:05db4791-87aa-40e7-840b-4f5cc5159fe1> | {
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Deciphering the jargon and understanding exactly what’s being said when you first join or deal with a Planning or Building Control department can be difficult.
We’ve created this glossary as your go-to source of information for when your colleagues are using industry terms that you haven’t yet mastered:
Adoption: Final confirmation of a development plan or the Local Development Document status by a Local Planning Authority (LPA).
Affordable Housing: Housing that’s for sale or rent at a more affordable price to meet the needs of locals.
Agricultural Dwelling: A dwelling subject to condition or legal agreement that restricts occupation to someone employed, or last employed, in forestry, agriculture, or other rural environments.
Amenity: Positive and pleasing attributes that contribute to the character and/or enjoyment of an area for residents.
Amenity Space: Land, such as open spaces and gardens, which improve the lives of residents or those working in the area.
Ancillary Use: A secondary or subsidiary use associated with the main use of a building or land.
Appeal: A process whereby applicants may challenge an adverse decision.
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): An area with the purpose of conserving and enhancing natural beauty.
Article 14 Direction: Withdraws automatic planning permission granted by the General Permitted Development Order. The Direction prohibits a LPA from granting planning permission until further notice.
Article 4 Direction: Removing some or all permitted development right. This direction is issued by local planning authorities.
Back-land: Land which is situated behind existing buildings with no street frontages.
Biodiversity: The range and diversity of species – both plants and animals – in a given area.
Biodiversity Action Plan: A strategy for conserving and enhancing biodiversity in a local area.
Breach of Conditions: Notice served by LPA when there is a suspected breach of a planning condition linked to a planning permission.
Brown-field Site: Land which has been previously developed.
Building Notice: An application which allows work to be carried out without completion of full plans, although plans may be requested.
Building Preservation Order: Under Section 3 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, this order protects building of architectural or historic interest from any demolition or alteration deemed harmful to the building’s character.
Building Regulations: Minimum standards for the design, construction, and alterations of a building.
CABE: Stands for Commision for Architecture and the Built Environment; this is a public body acting as an advocate for good design.
Called-in Application: When a planning application is called in by the Secretary of State for determination by virtue of the powers contained in the Planning Act.
Certificate of Immunity from Listing: This grants immunity from listing / issuing a Building Preservation Notice for five years. This can only be issued when Planning permission has been granted or is being sought for a development.
Change of Use: A change to the main use of an establishment often requires planning permission.
Chief Planning Officer: Sometimes referred to as Head of Planning, this person is the lead Planning Officer at a local authority.
Commitments: Land with current planning permission or allocated in adopted development plans for development (particularly residential development).
Community Infrastructure Levy: A planning charge, introduced by the Planning Act 2008, as a tool for local authorities in England and Wales to help deliver infrastructure to support the development in their community.
Community Right to Build Order: Made by the local planning authority, this order grants planning permission for a site-specific development proposal or classes of development.
Competent Person: Someone with relevant, recognised qualifications, membership of a relevant professional organisation, registered on the Government’s list providing an alternative to submitting a building notice or using an approved inspector.
Compulsory Purchase Order: Issued by the government or local authority to acquire land or buildings for public interest purposes.
Conditions: Stipulations attached to a planning permission to limit or control how a development is carried out.
Conservation Area: Areas of special historical or architectural interest, as dictated by a local authority. It allows the local authority additional powers to control demolition and works to protect the area.
Conservation Area Consent: Required consent from a local authority before demolition of an unlisted building in a conservation area.
Consultation: Consulting with the public regarding a plan or planning permission – gathering views of affected neighbours and interested people.
Contaminated Land: Land that has been harmed or polluted, making it unfit for safe development without cleansing.
Conversions: Alterations to, or divisions of, a property to serve a different purpose.
Curtilage: Area of land within the boundaries of a property, surrounding the building and used in connection with the building.
Dangerous Structure: Buildings or parts of buildings, including garden walls, fences or hoardings, or other structures which could endanger the public due to their condition.
Demolition: Knocking down a building does not normally require planning permission, unless the local authority has made an article 4 direction restricting the permitted development rights that apply to demolition.
Density: A measurement of the number of habitable rooms per hectare or the number of dwellings per hectare.
Departure: A proposed development which isn’t in accordance with the development plan, but for which the local planning authority proposes to grant planning permission.
Derelict Land: Land severely damaged by industrial or other development – making it incapable of beneficial use without prior treatment.
Design and Access Statement: A document explaining the design principles and thinking behind a planning application.
Detailed Application: Most common type of planning application; it seeks full / detailed planning permission. This should contain all information needed so the Local Planning Authority can make a decision.
Determination: Process carried out by the local authority to determine if a proposed development requires planning permission.
Development: Defined under the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act as the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operation in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any building or other land.”
Development Brief: A document containing detailed information for developers on the type of development, layout and design constraints plus other requirements for a particular site.
Development Control and Development Management: The process whereby a local planning authority receives and considers the merits of a planning application and whether it should be given permission having regard to the development plan and all other material considerations.
Development Plan: A document setting out the local planning authority’s policies, proposals and plans for the development and use of land and buildings in the authority’s area.
Development Plan Documents (DPDs): Documents outlining the key development goals of the local development framework.
Discharge of Conditions: Most planning permissions have conditions attached; some need to be approved prior to development while others can be discharged during the course of the development.
Discontinuance Notice: Notice given, if the planning authority deems it necessary, requiring the discontinuance of the display of any advertisement, or site use for the display of an advertisement, which has the benefit of deemed consent under the Control of Advertisements Regulations.
Economic Development: Development, including those within the B Use Classes, public and community uses and main town centre uses (but excluding housing development).
Eight Week Determination Period: The local planning authority must determine an application within 8 weeks of receipt of the application.
Enforcement: Procedures to ensure the terms and conditions of a planning decision are met, or that development carried out without planning permission is brought under control.
Enforcement Notice: Served by a local planning authority, an Enforcement Notice sets out the remedial action necessary to correct work or an activity that appears to have been undertaken without, or in breach of, permission.
English Heritage: A national, government-funded body responsible for giving advice, protecting and promoting the historic environment.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): A procedure evaluating the impact a development may have on the environment, ensuring that decisions are made in full knowledge of any likely significant effects.
Established Use: Where a use doesn’t conform to a plan, but enforcement proceedings cannot be taken due to the length of time a use has been in operation.
Free Go: When a planning application is refused, you can submit one amended request within 12 months of the original application.
Fee Schedules: A schedule of fees to be paid during the planning process; different types of planning will have different schedules.
Front-loading: Involving the community and obtaining public input and consensus when producing Local Development Documents.
Full Application: An application for full planning permission with nothing reserved for later approval.
Full Plans: An application covering plans, specifications, and structural calculations (if necessary). Commercial developments can only be submitted under a Full Plan Application.
General Permitted Development Order (GPDO): Grants Permitted Development Rights for specified limited or minor developments without the need for planning permission.
Geographic Information System (GIS): Web-based mapping of spatial data used to plot and inform during the planning process. GIS helps to calculate constraints and highlight conflicting planning applications.
Green Belt: Land around certain cities and large built-up areas being kept permanently open or largely undeveloped.
Green Corridor: Used to link residential areas to towns and city centres, business locations, community facilities, and the national cycle network. Green Corridors help to promote environmentally friendly transport, such as walking and cycling, within urban areas.
Greenfield Land: Land that hasn’t previously been used for development.
Habitable Rooms: For the purposes of density calculations, rooms such as living rooms and bedrooms are classed as habitable. The term does not encompass kitchens and bathrooms.
High Court Challenge: Where an applicant can challenge a planning decision or a notice of intention to adopt a development plan in the High Court.
High Demand Housing Areas: Locations, often in rural areas, where there is high demand for housing – this results in high property and rental prices, and can make it difficult to enter the property market.
Housing Land Availability (HLA): The amount of land which is reserved for residential use and thus awaiting development.
Housing Supply (5 year): Local authorities have a requirement to provide a 5-year plan for supplying housing in their area.
Inclusive Design: Ensuring the built environment is designed in an accessible and usable way.
Independent Examination: When a Planning Inspector publicly examines a Development Plan Document (DPD) or a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), in respect, before issuing a binding report.
Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD): An IMD can help to identify areas for regeneration; the index is made up of the following indicators: employment, income, housing, health deprivation and disability, education, skills and training, and geographical access to services.
Infill Development: The development of a small gap between established buildings.
Informal Hearing: A structured planning appeal hearing that doesn’t have the full formality of a local inquiry.
Infrastructure: Permanent and basic services necessary to serve societal needs for development to take place, for example: water, sewerage, roads, electricity, education, and health facilities.
Inquiry: A hearing about a local plan or appeal, held by a planning inspector.
Inspection: There is a legal requirement to inform the local planning authority when building works begin, and during other key stages in the development, so that an inspection can be carried out. The inspection will ensure building works comply with regulations.
Judicial Review: The High Court may review the planning decisions made by local authorities, the first Secretary of State or lower courts.
Land Compensation: Assessment of compensation of land either compulsorily acquired in the public interest, or acquired by agreement.
Lawful Development Certificate (LDC): Issued by the LPA, this certificate states that an existing (LDC 191) or proposed use (LDC 192), or other forms of development, can be considered as lawful for planning purposes.
Listed Building: A building of architectural or historical interest which is included on a statutory list and assigned a grade. This type of building is protected under the Planning Act and requires permission for any works to be carried out.
Listed Building Consent: Required consent for alteration or demolition of a listed building.
Listed Building Enforcement Notice: If works on a Listed Building is carried out without consent, the LPA will issue a notice with requirements that the building is restored to its former state or other remedial works take place.
Local Agenda 21: A local authority action strategy to help achieve sustainable development.
Local Development Documents (LDDs): These are comprised of Development Plan Documents and Supplementary Planning Documents.
Local Development Framework (LDF): A non-statutory term used to describe a collection of documents: Development Plan Documents and Supplementary Planning Documents as well as the Statement of Community Involvement, the Local Development Scheme, the Annual Monitoring Report and any Local Development Orders or Simplified Planning Zones.
Local Development Order (LDO): An Order under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 granting planning permission for a specific development proposal / classes of development.
Local Development Scheme (LDS): A local planning authority’s 3-year plan for preparing LDF documents.
Local Planning Authority: The local authority empowered by law to exercise planning functions.
Master Plan: A planning brief created for a developer and outlining the preferred usage of land and the approach to the layout. This provides detailed guidance for subsequent applications.
Material Consideration: A matter that needs to be considered when deciding the outcome of a planning application or on an appeal against a planning decision.
Mixed Use Development: A site or an area being used for a variety of purposes such as residential, leisure and community uses.
National Land Use Database (NLUD): This database provides information on the amount of previously developed land (and buildings) that may be available for development.
New Town: Free-standing, newly planned settlement planned under the New Towns Act 1946 – the main aim being to reduce congestion in major cities with urban units to provide employment for locals.
Noise Exposure Category (NEC): When considering a residential development proposal near to a source of noise, planning authorities use noise exposure categories to help assess the impact and effects.
Non-conforming Use: A use which does not conform to provisions of the development plan for the area in which it is located.
Original Building: A building as it existed on 1 July 1948; if the building was constructed after this date, then it refers to how it was originally built.
Outline Application: A general application for planning permission to establish that a development is acceptable, in principle, subject to subsequent approval of detailed matters.
Out-of-Centre: An area which is not in / on the edge of a centre but not neither is it outside the urban area.
Out-of-Town: An Out-of-Town location is out of the centre, perhaps on green-field land, and also outside of the existing urban area.
Outstanding Planning Permission: Planning permission that has not yet been implemented.
Over-development: Where the amount of development puts excessive demand on infrastructure or services, or impacts local amenities or the local character.
Overbearing: The impact, in terms of scale, massing, and general dominating effect, a development or a building has on its surroundings, particularly neighbouring properties.
Overlooking: Relating to loss of privacy for surrounding buildings when a development or a building overlooks adjoining land or property. Windows in new buildings cannot be positioned in such a way that someone can look directly onto other properties or over a garden in a detrimental way.
Overshadowing: When a building or development casts a shadow over a neighbouring property and has an impact on the amount of natural light this property receives.
Parish Council: A parish council is the administrative body in a civil parish, making decisions for the residents.
Permitted Development: Under the terms of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order, this relates to permission for limited and minor forms of development without the need to make an application.
Phased Development: Phasing of development into manageable parts.
Planning Advisory Service: A help and advisory service to support planning authorities struggling to meet best value performance targets for development control.
Planning Condition: An imposed condition for a grant of planning permission or a condition included in a Local Development Order / Neighbourhood Development Order.
Planning Obligation: A legal agreement, under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, between a planning authority and a developer, ensuring certain extra works related to a development are undertaken.
Planning Permission: Formal approval from the local authority is required for most developments. Minor alterations and additions may be classed as permitted development and wouldn’t require planning permission.
Planning Policy Guidance (PPG): Documents setting out national land use policies for England on different areas of planning.
Planning Policy Statement (PPS): This statement replaces the existing Planning Policy Guidance notes with the aim of offering greater clarity and removal from national policy, advice on practical implementation, as this is better served as guidance rather than policy.
Pre-application: A consultation with a planning officer for an informal discussion before you submit an application. Some local planning authorities charge for this service.
Previously Developed Land: Land which is / was occupied by a permanent structure, including the curtilage of the developed land and any associated fixed surface infrastructure but excludes agricultural or forestry buildings.
Prior Approval: Permission is deemed granted if the local planning authority does not respond to the application within a specific timeframe.
Private Open Space: Privately-owned open space that is usually not accessible to members of the public.
Reasoned Justification: Supporting text in a development plan or Local Development Document explaining the approach set out in policies from the document.
Regeneration: Renewal and improvement of urban and rural areas for economic, social, and environmental purposes.
Ribbon Development: Where a narrow development extends along one or both sides of a road, but isn’t extended in depth.
Roundtable Discussions: A forum for discussion and expressing views on a Development Plan Document before a government-appointed Planning Inspector.
Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI): A professional body furthering the art of town and country planning.
Rural Development Area: An area in need of social and economic development, and where regeneration initiatives are focused.
Scheduled Ancient Monument: A structure or important monument – such as archaeological remains – protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act.
Section 106 Agreement: A legally binding agreement, under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act (1990), between a council and a developer, to ensure certain extra works related to a proposed development are undertaken.
Sequential Approach: Where certain types or locations or land are identified, allocated, or developed before others.
Simplified Planning Zone: If there is an area where the local planning authority wants to encourage development and investment, it may grant a specified planning permission without the need for a planning permission application and the payment of planning fees.
Site Investigation Information: Information including a risk assessment of land potentially affected by contamination, or ground stability and slope stability reports. The minimum information that should be provided is the report of a desk study and site inspection.
Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI): Sites of substantial local nature conservation deemed as locally important by the local authority.
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI): A site protected and designated by Natural England or Countryside Council for Wales as an area of special interest due to its wildlife, flora, fauna, and geological features.
Site Visit: A visit carried out by a planning officer, councillor, or inspector to obtain clarity on the site appearance or assess the effects of the planning proposal.
Spatial Development: Changes in the distribution of activities in space and links between them regarding the use and development of land.
Spatial Planning: Spatial Planning brings together and integrates policies for the development and use of land with other policies and programmes which influence the nature and function of places.
Spatial Vision: A brief explanation of how the area will be altered after a plan period.
Special Area Of Conservation (SAC): Under the European Union’s Habitats Directive, certain areas are given protection; this is transposed into UK law by the Habitats and Conservation of Species Regulations 2010.
Special Needs Housing: Property built to help combat homelessness and overcrowding or dwellings which are purpose-built / created as supported housing for the disabled and the elderly or those with additional care needs.
Special Protection Areas (SPA): Areas identified under European Community Directive 79/409 on Conservation of Wild Birds as areas of importance for the feeding, breeding, wintering or migration of rare and vulnerable birds within European Union countries. The government is required to avoid pollution or disturbance to these designated areas.
Statutory: Required by law, usually through an Act of Parliament.
Stop Notice: Served with regards to land that is subject to enforcement proceedings, prohibiting specific operations which are an alleged breach of planning control; the notice is designed to stop work pending the outcome of an appeal.
Structure Plan: Old-style statutory development plan setting out strategic planning policies – this forms the basis for more detailed policies in local plans.
Submission Document: A Development Plan Document submitted to the Secretary of State for independent examination by a government-appointed planning inspector.
Sui-Generis: A term for the uses of land or buildings which do not fall into any use classes set out by the Use Class Order.
Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD): Documents adding further information to the policies in the Local Plan. These can be used for further guidance for development on specific sites or for particular issues. These documents can be a material consideration in a planning decision but they are not part of the development plan.
Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG): Supplementary advice issued by a LPA, covering a range of issues and providing further detail of policies and proposals in a development plan.
Sustainable Development: Development which is environmentally responsible – often described as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Topography: A description or visual representation on a map of the shape of the land – contours or changes in the height of land above sea level etc.
Townscape: The character and appearance of buildings and other features of an urban area.
Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA): An assessment of the effects upon the surrounding area by traffic due to a development.
Tree Preservation Order (TPO): A direction to preserve a single or group of trees, making it an offence to cut, top, lop of fell them without permission from the local planning authority.
Unauthorised Development: When development takes places without planning permission. It may then be subject to enforcement action.
Unitary Development Plan: An old-style development plan created by a metropolitan district and some unitary local authorities; it contains policies and documents equivalent to those in a structure plan and a local plan.
Unstable Land: Unstable land that may not be suitable for planning proposals, due to various factors, and therefore should be given due consideration.
Urban Fringe: Open, transitional land between existing urban and countryside areas.
Urban Housing Capacity Study (UHCS): A study of the potential capacity of urban areas to accommodate extra housing, new or redeveloped site, or to accommodate the conversion of existing buildings.
Urban Regeneration: Re-developing urban areas to bring new life, economic vitality, and environmental renewal.
Use Classes Order: The uses of land and buildings are segmented into various categories under the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 – planning permission may not be required for changes of use within the same class.
Village Envelope: Defined on a map, boundaries around a village, or part of a village, which the local planning authority proposes a village should not extend beyond.
Ward: A small sub-area of a local authority district.
White Land: Land and buildings without a specific proposal for allocation in a development plan – existing uses shall mostly remain unaltered and undisturbed.
Windfall Site: Normally, these refer to sites which haven’t been identified as available in the Local Plan process, and often comprise previously-developed sites that have become unavailable unexpectedly.
World Heritage Site: A site of cultural or natural universal value, as designated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites.
Written Representations: The written procedure for deciding on and dealing with planning appeals, development plans, and Development Plan Documents, in the fastest and simplest way possible – without the need for a full public inquiry or hearing.
Written Statement: A documentary statement supplementing and explaining policy. It forms part of a development plan submitted by a local planning authority.
Is there a term that isn’t in this glossary that you want us to add? Tweet us and let us know. | <urn:uuid:6fb33ff3-2a55-45df-aeb5-6876b123ae7f> | {
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Infections located anywhere from the kidneys to the urethra are called urinary tract infections. They are said to account for about 8 million hospital visits per year. They are usually caused by bacteria.
Predisposing factors are foreign objects in the urinary tract, like catheterizations, abnormalities in the urinary tract including congenital malformations and prostate enlargement, shorter urethra in women and diabetes mellitus.
Infective agents gain access to the urinary tract through a breach in the defenses. This is encouraged by any artificial presence in or around the lower urinary tract, like during passage of urinary catheters for any number of reasons or even use of contraceptive devices, especially the diaphragm. Sexual intercourse in some women, the short nature of the urethra and its proximity to the anus have also been implicated. Multiplication of the infective agents causes an intense tissue reaction resulting in pain (just above the pubic bone or at the back), burning or painful voiding, urgency, frequency and incontinence in some cases. A significant number of patients report diarrhea and a feeling of fullness in the rectum. Ascending infection and blood-borne infection, particularly in children, give rise to systemic symptoms of nausea and vomiting, fever and headaches. Multiplication of the infective agents is encouraged by stasis due to obstructive situations in urinary outflow like congenital malformations and prostatic enlargement or the peculiar situation of diabetes mellitus, where the excess sugar feeds the bacteria.
Progression of the infective process leads to pus formation and local tissue damage, giving rise to pus and blood in the urine. Scarring in the kidneys could lead to irreversible damage and kidney failure.
Diarrhea in urinary tract infections
The urinary tract impinges directly on the digestive tract particularly where the bladder is in contact with the lower parts of the colon and rectum. Thus, an inflammatory process in the bladder will directly affect these structures. Theories include the heat resulting from the inflammatory process increasing motility in the intestines at points of contact or mediators of inflammation released in the urinary tract finding their way through locally shared blood pools to the digestive tract. The effect in either case will be increased secretions and motility in the intestines, leading to diarrhea.
The systemic upset seen in kidney involvement leads to nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This is on a much larger scale as the entire blood stream has to go through the kidneys for filtration.
The delicate and vital nature of the urinary tract precludes symptomatic treatment. Prompt and adequate treatment prevents the development of complications that could be life threatening. The infective agent should be quickly isolated and adequate antibiotic treatment given. Diarrhea and vomiting in children without any obvious gastro-intestinal laboratory findings should warrant a check of the urinary tract. | <urn:uuid:0717d607-4b1f-4090-a811-6684a7a049d7> | {
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Electric-powered Engine in F1?
Topics: Formula 1
January 23, 2006
On 2006 Formula 1 engines slimmed to 2.4 liters and a massive multi-million dollar spending on their research. Yesterday a plan for an electric-powered formula 1 racing car was revealed. It would compete against the world's fastest cars at speeds of more than 180 mph.
The engine it will be an electric-hydraulic power system which achieved speeds of more than 90 mph for 600 miles without stopping.
This electric-power unit can accelerate to nearly 130mph in under nine seconds more than twice the power of a Formula 1 racing car. The F1 rules say the engine must have an internal combustion. The development has gone into making engines lighter, rev higher and last slightly longer than before even when technology comes along by road-going cars.
Under current Formula 1 rules, introducing a single ECU the massive difference is going to come from the drivers, so top drivers will be at a premium. The old technology engine is not only a backward move it's a backward for the motoring industry.
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Silk log cabin quilt in the collection of the
Missouri History Museum.
It's hard to see but letters stitched in sequins on the diagonal across the blocks read:
"Feed the Hungry"
The catalog copy:
"Log Cabin style quilt made in Lexington, Missouri, for a Methodist-Episcopal church bazaar to raise money for families of ex-Confederate soldiers from the Civil War. Spelled out across the front of the quilt is a reminder to parishioners to “FEED THE HUNGRY” in the wake of a devastating war that left families impoverished."
In the center of most blocks is a butterfly, which was cut
from a piece of silk once a dress belonging to
Carolyn Godbey, according to Paula Calvin & Deborah Deacon's book
American Women Artists in Wartime
With an unusual name like Godbey it's not hard to find a little about Caroline's life.
Caroline Smith (seated) and her older sister Lavinia Smith,
early 1860s perhaps.
Caroline Malvina Smith Godbey (1837-1911) was the wife of Methodist minister William Clinton Godbey. She came from a family of Methodist ministers, originally from Kentucky, as did her husband. They married in Missouri in December 28, 1862. At least two of Caroline's children also grew up to be Methodist ministers, one rather well known in his day. Allen H. Godbey was a faculty member at Duke University.
During the Civil War Methodism in Missouri was divided by sectionalism and violence that is hard to believe in people purporting to be religious. The Godbey's were affiliated with the Methodist- Episcopal Church, South. Three M-E South ministers Thomas Glanville, Edwin Robinson and Samuel Steel Headlee were killed in the factional fighting.
Caroline and her husband lived in Lexington in the decades after the Civil War when the quilt was thought to have been made. Her fourth child Victor Ammeil was born in Lexington in 1868.
Reverend W. C. Godbey is recorded as living in Lexington and teaching at the Central Female College that was founded there in 1869. At some point he was chaplain of the State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. In 1879 the family moved to Morrisville, Missouri, where William Godbey became
President of the Morrisville Institute, later Morrisville College, another Methodist-Episcopal Church, South, school.
Morrisville College about 1910
Morrisville is north of Springfield.
The quilt was donated with the story that it was sold at a Methodist-Episcopal Church bazaar in Lexington in 1866, although this date seems a little early for a silk log cabin. Similar quilts date to the 1880s when silk was relatively inexpensive. I was hoping to find more about the Lexington church bazaar in local newspapers but came up with nothing. It may be that the quilt was actually made in Morrisville at a later date.
I did, however, find out why Carrie Smith Godbey is not buried with her husband. She is buried in Morrisville and her Find-A-Grave file is quite complete, except for mention of his grave.
The answer seems to be that he disappeared in disgrace in 1886.
The Butler Missouri Weekly Times showed the family no mercy.
"Another Minister Skips
The Rev. Dr. Godbey Confesses Illicit Relations with Two Young Women
The most startling and sensational revelations have been made at Morrisville...
"None of the material facts in the case leaked out until today when it was learned that the Rev. Godbey came to this city one week ago last Monday and boarded a train on the Frisco road going to parts unknown. The cause of the sudden departure is alleged criminal intimacy with young lady students regarding which it is reported that he made a full confession to his wife just before he left."
The McFarland sisters did not board at the school but "kept their own house"..."As he was at the head of the school and old enough to have been the father of the young women, nothing was thought of this until rather recently, when Mrs. Godbey by some means got an inkling of her husband's infidelity, and he made a clean breast of the matter to her and then skipped out."
Read the "startling and sensational" story in the Butler Weekly Times here:
And here's a little more:
"The charges of immoral conduct and adultery were true....
expelled from the conference and the ministry....
his name dropped from the church record...."
So all we can say to Carrie is we are sorry for her troubles. She stayed on in Morrisville where the scandal occurred and we hope she got on with her life (as we advise today.)
As far as the quilt made from her butterfly dress, it was donated to the museum in memory of the Methodist ministers murdered during the Civil War. | <urn:uuid:70df3315-88fd-4aae-8fec-330b7ad68405> | {
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Researchers at the Cell Cycle Research Group of the Bellvitge Institute of Biomedical Research (IDIBELL) led by Ethel Queralt have reported in the journal PLoS Genetics an article which delve into the regulator mechanisms of mitosis, a key stage of the cell-cycle for the correct transmision of genetic information from parents to sons.
Cells in all organisms grow and divide into two daughter cells by an ordered sequence of events called "cell cycle." Basically , the cells have to complete four main processes during the cell cycle : growth ( G1 and G2 phases ) , doubling the DNA ( S phase ) , segregate chromosomes ( M phase , mitosis) and divide ( cytokinesis ) .
In the S phase , or replication of DNA, the genetic material doubles and then, during the M phase or mitosis, the cells separate the duplicated chromosomes into the two daughter cells. In this way the correct inheritance of genetic information from one generation of cells to the next is assured. The transmission of genetic information (DNA ) from parent to child (or equivalently , from cell to cell ) is a fundamental question in biology .
Aneuploidy , ie lack or excess of chromosomes, is a feature present in almost all human cancers and promotes tumor development . The regulation of mitosis is particularly important to maintain chromosome stability : for example , the aneuploid tumor cells arise as a consequence of defects in chromosome segregation , which originate in cells with varying normal genetic material . However, despite its importance , little is known of the regulation of mitotic exit .
The Hippo tumor suppressor pathway
The article published in the journal Plos Genetics decribes the latest advances in the mechanisms of regulation of mitotic exit . The protein called ' separase " is a key component for proper chromosome segregation and the regulation of mitosis. In previous work Queralt group first described the involvement of protein phosphatase PP2A in mitosis. These proteins cooperate with 'separase' to ensure correct genetic inheritance between cells .
" In this study," explained Queralt " we have delved into the molecular mechanism by which this protein PP2A regulates mitosis and contributes to the correct segregation of chromosomes by identifying two new substrates , two components of the route Hippo tumor suppressor -- " .
As explained by the researcher " in recent times are very powerful publishing studies on the use of this pathway as a therapeutic target in cancer. However, in my opinion , before that, we should better understand their molecular mechanisms. " In that sense it said that " this work contributes to advancing knowledge of Hippo tumor suppressor pathway on the regulation of mitosis. And the application of such basic knowledge will help develop more specific and direct against different types of cancer treatments.
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Pharmacy technicians have quite a few options for work environments including military bases, rest homes, and hospitals. However, the tried and true tradition of working in a pharmacy is still a staple career choice for many people. Stand-alone pharmacies may not be as prevalent as they were in the good old days, likely due to the influx of grocery stores with pharmacies and online pharmacies, which brings a touch of nostalgia to this classic career.
Job Outlook for Pharmacy Technicians
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has good news for individuals interested in pursuing this career. According to recent reports, the average salary of a pharmacy technician is $28,400 or $13.65 per hour. As of 2010, there were 334,400 pharmacy technicians and the field is expected to grow 32% in the next ten years, which is well above average. Choosing a field with extensive job growth is a smart move that can help ensure job security and ease the job hunting process.
Work Environment for Pharmacy Technicians
Most pharmacy technicians work full-time, but part-time work may also be available. The day-to-day life of a technician in a pharmacy depends on the employer and on state laws. However, this career involves working closely with a pharmacist to prepare and dispense medications to patients. Pharmacy technicians also double as customer service representatives. They answer phones, emails, and receive prescriptions from physicians. Some of the job duties might include investigating and tracking down additional information from patients or doctors. One of the most important tasks is conducting the final check of a label before handing medication over to a patient.
Education for Pharmacy TechniciansAccording to the BLS, a high school diploma is required to be a pharmacy technician. This may be the general rule of thumb, but different employers have different requirements and preferences.
In a field that is on the verge of booming, having an edge over the competition is a good idea. Holding a degree in a related field or certification as a pharmacy technician can help a professional thrive. Related degrees might include Chemistry, Science, or even Communication. Another option is pursuing a doctorate in pharmacy (PharmD); working as a pharmacy technician can help a person decide if this is truly the right career path for them.
Personality Traits of Pharmacy Technicians
Some people think that to be a great pharmacy technician a person needs to be methodical, detail oriented, and have a strong grasp of how different chemicals and drugs interact. Of course these traits are critical, but there is a lot more to being a pharmacy technician. Pharmacy technicians serve customers and must be open, friendly, professional, empathetic, and compassionate. Remember that some customers may not feel well, or are even frustrated and angry. Every customer’s situation is different but considering that pharmacy technicians are in charge of working with patients who may need medication for serious issues, a generous dose of understanding is critical. These professionals must be comfortable working with different personality types and must be able to connect with customers.
Traditional Pharmacy vs. Other Options
Since pharmacy technicians now have a variety of work environment options, it can be difficult to choose a specialty. Some pharmacy technicians prefer to work in environments, such as nursing homes, where they can get to know patients intimately. Others prefer the excitement and commitment of serving their country overseas at a military base. However, for those who are interested in a traditional setting where the business is half dispensing medication and half customer service, this is ideal. Those with a background in retail or who like a constant change of pace with different customers can thrive here. | <urn:uuid:3de4e950-5f9a-4e66-a527-018c883e1d11> | {
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A holistic education provides students with a broad and deep foundation for lifelong learning. This includes learning not just in the academic areas. Equally important is the development of values and life skills in each child. This will equip the child to handle the challenges in life later on. A holistic education also supports students to discover their strengths, interests and talents. Students tend to flourish in areas they are interested in. Thus, as far as possible, we should allow them to pursue their areas of interest.
Riverside Secondary School offers a range of co-curricular programmes to help students achieve a holistic education. Through CCAs, students are also provided with platforms to develop and showcase their talents throughout their 4/5 years with us. In addition to that, opportunities to serve the community is also invaluable in helping students develop qualities such as care, concern and respect for others in society.
CCAs offered in Riverside Secondary Schools: | <urn:uuid:70e7f93b-9238-40d0-a845-44e9c5ce84c9> | {
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Maximum Averaged and Peak Levels of Vocal Sound Pressure
This work describes research on the maximum sound pressure level achievable by the spoken and sung human voice. Trained actors and singers were measured for peak and averaged SPLs at an on-axis distance of 1 m at three different subjective dynamic levels and also for two different vocal techniques (“back” and “mask” voices). The “back” sung voice was found to achieve a consistently lower SPL than the “mask” voice at a corresponding dynamic level. Some singers were able to achieve high averaged levels with both spoken and sung voice, while others produced much higher levels singing than speaking. A few of the vocalists were able to produce averaged levels above 90 dBA<, the highest found in the existing literature.
Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!
This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers. | <urn:uuid:8e07c572-9f48-45c0-b286-41eaa16f3200> | {
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Lead in the environment may pose a health threat to people who are exposed to it. This threat can exist at active and inactive ranges where lead is left to accumulate. Lead dissolves in groundwater and surface water that people and wildlife drink, and dust particles from lead shot may be inhaled. Low lead levels can affect learning and development. Higher levels damage kidneys, nerves, blood, and the digestive system.
Lead can be poisonous. Wildlife can be poisoned by lead from swallowing lead shot while feeding. Small mammals and birds of prey can be poisoned by lead in soil and through the food chain. When an animal ingests lead, it enters the bloodstream and damages vital organs. If a bird swallows as few as six pellets, it will likely die in a few days from acute lead poisoning. If a bird swallows a smaller number of pellets, it may die a gradual death from starvation because the digestive system becomes paralyzed (chronic lead poisoning).
This paper summarizes information related to assessing ecological effects of lead and lead shot pellets from shooting practice ranges in Massachusetts. | <urn:uuid:6e7d2912-17e1-4073-9720-a021e3f1a637> | {
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English translation of इसके बावजूद
इसके बावजूदPowered by COBUILD /isake bavajuda/
Definitions and Translations
/isake bavajuda, isake bAvajUda, isake baavajooda, isake bāvajūd/
1. even (in phrases)
You use even so to introduce a surprising fact that relates to what you have just said. ⇒ The bus was only half full. Even so, a young man asked Nina if the seat next to her was free.
2. same (in phrases)
You say all the same or just the same to indicate that a situation or your opinion has not changed, in spite of what has happened or been said. ⇒ I had a lot of support, but it was hard all the same.
Copyright © 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
Translation of इसके बावजूद from the Collins Hindi to English Dictionary | <urn:uuid:39434a00-37b9-4531-a237-1f58609b1e48> | {
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Waist-to-Hip Measurement Improves on BMI
As the battle to reduce the waistlines of Americans and Canadians intensifies, the traditional measure of obesity – the body mass index or BMI – is being questioned by a variety of experts.
“The BMI is useful in providing general guidance,” says LHSFNA Health Promotion Division Director Mary Jane MacArthur, “but increasingly, the waist-to-hip ratio is being recognized as a better personal health risk indicator.”
The BMI compares weight to height, but does not account for the fact that well-trained athletes or weight-lifters may have enough muscle (muscle weighs more than fat) to produce an overweight or obese rating. Similarly, elderly people without much muscle may get an underweight rating when they actually are in good condition. Traditionally, BMIs above 25 are assumed to indicate a higher risk for a number of health disorders, including heart disease.
The WHR ignores overall height and simply divides one’s waist measurement by one’s hip measurement. “The basic idea,” says MacArthur, “is your waist should be significantly smaller than your hips. If it’s not, you need to consider a better diet and more exercise.”
Studies indicate that a WHR greater than 1.0 for men or 0.8 for women is associated with a greater risk of diabetes or hypertension (high blood pressure). Also, WHRs above 0.95 for men and 0.8 for women indicate a heightened risk of heart attack./p>
In contrast to BMI calculating, measuring WHR is easy. All it requires is a tape to determine the measurements and the division of the waist measurement by the hip measurement. The University of Maryland provides an online WHR calculator for anyone who wants to avoid the long division.
To help with BMI calculations, the Centers for Disease Control recently created a handy, easy-to-use online tool that will produce a BMI rating with a few, quick keystrokes.
After height and weight are entered, the calculator produces a BMI and tells whether the viewer is in the underweight, normal or overweight range. If outside the normal range, it provides a link to information that may help a viewer get within healthy norms.
The calculator has two sections, one for metric and one for ordinary American (English) calculations. It also has a calculator for children and teens as well as adults.
A link is provided to a page “About BMI” which explains BMI and why it can be a useful assessment tool. Links also are provided to other nutrition and weight resources on the Internet.
More information about these tools is available at Waist-to-Hip Ratio Measures Health Risks. An online BMI chart can be found at Taking on Your Own Body’s Weight. For those who need an “in-hand” BMI chart for use at home or in a training class, the LHSFNA publishes a card. It can be ordered through the Fund’s online Publications Catalogue. | <urn:uuid:5676bc67-6ff8-4a82-a607-dc0cf1fa6af1> | {
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By Lisa Rapaport
Mothers who are obese during pregnancy have almost twice the odds of having a child with autism as women who weigh less, a U.S. study suggests.
When women are both obese and have diabetes, the autism risk for their child is at least quadrupled, researchers reported online January 29 in Pediatrics.
"In terms of absolute risk, compared to common pediatric diseases such as obesity and asthma, the rate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the U.S. population is relatively low, however, the personal, family and societal impact of ASD is enormous," said senior study author Dr. Xiaobin Wang, a public health and pediatrics researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
About one in 68 children have ASD, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or about 1.5 percent of U.S. children. The study findings suggest the risk rises closer to about 3 percent of babies born to women who are obese or have diabetes, and approaches 5 percent to 6 percent when mothers have the combination of obesity and diabetes.
Wang and colleagues analyzed data on 2,734 mother-child pairs followed at Boston Medical Center between 1998 and 2014.
Most of the children, 64 percent, weren't diagnosed with any other development disorders, but there were 102 kids who did receive an ASD diagnosis.
Compared with typically developing kids, those with ASD were more likely to be boys, born preterm and at a low birth weight. Mothers of children with ASD were likely to be older, obese and to have diabetes diagnosed before or during pregnancy.
Maternal obesity was linked to a 92 percent increased risk for autism on its own, while diabetes diagnosed before pregnancy was associated with more than triple the risk.
When women both had diabetes and were obese, the autism risk compared to women with neither condition rose roughly four-fold if the diabetes was diagnosed during pregnancy and almost five-fold if diabetes was present before they conceived.
While the exact reason for these connections isn't clear, it's possible that increased inflammation, nutrients and hormones linked to diabetes and obesity may be responsible for the added autism risk, said Elinor Sullivan, a biology and neuroscience researcher at the University of Portland, in Oregon, who wasn't involved in the study.
"These factors impact how the brain develops," Sullivan said. "The risk for autism would be further increased if women were obese and had diabetes as the levels of inflammatory factors and nutrients that the offspring would be exposed to would be further elevated."
One limitation of the study is that some children with ASD may have been misclassified or had only tentative diagnoses, the authors note. In addition, it's possible that what's known as selection bias led more children with developmental delays to be included in the study.
More than a third of women of childbearing age are obese, roughly one in 10 have diabetes, and an estimated 2 percent to 10 percent of mothers develop diabetes during pregnancy, the authors note. | <urn:uuid:6ef0a9ef-bd4c-4998-a708-4d2c803002f5> | {
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Water and Sanitation
Almost 60 percent of Tajikistan’s population lacks access to clean drinking water, and polluted irrigation water often substitutes for potable water in village households. There is a high incidence of waterborne diseases in many communities, especially where the only supply of water is from irrigation ditches. Knowledge of good hygiene practices is also low, further contributing to diarrheal disease and under-nutrition.
USAID is working to build the capacity of local governments to deliver water services to their constituents, working with farmers to better manage irrigation water through the creation of water users associations, and working with families to improve sanitation and hygiene behaviors to slow the spread of water-borne diseases.
- USAID projects have helped over 100,000 people across 29 communities gain access to safe drinking water resulting in a significant reduction (over 60 percent) of diarrhea incidence in the partner communities.
- USAID established 56 community-level water users’ associations, to improve community control, management, and investment in farm irrigation. Improved water availability has enabled farmers to double their income and has benefited over 200,000 people.
- USAID provided support to the Tajik weather and water forecasting agency to better predict the amount of water available for irrigation each year, which enables the operators to release the optimum amount of water and reserve the rest for generating electricity.
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Spanish Zoo Makes ’Gay’ Penguins Proud Parents
A zoo in Madrid, Spain, recently gave a "gay" penguin couple an egg to watch over after the pair built nests together in hopes of finding a egg, ABC News reported.
For six years zookeepers at Faunia Park have been unable to separate Inca and Rayas. This year they decided to make the penguins parents and give the couple an egg to take care of.
"We wanted them to have something to stay together for - so we got an egg," zookeeper Yolanda Martin told the British newspaper the Telegraph. "Otherwise they might have become depressed."
The article notes that the birds aren’t "actually gay" but "more like best friends, living cooperatively because they’re" in the same habitat.
"When you put things in captivity, odd things happen," Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., told ABCNews.com. "The way penguins work is they do get paired for a long time. Basically, the only other penguin they care about is their mate, so it’s important for them to find somebody who’s compatible, and if you don’t have a normal upbringing then it’s difficult to say how ’normal’ they can be."
The penguins quickly took to the egg and slipped into parenting roles. Inca acts as the "female" as he spends most of his time sitting on the egg. Rayas is the "male" in the relationship and makes sure the egg is not harmed. He also stores food in his beak so he can properly feed the baby when it finally hatches.
"In birds, it doesn’t matter what sex you are. Both sexes are perfectly capable and absolutely necessary to raise a penguin bird," McGowan said. "It’s not like mammals where only one sex can feed."
Inca and Rayas aren’t the first "gay" penguin couple. In June 2009, it was reported that a pair of male penguins in a German zoo started to care for an egg that was rejected by its biological mother. The "gay" penguins, Z and Vielpunkt, eventually hatched the egg and are raising the chick.
Not all "gay" penguins are able to have a public relationship, however. In November of last year zookeepers from a Canadian zoo separated a male couple and placed them with female penguins in hopes that they would breed.
Buddy and Pedro of the Toronto Zoo protected each others turf, slept together and made mating calls to one another. The zoo’s officials say that the African penguins were starting a courtship and began mating behavior that would normally be seen between male and female penguins.
"It’s a complicated issue, but they seem to be in a loving relationship of some sort,’’ the chair of the Toronto Zoo board, Joe Torzsok, told the Toronto Star.
Once Buddy and Pedro mate, however, the couple will be reunited again. | <urn:uuid:212cb885-d1dc-4f8c-afaf-1c509f5682c7> | {
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A child’s brain undergoes an amazing period of development from birth producing more than a million neural connections each second.
The development of the brain is influenced by many factors, including a child’s relationships, experiences and environment
Doon global school focuses on building the environment that nourishes child skills for better learning
When it comes to young learners, strategies for optimizing brain development are essential for educators and parents.
Young students up to age 5 are uniquely poised to absorb an incredible amount of information, and while their brains are growing and forming at rapid rates, they also need to feel secure and calm to optimize positive brain development. | <urn:uuid:6969580c-979b-4a5c-8779-fedd9fcb2b12> | {
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Jul 15, 2008
Carbon storage in undersea basalt offers extra security
As carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, schemes for storing the gas underground are attracting increasing attention. Now, for the first time, US researchers are investigating basalt on the ocean floor as an option for carbon sequestration.
The plan is for the carbon dioxide to react with the rock to form carbonates, permanently removing it from the carbon cycle in a process known as geochemical trapping. Landlocked basalt is already under investigation for carbon storage but subsea basalt has the advantage that if any of the carbon dioxide doesn’t react, the ocean environment provides additional safety mechanisms to prevent it from returning to the atmosphere. There’s also a large volume of undersea basalt available.
"By being under the ocean you add a number of trapping mechanisms as security – insurance on your insurance on your insurance, if you will," David Goldberg of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told environmentalresearchweb. "There are four trapping mechanisms that are effectively in play – geochemical, sediment, gravitational and hydrate formation. If you have some leakage of carbon dioxide or there are some losses during injection, hydrates will form because it’s cold, it’s physically trapped by sediments above the rock, and carbon dioxide is more dense than seawater and will tend to sink – the gravitational trap – even if it hasn’t turned to carbonate in the geochemical trapping."
Goldberg and colleagues from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, US, found that sediment-covered basalt aquifers on the Juan de Fuca plate off the western coast of the US are suitable for storing around 780 cubic km of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to 208 gigatonnes of carbon – enough capacity for 122–147 years of US emissions at current rates (1.7 gigatonnes of carbon per year). What’s more, the midpoint of the plate is only around 150 km away from the coast, making transport and injection of the gas relatively easy.
To begin with, the researchers focused on the US as the country is a major emitter of carbon dioxide and there’s a suitable subsea basalt reservoir close to its shores. They’re currently evaluating the rest of the globe.
"All the reservoirs are very large, a number of them are viable," said Goldberg. The hundreds of gigatonnes of carbon dioxide storage offered by the Juan de Fuca plate is ten times the volume another single reservoir might typically provide, he adds. "Globally, the problem is huge. We’ve got to look at all the reservoirs we possibly can, and this is a huge one that’s not really been considered."
In the laboratory, it takes days for carbon dioxide to react with basalt and form carbonates. But it’s not yet known how long the process would take in situ underneath the ocean. "There are a number of scientific questions still out there to do with reaction rates and flows that we would answer in a pilot experiment of some modest size," said Goldberg. "That would take some years of experimentation, unless it fast-tracks in some way." The researchers are currently seeking funding for such a pilot.
"Then there’s a market process that will take implementation forward at whatever rate the market moves at, which is sometimes incredibly slow and sometimes at lightning speed,"said Goldberg. "I don’t see any technical reason why it couldn’t happen. It’s answering the science questions first and then it’s the political and economic will."
One of the challenges of using undersea basalt, rather than disused oil and gas reservoirs, to store carbon dioxide is the current lack of knowledge.
"It’s a less well known and less well studied area of the globe," said Goldberg. "We know a lot more about oil and gas reservoirs than we do about subocean basalt reservoirs so there’s a research curve that we need to go up pretty quickly. That takes commitment and resources."
Empty oil and gas wells also have the advantage of having "plumbing and piping" infrastructure in place. Goldberg likens the process to "just refilling the can with liquidized carbon dioxide".
"[Using undersea basalt] would take investment in infrastructure which is not there at present, but 40 years ago the offshore oil and gas industry didn’t have that infrastructure either," he said. "The cost would not be unlike the costs of building an offshore industry for the production of hydrocarbons, which to some extent caused the problem." According to Goldberg, like any sequestration option using geology, it will be more difficult to store carbon dioxide in basalt offshore than on. "It will be more expensive than onshore but the two big benefits [volume and security] are such grand prizes that they can’t be ignored," he said. "And doing the research first is the right step."
The researchers reported their work in PNAS.
About the author
Liz Kalaugher is editor of environmentalresearchweb. | <urn:uuid:7788632c-cfc1-4ac7-b288-daa7d53981ec> | {
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The longest side of a right triangle is always directly across from the 90 degree angle. This side is called the hypotenuse.
The other two sides are often called
the legs. For now, it really doesn't
matter which one of the legs you call
a or b, as long as you make one a
and the other b.
Because the 3-4-5 right triangle is simple to work with,
let's use it to show how the Pythagorean formula
verifies that a triangle is a right triangle.
Since the numbers on both sides of the = mark are the same, the 3-4-5 triangle is a right triangle.
Please note: The Pythagorean formula is a rule! To verify that a triangle is a right triangle, use the formula.
If the numbers on each side of the = sign are equal, then the triangle is a right triangle.
Right triangle practice: Check these triangles to see which ones are right triangles.
a b c a b c
(1) 6 8 10 (6) 9.99 13.32 16.65
(2) .48 .64 .8 (7) 4.5 6 7.5
(3) 1 1 1 (8) 7 10 13
(4) 8 6 10 (9) 9 2.5 13
(5) 120 160 200 (10) 2 2.6666 3.3333
Lower case letters (a, b, c)
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Upper case letters (A, B, C)
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Very few things are as enriching and encouraging to modern parents as seeing kids helping kids. In a society that is filled with the search for instantaneous gratification, we are all hard-pressed to see genuine person-to-person interaction that is mutually beneficial. It’s even more encouraging when the interaction is voluntary and comes from a younger crowd.
When a person enters their teen years, it is often the case that an attitude of self-absorption emerges. Yes, it’s quite natural. Teens are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to gain attention and accolades. What teens do not understand early enough is that accolades and recognition are often preceded by dedication and hard work.
For a teen, being recognized for something is a favored form of receiving love. This is true even for things that aren’t material like showing reserve, maintaining a household tradition, or being the even-tempered member of the family. Despite all of their awkwardness, teenagers are bursting (in their own ways), with the need to show, and be shown, love and recognition.
Putting Talent to Work
Some lucky parents are the guardians of teens who have a very noticeable talent. This can include athletic ability, academic ease, or a gravitation to a specific form of art. Having a teen with a particular talent is a wonderful opportunity. That talent is a gateway to helping the teen launch into a mode of healthy and constructive interaction with others.
Many teens show a talent for music. It can be playing an instrument, writing music, or singing. Teenagers who love to sing, and who are good at it, are particularly interesting. Not only is their musical talent based on an instrument that doesn’t cost anything, but they tend to be very expressive early. Finding singing opportunities for teenagers is simple if the focus remains on a service-oriented goal.
Singing, Volunteering, Growing
There are many community organizations that thrive on the involvement of singing teens who are willing to share their talents. These are wonderful open doors that do not require a professional level of ability, but produce amazing results in a teen’s life. They offer a continual stage where singing teens can gain experience performing, be part of a humanitarian effort, and receive truly beneficial feedback and recognition.
While some parents have teens with immense talent and freedom, many parents have children who are not so lucky. These kids are stuck in hospitals, group homes, special needs facilities, or have debilitating conditions that make communication itself difficult. Thank goodness the power of music and giving has been proven the world over.
When a teen volunteers for one of these organizations, they have continual encouragement to share. Something like a teen entertaining a group of peers who do not normally experience music is, well, magical. Instead of a barrage of messages that suggest having stuff is the most important part of life, teens on a volunteer stage learn that relationships are more important. They might receive unwanted comments at home or at school, but when they sing to people who truly appreciate it, it’s always positive and spiritually nourishing.
So, if your teenager is expressing a love of music through singing, create a situation where it can be expressed to others. Get them involved in an organization that allows them to share, provides positive feedback, and teaches them the value of helping others. It could also eventually open a path to a professional singing career. They’ll quickly learn what musical performance is really all about. | <urn:uuid:b6e90e9a-e4e9-4f04-9da9-6c407287ecd5> | {
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The few basic items required to make mosaics, are a base (usually made of plywood), mosaic materials (e.g. small pieces of ceramic or glass tiles, beads, small rocks) and glue. Children will first sketch their design on the base, then fill in the sketch by gluing on the mosaic material.
Mosaic is an ideal art form for children to express themselves creatively. As an art form, its simplicity allows children to create beautiful sceneries using a vast array of design and materials. Children love to see the different colors and patterns of a finished mosaic. They love the many options that they have available when creating their own work especially the small pieces of colored glass, beads or other decorative materials stuck onto a base to create an overall design.
Mosaic designs are only limited by the kids' imaginations. Children can get inspiration from their passions or the world around them like animals, sports, and fashion. The experience of mosaic art gives children an immense satisfaction in putting together a finished piece of work. | <urn:uuid:4c59cd1c-69dd-431d-bb53-de652dc8bbc0> | {
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OLYMPIA – As the weather warms up across the state and mosquitoes become more prevalent, the Washington State Department of Agriculture is advising horse owners to make sure their horse’s vaccination is current for protection against West Nile virus.
In August 2012, a two-year-old gelding pastured near Grandview was euthanized after it became ill following a bite from a mosquito infected with West Nile virus. The horse was not vaccinated for the disease.
“It was the only West Nile equine case reported to us last year, but there’s no way to predict the virus won’t return in force this year,” State Veterinarian Leonard Eldridge said. “Outbreaks still present a risk.”
Although most horses infected with the mosquito-borne illness do not become ill, West Nile virus is fatal in about one-third of all horses that show symptoms.
Horses that do become ill show a loss of coordination, loss of appetite, confusion, fever, stiffness and muscle weakness, particularly in the hindquarters.
Infected horses do not spread West Nile virus to other horses or animals.
To protect their livestock, horse owners should take measures to reduce mosquito populations, including:
• Removing standing water from yards and barns that can serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
• Removing old tires and garbage that may be rain soaked.
• Changing water at least weekly in troughs or bird baths.
• Keeping horses in stalls or screened areas during the early morning and evening hours when mosquitoes are the most active and feeding.
• Placing fans inside barns and stalls to maintain air movement.
Veterinarians who learn of potential West Nile virus cases in horses or other animals should contact the State Veterinarian’s Office at (360) 902-1881.
State and local health departments, mosquito control districts, other state agencies and volunteers work together on environmental monitoring and prevention measures for the virus.
Visit the websites of the state Department of Health at www.doh.wa.gov/WNV or the U.S. Department of Agriculture at www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahss/equine/wnv for more information. | <urn:uuid:cdc40f1e-ec8c-4ebe-80c5-8ffa072fbf0a> | {
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|Henry Gray (18251861). Anatomy of the Human Body. 1918.|
|Transversus perinæi is attached, and in front of this a portion of the crus penis vel clitoridis and the Ischiocavernosus. Its lateral border is thin and sharp, and forms part of the medial margin of the obturator foramen.|
The Pubis (os pubis).The pubis, the anterior part of the hip bone, is divisible into a body, a superior and an inferior ramus.
The Body (corpus oss. pubis).The body forms one-fifth of the acetabulum, contributing by its external surface both to the lunate surface and the acetabular fossa. Its internal surface enters into the formation of the wall of the lesser pelvis and gives origin to a portion of the Obturator internus.
The Superior Ramus (ramus superior oss. pubis; ascending ramus).The superior ramus extends from the body to the median plane where it articulates with its fellow of the opposite side. It is conveniently described in two portions, viz., a medial flattened part and a narrow lateral prismoid portion.
| The Medial Portion of the superior ramus, formerly described as the body of the pubis, is somewhat quadrilateral in shape, and presents for examination two surfaces and three borders. The anterior surface is rough, directed downward and outward, and serves for the origin of various muscles. The Adductor longus arises from the upper and medial angle, immediately below the crest; lower down, the Obturator externus, the Adductor brevis, and the upper part of the Gracilis take origin. The posterior surface, convex from above downward, concave from side to side, is smooth, and forms part of the anterior wall of the pelvis. It gives origin to the Levator ani and Obturator internus, and attachment to the puboprostatic ligaments and to a few muscular fibers prolonged from the bladder. The upper border presents a prominent tubercle, the pubic tubercle (pubic spine), which projects forward; the inferior crus of the subcutaneous inguinal ring (external abdominal ring), and the inguinal ligament (Pouparts ligament) are attached to it. Passing upward and lateralward from the pubic tubercle is a well-defined ridge, forming a part of the pectineal line which marks the brim of the lesser pelvis: to it are attached a portion of the inguinal falx (conjoined tendon of Obliquus internus and Transversus), the lacunar ligament (Gimbernats ligament), and the reflected inguinal ligament (triangular fascia). Medial to the pubic tubercle is the crest, which extends from this process to the medial end of the bone. It affords attachment to the inguinal falx, and to the Rectus abdominis and Pyramidalis. The point of junction of the crest with the medial border of the bone is called the angle; to it, as well as to the symphysis, the superior crus of the subcutaneous inguinal ring is attached. The medial border is articular; it is oval, and is marked by eight or nine transverse ridges, or a series of nipple-like processes arranged in rows, separated by grooves; they serve for the attachment of a thin layer of cartilage, which intervenes between it and the interpubic fibrocartilaginous lamina. The lateral border presents a sharp margin, the obturator crest, which forms part of the circumference of the obturator foramen and affords attachment to the obturator membrane.|
| The Lateral Portion of the ascending ramus has three surfaces: superior, inferior, andposterior. The superior surface presents a continuation of the pectineal line, already mentioned as commencing at the pubic tubercle. In front of this line, the surface of bone is triangular in form, wider laterally than medially, and is covered by the Pectineus. The surface is bounded, laterally, by a rough eminence, the iliopectineal eminence, which serves to indicate the point of junction of the ilium and pubis, and below by a prominent ridge which extends from the acetabular notch to the pubic tubercle. The inferior surface forms the upper boundary of the obturator foramen, and presents, laterally, a broad and deep, oblique groove, for the passage of the obturator vessels and nerve; and medially, a sharp margin, the obturator crest, forming part of the circumference of the obturator foramen, and giving attachment to the obturator membrane. The posterior surface constitutes | <urn:uuid:eb87e042-572d-4745-8535-8e3594886da9> | {
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From the BBC, we learn more about this new reason to celebrate in the Congo.
DR Congo currently pays around $300m (£198m) every year in debt repayments.
The African country has been hard hit by violence and bad governance.
An estimated 5m people died in what was dubbed "Africa's world war" between 1998 and 2003, and areas of the country remain in conflict.
Despite having a multitude of valuable minerals, most of its citizens are poor.
The country itself is among the group known by the IMF and World Bank as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
Continue reading the main story map DR Congo: Celebrating 50 years of chaos
The debt relief plan comes under their initiative to help these countries escape their debts in return for economic and government reforms.
The new debt relief could see as much as 90% of DR Congo's external debt erased, the BBC's Thomas Fessy reports from Kinshasa. | <urn:uuid:758c8f0b-e051-47a3-8520-c7d764a899d5> | {
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On Thursday, March 27, Mount St. Mary's College released its third annual Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California® to a sold-out crowd at our Doheny Campus in downtown Los Angeles. The 2014 Report includes key information on the status of the 19 million women and girls who call California home. For the first time, we have also compiled a supplement examining the Status of Women and Girls right here in our hometown of Los Angeles County.
To read the full California Report, a PDF version of it is available for download. Key findings are highlighted below.
California is the nation's most populous state, with 12% of the U.S. population living here. More than 19 million women and girls call California home, and they alone make up 6% of the entire U.S. population. Women of color now comprise 60% of all California women, and more female immigrants settle in California each year than do male immigrants. But while demographics shift, many women are encountering the same challenges that have persisted for too long in California.
More than 19.1 million women and girls now live in California, and women of color make up 60% of that total. As of 2010, white women accounted for 40% of all females in the state, with Latinas representing 37%, Asian American women at 14% and African American women at 6%. While the number of births in California has generally declined over the last five years, 27 percent of the state’s population — 10.3 million people — report being foreign born.
In California, high school and college graduation rates are higher for women than men; overall, women also earn more postsecondary degrees in the state than men. Ethnic disparities persist, however. And women and girls are consistently underrepresented in most STEM degrees. Compared with men, California women earn only 10% of technology degrees; 13% of degrees in computer science, 18% in engineering, 40% in mathematics and 41% in physical sciences. Women do earn 58% of degrees in life sciences.
California's gender wage gap is not as wide as the national average. Women in the state earn 83 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts, while the national gender wage gap is 78 cents on the dollar. Still, California women earn less in every occupational category compared with men. And fewer women hold jobs in STEM fields than men in California, with the greatest discrepancies in engineering and technology careers.
Of Californians living in poverty, 54% are females. Nearly one-third of these women are under the age of 18; 9% are under the age of five. And 54% of all California women living in poverty are Latina. Those females hardest hit by poverty are those with the least amount of education.
In California, significant gender gaps exist in the numbers of women among California’s political leaders. While the state has two women serving as U.S. senators, women account for 34% of California’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. And the number of women serving in the state legislature has declined over the past decade, from 37 women in 2005 to 32 women today — out of 120 total members.
Out of approximately 8.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States, an estimated 1.1 million are based in California — accounting for 30% of all companies in the state. The past year also saw an increase in the number of companies with women on their board of directors. However, among California’s 400 largest public companies, women still hold only 11% of top positions, including just 3% of all CEOs.
Women hold 18% of key, behind-the-scenes occupations in the film industry, primarily as editors (20%) and producers (25%). Women fare slightly better in television, holding 28% of behind-the-scenes occupations. Even in front of the camera, more men than women still play leading roles on television. A Mount St. Mary’s study of new, fall 2013 television programming revealed that minorities were greatly underrepresented in front of the camera, with white women accounting for 86% and 79%, respectively, of primary and secondary roles.
California women show increasingly longer life expectancy, though disparities based on ethnicity persist — Asian American women have the longest life expectancy at 89 years and African American women have the shortest at 78 years. The percentage of overweight and obese females is increasing, though fewer California women are overweight compared with men. Nine percent of California’s female population report serious psychological distress.
Approximately 40% of California adult females report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) during their lifetime, significantly higher than the national rate of 24%. The greatest incidence of IPV in California was among women ranging from 18-24 years of age. Nearly 1 in 5 California women (18%) report being raped during their lifetime, mirroring the national average.
In 2013, the U.S. military formally ended its ban on women serving in front-line combat roles, opening up new opportunities for female service members. While women receive many benefits as members of the Armed Forces, there are also challenges for these women, including access to healthcare once they return to civilian life. Eighty-one percent to 93% of women veterans experience factors known to increase homelessness.
To read the full Los Angeles County Report, a PDF version of it is available for download. Key findings are highlighted below.
Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the United States and more diverse than California. It is home to more than 25% of the state’s population — nearly 10 million people. Women and girls represent more than half of the county’s population and experience many of the same challenges as do women throughout the state.
Women and girls of color make up 70% of Los Angeles County’s female population, compared with 60% for California. Twenty-three percent of them are under the age of 18. At 47%, Latinas are the most populous female segment, followed by white, Asian American and African American. The demographics in Los Angeles County continue to evolve. In 2010, more than 60% of live births were to Latinas. And the percentage of Los Angeles County women who have never been married is now higher than that statewide.
While Latinas and African American girls represent 74% of the county’s K-12 public school population, their high school graduation rates trail those of Asian American (94%), white (88%) and Pacific Islander (79%) female students. The graduation rate of both Latinas and African American girls is 71%. With the exception of biology, girls scored lower in proficient or advanced levels on college-preparatory STEM courses than did boys. However, a greater proportion of women than men under the age of 45 now hold higher-education degrees.
Los Angeles County women earn less in every occupational category compared with their male counterparts. The greatest earnings disparities are in computer science, engineering and science — the STEM professions — and among healthcare practitioners and technical occupations. In Los Angeles County, the earnings gap between men and women is significantly lower than that state-wide — not because women are earning more, but because men are earning so much less than the state median salary. Unemployment rates for African Americans and Latinas were higher than the county average for all races.
There are 1 million Los Angeles County females living in poverty: 63% of them are Latina, 31% are under the age of 18, and 9% are under the age of five. Forty-two percent of women 25 years and older, who have less than a high school education, now live in poverty. Families headed by only women are more likely than all other families to live below the official poverty threshold.
Since 2005, California has dropped from 10th place to 19th place in the number of women serving in state legislative office. Only four of the 13 state senators and three of the 25 state assembly members representing Los Angeles County are women. As of March 2014, only one of the county’s five supervisors is a woman. As of fall 2013, among the county’s 88 municipalities, 18% had women serving as mayors. Out of 285 city council members in all of Los Angeles County, 22% were female. And in the county’s biggest city, only one woman serves as an elected official in the City of Los Angeles.
There are approximately 432,300 women-owned businesses in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, a 25% increase between 2002 and 2013. Out of the total number of private businesses in Los Angeles County, 30% were owned by women. Most of these companies are small businesses, with 89% having no paid employees. Women own more than half of all healthcare and social-assistance businesses in the county.
Twenty percent of the county’s women have no healthcare insurance, compared with 16% statewide and 13% nationally. Obesity remains a great concern in California. While nearly a quarter of all Los Angeles County women are obese, the highest obesity rates are found among African American women and Latinas. Maternal death and infant mortality rates are highest among African American women. Compared with the average life expectancy (82 years) for Los Angeles County women and men, Asian/Pacific Islander women have the longest lifespan (88), while African American women have the shortest (79).
Girls represent 60% of those treated in Los Angeles County for methamphetamine and inhalant abuse, surpassing treatment rates for alcohol, cocaine and other substance abuse. Overall, Los Angeles County has a higher percentage of both boys and girls in drug-use treatment compared with other counties in California.
African American women (24%), white women (20%) and Latinas (16%) reported higher rates of domestic violence than Asian/Pacific Islander women (6%). Overall, self-reported domestic violence surveys indicate that 17% of females in the county have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner since age 18.
It is estimated that women represent 6% of all Los Angeles County veterans, and women comprise 15% of the youngest bracket of veterans, ages 18–34. White women comprise the majority of county female veterans, followed by Latinas and African American women. Of all veterans in Los Angeles County, men and women, 15% are estimated to be homeless. | <urn:uuid:9b1d5dbd-adfb-4d12-bdcc-ad512554f167> | {
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These hardy, deciduous trees are commonly known as Ash Trees.
Most of the Ashes are natives of the Northern Hemisphere. These quick-growing
trees are suitable for growing in yards and along roads; they will survive in
almost any soil in wind-swept areas and near the sea.
Ashes produce compound leaves with toothed leaflets that turn
yellow and purple colors in autumn. Most of these trees produce unnoticeable,
greenish-yellow, male and female flowers on separate trees. These are borne in
early spring and, on female trees, are followed by clusters of winged seeds.
F. americana (White Ash) is a native of North America. This variety
grows from 70 to 90 feet high and forms a rounded head of branches. The dull
green leaves are 8 to 15 inches long and consist of 5 to 9, oval or oblong
F. ornus (Flowering Ash or Manna Ash) is
originally from southern Europe. This tree, unlike most of the others, bears
attractive, downy, 3- to 5-inch panicles of fragrant, white flowers in the
spring or early summer. Each blossom contains both male and female parts,
therefore, all trees of this variety produce seeds. Its glossy green leaves
are 8 to 10 inches long. This type grows from 25 to 35 feet high.
The wood of various kinds of Ashes is valued in the lumber
business. It is strong, elastic and easily worked. It is used to make tool
handles, railroad ties, furniture, etc....
Ash Tree Link
Fresno in my back yard
Properties of Ash Used by Aztec's
Used to fight Rheumatism, Deafness, Lowers
Fever, Increases Urine and Perspiration.
Aztec Method of Use
For Rheumatism: Boil for 1 min. 45 grams of ash leaves, 15 grams of
mint leaves and 3 large cups of water. Filter and drink 3 cups a day 1 hour
For deafness: Make a fire, cut a thick green branch
of ash and place in fire, allow part of branch to hang over the edge so you
can collect the distilled liquid that will seep out of the branch, use a
plate to collect the liquid, then add liquid to a small jar, cover
well, place in double boiler for a couple of minutes, place
several drops of the liquid in affected ear then place a piece of cotton
soaked in same liquid in ear only before bedtime.
To lower fever and
increase sweat and urine: Drink 3 cups a day for several days the mixture
of ash and mint mentioned above. | <urn:uuid:14503806-6736-4ef9-b3e9-332292bd62c0> | {
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Fountains in Ottoman İstanbul
Examples from İstanbul Fountains
WATERWORKS IN PRE-OTTOMAN İSTANBUL
The earliest known waterworks ın İstanbul date from Roman times. The Romans attached great importance to the water supply of their cities, and established an extensive water system in İstanbul (the ancient Byzantium which was later called Constantinople after Constantine the Great). Like the civilisations before them they built conduits for supplying watter to the tall monumental fountains known as nymphaeum decorated with columns and statuary, to public baths, houses and palaces. In his ten-volume De Architectura describing the buildings and construction techniques of Roman period architecture, Vitruvius discusses water structures (aqueducts, wells, cisterns and water levels) in Book VIII, and hydraulic machines (water clocks, water organs, water wheels, water screws and the pump designed by Ctesibius) in Volumes IX and X. Here we find descriptions of Roman period water distribution tanks, water channels, and intermediate reservoirs.
During the Roman period, water channelled from distant springs to the city was collected in reservoirs and distribution tanks built on hilltop sites, and from there piped in different directions to cisterns, houses and public fountains. In their book on the Byzantine water structures of İstanbul, Die Byzantinischen Wasserbehalter von Konstantinopel (1893), Strzgowski and Forchheimer tell us that water from dams in the Belgrad Forest was carried by pipes to the district of Eğrikapı at the northern edge of the city, crossing the valleys formed by the two streams which flowed into the Golden Horn via aqueducts. From here three mains lines carried the water to tanks in the districts of Atpazarı, Yenibahçe and Ayasofya for distribution to the rest of the city.
Roman Period Waterworks
In order to maintain a fixed water level, covered water channels were carried over valleys by aqueducts, which are arched structures in the form of bridges. Roman period aqueducts dating from the fourth century and which are still standing -at least in part-today in İstanbul are the Valens (Bozdoğan) built in 368, the Ma'zulkemer, Karakemer, and Turunçluk aqueducts.
Nothing precise is known about the form and interior mechanism of Roman period water levels which were part of the water distribution system. In the Ottoman period these were tower-like structures known as su terazisi serving to adjust water pressure and also measure water for distribution purposes. In Book VIII of his De Architectura Vitruvius discusses the water structures of Rome in the fifth section entitled 'Levelling and Levelling Methods' and describes methods of conducting water 'to dwellings and cities'. Vitruvius explains, 'First comes the method of taking the level. Levellings is done either with dioptrae, or with water levels, or with the chorobates,' going on the say that the chorobates is the most accurate method. "the chorobates is a straightedge about twenty feet long. At the extremities it has legs, made exactly alike and jointed on perpendicularly to the extremities of the straightedge, and also crosspieces fastened by tenons, connecting the straightedge and the legs. These crosspieces have vertical lines drawn upon them, and there are plumblines hanging form the straightedge over each of the lines." However he gives no description of the water levels.
These were structures which measured and distributed incoming water. In Book VIII of De Architectura, Vitruvius writes that inside the city the water poured into a reservoir with a connecting distribution chamber with three contiguous tanks. Water from the reservoir was conveyed into each tank via three separete pipes. Water from the central tank was piped to all the pools and fıountains in the city, water from one of the side tanks to the public baths, and from the other side tank to private houses. In his doctoral dissertation entitled. "The Architecture of Water Structures in Byzantine period İstanbul" (1989), which is the most detailed source of information about Roman period distribution chambers, Özkan Ertuğrul tells us that during the Byzantine period (the Eastern Roman Empire, successor to the Roman Empire), water was distributed to the city from five distribution chambers known as Nymphaeum Maximum, Tezgahçılar Kubbesi, Balıklı, Sultanahmet and Valens.
Open or covered conduits carried water between the reservoirs and cisterns, and from there to public fountains and houses. They also served as overflow spills for the cisterns. It has been possible to identify twenty-three of these conduits today. Conduits were made variously of masonry, lead or baked clay, but Vitruvius comments that baked clay pipes are to be preferred. He also explains that the channel bed should have a gradient of at least one quarter inch for each hundred feet.
Reservoirs, Wells and Cisterns
Vitruvius explains that in the absence of springs whose water may be transferable by aqueducts, it is necessary either to dig wells or to collect surface water in cisterns. He describes cisterns having two or three sections in which the water was cleaned by means of pouring from one section to another. These cisterns thus served a second function as precipitation tanks, which during Ottoman times were separate structures in which the water rested. An example of an ancient well of the type described by Vitruvius is Dolab Ocağı in the First Courtyard at Topkapı Palace which is entered via the Second Courtyard. The construction techniques of this large well in which all water for the palace was stored for distribution is characteristic of the Roman period. In Ottoman times a cistern was added to this well. Of the seven pre-Ottoman wells discovered in İstanbul five date from the pre-Byzantine period (Dolap Ocağı in the First Courtyard at Topkapı Palace, and four others located respectively next to the cistern in the Second Courtyard at Topkapı Palace, next to the Fil Gate in the Fifth Courtyard at Topkapı Palace, in the centre of the semicircular courtyard of Haghia Maria Hodigitria Baptistry in the Manganlar area, and in the courtyard of the Ottoman Mint), and two from the Byzantine period (beneath the arcade in front of the first gate leading to the kitchens in the Second Courtyard at Topkapı Palace, and in front of arcade of Topkapı Palace Kitchens).
Another Roman water structure related to wells is the cistern, the oldest surviving examples of which date from the Byzantine era, which succeeded the Roman.
In Part VI of Book VIII of his De Architectura, which is entitled 'Aqueducts, Wells and Cisterns', Vitruvius says of cisterns: 'If the ground is hard or if the veins lie too deep, the water supply must be obtained from roofs or higher ground, and collected in cisterns of "signinum work".' From his description of the materials used to make signium, it is clear that this formed an insulating layer for the interior surface of thi cistern.
It is also evident that the purpose of this insulation was to improve the taste end translucency of the water, as we see from his account: 'If such constructions are in two compartments or in three so as to ensure clearing by changing from one to another, they will make the water much more wholesome and sweeter to use. For it will become more limpid, and keep its taste without any smell, if the mud has somewhere to settle; otherwise it will be necessary to clear it by adding salt.'
These explanations demonstrate that Roman period cisterns were used like precipitation tanks, in which the water was rested.
Althougth little remains of the water structures which were of such importance in daily life for the Romans and Byzantines, we gather from documentary sources that in the Roman period in particular nymphaeums were a prominent architectural feature of the city, situated in colonnaded roads, forums and other positions where they would make maximum visual impact. One of these was Nymphaeum Maximum in Tarsus Square (the location of the main building of İstanbul University today), to which water was carried by the aqueduct generally believed to have been built in 368 by the Emperor Valens (364-378). The origins of the nymphaeum can be traced back to ancient Greece. These monumental fountains whose water was supplied by conduits generally provided a decorative feature in public squares, but in Roman and Byzantine times they were also appar-ently features of private gardens belonging to wealthy citizens. This latter type is described as being adorned with columns and statues, and while generaly being made of marble, might also occasionally be made of bronze or porphyry . Few can have survived into Ottoman times, and those that did were probably either renovated in line with contemporary taste and style, so losing their original character, or in time replaced by new fountains.
Studies conducted so far into the waterworks of this period (Andréossy 1818, Strzygowski and Forchheimer 1893, Nirven 1946, Eyice 1989, Ertuğrul 1989, Çeçen 1979, 1984, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996) reveal that İstanbul's first know water supply lines belonged to four systems. The earliest was built in the time of Emperor Hadrian (117-138) and brought water from a source west of the city to the area around Sultanahmet Square. This supply line was extended during the reign of Theodosius II (408-50). The second large supply line in İstanbul was built during the reign of the Emperor Constantine (324-337) and carried water from the Istranca Mountains west of the city. The longest of all water supply lines constructed by the Romans (Çeçen 1996:22) was 242 km in length, starting from a point 6 km west of Vize west of İstanbul, and entering the city justt south of Edirnekapı. İstanbul's third major water supply line was constructed in the time of Emperor Valens in 373 and passed over the aqueduct named after him in Şehzadebaşı which is largely intact today. The Valens water line, which was renovated and enlarged during the reigns of Justinian (527-65) and Constantine V (720-740), supplied the Achilleus Baths and Yerebatan (Basilica) Cistern (Çeçen 1996).
The fourth line carried water from the Belgrad Forest to the northwest part of İstanbul and is thought to have been built by Theodosius I (379-395).
When the Roman Empire, whose roots go back the founding of Rome in the eighth century BC, was split into East and West in 395 AD. Eastern Rome (dubbed the Byzantine Empire by historians in the nineteenth century) gradually developed its own distinctive styles of architecture and art. Byzantium had been rebuilt as the eastern capital of Rome in 330 AD, and now became capital of this new political entity. From the sixth century onwards new architectural forms began to depart from ancient Roman tradition, but the need for water and water structures remained.
As the city's population grew so did the need for water. When wells, cisterns and water sources outside the city became inadequate, the existing water supply lines and distribution networks inside the city were expanded and new sources harnessed.
This was achieved by means of relatively minor additions to the original Roman water system. Constantine V Copronymus (741-775), Romanus III Argyrus (1028-1034), and Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180) merely repaired the existing water system , which remained adequate until the tenth century. From that time onwards sieges and earthquakes left İstanbul's water supply system and distribution network virtually defunct, and the Byzantines began to rely primarily on cisterns as a cheaper and more reliable means of securing water. Instead of carrying out expensive repairs to the Roman water system, they built new cisterns to augment those built during the Roman period, so that the city would not have to rely on water sources at a distance from the city.
In summary, particularly from the ninth century onwards small mains lines added to the old water supply lines and cisterns became the primary source of Byzantine İstanbul's water
Both open and covered cisterns of sometimes enormous size were located at various points around the city both within and outside the walls, serving as water collection and distribution centres. The underground cisterns not only provided water, but served as smooth raised platforms on which buildings were constructed. This was convenient in a hilly city like İstanbul.
In her account of the houses of pre-fifth century İstanbul, Tamara Talbot Rice writes that the large houses of wealthy citizens resembled those at Ostia, Rome's seaport, and had a well or cistern in their courtyards which supplied the household with water.
Deterioration of the old Roman water system as a result of damage resulting from both sieges and natural causes, as already mentioned, prompted the Byzantines to make extensive use of cisterns. In particular from the ninth century onwards, small conduits were added to the earlier water system to distribute water from reservoirs and cisterns.
When the Emperor Justinian had large cisterns constructed in the city in the sixth century, he also repaired the Hadrian Waterway which provided water to the city's nymphaeums and the Great Palace.
Another type of water structure in İstanbul dating from Roman and Byzantine times was the ayazma or sacred spring. These were structures built over springs of mineral water regarded as sacred, and not used for domestic needs. Hence they were not connected up to the city's water system.
Regulations concerning water laid down in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian make it clear that İstanbul's water supply came from outside the city. In the Prokhiron, a revised version of the Code of Justinian dating from 870-878, strict regulations concerning use of the waterways and special provisions relating to their cleaning and maintenance demonstrate the importance attached to the city's water system.
Earlier damage and deterioration in the Roman period water system was compounted still further by the Latin occupation in 1204, after which the water system became virtually unusable. When İstanbul passed into the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, major repairs and additions were made to the system.
OTTOMAN PERIOD WATERWORKS AND WATER ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM
In the wake of his conquest of İstanbul, Sultan Mehmed II commanded that urgent repairs be made to the existing water system. In addition four new water supply lines were constructed: the Fatih Waterway, the Turunçlu Waterway, the Şadırvan Waterway, and the Mahmutpaşa Waterway. The Kırkçeşme system dating from the late Roman period was renovated at the same time.
The problem of supplying sufficient water to a growing urban population was one with which İstanbul had contended throughout its history. The Ottomans, too, enlarged İstanbul's water system at various times over the centuries, but above all it was the waterworks carried out by Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent which dealt with the water problem most effectively.
During the reign of Mehmed II a water department was established, illustrating the importance which the Ottomans attached to the water supply, as other civilisations had done before them.
During the reign of Mehmet II's son Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512) Bayezid Waterway was built,and during the reign of his son Selim I (1512-1520) diverse waterworks were constructed. Yet water supply continued to fall short of demand. To find a more far-reaching solution to the shortage, Süleyman the Magnificent called in Chief Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan. It seems probable that Mimar Sinan worked on this project in cooperation with the Director of Water Hasan Ağa. He studied the existing waterways dating from the Roman-Byzantine period and those built since the Turkish conquest, and invenstigated new sources of water. In 1554 he commenced major reconstruction and enlargemend of the Kırkçeşme system, making use of surviving aqueducts and dams following the former Roman supply line and using the ancient Valens aqueduct. Completed in 1560, this was the most comprehensive water supply project undertaken by the Ottomans in İstanbul. There is a diagram of this system in the Ahmed III Library at Topkapı Palace, ref H. 1815, which is thought to date from before 1620. It shows the Kovuk (also known as the Kırık) Aqueduct, the Uzun Aqueduct, the head basin and Cebeciköy Aqueduct, giving their measurements and diverse other information about the system.
Most of the water transmission lines built in Ottoman times are still in use today.
Halkalı Water System (formerly the Cev'mi-i Şerife) consisting of 16 independent transmission lines running into the city from the northwest. Part of this system probably dates from the Roman era.
Kırkçeşme Water System (1554-1564)
Taksim Water System (1731-1839)
Other water supply lines, and the Hamidiye and Kayışdağı water systems
These supply lines carried water into İstanbul from springs and dams via aqueducts and conduits first to water towers known as maslak, and from there to water balances or su terazisi. From there it was finally piped to public fountains and to individual buildings. The various water structures which made up the Ottoman water system were as follows:
Dams known as bend were built across ravines to collect spring and rainwater in reservoirs behind them. To each side of the dam walls were sluices over which the water flowed into basins and distrubution chambers. Three types of dam wall were built in the Ottoman period: straight walls, as at Karanlık Bend, Büyük Bend and Kirazlı Bend; angled walls, as at Topuzlu Bend, Ayvat Bend, and Valide Bend; and curved walls, as at Yeni Bend.
Aqueducts (sukemeri) in the form of arched bridges had been used since Roman times to carry water across valleys and streams dividing two areas of high ground so that it did not lose height. During the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent thi defunct Roman water system which carried water from the Belgrad Forest to İstanbul was rebuilt with additions and extensions by Mimar Sinan, and became known as the Kırkçeşme water system. He built 33 aqueducts to carry water to the Kırkçeşme distribution network, which was one of the most important in Ottoman İstanbul. Some of these aqueducts were monumental in scale, such as the Kovuk Kemer, Paşa Kemeri, Uzunkemer, Mağlova Kemeri and Güzelce Kemer.
These mainly circular basins (havuz) ranging in diameter from 2 to 30 metres and 2 to 20 metres in depth served as intermediary collection points for the water. Some had two section, and some two levels.
These maslaks, as they were called, were placed at points where the main supply line branched. They consisted of a tank with a discharge measuring system consisting of numerous spouts for adjusting and determining the quantity of water which flowed in each direction. The presence of a discharge measuring tank has led some sources to confuse these with maksems. They were always located outside the city.
Known as maksem were domed or vaulted buildings containing large water tanks with spillways and distribution chambers divided into compartments and fed by nozzles called lüle. Some of these maksem were above ground, such as those in Taksim, Eyüp, and Harbiye, while others were below the ground, like the Hacı Osman Bayırı maksem.
Known as su terazisi, these tower-like structures maintained water pressure when conveying water to neighbourhoods at a high-level. Varying from 3 to 10 m in height, they had a cistern at the summit from which the water flowed into distribution pipes.
Known as tersip or çökertme tanks, these were a series of connected tanks where the water rested so that any gravel or sand was precipitated before being piped to the maksem and distributed to the various city mains.
The water measuring system was crucial for controlling the amount of water supplied to each fountain. The amounts were specified for each fountain, whose water sources could vary. As well as state supplied water known as miri or hassa, there were water sources in the form of pious endowments or vakıf for the public benefit, and private water sources known as mülk allocated to individuals by the sultan (in deeds known as temlikname). The water was measured by means of dividing the water among numerous spouts set 96mm beneath the surface of the water in a long rectangular sluice. The spouts were in a number of different standard diameters and hence discharge rates, enabling the amount of water passing through them over a specific time to be measured precisely. The most common standard was the lüle, others being the kamış, masura, çuvaldız and hilal. The inside diameter of the lüle pipe was defined as that through which a lead sphere weighing 30 dirhem (approximately 96.5 g) would pass, ie 73.58 mm. The term lüle was also used in a general sense to refer to such water measuring spouts.
The Ottoman water administration system dated back to the reign of Mehmed II, who as already said, established a department of water under a director of waterworks. The department was in charge of a vast organisation which included waterway maintenance men (suyolcu), surveyors, watchmen who guarded the waterways and dams, carpenters, men who made and applied a waterproof plaster (lökün) to water pipes and tanks, and saka who distributed water in skins. The primary duty of the water director was to supervise the water supply for the palace, but in addition he ensured a regular supply of water to mosques, hamams (public baths), and public fountains, and the maintenance and protection of the water system as a whole. He also cooperated with the chief imperial architect over new water supply projects. The waterway maintenance men repaired the pipelines, water tanks and other mains waterworks, and received a monthly fee from hamams, houses with their own private fountains, and other regular users of water. They had their own guild, and were housed in barracks at various locations around the city. Out of ordinary working hours there were always waterway maintenance men on duty who could be called out in emergencies. The lökün plaster with which the joins of water pipes were coated to prevent leakage was made by mixing lime with olive oil.
Saka is a word derived from Arabic, used in Turkish to mean water carrier. In particular the sakas provided a vital service in times when the mains supply proved inadequate, by carrying large skins of drinking water to houses and establishments in need of water. In addition to public sakas, there were palace sakas whose barracks were situated next to Sakalar Çeşmesi (Fountain of Sakas) facing Şekerci Gate at Haghia Sophia and janissary sakas who served the Janissary Corps.
The public sakas consisted of two groups, those who had horses to carry their water skins, and those who went on foot and carried the skins on their backs. The skins were made out of leather known as saka meşki, and called kırba. Foot saka carried kırba containing 45-50 litres of water, and some distributed water in bowls made of rock crystal. Beside the front door of each house stood small stone tanks known as saka deliği, into which the sakas could empty the water they had brought without entering the house. Pipes from these tanks carried the water to jars standing in the courtyard or inside the house. Water was then scooped out as required using tankard-like water cups known as maşrapa. Some houses were equipped with tiny tanks in the form of pots set into the walls from which water flowed to taps in the living rooms and lavatories. These were filled in the same way by pipes from the tank at the entrance door.
Sakas were only permitted to take water from particular fountains, and no more than the allotted number were permitted to fill their skins at any one fountain. Only when a saka retired or died could another take his place.Philanthropists who endowed fountains sometimes specified in the endowment deed or in the inscription that they did not allow sakas to use the water at all. Fountains where sakas collected water were known as saka fountain. As well as sakas, some dervishes distributed water free as a charitable exercise, either carrying the water themselves or using a horse, and who were not part of the official water distribution organisation.
FOUNTAINS OF İSTANBUL
Endowing money for the construction of a fountain and a water supply line to it was an act of piety which played an important role in Ottoman life. Hardly a sultan, sultan's mother, sultan's daughter, grand vezir, or other august personage did not endow a fountain in expression of their economic, social and political standing, and fountains became an important part of the architectural tradition. Fountains were decorative features of both outdoor public spaces like squares, and intimate indoor spaces in private dwellings, and they reflected the architectural taste and styles of their time.
Surviving documents show that in the sixteenth century in particular the Ottoman government favoured supplying public fountains rather than private homes with mains water. This made the local fountain an indispensable focal point of every neighbourhood. In these introverted neighbourhoods, with their wooden houses with jettied upper storeys, deadend streets, and lanes reflecting their organic evolution, the fountain shaped their unique character. The human scale organic streets wound and turned their way to the mosque square, which was always characterised by a fountain as well as a coffee house and spreading plane tree casting welcome shade. In İstanbul, as in every Turkish city in the past, the local fountain was a hub of social intercourse.
İstanbul was never at any time a city with abundant water sources close at hand, but from the sixteenth century onwards, as the water system was improved and extended, the government began to permit water to be piped into private mansions in the city and along the İstanbul Strait. The luxury of piped mains water was a privilege requiring a royal patent, and ordinary people were still largely dependent on neighbourhood public fountains for their water, augmented by that obtained from wells and cisterns.
There were two classes of fountain, those for the use of the general public and those allocated to the use of the sakas. Although it was forbidden for the sakas, particularly those who used horses, to fill their water skins at the public fountains, this ban was not always complied with. Documents record frequent quarrels between the horse and foot sakas over access to the same fountain. It was to ensure that local people were not obstructed by sakas from obtaining water free from public fountains that a ban on sakas was incorporated into the inscriptions of some of them at the wish of the founder.
Public fountains were of two types with respect to their source of water supply. The first were supplied from sources harnessed or privately owned by individuals (vakıf waters, and mülk waters), and the second were supplied from the mains system (hassa or miri waters).
Although fountains varied with respect to the material they were made of, their form, and style of decoration over the centuries, they basically consisted of the same four elements:
A tank in which water was stored, and which was a prominent architectural feature in early fountains. In some cases the roof of these tanks was designed to serve a dual purpose as prayer terrace or namazgah, examples being Esma Sultan Fountain in Kadırga and Abdülmecit Han Fountain in Yeşilköy.
A stone slab known as the musluk taşı or ayna taşı, in which the tap was fitted, and which was set inside an arched niche with decoration in the style of the day. The taps were of two types, those which ran continually known as salma, and those which could be turned off and on known as burma.
An inscription carved on the ayna taşı giving the name of the person who had endowed it, and sometimes the source of the water and the date of construction.
Beneath the tab was a basin known as a kurna, and to either side small raised areas where people collecting water could sit or rest their vessels while they waited.
The design of these elements varied with the architectural fashions of the times, the approach to city planning, and the personal tastes of the founder. Fountains in the form of columns (Ahmet Ağa Fountain built in Çengelköy in 1854) were an unusual type limited to a specific period, for example. Others were designed like the façade of a building and had a monumental effect on the urban texture (Bezmi'lem Valide Sultan Fountains in Yıldız). With the beginning of western influences on Ottoman architecture, it became common to build fountains in squares of commercial, social or ceremonial importance, often next to monumental mosques and their complexes, and situated at points where striking vistas of the city were to be obtained. These often freestanding fountains in the form of miniature pavilions had façades reflecting western architectural fashions, and clearly setting out to rival their western equivalents and to impress the viewer with the modernity and hence power of Ottoman architecture (the two Ahmet III fountains outside the Imperial Gate at Topkapı Palace and in Üsküdar respectively, Mahmud II Fountain in Tophane, and Bezmi'lem Valide Sultan Fountain in Maçka). Others were an integral part of building complexes, or formed an eye-catching feature in the façade of a building.
In line with changes in materials, form and style over the centuries, changes in the abovementioned elements of the fountains were as follows. In the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the ayna taşı which carried the tap was usually plain and set in a classical arched niche. The inscription was located above the tap, and below was the basin flanked by raised platforms. Fountains of these centuries also had water storage tanks. In the eighteenth century, when fountains built of hewn stone made way for marble, this type of façade altered, as the ayna taşı began to acquire a lavish repertoire of carved decoration, including roses, vases of flowers, and plates of fruit set in decorative arches. The formerly deep alcove niches became much shallower, and baroque style shell motifs appeared for the first time. Other changes also took place in fountain architecture in the eighteenth century. The fountain became taller, and the section bearing the inscription became a separate part of the façade, which was sometimes shaded by baroque style eaves.
The first examples of the combined sebil (kiosk for the distribution of drinking water to passers-by in cups) and fountain in a single structure appeared in the seventeenth century (Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan Fountain and Sebil, 1663), and became more common in the eighteenth century. Similarly the monumental meydan fountains-independent structures designed like pavilions-became fashionable, such as Ahmed III Fountain in front of the Imperial Gate at Topkapı Palace.
In the mineteenth century, with a more reliable supply of mains water, fountains no longer needed storage tanks, and this sparked off new designs. Among these were fountains with neo-classical façades.
In the very early period most fountains had had permanently running spouts, but when the Kırkçeşme system was being built during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent taps which could be turned on and off as required were introduced, so preventing both the wastage of water and permanently muddy streets.
Fountains were diverse, both as regards their structures and their functions, and twentieth century writers on the subject have classified them in numerous different ways. Often the name of a fountain tells its own story, as in the case of the Ayrılık Çeşmesi (Fountain of Departure) which was situated at the point where those accompanying the imperial procession to Mecca, the army setting out on campaign and caravans heading eastwards, and pilgrims to Mecca bade farewell to their loved ones when departing from İstanbul. Similarly, Sel'mi Çeşme was a fountain at another point where travellers arriving in the city were welcomed (selam meaning greeting), and also departed. Bostancı Fountain was named after the bostancıbaşı, the head of the security organisation which checked arrivals and departures from the city. Others referred to characteristics of the fountain itself, such as those known as Çatal Çeşme (fork fountain), which were usually situated at corners and had two or three faces, each with its own tap facing in a different direction. In this study they have been classified undere the following headings according to their positions and purpose.
These are fountains built into the walls of buildings, gardens or courtyards. Their storage tanks, where these exist, are located behind the wall. They are also referred to as single-face or façade fountains.These were built in various styles between the fifteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Fountains on street corners mainly had a single face in earlier centuries, but in later times examples with two or three faces were constructed. Since the corner edges were liable to get knocked and damaged by laden carts and other vehicles, these were often bevelled up to a certain height, a feature known as çalköşe.
Meydan (Freestanding) Fountains
Located in squares and parade fields, this type of fountain is a freestanding building in the form of a miniature köşk or pavilion. They were an innovation of the eighteenth century and among the earliest examples of western influence on Ottoman architecture. In general they had four sides. Elaborate examples like the monumental Ahmet III Fountain outside the main entrance of Topkapı Palace built in 1728 had sebils at the corners where passers-by could drink water from cups filled by attendants, as well as taps for filling large water containers. Some of the meydan fountains had taps in a single face (such as Mahmud II Fountain in Boyacıköy dated 1837) or two faces (such as Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa Meydan Fountain in Kabataş dated 1732, and Saliha Sultan Fountain in Azapkapı dated 1732).
Fountains Designed as Part of Sebils
Sebils were kiosks where water, sweetend fruit drinks known as şerbet and fruit juice was distributed to passersby. The earliest example in İstanbul is Efdalzade Sebil dated 1496 (Kumbaracılar 1938; Ünsal 1986; Urfalıoğlu 1989).
Just as meydan fountains sometimes incorporated sebils, so sebils sometimes incorporated fountains, and the two types converged if the building was freestanding. The earliest surviving example of this type is the Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan Sebil and Fountain dating from 1663. This type was particularly popular in the eighteenth century, leading some researchers to regard it as a distinguishing characteristic of this period.
Although the existence of an earlier example in the seventeenth century- Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan Sebil and Fountain-demonstrates that as a type it did originate prior to the eighteenth century, the fact that this is the only surviving example makes it difficult to determine how widespread such fountains were in the seventeenth century.
Sebils incorporating fountains, which first appear in the seventeenth century, were usually designed with fountains to one side (Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan Sebil 1663, Sadeddin Efendi Sebil 1741, and Damat İbrahim Paşa Sebil 1719) or on both sides (Hamidiye Sebil 1777 and Koca Ragıp Paşa Sebil 1762), fountain and sebil forming a unified architectural composition. In most instances they were located at the main entrance gate to mosque complexes (Hasan Paşa Sebil 1745, Ahmediye Sebil 1721), or at prominent street corners (Beşir Ağa Sebil 1745) providing visual emphasis and architectural focal points in the form of a selfcontained monumental feature. With the emergence of the monumental meydan fountain in the eighteenth century, the sebil was used as an element which lent a further enrichening element to the design (Ahmed III Fountain at Topkapı Palace, 1728, and Saliha Sultan Fountain 1732).
A namazg'h was an open-air prayer terrace constructed for the use both of travellers on caravan routes, and at excursion places on the outskirts of cities. Fountains next to these provided the water which worshippers needed to perform their ritual ablutions before praying and water for them and their animals to drink. There are very few surviving examples of namazg'h fountains, in which the prayer terrace was constructed on top of the fountain's storage tank (Esma Sultan Namazg'h Fountain in Kadırga, Bezmi'lem Valide Sultan Namazg'h and Abdülmecid Han Fountain in Yeşilköy, Sadrazam Mehmed Paşa Fountain at Topçular between Edirnekapı and Rami, and Uzun Çeşme in Kasımpaşa). Our knowledge of these fountains and their architecture is limited in scope. However, from maps of İstanbul's water systems and engravings we see that fountains at halting points had broad eaves to protect those using them from rain, snow and sun, and architecturally resembled urban fountains with troughs beneath the taps. In some cases the namazg'h platform was situated on top of the fountain itself (Anadoluhisarı Fountain, seventeenth century, Esma Sultan Fountain in Kadırga 1779), or the mihrap stone (indicating the direction of Mecca) was incorporated into the fountain structure (Vezir Mehmed Paşa Fountain opposite Sulukule Gate outside the city walls 1589).
Those namazg'h fountains which once existed in İstanbul and its outlying suburbs which we have been able to identify, including the few still standing, are as follows: Üçler Mevkisi Namazg'h Fountain west of Atmeydanı (1516), Çeşmebaşı Namazg'h Fountain in Bayrampaşa, Vezir Mehmed Paşa Namazg'h Fountain (1589) opposite Sulukule Gate outside the city walls at the edge of the Edirnekapı-Topkapı road, Sadrazam Mehmed Paşa Namazg'h Fountain (1617) at Topçular between Edirnekapı and Rami, Kasımpaşa Uzun Çeşme (date uncertain), Okmeydanı Namazg'h Fountain (date uncertain), the fountain beside Bezmi'lem Valide Sultan Namazg'h in Maçka (1839), Abdülmecid Han Fountain at Bezmi'lem Valide Sultan Namazg'h in Yeşilköy (1842), Çatal Çeşme in Suadiye (1550), Toplarönü Namazg'h Fountain in Anadoluhisarı (seventeenth century), Mehmed Bey Namazg'h Fountain at Sultaniye Meadow in Beykoz (1765), Ahmet Ağa (Ayrılık) Fountain in Haydarpaşa (1741), Sel'mi Çeşme Fountain in Kadıköy (1800), Sultan Mahmud II Han Namazg'h Fountain in Bostancı (1831), and Adile Sultan Fountain in Dudullu (originally built in 1730 and renovated in 1891).
Although most of the fountains built at former menzil points (halting points for caravans) in the Asian districts of İstanbul were still standing in their original locations until recent years, their namazg'h terraces have been demolished in the course of new building. The fountains which remain are often hardly noticeable, squeezed between new buildings, as in the case of Mahmud II Han Fountain in Bostancı, Ahmet Ağa (Ayrılık) Fountain in Haydarpaşa, and Sel'mi Çeşme Fountain in Kadıköy.
Indoor fountains in palaces and mansions served multiple functions. As well as being sources of water for washing and ritual ablutions the sound of running water was a pleasant feature lending a mood of tranquility, and in addition served to prevent eavesdroppers from overhearing confidential conversations, and provided a decorative feature in the room. Indoor fountains were supplied either from the public water system, or by privately owned water lines (mülk suları). They featured in buildings from the fifteenth century onwards.
This type of fountain in the form of single columns became fashionable from the eighteenth century onwards, and examples are to be seen in diverse settings ranging from mosque courtyards to quayside squares. The earliest example is Hacı Beşir Ağa Fountain (1737), in the courtyard of Kocamustafapaşa Mosque, although the majority date from the nineteenth century. The columns sometimes had finials in the form of stylised cabbages (Çengelköy Lahana Fountain). They reflect the fact that the large water storage tanks of earlier times were no longer needed thanks to new and more reliable mains water lines which could supply the fountain tap directly. Inspiration for the column design was almost certainly of Western derivation, and probably set out to provide İstanbul with an equivalent of the monumental statues which adorned European cities. Conceptually they took over the role of the meydan fountains as striking focal points of urban squares. Examples are the Mahmud II Fountain in Tarabya (1831) and Kavacık Fountain (1837).
The selsebil was an ornamental cascade fountain located in gardens of grand homes. The marble basins of graduated size were set into an upright slab of stone known as the zank taşı. The water poured either into a final large basin or garden pool.
These structures were not intended to supply water needs, but as a decorative architectural feature enhancing the space where they were located. Those in interior spaces, like room fountains, were intended partly to create a pleasant splashing sound of water in the room and at the same time make it possible to hold private conversations without being overheard while also serving an air conditioning function by cooling the air. Those located in the openair of pavilions and waterfront houses had similar functions, and in addition provided water for birds. | <urn:uuid:53a05455-9a03-43fc-846f-554baba18247> | {
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Bloomers Hole FootbridgeEdit profile
Bloomers Hole Footbridge is a footbridge across the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England. It is situated on the reach above Buscot Lock and was installed in 2000 to carry the Thames Path across the Thames. It is built of steel encased in wood to make it look like a timber structure.
The Countryside Agency commissioned Oxfordshire County Council to design and build the bridge and the design was undertaken by Charlie Benner, the senior engineer. The bridge was installed in 2000. The two 27 metre eight tonne steel beams were put in place by a Chinook helicopter from RAF Brize Norton.
Bloomer's Hole is at a wide bend about quarter of a mile downstream of St John's Lock. The river winds tortuously along here, and although a cut of the river across Bloomer Meadow was mooted as early as 1802, it was never implemented. | <urn:uuid:33148bab-b2d4-49ec-b284-b809a5d9153f> | {
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Classically made in black and white these were the two most common colour contrasts, but other combinations have enjoyed fashion peaks. Sometimes referred to as Co-respondents or Two-tone shoes,’ Spectators initially appeared as cricket shoes in 1868 made by the English Boot maker, John Lobb. Designed for comfort and style the early sports shoes incorporated lattice work to improve ventilation. The “cooling effect “was often contained within the lighter leathers.
Prior to 1914, Spats (splatterdashes) were gaiters made from stiff fabrics which extended from above the ankle to cover the top of the shoe were worn by wealthy gentlemen. White spats with highly polished (often patent leather) shoes, top hat and cane became a stereo typical dress of the Stage door Johnnies.
During the First World War spats were used on servicemens’ footwear to provide warmth and waterproofing in the trenches. Later these became part of formal uniform and were ceremonial white. After the war, Spectators replaced Spats and by the 20s, the “English Style” was at its most classic and emphasised high quality clothing which fitted perfectly to flatter. The new movie industry meant millions of people would observe the fashionista for the first time.
Male dress was still considered conservative but had touches of high fashion including wing tips. The wing tip or toe cap was an integral part of the shoe design and came in a variety of shapes including diamond, moccasin toe box, U and V tips, Wing and short wing styles. Spectators were popular among film stars, jazz musicians, and Ivy League students.
New dance crazes, came and went, but shoes needed to be able to stay close to the foot for support especially with the dance marathons which came in the 30s. The sporting oxford presented an ideal style for men and all the more fashionable when made in ‘two tone’ leathers.
The fashion also coincided with a time when African American music was being enjoyed by white audiences. Soon fringed tongues appeared on Oxford shoes which were equally at home when worn to the Speakeasy or golf links.
The Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (1894 –1972) was a trend setter in male fashion then and was often seen playing golf in his plus fours and spectator Oxfords. At the time the shoe was sometimes called the "co-respondent," the origins of which may refer to the relationship between Edward and Mrs Simpson as opposed to the two colour make up of the shoe.
The style became more popular and by the 30s had passed into general fashion, worn by men and women. Stacy Adams created some of the most spectacular styles in the 30s including the classic ‘Dayton Spectator.’ It took Hollywood to glamorise the shoe for a wider audience. Film stars during the Great Depression became the fashion icons of the Age and when audiences say them on the screen wearing two tone shoes they became the must have shoes.
After the Second World War, Coco Chanel inspired by men’s leisure shoes introduced spectator two-toned heels in 1957 but there were supplanted by sling-back, sandals, and thinner pumps.
Spectators remain a perennial favourite in spring and summer high fashion especially when the polka dot and black-and-white, red-and-white, navy-and-white, etc. combination dress ensembles are in vogue.
Cox C., 2012 Shoe innovations: A visual celebration of 60 styles Firefly Books pp159-161 | <urn:uuid:2d6fae5b-c1fb-49f0-8959-cb9be978d239> | {
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Ice Age predators don’t exactly evoke images of the sandy vistas of Southern Nevada, but a UNLV research team recently discovered the remains of one of the period's deadliest mammals northwest of Las Vegas: the Dire Wolf. Fossil remains have been found throughout the continental United States and even parts of South America, but this is the first evidence to place the Dire Wolf in Nevada. Known for its high density of Ice Age fossils, Tule Springs gives geologists a good picture of what early Sin City inhabitants might have looked like.
The Dire Wolf’s larger bone set indicates a broader and stockier animal than their evolutionary cousins, the modern Gray Wolf. As such, the now extinct predator enjoys a reputation as the largest canid to ever stalk the earth with a diet that included Ice Age megafauna, enourmous creatures such as the mastodon and the giant ground sloth. Today, the American Alsatian, a breed of German Shephard, most closely resembles the Dire Wolf, specifically bred for that purpose with the input and expertise of paleontologists and geneticists, although the project uses no wolf or wolf-crosses in breeding.
Of course, this picture can sometimes be difficult to develop. The Dire Wolf roamed the lands for more than a million years before suddenly and mysteriously vanishing approximately 10,000 years ago. Because no direct descendants of the Dire Wolf exist, researchers must speculate about physical traits and behavior, but fossil evidence suggests they were a social animal, running in packs of 30 or more and even caring for their wounded. Most puzzling, however, is precisely why Dire Wolves disappeared while the Gray Wolf survives to this day. Though the answer is elusive, scientists have filled in one more piece of the Pleistocene puzzle. | <urn:uuid:7728652e-03c8-4d7b-bd39-14d57351d69c> | {
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Elk Management and Restoration
Since the 1990’s, public interest to restore elk in Virginia has increased. In response to this public interest and neighboring states which have undertaken elk restoration programs, the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries directed the Executive Director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) to create an operational plan for elk restoration and management in Virginia. This plan addresses the potential for elk restoration and management in Virginia through consideration of biological, sociological, economic, and environmental issues.
Elk were historically found throughout eastern North America, including Virginia. However, factors such as habitat loss and unregulated hunting caused elk to become extirpated within eastern North America by the late 1800s. Attempts at elk restoration in eastern states during the early to mid-1900’s often failed due to a lack of suitable habitat and knowledge of elk ecology. Of the 10 eastern states attempting elk restoration during this time, only Pennsylvania and Michigan were able to maintain elk populations. In 1916, the newly-created Virginia Game Commission authorized the importation and release of elk in 11 counties in Virginia, but most releases quickly failed. By 1926, only 2 small elk herds remained: one in the mountains of Giles and Bland counties and one in Botetourt County near Buchanan. Elk hunting seasons were held irregularly from 1922 – 1960, but by 1970, elk once again were gone from Virginia. Factors such as disease, unsustainable harvest levels, removal of crop-depredating elk, and isolation of small, unsustainable herds on limited ranges contributed to the elk’s demise. Currently, an unknown number of elk occur in Virginia having moved in to the state following their release in Kentucky during the late 1990’s. Initial attempts to capture and return elk to Kentucky proved impractical so an elk hunting season was approved to keep elk from becoming established in Virginia.
Restoring and maintaining elk populations provides ecological, social, and economic benefits. Hunting and wildlife viewing annually generate millions of dollars to local and state economies. In Virginia, hunting and wildlife viewing activities were estimated to have had a $1.4 billion impact on Virginia’s economy during 2006. Further, elk may play a significant role in maintaining early successional habitat conditions which have been in decline over the past several decades. Elk generate some concerns due to the potential for damage, nuisance behavior, and disease transmission. Agricultural damage may be related to foraging and trampling of crops, destruction of fences, and competition for hay or pasturage. Other types of damage or nuisance activity include browsing or antler rubbing on timber resources, vehicle collisions, residential damage and habituation to humans. Important wildlife and livestock diseases may be carried and transmitted by elk including Chronic Wasting Disease, Brucellosis, and Bovine Tuberculosis, necessitating careful disease testing and monitoring during restoration efforts.
The area under consideration for possible elk restoration included Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties within the Cumberland Plateau (i.e., Coalfields) and Lee, Russell, Scott, and Tazewell counties in the Valley and Ridge province. While these two physiographic provinces are similar in some ways, differences in topography, geology and vegetative cover are significant. The Cumberland Plateau is rugged and the extraction of mineral resources has altered the landscape. The Valley and Ridge is characterized by long parallel ridges separated by corresponding river valleys. These wider valleys and floodplains are better suited for agriculture. According to the 2007 USDA agricultural census, the 3 Coalfield counties contain a combined 45,842 acres of farmland, much lower than the Virginia average of 82,693 acres per county. However, the counties of Lee, Russell, Scott, and Tazewell contain an average of 144,222 acres of farmland, nearly 10 times that of the coalfield counties. The prevailing agricultural land use of the Valley and Ridge counties precludes their management for elk due to potential damage to agricultural property. The Coalfield counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, and Wise offer the best potential for elk restoration in Virginia as habitats associated with surface mining can provide suitable elk habitat while minimizing impacts to agricultural lands.
At its August 17, 2010 meeting, the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries approved a motion where VDGIF would establish a pilot program for the reintroduction of elk by stocking not more than 75 elk in Buchanan County only. The goal would be to have an elk herd not to exceed 400 animals. The elk management area would include Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties where elk hunting would be prohibited. Hunting of elk would begin in Buchanan County within 4 years of the last elk stocking. A reserve of 20% of elk hunting tags would be held back for hunters or applicants from Buchanan County. VDGIF would organize and coordinate activities of a damage response team made up of representatives from the management area, local chapter of RMEF and DGIF, with a goal to respond to damage calls within 24 hours.
Active restoration options offer the best alternatives to achieve recreational and economic benefits associated with elk populations. However, public awareness and support of active elk restoration management efforts are vital to a successful elk restoration program. Elk management issues such as regulation of hunting and hunter access, provisions for suitable habitat, opportunities for elk viewing, and mitigation of damage/nuisance issues will require careful attention to public attitudes and interest. Emphasis should be placed on obtaining public input and educating citizens on elk ecology and management issues. These education and outreach efforts should be sustainable in order to continually address public interest as well as emerging elk management issues. | <urn:uuid:480e0350-6a30-49a7-8f8a-f997b73470b5> | {
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Battle of Trincomalee
Following the battle off Negapatam, Hughes had spent two weeks at see before putting into Madras for repairs.
There he was joined by Sceptre and San Carlos. Notified by one his scouts that the French were anchored outside Trincomalee, Hughes lifted anchor and made haste to come to the garrison's aid, but arrived one day too late.
Suffren, now safe within the harbor, held council with his captains. Some of them, led by his second-in-command, had persistently opposed offensive actions against the British, and vigorously renewed their objections to the need for combat. Suffren, after confirming that his fleet outnumbered that of Hughes, argued in favor of action, as the destruction of the British fleet would greatly simplify land operations in pursuit of objectives of the French and their Mysorean allies. He accordingly gave orders to sail out and meet the British fleet.
When they exited the harbor Suffren gave the signal to form the battle line. This command, even after being repeated several times, was poorly executed by his recalcitrant subordinates, and only a ragged line was arranged. Frustrated by this insubordination, Suffren then gave orders to hold fire until close quarters, and tried to communicate this by firing a gun from his flagship, Héros. This shot was misinterpreted by his captains as an order to open fire, and the whole line opened fire on the British fleet, beginning the action.
The heaviest action was at the center of the lines, where Suffren and Hughes again faced off against each other. Héros was assisted by Illustre and Ajax, while Hughes, leading from Superb, was assisted by Burford, Sultan, Eagle, Hero, and Monarca. This lopsided conflict went on for about one hour before Suffren signaled for assistance. St. Michel and Annibal, commanded by insubordinate captains, stayed away, while Brillant eventually neared the action and gave some assistance. Thirty minutes later Ajax was forced to withdraw with heavy damage, and was replaced by Artésien. An hour later the situation became critical when Héros' mainmast came crashing down, and Suffren was forced to scramble to make sure the British did not think that he had struck his colors. He had also run out of ammunition, having fired 1,800 rounds at the British ships, and continued to fire powder alone in an attempt to fool the enemy.
Battle on the ends of the line went more in favor of the French. Isis, Worcester, and Monmouth were badly damaged, and Exeter, whose captain was killed in the action, was disabled.
At 5:30 pm, after about three hours of battle, the winds suddenly shifted to the advantage of the French fleet. The ships on the outer ends of their line, which had seen relatively light action, were able to bear on the battle at the center, bringing a new intensity to the battle. Hero lost her mainmast and mizzenmast, and Worcester lost her main topmast. A number of British ships were disabled before night fell, and darkness ended the battle.
The worldwide implications of the American War for Independence are made clear on this day in history as the American-allied French navy begins a 14-month-long series of five battles with the British navy in the Indian Ocean.
Between February 17, 1782, and September 3, 1782, French Admiral Pierre Andre de Suffren de Saint-Tropez, otherwise known as Bailli de Suffren, and British Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, commander in chief in the East Indies, engaged in four major battles in the Indian Ocean region: the Battle of Sadras on February 17, the Battle of Providien on April 12, the Battle of Negapatam on July 6 and the Battle of Trincomalee on September 3. The French attacked British possessions on the Indian coast and in Ceylon as part of the world war spawned by the American Revolution. Although Suffren failed to take any of Hughes’ ships, he managed to prevent Hughes from taking any of his own fleet. This alone was a significant improvement in French performance when pitted against the legendary British navy. The fifth and final encounter of the two fleets—the Battle of Cuddalore on April 20, 1783--forced Hughes to leave for Madras, just before Suffren learned of the Treaty of Paris and returned to France.
En route home at the Cape of Good Hope, Suffren received compliments on his strategy from the English captains he had opposed in East India. Napoleon, too, had a high opinion of Suffren, commenting that he would have become France’s Lord Nelson, had he survived. Instead, he died suddenly in France on December 8, 1788, of either a stroke or wounds from a duel.
Hughes also profited from the East India campaign. He returned to Britain extremely wealthy from the various prizes and perquisites he won in the Indies and had his portrait painted in full naval splendor by the renowned Sir Joshua Reynolds. | <urn:uuid:dab759ee-dc31-45ef-a15a-7118d9c81091> | {
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You use it everyday, hopefully twice, but do you know how toothpaste works? In another installment of our Reactions Q and A series, we talk about what gets your chompers clean. Plus, many of you have asked what we look like, and what we do around here, so we answer that question too! Thanks for subscribing and keep the questions coming in the comments.
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Darcy Gentleman, Ph.D.
Tagged under: Reactions,American Chemical Society,Chemistry,acs,acsreactions, toothpaste work?, toothpaste?, reactions?, acs reactions?,dental hygeine, toothpaste clean teeth?,work, mouthwash works, , ,&, , neosporin work, mouthwash
Clip makes it super easy to turn any public video into a formative assessment activity in your classroom.
Add multiple choice quizzes, questions and browse hundreds of approved, video lesson ideas for Clip
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Turn any public video into a live chat with questions and quizzes | <urn:uuid:11f93db1-2c25-4150-85f1-9b42c8db169b> | {
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The Mushroom is neither a plant nor an animal, but the fruiting body of a fungus that often grows in damp and dark conditions, but also appears in grassland and woodland areas. It is too high in protein to feed to most tortoises, although some species, including Redfoots, Yellowfoots, Box Turtles, Wood Turtles and others can have mushrooms and other edible fungi as part of their diet, so ensure that your tortoise is one of those species before feeding.
Unless you have expertise in identifying fungi, you should only feed store-bought mushrooms, as there are many highly poisonous mushrooms and toadstools that look very similar to edible ones. It is important to note that scientists estimate there are several million species of fungi in the world (although fewer than 100,000 of these have been described), and also that many of the botanic families of fungi contain both edible and toxic species.
Some of the more common edible Mushrooms include:
(Button/Chestnut/Portobello Mushroom), Agaricus campestris
(Field Mushroom), Lycoperdon perlatum
(Puffball), Cantharellus cibarius
(Chanterelle), Boletus edulis
(Cep/Porcini), Clitocybe nuda
(Wood Blewit/Blue Stalk), Macrolepiota procera
(Parasol), Lentinula edodes
(Shiitake), Pleurotus ostreatus
(Oyster), and other types known to be edible. See also Toadstool | <urn:uuid:67fc9df5-e7cd-4ebb-a1fe-d1df17e5852f> | {
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HCPSS, students and community joined together to ensure that Howard County schools and communities are bully-free zones. Read more in this press release.
We recognize that creating a safe learning environment is a critical part of helping each child achieve academic success. Incidences of bullying may be reported using the printable form below or through HCPSS Sprigeo, an online reporting system.
Report via printable reporting form
Completed forms should be submitted to an administrator in person, by mail or electronically by e-mail. The administrator will investigate within 2 school days of receiving the form and implement corrective actions as outlined on the BHI Incident School Investigation Form and the Student Code of Conduct.
Report online through HCPSS Sprigeo
HCPSS uses Sprigeo, an online form to report bullying and other unsafe behaviors. Incidences that have happened to you or that you have witnessed can be reported anytime and anywhere using the Sprigeo reporting system. The intention of this reporting system is to create an ease of access for reporting bullying and to allow families to report these incidences that occur throughout the school system.
All information sent through the Sprigeo system goes directly to selected central office staff who will then send the report to our administrators through a secure online connection.
- To report incidences, visit: http://report.sprigeo.com.
How does the Sprigeo system work?
Students can access the form online. After completing the reporting form and clicking the “submit” button, the report details are sent in a secure email to selected central office staff who will then send the report to our administrators through a secure online connection. Over 90% of students include their name when using the Sprigeo system. However, reports can be made anonymously.
Does the school system receive false reports?
Over 95% of reports sent through the Sprigeo system have been confirmed as authentic requests for help with a bullying incident or school safety incident. Unlike text messages or Facebook posts that can be shared among students, all Sprigeo reports are viewable only by selected central office staff and school administrators, minimizing the impact one student has to falsely accuse or abuse another student.
Why is there a need for an online reporting system?
The number one reason why children do not report bullying or abuse is the fear of retaliation from their peers. The Sprigeo reporting form can be accessed from the privacy of a home computer or other internet equipped device, eliminating the possibility of being identified by another student. | <urn:uuid:415357cf-409d-460b-9742-b83c851c5ee0> | {
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Chemistry ExperimentsPaperback - 2005
Kids can create their own chemistry lab right at home, with the most ordinary equipment and this brightly illustrated collection of fun experiments. Could you ever imagine that whipping up some sweet maple candy could teach you about science? It does! Or try to put a banana in a jar without using your hands. Some of the projects even have practical uses: as you're learning about negative- and positive- charged molecules, you're also creating marbleized gift wrap. From "berry easy" litmus paper to exothermic exercises, these experiments will transform you into a chemistry whiz.
Uniform Title: Simple chemistry experiments with everyday materials
Publisher: New York : Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., c2005.
Branch Call Number: 540.78
Characteristics: 128 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. | <urn:uuid:f14a84b5-1ce1-4bb4-aba3-29eb192382ab> | {
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Jewish Divorce 101
Although the rabbis accepted that some marriages had to end, they did so with great regret and insisted that attempts at reconciliation precede a divorce. The rabbis' emotional qualms about divorce are well expressed in a saying of Rabbi Eleazar: "One who divorces his wife, even the very altar sheds tears because of him" (Tractate Gittin 90b in the Babylonian Talmud).
History & Development of Divorce
The history of Jewish divorce is an ongoing attempt to rectify the biblically mandated imbalance of power in Jewish marriage--where the husband has the exclusive right to end a marriage. However, even the Torah, which allowed the husband to send his wife away for a severe breach of loyalty, qualified the husband's absolute prerogative to grant a divorce: He had to write her a formal bill of divorce and pay a form of alimony; and in certain specified situations, he could never divorce his wife.
The rabbis placed additional limitations on the husband that somewhat improved the wife's situation. They enlarged the number of cases where divorce was prohibited, increased the complexity of the divorce process, required the wife's consent to a divorce; and expanded the husband's financial responsibilities toward a divorced wife by placing a lien on his property to be paid in case of divorce.
Although the Talmud required that the get (bill of divorce) be granted with the husband's "full consent," the rabbis specified circumstances under which a wife could request that the beit din, or rabbinic court, attempt to "compel" the husband to grant a divorce, for example, if he did not fulfill his marital obligations. If a wife does not receive a get, she becomes an agunah, or chained wife, who cannot remarry.
Liturgy, Ritual, & Custom
The divorce ritual itself is straightforward. The couple appears before a beit din, and the husband authorizes a sofer (scribe) to write a get in the presence of two witnesses. The husband then drops the get into the wife's hands, declaring that she is free to remarry. The rabbi tears the four corners of the get so it cannot be reused, files it, and grants both husband and wife documents of release. This procedure is always adhered to by the Conservative and Orthodox movements and a form of it is used by the Reconstructionist, and sometimes the Reform, movements.
If a husband expects to face a situation of mortal danger, he may grant his wife a conditional get that will take effect only if he does not return in a specified period of time, thereby preventing his wife from becoming an agunah.
Contemporary Issues in Jewish Divorce
Contemporary Jews from all the movements have responded to the inequities in Jewish divorce law that have created the tragedy of the agunah. Some have created civil remedies through the secular legal system, but these can be problematic. Religious attempts to save the agunah include urging couples to sign halakhic prenuptial agreements that encourage the husband to grant a get or having a rabbinic court annul a marriage. Both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, troubled greatly by the situation of the agunah, accept civil divorce as fully dissolving a marriage. In Israel, the matter of divorce is handled exclusively by the Rabbinical courts and a woman seeking divorce is subject to their decision-making.
Did you like this article? MyJewishLearning is a not-for-profit organization. | <urn:uuid:ab127975-2cea-43fe-ac5f-ea9c8bac4457> | {
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Current theories describe learning with regards to cognitive or associative mechanisms. These results offer an empirical demo that cognitive and associative learning systems functionally co-exist and interact to modify behavior. A good rule to sell a product for a considerable period of time is to create a recognizable pattern for the brand and stick to it. Today a reddish can having a white wave shouts the name of a famous soft drink to billions of people and two golden arches invariably make one think of hamburgers and French fries. Although definitely not aware of the neural systems involved the advertising industry is definitely alert to the solid associative powers from the mind. Colour patterns for instance are recognized to convey Tubacin details that automatically identifies a brand’s name rendering it easily recognizable1 2 Actually because it was theorized that pets might learn immediately3 curiosity about implicit types of learning provides flourished. Associative learning is often described as a kind of learning that occurs whenever a romantic relationship is discovered between certain components in the organism’s environment (like a cue and an final result) or between a stimulus and confirmed behaviour. Within this watch previously experienced stimuli activate the info with that they have already been associated readily. This type of automatic mechanism is actually advantageous Computationally. For example regarding visual conception stimuli that are considered to become constant do not need to be repeatedly prepared hence reducing the brain’s workload. Likewise making predictions predicated on prior knowledge sharpens perceptual skills: regarding ambiguous inputs details gained in prior encounters can offer useful cues4. Even more usually the mind is private to regularities in the exterior globe extremely. This capability emerges early in the advancement with newborns as youthful as 90 days old participating in possibility matching to increase their likelihood of discovering a focus on5. Aside from the tendency to get for patterns in exterior events is indeed deeply rooted in human brain functioning that folks report having discovered regularities in properly arbitrary sequences6 or suppose the life of patterns even though this presumption adversely affects their options7 8 Along these lines it’s been recommended that some “affective label” is established between details that may be forecasted and an optimistic reward9. Namely people seem to in fact “choose” predictable details. In a recently available study10 participants performed a visual search task in which target location could become/could not become expected by the position of the offered distractors. Interestingly when asked about Tubacin goodness of the displays participants desired the (easier) predictive ones. More directly inside a controlled study Trapp and co-workers shown that people attribute a positive value to associative info compared to info that has no or fragile associations even when no apparent benefit emerges9. As properly stated by these authors “the predictive mind likes items that promote predictions” (p.10). With this look at associative info can be very easily described as a precursor of predictive processes in that it minimizes surprise and allows speeding up analysis of incoming inputs. An interesting aspect of these experiments is that participants are usually unaware of the reasons why Tubacin they select (or prefer) a given item. In fact when associative learning is known as conscious knowing of the root link or guideline Rabbit polyclonal to ARHGDIA. is deemed needless and learning is normally assumed to move forward entirely unaware. For example in the serial response period (SRT) job11 12 individuals press a key in response to a visible target that shows up in another of four feasible places. Unbeknownst to them purchase of target display follows an accurate (but concealed) guideline. By the finish of the duty participants Tubacin cannot survey whether a series exists in focus on presentation. Even so their response situations show which the rule provides Tubacin actually been learnt. An identical design is available when regularities involve the temporal association between two visible occasions: although individuals remain unacquainted with it different attentional functions are selectively used based on the discovered contingencies13 recommending that conscious conception of regularities in the surroundings is not essential for the mind to identify (and apply) them. Alongside the top body of proof towards types of implicit learning a genuine variety of cognitive. | <urn:uuid:37be8f63-6f27-4646-89a2-3c3eee5a2d51> | {
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Good soils are deep, but covered with a rich layer of decaying organic matter, and simultaneously moist, but capable of draining quickly. Soil should also consist of fine grains, but have plenty of structure, which allows large air spaces to form in the soil. These air pockets are vital for allowing the roots of plants and trees to obtain the oxygen they need.Continue Reading
Rather than being a collection of dead, mineral-based material, good soil has an entire community of microorganisms living inside, recycling the nutrients present in the organic matter. The fresher the soil is, the better, as soils that have been fertilized heavily or have already been used to grow several generations of crops are likely to be rather sterile. It will take some time and the addition of considerable amounts of organic matter to replenish the microbial community and proper nutrient balance in the soil.
The United States, Canada and many other countries at temperate latitudes have excellent soil. Some places, such as New Zealand, have very little land area with high quality soil. In such places, the local citizens and governments must decide what types of activities, such as agriculture or residential development, should take place on high-quality soils.Learn more about Geology | <urn:uuid:4b16a114-4f5a-4ca4-bfcc-a7bd7071f2e2> | {
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Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 341) was the most significant of the early historians of the church. His Ecclesiastical History was a chronicle of Christianity from Jesus to Constantine’s success in taking over the Roman Empire. Eusebius himself played a role in the most significant event of Christianity in the fourth century. As the bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius was one of the leaders of the semi-Arian party. He wrote about the events of his own day in his Life of Constantine. As historian and participant, Eusebius was vital to the transition of the Christian church from proscribed sect to dominant religion.
Biography & Theology
Eusebius first appears in the historical record as a disciple of Pamphilius in Caesarea in Palestine, sometime around the beginning of the fourth century. Pamphilius taught in a school founded by Origen, with a library attached. Both Pamphilius and Eusebius were engaged in copying the Scriptures and in editing the Septuagint. Beginning in 303 the Roman emperor Diocletian and his colleagues initiated the most widespread and most severe persecution of the ancient church. In 307 Pamphilius was tortured and martyred two years later. Eusebius witnessed the execution of other Christians and was himself imprisoned near the end of the persecution. Unlike many Christians during that persecution Eusebius was not tortured, though there is no evidence to support the accusation later brought against him by his opponents that he had betrayed the faith. Eusebius took the name Pamphili out of dedication to his martyred teacher. Eusebius’s historical writings, in particular his adulation of Constantine, must be seen in the context of the persecutions to which Constantine brought an end.
By 315 at the latest Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea. Eusebius had not been a bishop long before the most significant controversy in the early church erupted. When Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, preached a sermon on the relationship between the Father and the Son, a priest named Arius resisted him, arguing that “there was a time when the Son was not” and that the Son “had his substance from nothing.” Alexander excommunicated Arius in 320. Christians had long debated how to define the relationship between Father and Son, but Arius and Alexander ignited the start of a schism in the church. Eusebius defended Arius in a letter to Alexander (the letter has been preserved in the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea) and participated in a synod of Syrian bishops that vindicated Arius.
To resolve the controversy over Arius’s doctrine, 318 bishops met in council at Nicaea (in Asia Minor) in A.D. 325. The Council of Nicaea introduced a definition of the Trinity in a creed and in a set of condemnations of Arius’s positions. (This creed was later expanded by the First Council of Constantinople in 381 into the form received by both the Eastern and Western churches as the Nicene creed.) Church councils were as old as the Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15 and held around A.D. 50, and local and regional councils or synods had long resolved problems during the church’s first four centuries. But Nicaea gave the worldwide church a new and vital way to establish doctrine and govern the church. The Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Protestant churches differ as to which councils they consider ecumenical and thus binding. But the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries became the spine of how the church defined itself and its teachings for all succeeding generations.
The council of Nicaea was possible only because the nominally Christian emperor Constantine summoned the bishops to resolve the Arian controversy. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity has been surrounded by legend, but his defeat of rivals for the imperial throne was accompanied by an affiliation with Christianity. In 313 Constantine and his imperial colleague Licinius agreed to tolerate Christians in an act often called the Edict of Milan. As the protector of the church, Constantine felt a right to help govern it as well. At the council Constantine held position as honorary president. Eusebius sat at his right hand and offered the opening invocation.
Three parties were present at the Council of Nicaea. On the one hand were the full-fledged Arians, represented by Arius who was frequently questioned by the council, who believed that the Son had been created and was not-preexistent. On the other hand were the proponents of the Trinitarian orthodoxy which would ultimately prevail at the council. These favored using the word consubstantial to describe the relationship of the Father and the Son. Both parties were likely minorities. The majority of the council had no decided opinion or were willing to reject Arianism but were unwilling to adopt the term consubstantial. Included in that majority was Eusebius, who was one of the leaders of the semi-Arian party. He proposed as a solution to the controversy the creed that was used in his dioceses. The creed was broadly similar to that eventually adopted. Eusebius’s proposal did not included the term consubstantial, which the council added.
Eusebius was obligated to accept the creed of Nicaea. He wrote a letter to his diocese explaining his reasons, which were an attempt to adapt Arian theology to Nicene language and Constantine’s authority (for the letter see Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 1, ch. 11). Eusebius unsuccessfully prosecuted Athanasius, a defender of Nicene orthodoxy, in synods of 334–35. In 335 Eusebius helped dedicate the basilica erected by Constantine in Jerusalem, where he nearly managed to restore Arius to communion, except that Arius suddenly died.
Eusebius died no later than 341.
Eusebius wrote dozens of works in several different genres. Many of these have been lost or survive only in fragments.
Among the works that we will not be reading are a Life of Pamphilius and a collection of accounts of martyrdoms, both lost. Several of his other minor historical works can be found embedded in his Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius also wrote apologetic works, Against Hierocles (a Roman governor who persecuted Christians) and Against Porphyry (a Neoplatonist philosopher). His Preparation of the Gospel and his Demonstration of the Gospel is an apologetic defense of Christianity against both Judaism and Greco-Roman paganism. He wrote commentaries on at least the Psalms, Isaiah, Luke, First Corinthians, and Hebrews. Eusebius drew up a lists of ten canons (or tables) of passages showing which passages were shared between the gospels. In that sense Eusebius was an early scholar of the synoptic problem, and his canon tables continue to be printed in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.
The Ecclesiastical History is as much a storehouse as a narrative. Eusebius, writing from Palestine, had access to materials which would long since have vanished except that he preserved them. The narrative takes fuller account of people and events closer to Palestine than the reader might desire, but what is remarkable is the breadth of the history rather than its constraints. Many topics of special interest appear within the pages of the Ecclesiastical History, including a description of the New Testament canon. It would be a mistake to view the History as having a single, driving narrative in the style that we have come to expect out of Western history-writing. Rather, Eusebius aimed for universal history. In the Ecclesiastical History, and especially in another work titled the Chronicle, Eusebius tried to recount every event in every place. Where the Chronicle narrated every event from creation to the present, the History narrated every event from Jesus’ birth to the rise of Constantine. Eusebius’s style of universal history (borrowed from his pagan counterparts, but set within a Christian framing of the cosmos) proved enormously influential. His immediate successors as historians of the church—Socrates Scholasticus, Salaminius Sozomenus, and Theodoret—simply carried on the tradition of chronicling events up to their own contemporaries, and the chronicle became the standard form of history writing in the Christian Middle Ages.
To the extent that Eusebius’s history-writing had an argument, it drove towards the rise of Constantine as a Christian emperor. The last book of the Ecclesiastical History ended with Constantine, and Eusebius carried the story forward in his Life of Constantine. To be sure, the book suffers from undue praise: Eusebius was not innocent of flattery or fawning. One must remember, though, that Constantine had curtailed the persecution of the church, and speaking ill of an emperor, even a dead Christian emperor, would have been imprudent under any circumstance. The Life is valuable both for its account of the emperor and its history of the council of Nicaea and the Arian controversy.
Regrettably there is no obvious standard edition of the Ecclesiastical History. The edition in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, volume 1, was translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. If you wish to read the work in Greek, you can get the Loeb edition, which includes facing translations by Kirsopp Lake and J. E. L. Oulton (volume 1, volume 2). Cheap paperback editions abound, including the Penguin edition, translated by G. A. Williamson, and the Hendrickson edition, translated by C. F. Cruse. Catholic University of America Press has two volumes of Eusebius (volume 1, volume 2) translated by Roy J. Deferrari. | <urn:uuid:70fbdd37-6af8-4c11-be9e-05b6f9ca4e2e> | {
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In this square roots worksheet, 9th graders solve and complete 50 different problems that include determining the square root of various numbers. First, they determine the square root for each number or expression. Then, students determine the length of a side of a square with each given area. They also find two consecutive whole numbers that each square root is between.
What Members Say
- Jenna H., Teacher | <urn:uuid:ff1b311c-fadd-4594-8a5f-4cb74b167c98> | {
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N positive integer problem with a + exponent
Here it is a problem that is driving me nuts...
Note: ^ means the exponent, in this case the exponent is "+".
If n is a positive integer, then n^+ denotes a number such that n < n^+ < n+1.
So decide which of the following options is greater (or if both ofthem are equal or if it is impossible to determine it).
Option A: 20^+ / 4^+
Option B: 5^+
What I did: 20^+ / 4^+ SO, (20/4)^+ , SO (5)^+ , so I concluded that both of them are equal, but the correct answer is " It canīt be determined which option is greater". Could anyone explain me why?? | <urn:uuid:ea579d75-4c40-47c5-b291-44553034c460> | {
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The moment of truth is what the Spanish called the instant where a bullfighter choose to make the final slash of his sword and it was introduced into English by Ernest Hemingway. It was this American writer that wrote the novel Death In The Afternoon, it was written in 1932. The instant the bullfighter does his last move is very crucial, it is a decisive moment for the bull and El Matador. So El momento de la verdad, or the moment of truth as it’s known in English, the phrase became associated with any big decisions.
Ernest Hemingway, was an influential writer born in Illinois, he wrote many important novels. He wrote in a distinctive style which is called the Iceberg Theory. He often never revealed the main part of the story and sidetracked a lot. | <urn:uuid:e2367e89-70e7-42e7-8bfb-84eebc6cd104> | {
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As part of the Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System, LSJ Professor Katherine Beckett and Sociology Professor Alexes Harris presented information on March 2 about racial disparities in the criminal justice system to the Washington Supreme Court in Olympia.
The task force was created after public outrage over comments made by former state Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and Justice James Johnson that African Americans are overrepresented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes.
“This upset a lot of people because there are a lot of factors that contribute to racial disproportionality,” said Beckett. “The idea was to have people come together and present findings…to show that there are many causes of racial disparities in the criminal justice system.”
The task force was convened by King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez and Professor Robert Chang, director of the Fred. T Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law. Its aim was to investigate disproportionalities in the criminal justice system and to make recommendations for changes.
The task force handed each of the justices a copy of the “Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System,” an 80-page document compiled by a number of legal professionals, researchers and librarians that documents racial disproportionalities within the criminal justice system.
During the presentations, experts spoke about the historical background and context of racial biases and barriers in our criminal justice system. They also explained how race-neutral practices and policies can lead to racial disproportionality.
“It was important for [the justices] to hear the research findings. What we’ve asked them to think about is that race can matter even if no one is purposely discriminating,” said Beckett.
During her presentation, Harris contrasted the 2005 incarceration rates for the white, Hispanic and black population in the United States with the data for Washington State.
She explained that “nationally the black/white incarceration ratio is 5.15 and in Washington State, it is 6.5.” This means that in Washington State, the black incarceration rate is 6.5 times higher than the white incarceration rate.
The graph shows that whites have an incarceration rate in the United States of 412 per 100,000 compared to 393 incarcerated in Washington State. Hispanics have an incarceration rate in the United States of 742 compared to 527 incarcerated in Washington State. Blacks have an incarceration rate in the United States of 2,290 and 2,522 incarcerated in Washington State.
The consensus among scholars at the task force was that the disparate treatment of minority groups was found all across Washington State and at all stages of the criminal justice system.
“There is a clear overrepresentation of people of color in the United States and in the Washington State criminal justice system, namely blacks, Latinos and Native Americans,” said Harris.
Although it is difficult to determine precisely what best explains this overrepresentation, Beckett outlined multiple factors at play. Race can play a role at each stage of the criminal justice process, influencing decisions to arrest, charge and sentence. Seemingly race-neutral factors, such as employment history, residential stability and “reputation,” can influence such decisions.
Even facially race-neutral practices and policies can fuel disparities. For example, Seattle police’s focus on crack cocaine may be facially race-neutral, but it is the primary cause of racial disparity in Seattle drug arrests.
“The focus on crack cocaine and the market is a facially race-neutral policy [that] is aimed at all crack users and deliverers not people of a particular color but…the decision to deemphasize other drugs including heroin, methamphetamines and other serious drugs not only produced racially disparate outcomes but was difficult to explain public health and safety terms,” said Beckett.
Another factor creating disparities is the existence of implicit and explicit bias in the criminal justice system.
In a recent study focused on judicial decisions about the assessment of fees and fines, Beckett and Harris found, after controlling for legal and demographic factors, that Latino defendants were receiving significantly greater fees and fines than other similarly situated defendants.
“The results clearly suggest that somehow ethnicity is affecting the decision making process,” said Beckett.
After the presentations, the task force had eight recommendations, including that the court commit to a series of forums on specific issues related to race in the criminal justice system, such as about juvenile justice, re-entry into society, and legal financial obligations.
The task force strongly encouraged the court to exercise leadership in the public dialogue on race within our justice system by creating or empowering an entity to address these concerns publicly.
“The consequences of these racial disparities are profound because once people are criminally convicted, it makes it difficult for them to get their life together,” said Beckett. “We are also asking [the justices] to take a leadership role in addressing some of these problems.”
Beckett explained that besides the difficulty of finding a job with a criminal record, people also have a harder time with housing and can face tax restraints, which often makes it even more challenging for them to get back on their feet.
The task force recommended that the justices support the expansion of alternative sentencing policies other than incarceration, and participate in a serious dialogue regarding the status of felons after they are released from prison and the obstacles that they face trying to re-enter into society.
The presentation was the first time that the justices have participated in a round table discussion. Beckett said that two justices told her that they were convinced and realized that the problem was more complex than they had realized.
“The task force plans to keep working on the project because it’s an ongoing process,” said Beckett. “It will be active for many years to come.”
For more information about the task force and the Korematsu Center, please visit their website.
If you would like to watch the video of the presentation on TVW, please click here.
This article was composed by Charlotte Anthony. | <urn:uuid:668df8b7-392f-41a2-ab3a-d9c3ee5fcc72> | {
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A tradition dating back to the 1940s -- bonfire pits on the beaches of southern California -- is being targeted by state officials who say the popular pastime is no longer acceptable because of global warming and negative health consequences.
"One fire pit burning one night, a few hours, a couple bundles of wood, emits as much as one average diesel truck on the road today driving over 500 miles," said Dr. Philip Fine, of the Southern California Air Quality Management District (AQMD).
AQMD staff recommended banning open fires at the beach and removing the hundreds of concrete fire pits that stretch from San Diego to Los Angeles.
The proposal drew fire from beachgoers, who often show up early in the morning to reserve a spot.
"I would be super bummed if they banned bonfires on the beach because it's such a California thing," said Los Angeles resident Liz Corona. "It's such a fun, social thing to do with friends. And, um, I feel like it's not really doing any harm, so why would they ban them?"
Local regulators may be easing off the proposal, and plan to vote on a compromise shortly.
But to the air quality police, the harm is evident. Air quality monitors miles from the beach pick up tiny particulates and carcinogens from burning wood that damage health.
"There's a lot of studies that definitely show that wood smoke, as well as just particulate matter in general, are very harmful to health," Fine said. "There's people living very close to these fire pits who tell us that they have smoke in their house, that they have respiratory problems, and this causes them to aggravate those respiratory problems."
Initially, many thought the rules would go through without much opposition. Beachgoers are not an especially vocal or organized lobby. Leaf-blowers and gas-powered weed wackers cause far more air pollution than beach bonfires, but California chose not to regulate them after Hispanic lawmakers protested on behalf of landscapers.
"We're just out here, having fun, hanging out, not doing anything bad," said Cristi Valencia, as she put another hot dog on the fire at Dockweiler Beach in Playa del Rey, Calif. "There's so many other ways we can protect the environment, this just doesn't seem like a very good one."
After some county supervisors in Los Angeles and Orange County protested, the AQMD backed off a bit. Under a compromise, only those pits within 700 feet of a home must be removed. And fires would be permitted unless the region's air quality is already considered unhealthful.
The AQMD board is expected to vote on the compromise recommendation Friday.
William La Jeunesse joined FOX News Channel (FNC) in March 1998 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based correspondent. | <urn:uuid:1c4c6462-952d-4502-8991-9726f77e5fe2> | {
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Texas author Sherry Garland, who writes history books for young readers, has written "Voices of the Dust Bowl" (Pelican, $16.99 hardcover) about what she calls "the largest environmental catastrophe in American history."
The prolonged drought from 1931 to 1940 affected the Texas Panhandle, as well as parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
"Millions of tons of topsoil were blown away in immense dust storms," Garland writes. "Thousands of farmers lost their livelihood, their livestock, and their homes."
Garland points out that the drought was not the only cause of the tragedy. "It was a man-made disaster that took years to develop," she says.
She tells the Dust Bowl story in the voices of a variety of people, going back to an Indian warrior in 1893 mourning the loss of the buffalo that had roamed the plains before white settlers arrived.
A nervous banker in 1930 has to leave through the back door of the bank because angry farmers are "demanding I give them money that the bank no longer has" following the stock market crash of October 1929.
"Nobody loves a bank," says Bonnie Parker, shown with her bank robber boyfriend Clyde Barrow, as they look for another bank to hit. "No wonder folks around here cheer us on when we pass by."
A Nebraska farmer's wife laments, "Every meal I cook is full of grit; every piece of furniture, every inch of floor in our old dwelling is covered in dust."
A nurse in Kansas tells about patients afflicted with "dust pneumonia." "Every day I see mothers tend their dying babes," she says, "helplessly watching the small bodies struggle for air, cough up dirt and blood, then go still."
A hobo in the Texas Panhandle rides the rails looking for work: "The train passes through one miserable town after another — once thriving communities that are now ghost towns buried in dust."
Hugh Hammond Bennett, director of the Soil Conservation Agency, said he tried for years to get the U.S. government to encourage farmers to use anti-erosion measures, but nobody paid much attention until the Dust Bowl blew in.
Finally, he prevailed: "Farmers were shown a better way to till the ground. They were encouraged to plant native grasses in the fallow fields to fight the blowing wind." By the end of 1938, soil erosion had been reduced by 65 percent.
Even though the drought ended in 1940, Garland writes, "even today much of the earth has not recovered. The Dust Bowl remains one of the most tragic episodes in American history."
"Voices of the Dust Bowl" poignantly tells the story of the disaster, vividly illustrated by Judith Hierstein. Perhaps it will prompt children to ask great-grandparents, now in their eighties or nineties, about their experiences during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.
Garland has another children's book coming this fall, "Voices from Pearl Harbor." The publicist at Pelican Publishing described it as "very powerful." It should be available in October.
Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:9cb66f09-db66-4c5f-b213-98ba7fe20883> | {
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Why reduce health inequalities?
- aDepartment of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine, PO Box 7343 Wellington South, New Zealand, bDepartment of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA
- Professor Woodward ( )
- Accepted 12 July 2000
It is well known that social, cultural and economic factors cause substantial inequalities in health. Should we strive to achieve a more even share of good health, beyond improving the average health status of the population? We examine four arguments for the reduction of health inequalities.
1 Inequalities are unfair.
Inequalities in health are undesirable to the extent that they are unfair, or unjust. Distinguishing between health inequalities and health inequities can be contentious. Our view is that inequalities become “unfair” when poor health is itself the consequence of an unjust distribution of the underlying social determinants of health (for example, unequal opportunities in education or employment).
2 Inequalities affect everyone.
Conditions that lead to marked health disparities are detrimental to all members of society. Some types of health inequalities have obvious spillover effects on the rest of society, for example, the spread of infectious diseases, the consequences of alcohol and drug misuse, or the occurrence of violence and crime.
3 Inequalities are avoidable.
Disparities in health are avoidable to the extent that they stem from identifiable policy options exercised by governments, such as tax policy, regulation of business and labour, welfare benefits and health care funding. It follows that health inequalities are, in principle, amenable to policy interventions. A government that cares about improving the health of the population ought therefore to incorporate considerations of the health impact of alternative options in its policy setting process.
3 Interventions to reduce health inequalities are cost effective.
Public health programmes that reduce health inequalities can also be cost effective. The case can be made to give priority to such programmes (for example, improving access to cervical cancer screening in low income women) on efficiency grounds. On the other hand, few programmes designed to reduce health inequalities have been formally evaluated using cost effectiveness analysis.
We conclude that fairness is likely to be the most influential argument in favour of acting to reduce disparities in health, but the concept of equity is contested and susceptible to different interpretations. There is persuasive evidence for some outcomes that reducing inequalities will diminish “spill over” effects on the health of society at large. In principle, you would expect that differences in health status that are not biologically determined are avoidable. However, the mechanisms giving rise to inequalities are still imperfectly understood, and evidence remains to be gathered on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce such inequalities.
Funding: this work was funded by the National Health Committee of New Zealand, and appeared in an earlier form as a special report to the Committee (Woodward A, Kawachi I. Why should we reduce inequalities? National Health Committee: Health Determinants Programme Background Paper 2. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Health 1998).
Conflicts of interest: none. | <urn:uuid:e9861cac-58e2-4440-87f6-0c33e99b3f8e> | {
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A Genealogical Table of the Horse and Pictures of Horsemen Dating
Back 5,000 Years
Director, Institute of Animal Research, Vienna, Austria...
Here is an excerpt from the above -
to V. Scheil this seal in association with the as yet unexplained signs accompanying it, is an enumeration of horses. If, however, we examine this seal (Figure 6) we discern the following significant facts:
1. The horse-heads are situated in four horizontal rows.
2. The horses are of three categories as regards their manes: upright manes, pendant manes, and without manes.
3. If we examine the location of these three types we find that the three categories have a symmetrical arrangement with reference to the main diagonal.
4. It is remarkable that all the heads with pendant manes have a special symbol to the right of them. See the upper row. The head to the extreme right has by it a symbol which resembles a barred window. In the second row the same, at the left. In the third row the middle head from the left has by it a sign of three teeth on the smaller side of the rectangle. Beneath this four teeth. Note in the fourth row, first head on the left, a sign which today is universally used in biology to indicate "female." In this latter case it is remarkable that the symbol is engraved
upside down. In the same row the third head from the center is accompanied by a sign which could easily be held to be a carriage with two horses.
5. The heads with upright manes in my opinion represent wild stallions, those with pendant manes, tame animals and those without manes, mares.
6. It is held by Professor Scheil that the maneless heads are those of colts. That this is not the case is proved to my satisfaction by the fact that some of the maneless heads as the first in the top row and the second in the second row and the third in the third row are pictured of far too coarse and too powerful a build to be mistaken for colts. (The diagonal arrangement of the heads may be also worthy of note).
On the other hand we discover in contrast that some very delicate heads such as the fourth in the first row and (he fourth in the third row are definitely maned. There are manes of different character, pendant and upright. An analysis of the head forms is very significant to modern hippology. Wecan note the following facts:
a. A definitely ramlike profile of head (head 1, row 1).
b. A ramlike profile only in the nose region (head 2, row 1; heads 2 and 3, row 3).
c. Perfectly straight profile (all heads of row 2).
d. Concave profile of Arabian type combined with graceful slender head (third and fourth head, row 1; fourth head, row 3; fourth head, row 4).
e. In addition to these definite differences of the profile line the size of head in respect of the entire length and depth is interesting:
Long and deep (head 2, row 2).
Medium long and deep (head 2, row 4).
Short and deep (head 2 and 3), row 4).
Long and slender (head 3, row 1). Connected with Arabian profile.
Medium long and slender (head 4, row 3).
All the above mentioned differences are regarded not as merely accidental differences of a mechanical or conventional nature but as studied reproductions of differences actually observed in the living animal. The head forms represented in this ancient seal are of types that today may be observed in the different races of horses. I need only note the existence in the Kladruber breed of a strongly ram profile and in the
Arabian horse of a concave, fine cut head to demonstrate that the differences recorded five thousand years ago in Elam exist still today. Intermediate shapes can also easily be found. Furthermore these characteristics are familiar to the practical breeder and are known to be definitely hereditary. The dominant inheritance of some of these characteristics is so strong that they are recognized as "prepotent" in
inheritance as type of head has been observed to be and passed on for many generations. These head types are undoubtedly inherited as mendelian characters in the horse in nature. Anyone of these forms may become typical of a few animals, of families, or of a
whole stable or artificial race through the agency of human selection. It is a matter of no little interest to breeders and geneticists that on this seal from Susa, whose age must be fully fifty centuries, are shown all the profile types of horses existing today This ancient Elamitic testimony regarding the horses existing at that time permits the conclusion that in Elam several original types and races of horses were then used. The horse heads are reproduced with wide, thick and plump, or with fine and aristocratic lines. There is no other alternative
open than to classify the thick-set type with the Przewalsky • horse (Equus prsnvalsky Poljakoff), and the slender form with the Tarpan (Equus gmelini Antonius). It is the considered opinion of the author that the early, heavy type of horse of western Europe is to be traced
as a direct descendant of the Przewalsky type of wild horse. The heavy Persian horses are not to be considered as importations from Europe in prehistoric times but are the result of breeding native central Asiatic stock, which reached Iran with the Turanian invasions at an early time. The antiquity of this arrival of the horse cannot be determined but must have been very great. The more aristocratic type of
horse was native in the highlands of Iran and the plains of northern Central Asia.
The early Sumerian and Elamitic civilizations, according to unequivocal testimony which is today available, knew and used the horse. It is the
opinion of the author that "seal 105F" which has been discussed above is not as Scheil believes, an enumeration of horses but is a genealogical table of individual horses used for breeding in an old Elamitic stable. If this view is correct, and I believe that any breeder of
animals will admit the high probability that this is so, this discovery is the oldest known genealogical table known at the present time. | <urn:uuid:202bbe3c-7de2-4ad2-8f82-38af12a4c7a8> | {
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