Good vs. bad. Right vs. wrong. Human beings begin to learn the difference before we learn to speak—and thankfully so. We owe much of our success as a species to our capacity for moral reasoning. It’s the glue that holds human social groups together, the key to our fraught but effective ability to cooperate. We are (most believe) the lone moral agents on planet Earth—but this may not last. The day may come soon when we are forced to share this status with a new kind of being, one whose intelligence is of our own design.
Robots are coming, that much is sure. They are coming to our streets as self-driving cars, to our military as automated drones, to our homes as elder-care robots—and that’s just to name a few on the horizon (Ten million households already enjoy cleaner floors thanks to a relatively dumb little robot called the Roomba). What we don’t know is how smart they will eventually become. Some believe human-level artificial intelligence is pure science fiction; others believe they will far surpass us in intelligence—and sooner rather than later. In either case, a growing number of experts from an array of academic fields contend that robots of any significant intelligence should have the ability to tell right from wrong, a safeguard to ensure that they help rather than harm humanity.
“As machines get smarter and smarter, it becomes more important that their goals, what they are trying to achieve with their decisions, are closely aligned with human values,” says UC Berkeley computer science professor Stuart Russell, co-author of the standard textbook on artificial intelligence.
But how, exactly, does one impart morals to a robot? Simply program rules into its brain? Send it to obedience class? Play it old episodes of Sesame Street?
He believes that the survival of our species may depend on instilling values in AI, but doing so could also ensure harmonious robo-relations in more prosaic settings. “A domestic robot, for example, will have to know that you value your cat,” he says, “and that the cat is not something that can be put in the oven for dinner just because the fridge is empty.”
But how, exactly, does one impart morals to a robot? Simply program rules into its brain? Send it to obedience class? Play it old episodes of Sesame Street?
While roboticists and engineers at Berkeley and elsewhere grapple with that challenge, others caution that doing so could be a double-edged sword. While it might mean better, safer machines, it may also introduce a slew of ethical and legal issues that humanity has never faced before—perhaps even triggering a crisis over what it means to be human.
The notion that human/robot relations might prove tricky is nothing new. In 1947, science fiction author Isaac Asimov introduced his Three Laws of Robotics in the short story collection I, Robot, a simple set of guidelines for good robot behavior. 1) Don’t harm human beings, 2) Obey human orders, and 3) Protect your own existence. Asimov’s robots adhere strictly to the laws and yet, hampered by their rigid robot brains, become mired in seemingly unresolvable moral dilemmas. In one story, a robot tells a woman that a certain man loves her (he doesn’t), because the truth might her feelings, which the robot understands as a violation of the first law. To avoid breaking her heart, the robot broke her trust, traumatizing her in the process and thus violating the first law anyway.
The conundrum ultimately drives the robot insane.
Although a literary device, Asimov’s rules have remained a jumping off point for serious discussions about robot morality, serving as a reminder that even a clear, logical set of rules may fail when interpreted by minds different from our own.
Recently, the question of how robots might navigate our world has drawn new interest, spurred in part by accelerating advances in AI technology. With so-called “strong AI” seemingly close at hand, robot morality has emerged as a growing field, attracting scholars from philosophy, human rights, ethics, psychology, law, and theology. Research institutes have sprung up focused on the topic. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, recently pledged $10 million toward research ensuring “friendly AI.” There’s been a flurry of books, numerous symposiums, and even a conference about autonomous weapons at the United Nations this April.
The public conversation took on a new urgency last December when Stephen Hawking announced that the development of super-intelligent AI “could spell the end of the human race.” An ever-growing list of experts, including Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Berkeley’s Russell, now warn that robots might threaten our existence.
Their concern has focused on “the singularity,” the theoretical moment when machine intelligence surpasses our own. Such machines could defy human control, the argument goes, and lacking morality, could use their superior intellects to extinguish humanity.
Ideally, robots with human-level intelligence will need human-level morality as a check against bad behavior.
However, as Russell’s example of the cat-cooking domestic robot illustrates, machines would not necessarily need to be brilliant to cause trouble. In the near term we are likely to interact with somewhat simpler machines, and those too, argues Colin Allen, will benefit from moral sensitivity. Professor Allen teaches cognitive science and history of philosophy of science at Indiana University at Bloomington. “The immediate issue,” he says, “is not perfectly replicating human morality, but rather making machines that are more sensitive to ethically important aspects of what they’re doing.”
Imagine we programmed an automated car to never break the speed limit. “That might seem like a good idea until you’re in the back seat bleeding to death.”
And it’s not merely a matter of limiting bad robot behavior. Ethical sensitivity, Allen says, could make robots better, more effective tools. For example, imagine we programmed an automated car to never break the speed limit. “That might seem like a good idea,” he says, “until you’re in the back seat bleeding to death. You might be shouting, ‘Bloody well break the speed limit!’ but the car responds, ‘Sorry, I can’t do that.’ We might want the car to break the rules if something worse will happen if it doesn’t. We want machines to be more flexible.”
As machines get smarter and more autonomous, Allen and Russell agree that they will require increasingly sophisticated moral capabilities. The ultimate goal, Russell says, is to develop robots “that extend our will and our capability to realize whatever it is we dream.” But before machines can support the realization of our dreams, they must be able to understand our values, or at least act in accordance with them.
Which brings us to the first colossal hurdle: There is no agreed upon universal set of human morals. Morality is culturally specific, continually evolving, and eternally debated. If robots are to live by an ethical code, where will it come from? What will it consist of? Who decides? Leaving those mind-bending questions for philosophers and ethicists, roboticists must wrangle with an exceedingly complex challenge of their own: How to put human morals into the mind of a machine.
There are a few ways to tackle the problem, says Allen, co-author of the book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong. The most direct method is to program explicit rules for behavior into the robot’s software—the top-down approach. The rules could be concrete, such as the Ten Commandments or Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics; or they could be more theoretical, like Kant’s categorical imperative or utilitarian ethics. What is important is that the machine is given hard-coded guidelines upon which to base its decision-making.
The appeal here is that the engineer retains control over what the robot knows and doesn’t know. But the top-down approach may have some serious weaknesses. Allen believes that a robot using such a system may face too great a computational burden when making quick decisions in the real world. Using Asimov’s first rule (don’t harm humans) as an example, Allen explains, “To compute whether or not a given action actually harms a human requires being able to compute all of the consequences of the action out into the distant future.”
So imagine an elder-care robot assigned the task of getting grandpa to take his meds. The trouble is, grandpa doesn’t want to. The robot has to determine what will cause greater harm: allowing him to skip a dose, or forcing him to take meds against his will. A true reckoning would require the robot to account for all the possible consequences of each choice and then the consequences of those consequences and so on, stretching off into the unknown.
Additionally, as the lying robot from Asimov’s story demonstrates, rigid adherence to ethical rules tends to lead to moral dilemmas. What’s a robot to do if every available course of action leads to human harm?
It’s great storytelling fodder, but a real-life headache for roboticists.
Stuart Russell sees another weakness. “I think trying to program in values directly is too likely to leave something out that would create a loophole,” he says. “And just like loopholes in tax law, everyone just jumps through and blows up your system.”
Since having our system blown up by robots is best left to Hollywood, an alternative called the bottom-up approach may be preferable. The machine is not spoon-fed a list of rules to follow, but rather learns from experience.
The idea is that the robot responds to a given situation with habituated actions, much like we do. When we meet a new person, we don’t stop and consult an internal rulebook in order to determine whether the appropriate greeting is a handshake or a punch to the face. We just smile and extend our hand, a reactive response based on years of practice and training. “Aristotle said that the way to become a good person is to practice doing good things,” says Allen, and this may be the best way to become a good robot too.
Robots “could learn what makes people happy, what makes them sad, what they do to get put in jail, what they do to win medals.”
The bottom-up strategy puts far less computational strain on the robot because instead of computing all the possible “butterfly effect” repercussions of each action—whether or not a human might someday, somehow be harmed—the machine simply acts on its habituated responses. And this could lead to organic development of moral behavior.
But the bottom-up approach requires robots that can learn, and unlike humans they don’t start out that way. Thankfully the field of machine learning has taken great leaps forward of late, due in no small part to work being done at Berkeley. Roboticists have had success using reinforcement learning (think “good robot”/”bad robot”), but Russell invented another technique called inverse reinforcement learning, which takes things a step further. Using Russell’s method, a robot observes the behavior of some other entity (such as a human or even another robot), and rather than simply emulating the actions, it tries to figure out what the underlying objective is.
In this way the machine learns like a child. Imagine a child watching a baseball player swinging a bat, for example. Quickly she will decipher the intent behind the motions: the player is trying to hit the ball. Without intent, the motions are meaningless—just a guy waving a piece of wood.
In a lab down the hall from Russell’s office, Berkeley professor Pieter Abbeel has used “apprenticeship learning” (a form of inverse reinforcement learning) to give BRETT, the resident robot, the ability to learn how to tie knots, connect LEGO blocks, and twist the tops off water bottles. They are humble skills, to be sure, but the potential for more complex tasks is what excites Abbeel. He believes that one day robots may use apprenticeship learning to do most anything humans can.
Crucially, Russell thinks that this approach could allow robots to learn human morality. How? By gorging on human media. Movies, novels, news programs, TV shows—our entire collective creative output constitutes a massive treasure trove of information about what humans value. If robots were given the capability to access that information, Russell says, “they could learn what makes people happy, what makes them sad, what they do to get put in jail, what they do to win medals.”
Get ready to install the robot filter on your TV.
He’s now trying to develop a way to allow machines to understand natural human language. With such a capability robots could read text and, more importantly, understand it.
The top-down and bottom-up techniques each have their advantages, and Allen believes that the best approach to creating a virtuous robot may turn out to be a combination of both.
Even though our best hope for friendly robots may be to instill in them our values, some worry about the ethical and legal implications of sharing our world with such machines.
“We are entering a whole new kind of ecosystem,” says John Sullins, a Sonoma State philosophy professor specializing in computer ethics, AI, and robotics. “We will have to reboot our thinking on ethics, take the stuff from the past that still works, and remix it for this new world that’s going to include new kinds of agents.”
What about our human tendency to regard machines as if they possess human personalities?
“We already do it with our cars. We do it with our computers,” Sullins says. “We give agency inappropriately and promiscuously to lots of things in our environment, and robots will fool us even more.”
“So the person is now one-click buying a bunch of crap from Amazon just to maintain this sham friendship with a machine. You get a lonely enough person and a clever enough robot and you’re off to the bank.”
His concern is bolstered by a 2013 study out of University of Washington that showed that some soldiers working alongside bomb-diffusing robots became emotionally attached to them, and even despairing when their robots were destroyed. The danger, Sullins says, is that our tendency to anthropomorphize could leave us vulnerable. Humans are likely to place too much trust in human-like machines, assuming higher moral capability than the machines actually have. This could provide for-profit robotics companies an “opportunity to manipulate users in new and nefarious ways.”
He offers the example of a charming companion robot that asks its owner to purchase things as a condition of its friendship. “So the person is now one-click buying a bunch of crap from Amazon just to maintain this sham friendship with a machine,” he says. “You get a lonely enough person and a clever enough robot and you’re off to the bank.”
Then there’s the question of how we would define such robots. Would they be things? Beings? “Every roboticist has a different answer,” Sullins says. “What we’re talking about is a new category that’s going to include a wide range of technologies from your intelligent thermostat to R2D2—and everything in between.”
Sullins believes the arrival of these new robotic beings is going to throw ethics for a loop. “For thousands of years we’ve been kind of sleep walking through what morality and ethics means because we just assumed that the world was all about us, all about human relationships,” he says. “The modern world is calling that into deep question.”
And the ramifications won’t just be ethical, but also legal.
Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington specializing in cyber law and robotics, believes that moral machines will have a deeply unsettling effect on our legal system.
With the pervasion of the Internet into every aspect of our lives “we’ve grown accustomed to this promiscuous, loosey-goosey information eco-system in which it can be difficult to establish liability,” says Calo. “That’s going to change when it’s bones and not bits on the line. We’re going to have to strike a different balance when software can touch you.”
Calo serves on the advisory committee of the new People and Robots Initiative of CITRIS, the University of California-wide technology research center. He believes that the ability of robots to physically impact the world is just one of several issues legal experts will have to grapple with.
Last year two Swiss artists created an algorithm that purchased items at random from the Internet. The algorithm eventually bought a few tablets of the illegal drug Ecstasy, and Swiss police, uncertain how to react, “arrested” the algorithm.
For instance, the law will have to confront what he calls “emergent behavior” meaning complex actions that are not easily predicted—even by a robot’s own developers. He gives the example of two Swiss artists who created an algorithm that purchased items at random from the Internet last year. The algorithm eventually bought a few tablets of the illegal drug Ecstasy, and Swiss police, uncertain how to react, “arrested” the algorithm.
Even if robots can one day make decisions based on ethical criteria, that does not guarantee their behavior will be predictable.
Another issue he calls social valence: the fact that robots feel like people to us. This raises numerous issues, for instance “How should privacy law react when everything around us, in our homes and hospital rooms and offices and cars, have things that feel like they’re people? Will we ever really be alone? Will we ever experience solitude?”
This might also lead to the extension of certain rights to robots, Calo argues, and even the prosecution of those who abuse them. “Should we bring scrutiny to bear on people who do things like ‘Torture-Me Elmo’?” he asks, referring to a spate of Youtube videos depicting Tickle-Me Elmo dolls that are doused with gasoline and burned as they disturbingly writhe and giggle. “Nobody cares when you dump your old TV on the street. How will they feel when you dump your old robot?”
The effect on the law will be exponentially more dramatic, Calo says, if we ever do develop super-intelligent artificial moral agents.
“If we do that, it’s going to break everything,” he says. “It’s going to be a fundamental sea change in the way we think about human rights.”
Calo illustrates the sort of dilemma that could arise using a theoretical situation he calls the “copy-or-vote paradox.” Imagine that one day an artificially intelligent machine claims that it is a person, that it is sentient, has dignity, experiences joy and pain—and we can’t disprove it. It may be difficult to justify denying it all the human rights enjoyed by everyone else. What happens if that machine then claims entitlement to suffrage and procreation, both of which are considered fundamental human rights in our society? And what if the machine procreates by copying itself indefinitely? Our democracy would come undone if there were an entity that could both vote and make limitless copies of itself.
“Once you challenge the assumption that human beings are biological, that they live and they die, you get into this place where all kinds of assumptions that are deeply held by the law become unraveled,” Calo says.
Despite their warnings, both Calo and Sullins believe there is reason to be hopeful that if enough thought is put into these problems they can be solved.
“The best potential future is one in which we utilize the strengths of both humans and machines and integrate them in an ethical way,” Sullins says.
There is another potential future imagined by some enthusiastic futurists in which robots do not destroy us, but rather surpass our wildest expectations. Not only are they more intelligent than us, but more ethical. They are like us—only much, much better. Humans perfected. Imagine a robot police officer that never racially profiles and a robot judge that take fairness to its zenith. Imagine an elder-care robot that never allows grandpa to feel neglected (and somehow always convinces him to take his pills) or a friend who never tires of listening to your complaints. With their big brains and even bigger hearts, such robots could solve all the world’s problems while we stare at our belly buttons.
But where does that future leave us? Who are we if robots surpass us in every respect? What, then, are humans even for?
As roboticist Hans Moravec once wrote, “life may seem pointless if we are fated to spend it staring stupidly at our ultra-intelligent progeny as they try to describe their ever more spectacular discoveries in baby-talk we can understand.”
Sullins has another vision, one in which humans at least have an active role:
“These machines are going to need us as much as we need them because we have a kind of natural nuance that technology seems to lack. A friend of mine used to liken it to a bird and a 747. The plane can get you across the planet in hours, but it certainly can’t land on a treetop. These machines will be good at taking us places quickly, but once we get there, the nuanced interactions, the art of life, that’s going to take our kind of brains.”
Posted on June 4, 2015 - 12:37pm


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Marine Conservation Ecology provides a broad coverage of the ecological foundations of marine conservation, including the rationale, importance and practicalities of various approaches to marine conservation and management. The scope of Marine Conservation Ecology encompasses an understanding of the elements of marine biodiversity – from global to local levels – threats to marine biodiversity, and the structure and function of marine environments as related to conservation issues. The authors describe the potential approaches, initiatives and various options for conservation, from the genetic to the species, community and ecosystem levels in marine environments.
They explore methods for identifying the units of conservation, and the development of defensible frameworks for marine conservation. They describe planning of ecologically integrated conservation strategies, including decision-making on size, boundaries, numbers and connectivity of protected area networks. Marine Conservation Ecology also addresses relationships between fisheries and biodiversity, novel methods for conservation planning in the coastal zone and the evaluation of conservation initiatives.
1. Introduction - Why Marine Conservation is Necessary Significance of the Oceans and Biodiversity - Threats and Management
2. The Marine Environment - Physico-Chemical Characteristics Structures and Processes - Enduring and Recurrent Factors
3. The Marine Environment - Biology and Ecology Pelagic and Benthic Realms and Coastal Fringing Communities
4. Approaches to Marine Conservation - the Options Traditional Strategies and New Frameworks
5. Representative Areas - Global to Ecoregional Marine Conservation at the Ecosystem / Habitat level
6. Habitats and Communities - Ecoregional to Local Reality, Variability and Scales of Relationships
7. Distinctive Areas - Species and Ecosystem Processes Ecosystem Processes - Ergoclines and Hotspots
8. Patterns of Biodiversity - Species Diversity Theories and Relationships - Global, Regional, Local
9. Species and Focal Species Keystones, Umbrellas, Flagships, Indicators and Others
10. Genetic Diversity Significance of Genetics - from Genes to Ecosystems
11. Coastal Zones Components, Complexities and Classifications
12. High Seas and Deep Seas Pelagic and Benthic, Hydrography and Biogeography
13. Fisheries and Biodiversity Ecosystem-based Management - Linking Fisheries and Conservation
14. Size and Boundaries of Protected Areas Rationale for - Function, Location, Dimensions
15. Evaluation of Protected Areas The Concept of 'Value' as Applied to Marine Biodiversity
16. Sets of Protected Areas Integrating Distinctive and Representative Protected Areas
17. Networks of Protected Areas Patterns of Connectivity in the Oceans
18. Marine Monitoring Programs Policy, Strategy, Targets, Effectiveness
19. Remaining problems Beyond Networks - Scales of Change and Disturbances
John Roff is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Science and Conservation at Acadia University, Canada. His prime interest is the integration of disciplines and approaches to achieve effective marine conservation.
Mark Zacharias is Adjunct Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Assistant Deputy Minister with the Province of British Columbia Canada. His research interests are related to how regional scale oceanographic and biological processes affect conservation efforts in marine environments.
Jon Day is Director – Ecosystem, Conservation and Sustainable Use – of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the largest Marine Protected Area in the world. He was editor of the Proceedings of the First International Marine Protected Areas Congress, October 2005, Geelong, Australia.
"This book will be invaluable to all of us, to inform us and educate us about why marine conservation is such a pressing necessity in the 21st century, underpinning the health and wealth of ours and future generations."
- Dan Laffoley, Senior Advisor, Marine Science and Conservation, IUCN's Global Marine and Polar Programme, and Marine Vice Chair, IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas
"There has been a need for a major work in this field for a decade or more, and Roff and Zacharias have filled that gap. This book provides a rich, well-ordered and holistic vision of the marine environment, providing a critical framework and context for the development of marine conservation. It will be an invaluable tool for conservation practitioners and policy experts, lecturers and their students."
- Mark D Spalding, Senior Marine Scientist, Global Marine Team, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation Science Group, University of Cambridge, UK
"Roff and Zacharias have taken on the Herculean task of compiling the science foundation needed for successful marine conservation and management, and the result is a rich and rewarding synopsis of the most pertinent themes in marine ecology, presented in a user-friendly manner that lends itself to rapid uptake by planners, managers, environmentalists, and students alike."
- Tundi Agardy, Executive Director, Sound Seas


early 13c., "an act or expression of disapproval, rebuke, etc., for something deemed wrong;" mid-14c., "responsibility for something that is wrong, culpability," from Old French blasme "blame, reproach; condemnation," a back-formation from blasmer "to rebuke" (see blame (v.)).
c. 1200, "find fault with" (opposed to praise, commend); c. 1300, "lay responsibility on for something deemed wrong," from Old French blasmer (12c., Modern French blâmer) "to rebuke, reprimand, condemn, criticize," from Vulgar Latin *blastemare, from Late Latin blasphemare "to blaspheme, to speak lightly or amiss of God or sacred things," which also had a sense of "revile, reproach" (see blaspheme). Replaced Old English witan (with long "i"). Related: Blamed; blaming.
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[Image: Fortress of Solitude from Superman, via the Superman Wiki].
Writing for Ars Technica, Jennifer Ouellette reports on “an exotic form of ice dubbed ‘ice VII’ that physicists can create in the laboratory.” It is apparently capable of “freezing an entire world within hours.”
Ice VII can only be created under conditions of literally unearthly pressure: its “oxygen atoms are arranged in a cubic shape, something that only occurs at pressures more than 10,000 times that on Earth’s surface. It’s created in the lab by zapping thin samples of water sandwiched between plates with high-intensity shock waves or laser pulses.”
Those “high-intensity shock waves” surge through water at enormous speed, rearranging the atoms in what sounds a bit like the cracking of a whip. Indeed, as one of the scientists who discovered Ice VII explains, the ice “forms in a very unusual way—by popping into existence in tiny clusters of about 100 molecules and then growing extremely fast, at over 1,000 miles per hour.”
Although we are obviously talking about a physical process unattainable outside constrained laboratory conditions, it is nonetheless interesting to imagine this being controlled somehow and used in the wild here on Earth to create, say, instant ice bridges, pop-up hockey rinks, or other architectural spans and structures flash-frozen into existence at 1,000 miles per hour.
Cathedrals made of ice surge up from lakes in the Florida panhandle to the cries of stunned passers-by.
Read more at Ars Technica or Physical Review Letters.


CENAPRED reported that emissions of steam and gas from Popocatépetl were visible during 6-12 February. The plumes occasionally contained slight amounts of ash. On 8 February, ash emissions were occasionally accompanied by explosions and propelled incandescent fragments that landed in the vicinity of the crater. Two explosive events on 11 February resulted in ashfall in the town of Huejotzingo, Puebla.
Sources: Centro Nacional de Prevencion de Desastres (CENAPRED) – “Reports provided courtesy of the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program and the US Geological Survey’s Volcano Hazards Program.”


The plant body is a complex system of cells and tissues. It appears to be structurally simple but it is functionally complex. There are so many activities the plant body has to accommodate. Think about it: Circulation of water and nutrients, collection of solar energy, reproductive activities, growth and the production of useful molecules. These are but a few of the multiple functions of the plant body. How can we teach this complicated stuff to undergraduates?
All plant activities require the coordinated effort of many components. How is this coordination accomplished? What controls these activities? How are activities initiated and how are they truncated? What is plant "process?" What is learning "process?"
As I plan my classes for next fall I am excited by the prospect of new innovative lab activities. I just received a grant from the Boston University provost's office, part of the Boston University Arts Initiative. The grant will allow me to buy fun, new and interesting supplies for my students to use. More important, the grant has provided me with encouragement to move ahead combining arts and science in the undergraduate learning environment.
I was just looking at some cool construction toys that I want to introduce. Partly they will be for used when we build enzymes as part of our discussion of protein structure and function. Partly we will use the toys in our broad exploration of form. But perhaps the most interesting opportunity will be to have the students collaborate in building things together. Proteins are built by the collaboration of innumerable processes. On a larger scale plant form is the result of tremendous collaborative activity. Ecosystem evolution is an extremely complex collaborative process. So is learning. Maybe the best way to get this across to students is to have them build things together. In the learning environment, hands on collaboration should prove to be a super interesting interdisciplinary experience.


Question: Why are the mosquitoes bad around my house? What can I do about them?
Answer: Many adult mosquitoes around the home come from mosquito production sites within or near the neighborhood. To help reduce the number of mosquitoes, homeowners should eliminate or reduce standing/stagnant water on their property, especially containers like buckets, wheelbarrows, kiddie pools, bird baths, corrugated pipes, clogged rain gutters, and flower pot saucers. For larger mosquito breeding habitats like wetlands, roadside ditches, or stormwater management basins, contact the Mosquito Control Section office for your area. (See our contact information on the About Us page.) Click here for more information. Click here to view the Mosquito Control & Your Backyard video.
Q: Why do we need mosquito control?
A: The Delaware Mosquito Control Section's mission is to control the state's nuisance and potentially disease-bearing mosquito populations for the purposes of protecting public health, quality of life, and economic interests. Click here for more information. Click here to view the American Mosquito Control Association's "Why We Need Mosquito Control" video.
Q: What kinds of insecticides are used and when?
A: The Mosquito Control Section utilizes insecticides as an important component of its Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. Our IPM program involves the combination of various different control methods, including insecticides. All of our insecticides are registered and approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and have been determined to pose no unreasonable risks to human health, wildlife, or the environment. The two basic types of mosquito control insecticides are larvicides (for larval or the immature aquatic life stage of the mosquito) and adulticides (for control of adult mosquitoes). We currently use the following larvicides: Bti, methoprene, Spinosad, and monomolecular film. Our fog trucks apply sumithrin (a synthetic pyrethroid), and our aircraft applications use naled (an organophosphate). Click here for more information. Click here for our Spray Information page.
Q: Why do you have to use insecticides? What other methods are used?
A: The Mosquito Control Section prefers, whenever practicable, to use non-insecticide control methods. There are several methods of source reduction through which mosquito-producing habitats are eliminated or mosquitoes are controlled in their pre-emergence larval stages. These methods include water sanitation and elmination of container breeding habitats, Open Marsh Water Management (OMWM), management of tidal flows and marsh water levels, and stocking of mosquito fish. When source reduction is not possible, or practicable, insecticides are used. Click here for more information.
Q: Are mosquito control insecticides safe? Should I be concerned if I'm exposed to spraying?
A: The Mosquito Control Section only uses insecticides that are registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for mosquito control purposes. The EPA has determined through its testing and review process that when these insecticides are applied according to the label instructions, their application "poses no unreasonable risks to human health, wildlife, or the environment." For the general public, exposure to spraying will not cause any harm. Individuals that are hyper- or chemo-sensitive may experience mild allergic reactions and should consult a medical professional. Click here for more information.
Q: How can I find out when and where mosquito control spraying might be done?
A: There are several different ways to find out when and where mosquito control spraying will be done. The most common way is through our email list server (RSS Feed). You can subscribe to the email spray announcements through the Spray Zone Notification System at http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/mosquito/Pages/MC-SZNS.aspx (follow the instructions on the SZNS page). Spray announcements are also made on our toll-free hotline at 1-800-338-8181 and are submitted to local radio stations (that may or may not air the announcmenets). Click here for more information.
Q: What steps can I take to avoid exposure to mosquito control spraying?
A: To avoid exposure to mosquito control spraying, an individual can temporarily leave an area about to be sprayed or remain indoors with the windows and doors closed and the air conditioner(s) turned off during and immediately following an insecticide application. Click here for more information.
Q: How can I avoid mosquito bites?
A: The simplest way to avoid mosquito bites is to avoid areas or times where mosquitoes are most active. If you live in a mosquito-prone area, try to stay indoors during peak mosquito activity. If you can't stay indoors, wear light-colored long-sleeve shirts and pants. You may also want to use a mosquito repellant. The repellants that contain DEET are scientifically proven to be the most effective; however, there are several other repellants (such as picardin or oil of lemon eucalyptus) that may work for you as well. Click here for more information.
Q: What should I do if I find a sick/dead wild bird that might have West Nile Virus?
A: If you find a sick wild bird, you should contact Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research at 302-737-9543. If you find a dead bird, try to determine which species of bird you have found. The Mosquito Control Section only collects crows, blue jays, cardinals, robins, and birds of prey for West Nile virus testing. You should also assess if the bird has been dead for less than 24 hours. The testing for West Nile virus in dead wild birds requires a fresh specimen. If the bird is one of the species listed above and has been dead for less than 24 hours, you should call the Mosquito Cotnrol office for your area. Click here for more information.
Q: What are the human health symptoms of mosquito-borne diseases? What is the probability of becoming infected or sick?
A: Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile virus (WNV) are viruses that can cause encephalitis. Early symptoms of EEE and WNV are flu-like symptoms and include headache, mild fever, body aches, malaise, and swollen lymph glands. A more virulent infection of EEE or WNV can progress to severe headache, high fever, neck stiffness, and muscular weakness and can cause behavorial changes including stupor, confusion, and disorientation. Fortunately, scientists estimate that probably less than 1 percent of the mosquito populations that can carry this virus are infected. If you are unlucky enough to be bitten by one of the <1% of mosquitoes that are infected, you have only about a 1 percent chance of becoming severly ill. The Mosquito Control Section takes aggressive measures to reduce the frequency and intensity of mosquito populations to reduce the chances that you may get bit. If you take additional personal protection measures to avoid mosquito bites, then your chances of contracting a mosquito-borne disease are exceedingly small. Click here for more information.
Q: There are a lot of biting flies, gnats, ticks, and other flying insects around my house or yard that I don't like. Can't Mosquito Control do something about them?
A: Unfortunately, the answer is NO. Our enabling State statute allows us to only take actions that control mosquitoes. We recommend that you contact the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension Service for non-mosquito pest problems. The Extension Service phone numbers are (302) 831-2506 in New Castle County, (302) 730-4000 in Kent County, and (302) 856-7303 in Sussex County. In many cases, you might have to call a commercial exterminator or pest control company. Click here for more information.
Q: Describe the Mosquito Control Section. Who are you?
A: The Mosquito Control Section is part of DNREC's Division of Fish and Wildlife and has a staff of 18 people working year-round to deal with Delaware's mosquito problems. We also hire about 15 seasonal employees every summer to meet our increased seasonal workloads. The Mosquito Control Section has three: facilities: Administrative headquarters in Dover (302-739-9917), a field operations center for the northern half of the state in Glasgow (302-836-2555), and a field operations center for the southern half of the state in Milford (302-422-1512). The Mosquito Control Section also performs Open Marsh Water Management (OMWM) and is the lead agency for the Northern Delaware Wetland Rehabilitation Program (NDWRP). Click here for more information.


Does an Exploding Brain Network Cause Chronic Pain?
New research reports that hyperreactive brain networks could play a part in the hypersensitivity of fibromyalgia.
A new study finds that patients with fibromyalgia have brain networks primed for rapid, global responses to minor changes. This abnormal hypersensitivity, called explosive synchronization (ES), can be seen in other network phenomena across nature.
Researchers from the University of Michigan and Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea report evidence of ES in the brains of people with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by widespread, chronic pain. The paper, published in Scientific Reports, details only the second study of ES in human brain data.
“For the first time, this research shows that the hypersensitivity experienced by chronic pain patients may result from hypersensitive brain networks,” says co-senior author Richard Harris, Ph.D., associate professor of anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. “The subjects had conditions similar to other networks that undergo explosive synchronization.”
In ES, a small stimulus can lead to a dramatic synchronized reaction in the network, as can happen with a power grid failure (that rapidly turns things off) or a seizure (that rapidly turns things on). This phenomenon was, until recently, studied in physics rather than medicine. Researchers say it’s a promising avenue to explore in the continued quest to determine how a person develops fibromyalgia.
“As opposed to the normal process of gradually linking up different centers in the brain after a stimulus, chronic pain patients have conditions that predispose them to linking up in an abrupt, explosive manner,” says first author UnCheol Lee, Ph.D., a physicist and assistant professor of anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine. These conditions are similar to other networks that undergo ES, including power grids, Lee says.
‘Electrically unstable’ findings
The researchers recorded electrical activity in the brains of 10 female participants with fibromyalgia. Baseline EEG results showed hypersensitive and unstable brain networks, Harris says. Importantly, there was a strong correlation between the degree of ES conditions and the self-reported intensity of chronic pain reported by the patients at the time of EEG testing.
Lee’s research team and collaborators in South Korea then used computer models of brain activity to compare stimulus responses of fibromyalgia patients to the normal condition. As expected, the fibromyalgia model was more sensitive to electrical stimulation than the model without ES characteristics, Harris says.
“We again see the chronic pain brain is electrically unstable and sensitive,” Harris says.
He says this type of modeling could help guide future treatments for fibromyalgia. Since ES can be modeled essentially outside of the brain or in a computer, researchers can exhaustively test for influential regions that transform a hypersensitive network into a more stable one. These regions could then be targeted in living humans using noninvasive brain modulation therapies.
George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D., co-senior author and professor of anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine, says, “This study represents an exciting collaboration of physicists, neuroscientists and anesthesiologists. The network-based approach, which can combine individual patient brain data and computer simulation, heralds the possibility of a personalized approach to chronic pain treatment.”


Type 2 diabetes is caused by high level of sugar in the blood and it is the most common type of diabetes. It happens due to problems by our body to use or make insulin. Our body needs insulin to move sugar (glucose) into cells. It is where the glucose is stored and later used for energy.
When the body fails to react correctly to insulin, you have type 2 diabetes, which is also known as insulin resistance. It means that liver, fat and muscle cells fail to respond as usual to insulin. Therefore, glucose does not get into cells to be stored as energy.
Sugar will be stuck in the blood stream and fails to enter cells. This will be caused abnormally high sugar levels in the blood. The high level of sugar in the blood will cause the pancreas to produce more insulin but that is still not enough to cater the body’s demand.
People who are obesity or overweight are very likely to have type 2 diabetes because the body fails to use insulin correctly due to excess of fat.
Type 2 diabetes usually occurs among people who are overweight or from family history and genetics. Poor diet and lack of exercises are the two main factors that contribute to type 2 diabetes. If you are fat especially if you have an excess of weight around your waist, you must take extra precaution. One way to prevent diabetes is by taking healthy foods especially vegetables and fruits. Exercise regularly will burn cholesterol, and as a result, you will maintain an ideal body weight.
Other risk factors include high blood pressure, age above 40 years and ethnicity or race.
The common symptoms of diabetes type 2 are blurred vision, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, slow healing infection, increase appetite and thirst and frequent urinating. If you have these signs, you must go to see your doctor for further checkup.


Hermetic Glass-to-Metal Sealing
What are glass-to-metal seals (GTMS)?Hermetic glass-to-metal sealing technology combines metal and glass to create vacuum-tight electrical connectors, packaging, feedthroughs or optical windows/lenses in electronics or electronic systems. Meeting requirements for harsh environments and high performance, hermetic glass-to-metal seals are engineered to deliver uncompromised reliability.
Hermetic Glass-to-Metal Seals – purpose and functionThe key function of glass-to-metal seals is to reliably enable pass-through of electrical or optical signals into vacuum-tight housings or enclosures. Simultaneously, the inorganic glass sealing prevents moisture or gas intrusion and leakage that could cause damage or failure of the encapsulated electrical components/systems, semiconductors, electro-chemicals, pyrotechnics, or other substances.
Glass-to-metal seals are engineered to perform reliably in harsh operating conditions, such as extreme temperatures, moisture, pressure or chemicals. They can also fulfill requirements for longevity, performance, and efficiency improvements, as well as innovative designs. At their core, the purpose of glass-to-metal seals is to enable reliable connection and protection for the manufacture of high quality and long-lasting hermetically sealed components or equipment. Versatility is a key characteristic of glass-to-metal sealing technology. This is demonstrated by the multitude of functions, designs, and sizes of GTMS components in a broad range of applications.
Examples can be found in a vast array of products and industries, ranging from high-temperature sensors, oil and gas applications, batteries and capacitors, nuclear reactors, implantable medical devices, optoelectronic packaging, and automotive airbags, among others.
Advantages: why GTMS can make the difference
Glass-to-metal seals are exceptionally versatile and can be engineered with customized features to meet requirements for specific application needs. Examples include:
Types of GTMS
One of the key aspects of creating high-quality glass-to-metal seals is the combination of materials with optimal coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). The expert selection and subsequent processing of metals and suitable sealing glasses is essential for durable gas-tightness of the seal. GTMS products can be segmented into two types based on the glass and metal selection, and the corresponding CTEs of the chosen materials:
1. Matched seals
The CTE of glass and metal in matched seals is balanced. Matched seals are typically used for applications where high-temperature variations are present, or tight pin pitch or dimensional requirements (for example, miniaturized or non-round shapes) are factors. Depending on the design, matched glass-to-metal seals are able to maintain integrity through tens of thousands of thermal cycles and are well suited for semiconductor and optoelectronic assemblies where structural integrity is essential for precise operation of the enclosed electronics.
2. Compression seals
Due to vastly different CTEs of glass and metal in compression seals, the outer metal eyelet shrinks firmly onto the sealing glass during the production process. This compressive force forms a seal with immense bonded physical strength. In fact, the compressive strength of glass is ten to twenty times higher than its tensile strength. This is why compression seals are typically used for designs with requirements for high mechanical robustness. Usage examples can be found in automotive and energy applications, where long-term seal integrity is essential for continued safe operation of electronics in volatile environments.
Knowing what works
As the pioneer in hermetic glass-to-metal sealing, SCHOTT experts can turn to decades of experience, as well as the most versatile portfolio and in-house know-how, to guide customers in exactly what will work and provide solutions to maximize effectiveness in their application. In a situation where we don’t have a solution in the portfolio yet, we can also explore the possibility to develop it for you.
How glass-to-metal seals are produced
Hermetic glass-to-metal seals have an intricate but extremely effective production process with only three involved pieces: the metal eyelet (housing), metal pin (feedthrough), and glass preform (sealing material). To achieve the desired exceptional reliability of the final assembly, knowledge of the fundamental details is essential. Competence in glass types and formulations is a key proficiency in maximizing robustness and reliability, especially when it comes to customized components. It also includes the selection of the right metal and glass combination for the intended end-use and proper execution of the sealing process to maximize integrity of the seal. You benefit from SCHOTT’s in-house development capability to alter or engineer entirely new glass types in order to fulfill unique challenges and enter new applications.
The production process for glass-to-metal seals can be broken down into four main areas:
- Glass expertise
- Packaging and feedthrough design/validation
- Sealing process
Choosing the right sealing glass according to the metal and operating conditions is essential to produce a highly durable glass-to-metal seal. Advanced requirements necessitate the use of special materials. SCHOTT offers the broadest range of standard glasses as well as unique new glass developments. This enables us to meet the exact specification the customer has in mind. The specialty glass melts are further processed into shards, milled into fine glass powder, and finally pressed and sintered to produce glass preforms.
SCHOTT glass preforms have an extremely high dimensional accuracy, mechanical stability, consistent weight, and smooth surfaces – all aspects that play a decisive role in enabling robust and reliably hermetic glass-to-metal seals. Entirely new glass preforms are consistently in development to serve new applications and solve development challenges.
Packaging and feedthrough design/validation
Direct engineering support, complete customization, and rendering of more cost-efficient or less complex designs are all part of the design and development steps for glass-to-metal seals. Often, SCHOTT can actually provide a better product than the original customer concept through the aid of expert input and validation measures.
Validation is a key area for glass-to-metal seals. SCHOTT can perform simulations and tests with varying tools and support systems to verify successful implementation in applications, as well as with customer processes. These include welding, soldering, handling, and various other measures for proof of concept. The bottom line is we take your vision and make it work!
The glass preform, metal eyelet, and metal pin are assembled in a carbon fixture and put through a furnace in a highly controlled and specialized process. The temperature, oven conditions, gas compositions, and heating/cooling behavior of the materials are all essential factors that are expertly optimized according to the assembly requirements.
The end result of a successful sealing process for GTMS is a robust and durable component manufactured according to the exact established design specifications.
SCHOTT performs all plating processes in-house – a key differentiating factor in the production process as many GTMS manufacturers outsource this step, leading to longer lead times and potential quality issues.
The internal plating infrastructure at SCHOTT is optimized to enable both prototype quantities as well as high-volume, consistent-quality serial production. We can advise on material types and thickness for the plating process to help optimize efficiency and performance for the final assembly.


Crop water use efficiency (WUE, or yield per unit of water used), also known as crop water productivity, can be improved through irrigation management and methods, including deficit irrigation (irrigating less than is required for maximum yields) and supplemental irrigation (irrigating to supplement precipitation so as to avoid crop failure or severe yield decline). Thus, WUE is key for agricultural production with limited water resources.
Policymakers and water resource managers working at all scales need to evaluate the many ways in which cropping systems and the amounts, timing, and methods of both irrigation and fertilizer applications may be changed to improve WUE while meeting yield and harvest quality goals. Field experiments are too costly to address all scenarios, but computer models of crop growth and yield may fill in the gaps if the models are shown to be accurate predictors of WUE.
An international team of experts led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations developed an agronomic model called AquaCrop to address the need for modeling of WUE under widely varying conditions around the world and with limited data.
To look at the ability of this and other agronomic models to estimate WUE, a team member with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bushland, TX, organized a symposium, “Yield Response to Water: Examination of the Role of Crop Models in Predicting Water Use Efficiency,” at the 2007 Annual International meeting of the Agronomy Society of America. Results using several agronomic models were discussed.
Nine papers arising from the symposium are published in a special section of the May–June 2009 issue of Agronomy Journal. The papers explore how four of the simulation models were used to simulate yield, water use, and WUE of cotton, maize (corn), quinoa, and sunflower in North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. All the models simulated WUE adequately under well-watered conditions, but tended to overestimate or underestimate WUE under conditions of water stress. This limits their usefulness for exploration of deficit irrigation scenarios or rain-fed or dryland situations with less than adequate water.
According to symposium organizer Steve Evett, “Future studies exploring WUE simulation should include evaporation or transpiration measurements in addition to total crop water use measurements. In doing so, management methods that reduce evaporation in favor of transpiration can be studied and models of WUE can be tested and improved.”
This examination of WUE estimation by multiple models helps close the gap that exists between what can be done using crop simulation models and what policymakers and managers need from these models in order to develop useful management alternatives for crop selection and timing, tillage systems, and irrigation and fertilization practices. Development of AquaCrop and several other models is continuing and will be guided by the findings of these studies.
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Involuntary inspiratory phonation is a vocal phenomenon in which an involuntary vocal sound is made when one breathes in. In other words, a vocal noise such as one might hear from a person who is startled, takes an inward breath, and “gasps.” Inspiratory phonation becomes involuntary (necessary or impossible to abolish) when two conditions are met:
1) The vocal cords are unable to abduct (separate) normally during inspiration.
2) The speed of inspiratory airflow is sufficient to in-draw the cords and set them vibrating.
Conditions that may be associated with involuntary inspiratory phonation include glottic stenosis, bilateral vocal cord paralysis, chemical denervation of both posterior cricoarytenoid muscles after Botox injection for abductory spasmodic dysphonia. In some cases, involuntary inspiratory phonation is heard only during the elicitations of the vocal capability battery, when the patient is asked to empty the lungs (breathe out fully) and then to fill them completely as rapidly and quietly as possible.
Example of involuntary inspiratory phonation:
Other than when she speaks, the vocal sounds are while breathing in.


The Constitutional Convention: What the Founding Fathers Said
"Alexander Hamilton of New York—a brilliant, ambitious, former aide-de-camp and secretary to Washington during the Revolution, had … become a powerful political figure … There were others who played major roles—Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut; Edmund Randolph of Virginia; William Paterson of New Jersey …"
In the course of over two centuries since the nation's founding, the Constitution of the United States has become an iconic document for many Americans, who may with difficulty imagine real people piecing it together detail by painstaking detail through meetings, discussions, committee work, and compromise. Yet we have good records of those proceedings. By means of such records, among them James Madison's extensive notes, we can witness the unfolding drama of the Constitutional Convention and the contributions of those whom we have come to know as the Founding Fathers: Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and others who played major roles in founding a new nation.
What were some of the conflicts debated in the meetings and discussions that led to the creation of the Constitution of the United States? What interests and passions drove those conflicts—and to what shared principles did the Founders appeal as they struggled to reach a compromise? In this lesson, students will learn how the Founding Fathers debated, then resolved, their differences in the Constitution Learn through their words and the words of others how the Founding Fathers created "a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise" (From America's Founding Documents at the National Archives website).
Note: Use this lesson as a sequel to, or in conjunction with, the complementary lesson, Constitutional Convention: Four Founding Fathers You May Never Have Met. By completing the activities in both lesson, students will become familiar with the Constitutional Convention and the men and ideas that shaped the U.S. Constitution.
What was the nature of the debates held during the Constitutional Convention?
In what ways do the debates represent "a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise"?
List some ideas proposed and debated during the Constitutional Convention.
Discuss the important issues requiring compromise during the Constitutional Convention.


Welcome to Dyslexia Services
FWISD Dyslexia Services follow guidelines set by Texas Education Agency to identify and provide services for students with dyslexia. Qualified personnel follow procedures for dyslexia assessment and identification. Program monitoring and school support is available. Fort Worth ISD's Dyslexia Services staff offer training for teachers who facilitate specialized programs designed to provide intensive instruction for students identified with dyslexia. The focus of instruction for dyslexia programs involves teaching procedures that students internalize and are able to retrieve when coping with tasks related to reading, spelling, and writing.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.
These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.
Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge
Dr. Patty Coté, Director


So what are bed bugs, anyway? Everyone has heard of them. They’re essentially little bugs that are nocturnal and feed off human blood. There are actually a lot of different kinds, including some that feed off certain types of animals like chickens, but the ones most people are worried about live mainly off humans. They usually live inside of mattresses, where they have convenient access to a food source – you. They crawl out just before dawn and bite you, sucking out blood for about five minutes. You don’t feel anything until after the bed bug is already safely back in its home.
They will usually bite once a week or so, and they can actually live for a long time without feeding – usually six months, but sometimes over a year.
Bed bugs can infest all kinds of different places in your bedroom. Most often they’re in the mattress – in the seams, the box springs, or sometimes the linens. However, they can really be anywhere near where people sleep – furniture within crawling distance, carpet, books, phones – they’ve been found in all kinds of random things, because they don’t create a nest, they just hide somewhere.
Can bed bugs hurt me?
No, they aren’t actually dangerous. However, the bites are annoying and they can cause skin irritation and rashes, especially if you’ve got a lot of them in the mattress. So it’s always a good idea to get rid of them – because each bug can lay four or five eggs a day, leading to a pretty big batch of them if you leave things alone.
Bed bugs used to be nearly completely eliminated in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe – largely because of DDT and because of certain chemicals used against roaches. In recent years, however, there have been rising levels of infestations because these chemicals have been banned or restricted in most Western countries. Bed bugs have also begun to develop immunity to many of the pesticides that are still legal to use, making them much harder to kill.


|Posted: Jun 06, 2018|
Spherical particles in nanoscopes ensure better visualization of materials not transmitting light(Nanowerk News) Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with colleagues from Bangor University (United Kingdom) proposed a method to improve the resolution of optical microscopes operating in the reflection mode, i.e. visualizing materials not transmitting light. Spherical dielectric particles with a refractive index close to air were applied as a superlens for the microscope.
|The objective of the research team is to improve the resolution of optical microscopes in this mode thus making them as close as possible to the sharpest nanoscopes. The latest results were published in one of the world oldest scientific journals Annalen der Physik ("Photonic Jet by a Near-Unity-Refractive-Index Sphere on a Dielectric Substrate with High Index Contrast").|
|Example of focusing a spherical particle with a refractive index close to 1 is an analog of a typical spherical lens (left); example of focusing in the reflection mode (right). (Image: Tomsk Polytechnic University)|
|In the last decade, the nanoscopes are developing rapidly. They are one of the sharpest microscopes among similar optical devices. They can ensure the 50 nanometers resolution in white light. These nanoscopes use dielectric spherical nanoparticles as lenses and operate in the transmission mode.|
|In other words, an object is visualized by transmitting the radiation through the lens. However, there is a variety of materials non-transparent to radiation, the study of which requires subwave-focusing methods in the reflection mode. These may include metals.|
|Previously, the research team from TPU demonstrated that the radiation could be focused in the reflection mode using rectangular or hemispherical particles (publication in Optics Letters).|
|“However, the spherical particles are easier to obtain and use, that is why we used them in our latest research. The particle size makes several wavelengths. Light is reflected from a metal substrate, where particles are located, and is focused from the incidence side near the surface of the particle. If made spherical, it works as a lens focusing in the opposite direction. In addition, the refractive index of spherical particles is close to 1, i.e. to the air index, while traditional microscopes are close to 1.5. As a result, as compared to traditional optical microscopes, the spherical particles improve the resolution in the reflection mode and thereby exceed the diffraction limit. Eventually, we strive to make the results comparable with nanoscopes in the transmission mode,” - says Igor Minin, Professor of the Division for Electronic Engineering.|
|The conducted study will lay the foundation for nanoscope design principles able to operate in two modes with high resolution.|
|“These two modes of a microscope provide additional information on the distribution of near-field signals and open a new and unique method of characterizing materials and nanostructures.|
|It will be possible to visualize a number of promising materials and objects in higher resolution. For example, surface plasmonic waves represent electromagnetic waves propagating along the boundary between a metal and a dielectric. They are used in plasmonic sensors for biochemical analyses in microelectronics and require very high resolution to study them”, - underlines one of the authors.|
|Source: Tomsk Polytechnic University|
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May 4, 2011
Warren is William Patterson Timmie Professor and chair of the Department of Human Genetics in Emory School of Medicine. He is also Charles H. Candler chair in human genetics and a professor of biochemistry and pediatrics.
Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors for a scientist in the United States. Warren will be inducted into the Academy next April during its 149th annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Warren, elected along with 71 others, brings the number of Emory faculty elected to NAS to four. There are currently just over 2,000 active NAS members. NAS members have included Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright and Alexander Graham Bell. More than 180 living Academy members have won Nobel Prizes.
"Steve Warren's pioneering scientific discoveries in the field of human genetics have led to revolutionary advances in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with fragile X syndrome," says Thomas J. Lawley, dean of the School of Medicine. "It is the rare scientist indeed whose research leads from the most basic laboratory breakthroughs for an extremely challenging disease to a promising treatment within his or her lifetime."
Warren's genetic discoveries include the identification of "triplet repeat expansion" as the cause of fragile X syndrome and as an entirely new inheritance mechanism of genetic disease. Fragile X syndrome is the most frequent inherited cause of intellectual disability.
Fragile X syndrome discovery trail
In 1991, Warren led an international research team that discovered the FMR1 gene, which is responsible for fragile X syndrome. In 1993, his team characterized FMRP, the protein from FMR1, and learned that fragile X syndrome occurs when the FMR1 gene does not produce the FMRP protein.
Warren and his colleagues developed a diagnostic test for fragile X syndrome and have since made additional discoveries about how the genetic mutation affects "downstream" proteins in the brain that negatively affect development and behavior.
Through a widespread screening process, Warren and other scientists have recently identified potential drug treatments for fragile X syndrome that currently are being tested in a variety of clinical trials.
Read more at http://bit.ly/stevewarrenNAS.


CO2 and Ammonia are rapidly gaining momentum in ice rink applications as decarbonization and net zero goals become priority. From an environmental standpoint, natural refrigerants are clearly the future. From a commercial viability point of view, the answer appears less clear. Can natural refrigerant-based ice rinks generate a return on investment? Absolutely.
Historically, fluorinated gases (or f-gases) like HCFCs, HFCs, or HFOs have been promoted as the most commercially viable option for ice rinks. This could have been true to a certain extent 15 years ago but today, the picture looks much different. With the global shift in climate goals and the prioritization of climate preservation, the negative impact f-gases have on the environment and the stakeholder’s bottom line can no longer be refuted, nor justified.
Legislation favors natural refrigerants
The policy landscape is swiftly changing to increasingly regulate the use of f-gases. Not only that, but companies are also feeling the pressure to prioritize set sustainability targets and move away from climate-damaging technologies. The writing is on the wall: anything that contributes to additional environmental degradation or has a negative influence on climate change will soon become obsolete.
Global warming and climate change have always been a concern closely linked to refrigerants. There have been various regulatory measures over the years to tackle this concern – on a global scale (like the Montreal Protocol treaty), as well as a regional one like the game-changing European F-Gas Regulation which is currently being revised to impose even stricter bans on the use of certain f-gases.
Individual countries have also been ratifying the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which commits them to phase down HFCs on a strict timeline. Canada was one of the first countries to ratify, in 2017 already, while the U.S. finally signed in September 2022. There is no longer a question of will it or won’t it – HFCs are officially being phased down in Canada and U.S., just like in Europe.
Some U.S. states are even taking it one step further. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is leading the way for this state with strict Global Warming Potential (GWP) limits for new equipment. It’s not just California; other member states of the U.S. Climate Alliance have started enacting refrigerant laws that are identical to California's initial phase. While Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York are in various stages of adopting regulatory systems, while Washington State and Vermont have already done so.
The good news is that there is no regulation calling for the phase-down or -out of natural refrigerants – and there will never be. These refrigerants are naturally occurring and have been used for 100s of years without any negative impact on the environment or climate change.
Unpacking the costs of a natural refrigerant system
So natural refrigerants are good for the environment, what about for your pocket? This is after all one of the most, if not the most important factor that end users consider before choosing a refrigeration system. Is the cost worth it? Can a for-profit or municipal ice rink get a return on the investment with natural refrigerants? Yes! The answer is as simple as that.
Often equated with high costs, sustainable options have been dismissed without much thought in the past. We are, however, at a juncture where sustainability is no longer just an afterthought but a key consideration for any installation.
s for more than 110 years and we have installed thousands of ice rink refrigeration systems. We have made it our mission to adapt our products and solutions to fit a changing market. Sadly, not all companies in our industry have done the same.
F-gas suppliers have boldly advertised their lack of concern over environmental issues and global warming. Instead, they focused on campaigning against natural refrigerants, packaging claims as fact to ensure the continued purchase of climate-polluting f-gas systems rather. We hear so many stories of how natural refrigerant systems are expensive to install, maintain, and operate; how they require additional human resource intervention. Time for a fact check.
Let’s break down each key cost area and share real results, based on real installations to find out what the story is…
Considering Life Cycle Cost (LCC)
Life cycle cost (LCC) is an approach that assesses the total cost of an asset over its life cycle including initial capital costs, maintenance costs, operating costs and the asset's residual value at the end of its life.
Think about how long a refrigeration system is meant to last. The average lifespan of an industrial natural refrigeration system is generally more than 25 years. During these 25+ years, there are various costs to consider over and above just the initial upfront equipment cost.
An f-gas system may sometimes come with lower upfront costs, but when considering the full LCC, a natural refrigerant system and its resulting cost and energy savings, is better for your pocket. Especially in ice rink applications where natural refrigerants are proven to be more efficient.
1. Capital Cost (CAPEX)
When you compare the capital costs (CAPEX) of installing a natural refrigeration system with that of installing an f-gas system, people are often surprised that this cost is relatively the same. That is assuming that the system lasts its full 25+ years.
The risk, however, is the uncertainty of when the f-gas will be phased out or phased down which often leaves owners with a perilous choice of replacing the system earlier than expected. This is where the total cost of ownership is tilted significantly towards a more sustainable choice.
Even if there is sometimes a premium attached to choosing a natural refrigerant system over an f-gas-based solution, once the system is installed, any upfront capital you may have saved is quickly evaporated through the increased energy costs, high refrigerant costs, and pre-mature replacement of systems well before their natural lifecycle.
2. Operating Cost (OPEX)
Energy consumption has a big impact on operating expenses. The impact of escalating energy expenses can be minimized by reducing the energy consumed by the refrigeration system. In industrial applications like ice arenas, natural refrigerant systems generally consume less energy than f-gases. For example, ammonia has superior thermodynamic properties that result in improved efficiency, thus lowering electricity use and associated costs.
The performance of CO2 can be improved with the use of new innovations such as boosters, ejectors, and parallel compression to offer an efficient solution for every climate condition – even warmer climates previously considered unsuitable.
The f-gas industry markets CO2 as “energy intensive” and when they consider the “design condition” (which is the hottest few hours in the year), most f-gases will be more efficient than CO2. However, this is only for a few hours per year. In Toronto, for example, the average yearly temperature is only 50°F, and at that average temperature (which is a LOT more hours per year) CO2 is more efficient than any f-gas. Thus, f-gas is more efficient only for a few days a year, while CO2 is more efficient when considering a full year.
Centre Sportif Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines replaced its R22 system with a CO2 system and combined with other energy efficiency measures, is reaping the benefits of saving up to $3500 per month.
Another way to shave off operating costs is to invest in heat recovery. Natural refrigerants such as CO2 allow for superior heat recovery technology thanks to the refrigerant’s properties. Instead of wasting the heat produced by the refrigeration system and venting it into the atmosphere, the heat can be repurposed for various needs of a facility – pools, showers, snow melt, Zamboni, stands, HVAC, etc, reducing the need for natural gas boilers.
Thanks to heat recovery, the total energy savings from retrofitting with CO2 can range between 30% to 50%, making the investment more profitable and the payback period shorter.
Ed Meagher Arena at Concordia University in Quebec annually saves $40,000 thanks to a new CO2 system with integrated heat recovery
The Path Forward
For communities to successfully navigate the transition to Net Zero, key decision-makers have to dig deeper and understand the possible returns from natural refrigerants. Natural refrigerants combined with heat recovery and the adoption of green energy is a bullet-proof recipe for achieving net zero emissions.
To start the journey, step one should be setting a baseline with a Greenhouse Gas Feasibility Study. Federal and Provincial funding to conduct the study, as well as grants to cover the project proposals are available. A team of specialists are available to walk you through the process and define the returns from this initiative.
At CIMCO, we can help you through the process of accomplishing the Net Zero mission. Given the industry's shifting terrain and increasing global regulatory measures, it is clear that f-gas alternatives will dwindle and natural refrigerants will be the only future of ice rink refrigeration. Don’t risk being left behind – it will be costly.
8,000-Seater Santander Arena Adopts CO2 Refrigeration, Achieves Significant Savings Across the Board
Achieve your Net Zero Emission Targets Without Replacing Major Refrigeration Equipment
Kentville Municipal Rink Fast-Tracks Buying Process with Canoe, Cuts Costs
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The importance of flowers in human life cannot be denied. They express feelings that are at times difficult to express in words, be it friendship, an achievement, or a gesture of gratitude, flowers know how to make a way to people’s hearts. They are beyond beautiful. They add value where they are placed. Science has now proven that our environment has a great impact on our mental health and well-being. Flowers in our surroundings not only lift our spirits but also help us focus, reduce stress, anxiety, clear our minds, and help fight insomnia. Moreover, it is light on the pocket and high in value addition.
How Keeping Flowers in Your House is a Blessing
Flowers come in various colors and every color reflects its own story. They’re considered pure and auspicious. There are countless reasons why one should keep them in their house:
- Science has proven that keeping flowers in your house instantly changes one’s mood.
- It reduces stress and anxiety.
- Lavender helps fight insomnia.
- The colors of flowers have an impact on our emotions e.g red reflects love or anger, yellow shows friendship or happiness, and blue is a color of calmness or sadness
The kind of flowers one chooses to keep in their house can affect them, as surroundings have a great impact on our mental health and well-being. Moreover, there’s no need to break the bank when it comes to buying flowers for housewarming gifts.
What Makes Flowers a Unique Gift?
As John Harrigan has said, ‘Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower. Flowers make a wonderful gift as they can be given on any occasion, be it anniversaries, birthdays, celebrating success, a housewarming gift, or an apology to make, it’s a perfect fit. The characteristic of flowers to be given on any occasion makes it stand out from the rest. The vibrant colors and the fragrance bring joy instantly. It not only is a stress reliever but lifts spirits as well.
Flowers Make Intimate Connections
Flowers express so many feelings that words can’t give justice to. For instance, if someone you care about is hospitalized, you can’t think of anything other than giving flowers. Although it’s not a happy occasion yet it brings happiness to the one given. Similarly, there are many occasions where you’re at a loss of words, but you want to connect emotionally with the one at loss, flowers do that job. It has the power to make the suffering less just by its presence.


Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers
Biodegradable polymers are a specific type of polymer that breaks down after its intended purpose to result in natural byproducts such as gases (CO2, N2), water, biomass, and inorganic salts.Biodegradable polymers have a long history, and since many are natural products, the precise timeline of their discovery and use cannot be accurately traced. One of the first medicinal uses of a biodegradable polymer was the catgut suture, which dates back to at least 100 AD.One of the most important and most studied groups of biodegradable polymers are polyesters. Polyesters can be synthesized in a number of ways including direct condensation of alcohols and acids, ring opening polymerizations (ROP), and metal-catalyzed polymerization reactions.Biodegradable polymers have an innumerable uses in the biomedical field, particularly in the fields of tissue engineering and drug delivery.
Related Journals of Biodegradable polymers
Journal of Chemical Engineering & Process Technology, Natural Products Chemistry & Research, Research & Reviews: Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, Journal of Experimental Food Chemistry


How Businesses Define Management
Running a successful business is not an easy responsibility. There are numerous activities in a company, so teamwork is paramount. According to Jordan Sudberg, most enterprises are multi-faced, thus demanding a lot of planning, research, and careful execution. For everything to run smoothly, a business needs proper management. For a company to make significant revenue and remain powerful, it must have quality management. The management determines the value of a brand.
What is Business Management?
According to Sudberg, proper business management involves coordinating and administering various business tasks and activities to achieve a specific goal.
The ideal management in a business should involve training staff members, supervising, and designing the business infrastructure. The management should always oversee the critical operations in the organization.
To attain the right management goals, a modern business should balance identifying talent and work. A manager who has technical experts quickly earns the respect of his juniors. The manager needs to have soft skills to sustain respect in their position. In most organizations, management success comes after effective communication, consistency, empathy, and nurturing of great work relationships.
Essential aspects for business management
Owning a successful business in the current marketplace is not an easy thing. The most outstanding and demanding job in the company is managing the people. The most crucial role of a business manager is ensuring everything in the business is running according to plan. A good business manager requires more than basic skills. Apart from being critical thinkers, experts in strategizing, and honest, business managers should have some fantastic features to set them apart.
Being a successful business manager is impossible if someone is not empathetic. Managers can only understand their juniors when they start considering things from a unique point of view. It is impossible to become successful just by assembling and motivating everyone in the business. A manager should always get the best from their team.
Members of the team differ in their professional and even educational backgrounds. The people running the business have different work ethics, motivation, communication styles, and personalities. If someone does not have empathy, they cannot understand what their employees go through.
Jordan Sudberg believes that in business management, the most significant role of a leader is always to hold the workers accountable for their mistakes. The manager should also help the employees to improve on their weak areas. This is the only way to improve the performance of an organization.
3. Negotiation and Proper Conflict Resolution
Most of the best-performing business organizations have conflicts. The intelligent workers in a company will sometimes have differences in implementation or strategy. A manager’s responsibility is to offer solutions to these conflicts so that the business operations do not stop.
4. Executive Presence
In business management, executive presence is among the most crucial skills. A great manager in a business should inspire executive presence and confidence in the industry. When a manager is confident, they cement lots of authority and receive enough respect from their juniors. A manager without confidence cannot be respected by the people around them.


Duane’s syndrome is a constellation of eye findings present at birth that results from abnormal connections among the nerves that supply the muscles of the eyes.
Duane’s syndrome occurs most commonly though not exclusively, in the left eye of females, who are typically otherwise healthy. Duane’s syndrome has several variants that present with various eye movement abnormalities. In the most common type, the eye is not able to move outwards from the normal straight ahead position. When the involved eye moves in the opposite direction towards the nose, the eye is pulled slightly back into the eye socket causing a narrowing of the opening of the eyelids. The eye may also drift up or down as it moves toward the nose. In addition, with the eyes looking straight ahead, they may be crossed in relation to each other. This may lead to a person with Duane’s syndrome to turn their head toward one side while viewing objects in front of them in order to better align their eyes.
Although restoration of full eye movements in patients with Duane's syndrome may not be possible with eye muscle surgery, surgery can be beneficial for several indications. Surgical treatment can be effective for correcting any misalignment of the eyes which is present while looking in the straight ahead position, as well as eliminating any abnormal head positioning. If the abnormal up and down movements of the eye or the narrowness of the eyelid opening significantly affect the eye’s appearance, surgery may also be of benefit.
Brown’s syndrome is a condition typically present from birth but at times acquired later in life in which the eye is unable to move up, especially when it is turned in toward the nose. This is caused by the inability of the superior oblique muscle, one of the eye muscles, to slide through its natural pulley system along the bony wall of the eye socket. This condition is often first noted in a child when the parent notes that the uninvolved eye is "floating" up when the child looks to the side, when actually it is the other eye which is not moving up normally.
|This child has a Brown's syndrome of the right eye. The right eye is unable to elevate when turned towards the nose.|
Brown’s syndrome is often only an incidental finding on an eye exam in which case no treatment is needed. However, if the involved eye is lower than the other eye when the individual is looking straight ahead, or an abnormal head position is needed to keep the eyes aligned, eye muscle surgery can correct the problem.
Mobius syndrome is characterized by multiple disturbances of the cranial nerves supplying impulses to the muscles of the eyes and face. Most notable is the inability of one or both eyes to move outwards. This is often accompanied by eye crossing at birth which often needs to be corrected with eye muscle surgery. The involvement of the nerves that supply the muscles of the face is noted by early difficulty with sucking and feeding, as well as deficient closing of the eyes during sleep. The face can appear like a mask in that the ability to smile or wrinkle the forehead is absent.
Additional findings can be present as a result of problems with other muscle groups. There is often a partial paralysis of the tongue as well as the soft palate and the muscles of the mouth that control chewing. Muscles of the chest and bones of the hands and feet can also be abnormal.
Third Nerve Palsy
Third nerve palsy refers to a weakness of the nerve that supplies impulses to four of the six extraocular muscles and to the muscle that elevates the eyelids. This may be congenital or acquired following head trauma, brain tumor, stroke or cerebral aneurysm. The affected eye is generally misaligned outward (exotropia) and downward (hypertropia). At times there is an associated drooping eyelid (ptosis) or enlarged pupil.
Once we can document stability of the strabismus arising from a third nerve palsy (occasionally a congenital or acquired third nerve palsy can “regenerate” spontaneously over the course of 6-12 months), eye muscle surgery can then be performed to eliminate the ocular misalignment and restore single vision.
Fourth Nerve Palsy
Fourth nerve palsy refers to a weakness of the nerve that supplies impulses to the superior oblique muscle, a muscle of the eye which has the main function of moving the eye downwards. If this muscle is weak, the eye tends to drift upwards. (see the Hypertropia section for more information)
Sixth Nerve Palsy
Sixth nerve palsy refers to a weakness of the nerve that supplies impulses to the lateral rectus muscle, the muscle of the eye which is responsible for moving the eye outward. This is usually an acquired condition which can present with the gradual or sudden onset of eye crossing often accompanied by double vision along with an inability of the eye to move outward. An abnormal face turn may occur in order to relieve the double vision. In children, the most common type of sixth nerve palsy is one which can be recurrent and is thought to be related to a viral illness. Other causes in the young age group include head trauma and other brain disorders. "Small blood vessel disease" resulting from diabetes or high blood pressure are common causes of sixth nerve palsies in adults.
Sixth nerve palsies generally improve over the course of several months. After a period of observation, if the recovery is incomplete and a residual eye crossing remains, eye muscle surgery can eliminate the eye crossing and relieve symptoms of double vision.


NIH study shows even moderate exercise substantially cuts risk
Exercise alone may help prevent gestational diabetes—which occurs in women during pregnancy—from progressing to Type 2 diabetes in the time after pregnancy, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.
Women who have had gestational diabetes are at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes. Previous research has shown that these women can reduce their Type 2 risk by adopting a comprehensive program of exercise and healthy eating, and, if needed, treatment with the drug metformin. The results of the current study are the first to show that, the greater the level of physical activity, the less likely Type 2 diabetes was to occur. The researchers observed this pattern regardless of the women’s diet and level of body fat—both factors also associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes
“Women at high risk for Type 2 diabetes because they once had gestational diabetes are best advised to eat healthy, exercise regularly, and control their weight,” said the study’s senior author, Cuilin Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., in the Division of Intramural Population Health Research of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). “However, for those who may even be obese or have not adopted healthy eating habits, moderate or vigorous exercise alone may help to reduce the risk substantially.
The study appears in JAMA Internal Medicine. In addition to support from the NICHD, the study was also funded by two other NIH institutes, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers found that women who did 150 minutes of moderate exercise each week—a half hour of walking each day for 5 days—cut their risk of Type 2 diabetes by 47 percent when compared to those who did not exercise. The researchers found more substantial reductions in risk for those who spent even more time exercising. In general, the more the women exercised, and the harder they exercised, the less likely they were to progress to Type 2 diabetes.
Gestational diabetes affects about 5 percent of all pregnancies. In women with gestational diabetes, the body does not use insulin efficiently and the level of blood sugar, or glucose, increases. The high blood sugar levels may result in babies growing too large, which may lead to injuries during birth, or require a cesarean delivery. Infants born to mothers with gestational diabetes are also at risk for preterm birth, which increases their risk for death in the first year of life, visual and learning difficulties, and neurological problems such as cerebral palsy.
For the mother, gestational diabetes increases the risk of high blood pressure, and of preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening complication of pregnancy. Among women with gestational diabetes, up to 35 to 60 percent r develop type 2 diabetes, within 20 years after giving birth. Complications of Type 2 diabetes include heart disease, and damage to the eyes, kidney, and nerves.
To conduct their study, Dr. Zhang and her colleagues analyzed information from 4554 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II who reported they had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which is a part of NIH’s ongoing Diabetes & Women’s Health Study, which investigating factors that determine the risk of Type 2 diabetes among women who had gestational diabetes. Of these women, 635 eventually developed Type 2 diabetes. The women were 22 to 45 years old when they enrolled in the study. Every two years they responded to questions on their general health, pregnancy status, and lifestyle habits, and every four years they completed a comprehensive survey about the kinds of food and drink they consumed.
“This study shows a clear dose-effect association between physical activity and Type 2 diabetes risk among women who had gestational diabetes.” said Dr. Wei Bao, the first author, a visiting post-doctoral fellow at NICHD. “The more physical activity the women engaged in after giving birth, the less likely they were to develop Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers expressed the time the women spent exercising in terms of a numerical concept they referred to as a Metabolic Equivalent hours (METs). They defined a metabolic equivalent hour as the amount of energy typically extended for a particular activity. The figure is based on a ratio of oxygen taken in versus calories expended. Each weekly increase of 5 METs—equal to about 100 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity or 50 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity— was associated with a 9 percent reduction in Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers also found that time spent watching television was associated with an increased Type 2 diabetes risk. Watching television, the researchers wrote, often replaces time that might be spent in physical activity, and is associated with mindless eating.
“Finally, while watching TV, women may be influenced by commercial food advertisements for nutrient-poor, high calorie foods,” the researchers wrote.
About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute’s website at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.