Observing a task being performed or attempted by someone else often accelerates human learning. If robots can be programmed to use such observations to accelerate learning their usability and functionality will be increased and programming and learning time will be decreased. This research explores the use of task primitives in robot learning from observation. A framework has been developed that uses observed data to initially learn a task and then the agent goes on to increase its performance through repeated task performance (learning from practice). Data that is collected while a human performs a task is parsed into small parts of the task called primitives. Modules are created for each primitive type that encodes the movements required during the performance of the primitive, and when and where the primitives are performed. The feasibility of this method is currently being tested with agents that learn to play a virtual and an actual air hockey game. The term robot and agent are used interchangeably to refer to an algorithm that senses its environment and has the ability to control objects in either a hardware or software domain.
Observing the Task
The task to be performed must first be observed. For a human learner this mostly involves vision. In order for the robot to learn from observing a task being performed it must have some way to sense what is occurring in the environment. This research does not seek to find ways to use the robot's current sensors to observe performance. The agents will be given whatever equipment is necessary to observe the performance or be given information that represents the performance. The equipment may include a camera or some type of motion capture device. Research is also being performed in virtual environments and the state of objects is directly available from the simulation algorithm.
Robots typically must generate commands to all their actuators at regular intervals. The analog controllers for our 30-degree of freedom humanoid robot are given desired torques for each joint at 420Hz. Thus, a task with a one second duration is parameterized with 30X420=12600 parameters. Learning in this high dimensional space can be quite slow or can fail totally. Random search in such a space is hopeless. In addition, since robot movements take place in real time, learning approaches that require more than hundreds of practice movements are often not feasible. Special purpose techniques have been developed to deal with this problem, such as trajectory learning and learning from observation.
It is our hope that primitives can be used to reduce the dimensionality of the learning problem. Primitives are solutions to small parts of a task that can be combined to complete the task. A solution to a task may be made up of many primitives. In the air hockey environment, for example, there may be primitives for hitting the puck, capturing the puck, and defending the goal.
The above figure shows our view of a primitive. Currently, a human, using domain knowledge, designs the candidate primitive types that are to be used. The primitive recognition module segments the observed behavior into the chosen primitives. This segmented data is then used to provide the encoding for the primitive selection, sub-goal generation, and action generation modules. The primitive selection module provides the agent with the primitive to use for the observed state of the environment. After a primitive type to use has been chosen, the sub-goal generation module specifies the desired outcome, or goal, of that primitive. Lastly the actuators must be moved to obtain the desired outcome. The action generation module provides the actuator commands needed to execute the chosen primitive type with the current goal.
After the agent has obtained initial training from observing human performance, it should then increase its skill at that task through practice. Up to this point the agent's only high-level goal is to perform like the teacher. Its only encoding of the goal of the entire task is in the implicit encoding in the primitives performed. The learning from execution module contains the information needed to evaluate the performance of each of the modules toward obtaining a high-level task objective. This information is then used to update the modules and improve their performance, possibly beyond that of the teacher.
Learning from observation research is currently being performed on a variety of domains. A grid-world maze, an air- hockey game, and a marble maze in virtual environments are being explored. A hardware version of the marble maze is also being explored. These domains were chosen because of the ease with which they can be simulated in virtual environments and provide a starting point to obtain more information on learning from demonstration. They can easily be created on a computer and played using a mouse. They are also small enough to be operated in a laboratory. Since the basic movements in these domains are only in two dimensions, motion capture and object manipulation is simplified. A camera based motion capture system can easily be used to collect data in a hardware implementation of air hockey and the marble maze. A stationary arm or some other similar robotic device can be programmed to play air-hockey on an actual table.
The grid-world maze consists of a virtual robot in a maze. The robot is put in a starting position and must find its way through the maze to the goal position. Reinforcement learning is used in this domain. The software was created with MVC++ and uses the Tcl/Tk library.
This environment uses a very straightforward Q-learning algorithm. We are using it to explore techniques in which observed data can be incorporated into this algorithm to decrease learning time. The robot decides on the action to perform by looking at the values of the next possible actions that can be taken from the current state. The value of a state/action pair, Q(s,a), is the future discounted reward that the agent can expect to receive by taking action a from state s. Some examples of state/action pairs would be ((1,1), down) and ((1,3), up). The goal of the agent is to reach the goal in the shortest amount of steps. The agent receives a reward of -1 for each step that is taken. The value of the goal state is 0. The values are updated each time a move is made using the following function.
The learning rate controls the amount that the state/action value is changed at each step. The discount rate takes into account that rewards that can be received soon are more valuable than equivalent ones that can be received much later in the process.
Air-hockey, AVI movie (1.2MB)
A cyber air hockey game was created that can be played on any computer that supports OpenInventor and Tcl/TK. The game consists of two paddles, a puck and a board to play on. A human player using a mouse controls one paddle. At the other end is a cyber-human.
The following primitives are currently being explored:
- Left Bank Shot the player hits the puck, the puck hits the left wall once and then travels toward the goal.
- Straight Shot the player hits the puck, the puck travels straight toward the goal without hitting a wall.
- Right Bank Shot the player hits the puck, the puck hits the right wall once and then travels toward the goal.
- Block the player does not make a shot but attempts to block the puck from entering the players goal area.
- Setup the player is positioning their paddle in preparation to make a shot.
- Multi-shot the player has blocked or made a shot and the puck does not have enough velocity to return to the other side of the board. Therefore the player has the opportunity to make another shot.
This research is also being conducted in a hardware version.
The onboard cameras and a vision system that locates colored objects in the image are used to observe the state of the environment. This image shows the four corners of the board and the puck as seen by the vision system.
Labyrinth (Marble Maze)
Maze outfitted with motors, encoders, sensors, a camera and vision processor. Computer playing MPEG (3.6MB).
Software Labyrinth game. Human Play AVI (3.8MB)
Learning using primitives is also being explored in the Labyrinth environment in software and on hardware. As a human plays the game the board and ball positions are recorded. Primitives are extracted from this data. The following primitives are currently being explored:
- Wall Roll Stop The ball rolls along a wall and stops when it is in a corner.
- Roll Off Wall The ball rolls along a wall and then rolls off the end of the wall.
- Roll From Wall The ball is on a wall and then is maneuvered off it.
- No Wall The ball is guided from on location to another without touching a wall.
- Corner The ball is in a corner and the board is position in preparation to move the ball from the corner.
Wall Roll Stop
Roll Off Wall
Roll From Wall
Humanoid Robot Learning and Game Playing Using PC-Based Vision, Darrin C. Bentivegna, Ales Ude, Christopher G. Atkeson, and Gordon Cheng. Presented at IROS 2002, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, October, 2002.
Learning How to Behave from Observing Others, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Presented at the SAB'02-Workshop on Motor Control in Humans and Robots: on the interplay of real brains and artificial devices, Edinburgh, UK, August, 2002.
A Framework for Learning From Observation Using Primitives, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Presented at the Symposium of Robocup 2002, Fukuoka, Japan, June, 2002.
Learning From Observation Using Primitives, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Presented at ICRA 2001 in Seoul, Korea, May 2001.
Using Primitives in Learning From Observation, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Presented at Humanoids 2000 in Boston, Mass. September 2000.
Testbeds Used for Exploring Learning from Observation, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Published in the proceedings of the workshop for the AAAI2000 Robot Competition and Exhibition.
Using Primitives in Learning from Observation: A Preliminary Report, Darrin C. Bentivegna and Christopher G. Atkeson. Published in the proceedings of the workshop of the Eighth AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition held at AAAI99.
Learning and Robot Links
Georgia Institute of Technology


Our Kujitahidi Archives
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1st 1867 - Howard University is established in Washington, D.C.
1901 - Famed poet, Sterling Brown, is born(d.1989).
1950 - Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the 1st African-American to win
the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
2nd 1844 - Elijah McCoy, "The Real McCoy", master inventor with more than
50 patents to his credit, is born, in Ontario, Canada.
1994 - Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa.
3rd 1855 - Macon B. Allen, admitted to the Bar in Boston, MA, the 1st
African-American in the U.S. to practice law.
1933 - The "Godfather of Soul", James Brown is born in South Carolina.
4th 1961 - Attempting to test a 1960 Supreme Court ruling that expanded
anti-discrimination laws covering interstate travel to include
facilities used by travelers, 13 members of the Congress of Racial
Equality(CORE) set out on a bus ride from Washington, D.C. to
New Orleans. They were dubbed The Freedom Riders.
5th 1905 - Robert S. Abbott, with a capital outlay of only twenty-five cents,
begins the African-American newspaper, The Chicago Defender.
1918 - William S. Braithwaite is awarded the NAACP Spingarn Award for
his contributions in Poetry.
6th 1787 - Prince Hall carries the 1st Charter from England to Boston and
opens the 1st Masonic Lodge in the United States in Boston as
African Lodge #459.
1795 - The beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
7th 1700 - Abolitionist, William Penn, initiated monthly meetings for African-
Americans, advocating emancipation.
1878 - J.R. Winters receives a patent for the fire-escape ladder.
8th 1915 - Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Henry McNeal
Tanner, the 1st African-American Chaplin in the U.S. Army, dies in
9th 1800 - Abolitionist and Martyr, whose Harper's Ferry attack and
subsequent surrender foretold of what was to come, the Civil War,
10th 1837 - Pinckney S. Pinchback, Lt. Governor of Louisiana, is born.
1919 - Race riots begin in Charleston, South Caorlina and spread
throughout several major U.S. cities, in what has become known
as the "Red Summer".
1944 - The results of U.S. court case of Smith vs Alwright, state that
excluding African-American from primary voting is illegal.
11th 1807 - Ira Aldridge, the 1st great African-American actor, is born.
12th 1871 - Streetcars de-segregated in Louisville, KY.
1967 - H. Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chairman of SNCC.
13th 1888 - Slavery is abolished in Brazil.
1862 - Slave Robert Smalls comandeers, pilots and delivers to the Union
Army the battleship, The Planter. Later becoming a captain in the
14th 1961 - The 1st Freedom Rider bus is bombed outside of Anniston,
15th 1918 - In recognition for their actions in France in WWI, Pfc. Henry
Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the croix de guerre,
France's highest military reward.
1963 - Nineteen year old Arthur Ashe becomes the 1st African-American
to join the Davis Cup tennis team.
16th 1792 - Denmark abolishes the Slave Trade.
1884 - Issac Burns Murphy won the Kentucky Derby this day, becoming
the 1st jockey to win the Derby three times.
1929 - John Conyers,Jr., the founder of the Congressional Black Caucus,
1979 - Labor and Civil Rights leader, Asa Phillips Randolph, dies.
17th 1954 - The Unites States Supreme Court rules that the notion of
"Separate but equal" policy of school education was constitutionally
illegal, in 'Brown vs Board of Education'.
18th 1896 - The United States Supreme Court hands down its decision in the
case of Plessy vs Fergeson, upholding Separate but Equal
doctrines and starting full blood jim crow laws.
1918 - Pianist and vocalist 'Big' Joe Turner is born(d.1985)
19th 1925 - Black Nationalist, civil rights leader and Black Muslim leader,
Malcolm X (little), is born.
20th 1962 - John Hope Franklin is appointed the Wm. Pitt Professor of
American History and Institutions of Cambridge University,
England, for a term of one year.
21th 1745 - Jean Baptiste Pointe duSable, the founder of the trading post that
came to be known as Chicago(d.1808).
1833 - African-American students enroll in classes at Oberlin College.
1904 - Pianist, composer, singer and enterainer, Fats Waller(Ain't
Misbehavin) is born(d.1943)
22th 1948 - Claude McKay, Jamaican poet, dies.
1959 - Benjamin O. Davis is promoted to the rank of Major General in the
U.S. Air Force.
1962 - Patrice Lamumba is assassinated in the then Belgium Congo.
1967 - Noted poet, writer and historian, Langston Hughes, dies in
23rd 1832 - Jamaican national hero figure, Samuel sharpe is hanged.
1900 - Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the 1st
African-American to receive the Medal of Honor, 37 years
after the battle of Fort Wagner.
24th 1844 - Solomon B. Brown, scientific technician, aids Samuel Morse in
transmitting the 1st formal message between two cities by wire.
1974 - "Duke" Ellington dies of Cancer in Harlem, N.Y.
25th 1878 - Dancer, singer, and actor, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is born in
1926 - Jazz Trumpeter, innovator and composer Miles Dewey Davis is
26th 1799 - Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, dies.
1899 - Renowned Harlem Artist, Aaron Douglas, is born.
27th 1885 - Lulu Fleming, born into slavery, graduates as valedictorian from
1942 - Navy messman, Dorie Miller, is awarded the Navy Cross for
heroism at Pearl Harbor.
28th 1831 - Eliza Ann Gardner, Underground Railroad Conducter, is born.
1949 - Wisconson legislature passes law forbidding discrimination in the
1981 - Jazz pianist Mary Lou Wllliams dies in Durham, N.C.
29th 1965 - Vivian Malone becomes the 1st African-American to graduate
from the University of Alabama.
1973 - Tom Bradley becomes the 1st African-American mayor of Los
30th 1822 - Denmark vessey's slave rebellion is crushed.
1909 - The NAACP is founded.
1962 - Edward Franklin Frazier, historian and educator, dies.
31st 1921 - The Tulsa Oklahoma Riots begin; ending with 250 African-
Americans killed, untold injured, 1000 homes burned and 4000
African-Americans confined to prison camps.


Sometimes our dog get wounded from a fight with another dog or accidents at home, giving treatment for dogs wound is similar in treating a human wound but with some exceptions along the way in handling a dog wound.
Minor body wound and grazes: Allow the dog lick and cleanse the area, but do not allow other companion animals do not lick the wound. This can be prevented by distracting the dog and by bandaging. For certain wounds, and where bandaging is difficult, it may be necessary to apply a wide collar (Elizabethan collar) around the dog’s neck to prevent it from licking at the wound and if necessary, provide one that will fit the size of your dog. Elizabethan collar will 100% prevent your dog from licking the wound. Before you start the treatment of the wound, clip the hair around the wound so that it will be easy to treat, once you are done clipping, you can cleanse the wound by using a diluted antiseptic solution such as povidone- iodine, and topical antibiotic if necessary or if your veterinarian recommends it.
Severe body wounds: You will know a severe wound just by observing the color of the blood oozing from the wound, seeping dark blood indicates that a wound reached to its veins and you must take note that veins are somehow located deeper, which means the wound is severe. Clip the wounded area and clean it using antiseptic solution then, apply a pad of lint wool, cover with a layer of damp cotton wool, and bandage with cotton bandage or crepe bandage. Be careful not to apply the bandage too tightly and don’t forget to give Elizabethan collar. Check the wound every 4 hours for any swelling below the bandage. Replace the bandage daily, dress the wound and apply antiseptic ointment or spray and topical antibiotic, re-bandage until healing takes place. Use a woven tubular bandage (Tubigauze) will help the bandages in place.
Minor and severe body wounds can be treated at home if you are confident enough and you know what to do, but if you have any doubt, you can always call your veterinarian to give you a lift.


The Latin concordance uses the same syntax as the word search but presents the results in a concise table sorted by context. When you first search for a pattern in the concordance the results are sorted by the letters that follow the matched word. Clicking on the left half of a line will sort by the words that precede the match. Clicking on the right will sort again by the letters that follow. Clicking on the citation at the far left will take you to the passage in which the match occurs.
The logical operators are not very useful in the concordance—each term found in a pattern is displayed on its own line—but filters can be used to restrict the results to particular authors or works, just as in the word search.
The concordance will display a maximum of 500 matches for a given search. If the number exceeds that, 500 matches are taken from a random sampling of the total and then sorted and displayed.


Boston Children’s Starts Asthma Initiative
An asthma initiative is helping to reduce the number of asthma attacks in children from low-income areas.
There are more than 22 million people in the U.S. who have been diagnosed with asthmaÂ and 6.5 million of those affected are children, making asthma the most common chronic childhood condition in the country.
Asthma affects the lungs and airways and when an individual with asthma has an attack, they feel as though they can’t breathe. Asthma attacks, which often bring children into the Boston Children’s emergency room, can be triggered by dust, mold, pests like mice or cockroaches, polluted air, or cigarette smoke. So unlike many other diseases, there are environmental causesÂ of asthma and can be changed.
So when doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital noticed that their waiting rooms were full of children who were struggling with asthma, especially children from low-income neighborhoods in the Boston area, they decided to do something about it.Â To help parents get rid of the above triggers, Boston Children’s developed a program called the Community Asthma Initiative. Their website describes the program:
“The Boston Childrenâ€™s Hospital Community Asthma Initiative (CAI) was developed to help improve the health and quality of life of children with asthma and their families. Since asthma hospitalizations and Emergency Department visits are disproportionately high for African-American and Latino children, the hospital wanted to address this important health disparity.
CAI serves children who live in Boston, are 2 to 18 years old and have been either seen in Boston Childrenâ€™s Emergency Department or hospitalized for asthma. Â We also accept referrals from primary care providers and asthma specialists within the hospitalâ€™s network.
Our program works with each family to understand their childâ€™s asthma and the medications used to treat it, and to identify and reduce asthma triggers in the home and other places where the child spends time.”
The initiative, which is now seven years old, identifies children who come to the hospital frequently with asthma attacks. Program staffers then reach out to the parents to talk to them about helping their children stay out of the hospital by making changes in their homes. Finally, a community health worker visits the child’s home and helps the parents identify and eliminate the things in their households that trigger asthma attacks, like dust and mice.
Is it working? Absolutely. In the past seven years, doctors from Boston Children’s report that there is a 56 percent reduction in patients with emergency room visits because of this program, according to an NPR interview.Â And the good news is spreading. Alabama, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, Florida, and Ohio created similar programs based off of Boston Children’s Hospital’s model.
Source URL: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/blog/2013/07/01/initiative-asthma-boston-childrens/


In this free drum lesson, Lionel Duperron teaches you how to play the flamacue, a pattern from the flam family of drum rudiments. He shows you how to play and practice the flamacue, and how to use it within drum beats and drum fills for coming up with unique and creative patterns.
The underlying rhythm of the flamacue is a five-note single stroke roll. You can see that on the sheet music below by dropping the grace notes from the flams, and the accent on the “e” of counts 1 and 3. Thus, it’s imperative you take the time to learn how to play the flam and the single stroke roll before you start tackling the flamacue.
There’s a lot of stuff going on with the flamacue. Taking a step-by-step approach will guaranty its accurate development over time. Start by practicing the alternating five-note single stroke roll at a lower volume. Focus on playing consistent sounding strokes with no flams or accents. You can do so by keeping the stick heights approximately at the same height. Count out loud as you do so. Once you have that down, add the flams in.
Before you add the accent in, practice transitioning between the first flam and the accent with both hands leading. Add the accents to the “e” of counts 1 and 3, when you can play that transition smoothly and consistently.
Exercise #1 is a 16th note drum beat where the flamacue is broken up between the hi-hat and the snare drum. Start by learning the hand pattern. The 16th notes of the flamacue are played on the hi-hat on counts 1 and 3. Play the unaccented 16th notes on the bow of the closed hi-hat to produce quieter notes. Strike the edge of the closed hi-hat to get a louder note when you go to play the accent. Count 2 features a flammed snare shot, which is part of the first flamacue, while count 4 has a flam tap scattered between the snare drum and the floor tom. Once you’re able to play the hand pattern, add the bass drum on all quarter notes.
Exercise #2 is a 16th note drum beat that incorporates a syncopated flamacue. The flamacue starts on the “and” of count 1 and ends on the “and” of count 2, and is scattered between the snare drum and the hi-hat. The bass drum is played on counts 1, 3 and 4, and on the “and” of count 1. Keep in mind that the bass drum stroke on the “and” of count 1 should line up perfectly with the primary stroke of the flam and not with the grace note. In addition to the flamacue, there are flams on the “and” of counts 3 and 4 as well.
Exercise #3 is a 16th note drum fill that incorporates a flamacue. The 16th notes are played between the hi-tom and the snare drum on count 1, and the last flam is played on the floor tom on count 2. Master this section first before moving on. Then, add the bass drum on the “and” of count 2 and on count 3. Lastly, play the short broken 16th note single stroke roll of count 4.
Exercise #4 is a 16th note drum fill. This drum fill features a right hand flamacue and a very cool pattern that has a left hand flamacue morphing into a single stroke roll. This pattern starts on count 3 of the drum fill, with a left hand flamacue played between the snare drum and the hi-tom. Instead of having a flam on count 4 as expected, Lionel plays a 16th note single stroke roll between the mid-tom and the floor tom, morphing a flamacue into a single stroke roll.
Drum Set Rudiments
See More »


About this Research Topic
An adequate supply of thyroid hormone (TH) is essential for placental development and the increased metabolic demands of pregnancy as well as for normal fetal brain development. Since the fetal brain needs TH long before the fetal thyroid starts to function, maternal TH transferred via the placenta is the main source of hormone during pregnancy. Also iodine, a component substrate of TH, is essential for normal neurodevelopment and iodine deficiency can cause severe neurodevelopmental disorders. Furthermore, an expanding literature has identified a large number of environmental chemicals that can disrupt normal maternal thyroid function negatively affecting the pregnancy and offspring. Accumulating evidence now suggests that even mild maternal thyroid deficiency can have a negative impact on obstetric outcomes leading to premature delivery and abnormal birth weights and predisposing the offspring to adverse effects such as cognitive impairments, behavioral disorders (e.g., autism, ADHD), and atypical brain development. Surprisingly, recent attempts to treat women with mild thyroid dysfunction have failed to yield improvements in the offspring. Based on rodent data, it is now recognized that maternal TH transfer to specific fetal brain regions is far more complex than originally conceived and involves a number of diverse regulatory and compensatory mechanisms.
To better understand the pathophysiology and risk factors associated with maternal thyroid dysfunction and the consequent obstetric complications and adverse effects on the offspring throughout development, this call proposes a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates the most up-to-date basic and clinical data on these issues. It is hoped that this information can serve to identify new and effective therapies or subgroups benefiting most from current therapies as well as safer environments for optimizing pregnancy outcomes and child neurodevelopment.
Keywords: Thyroid function, pregnancy, pathophysiology, thyroid disruption, neurodevelopment
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.


- Be Organized: Use your agenda to keep track of your assignments. Have a separate folder for each of your classes. Keep your notebooks and locker neat and free of clutter so you can easily locate the things you need.
- Manage your time: If your teacher gives you time in class to start homework, USE IT! Set aside a time and place each day to do your homework and study. Break large assignments into smaller chunks. Don't wait until the last minute to start big assignments and projects.
- Be Successful in the Classroom: Be in class everyday and arrive on time! Bring all of your materials to class. Always do your homework. Be an active learner: participate in class discussions, interact with classmates and teacher, ask questions when you do not understand. Pay attention to what is going on! Don't zone out!!
- Use Test-Taking Strategies: Be ready for all tests by studying ahead of time! Be sure to LISTEN to all directions given by your teacher before the start of the test. Look over the entire test and develop a plan. Mark questions you want to return to. Use all of the time available to check or revise your answers.
- Use Available Resources: Take advantage of the study sessions offered every afternoon, and on Thursday evenings. ASK your teacher questions if you do not understand. Schedule a time to meet with your teacher if you need extra help. Most teachers are willing to help you before or after school or during advisory period.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Smart Habits of Freshmen #3: Know how to get Good Grades
If you came to school everyday and make the most of your class time, you should be able to get good grades. The following are tips from CHS Seniors that can help you do your best in classes:


Today and every day, hundreds of thousands of children will wake up with no prospect of a stimulating and life-enhancing school day ahead, facing hunger, hard work, ill-health and poverty as a result. Each of these children will never know the inside of a classroom, will never read a textbook and will never know the care of a good teacher. They will never experience the benefits of being able to count, read, develop life skills, and will miss out on the job opportunities and improved health afforded by a good quality education.
The majority of these children are girls, whose lives are likely to be burdened by the twin blights of early marriage and domestic labour.
HOM’s Education Programme seeks to provide educational opportunities for destitute children from extremely poor families who might otherwise be unable to go to school.
Throughout the school year, HOM also endeavours to ensure that children who do attend school do not have to sit in the classrooms with empty stomachs. Malnutrition and hunger lead to children getting less benefit from education, decreasing learning outcomes and increasing drop-out rates.
Since 2007, House of Mercy Children’s Home Lagos, Nigeria (HOM) has been catering for the needs of disadvantaged boys and girls through its four-fold activities: organisation of informal classes, school sponsorship, mobile kitchen and cloth distribution.
Videos of our Education Programme can be viewed on YouTube
Videos of our Child Beggar Programme are also available on YouTube
On September 8, 2016, House of Mercy Children’s Home, Lagos, Nigeria (HOM) marked International Literacy Day with the launch of a Children’s Library to foster the discovery and enjoyment of reading while raising awareness and advocating on behalf of children without access to education. A video of the Children’s Library is available on YouTube and in our Video Gallery.
Within the limits of available funds, HOM will continue to make education for disadvantaged and excluded children a top priority.


Learn something new every day More Info... by email
A victim advocate is a person who works in the criminal justice system and acts as a support to victims of crime by offering a variety of services, ranging from legal assistance to emotional help. He or she generally has an educational background in criminal justice, social services, or a similar field, in addition to experience in working with individuals going through traumatic circumstances. Advocates are usually available through local law enforcement stations or other state or regional government attorney offices. Their services may also be offered by nonprofit advocacy groups for particular crimes, such as domestic abuse organizations or rape crisis centers.
One of the main types of service a victim advocate will generally provide first, after he or she comes into contact with a victim, is immediate emergency relief or assistance. This usually occurs right after the crime occurs or is reported. The emergency relief can include any type of aid required to meet a victim’s basic needs after a crime, such as providing him or her with shelter, food, or any other immediate needs.
Another type of immediate service provided by these individuals are the notifications to third parties to inform them of the crime and the victim’s condition. A victim may request that the advocate speak with his or her family members or friends to let them know about the situation. An advocate may also take care of other practical matters, such as notifying the victim’s employer about the crime if he or she cannot return to work. If a victim is seriously physically injured or suffering from emotional issues that prevent him or her from working, an advocate can contact the victim’s creditors and attempt to work out a temporary pause or reduction in payments.
Once a victim’s immediate needs are taken care of, an advocate will typically then begin to help guide the victim through the different steps of the legal process. A victim may not know how to report the crime, fill out necessary paperwork, or offer court testimony, or he or she may be too traumatized or physically injured to do so. Victim advocates may counsel victims on how to most effectively testify as a witness in court, how to file a restraining order to prevent the alleged criminal from contacting him or her, or how to retrieve property that was used as evidence once the case is completed.
Advocates also offer emotional support to victims of crime to help them deal with the aftermath and any emotional issues that result from it. Victims may receive counseling directly from their advocates. If a crime victim experiences extensive problems after the crime, his or her advocate may recommend a support group so the victim can interact with others who experienced the same events. If victims appear to be suffering from mental issues that interfere with their ability to function in everyday life, such as depression or post traumatic stress disorder, advocates may then refer them to psychiatrists who specialize in crisis counseling.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!


Psychopathological Consequences of Exposure to Toxins in the Water Supply
This chapter presents a study reporting that a group of individuals exposed to toxins in their water supply showed impaired psychological functioning when tested several years after the event. Exposure to toxins results from the failure of technology or the failure of humans to control it, and as such it has somewhat different implications from those of natural disasters like earthquakes. The litigants who formed the population for the study lived in the area of Legler, New Jersey, surrounding a landfill that began operation in 1973. In the following years, rashes and other health problems led to a concern in residents that toxins might be being dumped and contaminating the water supply. Social support is widely believed to have an ameliorating effect on reactions to stress. The presence of other victims during disaster can make the individual feel less personally victimized. A social network can provide both material and emotional support to the victim.


Today is the last day of Computer Science Education Week by Code.org. It is a huge international push to introduce kids to programming by starting with an Hour of Code. Schools all over the world participated and millions of kids learned how fun it is to code!
The final numbers won’t be announced until next week, but over 30 million kids will have spent an hour coding this week. That is an incredible number! This is just the second year of Code.org and it has made an unbelievable impact already.
After the first introduction to programming, it is important to provide opportunities for kids to continue learning. Breakout Mentors goal is to provide the best way to learn with the help of a 1-on-1 programming mentor. However, with this approach we won’t be able to help millions of kids.
I am thrilled to see Code.org is devoting the majority of their fundraising effort to training teachers in schools. Their goal for the next year is to prepare 10,000 elementary, 500 middle school, and 200 high school teachers to add computer science courses. There is still time to donate on the Indiegogo campaign.
If your student participated in the Hour of Code and you are interested in keeping their excitement going, please contact us to learn how we can help.


Language of the heart
Layering of different forms, language, texture, colors, and impressions is a primary theme in these collages. I began to focus on the Language of the Heart and became intrigued by what this language might look like. Of course, the most readily available and medically-based interpretation of the heartbeat is an ECG or Electrocardiogram. But this was a language I found I did not understand very well. I had a difficult time connecting experience and meaning to the different types of ECG rhythms. So, I decided to translate the ECG over to a language of which I have better understanding: color, words, music, and more.
The translation was completed in a methodical fashion. In each piece there are small squares of chalk color progressing in shades of black to white. This is the color "alphabet" I designed. I chose shades of whites, grays, and blacks as they provided an orderly continuum and neutral gradation.
For the translation I set up the "color alphabet" to coincide with progressive points on the ECG line. White is at the bottom of the scale and indicates valleys or dips in the ECG line. Black is at the top of the scale and indicates peaks in the ECG line. Then I intersected each point on the ECG with the continuum of color on the chalk alphabet. Each color point was then placed on the rectangular form to create a patterned picture or mosaic of the heartbeat. This gave a translation or another language for what the heart is expressing.
Other parts of the collage have to do with expressions of the heart. What are the impressions of a specific happenings, traumas, or emotions on the heart beat? We speak of our "broken hearts" when relationships fail. When our eyes fall on something of beauty our heartbeat may speed up. Sudden shock and trauma can bring a heart attack and literally stop the language of our heat. And, we are only beginning to understand the effects of long term stress, rumination, and grief on our bodies and mind.
Music, prose, myth, and art are poetry of the heart. How many turn to humming a tune when we are joyful or scribbling out poetic notes when over taken by melancholy? Music has a language similar to our descriptions of heart functions: Beats, rhythm, instrument valves, syncope/syncopation, and more. Spoken languages offer us different sounds and rhythms for what we with to express from our heart. "I love you"" in English as a very different beat than "Ich leibe dich" in German.
Every experience or interaction is an imprint upon our bodies, our emotion, and our spirit. What impression does our experience leave on other persons, on ourselves, on the context of our lives?
Patricia Maarhuis, 2001
Maarhuis, P. (2001, May) Bodies from Clay [Series, mixed media sculptures and collage prints]. In den Alpine: Opening exhibition for the Ansitz Tammerburg galleries. Bergraum Gallery, Ansitz Tammerburg. Lienz, Austria.


New Book! Exemplary Evidence: Scientists and Their Data
I'm excited to share that my newest children's book, Exemplary Evidence: Scientists and Their Data, is soon-to-be in the world. It is currently available for pre-order through NSTA Press in both paperback and library editions, and will be physically available in October.
This book is a follow-up to Notable Notebooks: Scientists and Their Writings. I knew that I wanted to highlight another key practice of science while introducing students to more scientists. When I reflected on my own teaching experience and what practices need more time and emphasis with my students, data collection, analysis, and interpretation came to mind. And so the idea for this book was born.
As with Notable Notebooks, choosing the right scientists was a fun challenge. I wanted to show students the wide variety of what counts as data -- from observations to measurements to lab results -- and the many different ways that scientists collected, worked with and used that data. While I knew that the work of the profiled scientists should be accessible to upper elementary students (my target audience), I also strongly believe that quality nonfiction for children can stretch their thinking in a way that science standards and curriculum cannot. So I chose to include a few scientists, like Dimitri Mendeleev, whose work will not be officially taught until middle school. As I researched, rejected, and selected scientists, I kept my students in mind. Who might they be interested in learning about? What names had I already heard them ask about?
I'm proud that the book highlights another diverse group of men and women, including scientists of Middle Eastern, European, Asian American, African American, and Native American descent. Women are also prominently featured, making up five of the nine profiled individuals. I've seen firsthand the important of representation in children's literature, and hope that my books help all students to see themselves as part of the scientific community.
For classroom teachers, Exemplary Evidence is a great way to explicitly kick off or reinforce two of the Science and Engineering Practices: Analyzing and Interpreting Data and Engaging in Argument from Evidence. Several of the remaining six are highlighted to a lesser degree, as each scientist's work naturally encompasses one or more practices. I've also heard from teachers who used Notable Notebooks to kickoff biography student and research; Exemplary Evidence could be used in the same manner.
As with Notable Notebooks, the final pages of the book provide a 4-step process for collecting and analyzing data. I want children everywhere, whether in school or at home, to participate in the same practices as the women and men they'd read about on the preceding pages. As I tell students at the end of the book:
Data supports conclusions; it can change people’s minds;
It is used to build theories that help humankind.
Scientists all along have known this to be true: Data is powerful!
Now, what will yours do?
I hope you enjoy the book and that it helps the children in your life enjoy and engage in science. I'd love to hear what your students think, how you are using it in you classroom, or if you have children outside of the target audience who enjoy this book.


Monday was the coldest January day the island city witnessed since 1935, with the Colaba weather station recorded a minimum temperature of 12.5 degree Celsius.
The coldest January day of all time in the island city was January 15, 1935 when the mercury dipped to 11.7 degree Celsius. On Monday, the minimum temperature recorded was six degrees below normal.
"At times, western disturbances result in a north-westerly wind as opposed to the usual north-easterly wind. This has led to a dip in temperature at Colaba. In the suburbs, we expect the temperature to be in the range of 12 to 14 degree Celsius in the next two days and then subsequently climb back to normal," said VK Rajeev director, western region, India Meteorological Department.
The Santacruz weather station, meanwhile, recorded a minimum temperature of 13.5 degree Celsius, which was three degrees below normal. On Sunday, the suburbs witnessed their coldest day in January in a decade with the mercury dipping to 10 degree Celsius.