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An illustration of honeybees swarming from the front cover of Thomas Seeley's book Honeybee Democracy
Don't worry, I'm not about to suggest how you should vote if you're still to visit the polling station on your way home tonight. With tensions running high on this election day, it's worth remembering that we're not the only species who have to work together to make decisions for the benefit of the group.
Professor Thomas Seeley of Cornell University has spent his life studying honeybees, his book "Honeybee Democracy" describes his research into how these fascinating insects make decisions collectively and democratically when looking for a new home to move to, during swarming season. He finishes his book with some thoughts on how we humans might learn from their ways. As Seeley points out, honeybees have been working as a colony for over 30 million years so they must be getting something right! And he's even tried his ideas out on his colleagues at Cornell, when he was head of department.
Our parliament is based on the idea that many minds are better than one for making big decisions, as is the process of decision making amongst the sub-section of honeybees in the colony known as scout bees. Thomas Seeley has come up with 5 lessons on democracy from the honeybees:
Lesson 1: The individuals in the decision-making group should have shared interests and mutual respect
Honeybees have a strong common interest in working together and making collective decisions, as Seeley writes: "Biologists now understand that the genetic success of each worker bee in a honeybee colony depends on the fate of the entire colony; no individual bee succeeds unless the whole colony survives and reproduces."
Unlike honeybees, we're not reliant on only our queen having children to continue our society, so our focus is somewhat different. However, time spent building common ground and fostering mutual respect in our communities can help to ease the way for collective decision making.
Lesson 2: Minimise the leader's influence on the group's thinking
Interestingly, whilst the queen bee is the reproductive centre of the community, she doesn't make the decisions. Honeybees choose their new home without one leader bee deciding.
"By operating without a leader, the scout bees of a swarm neatly avoid one of the greatest threats to good decision making by groups: a domineering leader. Such an individual reduces a group's collective power to uncover a diverse set of possible solutions to a problem..."
Lesson 3: Seek diverse solutions to the problem
It almost goes without saying that a group has more resources and more varied experience than one individual when looking for solutions to a problem. Hundreds of house-hunting scout bees search out potential spaces for a new colony home, looking in tree hollows and holes in walls. I even heard recently that a colony chose to move into an old abandoned arm chair amongst the springs!
The scout bees communicate their findings to the rest of the hive through the waggle dance: "I've found a great house ladies, no. 29, 500m down Flora street, about 10 minutes flight from here". Wouldn't it be amazing if our parliament was a series of politicians throwing their moves down in a dance off?
The take home message, according to Thomas Seeley, is that like the bees we humans need to keep the dance floor open for lots of opinions so that we get the best possible solutions, without too much initial judgement of what those dance moves look like.
Honeybees performing waggle dances to convince other scout bees to consider a potential nesting site.
Lesson 4: Bring the group's knowledge together through debate
If an undecided scout bee feels impressed by the strength of argument of another scout bee's impassioned dance advertising a potential nesting site, then they will go and look at it themselves. Only after they have visited it and done their own survey of the real estate will they too dance to advertise the same nesting site. Seeley argues that because the scout bees individually go and assess nest sites themselves before making their decision a good decision is made, rather than individuals making up their mind based on what the neighbour is saying and making poorly informed decisions.
So let's have open debate, communicate widely with each other so people know where to go to check out the facts themselves and once people have made their own opinion they too can communicate it with others.
Lesson 5: Use quorum responses for cohesion, accuracy and speed
When you're a swarm of honeybees hanging off of a branch at the mercy of the British weather you need to balance democratic debate with timely decision making. In studying the honeybees Seeley discovered that once the number of honeybees advocating for a particular nest site through their waggle dances reached a certain threshold then the house move was set in motion to that site. The scout bees make piping noises signalling for the other honeybees to warm up their flight muscles ready for the move.
So there is a balance between a period of intense debate and information gathering and decisive collective action once a threshold of agreement is met. So whatever the election result is tomorrow morning, we'll need to work together just like the bees.
If you need some light relief from politics, come and join us next Wednesday evening to taste honeys, talk bees and toast the summer with honey based tipples. Book here. | <urn:uuid:17268c94-f5ba-4e84-ab25-a3162dfdfdfd> | {
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Mohism or Moism (Chinese :墨家; pinyin :Mòjiā; literally: 'School of Mo') was an ancient Chinese philosophy of logic, rational thought and science developed by the academic scholars who studied under the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC) and embodied in an eponymous book: the Mozi . It evolved at about the same time as Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism, and was one of the four main philosophic schools from around 770–221 BC (during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods). During that time, Mohism was seen as a major rival to Confucianism. Although its influence endured, Mohism all but disappeared as an independent school of thought.
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases not mutually intelligible, language varieties, forming the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the ethnic Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China. About 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language.
Hanyu Pinyin, often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters.
Logic is the systematic study of the form of valid inference, and the most general laws of truth. A valid inference is one where there is a specific relation of logical support between the assumptions of the inference and its conclusion. In ordinary discourse, inferences may be signified by words such as therefore, thus, hence, ergo, and so on.
Mohism is best known for the concepts of "impartial care" (Chinese :兼愛; pinyin :jiān ài; literally: 'inclusive love/care'). This is often translated and popularized as "Universal Love", which is misleading as Mozi believed that the essential problem of human ethics was an excess of partiality in compassion, not a deficit in compassion as such. His aim was to re-evaluate behaviour, not emotions or attitudes.
The Mohists formed a highly structured political organization that tried to realize the ideas they preached, the writings of Mozi. Like Confucians, they hired out their services not only for gain, but also in order to realize their own ethical ideals. This political structure consisted of a network of local units in all the major kingdoms of China at the time, made up of elements from both the scholarly and working classes. Each unit was led by a juzi (literally, "chisel"—an image from craft making). Within the unit, a frugal and ascetic lifestyle was enforced. Each juzi would appoint his own successor. Mohists developed the sciences of fortification [ clarification needed ] and statecraft, and wrote treatises on government, ranging in topic from efficient agricultural production to the laws of inheritance. They were often hired by the many warring kingdoms as advisers to the state. In this way, they were similar to the other wandering philosophers and knights-errant of the period.
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to solidify rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from the Latin fortis ("strong") and facere.
Mohism promotes a philosophy of impartial caring; that is, a person should care equally for all other individuals, regardless of their actual relationship to him or her.The expression of this indiscriminate caring is what makes man a righteous being in Mohist thought. This advocacy of impartiality was a target of attack by the other Chinese philosophical schools, most notably the Confucians, who believed that while love should be unconditional, it should not be indiscriminate. For example, children should hold a greater love for their parents than for random strangers.
Mozi is known for his insistence that all people are equally deserving of receiving material benefit and being protected from physical harm. In Mohism, morality is defined not by tradition and ritual, but rather by a constant moral guide that parallels utilitarianism. Tradition varies from culture to culture, and human beings need an extra-traditional guide to identify which traditions are morally acceptable. The moral guide must then promote and encourage social behaviours that maximize the general utility of all the people in that society.
Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the majority of a population. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to in some sense maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as
The concept of Ai (愛) was developed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in the 4th century BC in reaction to Confucianism's benevolent love. Mozi tried to replace what he considered to be the long-entrenched Chinese over-attachment to family and clan structures with the concept of "universal love" (jiān'ài, 兼愛). In this, he argued directly against Confucians who believed that it was natural and correct for people to care about different people in different degrees. Mozi, by contrast, believed people in principle should care for all people equally. Mohism stressed that rather than adopting different attitudes towards different people, love should be unconditional and offered to everyone without regard to reciprocation, not just to friends, family and other Confucian relations. Later in Chinese Buddhism, the term Ai (愛) was adopted to refer to a passionate caring love and was considered a fundamental desire. In Buddhism, Ai was seen as capable of being either selfish or selfless, the latter being a key element towards enlightenment.
Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism, has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, medicine and material culture.
Unlike hedonistic utilitarianism, which views pleasure as a moral good, "the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are... order, material wealth, and increase in population".During Mozi's era, war and famines were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. The "material wealth" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs like shelter and clothing. Stanford sinologist David Shepherd Nivison, in The Cambridge History of Ancient China , writes that the moral goods of Mohism "are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth... if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically". In contrast to Bentham's views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the state outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain.
Mozi posited that, when society functions as an organized organism, the wastes and inefficiencies found in the natural state (without organization) are reduced. He believed that conflicts are born from the absence of moral uniformity found in human cultures in the natural state, i.e. the absence of the definition of what is right (是 shì) and what is wrong (非 fēi). According to Mozi, we must therefore choose leaders who will surround themselves with righteous followers, who will then create the hierarchy that harmonizes Shi/Fei. In that sense, the government becomes an authoritative and automated tool. Assuming that the leaders in the social hierarchy are perfectly conformed to the ruler, who is perfectly submissive to Heaven, conformity in speech and behaviour is expected of all people. There is no freedom of speech [ when defined as? ] in this model. However, the potentially repressive element is countered by compulsory communication between the subjects and their leaders. Subjects are required to report all things good or bad to their rulers. Mohism is opposed to any form of aggression, especially war between states. It is, however, permissible for a state to use force in legitimate defense.
Mozi believed that the norm of handing out important government responsibilities to one's relatives regardless of capabilities, as opposed to those who were best equipped to handle these responsibilities, restricted social mobility. Mozi taught that as long as a person was qualified for a task, he should keep his position, regardless of blood relations. If an officer were incapable, even if he were a close relative of the ruler, he ought to be demoted, even if it meant poverty.
A ruler should be in close proximity to talented people, treasuring talents and seeking their counsel frequently. Without discovering and understanding talents within the country, the country will be destroyed. History unfortunately saw many people who were murdered, not because of their frailties, but rather because of their strengths. A good bow is difficult to pull, but it shoots high. A good horse is difficult to ride, but it can carry weight and travel far. Talented people are difficult to manage, but they can bring respect to their rulers.
Law and order was an important aspect of Mozi's philosophy. He compared the carpenter, who uses standard tools to do his work, with the ruler, who might not have any standards by which to rule at all. The carpenter is always better off when depending on his standard tools, rather than on his emotions. Ironically, as his decisions affect the fate of an entire nation, it is even more important that a ruler maintains a set of standards, and yet he has none. These standards cannot originate from man, since no man is perfect; the only standards that a ruler uses have to originate from Heaven, since only Heaven is perfect. That law of Heaven is Love.
In a perfect governmental structure where the ruler loves all people benevolently, and officials are selected according to meritocracy, the people should have unity in belief and in speech. His original purpose in this teaching was to unite people and avoid sectarianism. However, in a situation of corruption and tyranny, this teaching might be misused as a tool for oppression.
Should the ruler be unrighteous, seven disasters would result for that nation. These seven disasters are:
A country facing these seven disasters will be destroyed easily by the enemy.
The measure of a country's wealth in Mohism is a matter of sufficient provision and a large population. Thriftiness is believed to be key to this end. With contentment with that which suffices, men will be free from excessive labour, long-term war and poverty from income gap disparity. This will enable birth rate to increase. Mozi also encourages early marriage.
Rulers of the period often ritually assigned punishments and rewards to their subjects in spiritually important places to garner the attention of these spirits and ensure that justice was done. The respect of these spirits was deemed so important that prehistoric Chinese ancestors had left their instructions on bamboo, plates and stones to ensure the continual obedience of their future descendants to the dictates of heaven. In Mozi's teachings, sacrifices of bulls and rams were mentioned during appointed times during the spring and autumn seasons. Spirits were described to be the preexisting primal spirits of nature, or the souls of humans who had died.
The Mohists polemicized against elaborate funeral ceremonies and other wasteful rituals, and called for austerity in life and in governance, but did not deem spiritual sacrifices wasteful. Using historical records, Mohists argued that the spirits of innocent men wrongfully murdered had appeared before to enact their vengeance. Spirits had also been recorded to have appeared to carry out other acts of justice. Mohists believed in heaven as a divine force (天 Tian ), the celestial bureaucracy and spirits which knew about the immoral acts of man and punished them, encouraging moral righteousness, and were wary of some of the more atheistic thinkers of the time, such as Han Fei. Due to the vague nature of the records, there is a possibility that the Mohist scribes themselves may not have been clear about this subject.
Mozi disagrees with the fatalistic mindset of people, accusing the mindset of bringing about poverty and suffering. To argue against this attitude, Mozi used three criteria (San Biao) to assess the correctness of views. These were:
In summary, fatalism, the belief that all outcomes are predestined or fated to occur, is an irresponsible belief espoused by those who refuse to acknowledge that their own sinfulness has caused the hardships of their lives. Prosperity or poverty are directly correlated with either virtue or sinfulness, respectively; not fate. Mozi calls fatalism a heresy which needs to be destroyed.
By the time of Mozi, Chinese rulers and the wealthier citizens already had the practice of extravagant burial rituals. Much wealth was buried with the dead, and ritualistic mourning could be as extreme as walking on a stick hunchback for three years in a posture of mourning. During such lengthy funerals, people are not able to attend to agriculture or care for their families, leading to poverty. Mozi spoke against such long and lavish funerals and also argued that this would even create resentment among the living.
Mozi views aesthetics as nearly useless. Unlike Confucius, he holds a distinctive repulsion to any development in ritual music and the fine arts. Mozi takes some whole chapters named "Against Music" (非樂) to discuss this. Though he mentions that he does enjoy and recognize what is pleasant, he sees them of no utilization in terms of governing, or of the benefit of common people. Instead, since development of music involves man's power, it reduces production of food; furthermore, appreciation of music results in less time for administrative works. This overdevelopment eventually results in shortage of food, as well as anarchy. This is because manpower will be diverted from agriculture and other fundamental works towards ostentations. Civilians will eventually imitate the ruler's lusts, making the situation worse. Mozi probably advocated this idea in response to the fact that during the Warring States period, the Zhou king and the aristocrats spent countless time in the development of delicate music while ordinary peasants could hardly meet their subsistence needs. To Mozi, bare necessities are sufficient; resources should be directed to benefit man.[ citation needed ]
One of the schools of Mohism that has received some attention is the Logicians school, which was interested in resolving logical puzzles. Not much survives from the writings of this school, since problems of logic were deemed trivial by most subsequent Chinese philosophers. Historians such as Joseph Needham have seen this group as developing a precursor philosophy of science that was never fully developed, but others[ who? ] believe that recognizing the Logicians as proto-scientists reveals too much of a modern bias.
The Mohist canon (Mo Jing) described various aspects of many fields associated with physical science, and provided a small wealth of information on mathematics as well. It provided an 'atomic' definition of the geometric point, stating that a line is separated into parts, and the part which has no remaining parts (i.e. cannot be divided into smaller parts) and thus the extreme end of a line is a point.Much like Euclid's first and third definitions and Plato's 'beginning of a line', the Mo Jing stated that "a point may stand at the end (of a line) or at its beginning like a head-presentation in childbirth. (As to its invisibility) there is nothing similar to it." Similar to the atomists of Democritus, the Mo Jing stated that a point is the smallest unit, and cannot be cut in half, since 'nothing' cannot be halved. It stated that two lines of equal length will always finish at the same place, while providing definitions for the comparison of lengths and for parallels, along with principles of space and bounded space. It also described the fact that planes without the quality of thickness cannot be piled up since they cannot mutually touch. The book provided definitions for circumference, diameter, and radius, along with the definition of volume.
One consequence of Mohist understanding of mathematics and the physical sciences, combined with their anti-militarist philosophy and skills as artisans, was that they became the pre-eminent siege-defense engineers during the period prior to the Qin unification of China. They believed in aiding the defensive warfare of smaller Chinese states against the hostile offensive warfare of larger domineering states.
The Mohist beliefs were popular for a time in China, and Mohist followers were employed for their ability as negotiators and as defense engineers. This component of Mohism is dramatized in the story of Gongshu,recorded in the Mohist canon. Mozi travels 10 days and nights when he hears that Gongshu Pan has built machines for the king of Chu to use in an invasion of the smaller state of Song. Upon arriving in Chu, Mozi makes a wall out of his belt and sticks to represent machines, and shows Gongshu Pan that he can defend Song against any offensive strategy Chu might use. Mozi then announces that three hundred of his disciples are already on the walls of Song, ready to defend against Chu. The king cancels the invasion.
With the unification of China under the Qin, China was no longer divided into various states constantly fighting each other: where previously the Mohists proved to be an asset when defending a city against an external threat, without wars, and in particular siege wars, there was no more need for their skills. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy suggests, in addition to the decline of siege warfare, "... the major factor is probably that as a social and philosophical movement, Mohism gradually collapsed into irrelevance. By the middle of the former Han dynasty, the more appealing aspects of Mohist thought were all shared with rival schools.
Their core ethical doctrines had largely been absorbed into Confucianism, though in a modified and unsystematic form. Key features of their political philosophy were probably shared with most other political thinkers, and their trademark opposition to warfare had been rendered effectively redundant by unification. The philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and science of the later Mohist Canons were recorded in difficult, dense texts that would have been nearly unintelligible to most readers (and that in any case quickly became corrupt). What remained as distinctively Mohist was a package of harsh, unappealing economic and cultural views, such as their obsession with parsimony and their rejection of music and ritual. Compared with the classical learning and rituals of the Confucians, the speculative metaphysics of Yin-Yang thinkers, and the romantic nature mysticism and literary sophistication of the Daoists, Mohism offered little to attract adherents, especially politically powerful ones."
Jin Guantao, a professor of the Institute of Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Fan Hongye, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Science Policy and Managerial Science, and Liu Qingfeng, a professor of the Institute of Chinese Culture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, have argued that without the influence of proto-scientific precepts in the ancient philosophy of Mohism, Chinese science lacked a definitive structure:
From the middle and late Eastern Han to the early Wei and Jin dynasties, the net growth of ancient Chinese science and technology experienced a peak (second only to that of the Northern Song dynasty)... Han studies of the Confucian classics, which for a long time had hindered the socialization of science, were declining. If Mohism, rich in scientific thought, had rapidly grown and strengthened, the situation might have been very favorable to the development of a scientific structure. However, this did not happen because the seeds of the primitive structure of science were never formed. During the late Eastern Han, disastrous upheavals again occurred in the process of social transformation, leading to the greatest social disorder in Chinese history. One can imagine the effect of this calamity on science.
This page lists some links to ancient philosophy. In Western philosophy, the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire marked the ending of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of Medieval philosophy, whereas in Eastern philosophy, the spread of Islam through the Arab Empire marked the end of Old Iranian philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of early Islamic philosophy.
Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence.
Confucianism, also known as Ruism, is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. Confucianism developed from what was later called the Hundred Schools of Thought from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who considered himself a recodifier and retransmitter of the theology and values inherited from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. In the Han dynasty, Confucian approaches edged out the "proto-Taoist" Huang–Lao as the official ideology, while the emperors mixed both with the realist techniques of Legalism.
Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period, during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought", which was characterized by significant intellectual and cultural developments. Although much of Chinese philosophy begins in the Warring States period, elements of Chinese philosophy have existed for several thousand years; some can be found in the Yi Jing, an ancient compendium of divination, which dates back to at least 672 BCE. It was during the Warring States era that what Sima Tan termed the major philosophical schools of China: Confucianism, Legalism, and Taoism, arose, along with philosophies that later fell into obscurity, like Agriculturalism, Mohism, Chinese Naturalism, and the Logicians.
Mozi, original name Mo Di, was a Chinese philosopher during the Hundred Schools of Thought period. A book named after him, the Mozi, contains material ascribed to him and his followers.
The Logicians or School of Names was a school of Chinese philosophy that grew out of Mohism during the Warring States period in 479–221 BCE. It is also sometimes called the School of Forms and Names. Deng Xi has been named its founder.
Fajia or Legalism is one of Sima Tan's six classical schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. Roughly meaning "house of Fa", the "school" (term) represents some several branches of realistic statesmen or "men of methods" foundational for the traditional Chinese bureaucratic empire. Compared with Machiavellianism, they have often been considered in the Western world as akin to the Realpolitikal thought of ancient China, emphasizing a realistic consolidation of the wealth and power of autocrat and state, with the goal of achieving increased order, security and stability. Having close ties with the other schools, some would be a major influence on Taoism and Confucianism, and the current remains highly influential in administration, policy and legal practice in China today.
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophies and schools that flourished from the 6th century to 221 B.C. during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period of ancient China.
Shen Dao was a Chinese philosopher and writer. He was a "Chinese Legalist" theoretician most remembered for his influence on Han Fei with regards to the concept of shi 勢, though most of his book concerns the concept of fa 法 more commonly shared among "Legalists". Compared with western schools, Shen Dao considered laws that are not good "still preferable to having no laws at all."
Tiān (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty, the Chinese referred to their supreme god as Shàngdì or Dì (帝,"Lord"). During the following Zhou dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure. Heaven worship was, before the 20th century, an orthodox state religion of China.
Xun Kuang, also widely known as Xunzi, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher and writer who lived during the Warring States period and contributed to the Hundred Schools of Thought. A book known as the Xunzi is traditionally attributed to him. His works survive in an excellent condition, and were a major influence in forming the official state doctrines of the Han dynasty, but his influence waned during the Tang dynasty relative to that of Mencius.
Wang Chong, courtesy name Zhongren (仲任), was a Chinese meteorologist, astronomer, and philosopher active during the Han Dynasty. He developed a rational, secular, naturalistic and mechanistic account of the world and of human beings and gave a materialistic explanation of the origin of the universe. His main work was the Lunheng. This book contained many theories involving early sciences of astronomy and meteorology, and Wang Chong was even the first in Chinese history to mention the use of the square-pallet chain pump, which became common in irrigation and public works in China thereafter. Wang also accurately described the process of the water cycle.
Formal logic in China has a special place in the history of logic due to its repression and abandonment—in contrast to the strong ancient adoption and continued development of the study of logic in Europe, India, and the Islamic world.
Rectification of Names. Confucius was asked what he would do if he was a governor. He said he would "rectify the names" to make words correspond to reality. The phrase has now become known as a doctrine of feudal Confucian designations and relationships, behaving accordingly to ensure social harmony. Without such accordance society would essentially crumble and "undertakings would not be completed." Mencius extended the doctrine to include questions of political legitimacy.
Agriculturalism, also known as the School of Agrarianism, the School of Agronomists, the School of Tillers, and in Chinese as the Nongjia (農家/农家), was an early agrarian Chinese philosophy that advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism, and was arguably the world's first Communist and Socialist movement that believed in a Classless society. The Agriculturalists believed that Chinese society should be modeled around that of the early sage king Shennong, a folk hero who was portrayed in Chinese literature as "working in the fields, along with everyone else, and consulting with everyone else when any decision had to be reached." They encouraged farming and agriculture and taught farming and cultivation techniques, as they believed that agricultural development was the key to a stable and prosperous society.
State consequentialism, also known as mohist consequentialism, is a consequentialist ethical theory which evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how it contributes to the basic goods of a state, through social order, material wealth, and population growth. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BC, is the "world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare". The term state consequentialism has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi.
Yangism was a philosophical school founded by Yang Zhu, existent during the Warring States period, that believed that human actions are and should be based on self-interest. The school has been described by sinologists as an early form of psychological and ethical egoism. The main focus of the Yangists was on the concept of xing, or human nature, a term later incorporated by Mencius into Confucianism. No documents directly authored by the Yangists have been discovered yet, and all that is known of the school comes from the comments of rival philosophers, specifically in the Chinese texts Huainanzi, Lüshi Chunqiu, Mengzi, and possibly the Liezi and Zhuangzi. The philosopher Mencius claimed that Yangism once rivaled Confucianism and Mohism, although the veracity of this claim remains controversial among sinologists. Because Yangism had largely faded into obscurity by the time that Sima Qian compiled his Shiji, the school was not included as one of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
Fa is a concept in Chinese philosophy that covers ethics, logic, and law. It can be translated as "law" in some contexts, but more often as "model" or "standard." First gaining importance in the Mohist school of thought, the concept was principally elaborated in Legalism. In Han Fei's philosophy, the king is the sole source of fa (law), taught to the common people so that there would be a harmonious society free of chance occurrences, disorder, and "appeal to privilege". High officials were not to be held above fa, nor were they to be allowed to independently create their own fa, uniting both executive fiat and rule of law.
The Xunzi is an ancient Chinese collection of philosophical writings attributed to Xun Kuang, a 3rd century BC philosopher usually associated with the Confucian tradition. The Xunzi is perhaps most famous for the emphasis it places on education and propriety, as well as its striking assertion that "human nature is detestable". The text is furthermore an important source of early theories of ritual, cosmology, and governance. The ideas within the Xunzi are thought to have exerted a strong influence on Legalist thinkers, such as Han Fei, and laid the groundwork for much of Han Dynasty political ideology. The text criticizes a wide range of other prominent early Chinese thinkers, including Laozi, Zhuangzi, Mozi, and Mencius. Some of the more significant chapters are
The Mozi, also called the Mojing or the Mohist canon, is an ancient Chinese text from the Warring States period (476–221 BC) that expounds the philosophy of Mohism. It propounds such Mohist ideas as impartiality, meritocratic governance, economic growth, and aversion to ostentation, and is known for its plain and simple language. | <urn:uuid:e2c67c9e-f6f5-4f82-bf34-64b7031260dc> | {
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If the history of modern rocketry teaches anything, it's that sooner or later, stuff will blow up. When you pour thousands of gallons of combustible fuel into 15-story machines and then ignite the whole stack, the occasional explosion is simply going to be the cost of doing business. What you have to hope is that no one gets hurt, and if at all possible, no one's watching.
The spectacular Christmas-day explosion of India's new Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) a gleaming 167-ft. (51m) tower of rocket spared the country the deaths that sometimes accompany space disasters, but the public humiliation was another matter. Crowds swarmed the Satish Sahwan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh in anticipation of the launch and millions more watched live on TV as the GSLV's engines were lit at 4:04 PM. Forty-seven seconds later, engineers on the ground lost control of the vehicle. Sixteen seconds after that, they blew the haywire rocket up. A booster that was supposed to carry a critical telecommunications satellite into high-Earth orbit instead met its end just eight miles (13 km) over the Bay of Bengal.
More was lost in the GSLV disaster than a $39 million (1.75 billion rupee) rocket and its satellite payload. Also badly damaged was India's long-pursued rep as a major player in the commercial rocket game. This is not the first GSLV that has failed to fly; the booster has a record of four disasters in seven tries over the past 10 years the most recent just last April.
"The GSLV has had only a 50% success rate," says Ajey Lele, space expert at the Institute of Defense and Security Analysis in New Delhi. "India has wanted to have the technology and the facility [to launch heavy payloads] on its own soil. Now that will not happen in the near future." But with China, Japan, the U.S. and other countries all chasing the same global business with their own fleet of rockets, the near future may be all the time the Indian program has.
India has had a big if unheralded presence in the space community for a long time. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) essentially India's NASA was established in 1969 with the mission of focusing exclusively on launching communications and Earth observation satellites, programs that have immediate benefits for people on the ground and were seen as the only legitimate business a country as poor as India had in space.
ISRO did well with its limited portfolio, but things changed in 1999, when the country puffed up after a series of successful nuclear tests the year before decided to aim higher, planning for unmanned missions to the moon and manned missions into Earth orbit. In 2008, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft made good on part of that promise, not only successfully orbiting the moon, but making a significant indeed, landmark discovery about the surprising quantity of water mixed in with the lunar soil. Meantime, the smaller predecessor of the GSLV was making a name for itself as a reliable commercial launcher, with a string of 16 successful launches against no failures. The GSLV was seen as the next logical step in a rapidly advancing program: a three-stage, heavy-lift rocket suitable for bigger payloads and crews.
But the ambitious design of the rocket may be its undoing. The problem that led to the explosion occurred in the first stage a giant liquid-fueled engine surrounded by four, strap-on solid fuel rockets. Strap-ons, as designers know, are a great way to add oomph to a booster; the more power you need, the more solids you attach. But multiple engines mean increased complexity not to mention the need to coordinate the exact amount of thrust each motor is producing, the exact moment ignition takes place and the tricky acoustical business of controlling vibrations. The fact that it's that stage that failed this time was not surprising but it was disappointing, since in the April launch it worked perfectly; it was the second, simpler stage that failed that time. Another former ISRO chief called the nature of this most recent accident nothing short of "a national setback."
For the moment it's unclear whether it's a setback the space agency can recover from in time. Sorting out multiple glitches in multiple stages is a time-consuming business, and even one more failure could irreparably destroy the GSLV's image. Ultimately, the global market for heavy-lift flight could simply leave India behind. Uncertain too will be the scheduled 2015 launch of the Chandrayaan II, a joint Indian-Russian moon mission that's intended to carry both a lunar satellite and a rover and was slated to be launched on a GSLV. Even less certain is the launch of the first Indian astronauts or vyomanauts a mission that did not yet even have a target date and is less likely than ever to get one until the big booster proves itself.
India's economic and technological growth have been extraordinary over the past ten years, but as the U.S. and Russia learned over the previous fifty, there is nothing that challenges a country's scientific and industrial base like trying to take those first steps into space. The GSLV may yet recover, and vyomanauts may yet ride it to glory, but the path won't be easy. It never, ever is. With reporting by Madhur Singh/Mumbai | <urn:uuid:175137b5-b8e5-4044-a1a1-ca545713b8dd> | {
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The use of antiretroviral treatment by HIV-positive individuals to reduce their risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partners is commonly referred to as "treatment as prevention." Antiretroviral treatment can reduce the amount of HIV in bodily fluids (such as rectal fluid, semen and vaginal fluid) of someone living with HIV and may therefore make them less likely to transmit HIV to others during unprotected sex. The possibility of reducing the risk of HIV transmission is one argument made to support early initiation of HIV treatment.
Until now, the strongest evidence for "treatment as prevention" came from observational studies. These studies have involved heterosexual, serodiscordant couples (where one partner is HIV-positive and one partner is HIV-negative). By systematically combining the results from multiple observational studies, researchers recently found that the overall rate of HIV transmission among serodiscordant couples on treatment was lower than the rate of transmission among couples who were not on treatment. Transmission rates were reduced by 66% to 84%, depending on which studies the authors included in their analysis.
Unfortunately, with observational "treatment as prevention" studies, it is difficult to conclude that HIV transmission was reduced as a result of the HIV-positive partner being on treatment and not due to other factors that researchers may not have taken into account (also known as biases). For example, people on treatment may be more likely to use condoms regularly, which would explain how they have prevented transmitting HIV to their partners. Also the studies provide little information about the relative importance of the time of initiation of HIV treatment on potential risk reduction.
Last week, preliminary results from the first randomized controlled trial studying "treatment as prevention", known as HPTN 052, were released. Randomized controlled trials are generally considered the "gold standard" of evidence because they minimize -- but do not eliminate -- the influence of possible biases. This type of study can more confidently attribute the reduced the risk of HIV transmission to the antiretroviral treatment.
The HPTN 052 trial studied the effect of "treatment as prevention" among 1,763 serodiscordant couples. Specifically, the trial was designed to determine if starting HIV treatment very early would reduce the risk of HIV transmission between partners in a stable, serodiscordant relationship. The vast majority of the couples (97%) were heterosexual. All of the couples enrolled had been in a stable relationship for at least three months prior to enrolment (most of the couples were married). The trial took place in several countries, including Botswana, Brazil, India, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Thailand, Zimbabwe and the United States. Due to difficulties enrolling participants in the United States, only one US couple participated in the trial.
To be eligible for the trial, the HIV-positive partner had to meet the following criteria at the time of enrolment:
The HIV-negative partner had to have tested negative for HIV within 14 days of entering the study.
A total of 890 HIV-positive men and their partners, and 873 HIV-positive women and their partners participated in the study. Half of the HIV-positive men and women started treatment immediately upon enrolment (early treatment). The other half did not start treatment until their CD4 count dropped to between 200 and 250 cells/mm3 or they developed an AIDS-related illness (delayed treatment).
All couples received regular adherence counselling, HIV risk-reduction counselling, free condoms, HIV testing, and screening for and treatment of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Although the clinical trial is scheduled to be completed in 2015, preliminary results have been released early as a result of an interim review by an independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB). Based on the study data, the DSMB concluded that earlier initiation of HIV treatment by people living with HIV substantially protects their HIV-uninfected heterosexual partners from acquiring HIV.
Overall, 39 HIV-negative partners became infected during the study. In each case, researchers used genetic matching to determine the source of the HIV infection. In 28 cases, the HIV-positive partner in the study was the source of HIV transmission. In 7 cases, the HIV-positive partner in the study was not the source. In the remaining four cases, the sources are still undetermined.
Researchers then looked at the 28 cases where genetic matching confirmed that HIV was transmitted from one partner to the other within the serodiscordant relationship. Of these 28 transmissions, 27 were among couples where the HIV-positive partner delayed treatment and only 1 was in a couple where the HIV-positive partner started treatment immediately. Therefore, the study showed that earlier initiation of treatment by the HIV-positive partner reduced the risk of transmission to the HIV-negative partner by 96%.
The study also found that starting treatment earlier provided additional health benefits for the HIV-positive partner. Whereas 17 cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (tuberculosis that occurs outside of the lungs) were reported among the HIV-positive people who delayed their treatment, there were only 3 cases among the HIV-positive people who started treatment immediately.
The vast majority of the couples enrolled in the HPTN 052 study were heterosexual and at risk of transmission primarily through vaginal sex. Therefore, the results may not apply to other populations -- such as men who have sex with men and injecting drug users, who are at risk of HIV infection through other routes, including anal sex and sharing needles.
The study also does not tell us about the effectiveness of earlier treatment at reducing the risk of heterosexual transmission in a "real-world" setting. The participants in this trial were provided with a comprehensive package of prevention services, including HIV risk-reduction counselling, adherence counselling, and screening for and treatment of STIs. It is possible that HIV treatment may be less effective at reducing transmission in the absence of these services. For example, "treatment as prevention" may be less effective if the HIV-positive partner does not adhere to their medications, if either partner has other sexually transmitted infections, or if a couple engages in more risky behaviours because they feel that the treatment protects them fully from transmission.
Finally, the trial involved people who had recently received an HIV-positive test result and who had relatively high CD4 counts. This suggests that the HIV-positive people in this study are more likely to be recently infected with HIV. Therefore, it is hard to tell from the data that is currently available if the reduction in HIV transmission as a result of early treatment seen in this trial would apply to other stages of HIV infection.
Additional results and analysis from two more pre-exposure prophylaxis studies in heterosexual couples in Africa were presented at the International AIDS Society Conference in July 2011.
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Answer: Most plants do best with about an inch of rainfall a week during the warm part of the growing season. (Tip: A coffee can makes a good sprinkler gauge.) You have to consider temperature as plant needs vary significantly from spring to the scorching days of summer in your north Texas garden.
Your clay holds a lot of moisture and you need to be careful not to overwater. Try giving plants a good soaking once a week if it doesn't rain a half inch or more. Mulching helps reduce the loss of water from evaporation, and as mulch decays, it will improve soil drainage and texture, so keep heaping on the mulch! Ultimately, you just have to watch the plants, feel the soil (gooey clay vs. hard and dry) and learn to water properly for your garden. Adding organic matter like you have done is a great idea! I suggest having the Agricultural Extension Office (ph# 817/599-6591) test your soil - they may suggest the addition of certain mineral amendments, which can make a world of difference in the soil texture.
Q&A Library Searching Tips | <urn:uuid:8168ab92-a486-4ceb-9a31-2d58c8b23e23> | {
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Claus Plant Combustor Survey
Dan Banks, P.E.
Banks Engineering Inc.
Introduction / Summary
Every Claus sulfur recovery plant includes a Reaction Furnace as the first processing step and a Tail Gas Incinerator as its last. Although these units are relatively simple, the conditions under which they operate make them more prone to problems than other parts of the plant. Careful preparation of specifications, attention to detail in fabrication and proper maintenance procedures can make combustor problems a minor issue in Claus plant operation.
In its simplest form, the activity of any Claus sulfur plant can be summarized as:
H2S + [O] à H2O + S
In the 1800s researchers found that this reaction occurred best on the solid surfaces of their test equipment. About 1890 the Claus process was commercialized, with H2S being oxidized with air over a bauxite catalyst in a single reactor. In 1937, I. G. Farbenindustrie improved the process by adding a specialized combustor (Reaction Furnace) and heat recovery boiler upstream of the bauxite reactor. This sets the date for the first Claus plant combustor problem.
It was found that several catalytic reactors in series, each followed by a sulfur condenser, would increase overall sulfur recovery. After each condenser the process gas must be reheated before entering the next reactor. Reheating with steam is usually preferred due to the complexity of combustion devices, but some plants use combustors (Inline Reheaters) firing acid gas or natural gas for this purpose.
Since even a very efficient Claus plant reactor train leaves some residual H2S in the final "tail gas", soon special Tail Gas Incinerators were introduced to assure that any sulfur leaving the system was in the form of SO2.
As a further means to treat the tail gas stream, in recent years Tail Gas Units were added to the Claus plant upstream of the Tail Gas Incinerator. The Tail Gas Unit employs another combustor, the Reducing Gas Generator, to assure proper conditions for the special catalyst bed. In operation, residual SO2 is reduced to H2S, removed with a TGU amine unit, and recirculated to the Reaction Furnace.
The purposes of the four combustors in Claus plants are:
· Reaction Furnace: oxidize part of the sulfur bearing compounds in the plant feed gas under reducing conditions to form sulfur molecules.
· Inline Reheater: reheat the cooled process gas for entry into the next in a series of reactors.
· Reducing Gas Generator: reheat the tail gas from the last catalyst bed, adjusting the content of H2 so that the special Tail Gas catalyst performs best at converting SO2 back to H2S for recycle to the Reaction Furnace.
· Tail Gas Incinerator: completely burn any residual sulfur bearing compounds to SO2 in the presence of excess oxygen and disperse the resulting combustion products at altitude.
Each of these units maintains a flame in a refractory lined chamber. In each case the flame is suspended within the chamber and monitored with instruments to shut down the Claus plant should problems occur. Materials of construction are selected to resist the high operating temperature, potential flame impingement and the temperature swings associated with startup activities. Sensors and automatic controls are provided to assure safe and controlled combustor operation.
Each combustor is equipped with a burner to manage mixing and ignition of the process gas, fuel gas and air streams. Each burner must bring the streams together at the right time to achieve quick lightoff. The burner must be shaped to hold the ignition point at the intended position, rather than allowing it to wander into the furnace or back into an area of the burner not designed to handle flame temperatures. The mixing of air and combustibles must be thorough enough to avoid creating pockets of fuel-rich gas, which can result in formation of carbon due to incomplete combustion. Improper mixing can also lead to noise caused by flame pulsations, as fuel-rich gas pockets combine intermittently with oxygen rich gas to create small, repetitive explosions.
For Reaction Furnaces, Inline Reheaters and Reducing Gas Generators, combustion must always be "substoichiometric" once the various catalyst beds have been placed in operation. This is because any residual oxygen in the product gas will react with the catalyst bed, deactivating it and even damaging it if the oxygen level is high enough. The amount of air used must be controlled accurately to maximize overall plant efficiency. Likewise, combustion product temperatures must be controlled to avoid damaging the combustor or downstream equipment. The Tail Gas Incinerator, on the other hand, must be operated with excess air in order to completely oxidize all residual sulfur compounds to SO2. Here the amount of excess air must be held as low as practical so that fuel gas usage is minimized extra air will not aid incineration but must be heated to stack temperature nonetheless.
Examples of each of the combustor systems are shown in the figures:
Figure 1 shows a typical Reaction Furnace, including internal mixing enhancements achieved with a "choke ring" and "checker wall." A number of different types of burners may be fitted to this design.
Figure 2 shows a common type of Acid Gas Burner, with discrete air injectors arranged to induce swirl for enhanced mixing at the refractory capped acid gas gun.
Figure 3 shows a typical Acid Gas Burner fitted for oxygen enrichment.
Figure 4 shows a furnace design commonly used for Inline Reheaters and Reducing Gas Generators. The version shown incorporates a swirling air injection system, so the burner is simply a pilot and gun for introduction of the acid gas or fuel gas at the narrow "throat" of the refractory lined combustion chamber. Process gas flows around the combustion chamber, mixing with the hot flue gas before exiting the vessel.
Figure 5 shows a simple Tail Gas Incinerator furnace, designed for natural draft operation. The stack height is 210 ft. to insure dispersion of the SO2 in the exhaust and guy wires are used for support. For heat recovery, the bottom section of the furnace would be mounted horizontally and the flue gas would flow through a boiler before entering a stack to atmosphere.
Figure 6 shows a common Tail Gas Incinerator Burner design, with tail gas introduced around the fuel gas flame burst. This design may be forced or natural draft.
Interviews were conducted with personnel who operate Claus plants, those who supply combustors and those who specify and handle startups of Claus plant combustors. The purpose of the interviews was to gather problem reports from as many sources as possible. The diverse interview pool helped assure that problems at each level of supply and operation were included. Questions about feed preparation, system control, combustor operability and maintenance needs were covered. Observations and suggestions for improvement were noted in each case. The interviews were grouped by type of combustor.
Sighting Problems: Many problems were noted with connections designed to allow monitoring of the interior of the reaction furnace. Sometimes the locations and orientations of sight ports or flame scanner mounts were incorrectly designated on design drawings. In other cases shop personnel fail to aim the external connections at the intended spot, or refractory installers fail to maintain the sight line established by the external hardware. In several instances the external connections were blocked by external process piping and rendered useless. Since correcting of these problems requires shutting down the furnace, if the problem is not fatal, the unit operator often chooses to "make do." If the problem is more serious the offending hardware is modified as needed. Close attention should be paid to sight lines at all stages of supply.
Rainshield Problems: Most Reaction Furnaces are located outdoors and include a covering of corrugated metal or other system to prevent localized cooling, as may occur during a rainstorm. The rainshield is built with a standoff frame, air gaps and sometimes dampers to assure appropriate flow of air between the shield and the Reaction Furnace shell. The refractory lining of the furnace is designed to accommodate this heated air surrounding the shell. Trapped air creates extra insulation, raising the vessel shell above target levels. No reports of structural damage were mentioned in the interviews. A missing shield reduces the intended shell temperature and allows localized cooling, which has resulted in refractory spalling in at least one case. Correct design, installation and maintenance of the rainshield is important.
Control Problems: Control of fuel gas and air flows during startups has proven tricky in numerous cases where the hardware is designed for normal furnace operating rates without consideration for startup conditions. The designer should consider using dedicated flow circuits to allow controlled operation at all times. Optical pyrometers are often used to monitor Reaction Furnace temperature they are reported to work well when a preventative maintenance program is in place. Loss of temperature measurement may be tolerated unless substantial ammonia is being fed or O2 enrichment is being used. In one case, loss of the pyrometer in a Reaction Furnace using O2 enrichment led to serious refractory damage when the operating temperature inadvertently increased to 3000oF for an extended period. In other cases these combustors have been operated for years with no temperature monitoring at all except during the initial refractory cure. A relatively constant acid gas feed composition permits this type of operation. One user observed that ceramic thermowells often were broken as a result of sulfur deposition where the well passes through the refractory hotface. He has had good luck with "double purged" thermocouples (purging with nitrogen both inside and outside the thermowell.)
Process Gas Problems and Burner Deposits: Proper control of upstream processing equipment is important to avoid problems in the Claus plant. In one case, offgas from a sour water treatment system causes periodic solids plugging of the acid gas gun in the Reaction Furnace burner. The gun requires periodic cleaning of deposits, which are thought to be ammonia bisulfide by the plant operator. The same operator observes that NH3 in the reflux water in the amine treatment system should be kept below 1% (resulting in no more than 1000 ppmv NH3 in the gas stream) to avoid solid deposits in the burner gun. One report of solid sulfur deposits in the air plenum of an oxygen enriched Reaction Furnace burner was noted. The sulfur was contained in the recycle stream from the first sulfur condenser, and is thought to collect due to poor insulation of the sulfur drain area of the burner. The operator believes switching from a recycle blower to a steam eductor may solve the problem.
Materials of Construction: Since the Reaction Furnace operates at high temperatures, refractory selection and installation quality are very important. Careful verification of these factors during design and installation can reveal and eliminate startup and operating problems. Published refractory temperature ratings must be reduced because the hot face environment is reducing. Typically a 300 400oF derating is recommended. The actual operating temperature depends on the heating value of the process gases, as well as whether oxygen enrichment is used. If O2 enrichment is added to an existing Reaction Furnace, the loss of nitrogen in the reacting mix results in an increase in operating temperature unless recycle gas or other cooling medium is used. One operator reports problems with the refractory protecting the O2 injector nozzle in his burner the material and nozzle design are being changed to handle the higher temperature. In some Reaction Furnace designs a brick "checker wall" is installed across the furnace to insure mixing downstream of the burner. If careful temperature control is not practiced the bricks can actually sag, requiring shutdown to restore proper operation. The acid gas burner must tolerate very high temperatures, even without oxygen enrichment. Reports of thermal damage to the acid gas feed tip and pilot hardware are common, leading to special attention being paid to tip construction and materials. It is not unusual for the natural gas pilot burner to be built to allow partial or complete removal from the combustion zone once the main flame is established.
Control Problems: Many of these units fire acid gas bypassed around the Reaction Furnace, while others, especially small ones, fire fuel gas. Reducing (starved air) operation is required so that no excess O2 is present in the product gas flowing to the downstream catalyst bed. Excessively reducing conditions can result in soot formation in the combustor, leading to fouling of the catalyst, which means loss of catalyst activity and excessive pressure drop across the bed. Unfortunately, soot formation is fairly common with these units, since instrumentation is sometimes skimpy, and air control based on flame color is a learned art. Steam is sometimes added to the burner air stream to minimize the potential for soot formation, especially in units that fire fuel gas. During Claus plant startup, fuel gas and air are burned to bring the associated catalyst bed up to operating temperature. If the catalyst is new, this step can be done with excess air, but on subsequent startups reducing operation is essential to avoid catalyst damage and steam is normally injected to achieve the needed combustor outlet temperature. Flow rates during bed heat-up are much lower than the rates during normal plant operation. Both the combustor and the control system are optimized for normal operation. This means that during startup, both burner mixing and gas flow measurement accuracy are compromised, which can make holding stoichiometry and temperature difficult. The ability to precisely control the flow of air, steam and acid gas or fuel gas is therefore very important. The lack of proper flow control hardware is a problem voiced by a number of users. As a result, many prefer to reheat using a high pressure steam exchanger rather than a combustor.
Retrofit Problems: One user had been firing the burner on natural gas, but switched to burning H2S instead. The natural gas gun tip was left in place for use during startups, but was not purged with nitrogen or any other gas. Radiant heating in this area gradually burned the tip off during normal operation, so flame stability problems were encountered during the next startup attempt. The solution was to shorten the natural gas gun by several inches, drawing it back into the combustion air stream where it was cooled enough to avoid future problems. The same user reported problems with new "improved" burners installed to replace existing worn out models. No one recognized that there was a "sweet spot" where the new burners operated well operation below this point (during startup) resulted in excessive soot problems and catalyst plugging. Recommendation: have the operations personnel "calibrate their eyes" during normal operation, so that changes in flame characteristics will be noted and dealt with quickly.
Other Problems: Inline Reheaters can have the same problems with sighting, rainshields and materials of construction as noted for Reaction Furnaces.
Reducing Gas Generators (RGG)
Reducing Gas Generators are very similar in design to Inline Reheaters, and share many of the same problems.
Fabrication Errors: One operator found that the low flows required by initial catalyst bed heating were controllable during initial plant startup, when excess oxygen in the combustor exhaust was permissible. During subsequent heat-up, when reducing operation was required, no adjustment to the fuel gas or air flows could reduce the effluent O2 reading to zero. Finally the unit was shut down for inspection. It was discovered that an internal plate separating the combustion air plenum from the process gas plenum was not seal welded in place, allowing part of the start-up air to bypass the burner throat directly into the discharge plenum. Once this fabrication error was corrected, reducing operation was achieved and a normal startup was possible. Unfortunately, the inexperienced startup crew allowed heavy sooting of the catalyst, which finally was replaced. The operator observed that quality control during design and fabrication is essential, and that experienced Claus plant start-up should be present at critical times.
Control Problems: It is common to design RGG controls for normal plant operation without considering the requirement for much smaller gas flows during startup. This often makes accurate measurements impossible during startup and operating personnel are reduced to qualitative judgments about flame quality (yellow = oxidizing, slightly orange = just right, more orange = too reducing and making soot.) The use of analyzers in the Tail Gas Cleanup Unit provide critical feedback about RGG stoichiometry, but separate flow measurement loops for startups is recommended by several plant operators despite the added cost. One operator has units operating with refinery fuel gas in one location and with natural gas in other locations. Due to the variable oxygen demand encountered from day to day with refinery fuel gas, this operator strongly recommends "always use natural gas to avoid sooting problems."
Operating Errors: One respondent mentioned an experience with SCOT catalyst bed sooting which was caused by off-target operation of the reaction furnace. The hydrogen analyzer was drawing a sample downstream of the SCOT catalyst bed a non-zero hydrogen reading at that point would indicate that the RGG was running substoichiometric enough to generate the H2 required to drive the tail gas SO2 to H2S, as desired. The operator continued adjusting the air / fuel ratio lower and lower, but never saw the expected hydrogen. Fortunately, before excessive soot was produced, he noticed that the Reaction Furnace air flow was too high, resulting in a much greater conversion of H2S to SO2 than desired. The extra SO2 was consuming the H2 generated in the RGG at a rapid rate. Once the Reaction Furnace chemistry was fixed, hydrogen consumption in the SCOT unit returned to design levels and he began seeing the hydrogen he was expecting at the analyzer.
Tail Gas Incinerators
These units are often designed for natural draft operation, but may be forced draft, particularly when equipped with a waste heat boiler. Stack height is specified to limit ground level concentration of the SO2 in the flue gas. In recent years air permit limits have resulted in the addition of Tail Gas Cleanup Units between the last Claus sulfur condenser and the Tail Gas Incinerator, as well as increased incinerator operating temperature to limit CO levels in the flue gas.
Control Problems: Several users report air flow control problems. For good operation a flue gas O2 level of about 3% volume is needed, which sets the flow of combustion air needed. At least one user plans to switch to forced draft operation after living with a natural draft arrangement incapable of holding O2 levels below about 10%.
Air Supply: One user reports provision of an undersized air blower on an incinerator with a waste heat boiler. This design error limited overall Claus plant capacity and was resolved by changing to a blower with more pressure capability. Another user replaced the natural draft pilot burner on his incinerator with one supplied with plant air a response to pilot stability problems. He recommends use of a "robust" pilot, operating continuously rather than only at startup.
Design Sizing: Most combustors are purchased on a competitive bid basis, driving the suppliers to minimize fat in their design. One user encountered excessive carryover from the SCOT absorber tower, sending extra combustibles to the incinerator. Although the combustion volume was adequate, the unit ran low on air. An extra air register was added to solve the problem.
Materials of Construction: One user reported failure of the fuel gas injection hardware in the burner. The damage was caused by a combination of incorrect alloy specification and the relatively high level of reflected heat from the flame. This burner used a ring burner to distribute the fuel gas. A number of users have suffered corrosion problems in the tail gas injection plenum area. In one case the plenum was corroded to the extent that tail gas was mixing with the incoming combustion air upstream of the fuel gas injection point and causing flame stability problems. Refractory problems are less common with Tail Gas Incinerators than with the other Claus plant combustors, but proper refractory and refractory anchor installation are critical. This type of problem is often discovered soon after startup if missed during fabrication inspection. As with any refractory lined vessel, quick startups and shutdowns can shorten refractory life through spalling due to differential thermal expansion.
Tail Gas Handling: Tail gas is sent to the Incinerator through a pipe sized to minimize capital cost. The tail gas velocity can be quite high and combustion stability problems can result if the velocity is not slowed upstream of the burner mixing zone. In an incinerator using a plenum type tail gas injection arrangement, problems can be avoided by designing for a constantly increasing tail gas velocity up to the point of injection. Incorrect design has resulted in heating of the tail gas plenum due to back flow of combustion products. In older units the tail gas is saturated with sulfur vapor, so the tail gas line and injection plenum must be insulated to avoid condensing out liquid sulfur. Even so, sulfur can collect in the burner unless a sulfur drain arrangement is provided to allow the liquid to flow into the incinerator for burning. Any solid deposits can affect tail gas distribution and therefore combustion efficiency. One user in the northern US operated tail gas transfer piping with insufficient external insulation. The line became plugged, as solid sulfur and iron sulfide corrosion products formed in the lines, eventually requiring early shutdown for removal.
Fuel Gas Handling: A number of reports of fuel gas capacity problems or flame shape issues at start-up have been noted. While some of these have been due to hardware design or fabrication errors, most have been solved by removing construction debris from the burner fuel gas gun. In one large Tail Gas Incinerator employing two identical burners, both fuel gas guns were found to contain two beverage cans inserted by unconcerned installation personnel. A similar problem with fuel gas pilot operation is even more common, probably because the fuel gas injector in many pilots requires a very small fuel gas passage. One user reported that Tail Gas Incinerator temperature could be controlled at target level during initial heat-up, but upon introduction of tail gas only a reduced temperature could be maintained despite increased fuel flow. No carbon monoxide monitoring was available, but stack O2 levels were adequate. The problem was resolved when the fuel gas guns were redrilled to "collapse" the fuel gas fan pattern. The jets of fuel gas had been entering the tail gas stream prematurely, quenching the primary combustion reactions, which never recovered due to the low furnace temperature (1100oF in this case.)
Burner Problems: One operator reports problems with flame stability and relight capability in his early 90s tail gas incinerator. The furnace is horizontal and fired with three forced draft fuel gas burners mounted in a triangle on the furnace end wall. The pilot burners were designed for natural draft operation and draw their air from outside the burners via fuel gas jet venturis. The furnace exhaust passes through a fire tube boiler, so furnace pressure could sometimes be greater than the small pressure generated by the pilot venturis. The operator solved this problem by adding "purge air" to the pilot assembly and closing the venturi air doors fully, converting to forced draft pilots. The tail gas is introduced tangentially through the cylindrical shell of the furnace a few feed from the end wall where the burners are mounted, resulting in very turbulent conditions in the flame zone. The burners manage to operate, but occasional plant upsets can spike the tail gas flow, extinguishing a burner and shutting down the incinerator. The operator prefers to relight the furnace without diverting the tail gas, but the turbulence causes problems sometimes removing the tail gas is necessary.
Emission Problems: CO emissions have been a problem in a number of Tail Gas Incinerators. Once proper tail gas mixing has been achieved, the only fix has been to increase the furnace operating temperature. In a number of cases a CO destruction "step" has been observed in the area of 1430 1450oF. Operation at 1500oF is typically specified today (vs. the 1100 1200oF needed to handle the sulfur compounds alone.)
SO3 emissions are not as easy to solve. The goal of the Tail Gas Incinerator is to completely oxidize sulfur compounds to SO2, but in the presence of excess oxygen part of the SO2 is further oxidized to SO3. For design purposes a 3% conversion of SO2 to SO3 is often assumed. Once the flue gas exits the stack it is cooled and the SO3 combines with water vapor to form sulfuric acid droplets. This aerosol is visible as a blue gray plume, usually separated from the stack tip. In many units the plume intensity varies seasonally and even from day to day. Although considerable attention has been paid to eliminating plume formation by reducing furnace O2 content, adjusting furnace temperature, and designing for reduced furnace residence time, the plume problem remains largely unsolved.
Corrosion Problems: One plant reported operating a tail gas incinerator waste heat recovery boiler at 50 psig steam pressure. With the level of sulfur in the tail gas, too close an approach to the SO3 dew point was suspected. On inspection, a dark gray-black wet paste was extracted from the blocked stack drain connection, indicating potential corrosion problems. The guyed stack is now being inspected for shell thickness, and steps are planned to increase the flue gas temperature to avoid future problems.
Resonance Problems: One operator reported the presence of a very low-pitched noise problem in a forced draft Tail Gas Incinerator with waste heat boiler. It is thought that slight combustion instabilities (burner noise) triggered the problem, but apparently the specific geometry of the system amplified the noise to unacceptable levels. The problem was finally solved after a noise expert recommended installation of a perforated screen between the boiler outlet and the stack. This interrupted the resonance pattern and solved the problem.
Stack Design Problems: The presence of SO3 in the Tail Gas Incinerator flue gas results in an elevated dewpoint. In many units the dewpoint can be as high as 340 350oF and the liquid that condenses is sulfuric acid. Since the stack shell is carbon steel and the coolest areas in the stack are between the refractory and the shell, attention must be paid to controlling the shell temperature. A target of 400oF is often used. In colder climates, air temperature can vary from minus 40oF to +90oF over the year. Wind and rain can substantially increase cooling. Rainshields are always used on these stacks to control corrosion, as well as to the refractory spalling problems also found with the other combustors. A number of stack corrosion problems were reported when rainshield design, installation or maintenance were handled poorly.
Thermal Damage: One user operated a tail gas incinerator with 300 tall stack supported with guy wires. Periodically, higher levels of hydrocarbons were sent to the unit, resulting in sudden temperature increases and thermal spalling of the refractory lining at about 50 elevation. The external rainshield prevented detection of the problem, despite periodic thermal scanning. Eventually the stack began to bend, forcing immediate shutdown and installation of a derrick support to the 250 level (along with repair of the refractory lining.) This user recommends the use of "skin" thermocouples to detect refractory loss under a rainshield.
My thanks to the Claus plant operators, plant design engineers, hardware suppliers and consultants who agreed to help with this work. In particular, thanks to Callidus Technologies and Goar, Allison & Associates for permission to use the equipment drawings.
The work continues:
This survey is limited due to the amount of time available for interviews. The results of additional interviews will be added at this site as they are gathered. If you operate a Claus plant, and would be willing to share your combustor experiences with every engineer with an Internet connection, please contact me at 918-746-7667 or email the author using dan at banksengineering.com (replace " at " with "@" - fight spammers!).
Return to Banks Engineering home page | <urn:uuid:286bb1c1-c8fc-44d4-8a25-61dcd0f95c15> | {
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Dr. Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University
One of the goals of this course is that you improve your skills in information literacy and critical analysis by researching and articulating your original insights and by organizing and polishing presentations of them in academic written form. The idea of this assignment is the honorable one of having you package brilliant scholarly textual analysis in impressive, professional ways.The Project:
This assignment asks you to identify one significant facet you perceive in one particular work we have read and to explore its implications. The project will be minimally a total of five pages, double-spaced, using MLA-style format. This document will consist of at least four pages of your own interpretive analysis focused on the one precise aspect of one of the literary works we have read together, followed by at least one page of annotated bibliography consisting of at least two entries, each one summarizing a different academic journal article.Finding a Topic:
You need a focus before you start thrashing about with secondary sources; you need to know specifically what you are searching for. Otherwise the secondary sources will take over, dictate your discussion, and you'll be reduced to a mere summarizer of someone else's thoughts. And the grade will suck.
The rule here is simple: the more particular -- the more excruciatingly focused -- the better. First, select one literary work. Trying to jam two or more different works into one discussion because you're thinking of this project in terms of "filling pages" will backfire because, simply put, your paper will be crap. Instead, treat this one work either as isolated and valuable in its own right or as a chosen representative example of a wider literary or cultural phenomenon.Researching:
Next, find something to say about your selected work: a unique perspective on the piece, a specific theme or motif, a striking implication, possibly a detail you think is peculiar (if it does prove to have significance when you think it through). Although these literary works have been combed over for a long time, critics and scholars tend to engage themselves in the same old hackneyed main issues and ignore the closely focused explication of specific details. So be conscientious, nay ruthless, in focusing your scope. Papers lumbering through hackneyed topics will be disappointing -- all around! Also, the focus should be on your perceptions rather than your evaluations or on you (e.g., "I feel that Hrothgar is an OK joe"; "I like this poem cuz it was easier to read than those other ones"). Rather than as an "opinion," think of this as your perspective or insight. Also, this is not a "review" -- drippy "appreciation" or rhapsodic praise is tiresome and dorky, so between the rough draft and the final draft, omit all those "Chaucer does a great job, but then that's why he's the father of English literature" embarrassments. More stylistic advice is coming in class as more examples of what I never want to see again keep occurring to me.
You will be researching and include secondary sources, but original insight and analysis should still dominate the entire discussion portion of the assignment. Cleverness and creativity (of an scholarly sort) are most welcome when it comes to crafting the project at this stage.
You need to locate and read at least two articles somewhat related to your topic. These must be academic journal articles, best retrieved through the library and certainly with the appropriate scholarly index, even if they happen to be retrievable on the web or within a book of collected essays. Do not expect these articles to be addressing your exact topic directly -- you do not even want that to be the case. And at the other extreme, you do not want them to seem arbitrarily chosen (which is what happens when you fail to use the appropriate index). They should be more appropriately focused than just happening to concern the same literary work. Ideally, they should represent a scholarly conversation taking place loosely on a topic to which you can legitimately add your voice without simply replicating what has already been said.Doing the Bloody Work:
I will demonstrate in class the process of targeting a search with the appropriate index and take you through the steps. You may wish to photocopy your articles even though you do not have to submit them with the project.
The last page(s) of your project will consist simply of an annotated bibliography: the two or more articles each listed as an MLA-style Works Cited entry and each entry followed by a short summary of the article, with key quotations included, properly cited with parenthetical page numbers. Your essay portion should appear first, with the Annotated Bibliography following behind and taking the place of a Works Cited list. Include also, alphabetized, the Norton Anthology or other edition you are using (but this entry does not need an annotation).The Deal:
Meeting these requirements, on time, assures you of at least a C grade (see grading sheet). Specific quotations from the play should demonstrate the validity of your argument. The analytical discussion should be persuading readers of the significance of adopting your unique perspective on the material; it should not be a report of pointless factoids nor a scan of tons of bilge. MLA documentation is required for humanities papers and should be carried out correctly; so stop making me cross out commas, p's, pg's, pgs's, and all other manner of clutter between simply author and page in parenthetical citations of secondary sources! Also quit with the bastardized Works Cited lists (MLA cross-bred with numbered references, APA corruptions, etc.). Refer to a handbook (MLA, Hacker's A Writer's Reference, Keys for Writers, etc.) for correct documentation, read my online MLA advice or the hand-out, and/or ask me ahead of time. "Are you gonna be like really strict on us about Works Cited format and all that stuff?" Uh, yeah? And stop priding yourself on having a jaunty identity based largely on your supposedly unique lack of skill in spelling. The presentation and appearance of your work should be letter-perfect so that niggling surface matters do not distract your readers from your ideas.
Your final revised essay must consist of five typed, double-spaced pages containing an intriguing (not underlined) title, objective identification of the thesis (not just the topic) in the first paragraph, vigorous and concise analytical work, no extra spaces between paragraphs, and the annotations, all in a clean, effective, illuminating, properly documented presentation (correctly punctuated in-text parenthetical citations of author and page, and a correctly formatted MLA-style annotated bibliography).
Proofread well so that minor surface matters do not distract readers from your ideas. The grade for any manuscript lacking the research component or containing a renegade, variant, or insane documentation system will strike you as intensely disappointing.
You are obligated to hand in the assignment at the beginning of the class period on the designated due date. Truancy is, of course, no excuse (i.e., "I couldn't get my paper in 'cuz I cut class"). Fate, as we know, plays amusing tricks. I tell you right now that Aunt Louise could drop in a flash on "paper-due eve": it is your obligation to anticipate anything like this in your life that could go wrong and to take preventive measures or to develop back-up plans. You also must accept responsibility for being so foolish as to stake your grade on a computer's or printer's reliability. And no bitter ironies about roommates and alarm-clocks. No work submitted means you did not meet the requirements of the course (big F); late work will not be read but at least you will have met requirements minimally (little F factored in).
On a more positive note, I assure you that I am happy to provide advice and help at any stage of the pre-writing, researching, and drafting processes, short of giving you a topic and writing the text for you. Ultimately, though, it must be completed and turned in when due; the timing of the semester does not allow for screwing around and cheesy excuses. Get to work on this project early, consult with me as needed, and turn in the best possible masterpiece.
Sample papers, good to excellent, are available on the web site for your perusal, especially if you need to attune your ear to academic discourse.
Instructions and examples for the required MLA-style documentation are also on the site.
Other writing recommendations about various issues can be found also,
including my snotty comments regarding rancid phrases
and about generally turning in the project.
GLORIOUS PROJECT DUE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 2010; 1:10 pm. | <urn:uuid:bd3d4b32-ebbb-48c3-a6eb-4ac66191b3bc> | {
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How the Olympic Locations are Chosen
Every two years, cities around the world make bids to the International Olympic Commission (IOC) to host the Olympic Games. Originally most Olympics games, especially the Winter Olympics, were selected on the strength of being a popular place for winter sports like a ski resort. Today, cities are selected through a much more rigorous process.
Any city that wants to host the Olympic Games puts in its name to the IOC and is considered an "Applicant City." For the next ten months, the IOC investigates the city on several points:
1) The city must prove that it is big enough to handle the Olympics. With the games come a huge number of tourists, athletes, journalists, and politicians. They must show that they can host the games in new stadiums and venues, they must house all the people in adequate hotels, and they have to transport everyone from one place to the next with a reliable mass transit system. They also need to show that they can handle the high level of security needed at the games.
2) The city needs to convince residents that the expenses of covering the Olympics (which may be covered by raising taxes) are worth it in city improvement and new jobs.
3) The cities needs to maintain a highly positive media exposure to carry the games. Fourth, the tangible effects of hosting the Olympic games may not prove beneficial if the bid committees do not exercise proper judgment in developing the city to host the Olympics.
If the IOC decides that a city has fulfilled the three points above, the city is considered a "Candidate City" and goes into the second phase of the process. After submitting an application and an application fee, the IOC makes a final judging on which city is the best candidate for the coming Summer or Winter Olympic Games.
The costs for bidding for the games is incredibly high. Bid committees must pay an application fee (The fee for hosting the 2012 Olympics was $150,000 U.S.), to the IOC. This high fee is meant to discourage cities that are not committed to the efforts necessary to host the Olympics. Following these fees, the cities generally need to begin large construction projects like building the "Olympic village" to house the athletes, new sports arenas and stadiums, and transportation systems.
If the Olympics are so expensive, why do cities want to host the games? Cities bid for the Olympics for a variety of reasons: the desire to show pride in their city and their country, the eagerness to be in the international spotlight for two weeks, the opportunity to bring new jobs into the community, and to build up tourism to that city. | <urn:uuid:62be0b8d-3bca-4fdf-b9eb-959dc7c5cfeb> | {
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new kind of influenza vaccine works against the new swine flu virus in animals, Novavax Inc reported on Tuesday.
The company said it made the vaccine, which uses so-called virus-like particles, in fewer than four weeks after getting the genetic sequence of the H1N1 swine flu virus, which is now causing a pandemic. Most flu vaccines take five to six months to make.
Shares of Novavax shot up on the news.
Novavax would have to get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval before it could test its new vaccine in people. Years of testing are likely to be required before such a new formulation of a vaccine could be widely used in people.
The virus-like particles are a mock version of the virus, made using the genetic sequence released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Novavax said the vaccine protected ferrets against the new pandemic strain. Ferrets are the closest animal to humans when it comes to being infected with influenza.
"The ferrets received a 3.75, 7.5, or 15 microgram dose of the 2009 H1N1 virus-like particle vaccine or a placebo and were boosted with a second dose after three weeks," the company said in a statement.
Researchers at the CDC infected the animals with H1N1 taken from a California patient. "By day five after challenge, immunized ferrets at all vaccine dose levels had cleared the H1N1 virus and showed no sign of disease," the company said.
Unimmunized ferrets became ill.
Clinical trials of H1N1 vaccine made the old-fashioned way, with chicken eggs, are under way, and five companies are making it for the U.S. market -- AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, CSL, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA.
Also on Tuesday, China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd reported China's Center for Disease Control had completed a clinical trial of its H1N1 vaccine in 1,614 people and showed it provided an immune response without adverse side-effects.
Novavax, based in Rockville, Maryland, has been using its new technology to develop a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza.
Most influenza vaccines use either a weakened but live flu virus or a killed virus to stimulate the immune system. They must be reformulated every year to match the constantly mutating flu strains and are made using specially grown live chicken eggs.
Novavax grows the vaccine in lab dishes of caterpillar cells in a process the company says is quicker. It uses a decoy of the virus called a virus-like particle. The body recognizes the particle as a virus but it cannot infect cells and replicate.
The World Health Organization declared H1N1 a pandemic in June, and the virus has spread to about 180 countries. World health officials have said people should receive the two-dose swine flu vaccination as well as the single-dose seasonal flu vaccination this year.
In July, U.S. advisers said about half the U.S. population, or 160 million people, should get vaccinated against the new pandemic influenza strain, with pregnant women and healthcare workers at the front of the line.
But the U.S. Health and Human Services Department has said it can only get about 45 million doses of flu vaccine by mid-October, and about 20 million doses a week after that. | <urn:uuid:97a7b4a8-781d-41ef-8d6c-44f0f13fbc87> | {
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NCAA Health & Safety
Heat Illness: A set of three posters designed to raise awareness of the potential for heat illness during sports participation have been mailed to head athletic trainers. Please place them in areas where they will be frequently read by student-athletes and coaches. Also enclosed in the mailing is a pad of 50 urine color charts to help student-athletes better understand their hydration status on a day to day basis. These are typically placed in restrooms and locker areas for easy reference. Only the posters will be available online. Due to variability of technological equipment including computer screens, printers, and scanners, the urine color charts may not be duplicated, exhibited, distributed, or reproduced in any format including the internet, electronic mail, or computer files.
Videos: The student-athlete educational videos on sickle cell trait and concussions are now available on the NCAA YouTube channel which allows institutions to embed the videos into their own website for viewing. Links to these videos are below.
- The Student-Athlete with the Sickle Cell Trait
- Concussions: Don't Hide It, Report It, Take Time to Recover
- 30 second PSA: NCAA Concussion Awareness
Recent NCAA News Articles:
Experts stress need for acclimation with conditioning drills
Rhabdo requires prompt diagnosis, treatment
New cardiac study raises questions about diagnosis and response
NCAA resources help student-athletes beat the heat
Football and Heat Illness - Background on Heat Illness and NCAA Football
Background on sickle cell trait and the NCAA
Sickle Cell Trait - A Fact Sheet for Coaches (2010)
Sickle Cell Trait - A Fact Sheet for Student-Athletes (2010)
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NEWS & PRESS
Last Updated on Thursday, 06 May 2010 20:17
Published on Wednesday, 23 February 2005 00:00
Astronomers have known for many years that stars form when the cores of giant clouds of cold molecular material fragment and collapse. However,the details of the star formation process are poorly understood. In particular, the smallest fragments that can collapse to form very low mass stars or sub-stellar objects have not yet been identified.
Dr. Philip Lucas (University of Hertfordshire) and Dr. Patrick Roche (Oxford University) controversially announced last year that they had directly observed 13 faint points of light in Orion (a giant stellar nursery where thousands of stars are being born) which appeared to have masses closer to those of the giant planets - a few times more massive than Jupiter in our Solar System - than the stars.
On Tuesday 3 April, the same pair will announce at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Cambridge that they have confirmed their discovery of 'free floating planets' in the Orion Nebula. Their measurements of the spectrum of the infrared light from 20 objects in the Nebula show the characteristic signature of water vapour. This confirms that these objects are indeed young, low-mass bodies, and that the faintest of them are of planetary mass. These planetary mass objects can only be seen because they are very young and still warm after the process of formation.
Dr Lucas commented, "It's exciting to find these planet-sized objects floating around in space, unlike planets such as our Earth which orbit a star. Our new results provide the first steps in the exploration of their physical properties."
"The identification and study of these objects is extremely interesting in itself," added Dr. Roche, "but it can also aid our understanding of the star formation process, which is one of the major mysteries in astronomy."
This proof is sure to add fuel to the controversy of how such objects were born. Are they actually planets, thrown out of their solar systems and now floating in space, or have they been formed directly from a gas cloud in space, much like a normal star is?
There is also controversy over how to classify these "inbetween" objects. Some astronomers say that as these may have been formed like a star, they should not be called planets. The authors suggest that a new term - planetars - may be a good compromise.
FINDING THE EVIDENCE
Lucas and Roche were following up their discovery of these objects last year, when they measured faint points of light in the Orion Nebula - a vast cloud of gas and dust that can be seen with the naked eye as the middle 'star' in the sword of the constellation of Orion. Their observations were made in infrared light, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii.
This sparked a wide controversy among scientists, with some arguing that the result was a mistake because the planets might be normal stars far behind Orion and just happened to look like very young planets.
Now Lucas and Roche have used the same telescope to analyse the light from these giant worlds at different frequencies and shown that they must be inside the Orion Nebula. By studying the spectrum of the light from the planets, they were able to measure the temperature of the objects, and then, with the use of theoretical models, derive their masses.
The spectroscopic analysis shows strong absorption features due to water vapour in the atmospheres of these objects, which shows that they are not hot enough to be distant stars.
The results have been strengthened with the help of theoretical work on the atmospheres by France Allard and Isabelle Baraffe of the Ecole Normale Superieure at Lyon in France and by Peter Hauschildt at the University of Georgia in the United States. Lucas, Roche, Allard and Hauschildt analysed 20 of the brown dwarfs and planet candidates in the Orion Nebula to confirm the result.
The so-called 'planets' float in space by themselves, not orbiting any star. They are thought to be between 5 and 13 times as massive as the planet Jupiter, so they are rather large by the standards of our Solar System and are most unlikely to support life.
However, these worlds are not massive enough to shine by nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun and the stars. Nor are they massive enough for even the meagre nuclear reactions that occur in 'brown dwarfs', objects with masses between those of planets and stars.
The scientists admit that there is a slight chance that they are misinterpreting the data. If all the theoretical calculations for these poorly understood objects are wrong, or if they are far older than the stars and brown dwarfs around them, there is an outside chance that they are actually 20 or 30 times the mass of Jupiter - too big to be called planets. However, all the evidence found so far points to them being free-floating planets, and other astronomers in Japan and Spain are beginning to find signs of more and more planets in other nebulae like Orion.
A paper on the subject is currently going through the peer review process for the journal 'Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society'.
Dr Phil Lucas, Dept of Physical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire College Lane HATFIELD AL10 9AB
Dr Pat Roche, Dept of Astrophysics Nuclear and Astrophysics Lab. Keble Road OXFORD OX1 3RH
IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE ON THE WEB AT: www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~pwl/trapl.jpg
RAS Press Officers Peter Bond
Phone: +44 (0)1483-268672
Fax: +44 (0)1483-274047
Mobile phone: 07711-213486
Dr Jacqueline Mitton
Phone: +44 (0)1223-564914
Fax: +44 (0)1223-572892
Mobile phone: 07770-386133
NAM PRESS ROOM.
The press room phone numbers are:
UK National Astronomy Meeting Web site: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~nam2001/ | <urn:uuid:cfbe9c68-907c-4c7f-981a-efe5d673a25e> | {
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THE great gardens of the world - the Tivolis, Bellingraths and Sissinghursts - have flourished in latitudes blessed with a genial sun. Yet a mere 6 degrees below the Arctic Circle, where the thin winter sun visits for 6 hours out of 24, is the small and tidy plot of Karl von Linne, known to the botanical world as Carolus Linnaeus.
In 1741, at the age of 34, Linnaeus was appointed professor of medicine and botany at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. In this capacity he took over the university botanical garden, with an accompanying house where he could collect his specimens and, with his wife, raise their five children. Linnaeus proceeded to transform this two-and-a-half-acre patch of cool Swedish soil into a major scientific resource, a genetic living library.
In his lifetime, Linnaeus' garden became a pilgrimage site for the scholarly and the titled. The garden, which still flourishes in the form he gave it 200 years ago, and his house are open to visitors. While the garden remains a place of study for professional and amateur botanists, the charm of the place, with its orangery and ancient shade trees, also delights the casual visitor. The baroque layout of the garden, all rectangles and semicircles, pleases the eye and has the added benefit of orderliness, so necessary to the science of classification, or taxonomy. If Linnaeus could enter his garden today, he would do so with familiarity and delight, ready to lecture to students or plant a new flower.
The scientific community honors Linnaeus for his system of sexual plant classification and for his structure of dual nomenclature for natural science. Since Linnaeus, we refer to the world's flora and fauna with two (sometimes three) Latin names, and recognize ourselves within that order as Homo sapiens.
Linnaeus is a man honored in his own country. His avuncular face beams from every 100-krona note, and beyond his professional achievements he is adored as a true native son. Linneaus, who was born in 1707, loved nature and had a passion to categorize and name everything in it. His dream of order was a joyous one, acknowledging nature's fecundity in anthropomorphic terms that were shocking to his peers. In his great taxonomy of plants, ''Systema Naturae,'' Linnaeus spoke frankly and poetically of the stamen and pistil structures of flowers as ''brides and their bridegrooms'' who relish their ''meeting in the wedding chamber.'' Of plants whose reproductive organs are visible in the flower, Linnaeus wrote, ''The nuptuals are celebrated openly before the whole world.''
Entering Linnaeus' garden today, with the 18th-century orangery as a backdrop, the visitor finds a space suggesting a stage set for Mozart's ''Marriage of Figaro'' - the place where the principals hide and meet in their final assignations, betrayals and resolutions. When Linnaeus first moved into the house in the southeast corner of the garden, he complained that residence and garden alike resembled a messy owl's nest. Through neglect, his predecessors had allowed the number of species in the garden to dwindle from 1,870 to 300. With characteristic energy and organization, Linnaeus set about creating the garden we see today. He plied the university for funds to build the orangery, so necessary to growing tender southern plants, which now frames the north end of the garden. Today, the orangery contains a little cafe and art gallery and is used in the summer for literary readings and concerts. | <urn:uuid:c80ce526-dd24-4165-b160-4c05c3baf48f> | {
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In common use, the word gender may refer to biological sex, self-identity, perceived identity, or imposed identity. Gender can be both fluid and ambiguous. Many of the ways we express and identify gender are based on visual clues. Aotea Utanganui is proud to present The Portrait Show: capturing gender through portraiture, an exhibition that explores ways gender has been presented in photographs, ranging from archetypal to non-traditional to subversive representations, with an emphasis on the performances that photography can encourage or capture.
Inspired by a similar exhibition, The Gender Show, at George Eastman House International Photography & film Museum in Rochester, New York, this exhibition spans over 100 years of photography and is able to thoughtfully examine our changing cultural and social landscape, in which evolving ideas of gender portraiture are framed as photographic images.
The Portrait Show: capturing gender through portraiture offers the opportunity to view historical portraiture from our collection in a reinvigorated context.
Exhibition Curator – Cameron S. Curd | <urn:uuid:1ba689c4-12ee-4a70-9403-1256f1ae3386> | {
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The spacecraft is completely built, tested ... and will be ready to ship to Cape Canaveral in a few weeks
Israeli engineers have added the final element to a spacecraft destined for the moon - a digital time capsule - and said they aimed to land the craft early next year, somewhere between the landing sites of Apollo 15 and 17.
It will be the first mission of its kind since 2013 and, if it is successful, Israel will be the fourth country to carry out a controlled "soft" landing of an unmanned vessel on the moon.
Since 1966, the United States and the former Soviet Union have put around a dozen of them on the moon and China last did so in 2013.
"The spacecraft is completely built, tested ... and will be ready to ship to Cape Canaveral in a few weeks," said Ido Anteby, CEO of the SpaceIL non-profit that has led the project.
Israel has launched satellites before, but this is the first longer-range Israeli spacecraft of its kind.
The craft, called Beresheet, Hebrew for Genesis, is shaped like a round table with four carbon-fibre legs, stands about 1.5 meters tall and weighs 585 kg (1,290 lb) - with fuel accounting for two-thirds of that weight.
It will blast off from Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the next few months after an initial December date was pushed back.
The time capsule is a single, space-resilient disc, roughly the size of a CD, holding digital files of children's drawings, photographs and information on Israeli culture and the history of humanity.
"The capsule will remain on the moon and stay in the environment of the moon and maybe in a couple tens of years someone will send a spacecraft to bring it back," Anteby said.
Our landing site is located somewhere between the landing sites of Apollo 15 and Apollo 17
Beresheet is also carrying a device to measure the moon's magnetic fields.
SpaceIL is backed mainly by private donors, including U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and billionaire Morris Kahn who co-founded Amdocs , one of Israel'rs biggest high-tech companies.
SpaceIL was founded in 2011 by a group of engineers with a budget of about $95 million. State-owned defense contractor Israel Aerospace Industries has collaborated in the project.
At 60,000 km (37,000 miles) above Earth, the spacecraft will split off from the Falcon launch vehicle. It will at first orbit Earth in expanding ellipses and, about two months later, cross into the moon’s orbit. It will then slow and carry out a soft landing which should cause no damage to the craft.
"Our landing site is located somewhere between the landing sites of Apollo 15 and Apollo 17," Anteby said. "It's a flat area. But still it has small craters and a lot of boulders."
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Andrew Roche) | <urn:uuid:37d5bcd2-f81e-4261-9fa7-9e0d95d61d52> | {
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According to McCreery & Claridge (1995), individuals in which report extrasensory and other paranormal experiences typically have higher than normal psychopathological symptoms. In co-diagnosis cases (i.e. where an individual is diagnosed with a mental disorder, but also has genuine extrasensory experiences), this is especially true as the mixture of psychopathological symptoms and parapsychological experiences perpetually exacerbate each other until the severity of these experiences thrusts the experient into crisis.
In these cases, the individual becomes hyper-sensitive to other people and their surroundings, and as a result, the individual becomes hyper-reactive in their responses towards these sensitivities. Hyper-sensitivity and hyper-reactivity can result in bothersome, concerning, alarming, or downright terrifying experiences.
Whether the onset was due to chronic stress or acute stress, the individual feels that they are no longer equipped to tolerate the stress of being around other people or in certain situations that would otherwise not be stress-provoking. Hypersensitivity and hyper-reactivity can be treated by identifying predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors.
Once identified, the clinician can assist the individual by addressing cognitive distortions (e.g. filtering, overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, catastrophizing, control fallacies, etc.), and causes of fatigue-based symptoms that are leading to emotional, cognitive, physical, and behavioral issues.
In addition, the clinician can assist the individual in currently coping with their extrasensory experiences and coping long-term through protective strategies, which are classification-specific (i.e. each extrasensory subtype involves slightly different protective strategies).
ESP Conflict / Withdrawal (Hyper-sensitivity and Hyper-reactivity)
- Telepathic Cognition and Telepathic Simulation (TC-TS)
- Telepathic Interaction and Empathic Interaction/Simulation (TI – EI – ES)
- Clairvoyant Interaction and Empathic Cognition ( CI – EC)
- Clairvoyant Cognition and Clairvoyant Simulation (CC – CS)
Additional Topics & Treatment
- Visual Hypersensitivity – (Sight)
- Auditory Hypersensitivity – (Hearing)
- Tactile Hypersensitivity – (Touch/Pressure)
McCreery, C. & Claridge, G. (1995). A study of hallucination in normal subjects – 1. Self-report data. Personality and Individual differences, 21, 739-747.
Citation: Kelly, T.M. (2015). Clinical Parapsychology: Extrasensory Exceptional Experiences (Textbook). University of Alternative Studies. Purchase.
Copyright © 2015 Theresa M. Kelly, MsD. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. | <urn:uuid:2e78d16b-0900-42fe-b472-229b5281023b> | {
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Recent issues around machine learning biases and ethics make it clear that math and data can only take us so far. The recent fake news debacle and the efforts of some top researchers in natural language processing to address it show that sometimes even just defining the problem you’re trying to solve is the hardest part. We need human intelligence to decide how and when to use machine intelligence, and the more sophisticated the uses we make of machine intelligence, the more critically we need human intelligence to ensure it’s deployed sensibly and safely.
It’s time we started exalting critical thinking skills the way we do math skills. While we can entrust machines with mathematical calculations, we can’t entrust them with critical thinking, nor will we be able to any time soon. Reasoning about moral issues and identifying which types of problems are solvable with math are skills unique to humans.
When math and data fall short
Researchers recently claimed to have found evidence that criminality can be predicted from facial features. In “Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,” Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang describe how they trained classifiers using various machine learning techniques that were able to distinguish with a high level of accuracy photos of criminals from photos of non-criminals. The paper has been roundly attacked as a flawed and irresponsible use of machine learning. Their math was presumably fine; the idea itself wasn’t.
The authors put far too much trust in the algorithms they were using, and failed to notice the assumptions they were bringing to the task, e.g. the assumption that there is no bias in the criminal justice system, which completely colored their view of what they found. Failure to think about questions like this can have very real consequences, and no amount of machine intelligence can overcome it.
A triumph in machine intelligence
Perhaps one of the most impressive triumphs of machine intelligence in recent times was AlphaGo’s victory over the the world Go champion back in March. The system, from researchers at Google’s DeepMind, made incredibly sophisticated use of multiple machine learning techniques to achieve this feat.
Reasoning about moral issues and identifying which types of problems are solvable with math are skills unique to humans.
These techniques included learning from millions of past games, playing against itself and using advanced statistical techniques to come up with shortcuts that eliminated the need to evaluate every single possible move (of which there are more than the number of atoms in the universe). The game was won using machine intelligence, although it was sheer human ingenuity that designed the system that did it.
This may sound like tautological reasoning, but when we solve a problem with machine intelligence, it simply means the problem was solvable with machine intelligence; it doesn’t mean we created human-level intelligence. If a task is achievable with data and math, it’s a machine intelligence task. The piece that’s not solvable with data and math is designing that system in the first place.
The integral role of humansIf the people designing AlphaGo had failed in their critical thinking, the result would have been a poorly performing Go-playing machine. But with something like predicting criminality, the result of poor critical thinking abilities is potentially disastrous — certainly for any individual falsely identified as a criminal by the system.
Fears around machine intelligence are, at their core, fears of becoming irrelevant. Once the machines are able to do everything, what will the world need us for? But this is simply a misunderstanding of what machine intelligence is.
Machine intelligence systems are just tools, designed by humans to serve the interests of humans. Machines may win in a game of Go, but people will always be the ones choosing the game.
We need to stop focusing on how impressive these tools are (yes, many are truly impressive!) and focus more on ensuring they are designed well and serve human interests ethically. Is there bias in my training data? What are the repercussions of a false positive? Answering those questions is all about human intelligence — as utterly indispensable now as it has ever been.Featured Image: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:5aae2a0e-cba0-4538-9263-2fb4b22b0a6d> | {
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design and technology
The graduate program in Design and Technology fosters innovative conceptual strategies through which designs and technologies intervene meaningfully in the world, bringing together the ideas we live by and the things we live with.
Research involves not only areas of use and distribution, language, and visual culture, but also broader questions of access and ethics.
Design and Technology students at SFAI situate design in the realm of art, accepting distinctions between art and design that are relevant to our contemporary experience, while rejecting outdated ideas about the differences between artists and designers. Students are reminded that design is both conceptual and functional, producing objects or images that at once inform and constitute the very form of ideas in the 21st century. The program is oriented toward broad research strategies, and students transcend individual disciplines to create innovative work in graphic design, typography, illustration, motion graphics, film and video, interactive art, electronic sound, web design, and social media.
Collaborative and forward-looking, SFAI’s program emphasizes networks, systems, and connections—concepts at once high-tech and central to human relationships. Students are encouraged to build projects in different media that research the relation between humans and machines, infrastructures, devices, and their representations. Recently, SFAI has partnered with institutions in Paris to develop cross-cultural, multimedia projects such as the Art Collider and Hyphen. Closer to home, the Bay Area is a hub of artistic and technological innovation, giving students the opportunity to work with professionals from Pixar, Apple, Industrial Light and Magic, KQED Public Radio and Television, the Exploratorium, and other renowned organizations.
Students have access to extensive Digital Technology Resources configured to meet the needs of projects using sound, photography, film, video, design, 3D modeling and animation, web, programming, and print. | <urn:uuid:9b2bcd8e-3716-45d8-9386-3713cedf0af5> | {
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1 exact opposite; "his theory is the antithesis of mine"
2 the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas to give a feeling of balance [also: antitheses (pl)]
- This article is about the rhetorical device. For the historical issue in Dutch politics, see Antithesis (Netherlands).
DescriptionA simplistic description of dialectics is thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Hell is the antithesis of Heaven; disorder is the antithesis of order. It is the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, usually in a balanced way. In rhetoric, it is a figure of speech involving the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences, within a parallel grammatical structure, as in the following:
- "When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble."
- "Listen, young men, to an old man to whom old men were glad to listen when he was young."
The force of the antithesis is increased if the words on which the beat of the contrast falls are alliterative, or otherwise similar in sound. It gives an expression greater point and vivacity than a judicious employment of this figure.
BiblicalThe Antithesis of the Law is the name given by some New Testament scholars to a section of the Sermon on the Mount, , in which Jesus is reported as taking six well known prescriptions of the Mosaic Law, and calling on his followers to do more than the law requires. The best known is perhaps his teaching on retaliation in ,
- "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (KJB).
- "Ye have heard that it hath been said... But I say unto you...".
- "As Schechter in "J. Q. R." x. 11, shows, the expression "Ye have heard . . ." is an inexact translation of the rabbinical formula (שןמע אני), which is only a formal logical interrogation introducing the opposite view as the only correct one: "Ye might deduce from this verse [Bible verse |Lev|19:18] that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy, but I say to you the only correct interpretation is, Love all men, even thine enemies.""
Antithesis was the name given by Marcion to a document in which he contrasted the Old Testament with the New Testament.
In fictionIn fiction, an antithesis can be used to describe a character who presents the exact opposite as to personality type, moral outlook, etc. to another character in a particular piece of literature. This does not mean however, that they are necessarily in conflict with each other. Some examples of an antithesis in fiction include the characters of Locke and Jack in Lost (TV series), Dumbledore and Voldemort in Harry Potter, and Theoden and Denethor in The Lord of the Rings.
antithesis in Bulgarian: Антитеза
antithesis in Czech: Antiteze
antithesis in German: Antithese
antithesis in Spanish: Antítesis
antithesis in Esperanto: Antitezo
antithesis in French: Antithèse
antithesis in Galician: Antítese
antithesis in Croatian: Antiteza
antithesis in Ido: Antitezo
antithesis in Interlingua (International Auxiliary Language Association): Antithese
antithesis in Italian: Antitesi
antithesis in Hebrew: אנטיתזה
antithesis in Malay (macrolanguage): Antitesis
antithesis in Dutch: Antithese (stijlfiguur)
antithesis in Norwegian: Antitese
antithesis in Uzbek: Antiteza
antithesis in Portuguese: Antítese
antithesis in Romanian: Antiteză
antithesis in Russian: Антитеза
antithesis in Slovak: Antitéza
antithesis in Swedish: Antites
antithesis in Tagalog: Antithesis
antagonism, anteposition, antipathy, antipode, antipodes, antipole, antonym, clashing, collision, con, conflict, confrontation, confrontment, contention, contra, contradiction, contradictory, contradistinction, contraindication, contraposition, contrariety, contrary, contrast, converse, counter, counterbalance, countercheck, counterpoint, counterpoise, counterpole, counterposition, counterterm, cross-purposes, disagreement, discrepancy, foil, hostility, inconsistency, inimicalness, inverse, obverse, offset, opposing, opposite, opposite number, oppositeness, opposition, opposure, oppugnance, oppugnancy, perversity, polar opposition, polarity, polarization, posing against, repugnance, reverse, setoff, showdown, the contrary, the other side, vis-a-vis | <urn:uuid:e32e7a15-71e4-4882-99af-2d7c5ae941cf> | {
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Monthly Archive for January, 2010
Omega 3 fatty acids can be beneficial for optimal health, and have shown to help people suffering from many conditions, including cardiovascular disease, some skin conditions, and inflammatory conditions. Through our food, we consume both omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. Though we rely on both for optimal health, many people’s diets tend toward higher amounts of omega 6′s, and lower amounts of omega 3′s.
Coconut is a versatile staple food in many different cultures. The milk is used in sauces, and as the base of soups and stews. The oil is used for frying and in baked products. The “meat” of the coconut is shredded into baked products and used in custards, puddings and porridges. Beyond its culinary applications, coconut has a number of controversial beneficial health effects which deserve attention and exploration.
Blood sugar refers to the amount of sugar or glucose in the blood at any given time. Glucose is the body’s preferred source of fuel. The brain, nervous system and red blood cells cannot function without continuous supply of energy from blood glucose; however, we must pay close attention to the quantity and quality of glucose/carbohydrate that we consume, the food source from which it comes, and the quality of its ingredients. | <urn:uuid:0b655d07-f102-47ce-ac09-775c32ddaa23> | {
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- Tyne Tees
- 4 updates
Scientists in the region have made a major breakthrough in finding out how prostate cancer starts.
The team from the University of York have confirmed a link between stem cells and the cancer itself.
In years to come the findings of their research could revolutionise the way patients are treated.
You can watch the full report from Claire Montgomery below.
Brian Richardson from York is welcoming today's announcement.
He had surgery after being diagnosed with prostate cancer last year.
"At the time I was diagnosed, it was either a matter of getting radiotherapy, chemotherapy and I took the decision to have the prostate removed because the cancer was within the prostate.
"But, in years to come, with the research that has been talked about today, it means there is a likelihood they can treat the cancer chemically without having to remove the gland."
Research carried out by scientists at the University of York has identified the driving force behind the development of prostate cancer.
The prostate cancer research has been funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research who gave over two million pounds to the unit in August 2011 to fund a five year programme.
The new discovery now means that scientists can work towards the development of drugs that specifically target stem cells and more effectively work against the root cause of the disease.
Scientists based at the University of York have discovered what could be the driving force behind why people develop prostate cancer.
The research - which has been published today - reveals the existence of DNA formation which could go on to cause prostate cancer.
The discovery means that treatment can now be developed to fight the disease more effectively. | <urn:uuid:c2a4326c-1ae6-4410-8bc6-7c0cbaf442ba> | {
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Scientific name: Silene dioica
Just as the bluebells finish flowering in our woodlands, the rose-red blooms of red campion start to brighten up the woodland floor. Look for this pretty plant in hedges and roadsides, too.
StatisticsHeight: up to 1m
When to seeMay to September
AboutThe bright rose-red flowers of red campion brighten up roadsides, woodlands and hedges throughout the summer. Just as the bluebells finish flowering in our woodlands, red campion starts to come into bloom. If they grow side-by-side for a few weeks, they can turn a woodland floor into an amazing sea of pink and blue.
Red campion is a perennial plant, which means it can live for a number of years, growing and blooming in spring and summer, and dying back in autumn. | <urn:uuid:be80f4be-3203-49fd-8460-e13ff6855e28> | {
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This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it.
If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
Sesame Street: Song: Hop This Way
sesame street, Elmo, Rev Run, hop, song, hop this way
If you're watching videos with your preschooler and would like to do so in a safe, child-friendly environment, please join us at http://www.sesamestreet.org
Elmo and Rev Run sing about hopping.
Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization which also produces Pinky Dinky Doo, The Electric Company, and other programs for children around the world. | <urn:uuid:b12468e6-56f4-4369-8a10-a9b3e2a5e810> | {
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Current state of knowledge
In order to develop essential advances in the field of nanofriction, and of tribology in general, fundamental research lines revolving around four critical topics are recognized as the most pressing for the current state of knowledge.
- Bridging tribological mechanisms at different scales. Friction takes place in different phenomena that span a wide spectrum of length scales, from sub-nanometre up to kilometres as in the case of earthquakes. Diverse problems involve multiscale approaches and are being addressed by current research: biotribology (e.g. eyes and joints lubrication), bioadhesion (e.g. how can flies and lizards walk on vertical walls?) and cell adhesion, rubber sliding and rolling friction, friction of the human skin, capillary bridges, adhesion in paper and in skin friction. All these problems involve surface roughness and interfacial surface interactions over many length scales and require an accurate multiscale contact mechanics theory. While several multi-scale approaches, e.g. based on fractal methods, have been proposed, at present the molecular-level physics and rheology and the large-scale phenomenological descriptions of friction are not connected satisfactorily. One of the current challenges of tribology is to bridge the different length scales and relate the emerging laws of friction to shorter and shorter length scales, down to the atomistic processes involved. In parallel, experimental methods need to proceed a step forward toward a more precise and faster control of the dynamics at the contact interface.
- Tuning nanofriction. Developing the ability to tune and manipulate frictional forces, adhesion and wear is a far reaching goal that can obviously be of high technological impact. Standard lubrication techniques used for macroscopic objects are less and less effective in the micro- and nano-world, because of dominant viscous and adhesive forces. Novel alternative solutions for the control and manipulation of friction at the microscopic scales are called for. Recent preliminary experimental and theoretical studies have, for example, successfully designed efficient methods and algorithms to control tribological properties by imposing tiny mechanical oscillations or by exploiting natural, or externally optimized, interfacial mating geometries. More ideas and approaches such as electrochemical manipulation of surface interactions to control nanofriction are currently under consideration.
- Confined lubricants under shear. One of the reasons making friction a complex task is the involvement of many degrees of freedom under a strict size confinement, which leaves very limited access to the sliding interface itself. Experimentally it is possible to shear nanometre thin lubrication films in the surface force apparatus (SFA). These films are also present in macroscopic systems so the SFA can predict processes such as wear by quantifying the squeeze-out of monolayers and friction by shearing of thin films. Theoretically, computer simulations such as Molecular Dynamics (MD) can simulate the tribological behaviour of very thin films. MD is becoming more and more sophisticated and the possibility of a direct visualisation of the sheared interface increases the probability of establishing robust models describing the tribological mechanisms in these films.
- Controlled nano movements. The manipulation of nano-objects is an emerging nanotribology subfield associating fundamental issues and high-risk technological goals. At present, despite the indisputable success of recent experimental studies, the conventional atomic force microscopy (AFM) and friction force microscopy (FFM) setups show severe inherent limitations (e.g., unsuitability to measure real contact area dependence, generally amorphous/disordered probe ends, limited availability of good-quality AFM tip materials). Indications are emerging that these difficulties can be overcome by manipulating well-defined nano-objects (adsorbed atomic islands or crystalline clusters) with the AFM setup because the interface under study is now the contact between a nano-object and the surface. Following this approach, the interfacial friction of prototype contacts of well-characterized size and structure has been measured recently. More realistic and technically relevant interfaces are waiting to be studied: achieving the controlled manipulation of these systems may open the possibility to build directly nano or molecular suprastructures and eventually to drive single nano-clusters or molecules on a surface.
With worldwide research on friction and wear focusing on molecular interactions at the nanoscale, the coordination provided by this Action will promote a synergy of expertise, to construct a gapless chain of knowledge connecting molecular forces and machinery lifetime, fundamental mechanisms of dissipation and energy consumption, toward a rational design of future technologies. | <urn:uuid:ca5a4736-44cd-458a-87b6-67eb0a9c62fa> | {
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Driving during the winter is fraught with the potential for traffic accidents and deaths. Traffic conditions can change rapidly -- from one mile to the next, and from one minute to the next.
Weather-related driving conditions are a factor in more than 1.5 million car crashes every year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Drivers must pay more attention and slow down in the snow.
If it’s been several months since the roads in your area have been snow-covered and slick, chances are you’ve forgotten how to drive in snow and ice. This includes driving below the speed limit, slowing down at intersections, and ensuring you can see through your windshield and windows.
Keep these facts in mind to stay safe on snowy roads -- and to keep your auto insurance premiums from going up.
The first snowfall
According to 2005 research from the American Public Health Association, the first snowy day of the season is much more dangerous for drivers than other snowy days. Over a 25-year period, deadly crashes were 14 percent more likely on the first snowy day of the season compared with other snowy days. It takes us a few days to regain our winter-driving bearings.
Older drivers during the first snowfall
The American Public Health Association research shows that drivers over age 65 are particularly prone to drive poorly during a first snowfall.
Older men and pickup trucks
Another study of more than 23,000 Indiana drivers found men 45 and older are five times more likely to be severely injured or killed when driving on snowy and icy road surfaces compared with driving on wet surfaces.
The study, from Purdue University’s Center for Road Safety, also found that men 45 and older driving pickups were 81 percent more likely to be injured on snowy and icy surfaces than those of the same age group who were driving other types of vehicles. The study's authors said these drivers may be overconfident or have a false sense of safety in their trucks.
Tips for winter driving
The National Weather Service calls winter storms the “deceptive killers.” Here are some tips from the Car Care Council that can help prevent you from becoming a traffic statistic:
- Cold weather is tough on your vehicle’s battery. Make sure to have the battery and charging system checked.
- Flush and clean the cooling system every two years.
- Make sure your heaters, defrosters and wipers are working as they should. Replace wiper blades twice a year.
- Have your tires' tread depth and pressure checked.
- Change the oil and filter at recommended intervals. Dirty oil can spell trouble in winter. Ask your mechanic whether your vehicle should use a “winter weight” oil. Have your fuel, air and transmission checked, too.
- Have the brakes checked. With the onset of snow, ice and sleet, faulty brakes are especially hazardous in winter.
- Check the exhaust system for carbon monoxide leaks, which can be especially dangerous during cold weather when car windows are closed.
- Check to see that exterior and interior lights work correctly and that the headlights are properly aimed. | <urn:uuid:5166f9ec-44f1-4ed4-999d-a645dc9c09a9> | {
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The small intestine, or small bowel, lies between the stomach and the colon. The small intestine is about 6 m (20 ft) long. Its primary function is to digest and absorb nutrients. The small intestine makes up more than 70% of the length and 90% of the surface area of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
Someone without any risk factors can develop cancer, and having a risk factor, or even several, does not mean that you will get the disease. Because small intestine adenocarcinoma is so uncommon, risk factors for this disease have been hard to study. Some of the known risk factors include:
- Age: According to the National Cancer Institute, the average age of diagnosis is 67.
- Gender: Men are slightly more likely to develop the disease than women.
- Inherited condition: Although most small intestine cancers occur without a known hereditary link, there are some inherited conditions that may lead to a higher risk. The inherited conditions associated specifically with small intestine adenocarcinoma are: Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP)
- Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC), also called Lynch syndrome
- Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (PJS)
- Cystic fibrosis (CF)
- People with either multiple endocrine neoplasia, type I (MEN1) or defects in the gene NF1 (type 1 neurofibromatosis) may develop benign tumours in the small intestine that are at risk of becoming malignant carcinoid tumors.
- Gardner syndrome: Caused by a genetic defect. People with this syndrome often develop many polyps throughout the GI tract, particularly in the colon. Although there is a greater risk for developing colon cancer, this disease is considered a risk factor for sarcomas of the small intestine.
- Von Recklinghausen's disease: Neurofibromatosis, an inherited gene mutation, may lead to GISTs. However, there usually is no known cause for GISTs of the small intestine and hereditary links are rare.
- Tobacco and alcohol use: There is a lot of evidence linking cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse to many types cancer. Some research suggests that smoking and drinking may also be associated with the development of small intestine cancer.
- Diet: Eating a high-fat diet may be a small intestine risk factor.
- Chemical exposure: Certain chemicals, like vinyl chloride, dioxins and high doses of herbicides containing phenoxyacetic acid, are considered to be intestinal cancer risk factors for certain types of sarcomas, possibly including sarcomas in the small intestine.
- Gastrointestinal diseases: Certain diseases that affect the gastrointestinal (GI) tract may increase the risk of developing small intestine cancer. For example, Crohn's disease is a condition in which the immune system harms the small intestine. If you have had colon cancer, you may also be at an increased risk for small intestine adenocarcinoma, possibly because both cancers share similar risk factors. The GI diseases that are considered risk factors for small intestine cancer are:
- Colon cancer
- Celiac disease
- Crohn's disease
- Lymphedema: Damage to the lymph vessels (the vessels that connect the lymph nodes) or an infection may cause lymph fluid to build up. Lymphedema is also sometimes referred to as elephantiasis. This may increase your risk of developing a sarcoma of the small intestine.
Read more articles on Small Intestine Cancer. | <urn:uuid:afa113ac-509b-49c7-8875-ce9c5dde9bcb> | {
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Teaching Safety in Conjunction with Re-Launch of the Autism Safety Project
Safety is a critical part of all of our lives, whether we are at home or out in the community, alone or with loved ones. Being aware of our surroundings and taking precautions to stay safe is even more important for individuals with autism and their families. The Autism Safety Project is designed to provide families affected by autism with tips, information, expert advice and resources so that everyone in our community can stay out of harm’s way.
Since we have launched the updated Autism Safety Project this week we wanted to know your best tips and ideas about teaching safety to your family and friends. | <urn:uuid:c0f1b8ec-3103-4711-a34f-7d2c9802462a> | {
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Periodontitis (also commonly known as pyorrhea) is a type of periodontal disease, that is, a disease affecting the periodontium, the ensemble of tissues fixing the teeth to the bone. Periodontal diseases involve an inflammatory condition and have an infectious origin. When the condition is superficial, it triggers gum swelling or gingivitis, which is reversible. However, it must be treated or it can become a periodontitis. When bacteria attack the deepest periodontal tissues, a destruction of the ligament and alveolar bone holding the teeth occurs. We speak then of periodontitis or pyorrhea. This loss of periodontal supporting tissue (periodontal ligament and bone) is irreversible, hence the importance of an early treatment.
Often they go unnoticed because in most cases they are painless. The symptoms and warning signs are:
-Receding gums: teeth seem longer due to the gum displacement. This condition can give rise to an increase of dental sensitivity, especially to cold.
-Teeth mobility: when the bone loss is profound, the teeth are not able to resist the pressure exerted upon them by the tongue or just the contact with their opposites during the mouth’s closing. Besides, the inflammation of the periodontal ligament might cause changes in their inclination and position.
-Teeth separation: gaps or diastema appear between teeth.
-Bad breath (halitosis).
-Abscesses or gumboils in the gum.
When these symptoms occur the periodontitis is in an advanced stage, and even if it can be stopped through good periodontal treatment and maintenance, the lost bone and periodontum are not regained. That is why an early detection is vital. In order to prevent them, a proper oral hygiene and periodic cleaning conducted by a dentist or a periodontist (gum specialist) are needed. It is extremely important to consult with an specialist to find out whether there is prior family history, as predisposition is linked to genetic factors.
Other risk factors are: tobacco, stress, hormonal disruptions (menopause, pregnancy) and immunosuppression conditions. The rate is low for young people and teenagers, but it increases with age (10% between the ages of 30 and 40, 25% between 50 and 60).
Related systemic diseases: it might pose an increased risk to patients suffering from diabetes and heart diseases. There is a clear association between periodontitis or pyorrhea and a risk of myocardial infarction, as well as a risk for pregnant women of premature birth and low birth weight. | <urn:uuid:8e730663-0dd5-4ed0-a666-6d9b185bdb27> | {
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Teachers may consider the ways in which these activities may be linked to other Big Read community events. Most of these projects could be shared at a local library, a student assembly, or a bookstore.
- Have the students locate as many different illustrated editions of the novel as possible. How do these illustrations represent their time period? Have students select different parts of the novel to illustrate. Work with your visual arts specialist to create a series of images that reflect events in the novel, characters in the novel, and/or symbols in the novel. Exhibit student work in the gallery of a Big Read community partner.
- Divide the class into groups and have each group prepare a eulogy for Tom's "funeral" in Chapter XVII to be delivered by one of the following characters: Aunt Polly, Sid, or Becky Thatcher. Working with a theater teaching artist, learn dramatic techniques to assist students in delivering the eulogy. Present the eulogies at a Big Read event.
- Working with your local TV or radio station, create a storyboard for a short film or radio theater. Have teams of students create a radio drama or short film with the assistance of local media educators. After students have created their own rendering, examine some of the film versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Share student work with the community through a Big Read partner. Hold a student and media educator panel on what students learned working with film and radio. On the panel, they can discuss how their conceptions compared to professional film versions.
- Tom and his peers have to learn how to recite from memory. Work with your state NEA Poetry Out Loud coordinator and hold a recitation contest in your town. Students can memorize and recite one poem from the Poetry Out Loud anthology. After the contest, hold a student panel to discuss what the young people have learned from their experience with recitation and memorizing a poem. Successful reciters can go on to compete in the state finals.
- Research your own community's history. Using images available online or through your local historical society, create an exhibit illustrating what life was like in your area a hundred years ago. Write captions explaining the photographs. Display the exhibit in the school's library, at a local museum, or at another Big Read venue. | <urn:uuid:17b60857-f0b1-4519-90d1-8c02168e1edd> | {
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Latin America is leading efforts to protect nature and prove to the world that ecological well-being and development don't need to be mutually exclusive.
Social organizations and governments in the region have pushed forward the idea that Capitalism and savage exploitation of natural resources can't lead to a sustainable way of life.
teleSUR presents five of the most groundbreaking and inspirational examples of how nature and humans can coexist in harmony.
1. Ecuador: Constitutional Rights for Mother Nature
Ecuador has gone one step further in the fight to protect the environment by including inalienable rights for nature in its constitution, inspired by the example in Bolivia.
The constitution approved in 2008 gives nature the "right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution," a groundbreaking concept in the region and around the world.
It also mandates that the government should install "precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that could lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles."
Ecuador's constitutional assembly drafted the articles to legally enforce the rights of nature, and it was ratified by a plebiscite, including one whole chapter called "Rights of Nature."
It acknowledges that nature is not a property to be exploited by people and must be respected, and the people have a legal authority to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems and living beings, with the same weight under the law.
This concept was adopted from the Good Living concept, which in Kichwa is called “sumak kawsay,” as part of the government of President Rafael Correa under the Citizen's Revolution. This well-being philosophy to create a more equal and just society was also largely promoted by Bolivian President Evo Morales.
This movement has encouraged other countries and organizations across the globe to rethink the lifestyle of consumer culture and extraction that has led the world to the precipice of climate catastrophe.
2. Costa Rica: Running on Renewable Energy
For the past two years, the Central American nation of Costa Rica has been running almost completely on clean energy and setting an example for other nations.
The Costa Rican Electricity Institute says that around 98 percent of the country’s electricity came from green sources in 2016. The same figure was recorded for 2015.
Citizens used the energy generated from large hydropower facilities, tapping the resources of rivers and heavy seasonal rains, as well as geothermal plants, wind turbines and solar panels.
The country even used carbon-free electricity for more than 250 days last year, in a continuous 110-day stretch from June until October.
Hydroelectric and geothermal energy accounted for 89.9 percent of all electricity, while the rest came from wind farms, which generated about 10 percent of the energy, and solar plants accounting for 0.01 percent.
Authorities expect renewable power generation to continue to be “stable” in Costa Rica for the rest of 2017 and expand in the decades to come. Several international environmental agencies have highlighted these efforts.
Nicaragua has followed the same path to use its natural resources and protect its environment and has set the goal to use 75 percent of renewable energy by the end 2017, while expecting it to rise to 90 percent by 2020.
3. Cuba: A Unique Model for Sustainable Agriculture
According to the World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, Cuba is the most sustainable country on the planet.
The urban agriculture system implemented in Cuba has become a model for the rest of the world, and an alternative to ensuring food sovereignty and environmental protections at the same time.
In its bi-annual Living Planet Report of 2016, the Fund says that base on it environmental footprint index, Cuba is a world example. It proves that a sustainable system of food production is compatible with a high level of literacy, life expectancy, and low infant mortality.
The island has both an acceptable ecological footprint for each citizen by using an exemplary amount of energy and natural resources, and also an acceptable Human Development Index rating.
Known for its strong sugar production, its agriculture has moved away from monoculture, and diversified its products to tobacco, cereals, meat and other vegetables and fruits.
Even with the U.S. blockade that forbids them from buying machinery, pesticides, fertilizers and makes importing extremely expensive, the island manages to produce its own food, protects the environment and ensure its citizens have organic products.
Cuba has developed stronger plague management techniques that reduce and even eliminate the use of synthetic and poisonous products.
Cuba's urban farming, part of the government socialist view, provide equitable access to resources, efficient use of soil and water, and improves food security for its people.
After the Cuban Revolution, the government approved several agrarian reforms and created thousand of Campesino cooperatives, to ensure ownership of land and joint efforts to achieve services and loans for the agriculture sector.
4. El Salvador: No More Mining
Central America’s smallest nation El Salvador made environmental history just last month by banning all metal mining projects.
The nation's Congress approved this law with a cross-party support from 70 lawmakers out of 84 in total. According to a poll, 77 percent of the country’s population approved the measure.
The reform also blocks all exploration, extraction and processing of metals, whether in open pits or underground, as well as the use of toxic chemicals like cyanide and mercury.
According to the country’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 90 percent of the country's surface water is polluted, as a result of opening up and deregulation mostly in the mining industry.
The pressure from environmentalist and human rights groups, as well as the Catholic Church, was a strong factor in moving forward with the law. Civil society handed over 30,000 signatures demanding the ban.
The decision was highly influenced by the fact that the country won a millionaire lawsuit against OceanaGold, called Pacific Rim in 2007, when the company was denied a new permit to extract gold in a stand for national sovereignty and clean water.
This legal trailblazer could move other countries to seek its implementation, such as the case of Honduras, where protests against mining projects have led to activists being attacked and even killed for protecting their natural resources.
5. Bolivia: Leading the Fight for Climate Justice and Reparations
The demand for climate justice has created a brotherhood of social movements and grassroots campaigns in Latin America that together with Indigenous people and communities has become stronger.
Communities from Chile to Mexico have found a way to connect their struggles and seek solutions of their own.
When the world met at the COP21 summit in Paris, the Latin American countries led the call for a legally binding agreement to bring the most contaminating nations to justice, led by other countries including Bolivia.
The request would seek rich nations to transition to clean energy, transfer clean technology and financing to countries in development located in the Global South, to finally move away from fossil fuels.
The idea behind this is that rich nations which largely contribute to climate change need to stop polluting and repair the damage inflicted on people.
To add to the argument, rich countries have become richer from using cheap energy mostly from fossil fuels extracted from poor countries and deprived them of developing themselves.
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, known as CELAC, urged world leaders to agree to limit global warming to maximum 2 degrees Celsius. This is the tipping point scientists say would push the planet into catastrophic and irreparable damage.
Climate change threatens Latin American countries’ efforts to eliminate poverty and stimulate development, says the CELAC. | <urn:uuid:20caef7e-0007-4c06-ade0-de8e1e1bc19a> | {
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OTTAWA — Hunger strikes have an illustrious history: From political dissidents to suffragettes and freedom fighters, people have often starved themselves to death to draw attention to their causes.
Famously, Gandhi used his non-violent mass movement and hunger strikes to help India win independence from the United Kingdom and stop sectarian violence. On Robben Island, hunger strikes were part of Nelson Mandela’s arsenal in fighting the apartheid regime. Irish Republicans used the tool against British rule and three of them, including Bobby Sands, died as a result.
In Canada, Attawapiskat chief Theresa Spence is only the latest to resort to a hunger strike to further what she believes to be a worthy cause. Over the years everyone from Canadian veterans to merchant seamen, political activists and even a convicted child killer have gone on hunger strikes for a cause.
Perhaps the most high-profile hunger striker in recent Canadian history was Senator Jacques Hébert, who in 1986 went 21 days without food in the lobby of the Senate to protest Brian Mulroney’s decision to cut funding for the unemployed youth program known as Katimavik. When Jean Chrétien became prime minister, some the funding was restored.
And who would forget the 1998 hunger strike staged by merchant seamen who faced German U-boats and dive bombers during the Second World War to protest the government’s reluctance to give them appropriate veteran benefits. The government later agreed to give them benefits.
In 2001, now Green party leader Elizabeth May staged a 17-day hunger strike on Parliament Hill to push for the relocation of families living near the infamous Sydney tar ponds. The government later agreed to measures to help the residents.
A more recent event was the 2009 hunger strike by Tamil activists protesting against what they said was Canadian government inactivity over the civil war in their homeland. They wanted Canada to recall the Canadian high commissioner in Sri Lanka. They later gave up.
Bizarrely, Regina convicted child killer Jason Will, went on a hunger strike in September last year, in protest against his failure to win bail. Will was sentenced to seven years in prison for killing the 18-month-old son of his then partner.
University of Ottawa law professor and human rights campaigner Amir Attaran says part of the rationale for hunger strikes is to prick the conscience of people in power and place a “moral stain” on those who refuse to right wrongs. He says people resort to hunger strikes because they have basically reached the end of the road in getting heard or having their grievances redressed. Being prepared for martyrdom, and often dying for their cause as happened to Sands, not only leaves a mark on the existing government or power, but galvanizes people for the cause like nothing before. And it may well be that even in death, the hunger striker succeeds.
“Do hunger strikes work? It did work for Bobby Sands. The moral stain his death placed on Britain, is the moral stain that lasts. That moral stain has been a burden for Britain,” Attaran says.
Errol Mendes, a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Ottawa, agrees that hunger strikes raise the bar on morality — just letting a person die of hunger when it can be avoided is not something a person or government wants on its conscience. And while hunger strikes make powerful political statements, Mendes is unsure about their effectiveness in getting results. He notes that some people still question whether Gandhi, perhaps the most famous hunger striker of them all, achieved his goals through the tactic. His non-violent mass movement may have helped India achieve independence, but his use of hunger strikes to stop sectarian violence succeeded only up to a point.
“Hunger strikes are important in galvanizing not just one’s community but the larger community. But they are not necessarily the most effective means of protest,” Mendes says.
“Gandhi’s was not completely successful.”
Indeed, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who started the latest frenzy over hunger strikes, will finally get to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a working meeting with First Nations chiefs, but it is not the face-to-face meeting she has long demanded. And given the Canada-First Nations relationship, the question remains whether her grievances would be addressed. | <urn:uuid:68e96f4c-ed7f-4fa1-9f72-891991d3097f> | {
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Cell maps for each oil and gas assessment unit were created by the USGS as a method for illustrating the degree of exploration, type of production, and distribution of production in an assessment unit or province. Each cell represents a quarter-mile square of the land surface, and the cells are coded to represent whether the wells included within the cell are predominantly oil-producing, gas-producing, both oil and gas-producing, dry, or the type of production of the wells located within the cell is unknown. The well information was initially retrieved from the IHS Energy Group, PI/Dwights PLUS Well Data on CD-ROM, which is a proprietary, commercial database containing information for most oil and gas wells in the U.S. Cells were developed as a graphic solution to overcome the problem of displaying proprietary PI/Dwights PLUS Well Data. No proprietary data are displayed or included in the cell maps. The data from PI/Dwights PLUS Well Data were current as of October 2001 when the cell maps were created in 2002. | <urn:uuid:a7b702a9-b789-4903-98e1-11262765e23a> | {
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The identification of helium-3 came about by the exploration of the soil layer on the Moon, a pioneering work that has not been done by any other country.
The Chang'e 1, using microwave technology, measured the depth of the soil layer across the moon.
One of the focuses of the soil examination was to detect how much helium-3, a crucial element for nuclear fusion, is on the moon.
Since the fossil energy on Earth might be exhausted in a century or less, mankind has to find an alternative
energy source. Nuclear fusion would be an important option.
There is an abundance of helium-3, perhaps millions of tons, on the moon, which could be used to generate energy once the technology matures.
Scientists feel this is the reason why the moon might fundamentally change the pattern of energy generation for humans.
Other missions included the formulation of a two-dimensional as well as a three-dimensional map of the entire moon.
The Chang'e 1 scanned the moon's surface with three laser beams, measuring the height or altitude of more than 9 million points on the moon.
Based on the data collected, a stereoscopic map of the Moon will be accomplished before the end of this year. | <urn:uuid:d0f533a5-026f-415e-844a-c4c4661992f2> | {
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Teacher Development Workshops
To find out more about these informative workshops contact the Library’s education specialist Jeffrey Urbin by phone at (845)486-7761 or by email at [email protected].
Using Media to Teach the Age of Roosevelt
The Pare Lorentz Center at the FDR Library has developed a teacher workshop that uses historic film clips and documents to present information regarding a particular event of their choosing. We train teachers to view history as a filmmaker might by drawing on Pare Lorentz’s methods of carefully considering and deconstructing a complex subject and presenting it to an audience as a logical, multi-layered narrative, in a way that is both evocative and informative.
In the workshop, teachers are shown how to break historic events down into the three elements of a narrative as told in a story.
- The beginning, where we are introduced to the setting, the main characters—protagonists and antagonists and supporting characters—the theme, tone, and mood.
- The middle, where the protagonist and the antagonist come into some sort of a conflict with each other and then struggle to resolve it.
- The end, where the conflict is resolved and from which lessons and morals can be identified.
These lessons and morals can then be examined, debated and applied to modern events.
Teaching American History Grant Multi-day Workshops
The Library's education specialist is happy to work with those seeking or participating in a Teaching American History Grant to design a custom workshop tailored to the requirements of the grant and the needs of the teachers. With more than 17 million pages of documents, the Roosevelt Library is the world's premier research center for the study of the Roosevelt era. Tours, lectures, workshops and audio visual materials can be made available for one, two or multi-day workshops by contacting the Library's Education Specialist, Jeffrey Urbin at (845) 486-7761 or at [email protected].
Introduction to Resources and Programs at the Roosevelt Presidential Library
This workshop is designed as an introduction for teachers who are unfamiliar with the programs and resources the Roosevelt Presidential Library has to offer. Participants are walked through an overview of the Library's document-based education programs, and the various options for field trips. In addition, copies of historic documents such as the "day of infamy" speech, FDR's fireside chats and letters written to Eleanor Roosevelt will be highlighted. The Library's online resources will also be featured for those teachers who might be unable to bring their students to the Library. [Half-Day]
Working with Primary Sources at the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
This workshop is designed as a general introduction for teachers interested in preparing their students for work with primary source documents and to answer document based questions. The focus is on getting teachers and their students to understand the fundamentals of document analysis and critical thinking as well as the history and reasoning behind the recent emphasis on document based questions. Teachers will be shown innovative ways to introduce historic records and primary source documents as tools in their classroom instruction. [Full-Day]
Developing Document Based Questions from Primary Source Material from the Roosevelt Presidential
Library and Museum
This workshop is designed for teachers interested in developing their own document-based questions drawn from the materials housed at the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Over the course of two full-day sessions, teachers will be exposed to: the history and reasoning behind the recent emphasis on document based questions, strategies for helping their students think critically and historically, and seven simple steps for developing document based questions of their own. The vast resources of the Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum are offered as raw materials for teachers to develop and share their questions and ideas. [Two-Day]
Using Film in the Classroom Workshop
This workshop is designed to introduce teachers to the vast storehouse of materials available for use in the classroom from the Pare Lorentz Film Center at the Roosevelt Presidential Library. Three short films produced by the Center: The Roosevelt Rap; The Sights and Sounds of the Great Depression and Red Tailed Angles: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen, will be featured. Teachers will be given step by step instruction on how to use them in their classrooms and will leave with more than a dozen film related classroom activity ideas, accompanying primary source documents, procedures for analyzing the materials and DVD copies of the films used in the workshop. [60 to 90 minutes]
Racism in America: Tuskegee; Today; Tomorrow
This workshop is designed to engage students in a series of activities aimed at increasing their knowledge and understanding of the changing nature of racism in America from 1925 to today. The workshop will focus on the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, the contributions of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the impact of language on our perceptions of bias. Through the use of films, tours, lectures and activities students will be challenged to define themselves as a "link" in a chain of change and then tasked with developing ideas to implement those changes in their homes, schools and communities. [Full Day Workshop] | <urn:uuid:62124df3-7a58-46cc-8b80-a1fb5856c4d4> | {
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"For a long time, the statistics on eradication of illicit crops have been mistaken. It's incredible that nobody has realized that Colombia produces much more cocaine than the reports say," said Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos back in June.
He was responding to the release of report on his country's cocaine production conducted by US, UN, and Colombian experts at the request of the Colombian government. Now, the Colombian newsweekly Cambio has published an article based on that report, and the rest of us get to understand what Santos was talking about.
|eradication: much pain, no gain
According to the report, the UN, the US, and the Colombian National Police have all seriously underestimated total cocaine production in the country, currently the world's leading cocaine producer. The Colombian police estimate was 497 tons in 2005, while the US estimated 545 tons, and the UN estimated 640 tons. But the authors of this most recent report estimate that cocaine production last year was actually a staggering 776 tons, or nearly half again as much as the US or Colombian police estimates.
The Colombians undertook the new survey after noticing that despite massive seizures of tons of cocaine, the price of the drug stayed stable. Investigators visited 1,400 coca growers and ran tests at more than 400 plantations. They found that growers had improved their growing techniques and were now able to produce not four harvests per year, but six.
According to Cambio, "That explained why the strategies designed to confront the phenomenon have not produced the expected results and the drug trade is flourishing as much or more than before."
cocaine bricks (source: US DEA)
The research results raised questions about the effectiveness of the much-criticized aerial fumigation program financed by the United States. Colombian and US officials had suggested the lack of results from spraying herbicides was because traffickers had large stocks of cocaine warehoused. "Without a doubt, that's a big mistake," Colombian anti-drug police subdirector Carlos Medina told Cambio. "The narcos donít need to store cocaine because the market demands coca and more coca."
The US has about $5 billion invested in this farce so far. One can't help but wonder when the politicians in Washington will notice all those tax dollars going down the rat hole.
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Foundation, unless otherwise noted. | <urn:uuid:1e88f98a-f87a-44e1-9a2c-e57a4d912b85> | {
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Ordeal by Check: An introductory activity about the Nature of Science part of Teacher Preparation:Resource Collections:Activities
In this science capstone laboratory class for pre-service teachers, students are introduced on the first day of class to how scientific knowledge develops, often referred to as nature of science (NOS). Students write answers independently to questions on the NOS survey, then discuss their answers in small groups, and finally share with the entire class during a brief discussion. As a group they establish NOS tenets. Small groups (about 4 students) then engage in the "Ordeal by Check" activity, which involves creating a story based on evidence and adjusting their story based on more evidence. By the end of the activity the instructor leads a class discussion about several of the NOS tenets that became evident as the activity unfolded, such as how scientific knowledge is durable but tentative (when new evidence is found), how scientific activity requires both being logical/systematic and creative/imaginative, and how science and its methods cannot answer all questions. Learn more about the course for which this activity was developed.
California State University Northridge: Liberal Studies Science Experience Capstone Course part of Teacher Preparation:Resource Collections:Courses
This laboratory course serves as a culminating science experience for Liberal Studies majors in the pre-credential and ITEP options. An interdisciplinary blend of biology, physics, chemistry, and earth and space sciences from lower division courses are integrated into the course as various topics are explored through the broad lens of earth science. Students practice observation, synthesis, analysis, evaluation of major concepts and data related to Earth's dynamic processes. Development and presentation of informal K-8 lesson plans give students experience planning instruction and designing learning experiences for elementary school students. For Dr. Nagy-Shadman's reflections on the course and its design, see Liberal Studies Science Experience Capstone: Role in the Course
Lesson Plan Experiences in Science Content Courses part of Teacher Preparation:Workshops and Activities:Workshop 2007
Earth Science for Elementary Teachers - Including Lesson Design Group Members Heather Petcovic, Earth Science for Elementary Educators II Ann Bykerk-Kauffman, Concepts in Earth and Space Sciences Elizabeth ... | <urn:uuid:2172347f-94a3-4aa9-b277-48aa658806c7> | {
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Slow steaming is the practice of operating transoceanic cargo ships, especially container ships, at significantly less than their maximum speed. In 2010, an analyst at the National Ports and Waterways Institute stated that nearly all global shipping lines were using slow steaming to save money on fuel.
Rationale and history
Slow steaming was adopted in 2007 in the face of rapidly rising fuel oil costs, which was 700 USD per tonne between July 2007 to July 2008. According to Maersk Line, who introduced the practice in 2009 to 2010, slow steaming is conducted at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). Speeds of 14 to 16 kn (26 to 30 km/h; 16 to 18 mph) were used on Asia-Europe backhaul routes in 2010. Speeds under 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph) are called super slow steaming. Marine engine manufacturer Wärtsilä calculates that fuel consumption can be reduced by 59% by reducing cargo ship speed from 27 knots to 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph), at the cost of an additional week's sailing time on Asia-Europe routes. It adds a comparable 4 to 7 days to trans-Pacific voyages.
The container ship Emma Maersk can save 4,000 metric tons of fuel oil on a Europe-Singapore voyage by slow steaming. At a typical 2008 price of USD 600-700 per tonne, this works out to USD 2.4-2.8 million fuel savings on a typical one-way voyage. Maersk's Triple E class of ships was designed for slow steaming, with hulls optimized for lower speeds. Because of this, it has less powerful engines than its predecessors.
Cost and benefits
Lowering speed reduces fuel consumption because the force of drag imparted by a fluid increases quadratically with increase in speed. Thus traveling twice as fast requires four times as much energy and therefore fuel for a given distance. The power needed to overcome drag is the product of the force times speed and thus becomes the cube of the speed at high Reynolds numbers. This is why driving an automobile at 80 km/h (50 mph) requires less than 85% of the power required by the same automobile driving at 100 km/h (60 mph).
Although lowering speeds reduces the power requirements, the overall benefits of speed reduction may be limited by other factors, such as economically viable total voyage time, and the fact that a ship's engine and propeller are designed to operate within a certain RPM range. Steaming too slowly may place the engine and propeller outside their most efficient range, and will therefore begin to counteract the benefits. Also, there are fixed costs, such as crew wages and charter rates, that will increase if the voyage is longer. Although some ships are being put into service that are designed to steam most efficiently at slower speeds, the great cost of building a ship and need to remain competitive means that radical changes are unlikely until conditions merit such a risk.
The trade off between fuel cost savings against the increased costs of personnel, insurance and inventory due to the longer voyage duration is a significant logistical issue. Commercial vessels seek to adhere reliably to schedules; if a ship is planned to slow steam, it may normally speed up should it encounter en route delays (such as bad weather or deviation) so as to recover its original scheduled arrival time. The initiative to balance cost, duration, emissions and risk is supported by the EC-funded research project SYNCHRO-NET.
"Smart steaming" is a strategy by which the vessel speed is dynamically optimised based on the real-time state of the sea, weather and the destination port - for example if there is congestion at the port there is little point in rushing to get there at full speed simply to then wait for a berth for days - instead the ship can go more slowly to conserve fuel and still berth at the same time.
The International Maritime Organisation's GloMEEP project has also studied this subject, and refers to "Just in time Ship Operations".
Smart Steaming has the potential to deliver many benefits. For example the SYNCHRO-NET project has reported examples of up to 30% reduction in fuel usage for the ship, which, broadly speaking, means a similar reduction in cost and greenhouse gas emissions.
Technically and operationally smart steaming presents some challenges. Ship control systems have to be more sophisticated, and multi-objective optimization techniques are needed which can respond to changing conditions (e.g. weather, sea state, port status). Improvements in ship/port communications are also needed, as well as new commercial and legal agreements between relevant stakeholders: ship operator, ship owner, port/terminal operator and the customer/freight forwarder whose goods are being carried by the ship.
- Glossary of terms (PDF), Maersk, 31 October 2014, archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2014
- "Ocean shipping lines cut speed to save fuel costs", LA Times, July 31, 2010
- "No slower steaming as container lines run like clippers", Bloomberg Business, January 26, 2012
- Container Ship Focus] (PDF), Lloyd's Registry, September 2008, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-26
- Slow steaming - the full story (PDF), Maersk, 2011, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-11-02
- Presenna Nambiar (July 25, 2011), "'Slow steaming' slows down delivery of goods", New Straits Times, archived from the original on April 9, 2016 – via HighBeam Research
- "Carriers Move Full Speed into Slow Steaming", Journal of Commerce, January 12, 2010
- Slow steaming – a viable long-term option? (PDF), Wärtsilä
- Steamship Mutual report
- Slow steaming guide
- Note that if a variable pitch propeller is fitted, slow steaming may be accomplished effectively.
- The economics of slow steaming
- Is Slow Steaming Good for the Supply Chain?
- https://www.mjc2.com/synchronet.htm - SYNCHRO-NET: Smart Steaming and Synchro-modal Logistics.
- https://glomeep.imo.org/ - GloMEEP - Just-in-time ship Operations.
- https://www.mjc2.com/synchro-net-smart-steaming-supply-chain.htm - Smart Steaming and De-stressing the Supply Chain. | <urn:uuid:a377817f-add3-4081-bcbe-4a1604a1d563> | {
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posted on Jun, 3 2011 @ 07:31 AM
It's funny how cereal benders can be considered a prediction of an impossible event. There cannot be a Nibiru as described. Studies of solar system
dynamics make it impossible for an unknown planet to exist that has an orbit that enters the orbits of the known planets.
To be more precise, the Milk Hill crop picture of 2009 seems to show a rare planetary alignment which will only occur once in the near future
on June 1, 2011.
Yes, all alignments such as the current alignment are slightly different. They are also fairly rough. Nothing forms a true line. The best alignment in
recent times was in 2000 when the Earth was destroyed. Oooops. I guess all of the books that made that claim were all wrong.
Interestingly enough, those crop artists counted it in their Milk Hill field diagram as an “extra planet” between Mars and Jupiter. The
unknown object is not Comet Elenin, nor is it Comet Holmes in a second outburst.
Why do they bother to mention comet Holmes when that object is no where close? I guess it makes for good filler. And why do they eliminate comet
Elenin? How does the author of the site know what the cereal bending artists were thinking?
I find it interesting that the author of the webpage compares the drawing to a sextant. My guess is that the person does not know how a sextant is
used or what information it provides.
The second part of Milk Hill on June 23, 2009 showed more of those five planetary orbits, looking up into Earth’s sky using a sextant
A sextant is not for looking up into the sky. It's not well suited to that job.
The third part of Milk Hill on June 30, 2009 showed a series of strange astronomical hieroglyphs that were clearly alien-made
Got to love the effort at chicanery here where the person posts opinion in the form of an "obviously" statement. That often translates to, "I have
no idea how to prove this, so I will gloss over that point."
Perhaps to dispel any possible notion that Phases I and II could have been carved out by local human fakers, using rope and boards, Phase III
of Milk Hill 2009 showed an amazing series of astronomical hieroglyphs, stretching across the green field for approximately 500 meters:
So a geometric pattern that looks like doodling and has no parts that could reveal errors is used on a large scale and thus is evidence of a non-human
effort? The big part that is sprawled a long distance is made so that mistakes are not evident. It's a collection of small pieces.
Time for a palm to face move. | <urn:uuid:27717a99-bd26-49ec-9789-0b392ad55d24> | {
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- Children who live in a home where battering occurs are likely to experience a variety of negative effects and problems.
- Children may be injured during an incident of violence, may suffer feelings of helplessness, may blame themselves for not preventing the violence or for causing it, and may be abused or neglected themselves.
- Children in violent homes face a dual threat: witnessing traumatic events and the threat of physical assault.
- Children living with domestic violence experience unnaturally high levels of anxiety.
- Children may suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (similar to what war veterans suffer) even after a single incident.
- Children exposed to domestic violence often experience difficulties in school.
- Children living in violent homes have more frequent incidents of truancy, theft, insomnia, temper tantrums, and violence toward others than children raised in a non-violent atmosphere.
- Studies indicate that boys exposed to family violence tend to be overly aggressive and disruptive.
- Studies show that girls who are exposed to family violence tend to withdraw and behave more passively than girls not exposed to violence.
- Children who live in abusive homes have a higher risk of juvenile delinquency and substance abuse.
It is extremely important for children who live in violent homes to have a simple safety plan.
- Warn children to stay out of the adults' conflicts.
- Make a list of people the children can trust and talk to when they are feeling unsafe (neighbors, teachers, relatives, friends).
- Decide ahead of time on a safe place the children can go when they feel unsafe.
- Teach children how to use police and other emergency phone numbers.
(Source: Domestic Violence Information and Referral Handbook) | <urn:uuid:a1bbd751-dfbb-4133-a36a-5ceb664f75d1> | {
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About this book
Many people believe that organic agriculture is a solution for various problems related to food production. Organic agriculture is supposed to produce healthier products, does not pollute the environment, improves the fertility of soils, saves fossil fuels and enables high biodiversity.
This book has been written to provide scientifically based information on organic agriculture such as crop yields, food safety, nutrient use efficiency, leaching, long-term sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions and energy aspects. A number of scientists working with questions related to organic agriculture were invited to present the most recent research and to address critical issues. An unbiased selection of literature, facts rather than standpoints, and scientifically-based examinations instead of wishful thinking will help the reader be aware of difficulties involved with organic agriculture.
Organic agriculture, which originates from philosophies of nature, has often outlined key goals to reach long-term sustainability but practical solutions are lacking. The central tasks of agriculture - to produce sufficient food of high quality without harmful effects on the environment - seem to be difficult to achieve through exclusively applying organic principles ruling out many valuable possibilities and solutions. | <urn:uuid:017985ba-8b8a-4a48-9152-e8133cadf464> | {
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|The Gem and Jewelry World's Foremost Resource on The Internet.|
Excerpts from the book:
Theory and Practice of Goldsmithing
Niello is a deep black metal mixture that is fused onto metal for decorative effect. Though worked on three-dimensional objects, the effect might be considered graphic because it relies primarily on shape and pattern. The contrast of the lustrous black inlay against either matte or polished metal is striking and has earned niello a special place in the arsenal of decorative techniques.
The process can be thought of as having two parts - making the niello material and fusing it into position. The latter is generally a matter of filling depressions or incised lines made by engraving, etching, stamping, rolling or layering (figures 10.1 to 10.3).
This technique can be traced all the way back to ancient times. Theophilus,
a monk in the Middle Ages, has given a description of the procedure which
is so accurate that it could be used here. Unfortunately niello is rarely
used today, almost forgotten, perhaps because goldsmiths have forgotten
how to work with engraving tools and chisels. There is no reason why niello
can not be used in contemporary design and achieve again the high regard
in which it was once held.
Test the niello by striking a lump with a hammer. The piece should shatter like glass and reveal a fracture surface that is uniformly black. If the niello does not show both of these properties, remelt it, using more sulfur and stirring the mass more completely.
Applying and Firing the Niello
The niello paste is packed into the recesses with care typically sliding it off a small carrier such as a fine brush (a goosequill is specified in the ancient texts). Pack the paste as firmly as possible with a small spatula to create a dense filling. Even with this the niello will occupy less space as it fuses and should therefore be mounded up higher than the level of the piece being filled. When the piece is "loaded" it is set into a warm spot to dry, for instance under a lamp or on a heater. If the piece is fired when wet, the expanding steam tends to throw the niello particles aside.
Goldsmiths of the Middle Ages melted their niello over a charcoal fire; today an electric kiln is preferred because of its uniform, controllable heat. The dried piece can be set directly into the kiln, or laid onto a tile or piece of firebrick to make it easier to withdraw from the kiln. First the ammonium chloride spreads over the niello as a white covering layer. As the heat approaches 500°C (930°F) the black metal powder will glow red and spread to fill up the depression into which it was packed.
In flat objects gravity will pull the taffy-like molten niello into place.
When working on curved surfaces, particularly something a fully round
as a sphere, gravity of course has the opposite effect, pulling the niello
out of place. Rounded objects must be kept turning, a process made easier
if they are attached somehow to a long rod. The piece can be withdrawn
for brief times from the kiln and the niello troweled back into place
with a lightly oiled steel spatula. Prolonged heating will allow the sulfur
portion to burn away, leaving a porous brittle surface.
If there are voids or bubbles, apply additional niello paste and repeat the process, using the spatula to press the fresh melt into the first layer.
In some cases, particularly those where an engraved or stamped line is being filled with niello, the paste process just described is less successful than the following adaptation. Pour the niello into an ingot mold or similar arrangement to make rods of the raw material. Prepare the metal as described above, brush on a coat of the ammonium chloride flux and warm it with a torch. Keeping the metal warm, melt the tip of the niello rod and smear it into the prepared grooves, adding as much as necessary to fill the groove.
The niello is relatively soft and will therefore respond well to burnishing.
Be careful when using a flex shaft or polishing machine for the same reason:
the niello will be removed twice as quickly as silver or gold. Stiff polishing
equipment such as a leather stick or a felt wheel are preferred.
All rights reserved internationally. Copyright © Brynmorgen Press. Users have permission to download the information and share it as long as no money is made-no commercial use of this information is allowed without permission in writing from Brynmorgen Press. | <urn:uuid:4df91dfd-aa53-4d7c-9e1d-4f44f056668b> | {
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Sowing Seeds Of Hope and Peace: The Ein Bustan kindergarten is the first Jewish/Arab Waldorf kindergarten in Israel
The Ein Bustan kindergarten is the first Jewish/Arab Waldorf kindergarten in Israel, and is situated in the small Arab village of Hilf, near Kiryat Tivon, in the lower Galilee. The kindergarten, which is based on the principles of the Waldorf educational method, accepts both Arab and Jewish cultures equally. Currently Maayan Babustan operates a nursery school for the youngest children and two kindergartens for children, ages 2-6, and a pioneer first grade class is due to open in September 2011.The children of “Ein Bustan” (meaning “spring in the garden”) come from Kiryat Tivon, (a Jewish town) and the surrounding Bedouin (Arab) villages Hilf, Zbidat, Zarzir and Bosmat Tab’un.
You can read here some background about how this all started: <META name='keywords' CONTENT='Ein Bustan, Hilf, Waldorf education, Waldorf Israel, Arab-Jewish'><link rel='canonical' href='http://www.ein-bustan.org/11308/Background' /><title>Ein Bustan: Arab Jewish Waldorf Kindergarten - Background: How did this
The founders of Ein Bustan share a vision of a society in which Jews and Arabs live together peacefully in equality and understanding. In order to create this reality, we believe that there must be education that fosters true friendship, trust and shared culture and language. An educational system that separates children by their religion and nationality fails to take into consideration the widening gap between the two communities, which will take years to bridge and generations to mend.
Ein Bustan aims to build a bridge between the Arab and Jewish population through a joint, multi-cultural educational setting based on the Waldorf approach. With an emphasis on encouraging the imagination and creativity of the child, humanistic values, social responsibility, nature, arts and music, we feel that the Waldorf approach is uniquely suited to Ein Bustan’s bi- lingual and multicultural populations. Ein Bustan’s kindergarten activities are based on traditional arts and crafts, and the holidays and customs celebrated in both cultures.
In addition to running a joint kindergarten and preschool, Maayan Babustan initiates and encourages additional activities that promote dialogue and understanding such as study groups, lectures and cultural events. This project, while small in scope, is having an influence that goes far beyond the kindergarten in Hilf- an influence that expands from day to day in ever-widening ripples in the surrounding Arab and Jewish communities, inspiring hope for peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews.
Ein Bustan has been running it’s educational program since September 2005, and has received the official approval of the Israel Ministry of Education as an authorized kindergarten. Maayan Babustan, which operates the educational frameworks of Ein Bustan, is a registered Israeli non-profit organization.
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The meat eating plants in Sweden are so possessive on nitrogen pollution that they are able to eat fewer bugs. It may not be a good thing for the plants, a new study by Jonathan Millet, a plant ecologist at Loughborough University in U.K.
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for all plants. But, like other carnivores species in plant and animal kingdom in the universe, the round leaf sundew plant scientifically named as Drosera rotundifolia has evolved to live in nitrogen-poor environments by supplementing its diet with insects.
Throughout the world where there is a rapid growth of industries, the industrial activities have caused an increase in nitrogen pollution, so that more of the element is seeping into soils along with rainfall.
In Sweden, where the experiments took place, the southern and central parts of the country are more polluted than the north, which has less industry.
Accordingly, the team found that round leaf sundew plants in southern Swedish bogs are taking up more nitrogen via their roots than those in northern and central bogs, said study leader Millet, a plant ecologist said.
"They're more full-up," Millett said. "If you've got enough food in the fridge, you don't go to the shops to buy some more." the biologist added.
For the work, the team accumulated tissue samples from this autotrophic entities and its insect prey, mostly small flies called midges from three bogs.The scientists also sampled sphagnum moss, to serve as a control plant that receives all of its nitrogen via its roots and none from insects.
Bogs are "not the most pleasant environments to work in," Millett added. "It's impossible to stay dry—no matter how hard you try, you end up with willies full of water."
Once their fieldwork was done, the team ground up the samples and research the kind of nitrogen contained in each. The nitrogen atoms drawn in by plants are slightly lighter than the ones in bugs, because biological processes tend to favor the heavier version of the element.
It therefore looks for chemical tracers to pinpoint whether most of the nitrogen in a sample came from insects or from the soil.
From the data, the team figured out that sundew plants in polluted areas were getting more nitrogen from soil, implying that the predatory plants are laying off bugs.
It's "what people would predict, but no one has measured it before," said Millett, whose study appears in the July issue of the journal the “New Phytologist”.
All in a view, nitrogen pollution has become a global problem that has "large and real" impacts on ecosystems, Millett noted.
Now carnivorous plants are in great risk, which have evolved to live only in low-nitrogen environments.
It might seem like a boon to have lots more nitrogen handy, the plants' predatory trappings, such as specially shaped, sticky leaves suck up a lot of energy. This makes the plants weaker and less able to compete with hardier, faster growing plants that will take advantage of higher nitrogen levels.
For instance, Millett suspects that "heather and grasses will start to 'take over' and shade the carnivorous plants, which don't grow too well in more shaded environments.
"The carnivorous plants do tend to do better on an individual basis when there is more nitrogen, but this ... isn't enough to keep up with these more competitive plants."he commented.
Aaron Ellison, a Harvard University ecologist, said in an email that the new, "carefully done field study" fits with "other studies of this phenomenon done with other species of carnivorous plants."
Because the roundleaf sundew is so widespread, it's not in danger of going extinct, study leader Millett added. But rarer carnivorous plant species that are hanging on in small populations could be in trouble.
"I would be surprised if nitrogen pollution doesn't have an impact on carnivorous plants" as a group, he said. | <urn:uuid:bc646640-a3bf-41e5-8c10-d4b00b2d5371> | {
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CHEMICALS AND PLASTICS
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE AMOUNT
Think about what your water pipes are made of. Although copper tubing was the standard for a very long time, cost and ease of use forced a switch to polyvinyl chloride (PVC), chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) and now cross-linked polyethylene (PEX). If you are interested in seeing just how toxic PVC is to your health, you can always read The Department of Health and Human Service's Toxicological Profile for 1,2 Dichloroethane --- a rather freaky 300 page document that actually shows how poorly the human body metabolizes this stuff.
The Endocrine Disruptor, however, that that continues to receive the most media play is BPA (Bisphenol A). A popular online encyclopedia says that among other things, BPA is used for, "water bottles, sports equipment... used to line water pipes, as coatings on the inside of many food and beverage cans and in making thermal paper such as that used in sales receipts." As it should be, we are seeing a huge grass-roots push to get rid of BPA in these and similar applications. How's this working out? Last October, the journal Envoronmental Toxicology and Pharmacology looked at some of these alternates (Bisphenol AF, Bisphenol F, Bisphenol S, Bisphenol B, etc, etc). What did the authors discover? Only that, "these findings indicate that oxidative metabolites of bisphenols can still have endocrine activities in humans." In other words, touting these "alternatives" as BPA-free, while completely factual, is not really true.
This was echoed by an article published just a few months ago on Harvard University's School of Public Health website called Harmful Chemicals Removed From Products Often Replaced with Something as Bad or Worse --- a four paragraph piece you should read in its entirety.
"This tactic—which researchers call “regrettable substitution”—has been used in the formulation of products such as pesticides, flame-retardant furniture, non-stick pans, and nail polish. The chemical replacements need only be different enough to be considered distinct by regulators. They don’t have to be proven safer."
Huge numbers of these Endocrine Disruptors have a six-sided benzene or benzene-like configuration that looks suspiciously like the six-sided ring structures seen in many hormones, including ESTROGEN and certain THYROID HORMONES. These are called XENOHORMONES and are almost always considered, among other things, to be "Obesegens" (they lead to obesity). But in all honesty, obesity might just be the least of one's worries.
In a study published in last April's issue of Applied Toxicology (Correlation Between Antibodies to Bisphenol A, its Target Enzyme Protein Disulfide Isomerase, and Antibodies to Neuron-Specific Antigens), listen to what the authors say about BPA. "Current accumulated evidence suggests that BPA is an endocrine disruptor and has the potential to impact fetal, child and adult health. Many immunological mechanisms exist for BPA to induce autoimmunity, such as altered hepatic biotransformation, pituitary lactotrophic cell activation to synthesize prolactin, estrogen receptor endocrine disruption, altered cytokine expression, lipopolysaccharide‐induced nitric oxide promotion, altered antigen‐presenting cell reactivity, altered immunoglobulin activity, molecular mimicry and T‐helper (Th)17 aryl hydrocarbon receptor activation, which have all been shown to be induced by BPA exposure in animal and human studies. All of these mechanisms have also been found to play a role in autoimmune development. BPA as a synthetic compound monomer alone is unlikely to trigger immunological antibody reactions or exert such diverse influences unless it can bind to enzymes or proteins leading to new antigenic epitopes."
In English, this means that BPA helps push people toward an AUTOIMMUNE STATE because it affects the body's ability to clear Xenohormones and Endocrine Disruptors via several distinct mechanisms, including LEAKY GUT SYNDROME (increased intestinal permeability), the TH-17 "SELF DESTRUCT" SYSTEM, altered T-REGS, an inability to clear toxic chemicals via PHASE I & PHASE II DETOX (the P-450 Cytochrome System among others) along with any number of others. Just remember that your body will not make antibodies against BPA alone; it and similar chemicals must be attached to a protein. In a previous study by these same authors (Elevated Levels of Antibodies Against Xenobiotics in a Subgroup of Healthy Subjects) they determined that about 15% of, "random blood donors presented with antibodies to BPA bound to human serum albumin" --- the chief protein found in blood plasma.
According to these authors, BPA binds to the enzyme Potein Disulfide Isomerase (PDI). This is a big deal because, "Myelin basic protein (MBP) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) are neuronal antigens that are target sites for neuroinflammation and neuroautoimmunity." To make a difficult study easier to comprehend for those of us who don't have degrees in immunology, just realize that the authors found that people with MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS were virtually 100% assured to be making antibodies (Anti‐MBP and anti‐MOG) against the combination of BPA and their meylin sheath. "Although there are many other neuron‐specific antigens, for this study we specifically focused on MBP and MOG. These myelin proteins are the immunological target site for neuroinflammation and neurological autoimmune diseases, and are directly associated with disease such as neuropathy and multiple sclerosis." In the discussion, they went on to conclude....
"Anti‐MBP and anti‐MOG were found in 78.5% of autistic children and were insignificant in normal subjects (Mostafa & Al‐Ayadhi, 2013). A recent publication found that metabolomics analysis showed the correlation between metabolite concentrations and total BPA was three times greater with subjects diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder than the controls, and the number of absolute partial correlations for percentage bound BPA was 15 times higher with autism spectrum disorder (Stein et al., 2015). Anti‐MBP were also found significantly higher in 100 mothers of children with autistic disorder compared to 100 age‐matched unaffected children, leading to the possibility that there may be placental transfer of maternal antibodies in autism (Singer et al., 2008). Besides autism, anti‐MOG and anti‐MBP are key serum biomarkers to identify multiple sclerosis and have been found to be key predictive biomarkers for identifying future demyelinating events after onset of the disease (Berger et al., 2003)."
Did you catch that? Not surprisingly, BPA is linked to AUTISM and neurodegenerative diseases (ALZHEIMER'S and PARKINSON'S are the most common) as well as being linked to developing MS later in life. What does this mean? Besides the obvious, there are several things that we can take away from studies like those discussed today. One thing to think about pertains to a study that came out just two days ago in the journal Pediatrics (Early Puberty, Friendship Group Characteristics, and Dating Abuse in US Girls) where the authors concluded that girls who went through early puberty --- becoming increasingly common thanks to crappy diets and Endocrine Disruptors --- were more likely to be the victims of sexual abuse.
The bottom line is that Endocrine Disruptors will screw your body up in ways that you never could have imagined were possible. Furthermore, what we see over and over agian in these studies that the exposure does not need to be very big --- it only takes a little bit to cause some really serious problems. It also means that you need to take care of your liver. Your liver is the body's chief center for clearing out toxic chemicals (HERE). Lay people (self included) usually call this Detoxification. Just remember that when you start looking at peer-review, researchers will always refer to this process as "Biotransformation" --- your body's ability to do things to alter these chemicals so they can be excreted from the body quickly and effectively.
If you are struggling with chronic health issues, make sure to read THIS ARTICLE about what it takes to take your health back into your own hands. Sure, you might need to see an expert in FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE to help you balance out your hormones, but it's a great starting point. Oh, and don't forget to like or share our FACEBOOK PAGE if you like the free information on my site! | <urn:uuid:2ff86dbe-76c9-4900-8509-044ad0de9b0b> | {
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1. (Science: botany) The fruit of the tree Punica granatum; also, the tree itself (see balaustine), which is native in the Orient, but is successfully cultivated in many warm countries, and as a house plant in colder climates. The fruit is as large as an orange, and has a hard rind containing many rather large seeds, each one separately covered with crimson, acid pulp.
2. A carved or embroidered ornament resembling a pomegranate.
Origin: OE. Pomgarnet, OF. Pome de grenate, F. Grenade, L. Pomum a fruit _ granatus grained, having many grains or seeds. See Pome, and Garnet, Grain. | <urn:uuid:fb383425-cca3-455c-b028-464e463e2bc4> | {
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State Bird of North Carolina: Cardinal
By Steven Case
NC Government & Heritage Library, 2011
Related activity: State Bird Coloring Sheet
The NC General Assembly of 1943 named the cardinal (cardinalis cardinalis) as the official State Bird of North Carolina (Session Laws, 1943, c. 595).
Selection as the State Bird
The choice of the cardinal was by no means certain at the beginning of the session. The North Carolina Bird Club initiated the campaign to choose a bird as a state symbol, publicizing the campaign through newspapers, local birding and wildlife clubs, and schools. More than 23,000 votes were cast, and twenty-six different avian candidates were suggested, including, among others, the red-winged blackbird, the wild turkey, the scarlet tanager, and the catbird. The cardinal received a plurality of 5000 votes, with the dove coming in second with 3395.
Ten years earlier, the state had a different state bird, but only for a few days. At the suggestion of the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, the 1933 General Assembly passed Resolution 51, which designated the Carolina Chickadee as the official State Bird. However, a week later, the Assembly repealed the Resolution with Session Law 1933-521. The Chickadee’s nickname--the Tomtit--was considered too undignified, and legislators balked at the idea that North Carolina might become known as the "Tomtit State."
About the Cardinal
The Cardinal’s natural habitat currently extends over half of the United States, as far south as Belize and Guatemala, north into Canada, and as far west as North Dakota and southern Arizona. The male has year-round bright red plumage and a black face mask, while the female comes in various shades of brown, gray and red. Both males and females have strong short bills and a distinctive crest of head feathers. Primarily seed-eaters, cardinals will also eat insects, larvae, sap, and many types of fruit. Unlike most other bird species, in which only the male vocalizes, both cardinal genders sing--the males typically to attract mates or ward off intruders, and the female to signal the male to bring food for the nestlings.
Cardinals, sometimes known as Redbirds or Northern Cardinals, are non-migratory, and have adapted easily to both city and suburban environments. In fact, both their numbers and their habitat range have grown as population pressures on other species, and the number of backyard birdfeeders, have increased. Their nests are generally concealed in hedgerows or vines, and monogamous couples can have up to 3 clutches of 2-5 eggs per year during the spring and summer.
Six other states (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia) have chosen the Cardinal as their state bird.
North Carolina Session Laws, 1943. c. 595
S. B. 151 CHAPTER 595
AN ACT FOR THE ADOPTION OF A STATE BIRD.
WHEREAS, North Carolina and Connecticut are the only states in the Union that have not adopted an official state bird; and
WHEREAS, there is a wide-spread movement now on foot among the Bird Clubs, Garden Clubs, and many of the schools of the State, together with a large number of individuals, looking to the adoption of a state bird by the present Legislature, to which end the North Carolina Bird Club has, so far as it has been in its power, canvassed the State for votes on the selection of a suitable representative bird to be officially adopted; and
WHEREAS, the Cardinal has received a decidedly larger number of votes than any other species: Now, therefore:
The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:
Section 1. That the Cardinal shall be, and hereby is declared to be the official State Bird of North Carolina.
Sec. 2. All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.
Sec. 3. This Act shall be in full force and effect from and after its ratification.
Ratified this the 8th day of March, 1943.
To learn more about the Cardinal, its habitat and habits, visit these resources:
Northern Cardinal species page, BioKids, University of Michigan. http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Cardinalis_cardinalis/
Northern Cardinal species information, Guide to North American Birds, Audubon Society. https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/northern-cardinal
References and additional resources:
"Cardinal." 2008. Nature Notebook. NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Accessed 2/2011. Online at https://naturalsciences.org/microsites/notebook/birds/cardinal.html.
"Chickadee named as official bird." News & Observer (Raleigh), May 6, 1933, p. R1.
"In defense of the Tomtit." News & Observer (Raleigh), May 12, 1933, p.4.
"Northern Cardinal." 2009. All about birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Accessed 2/2011. Online at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Cardinal/id.
"Northern Cardinal." 2009. Audio/Video recordings of Cardinals singing. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Macaulay Library. Accessed 2/2011. Online at: https://macaulaylibrary.org/search.do?&searchTerm=cardinal
"Northern Cardinal." 2010. Encyclopedia of Life. Accessed 2/2011. Online at https://eol.org/pages/1052070.
"Official Bird." News & Observer (Raleigh), March 5, 1943, p. 18.
"President's Message." The Chat: Bulletin of the North Carolina Bird Club. March, 1943, p. 17
"Under the Dome." News & Observer (Raleigh), February 10, 1943, p. 2.
Logan, Korye. 2010. "Northern cardinals male & female." Accessed 2/2011. Online at Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/30499760@N00/4462812700/
1 June 2007 | Case, Steven | <urn:uuid:c22b88ad-e18c-4883-8f98-494d5dc5d9c4> | {
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Shrinklit. Probable Passages. Guided Writing. Multigenre Reports. These four writing strategies help students learn to make predictions, build connections, raise questions, discover new ideas, and promote higher-level thinking. Here's the step-by-step on how to use these strategies in your classroom.
Priming your students for writing with props or humorous thoughts can pique their interest in a writing topic. In addition to priming, visual organizers like hamburgers and word trees challenge students to organize their writing and choose interesting words. Find out more about these topics as well as COPS and STOPS in this informative article about writing.
Teachers play an important role in shaping students' written work. Specific feedback can motivate developing writers and provide real purpose for revision. Learn when to provide feedback, what kind of feedback is most effective, and how to plan for different types of writing conferences. You might want to keep the list of sample response prompts handy as you meet with students.
March 11, 2014
'Read-Aloud' Assistance on Common Tests Proves Contentious
Mom: My Autistic Son 'Is Lost in a Sea of Standards' at School
The Washington Post
Program Supports Students with Learning Disabilities
The Gannon Knight (Erie, PA)
Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing abilities. Kids with dysgraphia often have difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting, and trouble putting thoughts on paper. Discover the warning signs of dysgraphia and learn more about effective accommodations, modifications, and instructional strategies.
The "once and done" model of teaching writing to kids with LD just doesn't work, says expert Steve Graham. In our exclusive interview, Graham outlines three research-based practices that are particularly helpful to students with LD. Learn how to implement each recommendation in your classroom.
This engaging learning tool helps children build grammatically correct sentences about a picture on their screen. The app also offers lots of practice using transition words! | <urn:uuid:ee933058-8b0c-4698-b802-0c4da035c42e> | {
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Introduction: Truth on Trial (01:07)
Fred Friendly introduces the topic of ethics in the courtroom. Attorneys have an obligation to clients firstly, but that obligation might conflict with one’s moral code that is applied to every other aspect of his or her life.
Faulty Product (03:04)
Moderator Charles Nesson presents a hypothetical case study about Hiram Powers to a panel of professionals. Hiram has a company that sells space heaters, and he learns that the heater has a tendency to tip over and start fires. He asks counsel for advice, but thinks the resolution is too costly.
Product Documentation (06:44)
Hiram creates a document of notes on his computer about the faulty heater. Some panel members say to destroy the documents because it is not illegal to do so at this point; others say Hiram has an ethical obligation to customers to inform them of the possible harm caused by the heaters.
Death Results in a Legal Case (02:48)
An apartment in a tenement house catches fire because of the faulty space heater and kills a little girl. Joseph Cotchett says he has a moral obligation to advise the father to retain a lawyer and investigate. Cotchett would handle the case on a contingent fee arrangement.
Legal Deposition (05:06)
The panel discusses how Powers should prepare for a deposition. He needs to answer all the questions truthfully. Powers should use specific language to avoid perjury.
Asking Ill-Framed Questions (03:13)
Using gamesmanship is something lawyers will do to obtain an advantage. When they frame questions, they do their best to include all information possible to ensure the opposition answers with complete honesty.
Manipulating the Truth (07:04)
Panel members discuss how attorneys on each side of a case treat people. The job of a lawyer is to boost the image of their client and destroy the image of an opposing witness.
Deceiving the Jury (05:07)
Lawyers are not always looking for, or producing the whole truth. If they stay in the borders of the rules, they have a right to skew evidence in their direction. Attorneys work to produce true evidence that is most favorable for their side and encourage the jury to disbelieve the other side.
Introducing New Evidence (07:25)
The panel members discuss the ethics of how to proceed when obtaining new evidence at the end of a case. They agree they will respond by keeping to the code of professional responsibility.
Destroying Documents (05:37)
The panel members talk about destroying confidential documents at the end of a trial. Robert Maynard introduces the idea that the public has because the documents can be about things that are harmful to the community. Others disagree and say the documents should be destroyed.
Media and Legal Proceedings (03:00)
Panel members discuss how the media receives information; it has several possible sources. The one person reporters do not ask for details about the trial is the judge who tried the case.
Adversary System (02:59)
The purpose of the court system is to produce a verdict using the truth that best represents each side. Lawyers are sometimes put in roles where they must do things in the interest of their clients that others might deem immoral.
Conclusion and Human Experiment (00:46)
Friendly reminds viewers that the beliefs and morality of attorneys and judges are critical; rights and ethics are not synonymous. Friendly introduces the next episode.
Credits: Truth on Trial (01:29)
Credits: Truth on Trial
For additional digital leasing and purchase options contact a media consultant at 800-257-5126
(press option 3) or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:5d7d664e-0b31-4fe3-a7a6-3a54d084633b> | {
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Senior Language Arts Learning Goals Poster
Learning goals are important for our students’ education and learning. When we have a goal in mind when teaching, everything else serves a specific purpose, and everything seems to fall into place. As teachers, we are asked to display these learning goals in our classroom, but for me, this wasn’t possible.
With 30 plus students in my class, I didn’t have time to write my learning goals on chart paper or display them on the board. Hmmm… what’s a girl to do?
I created these posters to make my life, as well as yours, easier. This bundle offers ALL of the senior, (grade 12) goals and is in line with the Common Core as well as the Canadian curriculums.
The bundle includes:
– A 14-page checklist of all of the learning goals, which can help the teacher keep track of what’s been covered and what hasn’t.
– 55 Learning Goal posters (8×11) that can easily be posted on the bulletin board or the chalkboard at the front of the class.
These posters allow students to track learn the focus of the lesson.
Three strands are covered: (with the focus of each poster clearly indicated)
1) Reading and Interpretation
2) Writing and Representation
3) Oral and Oral-Visual Communication
It’s teaching made easy!
You may also be interested in the following products:
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Poetry Unit for Senior Students (NO PREP)
Poetry Unit for Intermediate Students
Poetry Unit: The Art of Interpretation | <urn:uuid:105864d6-a654-4d06-b8d2-8dfe771207fe> | {
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Beijing: Chinese archaeologists have found a famous temple that remained hidden for nearly a millennium in China’s southwestern Sichuan province.
The Fugan Temple, located in downtown Chengdu, was a famous temple that lasted from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317- 420) to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).
Daoxuan, a famous Tang Dynasty (618-907) monk, once wrote that an official rite to pray for rain to end a persistent drought was held in front of the temple, and it rained as if the prayers had been heard in heaven.
The story was the record of how the temple got its name, Fugan, which means “perceive the blessing.”
The popular Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi left a poem to commemorate the temple’s renovation, describing its heavenly appearance.
The poem further noted the temple’s important role at that time, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
However, the building was worn down during the later period of the Tang and Song dynasties, with all traces of the temple disappearing during wars.
Archaeologists unearthed more than 1,000 tablets inscribed with Buddhist scriptures and over 500 pieces of stone sculpture as well as glazed tiles with inscriptions.
“We have only excavated a part of the temple’s area, but already have a glimpse of its past glory,” said Yi Li, who led the excavation project.
He said they have found the temple’s foundation, ruins of surrounding buildings, wells, roads and ditches.
During the excavation, archaeologists found some 80 ancient tombs scattered near the temple, dating back to Shang and Zhou dynasties (1600-256 BC). In the temple’s surroundings, they have unearthed large amounts of household tools and utensils and building materials dating back to various periods from the Song to Ming dynasties.
Chengdu became an economic and cultural centre in western China during the Sui and Tang dynasties.
The temple’s discovery could greatly contribute to the study of the spread of Buddhism in China during that time, said Wang Yi, director of the Chengdu Cultural Relic Research Institute. | <urn:uuid:e48ea857-4f4b-41d0-bb6f-88b83c65dc30> | {
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The 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien set aside 320,000 acres of potentially valuable land west of Lake Pepin for "half-breed" members of the Dakota nation. The move set off a series of events that would enrich a number of early Minnesotans, none of Indian heritage.
In 1830, United States government officials traveled to Prairie du Chien, in what later became Wisconsin, a former French Canadian fur post on the Mississippi River. They hoped to negotiate peace among the Dakota, Sac, and Winnebago people in the region. The resulting treaty would also extend the government's influence into the vast northwestern frontier then controlled by American Indians.
Part of the treaty allowed the Dakota to set aside a parcel of land for mixed-race relatives, known in the vernacular of the day as "half breeds." White traders, trappers and other Caucasians in the region often had Dakota or mixed-race wives. Children from these unions would be among those benefiting from this land reserve, which became known as the "Half-Breed Tract."
Article 9 of the treaty described it as a parcel of land west of Lake Pepin. The land remained largely unoccupied for two decades. However, the signing of U.S.-Dakota 1851 land treaties brought eager settlers rushing into Minnesota Territory to claim the former Indian lands, even before the agreement had been ratified. The new arrivals staked out land, including some in the tract, and began improving their holdings. Then, they waited for the official government survey and land sale. Their actions placed the Half-Breed Tract in limbo. Traders worked to get their mixed race relatives a $150,000 cash settlement in exchange for their tract rights, but failed.
Henry Rice, a Minnesota territorial delegate to the US Senate, hadn't forgotten the Half-Breed Tract. In July 1854, he convinced the Senate to offer the mixed-race claimants a deal. Each could get up to 640 acres of unsurveyed federal lands by giving up their claim to the Half-Breed Tract. Those eligible would receive "exchanging scrip," certificates that could be used to buy land.
In the spring of 1857, half-breed scrip finally arrived in Minnesota and was distributed at Wabasha, Red Wing, and other places near the tract. Eligible adults and legal guardians of the qualified received government paper in varying amounts. Although the sale of scrip was supposedly prohibited, land speculators bought as much of it as they could. Typically, it was cheap.
In the Red Wing area, some scrip holders went to the U.S. Land Office and presented paper for tract land already occupied by settlers. These buyers asserted that the claims of the two hundred occupiers who had moved in to the Half-Breed Tract before the treaty was ratified were not valid. With law enforcement weak in Minnesota Territory, however, angry settlers took control of the situation. They set up a committee of vigilance to protect themselves and the land they claimed. Two armed guards stood watch at the land office to keep scrip holders away.
The vigilantes' intimidation worked. They forced rival claimants to return to the land office and take back their scrip. The federal government resolved the dangerous situation in May 1858. As part of the deal, the settlers who illegally occupied acreage in the tract in 1851 and 1852 received the rights to the land they had been living on.
The story of the Half-Breed Tract scrip was not over. Following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, speculators worked to get the scrip from mixed bloods still holding it. These valuable papers could be exchanged for lands anywhere in the public domain. That included most of the U.S.-controlled lands west of the Mississippi River.
Minnesota half-breed scrip bought valuable land around Carson City, Nevada, during the 1860s Comstock silver rush. It was used to acquire stands of timber near Lake Tahoe. In 1865, a Minnesota speculator working with California colleagues used scrip to purchase nine thousand acres of California redwood trees at $5 per acre, plus half the profits after sale. In the 1880s, scrip was used to claim unsurveyed federal land in Minnesota's northern iron ore district. Mining had begun there in 1884.
For those savvy enough to buy it, unscrupulously in most cases, Minnesota's half-breed scrip produced breathtaking profits.
Alexis Bailly Papers, 1821–1868
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Microfilm correspondence and financial records of Bailly, an American Fur Company agent at Mendota, 1820–1835, and later at Wabasha, giving details of trade with the Dakota Indians.
Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. History of Goodhue County, Minnesota. Chicago: H.C. Cooper, Jr., 1909.
Folwell, William Watts, "Sioux Half-Breed Scrip, appendix 11." In A History of Minnesota, vol. 1. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1956 edition.
Gates, Paul W. A History of Public Land Law Development. New York: Arno Press, 1979.
Hancock, Joseph Wood. Goodhue County, Minnesota Past and Present. Red Wing, MN: Red Wing Printing Co., 1893.
History of Goodhue County. Red Wing, MN: Wood, Alley & Co., 1878.
Johnson, Frederick L. Goodhue County, Minnesota: A Narrative History. Red Wing, MN: Goodhue County Historical Society, 2000.
Meyer, Roy W. History of the Santee Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
———. "The Red Wing Indian Village." Unpublished manuscript. Red Wing, MN: Goodhue County Historical Society Collections, 1963.
Millikan, William. "The Great Treasure of the Fort Snelling Prison Camp." Minnesota History 62, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 4–15. http://www.mnhs.org/market/mhspress/minnesotahistory/xml/v62i01.xml
Northwest Missions Manuscripts and Index, 1766–1926.
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
Description: Typed transcripts and negative photocopies of letters, diaries, church records, and articles pertaining to Protestant and Catholic missions to the Ojibwe and Dakota Indians in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota Territory, and neighboring areas in Canada (1810-1896); and a card index to these and other items relating to northwest missions (1766-1926). Compiled by Grace Lee Nute.
Pond, Samuel W. The Dakotas or Sioux in Minnesota as they were in 1834. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, reprint, 1986.
Riggs, Stephen R. "Dakota Portraits." Minnesota History Bulletin 2 (November 1918): 481–568.
Register of Sioux Half-Breed Scrip, 1857–1861
United States, Red Wing Land District
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: An abstract of land entries made in the Red Wing district with Sioux half-breed scrip, issued to mixed-blood Dakota Indians to extinguish their title to land originally reserved to them by the Treaty of Prairie du Chien.
Office of Indian Affairs: Records Related to Mixed Blood Claimants under the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, 1855–1856
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Records related to claims made by mixed blood Dakota under the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, 1830. See "Roll of Mixed Blood Claimants, 1856."
Sioux Lands or Reservation in Minnesota Territory. House Report Doc. No. 138, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess. (1854).
Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center. Treaty of Prairie du Chien, 1830.
Walker Thomas, "Memories of Early Life and Development of Minnesota." Minnesota Historical Society Collections 15 (1915): 463.
To free up the 320,000 acres in the Half-Breed Tract, Henry Rice, a Minnesota territorial delegate to the U.S. Senate, gets the government to take action. In July 1854, the Senate agrees to give eligible people government scrip for up to 640 acres of federal lands in exchange for surrendering their claims to land within the existing tract.
As a provision of the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, the federal government sets aside a 25-by-32 mile reserve for mixed race Dakota which becomes known as the "Half-Breed Tract."
The United States and Dakota sign two land sale agreements that give the federal government control of most of the future southern Minnesota. The Half-Breed Tract is not part of the sale.
Henry Rice, Minnesota territorial delegate to the U.S. Senate, convinces lawmakers to get rights to the Half-Breed Tract. Mixed-race people eligible for tract land receive scrip to buy up to 640 acres of federal land.
Half-breed scrip arrives in Minnesota for distribution to those eligible.
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|This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2009)|
Rear-projection television (RPTV) is a type of large-screen television display technology. Until approximately 2005, most of the relatively affordable consumer large screen TVs up to 100 in (250 cm) used rear-projection technology. A variation is a video projector, using similar technology, which projects onto a screen.
Three types of projection systems are used in projection TVs. CRT rear-projection TVs were the earliest, and while they were the first to exceed 40", they were also bulky and the picture was unclear at close range. Newer technologies include: DLP (reflective micromirror chip), LCD projectors, Laser TV and LCoS. They are capable of 1080p resolution, and examples include Sony's SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display), JVC's D-ILA (Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier), and MicroDisplay Corporation's Liquid Fidelity.
Modern rear-projection television has been commercially available since the 1970s, but at that time could not match the image sharpness of a direct-view CRT. Current models are vastly improved, and offer a cost-effective HDTV large-screen display. While still thicker than LCD and plasma flat panels, modern rear-projection TVs have a smaller footprint than their predecessors. The latest models are light enough to be wall-mounted.
However, the projection technique is much older than this. Projection systems were used in the very early 1950s when it was still impossible to manufacture CRTs with a screen size much over 12 inches. Utilising a 2 inch monochrome CRT driven at a very high accelerating voltage for the size (typically 25 kV), the tube produced an extremely bright picture which was projected via a schmitt lens and mirror assembly onto a semi translucent screen of typically 17 to 19 inches in size. The resultant picture was darker than with a direct view CRT and had to be watched in subdued lighting. The degree to which the tube was driven meant that the tube had a relatively short life. Details of a specific TV set with its optical system can be found here.
In 1884, Paul Nipkow developed an image sending device that spun a metal disk which sent images through a collection of wires. This was later named the Nipkow Disk. This device had 18 lines of resolution. In 1907, A.A. Campbell-Swinton, an Englishman, and Boris Rosing, a Russian scientist, developed a cathode ray tube to work in conjunction with a device similar to a Nipkow Disk and created one of the first working mechanical television systems. They were not credited with the sole intention of the television being that a single inventor did not invent the television. While popular in the early 2000s as an alternative to more expensive LCD and plasma flat panels, the falling price and improvements to LCDs have led to Sony, Philips, Toshiba and Hitachi planning to drop rear-projection TVs from their lineup. Currently, Samsung, Mitsubishi, ProScan, RCA, Panasonic and JVC remain in the market. The bulk of earlier rear-projection TVs meant that they cannot be wall-mounted, and while most consumers of flat-panels do not hang up their sets, the ability to do so is considered a key selling point. On June 6, 2007, Sony did unveil a 70" rear-projection SXRD model KDS-Z70XBR5 that was 40% slimmer than its predecessor and weighed 200 lbs, which was somewhat wall-mountable. However on December 27, 2007, Sony decided to exit the RPTV market. Mitsubishi began offering their LaserVue line of wall mountable rear-projection TVs in 2009.
Types of rear-projection technologies
A projection television uses a projector to create a small image or video from a video signal and magnify this image onto a viewable screen. The projector uses a bright beam of light and a lens system to project the image to a much larger size. A front-projection television uses a projector that is separate from the screen and the projector is placed in front of the screen. The setup of a rear-projection television is in some ways similar to that of a traditional television. The projector is contained inside the television box and projects the image from behind the screen.
The following are different types of projection televisions, which differ based on the type of projector and how the image (before projection) is created:
- CRT projector: Small cathode ray tubes create the image in the same manner that a traditional CRT television does, which is by firing a beam of electrons onto a phosphor-coated screen and then the image is projected to a large screen. This is done to overcome the limit of size of cathode ray tube which is about 40 inches. Normally 3 CRTs are used, one red, one green and one blue, aligned so the colors mix correctly on the projected image.
- LCD projector: A lamp transmits light through a small LCD chip made up of individual pixels to create an image. The LCD projector uses mirrors to take the light and create three separate red, green, and blue beams, which are then passed through three separate LCD panels. The liquid crystals are manipulated using electric current to control the amount of light passing through. The lens system takes the three color beams and projects the image.
- Digital Light Processing (DLP) projector: A DLP projector creates an image using a digital micromirror device (DMD chip), which on its surface contains a large matrix of microscopic mirrors, each corresponding to one pixel in an image. Each mirror can be rotated to reflect light such that the pixel appears bright, or the mirror can be rotated to direct light elsewhere and make the pixel appear dark. The mirror is made of aluminum and is rotated on an axle hinge. There are electrodes on both sides of the hinge controlling the rotation of the mirror using electrostatic attraction. The electrodes are connected to an SRAM cell located under each pixel, and charges from the SRAM cell drive the movement of the mirrors. Color is added to the image-creation process either through a spinning color wheel (used with a single-chip projector) or a three-chip (red, green, blue) projector. The color wheel is placed between the lamp light source and the DMD chip such that the light passing through is colored and then reflected off a mirror to determine the level of darkness. A color wheel consists of a red, green, and blue sector, as well as a fourth sector to either control brightness or include a fourth color. This spinning color wheel in the single-chip arrangement can be replaced by red, green, and blue light-emitting diodes (LED). The three-chip projector uses a prism to split up the light into three beams (red, green, blue), each directed towards its own DMD chip. The outputs of the three DMD chips are recombined and then projected.
- Silk screen effect
- Screen-door effect
- Large screen television technology
- Laser video display (LVD)
- Bellis, Mary. ""The Invention of Television"". Famous Invention History. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
- "Timeline of TV History.". “The History of Television.". N.p. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
- Taub, Eric A. (February 11, 2008). "Rear projection fades to black as a TV technology". The Star (Toronto). Retrieved March 27, 2010.
- "65" Laser TV:Model L65-A90". Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America. Retrieved 2009-06-18. | <urn:uuid:7e4a328b-1d40-4b7d-8373-1cd40502f91c> | {
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My Hero: Jane Addams
I have always admired the accomplishments of Jane Addams. One Halloween when we were expecting a visit from program monitors from the Department of Human Resources, I dressed up as Addams because I thought they’d appreciate the social work link. I think of a Family Support Center, the kind established by Maryland Family Network, as a version of a settlement house like Hull House. What I didn’t know was that Jane Addams studied early childhood development and established settlement houses to care for poor children while their parents worked. Here’s the transcript from Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on September 6, about my hero.
Sep. 6, 2016: birthday: Jane Addams
Today is the birthday of social reformer, activist, and peace worker Jane Addams (1860), known as the “Mother of Social Services.” She co-founded Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in the United States. Addams was born Laura Jane Addams to a wealthy Quaker family in Cedarville, Illinois. She was the eighth of nine children, several of whom died in infancy. Her father spent 16 years as a state senator and also owned flour and lumber mills. He doted on Jane, whose mother died when she was two.
At the age of four, Jane developed tuberculosis of the spine, also known as Pott’s disease. From then on, she had a limp and a curve to her back, which made her self-conscious. She began to read voraciously, especially the work of Charles Dickens, and thought perhaps she had a calling working for the poor and needy.
Addams graduated from Rockford Seminary and studied medicine in Philadelphia, but she was also ill and underwent surgery on her spine, which kept her bedridden and depressed. When she was well enough, she and her friend Ellen G. Starr traveled to Europe for 21 months. While visiting Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London’s East End, Addams began thinking seriously about the poverty in Chicago. In London, she saw a bedraggled man tear into an unwashed and uncooked cabbage on the street. In her memoir, Twenty Years of Hull House (1910), she wrote, “Perhaps nothing is so fraught with significance as the human hand, this oldest tool with which man has dug his way from savagery, and with which he is constantly groping forward.”
In 1889, Addams and Starr leased a neglected mansion at the corner of Halsted and Polk Streets in Chicago. The building needed repairs, but they received a 25-year rent-free lease. They convinced the wealthy daughters of Chicago’s elite to serve as volunteers and within two years, Hull House was helping more than 2,000 people a week. The neighborhood was filled with immigrants from Germany, Poland, Italy, Ireland, and Greece. Addams added an art gallery, kindergarten classes, a book bindery, public kitchen, and gymnasium. Addams had studied early childhood behavior and the plight of immigrant children, often left at home, sometimes tied to chairs, while their parents worked, disturbed her. Hull House opened a daycare and the first public playground in the city of Chicago (1893).
By 1913, Hull House had added 13 more buildings. By 1920, there were almost 500 settlement houses across the United States. Addams wrote several books on social reform, settlement houses, poverty, and peace, including Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909), and Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922). Addams’s anti-war lectures got her expelled from the Daughters of the American Revolution and earned her the nickname “Bull Mouse” from Teddy Roosevelt.
Jane Addams was a founding member of the Progressive Party (1912) and the American Civil Liberties Union (1920). And she was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Yale University (1910).
Jane Addams was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (1931). She was admitted to a Baltimore hospital after suffering a heart attack on the very day that the award was being given in Oslo, Norway.
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We’ve seen claims that high fructose corn syrup is unnatural. Yet high fructose corn syrup is made from corn, a natural grain product.
There are no artificial or synthetic ingredients and no color additives in high fructose corn syrup. It is refined with similar production methods to other sugars, making it no more “processed” than any other sweetener.
High fructose corn syrup meets the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) requirements for use of the term ‘natural.’
Study: Straight talk about high-fructose corn syrup: what it is and what it ain't, John S White, American Society for Clinical Nutrition 2008
The super-sized myth surrounding high fructose corn syrup is that it is uniquely responsible for causing obesity. The only problem with that is that there’s no actual evidence to support this claim.
Research does show, however, that obesity results from an imbalance of calories consumed and calories burned. Research also does not directly connect obesity to one specific food or ingredient.
"After studying current research, the American Medical Association (AMA) today concluded that high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners..." - American Medical Association, June 2008
Lack of findings for the association between obesity risk and usual sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in adults - A primary analysis of databases of CSFII-1989-1991, CSFII-1994-1998, NHANES III, and combined NHANES 1999-2002.
Similar to misunderstandings around obesity, high fructose corn syrup also has no unique link to causing diabetes. This fact has been supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Diabetes Association who state that the primary causes of diabetes are obesity, advancing age and heredity. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data shows that per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup has been declining in recent years, while the incidence of obesity and diabetes in the United States continues on the rise.
The ratio of fructose in the diet is not higher now than it was 30 years ago. Fructose is a natural simple sugar found in sugars, vegetables, fruits and honey. Significant confusion has stemmed from recent studies that examined pure fructose in excess amounts and linked it to obesity, a precursor to diabetes. The results were then inappropriately connected to high fructose corn syrup, even though the two substances are vastly different. The studies included abnormally high levels of fructose that are never consumed in a normal human diet. High fructose corn syrup and table sugar both have fructose in them but it is combined with glucose which balances the metabolic effects of fructose.
Yes, there are no safety concerns. The safety of high fructose corn syrup is based on science and expert review accumulated over the past 40 years. In 1983, the FDA listed high fructose corn syrup as “Generally Recognized as Safe” (known as GRAS status) for use in food and reaffirmed that ruling in 1996. GRAS recognition by the FDA is important because it recognizes a long history of safe use as well as adequate scientific studies proving an ingredient’s safety. GRAS status is maintained indefinitely unless the FDA has a new reason to question an ingredient’s safety, in which case it will then look into maintaining or revoking the GRAS status.
John White, Ph.D. noted, “Its safety was never seriously doubted because expert scientific panels in every decade since the 1960s drew the same conclusion: sucrose, fructose, glucose, and, latterly, HFCS did not pose a significant health risk, with the single exception of promoting dental caries [tooth decay].”
In addition to government-convened expert panels, professional organizations have also confirmed the safety of high fructose corn syrup, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association).
Insulin is responsible for the uptake of glucose into cells and the lowering of blood sugar, a vital control process for metabolism. Both sugar and high fructose corn syrup have largely the same effect on insulin production. Among common sweeteners, pure glucose triggers the greatest insulin release, while pure fructose triggers the least. Both table sugar and high fructose corn syrup trigger about the same intermediate insulin release because they contain nearly equal amounts of glucose and fructose.
The body metabolizes the sugars in high fructose corn syrup the same way it does table sugar, honey and many fruits. Since these sweeteners all have approximately equal ratios of fructose and glucose, these simple sugars are absorbed into the blood stream in similar ways.
Multiple studies have confirmed this similar response on different aspects of metabolism:
- Leptin and Ghrelin - Kathleen J. Melanson, et al., at the University of Rhode Island reviewed the effects of high fructose corn syrup and sugar on circulating levels of glucose, leptin, insulin and ghrelin in a study group of lean women. The study found “no differences in the metabolic effects” of high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
- Triglycerides - A study by Linda M. Zukley, et al., reviewed the effects of high fructose corn syrup and sugar on triglycerides in a study group of lean women. This short-term study found “no differences in the metabolic effects in lean women [of high fructose corn syrup] compared to sucrose.”
- Uric Acid - Joshua Lowndes, et al., reviewed the effects of high fructose corn syrup and sugar on circulating levels of uric acid in a study group of lean women. This short-term study found “no differences in the metabolic effects in lean women [of high fructose corn syrup] compared to sucrose.”
There is no credible research demonstrating that high fructose corn syrup affects your feelings of fullness any differently than sugar or other sweeteners.
As researchers have pointed out:
Pablo Monsivais, et al., at the University of Washington: Found that beverages sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup, as well as 1% milk, all have similar effects on feelings of fullness.
Stijn Soenen and Margriet S. Westerterp-Plantenga, at Maastricht University in The Netherlands: Found “no differences in satiety, compensation or overconsumption” between milk and beverages sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Tina Akhavan and G. Harvey Anderson at the University of Toronto: Found that sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and 1:1 glucose/fructose solutions do not differ significantly in their short-term effects on subjective and physiologic measures of satiety and food intake at a subsequent meal.
The Glycemic Index (GI) is a ranking of foods, beverages and ingredients based on their immediate effect on blood glucose levels. The GI measures how much blood sugar increases over a period of two or three hours after a meal. Sugar and honey, both have moderate GI values that range from 55 to 60 and an index of up to 100. Although it has not yet been specifically measured, high fructose corn syrup is expected to have a moderate GI due to its similar composition to honey and sugar.
However, it is important to keep in mind that the body does not respond to the GI of individual ingredients, but rather to the GI of the entire meal. Since added sugars like sugar and high fructose corn syrup typically contribute less than 20 percent of calories, they are a minor contributor to the overall GI in a normal diet.
61 Fed. Reg. 43447 (August 23, 1996), 21 C.F.R. 184.1866. Direct food substances affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe; High Fructose Corn Syrup - Final Rule.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2009. Calories: average daily per capita calories from the U.S. food supply, adjusted for spoilage and other waste. Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data.
Food allergies are caused by your body’s response to certain proteins in foods. Nearly all of the corn protein is removed during the production of high fructose corn syrup. Moreover, the trace protein that remains likely bears little immunological resemblance to allergens in the original kernel.
A number of cereal grains, including wheat, rye, barley and corn, can cause allergic reactions in some individuals. Although the amount of corn protein found in high fructose corn syrup is extremely low, a person who is allergic or sensitive to corn and corn products should seek and follow the advice of medical professionals about consuming products with HFCS.
High fructose corn syrup is made from corn using a process called wet milling. In general, the process includes:
1. Steeping corn to soften the hard kernels
2. Physically separating the kernel into its separate components (starch, corn hull, protein and oil)
3. Breakdown of starch into glucose
4. Use of enzymes to invert glucose to fructose
5. Removal of impurities
6. Blending of glucose and fructose to make HFCS-42 and HFCS-55
White JS. 1992. Fructose syrup: production, properties and applications, in FW Schenck & RE Hebeda, eds, Starch Hydrolysis Products – Worldwide Technology, Production, and Applications. VCH Publishers, Inc. pp. 177-200.
According to Keith-Thomas Ayoob, Ed.D., RD, FADA, a practicing pediatric nutritionist with 25 years of experience, people often assume that sugar causes hyperactivity because of all the nutritional myths and misinformation they’ve read or heard about. ADHD is a definable medical condition, but it’s not caused by sugar, high fructose corn syrup or any other form of sweetener. This is the conclusion of dozens of well-controlled studies. High fructose corn syrup and other sugars may give you a quick burst of energy, but it is short-lived and relatively mild.
No mercury or mercury-based technology is used in the production of high fructose corn syrup in North America. High fructose corn syrup is safe and does not contain quantifiable levels of mercury.
A study was published claiming the opposite but independent experts have performed their own evaluations and confirmed that HFCS is mercury-free. One of the nation’s leading experts in mercury contamination, Dr. Woodhall Stopford, MD, MSPH, of Duke University Medical Center confirmed this assessment. You can view his analysis and conclusion by visiting http://duketox.mc.duke.edu/recenttoxissues.htm and clicking on the link under the Mercury heading.
Reports Regarding High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and Mercury Misleading: ChemRisk discussing report flaws | <urn:uuid:cc12f3cd-53a8-4714-9a12-19b471ab3dab> | {
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October 15th, 2007
This is the third in a series of posts on Digital Security from TechNotes.
Setting up an account password for your personal computer protects you from two kinds of “snoops”: hackers who try to login to your computer remotely; and curious roommates, friends, neighbors, or strangers who have physical access to your computer. For further protection, don’t set your computer to auto-login and have it prompt you for a password when the computer goes to sleep.
If you share your computer with roommates, friends, or siblings, consider setting up multiple user accounts, each with their own passwords. This will protect your information and allow you to control how much access other people have to your computer and what they’re allowed to do. (Read more…) | <urn:uuid:57ee84e0-ac59-4d49-94c7-c168350f01dd> | {
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Problem Solving Made Easy KS2 Ages 9-11
Üye Girişi yapın, temin süresi ve fiyatını size bildirelim.
Üye Girişi yapın, sizi bu ürün stoklarımıza girdiğinde bilgilendirelim.
Temin süremiz 28 - 42 iş günü
Yayıncı Dorling Kindersley ( 03 / 2016 ) ISBN 9780241224977 | Büyük boy | 20,4 x 29,01 x 0,79 cm | İngilizce | 40 Sayfa | Türler Çocuk / 7-10 Yaş
Help your child maximize their ability to solve maths problems with Problem Solving Made Easy Key Stage 2 Upper. This curriculum-linked workbook will boost your child's maths reasoning and sharpen focus as he or she works through engaging problems in the context of everyday life. Upper Key Stage 2 maths topics covered in this fun workbook include decimals, fractions, percentages, ratios, simple formulae and charts. Problem Solving Made Easy Key Stage 2 Upper will help young children develop the skills essential for higher maths. The best-selling Made Easy series of home-learning workbooks is closely linked to the national curriculum and makes learning easy and fun! Each title is packed with exercises and activities to strengthen your child's learning in school. A parents' section contains answers, tips and guidance so parents can support their child's learning. | <urn:uuid:922b90d2-4f10-4eb8-bf4e-7c3bc317b35e> | {
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Reaching Audiences Through New Media: Lessons
We Are Learning From the International Year of Astronomy
Sunday, March 22, 2009, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center
The Woodlands, Texas
Using Social Media in E/PO Efforts
Workshop led by Dr. Pamela Gay
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Notes compiled by Stephanie Shipp
Lunar and Planetary Institute
Social media is changing the way people interact with each other and with information. It offers the E/PO community new and exciting ways to connect with the public and to educate audiences. Social media allows the public to be active participants in the conversation of science and exploration.
The landscape of social media constantly changes. At present, it includes blogs (Twitter), wikis, podcasts, vodcasts, virtual “scrapbooks” (FaceBook, MySpace), networking venues (LinkedIn), content sharing spaces (YouTube, Flickr), and virtual worlds for socializing (Second Life). All of these fall within “Web 2.0,” second generation web tools that foster communication, interaction, and collaboration.
Before using social media, determine what you want to accomplish (sharing project information, engaging the public, providing timely news), the audience(s) with whom you want to connect, and the messages you wish to convey. This will help to define your social media strategy. It also is important to get the science and E/PO team on the same page with respect to the message and tone of social media interactions. It is important that all team members respect limits on what will be shared through social media platforms – and when sharing is permitted. Finally, leverage social media; if you have posted new images on Flickr, broadcast their accessibility in on YouTube, in Second Life, on Twitter, and on your Facebook page, etc.
Remember that social media is a multi-directional dialog; a dialog with audiences that increasingly expect interaction. As a conversation, it requires care and feeding of the relationships that are initiated; continued interaction is a way to grow your audience. Social media is not about a one-time information blast. While we still are learning about best practices and achieving intended impacts in using social media to engage and educate, it is clear that evolving social media are integral to our future efforts.
Some General Rules
Social media platforms are public venues. Anyone can view it. Immediately. Social media is not the place to share embargoed information or unpublished science results.
If you are blogging a meeting, be considerate and let the attendees know. At the same time, if you are a presenter, know that what you share may be blogged by audience members – without notification. Social media is a form of journalism.
As a translator of science, you need to maintain credibility. Stay on message, be professional, and be up-front about who you are and for whom you are working. Cultivate a strong, professional, positive image as you present on behalf of your team. If you really want to discuss your movie preferences, play scramble with friends or share your party pictures, consider creating a personal account that is separate from your project account. In most cases, this means you will need a different e-mail address for each.
Be sensitive to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and copyright restrictions. They apply and you are responsible for what you post. Like publications, you must obtain permissions and cite resources.
And now, check out some Web 2.0 tools. Find out what they are, who’s using them, how they might be useful in your programs, and some helpful hints on getting started. (links to separate pages):
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Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment expressed opinion that Arctic shelf is the key reserve of hydrocarbons in the world for the next 50 years and that alternative energy sources will not replace traditional hydrocarbons. The Russian government already considered development of the Arctic zone in their territorial waters, where are expected to have large deposits, which may sufficient for the needs of the economy for the next 50 years. The recent discoveries of large oil and gas deposits in the continental shelf of Alaska increased the pressure over the governments with interest in Arctic to started developing of the resources.
“The discovery in Alaska is not the firs and most likely will not be the last in short term. In October 2016, in Smith Bay were discovered recoverable reserves of about 2.5 billion tons of oil equivalents. In Janury 2017, ConocoPhillips completed development of the Willow deposit with reserves of 45 million tons of oil. This once again proves the validity of our assessments of the Arctic shelf, as a key reserve of hydrocarbons in the world. For at least the next 50 years, neither shales, nor alternative sources, can replace traditional hydrocarbons in the energy sector and industry as a whole”, said the Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Sergey Donskoy. “The main reserve of traditional hydrocarbons is the Arctic shelf and, in particular, such discoveries are very likely in the Russian Arctic zone”, added he.
Earlier, was reported that the Spanish oil and gas company Repsol together with Armstrong Energy found in Alaska the largest oil field in the United States in the last 30 years. The onshore Nanushuk prospect holds at least 1.2 billion barrels of light oil recoverable at a rate up to 120,000 barrels per day. | <urn:uuid:17d709cf-ef24-49f2-acf8-6f2a3f7c0709> | {
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The weather is perfect for planting if you haven’t already begun. If you have children, why not let them take charge of their own gardening area? They benefits are tremendous: fresh air, sunshine, learning to care for something from planting to harvest, exposure to the growth cycle (science), and it may just get them to eat things they otherwise might not. I love using containers for smaller garden areas, mainly because they can be moved around, there is no weeding to worry about, and they are just cute! A pizza garden is a great place for kids to start gardening, and gives them something more tangible to aim for. Not only do they get to enjoy planting and harvesting, they can also use their bounty to cook up a delicious recipe with mom or dad.
How to Grow a Pizza Garden with Kids
- Large tub with drainage holes
- 1 1/2 -2 c.f. organic potting soil
- Various plants, such as tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, thyme, oregano, basil, spinach (whatever you like to put on your pizza).
- Wide craft sticks
- Paint pens
- Clear spray paint
- Optional: gloves, trowel, hand shovel
We chose tomatoes, basil, oregano, and green bell peppers for our container, a large old galvanized tub that gets recycled every year into something different. See my fairy garden from last year here.
Fill container to 3″ -4″ from the top with good quality soil. You do not have to use organic soil, but it is the kindest to the earth and safest for kids, so I always recommend it.
Then show your child how to remove herbs and vegetables from their pots. If you find some are root bound like this one, simply pull away the roots at the very bottom gently. Some plants you cannot do this with, but for the most part I have had great success with this.
Next, dig holes, giving your plants as much room as possible to grow in the container. Set plants in the holes and cover the base with soil.
Water , water, water your plants in well, and try to water consistently. You want them to be very damp as long as you have very good drainage. Here is my sassy pants with her garden, she is proud as can be!
Another way to extend the fun with this project is to create simple markers with your child. These will only really last one season, but will still be enjoyed. Use fine tipped paint pens on wide craft sticks to write the name of your plants and draw the pictures if desired. Spray with several coats of clear to seal it and make them last longer. | <urn:uuid:ed277334-735a-46df-a9cd-02bf7ff476b1> | {
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6 Master’s Degrees That Equip Teachers to Excel
Higher Education Earning a master’s degree can help teachers enhance their skills, increase their salary and grow their career.
The professional degree tells students, parents, schools and potential employers that the teacher has advanced knowledge and training in the field of education. While degree programs vary, there are a few common master’s degrees to consider:
1. Curriculum and instruction degree
A graduate program in curriculum and instruction can help teachers strengthen their analytic and problem-solving skills, as well as strategize ways to approach students with learning difficulties. This research-intensive type of program relies on case studies and studying the psychology of learning, as well as teaching styles. Since this program is flexible and broad, it helps educators look at a variety of ways to teach different subjects and handle classroom challenges. Studying curriculum and instruction can help educators design learning plans for a large group, while also catering to how an individual student learns.
2. Higher education
A higher education graduate program prepares those looking for a career in education administration. These programs, which concentrate on supporting student learning, can be a great way for educators to conduct their own research and get published in journals and books. This degree helps educators focus on leadership and school policy compliance, as well as critical thinking, understanding organizational behavior and group dynamics. Someone with a master’s degree in higher education would be qualified for jobs in student services, admissions, financial aid and faculty research.
3. Early education
This area of study focuses on preparing educators to provide a quality education for students under age five. Research indicates teaching kids aged five and younger has positive long-term benefits, such as the students are more likely to graduate high school and own a home. Early education master’s programs train teachers how to plan and implement meaningful curriculum for young students, typically those in pre-K and kindergarten.
4. Adult education
Earning a master’s degree in adult education can help teachers develop the theory, research and best practices for instructing adults. Focus areas include creative problem solving and successful collaborations. With this degree, educators can be adult literacy and GED diploma teachers, as well as training coordinators.
5. Educational leadership
Getting a master’s degree in educational leadership can prepare educators to be leaders in the classroom, on campus and district-wide. Students in this program work on creating a vision for the schools; building their decision-making skills; and promoting a culture of learning in their K-12 classrooms. They’ll also learn how to manage human resources and financial matters. This program is suited for educators who want to become administrators, representing schools and districts inside and outside the classroom.
Additionally teachers can take classes to earn certificates in a specific field such as bilingual education, as well as in content area instruction including math, social science and history and government. These certificates may give teachers the semester credits needed to meet the guidelines from the six regional institutional accreditors of post-secondary educational institutions in the U.S. | <urn:uuid:e8c71105-6a92-46a3-88e7-654a501cac04> | {
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It is estimated that about 40 percent of all homes in the U.S. have some type of firearm, of which one in four is a handgun. Access to firearms in the home increases the risk of unintentional firearm-related death and injury among children. Unintentional shootings cause more than 20 percent of all firearm-related deaths in children 14 and under. the highest rate o unintentional firearm-related deaths is in children 10-14 years of age. Most unintentional shootings occur among children left unsupervised at home.
An underestimation of a child's ability to gain access to a firearm in the home is a common problem. In addition, unlike adults, children are unable to distinguish between real and toy guns, and children are not able to make good judgements about how to safely handle a gun.
Firearms are often portrayed on television and in movies as glamorous. In addition, the consequence of firing a firearm may not be viewed as seriously in the media, because children often see the "shot" actors alive in other movies. Toy guns may add to a child's perception that real guns, like toy guns, are harmless and fun. It is important that your child knows the difference between a real gun and a toy gun. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents not to have guns in the home.
Although the only sure way to keep your child safe from unintentional firearm-related injury and death in your home is to remove all firearms from the home, there are other ways to improve the safety of your child around firearms.
Click here to view the
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SatView may be instructed to use static or dynamic colormaps. Dynamic color maps are more versatile, but they cause potentially annoying flashing as you move the cursor in and out of SatView's windows. You may specify dynamic color maps via the command line by starting SatView thusly:
% satview -c dynamic
A dynamic color map is a `virtual' color map that is swapped into your display's hardware color map whenever the cursor is in the application's window. The system color map is restored when the cursor leaves the window. The result is an abrupt change in screen colors as the cursor is moved. SatView must use dynamic color maps to save and restore session files correctly.
A static color map is one that shares the system's hardware color map. Since there is only one of these, no swapping is done and no flashing occurs. However, SatView requires quite a few colors, and there is no guarantee your system will have enough colors available in its color map (it is shared among all applications). SatView will tell you if there are insufficient colors available. | <urn:uuid:fff940e7-7f72-4463-9c3c-40b34198c715> | {
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Attila the Hun was the ruler of the Huns and leader of the Hunnic Empire from 434 to his death in 453. Though the details of his death are a little sketchy and several different accounts and theories have been presented, they all center around the cause of death being a nose bleed in early 453.
What is most often claimed is that Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night. He had just married a woman named Ildico. A going theory is that he died of a hemorrhoid in his esophagus which was caused by heavy drinking.
Chronic alcoholism can lead to acid reflux disease, which can lead to ruptures in the esophagus. This would mean it wasn’t his nose really bleeding at all, but blood would still have been flowing out his nostrils and mouth. A
nother account claims that his nose suddenly began bleeding very severely during the wedding feast and in the ensuing confusion, he choked to death. One more theory is that he died of internal bleeding. There is also an account that claims his wife killed him, but most scholars reject it as hearsay. | <urn:uuid:7f45df09-cd22-4d4c-b209-c948a2bd4a19> | {
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As many as 180,000 people with dementia are treated with antipsychotic medication in England every year, but only about 36,000 receive any benefit, according to the 2009 Time for action report commissioned by the Department of Health. Inappropriately prescribing these drugs can double the risk of death, treble the risk of stroke and leave people unable to walk or talk.
‘He reacted very badly to the drugs – one carer’s story
Gwen McFarland knows only too well the problems that can arise from the use of antipsychotic drugs. Her husband, Rodney, was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s in 2007. He was put on medication to slow down the disease’s progress but his behaviour worsened and this led to him being prescribed an antipsychotic drug.
“He reacted very badly to it,” says McFarland. “It made him hyperactive – he was up all night, he wouldn’t go to bed, he became angry and agitated and was constantly rambling, it was very distressing.
“As a family we decided to take him off the medication after a few days, but because his behaviour had become so difficult he had to go into an emergency respite placement in a care home. It was only meant to be for two weeks, but without consulting me I found out that they had put him back on the same antipsychotic drug that had caused the problems with his behaviour in the first place.
“In the end the home couldn’t cope with him either and he was moved to a mental health ward at the hospital.”
Her husband stayed on the ward for six months and never came home again. From the hospital he was moved to a specialist dementia care home where he died in May 2012.
“According to my research he shouldn’t have been on that antipsychotic drug because he had a heart problem, emphysema and diabetes. The drug also possibly triggered the mini strokes which caused a rapid deterioration in his behaviour. The antipsychotics didn’t help him one bit, they just exacerbated the situation.
“Rodney would get anxious and frustrated because he didn’t know what was going on in his head. This is why some people with dementia become violent and angry, which is why staff need to be trained in understanding their behaviour.
“You need far more practical support in a care home for people with dementia and a longer period of observation before any drug intervention; they shouldn’t be the first port of call. It’s important that staff know the side effects they can cause and that there are alternative options.”
This has long been recognised as an issue within residential care and nursing homes which is why Alzheimer’s Society devised the Focused Intervention Training and Support programme (Fits) for care homes.
A randomised controlled trial of the programme carried out by the charity in 2003-4 showed its potential. Six nursing homes used Fits and six didn’t and, by the end, the proportion of people on antipsychotics in the intervention homes had fallen from 46% to 23% -– with no significant differences in the levels of agitated or disruptive behaviour – but rates had fallen from 49% to only 42% in the control homes.
Now, with funding of £100,000 each from the Department of Health and the HC-One care home group, the programme is being rolled out in 150 care homes across the UK. The reason a programme such as FITS is so crucial is because there is no mandatory dementia training for staff in care homes or nursing homes, says Alzheimer’s Society director of research Clive Ballard.
“Fits helps staff look at things from the perspective of the person with dementia,” he says. “By understanding dementia and the person behind the condition it will help them provide good quality, individually tailored care.
Antipsychotics ‘should be last resort’
“Often antipsychotics are used as a first line rather than a last resort and it is because of a lack of understanding about why behavioural problems occur.”
The University of Worcester’s Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) has been commissioned by Alzheimer’s Society to deliver the training and also to evaluate it. ADS has recruited two dementia practice development coaches who will train 75 existing care home staff from the 150 homes to become dementia care coaches. They in turn will be able to provide training for other care staff in the homes.
The 75 dementia care coaches will be trained at five training centres across England and Wales. Training starts this month (October) and will involve 10 days’ training spread over three months as well as ongoing supervision.
“The core training will be around person-centred planning and meaningful occupation,” says Simon Evans, senior research fellow at ADS. “It’s about seeing the person rather than the dementia.”
Changing staff attitudes
While the main aim is reducing antipsychotic drug use, smaller aims include changes in staff attitudes and goal planning to meet the social and emotional needs of people with dementia.
The programme involves 100 HC-One homes and 50 homes from smaller care home providers, including single-home operators.
“We want to see how the model works across a range of provider sizes,” says Simon Evans, senior research fellow at ADS. There will be different challenges depending on the resources available in each home”,
HC-One has chosen 50 dementia care coaches – though it is calling them dementia ambassadors – to take part – each of whom will cover two care homes. Additionally, all its 241 care homes will have dementia champions.
“FITS is a two-year research programme but we are seeing beyond that by creating specific roles of ambassadors and champions so that all the learning can be rolled out,” says Paul Smith, head of mental health and dementia care at HC-One.
“The government figures are scary and as the third largest care home provider then we will share some of that [problem]. There are cultures to change and we recognise that.”
Improve your practice
Community Care is holding a conference on safeguarding adults in care homes on 4 December, which includes a session on supporting residents who display challenging behaviour. Book now for a discounted place.
How dementia training in care homes can improve | <urn:uuid:e2875a89-53f9-4a25-913d-1ae38fa45388> | {
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Ancient Egyptian proverb: Possess Cleopatra's Wheel and as with the center of the universe all attention is drawn toward you.
The origins of Cleopatra's Wheel date back to the time of Cleopatra in ancient Egypt. Believing she was a descendant of the gods, Cleopatra alone possessed this sacred Medallion in the belief she would be blessed with its twenty-four points of happiness:
Cleopatra's Wheel contains twenty-four spokes, each of which represents your connection with the world – physically and spiritually. The famous queen believed that when she affixed this stunningly beautiful amulet around her neck, it drew attention to ALL of her special qualities, not only her remarkable beauty!Available to the public for the first time, you can now take possession of your very own Cleopatra's Wheel and experience for yourself its Twenty-four Points of Happiness:
5. Inner peace
6. Neutralized enemies
10. Sex appeal
12. Material wealth
13. Loyal Friends
18. Physical well being
24. Sweet life
If you seek to draw attention to yourself and have others see the real you – both your inner and outer beauty – you are in for a real treat. The moment you affix this spectacular amulet around your neck, BE PREPARED TO BE NOTICED!!!
Cleopatra's Wheel should bring you the excitement and romance you yearn for as it draws attention to all of your remarkable attributes.
It will be unlike anything you've ever experienced previously.Made of pure sterling silver, Cleopatra's Wheel could elevate you to the pinnacle of life. | <urn:uuid:e89b176e-a67f-4986-b004-7a3b002f036c> | {
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Scientists Produce New Thermoelectric Substance That Can Increase Mileage By 5-10%
Washington: A Northwestern University-led research team has identified a promising new material that could efficiently convert waste heat into electricity to help power cars and improve gas mileage.
The researchers discovered that adding two metals, antimony and lead, to the well-known semiconductor lead-telluride, produces a thermoelectric material that is found to be more efficient at high temperatures than existing materials. “We cannot explain this 100%, but it gives us a new mechanism — and probably new science — to focus on as we try to raise the efficiency of thermoelectrics,” said Mercouri Kanatzidis, Charles and Emma Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Current thermoelectric technology is only used in niche markets, such as solid-state refrigeration and cooling, because the materials are not very efficient.
With new materials and increased efficiency, devices based on thermoelectrics could find widespread use in the automotive industry, solar energy conversion and the conversion of waste heat from nuclear reactors, smokestacks and industrial equipment.
“It’s a big accomplishment to recover some of the heat or energy that would otherwise be lost and convert it into useful energy,” said Kanatzidis. “That’s what thermoelectrics can do, but we need to make them more efficient to really be practical,” he added.
A thermoelectric device, for example, could be attached to a car’s tailpipe. The side of the material in contact with the tailpipe would be the hot side, and the side exposed to the air would be the cold side. The temperature difference would be enough to generate electricity, which would be returned to the car’s engine for additional torque. Such devices also could be used in large industrial plants, such as those for power, chemical production and glass making. Researchers hope to raise mileage by 5 to 10% per gallon using thermoelectrics, which would be significant.
Source: Times of India | <urn:uuid:3d5a049a-bbc1-4f12-939c-fdb42610d730> | {
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Shootings spark debate on guns
In the wake of the recent mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school and President Obama’s subsequent gun control proposals, the issue of gun violence has once again taken center stage in American politics and the media.
Graphic by Daniel Schwindt/Old Gold & Black
On Jan. 16 the president announced the biggest gun control crackdown in decades, proposing an all-out ban on assault weapon ownership and on the sale of armor piercing bullets, as well as universal background checks, a 10-round limit on ammunition clips, and putting more police officers on the streets.
Although the proposals were immediately met with significant opposition, Obama contended that the new laws would prevent gun violence across the country. One of the worst gun related tragedies in US history occurred on April 16, 2007 on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. The largest loss of life for a university since the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, where 35 students of Syracuse University were killed, the shooting at Virginia Tech changed the nature of safety on college campuses across the country.
The tragedy also raised the level of debate concerning student gun rights on campus. Virginia Tech, like most undergraduate universities including Wake Forest, maintains a strict ban on students possessing guns on campus. After the massacre, some suggested that the rule be eliminated so that students could defend themselves. In the end, no change was made to the university’s policy.
Similarly, the university has a strict policy against gun possession on campus in compliance with North Carolina state law. Although no such shooting has ever taken place at Wake Forest, the tragedy last December in Newtown, Connecticut sparked debate about university security. Lesia Finney, sergeant, University Police, believes that “strict” rules for all North Carolina schools has prevented gun-related instances in recent years, noting that there haven’t been any gun related incidents since the early ‘90s.
The vast majority of colleges in the United States, ranging from rural universities like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to much more urban and potentially dangerous campus settings like the University of California at Los Angeles, ban the possession of guns on campus. Currently, 21 states have imposed laws that prohibit firearms on college campuses, while the other 24 have left that decision up to the individual universities, most of which have enforced their own ban on guns. In many cases, students can be arrested for carrying any kind of weapon including a gun, a knife or even sometimes pepper spray.
Within the student body at Wake Forest, it’s clear that both conservative and liberal leaning students agree that guns should be prohibited on campus. Freshman Addison McLamb, a Republican and strong advocate of the Second Amendment, believes that “the most prudent course of action by any university would be to prohibit the possession of firearms by residential students,” greatly due to the prevalence of alcohol and potential “irresponsibility” of students. Freshman Blake Rutledge, another and registered Republican, shared a similar sentiment, asserting that students have no need for a firearm on campus, “neither protection or hunting are viable options when you’re living on campus.” Similarly, Alec DiPietro, a freshman Democrat, supports the university’s ban on student firearm possession.While there seems to be a consensus here, the national debate is much more contentious and involves more than just students.
Since the Virginia Tech shooting, special interest groups have emerged on both sides of the issue to promote their agenda. One such group, Students for Concealed Carry (SCC), is a national organization of more than 43,000 college students who support the right to carry a concealed weapon (assuming that they have the proper permit to do so).
The group, which has members of all political ideologies and members in all 50 states, backs legislation to allow students to carry concealed weapons. SCC’s website states that one of their primary goals is to “push state legislators and school administrators to grant concealed handgun license holders the same rights on college campuses that those licensees currently enjoy in most other unsecured locations.”
Another organization, with the goal of keeping guns off college campuses, has been lobbying with equal force. “The Campaign to Keep Guns off Campus” has the support of 359 universities across the country in forty states, including North Carolina. Wake Forest has not joined this campaign, although the entire public university system has done so.
Despite the increasingly heated ongoing debate, it remains unlikely that any significant policy change will be made here that would permit students to keep a firearm on campus. A reversal of that ban would only be possible if state lawmakers decided to take action on the issue, which so far they have shown no sign of doing. | <urn:uuid:6c115516-d5b0-4f9b-826e-4c12f95e8e5a> | {
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Taking the Document Object Model (DOM) Approach to XML Documents
The dichotomy between linear thinking and holistic thinking separates (respectively) SAX from DOM.
SAX (Simple API for XML) treats an XML document linearly, working through a document piece by piece, from beginning to end. But with DOM (the Document Object Model), you jump in and look at the whole document. A bit later, you zoom in on the root element, and then focus more closely on an element within the root element. In some situations, jumping in is exactly what you need to do.
With DOM, you think of an XML document as having several nodes. Examples of nodes include elements, attributes, comments, and the characters between a pair of start and end tags. An entire XML document is itself a node. All in all, an XML document can have 12 different types of nodes.
The nodes of a tree
Taken together, all the DOM nodes in an XML document form a tree. Take, for instance, the document in Listing 1. This document's DOM tree looks like the tree shown in Figure 1.
Listing 1: The Anchovy Lovers Club
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
Founder, President, Secretary, Publicity Manager
The tree has eleven nodes. To count them, start by counting the tree's branches (conveniently displayed in Figure 1). Then count the Member firstname = "Herbert" branch a second time. (This branch has two DOM nodes on it. The element named Member is a node, and the element's attribute firstname="Herbert" is a node.)
A treatise on trees
There are a few things you'll discover by staring at the tree in Figure 1.
- Some nodes are children of other nodes.
- For example, the Member node is a child of the AnchovyLoversClub node. That's because, in Listing 1, the Member element is nested inside the AncoverLoversClub element.
- In a similar way, the Standing node is a child of the Member node. This family analogy goes on and on. The Member node is the parent of the Standing node, and the AncoverLoversClub is the parent of the Member node.
- The entire document is a node.
- This is an important point, and it's easy to forget. In Listing 1, the document's root element is AnchovyLoversClub. But in Figure 1, the name AnchovyLoversClub isn't at the top of the tree. Instead, the word #document is at the top of the tree.
- A DOM tree's topmost node represents an entire XML document. Errors occur when programmers think that the document's root element starts the tree. (It doesn't.)
- Comments and pieces of text are nodes.
- In Figure 1, the comment <!--AnchovyLoversClub.xml --> is a child node of the document node. That's because, in Listing 1, the comment is part of the document. The comment isn't nested inside any of the document's elements.
- Once again, we play genealogy. We say that the #document node has two children — a comment node and an AnchovyLoversClub node. These two nodes — the comment and the AnchovyLoversClub — are called siblings.
- Also in Figure 1, the text Founder, President, Secretary, Publicity Manager is part of a node. In Listing 1, the text Founder, President, Secretary, Publicity Manager is inside the Standing element. So, in Figure 1, this text node is a child of the Standing node.
- Even ignorable text is part of a node.
- According to Figure 1, the AnchovyLoversClub node has three direct child nodes — two nodes labeled #text, and another node labeled Member. That's because, as far as DOM is concerned, the AnchovyLoversClub node has three things in it.
carriage return and three blanks
- The situation is illustrated in Figure 2.
- The three children of the Member node — two pieces of whitespace and one Standing element — are all siblings.
- Now, notice the dots and the [cr] in Figures 1 and 2. In the tree diagram, a dot represents a blank space, and [cr] represents a carriage return. With DOM, all the ignorable whitespace between the AnchovyLoversClub start tag and the Member start tag forms a node. Starting with the angle bracket that terminates the AnchovyLoversClub start tag, you go to the next line, and then you have three blank spaces before the angle bracket that opens the Member start tag. All that stuff is a DOM node.
- End tags aren't nodes.
- With SAX, you may be thinking in terms of starting the Member element, and later ending the Member element. In DOM, you don't think this way. Instead, you visit the Member element just once. Within that visit, you visit the Standing element and some text. DOM has no method corresponding to the SAX endElement method. | <urn:uuid:701b2bec-d48e-4f56-a3fd-5bf9f3ab0733> | {
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| Our Empire Story|
|by H. E. Marshall|
|Vivid and picturesque account of the principal events in the building of the British Empire. Traces the development of the British colonies from days of discovery and exploration through settlement and establishment of government. Includes stories of the five chief portions of the Empire: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. Ages 10-16 |
AT Cawnpore Sir Hugh Wheeler was commander. When he
saw the danger coming he sent to Sir Henry Lawrence at
Lucknow for help. But Sir Henry himself had few enough
soldiers, and could spare only fifty men. Then Sir
Hugh asked an Indian prince, called the Nana Sahib, to
The Nana was the adopted son of the last Peshwá of the
Maráthás, to whom, you remember, the Company paid a
yearly sum of money, after he had given up his kingdom
to them. When the Peshwá died, the company thought
there was no need to go on paying the money, for the
Nana was not really his son, and had not true right to
it. This made Nana angry, for he thought that he
should have had the money. Still, he pretended to be
friends with the British. Now he promised to help Sir
Hugh, and he came to Cawnpore with some soldiers. But
as soon as the mutiny had fairly broken out, his men
joined with the mutineers against the British.
At Cawnpore the sepoys broke open the jail, sacked the
treasury and magazine, and burned and plundered
everywhere. But they did not attack the white people.
Having finished their work of destruction, they started
to join the other rebels at Delhi. But this did not
please the Nana. He called them back, and the siege of
The place where the white people were gathered for
refuge was poorly protected. It was an old hospital.
Round it was a crumbling mind wall not four feet high.
Within it were gathered nearly a thousand people, but
scarcely three hundred were soldiers, and nearly four
hundred were women and children. Without the wall
there swarmed thousand upon thousands of sepoys, well
drilled and well armed, for they had all the heavy guns
and ammunition of the magazine. It needed only courage
for them to overleap the poor weak wall, and put every
white man and woman to death.
But courage failed them. They knew of what stern stuff
their white masters were made, and they dared not
overleap that wall. So they raged and yelled without,
and night and day the flash and roar of guns, and the
scream and crash of shells, continued with no pause.
"THE BOATS STUCK IN THE MUD AND WERE AN EASY MARK."
Again Sir Hugh sent to Sir Henry Lawrence begging for
help. But this time Sir Henry, with a breaking heart,
was forced to refuse. He could not spare a man. So
without rest, or pause, or shadow of relief, the siege
went on. The sepoys aimed with deadly sureness. The
low mud wall gave little shelter, and day-by-day the
ranks of the defenders grew thinner and thinner. Yet
in hunger, thirst, and weariness, they fought on. Food
began to fail. A handful of flour and a handful of
split peas a day was all each man received. Water was
more precious still. It could only be had from a well
within the fire of the enemy's guns. And many man laid
down his life to bring a bucket of water to still the
wailing of a child or the groans of a dying comrade.
Three weeks passed, weeks of sleepless horror amid
unceasing noise, and constant hail of bullets. The
sun blazed from brazen sky. The air was heavy with
smoke, and bitter with the taste and smell of
gunpowder, the heat wellnigh unbearable. Women and
children drooped and faded. Men set their teeth, and,
gaunt and grim, fought on.
At length the Nana Sahib proposed terms. He promised,
the do the British would give him, he would send them
all in safety down the river to Alláhábád.
There was not a man within the walls who would not
rather have fought to the last. But they thought of
the sad-eyed women, and the little listless children,
and they gave in.
So early one morning, a dreary procession of weary
women and children, of hopeless, wounded men, made
their way to the river.
There, some native boats awaited them, covered with
thatch to keep off the heat of the sun. The wounded
were lifted in. Men, women, and children followed.
Then suddenly from the banks the sound of a bugle was
Throwing down their oars the native rowers leaped from
their places and made for the shore. Almost at the
same moment the thatched roofs burst into flames, and
from the banks are roar of guns was heard, and a hail
of bullets burst upon the boats.
The boats, stuck in the mud, were an easy mark.
Leaping into the river the white men tried to push them
off, but in vain. One boat alone got free, and of its
crew only four lived to tell the tale. The others were
murdered where they stood. Not a man escaped, and
those of the women and children, who were still alive,
were led back to the terrible town from which they had
just been set free. There they were shut up in a place
called the Savada house. Later they were taken to
another called the Bibigarh. Here they were treated as
slaves, and made
to grind the corn for the Nana. And so in slavery and
imprisonment the terrible weeks dragged on.
Meanwhile, through the burning heat of an Indian
summer, a British army was toiling on towards Cawnpore.
It was led by General Havelock, as brave a soldier and
as good a man as ever lived. Like Cromwell, he taught
his men both to fight and to pray, and "Havelock's
Saints" were as well known as Cromwell's Ironsides had
When the Nana Sahib heard that they were coming, he
made up his mind to complete his work. So he ordered
the sepoys to fire upon the women and children through
the windows of the Bibigarh. But even the sepoys
turned from such cruel work, and they fired upon the
roof and did little or no hurt to the women within the
house. But the Nana could always find people cruel
enough to do his bidding. In the evening five men went
into the house armed with long knives. For a little
time terrible screams were heard. Then all was still.
The men came out, and the bodies of the poor women and
children were thrown into a well.
Outside Cawnpore the British met the Indian troops.
After a desperate fight the Nana was defeated. His
army was scattered, and he, struck at last with terror,
galloped wildly away through the darkness, and was seen
It is supposed that he died miserably in the jungle.
The day after the battle the British marched entrance
into Cawnpore but when they saw the ghastly Bibigarh
and the still more ghastly grave of those they had come
to save, these war-worn men burst into sobs and wept
These things happily are now long past. An angel
guards that once awful spot, and a garden blooms where
those poor women died.
Hundreds of additional titles available for
online reading when you join Gateway to the Classics | <urn:uuid:c68fda4e-62e3-46d1-a937-062797025b33> | {
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Vomiting & Diarrhea
Vomiting & Diarrhea
What causes vomiting and diarrhea?
Vomiting and diarrhea (loose, watery bowel motions) are often caused by a gastrointestinal (gut) infection – commonly known as gastro or stomach flu. When a person experiences vomiting and diarrhea, they lose a large amount of fluid and electrolytes.
Associated Symptoms of Vomiting and Diarrhea
Some of the symptoms associated with vomiting and diarrhea can include nausea, fever, loose stool, abdominal pains or bloating. In most cases, vomiting and diarrhea just causes discomfort and many people stop experiencing symptoms after 3 days. However, when taking Hydralyte to manage dehydration caused by vomiting and diarrhea, it important to seek medical assistance if:
- vomiting or diarrhea continues for more than 12 hours in children under 3 years
- vomiting or diarrhea continues for more than 24 hours in children 3 years to adults.
- you have kidney disease, are taking heart or blood pressure medicine, or are pregnant, discuss with your doctor before taking Hydralyte.
FACT: Dehydration is the biggest health risk associated with vomiting and diarrhea.
The dehydration process:
How to Know if You’re dehydrated
If you are experiencing any of the following symptoms, your body could be dehydrated.
- Increased thirst
- Fatigue / Lethargy
- Dark yellow urine, or decreased urine output
- Sticky or dry mouth
- Loss of skin elasticity
What is stomach flu and what are the symptoms?
Stomach flu (or gastro) is an infection of the gut, which causes vomiting and diarrhea (loose, watery bowel motions) – viral or bacterial infections are often to blame. You usually catch stomach flu if you eat or drink food or water that is contaminated with infections (caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites). You can also catch it if you come in contact with a person who is unwell, such as by breathing in vomit particles that spray into the air (they can fly as far as 10 feet!).
Other names for stomach flu infections include – gastro, food poisoning, travelers’ diarrhea, gastro flu, norovirus, Montezuma’s revenge.
Dehydration is the BIGGEST health risk associated with stomach flu. When you get dehydrated you feel symptoms such as a dry mouth, thirst, dizziness, tiredness and headaches. If dehydration becomes severe, you can end up in hospital on a fluid drip. Dehydration occurs more quickly for small babies, children and older people.
*Mild dehydration, 4% fluid deficit, in a 176 lbs adult.
Relieving Symptoms of Dehydration due to Vomiting and Diarrhea
Vomiting and diarrhea can lead to an increase in the amount of fluids and electrolytes that your body loses. With both vomiting and diarrhea, the most important steps to take is to replenish those fluids and electrolytes. By staying properly hydrated you can relieve some of the mild to moderate symptoms of dehydration caused by vomiting and diarrhea. Vomiting and Diarrhea usually subsides within a few days, in the case of it lasting longer than 12 hours in children under 3 or 24 hours in children 3 years to adults, seek help from a medical professional.
Avoid foods and drinks that may aggravate your symptoms. Foods that are greasy, high in fat or very high in fiber can make your diarrhea worse. Try to stay away from dairy products such as milks and cheeses, as your body might have trouble digesting them. Opt for a diet of mainly liquids that you sip slowly, to ensure you stay hydrated.
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|Samuel J. Tilden|
March 2, 1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visited the Island of Mozambique.
March 2, 1770 - British soldiers and Bostonian laborers fought at John Hancock's wharf. The soldiers were confined to their barracks after the incident.
March 2, 1776 - In advance of the Continental Army’s occupation of Dorchester Heights, Mass., General George Washington ordered American artillery forces to begin bombarding Boston from their positions at Lechmere Point, northwest of the city center. After two straight days of bombardment, American Brigadier General John Thomas slipped 2,000 troops, cannons and artillery into position just south of Boston at Dorchester Heights. The 56 cannon involved in the move were those taken at Ticonderoga, New York, by Lieutenant Colonel Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen with his Green Mountain Boys, which had then been transported to Boston by Colonel of Artillery Henry Knox the previous winter.
March 2, 1776 – During the American Revolutionary War, Patriot militia units arrested the Royal Governor of Georgia James Wright and attempted to prevent the capture of supply ships in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
March 2, 1793 - Sam Houston, the first President of the Republic of Texas, was born in Rockbridge County, Va.
March 2, 1807 – The U.S. Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country. The act prohibited “the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.”
March 2, 1819 - President James Monroe signed the Alabama enabling act.
March 2-3, 1825 – During his tour of the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette stayed in Raleigh, North Carolina where he was reunited with Colonel William Polk who had fought beside him at the Battle of Brandywine where both had been wounded.
March 2, 1836 - The siege at the Alamo continued. Unbeknownst to defenders of the Alamo, the provisional Texas government at Washington-on-the-Brazos declared independence from Mexico, officially establishing the Republic of Texas.
March 2, 1836 - Texas declared its independence from Mexico and an ad interim government was formed.
March 2, 1855 - Congress appropriated $30,000 on this day to install camels in the American Southwest, as part of the U.S. Army. Though they proved successful as pack animals, after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the camels became all but forgotten about.
March 2, 1859 – Sholem Aleichem, one of the world’s most prolific and widely read Yiddish-language writers, was born in Pereyaslave, Ukraine.
March 2, 1861 - The U.S. Congress created the Territory of Nevada.
March 2, 1861 – During the Civil War, the US revenue cutter, Henry Dodge, was seized in Galveston, Texas. The U.S. Congress voted to create the Dakota Territory, comprising present day North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming.
March 2, 1862 - The Confederate forces under General Ben McCulloch, General Earl Van Dorn and General Sterling Price joined together in preparation to advance on Union General Samuel Curtis' army.
March 2, 1862 – During the Civil War, Columbus, Ky. was evacuated by Confederate Major General Leonidas Polk, and a skirmish was fought near New Madrid, Mo. Albuquerque, in the New Mexico Territory, was abandoned by Federal forces, and a Naval engagement took place near Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., involving the Federal gunboats, Lexington and Tyler.
March 2, 1863 – During the Civil War, a 28-day Federal expedition from New Orleans, La., to the mouth of the Rio Grande River in Texas, began. Skirmishes were fought in the vicinity Neosho, Mo.; near Eagleville, Tenn.; in the vicinity of Petersburg, Tenn. and at Aldie, Va. A two-day Federal operation between La Grange, Tenn. and Salem, Miss. began.
March 2, 1864 – During the Civil War, a Federal operation began between Larkin’s Landing and Guntersville, Ala.
March 2, 1864 – During the Civil War, skirmishes were fought at Canton, Miss. and at Old Church and Walkerton, Va.
March 2, 1865 - Union General George Custer's troops defeated Confederate General Jubal Early's forces at the Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia. The battle brought an end to fighting in the Shenandoah Valley.
March 2, 1867 - The United States Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act, which divided the South into five military districts.
March 2, 1871 - James Osgood Andrew passed away in Mobile, Ala. at the age of 76. He was the first native of Georgia to enter the Methodist ministry, and the Andrews Chapel in McIntosh, Ala. was named in his honor.
March 2, 1877 – Just two days before his inauguration, the U.S. Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on Nov. 7, 1876.
March 2, 1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
March 2, 1885 – During the Sino-French War, the French victory in the Battle of Hòa Mộc occurred near Tuyên Quang, northern Vietnam.
March 2, 1895 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau Station at Claiborne, Ala. recorded 1.10 inches of rainfall.
March 2, 1899 - Mount Rainier National Park in Washington was established by the U.S. Congress.
March 2, 1900 – Astronomer Morris K. Jessup, the author of “The Case for the UFO,” was born near Rockville, Indiana. He was heavily involved in early research of the “Philadelphia Experiment.”
March 2, 1901 - Trustees of the Alabama Department of Archives and History met in Gov. William J. Samford's office to organize the nation's first state archival agency. Charged with, among other responsibilities, "the care and custody of official archives [and] the collection of materials bearing upon the history of the State," the department was housed in the capitol until 1940. In that year it moved across Washington Avenue to the War Memorial Building, which had been constructed for the Archives.
March 2, 1904 - The "Official Playing Rules of Professional Base Ball Clubs" were adopted.
March 2, 1904 – Writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel, also known as “Dr. Seuss,” was born in Springfield, Mass. His most famous books included “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” (1937), “The Cat in the Hat” (1957) and “Green Eggs and Ham” (1960).
March 2, 1909 – National Baseball Hall of Fame right fielder Mel Ott was born in Gretna, La. He would go on to play for and manage the New York Giants. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1951.
March 2, 1915 - The Monroeville, Ala. Lodge of the Knights of Pythias held a meeting under special permit for the election of officers. The former officers were elected for a semi-annual term.
March 2, 1916 – The Conecuh Record reported that Judge Thames of Brooklyn had withdrawn from the race for Conecuh County Probate Judge.
March 2, 1925 - State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route-numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped, numbered marker.
March 2, 1927 - Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees worth $70,000 a year.
March 2, 1931 – Journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe was born in Richmond, Va. His most famous books include “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby” (1965), “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (1968), “The Right Stuff” (1979) and “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (1987).
March 2, 1933 – The film “King Kong” opened at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
March 2, 1935 – Confederate officer Thomas Mercer Riley died at the age of 94 and was buried at Turnbull Cemetery near Riley Crossing in Monroe County, Ala. He was born on July 2, 1840 at Turnbull in Monroe County. He enlisted in the Monroe Guards on March 15, 1861 and served as 2nd Captain. He enlisted in the 5th Alabama on May 13, 1861 and was elected 2nd Lt. He was appointed a 1st Lt. by the State of Alabama on Oct. 13, 1861. Co. D, 5th Alabama reorganized and became Co. C, 5th Alabama on April 27, 1862 and he was named captain on that date. He was wounded on June 2, 1864 and sent home on a 30-day furlough. He commanded Co. C, 5th Alabama and assumed command of the entire regiment during the battle. He surrendered the regiment at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. After the war, he averted a financial disaster within Monroe County in his position as head of the Bank of Beatrice. The post-war Riley home stands today just north of Riley Crossing on the west side of State Highway 21.
March 2, 1935 – Former University of Alabama head coach Gene Stallings was born in Paris, Texas.
March 2, 1936 – The Clarke-Washington Electric Membership Corporation was organized by some 83 members from Clarke and Washington counties. This was the first rural electrical co-op organized in Alabama under an executive order signed by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 11, 1935.
March 2, 1942 – Novelist John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. His most famous books include “The World According to Garp” (1978), “The Cider House Rules” (1978) and “A Prayer for Owen Meany” (1989).
March 2, 1946 – Ho Chi Minh was elected the President of North Vietnam.
March 2, 1950 – The J.U. Blacksher High School building at Uriah, Ala. burned.
March 2, 1950 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Evergreen High School’s varsity boys basketball team, led by head coach Wendell Hart, wrapped up their regular season schedule with a 42-41 win over Andalusia, which was coached by Bill Stanford, in Andalusia, Ala. Guerry Moorer led Evergreen with 16 points; Jack Cunningham scored 11; Gwyn Daniels, nine; Bobby “Pistol Pete” Wells, four; Dickey Bozeman, two. Evergreen played without John Greel Ralls, who missed the game due to sickness.
March 2, 1950 – The First District AA Basketball Tournament was scheduled to begin in Evergreen, Ala. with a game between W.S. Neal and Robertsdale at 7 p.m. at Memorial Gym in Evergreen. Also that night, top-seeded McGill of Mobile was scheduled to play Choctaw County High School of Butler at 8:15 p.m., and after that UMS of Mobile was to play Clarke County High School. Other teams in the tournament included Bay Minette, Citronelle, Murphy, Semmes Tech, Fairhope, Evergreen, Jackson, Foley and Atmore. The three-day tournament was scheduled to end on Sat., March 4. Both the tournament winner and runner-up were to enter the state AA tournament in Tuscaloosa March 10-11. At the end of the final game, the all-district team selections were to be announced and trophies were to be awarded.
March 2, 1950 – The Evergreen Courant reported that March 2-4 had been proclaimed Tournament Days in Evergreen, Ala. by Major J.H. Robison. The Mayor’s Proclamation was issued to encourage cooperation of local people during the First District AA Tournament, which was scheduled to begin on March 2 in Memorial Gym at Evergreen High School and continue through Saturday night, March 4. In his proclamation, the mayor asked the merchants and businessmen in Evergreen to fly their United States flags on each of the three days the tournament is in progress, and urged the cooperation and support of townspeople during the meet.
March 2, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy appointed Red Level, Ala. native Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry U. S. Surgeon General. Terry was born in Red Level in 1911 and graduated from Birmingham-Southern College in 1931. As Surgeon General he issued a landmark report on smoking and health that raised awareness among policymakers and the public about the dangers of smoking. The report, “Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States,” was released on Jan. 11, 1964 and concluded that lung cancer and chronic bronchitis are causally related to cigarette smoking. Terry served as Surgeon General until Oct. 1, 1965.
March 2, 1965 – Operation Rolling Thunder began with more than 100 United States Air Force jet bombers striking an ammunition depot at Xom Bang, 10 miles inside North Vietnam. Simultaneously, 60 South Vietnamese Air Force propeller planes bombed the Quang Khe naval base, 65 miles north of the 17th parallel.
March 2, 1967 - Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York) proposed a three-point plan to help end the war. The plan included suspension of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and the gradual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam with replacement by an international force. Secretary of State Dean Rusk rejected Kennedy’s proposal because he believed that the North Vietnamese would never agree to withdraw their troops.
March 2, 1972 – A tornado struck Evergreen, Ala. and demolished a lumber shed at the Conecuh Lumber Co. and a number of other buildings. No injuries were reported.
March 2, 1980 - Weather observer Earl Windham reported a low of 20 degrees on this day in Evergreen, Ala.
March 2, 1982 – NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was born in Lima, Ohio. He would go on to play for Miami (Ohio) and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
March 2, 1984 – Kenneth Ausby, son of Dot Floyd of Evergreen, Ala., graduated from the Southwest Alabama Police Academy at Faulkner State Junior College in Bay Minette. Ausby, who had been a member of the Evergreen Police Department since July 1983, finished No. 4 in his class.
March 2, 1985 – NFL running back Reggie Bush was born in Spring Valley, Calif. He would go on to play for Southern Cal, the New Orleans Saints, the Miami Dolphins and the Detroit Lions.
March 2, 1990 – College and NFL cornerback Malcolm Butler was born in Vicksburg, Miss. He went on to play for Vicksburgh High School, the University of West Alabama and the New England Patriots.
March 2, 1991 – The Battle at Rumaila Oil Field brought an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
March 2, 1992 - Ryne Sandberg signed a five-year contract with the Chicago Cubs worth $30.5 million.
March 2, 1993 – Weather reporter Harry Ellis reported 1.00 inches of rain in Evergreen, Ala. Evergreen received .06 inches on March 1 and .35 inches on March 3 for a three-day total of 1.41 inches.
March 2, 1995 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Evergreen (Ala.) Baptist Church was celebrating its Sesquicentennial during March 1995. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Jack Williamson, and its Sesquicentennial Committee invited the public to participate in special services scheduled for March 5, March 12 and March 19. The Founders Day Service was to be observed on Sun., March 19, and was to be followed by a noon meal in the Activities Building. Historical items were to be displayed all month.
March 2, 1995 – The Evergreen Courant reported that Betty Oliver had been named as the Employee of the Year at Natural Decorations, Inc. She was presented a cash award by Joe Gordy, co-owner of NDI, and she also received a plaque.
March 2, 2004 - The Indianapolis Colts signed Peyton Manning to a seven-year, $98-million deal with a $34.5 million signing bonus. It was the largest package to date in the NFL.
March 2, 2004 – During the War in Iraq, Al-Qaeda carried out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
March 2, 2005 - At a White House ceremony, President George W. Bush congratulated the 2005 World Champion Boston Red Sox baseball team for winning their first World Series since 1918. Massachusetts Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, and former Red Sox players were among those on hand for the event.
March 2, 2011 – The James Landing Cemetery in Clarke County, Ala. was added to the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register.
March 2, 2011 – The Lamb Cemetery and the James Whitley Family Cemetery in Butler County, Ala. were added to the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register.
March 2, 2012 – The Yancey-Crane Cemetery in Baldwin County, Ala. was added to the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register.
March 2, 2012 – South African environmentalist, explorer and author Lawrence Anthony died at the age of 61. | <urn:uuid:da6138c4-5f3d-4228-a0a3-80672665f6ec> | {
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Economic theory sometimes portrays people as individuals making decisions completely divorced from their social context. A long tradition in other social sciences, particularly sociology, finds this unsatisfactory.
An example of the problems with examining an economic problem without thinking of how people are embedded in society comes from the new paper “Continued Existence of Cows Disproves Central Tenets of Capitalism?”by Santosh Anagol, Alvin Etang, and Dean Karlan.
The authors collected detailed data from the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Household Survey on two regions that asked questions on dairying behavior, in particular about livestock, farming practices, land holdings, assets. The survey provides detailed information on the costs (fodder, veterinarian, appreciation or depreciation of the animal, number of hours spent looking after the animals) and benefits (milk production, value of dung cakes etc.) of owning cows and buffaloes.
The authors then estimate the rate of return to holding cows and buffaloes. The results are startling. They find that it is -64% for cows and -39% for buffaloes.
What could explain such irrational economic practices? The authors consider a few ‘non-embedded’ ideas - measurement error, preference for home produced milk, preference for illiquid savings, labor market failures, and preference for skewness in returns. But none of these seems particularly compelling.
The final idea they come up with, social and religious values - Hindus regard cows as sacred–sounds more embedded, but then they quickly add:
most economic models of religion predict that customs derived from religion are either beneficial or strengthen the group, and this seems to do neither,
and of course buffaloes are not regarded as sacred.
What to conclude from this? Perhaps one explanation is to embrace the idea, once popular among some social scientists and recently gaining some further traction in more sophisticated forms among development economists, that poor people are irrational and cannot make decisions in their own best interests.
An alternative, however, is provided by the anthropologist James Ferguson in his book The Anti-Politics Machine that is a study of development problems in Lesotho in Southern Africa. There are many points to this book but one of them is to show that economic analyses that failed to take into account the social ‘embeddedness’ of economic behavior often come up with spurious interpretations of what is going on — and as a result, give irrelevant policy advice.
The problem in Lesotho, according to the World Bank (cited at length by Ferguson), was that there was an open range with too many cows and a serious ‘tragedy of the commons’. The interpretation of this by the World Bank was that:
cattle are not held by the Basotho solely for economic gain [and] traditional reasons for keeping cattle, e.g. brideprice, prestige, investment, etc. make farmers unwilling to sell their surplus unproductive stock.
This might be a bit like the idea that the rate of return to holding cows in Uttar Pradesh is low because cows have religious symbolism for Hindus.
The World Bank’s interpretation fits rather neatly into one type of idea about social embeddedness — what the sociologist Mark Granovetter calls ‘oversocialized’ as opposed to economic theory which is ‘undersocialized’ in his famous 1985 article “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness”. In the oversocialized version, the Basotho are traditional ‘peasants’ who do not operate according to modern economic rationality so that social forces (like Hindus regarding cows as sacred) mess up a proper accounting according to costs and benefits. No wonder Lesotho is poor!
Ferguson tries to show, with some success, that this is all nonsense.
It is true that
the peculiarities of Sotho livestock keeping reflect a certain structuring of property which makes of livestock a special domain not freely interconvertible into cash.
But this social norm, which influences the economic rate of return, is not some irrational ‘traditional’ practice but is kept in place by a distinct set of interests. Ferguson first shows that (pp. 146-147):
There exists what one might call a one-way barrier: cash can always be converted into cattle through purchase; cattle however, cannot be converted to cash through sale except under certain conditions.
To understand this, it is important to understand two things:
1. There is nothing ‘traditional’ about the economy in Lesotho. Most of the men are away working in the mines in South Africa but since they intend to (indeed under the rule of Apartheid before 1994 were forced to) retire in Lesotho, their families are there and they wish to keep their rights in the local communities. Cows are an asset that can be lent to other people to build social relationships and standing within the community, which makes them a very attractive way to save for retirement.
2. Cows are men’s property, and as such women do not have access to them. Money is household property so women do have access to it. Therefore men save via cows to stop the women back home spending their retirement money.
So using your wages in Johannesburg to buy cows is a very effective way of keeping control of your resources and maintaining status and links to the community.
There is one more layer in this. Cows are used to pay bride-wealth to the parents of the bride when a son marries. This gives elders a type of claim over cows that they would not have over money, so they have an interest in seeing the system perpetuate itself.
So Ferguson’s argument is that the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and the resulting low rate of return to investing in cattle comes about because cattle are a very attractive way for men absent working in South Africa to save. The attractiveness results from the social norm that cows cannot be sold and they are not the property of women. Thus once invested in a cow, wealth is safe. Cows are also attractive as a way of building social relations in the local society which come in useful once you retire.
No doubt one could think of other social norms that are more efficient from an economic point of view, and Ferguson does not explain why these types of social norms emerged rather than others. But he does analyze convincingly the interests that keep these ones in place and lead to their reproduction. This is far from clear-cut because some people, women for instance, do not like the norms and try to change them.
From the point of view of Why Nations Fail, the types of social norms that Ferguson talks about are institutions — they are rules that people face that centrally govern their incentives and opportunities. Of course they are not laws or written in the Lesotho constitution, rather they are what Douglass North called “informal institutions”. But they are institutions, none the less.
In the next few blogs we will dig deeper into this issue.
Is this also what is going on in Uttar Pradesh? We have no idea but we cannot help but ask: wouldn’t it have been more interesting to place the negative returns to holding cows and buffaloes in a social (and institutional) perspective? | <urn:uuid:6486ab18-7780-4650-9200-125bafdfa976> | {
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There is increasing evidence from a number of regions in the world of a poleward movement of warmer water species of plankton, fish, benthic and intertidal organisms in the last 50 years. These biogeographic changes have been observed in both the northern and southern hemispheres (e.g. NE Atlantic, Tasman Sea, China Sea, Bering Sea). The clearest evidence of the changes has been obtained by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey in the Northeast Atlantic. Here, warmer water copepod species (crustaceans) moved northwards by 10° of latitude (~1000 km) within 40 years up to 1999, a pattern that has continued since.
|Figure 19:With melting sea ice and warming of the oceans, marine species change their distributions, affecting entire food chains and ocean productivity. In 2005 the subtropical dinoflagellate Ceratium hexacanthum was found in CPR samples from the North Sea at levels that were 6 standard deviations above previous measurements since 1958. Further evidence of this warning signal is seen in the appearance of a Pacific planktonic plant (a diatom Neodenticula seminae) in the Northwest Atlantic for the first time in 800,000 years, by transfer across the top of Canada due to the rapid melting of Arctic ice in 1998.
Species that are representative of Arctic and cold temperate waters have shown a similar movement, retreating to the north. Other studies have shown an increase in the northerly range of a number of warm temperate and subtropical fish species with evidence for dispersion along the continental slope to the west of Europe and in some cases establishment of breeding populations of species such as red mullet, anchovies and sardines in the North Sea, much further north than ever recorded before.
In the case of the Northeast Atlantic the changes are clearly linked to rising sea temperatures and are correlated with Northern Hemisphere temperature and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the dominant mode of atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic. These correlations suggest that the changes may be a response at an ocean basin scale to what may be a global signal. The changes observed so far in the North Sea have taken place with a temperature increase of only about 0.5°C. Temperatures are expected to continue to increase, with a possible annual average increase of 6°C north of the latitude of Scotland by 2100 which, if it occurs, will lead to a further poleward movement of marine organisms. | <urn:uuid:a975969b-6b9b-4a05-90b8-110cfcef871b> | {
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Figure 1: Artist’s impression of a giant planet with a hypothetical moon in orbit around it.
KOI-372 b orbits its host star every 125.6 days in a fairly elongated orbit. The orbit of KOI-372 b brings the planet as close as 61 million km (0.41 AU) from its host star and out as far as 87 million km (0.58 AU). KOI-372 b is just interior to the habitable zone around its host star and any large Earth-size moon around KOI-372 b will be too hot to be habitable. Nevertheless, Kepler observed 12 transit events of KOI-372 b and analysis of the mid-transit times shows a clear variation in transit timing. This variation is due to the presence of a second planet in a wider orbit that is perturbing the orbit of KOI-372 b.
The second planet is identified as KOI-372 c and it has a mass between 0.13 to 0.31 times the mass of Jupiter. KOI-372 c also orbits its host star in an elongated orbit with an orbital period of roughly 460 days, at an average distance of about 1.2 AU from its host star. The orbit of KOI-372 c is right within the habitable zone. Any large Earth-size moon in orbit around KOI-372 c could potentially be habitable. Unlike its more massive sibling KOI-372 b, KOI-372 c does not transit its host star. Gyrochronological analysis shows that the planetary system of KOI-372 is relatively young, with an estimated age of 1.0 ± 0.3 billion years. In comparison, the Solar System is 4.57 billion years old.
Figure 2: When the known transiting planets are plotted in a semi-major axis versus planetary-mass diagram, it can be seen that KOI-372 b and KOI-372 c occupy sparsely-populated regions of the plot. The black circles indicate the positions of KOI-372 b and KOI-372 c (the size of the circle that denotes KOI-372 c is arbitrary since the planet does not transit its host star, so its size remains unknown). L. Mancini et al. (2015).
L. Mancini et al. (2015), “KOI-372: a young extrasolar system with two giant planets on wide and eccentric orbits”, arXiv:1504.04625 [astro-ph.EP] | <urn:uuid:526b22be-0102-47a9-9227-c55f1eee7be3> | {
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The big picture: A lithospheric cross section of the North American continent
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A lithospheric cross section constructed within a 6000-km-long corridor across southern Canada and its margins at 45–55°N illuminates the assembly of the North American continent at an unprecedented scale. Based on coordinated, multidisciplinary research, the profile emphasizes lithospheric-scale relationships between orogens—plate collisions and accretions have sequentially stacked orogen upon orogen such that the older crust forms basement to the next younger. This large-scale perspective highlights the similarities among crustal structures produced by orogenic processes despite the broad range of age from the Mesoarchean to the present. Heterogeneities in the lithospheric mantle suggest that, in certain situations, relict subducted or delaminated lithosphere can remain intact beneath, and eventually within, cratonic lithospheric mantle. In contrast, the dominantly subhorizontal Moho appears to be re-equilibrated through mechanical and/or thermal processes; few crustal roots beneath orogens are preserved.
Manuscript received 31 Mar. 2010; accepted 12 Dec. 2010
A unique cross section of the North American continent represents a synthesis of more than two decades of coordinated research conducted by Lithoprobe, Canada’s national geoscience project. Based on existing interpretations within eight study regions, or transects, that are linked directly or by projection along strike, we have constructed a transcontinental lithospheric profile (Fig. 1 and poster insert 1 ). From west to east, this 6000-km profile crosses the Juan de Fuca oceanic plate, the active Cascadia subduction zone, the southern Cordillera (0.19 Ga–present), the Alberta and Trans-Hudson orogens (1.92–1.8 Ga), the Superior Province (3.82–2.60 Ga), the Mid-Continent Rift System (1.1–1.0 Ga), the Grenville orogen (1.19–0.99 Ga), the Newfoundland Appalachian orogen (0.47–0.28 Ga), the Grand Banks continental shelf, and the Atlantic passive margin (0.2 Ga). The diversity of tectonic history and ages included in the section facilitates direct comparison of the secular and spatial variation of orogenic processes.
Data and interpretations are based on coordinated multidisciplinary research combined with a strong, steadily improving base of regional geotectonic knowledge. The structures displayed are primarily based on active-source seismic (reflection and refraction) data. However, the regional geometry and interpretations of the structure and tectonic processes utilize the full array of geological, geochemical, and geophysical data available for that region. Appendix 1 (see GSA’s supplemental data repository 2 ) summarizes how the cross section was constructed. A complete listing of references used to construct the cross section is provided in Appendix 2 (see footnote 2). In addition, Hammer et al. (2010) provide an in-depth description and two complementary lithospheric cross sections.
The cross section is portrayed in terms of the “tectonic age” within the crust. We define this as the time since the most recent episode of significant tectonic deformation (Fig. 1 and insert [see footnote 1]). Tectonic age was chosen over more typical designations (e.g., geology or terranes/domains) because it simplifies the interpreted cross section to highlight comparative structures and to convey the sequence of orogenic development based on the current structural interpretations. In some areas, we chose to modify the tectonic age designations in order to convey key aspects of structure as well as the sequence of orogenic development based on current structural interpretations. For example, the Archean Sask, Hearne, and Superior continents were welded together in the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson Orogen (1.92–1.80 Ga), yielding the core of the Laurentian craton. The largely unexposed Sask craton, discovered by Lithoprobe seismic studies (e.g., Lucas et al., 1993; Lewry et al., 1994; Hajnal et al., 2005), lies almost entirely beneath juvenile crustal imbricate structures. Although the Sask craton dates to 2.45–3.3 Ga, the lithospheric fragment was likely deformed by the Paleoproterozoic orogeny. However, to clarify its role in the assembly of Laurentia, we have chosen to label it with an Archean tectonic age but stippled to indicate Paleoproterozoic modification. Similar display procedures have been applied in other parts of the lithospheric cross section.
Location of transcontinental corridor (yellow lines) on a simplified tectonic age map of northern North America. Tectonic age is defined as the time since the most recent episode of tectonic deformation. Red arrows show along-strike offsets linking profile segments. The interpreted cross section incorporates Earth curvature and is displayed using a vertical exaggeration of 2:1. At this scale, features are difficult to identify; see insert (text footnote 1) for a 1:1 version extended to full lithospheric depth.
Results from the Trans-Hudson orogen (THO) transect. (A) Simplified tectonic element map and interpretation across the orogen on the front face. FFB—Flin Flon belt; HL—Hanson Lake block; LRB—La Ronge belt; RD—Rottenstone domain. Inset location map includes yellow lines that outline the bounds of the THO. (B) Simplified interpretation based on geological, near-vertical incidence (NVI) reflection, refraction/wide-angle reflection (R/WAR), and magnetotelluric studies. The Archean Sask craton is a previously undiscovered microcontinent separate from either the Hearne to the west or the Superior to the east. Bar at top identifies the different domains crossed by the section. WB—Wathaman batholith; NACP—North American Central Plains conductivity anomaly; orange ovals identify regions of high conductivity from interpretation of magnetotelluric (MT) results shown in D. (C) Depth-migrated seismic section. Pink dashed lines show interpreted crustal domain boundaries or prominent structures (adapted from White et al., 2005). (D) Resistivity model derived from MT surveys (adapted from Jones et al., 2005a). Very low resistivity at 160 km is the NACP. White dashed lines show interpretation from reflection data. (E) Interpreted velocity model across the THO (adapted from Németh et al., 2005). Solid lines, including the Moho, identify locations from which wide-angle reflections were identified. Dashed lines are iso-velocity contours. Numbers are P-wave velocities in km/s. Circled numbers show velocities in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the figure, thus indicative of velocity anisotropy. Stippled area in the mantle identifies the limited region showing velocity anisotropy.
Orogenic Crustal Structures
A first-order observation from the interpreted cross section is that, despite the wide range of age, geometry, and complexity of the many orogens crossed, there is a remarkable similarity in orogenic style. The orogens are doubly vergent and exhibit a stacked or wedged form that is indicative of the thermal and compositional state of the orogen as it formed and, in some cases, of post-orogenic processes. The preserved collisional zones exhibit structures that fall into three categories: (1) subcretion (mechanical underplating), as is observed in subduction/accretion zones (e.g., southwestern Cordilleran orogen); (2) tectonic wedging with either the overriding crust ramping up a full crustal-scale décollement from the Moho (e.g., the eastern Cordilleran, Grenville, and Trans-Hudson orogens; insert [see footnote 1] and Fig. 2); or (3) mid-crustal wedging (e.g., the Appalachian and Superior orogens). Subcretion of small terranes and sediments in a subduction zone (e.g., Ellis and Beaumont, 1999) is imaged within the southwestern Cordilleran orogen, and remnants of these types of structures are interpreted to be trapped within virtually all of the older orogens. Moore and Wiltschko (2004) show that although the crust-mantle boundary is the natural interface for syncollisional delamination, intracrustal delamination will take place if a mafic lower crust is eclogitized, providing sufficient density contrast to subduct or subcrete the lower crust with its lithospheric mantle. This provides a mechanism for the obduction of thin slivers or accreted terranes.
Archean cratons and their boundaries contain structures that are very similar to those observed in Proterozoic and Phanerozoic orogens. This leads to the conclusion that fundamental tectonic processes in the Neoarchean were similar to those in present-day plate tectonics and provides geometric data that are inconsistent with large-scale gravity driven overturn of the crust (e.g., van der Velden et al., 2006).
Magmatism related to subduction, post-orogenic extension, or orogenic collapse does not dominate the cross sections. Although intrusions are detected in the upper crust (generally as poorly reflective zones), the passage of large volumes of melt apparently does not destroy the gently dipping structures in the mid-lower crust. Examples of this can be found in many regions, including the southeastern Superior Province (inset C on insert [see footnote 1]) and in the Newfoundland Appalachians (insert). This requires that the conduits are (a) offset from the two-dimensional seismic profiles; (b) narrower than the seismic data can resolve; or (c) overprinted by postmagmatic deformation (e.g., van der Velden et al., 2004).
The preserved structures document the integrated orogenic effects, although these are often dominated by late deformation sequences. This overprinting complicates the structure and makes interpretation challenging, particularly in situations such as the reversal of subduction polarity (e.g., eastern Trans-Hudson orogen) or where an internal zone is caught between colliding continents (e.g., Trans-Hudson, Appalachian, and Grenville orogens). However, interpretations of orogenic structures may be improved or validated when geological, geochemical, and geophysical studies for a given orogen are combined with geodynamic modeling applied to test hypotheses directly against the multidisciplinary data for that orogen (e.g., Beaumont and Quinlan, 1994; Beaumont et al., 2010).
The Moho, Crustal Thickness, and The Crust-Mantle Transition
More than 20,000 km of seismic profiling in Canada reveals that, although there are variations in Moho depth, the transition remains remarkably flat (~33–43 km deep) despite the great diversity of overlying crustal properties (topography, age, composition, and degree of exhumation) (e.g., Cook et al., 2010; Hammer et al., 2010). Small excursions (<5 km) in Moho depth are observed in many locations. These often correlate with geotectonic boundaries but not with topography. In contrast, large crustal roots are unusual, even beneath much of the Canadian Cordillera.
Crustal roots extending down 60–70 km are well documented beneath the active Himalaya and Andean orogens. However, despite superb preservation of crustal structure in the Lithoprobe transects, few crustal roots associated with collisional tectonics were imaged; three are within the transcontinental profile. The Sask craton (Trans-Hudson orogen, 1.92–1.80 Ga) has a root that extends to 52 km depth, bulging 14–20 km below the adjacent crust (Fig. 2 and insert [see footnote 1]). A second, smaller root (47 km maximum depth adjacent to ~40-km-thick crust) lies beneath the Grenville front (1.19–0.99 Ga; see insert). The metamorphic grade of exposed rock in the region suggests the crust was thickened up to 70 km (e.g., Carr et al., 2000); the observed root is interpreted to have been preserved by eclogitization (e.g., Eaton, 2005). Some orogens are thermally supported and do not form a root. For example, the majority of the Canadian portion of the Phanerozoic Cordilleran orogen exhibits a shallow (33–36 km depth) and exceptionally flat Moho. Only beneath the easternmost Cordillera does the crust thicken to 45–50 km (see insert). Therefore, the Lithoprobe dataset indicates that crustal roots are not always formed beneath orogens and, if there is crustal thickening, the roots are not commonly preserved. Syn- or post-orogenic re-equilibration of the Moho must therefore be a widespread process.
The preservation of orogenic roots may be associated with the relative lack of post-orogenic heating (e.g., the Trans-Hudson orogen; White et al., 2005). In contrast, the relatively uniform crustal thickness throughout most of Canada indicates that either (a) thick crustal roots are not commonly formed beneath orogens (e.g., obduction of thin terranes [Cordillera] or weak continental lithosphere during orogeny); or (b) the Moho has been reset to a shallower, roughly subhorizontal boundary. Re-equilibration could occur through mechanical (shear, extension, delamination) and/or thermal (metamorphism, partial melting) processes (e.g., Eaton, 2005; Cook et al., 2010).
Finally, it remains possible that in some situations, the Moho and the base of seismic reflectivity do not represent the petrologic crust-mantle boundary. Eclogitization of the lower crust could yield rock that is seismically indistinguishable from other mantle. In that case, the Moho, representing an eclogitic metamorphic front, would be shallower than the petrologic crust-mantle boundary (e.g., Cook and Vasudevan, 2003; Moore and Wiltschko, 2004; Eaton, 2005). A second scenario could occur in a subduction setting where fluids and associated serpentinization may reduce mantle velocities such that the petrologic base of the crust may be shallower than the Moho indicates. This possibility has led to debate over the depth of the subducting Juan de Fuca plate beneath northern Cascadia (inset A on insert [see footnote 1]). Recent teleseismic analyses (Nicholson et al., 2005; Bostock et al., 2010) position the plate boundary where several different active source seismic studies (e.g., Clowes et al., 1987; Hyndman et al., 1990; Ramchandran et al., 2006; Calvert et al., 2006) have consistently interpreted a zone of lower crustal reflectivity associated with a combination of shear, fluids, and accretionary duplexing. This conflict remains unresolved and has implications for understanding the earthquake dynamics in the region.
Heterogeneity in the Upper Mantle
Heterogeneity in the upper mantle is observed in three forms: (1) crustal structures penetrating into the mantle; (2) seismic wave scattering that may be indicative of compositional variation; and (3) seismic anisotropy (e.g., Clowes et al., 2010). In the majority of orogens, reflection data display structures dipping from the crust into the uppermost mantle (e.g., van der Velden and Cook, 2005). These reflections are consistent with collisional geometries and are interpreted as subducted or subcreted lithosphere preserved beneath and eventually within cratonic lithospheric mantle. In some cases, reflections are spectacular, with relict subducted crust well-defined to 35–50 km beneath the Moho (e.g., Calvert et al., 1995; inset C on insert [see footnote 1]). A comparable but even more extensive structure was imaged by reflection (e.g., Cook et al., 1999) and refraction (Oueity and Clowes, 2010) data and by teleseismic receiver functions (Mercier et al., 2008) beneath the Wompay orogen (1.84–1.88 Ga) in northwestern Canada. More commonly observed are dipping lower crustal reflections that penetrate ~5 km beneath the Moho, linking directly to crustal reflections above which are associated with mid-crustal delamination (e.g., western Superior [inset B on insert] and Appalachian orogens) or full-crustal décollements (e.g., Trans-Hudson orogen; Fig. 2 and insert). Virtually all of the preserved subduction/subcretion reflections dip beneath the older cratonic crust, suggesting that mantle reflections are more likely to be preserved beneath older domains or that, during final phases of accretion, subduction preferentially dips beneath the craton.
In many cases, long-offset refraction/wide-angle seismic profiles (e.g., Németh et al., 2005; Clowes et al., 2010), teleseismic studies (e.g., Bostock et al., 2010), and magnetotelluric (MT) investigations (e.g., Jones et al., 2005a; Craven et al., 2001) show evidence for significant structure and/or anisotropy within the subcrustal lithosphere. The structures vary in scale from those that are tens to hundreds of kilometers in lateral extent and are identified on a deterministic basis (e.g., traveltime modeling of refracted or wide-angle reflected phases, receiver function analyses, and inversion of MT data) to fine-scale heterogeneities on the scale of tens of kilometers to less than a kilometer (e.g., Clowes et al., 2010).
Thickness of the Lithosphere
Estimates of lithospheric thickness vary depending on the technique used (Artemieva, 2009). To be consistent across the cross section, recent syntheses by Artemieva (2009) and Sha-piro and Ritzwoller (2002) were used (insert [see footnote 1]). However, many other observations carried out along or near the corridor constrain lithospheric thickness. These include teleseismic studies (e.g., Bostock et al., 2010), xenolith and deep volcanic studies (e.g., Abraham et al., 2005), geodynamic modeling (e.g., Perry and Forte, 2010), magnetotelluric profiles (e.g., Jones et al., 2005b), and wide-angle reflection studies (e.g., Clowes et al., 1995). Although the constraints on lithospheric thickness are not always strong, the lithosphere is very thin (55–70 km) beneath the Cordillera, thickens to about 200 km beneath the Alberta and Trans-Hudson orogens, to 250–270 km beneath the Superior craton, and then thins eastward beneath the Appalachians and Atlantic margin (insert).
Conclusions: A Look Forward
The continental-scale lithospheric cross section provides a unique perspective on four billion years of crustal assembly, recycling, and reorganization. The cross section presented here is one “slice” through the North American continent at one geologic time—today. Because it traverses orogens that span a large fraction of Earth’s history, it may provide a representative view of the geometry of orogenic evolution through time. In addition, the continent-wide scale of the cross section offers an opportunity to formulate questions that may not be apparent on much smaller scales, such as within a single orogen. A few such thoughts are presented here:
- The Moho is remarkably flat even in regions with substantial structural relief (10+ km) within the crust. This likely resulted from late to post-orogenic heating, but the uniformity of depth (33–43 km), with a few exceptions as noted previously, is surprising and deserving of more thorough investigation.
- Orogenic structures appear to have been formed by horizontal tectonic forces in all of the orogens of Canada, regardless of age. This is strong evidence that some form of plate tectonism has been operating throughout the past 2.5–3.0 Ga of Earth’s history (e.g., van der Velden et al., 2006). Furthermore, because orogens are commonly “stacked,” with older orogens forming the basement to younger orogens, continental evolution in Canada appears to have been dominated by recycling, with minimal crustal growth. How such recycling occurred (e.g., whether some crustal material ended up in the lower lithosphere, whether it proceeded to deeper in the mantle, or whether both occurred) remains a target for future research.
- Complexity in the subcrustal lithosphere is increasingly revealed by multidisciplinary studies. For example, imbricated or stacked mantle lithosphere, as proposed by Cook (1986) and Helmstaedt and Schulze (1989), was interpreted from seismic data (e.g., Cook et al., 1998, 1999) and later affirmed by studies of mantle xenoliths (e.g., Canil, 2008). In a different setting, Frederiksen et al. (2007) use teleseismic and magnetotelluric methods to demonstrate a stratified lithospheric mantle beneath the Grenville Front (inset B on insert [see footnote 1]). Geodynamic modeling (e.g., Beaumont et al., 2010) illuminates how lithospheric structure and crust-mantle relationships can develop through changing crustal coupling, slab breakoff, post-convergent extension, and other orogenic processes. Despite the successes, the internal structure of the lithospheric mantle remains difficult to image, largely due to its seismic homogeneity. It is uncertain, for example, whether seismic anisotropic effects (e.g., Clowes et al., 2010; insert) are related to structural variations, such as imbricates, or whether they may be a consequence of preferred crystal orientations, as with c-axis orientation of orthorhombic olivine. The Lithoprobe dataset indicates that combining active-source seismic experiments with passive seismic and magnetotelluric studies and deep geological sampling over the same regions may resolve some of the uncertainties.
Advancing our understanding of lithospheric processes and the structures they create requires a research approach that integrates all applicable earth-science disciplines. Lithoprobe’s success as a project and in generating the detailed continental lithospheric cross section was possible because of its scientific approach, which involved focusing multidisciplinary studies in selected areas of investigation.
As a project- and continent-scale synthesis of over two decades of research, this paper pulls together the superb work done by hundreds of researchers. A detailed reference listing of the publications contributing to the cross section is provided in the data repository (see text footnote 2). We thank all of the researchers who made Lithoprobe a success and whose work contributes to this synthesis. Journal reviewer Peter Cawood provided highly constructive comments that better focused the content of the paper. Lithoprobe’s primary funding agencies were the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Geological Survey of Canada; however, many other sources of funds and support were provided by a wide range of organizations—we thank them all. Support for preparation of this paper derived from an NSERC Discovery Grant to R.M. Clowes. Earlier versions of the lithospheric cross sections benefited from support through an NSERC Discovery Grant to F.A. Cook.
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- Bostock, M.G., Eaton, D.W., and Snyder, D.B., 2010, Teleseismic studies of the Canadian landmass: Lithoprobe and its legacy: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 445–461.
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- Canil, D., 2008, Canada's craton: A bottoms-up view: GSA Today, v. 18, no. 6, p. 4–10, doi: 10.1130/GSAT01806A.1.
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- Clowes, R.M., Brandon, M.T., Green, A.G., Yorath, C.J., Sutherland-Brown, A., Kanasewich, E.R., and Spencer, C., 1987, LITHOPROBE—southern Vancouver Island: Cenozoic subduction complex imaged by deep seismic reflections: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 29, p. 1813–1864.
- Clowes, R.M., Zelt, C.A., Amor, J.R., and Ellis, R.M., 1995, Lithospheric structure in the southern Canadian Cordillera from a network of seismic refraction lines: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 32, p. 1485–1513.
- Clowes, R.M., White, D.J., and Hajnal, Z., 2010, Mantle heterogeneities and their significance: Results from LITHOPROBE seismic reflection and refraction/wide-angle studies: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 409–443.
- Cook, F.A., 1986, Continental evolution by lithospheric shingling, in Barazangi, M., and Brown, L., eds., Evolution of the Continental Crust: AGU Geodynamics Series, v. 14, p. 13–19.
- Cook, F.A., and Vasudevan, K., 2003, Are there relict crustal fragments beneath the Moho?: Tectonics, v. 22, doi: 10.1029/2001TC001341.
- Cook, F.A., van der Velden, A.J., Hall, K., and Roberts, B., 1998, Tectonic delamination and subcrustal imbrication of the Precambrian lithosphere in northwestern Canada mapped by Lithoprobe: Geology, v. 26, p. 839–842.
- Cook, F.A., van der Velden, A., Hall, K., and Roberts, B., 1999, Frozen subduction in Canada's Northwest Territories: LITHOPROBE deep lithospheric reflection profiling of the western Canadian shield: Tectonics, v. 18, p. 1–24.
- Cook, F.A., White, D.J., Jones, A.G., Eaton, D.W.S., Hall, J., and Clowes, R.M., 2010, How the crust meets the mantle: Lithoprobe perspectives on the M discontinuity and the crust-mantle transition: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 315–351.
- Craven, J.A., Kurtz, R.D., Boerner, D.E., Skulski, T., Spratt, J., Ferguson, I.J., Wu, X., and Bailey, R.C., 2001, Conductivity of western Superior Province upper mantle in northwestern Ontario: Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research, no. 2001-E6.
- Eaton, D.W., 2005, Origin of the continental Moho: Terra Nova, v. 18, p. 34–43.
- Ellis, S., and Beaumont, C., 1999, Models of convergent boundary tectonics: Implications for the interpretation of Lithoprobe data: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 36, p. 1711–1741.
- Frederiksen, A.W., Miong, S.-K., Darbyshire, F.A., Eaton, D.W., Rondenay, S., and Sol, S., 2007, Lithospheric variations across the Superior Province, Ontario, Canada: Evidence from tomography and shear wave splitting: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 112, B07318, doi: 10.1029/2006JB004861.
- Hajnal, Z., Lewry, J., White, D., Ashton, K., Clowes, R., Stauffer, M., Gyor?, I., and Takacs, E., 2005, The Sask Craton and Hearne Province margin: Seismic reflection studies in the western Trans-Hudson Orogen: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 42, p. 403–419.
- Hammer, P.T.C., Clowes, R.M., Cook, F.A., van der Velden, A.J., and Vasudevan, K., 2010, The Lithoprobe trans-continental lithospheric cross-sections: Imaging the internal structure of the North American continent: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 821–857.
- Helmstaedt, H., and Schulze, D., 1989, Southern African kimberlites and their mantle sample: Implications for Archean tectonics and lithosphere evolution, in Ross, J., ed., Kimberlites and Related Rocks: Geological Society of Australia Special Publication 14, p. 358–368.
- Hyndman, R.D., Yorath, C.J., Clowes, R.M., and Davis, E.E., 1990, The northern Cascadia subduction zone at Vancouver Island: Seismic structure and tectonic history: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 27, p. 313–329.
- Jones, A.G., Ledo, J., and Ferguson, I.J., 2005a, Electromagnetic images of the Trans-Hudson Orogen: The North American Central Plains anomaly revealed: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 42, p. 457–478.
- Jones, A.G., Ledo, J., Ferguson, I.J., Farquharson, C., Garcia, X., Grant, N., NcNeice, G., Roberts, B., Spratt, J., Wennberg, G., Wolynec, L., and Wu, X., 2005b, The electrical resistivity structure of Archean to Tertiary lithosphere along 3200 km of SNORCLE profiles, northwestern Canada: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 42, p. 1257–1275.
- Lewry, J.F., Hajnal, Z., Green, A., Lucas, S.B., White, D., Stauffer, M.R., Ashton, K.E., Weber, W., and Clowes, R., 1994, Structure of a Paleoproterozoic continent-continent collision zone: A Lithoprobe seismic reflection profile across the Trans-Hudson Orogen, Canada: Tectonophysics, v. 232, p. 143–160.
- Lucas, S., Green, A.G., Hajnal, Z., White, D., Lewry, J., Ashton, K., Weber, W., and Clowes, R., 1993, Deep seismic pro?le across a Proterozoic collision zone: Surprises at depth: Nature, v. 363, p. 339–342.
- Mercier, J.-P., Bostock, M.G., Audet, P., Gaherty, J.B., and Garnero, E.J., 2008, The teleseismic signature of fossil subduction: Northwestern Canada: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 113, doi: 10.1029/2007JB005127.
- Moore, V.M., and Wiltschko, D.V., 2004, Syncollisional delamination and tectonic wedge development in convergent orogens: Tectonics, v. 23, doi: 10.1029/2002TC001430.
- Németh, B., Clowes, R.M., and Hajnal, Z., 2005, Lithospheric structure of the Trans-Hudson Orogen from seismic refraction—wide-angle reflection studies: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 42, p. 435–456.
- Nicholson, T., Bostock, M., and Cassidy, J.F., 2005, New constraints on subduction zone structure in northern Cascadia: Geophysical Journal International, v. 161, p. 849–859.
- Oueity, J., and Clowes, R.M., 2010, Paleoproterozoic subduction in northwestern Canada from near-vertical and wide-angle seismic reflection data: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 35–52.
- Percival, J.A., Sanborn-Barrie, M., Skulski, T., Stott, G.M., Helmstaedt, H., and White, D.J., 2006, Tectonic evolution of the western Superior Province from NATMAP and Lithoprobe studies: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 43, p. 1085–1117.
- Perry, H.K.C., and Forte, A., 2010, Upper mantle thermochemical structure from seismic-geodynamic flow models: Constraints from the Lithoprobe initiative: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 47, p. 463–484.
- Ramachandran, K., Hyndman, R., and Brocher, T.M., 2006, Regional P-wave velocity structure of the Northern Cascadia Subduction Zone: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 111, doi: 10.1029/2005JB004108.
- Shapiro, N.M., and Ritzwoller, M.H., 2002, Monte-Carlo inversion for a global shear velocity model of the crust and upper mantle: Geophysical Journal International, v. 151, p. 1–18.
- van der Velden, A.J., and Cook, F.A., 2005, Relict subduction zones in Canada: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 110, 08403, doi: 10.1029/2004JB003333.
- van der Velden, A.J., van Staal, C.R., and Cook, F.A., 2004, Crustal structure, fossil subduction, and the tectonic evolution of the Newfoundland Appalachians: Evidence from a reprocessed seismic reflection survey: GSA Bulletin, v. 116, p. 1485–1498.
- van der Velden, A.J., Cook, F.A., Drummond, B.J., and Goleby, B.R., 2006, Reflections of the Neoarchean: A global perspective: AGU Geophysical Monograph 164, p. 255–265.
- White, D.J., Thomas, M.D., Jones, A.G., Hope, J., Németh, B., and Hajnal, Z., 2005, Geophysical transect across a Paleoproterozoic continent-continent collision zone: The Trans-Hudson Orogen: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 42, p. 385–402. | <urn:uuid:91e20c9f-6955-4b15-bf27-71df52b2b553> | {
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Searching for Plum Blossoms While Riding a Donkey
early 16th century
Hanging scroll mounted on panel; ink and color on silk
Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1917.108
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On the left side of the painting, a man appears riding a donkey along a lakeside trail. Bundled against the cold and accompanied by a servant carrying his zither (qin
), the man is making a day excursion, which started perhaps from the rustic houses nestled snugly behind him at the base of towering mountains. Passing the first plum tree on the trail, he heads toward a nearby promontory, where an open-sided, thatched pavilion awaits, shaded by two large pines and other plum trees in bloom. Searching for plum blossoms first appeared as an important theme in Chinese painting during the Song dynasty (9601279), and numerous accounts confirm that it was a common seasonal practice for scholars to make forays into the mountains to gather plum blossoms and compose poetry about their ephemeral, pristine beauty.
The left side of the painting has been trimmed, obscuring the thematic importance of the rider and perhaps removing the artist's signature. Although this work is currently unsigned, the heavy outlines of the branches and tree trunks, along with other details, such as the face of the rider and the decisive brushwork of the rock and mountain formations, show all the stylistic hallmarks of the professional artist Zhou Chen, an early exponent of the Wu School, which was centered during the middle Ming dynasty (13681644) in Zhou's native city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Please note: The Freer Gallery of Art will be closed to the public from January 2016 until summer 2017. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Library, and Archives will remain open for the duration of the renovation. Learn more » | <urn:uuid:66264382-7d87-400c-a8a4-74d26614636e> | {
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SABEANS:(Redirected from SHEBA.)
The inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Sheba in southeastern Arabia, known from the Bible, classical writers, and native inscriptions. The genealogies of Genesis give three pedigrees for Sheba, the eponymous ancestor of the Sabeans, who is variously termed (1) the son of Raamah and the grandson of Cush (Gen. x. 7; I Chron. i. 9; comp. Ezek. xxvii. 22, xxxviii. 13), (2) the son of Joktan and a great-great-great-grandson of Shem (Gen. x. 28; I Chron. i. 22), and (3) the son of Jokshan and a grandson of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. xxv. 3; I Chron. i. 32). There seem, therefore, to have been three stocks of Sabeaus: one in Africa (comp. the Ethiopian city of Saba mentioned by Strabo, "Geography," p. 771), and the other two in Arabia. Of the latter one is connected with the story of Abraham, and the other with that of the kingdom localized by Gen. x. 30, including the Joktanites generally, and extending "from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east." In Job vi. 19 the Sabeans are mentioned in close association with the Temeans, an Ishmaelite stock (Gen. xxv. 15) that dwelt in Arabia (Isa. xxi. 14; comp. Jer. xxv. 23-24).In the Bible.
The Psalms and the prophetical books lay special emphasis upon the wealth and commercial activity of the Sabeans. The gifts of the kings of Sheba (
The only mention of the Sabeans in a warlike connection is in Job i. 15, where they are described as attacking and killing the servants of Job to rob them of cattle; but according to Joel iv. [A. V. iii.] 8, they dealt in slaves, including Jews. In the New Testament there is a reference to the kingdom of Sheba in the allusion to "the queen of the south" (Matt. xii. 42; Luke xi. 31). Sheba must be carefully distinguished from the Cushite or African Seba (comp. Gen. x. 7; I Chron. i. 9), as is shown by the discrimination between the "kings of Sheba and Seba" in Ps. lxxii. 10, and by the collocation of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba in Isa. xliii. 3, xlv. 14.In the Classical Writers.
Strabo, basing his account for the most part on Eratosthenes, an author of the third century
Inscriptions of the Sabeans are numerous, but the information which these records furnish is comparatively meager. They cover, it is true, a period of about 1,300 years, ceasing only with the extinction of the kingdom in the sixth century
The references to religion are for the most part names of deities; but the entire lack of description renders a reconstruction of the Semitic pantheon practically impossible. It is clear, however, from the appellations of the gods that the religion of Sheba closely resembled the pre-Islamic Arabian cult, and showed certain affinities with the Assyro Babylonian system as well. Among the Sabean gods the most important were Almaḳah ("the hearing god"?), Athtar (a protective deity and the male form of "Ashtaroth," to whom the gazel seems to have been sacred), Haubas (possibly a lunar deity), Dhu Samawi ("lord of heaven"), Ḥajr, Ḳainan, Ḳawim ("the sustaining"), Sin (the principal moon-god), Shams (the chief solar deity), Yaṭa', Ramman (the Biblical Rimmon), El ("god" in general), Sami' ("the hearing"), Shem (corresponding in functions to the general Semitic Ba'al), Ḥobal (possibly a god of fortune), Ḥomar (perhaps a god of wine), Bashir ("bringer of good tidings"), Raḥman ("the merciful"), Ta'lab (probably a tree-god), and Wadd (borrowed from the Mineans). A number of goddesses are mentioned, among them Dhat Ḥami ("lady of Ḥami"), Dhat Ba'dan ("lady of Ba'dan"), Dhat Gaḍran ("lady of Gaḍran"), and Tanuf ("lofty").
It becomes clear, even from this scanty information, that the religion was in the main a nature-cult, like the other Semitic religions; and this is borne out by a statement in the Koran (sura xxvii. 24) that the Sabeans worshiped the sun. Few details of the cult are given, although there are frequent mentions of gifts and sacrifices, as well as of "self-presentation," a rite of doubtful meaning, but one which evidently might be performed more than once. Ritual purity and abstinence of various forms also seem to have formed part of the Sabean religion, and the name of the month Dhu Ḥijjat or Maḥijjat, the only one retained by the Arabs (Dhu'l-Ḥijja, the twelfth month), implies a custom of religious pilgrimage to some shrine or shrines.Government and Society.
To the account of the government as described by Strabo the Sabean inscriptions add little. The word for "nation" is "khums" (fifth), which apparently implies an earlier division of Arabia or of a portion of it into five parts; and the people were divided into tribes ("shi'b"), which, in their turn, were composed of "tenths" or "thirds." The kings at first styled themselves "malik" (king) and, possibly later, "mukarrib," a term of uncertain meaning, while they afterward were called "kings of Saba and Dhu Raidan," and finally monarchs of Ḥaḍramaut and Yamanet as well. There were likewise kings of a number of minor cities. From a late text which mentions a king of Ḥimyar and Raidan and of Saba and Silḥin, it has been inferred that the capital of Sheba was later removed to Raidan while the actual palace remained at Ḥimyar, and that from this circumstance the dynasty and all that it ruled were formerly called Himyaritic (the "Homeritæ" of Ptolemy and of Christian ecclesiastical authors), a designation now generally discarded.
The state of society in Sheba seems to have been somewhat feudal in character. The great families, which evidently possessed large landed estates, had castles and towers that are frequently mentioned in the inscriptions; and remains of some of these buildings are still extant. The status of woman was remarkably high. The mistress of a castle is mentioned in one inscription, and the epigraphical remains represent women as enjoying practical equality with men, although a few passages imply the existence of concubinage.Language.
The Sabean language belonged to the Semitic stock. While some of the inscriptions differ little from classical Arabic, most of them show a close affinity with Ethiopic. The weak letters occasionally possessed their consonantal value as in Ethiopic, although they have become vowels in Arabic. On the other hand, the article is affixed as in Aramaic, instead of being prefixed as in Arabic, and certain syntactic phenomena recall Hebrew rather than the South-Semitic dialects. The alphabet, which, like all the Semitic systems except Ethiopic, represents the consonants only, is plausibly regarded by many as the earliest form of Semitic script.
- Osiander, Zur Himjaritischen Alterthumskunde, in Z. D. M. G. xix., Leipsic, 1865;
- Halévy, Etudes Sabéennes, Paris, 1875;
- D. H. Müller, Burgen und Schlösser Süd-Arabiens, Vienna, 1879-81;
- idem, Epigraphische Denk-Müler aus Arabien, ib. 1889;
- idem, Süd-Arabische Alterthümer. ib. 1899;
- Mordtmann and Müller, Sabäische Denkmüler, ib. 1883;
- Schlumberger, Le Trésor de San'a, Paris, 1880;
- Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte Arabiens, Munich, 1889;
- idem, Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens, Berlin, 1889-1890;
- idem, Die Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika, Munich, 1895;
- Hommel, Aufsätze und Abhandlungen, ib. 1892-1901;
- idem, Südarabische Chrestomathie, ib. 1893;
- Mordtmann, Himjaritische Inschriften in den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin, 1893;
- Derenbourg, Les Monuments Sabéens du Musée d'Archéologie de Marscille, Paris, 1899;
- C. I. S. iv. (Inscriptiones Himjariticæ et Sabææ), ib. 1889 et seq. | <urn:uuid:0755fd0c-2616-4d7a-82a4-640464477a67> | {
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The principle of advertising concerns change. Investing time and money in getting a message across to the public via advertisements is only worthwhile if it has an effect on the target audience. Such an effect will modify attitudes, emotions, behaviour and values and so a change occurs in the way people think, feel or act towards a product or a brand. However, while advertising can be defined as a method of promoting change, this role has traditionally been linked to change on an individual basis which incites consumers to act differently but does not impact wider society.
Increasingly, though, the reality of the situation is that advertisements can and do have a major influence on how we consider our world. Perhaps the most obvious level is advertising on behalf of political parties which seeks to influence how voters perceive the state of society and so aims to encourage them to support a particular movement. In this way ideological views are ‘sold’ via classic advertising methods.
Away from institutionalised politics, advertising can also seek to change public opinion on social questions, particularly when used by non-governmental organisations. In this way, the same sorts of methods used to promote fast food and cars have been employed to alter views on AIDS and raise awareness of road safety.
However, while this sort of value-oriented advertising is more obvious, even to the population targeted, it should be recognised that, on a more subliminal level, advertisers confirm, alter or shape our view of the world around us. What this means is that as well as working on the first level of promoting consumer goods or services, advertising operates on a second subtler level, which deals with the representations that allow us to understand our environment. It is clearly not supposed to be advertising’s role to shape our perception of what surrounds us, but for better or worse this is what it does.
By feeding us with images and messages on our world advertisers help create our social reality. This raises an important question: what qualifies those in charge of advertising to decide how we should understand society? Clearly, their influence does not come from any democratic decision or legitimacy. They are employed on a brutally commercial basis to get a message across. However, when this message also has a very real social impact, advertising has to assume a responsibility.
A case in point is the problem of anorexia. Advertisers do | <urn:uuid:dc6b214c-c5d7-497d-b1d4-423a7f7c9d8e> | {
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A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
What does a pretzel have in common with a hamster? And a noodle with a poodle? All of them we’ve borrowed from German (from Brezel, Hamster, Pudel, and Nudel*).
All languages borrow from each other when they come in contact, but English and German are not just any languages. As they both descend from the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, they are particularly close. You could call them cousins.
So what’s a cup of sugar, a lawn mower, or a few thousand words between them? As it goes, we don’t return borrowed words, but we don’t hesitate to lend either. For example, we’ve given them Oldtimer (vintage car), Smoking (tuxedo), trampen (to hitchhike, from English tramp), and even Baby (baby). As you can see, sometimes things get a little twisted in the borrowing.
This week we’ll see five words that we’ve borrowed from German.
*All nouns are capitalized in German. It used to be the same in English too.
noun: Art objects that are gaudy or overly sentimental, designed for popular appeal.
adjective: Tawdry, tacky, sentimental.
From German Kitsch (kitsch). Earliest documented use: 1926.
What comes to mind when you think of kitsch? Here are some examples: a coffee mug in the shape of a pineapple, ceramic Santa Claus, plastic flamingos on a lawn, snow globes, popular religious iconography.
“I could see kitschy statues of androgynous male ‘saints’ and of angels with effeminate faces. Above this kitsch hung gaudy red and yellow ‘pavaljuni’.”
The Maltese Festa; The Malta Independent (Valletta); Sep 4, 2016.
See more usage examples of kitsch in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams. -Jeremy Irons, actor (b. 19 Sep 1948) | <urn:uuid:3096ab6a-711c-442d-9138-efe4a695088e> | {
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Guest Author - Anita Grace Simpson
Most people are aware that the prevalence of allergies, arthritis pain, influenza, and the common cold are affected by weather conditions. But weather can also influence the occurrence of other diseases, some of them life-threatening. These diseases can be divided into three major categories: insect-borne/rodent-borne, water-borne, and chronic.
Many diseases are transmitted by insects, including malaria, yellow fever, West Nile virus, plague, Rift Valley fever, and Lyme disease. Insect-control programs have eradicated some of these diseases from certain areas of the globe – for example, the mosquito-control program in Panama was essential to the building of the Panama Canal – but it has proven impossible to completely eliminate them. Even plague is still endemic in four U.S. states. These diseases often occur sporadically and are affected by weather patterns.
In east Africa, Rift Valley fever becomes a problem when heavy rains cause virus-infected mosquito eggs laid in damboes, depressions in the earth that are usually dry, to hatch and infect humans in the area. Similarly, in the salt marshes of Maryland, mosquito eggs carrying the Keystone virus hatch when flooding occurs, creating potential epidemics. Hurricanes are a common weather factor because of the heavy rains that accompany them, and emergency mosquito-control programs are often needed. Storm fronts, especially those that become stationary, will also drop heavy rains.
Temperature can also affect the development of insect-borne and rodent-borne diseases. A study in Portugal revealed that incidence of diseases such as leishmaniasis (sandflies), Lyme disease (ticks), and Mediterranean spotted fever (ticks) increased as temperatures climbed. Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) increases during long seasons of warm weather in the Western United States, since the virus is tied to the deer mouse population. Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, carried by the house mouse and other rodents, may increase during colder temperatures if rodents move into housing areas to escape the cold.
Water-borne diseases are typically influenced by extremes of rainfall. Flooding from storm fronts, hurricanes, typhoons, and tsunamis can cause sewer systems to overflow, creating epidemics of diseases such as gastroenteritis (caused by e. coli and other agents), cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever. Many municipal sanitation systems in the U.S. are designed to overflow into local lakes or streams, but seepage into groundwater, streets, and parks can also occur. Developing countries which have little water sanitation are especially prone to these diseases, and flood events just make the problem worse.
Drought can also increase the risk of water-borne disease, since the concentration of disease-causing microorganisms is greater with regard to available water. The 2007 drought in the southeastern U.S. caused the water table and surface reservoirs in many areas to fall below critical levels, and residents were instructed to begin boiling water.
Finally, weather events can affect the prevalence and severity of chronic disease such as allergies, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. Extremely hot weather is associated with increased risk of death from heart attack or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths in general occur more often on colder days. High pressure can cause pollution in the air to remain near the ground, triggering allergies, asthma, CVD and COPD. Many people report increased arthritis pain during changes in air pressure, particularly those associated with a surface front.
In recent years, global satellite monitoring has proven useful for tracking weather events, particularly in developing countries where ground monitoring is sparse, and subsequently forecasting possible disease outbreaks. The use of satellite and other weather and climate information has great potential in the area of public health. | <urn:uuid:4ef5872f-3d25-4cdb-b419-a2cd7124fac8> | {
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We are happy to share that on Monday, December 10, Heinemann author Marilyn Pryle was named Pennsylvania's Teacher of the Year in recognition of her innovative teaching and dedication to her students. (continue reading)
When students write Reading Responses about a text, they have something to say in class. It may be a minor point, or it may be a major point, but it is a concrete thought and it is tied to a specific part of the text. (continue reading)
How do we encourage students to genuinely engage with challenging or difficult texts?
Today on the Heinemann Podcast, Marilyn Pryle, author of “Reading with Presence” suggests a method of writing and sharing reading responses, which differ from the usual short essay answer. (continue reading)
In the process of writing reading responses, the importance of choice cannot be understated. Students feel like they are in control of their responses; they can view the text through whatever lens they choose. (continue reading)
With the practice of reading response writing, students do not have to answer specific questions with definitive answers. Instead, they can read with presence, and decide at the end what aspect they would like to respond to. (continue reading)
In her new book “Reading with Presence” Marilyn Pryle tackles the causes of disengaged learning and provides tangible solutions that provide students a safe space to share ideas and engage confidently. (continue reading)
It is often difficult to imagine how students can move from where they are to the longer papers they will need to write. This book shows the way forward, with invitations wide enough, attractive enough, and manageable enough—that students will, I believe, decide they no longer need to hide. (continue reading) | <urn:uuid:528e9464-df20-40c8-b5a0-68811d82df19> | {
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Creator: Fouqueray, Charles, 1869-1956.
Description: Illustration of Cardinal Mercier in a gold cape and mitre (headdress). He holds a staff in his left hand. A fallen man is slumped over at his feet and there is a crowd of people behind him, most of whom appear to be women. The Cardinal is depicted in color and the other people are depicted in black & white.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department | <urn:uuid:0f3deb9a-e1d2-4477-bbcd-bfab2f50609d> | {
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Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases Volume 48, Issue 1, 15 January 2012, Pages 7–10
A search for β thalassemia mutations in 4000 year old ancient DNAs of Minoan Cretans
Jeffery R. Hughey et al.
Ancient DNA methodologies can be applied in the investigation of the genetics of extinct populations. A search for beta thalassemia mutations was performed on 49 Minoan individuals from the Bronze Age who were living in the island of Crete approximately 4000 Years Before Present (YBP). Standard precautionary measures were employed in the laboratory to ensure authenticity of the DNA extracted from the ancient bones, resulting in the successful analysis of DNA of 24 Minoans. DNA sequencing focused on the Intervening Sequence 1 (IVS-1) of the beta globin gene and its splicing junctions. 63% of the thalassemia mutations observed among modern Cretans reside in beta IVS-1. None of the Minoan individuals carried one of the IVS-1 mutations known to cause beta thalassemia; however, only one was expected to be observed if the average frequency of beta thalassemia heterozygotes in the Minoan population was the same with that of modern day Cretans (7.6%). One individual contained a C to G substitution in position 91 of the IVS-1, located 40 bp 5′ to the intron 1/exon 2 junction. Functional studies indicated that the mutation did not affect mRNA splicing or stability, and most likely represented an innocent single nucleotide polymorphism. | <urn:uuid:9c7a126d-62e2-4c69-8120-8d7308cd8e1b> | {
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Close to 40% of the energy consumption in the house goes to electricians Chico CA. More than 95% of this statistic accounts for non-renewable sources of heat. At the moment, there is an urgent need to protect the environment, especially by focusing on environment-friendly ways of generating energy in the homes and places of work.
We have prepared a list of tips below to help you in this process.
Increase Wall Insulation
Insulation is not an easy task. However, when done properly, it is an effective way of keeping your home habitable and maintaining a low bill. You should consider increasing insulation in the walls.
Increase Attic Insulation
For the attic, you must take some time and figure out what is sufficient and what is surplus to requirement. The Department of Energy has a guideline for each region, which can guide you on how much insulation you should add to the attic.
Use Recycled Insulation
There are cheaper and environment-friendly methods of improving insulation in your home. You can use old blue jeans or recycled paper. Blow the insulation material into the attic or walls. You just need to find one of the local companies that offer these services.
It is easy to detect draft at home. Walk around the perimeter of the windows and door jambs on a windy day with a light string, a strand of hair or a lighter. If either of these is blown away, you have to consider proper insulation.
Seal All Drafts
If your draft problem is restricted to window frames and other immovable places, foam sealant or silicone caulking will work for you. In the case of movable items, weather stripping or rolling up a towel can also help.
Don’t Forget Pet Doors
You cannot easily avoid draft from the pet doors. However, you can install a heavy curtain on both sides of the door, or weather stripping. In case the pet door is close to a sliding glass door, it will also need weather stripping.
Take Advantage of Passive Solar Heating
During the low winter, you can use the position of the sun to keep your house warm. Just keep your curtains open during the day, especially for the windows facing west and south. Remember to remove the solar shade screens during this season.
Don’t Use Exhaust Fans
Exhaust fans are notorious for consuming a lot of the warm air in the house, especially when used continuously. Turn them off as soon as you can.
‘Reuse’ Oven Heat
You can use the heat in the oven to keep your kitchen warmer during the cold season. When you are done cooking, just leave the oven door open and the warm air will circulate.
Skip the Gas Fireplace
Central home Chico electricians is a better alternative to a gas fireplace. This is because gas fireplaces usually consume more energy.
Utilize the Wood Fireplace
A wood-burning stove or fireplace will generate more heat than your gas fireplace. Since you can burn scrap wood, it is also cheaper.
Reverse Your Ceiling Fans
Install fans that are designed for reverse operation during the winter. This mode prevents heat from dissipating through your walls or roof.
Keep the Temperature Steady
Make sure your temperatures are kept steady. By maintaining a steady range, the thermostat will not have to work overtime.
Keep the Thermostat Low
You can train your household to lower the temperature setting by 1-2 degrees every year. You should also find a comfortable range for the day and night temperature.
Try and maintain a steady temperature range in your car, so that your body does not have to struggle to acclimatize when you get home.
Dress for the Season
With the right clothes for the season, you will barely have to push your temperature limits irrespective of the prevailing weather conditions.
Consider a Space Heater
There are scenarios where it will be better to use a space heater, especially for small rooms, compared to the central heat system.
Stick to Warm Foods
Hot foods usually make the body feel warmer faster. Cold foods, on the other hand, tend to have a cooling effect, which lasts longer during the cold season.
Get heavy curtains during the cold season and hang them over your windows. Heavy curtains improve your insulation and trap more heat in the house.
Place Rugs in High-Traffic Areas
For the areas that experience a lot of traffic, get area rugs. This works well especially for hardwood floors and improves your insulation effort. | <urn:uuid:dd1f98ee-a4d2-4f5b-a83e-99e27cc33137> | {
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Scientists from the University of Zurich (UZH) developed new wheat lines
with enhanced resistance against fungal disease. The results are published
in Theoretical and Applied Genetics.
UZH researchers have been investigating a wheat gene that confers resistance
to powdery mildew. The gene, known as Pm3, exists in different variations.
However, using a single Pm3 gene to confer resistance quickly lost its
effectiveness. Thus, the researchers tested crossbreeding transgenic Pm3
lines leading to four new wheat lines with two different Pm3 phentoypic
"The improved resistance against powdery mildew is the result of the
increased total transgene activity as well as the combination of the two Pm3
gene variations," said Teresa Koller, lead author of the study. The
activities of the resistance genes did not exhibit a negative effect on the
development or productivity of wheat. | <urn:uuid:cc3d08c2-00b6-4201-96e1-d7ae101f35d7> | {
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- 1 Redstone basics
- 2 Circuit types
- 3 Building circuits
- 4 Video
A redstone circuit is a structure that activates or controls mechanisms.
Circuits are designed to act in response to player activation or to operate autonomously—either on a loop, or in response to non-player activity such as mob movement, item drops, plant growth, etc. The mechanisms controlled by redstone circuits range from simple devices such as automatic doors and light switches, to complex devices such as elevators, automatic farms, or even in-game computers. Understanding how to build and use redstone circuits and the mechanisms they can control greatly increases the range of what is possible in Minecraft.
The subject of redstone structures is huge (and almost a sub-game in and of itself!) — this article provides only an overview of the many different types of redstone circuits which can be built. For full details and examples of these redstone circuits, see the main articles for each topic.
Redstone basics[edit | edit source]
Before describing the blocks used to build redstone circuits, or the types of circuits which can be built, an understanding of some basic concepts is required.
Redstone components[edit | edit source]
A redstone component is a block that provides some purpose to a redstone circuit.
- A power component provides power to all or part of a circuit — e.g., redstone torch, button, lever, redstone block, etc.
- A transmission component passes power from one part of the circuit to another — e.g., redstone dust, redstone repeater, redstone comparator.
- A mechanism component affects the environment (by moving, producing light, etc.) — e.g., piston, redstone lamp, dispenser, etc.
Power[edit | edit source]
Redstone components and blocks may be powered or unpowered. Think of a "powered block" as a block that is electrified (but safe to touch). Some blocks will show their powered state visibly (for example, redstone dust lights up, a piston extends, etc.), but other blocks may give no visual indication of their powered state other than their effect on other redstone components.
An opaque block (e.g., stone, sandstone, dirt or grass, etc.) powered by a power component, or by a repeater or comparator, is said to be strongly-powered (a different concept from power level). A strongly-powered block can power adjacent redstone dust (including dust on top of the block or dust beneath it).
An opaque block powered only by redstone dust (and no other components) is said to be weakly-powered because a block powered only by redstone dust will not power other redstone dust (but can still power other components or devices, for example repeaters).
No opaque block can directly power another opaque block—there must be dust or a device in between. A transparent block can't be powered by anything. "Strong" vs. "weak" power applies only to opaque blocks, not to dust or other redstone components.
A powered block (strong or weak) can affect adjacent redstone components. Different redstone components react differently to powered blocks—see their individual descriptions for details.
Power level[edit | edit source]
Power level (aka "signal strength") can vary from 0 to 15. Most power components provide power level 15, but a few provide a variable amount of power.
Redstone dust transmits power to adjacent redstone dust, but its strength decreases by 1 for each block of redstone dust traveled. Redstone dust can thus transmit power up to 15 blocks before needing to be maintained with a redstone comparator or re-strengthened with a repeater. Power level only fades with dust-to-dust transmission, not between dust and a device or block.
Power level can also be adjusted directly with a redstone comparator in comparison or subtraction mode.
Redstone update[edit | edit source]
When a change occurs somewhere in a redstone circuit, it can produce other changes in surrounding blocks in what is called a redstone update (not to be confused with Minecraft 1.5, known as the "Redstone Update"). Each of these changes can then produce other changes in their surrounding blocks. The update will propagate following the redstone circuit rules within loaded chunks (redstone updates will not propagate into unloaded chunks), usually very quickly.
A redstone update simply notifies other redstone components that a change has occurred nearby and gives them an opportunity to change their own state in response, but not all updates will necessarily require changes. For example, if a redstone torch activates and updates the dust below it, the dust may already be powered from something else, in which case the dust won't change state and the update propagation will stop there.
Redstone components can also be updated by any immediate neighbor block being placed, moved, or destroyed.
Solid blocks don't "know" if they're powered or not. Redstone updates simply update enough blocks around a redstone component to update other redstone components around the solid block (for example, a pressure plate updates its neighbors and the neighbors of the block it's attached to, which includes the space under that block which might be redstone dust).
In addition to redstone updates, comparators can be updated by containers (including detector rails with container minecarts on them) and certain other blocks, up to two blocks away horizontally when their state changes (for example, when their inventory changes).
The following redstone components produce redstone updates up to two blocks away by taxicab distance, including up and down:
- Slanted rails, activator rails, detector rails, and powered rails (but not flat rails, etc.)
The following redstone components produce redstone updates in their immediate neighbors, including above and below, and in the immediate neighbors of the block they're attached to:
Redstone Repeater (as if "attached" to the block it is facing)
Redstone Comparator (as if "attached" to the block it is facing)
Detector Rail (flat only; also produces comparator updates)
Trapped Chest (as if "attached" to the block beneath; also produces comparator updates)
Weighted Pressure Plate
The following redstone components update only their immediate neighbors when they change their state, including above and below:
Activator Rail (flat only)
Tripwire (can also activate tripwire hooks in valid tripwire circuit)
Piston and Sticky Piston (from both the piston base and the piston head when extended)
Powered Rail (flat only)
Rail (flat only)
The following redstone components do not produce block or redstone updates when they change their state (though any block will produce a block update in its immediate neighbors if moved or destroyed):
Command Block (also produces comparator updates)
Dispenser (also produces comparator updates)
Dropper (also produces comparator updates)
Fence Gate (can be moved)
Hopper (also produces comparator updates)
Redstone Lamp (can be moved)
Trapdoor (can be moved)
Redstone tick[edit | edit source]
A redstone tick is the moment when Minecraft updates redstone components. Redstone updates occur 10 times per second, so a redstone tick occurs every 0.1 seconds. Redstone torches, redstone repeaters, and mechanism components require one or more ticks to change state, so it can take a number of ticks for a signal to propagate through a complicated circuit.
Redstone ticks differ from "game ticks" (20 per second) and "block ticks" (block updates that occur at each game tick). When discussing redstone circuits, a "tick" is always a redstone tick, unless otherwise specified.
Signals and pulses[edit | edit source]
Circuits with a stable output are said to produce a signal — an ON signal (also "high" or "1") if powered, or an OFF signal ("low", "0") if unpowered. When a signal changes from OFF to ON and then back again, that is described as a pulse (or ON pulse), while the opposite is described as an OFF pulse. ON pulses are far more common, and in casual discussion, "a signal" often refers to an ON pulse.
Very short pulses (1 or 2 ticks) can cause problems for some components or circuits because they have different update sequences to change states. For example, a redstone torch or a comparator will not respond to a 1-tick pulse made by repeaters.
Activation[edit | edit source]
Mechanism components (pistons, doors, redstone lamps, etc.) can be activated, which causes the mechanism component to do something (push a block, open the door, turn on, etc.).
All mechanism components are activated by:
- an adjacent active power component, including above or below
- Exceptions: a redstone torch will not activate a mechanism component it is attached to, and a piston is not activated by a power component directly in front of it
- an adjacent powered opaque block (either strongly-powered or weakly-powered), including above or below
- a powered redstone comparator or redstone repeater facing the mechanism component
- powered redstone dust configured to point at the mechanism component (or on top of it, for mechanism components which can support redstone dust, but not beneath it), or adjacent "directionless" redstone dust; a mechanism component is not activated by adjacent powered redstone dust which is not configured to point at it.
Some mechanism components only perform an action when initially activated (command blocks execute a command, droppers and dispensers eject an item, note blocks play a sound) and won't do anything again until deactivated and then activated again, while other mechanism components change their state when activated and don't change back until the activation ends (redstone lamps stay on, doors/fence gates/trapdoors stay open, hoppers stay disabled, pistons stay extended, etc.).
Some mechanism components have additional ways of being activated:
- dispensers, droppers, and pistons can also be activated if one of the methods above would activate a mechanism component in the block above the component, even if there is no mechanism component there (even if the block above the component is air or a transparent block). This rule is often simplified to saying that the components can be powered by blocks diagonally above or two blocks above, but other methods of such activation exist (see image to the right). This method of activation is known as quasi-connectivity because the mechanism component's activation is somewhat connected to the space above it.
- doors occupy two spaces, one above the other, and anything that activates either space also activates the other.
Powered vs. activated[edit | edit source]
For opaque mechanism components (command blocks, dispensers, droppers, note blocks and redstone lamps), it is important to make a distinction between a mechanism component being activated and being powered (and this is the reason why mechanism components are described as activated instead of just saying they are powered).
- A mechanism component is powered if it could power adjacent redstone dust, repeaters, or comparators.
- A mechanism component is activated if it is doing something (or has done something and is waiting to be activated again).
Any method of powering a mechanism component (such as a redstone torch underneath it) will also activate it, but some activation methods (such as a redstone torch next to or above a mechanism component) won't actually power the component (following the usual rules for power components).
Non-opaque mechanism components (doors, fence gates, hoppers, pistons, rails, trapdoors) can be activated (they can do things), but cannot be powered (in the sense that they can then power adjacent redstone dust, etc.).
Circuit vs. mechanism[edit | edit source]
These terms are sometimes used interchangeably to describe structures which incorporate redstone components, but a useful distinction can be made between the two:
- A circuit performs operations on signals (generating, modifying, combining, etc.).
- A mechanism manipulates the environment (moving blocks, opening doors, changing the light level, producing sound, etc.).
All mechanisms will necessarily incorporate redstone components or circuits, but a circuit by itself doesn't have to have an effect on the environment (except possibly incidentally, such as a redstone torch changing its light level when changing its power state, or a piston moving a block to fulfill a role within the circuit). Making this distinction allows us to talk about circuits without having to define a specific in-game purpose for them, allowing players to find their own reasons to use them.
This article, and the other articles on redstone circuits, discuss only circuits which operate on signals. For articles about mechanisms, see the list of tutorials at the end of the article.
Size[edit | edit source]
The wiki describes circuit size (the volume of the rectangular solid it occupies) with the notation of shorter width × longer width × height, including support/floor blocks, but not including inputs/outputs.
Another method used for describing circuit size in the Minecraft community is to ignore non-redstone blocks simply used for support (for example, blocks under redstone dust or repeaters). However, this method is unable to distinguish between flat and 1-high circuits, as well as some other circuit differences.
Sometimes it is convenient to compare circuits simply by the area of their footprint (e.g., 3×4 for a circuit three block wide by four blocks long), or by a single dimension important in a particular context (e.g., length in a sequence of sub-circuits, height in a confined space, etc.).
Features[edit | edit source]
A number of features may be considered desirable design goals:
- A structure is 1-high (aka "1-tall") if its vertical dimension is one block high (meaning it cannot have any redstone components which require support blocks below them, such as redstone dust or repeaters). Also see flat.
- A structure is 1-wide if at least one of its horizontal dimensions is one block wide.
- A structure is flat if it generally can be laid out on the ground with no components above another (support blocks under redstone components are okay). Flat structures are often easier for beginners to understand and build, and fit nicely under floors or on top of roofs. Also see 1-high.
- A structure is flush if it doesn't extend beyond a flat wall, floor, or ceiling and can still provide utility to the other side, though redstone mechanisms may be visible in the wall. Flush is a desirable design goal for piston-extenders, piston doors, etc. Also see hipster and seamless.
- A structure is hipster if no redstone components are visible both before and after it completes its task (but it's okay if some are visible during operation). Also see flush and seamless.
- A structure is instant if its output responds immediately to its input (a circuit delay of 0 ticks).
- A structure is seamless if it is initially hidden behind a flat wall, floor, or ceiling and can still provide utility to the other side. Seamless is a desirable design goal for piston-extenders, piston doors, etc. Also see flush and hipster.
- A structure is silent if it makes no noise (such as from piston movement, dispenser/dropper triggering when empty, etc.). Silent structures are desirable for traps, peaceful homes, and for reducing lag produced by sound.
- A structure is stackable if it can be placed directly next to other copies of itself, and they all can be controlled as a single unit. Also see tileable.
- A structure is tileable if it can be placed directly next to other copies of itself, and each copy can still be controlled independently. Also see stackable.
- Structures might be described as "2-wide tileable" (tileable every two spaces in one dimension), or "2×4 tileable" (tileable in two directions), etc. Some structures might be described as "alternating tileable", meaning they can be placed next to each other if every other one is flipped or a slightly different design.
Other design goals may include reducing the delay a sub-circuit adds to a larger circuit, reducing the use of resource-expensive components (redstone, nether quartz, etc.), and re-arranging or redesigning a circuit to make it as small as possible.
Circuit types[edit | edit source]
Although the number of ways to construct circuits is endless, certain patterns of construction occur over and over again. The following sections attempt to categorize the circuits which have proven useful to the Minecraft community, while the main articles describe the specific circuits which fall into those categories.
Some of these circuits might be used by themselves for simple control of mechanisms, but frequently you will need to combine them into more complex circuits to meet the needs of a mechanism.
Transmission circuit[edit | edit source]
Some aspects of signal transmission can be helpful to understand: transmission types, vertical transmission, repeaters, and diodes.
- Although horizontal signal transmission is pretty straight-forward, vertical transmission involves options and trade-offs.
- Redstone staircases: The simplest way to transmit signals vertically is by placing redstone dust on blocks diagonally upwards, either in a straight staircase of blocks, in a 2×2 spiral of blocks, or in another similar variation. Redstone staircases can transmit signals both upwards and downwards, but can take up a lot of space and will require repeaters every 15 blocks.
- Redstone ladders: Because glowstone, upside-down slabs and upside-down stairs can support redstone dust but don't cut redstone dust, signals can be transmitted vertically (upwards only) by alternating these blocks in a 2×1 "ladder". Redstone ladders take up less space than redstone staircases, but also require repeaters every 15 blocks. In Pocket Edition, hoppers and glass can be used create two-way vertical ladders that transmit signals both upwards and downwards.
- Torch towers and torch ladders: A redstone torch can power a block above it, or redstone dust beneath it, allowing vertical transmission both upwards or downwards (different designs are required for each). Because it takes each torch a little time to change state, a torch tower can introduce some delay into a circuit, but no repeaters are necessary. However, every torch inverts the redstone signal (i.e. changes it from powered to unpowered), so having an even number of torches is required.
- To "repeat" a signal means to boost it back up to full strength. The easiest way to do this is with a redstone repeater. Variations include:
- A "diode" is a one-way circuit that allows a signal to travel only in one direction. It is used to protect another circuit from the chance of a signal trying to enter through the output, which could incorrectly change the circuit's state or interfere with its timing. It is also used in a compact circuit to keep one part of the circuit from interfering with another. Common choices for a diode include a redstone repeater or a height elevation to glowstone or an upside-down slab which won't transmit a signal back downwards.
- Many circuits are already one-way simply because their output comes from a block which can't take input. For example, you can't push a signal back into a circuit through a redstone torch except through the block it's attached to.
Logic circuit[edit | edit source]
It's sometimes necessary to check signals against each other and only output a signal when the inputs meet some criteria. A circuit which performs this function is known as a logic gate (a "gate" that only allows signals through if the "logic" is satisfied).
|NOT A||off||off||ON||ON||Is A off?|
|A OR B||ON||ON||ON||off||Is either input on?|
|A NOR B||off||off||off||ON||Are both inputs off?|
|A AND B||ON||off||off||off||Are both inputs on?|
|A NAND B||off||ON||ON||ON||Is either input off?|
|A XOR B||off||ON||ON||off||Are the inputs different?|
|A XNOR B||ON||off||off||ON||Are the inputs the same?|
|A IMPLIES B||ON||off||ON||ON||If A is on, is B also on?|
- See also: Tutorials/Basic Logic Gates
- A NOT Gate (aka "inverter") is on if its input is off.
- An OR Gate is on if any of its inputs are on.
- A NOR Gate is on only if none of its inputs are on.
- An AND Gate is on only if all of its inputs are on.
- A NAND Gate is on if any of its inputs are off.
- An XOR Gate is on if its inputs are different.
- An XNOR Gate is on if its inputs are equal.
- An IMPLIES Gate is on unless the first input is on and the second input is off.
Pulse circuit[edit | edit source]
Some circuits require specific pulses, other circuits use pulse duration as a way to convey information. Pulse circuits manage these requirements.
A circuit which is stable in one output state and unstable in the other is known as a monostable circuit. Many pulse circuits are monostable because their OFF state is stable, but their ON state will quickly (or eventually) revert to OFF.
- Pulse Generator
- A pulse generator produces a pulse of a specific duration.
- Pulse Limiter
- A pulse limiter (aka pulse shortener) reduces the duration of pulses which are too long.
- Pulse Extender
- A pulse extender (aka pulse sustainer, pulse lengthener) increases the duration of pulses which are too short.
- Pulse Multiplier
- A pulse multiplier outputs multiple pulses for every input pulse (it multiplies the number of pulses).
- Pulse Divider
- A pulse divider (aka pulse counter) only outputs a signal after a certain number of pulses have been detected through the input (the number of pulses is indicative of the number of loops).
- Edge Detector
- An edge detector reacts to either a signal changing from OFF to ON (a "rising edge" detector) or from ON to OFF (a "falling edge" detector), or both (a "dual edge" detector).
- Pulse Length Detector
- A pulse length detector reacts only to pulses in a certain range of durations (often only to pulses of one specific duration).
Clock circuit[edit | edit source]
A clock circuit is a pulse generator that produces a loop of specific pulses repeatedly. Some are designed to run forever, while others can be stopped and started.
A simple clock with only two states of equal duration is named for the duration of its ON state (e.g., for example, a clock which alternates between a 5-tick ON state and a 5-tick OFF state is called a 5-clock) while others are usually named for their period (the time it takes for the clock to return to its original state; for example, a "1-minute clock" might produce a 1-tick pulse every 60 seconds).
- Repeater clocks
- A repeater clock consists of a loop of repeaters (usually either redstone repeaters or redstone torches) with occasional dust or blocks to draw off the appropriate pulses.
- Hopper clocks
- A hopper clock produces timed pulses by moving items around between hoppers and drawing signals off with redstone comparators.
- Piston clocks
- A piston clock produces a loop of pulses by passing a block back and forth (or around, with many pistons) and drawing off a pulse when the block is in a certain location.
Memory circuit[edit | edit source]
Unlike a logic circuit whose state always reflects its current inputs, a memory circuit's output depends not on the current state of its inputs, but on the history of its inputs. This allows a memory circuit to "remember" what state it should be in, until told to remember something else. There are five basic types of memory circuits. (A few circuits combine two different types.)
- RS Latch
- An RS latch has two inputs, one to set the output on and another to reset the output back to off. An RS latch built from NOR gates is known as an "RS NOR Latch", which is the oldest and most common memory circuit in Minecraft.
- A T flip-flop is used to toggle a signal (like a lever). It has one input which toggles the output between on and off.
- Gated D Latch
- A Gated D Latch has a "data" input and a "clock" input. When the clock input turns on, it sets the output to equal its data input. Not to be confused with a D flip-flop, which only sets the output equal to its data input on a clock rising transition.
- JK Latch
- A JK latch has two inputs, one to set the output on and another to reset the output back to off (like an RS latch), but when both turn on simultaneously it toggles the output between on and off (like a T flip-flop).
- Unlike T Flip-Flops and RS Latches which can only hold two states (ON or OFF), a counter can be designed to hold a greater number of states.
Many other memory circuits are possible.
Miscellaneous circuits[edit | edit source]
These circuits aren't generally needed for your typical project, but might find use in complex projects, proofs of concept, and thought experiments. Some examples:
- Multiplexers and Relays
- A multiplexer is an advanced form of logic gate which chooses which of two inputs to let through as output based on an additional input (for example, if input A is ON then output input B, otherwise output input C). The reverse of this is a relay, which copies a data input to one of two outputs, depending on whether the additional input is ON or OFF.
- A randomizer produces output signals unpredictably. Randomizers can be designed to produce a pulse at random intervals, or to randomize which of multiple outputs are turned ON (such as random number generators, or RNGs). Some randomizers use the random nature of Minecraft (such as cactus growth or dispenser slot selection), while others produce pseudo-randomness algorithmically.
- Multi-bit circuits
- Multi-bit circuits treat their input lines as a single multi-bit value (something other than zero and one) and perform an operation on them all at once. With such circuits, possibly combined with arrays of memory circuits, it's possible to build calculators, digital clocks, and even basic computers inside Minecraft.
- Block Update Detectors
- A block update detector (BUD, or BUD Switch) is a circuit which "reacts" to a block changing its state (for example, stone being mined, water changing to ice, a pumpkin growing next to a pumpkin stem, etc.). BUDs react by producing a pulse, while T-BUDs (Toggleable BUDs) react by toggling their output state. These are generally based on subtle quirks or glitches in device behavior; current circuits most often depend on pistons. As of Update Ver. 1.11, many of the functions of BUDs were condensed into the highly demanded Observer Block. The addition of this was made in order to move toward feature parity with Minecraft Pocket Edition versions. Note that as of current, this is only a feature of PC and PE versions, and has yet to be ported to Console Editions of Minecraft.
- See also: Tutorials/Block update detector
Many other complex circuits are possible.
- See also: Tutorials/Advanced redstone circuits
Building circuits[edit | edit source]
Planning[edit | edit source]
The first step in building a redstone circuit is to decide what it will do and how, in general, it will operate.
- How and where will it be controlled?
- Will the circuit be controlled by the player, by mob movement, or something else?
- What mechanism components will it control?
- What is an efficient first design?
- Although refinement often occurs in later stages of the build, starting off on a strong foot to tackle your idea will be beneficial later on. Allowing an inefficient/flawed design to manifest can hinder development.
- How will the signal be transmitted from the controls to the mechanisms?
- Will signals need to be combined from multiple sources?
Construction[edit | edit source]
It can be helpful to choose a specific set of blocks you use to construct circuits. Then, when you run into these blocks when digging out new rooms in your base, you know you're about to damage a previously-built circuit. Common choices include stone brick, snow block, and wool. (Using different colors of wool is also a great way to keep track of different circuits)
Be careful when building circuits to activate TNT (traps, cannons, etc.). Circuits in mid-construction can sometimes briefly power up unexpectedly, which might activate TNT. For example, if you place a redstone torch on a powered block, it won't "figure out" that it should be turned off until the next tick, and can briefly power another part of the circuit until then. Placing your TNT after the rest of the circuit is complete will help to avoid such problems and the destruction of the device itself. This also applies to any other features of the circuit which may be accidentally activated with such actions (e.g., activating a Dispenser before the circuit is ready).
Problem-solving[edit | edit source]
When your circuit isn't working the way you think it should, take a look at it and try to find the problem.
- Are you trying to draw power from a weakly-powered block? Maybe you need a redstone repeater to strongly-power the block, or to pull power out of the block.
- Are you trying to transmit power through a non-opaque block? Replace it with an opaque block, or go around it.
- Did you create a short-circuit and a redstone torch that should be powered is now burned out? Fix the short-circuit and update the torch to get things going again.
- Are parts of your circuit activating when they shouldn't be? Maybe you've accidentally "crossed wires" allowing a signal from one part of the circuit to activate another part of the circuit, or a repeater's output is being allowed to cycle into its input.
- Did the behavior you were using get removed?
- Are pistons, dispensers, or droppers being indirectly powered?
Refining[edit | edit source]
Once your circuit is working, consider if it can be improved (without breaking it).
- Can you make the circuit faster?
- Reducing the number of components a signal has to travel through can speed up the circuit.
- Can you make the circuit smaller?
- Can you use fewer blocks?
- Can you shorten the redstone dust lines?
- Can you compact logic gates in your circuit?
- Did you use some unnecessary components?
- Can you make the circuit more robust?
- Will the circuit still work when activated by a very short pulse?
- Will the circuit still work when activated and deactivated rapidly in succession?
- Did an update create the opportunity for a better circuit? (e.g., comparators, locking repeaters, etc.)
- Can you make the circuit quieter?
- Can you reduce any lag? Builds with many redstone components changing state frequently can cause light, sound, particle, or update lag.
- Redstone torches and redstone lamps change their light level when they change state. Light changes can cause block light updates in hundreds of block tiles around each component. Concealing the component in opaque blocks or placing permanent block light sources (torches, glowstone, etc.) nearby can reduce lag from block light updates.
- A number of redstone components produce sound when activated or deactivated (pistons, dispensers and droppers, doors, trapdoors, and fence gates, and note blocks). Too many sounds at once can overload Minecraft's sound engine and produce lag.
- A number of redstone components produce particles (redstone torches, redstone dust, but especially fireworks fired from dispensers). Too many particles may overload Minecraft's particle rendering and then some particles may fail to render until old particles have disappeared.
- Every time a block is moved by a piston it can produce block updates in its neighbors so moving too many blocks at once can produce lag.
- Hoppers and hopper minecarts especially may be trying to do multiple things at once (accept items pushed into them, push items into other containers, check for item entities above them). Powering unneeded hoppers to disable them or placing containers (such as chests and furnaces) above them to disable their item entity checks can help to reduce lag. | <urn:uuid:5b8b18e8-94a2-40ac-b25a-a49446158f6d> | {
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HOW TO USE THIS WEB SITE: This web site is divided into 21 main sites as represented by the twenty one yellow buttons on the top of each page. The user can surf from one main site to another using these bottons. Within each main site use the vertical navigation bar on the left hand side to navigate from one page to another. Use the search command on the upper left to find what you are looking for.
The 11th most common last name in China.
The Xus and Huangs share the same forefather, Bo Yi, the leader of Dong Yi.
Because of Bo Yis achievements in fighting the flood, Xia Yu
(2,205 2,197 B.C.) awarded him the Xu kingdom (An Hui). The Xus were dukes under Xia,
Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
During Zhou Mu Wangs reign (1,001 946 B.C.), Xu Qun Yan was the duke. Xu was bright and
well supported by his people, and the Xu kingdom became progressively more powerful.
On the other hand Zhou Mu Wang loved to travel, and often overlooked the need of his
administration. One day, when Xu was hunting, he found a red bow in the Yellow River and
regarded this a lucky omen. This led Xu to believe that God wanted him to replace Zhou Mu Wang
as king of China. Various officials heard the news that Xu had received a sacred bow from heaven,
supported Xus rebellion against Zhou. Xu crowned himself as Xu Yan Wang and led 36 kingdoms to
attack Zhou. Unfortunately, the rebellion failed and Xu fled to the Peng City. Thousands of
his followers joined him and they settled on a mountain called the Xu mountain, latter known as
Xu Zhou. After defeating Xu Yan Wang, Zhou Mu Wang still allowed Xus descendents to serve a
duke of the Xu kingdom. In 512 B.C., the Xu kingdom was
eliminated by Wu Guo. Descendents of Xu kingdom or Xu Zhou are known as the Xu family.
Hometown: South east of ShanDong.
Qin Dynasty- Shi Huang Di sent Xu Fu to Japan to look for the fountain of youth. Xu brought with him 2,000 boys and girls and never returned to China. Its generally believed that Xu started civilization in Japan.
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Myoclonus describes a symptom and not a diagnosis of a disease. It refers to sudden, involuntary jerking of a muscle or group of muscles. Myoclonic twitches or jerks usually are caused by sudden muscle contractions, called positive myoclonus, or by muscle relaxation, called negative myoclonus. Myoclonic jerks may occur alone or in sequence, in a pattern or without pattern. They may occur infrequently or many times each minute. Myoclonus sometimes occurs in response to an external event or when a person attempts to make a movement. The twitching cannot be controlled by the person experiencing it.
In its simplest form, myoclonus consists of a muscle twitch followed by relaxation. A hiccup is an example of this type of myoclonus. Other familiar examples of myoclonus are the jerks or "sleep starts" that some people experience while drifting off to sleep. These simple forms of myoclonus occur in normal, healthy persons and cause no difficulties. When more widespread, myoclonus may involve persistent, shock-like contractions in a group of muscles. In some cases, myoclonus begins in one region of the body and spreads to muscles in other areas. More severe cases of myoclonus can distort movement and severely limit a person's ability to eat, talk, or walk. These types of myoclonus may indicate an underlying disorder in the brain or nerves.
Myoclonus may develop in response to infection, head or spinal cord injury, stroke, brain tumors, kidney or liver failure, lipid storage disease, chemical or drug poisoning, or other disorders. Prolonged oxygen deprivation to the brain, called hypoxia, may result in posthypoxic myoclonus. Myoclonus can occur by itself, but most often it is one of several symptoms associated with a wide variety of nervous system disorders. For example, myoclonic jerking may develop in patients with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Myoclonic jerks commonly occur in persons with epilepsy, a disorder in which the electrical activity in the brain becomes disordered leading to seizures.
Classifying the many different forms of myoclonus is difficult because the causes, effects, and responses to therapy vary widely. Listed below are the types most commonly described.
Although rare cases of myoclonus are caused by an injury to the peripheral nerves (defined as the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, or the central nervous system), most myoclonus is caused by a disturbance of the central nervous system. Studies suggest that several locations in the brain are involved in myoclonus. One such location, for example, is in the brain stem close to structures that are responsible for the startle response, an automatic reaction to an unexpected stimulus involving rapid muscle contraction.
The specific mechanisms underlying myoclonus are not yet fully understood. Scientists believe that some types of stimulus-sensitive myoclonus may involve overexcitability of the parts of the brain that control movement. These parts are interconnected in a series of feedback loops called motor pathways. These pathways facilitate and modulate communication between the brain and muscles. Key elements of this communication are chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which carry messages from one nerve cell, or neuron, to another. Neurotransmitters are released by neurons and attach themselves to receptors on parts of neighboring cells. Some neurotransmitters may make the receiving cell more sensitive, while others tend to make the receiving cell less sensitive. Laboratory studies suggest that an imbalance between these chemicals may underlie myoclonus.
Some researchers speculate that abnormalities or deficiencies in the receptors for certain neurotransmitters may contribute to some forms of myoclonus. Receptors that appear to be related to myoclonus include those for two important inhibitory neurotransmitters: serotonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other receptors with links to myoclonus include those for opiates and glycine, the latter an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is important for the control of motor and sensory functions in the spinal cord. More research is needed to determine how these receptor abnormalities cause or contribute to myoclonus.
Treatment of myoclonus focuses on medications that may help reduce symptoms. The drug of first choice to treat myoclonus, especially certain types of action myoclonus, is clonazepam, a type of tranquilizer. Dosages of clonazepam usually are increased gradually until the individual improves or side effects become harmful. Drowsiness and loss of coordination are common side effects. The beneficial effects of clonazepam may diminish over time if the individual develops a tolerance for the drug.
Many of the drugs used for myoclonus, such as barbiturates, levetiracetam,phenytoin, and primidone, are also used to treat epilepsy. Barbiturates slow down the central nervous system and cause tranquilizing or antiseizure effects. Phenytoin, levetiracetam, and primidone are effective antiepileptic drugs, although phenytoin can cause liver failure or have other harmful long-term effects in individuals with PME. Sodium valproate is an alternative therapy for myoclonus and can be used either alone or in combination with clonazepam. Although clonazepam and/or sodium valproate are effective in the majority of people with myoclonus, some people have adverse reactions to these drugs.
Some studies have shown that doses of 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), a building block of serotonin, leads to improvement in people with some types of action myoclonus and PME. However, other studies indicate that 5-HTP therapy is not effective in all people with myoclonus, and, in fact, may worsen the condition in some individuals. These differences in the effect of 5-HTP on individuals with myoclonus have not yet been explained, but they may offer important clues to underlying abnormalities in serotonin receptors.
The complex origins of myoclonus may require the use of multiple drugs for effective treatment. Although some drugs have a limited effect when used individually, they may have a greater effect when used with drugs that act on different pathways or mechanisms in the brain. By combining several of these drugs, scientists hope to achieve greater control of myoclonic symptoms. Some drugs currently being studied in different combinations include clonazepam, sodium valproate, levetiracetam, and primidone. Hormonal therapy also may improve responses to antimyoclonic drugs in some people.
Within the Federal government, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has primary responsibility for research on the brain and nervous system. As part of its mission, the NINDS supports research on myoclonus at its laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, and through grants to universities and major medical institutions across the country.
Scientists are seeking to understand the underlying biochemical basis of involuntary movements and to find the most effective treatment for myoclonus and other movement disorders.
Investigators are evaluating the role of neurotransmitters and receptors in myoclonus. If abnormalities in neurotransmitters or receptors are found to play a causative role in myoclonus, future research can focus on determining the extent to which genetic alterations are responsible for these abnormalities and on identifying the nature of those alterations. Scientists also may be able to develop drug treatments that target specific changes in the receptors to reverse abnormalities, such as the loss of inhibition, and to enhance mechanisms that compensate for these abnormalities. Identifying receptor abnormalities also may help researchers develop diagnostic tests for myoclonus. NINDS-supported scientists at research institutions throughout the country are studying various aspects of PME, including the basic mechanisms and genes involved in this group of diseases.
For more information on neurological disorders or research programs funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, contact the Institute's Brain Resources and Information Network (BRAIN) at:
P.O. Box 5801
Bethesda, MD 20824
Information also is available from the following organizations:
National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD)
55 Kenosia Avenue
Danbury, CT 06810
Tel: 203-744-0100; Voice Mail: 800-999-NORD (6673)
"MyoclonusFact Sheet", NINDS, Publication date July 2012.
NIH Publication No. 12-4793
Back to Myoclonus Information Page
Publicaciones en Español
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892
NINDS health-related material is provided for information purposes only and does not necessarily represent endorsement by or an official position of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke or any other Federal agency. Advice on the treatment or care of an individual patient should be obtained through consultation with a physician who has examined that patient or is familiar with that patient's medical history.
All NINDS-prepared information is in the public domain and may be freely copied. Credit to the NINDS or the NIH is appreciated.
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Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.
Few people, if any, think zombies actually exist. But many hold they are at least conceivable, and some that they are possible. It seems that if zombies really are possible, then physicalism is false and some kind of dualism is true. For many philosophers that is the chief importance of the zombie idea. But it is also valuable for the sharp focus it gives to philosophical theorizing about consciousness (for example Howell 2013; Kriegel 2011; Stoljar 2006; Tye 2008). Use of the zombie idea against physicalism also raises more general questions about the relations between imaginability, conceivability, and possibility. Finally, zombies raise epistemological difficulties: they reinstate the ‘other minds’ problem.
- 1. The idea of zombies
- 2. Zombies and physicalism
- 3. The conceivability argument
- 4. Are zombies conceivable?
- 5. Does conceivability entail possibility?
- 6. Other issues
- 7. Conclusion
- Academic Tools
- Other Internet Resources
- Related Entries
Descartes held that non-human animals are automata: their behavior is wholly explicable in terms of physical mechanisms. But human behavior (he argued) could not be explained in that way. Exploring the idea of a machine that would look and behave like a human being, he thought two things would unmask it: it could not use language creatively, and it could not produce appropriate non-verbal behavior in arbitrarily various situations (Discourse V). For him, therefore, no machine could behave like a human being. Knowing only seventeenth century technology, he concluded that to explain distinctively human behavior required something beyond the physical: an immaterial mind, interacting with processes in the brain and the rest of the body. (He had a priori arguments for the same conclusion, one of which anticipates the ‘conceivability argument’ discussed in Section 3 below.) If he is right, there could not be a world physically like the actual world but lacking such minds: human bodies would not work properly. If we suddenly lost our minds our bodies might continue to run on for a while: our hearts might continue to beat, we might breathe while asleep and digest food; we might even walk or sing in a mindless sort of way (so he implies in his Reply to Objections IV). But without the contribution made by minds, behavior could not show characteristically human features. So although Descartes did everything short of spelling out the idea of zombies, the question of their possibility did not arise for him. The nearest thing was automata whose behavior was easily recognizable as not fully human.
In the nineteenth century scientists began to think that physics was capable of explaining all physical events that were explicable at all. It seemed that every physical effect has a physical cause: that the physical world is ‘closed under causation’. The developing science of neurophysiology was set to extend such explanations to human behavior. But if human behavior is explicable physically, how does consciousness fit into the story? One response — physicalism (or materialism) — is to insist that consciousness too involves only physical processes. However, the phenomena of consciousness are hard to account for in those terms, and some thinkers concluded that something nonphysical must be involved. Given the causal closure of the physical, they were forced to conclude that consciousness has no effects on the physical world. On this view human beings are ‘conscious automata’, as T. H. Huxley put it: all physical events, human behavior included, are explicable in terms of physical processes; and the phenomena of consciousness are causally inert by-products (see James 1890, Chapter 5). It eventually became clear that this view entailed there could be purely physical organisms exactly like us except for lacking consciousness. G. F. Stout (1931) argued that if epiphenomenalism (the more familiar name for the ‘conscious automaton’ theory) is right,
it ought to be quite credible that the constitution and course of nature would be otherwise just the same as it is if there were not and never had been any experiencing individuals. Human bodies would still have gone through the motions of making and using bridges, telephones and telegraphs, of writing and reading books, of speaking in Parliament, of arguing about materialism, and so on. There can be no doubt that this is prima facie incredible to Common Sense (138f.).
What Stout describes here and finds prima facie incredible is a zombie world: an entire world whose physical processes are closed under causation (as the epiphenomenalists he was attacking held) and exactly duplicate those in the actual world, but where there are no conscious experiences.
Similar ideas were current in discussions of physicalism in the 1970s. As a counterexample to the psychophysical identity theory there was an ‘imitation man’, whose ‘brain-states exactly paralleled ours in their physico-chemical properties’ but who felt no pains and saw no colors (Campbell 1970). It was claimed that zombies are a counterexample to physicalism in general, and arguments were devised to back up the intuition that they are possible (Kirk 1974a, 1974b). Other kinds of systems were envisaged which behaved like normal human beings, or were even functionally like human beings, but lacked the ‘qualia’ we have (Block 1980a, 1980b, 1981; Shoemaker 1975, 1981). (See qualia. Roughly, qualia are the properties by which we classify experiences according to ‘what they are like’: what it is like to smell roasting coffee beans, for example. Even physicalists can consistently use this expression, although unlike dualists they take qualia to be physical.) The most systematic use of the zombie idea against physicalism is by David Chalmers (1996), whose contributions to the debate will be considered below.
If zombies are to be counterexamples to physicalism, it is not enough for them to be behaviorally and functionally like normal human beings: plenty of physicalists accept that merely behavioral or functional duplicates of ourselves might lack qualia. Zombies must be like normal human beings in all physical respects, and they must have the physical properties that physicalists suppose we have. (For the use of a different kind of zombies in epistemology, see Lyons 2009.) This requires them to be subject to the causal closure of the physical, which is why their supposed lack of consciousness is a challenge to physicalism. If, instead, they were to be conceived of as creatures whose behavior could not be explained physically, physicalists would have no reason to bother with the idea: there is plenty of evidence that our movements actually are explicable in physical terms, as the early epiphenomenalists realized (see e.g. Papineau 2002).
The usual assumption is that none of us is actually a zombie, and that zombies cannot exist in our world. The central question, however, is not whether zombies can exist in our world, but whether they, or a whole zombie world (which is sometimes a more appropriate idea to work with), are possible in some broader sense.
A metaphor of Saul Kripke’s helps to show how the zombie idea threatens physicalism (Kripke 1972/80, 153f.). Imagine God creating the world and deciding to bring into existence the whole of the physical universe. Having created this purely physical universe, did he have to do any more work to provide for consciousness? Answering yes to this question implies there is more to consciousness than the purely physical facts alone can supply. If nothing else, it implies that consciousness depends on nonphysical properties, ones that would not exist in a purely physical world; it would be a zombie world. Physicalists, on the other hand, are committed to answering no. They have to say that by fixing the purely physical facts, God did everything that was needed to fix the mental facts about the organisms thereby created, including their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences. And if fixing the physical facts is alone enough to fix the mental facts, then a zombie world seems impossible.
However, not everyone agrees that physicalism entails the impossibility of zombies. One suggestion is that physicalists can concede there are possible worlds which are exact duplicates of our world in all purely physical respects, but where the physical properties which give rise to consciousness in our world are prevented from doing so: there are items in those worlds which block consciousness. In that case physicalists can consistently allow the possibility of zombie worlds (Leuenberger 2008. On such ‘blockers’ see Hawthorne 2002b; Chalmers 2010, 163-165). This approach, however, is obviously inconsistent with maintaining that conscious states are either identical with or constituted by physical or functional states. So it is not clear that physicalists can consistently allow the possibility of consciousness-blockers.
In any case, what kind of impossibility is relevant here? Physicalists cannot just say zombies are ruled out by the laws of nature, since even dualists can agree they are impossible in that sense: that it is by nomological necessity that the physical facts about us bring consciousness with them. Physicalism therefore needs something stronger.
Two further kinds of necessity are available: metaphysical and logical. Now, many philosophers (largely influenced by the zombie idea) believe the connection from physical facts to consciousness cannot be logical even in a broad sense. And certainly the conceptual scheme of physics does not appear to enable logical links from the physical to the phenomenal (see e.g. Kriegel 2011; Stoljar 2006). However, some argue that, even so, zombies are not really conceivable (Kirk 2013, Tye 2006), and Kirk also maintains that although the physical facts do not entail the truths about conscious experience a priori, they nevertheless entail them by logical necessity.
Still, many physicalists hold that what guarantees the impossibility of zombies is metaphysical necessity. Typically they maintain that states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with physical states, and that these identities are necessary a posteriori as argued by Kripke (see e.g. McLaughlin 2005, and for criticism, Stoljar 2000). But the vocabulary of possibility and necessity is slippery. For example there is disagreement over whether logical and metaphysical possibility are different (see supervenience, Section 3.1); when Kripke (1972/80) writes of ‘logical’ and ‘metaphysical’ possibility he seems to use those words interchangeably (Yablo 1999: 457n.), and some use‘logical’ where others prefer ‘conceptual’ (Chalmers 1999: 477); compare Latham 2000, 72f.).
Many think that if the physical facts entail consciousness by metaphysical necessity, then physicalists can maintain that even though zombies are metaphysically impossible, they are still conceivable (Balog 2012; Loar 1990/97; McLaughlin 2005; Sections 5.1, 5.2 below). On the other hand Chalmers argues that conceivability actually entails metaphysical possibility. If he is right, then that popular brand of physicalism is mistaken. The so-called ‘conceivability argument’ for the possibility of zombies will provide a focus for discussing some of the main problems raised by the zombie idea.
The simplest version of the conceivability argument goes:
- Zombies are conceivable.
- Whatever is conceivable is possible.
- Therefore zombies are possible.
(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972/80. For versions of it see Chalmers 1996, pp. 93–171; 2010, pp. 141–205; Levine 2001; Nagel 1974; Stoljar 2001.) Clearly the argument is valid. However, both its premisses are problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when clarified. A key question is how we should understand ‘conceivable’ in this context.
Many philosophers are willing to concede that zombies are conceivable in some sense (e.g. Hill 1997; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Loar 1999; Yablo 1999). However, that sense is sometimes quite broad. For example, a claim that ‘there are no substantive a priori ties between the concept of pain and the concept of C-fiber stimulation’ has been backed up by the point that ‘it is in principle possible to master either of these concepts fully without having mastered the other’ (Hill 1997, 76). By that standard, though, it would be conceivable that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is a rational number, when it isn’t. If conceivability in that sense entailed possibility, it would be both possible and impossible for the ratio to be rational; which would make such conceivability useless for the purposes of the conceivability argument. So understood, premiss (1) of the argument would be easy to swallow; but (2) would have to be rejected. Evidently, the lower the threshold for conceivability, the easier it is to accept (1) — but the harder it is to accept (2). So the kind of conceivability invoked in premisses (1) and (2) needs to be strongly constrained. A popular definition (which will be followed here) is: cannot be known a priori to be false; so A is conceivable if and only if not-A cannot be ruled out a priori. (For elaboration of these and related ideas see Chalmers 1999, 477; 2002; 2007; 2010.)
Joseph Levine discusses a version of the conceivability argument in his 2001. He views the conceivability of zombies as ‘the principal manifestation of the explanatory gap’ (79). What creates this gap, in his view, is the epistemological problem of explaining how the phenomenal is related to the physical. He sees no way to solve this problem. He thinks it remains even if zombies are impossible.
We now face two key questions: Are zombies conceivable in the sense explained? If they are conceivable, does it follow that they are possible? Only if the answer to both questions is yes will the conceivability argument succeed. We can take them in that order.
The intuitive appeal of the zombie idea can be overwhelming. Those who exploited it in the 1970s typically assumed without argument that zombies are not just conceivable but possible (e. g. Campbell 1970, Nagel 1970). Chalmers too, reactivating the idea, finds the conceivability of zombies ‘obvious’: he remarks that ‘it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can discern no contradiction in the description’ (1996, p. 96). However, he recognizes that this intuition cannot be relied on. The nature of conscious experience is after all hard to understand: what strikes some people as obviously possible could still turn out to harbour hidden contradictions (Nagel 1998; Stoljar 2001). Clearly, those who maintain that zombies are conceivable must provide justification, recognizing that, as an epistemic claim dependent on our cognitive abilities, it is defeasible. Some of the supporting reasoning on offer will be briefly noted in this section; typically it involves thought experiments.
One of these involves a person whose behavior starts to show features which (the argument goes) suggest he is progressively being deprived of qualia in one sense modality after another, even though most of the time he continues to produce behavior that would have been appropriate if he had retained full consciousness. His behavior revert to normal as soon as all his sense modalities have been affected, but the suggestion is that it is at least intelligible to say he has become a zombie (Kirk 1974a). But this line of reasoning falls well short of establishing that zombies are really conceivable. It seems to depend on much the same cluster of intuitions as the original idea.
Another thought experiment involves a team of micro-Lilliputians who invade Gulliver’s head, disconnect his afferent and efferent nerves, monitor the inputs from his afferent nerves, and send outputs that produce behavior indistinguishable from what it would have been originally. The resulting system has the same behavioral dispositions as Gulliver but (allegedly) lacks sensations and other experiences, contrary to the ‘Entailment Thesis’, according to which the physical facts entail the psychological facts (Kirk 1974b). Don Locke objected that materialists can consistently hold that zombies are possible provided they deny ‘the empirical possibility of mere Zombies’ (Locke 1976: for recent versions of a similar objection see Section 5 below).
Not confining himself to arguing directly for the conceivability of zombies, Chalmers (1996) presents a series of five arguments against the view that there is an a priori entailment from physical facts to mental facts. Each argument would directly or indirectly reinforce the intuitive appeal of the zombie idea. The first will be considered shortly; the other four appeal respectively to the alleged possibility of ‘inverted spectrum’ without physical difference; to the alleged impossibility of learning about conscious experience on the basis of purely physical information; to Jackson's ‘knowledge argument’ (related to the last argument); and to what Chalmers calls ‘the absence of analysis’: the point being that his opponents ‘will have to give us some idea of how the existence of consciousness might be entailed by the physical facts’, when ‘any attempt to demonstrate such an entailment is doomed to failure’ (1996, p. 104).
His first argument goes roughly as follows. Suppose a population of tiny people disable your brain and replicate its functions themselves, while keeping the rest of your body in working order (see Block 1980a); each homunculus uses a cell phone to perform the signal-receiving and -transmitting functions of an individual neuron. Would such a system be conscious? Intuitively one may be inclined to say not. Some, notably functionalists, bite the bullet and answer yes. However, the argument does not depend on assuming that the homunculus-head would not be conscious. It depends only on the assumption that its not being conscious is conceivable — which many people find reasonable. In Chalmers’s words, all that matters here is that when we say the system might lack consciousness, ‘a meaningful possibility is being expressed, and it is an open question whether consciousness arises or not’ (1996, p. 97). If he is right, then the system is not conscious. In that case it is already very much like a zombie, the only difference being that it has little people where a zombie has neurons. And why should that make a difference to whether the situation is conceivable? Why should switching from homunculi to neurons necessarily switch on the light of consciousness? (For doubts about the assumption that it is conceivable that the homunculus-head lacks consciousness, see e.g. Loar 1990/1997, pp. 613f.)
Other considerations favoring the conceivability of zombies can be found in Block (1995, 2002); Levine (2001); Searle (1992). Chalmers (2010) develops his defense further; see Section 5.1 below.
Although in the past it was quite widely accepted that zombies are conceivable, skepticism has been growing. Before considering some direct attacks on the idea, let us briefly recall three lines of thought which once seemed to support the view that we can know a priori that dualism is false — hence, on reasonable assumptions, that zombies are inconceivable.
The first is verificationism, according to which a (declarative) sentence is meaningful just in case its truth value can be verified. This entails that unverifiable sentences are literally meaningless, so that no metaphysical claim according to which unobservable nonphysical items exist can be true. However, since our ability to think and talk about our experiences is itself a problem for verificationism, to presuppose it when attacking the zombie idea would beg the question. The second line of thought is Wittgenstein’s ‘private language argument’. Although not crudely verificationistic, it depends on the assumption that in order for words to be meaningful, their use must be open to public checking. But since this checkability assumption, if sound, would prove we cannot talk about qualia in the ways defenders of the zombie possibility think we can, it too seems question-begging in this context. According to the third idea, behaviorism, there is no more to having mental states than being disposed to behave in certain ways. As a possible basis for attacking the zombie idea, behaviorism is in a similar situation to verificationism and the private language argument. For zombies would satisfy all behavioral conditions for full consciousness, so that if we could know a priori that behaviorism was correct, zombie worlds would be inconceivable for that reason. It seems unlikely, though, that behaviorism can be shown to be correct. (Dennett 1991 defends a position with strong affinities to behaviorism, though perhaps it is better classified as functionalist).
A much more widely supported approach to the mental is functionalism: the view that mental states are not just a matter of behavior and dispositions, but of the causal or other ‘functional’ relations of sensory inputs, internal states, and behavioral outputs. (Note that unless the nature of the internal processing is taken into account as well, then functionalism falls to most of the usual objections to behaviorism, for example the ‘homunculus-head’ described in the last section.) Since zombies would satisfy all the functional conditions for full consciousness, functionalism entails that zombies are impossible. Of course functionalism cannot just be presupposed when attacking the zombie idea: that would be no better than presupposing behaviorism. But increasingly sophisticated versions of functionalism are being defended today, and any arguments for functionalism are a fortiori arguments against the possibility of zombies. (For some defenses of functionalism against zombies see Dennett 1991; 1995; 1999; Shoemaker 1999; Tye 2006; 2008; for doubts about functionalism’s capacity to deal with zombies see for example Harnad 1995.)
Apart from broad-front functionalist theories of the mental, there are more narrowly focused attacks on the conceivability of zombies, some of which are noted below.
Can we really imagine zombies? Daniel Dennett thinks those who accept the conceivability of zombies have failed to imagine them thoroughly enough: ‘they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition’ (1995, p. 322. Marcus 2004 makes a related point). Given his broadly functionalist model of consciousness, he argues, we can see why the ‘putative contrast between zombies and conscious beings is illusory’ (325. See also his 1991; 1999). Consciousness is ‘not a single wonderful separable thing … but a huge complex of many different informational capacities' (1995, 324. Cottrell 1999 supports this approach).
Zombies’ utterances. Suppose I smell roasting coffee beans and say, ‘Mm! I love that smell!’. Everyone would rightly assume I was talking about my experience. But now suppose my zombie twin produces the same utterance. He too seems to be talking about an experience, but in fact he isn't because he's just a zombie. Is he mistaken? Is he lying? Could his utterance somehow be interpreted as true, or is it totally without truth value? Nigel Thomas (1996) argues that ‘any line that zombiphiles take on these questions will get them into serious trouble’.
Knowing and referring to qualia. It is sometimes said that the view that zombies are possible entails epiphenomenalism (Bailey 2009; Perry 2001, 71-80); but that is not so. One may hold that zombies are possible while denying that the actual world is physically closed under causation: one might be an interactionist. In that case one will not define zombies as being like us in all physical respects, but only as like us to the extent that the physical events in our bodies are physically caused; while whatever effects interactionists may suppose are caused non-physically must have physical causes in zombies. However, although the zombie idea does not actually entail epiphenomenalism, it does seem to entail that epiphenomenalism might have been true: that there are possible epiphenomenalistic worlds subject to the causal closure of the physical, where each of our conscious counterparts consists of a body plus nonphysical, causally inert qualia (Campbell 1970, 52, Chalmers 1996, 152; Kirk 2005, 42).
Arguably it is a priori true that phenomenal consciousness, whether actual or possible, involves being able to refer to and know about one's qualia. If that is right, any zombie-friendly account faces a problem. According to the causal theory of reference — which is widely accepted — reference and knowledge require us to be causally affected by what is known or referred to (Kripke 1972/80); and it seems reasonable to suppose that this too is true a priori if at all. On that basis, in those epiphenomenalistic worlds whose conceivability seems to follow from the conceivability of zombies — worlds where qualia are inert — our counterparts cannot know about or refer to their qualia. That contradicts the assumption that phenomenal consciousness requires reference to qualia, from which it follows that such epiphenomenalistic worlds are not possible after all. Therefore zombies are not conceivable in the relevant sense either, since their conceivability leads a priori to a contradiction. To summarize: if zombies are conceivable, so are epiphenomenalistic worlds. But by the causal theory of reference, epiphenomenalistic worlds are not conceivable; so zombies are not conceivable either.
Chalmers replies that on his account of ‘phenomenal judgments’ (roughly, judgments about qualia) the crucial consideration is that we are ‘acquainted’ with our experiences. This ‘intimate epistemic relation’ both ensures that we can refer to experiences and also justifies our claims to know about them. Since our zombie twins, in contrast, have no experiences, their quasi-phenomenal judgments are unjustified. Chalmers suggests that even if qualia have no causal influence on our judgments, their mere presence in the appropriate physical context ensures that our thoughts are about those qualia. He thinks it also constitutes justification for our knowledge claims even if our experiences are not explanatorily relevant to making the judgments in question (Chalmers 1996, pp. 172–209; 1999, pp. 493f; see also his 2003, 2010).
The problem of epistemic contact. Just now it seemed that if zombies are conceivable, then epiphenomenalist and parallelist worlds are also conceivable. In that case the friends of zombies must explain how the epiphenomenal qualia in such worlds could permit such a thing as acquaintance, or indeed make any sort of intimate contribution to people’s lives; and here Kirk (2005; 2008) suggests the zombie idea faces a further difficulty. This emerges when we consider such things as attending to, thinking about, remembering, and comparing our experiences: activities that bring us into ‘epistemic contact’ with those experiences. Such activities involve cognitive processing, which in turn involves changes causing other changes. Since epiphenomenal qualia are causally inert, they themselves could not do that processing; so if they actually constitute our experiences (as epiphenomenalism and parallelism imply) the necessary processing must be done by the body. The trouble is that the conception of consciousness implied by the zombie idea would make it impossible for such processing to put us into epistemic contact with epiphenomenal qualia, since that conception has no resources to provide for such contact, apart from the assumed causation of qualia by neural processes or their isomorphism with them, factors which (Kirk argues) are not enough to do the necessary cognitive work. If that is right, the notions of epiphenomenal qualia and zombies imply a conception of consciousness which requires people to be in epistemic contact with their qualia, yet also rules out the possibility of such contact: a contradiction.
There are other attacks on the conceivability of zombies in Balog 1999; Cottrell 1999; Harnad 1995; Marcus 2004; Shoemaker 1999; Stoljar 2001; Tye 2006.
Premise (2) of the conceivability argument is: whatever is conceivable is possible. This at least appears to be a defensible claim, given that what is relevant here is ‘conceivability on ideal rational reflection’. However, this premiss faces several challenges.
A number of philosophers argue that Kripke's ideas about a posteriori necessary truth facilitate the defense of physicalism. They urge that even if a zombie world is conceivable, that does not establish that it is possible in the way that matters. Conceivability is an epistemic notion, they say, while possibility is a metaphysical one: ‘It is false that if one can in principle conceive that P, then it is logically possible that P; … Given psychophysical identities, it is an ‘a posteriori’ fact that any physical duplicate of our world is exactly like ours in respect of positive facts about sensory states’ (Hill and McLaughlin 1999, 446. See also Hill 1997; Loar 1990/1997; 1999; McLaughlin 2005; Webster 2006). Some philosophers reject even the assumption that conceivability is a guide to possibility, thereby challenging the assumption that the burden of proof is on those who deny the zombie possibility (Block and Stalnaker 1999; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Yablo 1993).
Chalmers has responded in several places (1996, 131-134; 1999, 476-7; and especially 2010, 141-205). His most detailed version of the conceivability argument (2010) uses the framework of two-dimensional semantics. This enables him to distinguish two kinds of possibility and, correspondingly, two kinds of conceivability. In the ‘primary’ sense conceivability entails possibility, and it is conceivable that water should have been a substance chemically different from H2O. In the other, ‘secondary’ sense, it is neither conceivable nor possible that water should have been chemically different. The difficulty for the conceivability argument can be expressed by saying that even if zombie worlds are primarily conceivable and therefore primarily possible, it does not follow that they are also secondarily possible. And a posteriori physicalists will typically deny that it follows, on the ground that only the secondary possibility of zombie worlds would entail the falsity of physicalism. At this point Chalmers in effect presents his opponents with a dilemma, which is (crudely summarizing his conclusions) that either the primary conceivability of zombies does after all entail their secondary possibility, in which case the conceivability argument works and materialism is false; or else what he calls ‘Russellian monism’, briefly explained at Section 5.3 below, is true. (See also Jackson 1998; and for discussions, Brueckner 2002; Loar 1999; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Perry 2001, pp. 169–208; Shoemaker 1999; Soames 2005; Yablo 1999.)
Many physicalists hold that both the zombie idea and Frank Jackson's ‘knowledge argument’ can be dealt with through a proper understanding of the nature of phenomenal concepts (roughly, the concepts we use when conveying the character of our experiences: for example ‘sweet’, ‘the way I see blue’). Exponents of the conceivability argument hold that the supposed ‘explanatory gap’ between the physical and the phenomenal — the gap expressed in the idea that zombies are conceivable — brings with it an ontological gap. According to the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ (Stoljar 2005) there is really only a conceptual gap: phenomenal concepts have features which mislead us into supposing there is an ontological gap in addition to an epistemic one, when there isn’t.
It is argued that even if a zombie world is indeed conceivable, it does not follow that there are nonphysical properties in our world. If that is right, physicalists can concede the conceivability of zombies while insisting that the properties we pick out in terms of phenomenal concepts are physical. ‘Given that properties are constituted by the world and not by our concepts’, Brian Loar comments, ‘it is fair of the physicalist to request a justification of the assumption that conceptually distinct concepts must express metaphysically distinct properties’ (Loar 1999, 467; see also his 1997). He also argues that phenomenal concepts are ‘recognitional’, in contrast to physical concepts, which are ‘theoretical’. Phenomenal concepts, Loar says, ‘express the very properties they pick out, as Kripke observed in the case of ‘pain’’ (1999, 468). He thinks these points explain the conceivability of a zombie world, while maintaining that there is no possible world in which the relevant physical properties are distinct from consciousness. Chalmers objects that Loar’s account does not justify the view that physical concepts refer to phenomenal properties (1999, 488). He argues further (2007) that exponents of this approach face a dilemma. Let C be whichever psychological ‘key features’ we have but zombies lack. Then if it is conceivable that the purely physical facts about us should have held without C, then C is not physicalistically explicable. On the other hand, if that is not conceivable, then in his view C cannot explain our epistemic situation as contrasted with that of zombies. So either C is not physicalistically explicable, or it cannot explain our epistemic situation. (For discussions see Ball 2009; Balog 2012; Carruthers 2005; Chalmers 1999; 2007; 2010; Crane 2005; Loar 1990/97; Papineau 2002; Stoljar 2000; Tye 2008.)
Some philosophers suggest that physics tells us only about the ‘structural’ properties of things — such as their dispositions and nomic relations — rather than about the ‘intrinsic’ properties which supposedly underlie and account for structural properties. Thus Daniel Stoljar (2001) argues that there are two distinct notions of the physical and correspondingly of physicalism, depending on whether one appeals just to the notions in physical theory or to the intrinsic properties of physical objects. He suggests that even if one of the corresponding two versions of the conceivability argument is sound, the other is not — because (roughly) physicalists can always object that, since we do not know enough about the physical world (in particular, about its intrinsic properties), we cannot ‘strongly’ conceive of the possibility of zombies.
These ideas are exploited in what Chalmers calls ‘Russellian monism’ (a variety of neutral monism). In our world, he suggests, the underlying intrinsic properties might be ‘phenomenal properties, or they might be protophenomenal properties: properties that collectively constitute phenomenal properties when organized in the appropriate way’ (2010: p. 151); while in some other worlds the corresponding intrinsic physical properties did not provide for consciousness. If the intrinsic properties which supposedly provide for our consciousness are nevertheless classified as physical, exponents can deny the possibility of zombies if these are understood to be our ‘full’ physical duplicates. At the same time they can concede the possibility of zombies which duplicate us only in their structural properties. As he points out, this view is ‘a highly distinctive form of physicalism that has much in common with property dualism and that many physicalists will want to reject’ (Chalmers 2010, p. 152). One obstacle to counting it as physicalism is that it seems unable to explain why the special intrinsic properties in our world should provide for consciousness, while those which perform the same functions in those other worlds do not: that has to be accepted as a brute fact.
Philip Goff (2010) suggests that this loophole for Russellian versions of physicalism weakens the zombie argument. He recommends instead an argument from ghosts: pure subjects of experience without any physical nature. He argues that such ghosts are conceivable and possible, and that they provide an argument against physicalism which leaves no loophole for Russellian monism. (Physicalists are likely to object that arguments against the conceivability of zombies can also be mobilized against ghosts.)
Special factors. It has been suggested that there are special factors at work in the psychophysical case which have a strong tendency to mislead us. For example it is claimed that what enables us to imagine or conceive of states of consciousness is a different cognitive faculty from what enables us to conceive of physical facts: ‘there are significant differences between the cognitive factors responsible for Cartesian intuitions [for example, that zombies are logically possible] and those responsible for modal intuitions of a wide variety of other kinds’ (Hill and McLaughlin 1999, p. 449. See also Hill 1997). The suggestion is that these differences help to explain the ease with which we seem able to conceive of zombies, and the difficulty we have in understanding the claim that they are nevertheless impossible.
Conditional analysis. Another line of objection rests on conditional analyses of the concept of qualia. The core idea, roughly, is that if there actually are certain nonphysical properties which fit our conception of qualia, then that is what qualia are, in which case zombies are conceivable; but if there are no such nonphysical properties, then qualia are whichever physical properties perform the appropriate functions, and zombies are not conceivable. It is argued that this approach enables physicalists to accept that the possibility of zombies is conceivable, while denying that zombies are conceivable (Hawthorne 2002a; Braddon-Mitchell 2003. See Stalnaker 2002 for a related point, and for criticism, Alter 2007; Chalmers 2010, pp. 159–59; Crane 2006).
Causal essentialism. According to the theory of causal essentialism, the causal properties of physical properties are essential to them. Brian Garrett (2009) exploits this theory to argue that the zombie argument against physicalism depends on broadly Humean assumptions about the laws of nature and property identity which presuppose the falsity of causal essentialism. If we reject those assumptions and accept that some physical properties have essentially the capacity to produce consciousness, then ‘we cannot accept the genuine possibility of zombie worlds’ even if such worlds are conceivable (see also Aranyosi 2010).
More on zombies’ utterances. Consider a zombie world that is an exact physical duplicate of our world and contains zombie twins of all philosophers, including some who appeal to the conceivability argument. Katalin Balog (1999) argues that while their utterances would be meaningful, their sentences would not always mean what they do in our mouths. She further argues — to oversimplify — that if the conceivability argument were sound in actual philosophers' mouths, then it would be sound in the mouths of zombie philosophers too. But since by hypothesis physicalism is true in their world, their argument is not sound. Therefore the conceivability argument used by actual philosophers is not sound either. If this argument works, it has the piquant feature that ‘the zombies that antiphysicalists think possible in the end undermine the arguments that allege to establish their possibility’ (502. Chalmers offers brief replies in his 2003; 2010, pp. 159–60).
The anti-zombie argument for physicalism. Assuming physicalism entails that zombies are impossible, the conceivability argument purports to refute it by showing they are possible. As we saw, the simplest version of this argument goes: (1) zombies are conceivable; (2) whatever is conceivable is possible; (3) therefore zombies are possible. However, ‘anti-zombies’ — duplicates of ourselves made conscious by the purely physical facts (Frankish 2007) — also seem conceivable. So we have a parallel argument: (1*) anti-zombies are conceivable; (2) whatever is conceivable is possible; (3*) therefore anti-zombies are possible. But (3) and (3*) cannot both be true, since if the purely physical facts about anti-zombies make them conscious, then the exactly similar physical facts about zombies make them conscious too, and they are not zombies after all (Frankish 2007; Marton 1998; Sturgeon 2000, pp. 114–116). One moral is that we should reject the inference from conceivability to possibility. (Brown 2010 argues that if anti-zombies are conceivable, then zombies are inconceivable.) The most promising reply for exponents of the conceivability argument seems to be to deny that anti-zombies are conceivable (Chalmers 2010, 180).
If zombies are genuinely possible, then not only is physicalism problematic, so are widely held views on other topics. Here are three notable examples.
The zombie idea inverts the traditional problem of mental causation. Descartes accepted the common assumption that not only do physical events have mental effects, but mental events have physical effects. The difficulty for his dualism, it was thought, was to understand how a supposedly nonphysical mind can have physical effects. But if zombies are possible, it seems natural to suppose that qualia cannot have physical effects. If the physical world is causally closed, and if qualia are nonphysical, then it may seem that qualia have no role to play.
If that is the case, then it is hard to see any alternative to parallelism or epiphenomenalism, with the radical revision of common assumptions about mental causation that those views demand. True, the friends of zombies do not seem compelled to be epiphenomenalists or parallelists. They may be interactionists, holding that the actual world is not physically closed under causation, and that nonphysical properties have physical effects. Or they may favor ‘panprotopsychism’, according to which what is metaphysically fundamental is not physical properties, but phenomenal or ‘protophenomenal’ ones (Chalmers 1991, 297–299; 1999, 492) — a view arguably compatible with the causal closure of the physical. But neither of those options is easy. Abandoning causal closure conflicts with empirical evidence; while the idea that phenomenal or quasi-phenomenal properties are fundamental is obscure. Besides, as also noted earlier, the conceivability of zombies would seem to entail that epiphenomenalistic worlds are at any rate possible.
The apparent possibility of zombies can seem to pose a problem for evolutionary theory. Why did creatures with qualia survive rather than zombie counterparts of those creatures? How could consciousness possibly have a function? Owen Flanagan and Thomas Polger have used the apparent possibility of zombies to support the claim that ‘There are as yet no credible stories about why subjects of experience emerged, why they might have won — or should have been expected to win — an evolutionary battle against very intelligent zombie-like information-sensitive organisms’ (1995, 321): a problem not faced by those who reject the possibility of zombies. One response on behalf of those who do accept it is to suggest that there might be fundamental laws linking the phenomenal to the physical. Such laws would not depend on whether conscious creatures ever happened to evolve, in which case, arguably, evolution poses no special problem (Chalmers 1996, 171).
If qualia have no physical effects, then nothing will enable anyone to establish for certain that anyone else actually has qualia. Philosophers who believe they have a solid response to skepticism about other minds may therefore conclude that this consequence of the zombie idea is enough to condemn it. Others, however, may regard the skeptical consequence as ‘a confirmation’, on the ground that we actually are ignorant of others’ minds (Campbell 1970, 120). Of course not all responses to other minds skepticism imply that zombies are inconceivable.
Regardless of whether the idea of zombies is coherent, it has stimulated fruitful work on physicalism, phenomenal concepts, and the relations between imaginability, conceivability, and possibility. For theories of consciousness it continues to pose a crucial challenge. If the idea is coherent, the objections to it must be met, and some kind of dualistic theory be made acceptable. If it can be shown to be incoherent, physicalism is virtually home and dry — but can the appeal of zombies ever be neutralized convincingly?
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Standards-based systems and processes provide distinct benefits when compared to proprietary ones, because standards envelop tried-and-true methods that users can incorporate for their own purposes. These benefits include interoperability across systems, easier replication and reuse of systems and best practices, as well as technological longevity.
Maintenance systems and processes are no exception. Maintenance standards incorporate proven methods to best perform tasks such as cleaning, lubrication, repairs, components’ replacement, data collection and more.
They can also instruct professionals on how to create comprehensive checklists of maintenance tasks, as well as on how to structure them into integrated maintenance programs.
Standards are useful when applied to technological systems. For example, they can boost the development of interoperable systems that can exchange data and services to boost the replication of maintenance solutions. Such data exchange and sharing is key to sharing visualizations across stakeholders and supporting new cost-effective ideas for remote maintenance.
Overall, standards-based systems and processes provide a safe path to successful maintenance practices in a highly diverse landscape of different plants, equipment, and processes.
There are a host of maintenance-related standards, which are developed by various organizations such as the International Standards Organization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the American Nation Standards Institute (ANSI) and others.
These standards cover both maintenance procedures and systems, including emerging cyber-physical systems that are part of industry digitization. The latter systems have recently expanded the number and scope of maintenance related standards, since they have given rise to processes for collecting, exchanging and processing data.
Given the large number of standards, it would be difficult for one professional to educate himself on all suggested practices. Rather, practitioners tend to selectively focus on limited sets of standards, notably the ones that are suitable for their maintenance tasks at hand. In the following paragraphs, we present five important standards, which maintenance experts should know about.
Plant equipment and components are physical assets, and fall under the umbrella of asset management systems and disciplines.
Asset management is about coordinating and optimizing the management of an asset across its whole lifecycle, including selection, acquisition, development, maintenance, renewal and disposal processes.
ISO 55000 standards are available in various languages, including English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Brazilian and Portuguese.
ISO 55000 comprises three standards for asset management, namely:
In addition to outlining asset management processes and their implementation, ISO 55000 provides in practice a framework for auditing existing asset management implementations in terms of completeness, while also suggesting improvements to existing processes.
As an example, the Assetivity consulting and training organization has been auditing the asset management processes of Hydro Tasmania (i.e., Australia’s leading producer of renewable energy) as a means of assessing their compliance with ISO 55000 and providing recommendations for further improvement.
Efficient data sharing and distribution is at the heart of maintenance systems and processes, including condition-based, preventive and predictive maintenance.
Moreover, data interoperability is a prerequisite for exchanging data across different systems, but also for deploying systems in a plug-and-play fashion with minimal integration effort.
In an earlier post, we explained the importance of interoperability and why it is needed when it comes to using BigData technologies for advanced forms of maintenance, such as predictive maintenance.
The ISO 13374 series of standards is beneficial to combine a variety of information. It provides unified and interoperable ways for processing, communicating and presenting data across different maintenance systems and in a vendor-independent way. ISO 13374 consists of four parts, dealing with:
Maintenance companies such as Turbomonitoring list ISO 13374 are among the main standards that can be used for collecting and processing vibration data as a means of determining the health status of their machinery, including relevant design faults or damages. Vibration and damage analysis is indeed one of the most prominent applications of ISO 13374.
MIMOSA is a not-for-profit trade association which develops open information standards for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) in sectors such as manufacturing, fleet, and facility environments.
MIMOSA comprises a wide range of standards that span almost all aspects of data exchange and integration across diverse O&M systems.
MIMOSA CCOM (Common Collaborative Object Model) is an information model for the exchange of asset related information which eases interoperability between systems. Based on an XML compliant model, it enables systems to exchange data electronically, much in the same way the popular EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) model provides the means for exchanging information between electronic commerce systems and transactions.
Note that one of the MIMOSA standards (namely OSA-CBM) specifies a detailed implementation of ISO-13374 standards outlined above, including detailed data specifications for the functionality blocks of the ISO standard.
As such, the MIMOSA standards can also be used for ensuring interoperability across different maintenance datasets (i.e. data sets stemming from different systems and sensors), but also for facilitating data sharing across maintenance stakeholders.
This standard is specified as part of Technical Information Paper TIP 0305-34 and provides guidelines for creating maintenance checklists on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
In practice, maintenance engineers and users are expected to customize these checklists to the needs of their plant taking into account machines, equipment, physical configurations and other characteristics of the plant.
Documented research efforts and industrial case studies have underlined the importance of maintenance checklists towards focused and effective maintenance. The TAPPI TP 0305-34:2008 standard provides a practical approach on how to compile and maintain a relevant checklist.
In earlier posts, we referred to the trend of digitizing industry, including opportunities to leverage the functionalities of the emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) and BigData technologies.
The Industrial Internet Consortium Reference Architecture (IICRA) defines the structuring principles that drive the integration of Industrial Internet applications, as part of the emerging digitization of the industry.
The IICRA represents a joint effort between major industrial and IT players worldwide, reflecting their common vision for product interoperability and simplified development of industrial internet systems. The architecture supports use cases in various sectors including energy, healthcare, manufacturing and transportation.
The IICRA provides the means for developing flexible and interoperable maintenance applications, such as predictive maintenance. In particular, it defines connectivity requirements, as well as data representation and distribution requirements. The latter requirements can usually be fulfilled based on the integration of the Object Management Group's Data Distribution Service for Real-time Systems (DDS).
This has given rise to the specification and implementation of IICRA compliant data sharing platforms, such as PrismTech's Vortex Intelligent Data Sharing Platform. The latter is used by system integrators, OEMs, device platform vendors and Cloud service providers to provide integrated internet-of-things solutions for vertical markets such as healthcare, energy, transportation and industrial automation.
As mentioned earlier, the above list of standards is by no means exhaustive. Nevertheless, it provides an indication of the depth and breadth of maintenance-related standards that are currently available.
The list also presents a set of standards that can substantially support the functionalities of the advanced systems (BigData, IoT).
Needs and data mediums are constantly changing in organizations. When modifying your current maintenance practices to accommodate these changes, consider both existing and emerging maintenance-related standards to determine which standards would best be applied to your organizational structure.
What are the maintenance standards used in your organization? How have they helped you improve maintenance processes?
It’s worth listing your problem areas. There might be standards that could help deal with these issues that you may want to explore. | <urn:uuid:50fd1bb2-a218-446a-9c54-efb69243d2df> | {
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What is accounting
Accounting is the recording of financial transactions plus storing, sorting, retrieving, summarizing, and presenting the information in various reports and analyses. Accounting is also a profession consisting of individuals having the formal education to carry out these tasks.
One part of accounting focuses on presenting the information in the form of general-purpose financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, etc.) to people outside of the company. These external reports must be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles often referred to as GAAP or US GAAP. This part of accounting is referred to as financial accounting.
Accounting also entails providing a company’s management with the information it needs to keep the business financially healthy. These analyses and reports are not distributed outside of the company. Some of the information will originate from the recorded transactions but some of the information will be estimates and projections based on various assumptions. Three examples of internal analyses and reports are budgets, standards for controlling operations, and estimating selling prices for quoting new jobs. This area of accounting is known as management accounting.
Another part of accounting involves compliance with government regulations pertaining to income tax reporting.
Today much of the recording, storing, and sorting aspects of accounting have been automated as a result of the advances in computer technology.
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Since Congress was firmly controlled by the Federalists, the fight against the Alien and Sedition Acts moved to the state legislatures in late 1798. James Madison prepared the Virginia Resolutions and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions. Since Jefferson didn't live in Kentucky, he ghost wrote them for John Breckenridge, who brought them before the Kentucky legislature.
The two sets of resolutions followed a similar argument: The states had the duty to nullify within their borders those laws that were unconstitutional. The Alien and Sedition acts were unconstitutional because they infringed on the reserved powers of the states.
Nothing concrete resulted from the passage of these resolutions; no other states followed with similar actions. In fact, the Massachusetts legislature passed a declaration to the effect that courts and not state legislatures were the proper arbiters of constitutionality. It commented:
That, although a liberal and enlightened vigilance among the people is always to be cherished, yet an unreasonable jealousy of the men of their choice, and a recurrence to measures of extremity, upon groundless or trivial pretexts, have a strong tendency to destroy all rational liberty at home, and to deprive the United States of the most essential advantages in relations abroad.
Jefferson was not pleased with the negative response from Massachusetts and the lack of support from the "republican" states of the South which he had expected to stand with him on the issue. In 1799, he composed an additional resolution which again was introduced into the Kentucky legislature by Breckenridge and adopted unanimously in December. Although the right of states to nullify federal legislation was restated, the resolution carefully did not advocate nullification at that time:
That this commonwealth does upon the most deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of the said constitution; and however cheerfully it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister states in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy; yet, in momentous regulations like the present, which so vitally wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a silent acquiesecence as highly criminal: That although this commonwealth as a party to the federal compact; will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt from what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact: ...
The causes that led to the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions died away, and the Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed, but the arguments that Jefferson put forward at the time would be recalled later as the nation debated what course to follow on the issue of slavery. When in 1832, Madison found that his words in the Virginia resolution were being used to support the nullification position taken by South Carolina, he denied that it had ever been his or Jefferson's intent to see actual nullification take place, and had they thought that this distortion of their meaning might happen, they would have used different language. | <urn:uuid:a5b4f8ea-3f4e-4ddc-9211-4ca319779150> | {
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When teenagers begin using drugs or alcohol, they are at an increased risk of developing an addiction disorder by the time they reach adulthood. Therefore, it is important for parents, caregivers, teachers, and other important individuals in a teen’s life to be aware of the signs that can indicate drug or alcohol abuse and addiction.
It is important to note that while many teens do experiment with drugs and alcohol, not all of they are abusing these substances or dependent on them. With that said, if you notice any of the following signs in a teen in your life, there is a chance that he or she may have a problem:
- Reduced academic performance
- Disinterest; many teens who abuse and are addicted to substances and were once social active become disinterested in their friends and extracurricular activities.
- Diminishing pride in appearance; poor hygiene, wearing dirty clothing, etc
- Dilated pupils and bloodshot eyes
- Avoidance; teens who are abusing and addicted to drugs or alcohol often avoid making contact with parents and other adults.
- Weight loss
- Changes in behavior; wild mood swings, irritability, uncontrollable laughter for no reason, etc
- Acting secretive
- Lashing out
If you spot any of these issues in a teen in your life, it’s important to take proper action. Parents, caregivers, older siblings, teachers, and other trusted adults should attempt to communicate with teens about important issues; including substance abuse and addiction. With proper intervention, it is possible to get your teen the help that he or she needs to prevent further problems, such as serious health issues and a lifetime of addiction. Speaking to a teen in a friendly, approachable, yet matter-of-fact way is recommended. Avoid blaming or criticizing, as your loved one will likely deny any claims and can ultimately lead to increased drug or alcohol abuse. | <urn:uuid:b6541f11-226d-40ba-908f-7afaf2a87efa> | {
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Have no idea how start an engaging introduction paragraph in your history essay? Need advice on how to write good academic papers - you are not alone. Academic writing is an important skill for the success in higher education and in any career field but many university students find their written assignments too challenging and often consider them to be a form of a medieval torture.
Why is it so? The problem is that a lot of high school graduates enter colleges and universities having no idea how to complete grammatically correct sentences that make sense, to say nothing about writing a college-level academic paper because no one taught them how to do it right and present a clear, logical and convincing argument.
If you struggle with similar issues, read this article where you will find a complete guide on how to write good academic papers. We will provide you with all necessary information. You can order a well-written model essay on our website to have a better understanding of the general rules of academic writing and the proper paper structure and format.
How to Write Academic Paper: Main Points to Consider
Many young people have difficulties with academic paper writing. This type of writing is specific and differs a lot from what you were asked to produce in high school because it involves a lot of reading, doing in-depth research of scholarly literature, planning, revising, making changes in content and structure, rewriting, editing, proofreading, and formatting. Don’t be scared. Writing is a skill that any student can learn and master. We hope that this short guide will explain everything you need to succeed.
What is an academic paper? This type of writing can be defined in many ways and your instructors can give different names to these assignments – essay, term paper, analysis essay but all of them have the same purpose and are based on the same principles.
The goal of completing written assignments is to show that you have a profound knowledge of a specific topic and to share your own thoughts about a scientific question or an issue that may be of interest to your audience – students, your professor, and other scholars. You have to demonstrate your critical thinking skills.
Take into account 8 key principle of academic writing.
- Your papers must have a clear purpose (inform, analyze, synthesize or persuade) and answer your topic question.
- Your papers must present your original point of view.
- Your writing must have a single focus – all paragraphs have to include relevant evidence (facts, expert opinions, quotations, examples) to support your thesis statement.
- You must follow a standard organizational pattern. Every academic text must include the following parts: an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. Some papers may require an abstract.
- As an author, you need to provide clear, logical, and simple explanations to your reader.
- You should refer to a number of scholarly sources. You need to integrate source materials into your discussion. Take care to include all sources (books, articles from a scientific journal, publications on online resources) that you cite, introduce, analyze or explain on a reference list in the bibliography page.
- To ensure academic integrity, all college essays should be formatted in accordance with the requirements of one of the specific citation styles – APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago that determine the rules for in-text citations, paper sections, format, reference list.
- You need to use your own words. Don’t try to be too formal or you may sound boring to your readers. Use natural language, common for conversations.
Essential Steps of the Writing Process
Writing an academic paper can be done step-by-step. If you are a beginner, you can follow these steps that have worked for millions of college students; they can save you a lot of time.
- Select an interesting topic. If you lack ideas, you may search the internet using Google, look through your lecture notes, and consider your course readings or current news.
- Do research and record sources’ information. Keep in mind that you may need to continue research as you discover thesis, make an outline, write and revise the document.
- Formulate a strong thesis statement that you will argue.
- Plan your essay and make a basic outline. Take notes from your sources and add details to your outline and make sure that you have supporting evidence for your points.
- Write the first draft of your essay. You can start from any part and you shouldn’t worry about grammar, punctuation and spelling as you construct your sentences. You will fix it later.
- Revise your first draft and improve the content, logic, and the flow. Make transitions between your ideas. Make changes to improve the content and rewrite your draft. You may need to do it more than once.
- Edit and proofread your final draft to ensure that your essay is flawless.
These are basic steps. When you gain experience, you may think about a different order that can work best for you. Find that this process complicated? Buy a professionally written sample to analyze it and see how your essay should look like!
Let’s discuss the major steps of the writing process.
A thesis statement determines the main argument of your essay. A good thesis statement expresses the main idea of your essay, presents your own point of view, and gives an answer to your research question. The success of your entire project depends on your thesis and you need to do your best to ensure that it is debatable, specific, and concise. Try to write your thesis early. It will help you stay focused when you do research and take notes.
Introductions and conclusions are very important. The introduction introduces your argument to your reader and convinces them why they should care about reading your paper. Your task is to engage your audience. Wondering how to do it? Check this useful article on our blog that discusses engaging strategies for starting an essay.
Start your introduction with attention grabber and provide background information about the significance of your topic, introduce a subject, and give some definitions of the key terms. End your introduction with a thesis statement.
Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence; don’t begin a paragraph with a fact. The topic sentence should present the main idea of the paragraph and express your point of view. In the next sentences, you should support the topic sentence with additional supporting ideas, specific details, interesting facts, statistics, clear explanations, relevant examples. All supporting sentences should be logical. You should make sure they are connected with connection words to help your reader follow your argument.
Finish every paragraph with a concluding sentence. It should be your own idea and not a source citation. The last sentence in a paragraph should review the key points you have discussed in it, emphasize your main idea or your thesis statement, and prepare your audience to the points that you are going to discuss in the next paragraph.
Don’t make your paragraphs too long. People find it difficult to focus on large blocks of text; paragraphs shouldn’t be longer than ¾ of a page. If you discover that your paragraph is very long, divide it logically into two separate paragraphs.
This part of your paper is the most important. Actually, readers remember the first and the last parts of what they read; a conclusion is your last chance to make an impression and show the significance of your findings. How can you achieve that? When writing a conclusion, you need to provide connections to the previous ideas, briefly summarize your findings or restate the thesis. You shouldn’t include any new information. Finish your essay with a strong concluding statement that your readers will remember.
No one can write a perfect first draft. It’s impossible - revising is critical if you want to impress your professor and get a high grade for your work. You should start revising the content at least a week before your paper is due. You can use another strategy as well - revise individual paragraphs as you write them. Be ready that you may need to write more than one draft or revise your paper several times.
Read your paper and make changes to fix it and make impeccable. You can do it in a number of ways.
- Eliminate irrelevant ideas and unnecessary information
- Add new explanations, details, points to ensure additional support for your argument
- Rewrite paragraphs and sentences to present your ideas better
- Re-organize paragraphs and sentences to make your paper logical
Editing and proofreading
Do you like your essay’s content? If you do, it’s time to edit it and add finishing touches. The goal of editing is making your writing clearer, more precise to ensure that your readers will be able to understand it.
How should you do it? You may ask someone to read your essay and request their feedback. You can read your college paper aloud yourself to hear the lack of clarity, repetition, wordiness, grammar mistakes and correct them. Use English dictionaries and grammar books.
You should use the following editing strategies to make your essay as best as it can be.
- Fix sentences with the passive voice
- Improve word choice by replacing long words with shorter ones
- Improve sentence structure and word order – correct run-ons and fragments
- Fix the logic, flow, and connections between ideas
- Rewrite long sentences and make them concise; eliminate unnecessary sentences in paragraphs if they don’t convey new messages
- Fix repetition and use thesaurus to find synonyms
When you finish editing, proofread your essay and fix minor errors, careless mistakes, typos. Check punctuation and spelling. Use the printed copy to notice mistakes you may overlook on a computer screen. Start proofreading with the last sentence and go backward; in this way, you will focus on spelling and grammar and not on the content.
We have discussed how to write academic paper. Let’s talk about another important aspect of your future essay – citations. To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit to other people whose ideas you use in your own work.
You have the right to express your opinions. You have the right to use ideas of people to support your argument and draw conclusions, but it’s your responsibility to inform your audience which ideas in your essay are not yours and which are your own. With proper citations, you demonstrate that you understand the significance of other people’s research, findings, and ideas in developing your own argument.
How to cite your sources? You should include in-text citations in accordance with the guidelines of the citation style recommended by your instructor. You are required to include a list of the sources you have cited at the end of your paper. Don’t cite works that are not in your bibliography.
Follow these guidelines and useful tips to create great papers and impress your professor. Need interesting topic ideas for your projects? Check other articles on our blog.
Writing academically on a college level is a hard work that requires a lot of time and effort. You can’t become a confident writer in a few days if you just read grammar and style guides no matter how full and detailed they are. You have to practice a lot. It means working for many hours every day.
If you are not sure that you can cope with your complicated assignment on your own, you can pay to get professional help in any subject from experts on our site. Our writers can provide you with quality sample papers on different topics that will be perfect in content and style. They are sure to be free of errors. You can use paid custom papers as good templates you can follow when creating your own works and understand how to write good academic papers. In this way, you can easily improve your analytical, critical and writing skills and become a successful student who gets high grades. | <urn:uuid:bcad4d28-f57e-4259-a960-07710779cced> | {
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By Billie Lorraine Lafty
In 1975, The New Original Wonder Woman made its debut on ABC and immediately won the hearts of little girls everywhere. At the time, male superheroes were the typical protagonist, with female ones in supporting roles such as Barbara Gordan (played by Yvonne Craig) in Batman (1966 – 1968). Female superheroes were rarely the focal point of a television show, and none of them was as impactful as Wonder Woman grew to be.
The 1970’s marked a changing point for women. Although the right to vote was granted in 1920 with the 19th amendment, women lacked agency in the home and the office. Strict gender roles continued to limit women, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 lacked the enforcement needed to guarantee women equal pay.
In the 1970’s, young girls and women were finally encouraged to be strong, to transcend society’s strict gender barriers. In 1972, the federal government passed Title IX, thus prohibiting any gender discrimination from federally funded programs. Title IX marked a major milestone for women— suddenly young girls began freely playing sports, which inspired other non-gender conforming activities such as climbing trees, using tools, and even taking on “male” careers.
These changes began to impact the way that women were portrayed on television and in movies. Suddenly, television networks were more keen on depicting strong female characters, and in 1975, after a complete makeover of the Wonder Woman series that ran a year prior (starring Cathy Lee Crosby from the 1974 movie by the same name), ABC launched The New Original Wonder Woman. Starring Lynda Carter, this series opens with Wonder Woman stepping outside of gender stereotypes to save a male American pilot during the Second World War. The idea of a woman saving a man during the seventies was new and certainly not frequently depicted on the small or big screen.
The series continued until its cancellation in 1979, but its legacy carried on—more television series started to depict strong female characters. Wonder Woman is still a symbol for the generation of women born into a new age of freedom. Little girls were given choices that their mothers and grandmothers did not have and provided with role models like Wonder Woman, who fought crime and stood for justice. The beauty of this female role model was her strength and imperturbable aptitude to do what was right.
While Wonder Woman was considered a breaking point for females everywhere in the 1970’s, 2016 harbors other opinions about the Amazon Princess and her influence on young, female minds. In October of 2016, the United Nations bestowed Wonder Woman with title of honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. Although many rejoiced at the idea of bequeathing Wonder Woman with this honor, others responded negatively to the announcement. In October, a petition began circulating from concerned United Nations staff members, stating that “At a time when issues such as gender parity in senior roles and the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls is at the top of the United Nation’s agenda, including the “He for She” campaign, this appointment is more than surprising. It is alarming that the United Nations would consider using a character with an overtly sexualized image at a time when the headline news in United States and the world is the objectification of women and girls.”
While the petition procured almost 45,000 signatures, the sentiment behind the decision to start a campaign against any woman who gained such an honor sent outrage across the Internet. Women are only just beginning to taste the freedoms that our mothers and grandmothers never fully had. The attempt to remove a female ambassador due to her “sexualization” sends a message to females everywhere that women have some sort of control over the way they are perceived and are therefore liable for any treatment that comes because of it. Isn’t this the sort of victim-blaming that we have been trying so vigorously to eliminate from our courts when dealing with sexual assault cases? If a woman’s appearance or dress is not an excuse for an assailant to commit a sexual assault, then it should never be an excuse to have her stripped of any titles that her behavior dictates she so rightfully deserves.
Wonder Woman has always encouraged women to be stronger. In 1941, Wonder Woman made her first appearance in All Star Comics, after William Moulton Marston conceived the character. Marston a polygamist, developed the character due to a suggestion from his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston and is said to have collaborated with the artist of Wonder Woman, H.G. Peters, to create the physical appearance of the character based on his long-term girlfriend Olive Byrne.
Marston was a strong supporter of female empowerment and often spoke and lectured in favor of women equality. In a 1937 interview with Washington Post, he stated that, “Women have twice the emotional development, the ability for love, than man has. As they develop as much ability for worldly success as they already have ability for love, they will clearly come to rule business and the nation and the world.”
Marston was also very open about his purpose for developing Wonder Woman and the role he hoped she would play for women. When describing the concept of his most famous female character, he stated that, “She encourages women to stand up for themselves, to learn to fight, and be strong, so they don’t have to be scared, or depend on men.” In the 1940’s, describing a woman as someone who does not “depend on men” was an extremely bold statement to make. Although Marston certainly created the heart of who Wonder Woman would grow to become, he did not conceptualize her alone.
The artwork behind Wonder Woman was developed by women’s rights advocate H.G. Peter. Peter was 61 years old when he created the iconic image of Wonder Woman, but he had long used art to support women in their fight for equality. Peter was published in a variety of publications, including magazines such as Judge, with artwork that depicted the women’s fight towards universal equality.
After her public release, Wonder Woman rapidly rose to fame. In less than a year after her original appearance in All Star Comics, she became the first female superhero to appear in a comic of her own name, Wonder Woman. She will be forever recognized as one of the most influential characters during the Golden Age of Comics (1930’s to 1950’s). Other superheroes who share this honor include Superman, Captain America, and Batman.
In addition to her other impressive accomplishments, Wonder Woman was also the only woman in the popular superhero team, the Justice League, a society that was based on the Justice Society. Along with Wonder Woman, the original founding members of the Justice League included heroes such as Superman, Batman, the Flash, Aquaman, the Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter. The original Justice League, which was created by Gardner Fox, was created in the 1960’s and included a mostly male lineup. The inclusion of Wonder Woman demonstrated the far-reaching capabilities of women and represented the surpassing of gender stereotypes.
Although Wonder Woman is only a comic-book character, her endless list of accomplishments over the past 75 years have inspired young girls everywhere. She has encouraged girls to take action in a time when women didn’t even realize their own strength. This petition not only forgets about the atrocities women faced a century ago but also sends a dangerous message to young girls who are only beginning to form their identities as women. Don’t let this petition tell girls that they need to dress or act in a certain way—or they’ll be punished. Different is not wrong. And as a society, we should stop making rash judgments based on an accepted or idealized appearance.
Indeed, the beauty expectations society sets on women is preposterous. Though women are expected to be “pretty,” they can’t wear too much makeup, or dress inappropriately or too sexy. Making negative remarks to our fellow women is anti-feminist—it takes away their freedom of choice by force-feeding them our point of view. While refraining from makeup or what society considers to be “sexy” attire is perfectly acceptable, choosing to dress sexy or immodestly is not a crime. Public perception is the fault of the public alone and nobody else should be held accountable for their viewpoint.
Forcing opinions to align with the mainstream concept of feminism is just another attempt to control the minds of young girls. By encouraging this sort of behavior, we may be successful in promoting change, but the change will be a result of fear. Rather than asking ourselves if Wonder Woman is the right kind of role model, perhaps we should ask ourselves if this is the right kind of change.
Instead of attacking one another, we should support other women and sign petitions that request additional female role models to stand alongside Wonder Woman. The UN offers ambassadorships on multiple occasions, so women should see Wonder Woman’s nomination as an opportunity for her success to grow. If we attempt to revoke honors from fictional female characters based on their appearances, what are we willing to do to our real-life fellow women? | <urn:uuid:c29c9e71-6a52-4eeb-a9c6-047b06d6a4a1> | {
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David Glickson, NREL
June 11, 2014 | 2 Comments
Colorado, USA -- Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are transforming the way the world uses energy—and those transformations become apparent the moment one sets foot on the NREL campus in Golden, Colorado. Here, research teams have applied their expertise to develop office and laboratory spaces that also serve as demonstrations for how high-performance, sustainable buildings and campuses should be designed, constructed, and operated.
Beyond LEED — The Net-Zero Energy Research Support Facility
As the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) celebrates the certification of three new LEED Platinum buildings, bringing the total number of Platinum certified buildings on its campus to six, another important milestone on NREL's sustainable campus was also achieved: NREL's Research Support Facility (RSF) recently completed a verified one year of performance as a net-zero energy building.
A net-zero energy building is one that, over the course of a full year, produces more energy than it consumes.
The RSF, a LEED Platinum certified 360,000-square-foot Class A office building that houses approximately 1,300 NREL and Energy Department staff as well as a data center, accomplished this through a combination of energy efficiency technologies used in the building, effective operations and management of the building, and onsite electricity generation from a 2.6-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof of the building and adjacent parking areas.
"We made a commitment to design and build a building that could reach net zero in operations," NREL Senior Energy Efficiency Research Engineer Shanti Pless said. "The design-build team delivered to us a well-designed, well-engineered, and well-constructed building that was able to support that goal. With the addition of the PV system we felt that we could successfully offset all of our annual energy use. Through active energy management and real-time benchmarking tools, we're very proud that we were able to achieve this important milestone."
Like the rest of the NREL campus, the RSF was designed and built with the intention of being a model for how building projects can incorporate energy efficiency strategies and technologies, and in the case of the RSF how projects can be made to be net-zero energy ready. The NREL researchers involved in the project made it accessible to anyone by compiling and documenting their experiences in energy performance-based commercial building acquisition and the adoption of energy-saving building technologies.
"There's a growing interest in net-zero energy buildings now that it is getting more cost effective and the industry is beginning to understand it better," Pless said. "The cost of PV and energy-efficient building materials like LED lighting have come down dramatically in the last few years, and that has made the idea of building for net zero much more approachable. As a result, there is an expanding level of expertise and capability out there for delivering buildings for net-zero energy operations. This is still cutting edge, but it is scaling up and heading toward the mainstream."
NREL is a consistent leader in bringing high-performance, energy-efficient building projects to life on its campus. In 2006 NREL laid claim to having the only LEED Platinum federal building with its Science & Technology Facility. Today, LEED Platinum federal buildings are becoming commonplace, including six on the NREL campus alone. Now, NREL again demonstrates its leadership by being the home of the very first federal building verified to achieve net-zero energy performance. However, unlike a green building certification that happens once, net-zero energy is something that is ongoing and must be achieved annually.
"One of the great things about net-zero energy is that it's an operations target, not a design target, that requires ongoing management to reach from year to year," said Pless. "This keeps our building managers, engineers, and occupants constantly thinking about how we use energy and seeking ways to improve our performance. We'll need to keep doing that to assure that the building meets net-zero energy operational goals year after year. We look forward to that opportunity."
The recent construction on the NREL campus was a significant undertaking, in which integrated project teams from a wide variety of disciplines—construction managers, sustainability professionals, and building research engineers, to name a few — focused on the design and construction of innovative facilities that would meet the needs of a growing laboratory while also meeting ambitious energy performance requirements.
"Energy has not been a foremost consideration on similar projects. They look at scope, schedule, and budget; then when the design is done, they determine how much power they need," said NREL Deputy Director for SITE Operations Drew Detamore, who led the campus development efforts. "Here, we added energy to the decision-making process from the beginning. Every decision that was made along the way took into consideration the impacts it would have on the energy model for the building."
In order to ensure that energy performance goals could be met, NREL developed a unique performance-based design-build approach to partner with design, engineering, and construction industry leaders on the projects. The design-build approach incorporated rigorous project controls and methodologies to provide NREL with facilities that featured best-in-class energy efficiency and sustainability practices.
"The design-build approach with our project partners was critical to the process," Detamore said. "We came into it focused on what we wanted projects to do over what we wanted them to be, and the design-build approach allowed that line of thinking to work effectively. You have to place a priority on performance over design, and then you can do what we've done at NREL. You must have strong project-management people involved who understand the process and are willing to let go of the design. As a result, we have buildings that meet all of our performance goals, are well designed, and happen to be very attractive."
Showcasing the Right Way to Build Buildings
"Our goal is to provide leadership to both the public and private sectors to show that this can be done, it is being done, and here's how you do it," NREL Senior Energy Efficiency Research Engineer Shanti Pless said. "We've made these buildings as efficient as possible and have learned a lot along the way. We want to share those lessons learned and best practices with the buildings industry to facilitate the movement of this type of design and construction into the mainstream."
All design and construction on the NREL campus used strategies and materials that are available to anyone. All products used are off-the-shelf and could be accessed for any building. Implementation of similar design-build techniques could be done on any project anywhere. The most important piece of the puzzle is to apply good technologies, along with a solid planning and design process, and integrate them effectively to work well together.
"These buildings are highly replicable," Pless said. "A project developer can take what we've done here and apply it in the marketplace. It performs as promised, is cost effective, maintainable, and marketable. These results combine to make energy-efficient buildings very approachable in any environment."
To facilitate the continued growth of energy-efficient and zero-energy building projects everywhere, NREL regularly hosts visits to its campus by project developers, architects, builders, and other commercial building industry professionals. These visits give NREL an opportunity to show firsthand what these buildings can do, how they perform, and how they can be replicated.
"When we show this to people they can quickly begin to visualize how they can replicate it, and by doing that we are having a meaningful impact on the commercial buildings industry," Pless said. "Proving it can be done is an important step. It is one thing to say you can do it, another entirely to prove it and demonstrate it. Here at NREL we've done just that."
A Living Laboratory
The campus also provides NREL research staff with opportunities to validate their research in a real-world environment with occupied, operational buildings in an effort to quantify and maximize building performance.
Researchers in NREL's Commercial Buildings research program have installed meters in all new buildings and are collecting a massive amount of performance data. They are now developing tools that can put this data into action to the benefit of building developers and operators everywhere.
"We are trying to align building decision makers with the data that we are collecting," Pless said. "By creating useful tools to help them take advantage of building data, we are providing them with the critical information that they need to make good decisions that will further enhance building performance and occupant comfort."
NREL has developed a new tool called the "NREL Energy Story" that serves the dual purpose of telling the story of NREL's sustainable campus to the public as well as serving as a management tool that allows NREL engineers to analyze campus energy performance in real time and identify problems quickly.
"We've essentially created an energy management tool for our campus with an education component layered into it," said NREL Strategic Energy Analysis Center Principal Project Lead Mark Ruth. "It allows us to improve our story at the same time we are telling our story. It's a one-of-a-kind tool that provides great benefit both internally and externally."
The tool is a real-time visualization of energy production and consumption on the NREL campus. It includes modules for electricity, heating and cooling, and fuels. It provides a big-picture view of the entire campus, as well as detailed analysis of specific areas such as lighting or plug loads within a section of a building. For the public, it compares NREL's campus energy use to that of a typical campus that lacks the type of high-performance buildings found at NREL. It also includes a series of infographics that can show users what the potential impacts and cost savings of energy efficiency applications could be for the nation, or for a home.
"This tool helps the public understand the impact of their energy choices, which will hopefully guide their decision making in the future to use energy more wisely," Ruth said. "We strive to be a ‘living laboratory' here at NREL, and this tool helps to bring this to life in a way that everyone can understand. It clearly demonstrates how the lab improves its own energy use and the potential benefits others can realize if they to implement these strategies in their homes or communities."
Six LEED Platinum Buildings
Recently, at a dedication ceremony held on the NREL campus, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recognized NREL's efforts with Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification for three of its newest campus facilities, including the recently opened Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF).
The USGBC's LEED program is a green building certification that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. Building projects must satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of certification. A Platinum certification is the highest level in the program.
In addition to the ESIF, the USGBC also recognized NREL's new Café and South Site Entrance Building for achieving Platinum status. With these new certifications, NREL can now lay claim to six LEED Platinum certified buildings on its Golden campus, including the award-winning Research Support Facility, which was recently verified to have performed for a full year as anet-zero energy building.
"We are extremely proud of the campus we have designed and built here at NREL and the recognition that we have received for our efforts," said NREL Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Ken Powers. "This campus will provide our world-class research staff with the resources and facilities they need to support our clean energy mission, as well as serve as an example of how these technologies and strategies can be effectively applied."
Sustainability as a Core Value
NREL is a recognized leader in sustainability, with practices that are incorporated into the mission and fully integrated into all facets of the operation of the laboratory. When planning the design of the NREL campus, it went without saying that sustainability would be a key consideration.
Sustainability professionals were part of all integrated project teams throughout the process, and efforts to make the NREL campus as sustainable as possible guided every decision. The use of sustainable building products, technologies, and practices helped to garner the points necessary to achieve the LEED Platinum certification for all new buildings.
"We underwent a lot of growth in a short period of time, and all of the people involved in making that happen adopted the mission and value system of the laboratory in regards to sustainability throughout the process and never lost focus on it," NREL Sustainability Program Director Frank Rukavina said. "It makes our job, as sustainability professionals, a lot easier when everyone involved understands the priority and is on board from the beginning to make these building projects as sustainable as possible."
Examples of sustainability practices incorporated into the new buildings are numerous. For the newly Platinum certified buildings, these include comprehensive recycling and composting programs, native and xeriscape vegetation, locally sourced food for the new cafeteria, water conservation efforts for the commercial kitchen in the new cafeteria, storm water recycling strategies, and building materials made of recycled materials.
"Everyone looks to NREL to be a leader on these issues now and in the future. We have a responsibility within our basic mission to set the best possible example and to be a model for what a campus could be and should be," Rukavina said. "We've excelled because we've committed to it and we've created a campus that showcases our mission and our values as an organization. We have a population here at NREL that takes energy efficiency and sustainability personally and seriously. This drives us to continued excellence and challenges us to always be as sustainable as we possibly can."
Aerial view of NREL's South Table Mountain campus with its six LEED Platinum buildings in view. NREL wants its campus and buildings to serve as a model for how the commercial buildings and campuses of the future should be built. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL. | <urn:uuid:1314eba7-b351-4384-912d-27536e29a038> | {
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Most of us assume deaf people can't register sound, let alone enjoy Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik Podzuweit taps into the deaf's ability to feel music.
Music for Deaf People is a collar that converts auditory input into vibrations, triggering the same sound-processing brain regions in those with full hearing. So instead of listening through your ears, you effectively listen through your skin. The collar has a special membrane substance, which responds to electricity, dispatching the vibrations of whatever you're playing—be it Sinatra or Sepultura—to your neck, shoulders, and collarbone. Adjustable, it fits snugly around your neck so you could theoretically wear it jogging or at the gym—never mind that it looks like something straight out of a Stormtrooper's closet. (Nerds probably think that's a good thing.)
To the uninitiated, it might seem like a nonstarter, a pointless gadget resigned to the annals of air-conditioned T-shirts and ShamWow! Why would deaf people want to "hear" music? The answer, of course, is for the same reason everyone else does: Music is one of life's enduring pleasures.
There's a lot of fascinating research into how deaf people experience music. Researchers at Ryerson University designed a chair that transmits musical vibrations along the back, turning sound into a sort of multi-sensory cheesecake. One person described it like this: "The first time I used the chair, I was blown away by the amount of information I could get about music from the vibrations. For the first time in my life, I could feel sad or happy because of how the music vibrations felt on my skin. I never felt those kinds of feelings before when music was played."
It's even possible, in certain cases, that deaf people experience music more powerfully because they can't hear; as Oliver Sacks tells it in Musicophilia, the auditory cortex might become extra-sensitive when hearing slips. Beethoven, you'll recall, was completely deaf when he composed his dazzling Symphony No. 9.
The main drawback we see in Music for
Deaf People is that the collar seems terribly uncomfortable. On hot
days, a big hunk of plastic is the last thing you want around your
neck. Would the concept work just as well around your wrist or your
bicep? If anyone has any ideas, we're all, um, ears. | <urn:uuid:d1e54179-cdac-46a1-a17f-e8ebeb664904> | {
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Bacterial Diseases. Pathogenicity. “the state of producing or being able to produce pathological changes and disease”. Staphylococcus. “a genus of gram-negative, nonmotile, opportunistic bacteria which tend to aggregate in irregular, grape-like clusters”. Readings Question #1.
“spherical shaped bacteria occurring in chains”
What are the implications for the embalmer when dealing with saprophytes?
1) lobar pneumonia
3) otitis media
Clostridium perfringens is the causative agent of a postmortem condition known as tissue gas.
List 3 things that may result in this condition in the decedent.
List 7 conditions that predispose the decedent to tissue gas formation.
2) inadequate refrigeration | <urn:uuid:3112bc39-8158-48ae-bb48-b2cdaca547fc> | {
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Practical Nursing Instructor
Teach and train future Licensed Practical Nurses.
Like any Educator, your job as Diabetes Educator is to teach. However, the subject you focus on is not math or English. Instead, you teach about the disease diabetes.
Diabetes Educators work with patients afflicted with this disease as well as those in danger of developing it to give advice on how to handle or prevent it. Most people in this position are Nurses or Doctors who have a specialization in diabetes education.
A day in this job can play out a few different ways. One position might have you throwing a health fair in a rural community, while another might have you explaining the basics of the disease to a newly diagnosed patient. Diabetes Educators can work in hospitals or clinics, and do everything from educating patients on how to control symptoms through diet and exercise to addressing fears and emotional issues that arise.
Many times, you work with entire families, especially in the case of sick kids. You explain to them what Caregivers can do to assist the patients, and how they themselves can help their loved ones.
Outside of hospitals, you focus on things like outreach, education, and prevention. You tend to travel often in this job. One day, you might stop by a school to talk with kids, while another, you might visit the homes of sick patients living in rural areas far from Doctors. This job requires good communication skills along with some serious cultural sensitivity, as diabetes appears more often in certain ethnic groups than others. | <urn:uuid:72a85c2e-2116-4c42-86b1-94d487c48c22> | {
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Cardiac Arrest Vs Heart Attack?
A cardiac arrest is caused by an electrical problem in the heart. This electrical problem causes the heart to stop pumping blood around the body and to the brain. The person will be unconscious so start CPR.
A heart attack is a blood circulation problem. It happens when an artery supplying blood to the heart muscle becomes blocked. This starves part of the heart muscle of oxygen and causes symptoms such as chest pain or discomfort. A person having a heart attack is usually still conscious and breathing.
If a heart attack isn’t treated, it can lead to a cardiac arrest.
Why learn CPR?
Cardiac problems are more common than you think, and they can happen to anyone, at any age, anywhere and anytime. It causes the person to fall unconscious and stop breathing. Without CPR the person will die within minutes.
CPR should only be used if someone is:
- unconscious and not breathing
- unconscious and not breathing normally.
Who can you save with CPR?
The life you save with CPR is mostly likely to be a loved one. More than 70% of arrests occur at home.
Why take action?
- These are preventable deaths.
- Failure to act in a cardiac emergency can lead to unnecessary deaths.
- Effective bystander CPR provided immediately after sudden cardiac arrest can double or triple a victim’s chance of survival, but more than 95% of Pakistanis are not trained in CPR.
- Sadly, less than 1% of people who suffer cardiac arrest outside the hospital survive.
- More than 70% of arrests occur at home.
- 10 minutes and over, probable brain death.
- Average response time of EMS (1122 Bike Ambulance 4 minutes, 1122 Ambulance 7-10 minutes, Aman Ambulance in Khi 10.1 minutes).
Hence, it is high time to learn CPR and save lives.
These workshops are open for age 15 and over. Pre-registration is must. The workshop fee is set for per person (Lahore/Islamabad =600/- PKR and for Karachi =750/- PKR) which includes training supplies, wallet card for quick reference, certification and tea/refreshment. The last date to submit fee for Karachi is December 8th. After last date, late fee =1050/person would be payable. There would be only 20 participants & appropriate equipment/supplies available to ensure you have ample time and quality learning session. There are multiple sessions of 2-hours each on any given day.
For Your Safety,
Faisal Javed Mir & First Aid to Save a Life Pakistan | <urn:uuid:f30f9495-597d-42df-8070-b3820a14fa42> | {
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Subsets and Splits