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Muscle conductivity is simply the ability to conduct impulses, either electrical or chemical, along the muscle membrane.
Muscles enable you to move. The muscles in your arms lift and pull. Muscles in your legs help you stand, walk and run. Thumb muscles help you to hold things. Muscles in your chest help you to breathe. You have more than 600 muscles and muscle groups in your body. Muscles help us to move if we don’t have muscles we can’t move of our own free will.
Muscles function in many aspects of the body. There are three basic types of muscles:
One purpose of the skeletal muscles is to allow movement of the limbs, whereas the smooth muscles keep the body functions going. Also, the heart is a four chambered cardiac muscle, whose sole purpose is to pump blood round our bodies and keep us alive.
Traditional yoga from the ancient East didn’t emphasize how yoga can sculpt one’s body, but it definitely was all about the mind-body connection. Much of the West has evolved yoga to its own purposes, adapting it to the modern world. Originally, yoga was a way of life and being, rather than a way to look better in clothes. Nonetheless, whenever we look at a typical “yoga-crafted body,” we can’t help but admire their limber physique.
Many now believe that yoga, however, is a more balanced approach to strengthening and toning than resistance training and weight lifting. For one, it trains conscious muscle conductivity and conditions your body to perform things you do every day: walking, sitting, bending, lifting. Your body moves in the way it was designed to move.
As our understanding of the human body as a matrix of electromagnetic and chemical energies deepens, we come to see that the fascia or connective tissue (structuring, sheathing and interconnecting our circulatory system, nervous system, muscular-skeletal system, digestive track, organs and cells) is actually an energetic communication system dependent on conductivity.
The collagen that most of the connective tissue in your body is comprised of is liquid crystalline in nature. Liquid crystals (known to be semi-conductors) are designed to conduct energy in similar way that wiring system in your house conducts electricity. They are also able to send, receive, store and amplify energy signals, almost like your high-speed internet connection.
Because our fascia interconnects every system in the body, it provides a basis for both information and energy transfer beyond purely chemical origins. That is to say; while we’ve traditionally thought of communication in the body as mechanical (where chemical molecules fit into receptors like a key into a lock), we now realize we can open the lock much faster with energy (like remote control devices).
Yoga seeks to open and release the tightest places in our bodies (connective tissue, joints, ligaments and tendons) which routinely become tight and restricted through injuries, repetitive stress, poor postural habits and even emotional trauma. The amount of neural conductivity it takes to do just one simple action is huge, and any movement of the body requires an intense amount of brain power. As we perfect a physical skill, such as yoga asana most of this happens subconsciously. However, yoga can also teach you to have finer control over these movements and you progressively become more skilled.
Yoga helps better tune mind-body connection through conscious conductivity. Ultimately, yoga enhances the way you create motion and move through life. With proper yoga instruction and practice you can train yourself to become more aware and in control of all the physical actions you perform.
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Origins of the Historic Central Great Plains Drought of 2012: Natural Variations in Weather, Not Global Warming
NOTE: See updates below with additional graphics and information.
As the sere image above suggests, the shortgrass prairie of eastern Colorado is ordinarily a dry place. I shot it on March 17, 2012 out on the Pawnee National Grasslands, a spectacular spot off the beaten path in a state more known for its mountains.
As dry as it looks, in March of that year there was no drought there, or even abnormally dry conditions. But in just two months, all of Colorado was in drought, and this spot, along with more than half of the state, was characterized as being in extreme drought.
Colorado was not the only state to be hit. From May through August, the entire Central Great Plains of the nation, stretching from Colorado to the Mississippi River, and from Wyoming south through Kansas, experienced the most severe drought since official measurements began in 1895. And it happened so quickly and unexpectedly that it has been called a “flash drought.”
A report completed in March by a scientific task force of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and discussed today at a NOAA press teleconference, concludes that it resulted “mostly from natural variations in weather.” From the report’s summary:
- Moist Gulf of Mexico air failed to stream northward in late spring as cyclone and frontal activity were shunted unusually northward.
- Summertime thunderstorms were infrequent and when they did occur produced little rainfall.
- Neither ocean states nor human-induced climate change, factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared to play significant roles in causing severe rainfall deficits over the major corn producing regions of central Great Plains.
“That’s not to say that climate change isn’t happening,” says Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist with NOAA in Boulder, CO, and lead author on the report. “It’s just not contributing to this event.”
The assessment found that the probability of a drought as severe as this one has been four times greater in last decade than 20 year before. “We think due to natural variability,” Hoerling says.
I pressed to see whether climate change may have had any role in increasing the odds of this event happening. Arun Kumar, development branch chief of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, and a co-author of the report, responded: “You may be right that climate change is increasing the risk,” he said. But whatever the cause, even with the fourfold increase in risk that the researchers found, “it’s still very low probability . . . So instead of a one in a thousand chance, maybe it’s one in 250,” Kumar says. “That’s still very unlikely.”
Most important, focusing on a factor that may have increased the risk by a tiny amount doesn’t help in forecasting what might happen, say, this coming summer. That’s because the research suggests factors other than human-caused climate change have played a much bigger role. And those are the ones that researchers need to understand the most in order to predict the next flash drought in advance.
I may supplement this post with more information and graphics later. But I wanted to get this out there quickly.
The updates start here:
This video from NOAA shows the evolution of the drought starting in early 2012:
In assessing the causes of the drought, the researchers used a number of tools, including computer model simulations. The models were fed the actual, observed sea surface temperatures, the atmosphere’s content of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and the changing state of sea ice cover, starting in 1979 and ending in 2012. All of these factors could have influenced the development of the 2012 drought. So the idea was to use the modeling to see whether one or more of these factors might yield something that looked like what actually happened.
As it turned out, cycles of sea surface temperature, such as El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific, did not seem to have a significant impact on development of the drought. And neither did the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, or changes in sea ice extent.
So the end, it was just “one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years,” Hoerling said — the result of weather factors that could not have been predicted.
But what about the very high U.S. temperatures in 2012? In fact, the year was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States. Might this factor have contributed to the drought?
Speaking during the teleconference, Richard Pulwarty, Director of the National Integrated Drought Information System, noted that climate models do indeed show an increased risk of high temperatures from overall global warming, and “there’s no reason to think that this is not happening in the climate system of United States.” But it turns out that the dominant control over summer temperatures in the Great Plains is the amount of precipitation that falls.
“When it is dry, it gets very hot,” Pulwarty said. And this effect is so potent that it may mask any contribution from human-caused global warming. “It’s still there, but it’s not so easy to see. It’s like looking for a tree within a forest of natural variability.”
Hoerling also pointed out that summers in the Great Plains have actually been relatively cool and wet in recent years — to the extent that the region has been described as a “warming hole”.
“The classic features of hotter summers have not yet materialized in this warming hole region,” he said.
At least one climate researcher is taking exception to the conclusions reached in the report. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research told Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press that the researchers failed to take into consideration other climate-change-related factors that could have played a role. “This was natural variability exacerbated by global warming,” Trenberth said. | <urn:uuid:23c8f7f2-fe79-43ee-9c38-140438b6a0d3> | {
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An Intelligent Person's Guide to Education Hardback
by Tony Little
Tony Little is The Head Master of Eton. One of the most progressive and imaginative people in British education today he has hitherto kept a low profile.
This book, published to coincide with his retirement, sets out his educational fundamentals.
There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year GCSE and A Level pupils post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades.
Yet business leaders and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for purpose.
Far from being locked in an ivory tower, a bastion of privilege, Mr Little has used his time as a teacher and headmaster to get to grips with fundamental questions concerning education.
He wants to produce people fit to work in the modern world.
How do children absorb information? What kind of people does society need? What is education for? Not only is the author one of the great reforming headmasters of our time but he has planted Academies in the East end of London, founded a state boarding school near Windsor and yet is a passionate advocate of single sex schools. This book is not a text book for colleges of education - it is a book to enlighten the teaching profession and just as much for anxious parents.
The book is simply arranged under topics such as authority, expectations, progress, self-confidence, sex, crises and creativity.
Tony Little thinks it is time to ask some fundamental questions, and to make brave decisions about how we make our schools and our schoolchildren fit for purpose.
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 288 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication Date: 16/07/2015
- Category: Educational strategies & policy
- ISBN: 9781472913111
- Paperback from £10.65
- EPUB from £10.44
- PDF from £10.44 | <urn:uuid:e230221c-f47f-4bcd-901a-4398d9a8e8cf> | {
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I wrote earlier about the powerful paintings in this museum depicting Germany between the wars. Today let's step back in time and look at some Expressionist art, mainly from before the war. This was a pivotal time -- artists had abandoned the classical requirements that paintings should represent reality in terms of color, and that sizes and shapes should obey the rules of perspective. But they still were drawing recognizable objects. Within a year of this first painting, Kandinsky would blaze the trail into abstraction.
I am a big fan of still lifes, so took a lot of pictures of them.
Oskar Kokoschka, Steilleben mit Ananas (Still Life with Pineapples), 1909 | <urn:uuid:3200e071-229b-47ce-9515-e8a363e3fe48> | {
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TUESDAY, May 28, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Decreases in ambient nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are associated with lower asthma incidence in children, according to a study published in the May 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Erika Garcia, Ph.D., from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues examined whether reducing regional air pollutants was associated with a lower incidence of childhood asthma in a multilevel longitudinal cohort drawn from three waves of the Southern California Children’s Health Study. Each cohort was followed for eight years. Data were included for 4,140 children with no history of asthma.
The researchers identified 525 incident asthma cases. For nitrogen dioxide, the incidence rate ratio (IRR) for asthma was 0.80 for a median reduction of 4.3 parts per billion. The absolute incidence rate decrease was 0.83 cases per 100 person-years. For a median reduction of 8.1 µg/m² in PM2.5, the IRR for asthma was 0.81, with an absolute incident rate decrease of 1.53 cases per 100 person-years. No statistically significant associations were seen for ozone or PM10.
“This study also adds to the urgency of controlling ambient air pollution to benefit the next generation, and makes recent efforts to discredit and ignore evidence on health effects of ambient pollution even more concerning,” write the authors of an accompanying editorial.
Copyright © 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:67f4af48-b963-4582-92c7-0aebb9fab215> | {
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Want to encourage learning right from the start? Here’s what to include in your baby’s nursery design—and what to keep out.
You can surround your baby with learning opportunities before he’s even born. It’s all in the nursery design. Here’s how to keep your plan smart.
Design Without Clutter
When considering nursery room ideas, is there such a thing as too much decor? Perhaps. If the room is too chaotic—too many posters, toys, decals—it could feel overwhelming. Too much stimulation may make it difficult for your little one to focus and learn effectively from his environment. Choose a main point of interest instead of busyness everywhere. Use baskets to hide toys and make sure that sight‐and‐sound toys can be turned off or put away for bedtime.
Choose Smart Colors
You may be tempted to bring in lots of pastel blues or pinks to your nursery room ideas, but keep in mind that research has shown that babies prefer to look at high‐contrast patterns. What is the highest possible contrast to the eye? Black and white. These shades are the most visible and most attractive to young infants. So if you’re going to do an animal-themed nursery, pick animals such as zebras, penguins, or cows to attract your baby’s attention. At about 4 months old, your baby begins to visually distinguish the full range of primary colors. (Blue and red seem to be favorites.)
Make Room for Music
Music is amazing support for so much development in your child. For example, research has shown that listening to music can promote calmness in premature babies. So what kind of music should you play in your child’s nursery? Music can be a unique way for a baby to connect to his roots—a Yiddish or Irish lullaby, or an African‐American folk song—which can ultimately result in him feeling safe and secure. Also, playing a specific song each night before bed teaches your infant to connect this song with bedtime and creates a routine. As your baby grows, songs can teach little ones letter and number sequences and explain how things work.
Bring In Books
Research has shown that reading to infants supports language skills. What kinds of books should you put in your child’s nursery? Picture books are great because looking at different images helps your child develop picture recognition, an important skill that leads to the understanding that pictures and words actually mean something. Another good option: Books showing different babies doing things—many infants like to look at other little ones. | <urn:uuid:a7f52074-ada1-4a7a-9041-722e7d95959c> | {
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Definition of muscat
1 : muscatel
2 : any of several cultivated grapes used in making wine and raisins
Origin and Etymology of muscat
Medieval French, from Old Occitan, from muscat musky, from musc musk, from Late Latin muscus — more at musk
First Known Use: 1548
Definition of Muscat
town and port on the Gulf of Oman population 24,893 ◆Muscat is the capital of Oman.
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up muscat? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:b34568da-2e7f-408c-855a-8625e4a3ce8c> | {
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"A Psychedelic Anti-Drug Film From 1971 That Made Drugs Look Pretty Fun"
In this film made by the National Institute of Mental Health in 1971 and meant for use with 8- to 10-year-old students, Alice takes a psychedelic trip through an animated Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll’s story was a staple of drug culture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Trying to speak to a young audience, people making anti-drug propaganda repurposed the tale to their own ends.
In a famous example, Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit”—a celebration of the mind-bending properties of “feeding your head”—was the inspiration for the “anonymous” book Go Ask Alice. This narrative, written in journal form, depicted the downward slide of a supposedly “real” teenage girl who goes from straight-laced goody-two-shoes to drug casualty in record time. Go Ask Alice came out in March 1971—the same year that this movie was produced.
In the beginning of this film, Alice falls into a room full of cigarette machines, medicine cabinets, marijuana leaves, and bongs. She soon has a series of disturbing encounters.
Alice comes upon the Mock Turtle smoking marijuana from a hookah; the King of Hearts, who offers her heroin; and the March Hare, a tweaker who beats his foot on the ground constantly: “You oughta have some pep pills! Uppers! Amphetamines! Speed! You feel super good.”
The Alice character is meant to be the voice of reason, lecturing the creatures: “You live in this beautiful place. It could be wonderland! And all you do is … take drugs!” But the swirling animation is so fun, it’s hard to believe that a young viewer would pay her arguments any mind.
Indeed, the National Archives’ blog Media Matters tracked down a review of the film in a 1972 publication of the National Coordinating Council on Drug Education. The NCCDE wrote that “Curious Alice” was of dubious value in the classroom, noting that viewers “may be intrigued by the fantasy world of drugs” after watching it. | <urn:uuid:210d05af-3c8a-4157-b1ff-37af69ca50b4> | {
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For many, the allure of digitalization has become too lucrative to resist. Right from carrying digital money to shopping online, calling through VOIP and constantly being online all the time, living without digitalization has become next to impossible.
Therefore, in order to become an outstanding IT professional in this digital world, we may require more skills than before. In the following post, I have pointed out few skills that are and will remain high in demand in the market.
AI/Machine Learning Researcher
Machine language has always been there around but never been in the hype. Whether it is algorithms or research improvements, excelling in this kind of tech skills will always be in demand.
I would personally like to recommend that a candidate needs to either have a good experience or must hold a Ph.D. degree in the same domain.
AI software developer
Artificial Intelligence has taken off in a big way. For those who have no idea regarding this concept, it is simply referred to developing the systems and infrastructure that can apply machine learning to an input data set.
Much like any other software development position, AI software developer requires attaining a few specialized skills and adequate knowledge of mathematics as well as machine language.
Human Interaction Designer
This is a process in which designers focus on creating engaging web interfaces with loyal and well-thought-out behavior and actions. As the name itself implies, a successful interactive design is made by using both technologies as well as principles of good communication to create desired user experiences.
In today’s fast-paced world, it is very important to create the illustrations which are more near to the real stuff. In case, if you are someone who carries good interest in the field of designing and has adequate knowledge of the tools, you can simply opt for this field.
Machine learning applier
Again if we go by the name, it involves applying your knowledge of machine learning or AI framework to a specific problem in the different domains. For instance, applying machine learning to gesture recognition, ad analysis or fraud detection.
This involves great usage of artificial intelligence in our day to day lives. If there is a situation where you are required to work in the target area, you can do this with a little guidance from someone familiar with the framework you want to use.
This mostly refers to developers who are developing end-to-end applications from front end to business logic to back end. This means the designing and development of the application and writing the inner logic to integrate the front end with the back end.
Being a full stack developer, one doesn’t need to master in all the areas and technologies. All you need to do is simply be comfortable working with those technologies, plus be capable enough to integrate and modify the existing code. This skill is quite in demand.
People Skills Manager
Last but certainly not the least, the people skill is base on which everything else is build up. I am trying to say in regards to people management, coordinating with others, collaboration, etc.
Your buyers, your suppliers, your customers, your employees, everyone around you is getting impacted by your success and failure in the market. So make sure to attain the right people skills.
Author bio: Rakesh Patel is Marketing Manager at eTatvaSoft – laravel development company in India. He writes about Technology Trends, Leadership and many more things about IT services and enabled people to learn about new technologies through his online contribution. | <urn:uuid:739fb1cc-e75b-4aef-9b07-467b9ea5722f> | {
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Neuromuscular Therapy is a form of deep tissue treatment that involves charting the posture of the body standing, lying down, and sitting and then determining from that chart where and how to treat dysfunction. Much of the focus of treatment in on pressure points; specifically, those involving muscles where the ends of the muscles are chronically held close together. The charting approach I use is called Posturology. When specific pressure points are desensitized or released, they relieve localized and/or referred pain and allow for better alignment across the body.
Neuromuscular Therapy works with five types of imbalance that occur within the body.
- Ischemia: Lack of blood supply to soft tissue
- Trigger Points: Specific pressure points in muscle tissue that refer pain to other parts of the body
- Nerve Compression or Entrapment: Pressure on a nerve by soft tissue, cartilage, or bone
- Postural Distortion: Imbalance of the muscular system resulting from the movement of the body off the longitudinal and horizontal planes
- Biomechanical Dysfunction: Imbalance of the musculoskeletal system and the incorrect movement patterns that go with it
I worked part-time for a clinically oriented massage establishment called New Directions Health & Bodywork Professionals between May of 2004 and October of 2008. They place a strong focus on Neuromuscular and CranioSacral Therapy. Working there has been a driving force for me to get to know both of these modalities. | <urn:uuid:e1410d71-ccb4-4a32-a51e-cfaa8dedff33> | {
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Pound Infection With a Potato?
WebMD News Archive
May 22, 2000 (Los Angeles) -- Modern medicine has successfully waged a war against infection with antibiotics. Now, there's growing concern that the widespread use of these powerful drugs is creating bacteria that are resistant to them. But a new study presented here at a microbiology meeting shows that there may be a kinder, gentler way to stop infection that won't create the headaches of antibiotic resistance. Instead of killing the bacteria, the new strategy may be to just render them unable to cause infection. What revolutionary weapon will bring infection to its knees? The potato.
The potato was used as a natural remedy in traditional medicine for centuries before it was eaten as a food. A substance in the common potato, the investigators found, prevents invading bacteria from latching onto vulnerable cells in the human body.
"Without attachment [to human cells], 99% of infections can't [occur], " Marjorie Kelly Cowan, PhD, tells WebMD. She explains that a protein on the surface of the bacteria attaches to a sugar on the surface of the body cell like a key in a lock. Once attached, the bacteria invade the cell and infection begins. But if that lock can be blocked by another substance or the shape of the lock can be changed in some way, the key won't fit. The bacteria can't attach to the cell, and eventually the microorganism is carried out of the body without causing harm.
Other studies have found that certain naturally occurring chemicals can inhibit this attachment, so Cowan, an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio, and her student Madeline Gassert, concocted extracts of different parts of the vegetable. They discovered that a substance in the potato did just that -- it prevented the bacteria from taking hold of cells.
The extract inhibited the attachment of bacteria normally found in the mouth -- one associated with cavities -- to the surfaces of teeth. The extract also inhibited the adhesion of another bacteria, E. coli, which can cause urinary tract infection, says Cowan.
Cowan and her colleagues also found that the active component in the potato is a substance that is common in fruits and vegetables and is the chemical that causes them to turn brown as they age. They are now looking at ways to use this natural defense system as a way to fight infections, says Cowan.
One of the main purposes of this study, says Cowan, is to encourage scientists looking into the anti-infection activity of plants to test them for their ability to block attachment of bacteria to cells. Now, plants are primarily tested for their ability to kill bacteria. If there is a kinder, gentler way to fight infection, it may be missed if those testing the plant aren't looking for it.
In India, potato skins are still commonly used to treat burns, Jacob Dankert, MD, PhD, tells WebMD. He was not involved in Cowan's study, but says he finds it very important and a possible explanation for why the traditional use of potato skins decreases the rate of infection following burns and reduces scaring.
"Everybody is trying to prevent adhesion as the first step in the development of infection disease," says Dankert, chairman of medical microbiology and infectious disease at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. "Antibiotics are one approach, but it's dangerous because resistance is developing." | <urn:uuid:3e54cec8-fd45-458c-806a-aba2d44b8a1d> | {
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- Ava Gardner Museum closes due to flood damage
- Hurricanes open with 3-0 win over rebuilding Red Wings
- How Flood Projects Can Do More Than Just Prevent Floods (Jan. 14, 2021)
- Wildfires produced up to half of pollution in US West, according to study
- Tornado causes damage, displaces families in Houston suburb
Scientists are warning that historic flooding could soon deluge parts of several Southern states along the lower Mississippi River, where floodwaters could persist for several weeks.
The flood threat in the South will be discussed Thursday, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration releases its 2019 spring outlook. Experts plan a briefing on their flood forecast at the National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Thursday’s report is aimed at helping emergency managers and other safety officials to prepare for flooding.
Flooding in Southern states this spring will be “potentially historic,” NOAA said in an advisory.
Rapidly melting snow in the upper Midwest is contributing to flooding that will eventually make its way downstream to the Gulf Coast, forecasters have said.
The expected surge of water from the north is unwelcome news in parts of Mississippi. In the western part of that state, the Mississippi River is already swollen and has been flooding some communities unprotected by levees since last month.
One Mississippi region protected by levees is also flooding. That’s because smaller rivers can’t drain into the Mississippi River as normal because a floodgate that protects the region from even worse flooding by the big river has been closed since Feb. 15.
Around Rolling Fork, Mississippi, townspeople first noticed water rising from swamps near the Mississippi River in late February. The water eventually invaded some homes in that community, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Vicksburg.
Major flooding is already occurring this week on the Mississippi River near several Southern cities including Arkansas City, Arkansas; Natchez, Mississippi; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to river gauges and data from NOAA.
Associated Press Writer Jeff Amy in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed. | <urn:uuid:cfd25dd8-342e-4ea9-91bd-fad060f391c6> | {
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This Writing Unit encompasses the Common Core Standards in:
Writing, Language and Speaking and Listening.
Your students will conduct interviews with classmates and write articles about their peers. Students will conduct interviews with teachers/principal. Students will be able to create additional parts of a newspaper in this unit and understand The jobs to create a newspaper.
Included in this download:
p. 2 Introduction and recommendations
p. 3-6 Interview pages
p. 7 How to use the templates
p. 8-27 Templates for News articles, Newspaper Covers, Teacher Feature, Principal Page,Sports page, Weather Forecast, Funny Pages, Word Search, and boy and girl Newspaper badges to wear when going out on interviews.
Templates can also be used for Book Reports/Opinion pieces or Book Reviews/ Articles on school wide events.
Look for more ideas at my blog: Tales of a First Grade Teacher | <urn:uuid:91744ab9-d916-4d55-96e9-9fbd25f6663f> | {
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User data is collected from you whenever you visit this site. To find out how the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) handles your data and the purpose of processing your data please refer to our statement on data protection.
Professor Hannappel, you are doing research on artificial photosynthesis. What is that about?
We are trying to copy the most significant, famous and vital process for wildlife on Earth, by which I mean the extremely successful process of photosynthesis. Over the course of billions of years, nature developed a sophisticated mechanism for turning sunlight into chemical energy. Sunlight is in abundant supply for free. In a first step, water is broken down into its components hydrogen and oxygen. In a second step, the plant uses the hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce a high-quality fuel. Our aim in artificial photosynthesis is to manufacture an artificial leaf. Dipped into water, this leaf will generate a fuel when exposed to sunlight without being linked to the outside world.
What must happen to ensure that this process can be applied in practice?
A general proof of feasibility has already been furnished and some of the results have been very encouraging. Of course, competitiveness is very important in this endeavor. Parameters such as efficiency, material, production costs and robustness play a major role. Research and development are indispensable for mastering this extremely complex challenge. Nobel prize-winning topics such as catalysis and optoelectronics are very important from a scientific perspective. Interfaces like the liquid-cell interface are of crucial significance. As Herbert Krömer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000, put it: "The interface is the device."
Your BMBF-funded project DEPECOR deals with precisely these interfaces. What is the project about?
Our project is about the solid-liquid interface and catalysis. Plants achieve a photosynthesis efficiency of around one percent. We can do much better in principle, using so-called semiconductor materials. This enables us to successively exploit sunlight in the way nature does – first its high-energy blue part, and then the low-energy red and infrared parts. Such a configuration is called tandem or multi-absorber set-up, which you need to ensure the efficiency of the fundamental process of water decomposition. Such a set-up can also be used to split carbon dioxide into its components. Our DEPECOR project pursues a systemic approach, using highly efficient solar sub-cells that are already common in photovoltaics.
That means you are trying to outwit nature. How much better do you want to become?
Photovoltaics has taught us that we cannot be competitive with low, solar-to-fuel efficiency. We must by no means remain under 10%. Ideally we should reach or even surpass an efficiency level of 20%. We have already succeeded in doing so in hydrogen generation, where we have cooperated with our partners at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) in the United States to develop an artificial leaf and achieved a world record efficiency of 19.3%. We are thus in a good position, but we can and must do even better.
On 24-26 June 2020, the German Federal Research Ministry (BMBF) and the US Department of Energy (DoE) are co-hosting a virtual workshop to strengthen US-German cooperation in the field of artificial photosynthesis. At the invitation of BMBF and DoE, fifteen high-level researchers from each of the two countries will participate to develop a common vision for artificial photosynthesis. The scientific co-chairs are Professor Thomas Hannappel of TU Ilmenau and Dr. Frances Houle from the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) in Berkeley, CA. The workshop will be opened by Volker Rieke, Director-General "Provision for the Future – Basic Research and Research for Sustainable Development" at BMBF, and Dr. Harriet Kung, Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.
Who is involved in the project?
We are working with excellent partners, including TU Ilmenau, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Technical University of Munich and AZUR SPACE Solar Power GmbH as a partner from industry. The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) is involved as our US partner and there are further associated partners like BASF, Evonik and EPFL Lausanne.
Under DEPECOR you are cooperating with US researchers just as you did for your world record. What is this cooperation expected to deliver?
Artificial photosynthesis requires research and development which is highly ambitious, complex and interdisciplinary. We are pooling all the available capabilities and expertise for this purpose. In a determined joint effort, we have successfully developed an artificial leaf which is currently the best of its kind in the world. We want to build on this success story and in this way benefit from our different strengths, potential and experience.
The BMBF and US DoE are co-hosting a virtual workshop on artificial photosynthesis on 24-26 June. What is the objective of this event?
We want to work out a research and development strategy as a basis for jointly addressing, and eventually solving, major issues of artificial photosynthesis. To achieve this, we need all the expertise and know-how from Germany and the United States. During the workshop, we will be discussing vital issues and identify complementary strengths. Excellent work has been done in Germany on topics such as crystal growth and solar energy conversion. Our US partners have achieved outstanding results in fields such as system architecture and prototype development.
What are you actually doing at the workshop?
The overall aim is to develop an integrated multifaceted component. We can significantly complement each other's efforts and improve our performance. We will address the variety of topics, jointly considering, discussing and elaborating them in small groups. That is, we are pursuing the ambitious goal of developing something in a truly joint effort.
What will be done to follow up on the workshop?
We must keep working in this field in a persistent long-term approach. There is good reason for considering this to be the holy grail of electrochemistry, which can provide sustainable solutions for global problems such as energy supply, storage and mobility. Of course, we also want to achieve milestones that are important for related technologies. These include competitive tandem solar cells, which are the focus of current research efforts. Efficient and stable catalytic processes that can be used in alternative hydrogen generation, the so-called Power-to-X technology, are another example. Optoelectronics in general may benefit from semiconductor material development. We are therefore talking about a whole set of breakthrough technologies, not just a single one. Much of this is still a long way off and a lot remains to be done. But our current work takes us nearer our goal.
Thank you for the interview, Professor Hannappel.
The project entitled "DEPECOR – Direct efficient photoelectrocatalytic CO2 reduction" is part of the CO2-WIN funding measure (CO2 as a sustainable source of carbon – Pathways to industrial application). This measure of the German Federal Research Ministry supports projects which enable carbon dioxide to be used as a raw material in German industry. Twelve collaborative research and development projects are supported with a total of roughly €27 million over a period of three years. The projects started on February 1st 2020. Funding is not only provided for work on artificial photosynthesis but also for projects dealing with the mineralization and the chemical, electrochemical and biotechnological conversion of carbon dioxide. For more information about the funding measure please visit www.co2-utilization.net | <urn:uuid:2dc280ba-9803-4c9f-8311-33c5fd275fd9> | {
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A history of racism in japan
A brief history of racism in the united states racism against japanese-americans intensified like muslims after the 9/11 attacks. Japan has a dire problem it must address immediately: its embedded racism the country's society and government are permeated by a narrative that says peop. A look at the long history of asian americans and its korean immigrants faced not only racist exclusion in the united states asian americans then and now. Most of the time something that may seem racist in japan comes from the fact that racism in japan the history makes it that white people are.
Racism and the reality in japan in japan, racism tends to take racial discrimination against koreans and chinese in japan has a long history. Is japan really racist would love to see more diversity and more recognition of the presence and contributions of foreigners and minorities in japan history. A lot of people assume japan has a lot of racism and discrimination because of the homogeneity although the number of foreign residents is getting. Ethnic issues in japan communities in japan with a much shorter history concerns about deep and profound racism in japan and insufficient.
What kind of racism do white people face in japan today not the form racism takes in japan an adult would have had a long history of preparatory stages. The wartime abuse suffered by japanese-americans was a form of racism which stretched back to the earliest contact between asians early in their history. Racism in japan: a brief history of the lives of koreans living in japan - kindle edition by gerry mclellan download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc. I recently made a video about racism in japan, and am currently getting bombarded with some pretty harsh that history is still raw in japan.
This paper, which examines a growing problem of popular racism in japan against ethnic minorities, especially koreans, is critical of the way in which it is often. Fashion is fun, except when it's cruel and intolerant take a look at some of the industry's lowest points.
While the united states was still struggling to emerge from the great depression at the end of the 1930s, and would do so partly because of the war, japan had emerged. Boards other categories international racism in japan (im a history graduate and have done much japanese racism is very benign compared to. Racism in buddhism it will be black scholars who will challenge many of these racist japanese black history of buddhism is emerging all over the internet and.
A history of racism in japan
Racism and inferiority complex in japan’s current foreign policy towards china japanese racism for millennia in east asian history, japan had been a. The long, tangled history of japan's issues with race and racism come out in its tolerance of blackface. A brilliant and highly original website it offers a splendid, new and stimulating way of exploring the most terrible war in history professor sir ian kershaw.
- Wsu professor thomas heuterman recently completed a book detailing pre- world war ii history of japanese-americans in the yakima valley photo by.
- Racism is the belief that some races are better than others racism has existed throughout human history it has influenced wars japan needed more land.
- Japan » guide » travel safety in japan » racism in japan what you need to know about racism in japan serious racism in japan and history japanese.
- Historically, japan is no stranger to blacks, nor to blackface have they ever being denied to vote in japanese history when we think about racism in us.
- You are not told truths about racist white history which brings me to 'medamasensei' and a youtube clip he posted a few months back entitled racism in japan.
Report abuse home nonfiction academic racism in japan racism in japan japan firsthand however, japan has a history racism seeming to be rampant in. Immigration, racism and the one of the many examples in american history of a failure to respect the story of japanese internment is nothing new. A decade-by-decade history of race and racism in america, compiled by a national book award winner. History, politics, arts, science & more: the canadian encyclopedia is your reference on canada articles, timelines & resources for teachers, students & public. Japanese americans, native the effects of racism during world war ii than to read the recollections of those who experienced this period in history. How a japanese american burst japan's bubble on racism pri's the world despite okinawa's history, dezaki’s students viewed racism as an american problem. | <urn:uuid:47948db0-7f9f-40b6-8580-13477d727e0d> | {
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Modi govt exploring law on banning beef and cow slaughterMonday, February 20, 2017
New Delhi, Jan. 3 -- Setting the ball rolling for a possible law banning beef and cow slaughter, the Union environment ministry has asked the agriculture ministry to explore the option of enacting a national law to prohibit slaughtering of cow, selling of beef or beef products. Anil Madhav Dave-led ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) sent a letter to this effect to the Union agriculture ministry's Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (Cattle Division) on 23 December. Mint has reviewed a copy of the letter. It is not the first instance when protection of cow, considered holy by a section of Hindus, is in news. Since May 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power, there have been several occasions when the issue of cow protection has been in the limelight. Last year, the BJP-led Haryana government banned the sale of beef in any form and proposed imprisonment of 10 years for cow slaughter. Maharashtra, another BJP-ruled state, also banned the sale and consumption of beef and imposed a five-year jail term for cow slaughter in 2015. However, in 2016 the Bombay High Court struck down some sections of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act which criminalized possession of beef, saying that they infringed upon a person's right to privacy. In September 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was killed by a mob in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, on the suspicion that his family stored and consumed beef at home. The MoEFCC letter seems to be in response to a July 2016 judgment by the Himachal Pradesh High Court asking the Central government to, "enact the law prohibiting slaughtering of cow/calf, import or export of cow/calf, selling of beef or beef products, in its wisdom, at national level". "In view of the fact that slaughtering of cow/calf, import or export of cow/calf, selling of beef or beef products and related matters fall under the administration of Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (cattle division), it is required that necessary action in the matter may kindly be taken," said the MoEFCC letter. The Central government, during the hearing of the case, had told the Himachal Pradesh high court that the "subject falls within entry No. 15 of the State List" and that only five states and one Union territory have no legislation on the subject. "However, Union of India has not taken into consideration entry No. 17 and 17B of the Concurrent List. It is open for the Union of India to enact law at the national level prohibiting slaughtering of cow/calf, import or export of cow/calf, selling of beef or beef products under entry No. 17 of the Concurrent List. Accordingly, the directions issued by this Court on 14.10.2015 to Union of India to enact law prohibiting slaughtering of cow/calf, import or export of cow/calf, selling of beef or beef products, at the national level, are reiterated. The necessary steps be taken within six months from today," the court had noted. BJP, in its manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, too, had promised to take steps for cow protection. "In view of the contribution of cow and its progeny to agriculture, socio-economic and cultural life of our country, the Department of Animal Husbandry will be suitably strengthened and empowered for the protection and promotion of cow and its progeny. Necessary legal framework will be created to protect and promote cow and its progeny," the manifesto had promised. Meanwhile, there have been demands to declare cow as India's national animal replacing tiger. The home ministry has discussed ways to check cattle (mainly cows) smuggling to Bangladesh . The environment ministry has also asked the Animal Welfare Board of India to assess the cost of building new cow shelters and maintain existing ones to house stray cattle across India. | <urn:uuid:b51fc8f5-404c-4410-bf58-2bf62720d0b0> | {
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- Include cloth face coverings on school supply lists and provide cloth face coverings as needed to students, teachers, staff, or visitors who do not have them available.
- Ensure that all students and staff are aware that cloth face coverings should not be worn if they are wet. A wet cloth face covering may make it difficult to breathe.
- Ensure that all students and staff are aware that they should never share or swap cloth face coverings.
- Students’ cloth face coverings should be clearly identified with their names or initials, to avoid confusion or swapping. Students’ face coverings may also be labeled to indicate top/bottom and front/back.
- Cloth face coverings should be stored in a space designated for each student that is separate from others when not being worn (e.g., in individually labeled containers or bags, personal lockers, or cubbies).
For eight more recommendations and complete CDC guidance for schools as they re-open visit Schools and Childcare Programs – Plan, Prepare, and Respond
Follow this link for our wide selection of School Health & Safety Products | <urn:uuid:fa88f255-e02b-4a0e-b334-09041f0bd3de> | {
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Four Great Chroniclers of London who all lived in the east side of the City
The History of the Community
Portsoken sits just outside the city wall, adjacent to Aldgate and on a busy traffic route. In Roman times a busy route from the Roman capital of Colchester. Chaucer observed the comings and goings of travellers, itinerant traders, the young and the hopeful migrants seeking a better life in the city. The walls were built as a defence and the gates as a control point that protected the trade inside the city. Portsoken was the home of squatters, who lived in poor ramshackled dwellings where they could serve the city, live of it’s crumbs and wait for an opportunity to improve themselves. Houndsditch, that runs through Portsoken, was the main city dump, invisible to the city workers. Portsoken became the home of immigrants fleeing persecution, the Jews and Hugenots, at first only tolerated if they stayed outside, but later they and other immigrants and migrants came to be the influential definers of todays city. Portsoken remains a place of hope and sanctuary.
The residents of the city of London are the remaining vestige of humanity’s first world city, a once seething and constantly growing metropolis. Migrants and immigrants filled its neighbourhoods and gave to each one a distinctive character, which in turn changed decade by decade as new waves of both the desperate and the hopeful from Britain and across the world came to occupy the bright streets and the dingy courts of the capital. In 1674 when the city was just starting to spill beyond the confines of its square mile, the population was around half a million, today it’s little under 7,500.
Connecting the Community to its Heritage
Contemporary Portsoken residents of all cultures have recognised and related to the historic images we showed them when we consulted them about the project. But the great majority of them have little knowledge of the heritage that connects them. We want to connect people through research, preparatory workshops and facilitating individuals, families, or groups to make personal exhibitions, recordings, film, writings or ‘presentations’ relating specifically to those who create it. These exhibitions will then be shown across the wider community and adjacent neighbourhoods. These personal small projects, will finally be brought together in a collective exhibition to show that contemporary residents of all cultures have a shared heritage. The process and the final products will help people to better understand their contemporary community, learn something of their heritage, not least that everyone’s history has been and remains a vital influence on the development and future life of the city.
This project allows the residents of all cultures to discover how their roots penetrate the very foundations of the city. Virtual shoes is about people connecting, identifying and ultimately empathising with others through time and across cultures. From ‘public soundings’, which are workshops that identify and debate potent contemporary issues, we will look back in time to find events that resonate and have significance for us today. There is an organic continuity about the community and this area of London, which gives us a rich seam of connectivity to excavate.
The process will also better connect residents to the heritage sites, museums, art galleries, libraries in the city, not only to visit but use as a resourse. For the majority of residents of the two portsoken states this will be ‘first contact’.
Migration: Stories past and present of British people who migrated to the city, why they came and how they were received. Historic examples: It has been estimated that one sixth of all Englishmen became Londoners in the late 16th century.
Following the Great Fire of London hundreds fled to areas unscathed by the flames such as Aldgate and Portsoken.
Immigration: Possibly the most contentious issue of our times. Historic examples: 16th century immigration of bookbinders from the Low Countries tailors and embroiders from France, gun makers and dyers from Italy.
The Huguenots in the 16th century seeking refuge from Catholic persecution provoked a general alarm so ‘the great watch’ in the city of London was established for fear of insurrection against the ‘strangers’.
The positive contribution of Immigrants: The food, music skills, trades, talents entrepreneurial spirit on which the development of the city is now defined and on which it has always depended.
The Chroniclers of London: Whilst this project will focus on the lives of ‘ordinary people’ it will draw inspiration from 4 of the major London chroniclers each of whom, coincidentally lived in the four wards. Geoffrey Chaucer 1343-1400 (Aldgate); John Stowe 1525-1605 (Lime Street); Samuel Pepys1633- 1703 (Tower) John Strype 1643- 1737 (Portsoken). These chroniclers also demonstrate different styles: John Stowe was fanatical about accuracy and his chronicles are deemed to be reliable. Pepys writes in diary form so his writing are as a witness to events so will be sometimes dubious, apocryphal witness, and bias, nevertheless a rich and valuable testament. Chaucer was observant and interpretive, he writes of the universal, of men and women and their reactions to human situations, inspired by movement of people entering and leaving the city below his rooms in the actual Aldgate. To reflect this we would like to create a community chroniology that includes a contemporary community diary as a blog. And publish a written history of the research that went into informing the exhibitions and a play script as an interpretation of that research which has parallels and significance for a present-day audience.
What we will do
We want to explore and present these themes in four ways
Portsoken in Camera: A Street Tour of historic photographs displayed at external sites as close as possible to the point of view of the photographer.
Portsoken Voices: Recorded interviews and conversations between people who know each other.
Exhibitions in a Suitcase: A series of personally made exhibitions in a suitcase that reflect the history and lives of the individuals who make it. Starting with exhibitions in small spaces the number of suitcases will grow over the year and culminate in a major exhibition that brings all the elements from the ‘smaller projects together.
Chronicles: On line access to the exhibitions, local history and it’s relation to contemporary life, and a play script that interprets the history to give it significance for a contemporary audience. | <urn:uuid:3cd9235d-168f-41f6-9388-da66012300c3> | {
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Download 11.44 Kb.
By: Ellyn Will
Is a disorder that occurs during the teenage years, and involves ongoing sadness, discouragement, loss of self-worth, and loss of interest in usual activities.
It Is the most common of all psychological problems among adolescents
Very common and affects as many as 1 in 8 people in their teen years.
Affects people of every color, race, economic status, or age
Signs and Symptoms | <urn:uuid:f6f34720-5e49-47d9-9b6e-12376486b13d> | {
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New research into positive social connections could help drug and alcohol addicts stay sober and change the way we treat addiction
Alcoholism and drug addiction are often intractable illnesses. Many addicts and alcoholics relapse within 6-12 months of treatments that can include detoxification, drug therapy, behavioural therapy, and group counselling.
But there might be a secret weapon in the fight against addiction: helping people.
While other researchers look for ways to improve prescription drug regimens or talk therapies, Maria Pagano of Case Western University has focused her attention on the addict’s social connections. In studies spanning over a decade, she and her colleagues have shown that having a supportive network, reducing isolation, decreasing social anxiety, and especially helping others can increase the chances of staying sober by up to 50 per cent.
Her findings suggest that addiction should not be characterised solely as a failure of individual willpower, but must be viewed through the lens of positive social connection. If she is right, her research could lead to profound changes in how we treat addiction.
The link between addiction and social anxiety
As Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA) understands, social networks play an important role in recovery. In one 2012 study, Pagano and her colleagues found that having a network of people who support one’s abstinence can significantly impact an addict’s ability to stay sober up to three years later.
“If your friends are drinking and drugging, it’s very hard to maintain sobriety. It’s very easy to rationalise and say to yourself, ‘I can have a little bit,’” says Pagano.
But finding a positive social network when you’re an addict is not that easy to do, she says. Many addicts report having social anxiety – a feeling that one is on stage and not approved of by those around them. In fact, social anxiety often leads one to try drugs or alcohol in the first place, since people think intoxicants act as social lubricants. But using drugs for anxiety control can lead to dependence and can easily get out of control, ruining one’s health, relationships, and work life.
It’s the kind of isolation where nobody knows who you really are – the parts of you that are hard to access: your hopes, dreams, goals, disappointments
Ironically, almost all treatment programs for addiction require group activities of some kind, which leads to a dilemma for those with social anxiety, says Pagano: They may be loath to participate in group activities, yet group activities are important to healing.
In a recent study in which she tested this theory, she found that many of her participants – adolescents in treatment for addiction, ages 14-18 – had a deep fear of being scrutinized in social situations, while 15 per cent met the diagnostic criteria for a social anxiety disorder (or SAD). While her results showed that levels of participation in a 12-step programme did not differ significantly between those with an SAD diagnosis and those without one, one thing did make a difference: The adolescents with SAD who actively participated in helping had a significantly reduced risk of relapse or incarceration in the six months after their treatment finished.
Why helping is key
That’s an insight backed up by Pagano’s other studies. In one 2013 study, she and her colleagues recruited 226 recovering alcoholics from nine outpatient treatment programs, and they followed these patients for 10 years while measuring alcohol consumption, AA participation levels, and self-rated thoughtfulness towards other people at different points in time. They also measured whether or not participants helped others by becoming a sponsor or by completing step 12 in AA.
By using statistical analyses, Pagano and colleagues showed that those who’d attended more AA meetings and engaged in helping stayed sober longer and reported higher interest in others up to 10 years later. Helping others had a unique effect on the outcome, suggesting that helping has a special role in recovery and should receive more attention.
“We’re doing a disservice to patients if we don’t encourage their involvement in service when we know that service is linked to good things,” says Pagano.
Helping others may have a unique impact on maintaining long-term sobriety, she says, because it appears to decrease some of the psychological markers of the disease – high levels of narcissism and entitlement – that make one prone to addiction and less likely to enter recovery in the first place. Having a chance to “get over yourself” through helping others can also lead to better interpersonal interactions, in particular with other recovering addicts, she says.
“Helping others can help you affiliate and get to know a sober network,” says Pagano. “It’s a natural way to introduce yourself and get to know people; it’s also helpful as a distraction from inner angst that’s often a part of recovery.”
It cuts the risk of relapse as well as the likelihood of going to jail post-treatment in half
When Pagano says “angst,” she’s referring to the pain caused by a sense of not belonging or of being a social misfit. Researchers measure this feeling through a construct she calls “social estrangement,” which is less about how much time people spend with others and more about how much people feel they don’t belong within a group, even if they have lots of “friends.”
“It’s the kind of isolation where nobody knows who you really are – the parts of you that are hard to access: your hopes, dreams, goals, disappointments,” she says.
In another one of her recent studies, she looked at the impact of social estrangement on addicted juveniles entering court-ordered treatment because of criminal activity. When she simply looked at outcomes for those who reported high levels of social estrangement at the beginning of their treatment, she found that they were much more likely to relapse or to commit a crime in the 12 months after treatment than those who reported less social estrangement.
However, when she factored in helping behaviour, she found that those high in estrangement were significantly less likely to be drinking or committing crimes in that same period of time if they’d engaged in giving service within AA – whether it was putting away chairs, greeting newcomers, making coffee, or sponsoring another recovering addict. This, she says, shows that helping can address a feeling of not belonging, which is particularly painful for adolescents who are highly influenced by peers.
“Getting engaged is probably not the only mechanism that helps you get socially connected, but it can help you start to affiliate,” she says. “It’s your gateway into finding your own herd, where you can be really known.”
Can helping be prescribed?
Though Pagano’s findings are promising, her research is done with naturalistic data – data collected from large populations, perhaps, but not under experimental conditions. An experiment in which helping behaviour could be prescribed to some people and not to others is perhaps the next logical step in her research.
But Pagano cautions against that plan. For one thing, AA is not a standardised treatment program, it’s a free adjunct to treatment run by non-professionals helping their peers, albeit with a fairly set protocol, where interfering with the group’s process could prove harmful. Additionally, she’s so convinced that helping others within AA is important that she wouldn’t want to deny it to any people seeking that support.
“I would never say to someone that they couldn’t participate in service, because we see it cuts the risk of relapse as well as the likelihood of going to jail post-treatment in half,” she says.
However, she thinks one way to get around these limitations would be to assign someone within AA to encourage participation in helping above and beyond how it’s usually encouraged, then compare that to regular AA involvement, something she is currently planning to do.
“I’m mapping that out right now,” she says. She plans to link newcomers to helping tasks within AA using a volunteer within AA, and then to see if that has any impact above and beyond the usual impacts of the AA process.
In the meantime, Pagano finds little reason not to encourage more helping behaviour. Since her research points toward the conclusion that helping others improves sobriety outcomes and helps decrease social anxiety, it’s pretty easy to suggest service to others earlier in the process of treatment, perhaps even during residential treatment.
“This is a window of time when patients are willing to change their behaviour or look at themselves more carefully,” says Pagano. “If they’re given a service position, they routinely show up; they’ve got a role to play. They’re not just some person hanging out in a chair, listening to the person next to them. They belong.”
First published by Greater Good.
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Remember the days when electronics and gadgets were too complicated for kids? Or when kids actually loved playing outside instead of simply staying at home? Well, times have changed. Today, it’s pretty common for kids to lounge at home and dedicate their afternoons to playing mobile games on a smartphone or tablet. At first, it may seem totally counterproductive to their growth, especially in regard to social skills. But if you look at it from another angle, games can be used as another medium for education (see Minecraft: Education Edition). Not as a replacement for school, but as a supplement.
This is where educational mobile games come in. These games vary, from teaching kids in identifying shapes and colors to pronouncing words properly. There are also those that offer puzzles to develop logical thinking and reasoning, as well as quizzes to boost general knowledge. Educational mobile games, unlike games from other genres, are simple and straightforward to develop. Here are 7 things to keep in mind if you want to develop a successful educational mobile game for kids.
1. Decide on a specific age group
This is pretty much standard when developing any mobile game, regardless of genre. You should know right from the start which specific audience you are targeting. Are you aiming for an alphabet-based game for 5-year-olds or a basic math game for 8-year-olds? This is especially important when designing the difficulty level of your game. Don’t make a game that’s meant for kids 7 years old and below, but with a difficulty curve that only kids of older age can handle. Not everyone’s born a prodigy, you know.
Knowing which age group your game is built for also helps when brainstorming for gameplay ideas. For example, if your target audience is preschoolers, then it would be wise to develop a game based on correctly identifying things like animals or maybe fruits. Or if you settled on kids aged between 8 and 10 years old, then a quiz or puzzle game should be fine.
2. Make the interface clean and large
By “large,” we mean the icons should be large and very easy for kids to see. If an icon takes up the entirety of the screen, so be it. There’s no harm in that. Kids should be able to quickly and easily input commands to advance the game; otherwise, they would just randomly bash on the damn screen until something moves on-screen. Worse, they will give up because the game is unresponsive to their input. You don’t want parents to ditch the game because it’s “unplayable” for their younglings.
The interface should be clean, too. None of those shameless advertisements and social media links. Kids will tap on them either by accident or out of curiosity. Either way, it takes them out of the game. Yes, an adult can assist every time they end up on Facebook. But wouldn’t it be less bothersome if they simply don’t end up someplace else in the first place? That way, they can play the game without interruptions.
3. Controls should be simple
In-game commands shouldn’t require too much multi-touch input or other complicated gestures. Simply stick to swiping and tapping for input. Both are easy and can be consistently performed, especially tapping which is the likeliest input kids will try by default. If your game is meant for older kids, you can include gestures like “pinching” and drag-and-drop input on the touchscreen. But do avoid scenarios where unfairly fast reflexes are required. Your game is meant to teach them educational stuff, not prepare them for button-mashing in fighting games. However, if your game is predicated on quick hand-eye coordination, just make sure the difficulty is manageable and not downright merciless.
4. Don’t be shy with visual and audio cues
This mostly applies if your game is meant for the very young ones, who are more receptive to cute little sounds and sparkly things on the screen. Make sure that whenever they do something correctly or incorrectly, the game lets them know. If you want, you can add special effects for every time they do something in the game, like a cute popping sound whenever they tap on the screen, regardless whether the input triggered something in-game or not. Anything that shows the game is “alive” and interactive, to keep their attention focused on the game.
But try not to go overboard; otherwise, the special effects might detract them from actually trying to play the game. However, there’s no harm in being a little over-the-top on visual or audio cues that kick in specifically when they accomplish something, to show them how “rewarding” it is to get things correctly. It would serve as an incentive. Because unlike adult gamers who expect extravagant rewards for completing even the simplest side-quests, kids are easier to please.
5. Allow them to learn
Your game shouldn’t usher kids from level 1 to level 50 as quickly as possible (assuming your game is level-based like most non-RPG titles these days). They should be able to process what they have just accomplished, and learn from it. Because, well, that’s what your game is supposed to do. With that said, your game should allow for a little breathing room after each completed task or level. It shouldn’t immediately start the next one. For example, if you cooked up a quiz game, add a short text explaining why an answer was correct or incorrect. You can add trivia or Did-You-Knows, too. Or if your game is color-based which require kids to pick among a selection of colors corresponding to an image shown, show other examples when they pick the correct answer.
6. Make sure you get the facts right
Your game will be about teaching kids. Now, it wouldn’t be much of an educational game if it’s teaching incorrect information, right? This is particularly important if you’re developing a quiz game. Make sure that the correct answers in your game are, well, actually correct. Double-check and then triple-check everything. And don’t simply rely on Wikipedia for your information. Fact-check using other resources, like books or educational websites. It’s pretty much impossible for you to make mistakes when it comes to basic things like letters and numbers. But do your homework on shapes, especially the uncommon ones like trapezoid or hexagon and its “gon” brethren. And most importantly, spellings. Double-check everything in the game, from the menu options down to the Game Over screen.
7. Don’t use popular cartoon characters
This last one is more about you, the developer, than your audience. Kids respond better to things they’re familiar with, things they see or encounter on a regular basis. Like, you know, Saturday morning cartoons. As tempting as it is to use recognizable characters from cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants and Adventure Time, it will bring you trouble in the future, especially if your game turns out to be a huge hit. Remember the incredibly difficult game Flappy Bird? It was an overnight sensation. However, its turn in the spotlight didn’t last long: Nintendo crashed the party over copyright issues. You know what pisses off established brands or companies? Someone making money off their intellectual properties without their permission. So save yourself the future trouble and create something original.
Again, although it’s an educational game, make sure that it’s never lacking in fun. It doesn’t have to be addicting, but at least enjoyable enough to warrant completion. It’s the same with other mobile games, really. Keep things balanced in regards to fun and learning.
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The most common form of eye cancer among kids below five years is called Retinoblastoma.
Stating that most cases of eye cancer in the country get detected at alarmingly late stages, doctors here have stressed on the importance of spreading awareness about the types and symptoms of the disease to ensure its prevention, detection and treatment.
“Eye cancer, in this part of the world, is not very frequent, but it can make one blind and turn fatal if not detected at a certain stage. Most of the times, patients come very late and the treatment becomes complicated. People should be made aware that like all body parts, the eye, too, can develop cancer. And cancer in different organs can travel to the eye,” said Bikramjit Pal, ocular oncology expert at Sankara Nethralaya.
The doctor said that specialised facilities for treating cancerous tumours of the eye as well as specialised doctors are scarce in the country. “In eastern India, there is just one such institute, while western and central India has nothing that treats eye cancer. You can count the number of medical facilities in the country that specialise in treating eye cancer. Also, there are hardly any trained ocular oncologists in the country. There are hardly 10 or 11 people in the whole of India,” he pointed out.
The most common form of eye cancer among kids below five years is called Retinoblastoma in which there can be a squint in the eye or it might have a white shade appearing inside the pupil. “Cases of Retinoblastoma can be seen in one among 20,000 kids,” Pal said. “If it is detected at an early stage, the kid and his eyesight can both be saved. But if it gets too late, the cancer can kill the eyesight and even become fatal in some cases,” he added. | <urn:uuid:3e1c9ff4-9d76-42ef-918b-eeb652212b71> | {
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Cracking Journalism’s Digital Code
Columbia Journalism School, founded a century ago to train generations of reporters, was only 7 years old when Pittsburgh’s KDKA made the first broadcast by a licensed radio station.
Its announcement that Warren Harding won the 1920 presidential election set off a cascade of changes in how news was delivered and consumed—and how it would be taught. Disruptions to the journalism business have occurred with regularity ever since. After radio came television, the death of afternoon newspapers, and the rise of cable and 24-hour television news. | <urn:uuid:d5d7f2b5-9129-42bf-9cfa-0315ccb95954> | {
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In today’s world, it will not be wrong to say that “DATA IS THE NEW OIL.” One who has the information holds the key to everything. Countries today play their diplomatic games based on the information they possess. Business runs on the prediction of the future demands which are obtained by analyzing the huge database created by the users. The introduction of Android phones, smart devices, and AI assistants are basically mining user’s information, and that information is free of cost. The new strategy is to give unlimited and free internet to the user so that his system is connected to the web for a longer duration of time and he creates more information. This information is analyzed and used for a variety of purposes. People are hired by various companies to analyze such type of data to get their shopping pattern, spending pattern and consumer’s preferences.
The entire system of generation, transportation, and processing of this humongous magnitude of information (data) rests heavily on the network which carries them. To keep this system working effectively, there should be no lags in the data carrying the network. The optical fiber network is used for the transportation of data. As we all know that the major advantages of optical fiber are high speed (it transports data at the speed of light) and high bandwidth which are the very requirements for the efficient communication system. When the data arrives at the receiving end of the network, they have to go through the electronic processors, which are actually lowering the capacity of the communication system. The incoming data which is optical in nature has to be converted into its electronic form for further processing. This puts limitations on the high speed and bandwidth provided by the optical networks. Now the electronic processors cannot process at the optical speed and bandwidth. Even if they are clocked to do, so there is an enormous amount of heat dissipation from the circuits. Since the data is huge and high speed; therefore, heat dissipation is also high, which harms the hardware once it crosses a certain threshold. To overcome this problem researchers are looking towards all-optical processing of the incoming optical signals. The idea is to develop all-optical processors which will eliminate optoelectronic conversions. This will not only increase the efficiency of the entire communication system but will also prevent the hardware damages which proves very costly. Slowly but steadily the designing of the optical circuits are being implemented. Links of the research papers on designing of optical gates are given below:
Dr. Vanya Arun,
Dept. Of Electronics & Communication Engineering,
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As an NRA and State Police certified firearms instructor a component of the courses I teach involves educating students about what kind of force is necessary for self defense, and as a member of the armed forces and veteran I have basic training in combat trauma management. The interaction of bullets and biology is known as "terminal ballistics," and is widely reported on by medical professionals, scientists, law enforcement personnel, and the military. The intended and actual effect a bullet has on the biology of a target, whether it is while hunting or in a self defense scenario, is crucial in selecting a firearm and understanding its proper employment in various scenarios, as well as treating gunshot related injuries. In this article I will try my best to highlight the key points of various studies I have read that deal with the intended and actual effects of various bullets on the human body.
When shooting for self defense it is important to understand there are three primary functions a bullet can have on a target to stop the threat. The first of these is through catastrophic damage to the central nervous system, the next is through mechanical structural damage to the body, and the final is through massive hemorrhaging and subsequent loss or diminishing of consciousness. As firearms instructors we teach to shoot to stop the threat. Through this we hope that should the presence of a gun or single gun-shot not be enough as a psychological block to stop someone from being attacked, the victim realizes that at that point they are probably going to need to cause a lot of physical damage until their life is no longer in danger.
We teach to primarily focus on shooting the center mass, or torso of a person, rather than going for other areas of the body. Under a high stress, dynamic situation, it is unlikely that one will be able to hit the smaller target that is the core of the central nervous system, contained in the head and spine. One's torso provides the largest target, and contains the majority of vital organs. In a life or death situation, especially a gun fight, every second counts. The unfortunate reality is that when stopping an aggressor, physically incapacitating them in the shortest amount of time means being able to inflict the most damage in as little time possible.
When a bullet passes through or into the human body, it creates a permanent and temporary wound cavity. The temporary wound cavity can be many times the diameter of the bullet, and in and of itself can cause extensive damage. Handguns, the primary self defense tool of Americans, use lower velocity bullets which cause a much less dramatic temporary wound cavity than a rifle. For that reason, I recommend hollow point ammunition for defensive uses such as concealed carry, as it is designed to expand which increases the amount of damage to the intended target as it passes through. Likewise, I personally use a rifle for protection of my home as the nature of the ammunition lends itself to being able to cause more damage than handgun ammunition, in addition to other benefits dealing with accuracy and repeatability of hits.
While it may seem dark, the ability to cause as much damage as possible is very important. If a person continues an attack after being shot or even under the threat of being shot, it is likely due to some sort of impaired neurological function, whether it is adrenaline or drugs. In the instance that an attacker is not reacting to pain or fear, it is very possible that they will only be stopped when physically unable to continue. Generally, shutting down neurological function or damaging nerves or the spine extensively is the fastest way to do this, but the head and spine is a small target. If massive hemorrhaging is caused, a dramatic drop in blood pressure can also cause a loss in consciousness, though this will not occur as fast as damage to the CNS. Understanding the type of bleeding associated with damaging the heart, liver, spleen, and lungs, as well as the major thoracic arteries and veins helps explain why this is such an attractive target to stopping a violent criminal, rather than the small target of the head.
Understanding the potential damage that can occur when someone is shot is equally important when treating gunshot wounds. One of the big things we are trained to look for in the military is entry and exit wounds in the chest, as a sucking chest wound, or pneumothorax, is very common in gunshot wounds to the chest. We also are trained in needle decompressions in the case of blood entering the pleural cavity, this is known as a hemothorax. Other types of expected bleeding based off various injuries sites, for example the arteries in the legs, are taught to be treated through compression and clotting compounds, as well as tourniquets. Obviously doctors who perform emergency and follow up surgeries must understand the kind of trauma to the body they can expect from gunshots from rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
There have been many books, articles, essays, and personal accounts written on the topic of bullet effects on human bodies. These studies are important as they allow for better training of military, law enforcement, and civilians, better development of firearms and ammunition, and better training of first responders as well as doctors and surgeons. This brief summary was meant only to give the most basic overview on how gunshots are intended to effect the human body, and what kind of damage and subsequent treatment can be expected. I have included many good links throughout the paper from perspectives of medical professionals, to at home tests, to sanctioned articles for and by the military. There are literally thousands of pages of information on this topic in the public domain, and I highly encourage those interested in medicine, self defense, or both to sift through.
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You’ve heard all the talk about driverless cars. Yet we’re still years away from living in a world where you can just tell your car where to go, kick back and relax with a book or your phone.
Even still, technology already plays a big role in the way we drive. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the new features that make today’s cars safer than ever. That’s especially good news considering that drivers aren’t necessarily safer these days. In fact, 2015 came with the largest increase in traffic fatalities since 1966 – 7.2 percent more in 2015 than 2014, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
So, when you’re shopping for a new (or new-to-you) car, look for one that has some or all of these vehicle safety features. They might even help you save on your car insurance!
- Forward collision warning: Sensors in the front of the vehicle will warn you of an impending collision, giving you a chance to brake or steer clear.
- Automatic emergency braking: Working with forward collision warning sensors, this will automatically apply the brakes to avoid a collision.
- Lane-departure warning: This uses cameras to keep track of your car’s position on the roadway. If you begin to drift from your lane unintentionally, an alarm notifies you.
- Lane-keeping support: Steers your vehicle back into the lane if you do begin to drift.
- Backup camera: Allows you to see behind the vehicle. These cameras, which are becoming more and more common, automatically activate when the car shifts into reverse.
- Electronic stability control: Helps you keep control in slippery conditions and on curves. According to the NHTSA, it reduces the risk of a fatal single-vehicle crash by about 50 percent and a fatal rollover by 80 percent.
- Blind-spot detection: Illuminates when another vehicle is in either blind spot.
- Adaptive headlights: Shift as you take curves to help you see better.
- Pedestrian automatic emergency braking: Alerts you if someone is in your path and automatically applies the brakes.
- Automatic crash notification: Notifies emergency responders in the event of a crash.
Finally, don’t forget the now-commonplace features, such as air bags and anti-lock brakes, as well as things that have little to do with technology but still have a big impact on safety. This can include size and weight, structure and restraint systems, and NHTSA car safety ratings. Compare cars you’re considering online with the help of NHTSA.
And, no matter how many bells and whistles your car has, remember they’re no substitute for good driving habits. You still need to buckle up, stay alert, mind the speed limit, avoid distractions, drive for the weather conditions, etc.
Happy car shopping!
Reposted with permission from the original author, Safeco Insurance®.
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Bird expert Colin Miskelly highlights some of the treasures in our egg collection, including those thought to be held only by Te Papa – as well as giant moa eggs, tiny rifleman eggs, and eggs that were acquired during dramatic events in New Zealand’s conservation history.
Digitising our egg collection
Most of the bird eggs held by Te Papa are stored in our off-display research collections. Natural environment photographer Jean-Claude Stahl has recently completed a major project to photograph at least one example of every New Zealand bird species for which we hold eggs. His spectacular images are now published on Collections Online, and (with additional data) on New Zealand Birds Online.
The project has produced data and images of the largest and smallest eggs in the collection, and also the oldest and most recent additions. We have also selected eggs that were collected by notable people, or that are associated with significant events.
Te Papa holds 3,058 bird eggs, or clutches of eggs, of which 1,924 are from New Zealand. The collection includes eggs of 204 species that breed (or have bred) in New Zealand, although for a few species the eggs that we hold were collected offshore (e.g. bird species that are more abundant in Australia than in New Zealand).
The biggest and smallest eggs
The largest egg held by Te Papa is a 240 mm x 178 mm South Island giant moa egg found at Kaikoura in the late 1850s. The smallest New Zealand bird eggs were laid by riflemen and fantails, both of which have eggs that are about 16 mm x 12.5 mm.
The largest egg laid by a living New Zealand bird in the Te Papa collection is a 134 mm x 83 mm egg of a southern brown kiwi (tokoeka), found on Stewart Island in 1969.
The largest egg laid by a flying bird was a 122 mm x 80 mm egg laid by a northern royal albatross, collected on the Chatham Islands in 1974.
The oldest and most recent eggs
The oldest collection date for a New Zealand bird egg held at Te Papa is 1852 for a stout-legged moa egg found by Walter Mantell at Awamoa, North Otago – though note that all moa eggs were laid hundreds of years before they were discovered or rediscovered.
Eggs from extinct species
The collection includes eggs of several species that are now extinct, including the:
In addition to huia, Te Papa is thought to be the only museum that holds examples of eggs of:
- Campbell Island teal
- Chatham Island taiko (Magenta petrel)
- Vanuatu petrel
- Campbell Island shag
- Bounty Island shag
- Auckland Island rail
- Auckland Island snipe
- Campbell Island snipe
- Reischek’s parakeet
- Codfish Island fernbird
- and Auckland Island pipit.
Attitudes to collecting bird eggs
Attitudes to collecting bird eggs have changed over time, and this is reflected in New Zealand legislation.
From the earliest days, if a bird species was protected in New Zealand, then its eggs were protected under the same legislation. This began with protection of introduced game birds in 1861, with selected native species added from 1865 (wild ducks and pigeons ‘indigenous to the colony’).
Nearly all native bird species and their eggs have been protected since 1907, and all but two species of native birds (spur-winged plover and southern black-backed gull) and their eggs are currently protected under the Wildlife Act.
This means that the egg collections acquired by Te Papa are either very old (mainly pre-1910), or the eggs have been collected by individuals or institutions authorised to do so.
Dramatic egg stories
Many of the eggs and clutches of eggs held by Te Papa have dramatic stories behind their collection. These include the numerous clutches of dunnock, Chatham Island warbler, and Chatham Island tomtit eggs collected by the New Zealand Wildlife Service on Mangere and Rangatira Islands in the Chatham Islands between 1980 and 1987.
The eggs were collected when the team removed host eggs to replace them with dummy eggs during the black robin cross-fostering programme. If the host pair accepted a dummy egg, they would be entrusted with an incredibly precious black robin egg. Black robins reached a low of only five individuals in 1980, but now number more than 250 birds, partly thanks to the tomtits, which proved to be the most effective foster parents. (The programme was continued for several more years by the Department of Conservation, which was created in April 1987.)
More recently, the museum acquired five clutches of New Zealand dotterel eggs from the Department of Conservation, as a result of the Rena oil spill in 2011.
The adult birds on Maketu Spit were caught and held in aviaries until Bay of Plenty beaches were cleaned up and were no longer at risk of further oil washing ashore.
These are all rare modern examples of entire clutches being collected from protected birds. Most of the additions to the Te Papa egg collection in the last 50 years have been single infertile or damaged eggs found by researchers.
Future blogs will explore some of the individuals and institutions who were major contributors to the Te Papa egg collection. | <urn:uuid:81e8ba14-eca9-4eb9-b890-53e10c421cb6> | {
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To get and maintain a healthy body you ought to connect yourself to a routine with a regular exercise schedule. If your body has the capability to do everything and enjoy doing leisure activities as well, then you are physically fit. Also, for a fit body, it is easy to take on the stress and do some work even in times that are adverse.
Physical fitness is all about the good health of the heart, muscles, lungs, and all of the body parts. The fitness of the body is based on the restrictions that are put on the body physically and what all one is able to do in a certain lifestyle, like what you eat and what your habits are.
Within this book is a little history about the components used in physical fitness. With a fit body, one can survive longer as the body has more capacity to keep and maintain the required levels of oxygen and all the nutrients that are essential for the perfect functioning of the body.
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There May Not Be "A Safe Dose for Anthrax Exposure"
The prevailing wisdom at the time of the first anthrax exposure was that one needs to inhale at least 8,000 to 10,000 spores before it become fatal. The 8,000 to 10,000 spore number came from the recommendations of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. CDC also suggests that for cutaneous anthrax, a victim need to come in contact with hundreds of spores.
Since it is highly unlikely that people can get exposed such a large number of spores by incidental contact like cross contamination from mailed letters, it was widely assumed that the danger is limited to those who have been directly exposed.
However, this theory seems to have some holes. Experts question where there is any "safe exposure limit" for anthrax.
We had been pretty well limited to our direct understanding of the effect of anthrax contamination. Till the terrorist action, most of the experience comes from the
exposure through animals.
Dr. Matthew Meselson, a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist at Harvard University argues that the threshold theory of anthrax exposure being used now by CDC and other federal health officials is based on U.S. Army studies performed decades ago on monkeys that never reached consistent results.
The range of spore doses necessary to kill half the exposed animals in those studies was from 2,000 to 50,000, varying according to how the experiments were conducted and what type of anthrax was used.
However, none of the primate studies used dried powder forms of anthrax, such as have been mailed to various destinations in the United States in recent weeks. The terrorist
manufactured anthrax is very fine and has been processed to prevent it from clustering together and dispersing harmlessly. Obviously, we are talking of a different "ball game" here than what was tested on the monkeys decades ago.
Dr. Meselson knows what he is talking about. He is the leading American expert on the only large-scale release of anthrax powder ever recorded. According to him, some who were downwind of a 1979 accident at a Russian
bio-weapons plant died after inhaling as few as nine bacteria spores.
And the studies of the accident determined that those who were exposed were still becoming ill as long as 60 days after it occurred, demonstrating the bacteria's long incubation time.
The envelope mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office on Oct. 15 contained 2 grams of pure anthrax. Two grams is just a little less than a teaspoon of granulated material. If it were pure anthrax, it would amount to about 20 billion spores,
according to Dr. David Sullivan, an anthrax expert at Johns Hopkins University.
In the April 2, 1979 accident at the Biopreparat weapons facility in Sverdlovsk, Russia, hundreds of people were exposed to high-grade anthrax powder. It sickened 88 people and killed 68. Interestingly, the Russian accident involved a total release of less than 1 gram of spores, dispersed over a distance of four kilometers!
Dr. Meselson's 1992 study determined that there was no threshold dose required to cause inhalation anthrax. This certainly is some cause for concern. It also suggests that cleanup efforts at contaminated facilities might be extremely difficult.
Bottom Line: If you suspect that you may
have come across anthrax, do not take any chances. There is nothing like
a "safe exposure" for today's fine-crafted anthrax. It could
Source: Laurie Garriett, Newsday; The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:0c6c1244-ba1c-461e-a1a6-b63d1815886c> | {
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This passage is often interpreted as a lesson in humility and the importance of having childlike faith. Jesus emphasizes the value of children and welcomes them into his presence, indicating that they hold a special place in the kingdom of God. The passage also suggests that adults can learn from children, as they embody qualities such as innocence, trust, and openness that are crucial for entering the kingdom of God.
In the culture of that time, children were not considered as important as adults and were often overlooked or dismissed. In this passage, some people bring their children to Jesus so that he may touch them and bless them. However, the disciples rebuke the people and try to send the children away, probably thinking that Jesus had more important things to do.
Jesus becomes indignant at the disciples' behavior and responds by saying, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God." Jesus' statement shows that children are important and that they have a special place in God's kingdom. By welcoming the children, Jesus shows that he values their presence and that he wants them to be included in his teachings.
Jesus then goes on to say, "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Here, Jesus is emphasizing the importance of having childlike faith. Children are often characterized by their innocence, trust, and openness, and these qualities are essential for entering the kingdom of God. Jesus is saying that in order to truly understand and accept God's teachings, we need to approach them with the same kind of humility and openness that children possess.
Finally, Jesus takes the children in his arms and blesses them, laying his hands on them. This is a symbolic gesture that shows Jesus' love and care for the children, and it also underscores the importance of children in God's eyes.
Overall, this passage highlights the value of children and the importance of having a childlike faith in order to enter the kingdom of God. It also shows Jesus' compassion and love for all people, including those who are often overlooked or dismissed.
Mark 10:13-16. They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.” He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them. | <urn:uuid:c07aaed9-bf32-4cdf-ada3-4a6d16d7cbfd> | {
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How do you imagine school? Wooden desks, never-ending lessons? Not here at the Special Olympics. At World Games, teachers decided to have a different kind of lesson. One that teaches equality and how to support and help each other.
Loud and colorful, the 4th grade of Volksschule Ramsau was a main attraction in the center of Ramsau’s, where snowshoeing and cross country skiing are taking place. “Here the students learn how to help each other, to give support to everyone. It doesn’t matter who has a handicap or doesn’t have a handicap. Everyone is equal,” said teacher Katharina Rettenbacher.
More 4th grade classes went all the way from Attnang to Schladming (almost 200km away) to support their favorite athletes in the snowboard divisioning. While the children were waiting for the athletes, they gave hugs to the mascots of Special Olympics. Then, students finally met their heroes.
Read more from International Sports Press Association (AIPS). | <urn:uuid:4dd60558-8578-4134-8090-3af7d865196b> | {
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Scientist have solved the mystery of how crested pigeons create an alarm without using their voice to prompt other birds to flee danger.
Researchers have long suspected that some pigeons raise an alarm using their wings. But new research from The Australian National University (ANU) has for the first time discovered the crested pigeon uses a modified feather to sound the alarm.
Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Trevor Murray from the ANU Research School of Biology said the modified feather, the 8th primary, which is unusually narrow, produces the high note of the alarm which prompts other pigeons to flee danger.
“The unusual feather appears not only to have evolved for sound production, but it is also necessary for other crested pigeons to treat the sound as an alarm,” said Dr Murray.
“The 8th primary feather is half the width of neighbouring feathers, which is unusual even among related species.”
Dr Murray said this non-vocal alarm was reliable and the only way it could be produced is when a pigeon flees.
“The acoustic features which identify the alarm are the result of birds trying to escape danger. They flap their wings faster and produce a faster, louder sound when fleeing,” Dr Murray said.
“Together these findings tell us that this sound is a signal, rather than a cue of danger, and it is an innately reliable one since the act of fleeing itself produces the alarm.”
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International standardized test results show Chilean reading skills are still very poor, with more than 60 percent of K-12 students failing to reach a baseline level of proficiency.
In an effort to change this, in 2012 researchers from the Faculty of Education in Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile, Pelusa Orellana and Carolina Melo, PhD, developed Dialect, a program to help assess Spanish reading skills in students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. The program consists of automated tests and teaching strategies.
Kindergarten students who used Dialect showed significant improvements from the beginning to the end of the school year in reading patterns, listening and vocabulary.
Dialect is a test automation platform accessible from any device. The tests, a central part of the program and platform, provide an instant achievement report, which contains an analysis of the student’s performances and suggestions of actions that may be taken to help them develop each skill. The student’s teacher receives the information to formulate a specific intervention plan throughout the school year. Teachers have recognized that personalized evaluations and strategies to bolster a student’s deficient areas help them make better use of teaching time.
To scale Dialect, models were implemented to adapt the test difficulty to the abilities of the students, and automatically generate individual and group reports. More than 55,000 students have used Dialect in Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Spain. As the technology is focused on the Spanish language, it has the potential to reach a much bigger market.
U ANDES’ TTO supported researchers in managing the registration of their IP rights. The TTO also created a commercial agreement with the world's leading learning assessment company, Metametrics. Through this alliance, the tests were validated, creating a high standard measurement system, Lexile, which will be used exclusively throughout Latin America. The TTO facilitated a commercial agreement with the Chilean company Colegium S.A, where the platform was developed. The project was initially financed by the Chilean state.
This story was originally published in 2020.
To see available technologies from research institutions, click here to visit the AUTM Innovation Marketplace. | <urn:uuid:328cc62b-3d94-458d-baa3-a37d39791211> | {
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Developed after contact was made with the K'Thonn Hierarchy, the Tymbrimi Missile Cruiser was a knee-jerk reaction to the initial successes of Bintari missile
weaponry against the K'Thonn. Military intelligence believed that a design built solely on consumable ammunitions would
devastate the K'Thonn and demoralize their government.
This concept, however, presented several major design problems to the Bintari R&D techs. Firstly, no ships currently in
service at the time could be retrofitted with the necassary ammunition magazines and weapons hardpoints due to both size
and hull format. The size required to accomodate the girth was too much for a smaller warship. Therefore, a
new, larger chasis was adopted for the Tymbrimi.
The other problem dealt with logistics. The Tymbrimi, if it met stiff
opposition, would require steady resupply, something that the Shantors and contracted-civilian craft could no fully fulfill. This problem was
dealt with early on during the planning stages with the parallel development of the Kaloria Missile Tender.
In the end, though, the Tymbrimi did see the light of day. The first vessel of the class left the shipyard in mid-2054 and
preceded straight into conflict, bypassing a shakedown period entirely. Early engagements in the K'Thonn System met with
success for the Tymbrimi Missile Cruiser and her large amount of escort craft, several small loyalist forces falling to them
as they cleaned up the outer sectors of the system.
After the war was over and tachyon weapons developed the Tymbrimi quickly fell into disfavor and
production was suspended to focus on the development and refit of the Beta Model Iliad.
As of 2060, only three Tymbrimi Missile Cruisers had been built with none lost in active service. No new construction is planned. | <urn:uuid:b0882057-34d1-4a35-8cc0-fda71fa1aa42> | {
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Annual energy expense for home prototype projected at $69
Photo by Beaumont Concepts
Imagine the annual energy cost for your home being only about what it costs to take a family to dinner.
A new carbon positive home in one of Australia’s first sustainable housing projects is expected to rack up just $69 in energy expenses for a year, according to the structure’s designer, architectural studio Beaumont Concepts.
The home in the coastal town of Cape Patterson in Victoria and is a prototype of the house, dubbed Core 9, is designed to provide a better housing solution that is considered cost-effective and sustainable, reports Wonderful Engineering.
Core 9 is a part of The Cape, one of Australia’s first sustainable housing projects. The development features 220 blocks of land where the residents can build a home that meets specific sustainable home design standards.
Beaumont Concepts officials said the development is a response to the effort to conserve planetary resources, meet consumer demand for sustainable homes and provide economical long-term housing solutions.
The roughly 1,400-square-foot Core 9 prototype features a modern kitchen, open-plan living and dining, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, outdoor terraces and a two-car garage. The dwelling is designed to maximize natural light with floor-to-ceiling windows.
The interior includes a concrete flooring and in-built timber furniture. The exterior features reclaimed bricks.
Construction was done with a zero-waste approach to include recycled materials and a process that produced minimal off-cuts and waste.
Core 9 also uses a solar hot water system with rainwater harvesting and solar power. The roof is fitted with a series of photovoltaic panels. | <urn:uuid:47e29e79-da49-4266-8de3-eade13f53439> | {
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The livingstone Museum and its contribution to Zambia History : 1934-2006
MetadataShow full item record
This study is an attempt to examine and illustrate the role the Livingstone Museum played in the reconstruction of Zambian history. It examines the development of the Museum from 1934 to 2006 and highlights and analyses research activities, publications and exhibitions it carried out in relation to cultural and historical heritage collected in the context of its contribution to Zambian history. In this study, I argue and demonstrate that the establishment of the Livingstone Museum, which at inception, in 1934, was called the David Livingstone Memorial Museum, resulted in a huge collection, documentation and preservation of cultural and natural heritage objects and specimens that were threatened to extinction and yet significant to the history of Zambia. It also led to the undertaking of numerous researches, publications and exhibitions by Museum researchers that provided information on the cultural and historical heritage of different ethnic groups in the country, essential in the promotion of national unity and development through ethnic diversity. Theoretically, this study underscores the role of a museum as a public institution, which provoked desire for effective learning from the past, in so doing, increasing the public's capacity for cognitive learning. It also examines the museum as a contested space in which all images were built and opinions formed thereby creating a forum for debate, discovery and an environment for questions. Furthermore, it examines the museum as a legitimising institution with considerable power where, on one hand, images it created reinforced social identity and consolidated social positions and class interest, while on the other hand, it provided a vehicle for opening new ideas and as an avenue for an agenda for change. The study reveals the role the Livingstone Museum played in the provision of resource material or information to academic history. The study demonstrates that during the colonial period, the Museum was seen as an important ally by colonial authorities in propagating its agenda of the projection of European way of life as superior to that of Africans thereby justifying colonialism. Similarly, following Independence, African nationalist leaders used the Museum to disseminate information that promoted their agenda aimed at redressing the negative image African culture and history received during the colonial era. It also demonstrates that post colonial leaders used the Museum as a medium through which they propagated their aspiration of achieving national unity, identity and development through cultural and historical diversity of its people. This study has also highlighted the nature and role of public history to academic history. It has revealed that the Livingstone Museum through its collections, researches and publications has provided resource material or information, which academics have used in their publications thereby contributing to different strands of the historiography of the history of Zambia that emerged from time to time. | <urn:uuid:9447cc34-68e8-4243-a03e-7d1b6d368d5a> | {
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Sharing your home with a blind dog may be less worrying, and more rewarding than you think. In fact, blind dogs can be some of the most obedient and affectionate canine companions around.
There are several conditions that can lead to blindness in dogs. Birth defects, injury, illness and age can all cause or contribute to loss of sight. The good news is, dogs live very much in the here and now, and their remaining senses will more than make up for any loss of vision.
Whether your dog was born blind, has gone blind later in life, or is in the process of losing his sight, these top ten tips will help ensure your pooch leads a happy and comfortable life:
1. Scatter Kibble – When introducing your blind dog to a new space try scattering kibble throughout the area. The dog will search for the kibble but as he is using his nose and moving slowly, he will learn the layout of the space without running into as many objects.
2. A Sighted Buddy – Having a sighted buddy that your blind dog can use as a guide is incredibly helpful. A seeing canine companion will help show them the ropes and if you have the helper dog wear a jingling tag or bell, the blind dog will hear when she is nearby or approaching.
3. Use Texture – Textures are an effective tool for helping your blind dog distinguish objects and generally get around. For example, if you place a mat under the food bowl, when he feels the texture change he’ll know what to expect next.
4. Establish Routines – Establish a daily schedule with routines so your blind dog knows what is about to happen. This means keeping meal times, play times and walk times as consistent as possible. It is also important to keep everyday objects like food and water bowls in the same place.
5. Dog’s Eye View – To make sure there are no sharp objects that your dog can bump into, get down on your hands and knees and look out for anything that could be a potential hazard. Table edges, cabinets, door facings — cushion anything that he may run into while he adjusts to his setting.
6. Stair Gates - To prevent your dog from tumbling down the stairs, install a stair gate. Stairs and steps are scary for a blind dog and disorientation can cause them to slip and fall. If he needs to go up (or down), always carry him.
7. Verbal Cues – Be sure to use verbal cues throughout the day to reassure your dog and help him feel more connected to your daily interactions. Short directional words such as sit, down, stay, come, walk, and dinner will act as the perfect guide.
8. Use Scents – Use scents to map out locations or forbidden areas in and around your home. For example, you can use a specific scent to cue your dog to avoid ledges or to make them aware of an important place in the room. These same scents can then be used to comfort him when he is in an unknown environment.
9. Be Affectionate – Sighted dogs will look at your face for affection, but blind dogs can’t. Liberal touching, petting, cuddling and rubbing are their only signs that you are affectionate towards them.
10. Build Confidence – To help build your dog’s confidence ,make sure you talk to him often. By always encouraging him with positive reinforcement, he will feel like he can still do things for himself.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers. | <urn:uuid:cd035363-d436-4198-97a1-7d3c0ed5a417> | {
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April 3, 1997
The light curve of the comet through perihelion reveals various conflicting tendencies in estimates. This comet has what must be the best light curve coverage ever for a comet around perihelion and, with the vast archive of data since discovery, is going to provide enormous quantities of information for future research. Here is a quick summary of the situation as of yesterday:
How bright did Hale-Bopp get?
The dispersion in magnitudes at perihelion was very large. The comet was large and extremely condensed, making estimation very tough. My own peak estimate was only -0.4, but that was in very poor conditions in England (limiting magnitude around 4.5). Good observers in very good sites estimated much brighter magnitudes on the whole. The estimate will depend a lot on how the comparison was made by individual observers (I ended up using Mars and Capella as my own comparison stars). This has a complication in that the comet, which is strongly blue, was a very different colour to the best comparison stars and this can exagerate the peak magnitude which was estimated (red stars appear rather fainter to the eye, so comparing with red stars makes the comet seem brighter than it really is).
The brightest individual estimate that I have seen was -1.6, but this is an isolated point. From good sites the peak magnitude seems to have been about magnitude -1.0+/-0.1 with the "average" peak magnitude being around -0.7.
How much brighter than Comet Hyakutake was Comet Hale-Bopp?
Another good question for the reasons given above. Hale-Bopp was definitely much brighter and will remain brighter for some days than Hyakutake was at maximum. Most observers estimated a peak magnitude of Hyakutake around +0.5 last year (which lasted only very briefly), hence Hale-Bopp appears to have been about 1.5 magnitudes (a factor of 4) brighter.
What about the comparison with Comet West?
Comet West reached about magnitude -3.5 very briefly around perihelion. However, it was not visible to the naked eye at this time (rather like Comet Kohoutek which also reached about magnitude -3, but was only observable to the naked-eye for the Skylab astronauts in Earth orbit). Comet West was only a negative magnitude object for a few days, while Hale-Bopp will remain negative magnitude for as much as 5 or 6 weeks in total. In this sense, Comet Hale-Bopp is a much brighter comet. The tail however was much more spectacular and better developed in Comet West.
How did the light curve develop in the end?
It seems that the linear brightening stopped about 3 weeks before perihelion. However, many of the observations very close to perihelion are consistent with an almost unchanged rate of brightening right through. The point where the light curve most obviously flattens out conicides with the Full Moon in late March, so those estimates are not necessarily the full brightness of the comet anyway. Even the faintest estimates (generally the ones by observers who estimated the magnitude in poorer skies), show the comet still increasing in brightness steadily THROUGH perihelion. This is a major surprise because, in theory, the comet should have peaked in late March and then started to decline noticeably by perihelion. At the moment it is a little hard to tell what happened to the light curve at perihelion and after because some of the observations are consistent with both a small outburst at perihelion, followed by a fade and others with a slow increase in brightness even after perihelion.
How does Hale-Bopp compare intrinsically with other comets of the past?
Very favourably indeed. If Comet Hale-Bopp had passed as close as Comet Hyakutake did last year it would have been around magnitude -7 and perhaps the second or third brightest comet since the 17th century! Assuming a maximum magnitude of -1.0, the absolute magnitude of Comet Hale-Bopp was -1.3. These are the ten very brightest recorded values:
1729 Comet Sarabat -3.0 1577 Comet Tycho -1.8 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp -1.3 1747 Comet De Cheseaux -0.5 1811 Comet Flaugergues 0.0 1744 Comet De Cheseaux +0.5 1882 Comet Cruls +0.8 1914 Comet Delavan +1.1 1433 Great Comet +1.2 1962 Comet Humason +1.35
For comparison, Comet Halley has an absolute magnitude of +4.0 and an "average" new comet is around +6.5. Comet Hale-Bopp is thus about 130 times brighter than Comet Halley at the same distance and 1300 times brighter than an "average" comet would have been.
How long is the tail?
The longest estimates at perihelion, from dark sites were 20 degrees. This works out at exactly 1.0AU, or 150 million miles. This is a much longer tail length than for Comet Hyakutake and about 3 times the true length of Comet Halley's tail. We can expect the tail to grow even longer over the next couple of weeks.
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Printing Out Paper Lecture
Printing out Paper expert Siegfried Rempel will give a lecture on this fascinating process on Friday, March 24. Join us for this special opportunity to learn more about this historic method – the lecture is free and open to the public. If you’re feeling inspired, join us for our Printing out Paper Workshop the following day! Learn more and register here.
Printing out Paper, or PoP, makes an image by exposing a negative and paper to light without any chemical development. With a printing-out process, you can watch your image come to life during your exposure, rather than having to wait until it is processed! Used originally as a simplified field process without the need of a darkroom, today we use this handmade emulsion to create artful images with subtle and warm tonality.
The use of Collodion in photography for the production of photographic prints an be found as early as the 1850s, and is most commonly used in the Wet Plate Collodion process to produce tintypes and ambrotypes. The concept of an “emulsion” of silver salts in a collodion binder was introduced by Gaudin in 1853 and by 1861 he was actively producing the “Photogene” collodion emulsion.
The collodio-chloride print has a similar physical appearance to its gelatin counterparts and it can be difficult to tell them apart. In fact, modern gelatin silver darkroom papers evolved from this early printing method! Today, we still practice the collodio-chloride process because of the rich and beautiful tonality it imparts on our images. | <urn:uuid:4d09036c-4da5-479d-95a3-bafeff1e9299> | {
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Males have an Increased Risk of Stillbirth, Study Finds
Stillbirths, which occur when a fetus dies in the womb, are more common in males than females, a new study reported.
"The numbers speak for themselves - the disparity between male and female stillbirth is startling. Stillbirth is a common occurrence, even in rich countries with good healthcare systems: every day, eleven babies are stillborn in the UK," Dr. Fiona Mathews from the University of Exeter said according to Medical Xpress. "Uncovering why male babies are at higher risk could be a first step towards developing new approaches to prevention, including sex-specific management of high-risk pregnancies."
For this study, the researchers analyzed more than 30 million births worldwide. They calculated the rate of stillbirths and found that the rate was 10 percent higher in boys than girls. This increased rate was observed across countries of all economic statuses with two exceptions. In China and India, the stillbirth rates were the same for boys and girls. These two countries also had a higher overall stillbirth risk at about 1.7 times greater than the expected numbers.
Although the researchers did not identify why boys are more likely to die in the womb than girls, they reasoned that it could be due to developmental differences and environmental factors that could be affecting boys more than girls. The team added that over the past 15 years, the stillbirth rates have not declined by much. In order to get these numbers down, doctors have to better understand what factors drive them.
Currently, doctors reduce risk of stillborn by using an early warning system that takes the mother's height, weight and ethnicity and uses the information to predict the size of the unborn fetus.
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The winter season can be very dangerous for plants and animals. The temperature drops below unsafe levels which can prove fatal to their survival. From food scarcity to limited mobility, animals grapple for every necessary means to survive the harsh weather conditions. Some are naturally endowed to survive this period, while others have to develop survival skills to brace the extreme cold temperatures.
So how do Squirrels stay warm in the winter? Squirrels, like other animals, also get busy preparing for the frigid temperature. You will not find a squirrel dormant when winter is approaching. Some species of squirrel have a great level of resistance against very extreme weather. You may begin to wonder how these little creatures survive harsh weather conditions. Do they rely on fat layers as most mammals do? Do they hibernate like bears? How are they designed? Here’s what I know:
How Squirrels Stay Warm In The Winter
Preparation For The Season
Yeah, that’s right. Squirrels, like other animals, prepare ahead for the winter season. Their bodies develop adaptability features as soon as they detect the slightest change in temperatures. Seasonal changes are tracked in all animals by the photo-neuroendocrine system (this is a collection of hormones, glands, and neurons that are intertwined to adjust our internal chemistry as day length changes). This mechanism helps to detect when there is a change in season and warns the body of impending temperature changes.
Almost all squirrel species get fattened during the fall. They grow extra layers of fat under their skin as a result of overfeeding during fall. This extra layer of fat is to serve as insulation against cold temperature during the winter, and as a reserve or much-needed energy when food shortage sets in due to restricted mobility.
Surviving winter can pose to be a dangerous challenge for squirrels. If they do not adequately prepare and get everything right, it is very possible that squirrels can freeze to death when the temperature drops to extreme levels. Survival skills vary among different species, but there’s a common link to these. What squirrels do first is seek out shelter, a place of refuge when things get chilly:
For humans, having shelter is synonymous with staying alive during the winter, and squirrels are no different. Ground squirrels would dig holes into the ground to serve as shelter. The flying species, grey and fox squirrels would naturally burrow holes through tree trunks to serve the purpose of shelter. After burrowing or digging, they would bring in dry leaves and layer up, which will serve as insulation for the cold. This shelter is known as a ‘den’.
Squirrels may live in groups in these underground shelters. The purpose of this is to warm each other up when it gets very chilly. Although, rarely, there may be a fight for territory, so the numbers allowed to stay inside a den are restricted. If you get very concerned about the squirrels living behind your house or abandoned shelter freezing to death, you can help them best by providing a warm den for their use. There are various nesting boxes for squirrels that are for sale at local stores. I’m very sure these tiny creatures would appreciate the gesture.
Squirrels are naturally industrious animals. You will always find them roaming around, foraging for food to eat, and store. They dig up holes in the ground or in tree trunks, and in these holes, store a great quantity of food ranging from nuts to mushrooms, birds’ eggs, insects, animal bones, or anything that can serve them as food during winter. These holes may be close to their dens to allow for quick access or several holes, depending on availability and storage capacity. A single squirrel may dig several thousand holes to store food, while others may aggregate their efforts and create a communal hoard.
When winter sets in, they quietly visit their reservoir and feast on precious nuts. These food banks may serve the whole of winter. In other cases, squirrels periodically go out to search for food, no matter how extreme the weather is. You’ll always find one roaming around your lawn or at abandoned shelters scampering for food. However, the purpose of storing food is to limit the time they spend out in the cold foraging for food.
As I earlier mentioned, squirrels feed a lot during the fall. This habit of overfeeding helps them grow extra layers of fat under their skin as winter approaches. This extra store of fat provides much-needed body insulation when it gets really cold. Body heat is preserved and does not escape through their skin.
Squirrels also grow longer, thicker coat when winter season in close. These new coats are naturally designed to reduce body heat loss and serve as insulators. Some species altogether alter the structure of their coats by absorbing more solar heat during winter. This thermoregulation allows them to produce more metabolic heat and regulate their body temperature. An example is the rock squirrel.
Shivering sounds weird, right? Why would an animal shiver generate body heat? Well, here is why: Shivering is an auto reaction to cold temperature experienced by most animals. When squirrels shiver, it sends an instant response to their brain informing it of the temperature changes. The brain reacts by activating mechanisms used to generate body heat to insulate itself against the cold.
So yeah, squirrels shiver too, like most animals do, as a reaction to cold and as a defense mechanism to generate body heat.
Do Squirrels Hibernate?
Are Squirrels similar to bears as regards hibernation? Squirrels preserve energy and reduce mobility during winter by going into a modified form of hibernation called ‘Torpor’. Under this state, squirrels sleep for longer periods of time and only wake up about every ten days to warm themselves, eat, drink, and eventually return to sleep. Some species of squirrels are all-year rounders. They do not hibernate or Torpor. They are constantly active, foraging all the time. | <urn:uuid:483871be-70e4-498a-907e-6706df5da526> | {
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What Is Poverty, Exactly?
Written by: Pierre Madden
Basic Income, it is argued, provides an effective and efficient means of conquering poverty. What, exactly, is the problem that we are trying to solve? Mention poverty to someone and they are likely to immediately think of the Third World. Bringing the focus back to poverty in developed countries is fraught with preconceptions. People have predispositions to think about issues in certain ways. They share these predispositions with all other members of society regardless of specific opinions on social questions. Various models are utilized rather than others based upon how we frame the issue. And so we feel that we have an intuitive grasp of the subject.
Courts will accept eyewitness testimony that someone was drunk. The witness is not an expert. No Breathalyzer test was done; no blood sample taken. It is considered common knowledge. The same can be argued for poverty. Broad definitions of poverty exist, such as: “the condition of a human being who is deprived of the resources, means, choices and power necessary to acquire and maintain economic self-sufficiency or to facilitate integration and participation in society.” “In 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith argued, ‘People are poverty-stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of their community.’”
The problem is translating this qualitative information into numbers so that policies can be implemented and progress tracked.
Some people accept that poverty is undefinable because it is a personal experience. This complexity is highlighted in the expression ‘poverty and social exclusion.’ A concept that you can’t define is difficult to measure. We may be evaluating actions taken to reduce poverty by a method which measures something completely different. Just counting the poor turns out to be a daunting task.
Many approaches are taken to arrive at a threshold value that defines poverty. I will present examples from Canada, Europe in general, the United States and the United Kingdom. Debates surrounding the various metrics are discussed as they come up. Some work incomes and welfare benefit numbers provide context.
In Canada, no official definition of poverty exists. Statistics Canada has been making this point for almost 45 years. What is measured is low-income. Some countries like the United States have an official definition of poverty even if ‘there is still no internationally accepted definition of poverty—unlike measures such as employment, unemployment, gross domestic product, consumer prices, international trade and so on.’
Statistics Canada tracks three low income statistics.
- The Low Income Measure (LIM) is 50% of the adjusted mean income of Canadians
- The Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) starts with the spending of the average Canadian family on shelter, food and clothing (43% of after tax income). The threshold is set at 20% more. Any family earning less is below this Low Income Line.
- The Market Basket Measure (MBM) ‘is a measure of low income based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living.’ It takes into account the ability to reasonably participate in community activities as well as physical health. It varies by geographical location.
This last metric developed in the late 1990s by Human Resource and Skill Development Canada is different from the other two, introduced by Statistics Canada. The first two statistics are unambiguously relative. Strictly speaking they measure income inequality. While the Conference Board of Canada does not hesitate to refer to the MBM as absolute, the specialist I spoke to at Statistics Canada was not so sure. However, he felt that the basic-needs poverty line (BNPL) proposed by Professor Chris Sarlo of the Fraser Institute might qualify as absolute. Sarlo himself nuances this view:
This basic-needs approach to poverty is often referred to as an ‘absolute’ measure. This label is misleading insofar as it suggests that the list can never change and is therefore completely out of place in our rapidly changing society. While the basic needs line does propose a broad list of necessities that remains in place over time, the nature, standard of quality, and the quantity of each of the components will vary across societies and will vary over time in a given society. In other words, the basic-needs approach is partly absolute (the list is limited to items required for long-term physical well-being) and partly relative, reflecting the standards that apply in the individual’s own society at the present time.
Stepping back a bit, you can often use absolute poverty as a synonym for extreme poverty, a term applicable to deprivation in very poor countries. Even so, relative elements remain: you can’t compare the situation of someone with no heating in the Arctic to that of someone with no heating in the Tropics. Moreover, Sarlo’s BNPL is approximately 30% lower than the MBM using a similar approach. Clearly, relative and absolute measures overlap and both involve a degree of judgment and arbitrariness.
There are many other variations on these themes. I will cover just a few.
In Europe, they use a measure called the at-risk-of-poverty threshold to define poverty. It represents a ‘percentage of the median or mean value of the Equivalised disposable Income after social transfers.’ ‘A threshold of 60% is the most commonly used.’ EU countries simply referred to the 60% level as ‘generally accepted.’ Tables sometimes show statistics calculated at 40%, 50%, 60% and 70%, without comment.
The official United States poverty threshold has a fascinating history. Based on the work the Social Security Administration economist Mollie Orshansky, it is often referred to as absolute. However its creator labelled it ‘arbitrary but not unreasonable.’ As early as 1959, Orshansky was aware of the pitfalls and limitations of the standard budget (usually called market basket today) approach to defining poverty. At the time, and even today, only with food, because of its nutritional value, can we reach some consensus about what minimal requirements are. Orshansky used the two lowest budgets devised by the Department of Agriculture: the low-cost food plan and the even less expensive economy plan. For the non-food portion, she used Engel’s Law (named for the statistician Ernst Engel not Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels), a normative principle establishing that a family spends one third of its total income on food. Using a multiplier of three for food costs under both plans, with adjustments for childless couples and single people, 124 thresholds were developed for farm and non-farm families of various compositions. With a few minor modifications and yearly inflation updates, this measure, based on the economy plan, is still in use today to count the poor in the United States.
A novel variant of the market basket approach, the Minimum Income Standard for the United Kingdom (MIS) is maintained by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, UK.
MIS is based on detailed research with groups of members of the public specifying what items need to be included in a minimum household budget. The groups are informed by expert knowledge where needed, for example on nutritional standards. The results show how much households need in a weekly budget and how much they need to earn in order to achieve this disposable income.’
MIS is not an absolute measure like the US poverty line nor is it entirely relative. ‘MIS also seeks to ensure that minimum income is looked at in the context of contemporary society, but does so in an evidenced way.’ Rather than make assumptions about societal standards, public input is used. Also, the UK’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which created the MIS, does not consider it to be a measure of poverty and uses the 60% of mean measure in reports it publishes such as Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2016.
To understand how different the figures are and to visualize the impact they have on the number of poor that are counted, I have converted all the metrics discussed into dollar amounts, in the table below. I make no claim that these numbers are comparable, only that they are reasonably accurate and up-to-date. The last three numbers are actual welfare payments rather than poverty statistics. They are strikingly lower than the rest and this fact does not speak for itself. It does, however, tell a story, if I may digress. The usual reaction when seeing these numbers is: how can someone live on such little income? I would ask: how does one get out of poverty under such straitened conditions? 5 In Quebec, a welfare recipient is allowed to earn $200 per month without penalty. Over that amount, for every extra dollar made their benefits are cut by a dollar (a 100% marginal tax rate). In France, every Euro earned is deducted. This is what is known as the poverty trap. The system is structured so as to remove any incentive to get out of poverty. When governments set payment schedules so far below poverty lines and also discourage the poor from improving their situation, what message does that send? And in case you were thinking that the answer is ‘Get back to work’, item 11 shows what those who cannot work receive about 50% more, still nowhere near any threshold, except Sarlo’s BNPL (item 4), which has been ‘criticized as being too stringent and even “mean-spirited”.’13 More on that later.
Items 8 and 9 are incomes for a 40-hour workweek. These numbers indicate that poverty is not an issue confined to the unemployed. For example, in 2014, ‘Walmart’s low-wage workers cost US taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.’
|Annual thresholds for a single person in 2016||CDN$||US$|
|1||Canadian Low Income Measure (LIM) ||$22,652||$16,904|
|2||Canadian Low Income Cut-off (LICO) ||$20,788||$15,513|
|3||Canadian Market Basket Measure (MBM) for Montreal ||$17,944||$13,391|
|4||Sarlo of the Fraser Institute: Basic-Needs Poverty Line (BNPL) (Canada) 13 ||$12,205||$9,108|
|5||European low-income measure (60% of mean income) applied to Canada.||$26,941||$20,105|
|6||US poverty threshold ||$16,202||$12,091|
|7||Minimum Income Standard MIS (UK) ||$28,533||$21,293|
|8||Pre-tax full-time earnings at minimum wage in Quebec ||$22,360||$16,687|
|9||Pre-tax full-time earnings at US federal minimum wage ||$20,207||$15,080|
|10||Actual welfare payment in Quebec for those deemed fit for work. ||$7,476||$5,579|
|11||Actual welfare payment in Quebec for those deemed unfit for work. ||$11,340||$8,462|
|12||French Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA) ||$8,752||$6,531|
As mentioned previously, the most striking pattern in the table is how the last three entries are low, compared to the rest. The others cluster together with the notable exception of item 4 (Sarlo’s Basic-Needs Poverty Line) and Item 10 (the US poverty threshold). Both of these statistics tend towards absolute measures, which are meant to focus on deprivation rather than income inequality. Which measure is appropriate in a developed country? If all you have achieved is to avoid destitution, are you no longer living in poverty? Not if integration and participation in society is beyond your reach. This is why relative measures of poverty are deemed more appropriate choices, especially in developed countries: they account for social inclusion.
I have tried to frame the question of poverty in such a way as to provide a better understanding of the numbers that inevitably come to define it at some point. Many judgments and choices are involved in calculating these numbers. Agreeing on a number requires social consensus. Unfortunately, focusing on the numbers is not conducive to building such a consensus and is even counterproductive, in that it immediately evokes highly emotional questions of cost and fairness. The whole debate sidesteps issues of social exclusion and lack of opportunities, to which people can better identify in their own lives.
Getting back to the original question, we need a definition of poverty to implement Basic Income. However, labeling it with a threshold number is both necessary and self-defeating. It is not possible to implement Basic Income without pinning down the benefit and cost numbers, yet focusing on these numbers distracts from the positive principles that would muster support for them. Framing the question of what poverty is in such a way that principles are explored before we formulate a numerical definition is more important than the number itself. This reframing is thus a prerequisite to Basic Income.
Author biography: Pierre Madden is a zealous dilettante based in Montreal. He has been a linguist, a chemist, a purchasing coordinator, a production planner and a lawyer. His interest in Basic Income, he says, is personal. He sure could use it now!
An Act to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion, CQLR c L-7 Quebec, Canada, art. 2
“Twenty percentage points are used based on the rationale that a family spending 20 percentage points more than the average would be in ‘straitened circumstances.’” Ibid.
LICO for a single person in a metropolitan area in 2012 = $19597
Andrew Heisz, assistant director of the Income Statistics Division of Statistics Canada, personal communication, October 19 2016
E-mail from Geoffroy Fisher, Eurostat User Support, Eurostat helpdesk December 28, 2016.
All of the information in this paragraph and much more, as well as a wealth of references to primary sources can be found in Gordon M. Fisher, The Development of the Orshansky Poverty Thresholds and Their Subsequent History as the Official US Poverty Measure, May 1992—partially revised September 1997
Orshansky, “Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile,” Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 1965, p.4. Quoted in Fisher (see previous note)
“…We would not expect the content of a MIS basket to stand still. But we also don’t think that changes in the average AUTOMATICALLY trigger proportionate changes in the minimum, and in this sense it is not a relative measure.” Donald Hirsch, Director of Centre for Research in Social Policy, personal communication, Nov 1 2016
Donald Hirsch, Director of Centre for Research in Social Policy, personal communication, Nov 1 2016
Joseph Rowntree Fondation Press Office, personal communication, January 11, 2017
John Stapleton Why is it so tough to get ahead? How our tangled social programs pathologize the transition to self- reliance. Metcalf Foundation November 2007
There is no question that low welfare payments are a political choice. In 1969, when Quebec introduced its first welfare legislation, benefits for people under 30 were set at 70% of the amount provided to everyone else. Accounting for inflation, this still represents more than what someone unfit for work receives today.
Forbes April 15 2014
Throughout, $US1 = CDN$1.34
Statistics Canada Market Basket Measure thresholds (2011-base) for reference family of two adults and two children, by MBM region Data for Montreal converted to single person (see note 1 in table)
$10314 X 129.1/109.1 = $12,205
US Census bureau Poverty Thresholds for 2015 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 years $12082 adjusted for US inflation (0.1%), 1 US$ = 1.34 CDN$
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The British Mk I tank was unleashed during the Battle of The Somme in September 1916 – but the Germans were much slower to develop an armored fighting vehicle of their own: the A7V.
Whereas British strategists were eager to conceive and deploy some kind of `land ship` as soon as the war reached a stalemate in 1914, there seemed to be less enthusiasm for the concept amongst the German General Staff. Even after the first British tank attack, they prioritized the development of anti-tank tactics and weapons.
This may be due to the fact that the tank was an offensive weapon and the Germans were, with one important exception, effectively engaged in a defensive war. But the appearance of the Mk I did force a German response. That same month a unit was set up to design and build the first German tank.
The First A7V
The first pre-production model of the new tank was complete a year later. In appearance, it was more `land ship` than its British counterpart; an armored box on tracks bristling with weaponry. With a crew of 18, it required 10 more men than a British tank. There were two men for each of the 6 machine guns, two for the 57mm gun at the front, a driver, a signaller, a mechanic and the commanding officer. 24ft long, 10ft wide, and almost 11ft high, with two powerful engines and armor plate that varied between 30mm at the front and 15mm at the sides, it weighed 33 tons and could travel at 4mph across country.
It was a promising start from a nation that would come to lead the world in tank design twenty years later. Like those later German tank designs the A7V was superbly engineered; far in advance of the British machines in their quality and mechanical sophistication. And just like some of those later designs, that sophistication would also prove to be what undermined it the most. Whilst 100 A7V’s were ordered, only 20 were built and they didn’t arrive on the frontline until March 1918. Their numbers would be dwarfed by the quantity of armor the British and French were putting into the field.
Meanwhile, in late 1917, around 40 British Mark IVs were captured and put into service with the German Army. The new German Tank Companies were fighting first in British hardware – and the Mk IV would remain the most numerous tank in German service.
It has been suggested that German crews preferred the Mark IV. It may have been a less sophisticated vehicle, but it was far better suited to the ruling conditions on the Western Front. Whilst the A7V performed much better on open terrain, its high center of gravity and low ground clearance meant it struggled to cross the muddy, pock-marked ground found in its intended area of operation.
A7V vs. Mark IV
The real test of a tank’s performance comes in battle. At the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneaux, on 24 April 1918, the Germans used as many as 15 A7V’s across a four-mile front. Some estimates suggest that by the end of the battle they had lost half to a combination of capture, battle damage, ditching, or breakdown. In places, they were successful, with at least one British unit reporting that their lines had been breached by tanks. But what would happen when British tanks met German tanks in battle?
That’s exactly what occurred on the opening day of Villers-Bretonneaux, as a group of three advancing A7V’s unexpectedly encountered three British Mark IV’s. Two of the British Mark IV’s were `female` (armed only with machine guns for infantry support) and were unable to damage their opponents and forced to withdraw when the A7V’s engaged and damaged them with armor-piercing rounds.
The remaining Mark IV `male`, commanded by Second Lieutenant Frank Mitchell, managed to score three direct 6 pounder hits on the lead German A7V. These set it ablaze and toppled it into a shell hole. The crew fled on foot. Mitchell then turned his guns on the remaining A7V’s, later reporting that they withdrew after he had fired several ranging shots at them. Mitchell continued to engage the advancing Infantry but by then he had gained the attention of enemy artillerymen. His tank was disabled by a mortar, but he and his crew escaped.
The first tank vs tank engagement was a messy encounter, but it is reasonable to attribute victory to the Mk IV. Of course, both tank designs are poor by modern standards, but even in 1918, the Germans did not consider the A7V to be practical. It was too big, too ungainly, too expensive, and needed too many men to crew it. German designers went back to the drawing board – and some far more promising designs were being advanced when the war came to an end.
A message from the Tank Museum:
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Thanks to the Tank Museum for this Blog, which originally appeared here. | <urn:uuid:a561e3d3-80d1-419f-a594-2d4317159973> | {
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The Imperial Valley in south-eastern California is more geologically scarred than most. Bordered by the Colorado River to the east and, in part, the Salton Sea to the west, it rests upon the meeting place of several active faults.
New mechanical models produced by scientists at the Seismological Society of America now suggest that rather than existing in isolation, three of the faults in this region are linked, forming a continuous line that runs from the southern section of the San Andreas Fault, down the Imperial Fault (which crosses the border into Mexico) and finally to the Cerro Prieto fault in Baja California. This linkage could increase the likelihood that the faults rupture together – an undesirable situation which the researchers say would cause larger than expected shaking in the surrounding counties of California.
‘Our work suggests that the San Andreas effectively does not end at the Salton Sea, but is most likely physically connected to the Imperial fault, and then to the Cerro Prieto fault in Mexico,’ said Jacob Dorsett who worked on the study as an undergraduate at Appalachian State University. ‘All other factors equal, if the San Andreas is connected to these other structures, then it makes the chances of a longer rupture – and a larger magnitude – more likely.’
No one knows when a San Andreas earthquake will happen. (Experts have said that the recent quakes in California did not happen along the San Andreas Fault and are unlikely to affect it.) People have been anticipating a major rupture of the fault for many years and seismologists say the ‘Big One’ is well overdue. It was 1906 when the northern portion last ruptured, raising San Francisco to the ground. It’s been even longer – more than 300 years – since the southern portion did the same. But that doesn’t mean it’s been quiet. The Imperial Valley has seen several earthquakes along its smaller fault lines, the largest and most famous being the El Centro earthquake in 1940. At a magnitude of 6.9 it caused widespread damage and the deaths of nine people. In 1979 the same fault ruptured again with a magnitude of 6.2 and in 1989 two more quakes occurred on the Elmore Ranch and Superstition Hills faults.
In the Imperial Valley, additional research is now needed to determine the exact relationship between the linked faults and the slip rate of each (how fast the two sides of the faults are slipping relative to one another). For now, the researchers hope that this new analysis will prove useful to seismologists who work on large-scale computational models which aim to better forecast Californian earthquakes.
Get the best of Geographical delivered straight to your inbox by signing up to our weekly newsletter and get a free collection of eBooks! | <urn:uuid:b58c68d2-aafb-46a5-90eb-1c9514f93305> | {
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What Research About Can Teach You
13. 11. 2020 0
Photography involves capturing an image of something or someone using a camera, either digital or analog, with the help of light. Infrared, ultraviolet, and radio waves can also be photographed even if they are wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye. However, to capture wavelengths invisible to the eye, you need special camera equipment. Explaining photography in a single article is impossible because photography is an amazing and wide topic. However, there is some basic information you need to know about photography to improve your quality of work if you are a beginner in photography. The best cameras I would recommend to a beginner are Canon 4000D and Canon T100.
The first person to capture a permanent photograph was Joseph Nicphore. Joseph Nicphore captured a photograph of the roof of a building lit by the sun in the year 1826. Numerous advancements have been made in the field of photography since then. Monochromatic photographs were the most captured photographs before the 1930s. However, some photographers produced colored photographs through specialized techniques with the help of chemists and alchemists. It is in the 1930s that the popularity of colored photographs grew. If you want to discover more about the history of photography, click this link.
The cameras that have flooded the market are of various brands. Therefore, identifying the right camera to use for photography can be challenging. Most people nowadays capture images of different things using mobile phone cameras. It is best to get a dedicated camera even though mobile phone cameras can cater to most people’s needs because it helps you capture quality photos. Dedicated cameras have video settings and movie settings that you can maneuver when you want to capture quality videos. If you know how to maneuver through Canon 4000D movie settings and Canon T100 movie settings, you can capture high-quality videos even if you are a beginner. The differences between the EOS 4000D video and the REBEL T100 video are insignificant. Full HD format, up to thirty frames per second, and slow-motion video in HD format are some of these videos’ characteristics.
When you acquire a dedicated camera, there are several camera gears and accessories you need to have. Having a camera with interchangeable lenses is important if you will be capturing different types of photography. If you want to get a nice deal when buying a camera, it is essential you read online reviews and comments. Having dedicated macro lenses is essential if you want to specialize in macro photography. If your field of specialization is portrait photography, ensure you have a prime lens. For sports photography, telephoto lenses are the best. Having a dedicated photography processing software is also essential if you want to offer professional photography services. read more here to know the fundamental cameral settings.
Categories: Arts & Entertainment | <urn:uuid:eed59d3e-17bb-4b68-a500-3b7acd8e6476> | {
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In their search for smaller, faster information-storage devices, physicists have been exploring ways to encode magnetic data using electric fields. One advantage of this voltage-induced magnet control is that less power is needed to encode information than in a traditional system. But earlier this year, researchers reported that a key element of magnetization called coercivity is not controlled by voltage at all, but rather by an unfortunate byproduct of applying electricity to a material - that is, by heat. (Coercivity is the tendency of a magnetic material to resist becoming demagnetized.) To further explore whether voltage or heating is responsible for changes to a magnet's coercivity, scientists from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, tested three structures commonly used in magnetic memory experiments. Their verdict: It's not the heat. In a paper accepted for publication in the AIP's Journal of Applied Physics, the authors show that the voltage is directly controlling changes in the magnetic properties of all three of the tested materials. For example, the researchers demonstrate that the effect can be turned on and off almost instantaneously, whereas the changes should lag if heat is the cause. This is a good thing for the field, since a system that produces too much heat would slow down the performance of any real-world device made from this technology.
Article: "Switchable voltage control of the magnetic coercive field via magnetoelectric effect" is published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
Authors: Jing Wang (1), Jing Ma (1), Zheng Li (1), Yang Shen (1), Yuanhua Lin (1), and C.W. Nan (1).
(1) Tsinghua University | <urn:uuid:67e7883c-715e-495f-8b42-4b6736bd7c33> | {
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By Rebecca Morelle
BBC News science reporter
Next year, thousands of scientists from around the world will begin the most intensive period of research on the polar regions in half a century.
The 1957 initiative provided a wealth of information
International Polar Year (IPY) aims to provide a legacy of research into key environmental issues facing the Earth.
Those involved hope its progress will generate as much public interest as the 1969 Moon landings.
The last such initiative, in 1957, provided the foundation for much of the polar science knowledge we have today.
"Those old enough to remember will recall that the International Geophysical Year was not only a huge scientific enterprise with fantastically important outcomes, both scientific and geopolitical, but it also had huge penetration into the public consciousness," said Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, which is involved in IPY.
The International Geophysical Year saw the first satellite, Sputnik, launched into space, established the thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet, and paved the way for the Antarctic Treaty, designating Antarctica a zone for peace and science.
Fifty years on, IPY hopes to build on this success.
Beginning in March 2007, it will involve over 50,000 participants, including scientists spanning many different disciplines, from more than 60 countries across the globe.
Professor Rapley described it as an "intensive burst" of scientific research and observations focusing on the Earth's polar regions.
Research programmes will include collecting more ice cores
Dr David Carlson, IPY's programme director, said the polar regions were an essential area on which to focus international science.
"If you want to understand the global carbon cycle, the global water cycle, the global weather cycle, or global economics, it requires an understanding of polar regions," he said.
"It's a polar science, but it has a global impact."
There will be hundreds of research projects running throughout the year looking at a diverse range of issues.
Proposals include new research into ice cores to further knowledge of the Earth's climate one million years ago; mapping and modelling of permafrost thawing; tracking reindeer herds as the climate alters; looking at oil and gas development; and satellite observations.
IPY will also focus on indigenous communities.
"These are our Northern neighbours," said Dr Carlson. "They are facing change very quickly, and it's inherent that we embrace and understand their view of these changes."
There will also be activities for the public to participate in, including exhibitions, films, blogs and podcasts. The team hopes to attain the same level of public interest in the programme as the Moon landings.
IPY is sponsored by the International Council of Science and the World Meteorological Organization. It estimated cost is about 2.5-3bn euros (£1.5-2bn), which will be spread across the countries taking part.
"We are addressing crucial issues at a critical time. I think we have the chance to build a very special programme; and there will be some dazzling science," said Dr Carlson.
Professor Rapley added: "Although this an intensive burst, we want to leave a legacy of new knowledge, new networks, new enthusiasm, new systems, and new understanding about the Polar Regions."
To ensure that researchers get the opportunity to work in both polar regions or work summer and winter if they wish, the polar year will actually run from March 2007 to March 2009.
A little under 70% of the world's fresh water is locked up in ice | <urn:uuid:b9c7a650-0e88-4475-8f7a-ea02b4b30304> | {
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Running a business means wearing many different hats in the course of a day. Even if there are elements of your company’s operations that you outsource, you still need to understand how they work. That includes accounting.
At Cook Martin Poulson, we have a lot of clients who are business owners. And while we hold ourselves to a high standard and make sure our clients are always informed of what’s going on with their businesses, we still encourage them to understand the basics of accounting.
Knowing the basics is a little bit like learning to read. If you don’t understand accounting terminology, acronyms, and abbreviations, you may miss important information about your business. With that in mind, here are 19 accounting terms that you should know.
1. Accounts Receivable
Accounts receivable are outstanding invoices that you have sent to your customers. The term “receivable” may be used as a synonym for invoice. A related term, Accounts Receivable Aging, replies to a usually-chronological list of your outstanding invoices, starting with those that are the oldest. Accounts Receivable are often abbreviated as AR.
2. Accounts Payable
Accounts payable (abbreviated as AP) are invoices that your vendors and suppliers have sent to you for payment. They are the opposite of accounts receivable. One thing that confuses business owners sometimes is that if they want to collect on an invoice, they must call accounts payable at their customer’s office. In other words, your receivable is somebody else’s payable, and vice versa.
3. Accruals or Accrued Expenses
At times in the course of doing business, you will take on financial obligations that take a while to appear on your books. These are future expenses that are referred to as Accruals or Accrued Expenses, such as interest on loans. It’s important to be mindful of accruals since they have a direct impact on your bottom line.
An asset is anything of value that your business owns. Sometimes business owners make the mistake of considering only tangible assets, things like cash, accounts receivable, inventory, and equipment. However, it’s important to consider other things of value, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and stock. All of these things can affect the value of your company.
5. Balance Sheet
A balance sheet is a financial report that lists your company’s assets, liabilities, and equity. In other words, it’s a snapshot of your business as it stands as of the time of the report. It’s an important document to have on hand.
6. Capital/Working Capital
Capital is the money that you have on hand and are able to spend on necessary business expenses, including inventory, payroll, and equipment. It’s important to differentiate capital – which is also sometimes called working capital – from money that is invested in inventory or stock. The only money that counts as capital is money that you can access.
If you own a car, you may be familiar with this term. Depreciation is when an item loses value over time. In business, depreciation has a different definition. Depreciation is spreading out the cost of an asset that lasts for more than one year. If you purchase a machine that will last for 10 years you would expense the cost of that machine over the 10 year period. For each purchase of long term assets such as office equipment, factory equipment, and company cars you would estimate the useful life of each type of asset and systematically expense the cost of the asset for as long as it is useful in the business. In some cases, you may be able to deduct depreciation expenses on your tax returns. Knowing how to depreciate your assets, on what timetable, and consistently throughout your company is an easy place to make mistakes, so it’s good to take care.
Equity is part of the accounting formula. (Assets-Liabilites=Equity) The balance sheet will balance because of the Equity part of the formula. It often is the capital that you and other owners (or outside investors) have invested in your company. If your company is worth a million dollars and you invested $500,000 of your own money to get it off the ground, you would have 50% equity in your company.
9. Fixed Expenses
A fixed expense is a financial obligation that stays the same (or close to the same) from month to month and year to year. A fixed expense is something you pay even if you are not actually operating or conducting business. Some of the most common fixed expenses businesses have include rent, insurance, utilities or equipment rentals.
10. Variable Expenses
A variable expense is the opposite of a fixed expense. It’s an expense that fluctuates depending on a variety of factors, and it can vary quickly and often. For example, a company that pays commission to its sales people would consider the commission to be a variable expense. A salesperson’s commission might vary greatly from month to month depending on how many sales they make.
11. Operational Expenses
An operational expense is any expense that is necessary in order for a company to do business. Operational expenses may be fixed (like rent) or variable (like commissions.) They would not include discretionary expenses like the cost of your holiday office party.
12. Fiscal Year
A fiscal year is an accounting year. It is a period of one year that may begin and end on a date of your choosing, and it’s what you’ll use to determine your company’s profitability. Many companies choose to align their fiscal year with the calendar year. Sometimes, certain industries choose a common date – for example, many school districts use September 1st as the start of their fiscal year.
13. Profit and Loss Statement
A profit and loss statement, also known as a P & L, is a report that may be generated by your accounting. It shows the operating results of your business. The P & L reflects your revenues less your expenses to report your net income for a particular time period. Some companies issue P & L reports once a quarter or even once a month. They’re a good way to understand what’s happening with your company.
Your journal is the place where all of your company’s transactions are entered before they are transferred to the general ledger. Logging journal entries is a task that business owners sometimes take on. If you do, it’s important to make them promptly, so you know where your company stands financially.
15. General Ledger
The general ledger, or GL, is a complete record of all of your company’s financial transactions over your entire history. If handled properly, your GL should provide a complete history of your organization’s finances and accounting.
GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. They are the guidelines for proper financial reporting and accounting. Publicly traded companies are required to be GAAP-compliant but adhering to GAAP standards is a good idea for every business.
A business liability is a business debt or financial obligation that you will eventually need to pay. An invoice would be a liability, as would a business loan or a factoring fee. Any money that you owe is considered a liability.
Revenue is any money that your company collects in return for goods or services sold before any expenses are deducted. Sometimes called income, revenue can show up on your financial statements at different times or in different ways, an being aware of the complexity here is worthwhile. However, you must enter credits and discounts taken for returned merchandise.
19. Trial Balance
A trial balance is a like a test run for a full financial statement. The person who does it places assets and liabilities into columns to see if everything balances. It’s designed to give you (or your accountant) an opportunity to correct mistakes and get your accounts in order before you generate official reports.
It’s important for every business owner to understand basic accounting terminology. It will enable you to discuss your financial reports knowledgeably and do a good job of running your business.
If you have any more questions about these terms or accounting in general, the experienced staff at Cook Martin Poulson are ready to help. Call us today at (801) 467-4450 or send us an email online and we will follow up soon. We look forward to working with you. | <urn:uuid:db048ea7-0542-4f0d-8703-9b4cbcca6ce2> | {
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Date: February 21, 1999
Abstract: Terrorists contaminate an auditorium with silent, odorless smallpox just before a political rally. Soon, emergency rooms see mysterious illnesses. By the time doctors diagnose smallpox, coughing patients are spreading the lethal virus around the globe.
This time it was a test-run.
Doctors, hospital workers and U.S. health leaders used that fictional scenario, set in Baltimore, to test how they would control disease if bioterrorists ever attack - debating step by step how to quarantine, shut down airports, control panic when vaccine runs out.
How did the trial run go?
"We blew it," said a grim Michael Ascher, California's viral disease chief. If an attack really had happened, it would have taken just three months for 15,000 Americans to catch smallpox, 4,500 to die and 14 countries to be re-infected with a disease thought wiped out decades ago.
"We would be irresponsible if we left this room and didn't remedy this," said Jerome Hauer, New York City's emergency management director.
How can doctors prepare? The test-run offers clues.
The Fictional Scenario Begins:
April 1. The FBI gets a tip terrorists might release smallpox during the vice president's speech at a Baltimore college. The tip is too vague to warn health officials. Smallpox incubates for two weeks so no one has yet become sick.
April 12. A college student and electrician come to the emergency room with fever and other flu-like symptoms. Doctors suspect mild illness, maybe flu, and send them home.
April 13, 10 a.m. Both patients are back, sicker and covered in a rash. Doctors now
suspect adult chickenpox. The two are hospitalized. 6 p.m. An infectious
disease specialist is puzzled. That rash doesn't really look like
chickenpox, and it's popping up in places chickenpox normally doesn't afflict, like the soles of the feet. More testing suggests it might be smallpox.
Because smallpox is spread through the air, officials seal the hospital,
telling visitors and staff they can't leave but not why. Frightened hospital
visitors alert TV news crews, who report rumors of the dreaded Ebola virus.
3 a.m. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms it's smallpox, and ships some of the nation's 6 million doses of smallpox vaccine to Baltimore. The mayor will announce the bad news at noon.
Is this scenario realistic? It's optimistic, said Gregory Moran of the University of California, Los Angeles. A typical hospital would take at least another full day to even suspect smallpox. Labs would test for other diseases first, andmany don't have the equipment to hazard a smallpox guess.
"Half of the health care workers would try to leave the hospital out of panic," added Minnesota state epidemiologist Michael Osterholm.
Who's in charge? The governor should go on TV and tell the public the truth fast - what are the symptoms, who's at risk, how are doctors fighting back - to limit panic, advised former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson.
But a smallpox outbreak can only be terrorism, so watch
Washington seize control, others say.
the FBI has to hunt the terrorists.
Sealing the hospital actually fuels fear, Osterholm contends. Getting vaccinated a few days after breathing smallpox is soon enough to stay healthy and not spread infection, so let visitors and staff go home until the vaccine arrives.
No, get everybody vaccinated: "That's total damage control," Ascher argued.
Could anyone quarantine the city?
If this happened in Minnesota, thousands would flee to Canada, Carlson
said, but the governor couldn't seal the state's borders. Canada might.
The scenario continues:
April 16, 7 a.m. FBI, CDC, White House and hospital workers are debating via conference call. Do they vaccinate everyone? No, just people who came into contact with sick patients.
Hospitals report other cases of mysterious fevers and rashes. By day's end, CDC counts 48 smallpox cases - 10 in nearby states, so it's spreading.
Noon. The president addresses the nation, saying the attack may have occurred April 1. It's too late for vaccine to help anyone exposed that day.
No wonder the fictional epidemic is spreading - notice that nobody closed the airport. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University can't believe that other cities would accept travelers from a region experiencing smallpox.
You're seriously underestimating public panic, Osterholm adds. He recalled watching a simple, tiny meningitis outbreak paralyze a Minnesota town, as traffic snarled while people demanded vaccine.
"Doctors need to know what to do," added Moran: Hospitalize everyone with mild fevers, or send them home?
Hospitalization would require rooms with special ventilation systems to keep the virus from spreading through the building. Such rooms are rare, 450 in all of Minnesota, for example.
Back to the pretend scenario:
April 18. The
first victim, the college student, dies.
April 29. Two hundred are ill in eight states. Canada discovers two victims, Britain another. People with mild fevers jam hospitals. Doctors tell them to stay home so they don't breathe on others - there are no hospital beds left.
Unvaccinated health workers walk off the job. CDC announces there's not enough vaccine for the millions demandingit. Governors ration the shots. Public anger is fueled at press reports that the president, Congress and military were quietly vaccinated.
April 30. A well-known college basketball player dies of hemorrhagic smallpox, massive bleeding instead of the more typical rash. TV stations get confused and report he died of hemorrhagic fever like Ebola. Doctors scramble for a correction.
This daylong role-playing is doctors' first chance to learn how complex fighting bioterrorism could be, said Hopkins' Tara O'Toole, who wrote the test case. Cities and states are used to dealing with earthquakes or plane crashes, but a spreading infection is totally different.
Who's in charge? How do you physically vaccinate 100,000 people in a day? How do you ration scarce vaccine so only the at-risk get it, not the hysterical healthy or the pushy politicians?
"If there's even a possibility this could happen, health departments have to prepare. ... But they've never looked at the big picture," O'Toole said. "You're hearing everybody confess they need to do a lot."
In the fictional scenario, a month has passed:
May 15. All U.S. vaccine is gone. The president declares the worst-hit states are disaster areas. Thousands more become sick before the epidemic finally slows in June.
The real-life doctors absorb the grim ending with brief silence. Then come calls for state health workers to plan how they would better fight bioterrorism in case it really happened."I don't want the audience walking away thinking, 'Damn, there's nothing we can do,'" Osterholm said. "If this meeting does nothing else, it should ensure we get an adequate supply of smallpox vaccine (stored) as soon as possible." (SFSU, 1999). | <urn:uuid:03ce4087-144a-4230-ad33-e1e542b7ab8e> | {
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Beluga whales are rare and elusive -- so how best to track them? One group of scientists decided to use satellite tags -- and now, after fifteen years worth of data to hand, they've reported their results.
The tracking data has provided new insights into the migratory and foraging habits of the whales, the team reports. "This study gives us a benchmark of the distribution and foraging patterns for beluga populations," said Donna Hauser, lead author of the report, in a statement.
Several beluga whales were fitted with satellite tags when the study began in 1993. The tags turn on when the whales swim to the surface of the water to breath and then transmit geographical data and dive depth to another satellite. This data was then sent on to researchers, who could track the whales' behaviour remotely. The system, according to Hauser, is "a fantastic way to get high-resolution information for these animals that spend most of their time underwater and offshore".
The team found that Arctic cod is the most significant source of food for beluga whales, and that whales will dive deepest in areas that will maximise their encounters with prey. "The results of this work can be used not only to understand ecological relationships for Arctic top predators but also inform the management of beluga whales," said study co-author Kristin Laidre.
The team hope to extend their research to learn even more about the life of beluga whales, and what that can tell us about the climate. "There still needs to be additional work to see how beluga behaviour has changed in concert with changing sea ice conditions in the Arctic," said Hauser.
Their next step is to analyse the timing of beluga's migration during the autumn months, to see how they are affected by "the later sea ice freeze-up in the northern Arctic", which has modified due to climate change. | <urn:uuid:928c6e75-0a9c-4ec0-b91d-b368d3517a95> | {
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The editors of the Associated Press Stylebook have announced that they are "discouraging" use of the word "homophobia." (The AP Stylebook is the widely used guide that media use to standardize terms and general usage.) Why should the LGBTQ community be in a kerfuffle about it? Because the editors made their decision without consultation with the nation's leading LGBTQ organizations, leaders, activists and newspapers. That is a problem.
With an estimated 3,400 AP employees in bureaus around the globe, the AP's suggestion could have a tsunami-like effect on how the world comes to understand, be informed about or dismiss discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people. AP's online Stylebook defines a phobia as "an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness" and says words such as "Islamophobia" and "homophobia" therefore should be expunged from political and social contexts. Preciseness in language is important, but language is a representation of culture. How we use it perpetuates ideas and assumptions about race, gender and sexual orientation. We consciously and unconsciously articulate this in our everyday conversations about ourselves and the rest of the world, and it travels generationally.
What's in the word "homophobia"?
A lot: the history and culture of not only discrimination, violence and hatred toward LGBTQ people but irrational fear of us. This irrational fear may not need psychiatric or clinical intervention, but it should nonetheless be aptly labeled as a phobia. Consider, for example, the infamous bogus legal argument called the "gay panic defense." It's simply an excuse for murder in which a heterosexual defendant pleas temporary insanity as self-defense against a purported sexual advance by an LGBTQ person. Another example is the "ick factor," the revulsion some heterosexuals feel toward the way we LGBTQ people engage in sexual intimacy. Altering the hearts and minds of these folks will take a while, if not a lifetime.
AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn shared with Politico his opinion that the word "homophobia" is "just off the mark." He explained, "It's ascribing a mental disability to someone, and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case." It is my opinion that keeping the word "homophobia" narrowly used and confined within a medical context is controlling. It's also absurd for the AP to think that it could discourage the use of the word with absolutely no consultation with the LGBTQ community; this demonstrates hubris and insensitivity, and it raises questions about the political and social motives behind this decision.
Just ask George Weinberg, the psychologist who coined the word "homophobia" in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual. "It made all the difference to city councils and other people I spoke to," Weinberg told journalist Andy Humm. "It encapsulates a whole point of view and of feeling. It was a hard-won word, as you can imagine. It even brought me some death threats. Is homophobia always based on fear? I thought so and still think so. ... We have no other word for what we're talking about, and this one is well established. We use 'freelance' for writers who don't throw lances anymore and who want to get paid for their work. ... It seems curious that this word is getting such scrutiny while words like triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) hang around."
The word "homophobia" derives from the unique history of LGBTQ people and our shared struggle for civil rights across the world. It has become part and parcel of a universal LGBTQ lexicon that accurately reflects our reality. The phenomenon of homophobia has power and unfortunately deleterious effects, but part of our liberation is in our strength to call out acts of homophobia. If the press eliminated use of the word, that would not only diminish people's chances of understanding homophobia's wide-ranging effects but would diminish the reach of LGBTQ activists in our continued efforts to effect change.
AP now has assumed control of the word "homophobia," but it's not theirs. Several mainstream newspapers are pushing back. (Newspapers and other media are under no orders to follow AP guidelines.) Baltimore Sun copy editor John E. McIntyre wrote in his op-ed "Sorry, AP, can't go along on 'homophobia'" that the AP ruling is "reasoned, principled, and wrong-headed." McIntyre points to the 40-year usage of the word "homophobia" and makes a practical point: "If the editors of the AP Stylebook wish to discourage the use of certain words simply because they can be misused or misunderstood, there ought to be a great many in line ahead of homophobia." | <urn:uuid:bb1e4bc6-1c67-47af-bfee-9a2af6d05b03> | {
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Project: Towards a production of Corn and Beans adapted to climate change.
Project implementation dates: October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.
Main implementer organization: ICC (Domestic).
Partner organizations: ICTA, Red SICTA, UVG/USDA, PMA, FEWS NET III (Domestic and International)
Official goals: To develop a mechanism to transfer technology to producers of basic grains in four locations of the Pacific Slope of Guatemala.
- To create a knowledgebase of practices to adapt to climate change for the agricultural sector.
- To ease technology transfer and capacity building for the adaptation to climate change.
Location: 320 corn and beans producers in four locations (Chimaltenango, Nahuala, La Maquina, Nueva Concepcion).
Funding source: Climate Change Resilient Development, USAID Washington. | <urn:uuid:614dbbb3-8a8a-4b03-9fb2-3a9475e2b0f3> | {
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From 3 to 18, healthy back-to-school advice
1. Bullying: Nearly a third of students between ages 12 and 19 are bullied, says Somers. Middle school is the peak time. "Many years later, victims can suffer low self-esteem, difficulty trusting, aggression, and anger problems as a result of physical and/or emotional bullying," she adds. If your child starts experiencing frequent headaches and stomachaches or develops problems performing, concentrating, or even going to school, talk about what might be happening and speak with the school administrators. Peer pressure is another issue to consider because friends' approval is so important at this age, says Whittemore. "There could be pressure to smoke, take drugs, and drink," she says. "Staying involved in your kids' lives can decrease the likelihood that they'll get caught up in these activities."
2. Puberty: Big physical and emotional changes are happening now. It's important to keep the lines of communication open so you can talk about what's happening to your child's body. If you're not comfortable getting into the details, your doctor will be.
3. Sleep: "Kids in this age group should get 9 1/2 hours of sleep each night," says Somers. "Sleep helps promote alertness, memory, and performance. Kids who get enough are able to function better and are less prone to behavioral issues and moodiness." Keep your child on a regular sleep schedule and ban screen time in the bedroom.
4. Social media: Monitoring your child's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter activity is crucial to spotting situations that could escalate into bullying or sexual abuse. "I recommend that parents have their child's passwords for Facebook until they're in high school," says Whittemore.
HIGH SCHOOL/COLLEGE (age 15+)
1. Mental health: This is a high-stress time, what with the pressure to get into college, falling in loveand breaking upfor the first time, and navigating friendships and family issues. This is also when many mental problems start to show up. "One quarter of college students suffer from some type of mental illness, often depression," says Somers. "Unfortunately, 75 percent of them don't seek help, which could be why suicide is the third leading cause of death among college students." If you're worried, talk to your kid and make sure he knows help is availableinside or outside school.
2. Eating disorders: "Binge eating and/or purging can start as early as fifth grade, but it's most prevalent in high school, where 13 percent of girls and 7 percent of boys engage in disordered eating," says Somers. "Skipping meals, being secretive about eating, talking about weight, obsessing about their body, and constant dieting are signs that your child could have a problem," she adds.
3. Sex: "I talk about this topic with all my patients," says Whittemore. "According to the CDC, 47 percent of high school kids have had sex and 40 percent of them did not use a condom the last time they had intercourse." This age group also accounts for almost half of new sexually transmitted infection cases each year. Education and communication are key to helping kids protect themselves.
4. Driving: Everyone should practice good car safety, but high schoolers are especially at risk, says Whittemore. Auto accidents are the leading cause of death for teens. Lack of experience, overconfidence, failure to buckle up, texting, and drugs and alcohol are top reasons for accidents. Before you even think of handing over the keys, set your child up with the proper trainingthe Utah Safety Council offers defensive-driving classes throughout the state.
Check out other Ask an Expert articles from University of Utah Health Care.
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- Sex abuse claims against Utah educator... 20 | <urn:uuid:94b002a0-111e-4db9-af1e-51b006525610> | {
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What happened after Col. Gould was killed and what was its historical significance?Adapted from Wikipedia:
With twelve dead and twenty four wounded, the Americans withdrew under Benedict Arnold's orders (he had assumed command after General Wooster was mortally wounded).
After encamping for the night just south of the village, the British forces departed the next morning, leaving six houses and the Episcopal Church in flames. General Tyron's forces attempted a quick return to the invasion fleet...having reached near exhaustion and militia now swarming around their vulnerable position. Artillery reinforcements out of New York and further militia out of New York and Connecticut joined Arnold's forces.
The April 28 retreat proved to be more costly to the British than the a smaller retreat from Concord to Boston in 1775. From behind convenient stone walls, trees and buildings the militia fired continually at the British marching on the road leading south to the beach. Arnold placed his forces so that they commanded both roads by which Tryon might try to gain the safety of the invasion fleet's ships. The exhausted British were now outnumbered and vulnerable to capture, but reinforcements of Marines from the fleet prevented a devastating American attack. Arnold attempted to rally his men to repulse the Marines and close in on Tryon (he had two horses shot from under him that day). but the bulk of the American forces fell back or fled. In the cofusion the British troops slipped aboard their ships. Final British casualties were approximately two hundred, including ten officers. The Americans lost about twenty killed and forty wounded.
Although Tryon's raid on Danbury and actions in Ridgefield were British successes, the engagements by American forces at the Battle of Ridgefield and the proceeding influx of American forces into the area would deter the British from ever again attempting a landing by ship to attack any inland colonial strongholds during the war. Our ancestor did not die in vain. | <urn:uuid:a91a88d9-697f-4f57-bdb7-e0ac31d507cc> | {
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Or a neutral word, like "surprise," probably requires less processing than the word "hate."
So over the centuries, Schrauf says, people have developed more words to describe negative emotions because survival and quality of life may be at stake.
"Negative emotions require more detailed thinking, more subtle distinctions," says Schrauf, whose research was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.
So we conjure up more negative words because the language needs to be precise. And this research suggests that's probably true for every culture and every age group. Even though some of the words may not have precisely the same meaning in every language, they tend to be more negative than positive.
But that doesn't mean we're bad, Schrauf says. It just means we're trying to cope, and it's easier to cope with joy than it is with shame.
Lee Dye's column appears weekly on ABCNEWS.com. A former science writer for the Los Angeles Times, he now lives in Juneau, Alaska. | <urn:uuid:f603d3fd-404a-4a3d-b695-fef339deca25> | {
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The Definitive Sourcebook
In the 1920s, a great diversity of styles, including Art Deco, reflected the new freedoms and optimism of the post-First World War generation of young women. With around 600 contemporary photographs and fashion illustrations, this volume is a valuable resource for fashion historians, designers and fashionistas. It begins with an essay placing the clothes of the 1920s in social and economic context, before covering everything from the iconic silk sack dress and cloche hat to bridal gowns.
Ancient to Present
For centuries, women have cut, coloured and styled their hair to change their appearance and express their personality. This history charts the changing fashions in the art of hairdressing from ancient Egypt to the present. Including over 1,000 illustrations and photographs, it celebrates the elaborate arrangements of the Romans, the bejewelled coiffures of the Renaissance, the bobs of the 1920s and the sophisticated cuts of today's leading stylists such as Anthony Mascolo, who provides the foreword.
Masterpieces of Italian Design
With its strong engineering focus, highly skilled craft workshops, specialized and technologically sophisticated factories, and an intellectually engaged design press, Italy has provided the ideal conditions for the creation of functional, innovative and elegant designs. This volume presents 100 of the finest products, from Carlo Bugatti's Cobra chair in 1902 to the Ducati 1199 Panigale, at the cutting edge of motorbike design in 2011. Each design is described in detail alongside a full-page colour photograph.
Designing Modern Britain
Cheryl Buckley's history of British design culture examines how design and society have interacted from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st, and explores the connected themes of modernity and identity. Among the issues discussed are the spread of international modernism in Britain, the rise of eco-conscious design, the role of galleries and retailers, the celebrity designer and the influence of the heritage industry.
Modern British Posters
Art, Design & Communication
Since the 1860s the poster has been an expression of the integration of modern art, graphic design and mass communication. It's history through the 20th century is illustrated and explored here in a range of themes including transport, technology, architecture, public safety, the seaside and popular culture; and in features on key artists such as Paul Nash, Tom Eckersley and Abram Games, and patrons such as London Transport, British Railways and the Festival of Britain. | <urn:uuid:c20ce352-463f-48d3-8b6f-4ac89345aaaa> | {
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Early May Only patches of snow remain. Greenup begins. Cubs’ legs are long enough to follow mother. Mother leads them to feeding areas where she takes advantage of nutrient-rich spring vegetation. Cubs sometimes mouth the foods, but they are still unable to digest solid foods.
Late May and June Cubs’ teeth have erupted enough for chewing and ant pupae are some of their first foods. Although they are beginning to eat solid food, they still get much of their nourishment from their mother’s milk. (see video below)
Summer Cubs accompany mother to feeding areas within her territory, although many times the cubs are running ahead of the mother. Well-fed cubs spend a lot of time playing with each other, with mom, and with objects. All are alert to danger, but mom is the most vigilant. She vocalizes her emotions about situations, and the cubs respond. The cubs will climb trees if the mother expresses danger or if the cubs sense danger on their own. We have not seen mothers spanking cubs or giving specific vocalizations to send them up trees. When she grunts to them and seems to want them to come down and leave the area, the cubs may or may not respond. The mother may be aggressive toward danger or retreat from it and lead the cubs to an escape tree. She defends her territory against other females, maintaining a more or less exclusive feeding area for herself and her cubs, although male ranges may overlap her territory. Some females lead cubs to feeding areas up to 60 miles outside their territory in late summer, and the cubs remember these areas and may return to them as adults.
As cubs increase their intake of solid foods they nurse less frequently, but nursing continues throughout the summer if mother is well-fed and can produce milk.
Fall Sometime between mid September and early November, families become lethargic, construct a den, and settle into it for the winter. Although some dens may be dug during the summer, final den preparations are done in the fall. If the den is a burrow, the mother does the main digging and rakes in most of the leaf litter for bedding, but the cubs participate as well. Cubs of well-fed mothers may continue to nurse right up to within days of denning, usually in October.
Late fall and winter In the den, mothers share their warmth with the cubs, snuggling together to reduce the surface to mass ratio and conserve heat. The cub’s permanent teeth erupt during fall, winter, or spring, depending upon their overall stage of development which depends upon food. In January the cubs officially become ‘yearlings.’
Spring The family emerges in April and will remain together for another month or two until the mother is ready to mate again. The growing yearlings still need a lot of deep sleep, and they depend upon mother to remain vigilant while the yearlings fall into deep REM sleep. | <urn:uuid:74fa617e-c06e-4b4c-884b-2498f617ea25> | {
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An Indian startup company has developed a method for transforming carbon emissions from vehicles and chimneys into ink, and is now selling it in the form of pens.
"Over the last 150 years, mankind has depended on burning fossil fuels directly or indirectly for their energy needs," said the team. "Research has shown that many premature deaths are directly related to soot in the environment."
"Particle exposure leads to around 20,000 premature deaths in America each year. Our vision is to arrest the vehicular soot in a way that it doesn't reach our lungs."
The team's solution is called Air Ink. This is made from air pollution particles, namely the unburned carbon soot that comes out of car exhaust pipes, chimneys and generators.
The process begins with a device developed by the team, named Kaalink, which captures the soot being emitted from these objects.
The soot collected then undergoes various processes to remove heavy metals and carcinogens. The end product is a carbon-rich pigment.
This pigment is then used to make different types of inks and paints, some of which the company have developed and launched for a Kickstarter campaign. According to the team, it takes just 45 minutes worth of vehicle emissions to produce enough ink for one pen.
"The process of creating AirInk carefully detoxifies heavy metals and particle carcinogens from the soot or carbon," said the team. "The Pollutants which could have been in the lungs of millions of people are now beautifully resting as art."
The team's work was prompted by the high levels of pollution, particularly in Asian cities. Similarly fuelled by this issue, Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde has created a giant air purifier that he claimed could help "make a whole city smog free".
Smog levels in Barcelona also prompted Spanish studio BCQ to propose replacing the existing surface of a bridge in Barcelona with pollution-dissolving concrete. | <urn:uuid:048e0199-3dd6-466d-92f0-67b111d8ba8e> | {
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Previous studies have suggested that the oestrogen-like properties of soy isoflavones may reduce the effectiveness of hormone therapies used to treat breast cancer, while others, including epidemiological analysis in East Asian women, found links between higher isoflavone intake and reduced mortality.
“Because of this disparity, it remains unknown whether isoflavone consumption should be encouraged or avoided for breast cancer patients,” said Fang Fang Zhang, of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Therefore, Dr Zhang and her colleagues looked at the relationship between dietary intake of isoflavones and death from any cause in 6235 American and Canadian women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Over a median follow-up of nine years, women with breast cancer who consumed high amounts of isoflavones had a 21 percent lower risk of dying than women who consumed low amounts.
This decrease was largely confined to women with hormone receptor–negative tumours and women who were not treated with anti-estrogen therapy such as tamoxifen (which blocks the effects of oestrogen).
In contrast to some previous research, high levels of isoflavone intake were not associated with greater mortality among women receiving hormonal therapy.
The investigators noted that they examined only naturally occurring dietary isoflavones, not isoflavones from supplements.
“Based on our results, we do not see a detrimental effect of soy food intake among women who were treated with endocrine therapy,” said Dr. Zhang. “For women with hormone receptor–negative breast cancer, soy food products may potentially have a protective effect. Women who did not receive endocrine therapy as a treatment for their breast cancer had a weaker, but still statistically significant, association.”
More than 20 percent of all new breast cancer cases with known estrogen and progesterone receptor status are receptor-negative, and they have poorer survival rates than hormone receptor-positive cases.
“Whether lifestyle factors can improve survival after diagnosis is an important question for women diagnosed with this more aggressive type of breast cancer. Our findings suggest that survival may be better in patients with a higher consumption of isoflavones,” added senior author Esther John, of the Cancer Prevention Institute of California.
How isoflavones from foods interact with breast cancer cells is unclear, but research has shown that they have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic, and other effects that could influence tumour survival and growth.
This latest research was published in the journal Cancer. | <urn:uuid:ffd1a399-9307-4f03-9480-cbfb10a7cd66> | {
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What is a Fuel Injector?
Fuel injectors are the components that are responsible for the final stage of fuel delivery in fuel injection systems. High pressure fuel is delivered to the injector, which is activated by an engine control unit or fuel injector control module. When activated, the injector momentarily opens a valve that allows a precise amount of fuel to spray out.
Although a fuel injection system may have a single injector (i.e. central-point injection) or several (i.e. multiport injection), and injectors vary somewhat in design from one application to another, they all perform that same basic function.
- 1 Types of Fuel Injectors
- 2 How Does a Fuel Injector Work?
- 3 Fuel Injector Failure
Types of Fuel Injectors
There are a few different kinds of fuel injectors, and while they all perform the same function (spraying a precise amount of fuel when activated), they don’t all have the same components or design. The three main types of fuel injectors are:
- built into a throttle body (single point injection)
- centrally located (central port injection)
- located at each cylinder (multiport injection, direct injection)
The reality is that the many different types of fuel injectors are much more complex than those three generalized categories, and there are a number of subtypes of each, but we’ll consider these basic types of injectors for the sake of brevity.
Throttle Body Injectors
In throttle body injection systems, the fuel injector is built right into the throttle body. These throttle bodies represented an easy way for OEMs to switch over from carburetors to fuel injection systems, and the very first single-point fuel injection systems in the 1940s actually referred to their throttle bodies “pressure carburetors.” Today, the term “carburetor” refers exclusively to fuel mixing devices that rely on the Venturi effect rather than a pressurized spray of fuel.
The simplest single-point fuel injection systems consist of a single injector that slots into the throttle body. This injector is similar to other fuel injectors, but it is responsible for delivering fuel to the entire engine rather than just one cylinder. When it is activated, it sprays a fine mist of fuel into the throat of the throttle body, where it mixes with air and passes into the intake manifold. Since that results in the air/fuel mixture traveling all the way from the throttle body to the intake ports, this type of fuel injection is sometimes referred to as a “wet manifold system.”
Throttle body injectors can sometimes be replaced by simply unbolting the injector and installing a new one, although some can only be serviced by removing and rebuilding the entire throttle body. Some throttle bodies also have multiple built-in fuel injectors in a manner that recalls the design of multi-barrel carburetors.
Central Port Injectors
In central port fuel injection (CPFI) systems, a single “maxi” injector is used to provide fuel to all of the cylinders. However, this central injector is connected to each intake port via nylon fuel lines, which makes CPFI a sort of hybrid between single-point and multiport fuel injection.
In most central port injection systems, the fuel injector is an integral part of an assembly that includes components like:
- a fuel pressure regular
- nylon fuel lines
- poppet valve nozzles
This is sometimes referred to as the “spider assembly,” and it has to be replaced as a unit. That means if any one component fails (whether it’s the central “maxi” injector fails, a valve starts to leak, or the regulator breaks down), the whole thing has to be replaced.
Multiport and Direct Fuel Injectors
Most gasoline and diesel engines today use multiport or direct fuel injection, which both use similar fuel injectors. These injectors are stand-alone units, each of which is responsible for providing fuel to a single cylinder. The main difference is that multiport injectors deliver the fuel to the intake right at each intake port, and direct injectors spray the fuel straight into each combustion chamber.
Multiport Fuel Injector Components
A typical multiport fuel injector consists of a:
- structural body/housing
- filter basket
- electrical connector
- pintle valve
- pintle valve return spring
- pintle cap
- pintle seat
The body or housing of a fuel injector contains all of the component parts, which are typically serviceable. On the top end of the housing, an 0-ring allows the body to be sealed to a fuel rail, and another o-ring on the bottom side allows it to be sealed into an intake runner or cylinder head. At the fuel rail side, just inside the main fuel injector body, a filter basket helps keep contaminants from passing through the injector and obstructing the pintle valve.
The electrical connector provides a method for an ECU or fuel injector control module to activate the solenoid, which is an electromagnetic coil that operates the pintle valve. When the solenoid activates, the pintle valve pulls back from its seat and a small amount of fuel is sprayed through the pintle nozzle.
How Does a Fuel Injector Work?
Although they all perform the same function, fuel injectors don’t all work in precisely the same way. The two main types of fuel injectors use either a:
- poppet valve
- pintle valve
Fuel Injector Pintle Valves
Fuel injectors that use pintle valves are operated by electromagnetic components called solenoids. The solenoid is activated, or “pulsed” by an ECU or fuel injector control module, which causes it to undergo linear movement (which is how solenoids operate.)
Since the solenoid is mechanically connected to a pintle valve within the fuel injector, that linear movement causes the pintle to move away from its seat. A small amount of highly pressurized fuel then sprays from the pintle nozzle.
Fuel Injector Poppet Valves
In fuel injection systems that use poppet valves, fuel pressure is used to operate the valve rather than the direct action of a solenoid. The central “maxi” injector receives a constant amount of pressurized fuel, which it directs to each cylinder via nylon tubes that terminate in poppet valves.
When sufficient pressure reaches one of these poppets, it is forced open, which results in a fine mist of fuel spraying into an intake port. When the pressure is relieved, the poppet valve closes again.
Fuel Injector Pulse Width
Fuel injectors are “open” for periods of time that can be measured in millionths of a second. This minuscule time period is referred to as the “fuel injector pulse width.” Since the pulse width indicates how long a fuel injector is open, it corresponds directly to how much fuel is actually delivered to each cylinder.
Fuel Injector Failure
Fuel injectors can fail due to simple mechanical issues, but the most common points of failure are the result of issues like leaks and contamination. Fuel injector leaks typically occur when one of the o-rings fail, although leaks in CPFI systems are often the result of a bad injector tube or poppet valve. In the former case, replacing the o-rings will fix the problem, while the latter typically calls for the replacement of the entire spider assembly.
When a fuel injector fails (or begins to operate poorly) due to contamination, it typically has to be replaced or cleaned. Although a number of “fuel injector cleaner” products are available, many “dirty” injectors actually have contaminants inside their filter baskets that can only be removed by taking the injector apart. Dirty injectors can also have contaminants inside their pintle valves or seats that prevent them from closing entirely, which can often be treated with an ultrasonic cleaner and various chemical solvents.
After fuel injectors have been cleaned or rebuilt, it’s also important to flow test and flow balance them before returning them to service. | <urn:uuid:b940917d-b241-4f89-b6b3-954df349a691> | {
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Steve Black and a small group of volunteers are on a mission to save some American history – part of what remains of Naval Air Station Ottumwa, Iowa.
Their goal is “…to develop a Naval Air Museum dedicated to NAS Ottumwa and the primary and pre-flight training bases of the era,” says Black, president of the Friends of NAS Ottumwa. Black, an Ottumwa native, now lives in Urbandale, a Des Moines suburb.
The vestiges of the once-vigorous base are now part of Ottumwa Regional Airport, which is 91.8 nautical miles west of Galesburg, IL, home of the National Stearman Fly-In.
Black will discuss the project in a presentation, “Saving History: U.S. Naval Air Station Ottumwa, Iowa,” during the 46th National Stearman Fly-In. The talk will be at 7:35 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, in the Jet Air, Inc. hangar at Galesburg Municipal Airport. All Fly-In programs and seminars are free and open to the public.
The museum proper will be housed in what once was NAS Ottumwa’s Administration Building. When development of the base was approved, it had a budget of $5 miilion.
The primary building material was wood. But wood was in short supply, and the green lumber available wasn’t suitable for use. So the Administration Building fortuitously was constructed of durable brick, Black says. The total budget swelled to $15 million.
The group of 10-15 persons Black leads is supplanted by volunteer carpenters and electricians. Sometimes aviation students at Indian Hills Community College and their instructors join in the work. That currently includes new lighting inside the building and restoration of the front porch cover.
Numbers – lots of them – help explain the significance of NAS Ottumwa:
- The base had 350 Stearmans, which were divided into two squadrons. Some of those planes are still airworthy and are brought to the Galesburg Fly-In.
- NAS Ottumwa was built on 1,400 acres northwest of the city. Groundbreaking was Aug. 6, 1942. The first planes arrived Jan. 23, 1943. The base was commissioned March 13, 1943. The last plane left Oct. 2, 1947, and the base was leased to the city.
- NAS Ottumwa operated for 925 days. During that time, there were 397,214 training flights. Total training hours were 605,553 – an average of 1,000 flying hours a day.
- The Navy sent 6,656 aspiring aviators to Ottumwa. A total of 4,626 cadets completed training and were transferred to intermediate training.
- On average, about 3,500 persons were stationed at NAS Ottumwa.
- Besides the Administration Building, NAS Ottumwa had two large hangars, a drill hall, a hospital, bachelor officer quarters, barracks for enlisted men and WAVEs, classrooms, mess halls, a fire station, a brig and various storage and repair buildings.
- Today, Black says, in addition to the Administration Building one hangar, the fire station, a repair building, a mess hall, and the water plant are among surviving structures. “Several suffer from disrepair, including choices such as steel siding that affects appearance and long-term survivability,” Black says.
- Some of NAS Ottumwa’s “graduates” include Jesse Leroy Brown, the Navy’s first black pilot; Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter; Bob Steuber, who played for the Chicago Bears, and Eldon Price, who developed instruments to calibrate airspeed on early jet airliners, and was involved with early space station development, Project Apollo boosters, and Strategic Air Command missiles.
Navy Lt. Richard M. Nixon served in NAS Ottumwa’s Administration Building. He became the 37th president of the United States. | <urn:uuid:6b4408d4-c211-4ff4-b67f-e1445a88b813> | {
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While we know for certain that belly dancing is fun, it has other favourable side effects as well.
Below are two articles that describe the impact on belly dancing on your physical health.
The Health Benefits of Belly Dancing
- Raks Sharki, also called belly dance, is a form of dance that many are familiar with. But few understand the effects it has on the human body. The graceful hip drops, rolls, and pivots of this dance form utilize muscle groups in the abdomen, pelvis, trunk, spine, and neck, working with the body instead of against it. Unlike ballet, which can potentially alter and deform the skeleton, or other dance forms that work against rather than with the body's physical inclinations, raks sharki is based on movements that come naturally to the female form. There is a wealth of health benefits awaiting those who practice this form of dance.
- Improved posture and muscle toning
Our spinal column contains more bones and ligaments than any other part of the body. Its 33 vertebrae are stacked together in a column joined together by cartilage and ligaments, and almost every movement of the torso depends upon its flexibility and function. Muscle groups that attach to the ligaments and vertebrae create movement in the trunk and pelvis areas. Raks sharki tones these muscles and maintains flexibility in a safe and effective manner.
During the dance, the movements of hip drops, circles, figure eights, and shimmies put the joints and ligaments in the lower back and hip through a full range of gentle, repetitive motion. This movement helps increase the flow of synovial fluid (nature's lubricant) in these joints. When movements are done properly, the pelvis is tipped forward, or tucked somewhat; a neutral position that can help prevent lower back problems. Raks sharki can help relieve stress to the back, counteracting the almost constant compression of the disks that occurs from sitting and a sedentary lifestyle.
These toned muscles improve posture and help prevent back pain that can be caused by the unnatural curving forward of the spine that occurs when muscle groups are weak (lordosis). Small muscle groups deep in the back that are normally under-exercised are used and strengthened. The muscles surrounding the hip, the largest joint in the body, are used and exercised during hip drops, and figure eights, enhancing flexibility and suppleness. Improved hip flexibility can lead to improved balance when walking as well.
Arms and Shoulders are exercised when doing lifts, circles, or the rippling motions of snake arms, toning muscle. This toning effect is often evident early on, since holding the arms aloft are an important element of the dance, even for beginners.
Because a woman is on her feet, moving during the dance, it is considered a weight-bearing exercise. Weight-bearing exercise can prevent osteoporosis and strengthen bones, and the overall toning can lead to an improved self-image, as the dancer becomes more balanced and poised. Raks sharki is considered a low-impact exercise, meaning the risk of injury is minimal when movements are done correctly. The benefits of belly dance can be enjoyed by women of all ages; men and children are participating in the dance as well, and reaping the same benefits.
- Weight loss
According to Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat, M.D., raks sharki can burn up to 300 calories per hour. This estimate will vary, of course, depending on the intensity of your dancing. Combined with a healthy diet that involves sensible eating, raks sharki can without a doubt be part of a sound weight loss program.
Many dance classes take place only once or twice a week. For even better results and enhanced cardiovascular benefits, try combining the flexibility and muscle strengthening of raks sharki with an aerobic routine, such as swimming or bike riding, on the days you don't have class. Your entire body will feel the benefits as the aerobic exercise works large muscle groups, and the dance enhances strength and coordination of small muscle groups in the trunk, hips, and arms. Also, many exercise physiologists recommend doing just such a routine: alternating one form of exercise with another, for maximum benefits.
- Preparation for childbirth
The movements of raks sharki make an excellent prenatal exercise regimen that strengthens the muscles used during the childbirth process. The toned abdominal muscles and natural hip tucks, which are similar to the "pelvic rocking" taught during prenatal classes, teach the expectant mother how to move her pelvis. For women who desire natural childbirth, this form of exercise through dance, with its emphasis on muscle control not only facilitates natural childbirth, but also makes an excellent post-natal exercise that helps encourage abdominal tone. During those first weeks after giving birth, when caution is needed while healing from the birth process, these movements work the muscles gently and effectively, if done very gradually.
- Stress reduction
In this day and age of almost continuous stress, the subtle rhythms of raks sharki and the traditional movements are calming. The repetitive movements of the dance and the concentration needed to do them can help a mind filled with daily stress to "let go" for a while and relax. It's hard to worry about deadlines at work when you are thinking about getting that next drop just right, or while making sure that you are in time with the music.
One effect of stress is that our bodies tense up, causing contractions or spasms in muscle groups, such as those in the neck, shoulders, or back. When a muscle is contracted, lactic acid builds up, causing the "soreness" or pain that occurs. Blood flow to the affected muscles decreases as well.
Raks sharki, on the other hand, gently stretches and uses these vulnerable muscle groups, and as they are utilized, blood flow increases and lactic acid is flushed away. Stressed muscles relax as they are gently exercised, relieving the "clenched" muscles often seen in our society. The body becomes supple and limber, and practitioners frequently report that pain diminishes in the back and neck areas.
Raks sharki is a fun, healthy way to exercise. It can be a creative outlet that conditions, tones, and allows a woman to tune into the natural movements of her body. It can refresh, relax, and/or exhilarate. So why wait? Find out where classes are held locally, or visit Bhuz.com to look up a class and join in this centuries old dance!
Advisory: Many doctors have suggested belly dancing classes as part of rehabilitation from injury; it is, however, important to check with your own medical provider before starting any new form of exercise, especially if you are over 40, pregnant or have medical problems.
Most injuries related to "overdoing" for the beginner can be avoided by warming the muscles first and by remembering to do some basic stretching afterward. Listen to your body's signals. Raks sharki, or belly dance, is a wonderful and gentle way to begin to condition your body.
Belly-Dance is good for you
Many people are surprised to learn that Middle-Eastern Dance, commonly known as "belly-dance," involves much more than the belly! In fact, belly-dance can benefit many parts of the body. Here are some of the health benefits of Middle-Eastern Dance:
Exercising the carrying muscles without impact. A belly-dancer uses her quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes to hold her steady as she performs hip movements or travels smoothly across the floor. However, even though she gets a great lower-body workout, the amount of impact to her knees and ankles is minimal. Impact is measured not only by how hard our feet strike the ground, but by how much stress is placed on our joints. Using this measure, most of Middle-Eastern dance is considered non-impact; some tribal and folk dances are low-impact.
Building the back muscles evenly. Belly-dancers use their torsos a lot-much more than ballet, modern or tap dancers. Only jazz dancers come close to our use of rib movements and undulations. These movements, coupled with shoulder movements, exercise the back muscles, and they exercise the muscles evenly. Strong back muscles prevent back injuries, and they promote good posture as well.
Exercising the arms. New belly-dance students are always surprised by much they have to use their arm muscles. Belly-dancers have to hold their arms up for long periods of time, and it actually takes quite a lot of strength to perform arm movements slowly and gracefully.
Aiding digestion. It's true! Exercising the abdominal area, not just by rolling the belly, but also by swaying the torso, helps food move along the digestive system. Any form of exercise will have this effect to some degree, but belly-dance is especially good for this purpose. | <urn:uuid:1d28438f-0639-4969-a2bc-8d3d027327eb> | {
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Teams rescue animals caught in multi-state floods
Flooding joins severe winter storms and tornadoes to complete a trifecta of severe weather to hit the nation's midsection this year.
The most recent bout with Mother Nature spread across Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas, leaving officials struggling to keep people, animals and rescue efforts above water.More than an entire month of incessant rainfall, beginning in late May and continuing through early July, left about 500 animals displaced in the hardest-hit areas, and at least 14 people dead across the four states, with thousands more currently without homes or facing extensive property damages.
Floodwaters poured through city streets, sewers, homes and businesses, contaminating food and drinking water. The impact to animal health remains largely unknown, yet a primary concern to veterinarians.
"We pulled a lot of animals out of contaminated water," which smelled like petroleum throughout areas of Oklahoma, says Tracy Reis, Animal Emergency Services program manager with the American Humane Association (AHA), called in to assist rescue and shelter efforts. "We may see an increase in digestive and pulmonary disorders. We've had quite a bought with diarrhea, and we don't know the long-term health effects."
Despite enduring multiple weather disasters this year, Kansas officials fear the recent floods may have caused the most widespread and costly devastation.
"This will prove to be a very major disaster because it covers such a wide area. Overall, the flooding has been more disastrous than other storms we've had, just because of the wide involvement," says George Teagarden, livestock commissioner for the Kansas Animal Health Department.
Helping the homeless
Rainfall doubling normal amounts separated many animals from their homes and owners, and left several animal shelters flooded. Facilities that escaped water damage in the hardest-hit areas — Miami and Bartlesville, Okla., and Coffeyville, Kan. — were overwhelmed.
The Miami Animal Welfare Society is housing 100 dogs and cats from the flood, in addition to the 30 animals already boarded there before the storms, says Scott Mason, DVM and program coordinator for the medical reserve core of the Oklahoma State Animal Response Team (SART), sponsored by the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association.
After an unprecedented 20 straight days of rain, Oklahoma floods eventually forced the Washington County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Bartlesville to set up a temporary shelter at the Dewey Agriculture Center in Dewey, Okla. "But they have not had any evacuation problems or veterinary issues," Mason says.
While only three companion animals — two dogs and one cat — were reported dead in the area, the state's population of agricultural animals was harder hit. Thirty cattle reportedly drowned from one flooded farm just before July 4, Reis says.
Some farm animals caught in high waters through Texas and Missouri were relocated to drier areas, but few if any deaths or overloaded shelters were reported.
"We have helped move a few animals. There were several horses and some miniature donkeys in the Houston area that were in the way of floodwaters. But there haven't been massive numbers," says Carla Everett, Texas Animal Health Commission public information director.
Mixing oil and water
Flooding was not the only concern for residents of Coffeyville, Kan., home of the Coffeyville Resources refinery. A pumping malfunction caused 42,000 gallons of crude oil to spill into south-central Kansas' Verdigris River, coating property, rescue workers and pets.
With more than an estimated 400 animals impacted by water and oil floods, the Coffeyville Animal Control Department has been working around the clock, assisting all types of species, including ferrets, snakes, mice, dogs, cats and rabbits, says Director Devin Volmer. | <urn:uuid:403356f8-58b4-40d3-96a2-af6ba195cd09> | {
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- This event has passed.
Speaker: Dr. Mark Harrison
March 9 @ 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Dr. Mark Harrison
Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences
Title: “A New Paradigm for Early Earth”
Abstract: The ubiquity of origin myths among human societies suggests that our species has an innate need to explain how Earth formed and came to its present state. The controls on myth fabrication include the limitations of the available historical record and the technological capability of the culture in question. Despite our impressive technology and a western cultural bias to watery origins, when the scientific community encountered the limits of its historical record – there are no known rocks older than 4 billion years, it chose the paradigm of a desiccated, continent-free wasteland in which surface petrogenesis was largely due to bollide impact into a basaltic substrate and called it the “Hadean” (hellish time). But the story emerging from geochemical investigations of >4 billion year old Jack Hills zircons is of their formation in water-rich granites under relatively low geothermal gradients. These results have been interpreted as reflecting chemical weathering and sediment cycling in the presence of both liquid water and plate boundary interactions shortly after Earth formed. Given general agreement that life could not have emerged until liquid water appeared at or near the Earth’s surface, a significant implication is that our planet may have been habitable as much as 500 million years earlier than previously thought. Indeed, recent C isotopic evidence obtained from inclusions in Hadean zircons is consistent with life having emerged by 4.1 Ga, or several hundred million years earlier that the hypothesized lunar cataclysm. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of these observations drawn from ancient zircons is that none were predicted from theory. Rather, generations of models essentially innocent of observational constraints fed the longstanding paradigm. What compelled the scientific community to develop its own origin myth – of a hellish beginning – in the absence of direct evidence? While science is clearly distinguished from mythology by its emphasis on verification, its practitioners may be as subject to the same existential need for explanations as any primitive society. | <urn:uuid:7605f44b-01c7-4cbc-b611-108b75ffd953> | {
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The National Museum of African American History and Culture has announced the launch of the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal – a comprehensive search platform allowing users to search over 1.7 million pages of Freedmen’s Bureau records.
From the announcement:
The portal allows users to search records from the United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War to assist in the political and social reconstruction of post-war Southern states and to help formerly enslaved African Americans transition from slavery to freedom and citizenship. From 1865 to 1872, the Freedmen’s Bureau created and collected over 1.7 million handwritten records containing the names and information of hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved individuals and Southern white refugees.
The platform makes records available that have been undergoing digitization and crowdsourced transcription since 2015. The project’s announcement calls for additional volunteers to contribute to the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project:
The museum is leading a volunteer effort to transcribe the digitized records of the Freedmen’s Bureau so they can be more useful for scholars and genealogists researching the Reconstruction era. To learn more about the Freedmen’s Bureau Project, the public can visit the Robert Frederick Smith Explore Your Family History Center on the museum’s second floor or the Smithsonian Transcription Center webpage to volunteer. | <urn:uuid:19393964-ac3e-43c1-acfa-868460e966c3> | {
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For the first time, the International Space Station (ISS) will receive a squid. Not just one, but 128 chicks of tailed squid (a kind of mollusk that glows in the dark), accompanied by 5,000 tardigrades, are the most resistant microscopic animals in the world.
Next Thursday (3), SpaceX, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, will carry out its 22nd mission to refuel the International Space Station and bring supplies for astronauts, as well as squid and tardigrades for study in microgravity.
Scientists aboard the International Space Station will study the behavior of squids in space to see if microgravity affects their relationship with beneficial microbes. Tardigrades, on the other hand, will have their fame as “indestructible” at stake in the harsh space environment.
New International Space Station passengers will be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:29 pm (Brasilia time) on Thursday (3). The launch will be broadcast live on SpaceX’s YouTube channel.
Squids and their microbes
The little squids that will go into space are part of an experiment called “umami” (short for “understanding microgravity in animal-microbial interactions”, in English), led by Jimmy Foster, professor in the Department of Microbiology and Science prison cell From the University of Florida, USA. The goal is to study how these animals relate to their natural microbes in space.
“Animals, including humans, depend on microbes to maintain a healthy digestive and immune system,” Foster said in an interview with CNN. “We don’t fully understand how space alters these beneficial interactions. The Umani experiment uses a glow-in-the-dark squid to investigate these important animal health issues.”
According to the scientist, squid-tailed dogs, which measure just three millimeters, are ideal for studying like this because they are easy to transport into space and have an immune system similar to that of humans. The bodies of these animals glow in the dark when they are “colonized” by a type of bioluminescent bacteria found in Earth’s waters.
On the International Space Station, squids will be exposed to these bacteria and astronauts will watch if they continue to glow in the dark in microgravity and how the relationship between them and microbes changes in this different environment.
“As astronauts explore space, they take a sac of different microbial species with them,” Foster said. “It is important to understand how these microbes, collectively called the microbiome, change in the space environment and how these relationships are established.”
This isn’t the first time a squid has gone into space. Foster herself had already studied the relationship between these animals and shiny bacteria in microgravity in 2011, when NASA’s space shuttle Endeavor took them to orbit around Earth.
Water bears, as they are known as tardigrades, have a simpler task: to survive. These microscopic animals are already famous for their resistance to desert droughts, literally biting cold, and heat levels that turn water into steam. But do they survive space?
However, it is not the first time that tardigrades have been sent into space. It is even possible that some of them may have “colonized” the moon after a spacecraft carrying thousands of them crashed onto Earth’s natural satellite in April 2019.
Thomas Boothby, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Wyoming, USA, is the leader of this new experiment. The goal this time, he says, is not to see whether tardigrades will survive, but to watch exactly what they do to adapt to space’s microgravity environment.
The idea is to understand which genes are being activated to allow these organisms to adapt to space. “Understand how to protect astronauts and other living things from stress [da microgravidade] It will be necessary to ensure a safe and productive space in the long term. “ | <urn:uuid:0fa569be-444f-40b9-8681-edc631e5a495> | {
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Having a well-functioning memory is something we may think about more and more as we age. Memory and other cognitive processes can gradually diminish as many grow older, but research in the last several decades shows those who experience persistent or high levels of stress are especially vulnerable.
The negative effects of stress on memory and other cognitive functions has been widely explored for decades in numerous research projects using a wide range of methodology.
- A study out of the Netherlands published in 2007, “The effects of cortisol increase on long-term memory retrieval during and after acute psychosocial stress,” examined short- and long-term memory.
Students were tasked with retrieving/recalling emotionally negative and neutral word associations in this study, which is referenced by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnology Information website. The 70 male participants learned some of the words one day before the tests and other words five weeks earlier.
“Within the stress condition, retrieval of negative words, 5 weeks after learning, was impaired both during and after the stress task, compared to the control group,” the researchers wrote.
- In another study, cited by Prevention magazine, German scientists conducted two separate experiments in which 60 participants were subjected to mild forms of emotional and situational stress. The results showed that “women who were stressed took 10% more time to recall recently learned information.” The reason, the article explained, is because the hormones, cortisol, often referred to as the stress hormone, and noradrenalin, flooded the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which controls working memory, where new information is processed and retained.
“Our ability to focus, concentrate and remember has a lot to do with how much emotional stress we are experiencing,” write the authors of the booklet, HeartMath Brain Fitness Program, newly released. “Emotional stress has a major impact on our immediate and long-term cognitive functions, and underlies many of the mental health problems in society today.”
Keeping Your Brain Fit with Positive Emotions
Even as research has intensified recently on how and why cognitive abilities, especially memory, deteriorate with age, so too has the quest to preserve these vital processes for as much of our lives as possible. With stress identified as a primary contributor to memory and other cognitive impairment and low heart coherence, reducing and controlling unhealthy stress levels is a major focus of many research organizations, among them IHM.
IHM’s intense focus on optimal function research led its researchers to make an important finding: Intentionally invoking positive emotions is one of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce unhealthy stress.
“Research has shown that sustained positive emotions lead to a highly efficient and regenerative functional mode associated with increased coherence in heart-rhythm patterns and greater synchronization and harmony among physiological systems,” Institute of HeartMath Director of Research Dr. Rollin McCraty writes in his paper, Heart Rhythm Coherence – An Emerging Area of Biofeedback.
One of the most powerful and effective of the positive emotions is appreciation, HeartMath researchers found. Heart-monitoring technology such as an electrocardiogram or HeartMath’s emWave® Desktop to measure heart-rhythm patterns typically displays a nearly instant transformation from erratic to smooth patterns when a subject intentionally experiences appreciation. Smooth heart-rhythm patterns indicate lower stress and greater heart coherence and thus a range of psychophysiological benefits that include improved memory, focus and immune system among many others.
IHM researchers have conducted many trials in which participants realized significant reductions in stress levels and improvements in cognitive functions by intentionally feeling other positive emotions such as care, compassion and love.
In tandem with its research into the effects of stress on emotions, HeartMath has developed and continues work on a variety of tools to help people reduce stress. Hundreds of thousands of people have used these tools, among which are the Neutral, Quick Coherence® and Heart Lock-In® techniques.
All of these tools are designed to reduce stress by raising heart coherence. IHM researchers have found this to be highly effective, even in the moment, at restoring both a physical and psychological sense of balance and calm, much like meditation. | <urn:uuid:e116eff7-1f90-44db-bcb2-7010e178f45c> | {
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Green Arabia reported in BBC news 16 September 2015. The Arabian peninsula is one of the hottest, driest most barren places on the face of the earth today, but a multi-disciplinary team of scientists has combined satellite imaging studies and archaeological finds and concluded it was once a lush, green territory with many rivers and lakes.
Michael Petraglia, a professor of human evolution and prehistory at the School of Archaeology, Oxford University explained: “Innovative space shuttle technology has allowed the mapping of over 10,000 lakes across Arabia including the now barren Nafud desert. This finding links directly with the discovery of the remains of elephants, hippos, crocodile and molluscs at a couple of our sites in the Kingdom”.
The researchers suggest there was fresh drinking water available in the lakes, and some of these were linked, making it easy for migrating humans and animals to make their way across the peninsula. What are now dried up water courses are the sites of “palaeo-rivers” that can be mapped from space.
On the ground, archaeologists have found stone tools that are similar to those found in Africa, and they believe the Arabian Peninsula was an important site of human habitation as early humans migrated out of Africa. Rock art has also been found in central Saudi Arabia at the Jubbah palaeolake in the Hail region.
According to Ali Ibrahim Ghabban, deputy director of Saudi Commission on Tourism and National Heritage, “These sites are of global importance. They are the signatures of modern humans moving out of Africa”.
Editorial Comment: These studies do reveal the area was a suitable environment for both animals and people to live and move around and across, but the witnesses who were there inform us the direction of movement was not out of Africa, but into it.
Genesis tells us that within four generations after Noah’s flood, the people had gathered in the region of what is now Iraq and were building a tower to make a name for themselves, rather than obeying God’s instructions to spread out over the earth. God judged them by splitting them into different language groups, and these groups then dispersed from one another and became the ancestors of all the various ethnic and racial groups on the earth today.
Some would have gone south into the Arabian Peninsula, and from there to Africa and Asia. Today that would be an extremely perilous journey as the whole area is a hot, dry barren desert, but the “Green Arabia” found by this new research would have sustained people and animals as they spread out.
This is not the first present day desert to show signs of a wetter, greener past. Similar evidence has been found for the Sahara Desert and Australia. (Ref. deserts, Middle East, migration, environment, climate)
Evidence News vol. 15 No.18
7 October 2015
Creation Research Australia | <urn:uuid:3559a025-ba17-4976-b70c-84ef0a8f1b0e> | {
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LUDWIG (Cohn) EMIL
LUDWIG (Cohn), EMIL (1881–1948), German biographer and author. The son of Hermann *Cohn, a famous ophthalmologist, Ludwig was born in Breslau. After 1907 he spent most of his life in Switzerland. He began his literary career as a playwright and novelist, but became internationally popular through his colorful biographies, which were translated into many languages. His vast output included Goethe (3 vols., 1920), Napoleon (1925), Bismarck (1921), Wilhelm II (1926), Lincoln (1930), Michelangelo (1930), Hindenburg (1935), Cleopatra (1937), Roosevelt (1938), Simon Bolivar (1939), and Stalin (1945). He also wrote shorter essays on Rembrandt, Beethoven, and Balzac, and character studies of three eminent German Jews, Sigmund *Freud, Ferdinand *Lassalle, and Walther *Rathenau. Like Lytton Strachey in England, Stefan Zweig in Germany, and André Maurois in France, Ludwig regarded a biography as a work of art. He did not pretend to compete with the scholars on whose research he based his presentation of historical figures and his personal views often cast doubt on the objective truth of his writing. Nevertheless, he always showed keen insight into the personalities of his subjects and into the historical and social conditions in which they lived, and his work was distinguished by a dynamic literary style. Among Ludwig's other books were one on Jesus, Der Menschensohn (1928), Drei Diktatoren (1939), and a study of the abdication of King Edward VIII (1939). He also wrote some geographical books, including Der Nil (1935, The Nile, 1936), and Am Mittelmeer (1923, On Mediterranean Shores, 1929). Ludwig was baptized in 1902, but 20 years later, after the assassination of Walter Rathenau, he publicly renounced Christianity. During his American exile he became one of the most decided enemies of the Third Reich, publishing several critical works, such as How to Treat the Germans (1943) and The Moral Conquest of Germany (1945).
N. Hansen, Der Fall Emil Ludwig (1930). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Gradmann, Historische Belletristik. Populäre historische Biographienin der Weimarer Republik (1993); H.J. Perrey, "Der Fall Emil Ludwig. Ein Bericht über eine historiographische Kontroverse der ausgehenden Weimarer Republik," in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 43 (1992), 169–81; S. Ullrich, "Im Dienste der Weimarer Republik. Emil Ludwig als Historiker und Publizist," in: Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft, 49 (2001), 119–40.
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Mind and Body in Early China critiques Orientalist accounts of early China as the radical, "holistic" other. The idea that the early Chinese held the "strong" holist view, seeing no qualitative difference between mind and body, has long been contradicted by traditional archeological and qualitative textual evidence. New digital humanities methods, along with basic knowledge about human cognition, now make this position untenable. A large body of empirical evidence suggests that "weak" mind-body dualism is a psychological universal, and that human sociality would be fundamentally impossible without it. Edward Slingerland argues that the humanities need to move beyond social constructivist views of culture, and embrace instead a view of human cognition and culture that integrates the sciences and the humanities. Our interpretation of texts and artifacts from the past and from other cultures should be constrained by what we know about the species-specific, embodied commonalities shared by all humans. This book also attempts to broaden the scope of humanistic methodologies by employing team-based qualitative coding and computer-aided "distant reading" of texts, while also drawing upon our current best understanding of human cognition to transform our basic starting point. It has implications for anyone interested in comparative religion, early China, cultural studies, digital humanities, or science-humanities integration. | <urn:uuid:4a3ed0c1-1d9b-497e-94bc-9e7c7db9ce77> | {
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- wooden chair for each student or one chair for two students
- water-based paint in various colours
- paint trays
- paint rollers
Pimping chairs is a nice activity for older kids. Ask students to bring an old wooden chair, or buy some old ones in a reclycle store. Discuss how to pimp a chair. How do you manage that? Do you choose a theme, for instance flowers or sports, or do you want to decorate it with motives? You can even choose an artist. How about a Keith Haring chair, or a Piet Mondriaan table? What colours do you use? How do you draw the design on the chair? Just drawing or is it better to use a cut mold?
Create a design on paper, on which the colours and patterns / designs that are selected are clearly indicated. Talk about the roles when the chair is made in groups. Who's doing what?
Put the chairs on newspapers. Sand the chair and make it completely greaseproof with a cloth and ammonia water. Let it dry. Draw the design with pencil on the chair. Paint the chair.
The table below is pimped by a group of students. For the tabletop they used chalkboard paint. This table is still in our classroom as an instruction table. Handy, because you can write on it!
All furniture is pimped by students of 11-12 years old | <urn:uuid:1c47bd9a-f089-4b95-8726-ba7c841b8d4c> | {
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Making colon cancer a community concern (Winter, 2006-07)
December 13, 2006
Beauty salons, barber shops and community health centers work with UNC researchers to get the word out about how to reduce the risk of colon cancer.
If UNC School of Public Health researchers have their way, people will be talking more about colonoscopies and other ways to reduce their risk for colon cancer — and not just during yearly visits with their doctors. “I don’t think we can sit back and wait for people to come to the doctor’s office or the health care clinic,” says Dr. Laura Linnan, associate professor of health behavior and health education at the UNC School of Public Health and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Those are important places, but there are just so many people who don’t have regular physicians or don’t interact with the medical care system at all. We need to go where they are.”
Colorectal cancer is a problem for all races, but it’s particularly crucial that information about how to prevent colorectal cancer gets through to African-Americans, who are more likely to get the disease than whites or any other group. And when African-Americans get colon cancer, they’re more likely to die from it. For both African-American men and women, cancers of the colon and rectum are the third most common cause of cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org).
Scientists are working to learn why. In the meantime, Linnan wants to reduce those disparities now.
For all people, regardless of race, reducing cancer risk means following the guidelines for general health: get regular aerobic exercise and maintain a healthy body weight. “The whole literature on diet and colon cancer is very confusing,” says Dr. Robert Sandler, professor of epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health and Nina C. and John T. Sessions Distinguished Professor of Medicine.
“But one of the things that’s really apparent is that people who are obese and people who don’t exercise are more likely to get colon cancer. And the good thing about this finding is that it’s something we can intervene on. So if we can get people to avoid obesity, achieve their ideal body weight, and exercise more, we could reduce their risk of getting colorectal cancer.”
Since colon cancer can be treated and cured if found early, getting the recommended screening tests — fecal occult blood test, a sigmoidoscopy or a colonoscopy — at the recommended intervals can help reduce deaths from the disease. “Most colon cancers begin as polyps called adenomas. A colonoscopy can find and remove those so they don’t become cancers,” says Dr. Jessie Satia, assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health. “But African-Americans tend to have lower rates of screening.”
Reaching people where they live
For UNC School of Public Health researchers, reducing colon cancer risk means reaching out to people in the places where they live, work and play. “Even if you know what people can do to reduce their risk, you still have to get the word out in ways that will be meaningful and places that are convenient,” Linnan says, “People are just too busy, and we can’t assume that health is at the top of everybody’s priority list.”
Linnan is leading a team conducting a randomized trial of an intervention where women spend quite a bit of time — beauty salons. Early work from the BEAUTY project (Bringing Education and Understanding To You) shows that 17.3 percent of the women in the study visit the salon weekly, spending on average two-and-a-half hours on each visit. That offers a great opportunity for health talk.
“There are over 11,000 salons in North Carolina alone, and over 60,000 licensed stylists,” Linnan says. “If we figure out just the right methods and intensity of intervention that will encourage licensed stylists to weave cancer prevention messages into conversations they have with customers during a typical salon visit, the opportunity for reaching women and reinforcing these messages at subsequent salon visits is really amazing. The North Carolina BEAUTY and Health Project is designed to do just that.”
BEAUTY compares self-reported behavior changes in diet and physical activity among customers of beauty salons who receive various health interventions while they visit salons. Researchers want to find out if stylists and salon owners, whom the customers already trust, can be effective in conveying information about how to reduce risk of prostate, breast and colorectal cancers, not just for women but also for the men in their lives. If the answer is “yes,” then it is good news since we know they are vital links to many women, as well as men and children.
A second project also led by Linnan, TRIM (Trimming Risk in Men), has begun to explore the same questions in barbershops, working with barbers to help their customers make informed decisions about prostate and colorectal cancer screening.
Both projects are examples of community- based participatory research, in which community members help shape all aspects of the research, Linnan says. BEAUTY project researchers recruited an advisory board made up of beauty product distributors, directors of cosmetology schools, salon owners and licensed stylists to help decide how the interventions might be conducted. “We started this effort back in 2000 with a simple question to our advisory board members: ‘What do you think of the idea of promoting health in beauty salons?'” Linnan says. “They were very enthusiastic, but they said, ‘If you don’t have the stylists on board, it won’t work.’ So the first thing we did was conduct a survey of licensed stylists in one North Carolina county to find out if they were interested and willing to participate, if they had preferences about topics they were most comfortable discussing and what type of training they would like.”
Response from stylists was enthusiastic, Linnan says. Researchers sent trained observers to ten salons for about eight hours in each salon. “We found that women in salons spend 18 percent of their time talking about health-related topics and that the conversations were initiated equally by stylists and by customers,” Linnan says.
Joyce Thomas, director of the Cosmetology and Barbering Schools at Central Carolina Community College in Sanford, N.C., and a member of the BEAUTY project’s advisory board, knows that firsthand after more than 40 years as a hair stylist. “When somebody is having a problem, they want to talk about it, and they feel like their hairdresser is the one to talk to about it,” she says. “Especially when somebody’s had surgery, they even want to show you their scar. There’s just a closeness there.”
After conducting the observations, a stylist survey and a successful pilot intervention that showed positive changes among stylists and customers, researchers worked with the advisory board members to design a randomized trial of 40 salons frequented primarily by African-American women. All 40 salons received poster-sized educational displays for their salons. The 10 “control” salons received displays that featured health topics unrelated to cancer, such as foot care, stress management or preventing back injuries. From the remaining 30 “intervention” salons, 10 received the displays plus stylist training workshops, 10 received displays plus health magazines sent to customers at their homes, and 10 received displays plus stylist training workshops and health magazines sent to customers at their homes.
The idea for including educational displays in the salons came from the results of observations, Linnan says. “We assumed that the stylists were doing most of the talking during a typical visit, but as it turns out, health-related conversations were initiated equally by customers and stylists during a visit. So instead of just assuming that we would give information to stylists, and they would then give it to customers, we realized we had to develop something that would cue customers to talk to stylists. Educational displays in salons are a constant reminder for everyone who frequents the salon — customers and stylists alike. So our developmental work was really critical in guiding the formation of our intervention.”
Jane Smith, a stylist at a Durham, N.C., salon who participated in the study, says the educational displays helped start many conversations about getting screening tests or making healthier food choices. “We’re somewhat like counselors to our customers,” she says. “They feel like they can talk to us about anything, anyway. But because of the displays, they felt a little more comfortable. They could see that we had an interest in it.”
Although the study period is over, the displays are still up in her salon, Smith says, and many customers still check their weight on the scales the project provided. “Cutting back became a habit to some,” she says, and she still finds herself trying to choose beverages with fewer calories.
After the two-year intervention period was over, customers completed questionnaires to assess whether they increased fruit and vegetable intake, increased physical activity or reduced the amount of fat in their diets. The customers also reported whether they had gone for cancer screening and maintained a healthy weight, though these were secondary goals of the project.
UNC researchers are still analyzing this data but plan to share the outcomes with stylists and salon owners, along with distributing the most effective educational materials to all the salons. “Consistent with the principles of community-based participatory research, we also plan to engage advisory board members’ and stylists’ advice about how to use these results to plan future research efforts,” Linnan says.
Saving lives — from diet to cancer screening
UNC health educators have a history of success sharing health messages in another place that is a big part of many people’s lives — church. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute began offering and promoting the Body and Soul wellness program, which Dr. Marci Campbell, associate professor of nutrition in the UNC School of Public Health, created along with Dr. Ken Resnicow, then with Emory University and now with the University of Michigan, as a result of two church-based health intervention projects. Body and Soul uses church activities, pastor involvement and peer counseling to encourage church members to eat more fruits and vegetables.
The question is, will similar techniques work to increase rates of colon cancer screening? Campbell and colleagues recently launched an intervention study with African-Americans at urban churches to find out. ACTS (Action Through Churches in Time to Save lives) of Wellness is a four-year study that Campbell and a colleague at the University of Michigan are leading with the help of churches in Durham, N.C., and Flint, Mich.
In this study’s first year, the researchers are conducting focus groups about colon cancer screening and about physical activity habits with members of one church in Durham and another in Michigan. These groups will help researchers tailor the educational materials they will be testing, including a DVD and Web-based decision aid about colon-cancer screening developed by Dr. Michael Pignone, associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine. The researchers also will use individuallytailored newsletters to encourage church members to get recommended screening tests. The newsletters will, for example, include information tailored to the region, such as where screening is offered and how much it costs.
Both the North Carolina and Michigan sites are currently working in partnership with community advisory boards to develop intervention materials and recruit the study churches, says Carol Carr, manager of the ACTS project.
A community network
Another project reaching people where they live — the Carolina Community Network (CCN) — was funded by the National Cancer Institute in 2005 to reduce prostate, breast and colorectal cancer disparities among African-Americans in North Carolina through education, training and research.
The CCN is led by Dr. Paul Godley, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the UNC School of Public Health, associate professor of hematology and oncology at the UNC School of Medicine and director of the UNC Program on Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes (ECHO). CCN’s many projects include providing support and information to help two established community organizations in Eastern and Central North Carolina incorporate cancer-prevention messages into the programs they already offer, says Crystal Meyer, CCN program coordinator.
For example, the CCN recently helped the United Voices of Efland-Cheeks (in Orange County, N.C.) work with a UNC postdoctoral research associate to conduct a seminar about the relationship between diet, exercise and cancer prevention for members of an existing support group for men affected by prostate cancer.
In Eastern North Carolina, CCN partners with The Rocky Mount Opportunities Industrialization Center, which runs a family medical center and a mobile health clinic that has primarily offered HIV/AIDS screening in Nash and Edgecombe counties. The CCN works with the center to add cancer-prevention services to those offerings.
“Over time, we’d like to expand the partnership to include more community partners and hopefully more diseases so that we can have a bigger effect,” Godley says.
The CCN has also been working with churches in Rocky Mount, N.C. “We’ve been trying to connect with churches to let them know about the Body and Soul nutrition intervention program, and we’re planning to do one-on-one sessions with churches to implement healthy eating and lifestyle programs with their congregations,” Meyer says.
— by Angela Spivey
# # #
Carolina Public Health is a publication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. To subscribe to Carolina Public Health or to view the entire Fall 2007 issue in PDF, visit www.sph.unc.edu/cph. | <urn:uuid:c835ce77-c9e4-445b-9a71-332c01e1ad0e> | {
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Introduction to DevOps
DevOps methodology is about Continuous Development, Continuous Testing, Configuration Management, including Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment and finally Continuous Monitoring of the software throughout its development life cycle. During this training participants get an overview of each part of this modern approach.
Software developers, testers, operators, architects, managers.
This course will guide you through how to apply the DevOps approach to the life cycle of software development. First a brief overview of agile methodology will be presented and after that each part of DevOps solution will be discussed at conceptual level. A complete case study based on DevOps will also be presented in order to demonstrate the practice and the tools involved in DevOps.
Introduction to agile methodology
What is DevOps?
Why DevOps is valuable?
Source code management
Virtualization with Docker
Infrastructure as code
Monitoring with Nagios
DevOps and AWS
English handout will be provided for the participants. | <urn:uuid:84d8d871-843c-4df6-b4d2-3b074a71f3e4> | {
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In order to understand what solutions to our energy predicament will or won’t work, it is necessary to understand the true nature of our energy predicament. Most solutions fail because analysts assume that the nature of our energy problem is quite different from what it really is. Analysts assume that our problem is a slowly developing long-term problem, when in fact, it is a problem that is at our door step right now.
The point that most analysts miss is that our energy problem behaves very much like a near-term financial problem. We will discuss why this happens. This near-term financial problem is bound to work itself out in a way that leads to huge job losses and governmental changes in the near term. Our mitigation strategies need to be considered in this context. Strategies aimed simply at relieving energy shortages with high priced fuels and high-tech equipment are bound to be short lived solutions, if they are solutions at all.
OUR ENERGY PREDICAMENT
1. Our number one energy problem is a rapidly rising need for investment capital, just to maintain a fixed level of resource extraction. This investment capital is physical “stuff” like oil, coal, and metals.
We pulled out the “easy to extract” oil, gas, and coal first. As we move on to the difficult to extract resources, we find that the need for investment capital escalates rapidly. According to Mark Lewis writing in the Financial Times, “upstream capital expenditures” for oil and gas amounted to nearly $700 billion in 2012, compared to $350 billion in 2005, both in 2012 dollars. This corresponds to an inflation-adjusted annual increase of 10% per year for the seven year period. (If you have problems viewing the images, attached is a PDF of the article, including images: A Forecast of Our Energy Future; Why Common Solutions Don’t Work | Our Finite World)
In theory, we would expect extraction costs to rise as we approach limits of the amount to be extracted. In fact, the steep rise in oil prices in recent years is of the type we would expect, if this is happening. We were able to get around the problem in the 1970s, by adding more oil extraction, substituting other energy products for oil, and increasing efficiency. This time, our options for fixing the situation are much fewer, since the low hanging fruit have already been picked, and we are reaching financial limits now.
To make matters worse, the rapidly rising need for investment capital arises is other industries as well as fossil fuels. Metals extraction follows somewhat the same pattern. We extracted the highest grade ores, in the most accessible locations first. We can still extract more metals, but we need to move to lower grade ores. This means we need to remove more of the unwanted waste products, using more resources, including energy resources.
There is a huge increase in the amount of waste products that must be extracted and disposed of, as we move to lower grade ores (Figure 3). The increase in waste products is only 3% when we move from ore with a concentration of .200, to ore with a concentration .195. When we move from a concentration of .010 to a concentration of .005, the amount of waste product more than doubles.
When we look at the inflation adjusted cost of base metals (Figure 4 below), we see that the index was generally falling for a long period between the 1960s and the 1990s, as productivity improvements were greater than falling ore quality.
Since 2002, the index is higher, as we might expect if we are starting to reach limits with respect to some of the metals in the index.
There are many other situations where we are fighting a losing battle with nature, and as a result need to make larger resource investments. We have badly over-fished the ocean, so fishermen now need to use more resources too catch the remaining much smaller fish. Pollution (including CO2 pollution) is becoming more of a problem, so we invest resources in devices to capture mercury emissions and in wind turbines in the hope they will help our pollution problems. We also need to invest increasing amounts in roads, bridges, electricity transmission lines, and pipelines, to compensate for deferred maintenance and aging infrastructure.
Some people say that the issue is one of falling Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), and indeed, falling EROI is part of the problem. The steepness of the curve comes from the rapid increase in energy products used for extraction and many other purposes, as we approach limits. The investment capital limit was discovered by the original modelers of Limits to Growth in 1972. I discuss this in my post Why EIA, IEA, and Randers’ 2052 Energy Forecasts are Wrong.
2. When the amount of oil extracted each year flattens out (as it has since 2004), a conflict arises: How can there be enough oil both (a) for the growing investment needed to maintain the status quo, plus (b) for new investment to promote growth?
In the previous section, we talked about the rising need for investment capital, just to maintain the status quo. At least some of this investment capital needs to be in the form of oil. Another use for oil would be to grow the economy–adding new factories, or planting more crops, or transporting more goods. While in theory there is a possibility of substituting away from oil, at any given point in time, the ability to substitute away is quite limited. Most transport options require oil, and most farming requires oil. Construction and road equipment require oil, as do diesel powered irrigation pumps.
Because of the lack of short term substitutability, the need for oil for reinvestment tends to crowd out the possibility of growth. This is at least part of the reason for slower world-wide economic growth in recent years.
3. In the crowding out of growth, the countries that are most handicapped are the ones with the highest average cost of their energy supplies.
For oil importers, oil is a very high cost product, raising the average cost of energy products. This average cost of energy is highest in countries that use the highest percentage of oil in their energy mix.
If we look at a number of oil importing countries, we see that economic growth tends to be much slower in countries that use very much oil in their energy mix. This tends to happen because high energy costs make products less affordable. For example, high oil costs make vacations to Greece unaffordable, and thus lead to cut backs in their tourist industry.
It is striking when looking at countries arrayed by the proportion of oil in their energy mix, the extent to which high oil use, and thus high cost energy use, is associated with slow economic growth (Figure 5, 6, and 7). There seems to almost be a dose response–the more oil use, the lower the economic growth. While the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are shown as a group, each of the countries in the group shows the same pattern on high oil consumption as a percentage of its total energy production in 2004.
Globalization no doubt acted to accelerate this shift toward countries that used little oil. These countries tended to use much more coal in their energy mix–a much cheaper fuel.
4. The financial systems of countries with slowing growth are especially affected, as are the governments. Debt becomes harder to repay with interest, as economic growth slows.
With slow growth, debt becomes harder to repay with interest. Governments are tempted to add programs to aid their citizens, because employment tends to be low. Governments find that tax revenue lags because of the lagging wages of most citizens, leading to government deficits. (This is precisely the problem that Turchin and Nefedov noted, prior to collapse, when they analyzed eight historical collapses in their book Secular Cycles.)
Governments have recently attempt to fix both their own financial problems and the problems of their citizens by lowering interest rates to very low levels and by using Quantitative Easing. The latter allows governments to keep even long term interest rates low. With Quantitative Easing, governments are able to keep borrowing without having a market of ready buyers. Use of Quantitative Easing also tends to blow bubbles in prices of stocks and real estate, helping citizens to feel richer.
5. Wages of citizens of countries oil importing countries tend to remain flat, as oil prices remain high.
At least part of the wage problem relates to the slow economic growth noted above. Furthermore, citizens of the country will cut back on discretionary goods, as the price of oil rises, because their cost of commuting and of food rises (because oil is used in growing food). The cutback in discretionary spending leads to layoffs in discretionary sectors. If exported goods are high priced as well, buyers from other countries will tend to cut back as well, further leading to layoffs and low wage growth.
6. Oil producers find that oil prices don’t rise high enough, cutting back on their funds for reinvestment.
As oil extraction costs increase, it becomes difficult for the demand for oil to remain high, because wages are not increasing. This is the issue I describe in my post What’s Ahead? Lower Oil Prices, Despite Higher Extraction Costs.
We are seeing this issue today. Bloomberg reports, Oil Profits Slump as Higher Spending Fails to Raise Output. Business Week reports Shell Surprise Shows Profit Squeeze Even at $100 Oil. Statoil, the Norwegian company, is considering walking away from Greenland, to try to keep a lid on production costs.
7. We find ourselves with a long-term growth imperative relating to fossil fuel use, arising from the effects of globalization and from growing world population.
Globalization added approximately 4 billion consumers to the world market place in the 1997 to 2001 time period. These people previously had lived traditional life styles. Once they became aware of all of the goods that people in the rich countries have, they wanted to join in, buying motor bikes, cars, televisions, phones, and other goods. They would also like to eat meat more often. Population in these countries continues to grow adding to demand for goods of all kinds. These goods can only be made using fossil fuels, or by technologies that are enabled by fossil fuels (such as today’s hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar PV).
8. The combination of these forces leads to a situation in which economies, one by one, will turn downward in the very near future–in a few months to a year or two. Some are already on this path (Egypt, Syria, Greece, etc.)
We have two problems that tend to converge: financial problems that countries are now hiding, and ever rising need for resources in a wide range of areas that are reaching limits (oil, metals, over-fishing, deferred maintenance on pipelines).
On the financial side, we have countries trying to hang together despite a serious mismatch between revenue and expenses, using Quantitative Easing and ultra-low interest rates. If countries unwind the Quantitative Easing, interest rates are likely to rise. Because debt is widely used, the cost of everything from oil extraction to buying a new home to buying a new car is likely to rise. The cost of repaying the government’s own debt will rise as well, putting governments in worse financial condition than they are today.
A big concern is that these problems will carry over into debt markets. Rising interest rates will lead to widespread defaults. The availability of debt, including for oil drilling, will dry up.
Even if debt does not dry up, oil companies are already being squeezed for investment funds, and are considering cutting back on drilling. A freeze on credit would make certain this happens.
Meanwhile, we know that investment costs keep rising, in many different industries simultaneously, because we are reaching the limits of a finite world. There are more resources available; they are just more expensive. A mismatch occurs, because our wages aren’t going up.
The physical amount of oil needed for all of this investment keeps rising, but oil production continues on its relatively flat plateau, or may even begins to drop. This leads to less oil available to invest in the rest of the economy. Given the squeeze, even more countries are likely to encounter slowing growth or contraction.
9. My expectation is that the situation will end with a fairly rapid drop in the production of all kinds of energy products and the governments of quite a few countries failing. The governments that remain will dramatically cut services.
With falling oil production, promised government programs will be far in excess of what governments can afford, because governments are basically funded out of the surpluses of a fossil fuel economy–the difference between the cost of extraction and the value of these fossil fuels to society. As the cost of extraction rises, the surpluses tend to dry up.
As these surpluses shrink, governments will need to shrink back dramatically. Government failure will be easier than contracting back to a much smaller size.
International finance and trade will be particularly challenging in this context. Trying to start over will be difficult, because many of the new countries will be much smaller than their predecessors, and will have no “track record.” Those that do have track records will have track records of debt defaults and failed promises, things that will not give lenders confidence in their ability to repay new loans.
While it is clear that oil production will drop, with all of the disruption and a lack of operating financial markets, I expect natural gas and coal production will drop as well. Spare parts for almost anything will be difficult to get, because of the need for the system of international trade to support making these parts. High tech goods such as computers and phones will be especially difficult to purchase. All of these changes will result in a loss of most of the fossil fuel economy and the high tech renewables that these fossil fuels support.
A Forecast of Future Energy Supplies and their Impact
A rough estimate of the amounts by which energy supply will drop is given in Figure 9, below.
The issue we will be encountering could be much better described as “Limits to Growth” than “Peak Oil.” Massive job layoffs will occur, as fuel use declines. Governments will find that their finances are even more pressured than today, with calls for new programs at the time revenue is dropping dramatically. Debt defaults will be a huge problem. International trade will drop, especially to countries with the worst financial problems.
One big issue will be the need to reorganize governments in a new, much less expensive way. In some cases, countries will break up into smaller units, as the Former Soviet Union did in 1991. In some cases, the situation will go back to local tribes with tribal leaders. The next challenge will be to try to get the governments to act in a somewhat co-ordinated way. There may need to be more than one set of governmental changes, as the global energy supplies decline.
We will also need to begin manufacturing goods locally, at a time when debt financing no longer works very well, and governments are no longer maintaining roads. We will have to figure out new approaches, without the benefit of high tech goods like computers. With all of the disruption, the electric grid will not last very long either. The question will become: what can we do with local materials, to get some sort of economy going again?
NON-SOLUTIONS and PARTIAL SOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEM
There are a lot of proposed solutions to our problem. Most will not work well because the nature of the problem is different from what most people have expected.
1. Substitution. We don’t have time. Furthermore, whatever substitutions we make need to be with cheap local materials, if we expect them to be long-lasting. They also must not over-use resources such as wood, which is in limited supply.
Electricity is likely to decline in availability almost as quickly as oil because of inability to keep up the electrical grid and other disruptions (such as failing governments, lack of oil to lubricate machinery, lack of replacement parts, bankruptcy of companies involved with the production of electricity) so is not really a long-term solution to oil limits.
2. Efficiency. Again, we don’t have time to do much. Higher mileage cars tend to be more expensive, replacing one problem with another. A big problem in the future will be lack of road maintenance. Theoretical gains in efficiency may not hold in the real world. Also, as governments reduce services and often fail, lenders will be unwilling to lend funds for new projects which would in theory improve efficiency.
In some cases, simple devices may provide efficiency. For example, solar thermal can often be a good choice for heating hot water. These devices should be long-lasting.
3. Wind turbines. Current industrial type wind turbines will be hard to maintain, so are unlikely to be long-lasting. The need for investment capital for wind turbines will compete with other needs for investment capital. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will drop dramatically, with or without wind turbines.
On the other hand, simple wind mills made with local materials may work for the long term. They are likely to be most useful for mechanical energy, such as pumping water or powering looms for cloth.
4. Solar Panels. Promised incentive plans to help homeowners pay for solar panels can be expected to mostly fall through. Inverters and batteries will need replacement, but probably will not be available. Handy homeowners who can rewire the solar panels for use apart from the grid may find them useful for devices that can run on direct current. As part of the electric grid, solar panels will not add to its lifetime. It probably will not be possible to make solar panels for very many years, as the fossil fuel economy reaches limits.
5. Shale Oil. Shale oil is an example of a product with very high investment costs, and returns which are doubtful at best. Big companies who have tried to extract shale oil have decided the rewards really aren’t there. Smaller companies have somehow been able to put together financial statements claiming profits, based on hoped for future production and very low interest rates.
Costs for extracting shale oil outside the US for shale oil are likely to be even higher than in the US. This happens because the US has laws that enable production (landowner gets a share of profits) and other beneficial situations such as pipelines in place, plentiful water supplies, and low population in areas where fracking is done. If countries decide to ramp up shale oil production, they are likely to run into similarly hugely negative cash flow situations. It is hard to see that these operations will save the world from its financial (and energy) problems.
6. Taxes. Taxes need to be very carefully structured, to have any carbon deterrent benefit. If part of taxes consumers would normally pay to the government are levied on fuel for vehicles, the practice can encourage more the use of more efficient vehicles.
On the other hand, if carbon taxes are levied on businesses, the taxes tend to encourage businesses to move their production to other, lower-cost countries. The shift in production leads to the use of more coal for electricity, rather than less. In theory, carbon taxes could be paired with a very high tax on imported goods made with coal, but this has not been done. Without such a pairing, carbon taxes seem likely to raise world CO2 emissions.
7. Steady State Economy. Herman Daly was the editor of a book in 1973 called Toward a Steady State Economy, proposing that the world work toward a Steady State economy, instead of growth. Back in 1973, when resources were still fairly plentiful, such an approach would have acted to hold off Limits to Growth for quite a few years, especially if zero population growth were included in the approach.
Today, it is far too late for such an approach to work. We are already in a situation with very depleted resources. We can’t keep up current production levels if we want to–to do so would require greatly ramping up energy production because of the rising need for energy investment to maintain current production, discussed in Item (1) of Our Energy Predicament. Collapse will probably be impossible to avoid. We can’t even hope for an outcome as good as a Steady State Economy.
7. Basing Choice of Additional Energy Generation on EROI Calculations. In my view, basing new energy investment on EROI calculations is an iffy prospect at best. EROI calculations measure a theoretical piece of the whole system–“energy at the well-head.” Thus, they miss important parts of the system, which affect both EROI and cost. They also overlook timing, so can indicate that an investment is good, even if it digs a huge financial hole for organizations making the investment. EROI calculations also don’t consider repairability issues which may shorten real-world lifetimes.
Regardless of EROI indications, it is important to consider the likely financial outcome as well. If products are to be competitive in the world marketplace, electricity needs to be inexpensive, regardless of what the EROI calculations seem to say. Our real problem is lack of investment capital–something that is gobbled up at prodigious rates by energy generation devices whose costs occur primarily at the beginning of their lives. We need to be careful to use our investment capital wisely, not for fads that are expensive and won’t hold up for the long run.
8. Demand Reduction. This really needs to be the major way we move away from fossil fuels. Even if we don’t have other options, fossil fuels will move away from us. Encouraging couples to have smaller families would seem to be a good choice. | <urn:uuid:00668732-5a4a-4164-a947-11c1794bc54e> | {
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“A lot of these satellites were for military purposes, for surveillance, for both the U. S. and Soviet Union. We used plutonium, the most toxic radioactive substance.”
- Karl Grossman, Prof. of Journalism, SUNY-Old Westbury, NY
April 1, 2016 Old Westbury, New York - A report in 2011 by the U.S. National Research Council warned NASA that the amount of orbiting space debris is at a critical level. According to some computer models, the amount of space debris “has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures.” The report called for international regulations to limit debris that is now in the thousands of pieces and figure out a way to get rid of it.
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© 1998 - 2021 by Linda Moulton Howe.
All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:a3f06064-3c1c-4de2-bdd8-ccc1211ecd5d> | {
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But in your household, rules are rules. So which ones are the right ones to enforce to best help your child with their primary responsibility--learning and doing as well in school as they can?
New research is writing a primer for you to follow. A study funded by The National Institutes of Health observed cognitive, academic performance of over 4,500 children ages 8 to 11, relative to whether or not they engaged in a set of three critical behaviors as recommended by the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines.
Here are the three rules to enforce that correlate with better academic performance and how well (or not) our children are currently adhering to them.
1. Limit screen time to two hours a day.
While the researchers point out that more work is needed to study the type of screen time (i.e. educational versus entertainment-based screen time), the negative overall impact of too much screen time isn't debatable.
Psychotherapist Amy Morin offers 10 smart tips for helping to limit your child's screen time. It starts with a basic: role modeling the appropriate amount of device time (not constantly scrolling on your phone in front of them). While this isn't always easy, it's always on my mind when I'm around my 15-year-old daughter.
Two other great tips Morin offers are having a technology-free zone (like the dinner table or their bedroom) and being active in getting the child involved in other activities, so the device doesn't become the default.
2. Facilitate them getting one hour of physical activity.
The phrase "easier said than done" must have originated from this challenge. It's something my wife and I constantly scheme together on.
WebMD offers a number of great suggestions, my two favorites being to join in the physical activity with the child (which my wife and I have done now with family biking afternoons) and offering the chance to get exercise as a reward (getting to take a break from homework, for example).
3. In bed by 9 p.m. for nine to 11 hours of sleep.
OK, maybe not 9 p.m. but whatever timeframe is appropriate in your situation--it's more about the importance of your child getting at least nine hours of sleep. (I always thought it was eight, but that's for adults, children require more).
Claire McCarthy, the editor of Harvard Health Publishing, offers good tips, with the two that my wife and I employ most often being starting the bedtime routine earlier and keeping it the same on weekends and vacations. It takes persistence--and if you master this guideline please let me know, as we certainly haven't.
If you're looking around as you read this article, you're not alone. Under-delivery on all these guidelines is unfortunately all too normal. Only one-half of all children (51 percent) are meeting sleep guidelines. A little over one-third (37 percent) are within the screen time limit, and only 18 percent are meeting the physical activity recommendation. Only 5 percent of children meet all three recommendations, while almost 1 in 3 met none of them.
According to the study, just putting a cap on screen time and getting enough sleep had the strongest correlation to improved cognition and better academic performance, so begin your efforts there (at least in terms of better school performance).
By no means am I telling you fostering compliance to these guidelines is easy--believe me, I'm hardly an "A" student myself. But do make an honest assessment and grade yourself on how well you're facilitating these outcomes--improved efforts will improve grades all around. | <urn:uuid:20922865-22a8-4b41-96d5-8b6a9ac20794> | {
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Fission Stories #161
Good News: Workers removed a valve from the piping of a cooling water system at the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York on August 13, 1984, for maintenance. The cooling water system had two redundant loops of pumps, pipes, and heat exchangers. The loop the workers removed the valve from had been shut down for maintenance and inspections. The other loop remained in service. A pipe cross-connected the two loops, but three separate valves within the connecting pipe prevented water from the running loop from entering the idle loop.
Bad News: Other workers discovered the room containing the cooling water system pumps filling with water that poured from the ends of the pipe where the valve had been removed. The water leaked from the pipe faster than it left via drains in the floor. It was later determined that all three valves in the cross-connect pipe had failed, allowing water from the running loop to reach the idle loop’s piping and from there reach the floor. The workers could not stop the room’s flooding.
Good News: The rising water levels submerged the electric motors for the cooling water system pumps. The motors shorted out and the pumps stopped running. Leakage of water into the room stopped and the floor drains slowly emptied water from the room.
Bad News: The rising flood waters shorted out all the cooling water system pumps, idling both loops. The plant lost all cooling water for its emergency equipment.
Good News: The reactor was shut down for refueling at the time of the incident. If there’s ever a good time for the electric motors for all the cooling water pumps to be underwater, it’s when no accident is underway.
Three valves had been purchased and installed to prevent water from the running loop from getting into the idled loop. But all three valves failed.
A corrective action for this problem might be to purchase and install a fourth valve. After all, what are the chances that all four valves fail? About the same odds of three valves failing, if their reliability is low.
A better corrective action involves improving the reliability of the existing valves by upgrading their maintenance and testing protocols. Three reliable valves can beat four less reliable ones.
“Fission Stories” is a weekly feature by Dave Lochbaum. For more information on nuclear power safety, see the nuclear safety section of UCS’s website and our interactive map, the Nuclear Power Information Tracker. | <urn:uuid:09bb9445-1beb-4556-9603-2cad13fe8e1a> | {
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This course focuses on the theories behind web fonts: what makes a good font, why different fonts look the way they do, and how fonts affect the look of a web page. Author Laura Franz covers common tasks, including downloading a font from an online source such as Typekit or Font Squirrel, implementing the font in HTML and CSS, and changing the size and line-height to improve the readability of text. The course also covers different periods of type design and explores the history behind handwritten fonts, text fonts (used for large amounts of text), and display fonts (used for headlines).
So far we've covered about 350 years of font design; 350 years of printing dedicated to books. There have been a lot of changes in fonts. Up until now, those changes have been in response to improved printing and paper-making technology, and of course, aesthetic approaches to letters. But then we enter the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution meant there were ready-made goods to sell, and cheaper, faster, printing and paper-making techniques.
A more literate workforce meant more newspapers and magazines, and ads used to sell the ready-made goods. And of course, broadsides like this one for a benefit concert at Niblo's Garden in New York City in 1835. And suddenly, with all the advertisements bombarding the average person, there was a need for legible, bold fonts to catch the reader's eye. Hence, the birth of slab serif fonts. Modern fonts were still in use. You can see some here.
All of these distinctive fonts -- modern, slab serif, and even the wood type we'll look at later in the course -- collide as more advertisements are printed and posted. This was the first time in the history of type design that fonts are designed in order to catch the reader's eye. Some think of slab serif fonts as a step backward, because up until this point, fonts became more refined and delicate, but I think slab serifs were necessary. Remember, old style and transitional fonts might have a regular and italic version, but they didn't have a bold version.
Slab serif fonts were used as the first bold fonts necessary for creating hierarchy. The first slab serif font was commercially released in 1815 by Vincent Figgins, a British type founder. Figgins was an experienced, talented printer who ran a shop dedicated to printing books. Broadsides, on the other hand, used slab serif fonts based on Figgins' work, but were usually printed as quickly and cheaply as possible. While Figgins released his slab serif font with the name Antique, slab serifs were commonly called Egyptian fonts.
This is because there was a craze for all things Egyptian after Napoleon's failed campaign to seize Egypt. He may not have undermined Britain's access to India, but Napoleon's expedition disseminated images and descriptions of Egypt leading to a fascination with Egyptian culture. Type founders, in an attempt to cash in on this fascination, called slab serif fonts, which have nothing to do with Egypt, Egyptian. Slab serif fonts are easily recognized by their serifs.
Slab serifs usually have the same stroke width as the strokes in the letters. We think of slab serifs as being square, like those shown here in Rockwell, but they didn't have to be. Officina's slab serifs are slightly rounder on the corners, while typewriter fonts like Courier have rounded slab serifs. The earliest slab serif fonts have round bowls, so you'll often see digital versions with a strict geometric structure. But slab serif fonts vary. Officina Serif has an oval bowl.
It also has an open aperture on the e, and a curve at the foot at the l. Both are humanist characteristics. Finally, the way the bowl meets the stem on the b creates a new shape; neither round, nor oval. Serifa's bowls, on the other hand, appear circular, but if you look closely, they're a bit square. Serifa also has variation in its stroke width. Notice how the strokes taper where the bowls meet the stem. Officina and Rockwell have more uniform strokes throughout their letters.
All three fonts have terminals that, well, don't have an extra shape to them, except for the extra stoke on the c, but you'll find many slab serif fonts with ball-shaped terminals. Originally, slab serif fonts where not intended for large amounts of text. They were heavy, and meant to catch the reader's eye, but contemporary slab serif fonts offer a variety of weights and letter structures to choose from, making it possible to find a legible, comfortable slab serif to use for extended reading.
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Just when citizens of Eastern Europe were breathing a sigh of relief that the cold front was coming to an end, the warmer weather has brought a new set of problems.
The Danube river, which had frozen over in the cold snap, has now begun to thaw, leading dislodged slabs of melting ice (some as big as 1.6 feet) to crash into and sink boats and barges anchored on the river, causing hundreds of thousands of euros in damage, Spiegel Online reports.
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has been one of the hardest hit: ice floes managed to sink the city’s most popular floating restaurant, a popular tourist attraction, although no injuries have been reported.
Officials are now trying to determine if the thaw will cause more heavy flooding, bringing more misery to a region where more than 600 have already died because of the extreme cold. Some 3,300 people remain stranded by deep snow that hit remote areas of southern Serbia and they can only be reached by helicopters, Serbian emergency official Predrag Maric told the AP.
The United Nations has issued a flood warning to Eastern European countries along the Danube, according to the AP.
The 1,777-mile-long Danube river is one of Europe’s busiest waterways. A thick layer of ice formed over it during the cold snap in the first half of February, making it unusable for ships and other water transport.
On Monday, US military helicopters evacuated people from parts of Montenegro that were cut off from the rest of the country because of heavy snow. Upstream in Germany, parts of the river are still frozen and shipping traffic is still at a standstill. | <urn:uuid:f3bb37aa-51c5-478d-a74b-44a93ea1adb9> | {
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Computer Engineering: BS
The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department is listed in the top 100 college departments according to U.S. News & World Report. Students graduate with nearly 100% job placement and have among the highest starting salaries of all degree programs.
Computer engineering involves programming software and hardware, building on knowledge of electronics and circuits. A computer engineer designs and builds computers, such as PCs, workstations, and supercomputers, as well as computer-based systems like those found in cars, planes, appliances, electronics, phones, and communication networks.
Computer engineering is different from computer science in that computer science is more concerned with the theoretical understanding of computation and programming. It is also different from electrical engineering in that computer engineering prepares students for more complicated computer engineering positions, while electrical engineering is a broader field. However, both fields include computer programming to a significant degree, and a good electrical foundation is required.
The computer engineering degree is accredited by the EAC Accreditation Commission of ABET.
Concurrent Bachelor’s/Master’s Program:
The department also offers a concurrent bachelor’s/master’s program, which allows USU engineering students to begin taking graduate classes during their senior year as an undergraduate and to complete requirements for both the BS degree and the master’s degree concurrently over two years.
- BS - Logan
Graduates in computer engineering can work for any company or organization that requires software or hardware engineers. Given the current reliance on computer technology in the workplace, this means that many companies require computer engineers. Computer engineers can work in the following areas:
- Software publishing
- Computer systems designs
- Management companies
- Telecommunications companies
- Quality control
- Large and small businesses
- Governmental offices
- Educational institutions
Career Services provides counseling and information on hundreds of job and internship opportunities and even helps students apply and interview.
In addition to Utah State University’s admissions requirements, the computer engineering program has additional requirements:
- Freshmen: Students that meet the USU admission requirements can be admitted as pre-engineering majors. In order to get into the professional engineering program, students must complete two years of prerequisite coursework, have a C- or better in every required class, no more than three classes repeated, and entrance GPA of 2.8 or above. To be accepted to the computer engineering pre-major, students must meet certain math requirements by completing one of the following: a score of 27 or higher on the math ACT, a grade of B or better in MATH 1050 and MATH 1060 or MATH 120, or a score of 3 or higher on the AB or BC AP Calculus test.
- Transfer Students: Students transferring from other institutions will be referred to the Engineering Admission Committee for evaluation. Evaluations will include transfer GPA and evaluation of the program of the former college or university. Students transferring from other USU majors must be approved by the Engineering Admission Committee before transferring to the College of Engineering. Students in this category must have demonstrated a potential to succeed in engineering through courses taken at USU.
- Recommended high school courses: two or three years of algebra, one year of geometry, one-half year of trigonometry, four years of English, and courses in computer programming, chemistry, and physics are preferred.
International students have additional admissions requirements.
Professional Organizations, Honor Societies, and Clubs
American Council of Engineering Companies: ACEC is the voice of America's engineering industry. Council members, numbering more than 5,300 firms throughout the country, are engaged in a wide range of engineering works that propel the nation's economy and enhance and safeguard America's quality of life. The council's mission is to contribute to America's prosperity and welfare by advancing the business interests of member firms.
Engineers without Borders: The USU chapter of Engineers without Borders is a nonprofit organization. Contributions help the organization build projects that developing communities will own and operate. EWB works with communities worldwide to improve the quality of life by promoting sustainable development in water supply, housing construction, food production, energy, sanitation, transportation, communication, and employment. EWB’s vision is a world where all people have the knowledge and resources needed to meet basic human needs. It involves international professionals and students inall fields as they build this vision together.
National Engineers Week Foundation: This foundation strives to be the global leader in cultivating and celebrating the engineering profession. Its cornerstone program is Engineers Week. All programs are designed to reach out to current and future generations of engineering talent.
Utah Engineers Council: The UEC is an umbrella organization of 14 different local chapters and sections of engineering societies. The purpose of the UEC is to advance the art and science of engineering and to provide a forum for communication between the varying engineering societies.
Tau Beta Pi Honor Society: Tau Beta Pi is the only engineering honor society representing the entire engineering profession. It is the nation's second-oldest honor society. It marks, in a fitting manner, those who have conferred honor upon their alma mater by distinguished scholarship and exemplary character as students in engineering, or by their attainments as alumni in the field of engineering. There are now collegiate chapters at 236 U.S. colleges and universities, active alumnus chapters in 16 districts across the country, and a total initiated membership of more than 500,000.
Engineering Student Council: The Engineering Council is an organization of engineering students. The council provides students with the opportunity to communicate opinions and suggestions to the College of Engineering administration, university administration, and the Associated Students of Utah State University. The Engineering Student Council represents students who are in the College of Engineering, communicates with engineering students about concerns, and publicizes programs and activities.
Future Association of Tomorrow’s Engineers: FATE is the USU regional campus engineering club. It aims to promote and support engineering throughout the USU regional campus system via social networking, community outreach, recruitment, and fun (possibly geeky) activities.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Student Chapter: IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through IEEE's highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.
National Society of Black Engineers Student Chapter: NSBE has more than 35,700 members and is one of the largest student-governed organizations in the country. Founded in 1975, NSBE now includes more than 450 colleges, pre-college, and technical professional/alumni chapters in the United States and abroad. NSBE’s mission is to increase the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community. NSBE offers its members leadership training, professional development, mentoring opportunities, career placement services, and more.
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Student Chapter: SHPE is a national organization that aims to build unity through diversity of engineering students. The club holds fund-raising and service activities, participates in engineering-related campus wide activities and competitions, and hosts activities with local middle and high school students aimed at science and technology. The national organization holds an annual conference, which is the major event and the largest technical and career conference for Hispanics in the country. The conference is an opportunity for engineering companies and corporations to recruit top talent from SHPE.
Society of Women Engineers: Utah State University’s Society of Women Engineers is open for both male and female members. SWE is committed to encouraging women engineers to attain high levels of educational and professional achievement, serve as a center of information for women in engineering, and promote the value of diversity.
Labs, Centers, Research
With the second oldest undergraduate research program in the nation, USU offers students a wide range of opportunities to gain hands-on research experience. USU’s Honors Program prepares students for excellent graduate programs by helping them build relationships with professors, participate in research projects, take smaller, more intensive classes, and develop leadership skills.
AggieAir Flying Circus: AggieAir Flying Circus provides high-resolution, multispectral aerial imagery using a small, unmanned aerial system. The system is able to map small areas quicker, more frequently, at greater resolution, and at a smaller cost than conventional remote sensing. Some applications for AggieAir include monitoring of soil moisture and evapotranspiration in agriculture, riparian habitat mapping, road and highway surface monitoring, wetland mapping, and fish and wildlife tracking.
Anderson Center for Wireless Teaching and Research: This center provides state-of-the art wireless communication teaching and research with emphasis on industry-relevant design projects.
Center for Active Sensing and Imaging: CASI uses radar-like, laser-based LIDAR technology to measure distances instead of radio waves for a variety of industrial applications, including sitting wind farms, controlling emissions, and rapid replacement of bridges, runways, and other infrastructure.
Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences: CASS is recognized nationally and internationally as a progressive research center with advanced space and upper atmospheric research programs. CASS scientists are tackling the adverse consequences of space weather. Undergraduate and graduate students are involved in numerous research projects in CASS that provide opportunities to program computers, analyze data, and build instrumentation.
Center for High Performance Computing: HPC at USU is a research service center that serves and expands the computational needs of the USU community. HPC at USU houses a 256-processor cluster called “Uinta,” with three networks.
Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems: CSOIS is a multi-disciplinary research group at USU that focuses on the design, development, and implementation of intelligent, autonomous mechatronic systems, with a focus on ground vehicles and robotics.
Center for Space Engineering: CSE is a multi-disciplinary group of faculty at USU involved in space technology, systems, and science. The center brings together academics, industry, and government to advance the understanding of the space environment and to train the next generation.
Energy Dynamics Laboratory: EDL bridges the gap between academia and industry, confronting the challenges of prototyping, deployment, and commercialization of enabling technologies for renewable and advanced energy systems. USU researchers originate projects to derive energy from non-fossil fuels, such as biofuels, wind, and solar power. With EDL’s collaboration, research develops through pilot projects to commercial application.
Energy Laboratory: This lab seeks to develop solutions to America's most intractable energy problems through scientific and technological innovation. It provides a cohesive framework permitting faculty, students, and partnering institutions to focus on contemporary energy-related research issues.
Environmental Management Research Group: EMRG is a research unit of the Utah Water Research Laboratory focused on integrated watershed management and systems analysis of environmental problems. EMRG provides software development, watershed and water quality modeling, and GIS data analysis service to internal and external entities directed at solving integrated watershed and environmental management-related problems of a variety of scales.
Institute for Intuitive Buildings: Because a considerable amount of energy is wasted in lighting, cooling, and ventilating commercial buildings, the I2B team will create real-time scene measurement and interpretation techniques for electric lighting systems.
Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium: RMNSGC is one of 52 National Space Grant Consortia in the United States. As a member of the consortium, USU has awarded more than 100 fellowships to students interested in aerospace-related education and careers. The majority of Space Grant student awards include a mentored research experience with university faculty and NASA scientists, engineers, and technologists.
Space Dynamics Laboratory: SDL is known for sending 500+ successful experiments into space and brings in $54 million per year in revenue, the majority coming from grants, contracts, and appropriations. SDL’s expertise in the development of sensors and calibration, small satellites and real-time intelligence has made it an internationally known organization in the space arena.
Utah Transportation Center: The UTC uses its expertise in natural hazards to research congestion chokepoints, evacuation occurrences, infrastructure renewal, and operations as it relates to multi-modal transportation. | <urn:uuid:284ae68d-c9b5-4c8d-8cf4-7ae666c00394> | {
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The history of the death penalty in the USA has been long and arduous. As a matter of fact in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, capital punishment was a common means of punishment for a wide array of crimes ranging from rape, arson and even theft of horses. The push for the abolition of the death penalty mainly led by religious groups has equally had a long history since the era of European settlement on the continent. The populace of the United States has generally been in support of the death penalty though it has to be gainsaid that the abolitionists too have had their successes for instance Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847 which was followed up by other states in the ensuing 160 years (Foster & Nelson, 2000).
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Even though capital punishment in the United States falls under the jurisdiction of the state courts, the Supreme Court has been a major player in the interpretation of the constitutionality of the death penalty as practiced in the states. The Supreme Court in the 1930s intervened severally to overturn death penalties which were believed to be racially motivated. The 5-4 decision in Georgia versus Furman ruled capital punishment to be cruel and an unusual punishment. Therefore thi type of punishment was in violation of the eighth amendment which guarantees equal protection of all citizens. Though the decision in Furman Versus Louisiana was differential, the general opinion of the judges was that legislations of the states concerning the death penalty were so arbitrary as not to guarantee the fair and uniform application of the death penalty. The court in addition established that instructions given to juries were in most instances unclear and technical leading to differential outcomes even in cases involving similar fundamentals.
In another landmark case, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the statute relied on by the Louisiana state courts in condemning a man to death for child rape. In Kennedy versus Louisiana the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a person to death on a crime in which the victim did not die. The statute was considered to be against national consensus on sentencing to death only on the grounds of commission of the worst crimes such as murder and treason. As result any person on death row for any crime other than murder or treason was not worthy of death (Foster & Nelson, 2000).
The court took note that Patrick Kennedy had been coondemned to death by a statute common in only six of the fifty states. Justice Kennedy Anthony giving a ruling for the majority said that basing on the consensus and the judges own autonomous judgement, the opinion is that capital punishment for a person who raped but did not kill or assist another in killing the child was against the Fourteenth and Eighth constitutional amendments. The court ruled that the ruling in the Louisiana courts posed danger of a bad precedent of allowing death in cases of no murder commission. The Supreme Court judges acknowledged that allowing such rulings would inevitably lead to societal descent into violence and cruelty which is against the constitutional obligation to moderation and decency.
Child advocates and victims’ groups concurred with the decision against condemning Kennedy to death by acknowledging that contrary action would harmful rather than helpful to the protection of victims. They agreed that the death penalty could lead to a decrease in reporting of abuse, re-victimization brought about by long appeal processes. They also concurred that the equation of rape to murder would inculcate a wrong perception in the minds of the victims (Foster & Nelson, 2000).
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This research-based curriculum is designed to improve the character and leadership traits among high school, middle school and alternative school students. Approximately 60% of the schools currently using this curriculum teach this as a stand-alone course, using it as an elective leadership course or as mandatory class for their freshmen academy. Others target specific populations in their school, such as at-risk populations, upperclassmen showing leadership potential or student government members. The other 40% of schools choose to integrate this curriculum into other core classes, such as social studies, business, career development, JROTC, health, English or P.E. Homeroom and advisory concepts are also a popular way to use this curriculum over three or four years.
To learn more about these methods of implementation, click one of the following:
Character & Leadership Curriculum for -
At each of these educational levels, this character education curriculum provides students with the necessary skills to be successful in all facets of their lives. Students and teachers alike come to rely on the consistent weekly lesson plans of ethical dilemmas, lectures, character movie segments, leadership principles, current events, core readings from The Role Models textbook, basic skills and expository writing assignments.
The Role Models Textbook
Role Models: Examples of Character and Leadership serves as the textbook for the curriculum. We believe kids need positive role models to look up to and emulate. Unfortunately, many kids today report they do not have role models. Other times, the role model is, at best, a curious choice. The Role Models textbook highlights 17 individuals who exemplify the different character traits covered in the curriculum. This book offers a mix of historical figures that have stood the test of time like Amelia Earhart, Booker T. Washington and Helen Keller, as well as contemporary figures who are worthy of our admiration, such as Pat Tillman, Christopher Reeve and Oprah Winfrey. Quizzes and vocabulary lists accompany each chapter. | <urn:uuid:adc03ab0-5026-4dc2-8d57-8ba5c0f173a0> | {
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The History Colorado Center is a modern museum located in Denver, Colorado that explores the history and culture of the state. The museum offers exhibits, interactive experiences, and educational programs that tell the story of Colorado from the time of the earliest inhabitants to the present day.
The museum is housed in a contemporary building designed by the architectural firm Tryba Architects. The building is located in the heart of downtown Denver and features a variety of exhibits and experiences that showcase the state’s history and culture.
One of the museum’s most popular exhibits is “Destination Colorado,” which explores the state’s history of travel and tourism. Visitors can step into a vintage train car, a 1950s motel room, and even a ski lodge to experience different eras of Colorado tourism. The exhibit also includes artifacts such as a vintage bicycle, a 1920s Ford Model T, and a 1950s ski outfit.
Another exhibit that draws visitors is “Living West,” which focuses on the experiences of the people who have lived in Colorado over time. The exhibit includes a replica of a 19th-century adobe home, an interactive map that highlights the state’s diverse communities, and a collection of artifacts that range from Native American pottery to cowboy boots.
Learn More Here
The History Colorado Center also offers a range of interactive experiences for visitors of all ages. In the “Time Machine” exhibit, visitors can travel back in time to see what Denver looked like in the past. They can also try on historical costumes and play games that were popular in different eras.
The museum is also home to a variety of special exhibits throughout the year. Past exhibits have included “The 1968 Exhibit,” which explored the tumultuous year of 1968 through the eyes of Coloradans, and “El Movimiento,” which highlighted the contributions of Chicano activists to Colorado’s civil rights movement.
In addition to its exhibits, the History Colorado Center offers a variety of educational programs and resources for schools and families. The museum’s “Hands-On History” program allows children to explore history through play and hands-on activities, while the “Zoom In” program provides interactive virtual field trips for students.
The History Colorado Center is a must-see attraction for anyone interested in the history and culture of Colorado. Its modern exhibits and interactive experiences make it an engaging and educational destination for visitors of all ages. Whether you’re a longtime resident of the state or a first-time visitor, the museum offers a fascinating glimpse into Colorado’s past and present.
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Call it weird, call it extreme, maybe even call it the new normal. Wild weather in the United States in the past decade has amassed a long list of toppled records and financial disasters.
Some of these exceptional weather events included unusually heavy rain and snow. Now, a new study confirms that everywhere except in the Atlantic Plains region, more rain and snow is falling during wet and dry seasons alike. The Atlantic Plains are the flatlands along the central and southern Atlantic Coast that stretch from Massachusetts to Mississippi. On average, the total precipitation in the contiguous United States has increased 5.9 percent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
What's more, the timing has changed too. In some parts of the United States, dry seasons are arriving earlier and wet seasons are starting later than they did 80 years ago. The time shift does not necessarily extend the length of dry or wet seasons, because most areas have transitional periods in between these precipitation extremes. In the Ohio River Valley, the fall dry season starts two to three weeks earlier today, the researchers report. In east New York, the wet season now kicks off on Jan. 8 instead of Feb. 1. And in the Southwest, the summer monsoon is starting later than it did during the middle of the 20th century. [In Images: Extreme Weather Around the World]
"The effects vary from region to region," said Indrani Pal, lead study author and a water resources engineer at the University of Colorado in Denver. "This study has a lot of implications from an ecology and water management perspective, and for extreme events like droughts and floods as well."
Altering the timing of dry and wet season starts can significantly affect agriculture and cities, Pal said. In the Southwest, water contracts rely on the timing of spring snowmelt and summer monsoons to generate hydroelectric power and water for farming and millions of residents.
Pal and her colleagues analyzed data from 774 weather stations across the United States with a continuous record since 1930. They found an overall drop in dry spells (the number of days without precipitation) between 1930 and 2009 in most regions of the country. For instance, there were 15 more precipitation days (rain or snow) during the dry season in the Central and Great Plains, and 20 more precipitation days during the wet season in the Midwest and intermountain regions today than 80 years ago. However, the length of dry spells during the wet season, a drought indicator, increased by 50 percent in the Atlantic Plains.
Pal said the study cannot answer whether climate change is causing the seasonal shifts in precipitations. "This opens many other research doors," she told LiveScience. "We would like to find what is actually affecting this shift. It's probably a mixture of natural variability and climate change," Pal said.
The findings were published July 19 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. | <urn:uuid:4a1d4e58-fec2-4f16-8c2c-cbd0a69fcbc9> | {
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Posted September. 20, 2005 06:42,
Dr. Kim Hoons high-resolution image sensor can produce vivid images even in the dark.
For example, if one takes a photograph in a dark theatre without turning on the flash, there will be nothing but a dark picture. The same occurs when taking a picture at a birthday party when the only light is coming from the candles. This is because the image sensor that is built in the camera cannot sense the feeble light.
Dr. Kim solved this difficult problem. His sensor can sense light 2,000-3,000 times more effectively than other image sensors, enabling cameras to take pictures without flashlights.
Planet 82, a company producing electronics parts, bought this technology from Dr. Kims research team in December 2003 for five billion won and two percent of its future sales. Half of the five billion won is expected to go to the researchers by the end of the year. Kim gets one billion won, and the other eight researchers will receive an average of 200 million won each.
Considering the fact that the technology transfer fees for technology developed by a university or government-run lab are usually around 200-300 million won, this is a huge amount.
Early this year, the State of New Jersey in the United States proposed a partnership using this technology to develop a disease-diagnosis chip that can be used in a PDA, under the condition of millions of dollars in funding for research.
Endless Opportunities for Commercial Applications-
Planet 82 is planning to finish the development of parts for a camera phone that can take pictures without the use of flash by the end of the year. Aside from this, the research team introduced a desktop computer product in February that can give various information regarding skin thickness, bone density and subcutaneous fat levels by measuring the amount of light that reflects when light strikes the skin.
The team later presented other image sensor-applied laptops, PDAs and home network devices.
What Is Quantum Physics?-
The main mechanism of Dr. Kims image sensor is quantum physics. It captures the light emitted from the object to make images.
Until now, it was known that an image sensor can function only when at least one million photons are injected and the same amount of electrons are released. Dr. Kim had a different idea. He thought that an image can be produced even with a single photon. Photons or electrons are particles that can fluctuate. Interestingly, at the size of 10 nanometers, their particle qualities become stronger.
Dr. Kim said, Applying quantum physics, we developed the technology to produce thousands of electrons out of one photon. In other words, we are able to produce vivid images by making millions of electrons out of thousands of photons. He continued, I am proud to prove that basic studies can make money too in a time when basic science is being ignored. | <urn:uuid:8b3c930e-9b74-4a46-9995-7daa13c9d069> | {
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It is a common belief that losing weight is all about dieting and trying to control what you eat. However, that's not entirely true. It is very important for us to understand that one needs to adopt measures which lead to a healthier lifestyle and have a long lasting impact. A lifestyle change will ensure that you lose weight and stay that way.
Short-term fad diets can never be realistic or sustainable. Here are some easy and doable tips that you may know but often neglect. Stick to these rules to lose weight or maintain it naturally:
Don't Miss These
1. Do not forget the portion size: Be wise when you choose the portion size. Eating the right portions can be a great challenge for people trying to lose weight. One should always start with small portions of food and add on a little, if required. Make sure you do not eat too quickly in the beginning as you might end up overeating. Also, if you are planning to eat out then start with a bowl of salad or stir fry to avoid excess calorie intake. The veggies contain fiber that will prevent you from eating too much in one go.
2. Say no to skipping meals: Many of us believe that if we skip our meals, then we can easily lose weight but that's an incorrect notion. Skipping meals puts your body in the starvation mode and which eventually leads to accumulation of fat cells. Also, when you skip a meal you tend to overeat during the next meal, increasing the risk of weight gain. Make sure you eat small and frequent meals and opt for healthy snacks in between so that your metabolism is boosted, you are satiated and your energy levels are up.
3. Let water be your best friend: Water helps in keeping you full for a longer duration which in turn reduces your chances of going overboard with food. Keep yourself well hydrated at all times. Sometimes, your body may confuse thirst with hunger.
4. Snack right: Who wouldn't love to sneak in some snacks? But it is important that you choose the right snack. Go for a cup of yoghurt, a fresh fruit, a handful of nuts, whole wheat munchies or some salad sticks with hummus. Try your own version of a healthy snack by combining carbohydrates with proteins, for instance- a pear or apple with a teaspoon of a peanut or almond butter or a whole wheat cracker with 10grams of feta cheese. Such options keep you full for longer and provide a feeling of satiety.
5. Don't forget to exercise regularly: You should definitely find some time to indulge in physical activities like 25-30 minutes or walking or running. If you are unable to hit the gym then try and go for a walk or do some yoga. Not just that, you can also indulge in your favorite sport such as squash, tennis, badminton or cricket which would all help in keeping you fit and healthy.
6. Maintain a diet diary: Maintaining a dietary log is of utmost importance as you will be able to track what you have been consuming the entire day and how many calories you've consumed. You should also track your water intake and the daily physical activity to maintain the same routine day by day.
All said and done, losing weight is not a difficult task. You just have to eat the right things, not starve yourself. Fitness and health is far more desirable than blind weight loss.
About the Author:
Huda Shaikh is a Mumbai based clinical nutritionist and dietician. She has completed her Masters in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics from Dr. B.M.N College of Homescience, which is affiliated to the S.N.D.T University. She believes that it is important to eat well and exercise in order to have a healthy body and has helped people suffering from various ailments. A passionate cook, Huda has developed many healthy recipes thanks to her love for cooking.
The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. NDTV is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. | <urn:uuid:54d7ada3-9506-4c77-bf8c-d6142c762475> | {
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Cholera and acute diarrhoea have killed more than 500 people and left tens of thousands of others sick in drought-hit parts of Somalia since January, the United Nations said Thursday.
The UN's health agency said the epidemic had left more than 25,000 people sick, warning that number was likely to double by the end of June.
WHO put the number of deaths since the beginning of the year from the epidemic at 524, while the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said 533 people had died.
The case fatality rate, which measures the severity of an epidemic by defining the proportion of fatal cases within a specific timeframe, is currently 2.1 percent -- more than double the emergency threshold of one percent.
OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said the situation was particularly alarming in the Middle Juba and Bakool regions, where the case fatality rates have surged to 14.1 percent and 5.1 percent respectively.
The epidemic comes as the Horn of Africa country of 12 million people faces the threat of its third famine in 25 years of civil war and anarchy.
At least 260,000 people died in the 2011 famine in Somalia -- half of them children under the age of five, according to the UN World Food Program.
Currently, 6.2 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid in Somalia, including 2.9 million who are facing "crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity", Laerke told reporters.
That means they are at levels three or four on a five-level scale, where level five is famine.
The dire drought and food situation has forced more than 500,000 people to flee their homes since last November, in a country where 1.1 million people are already internally displaced.
And the drought is not expected to end any time soon, Laerke said, pointing out that the UN expects no improvements over the next six months at least.
Even as conditions deteriorate on the ground, humanitarian actors are struggling to raise enough funds to provide aid, and to gain access to all of those in need, he said.
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The £2 million monocoque structure by Will Alsop’s practice didn’t require foundations and was designed to a 25 tonne maximum weight
The 23m-long and 10m-high freestanding science learning centre is based at Queen Mary’s Whitechapel campus, and was designed by the late Will Alsop and his practice aLL Design.
The structure consists of 13 large steel sections welded together, having been transported one by one to site, some requiring police escort due to their size. Neuron Pod is raised on three legs to allow the space below to remain useable, and also so that the sensitive medical research labs beneath weren’t disrupted during construction. The structure is accessed via an existing walkway with level, barrier-free access.
The scheme has been designed using the monocoque structural technique whereby the steel skin also acts as the structure, varying in thickness to minimise use of materials and weight – a technique often seen in vehicle design. It has a 25 tonne maximum weight to ensure that no strengthening was required on the existing basement, thus no need for additional foundations, and the structure is formed from weathering steel which will rust over time. This will be sealed once adequately rusted, halting the process.
The spiky structure makes links with the university’s Centre of the Cell, which is based at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science’s Blizard Building, also designed by Will Alsop in 2006. Centre of the Cell delivers biomedical research educational programmes and Neuron Pod was created to extend this work. The pod provides multifunctional space for workshops, debates, film and exhibitions as well as improved disabled access, and will host adult initiatives, school visits and sessions for young people with learning difficulties.
Neuron Pod is a three-legged, weathering steel monocoque structure that has been designed to ‘mimic’ a neuron – a nerve cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signalling. Typically it has many dendrites, which appear as branches or hairs growing out of the main cell. We have punctured the facade with 500 fibre optic ’hairs’ or dendrites and these are fitted with LEDs that can be illuminated at night.
Neuron Pod shows how you can use creativity and art as architecture by creating an object and space that delights while being extremely functional. Developing the design alongside the Centre of the Cell team has been a joy.
We worked with Queen Mary University of London to design several acoustic baffles based on different cells, reiterating the design rationale of our work on the Blizard Institute, at a reduced scale. Georgia Scott designed the stunning mesh chandeliers and baffles within Blizard so we were thrilled to work with her to develop the Neuron baffles which she has realised in aluminium mesh.
Marcos Rosello, architect, aLL Design
Given the significant levels of work involved with the three legs, it was imperative that all leg-to-body fabrication was carried out in the works to ensure that very difficult site assembly and welding was eliminated.
Initial site assembly of the 13 sections was achieved by the provision of additional temporary ribs, which allowed the structure to be assembled piece by piece while keeping all edges to the correct profile. For structural reasons, these secondary ribs had to be removed after the external welding was complete.
All external shell plates were profiled from weathering steel. Prior to any fabrication all were shot-blasted and, after the sections were complete, each was hand-blasted to blend the seams. The final rich orange and brown colouring is totally dependent upon weather conditions, but with the recent rain showers, it is starting to blend well.
Architectural and Structural Metalworks, Littlehampton Welding
Start on site April 2018
Completion February 2019
Construction cost £2 million
Architect aLL Design
Client Queen Mary University of London, Centre of the Cell
Project manager QMUL Capital Projects
Structural engineer AKT II
M&E Watermans Group
QS Turner & Townsend
Employer’s agent Gardiner & Theobald
Fire consultant The Fire Surgery
Acoustic consultant Sandy Brown
Building control PWC
CDM consultant CDM Services
Main contractor Total Construction
Steel sub-contractor Littlehampton Welding
Electrical sub-contractor LSG Electrical
Main contractor’s architect To-Do Design
Lighting consultant Sutton Vane Associates
Fibre optic sub-contractor Universal Fibre Optics (UFO)
Spray foam insulation sub-contractor Foamseal | <urn:uuid:b1e980f1-6a9c-458f-be04-06d0007e517f> | {
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(Highlights: Week Ending May 23, 2011)
Lead Increment Scientist's Weekly Highlights: Week Ending May 23, 2011
-- The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer - 02, or AMS-02
, continues to collect data from 40 million cosmic rays daily. The AMS-02 uses the unique environment of space to advance knowledge of the universe and lead to the understanding of the universe's origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter and measuring cosmic rays.
The Materials on the International Space Station – 7, or MISSE-7
, was successfully retrieved and returned to Earth aboard shuttle Endeavour. During its one-and-a half year on-orbit mission, MISSE-7 tested a variety of next-generation solar cells and electronic devices and provided real-time downlink of science data. MISSE-7 also continuously exposed cutting-edge material samples that will be analyzed in ground laboratories to determine how well they survived the space exposure effects of atomic oxygen, ultraviolet exposure, particle irradiation and extreme temperature cycles. or MISSE-8
, the next in the experiment series, was successfully installed and will remain outside the station for two years.
Space station and STS-134 crewmembers participated in the Education Payload Operations - Sesame Street 2 Demo. This was developed in collaboration with the educational program, "Sesame Street," in an effort to engage children in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, activities. Education Payload Operation records video education demonstrations performed on the station by crewmembers using hardware already onboard.
Vic Cooley, Lead Increment Scientist
› View All Science Updates | <urn:uuid:b0fe73e1-5e31-426a-a783-f08e8e8d0800> | {
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Impact of Climate Change on the Adaptation of Plant Species in Western Himalaya
By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar*
The Himalaya Mountain is among the most prominent bio-geographical entities that separates Indian subcontinent from Tibetan Plateau. Evolved during the Cenozoic era, Himalaya covers a total area of 750,000 km2 in an arc of about 2400 kilometers in length to wrap northern Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and the northern and eastern parts of India. The Himalaya harbors 33,050 km2 of glaciers that give rise to at least eight largest river systems including Ganga, Yamuna, and Brahmaputra and hence this mountain is also known as “water tower of Asia”. This mountain system is home to about 25,000 species of plants (~10% of the world's total) and acts as ‘sink’ for carbon dioxide through its green and the forest cover. Himalaya in India covers an area of 0.537 million km2 with a width of 250-300 km. Importantly, Himalaya houses 13 of the 825 ecoregions of the world. The Himalayan ecosystem in India supports about 50% of the total flowering plants of which 30% flora is endemic to the region. There are about 816 tree species, 675 edibles and nearly 1743 species of medicinal value found in the Indian Himalayan region. Within Indian region, Himalaya is classified into three major zones: western Himalaya (encompasses administrative boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and part of Uttarakhand), central Himalaya (comprises of hills of Uttarakhand) and eastern Himalaya (represented in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Darjeeling). Western Himalaya has two distinct regions. One region has typical mountainous zones consisting of valleys, mid and high mountainous zone, whereas the other region is trans Himalayan zone that houses cold deserts (in Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir).
Climate change is impacting the mountain ecosystems including Himalaya, by affecting water resources and vegetation. One of the most evident consequences of climate change is warming that is a major driver ecosystem change. For example, global warming of 1°C to 2 °C might shift southern boundary in Siberia northward and shrink the areas occupied by tundra and forest/tundra in Eurasia from 20 to 4%. Warming of Himalaya was estimated to be @ 0.04ºC–0.09ºC/year wherein Regional Climate Model did suggest the largest warming at highest altitudes in Himalaya. Meteorological data showed a rise of about 1.6°C in air temperature during the century wherein minimum temperature increased at a slower pace as compared to the maximum temperature. Precipitation showed a significant decreasing trend in monsoon precipitation in northwestern Himalaya though winter precipitation indicated an increasing but statistically insignificant trend. Increase in air temperature was possibly a reason for decreasing winter snowfall in some portions of Pir Panjal Range. Plant adaptation studies assume central importance in Himalaya, since vegetation in the region has limited migratory zones; any adverse change in climate might lead to extinction of species, more so since some of the species are at the edge of their spatial distribution.
A change in climate affects plant performance directly and also indirectly by affecting the other associated abiotic and biotic factors. For example, increased air and soil temperature would reduce plant duration, increase the rate of respiration, modulate the pest population dynamics, affect nutrient mineralization in soils, alter nutrient-use efficiencies, increase evapo-transpiration, and affect organic matter transformations in soil and so on. Some interesting questions under the climate change scenario are: which group of plants C3 or C4, will perform better? How the nitrogen fixers versus nitrogen fixers would behave? Will tree species be benefit more and affect the performance of under-story species due to restriction in radiations? Several studies suggested alteration in genetic diversity and species richness towards desirable biospheric properties that would lead to increase in the niche security. A few studies showed exudation of organic matter into the soil leading to stimulation of useful microbes. Such studies in Himalayan zone lead to important conclusions.
High altitude environment is often considered akin to that of preindustrial era and hence, though not in very strict sense, studies along altitudinal gradient would serve interesting site to study the impact of climate change on plant performance and response.
Enhancing CO2 uptake the nature’s way: a solution under climate change scenario
One of the major concerns under the climate change scenario is on how to sequester more CO2 in the high CO2 environment and what role the plants could play and how? Low partial pressure of CO2 at high altitude offer clues. Photosynthesis is one of the major components of carbon sequestration pathway and hence, enhancing photosynthetic efficiency is at least one of the major routes for enhancing carbon sequestration. Interestingly, photosynthesis rate does not exhibit significant alteration with change in altitude in spite of changes in partial pressure of gases. This suggested modulation in photosynthetic metabolism at different altitudes. Radiotracer studies coupled to biochemical and physiological analyses showed that C3 plants recruited phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPCase) and a few more enzymes along with ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) to capture more CO2 at low partial pressure of high altitude. Also, such an efficient carbon fixation mechanism would contribute to compensate for the relatively short growing period of the plants at high altitudes. Using the tools of molecular biology, it is possible to transfer the mechanism in crop plants for enhancing CO2 and it might lead to higher carbon sequestration.
Alleviating the oxidative stress
Global warming and regional cooling are inevitable under the climate change scenarios. Therefore, intense efforts are directed to dissect the temperature responsive plant processes with the possibility to manipulate the processes in desired plant species. Series of publications showed a negative correlation between the level of oxidative stress and plant growth; the species which experienced lesser oxidative stress, exhibited better growth under the harsh climatic conditions. Particularly, the enzymes such as glutathione reductase and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were identified to be important. Further studies using plants growing at higher elevations (~4500m amsl) yielded a highly efficient SOD that tolerated very high temperature (~121°C) and functioned from sub-zero temperature to >40°C. Crystal structure of the enzyme showed it to be the most compact amongst the reported SODs. The said SOD improved the performance of arabidopsis and potato under drought and salt-stressed conditions, at least by enhancing lignifications of vascular tissues.
Rise in leaf temperature during drought is usual when the leaf temperature can be as high as 45-50°C in the extreme cases. Under such situations production of superoxide radical is to be expected. Since SOD scavenges superoxide radical, there is a need to have the enzyme that would be stable at these temperatures for reasonable periods. Therefore, a SOD was engineered by replacing one amino acid at targeted position to obtain a highly thermostable protein. The engineered SOD in transgenic plants will confer tolerance to abiotic stresses including high temperature and drought, which are the most prevalent cues during climate change.
A multi-pronged approach for tolerance to environmental cues
There are efforts to develop plants tolerant to environmental cues or insensitive to climate change. This requires knowledge on transferable genetic machinery. The preceding discussion offered targeted approach, which at times, offers limited tolerance to plants against stresses. Hence efforts are being made for a holistic approach to address the problem. Since plants growing in high altitude are exposed to very “harsh” environment, these provided insight into the adaptive mechanisms for tolerance to abiotic stresses. Such plants have evolved strategies to express: (i) a battery of genes such as those encoding chaperons to protect the metabolic machinery, and (ii) modulate the genes that permit growth and development under stress conditions. Therefore, either suitable transcription factor(s) regulating the expression of target genes or co-expression of multiple genes would be desirable for such manipulations under the control of a vector with suitable regulatory elements involving promoters.
A comprehensive knowledge on the responses of Himalayan flora to climate change parameters is crucial not only to strategize conservation policies, but also for bio prospecting activities. There is a need to establish appropriate infrastructure such as artificial rain plots, and series of meterological stations in the region. Efforts on monitoring changes in the past and future will be rewarding. An integrated approach encompassing the fields of ecological genomics, chemical ecology and ecological proteomics will provide fine insight into the plant adaptation mechanisms, particularly when the experiments are carried out in the long term permanent monitoring plots.
*Head, Biodiversity Division, CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur-176062 (HP). | <urn:uuid:10fae24e-eeea-4789-82f2-c8848ee79eda> | {
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The term “inequality” has been at heart of discussion for many decades. To further study about inequality, it is important to distinguish the equality of outcome to equality of opportunities. The former focuses on the individuals who get access to equal outcome regardless of their different capabilities, while the later centers on the opportunity that is given equally to everyone without taking into consideration their differences. It is also significant to note that people can get the same access to opportunities given by government, but due to personal advantages, it is unlikely that they obtain same outcomes. In Kuznet’s hypothesis, when inequality takes place within a country, not only it hinders development, but it also limits the rights of citizens. However, there is a counterargument saying although inequality happens, development still can progress; one of the prime examples is the case of India where it depends on state’ leadership to deal with the problem despite their existing inequality. In addition, political equality (politics of recognition) is precondition for economic equality (politics of redistribution) because when there is no patron-client relationship, the wealth and income distribution will not be concentrated in the hand of elites, yet to the majority. Moreover, Rousseau’s ontological equality gives emphasis on inborn equality, which rooted from the division of class, gender, status, religion, ethnicity and race as well as the division of labor and private property under Marxism. People work on the same task, for example farming, and receive the same outcome. Inequality can also be seen in North-South division in regards to its dependency and unequal exchange when the exploitations partly occurred in the South by the North. Moreover, unlike Marxism, Max Weber looks at the inequality in non-economic determinants such as values, norms and status, which is divided into open status and close status or status by decent. He states that technological advancement also widens the gap between the rich and the poor. The chapter also stresses on the structuralist and non-structuralist approaches to inequality. Structuralist approach stresses that inequality is caused by system or structure which there is no way to avoid. On the contrary, non-structuralist approach believes that inequality exists owing to social discrimination toward gender, race and ethnicity. Besides, in this contemporary world, inequality is triggered by liberal economic policies, macro-economic stabilization and labor market as well as financial deregulation. Furthermore, egalitarian theorists have identified exploitation, economic marginalization and deprivation as socio-economic injustice. Amedya Sen’s thesis on relationship between diversity and equality also reveals that different outcomes of each individual are the result of different personal qualities. Hence, government must be able to set platform where everyone can compete equally, but it is citizens’ personal choices and attributes to reap what they deserve.
Personally, I have learnt a lot from this chapter in regard to diverse concepts of different theorists on inequality ranging from political, economic and structural to social inequalities in individual, government as well as state level. What I have noticed the most is the essential roles of leadership and government in differentiating the contrasting aspect between equality of opportunities and equality of outcome to further implement policies and pursue strategies that ensure equality for all citizens regardless of gender, class, race, religion and ethnicity. Still, different aptitudes of people are to be taken into account in determining outcomes. To have good governance, it is necessary for government to eliminate patron-client relationship and improve various sectors in accordance to expertise of distinct parts of country to enhance development and benefit citizens as a whole. | <urn:uuid:c9965ff4-451a-41aa-86f4-5dcd7163d1af> | {
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Why were the southern tornadoes so deadly?
While tornado-related deaths have declined dramatically over the past few decades, the massive outbreak on April 27 killed nearly 300 people across the Deep South. Here's why.
Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 05:41 PM
Photo: NASA Earth Observatory
Tornado-related deaths have declined dramatically over the past few decades due to improved forecasts and better warnings, but the massive outbreak on April 27 reported killed 318 people across the Deep South. What happened?
The bottom line: Massive tornadoes hit populated cities head-on. Forecasters had warned of an "insane" storm system for days, so it's unlikely that the tornadoes caught many by surprise. But with few basements in Dixie Alley, not many places were safe in the paths of tornadoes that had nearly 200-mph (322-kph) winds. Even solidly built houses were swept away. Many entire neighborhoods were completely obliterated. [The Tornado Damage Scale in Images]
"The truth is, even if you did everything you were supposed to do, unless you were in an underground bunker, you weren't going to survive," James Spann of the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., told the New York Times.
On Wednesday, more than 150 tornadoes were reported in the southeastern United States. Bob Henson, a meteorologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said he "wouldn't at all be surprised," to see some of those storms rated as EF-5, the highest rating on the Enhanced Fujita Damage scale, with winds faster than 200 mph.
Already, one tornado that killed 14 people in Smithville, Miss., has been given the top rating, the first EF-5 in the United States in three years.
The deadly combination of strength and location, with the populous cities of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala., has created one of the highest death tolls in decades.
"Any tornado going through the heart of the city like that is going to cause major damage," Henson told OurAmazingPlanet.
The latest outbreak wasn't just a few tornadoes in a few small towns. Preliminary reports suggest that this outbreak could be among the biggest of all time. Tornadoes roared on the ground for hours and traveled miles between cities. One twister may have traveled the 60 miles (97 kilometers) from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to Birmingham.
"It looks like it was a very long-track tornado and those don't happen that often," Henson said.
That tornado could be responsible for most of Alabama's 228 reported fatalities. When the damage assessments are finished, the deadly outbreak will likely be the deadliest since 1974, when 308 were killed. The deadliest outbreak of all time is believed to be the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925, which killed 695 people in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
Those massive death tolls are rare today. Tornado-related deaths have plummeted as forecasts and warnings have become more precise. The 2000 to 2009 average for annual tornado-related fatalities is 62, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
U.S. tornado deaths per million people. (Photo: NOAA)
Dixie Alley, the focus of this year's tornado season, is notoriously deadly. Even a small tornado there can be deadly.
Unlike the flat, grass-covered plains of Tornado Alley, tornadoes are hard to see in Dixie Alley. Trees and hilly terrain obscure funnel clouds, a problem made even worse by the region's high rate of nighttime tornadoes, which can hit when people are sleeping.
Often, tornadoes can be cloaked in rain, hiding even the most massive twisters.
To make matters worse, Dixie Alley is home to many manufactured houses and mobile homes that have weak walls and poor -- or nonexistent -- foundations. Before the April 27 outbreak, more than half of this year's tornado-related deaths had occurred in mobile homes.
Storm surveys are still ongoing, but it's likely that mobile home deaths were common during the most recent tornado outbreak as well.
This article was reprinted with permission from OurAmazingPlanet.
Related on OurAmazingPlanet: | <urn:uuid:8b523e49-2cca-46b7-8416-0ffaa886d638> | {
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Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link)
After the end of World War One, President Woodrow Wilson sought national support for his idea of a League of Nations. He took his appeal directly to the American people in the summer of nineteen nineteen.
The plan for the League of Nations was part of the peace treaty that ended World War One. By law, the United States Senate would have to vote on the treaty. President Wilson believed the Senate would have to approve it if the American people demanded it. So he went to the people for support.
For almost a month, Wilson traveled across America. He stopped in many places to speak about the need for the League of Nations. He said the league was the only hope for world peace. It was the only way to prevent another world war.
Wilson's health grew worse during the long journey across the country. He became increasingly weak and suffered from severe headaches. In Witchita, Kansas, he had a small stroke. A blood vessel burst inside his brain. He was forced to return to Washington.
The president's advisers kept his condition secret from almost everyone. They told reporters only that Wilson was suffering from a nervous breakdown. The Senate was completing debate on the Treaty of Versailles. That was the World War One peace agreement that contained Wilson's plan for the league. It seemed clear the Senate would reject the treaty. Too many Senators feared the United States would lose some of its independence and freedom if it joined the league.
The leader of Wilson's political party in the Senate, Gilbert Hitchcock, headed the administration campaign to win support for the treaty. Hitchcock told the president the situation was hopeless. He said the Senate would not approve the treaty unless several changes were made to protect American independence. If the president accepted the changes, then the treaty might pass.
Wilson refused. He would accept no compromise. He said the treaty must be approved as written. The treaty was defeated. From his sick bed, he wrote a letter to the other members of the Democratic Party. He urged them to continue debate on the League of Nations. He said a majority of Americans wanted the treaty approved.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed to re-open discussion on the treaty. It searched yet again for a compromise. But, as before, Wilson refused. He was a proud man. Wilson's unwillingness to compromise helped kill the treaty once and for all. The Senate finally voted again, and the treaty was defeated by seven votes. The treaty was dead. Yet history would prove him correct, and the Second World War would be far more destructive than the first.
The debate over the Treaty of Versailles was the central issue in American politics during the end of Woodrow Wilson's administration. It also played a major part in the presidential election of nineteen twenty.
The two presidential candidates gave the American people a clear choice in the election of nineteen twenty.
On one side was Democrat James Cox. He represented the dream of Woodrow Wilson. In this dream, the world would be at peace. And America would be a world leader that would fight for the freedom and human rights of people everywhere.
On the other side was Republican Warren Harding. He represented an inward-looking America. It was an America that felt it had sacrificed enough for other people. Now it would deal with its own problems.
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Bird’s Eye View
Jan was sound asleep in his bed when the ship he was sailing on began to vibrate violently, jolting him awake. He and the five other men in his berth awoke to find the ship fully lit, and a cold chill enveloping the room. Strangely, the heat was off and the ship was travelling faster than it ever had in the three days since it left port. His room was usually quiet but on this night he could hear a loud commotion in the boiler room. Urgent voices yelled back and forth a midst raucous clanging and banging.
Jan sprang to his feet and made his way to the deck where he joined dozens of other curious passengers and where the awful truth was soon made apparent. Another passenger ship had sunk in the frigid waters, and the Carpathia was hurriedly making its way to the rescue.
It was not unusual for Slovaks such as Jan Bohuš to travel back and forth from North America to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early 1900′s. Nearly all of the 550 trans-Atlantic passengers on the Carpathia’s third class roster that night were “birds of passage,” more migrant workers than immigrants who had originally come from impoverished villages in Central Europe to find work in the United States, and who were traveling back home to visit family laden with a few goods and some hard earned cash. Most fully intended to eventually move back to their villages, and to settle down on land bought with money earned in the slave-like conditions of the mines and factories of the States. Most never did.
Crew members scurried around the ship, preparing rooms for survivors, collecting blankets, preparing soup and hot drinks, and turning the dining rooms into makeshift hospitals. Jan and the other passengers were moved together in a group, away from the hectic activities.
At 4am, the Carpathia’s engines were cut off, and a dead silence descended. Passengers on deck along with the crew strained to see something, anything, in the water around them. Finally a crew member saw a green glow coming from a flare in a lifeboat, and the ship carefully made its way towards the light. Ten minutes later Jan watched as the first survivor was hoisted onto the Carpathia; over the next four and a half hours, 711 more would be pulled aboard.
There wasn’t enough food on board for the Carpathia to continue on its way to Fiume, Hungary (now Rijeka, Croatia) with all the additional passengers, and so the ship turned around and four days later pulled back into the the Hudson River port in NYC.
Jan and the other third class passengers hung out on the ship for the next few days, enjoying three good meals a day in their own private dining room and freshly washed sheets each day; life was better on the ship than on land for most of these passengers. Finally the Carpathia set sail again, and enjoyed an uneventful voyage to Hungary. | <urn:uuid:bdd9a1a2-f013-4f61-bc74-e971cfbda854> | {
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Four Ways the Common Core Will Change Classroom Practice
By ROBERT ROTHMAN
In a recent survey, William Schmidt, a University Distinguished Professor of education at Michigan State University, found some good news and bad news for supporters of the Common Core State Standards. The good news was that the vast majority of teachers have read the Standards and nearly all like them. The bad news was that about 80 percent of mathematics teachers said the Standards were “pretty much the same” as their current state standards.
Those teachers might want to take a closer look. While the Common Core State Standards share many features and concepts with existing standards, the new standards also represent a substantial departure from current practice in a number of respects. Here are nine important differences:
In Mathematics 1. Greater Focus. The Standards are notable not just for what they include but also for what they don’t include. Unlike many state standards, which include long lists of topics (often too many for teachers to address in a single year), the Common Core Standards are intended to focus on fewer topics and address them in greater depth. This is particularly true in elementary school mathematics, where the standards concentrate more on arithmetic and less on geometry. Some popular topics (like the calendar) are not included at all, and there are no standards for data and statistics until sixth grade—a controversial change. The reasoning is that teachers should concentrate on the most important topics, like number sense, in depth so that students develop a real understanding of them and are able to move on to more advanced topics.
2. Coherence. One of the major criticisms of state standards is that they tend to include the same topics year after year. The Common Core Standards, by contrast, are designed to build on students’ understanding by introducing new topics from grade to grade. Students are expected to learn content and skills and move to more advanced topics. The Standards simultaneously build coherence within grades—that is, they suggest relationships between Standards. For example, in seventh grade the Standards show that students’ understanding of ratio and proportion—used in applications such as calculating interest—is related to their understanding of equations.
3. Skills, Understanding, and Application. The Standards end one of the fiercest debates in mathematics education—the question of which aspect of mathematics knowledge is most important—by concluding that they all are equally central. Students will need to know procedures fluently, develop a deep conceptual understanding, and be able to apply their knowledge to solve problems.
4. Emphasis on Practices. The Standards have eight criteria for mathematical practices. These include making sense of problems and persevering to solve them, reasoning abstractly and quantitatively, using appropriate tools strategically, and constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. These practices are intended to be integrated with the standards for mathematical content. To provide students opportunities to demonstrate the standards of practice, then, teachers might allow students more time to work on problems rather than expect them to come up with solutions instantaneously. Or they might provide students with a variety of tools—rulers and calculators, for example—and ask them to choose the one that best fits the problem rather than requiring them to choose a tool in advance. | <urn:uuid:d7da1611-bef6-4a10-b25c-dc81152f7dd1> | {
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Urbanization and the Nutrition Transition
Corinna Hawkes, Jody Harris, and Stuart Gillespie
- Diets are changing with rising incomes and urbanization—people are consuming more animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods.
- This “nutrition transition” is causing increases in overweight and obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
- Urban residents are making the nutrition transition fastest—but it is occurring in rural areas too.
- Urban food environments—with supermarkets, food vendors, and restaurants—facilitate access to unhealthy diets, although they can also improve access to nutritious foods for people who can afford them.
- For the urban poor, the most easily available and affordable diets are often unhealthy.
Policy and Research Needs
- What are people eating and how is the urban food environment shaping their food choices?
- Which national and municipal level policies—such as food-labeling requirements to provide consumers with more information, taxes on less healthy foods, school meal programs, and affordable “popular” restaurants—have improved nutrition for urban residents?
- How can food retailers and food services make a greater contribution toward creating an enabling environment for good nutrition?
- What positive experiences with policies to address the nutrition transition can point policy makers in a promising direction? | <urn:uuid:1ccb314f-a397-4b27-b8cd-de8ad343c3ad> | {
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Are you tired of seeing those stubborn yellow stains in your swimming pool? Don't worry, we've got you covered!
In this article, we'll show you how to effectively remove those pesky stains and restore the crystal-clear beauty of your pool. From identifying the stains to providing step-by-step instructions, we'll guide you through the process.
So, grab your cleaning supplies and get ready to say goodbye to those unsightly yellow stains once and for all!
Understanding Yellow Stains in Swimming Pools
To understand yellow stains in swimming pools, you need to know their causes and types.
The causes can range from excessive metals in the water, such as iron or copper, to the presence of organic matter like leaves or pollen.
Types of yellow stains can include rust stains, algae stains, or even stains caused by chemical imbalances.
Causes of Yellow Stains
Yellow stains in swimming pools can be caused by a variety of factors.
One common cause of yellow stains is algae growth in the pool. Algae can create yellow or greenish stains on the pool surface, especially if the water isn't properly balanced or if the pool isn't regularly maintained.
Another cause of yellow stains is the presence of iron in the water. If the pool water has high iron content, it can lead to the formation of yellowish-brown stains.
Organic stains, such as leaves or other debris, can also contribute to the development of yellow stains.
Additionally, improper chlorine levels can result in yellow staining.
Understanding the causes of yellow stains is crucial in determining the appropriate treatment method.
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Types of Yellow Stains
If you want to understand yellow stains in swimming pools, it's important to know the different types that can occur.
Yellow stains in swimming pools can be caused by various factors such as metal stains, organic stains, and mineral stains.
Metal stains are one of the most common types of yellow stains and can occur when metals like iron or copper dissolve in the pool water and attach to the pool surface.
Organic stains, on the other hand, are caused by organic matter such as leaves, algae, or pollen that settle on the pool surface and create yellowish discoloration.
Mineral stains are another type of yellow stain that can result from high levels of minerals in the pool water.
Understanding the types of yellow stains in your swimming pool is crucial for effective pool maintenance and proper stain removal.
Identifying Yellow Stains
Now let's talk about how to identify yellow stains in your swimming pool.
To start, you need to pay attention to the visual characteristics of the stains. Are they solid or powdery? Do they appear as patches or streaks?
Additionally, take note of the locations and patterns of the stains in your pool. Are they concentrated near the waterline or spread throughout the pool?
Visual Characteristics of Yellow Stains
To identify yellow stains in your swimming pool, start by visually examining the pool's surfaces.
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Yellow stains can appear in various forms and locations, so it's essential to understand their visual characteristics.
One common type of yellow stain is caused by organic matter, such as leaves or algae. These stains often appear as patches or streaks on the pool walls or floor.
Another type of yellow stain is caused by metal deposits, such as iron or copper. These stains can appear as discolored spots or rings.
Additionally, yellow stains can be a result of chemical imbalances in the pool water. They may appear as cloudy or hazy areas.
Locations and Patterns of Yellow Stains in Pools
To identify yellow stains in your swimming pool, you can start by examining the locations and patterns of these stains. Understanding where and how the stains appear can provide valuable clues about their source and the best approach for removal.
Here are three key factors to consider when identifying yellow stains in your swimming pool:
- Pool surface: Take note of whether the stains are concentrated on the walls, floor, or steps of the pool. This information can help determine if the stains are caused by algae, metal, or other factors.
- Water features: If the stains are predominantly found near water features like fountains or waterfalls, it could indicate a problem with the plumbing or the presence of minerals in the water.
- Pool equipment: Check if the stains are more prevalent near skimmers, jets, or other pool equipment. This could suggest a corrosion issue or a problem with the circulation system.
Prevention of Yellow Stains
To prevent yellow stains in your swimming pool, you need to focus on regular maintenance. This includes regularly cleaning and brushing the pool to remove any debris or build-up.
In addition to maintenance, maintaining a proper water chemistry balance is crucial. Testing and adjusting the pH and chlorine levels regularly can help prevent the formation of yellow stains.
Using algaecides and stain preventers is another effective way to keep your pool free from yellow stains. These products can help inhibit the growth of algae and prevent the formation of stains.
Regular Pool Maintenance
Maintain your pool regularly to prevent yellow stains. Regular pool maintenance is crucial in keeping your swimming pool clean and free from unsightly discolorations. By following a few simple steps, you can effectively remove and prevent yellow stains from appearing in your pool.
The first step in regular pool maintenance is to regularly check and adjust the water chemistry. Imbalanced pH levels and high mineral content can contribute to the formation of yellow stains. Test the water regularly and ensure that the pH levels are within the recommended range.
Additionally, it's important to clean and brush the pool walls and floor regularly. This will help prevent the accumulation of dirt, algae, and other organic matter that can lead to yellow stains. Use a pool brush to scrub the surfaces and remove any visible stains.
Lastly, ensure proper filtration and circulation of the pool water. A well-maintained filtration system will help remove impurities and debris, preventing them from settling and causing yellow stains.
Water Chemistry Balance
To prevent yellow stains in your swimming pool, it's important to maintain a proper balance of water chemistry. Yellow stains can be caused by various factors, such as high levels of metals in the water or improper pH and alkalinity levels.
To remove these stains, you'll need to address the underlying water chemistry imbalance. Firstly, test the pH and alkalinity levels of your pool water regularly and make adjustments as needed.
Use a metal solution or iron stain remover to eliminate any metals present in the water, as they can contribute to the formation of yellow stains.
Use of Algaecides and Stain Preventers
To prevent yellow stains in your swimming pool, you can use algaecides and stain preventers.
Yellow stains in a swimming pool can be caused by a variety of factors, including algae growth and metal deposits.
Algaecides are chemicals specifically designed to kill and prevent the growth of algae in the pool water. By regularly adding algaecides to your pool, you can effectively remove and prevent the formation of yellow stains.
Stain preventers, on the other hand, help to prevent the buildup of metal deposits in the pool water, which can also cause yellow stains. These products work by sequestering the metals, preventing them from oxidizing and staining the pool surface.
Methods to Remove Yellow Stains
Now let's talk about how to remove those pesky yellow stains from your swimming pool.
There are three main methods you can try: manual scrubbing, chemical treatments, and pool shocking.
Each method has its own advantages and effectiveness, so you can choose the one that suits you best.
You can remove yellow stains from your swimming pool by using manual scrubbing methods. Manual scrubbing is an effective way to remove stubborn stains and keep your pool clean and well-maintained.
To begin, make sure you have the right tools for the job, such as a pool brush with stiff bristles and a telescopic pole. Start by brushing the stained areas vigorously, applying pressure to loosen the stains. Be sure to focus on the yellow stains and scrub in a circular motion to cover the entire area.
After scrubbing, use a pool vacuum or net to remove any loosened debris from the water. Repeat this process as necessary until the yellow stains are fully removed.
Regular manual scrubbing as part of your pool care routine will help prevent and eliminate yellow stains, keeping your swimming pool looking pristine.
One effective method for removing yellow stains from your swimming pool is through the use of chemical treatments. Pool owners often encounter yellow stains caused by metal deposits in the water, and these stains can be stubborn to remove. Fortunately, there are several chemical treatments available that can effectively eliminate yellow stains and restore the pool's appearance.
Here are three options for pool owners to consider:
- Metal stain removers: These specialized chemicals are designed to target and dissolve metal stains, including yellow stains. They work by chemically binding to the metal ions and lifting them from the pool surface.
- Water treatment products: Using water treatment products, such as sequestering agents or chelating agents, can help prevent the formation of metal stains in the first place. These products work by binding to the metal ions in the water, preventing them from depositing on the pool surface.
- Acid washing: In severe cases, where yellow stains are deeply ingrained, acid washing may be necessary. This process involves applying a diluted acid solution to the stained areas, which helps to break down and remove the stains.
To effectively remove yellow stains from your swimming pool, consider using pool shocking methods.
Pool shocking is a technique that involves adding a high dose of chlorine to your pool water. This process helps to eliminate stubborn yellow stains caused by algae and other contaminants.
When pool shocking, make sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions carefully and wear protective gear.
First, test the water to determine the correct amount of pool shock needed. Then, add the shock directly to the pool water, distributing it evenly.
Allow the shock to circulate for several hours or overnight before retesting the water and adjusting the chemical levels if necessary.
Step-by-Step Guide to Remove Yellow Stains
Now let's get into the step-by-step process of removing those stubborn yellow stains from your swimming pool.
First, you'll need to gather all the necessary materials and prepare the area for cleaning.
Once you're ready, apply the stain remover directly to the affected areas and let it sit for the recommended time.
After that, grab a scrub brush and start scrubbing the stains vigorously until they're completely gone.
Gather the necessary materials and equipment for removing yellow stains from your swimming pool. Start by collecting a pool brush, leaf skimmer, and a pool vacuum. These will help you remove any debris such as leaves that may be contributing to the stains.
Next, you'll need a stain remover specifically designed for iron and copper stains. Muriatic acid is a common choice, but be cautious as it can be harmful if not used properly. Additionally, if your pool has a liner, make sure to use a stain remover that's safe for use on liners. It's important to avoid using harsh chemicals that may damage the pool wall or liner.
Application of Stain Remover
First, prepare the stained area by ensuring it's free of debris and contaminants using the pool brush, leaf skimmer, and pool vacuum.
Once the swimming pool is properly prepared, it's time to apply the stain remover. Start by carefully reading the instructions on the stain remover product to ensure you understand the recommended application method. Depending on the type of stain remover you're using, you may need to dilute it with water before applying.
Using a spray bottle or a sponge, apply the stain remover directly onto the yellow stains. Gently scrub the stained area using a soft brush, working the stain remover into the surface.
Allow the stain remover to sit for the recommended amount of time, as specified on the product instructions.
After the designated time has passed, rinse the area thoroughly with clean water. Repeat the process if necessary until the yellow stains are completely removed.
Scrubbing and Cleaning
To scrub and clean the yellow stains from your swimming pool, you'll need to follow a step-by-step guide.
Start by draining the swimming pool to a level where you can easily access the stained areas.
Next, prepare a cleaning solution by mixing equal parts of water and chlorine bleach.
Using a scrub brush or sponge, apply the cleaning solution directly to the yellow stains and scrub vigorously. Make sure to cover the entire stained area and focus on any stubborn spots.
Rinse the area thoroughly with clean water to remove any residue.
Repeat this process if necessary until the yellow stains are completely removed.
Finally, refill the pool with fresh water and balance the chemical levels.
Now that you have successfully removed the yellow stains from your swimming pool, it's time to focus on post-cleaning maintenance to ensure they don't reappear.
One important aspect of post-cleaning maintenance is to regularly treat your pool for algae. Algae can contribute to the formation of yellow stains, so it's crucial to keep it under control. Use an effective algae treatment according to the instructions provided.
Additionally, it's important to maintain proper water chemistry to prevent the growth of algae and the formation of new stains. Regularly test the water and make necessary adjustments to the pH and chlorine levels.
Lastly, keep an eye on your pool for any signs of new stains and promptly address them to prevent them from becoming stubborn and difficult to remove.
With proper post-cleaning maintenance, you can enjoy a clean and stain-free swimming pool all season long.
Review of Stain Removal Products
Now let's talk about the different stain removal products available for removing yellow stains from your swimming pool.
We'll compare the various options and discuss the pros and cons of popular stain removers.
This will help you make an informed decision on which product to choose for effectively removing those stubborn yellow stains from your pool.
Comparison of Different Stain Removers
When comparing different stain removers for yellow stains in your swimming pool, consider their effectiveness and compatibility with your pool's surface. It's important to choose a stain remover that is specifically designed to remove yellow stains from swimming pools. To help you make an informed decision, here is a comparison of three popular stain removers:
|Remover A||High||Vinyl, fiberglass, and concrete|
|Remover B||Medium||Concrete and plaster|
|Remover C||Low||Vinyl and fiberglass|
Remover A is highly effective and can be used on various pool surfaces such as vinyl, fiberglass, and concrete. Remover B, while not as effective as Remover A, can still remove yellow stains from concrete and plaster surfaces. Remover C has a lower effectiveness and is only compatible with vinyl and fiberglass surfaces. Consider these factors when choosing the most suitable stain remover for your swimming pool.
Pros and Cons of Popular Stain Removers
To evaluate the effectiveness of popular stain removers, consider the pros and cons of each product.
When it comes to removing yellow stains from your swimming pool, there are several options available. One popular stain remover is chlorine-based. The pros of using chlorine-based stain removers are that they're effective at removing stains and are readily available. However, the cons include the potential for chlorine to damage the pool's surface and the need for careful handling due to its harsh chemicals.
Another popular option is enzyme-based stain removers. The pros of using enzyme-based stain removers are that they're safe for both the pool and the environment, and they can effectively break down organic stains. However, the cons include the need for longer treatment times and the possibility of needing repeated applications for stubborn stains.
Ultimately, the choice of stain remover will depend on your specific needs and preferences.
Case Studies of Successful Yellow Stain Removal
Now let's take a look at some real-life examples of successful yellow stain removal in both residential and commercial swimming pools.
These case studies will provide you with valuable insights and practical tips on how to effectively tackle stubborn yellow stains.
Residential Pool Stain Removal
By using specialized stain removers, you can easily eliminate yellow stains from your residential swimming pool. Residential pool owners often face the challenge of dealing with unsightly yellow stains that can detract from the beauty of their pool. However, with the right approach to stain removal, you can restore the pristine condition of your pool.
One effective method is to identify the source of the stain, as this will determine the most suitable treatment. Yellow stains can be caused by a variety of factors, such as metal impurities, organic matter, or chemical imbalances. Once the cause is determined, you can select the appropriate stain remover and follow the instructions for application.
It's important to remember that different stain removers work best for specific types of stains, so be sure to choose one that's designed to target yellow stains. With the proper stain removal techniques, you can successfully remove yellow stains from your residential swimming pool and enjoy a clean and inviting pool all season long.
Commercial Pool Stain Removal
Once you have successfully removed yellow stains from your residential swimming pool, you can now explore commercial pool stain removal through case studies of successful yellow stain removal.
Commercial pools often face more challenges, such as larger sizes and higher usage rates, which can lead to more frequent yellow stains and algae outbreaks.
To combat these issues, commercial pool owners can employ various stain treatments. One effective method is using an acidic product to target and dissolve the yellow stains.
Another option is the use of an algaecide product, which not only prevents algae growth but also helps remove existing stains.
Frequently Asked Questions about Yellow Stain Removal
Got questions about how to remove those pesky yellow stains from your swimming pool? Look no further!
We've gathered common queries about yellow stains and expert answers to help you tackle your yellow stain problems with confidence.
Common Queries about Yellow Stains
If you're wondering how to remove yellow stains from your swimming pool, you might've a few common queries about yellow stain removal. Here, we address some of the most frequently asked questions in this article section to provide you with contextually relevant information.
One common query is, 'What causes yellow stains in a swimming pool?' Yellow stains in a swimming pool can be caused by a variety of factors, including high levels of iron or manganese in the water, organic matter such as leaves or pollen, or even poor water chemistry.
Another common question is, 'Can I remove yellow stains from my swimming pool myself?' Yes, you can remove yellow stains from your swimming pool yourself by using pool stain removers or natural remedies such as baking soda or vitamin C. However, it's important to follow the instructions carefully and test the products in a small area before applying them to the entire pool.
Expert Answers to Yellow Stain Problems
Addressing yellow stain problems in your swimming pool requires expert answers to frequently asked questions about yellow stain removal. If you're wondering how to remove yellow stains from your swimming pool, you're not alone. Many pool owners struggle with this issue, but luckily, there are solutions available.
One common question is, 'What causes yellow stains in swimming pools?' Yellow stains can be caused by a variety of factors, including high iron content in the water, organic debris, or even the use of certain pool chemicals.
Another frequently asked question is, 'How can I remove yellow stains from my swimming pool?' The best way to remove yellow stains depends on the specific cause and type of stain. It's important to consult with a pool maintenance professional who can provide expert answers and advice tailored to your specific situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Yellow Stains in Swimming Pools Be Harmful to Swimmer's Health?
Yellow stains in swimming pools are unsightly, but they are typically not harmful to your health as a swimmer. However, it is still important to regularly clean and maintain your pool to prevent any potential health risks.
Are Certain Types of Swimming Pool Surfaces More Prone to Yellow Stains?
Certain types of swimming pool surfaces may be more prone to yellow stains. It's important to identify the cause of the stains before attempting to remove them.
Can Yellow Stains Reappear After They Have Been Successfully Removed?
Yes, yellow stains can reappear after successful removal. This can happen if the underlying cause of the stains, such as mineral deposits or algae, is not fully addressed. Regular maintenance and proper water chemistry can help prevent their reappearance.
How Long Does It Typically Take to Remove Yellow Stains From a Swimming Pool?
Typically, it takes a few days to remove yellow stains from your swimming pool. You can start by using a stain remover and scrubbing the affected areas. Regular maintenance will help prevent future stains.
Are There Any Natural or Homemade Remedies for Removing Yellow Stains From Swimming Pools?
There are natural and homemade remedies you can try to remove yellow stains from swimming pools. These remedies often involve using ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, or lemon juice. | <urn:uuid:e862591c-dc45-4f8c-a2ea-9eb67a13b6ff> | {
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Medieval chronicles have given an international group of researchers a glimpse into the past to assess how historical volcanic eruptions affected the weather in Ireland up to 1500 years ago.
By critically assessing over 40,000 written entries in the Irish Annals and comparing them with measurements taken from ice cores, the researchers successfully linked the climatic aftermath of volcanic eruptions to extreme cold weather events in Ireland over a 1200-year period from 431 to 1649.
Their study, which has been published today, 6 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, showed that over this timescale up to 48 explosive volcanic eruptions could be identified in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP2) ice-core, which records the deposition of volcanic sulfate in annual layers of ice.
Of these 48 volcanic events, 38 were associated, closely in time, with 37 extreme cold events, which were identified by systematically examining written entries in the Irish Annals and picking out directly observed meteorological phenomena and conditions, such as heavy snowfall and frost, prolonged ice covering lakes and rivers, and contemporary descriptions of abnormally cold weather.
Lead author of the study, Dr Francis Ludlow, from the Harvard University Center for the Environment and Department of History, said: "It's clear that the scribes of the Irish Annals were diligent reporters of severe cold weather, most probably because of the negative impacts this had on society and the biosphere.
"Our major result is that explosive volcanic eruptions are strongly, and persistently, implicated in the occurrence of cold weather events over this long timescale in Ireland. In their severity, these events are quite rare for the country's mild maritime climate."
Through the injection of sulphur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, volcanic eruptions can play a significant role in the regulation of the Earth's climate. Sulphur dioxide gas is converted into sulphate aerosol particles after eruptions which reflect incoming sunlight and result in an overall temporary cooling of the Earth's surface.
Whilst the global effects of recent eruptions are quite well-known, such as the Mount Pinatubo eruption almost 22 years ago (15 June 1991), less is known about their effects on climate before the beginning of instrumental weather recording, or their effects on regional scales; the Irish Annals provided an opportunity to explore both of these issues.
The Irish Annals contain over one million written words and around 40,000 distinct written entries, detailing major historical events on an annual basis, and providing both systematic and sustained reporting of meteorological extremes.
The dating and reliability of the Annals can be gauged by comparing reported events to those which are independently known, such as solar and lunar eclipses.
"With a few honourable exceptions, the Irish record of extreme events has only been used anecdotally, rather than systematically surveyed and exploited for the study of the climate history of Ireland and the North Atlantic, and so the richness of the record has been largely unrecognized," continued Dr Ludlow.
Although the effect of big eruptions on the climate in summer is largely to cause cooling, during the winter, low-latitude eruptions in the tropics have instead been known to warm large parts of the northern hemisphere as they cause a strengthening of the westerly winds that brings, for example, warmer oceanic air to Europe; however, this study identified several instances when low-latitude eruptions appeared to correspond to extreme cold winters in Ireland.
One example is the 1600 eruption in Peru of Huaynaputina, which the researchers found, against expectations, to be associated with extreme cold winter weather in Ireland in the following years.
"The possibility that tropical eruptions may result in severe winter cooling for Ireland highlights the considerable complexity of the volcano-climate system in terms of the regional expression of the response of climate to volcanic disturbances.
"It is on the regional scale that we need to refine our understanding of this relationship as ultimately, it is on this scale that individuals and societies plan for extreme weather," continued Dr Ludlow.
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Over the last four years my middle school students have made it clear that science lectures do not excite them. They want to be able to dive into the material, and if they have questions they will ask. This is what motivated me to develop my project-based, flipped classroom model.
I taped some lessons and shared the videos with my students rather than lecturing. After some initial success with flipped science, my students told me they would rather have me provide them with valuable websites to research as oppose to making my flipped classroom lectures.
During the flipped evolution, I spoke to northern Ohio business professionals about their expectations for quality employees. They all talked about the ability to manage a project. That insight led me to create a project management system to help my students to develop the skills that everyone needs to succeed.
I call my project model Project Management in Education. The goal for the program is to grow the individual and the test scores will take care of themselves. I spend the first week or two of the school year teaching my students how to be a successful person and employee. These sessions may include designing weekly work schedules, how to pick teammates, analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, analyzing what type of learner you are, goal setting, how to balance work time, think time and break time, etc.
After these foundational skills are developed, I give my students weekly goals to complete. For example, they may have 15 goals to meet between Monday and Friday. These goals are related to the Common Core Standards for 8th grade science. The students are encouraged to choose teams based on the strengths of the students available in the class. Students have the choice on how they want to meet the goals. Some may build something, some may draw, and others will use technology to design a presentation. On Friday, or earlier with my students who have finished their goals, I conduct meetings and discuss if the students met the goals or if they need to go back and improve on their work. Between Monday and Friday, students have all class period to work, have think time or break time. They know the expectation of due dates. I make myself available to address questions and brainstorm ideas throughout the week. The following Monday we conduct a meeting as a class to discuss all the goals and make sure they are clear to everyone. At that time, I take a few days to review the material, and the students will be tested on the 15 goals. After the test, the next day we review the goals for what still may not be clear. Then students are provided with the next set of goals.
As a 8th grade science teacher, I am required to make sure my student meet all of the Common Core Standards. Teachers know this can be a challenge, but through my project-based learning (PBL) approach students learn skills and obtain content through accomplishing science related goals. The class is almost 95% exploration.
This PBL system would work in any content area. The teacher would just have to change the way they set up their goals.
I started this creative journey when I started working with TRECA Educational Solutions, a non-profit intermediate organization in northern Ohio. They approached me to be part of their TRECA Research and Development project. Watch for more on TRECA R&D:
This year I am helping TRECA with their Learning Institute of Ohio project by being a specialist on Next Generation Learning Environments. At the beginning of this school year is when I transformed my project-based, flipped classroom model into the Project Management in Education model.
After observing this program throughout the first half of this school year, it has been amazing to see how students as young as fourteen years old can adopt skills that some adults struggle to possess through a structured program. The students have enjoyed the freedom of an office type environment. It has been interesting to see how little I have to micromanage my students because of the skills the students have developed throughout the first half of the school year. If students in school can develop the necessary skills to be successful employees, they will be able to handle any content thrown at them in school.
I am confident that this management system can be used in every content area if you set your program up properly. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any question about my program or if your district would like me to come present about it.
For more on project-based learning, check out:
- 11 Essential Tools For Better Project-Based Learning
- Diving Into Project-Based Learning? Heed these 7 Warnings
- Project-Based Learning Made Easy
Ryan Mocarski is a NGLE Specialist and teaches 8th grade science at Big Walnut Middle School. Follow Ryan on Twitter at @ryanmocarski. | <urn:uuid:177d1230-2e25-40de-9cef-e2f21dd01c52> | {
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The polycentric picture The presentation introduces a dynamic view on children's drawings inspired by J.J.Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception. Empirical research in children's drawings will be the basis for the documentation of the fact that children's drawings contain several viewpoints and can be characterized as polycentric. I will talk about children's perception of environmental space and about the relations and the orientation they are establishing, which are used in the organisation of the pictorial space. The presentation serves the purpose to point out ontological strategies of vision, which can be activated, re-established and differentiated in relation to dynamic media productions. The significance of spatial orientation to our ability to see and to the way we are seeing is focused and a concept of the ex-centric observer is introduced.
Polycentric Picture, 2008
Børnetegning og rumopfattelse; Children drawings spatial representation | <urn:uuid:333c2e2d-c039-4696-96bf-1d5e1b22446e> | {
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Subsets and Splits