The Princeton, N.J.-based company is working on a material that, when combined with another substance, will generate electricity with ambient room heat, Andrew Surany, the company's president, told CNET News.com this week.
Conceivably, one could take that material and fashion it into a passive fuel cell that can create power by just sitting in an ordinary room heated to about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to self-charging electronic devices.
"It derives heat from the environment" and converts it to electricity, Surany said. "I'm talking about embedding cells into doors or the panels on a car. In a laptop, I am talking about embedding cells into the case."
And no, it won't suck out all the heat like some freakish invention from Mr. Freeze on the old Batman show. As long as the sun doesn't explode or Earth doesn't get plunged into nuclear winter, it conceivably could produce electricity without effort indefinitely.
Theoretically, one could heat the material, too, to get better results. If you heated one square meter of the material to 100 degrees Celsius, or the boiling point of water, the material could absorb 1.2 kilojoules of heat energy. Converting 5 percent of that heat to electricity would give you enough energy to power a car, Surany asserted.
So how does it work? Syrdec is trying to combine something called the Seebeck effect and the product of nuclear fusion. In the Seebeck effect, electric current can be generated from temperature differentials. Put metals or semiconductors near each other that exist in radically different energy states and you get power. It's not just theoretical: Germany's EnOcean, another energy-harvesting specialist, has come up with sensors that get power from the temperature differentials between the interaction material that makes up a pipe filled with hot gases and a material heated to room temperature.
Now the nuclear fusion part: Syrdec says it understands a way to artificially alter the natural energy state of a particular undisclosed material. Instead of being in a "normal" energy state at room temperature, the altered material is in a normal energy state at, hypothetically, minus 40 degrees Celsius or colder. Thus, when this material is put into a room-temperature environment, it's excited. Put that next to a material with a much higher natural energy state and you get the Seebeck effect.
"We are looking to create an artificial energy state inside the molecular structure of the substrate," Surany explained. "The materials are unique and specialized. They were brought to our attention through nuclear fusion research."
Outlandish as it sounds, the CEA, the atomic energy agency of France, has already
Syrdec's fuel cell doesn't exist yet, but theoretically it's possible, Surany said. (The material altered by nuclear fusion, by the way, isn't radioactive.) Even if one can be made, there are other complications. How small could such a fuel cell be? How does it do with recharging?
Although the fuel cells would ultimately produce electricity by just sitting around, producing the materials for the fuel cells takes a lot of power. "Manufacturing is energy-intensive," Surany said.


Group of culturally related indigenous peoples of South America, distinguished by their use of the Guaraní language.
The connection belongs to Human Activity connections.
- Atlantic Forest South-East: About 200 people live in the core zone most of whom are Guarani Link
- El Fuerte de Samaipata: Destroyed by the Guarani
- Iguacu: the Guarani traditionally inhabited the area and regarded the waterfalls as holy
- Iguazu National Park: the Guarani traditionally inhabited the area and regarded the waterfalls as holy
- Jesuit Missions of Trinidad and Jesus: The missions were built as miniature city-states that integrated the indigenous Guarani populations with Christian faith.
- Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis
Do you know of another WHS we could connect to Guarani?
A connection should:
- Not be "self evident"
- Link at least 3 different sites
- Not duplicate or merely subdivide the "Category" assignment already identified on this site.
- Add some knowledge or insight (whether significant or trivial!) about WHS for the users of this site
- Be explained, with reference to a source


The slideshow was made possible by HopBucket.
text source - Wikipedia.
text source - Wikipedia.
Puerto Rico[a] (Spanish for "Rich Port"), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. "Free Associated State of Puerto Rico")[b] and briefly called Porto Rico,[c]is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea.
It is an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. The capital and most populous city is San Juan. Its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The island's population is approximately 3.4 million. Puerto Rico's rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world.
Originally populated by the indigenous Taíno people, the island was claimed in 1493 by Christopher Columbus for the Crown of Castile, and it later endured invasion attempts from the French, Dutch, and British. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the island's ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African slaves, and Canarian, and Andalusian settlers. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, but strategic role when compared to wealthier colonies like Peru and Mexico. Such a distant administrative control continued right up until the end of the 19th century helping to produce a distinctive creole Hispanic culture and language that combined elements from the Natives, Africans, and Iberian people. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.
Puerto Ricans are considered natural-born citizens of the United States. However, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U.S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the national level and may not vote for president and vice president of the United States. However, Congress approved a local constitution, allowing U.S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A 2012 referendum showed a majority (54% of those who voted) disagreed with "the present form of territorial status", with full statehood as the preferred option among those who voted for a change of status, although a significant number of people did not answer the second question from the referendum. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, and "Statehood" and "Independence/Free Association" were initially the only available options. However, at the recommendation of the Department of Justice, a "current territorial status" option will be added.
In early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt had climbed to $70 billion at a time with 12.4% unemployment. The debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. This was the second major financial crisis to affect the island after the Great Depression when the U.S. government, in 1935, provided relief efforts through the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration. On May 3, 2017, Puerto Rico's financial oversight board in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico filed the debt restructuring petition which was made under Title III of PROMESA.


In his article titled, “Mathematics in Search of History,” Donald Barry, Instructor in Mathematics, chronicled his BC Calculus class’ struggle to decode an ancient Turkish clay tablet.
“I described what a group of Phillips Academy students did, how they approached the tablet and what my role was. I was no longer ‘the answer man.’ When they had questions, they had to figure it out,” said Barry.
First published in “The Mathematics Teacher,” a monthly journal by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, in 2000, the article was republished in October 2012 in “Real Math,” an online anthology of mathematical application in finance and surveying.
The tablet in Barry’s article was one of numerous ancient clay tablets discovered in a cave in central southern Turkey in the 1990s, near the archaeological site of a known Neolithic village, according to Barry’s article. The origins of the clay tablet are unknown, however.
Because only two-thirds of the tablet had been discovered at the time, Barry created a mathematical problem asking his students to solve the text of the tablet by guessing the numbers in the columns and rows. They then developed an interpretation of the numerical information to determine the text of the missing one-third of the tablet.
“The solution requires that a community of scholars, namely the students, work together to sort out ambiguities and inconsistencies to arrive at an interpretation of the problem with which the community as a whole is reasonably comfortable,” wrote Barry in the article.
Barry has presented the tablet to other BC classes after the Advanced Placement Exam since 1994. The article, however, focuses on one particular BC Calculus Class that he taught in the 1998-99 school year.
“I just recorded what my class did. I observed how they approached the problem, where they went in the right direction and where they went in the wrong direction,” said Barry.
“I was thrilled by the classroom discussions that took place that year,” said Barry in the article. “I hoped to make the case that this use of the history of mathematics is worthwhile.”
Barry said that the experience of problem solving, rather than the conclusion, was what mattered during the exercise.
“They’re reconstructing history using whatever mathematical tools they can bring to bear on that problem. They are reconstructing the mathematical knowledge of some ancient civilization, which means I’m bringing them as close to doing a certain aspect of archeology as I can possibly bring them,” said Barry.
“This feels real. The issues that they’re dealing with are issues that archeologists have faced in trying to understand what an ancient civilization was up to,” he continued.
Barry said that the hardest part of the exercise was that there was no right answer. “The conclusion is a judgment, because there are ambiguities. People have to convince other people that this is how it must be interpreted. There is not a tidy answer at the end,” said Barry.
“I just let them stumble and struggle. There’s no one telling an archeologist that this is the answer. What you have is a community of archaeologists looking at the same information trying to figure out what it is and at the very end there is some, more or less, agreed upon conclusions,” he continued.
Barry lived in Turkey for seven years before coming to Andover in 1980. He taught high school math in English to Turkish students in Tarsus and Istanbul.
“You can’t live in Turkey without being so intrigued by the ancient past because it’s all around you there,” he said. “So I’ve paid a lot more attention to archeology, archeological discoveries the kind of thinking that archaeologists employ, than I would have otherwise. I’m fascinated by it, and I want to share that with my students,” said Barry.
Barry said he plans to give the tablet to his calculus class after the AP Exam this spring. “It gives them a different sort of mathematical experience. It’s a puzzle,” said Barry.
A number of Barry’s articles have been printed in “The Mathematics Teacher.” Barry has also written problems for “The Mathematics Teacher Problem of the Day” calendar.


Vitamin D and K - a strong team
Long working days, little time outdoors and then maybe even winter. The problem: Too little sunlight also means too little vitamin D for the body. This is because 80 to 90 percent of vitamin D is produced by UV-B rays through the skin. But especially in the dark season from October to March, the sun's rays are often insufficient. As a result, around 50 percent of the population is undersupplied with vitamin D. This is the reason why the sun's rays are often insufficient. In an expert interview, nutrition researcher Prof. Dr. Tilman Grune answers our questions about "sun vitamin D" and his important partner - vitamin K.
What does the sun have to do with vitamin D?
A vitamin is normally a substance that cannot be synthesized by the body and has key metabolic functions. Vitamin D is an exception: we can synthesize vitamin D, but only when exposed to sunlight. Precise UV-B radiation. This is the intensive part of sunlight that can also cause skin cancer.
So what makes vitamin D a vitamin?
In northern latitudes, we usually do not have enough sunlight to synthesise enough vitamin D. This is why we have to take into account the fact that we do not have enough sunlight. This has been known for about 100 years, and vitamin D also protects against rickets, the classic vitamin D deficiency disease. Sun exposure should be about 15 to 30 minutes per day for about a quarter of the body's surface. Then there are other factors that influence vitamin D synthesis. These include sun protection, skin type and age. Since this exposure to the sun is almost always insufficient, vitamin D must be continuously ingested with food.
If I get enough sun in the summer, do I have enough vitamin D reserves for the winter?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin and can be stored as such. This happens in the liver, fatty tissue and muscles. These stores can contribute to the supply of vitamin D during the sunny months. However, a sole supply of vitamin D from filled stores is not sufficient for the dark season and must be supplemented with food.
Why does my body need vitamin D?
In short: to stay healthy. It is known that vitamin D acts in the bone metabolism and ensures the absorption of calcium into the organism. Calcium is a major component of solid mineral bone. Vitamin D improves the absorption of calcium in the intestines and keeps it in the body. At the same time, vitamin D has a positive effect on bone cells. This is the classic function of vitamin D; a vitamin D deficiency in this area leads to rickets, a deformation of the skeleton. In recent years we have gained a lot of experience in this field. Today we know that vitamin D assumes functions in the immune system, in muscle metabolism and in cell division.
Can the daily requirement of vitamin D be covered by the diet? What influences the individual vitamin D balance?
Essentially three factors: food, exposure to the sun and the body itself. In the latter case it is skin pigmentation: the darker, the worse the vitamin D synthesis in the sun. The aging skin also has a lower synthesis performance. Another point: the higher the body fat content, the more vitamin D you need. We have already talked about sun exposure. It should be borne in mind here that many professional activities no longer take place outdoors - from the factory to sales to the office. In addition, our leisure activities have often shifted indoors: computers, television; even sports take place in the fitness center. We can influence our vitamin D supply sustainably through nutrition. The best way to do this is through fresh sea fish. This requires approx. 100 to 200 g - every day. Honestly, who really eats like this? Other sources are relatively high-fat animal products such as milk fat (butter), cheese, eggs and liver. But they only contain tiny amounts, so you will never achieve such an optimal intake. Other food components can improve the vitamin D effect. Here, a sufficient calcium intake and vitamin K must be called will be. By the way, the classic vitamin D - also known as vitamin D₃ - is of animal origin. From plants comes another form: the vitamin D₂. Avocado and sun-exposed mushrooms contain smaller amounts. Whether Vitamin D₂ and Vitamin D₃ exercise everywhere in the body same functions, is not yet finally clarified.
What is vitamin K and how can I take it to my body?
Vitamin K is another fat-soluble vitamin that was discovered in the mid-1930s. There are several forms: Vitamin K₁ and K₂. K₁ is found in green plants, i.e. lettuce, spinach, kale, and to a lesser extent in vegetable oils. K₂ is of bacterial origin, i.e. it occurs in fermented foods and in minute amounts in some animal foods. Nattō, a Japanese fermented soy product, is the only food source worth mentioning here. However, this product is hardly consumed by us. Vitamin K₂ is synthesized by our intestinal flora, but in the colon, a section of the intestine where the absorption of substances is no longer efficient. Vitamin K is responsible for a single biochemical reaction in the body, but it has many metabolic effects. The best known is the effect of vitamin K on blood clotting, especially through drugs such as Marcumar - a vitamin K antagonist (the substance prevents the effect of vitamin K). This inhibits blood clotting and helps many patients. However, there are side effects. There are changes in calcium and bone metabolism. Therefore, there are new preparations for "blood thinning" which do not have these effects. What is interesting is what vitamin K does in calcium and bone metabolism. There are two things: On the one hand it promotes the incorporation of calcium into the bones and on the other hand it prevents the deposition in the vascular walls and thus has an anti-arteriosclerotic effect. Vitamin D and vitamin K work best together in this way. Vitamin D ensures that the necessary calcium is absorbed by the body and prepares the bone cells for incorporation, while vitamin K guides the calcium in the right direction, i.e. directs calcium into the bones and prevents faulty deposition in blood vessels.
Who has an increased risk of vitamin D and K deficiency?
Basically the same people who are exposed to a vitamin D deficiency as described above. Risk groups are also older people, people with dark skin types, overweight people and people who are rarely exposed to direct sunlight. The same risk groups apply to vitamin K, which is a vitamin D-supporting vitamin. In addition, there are people who take blood thinners based on vitamin K antagonists. Other risk groups that are associated with certain diseases must be clarified with the treating physician, and the same applies to infants and children.
Our interview partner Prof. Dr. Tilman Grune
Prof. Dr. Grune studied medical biochemistry in Moscow. He then went to the Charité in Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1992 and his habilitation in 1998. In the following years he first worked at the Charité in Berlin, then at the Institute for Environmental Medical Research at the University of Düsseldorf. In 2006, he received his first chair at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, in the Department of Biofunctionality and Food Safety. Between 2011 and 2014, Prof. Dr. Grune was Director of the Institute of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Jena. Since 2014, he has been Scientific Director of the German Institute of Nutrition Research and Professor of Molecular Toxicology at the University of Potsdam. His focus is on vitamin metabolism, antioxidants and oxidative stress.
The yo-yo effect - the constant ups and downs
The tricky thing about diets is that it is not enough to keep them up until you reach the weight you feel good about.
Healthy cooking with children - not so difficult at all
Cooking yourself is a great experience for children, which brings them closer to the awareness of a healthy diet.
Magnesium - a vital mineral
Substances such as magnesium are essential and make a major contribution to our health and performance.
Appetite for health
Eating healthy, with fun and enjoyment - that is easier said than done.


What are food allergies or intolerances?
Food allergies are the result of over-sensitivity of the immune system to certain ingredients in food. Food allergies are more severe than food intolerances.
If your dog has a food intolerance, the problem is not immunollogical and may be caused by eating a spoiled food or attributed to an underlying disease, or it is possible that your dog doesn't have the enzymes necessary to digest his food.
When your dog eats something that he has an allergic reaction to, his body releases histamines which can cause itchy skin, general redness of the skin, or digestive problems like vomiting and diarrhoea.
The only way to identify a food allergy in your dog is to use an elimination food. An elimination food contains ingredients which are far less likely to cause an allergic reaction and hence helps you find out if the allergy is caused by elements in your dog’s regular food. Your vet will recommend your dog eat an allergen-free food for a fixed period. It's important you follow your vet's instructions precisely as feeding other foods may lead to poor results.
How to manage food allergy in dogs
Hydrolysed peptides are too small to link receptors, hence they do not trigger release of histamine and cause allergic signs.
Food allergies are almost always triggered by protein ingredients in food. When your dog eats a protein that he is allergic to, the protein molecule connects two sensitised receptor molecules in the body, which releases histamines.
There are two main ways to manage food allergies using an elimination food trial.
Hydrolysation reduces protein molecules to a size that doesn’t cause a reaction but leaves their nutritional value intact. The level of hydrolysation is measured in units called daltons, and the lower the number the better. The protein molecules in ordinary dog food are around 12,000 daltons in size. Proteins as small as 4,500 daltons have been known to cause allergic reactions. The major part of the protein in Hill’s™ Prescription Diet™ z/d™ ULTRA, a highly hydrolysed nutrition, is smaller than 3,000 daltons.
A novel protein is one that your dog has probably not eaten before. The receptor molecules in his body are therefore not sensitised to it, so it is unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. Hill’s Prescription Diet d/d™, for example, uses proteins such as salmon and duck.


"While looking for the decay pi+ -> e+ nu_e, we focused all our attention on reducing backgrounds, since a prior experiment had set a limit at the level of 10^-6 on the branching ratio. When we heard that an experiment at CERN had seen a signal around 10^-4 I switched from delayed to prompt. The signal was right there, and could have been seen on the first day."
Burton Richter, quoted in J. Klein, A.Roodman, "Blind Analysis in Nuclear and Particle Physics"
A reader correctly mentions that it is not exactly trivial to understand the above quote without some explanation, so here it is.
Pions ordinarily decay to muons (within some nanoseconds), and only in a very rare fraction
do they go directly into electrons. Muons themselves decay to electrons, but do so
after 2.2 microseconds (on average).
A digression: why pions don't decay to electrons as frequently as to muons ?
Incidentally, while the lifetimes of pions and muons can only be understood by studying quantitatively the weak interaction, the strongly difference in relative frequency of pi->mu and pi->e is easy to figure out. Pions are spin-zero particles, and they produce two-body decays when they turn into a fermion-antifermion pair (muon/muon antineutrino, or electron/electron antineutrino). Fermions have spin 1/2. The spin of neutrinos, which are massless (to an excellent approximation), can only be aligned opposite to their direction of motion: they are left-handed, and antineutrinos are right-handed (their spin being always pointing in their direction of motion).
Now, for simplicity imagine that you are sitting in the center-of-mass frame of the decaying pion. You see a spin-zero particle decaying into two spin-1/2 particles, leaving the scene in opposite direction at high momentum. Given that the antinetrino wants to have its spin pointing in the direction of their motion, the charged fermion emitted in the opposite direction is bound to do the same, such that the two spin vectors cancel: conservation of angular momentum forces them to. But while the antineutrino is a anti-fermion, and thus wants to be right-handed (spin perfectly aligned with direction of motion, as we specified above), the charged fermion -be it a muon or an electron- is a fermion, and thus prefers to be left-handed. The charged fermion has mass, and this allows it to have its spin misaligned with its momentum vector; but the smaller the mass, the less probable is a non-aligned configuration.
Muons weigh 200 times as much as electrons do. This makes them much more willing to be "right-handed", when they travel at speeds smaller than the speed of light (in the ultra-relativistic limit they would also be exactly left-handed as the neutrinos) than electrons.
So this is the basic difference: the pion decay to fermion-antifermion pair forces the charged fermion to have the "wrong" alignment of spin and momentum. This is much easier to do for the muon because of its large mass. Therefore the decay of pions to electrons is highly suppressed, despite the fact that there would be a larger phase space for that decay if compared to the muon decay. Oh, I have not explained what phase space is: stuff for another post, but in a nutshell the larger the energy release not going into mass of the decay products, the faster is a decay.
Back to Richter's experiment
Now, if you search for pion decays to
electrons without the intermediate muon, you want to look for immediate
decays (when the pion enters your apparatus). But muons will always be
present as a background, so you need to estimate that.
studied muons by placing a delay between the timing of pion detection
and the timing of electron detection. He could thus study the
pi->mu->e reaction, to determine the background he would have when
at some point he would look at the immediate pi->e reactions. By
doing this he was doing things "blindly", to avoid involuntary biasing
himself. When he heard that a signal of the direct decay pi->e had
been seen elsewhere he realized this was not such a rare thing, and so
by removing the delay in his detection electronics he saw that there was
a ready signal of pi->e events which he could have seen on day one.
- PHYSICAL SCIENCES
- EARTH SCIENCES
- LIFE SCIENCES
- SOCIAL SCIENCES
Subscribe to the newsletter
Stay in touch with the scientific world!
Know Science And Want To Write?
- Drug Prevents Key Age-related Brain Change In Rats
- A New Alternative To Sodium: Fish Sauce
- Would New Planet X Clear Its Orbit? - And Any Better Name Than "Planet Nine"?
- Top Secret: On Confidentiality On Scientific Issues, Across The Ring And Across The Bedroom
- Stop Using BMI To Determine Health
- Why Rest Is Critical After A Concussion
- Glyphosate Now Most Popular Weed Killer In History, Laments Economist Chuck Benbrook
- "So there is no why like Bob Fletcher or as some people say you can already see it on Russian news..."
- "Hi Joe, yes the thing is - all that is fine, it's logical from your point of view. And whatever..."
- " Like I asked David Brin: Who are the ones who are actually insane? Certainly it is NOT the skeptics..."
- "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyV4L072jY So then what is going on in this video? Also what is..."
- "Just curious, When was the last time you (the author) generated a mathematical model? On what?..."
- Florida Declares Zika Virus State of Emergency
- Indonesia’s Many Human Physical Deformities: A Closer Look
- Spinal ‘Column’: Love for Hunchback Dog, Breakthrough for 8-Yr-Old Girl
- BMI is Bologna
- Energy Drinks: The Dose Makes the Poison
- California’s Prop 65: Bad For Public Acceptance Of Science, About To Get Worse
- Cambridge researcher develops smartphone app to map Swiss-German dialects
- Studies link healthy workforces to positive stock market performance
- Pioneering discovery leads to potential preventive treatment for sudden cardiac death
- Online shopping might not be as green as we thought
- Gene family turns cancer cells into aggressive stem cells that keep growing


To sign up to the Graham Hancock newsletter mailing list, please click here.
Perhaps no historical figure is more deeply mired in legend and myth than Jesus of Nazareth. Outside of the Gospels — which are not so much factual accounts of Jesus but arguments about His religious significance — there is almost no trace of this simple Galilean peasant who inspired the world’s largest religion. But there’s enough biblical scholarship about the historical Jesus to raise questions about some of the myths that have formed around Him over the past 2,000 years.
Back to Previous...
Go to News Desk...
Enjoy the newsdesk? Please tell others about it:Tweet
Dedicated Servers and Cloud Servers by Gigenet. Invert Colour Scheme / Default


The two statements are less parallel than they appear. Today, almost all scientists have a high degree of belief that CO2 emissions cause global warming. Many decades before the warming was observed,a few scientists hypothesized that CO2 emissions would cause global warming, but there was nothing like today's strong consensus.
So? New research always takes place at the edge, which by definition most have not heard of. It takes time for ideas to propagate.Was there anyone working in the field who predicted CO2 wouldn't cause warming? http://www.davidappell.com/EarlyClimateScience.html
Post a Comment


Use this worksheet to calculate your Takt Time.
Use this document to prepare the time observation, by breaking the cycle into a standard sequence of work elements and by identifying for each the breakpoint or unique point that defines the start of a work element. Use 10 to 12 observations to determine the standard times.
This template is used to illustrate standardized work for purely manual operations. One sheet per operator.
This document is to be used only when you have operators moving and synchronizing with one or more machines or a fixed speed moving line. It represents the “choreography” of the operator, showing manual activities, automated machine cycles, and walking times. It ensures that the cell or line can operate within Takt time.
Use this document to represent the walking motion of the operator inside of the work center, the placement of standard work in process, and other important process points. One sheet per operator.
The standard work instruction sheet is used to describe in great detail how to carry out a job. The key points section of the sheet is an important difference with the more commonly used standard operating procedure. This document is the basis for the Job Instruction method (part of Training Within Industry—TWI).
Use this worksheet to determine that all equipment used in the cell or line has the required capacity to meet daily demand and to identify the bottleneck machine. Note that this document only covers the setup downtime related to changing tools, and doesn’t account for unplanned downtimes or quality losses.
This worksheet is used to determine the number of operators needed depending on the Daily demand, Available production time, Operator cycle time, and Number of shifts.
This worksheet is used to design the flow racks feeding a cell and calculate the workload for the material handler. To use it, start with the routing sheet for the product being produced and for each component, collect the data concerning packaging, weight, dimensions, and material handling times.
This observation/analysis tool is used determine potential improvements for changeover projects. Start with the current state tab, then move to the target state tab. Note that predicting the time savings from an action can be a complex matter that may require using a critical path software.
This worksheet helps you determine the leveling period for a work center (flow cell or line) based on multiple data such as changeover time, cycle time per product, OEE excluding changeovers, and average daily demand. Defining the actual leveling period is an iterative process, so the worksheet includes a simulation section.
6S (formerly known as 5S) is a proven way to organize your workplace to improve efficiency, enhance safety and overall well-being in your workplace. The following steps will outline steps to implement 6S and help you on your journey


December 7, 2007
Hello, my name is Sara and I am doing polar discovery research in my school and I was wondering how Antarctica is different from the other places you have explored. Thank you and good luck on your research!
Let's see, Antarctica is incredibly different from anyplace I've ever been. The ground is just rock, dust, ice, and snow. There are no plants growing anywhere—no trees, bushes, grasses, or flowers. The volcanic rocks at Cape Royds look like they were installed yesterday, or like they're the props put together for a low-budget science fiction movie set—lumpy round rocks, most chocolate brown, with big rectangular crystals embedded in them.
I've never been in continual daylight before, either. I'm starting to get used to staying up late writing, then going outside to find the sun just as strong as ever. It's odd to have to put on sunscreen at 2 a.m. It never rises or sets, it just creeps around the horizon all day long, so that at noon it's in the north and by midnight it's in the south.
The cold weather is not as bad as I had worried—many parts of the U.S. and Canada may be having colder weather than us right now, with temperatures in the 20s and warm sunlight strong enough to melt some shallow ponds at Cape Royds. The difference is that when the winds come up they get really strong (see Day 11) and they just keep on blowing. That cold air starts out up on the Antarctic Plateau at 10,000 feet above sea level. It rushes downhill, through gaps in the Transantarctic Mountains such as the Beardmore Glacier, and keeps spreading northward along the Ross Ice Shelf. By the time it reaches us, it's had 400 miles or more to build up speed.
The only familiar part is McMurdo Station, which is a lot like a small mountain town, with vehicles on huge tires rolling around and lots of people bundled up against the cold, most of them with red cheeks and cheerful smiles. Thanks for your question, and enjoy the rest of our dispatches!
I really enjoyed today's (Day 8) account of the struggle between the Adelie and the skua. Great photos! My question is this. Is there any emotional response from the penguin to the loss of an egg to the skua? Do they seem to get attached like you might see in other animal breeds? I felt so bad for the penguins today in the photos as their young were being taken. I know my 6th graders will ask me the same question tomorrow when we view today's entry.
Thanks for your question and I'm glad you enjoyed the skua-penguin post. I asked Dr. Ainley if he noticed whether penguins get upset when they lose an egg to a skua. He said they do respond and seem to wonder what has happened. Beyond that, it's very hard to tell whether they feel the kind of terrible loss that we would feel if we lost a child or sibling, though. From my own observations, it seems that they are attached to the eggs, defend them fiercely, but don't show any outward signs of mourning if they lose one.
Penguins are extremely hardy animals and perhaps they are used to the rigors of their life. One out of every three penguins loses an egg to skuas every year on average - that's one reason they usually lay two eggs. It seems like soon after the skua leaves, they rededicate their energy to protecting the second egg. I hope this helps answer your question, and thanks for asking.


This fun Pattern Detective Game gives kids a chance to create and guess patterns. At the beginning you’ll have to display some sample patterns on the board. Their patterns definitely need to have some underlying structure, such as A, B, C, C, D, D, A, B, C, C, D, D. Over a period of time, kids will figure out how to create patterns that are harder for their opponents to crack.
It’s probably a good idea to tell them that they can’t use any one letter more than two times in a row. In that way, the most letters they can use for a pattern sequence would be eight. Then the pattern would repeat. As they get more skilled with the game, you can allow them to use any one letter more than three times in a row or adapt other rules of the game.
It’s good mental work to flip back and forth between the letter patterns, the questions to ask to uncover the patterns, and the ordered numbered list that keeps the process of discovery of the pattern ordered and manageable. Keeping a record of the questions that yielded an incorrect answer will help kids figure out what question to ask next.
Another possible fun adaptation of this game is to use it for geometric figures. Have students create patterns using triangles, circles, squares, and rectangles. Use the same methodology–they can’t use any one figure more than two times in a row.
As mentioned in the instructions, once students have developed a level of proficiency with this game, you can have them move on to arithmetic and geometric number patterns.
Common Core Mathematical Standard
5.OA Analyze patterns and relationships.
Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice
7. Look for and make use of structure.


The Stowers Institute's Yu Lab has published the results of large-scale imaging experiments examining how social signals are represented in the sensory system.
Working with a newly-developed line of transgenic mice that expresses the genetic calcium indicator G-CaMP2, the team monitored neural activity in the vomeronasal organ (VNO), a sensory organ found in many vertebrate animals that detects pheromones.
The findings, which shed light on how animals identify one another, were published in the April 25 issue of Science.
The team's discovery shows that neurons encode information about the identity of animals in very specific ways. Information about gender is encoded by a small population of cells dedicated to detecting sex-specific cues in the urine. Additionally, many of these pheromone cues are regulated by the hormonal status of the animals -- conveying their reproductive status.
In contrast, information about the genetic background and pedigree of an animal is encoded by the combinatorial activation of cells. Such combinatorial activation is unique for each individual, so each animal can be recognized by the signature pheromones they carry.
"We are interested in understanding how the nervous system processes sensory information to generate meaningful perception and behavioral output," said Jie He, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate and first author on the paper. "In order to understand the process, we examined the mouse vomeronasal system because we knew it processed pheromone information in a robust and stereotyped way. In doing so, we established that vomeronasal neurons are capable of recognizing gender, identifying individuals, and detecting the physiological status of the animal."
This is believed to be the first study of VNO activation by natural pheromones at the systems level. It reveals an extraordinary richness of pheromone cues and some striking features of pheromone representation in the VNO.
"Our study shows that a dedicated neural circuit is likely involved in processing important social information such as gender," said Ron Yu, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator and senior author on the paper. "Although the importance of pheromones in social communication has been recognized for decades, we knew little about the nature of these signals at the sensory level. This work addresses this issue and provides insight into how social information is processed in the nervous system."
Although, as a species, human beings no longer rely on pheromones in social communications, the functioning of the nervous system follows principles similar to those revealed by the Yu Lab's mouse studies. The neural circuitry in the human brain underlies complex human behaviors. Proper formation of the neural circuitry and seamless processing of sensory information are essential for mental health. Alterations in either can lead to devastating psychiatric and neurological diseases such as schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Using animal models to dissect the neural circuitry and to reveal the molecular and cellular mechanism behind these important functions of the brain may lead to a better understanding of how the brain works and to possible treatments for neurological diseases.
About the Stowers Institute
Housed in a 600,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility on a 10-acre campus in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research conducts basic research on fundamental processes of cellular life. Through its commitment to collaborative research and the use of cutting-edge technology, the Institute seeks more effective means of preventing, treating, and curing disease. The Institute was founded by Jim and Virginia Stowers, two cancer survivors who have created combined endowments of $2 billion in support of basic research of the highest quality.


Learning More About Dinosaurs
Are there any books about dinosaur expeditions and paleontologists?
There are numerous books describing exciting dinosaur expeditions and the fascinating scientists in the field of paleontology. The following is a representative sampling of the books on these subjects:
Colbert, Edwin H. The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries. Reprint. New York: Dover Publications, 1984. Includes chapters on first discoveries, skeletons in the earth, two evolutionary streams, the oldest dinosaurs, Jurassic giants of the western world, Canadian dinosaurs, and Asiatic dinosaurs.
Doescher, Rex A., ed. Directory of Paleontologists of the World, 5th ed. Lawrence, Kansas: International Palaeontological Association, 1989. Lists more than 7,000 paleontologists by name, office address, area of specialization or interest, and affiliation.
Horner, John R. Dinosaurs under the Big Sky. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing, 2003. World-famous paleontologist John Horner’s book about his knowledge of Montana’s dinosaurs and geology.
Jacobs, Louis L. Quest for the African Dinosaurs: Ancient Roots of the Modern World. New York: Villard Books, 1993. After discovering a major fossil site in Malawi (Africa), Jacobs and his team went on to identify 13 kinds of vertebrate animals that “give a window into the world of this part of Africa one hundred million years ago.”
Manning, Phillip. Dinomummy: The Life, Death, and Discovery of Dakota, a Dinosaur from Hell Creek. New York: Kingfisher, 2007. The story of the most amazing mummified dinosaur ever found—from the Hell Creek formation in North Dakota—aptly dubbed “Dakota.”
Novacek, Michael. Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs. Illustrated by Ed Heck. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1996. Chronicles the groundbreaking discoveries made by one of the largest dinosaur expeditions of the late twentieth century.
Psihoyos, Louie, and John Knoebber. Hunting Dinosaurs. New York: Random House, 1994. This book recounts the experiences of paleontologists who have scoured remote lands in search of dinosaur fossils, with full-color photos, charts, and maps.


At the start of the school year, teachers focus on presenting new lessons in practical life, which is the core area of the Montessori curriculum. This is the area where children first develop concentration, coordination, order, self-confidence, independence, and a sense of responsibility. These skills are the foundation for the child’s continuing exploration of his environment. The skill he gains from doing these activities prepares him for all future learning.
Children have an innate need to move because movement is the way in which they learn. Thought grows out of activities and knowledge is constructed through experience. Elementary movement is developed through working everyday tasks. The practical life exercises are carefully constructed to attract the child to progressively more complex movement.
For infants, practical life exercises allow their participation in caring for themselves by self-feeding, diapering and toileting, wiping the nose, dressing, and washing hands. When spoon-feeding a child at 5-9 months old, we allow the child to hold one spoon and the adult another, so they can attempt to feed themselves. Around 9-12 months, the pincer grasp develops. In order to strengthen this movement, we provide small bits of finger food they can pick up and bring to their mouth independently. We introduce drinking from a cup for children weaning from the bottle.
Children in the toddler and pre-primary classes practice practical life lessons beginning with snack preparation and care of the environment with presentations on peeling and cutting bananas, pouring from a small pitcher, wiping a spill, watering a plant, and focusing in on putting objects away in the proper place, among many other activities this area has to offer the child. Ultimately, what makes the exercises of practical life irresistible to the child is the pleasure of exercising their will, the part of us which chooses and acts on a motive. When the child intends an action, then completes it, the result is not only practical completion of a task, but the joy of discovering one’s own ability to act on the environment.


Infant and young child nutrition: situation analysis and prospects in the African Region: report of the Regional Director
Abstract1. Malnutrition remains one of the most frequent causes and determinants of morbidity and mortality in children worldwide. More than one-third of under-five children are malnourished - they are stunted, wasted or deficient in iodine, vitaminA or iron. 2. In the face of this challenging global and regional situation, WHO and UNICEF decided to undertake a global consultation on infant and young child nutrition. This initiative that started in March 2000 in Geneva will end in 2002 with the adoption of a global strategy on infant and young child nutrition for the decade. This document is a contribution of the Regional Committee for Africa to the ongoing reflections on the initiative. 3. The situation of infant and young child nutrition in Africa is worsened by poverty, natural disasters, wars, socio-political upheavals and massive population displacements. 4. Protein-energy malnutrition is increasing on the African continent whereas it is decreasing in other regions of the world. Each year, micro-nutrient deficiencies take a heavy toll on infants and young children. The risk of HIV/AIDS transmission through breast-feeding is creating additional problems in poor countries with a high prevalence of HIV infection. 5. The African Region could take the opportunity offered by the drawing up of the global strategy to assess progress made in the area of infant and young child feeding and adapt national nutrition programmes to the orientations given in this new strategy.
Regional Committee for Africa, 51. (2011). Infant and young child nutrition: situation analysis and prospects in the African Region: report of the Regional Director. http://www.who.int/iris/handle/10665/1890
DescriptionRegional Committee for Africa Fifty-first session, Brazzaville, Congo, 27 August - 1 September 2001
Gov't Doc #AFR/RC51/11 Rev.1
MetadataShow full item record
Showing items related by title and MeSH subject.
Development of a global strategy on infant and young child feeding : report on a WHO/UNICEF consultation for the WHO European Region, Budapest, Hungary 28 May-1 June 2001 compiled and written by Dr Joceline Pomerleau Pomerleau, Joceline; World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe; UNICEF (EUR/01/5018050, 2001)Malnutrition is responsible, directly or indirectly, for half of the 10.5 million deaths each year among children under five years of age. Two-thirds of these deaths occur during the first year of life, and are closely associated with poor breastfeeding and poor complementary feeding practices. Only a minority of infants worldwide are exclusively breastfed during the first months of life, and complementary feeding is often unsafe, inappropriate and inadequate. Malnourished children who survive suffer increased morbidity, impaired development and ...
Prevention and control of iron-deficiency anaemia in women and children : report of the UNICEF/WHO regional consultation, Geneva, Switzerland 3-5 February 1999 World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe; UNICEF (2001)
Report on the Regional Seminar on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children in Africa, 6-10 April 1987, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Regional Seminar on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children in Africa (1987: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia); Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and and Children; World Health Organization (1988)


In the new introduction to Lise Vogel’s Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory, Susan Ferguson and David McNally comment on the book’s “curious life-history.” They describe it, quite correctly, as a book that has lived largely in obscurity in spite of its innovative approach to the question of Marxism and women’s liberation and its enormous, though largely neglected, contribution to this important topic.
Timing was not on Vogel’s side. Originally published in 1983, this innovative work was buried in the right-wing political atmosphere, and the thriving women’s rights movements that emerged in the 1960s were no longer a force.
The overriding theme of Vogel’s book is that Marxism offers a unified theoretical framework that can best explain women’s oppression by situating it in the capitalist mode of production. She contends that past socialist movements, in spite of significant advances and contributions, did not fulfill the promise of a synthesis between feminism and Marxism, largely because of theoretical weaknesses and misunderstandings regarding the roots of women’s oppression, as well as a certain economistic framework.
Vogel begins with an assessment of the women’s movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. She examines socialist feminists such as Peggy Morton and Margaret Benson, who attempted to use Marxist categories and economics to develop a political economy of domestic labor, including the role it plays in reproducing the working class. While Vogel critiques some elements of their work (for example, that women’s work inside the home has a “precapitalist” character), she credits them with establishing “the material character of women’s unpaid labor in the family household. . . . They rooted the problem of women’s oppression in the theoretical terrain of materialism.”
From here, Vogel explores what became known as the Wages for Housework movement. In a now famous article, “Women and the Subversion of the Community,” Mariarosa Dalla Costa explores the role of unpaid domestic labor performed by women in the household and deploys Marxist economics to describe that work and the role it plays in the economy. Using the Marxist theory of value, Dalla Costa attempts to prove that women’s unpaid labor in the home actually creates value in the form of labor, and that the dynamic within the household mirrors that of workers in a factory. In proposing a political economy of housework and what Marx calls the reproduction of labor power, Dalla Costa ascribes to housework the ability to create surplus value. Vogel disagrees but acknowledges that the debates and theoretical terrain that Dalla Costa and others occupied pushed the debate forward.
The domestic labor debate was left largely unresolved as the feminist movement developed in the 1970s and 1980s and began focusing on different questions. Consequently, radical feminism, rooted in patriarchy theory grew, and confidence in a unification of feminism and Marxism waned.
Leaving these more contemporary questions, Vogel looks to the nineteenth century to assess the works of Marx and Engels and their impact historically and theoretically. She ultimately delinks this famous pair from each other, arguing that Marx’s framework in Capital is a superior, though less often cited, framework than that laid out in Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State for understanding the political economy of women’s oppression.
Having made this distinction, Vogel argues that, unfortunately, the socialist movement that came after Marx, namely the Second International, tended to look more to Engels’s method than that of Marx. Vogel focuses on August Bebel and his book Women and Socialism as emblematic of this period of socialist thought, as well as exploring the role that both Clara Zetkin and Lenin played in the socialist movements of their times. Vogel acknowledges the contributions made by these socialist movements and writers, but tends to home in on their theoretical limitations. Bebel’s book is described as inspirational, but undermined by its author’s utopianism and theoretical sloppiness. Vogel also acknowledges Zetkin’s political contributions but argues that she also succumbed to utopianism in her theory, as well as conflating simple description with analysis. She critiques Zetkin for making a mistake that Marx and Engels also made, which was to assume that a certain amount of liberation and equality followed from working-class women’s entry into the industrial workforce:
In the first place, along with virtually all her contemporaries, not to mention Marx and Engels, Zetkin glosses over the issue of domestic labor in the household. In this way, she loses an important opportunity to strengthen her argument for the existence of specific forms of the women question according to class. Empirically, the ruling class wife’s mediated relationship to housework bears little resemblance to the working class woman’s never ending domestic drudgery. At the theoretical level, the distinction stands out even more sharply, for only the unpaid domestic labor in the working class household contributes to the reproduction of the labor power required for capitalist production.
Whether or not Vogel is fully justified in drawing such sharp distinctions between Marx and Engels is up for debate, while her critique of Zetkin perhaps implies that the German revolutionary was pursuing a theoretical dead end, rather than contributing to an ongoing analysis of the relationship between women’s oppression and capitalism. She contrasts this with Lenin’s approach, to which she is far more sympathetic:
Lenin argues that the special oppression of women in capitalist society has a double root. In the first place, like national minorities, women suffer as a group from political inequality. And in the second, women are imprisoned in what Lenin terms domestic slavery—that is, they perform, under oppressive conditions, the unpaid labor in the household required to maintain and renew the producing classes.
Here she credits Lenin’s intense focus on the question of fighting for the greatest possible extension of democratic rights in all spheres (most famously in terms of fighting against national oppression), with an insistence on the importance of fighting to liberate women. At the same time, Vogel sees Lenin’s view that the “domestic slavery” foundation of women’s oppression is “the main thing,” both a return to Marx’s insights in Capital and a nod in the direction of her own work. Having settled accounts with both contemporary socialist-feminist writers and their German and Russian forerunners, Vogel next turns to her most innovative and original contribution.
Chapters 10 and 11, in just over forty pages, comprise the heart of Vogel’s book; here, she achieves nothing less than creating a framework to deliver on the promise of the book’s subtitle, Toward a Unitary Theory. She does so by drawing out the implications of a set of only partially developed insights elaborated by Marx in Capital; her great contribution is not to overturn Marx’s work in this field, but to complete it.
Vogel takes as her starting point Marx’s discovery that profits (the oil that greases the system’s wheels) arise from “surplus value” created in the process of production, the surplus to which Marx refers being the amount of value (eventually converted into money) that exceeds the total invested in materials, machines, and wages by the capitalist. The only part of this formula (materials + machines + wages) that can give more than it gets is what Marx calls labor power, that is, a human being’s ability to work. Marx’s underlying insight is that the value needed to create a given quantity of labor power is less than the new value that this labor power can create. This is the source of surplus value. Capitalists attempt to extract as much surplus value as they can by bullying or enticing their employees to work for more or less pay, at a faster or slower pace, for a longer or shorter part of the day. Of course, this confrontation plays out on a radically unequal playing field that the capitalist class controls with the help of the armed and legal powers of the state, while workers are always afraid of starving if they hold out too long.
While Marx’s genius in Capital is to lay bare all the tricks of the trade that go into maximizing the last drop of surplus that can be squeezed out of the worker (how labor-power can be made to give more than it gets) during the process of production itself (what happens at work), Vogel seizes upon an underdeveloped theme in Marx’s work to explore how labor power is available to the capitalist in the first place through the labor that happens at home. Marx writes,
A society can no more cease to produce than it can cease to consume. When viewed, therefore, as a connected whole, and as flowing on with incessant renewal, every social process of production, is at the same time, a process of reproduction. [emphasis added]
In Vogel’s hands, this insight simultaneously puts to rest Della Costa’s assertion that domestic labor produces surplus value and demonstrates that, far from discounting (in either an economic, political, or moral sense) the central role domestic labor performed in a nuclear family unit plays in making capitalism possible; capital depends as much on reproduction as it does on production. As Vogel puts it,
Despite the linguistic similarity of the terms production and reproduction, the processes that make up the reproduction of labor-power are not comparable from a theoretical point of view. Reproduction of labor-power is a condition of production, for it reposits or replaces the labor-power necessary for production. Reproduction of labor-power is not, however, a form of production.
Having thus clearly defined both the distinction and the relationship between these mutually entangled spheres, Vogel then notes that there have been, and are, various real-world ways in which capitalism can quench its insatiable thirst for labor power. For instance, employees can be worked to death and then replaced by a new group captured one way or the other, either through enslavement in war or via various forms of immigration. Capitalism is replete with such examples; however, it turns out that there is a cheaper, more stable, and seemingly more humane way to produce workers: procreation. In other words, workers not only bear the seemingly mystical ability to create profits for the bosses out of their own sweat and toil, they can also literally give birth to a whole new generation of wage slaves, and the capitalist must only wait until they are, so to speak, ripe for the picking in order to harvest and consume them; this process of maturation may be as little as five or six years or as many as fifteen or sixteen, depending on the particular circumstances.
What does this have to do with the oppression of women? Vogel’s answer holds the key: “If generational replacement is to happen, biological reproduction must intervene. And here, it must be admitted, human beings do not reproduce themselves by parthenogenesis. Women and men are different.”
The conditions under which women give birth and raise children change historically and are greatly impacted by a particular woman’s class, racial, or immigration status, among other things. Further, “if biological differences constitute the material precondition for the social construction of gender-differences,” as Vogel notes, then “sex-differences cannot be considered apart from their existence within a definite social system.”
And under the “definite social system” of capitalism, the nuclear family (modified more or less) has become the dominant institution in which labor power, in the person of generations of workers, is reproduced. This arrangement is tremendously beneficial for the capitalists because they are guaranteed a fresh supply of workers who are privately birthed, raised, educated, and prepared for a life of work in tens of millions of family units scattered around the country and the world. That is, neither General Motors nor Apple nor McDonald’s need guarantee how they will contribute to the appearance of a new generation of workers fifteen or twenty years from now.
Wages (the price of labor power) are the result of a bargain based on splitting up the working day into two parts. First, the bosses must pay the worker for the “necessary labor” they perform in order to reproduce themselves (food, clothing, housing, transportation, for example). If they didn’t pay for this, their workers would starve and be unavailable for work on an ongoing basis. But because the bosses are bargaining from a position of strength, they force the worker to work a second part of the day, performing what Marx calls “surplus labor,” which creates the surplus value that capitalists turn into profits. How is this “necessary labor” defined? In a society where reproduction is the primary responsibility of isolated working-class families, “a portion of the direct producer’s labor,” writes Vogel, and thus subsequently what the capitalist must pay them, “may also be devoted to securing the reproduction of other members of the exploited class,” the so-called family wage.
This family wage merely pays for the purchase of the basic commodities (food, fuel, housing, etc.) necessary for a family to live. But in order to consume those commodities and actually live, “a certain amount of supplementary labor must be performed in order the necessaries can be consumed”—food must be cooked, clothes washed, etc. Moreover, non-producing family members (the elderly or sick, unemployed members of the household, infants) must be provided for and, crucially, the next generation of workers must be raised. These three aspects of privatized reproduction, maintenance of “direct producers” (that is, currently employed workers), nonlaboring household members, and generational replacement of workers, must be included in the sum total of wages that currently employed workers bring home to the privatized household.
But what is the link between this multigendered family structure and women’s oppression, and why has it become generalized and sustained under capitalism? Vogel explains,
If children are to be born, it is women who will carry and deliver them. Women belonging to the subordinate class have, therefore, a special role with respect to the generational replacement of labor-power. While they may also be direct producers [currently employed workers], it is their differential role in the reproduction of labor-power that lies at the root of their oppression in class-society.”
So, “from the ruling class’s short-term point of view,” writes Vogel, “child-bearing potentially entails a costly decline in the mother’s capacity to work,” even if only because of months of pregnancy and lactation. Does this mean that biology is destiny? No.
First, the specifics of how capitalism, like any social system, functions, is affected by both class and political struggles and by technological change. Powerful unions can increase the price of labor power, thus diminishing the amount of surplus labor performed for the capitalists. Civil rights and women’s rights movements can, and have, forced private employers to pay more taxes to the state so that aspects of privatized reproduction (education, transportation, food, etc.) are transferred into the realm of public schools and state subsidies. And the social movement demands and technological developments of birth control and abortion in many countries have given women more control over reproduction. Movements for equal marriage, LGBTQ equality, and transgender rights challenge the automatic equation of biology and gender roles. “Given the contradictory character of equality in capitalist society, struggles for democratic rights have serious revolutionary import,” explains Vogel.
Yet capitalism must continue to rely on the privatized reproduction of hundreds of millions of workers on a global scale, and this will set strict limits. Political reforms are possible with respect to exactly how this reproduction is carried out (same-sex couples forming families, a certain percentage of people deciding not to raise children, a certain level of public education and public family assistance, etc.). But, “the domestic component of necessary labor cannot be completely socialized in capitalist society. The main barrier,” argues Vogel, “is economic, for the costs are extremely high in such areas as child-rearing and household-maintenance.” The costs are currently only partially covered by the family wage, the other part being made up by the unpaid cost of domestic labor.
Ultimately, only a socialist transformation of society can effectively dismantle women’s oppression, because only production for human need in place of profit can “undermine the foundation for the oppression of women within the individual household.” Yet, if abolishing capitalism is a precondition for women’s equality, Vogel envisages a long and complex process for its complete achievement, as there will remain for a long time “an obstacle in the real differences between [men and women], particularly in the area of child-bearing.” Liberation cannot be decreed and it cannot be imagined as a simple political equality, rather,
Social equality for women will actually require unequal treatment at certain times: maternity-leaves, lighter work during later months of pregnancy, rest periods when necessary for menstruating women, and so on. In this way, the material conditions for women’s full participation in all areas of social life—production, politics, culture, personal relations, and so forth—can be developed.
Vogel’s emphasis on material conditions and the biological differences between men and women, even projected into a socialist future, may strike some readers as overly rigid. In the past decades, many movements have challenged facile gender binaries and, certainly since her book’s appearance in 1983, LGBTQI and transgender movements have won a well-deserved recognition that gender and even biological sex are more fluid than past generations believed. In that sense, Vogel’s book is a product of its time.
Having said that, Vogel’s work not only makes great strides toward a unified theory capable of bringing economic exploitation and women’s oppression into a common framework. Her insistence on the material roots of both and the concomitant need for a united working-class force that can challenge both simultaneously is a huge contribution to the building of a feminist movement rooted in Marxism. Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory deserves to be recognized as a classic, indispensable companion to be read alongside Capital.


Retrobituaries: Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Custer's Final Foe
For the Native Americans of the Northern Plains, the Battle of Little Bighorn was a glorious victory against U.S. government forces intent on claiming their land. Fought on June 25, 1876, in Montana Territory, the battle saw Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors quickly overwhelm and kill some 260 U.S. troops. George Armstrong Custer, the Civil War hero sent to remove the Native Americans to their reservations, was among them.
Though the exact circumstances surrounding Custer’s death have long been the subject of debate, a new and intriguing account of his final moments surfaced in June 2005 when members of the Northern Cheyenne broke more than a century of silence to recount their tribe’s oral history of the battle. According to their account, it was a female fighter named Buffalo Calf Road Woman (alternately called Buffalo Calf Trail Woman) who knocked Custer off his horse that day, leaving him vulnerable, and who may have killed him.
Frank Rowland, a Cheyenne elder, told the Montana-based Independent Record, “The chiefs said to keep a vow of silence for 100 summers. One-hundred summers have now passed and we’re breaking our silence.” (In fact, almost 130 summers had passed by 2005.) The Northern Cheyenne said they had never publicly issued their account of the battle before because they feared retribution from the U.S. government.
The 2005 account wasn't the first mention of Buffalo Calf Road Woman at Little Bighorn, however. Thomas B. Marquis’s posthumous 1967 book Custer on the Little Bighorn includes the account of a female eyewitness who says: “Most of the women looking at the battle stayed out of reach of the bullets, as I did. But there was one who went in close at times. Her name was Calf [Road] Woman …[she] had a six-shooter, with bullets and powder, and she fired many shots at the soldiers. She was the only woman there who had a gun.”
Other details of Buffalo Calf Road Woman's life are scant. Most likely born in the 1850s, she was married to a warrior, Black Coyote, with whom she had two children. In the 1953 book Cheyenne Autumn, the Western historian and novelist Mari Sandoz describes her at the 1878 Battle of Punished Woman’s Fork in Kansas as both a mother and a warrior—“a gun in her hands, ready, the baby tied securely to her back.”
Her battlefield courage first cemented its place in tribal history about a week before Custer's Last Stand, at the June 17, 1876 Battle of the Rosebud, where the Cheyenne and Lakota tribes fought against the U.S. Army. There, Buffalo Calf Road Woman saved her brother—whose horse had been struck down—by charging on horseback into a melee of gunfire to rescue him. After that, the Cheyenne referred to the Battle of the Rosebud as the “Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother.”
Wallace Bearchum, Director of Tribal Services for the Northern Cheyenne, tells Mental Floss that her warrior exploits then surfaced at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where she fought “out in the open” instead of taking any cover, and where “she stayed on her horse the entire time.” Bearchum adds that although Buffalo Calf Road Woman was an “excellent markswoman,” she used a club-like object, not a gun, to knock Custer off his horse. It's not clear exactly what happened after that, but Bearchum says that Buffalo Calf Road Woman and other Cheyenne and Sioux women “finished off Custer and the other Calvary soldiers right after the battle was over," going "from soldier to soldier to finish them off or take things from them … remembering relatives killed by [U.S.] soldiers in previous attacks.”
"When [Custer] fell," Rowland explained to the Record in 2005, "he wasn't touched by the warriors because he was unclean. He was bad medicine." A scouting party found Custer's nude body two days later with two potentially fatal bullet holes, although we may never know for sure who caused them, or exactly which wound led him to lose his life.
No matter how brave she was, Buffalo Calf Road Woman was fighting a losing battle against the federal government. Doggedly pursued by U.S. troops, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, her warrior husband Black Coyote, and the other Cheyenne in their group had been on the run and were reaching the point of starvation. They were eventually relocated in the summer of 1877 to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
Finding themselves homesick and miserable in their new territory, however, they soon joined the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, which took place from the fall of 1878 to the spring of 1879, during which some 300 members of the tribe sought to return to their homeland in the northern part of the U.S.
Unfortunately, during the exodus, Black Coyote's personality changed: He became unhinged, flying into fits of hostility and brandishing a gun against his own people. He also stole horses that were property of the U.S. Army. When then confronted by a tribal elder, Black Coyote fatally shot him.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s husband was also a danger to outsiders. On April 5, 1879, a party he led ambushed two U.S. soldiers who were repairing a telegraph line in Montana Territory, killing one of them. When U.S. forces tracked down the party, Black Coyote had some of the slain soldier’s possessions on his person. He and two cohorts were arrested and in short order tried, convicted, and sentenced to be executed by hanging.
While this was going on, Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s own situation began to deteriorate. She had caught the “white man’s coughing disease,” also known as diphtheria, and died at some point in May 1879. Bearchum says he doesn't know the exact location of her burial, but explains that back then, the Cheyenne custom was to bury the dead immediately in the nearby hills. He thinks Buffalo Calf Road Woman was buried in the hills near what is now Miles City, Montana.
Although there is no monument to her, and Bearchum says “funding is needed” for further commemorations, she has been the subject of at least one prize-winning novel, by Rosemary and Joseph Agonito: Buffalo Calf Road Woman: The Story of a Warrior of the Little Bighorn.


Date of this Version
Lethal control, which has been used to reduce local abundances of animals in conflict with humans or with endangered species, may not achieve management goals if animal movement is not considered. In populations with emigration and immigration, lethal control may induce compensatory immigration, if the source of attraction remains unchanged. Within the Columbia River Basin (Washington, U.S.A.), avian predators forage at dams because dams tend to reduce rates of emigration of juvenile salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.), artificially concentrating these prey. We used differences in fatty acid profiles between Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia) at coastal and inland breeding colonies and terns culled by a lethal control program at a mid-Columbia River dam to infer dispersal patterns. We modeled the rate of loss of fatty acid biomarkers, which are fatty acids that can be traced to a single prey species or groups of species, to infer whether and when terns foraging at dams had emigrated from the coast. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling showed that coastal terns had high levels of C20 and C22 monounsaturated fatty acids, whereas fatty acids of inland breeders were high in C18:3n3, C20:4n6, and C22:5n3. Models of the rate of loss of fatty acid showed that approximately 60% of the terns collected at Rock Island Dam were unlikely to have bred successfully at local (inland) sites, suggesting that terns foraging at dams come from an extensive area. Fatty acid biomarkers may provide accurate information about patterns of dispersal in animal populations and may be extremely valuable in cases where populations differ demonstrably in prey base.


Both American Black bear and Asian Black Bear are closely related to each other when compared to other bear species. American Black bears can be easily found in the North America’s forested regions. The population of the Black bear is in the range of 339,000 – 465,000 and their population is constantly maintaining in this range only from 1990’s.
According to a revelation based on genetic studies, black bear and other bear varieties like polar bear and brown bear are developed from same ancestor that lived five million years ago. The earlier Black bear fossils that were found in Pennsylvania region are similar to Asiatic bear. To add on to this, here are some facts about the black bear.
- They mark trees with claws and teeth. This is a communication method of bears.
- Hibernation period in Black bears is 3 – 5 months. They usually weigh 30-40 pounds high before entering into hibernation phase and the excess fat is helpful in hibernation period.
- Females are selective while choosing dens for hibernation. Males prefer dens that are dug by them.
- The heart beat drops to 8 beats per minute during hibernation period and they stay alert during these periods also.
- Their opportunistic eating habits are worth mentioning here. They choose food based onthe items available.
- They wander heavily in search of food.
- Hunting bears is legal in Canada and 80,822 registered bear hunters are there in Canada.
- Hunting bears in USA is also legal and more than 481,500 licenses sold every year. Some states limit the hunting season to only spring and fall and some states completely banned hunting bears.
- Earlier, bear fat was used in cosmetic products and still so many people believe that bear fat promotes hair growth.
- Black bears are intelligent enough to open door and screw latches.
Bears are omnivorous. They eat plants, nuts, insects and honey. They are good swimmers and they love to catch fish and salmon while swimming. They occasionally hunt young deer and moose to eat. Bears even eat small mammals and carrion.
They are mostly found in thick forests but are said to adapt to different environments easily.
They are aggressive and even attack humans as a self-defense measure. They can climb trees easily and they do it as a protection measure against more powerful wild animals. Bears are highly active while searching for food. Depending on the requirements, they can even stay active at night also, which is hardly seen in other wild animals. Adult male bears can travel up to 4,500sq.kms in search of food.
An adult bear is capable of killing a human. With proper training, a human can kill a bear with a knife. Bears always try to avoid human contact but once they are habituated to human’s food, they will search for those food items. It is not a good practice to feed bears as they come to human habitats in search of food. General Wade Hampton was known to directly or indirectly killing 500 bears and he killed 2/3rd of those bears himself.
They are not at all suitable as pets and even if you are taking proper care of it, they always try to escape. Always locking it indoors or restricting its movement with iron chains will make it aggressive and it increases the chances of attacking the breeder or owner. They love to lead an independent life and that’s the reason why it is hard to see bears forming groups. Even the mother and cubs gets separated within a year or two. Their body is well built and is suitable to climb trees. Their hind legs are larger and the tail is usually 4-5 inch long. Claws are short and round with strong base.
The mother reproduces every 2 years. The cubs remain with the mother for about 17 months and then go their way to look for food. When they get to maturity age, they give birth as they were given birth to every 2 year cycle. This continues up to about 18 years then they die.
Just like any animal, the cubs of the black bear are more vulnerable and prone to danger. But the adults still face danger from coyotes, bobcats, wolves, cougars and brown bears.
Black bears breed between June and July. At these times, the females are very productive. They can handle the first stages of reproduction.
Great skull length usually in the range of 23.5 – 35cms is the distinct feature in this bear and the pointed faces are hard to ignore. The length of their foot is in the range of 13.7 – 22.5cms and they are considered bigger when compared to other bear species. Its small ears are always pointed upwards. American Black bears stand one meter tall. They weigh in the range of 500-600lbs (227-272 kg).
The coat of American Black Bear is thick and dense because of this they won’t face any problems during winter. As the name itself suggests, American Black bear is commonly seen in black color. However Blue-black, Brown and cinnamon colored bears are also there in this category. In the rarest of the rare occasions, American Black bear in white color can also be seen (not the polar bear).
Life Span :
The average black bear lives to about 18 years. They live longer when under captivity. You can find one as old as 20 years but it is quite rare.
Health Issues :
Black Bears won’t face any health problems as the climate of northern American region perfectly suits them. There are wild bears that lived for more than 30 years in the wild life conditions only. It is hard to see bears that lived for 20 years in the human captivity.
Images, Pics, Photos and Pictures of Black Bear :
Black Bear is not considered as pet and that’s the reason why there is no single professional bear grooming center in USA. They are not suitable for grooming because of their huge size and aggressive nature.
During winter, the black bear grows a larger coat. This is to protect them from the cold. They shed their winter coats early in summer.
Information of American Black Bear :
- Its full name is Black Bear.
- It is also popular as Ursusamericanus in the scientific groups.
- It originally belongs to United States.
- They are of medium size.
- They belong to Ursidae family.
- The life expectancy of this bear is high and the average life span is 18 years.
- It is intelligent and active.
- Female bears stand 2-3 feet (0.6-0.9m) tall.
- Male bears can grow up to a meter.
- Typical black American Bear weighs 500-600lbs (227-272 kg).
- Black is the most common color. Blue-black, Brown, cinnamon colored bears can also be seen.
- They are not considered as pets and they are not human friendly.


By the end of the Apollo programme, astronauts had started to work less with geologists. A geologist’s hammer might not be much use on the International Space Station but can be fundamental for sampling rocks on planetary bodies. A new era of human planetary exploration awaits where geological observations and rock sampling will be essential. Astronauts and geologists must learn how to communicate and achieve scientific goals together…again.
Pangaea is the first step for Europe towards such an objective. Astronauts are learning how to observe landscapes, recognise rocks and read geological records from outcrops. Geologists are learning the most effective operational ways to plan and perform field geology on planetary surfaces. That includes learning how to communicate with astronauts, who must cope with the difficulties of wearing space suits in low-gravity to accomplish field geology goals. In other words, astronauts will learn how to look at landscapes not just through a helmet, but also through geologists’ eyes while geologists must learn how to take samples though astronauts’ hands but, most importantly, they will learn how to perform science by joining their different, but complementary, expertise.
We are tackling the communication and scientific aspects through a mutual training program, but the third aspect of joining expertise is harder to achieve. It requires a definition of clear scientific goals to pursue and tested with planetary analogues on Earth. This in turn requires precise methodological objectives, such as geological traverses and rock sampling aimed at answering scientific questions such as: which areas are formed by water-lavas interactions in a volcanic region? What are the mechanisms that form and evolve out of lava flow and lava tubes? What can a stratigraphic record tell us about the environmental evolution of a site? What are the similarities between an area with other planets?
These objectives can be fulfilled by combining research and training on Earth to be ready for more ambitious goals when astronauts explore planetary bodies again.
The next generation of geologists will need to learn how to communicate with astronauts working very far away, such as how I was trained to measure stratifications with a geological compass or collect geological samples with my own hands and hammer. The valuable experience acquired during the Pangaea course will be transferred and used in university courses on planetary geology. In this way astronaut-training, planetary science and teaching future geologists will be fully interconnected.
The Pangaea course is making all this possible and lets us assert:
“Astronauts and geologists are now working together…again!”. From my personal experience, I would also add ”…and it is really working very wel!”.
Matteo Massironi, PANGAEA Science Coordinator and Prime Instructor, Professor of Planetary Geology at the University of Padova, Italy
Learn more about What PANGAEA is on the ESA web www.esa.int/pangaea


Burnet and Holmes provide evidence for treating autoimmune diseases with immune-suppressing drugs.
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Dr Margaret Holmes show in mouse models that immunosuppressive drugs could have the power to effectively treat some types of autoimmune diseases and, if given sufficiently early in life, could actually prevent them.
Prone to autoimmune disease
In the late 1950s, Burnet becomes award of a strain of mice from New Zealand (NZB) that was prone to blood and kidney disorders that have all the hallmarks of autoimmune diseases.
He begins work with Holmes to ascertain the nature of the disease of these animals. His hypothesis was “that these mice were unduly prone to produce immune cells (immunocytes) which resisted the normal censorship mechanism that removes cells reactive against components of their own body.”1
However others in the scientific community support the popular theory that the conditions are consistent with chronic viral infection.
Solving autoimmunity not so simple
Burnet is hopeful that the mouse strain will provide evidence for his theories on autoimmunity.
“I can confess that in 1959 I thought hopefully that with a laboratory model of autoimmunity available for controlled experimentation we should have solved the nature of autoimmune disease in a year or two,” Burnet later wrote.1
“I should have known better and, eleven year later, neither Margaret Holmes nor I, nor the rest of the world, has obtained any real understanding of what is happening at cellular or molecular in NZB mice.”
Drugs to treat autoimmunity
Probably the most significant finding of the team in their following years of research is treating the mice with cyclophosphamide – an immunosuppressive drug – markedly increases their life expectancy.
“The result has stimulated some clinicians to test cyclophosphamide cautiously in certain types of human nephritis [kidney disease]” Burnet later says, “but it has not thrown any new light on the nature of the pathological process.”1
Clinician and scientist Dr Ian Mackay from the institute’s Clinical Research Unit will later use cyclophosphamide in combination with another immunosuppressive drug azathioprine to treat young women with autoimmune hepatitis.
By 1966, Burnet has “virtually written off the six or seven years of investigation… as an interesting experience that had thrown no real light on the nature of the autoimmune process.1
“Yet, perhaps the important thing is that, although the mechanism of how immunity goes wrong in these mice remains impenetrable, no one has any shadow of doubt the the disease is a malfunctioning of the immune system.”
Burnet correctly predicted that the animals probably “produce an antibody against a red cell antigen”.1
Researchers have since shown that NZB mice do produce autoantibodies to several different ‘self’ antigens, including red blood cells.2
1 Burnet, F. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute 1915-1965. Oxford University Press, 1971, p150-152
2 Wither, J. and Vukusic, B. Autoimmunity Develops in Lupus-Prone NZB Mice Despite Normal T Cell Tolerance. Journal of Immunology, 1998, 161: 4555–4562.


A venerable oak presided on the far side of a hump of land behind the house where I grew up.
Deeply rooted, steady, its head was in the clouds and arms open wide to embrace whatever came its way. It seemed to stand guard over some wonderful secret, and it dropped the biggest acorns I’d ever seen.
We tried eating the meaty acorns, but they were often full of bugs.
Little did I know the wonders this tree held. I just felt its presence and knew innately that it was somehow important. But I didn’t think to ask questions that would unlock its secrets.
Ever-curious and observant entomologist Dr. Douglas Tallamy keeps asking the questions. He draws us in with his enthusiasm and personal stories, compellingly illuminating the scientific process along the way.
His latest book, The Nature of Oaks is an engaging journey through the year, exploring the diverse web of life that revolves around oak trees.
“Oaks support more forms of life and more fascinating interactions than any other tree genus in North America… to fully appreciate what an oak tree can bring to your yard, and into your life if you are willing, we need to follow what is happening on your oak trees month by month through all of our seasons.”
“…there is much going on in your yard that would not be going if you didn’t have one or more oak trees gracing your piece of planet earth. But you will never know unless you have a guide.”
You couldn’t ask for a more companionable guide – or more enticing bird and insect photos.
From acorn-caching blue jays to periodical cicadas and mast years, on to overwintering insects, expanding buds and gall wasps, adaptation and pollination, every month bursts with tales of fascinating, interconnected phenomena.
Many things make sense when you look at nature through the lens of evolution and efficient use of energy
Or from a bird’s perspective.
Tallamy informs us that of the 650 species of birds that breed in North America, 350 of them are long distance neotropical migrants that make the risky flight north to reproduce.
Why would they go to all that trouble?
May’s explosion of fresh tender foliage in our temperate zone is closely followed by insects that eat that foliage.
This insect bonanza allows birds to raise more young than they could with fewer resources in the tropics, offsetting the energy cost of migration.
From a bird’s perspective, Tallamy points out, spring caterpillars are breakfast, lunch and dinner – and the key to successful reproduction.
“Caterpillars are built from the energy and nutrients stored in the leaves they have eaten. In effect, caterpillars are repurposed leaves that can walk.”
But people –
People do tend to like birds.
But we often consider inchworms dropping down into our hair an icky nuisance and freak out when caterpillars eat our trees.
So what do we do? We haul out the spray to “save” our trees.
As Tallamy points out, this sets off “a chain reaction that ends in local ecological disaster.”
Pesticides kill off natural enemies of the caterpillars before making a dent in the intended target.
It’s rare that spray kills all the caterpillars. But enough are done in to deprive baby birds of sufficient food survive.
In following years, without predators and parasitoids that normally keep populations in check, caterpillar populations explode.
So we spray again – and there are fewer birds around to control caterpillar populations.
It’s all connected.
By June, most of the caterpillars have been eaten, but fascinating creatures remain.
Read on as Tallamy unspools the mysteries living in oaks
- Oak tree hoppers that look like rose thorns and guard their young to adulthood.
- Geometer caterpillars that escape the notice of hungry birds by resembling just another oak twig.
- Hairstreak butterflies that outwit jumping spiders
- Hairstreak caterpillars that produce a sugary substance to attract ants, which protect – and actually guard them – from predators and parasitoids.
A full year of Tallamy bringing to life the drama of life cycles going on right under our noses – I know that I will refer to this wonderful book again and again as the years pass.
And will take deeper looks at what goes on in my oaks.


Viking 'ring fortress' discovered in Denmark
J Thoendell stashed this in Images
Archaeologists in Denmark have discovered a distinctive ring-shaped Viking fortress which historians believe may have been used to launch an invasion of England.
The fortress found on the Danish island of Zealand, around 30 miles south of Copenhagen, is the fifth circular fortress to be unearthed, and the first in over 60 years.
“This is great news,” said Lasse Sonne, a Viking historian from the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
“Although there were Vikings in other countries, these circular fortresses are unique to Denmark. Many have given up hope that there were many of them left.”
Like previously discovered ring fortresses, the Vallø Borgring is thought to date back to the late tenth century and the reign of Harald Bluetooth, the king who Christianised Denmark and Norway.


How to Raise Kids with Good Self-Esteem
To help your kid develop the growth mindset so that she can cope with and learn from — in short, succeed at — failure, consider these pointers from parents and parenting experts:
• Praise the right things Whether your kid comes home with an A or an F on a school paper, Dweck suggests, don't focus on the grade, but instead ask about what he or she learned. "Kids who are praised for effort and strategy remain engaged by challenge," she says. And if, even after hard work, she still comes home with a D? "Praise the effort, but acknowledge that the result might not be what the child had hoped for," Dweck says. "I would say, 'You really tried, but it looks like there are still things you don't understand. Let's talk about what you can do to get help.' "
Praise is merited, too, if a child falters after taking on a significant challenge — say, enrolling in a difficult class on a subject he's passionate about, but earning low marks, says psychologist Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D., executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which gives scholarships to students from seventh grade through graduate school. "Focus not on the grade, but on his taking on this extraordinary challenge." Even if the school pressures him to get good grades, let him know you believe that in the long run accepting a challenge can be more important.
• Clarify what constitutes "losing" or "failure" How do you help your child see that victory or defeat is not the only, or ultimate, measure of success? "The more parents convey to their children that they value the process the kids engage in rather than the outcome," says Dweck, "the less the children will worry about losing or failing, the more readily they'll bounce back from it, and the more they'll learn from it. A parent could say, 'For me, a success is when someone prepares well for something they care about and then gives full effort to it. You did that.' " Dweck suggests this exercise: When the family is sitting around the dinner table, parents can ask, "Who did something really hard today? Who made a mistake they can learn from today? Who struggled with something today?" Mom and Dad must participate.


IOI '00 - Beijing, China
In a country, great walls have been built in such a way that every great wall connects exactly two towns. The great walls do not cross each other. Thus, the country is divided into such regions that to move from one region to another, it is necessary to go through a town or cross a great wall. For any two towns A and B, there is at most one great wall with one end in A and the other in B, and further, it is possible to go from A to B by always walking in a town or along a great wall. The input format implies additional restrictions.
There is a club whose members live in the towns. In each town, there is only one member or there are no members at all. The members want to meet in one of the regions (outside of any town). The members travel riding their bicycles. They do not want to enter any towns, because of the traffic, and they want to cross as few great walls as possible, as it is a lot of trouble. To go to the meeting region, each member needs to cross a number (possibly 0) of great walls. They want to find such an optimal region that the sum of these numbers (crossing-sum, for short) is minimized.
The towns are labeled with integers from 1 to N, where N is the number of towns. In Figure 1, the labeled nodes represent the towns and the lines connecting the nodes represent the great walls. Suppose that there are three members, who live in towns 3, 6, and 9. Then, an optimal meeting region and respective routes for members are shown in Figure 2. The crossing-sum is 2: the member from town 9 has to cross the great wall between towns 2 and 4, and the member from town 6 has to cross the great wall between towns 4 and 7.
You are to write a program which, given the towns, the regions, and the club member home towns, computes an optimal region and the minimal crossing-sum.
The first line contains one integer: the number of regions M (2 ≤ M ≤ 200). The second line contains one integer: the number of towns N (3 ≤ N ≤ 250). The third line contains one integer: the number of club members L (1 ≤ L ≤ 30). Of course, L ≤ N. The fourth line contains L distinct integers in increasing order: the labels of the towns where the members live.
After that the file contains 2M lines so that there is a pair of lines for each region: the first pair of lines describe the first region, the following pair the second and so on. Of the pair, the first line shows the number of towns I on the border of that region. The second line of the pair contains I integers: the labels of these I towns in some order in which they can be passed when making a trip clockwise along the border of the region, with the following exception: the last region is the "outside region" surrounding all towns and other regions, and for it the order of the labels corresponds to a trip in the counterclockwise direction. The order of the regions gives an integer labelling of the regions: the first region has label 1, the second has label 2, and so on. Note that the input includes all regions formed by the towns and great walls, including the "outside region".
OutputThe output file should have two lines. The first line should contain one integer: the minimal crossing-sum. The second line should contain one integer: the label of an optimal region. There may be several different solutions for the region and your program needs to output only one of them.
10 10 3 3 6 9 3 1 2 3 3 1 3 7 4 2 4 7 3 3 4 6 7 3 4 8 6 3 6 8 7 3 4 5 8 4 7 8 10 9 3 5 10 8 7 7 9 10 5 4 2 1
2 3The sample input and output shown correspond to the diagram above.
Point Value: 10
Time Limit: 2.00s
Memory Limit: 16M
Added: Aug 22, 2009
C++03, PAS, C, HASK, ASM, RUBY, PYTH2, JAVA, PHP, SCM, CAML, PERL, C#, C++11, PYTH3