Many numerical calculations deal with amounts of money. It is always nice if these calculations are somewhat correct or if we can at least rest assured that we do not loose money due to such inaccuracies. Off course there are calculations that may legitimately deal with approximations, for example when calculating profits as percentages of the investment (return on investment). For this kind of calculations floating point numbers (double, Float or something like that) come in handy, but off course dealing with the numeric subtleties can be quite a challenge and rounding errors can grow huge if not dealt with properly.
It is often necessary to do calculations with exact amounts. It is quite easy to write something like as floating point number, but unfortunately these are internally expressed in binary format (base 2), so the fraction with a power of 10 in the denominator needs to be expressed as a fraction with a power of two in the denominator. We can just give it a try and divide by , doing the math in base 2 arithmetic. We get something like , more precisely or as fraction or in base 10 .
It can be seen that such a harmless number with only two digits after the decimal point ends up having an infinite number of digits after the decimal point. Our usual Double and Float types are usually limited to 64 Bits, so some digits have to be discarded, causing a rounding error. Fortunately this usually works well and the stored number is still shown as . But working a little bit with these floating point numbers sooner or later results like or will appear instead of , even when doing only addition and subtraction. When doing larger sums it might even end up as or . For many applications that is unacceptable.
A simple and often useful solution is to use integral numbers and storing the amounts in cents instead of dollars. Then the rounding problem of pure additions and subtractions is under control and for other operations it might at least become easier to deal with the issue. A common mistake that absolutely needs to be avoided is mixing amountInDollar and amountInCent. In Scala it would be a good idea to use different types to make this distinction, so that such errors can be avoided at compile time. In any case it is very important to avoid such numeric types as
int of Java that have a weird and hardly controllable overflow behavior where adding positive numbers can end up negative. How absurd, modular arithmetic is for sure not what we want for our money, it is a little bit too socialistic. 😉 Estimations about the upper bound of money amounts of persons and companies and other organizations are problematic, because there can be inflation and there can be some accumulation of money in somebody’s accounts… Even though databases tend to force us to such assumption, but we can make them really huge. So some languages might end up using something like BigInteger or BigNum or BigInt. Unfortunately Java shows one of its insufficiencies here, which makes quite ugly to use for financial applications, because calculations like for BigInteger appear like this: . The disadvantage is that the formula cannot be seen at one glance, which leads to errors. In principal this problem can be solved using a preprocessor for Java. Maybe a library doing some kind of RPN-notation would possible, writing code like this:
Calculation calc = new Calculation(); calc.push(b) calc.push(c) calc.push(d) calc.add() calc.multiply() a = calc.top()
Those who still know old HP calculators (like HP 25 and HP 67 😉 in the good old days) or Forth might like this, but for most of us this is not really cutting it.
Common and useful is actually the usage of some decimal fixed point type. In Java this is BigDecimal, in Ruby it is LongDecimal.
And example in Ruby:
> sudo gem install long-decimal Successfully installed long-decimal-1.00.01 1 gem installed .... > irb irb(main):001:0> require "long-decimal" => true irb(main):002:0> x = LongDecimal("3.23") => LongDecimal(323, 2) irb(main):003:0> y = LongDecimal("7.68") => LongDecimal(768, 2) irb(main):004:0> z = LongDecimal("3.9291") => LongDecimal(39291, 4) irb(main):005:0> x+y => LongDecimal(1091, 2) irb(main):006:0> (x+y).to_s => "10.91" irb(main):007:0> x+y*z => LongDecimal(33405488, 6) irb(main):008:0> (x+y*z).to_s => "33.405488" irb(main):009:0>
It is interesting to see that the number of digits remains the same under addition and subtraction if both sides have the same number of digits. But the longer number of digits wins otherwise. During multiplication, division and off course during more complex operations many decimal places can become necessary. It becomes important to do rounding and to do it right and in a controlled way. LongDecimal supports the following rounding modes:
- Round away from 0.
- Round towards 0.
- Round to more positive, less negative numbers.
- Round to more negative, less positive numbers.
- Round the middle and from above up (away from 0), everything below down (towards 0).
- Round the middle and from above down (towards 0), everything below up (away from 0).
- Round from the middle onward towards infinity, otherwise towards negative infinity.
- Round up to and including the middle towards negative infinity, otherwise towards infinity.
- Round the middle in such a way that the last digit becomes even.
- Round the middle in such a way that the last digit becomes odd (will be added to long-decimal in next release).
- Do not round, just discard trailing 0. If that does not work, raise an exception.
Which of these to use should be decided with domain knowledge in mind. The above example could be continued as follows:
irb(main):035:0> t=(x+y*z) => LongDecimal(33405488, 6) irb(main):036:0> irb(main):037:0* t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_UP).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):038:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_DOWN).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):039:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_CEILING).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):040:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_FLOOR).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):041:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_UP).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):042:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_DOWN).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):043:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_CEILING).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):044:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_FLOOR).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):045:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_EVEN).to_s => "33.41" irb(main):046:0> t.round_to_scale(2, LongDecimal::ROUND_UNNECESSARY).to_s ArgumentError: mode ROUND_UNNECESSARY not applicable, remainder 5488 is not zero from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/long-decimal-1.00.01/lib/long-decimal.rb:507:in `round_to_scale_helper' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/long-decimal-1.00.01/lib/long-decimal.rb:858:in `round_to_scale' from (irb):46 from /usr/local/bin/irb:12:in `
A specialty is that some countries do not use the coins with one of the smallest unit, like 1 cent in the US. In Switzerland the smallest common coin is 5 Rp (5 cent=0.05 CHF). It might be possible to make the bank do a transfer for amounts not ending in 0 or 5, but usually invoices apply this kind of rounding and avoid such exact amounts that could not possibly be paid in cash. This can be dealt with by multiplying the amount by 20, rounding it to 0 digits after the decimal point and divide it by 20 and round the result to 2 digits after the point. In Ruby there is a better way using an advanced feature of LongDecimal called remainder rounding (using the method round_to_allowed_remainders(…) ). Assuming we want to round a number with decimal places in such a way that, belongs to one of the residue classes or . In this case we are just talking about the last digit, but the mechanism has been implemented in a more general way allowing any set of allowed residues and even a base other than 10. If 0 is not in the set of allowed residues, it may be unclear how 0 should be rounded and this needs to be actually defined with a parameter. For common practical uses the last digit of 0 is allowed, so things work out of the box:
irb(main):003:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_UP).to_s => "33.45" irb(main):005:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_DOWN).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):006:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_CEILING).to_s => "33.45" irb(main):007:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_FLOOR).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):008:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_UP).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):009:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_DOWN).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):010:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_CEILING).to_s => "33.40" irb(main):011:0> t.round_to_allowed_remainders(2, [0, 5], 10, LongDecimal::ROUND_HALF_FLOOR).to_s => "33.40"
In an finance application the rounding methods should probably be defined for each currency, possible using one formula and some currency specific parameters.
LongDecimal can do even more than that. It is possible to calculate logarithms, exponential functions, square root, cube root all to a desired number of decimal places. The algorithms have been tuned for speed without sacrificing precision.


SHARING OUR GARDENING EXPERTISE:
Lily Beetles: These pests attack lilies. They are bright red in colour and are around 8mm long. Their orangey-brown excrement coated larvae devour both foliage and flowers.
Lily beetles and their larvae can be removed from plants by hand.
Gladioulus Thrips: These insects attack Gladioli and are around 2mm long with narrow bodies. They are black or the pale yellow and hide in flower buds or under leaf bases. Their presence is indicated by mottled, white/discoloured foliage and white flecks on petals.
These pests can be controlled by spraying the plants with a systemic insecticide, thiacloprid or acetamiprid.
Viruses: Viruses affect cannas, dahlias and gladioli, causing reduced vigour, chlorosis, necrosis and malformations. Destroy any affected plants and wash your hands and tools to limit the chance of the virus spreading.
Lily disease: This disease is a fungal leaf blight. Ellipical, water-soaked leaf spots may spread to stems and flowers. Plant these on a well-drained site to help ventilation. Cut off any spotted leaves you find.
Grey mould: This is fairly common in wet seasons. Grey, fuzzy fungal growth appears on stems and flowers. Remove diseased plants and plant debris and avoid overcrowding the plants.
Smuts: These can cause problems for dahlias. Leaf spots with yellow margins appear. Dispose of any diseased foliage and remove leaves before storing tubers.
Having Pests and Diseases in your garden is the last thing you want so we hope the information provide in this article is helpful. If you need more information on any pests or disease that are affecting your garden, or on how to deal with them then please contact us on: –


In finance, trade shares are a cornerstone of building wealth. However, the key to successful share investments lies in understanding the fundamental value of the companies in which you invest. Fundamental analysis is the compass that guides investors towards uncovering hidden value and making informed decisions.
The Foundation of Fundamental Analysis
Fundamental analysis is a meticulous approach to evaluating a company’s financial health and performance. It dives deep into the company’s financial statements, management team, industry dynamics, and economic factors that can impact its future prospects.
This analysis is not about short-term price fluctuations or market sentiment but rather about determining the intrinsic value of a company’s shares. In other words, it’s about understanding if a company is currently undervalued or overvalued based on its fundamentals.
Evaluating Financial Statements
The cornerstone of fundamental analysis is the examination of a company’s financial statements. These documents offer a window into a company’s income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. They provide critical insights into a company’s profitability, liquidity, and overall stability.
Investors typically focus on three key financial statements:
- Income Statement: This statement provides an overview of a company’s revenues and expenses. It helps investors assess a company’s profitability and growth potential.
- Balance Sheet: The balance sheet presents a snapshot of a company’s financial position at a specific point in time. It outlines assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity, enabling investors to gauge a company’s financial health.
- Cash Flow Statement: Understanding a company’s cash flow is crucial. It reveals how money flows in and out of the business, which can impact its ability to invest in growth opportunities or manage debt.
Analysing Key Financial Ratios
Ratios are powerful tools in fundamental analysis. They allow investors to compare a company’s metrics to industry standards, historical data, or competitors. Some key financial ratios include:
- Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio: This ratio assesses the relationship between a company’s present stock price and its earnings per share (EPS). A reduced P/E ratio could suggest that the stock is undervalued.
- Price-to-Book (P/B) Ratio: The P/B ratio relates a company’s market capitalisation to its book value. A low P/B ratio can suggest that a company’s shares are undervalued.
- Debt-to-Equity Ratio: This ratio measures a company’s leverage by comparing its debt to shareholders’ equity. A lower debt-to-equity ratio can indicate a stronger financial position.
- Return on Equity (ROE): ROE evaluates a company’s profitability by measuring its ability to generate a return on shareholders’ equity. A higher ROE may indicate a well-managed and profitable company.
Digging into Management and Industry Analysis
Fundamental analysis goes beyond the numbers. It also involves evaluating the company’s management team and the industry in which it operates.
- Management Quality: A competent and experienced management team is essential for a company’s success. Investors assess the management’s track record, vision, and ability to execute strategies.
- Industry Analysis: Understanding the dynamics of the industry in which a company operates is vital. Investors take into account variables such as competition, market trends, and regulatory shifts that might influence the company’s future outlook.
Economic and Macroeconomic Factors
Economic conditions and macroeconomic factors play a significant role in fundamental analysis. Factors such as inflation rates, interest rates, and overall economic stability can impact a company’s performance. Investors need to stay informed about these external influences that may affect the company’s future profitability.
Fundamental analysis is a basic skill for any serious investor. By delving into a company’s financial statements, analysing key ratios, evaluating management and industry conditions, and considering economic factors, investors can uncover the true value of trade shares investments.
This strategy enables investors to make informed choices grounded in a company’s real value rather than relying solely on market sentiment. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to bear in mind that fundamental analysis is just a single component of the broader investment landscape. Combining it with other strategies and maintaining a long-term perspective can help investors unlock the full potential of their share investments.


This book and toy set is for ages preschool to second grade. Young children will like cuddling the star of the story, a black ant stuffed animal, while you read them the storybook "Little Black Ant On Park Street". Little Black Ant on Park Street welcomes you into a busy ant city beneath the ground with many rooms connected by little tunnels--a lot like your ant farm. The text reads as a beautifully written story that weaves in plenty of facts about the little black ant. Young readers will learn how there are different rooms underground, how ants wiggle their antennae to smell food, how squirting little drops of liquid provide a scent trail, and how the sharp jaws of an ant can slice off bits of caterpillar twenty times heavier than they are. Micro book is 32 pages. Smithsonian's Backyard is a world of wonder for children intrigued by the wildlife outside their windows. These entertaining stories have an educational message that answers many questions about the habits and habitat of the animals in their own backyards. Hardcover book is 6 x 4 inches and the toy is approximately 6 inches.


All children have worries and fears from time to time. Whether it's the monster in the closet, a test at school, or making the team at school, kids have things that make them anxious, just like adults. But sometimes anxiety in children crosses the line from normal everyday worries to a disorder that gets in the way of the things they need to do. It can even keep them from enjoying life as they should.
Childhood depression is a serious problem. Children and teens who have depression feel sad and blue, even hopeless. We all have times when we feel sad and blue. However, when a child feels this way for more than 2 weeks in a row, it becomes a medical problem. This workshop will address the relevant issues regarding anxiety and depression and provide the participants with a guide to understanding them individually.
- Participants will be able to recognize common signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety problems and how they might impact a child/adolescent’s functioning.
- Participants will become familiar with how to screen for suicidal thinking and behavior and be able to provide initial support.
- Participants will be able to understand evidence-based treatment or therapy strategies to treat depression and the most common anxiety disorders.
- Participants will be able to identify resources for parents, healthcare providers, school personnel and child welfare staff.
Instructor Bio: Dr. Matthew Wassom, PhD
Dr. Wassom is a Licensed Psychologist and graduate of The University of Kansas with a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology with a specialty in Health and Rehabilitation. Dr. Wassom completed a fellowship in child and pediatric psychology at Children’s Mercy-Kansas City and joined the medical staff at Children’s Mercy in 2009. He served as Clinical Director at Children’s Mercy within the Division of Gastroenterology and provided clinical services across a range of clinical areas in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Sciences. He has specialty experience in treating general behavioral pediatrics, elimination/toileting disorders, disruptive behavior disorders, anxiety disorders, depression and mood disorders, and stress related physical conditions. He has been involved in training and supervision for medical residents, developmental pediatrician fellows, and psychology fellows. Dr. Wassom has published numerous articles in professional journals and books and has been a presenter for regional and national conferences.
Photo courtesy of Katie's Way Manhattan.
Continuing education credit for this event is co-sponsored by Stepping Stones Child Advocacy Center and Via Christi Hospital - Manhattan. Continuing education (CE) credit is awarded at the completion of the workshop. No partial credit is available. Please have license number available at workshop sign-in.
Via Christi Hospital has approved this course offering for 2.0 contact hours applicable for RN or LPN re-licensure through the Kansas State Board of Nursing.
This course offering is approved by Stepping Stones Child Advocacy Center for 2.0 contact hours applicable for SW licensure through the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board.
Registration is required. Click here to register.
2000 Denison Ave
Lecture Hall Room 145
Manhattan, KS 66502
Google map and directions


Organic Soap Memo
June 2, 2008
President, Botanie Soap, Inc.
Re: Soap as an organic product in material and practice
Soap is the result of a chemical reaction between a triglyceride and an alkali base. Thetriglyceride can be any fat or oil, and the alkali base is usually either sodium hydroxide (used for bar soaps) or potassium hydroxide (used for liquid soaps). In the reaction, called saponification, the original components are both completely transformed. This reaction differs from the manufacture of other skin care products, which tend to be mixtures or emulsions.
In a mixture or emulsion, the starting materials retain their original form. They are simply blended and/or held together by an emulsifying agent. A lotion made from the emulsion of water and organic oils still contains the organic oils in their original forms, and the only factors influencing whether or not it qualifies as organic are the organic percentages, by weight, of the original ingredients and whether or not the lotion contains any ingredients that can be connected to the NOP’s list of prohibited materials and processes.
There is no soap without the saponification reaction. But since the very reaction that creates organic soap* chemically transforms the original, organic agricultural products into something other, we need to answer the question of whether, since the final soap product does not contain actual, original organic content, soap made from organic oils should be allowed to qualify as an organic product. In other words, is it truly organic? We can certainly say that organic soap has been made with organic ingredients, but does this catch the spirit and meaning of “organic?”
Organic certification seeks to provide a standard for consumer confidence. In the case of soap, the consumers’ question is not whether saponification, which is the only way to have soap, significantly alters the molecular structure of the original certified organic ingredients, but whether or not an overwhelming majority of the ingredients have organic origins, whether or not the production of these ingredients is in accord with clean agricultural practices, whether or not the final product is safe and even healthy for them, and whether or not the product is free of known or suspected irritants and carcinogens, petroleum products, and, in most cases, animal products. The true starting point to this question is whether the manufacture of soap from organic oils is true in its essence; that is, can soap making keep in spirit with the meaning and purpose of organic agriculture and organic consumer products?
One approach to making this determination involves comparing soap to other organic products whose manufacture includes transformation, such as cheese. Although several insightful examples may be found for this comparison, none will be strictly analogous, and the question won’t be answered without making vague leaps.
Instead, a defining line can be drawn in the sand, a line based on the phrase “minimally processed” found in the NOP’s literature. Unfortunately, “minimally processed” is an ambiguous term implying a different standard for each industry or product type. For example, the minimal processing required for cold-pressed organic olive oil will be very different than the minimal processing of organic milk that has been pasteurized, homogenized, and fortified with vitamins A and D. However, within a given product family, “minimally processed” can be defined and used as a standard of comparison for products within that family.
For soaps, the following guidelines might form the basis for defining what “minimally processed” organic soap means and might serve as the line in the sand for separating organic soap from the others. To avoid complication, these standards do not address the addition of color or fragrance which, of course, should be derived solely from plant origin, and they do not address the use of accepted additives for preservation.
- All triglycerides used in saponification should be organic vegetable oils
- No organic soap should be made with processed animal fats or any petroleum products.
- No blending of organic and non-organic base oils should occur (even if this blending still keeps the total organic content of the ingredients above 70%). This is in keeping with the NOP’s policy that organic ingredients must be used when they are available rather than their non-organic counterparts, and it assures that soap manufacturing embraces the purity and wholesomeness that underlie the term organic.
- Organic soap should be made from whole, organic oils and not from pre-split fatty acids, even if they were processed from organic origins. This standard favors the cold-process, semi-boil, and full-boil production methods and calls into question some continuous saponification processes.
- Sodium hydroxide should be the only synthetic, non-agricultural ingredient.
- The salting out (removal) of glycerin is an unnecessary processing step that demeans the wholeness of the original organic ingredients. In addition to adding an unneeded, mechanical processing step to the soap making process, the removal of glycerin is a step that actually reduces the percentage of final product with organic origins.
With these six, simple guidelines, soap manufacturing fits within the “spirit of organic” in both its ingredients and processes. Most importantly, these guidelines keep soap manufacturing within the understanding and grasp of the average consumer, instilling confidence in him/her that the soap product on the shelf whose packaging includes the word “organic” was minimally processed and produced with organic ingredients.
* Because of the minimum quantity of sodium or potassium hydroxide required for saponification, soap made from organic oils cannot ever reach the 95% mark to qualify as “organic” under the NOP’s guidelines, and it will always fall into the “made with organic…” category. For purposes of this memo, I will use the term “organic soap” to refer to a soap product whose original ingredients have an organic content of at least 70% of the total ingredients to distinguish this type of soap from soap made from animal fat or non-organicvegetable oils.


UK slaughterings and production
This survey shows the number of cattle, sheep and pig slaughtered in the UK each month. It also gives an indication of the amount of beef and lamb meat produced.
This survey is collected and published by Defra each month, with the slaughter numbers available at UK level as well as the sub regions of Great Britain, England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The figures are subject to revision.
More details can be found on Defra's website.


David Stuart (fur trader)
In the official Fort Astoria logbook maintained by station manager Duncan McDougall, Stuart was recorded in May 1811 as suffering overexertion and potentially a hernia from clearing timber. In the same month, the Chinookans reported sighting a merchant vessel near their settlements on the coast. Rather than lose the beaver skins to rival Maritime fur traders, McDougall sent Stuart on the 22nd of May to Comcomly's village across the Columbia River. The reported vessel never actually appeared after its existence was announced by Chinookan traders. This episode has been suggested by historian Robert F. Jones to have been a Chinookan "stratagem" to "secure better prices, perhaps for inferior skins." Stuart returned the following day with only 20 beaver pelts.
Throughout June, Stuart and Gabriel Franchère cleared, planted and maintained a garden to grow an amount of fresh produce. In the same month, David was also appointed to oversee two canoes of men to go gather large stockpiles of tree bark. This material was utilised by the fur traders to create roofing and siding for their dwellings and related buildings. He departed with four French-Canadians and four Hawaiian Kanakas near the end of June from Astoria to Cape Disappointment. The party was taken there by Coalpo on a canoe the Clatsop noble owned. While there he reviewed the general terrain and fur bearing animal populations.
In July 1811, Stuart was given orders to open a second trade post for the PFC. The intelligence for a suitable location came from Kaúxuma Núpika, a Two-Spirit from the Ktunaxa people. Kaúxuma recommended that the station be opened near the confluence of the Columbia and "the Okannaakken River." The personnel assigned to join Stuart were eight men, including Alexander Ross, François Benjamin Pillet, Ovide de Montigny, and Naukane. The party left on the 21st, following the course of the Columbia River in the company of David Thompson and his party of NWC men. Thompson had previously came down the Columbia to Fort Astoria on the 15th of July from New Caledonia.
A French-Canadian assigned to the interior journey under Stuart back arrived at Fort Astoria in early October. He brought back news of the successful opening of Fort Okanogan and that the Syilx peoples were reportedly favorable to developing commercial ties with the PFC. However, in tours of the hinterlands trade goods of the NWC were found among the local inhabitants near Fort Okanogan's eventual location.
On 18 January 1812, Stuart arrived at Fort Astoria with Étienne Lucier, Robert McClellan, John Reed and seven other men. McClellan, Reed and Lucier were members of the overland expedition that had traveled overland from Fort Mackinac (in the modern state of Michigan) under W. Price Hunt's authority. The assembled men told McDougall of the remaining members of the expedition and their privations crossing the continent. Stuart's party had to leave Hunt and the majority of the PFC laborers in the Snake River basin to procure supplies and aid at Astoria. In the meantime Alexander Ross was left alone at Fort Okanogan, wintering among the Syilx. The addition of fifty or more men was feared by McDougall to potentially wreck the already uncertain Astorian food stockpiles. Hunt, about thirty men, Marie Aioe Dorio and her two children reached Fort Astoria on 15 February 1812.
- McDougall, Duncan (1999), Jones, Robert F. (ed.), Annals of Astoria: The Headquarters Log of the Pacific Fur Company on the Columbia River, 1811-1813, New York City: Fordham University Press
- Ross, Alexander (1849), Adventures of the first settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Watson, Bruce M. (2010), Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858, Okanagan: The Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice of the University of British Columbia
|This Oregonian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|


Scientists have discovered how the bacterial enzyme is opposed to the body's fight against infection.
Researchers from the University of Illinois, USA and the UK are learning how infectious microbes survive the attack of the immune system. New strategies are needed to combat the virus, which are currently resistant to treatment.
The work, published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, dedicated to the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which is half of humanity. She has the ability to infect almost the whole body. The pathogenic form it is called Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin (MRSA).
The body uses different methods to fight bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus. "The immune system kills the germs that cause infection - said Professor of Microbiology Thomas Kehl-Fie, who led the research with Kevin Waldron of the University of Newcastle -. However, pathogens have developed ways to subvert the immune response."
Staphylococcus aureus can overcome one of the main defenses, blocking obtain nutrients. Especially it relates to a bacterial enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD). Unlike other closely related species in Staphylococcus aureus, two SOD enzyme. The team of scientists has discovered that the second SOD increases its ability to resist against the immune system that causes the disease.
Previously it was believed that the SOD are of two kinds: those that required for the operation of manganese, and those that use iron.
The research team identified whether the second enzyme SOD staphylococcal of iron dependent. They found that the enzyme is able to use any metal. Although the existence of SOD, can use iron and manganese, opened a decade ago, such an existence was considered irrelevant to real biological systems. Conclusions of scientists prove the opposite, demonstrating that SOD promote infection.
Scientists have discovered that if the body lacks the manganese, manganese instead of Staphylococcus aureus activates iron. "SOD helps the bacteria to escape from immune defenses - said Waldron -. Such enzymes are present in other pathogenic bacteria This discovery is important for the future of antibacterial treatments.."
Viruses that are resistant to antibiotics, are more difficult to treat. This encourages health care organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, the search for new approaches to combat the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics.


Dr Martin Luther DTh
Doctor of Theology (from 1512)
Died aged c. 63
Martin Luther, OSA (/ˈluːθər/; German: [ˈmaʁtiːn ˈlʊtɐ]; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German professor of theology, priest, author, composer, Augustinian monk, and a seminal figure in the Reformation. Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, he disputed the view on indulgences. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Holy Roman Emperor. Luther taught that salvation and, consequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds but are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge, and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical (German: evangelisch) as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ. His translation of the Bible into the German vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible. His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches. His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry. In two of his later works, Luther expressed antagonistic, violent views towards Jews and called for the burnings of their synagogues and their deaths. His rhetoric was not directed at Jews alone but also towards Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, and nontrinitarian Christians. Luther died in 1546 with Pope Leo X's excommunication still in effect.DbPedia
Commemorated on 1 plaque
Hier im Karmeliterkloster bei St. Anna wohnte Dr. Martin Luther vom 7. bis 20. Okt. 1518 während seiner verhandlungen mit dem Päpstlichen legaten cajetan.
St.-Anna-Kirche, Augsburg, Germany where they lived (1518)


THIS week the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that they had manufactured 1 million Raspberry Pi computers in the UK.
In an age when the very thought of manufacturing anything outside of China would be considered foolhardy, the supply of these low cost computing devices from a factory in South Wales showed that it is still possible to manufacture technology in a developed western nation, albeit a fairly basic no-frills device.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation was established by a group of academics at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory who were concerned with the general decline in numbers of students applying to computer science.
They felt that they could tackle this by providing a means for teachers at primary and secondary school to introduce programming and computing skills training. As such the Raspberry Pi was developed as a very cheap and expandable computing device that could plug into a TV.
The Raspberry Pi is runs a version of the Linux operating system which provides support for developer tools and other software. Children in particular were to interact with a development environment called Scratch which was designed by the MIT Media Lab as a creative environment that would allow children in particular to learn basic programming skills. In early 2013, Google got behind this idea and funded the supply of 15,000 Pis to schools in the UK.
Despite the educational ideal, the majority of the 1.75 million Pis sold have gone to middle-aged hobbyists who have put the devices to a plethora of uses. These range from media players to a re-enactment of Felix Baumgarten's skydiving world record using a Raspberry Pi equiped teddy bear called Babbage who made a leap from 39,000 meters, transmitting data and video along the way.
This is not the first time someone has tried to create a low cost computer to try to improve computing literacy. In the early 1980's the BBC teamed with the Acorn Computer company to create a personal computer called the BBC Micro.
Although popular with schools in the UK (80% of schools owned one), they were still relatively expensive at the time and their integration into the curriculum was limited by cost and more importantly by lack of skills required to teach using them.
Eventually the Acorn computers were eclipsed by PCs running Microsoft's DOS and Windows but the development gave rise to the ARM processors that power most smartphones today.
Although on the surface, the encouragement of computer science skills in school children may be seen as a laudable goal, one would have to ask whether these efforts are likely to succeed. More importantly, is the declining number of students taking courses in computer science simply an indicator that subject's time has passed?
This question has been the source of much debate in the IT industry, with people arguing that skills required for successful developers are not the highly technical and theoretical ones that come from a degree in computer science but those of problem solving, collaboration and communication.
Another problem with any sort of degree is that the technologies used by industry change so rapidly that anything taught at university has a very short shelf-life, making continuous self-training necessary in any case.
Others would argue that programming is a craft which requires little in the way of more formal training. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were both self-taught programmers who saw little value in completing their degrees.
In any event, it is unlikely that the Raspberry Pi will replace the home PC or tablets that are rapidly becoming their mobile replacement. The Pi will always struggle to match the simplicity and richness of a PC, iPad or Android tablet's interface and access to millions of apps. Teachers are only now coming to grips with the ubiquity of laptops and tablets in the class and are unlikely to invest even more time on learning a new environment and technology.
While the manufacture of a million Raspberry Pis in the UK is an achievement worth marking, it is unlikely to make the Chinese technology manufacturers feel threatened in any way.
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عنوان مقاله [English]
The Causal Model of Factors Affecting of the
(The Studied Sample: Domestic Tourists in Fars)
1*Seif, M. H.; 2Rastegar, A.; 3Talebi, S.; 4Karimi Fard,T.; 5Tajvaran, M.
1 Assoc. Profe. Department of Educational Sciences, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assoc. Profe. Department of Educational Sciences, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
3 Assoc. Profe. Department of Educational Sciences, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
4 M.A in Environmental Education, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
5 M.A in Educational Management, Iran
(Received: 2017/05/19; Accepted: 2018/10/02)
Today, tourism is regarded as a kind of environmental consumption. Thus, it can be said that tourists play important roles in the process of either development of sustainable tourism and or destruction of it. The theoretical model used in the research is a combination of value-belief-norm Theories (VBN), New Ecological Paradigm Theory (NEP), and Norm Activation Thory (NAT). The purpose of this research is sociological analyzing of tourists behavior in Fars. The present study was carried out using a survey method and the statistical population is all tourists who visited Fars province in 2017. The Cochran formula has been used to determine the sample size and 266 questionnaires were completed with using of random convenience sampling method by the tourists. Having collected the required data by utilizing questionnaire technich, all data were processed by using SPSS software and analyzed by applying descriptive as well as inferential statistics. Results showed that the value of humanitarian and selfish, world attitude environmental and place involvement variables, have indirect or indirect positive effect on the environmentalist behaviors of domestic tourists, through the mediation of environmental awareness, the ascription of responsibility and personal norms variables. As regards that humans are considered as the main contributor to environmental problems, tourists should be encouraged to take responsive environmental behaviors.
Keywords: The value of humanitarian and selfish, World attitude environmental, Place involvement, Personal Norm, The environmentalist behaviors.
*Corresponding author: Email: firstname.lastname@example.org


- Utah Beach
Infobox Military Conflict
Operation Overlord, Battle of Normandy
Amphibious DD tanksof the 70th Tank Battalionlanding on Utah Beach.
6 June, 1944
Pouppeville, La Madeleine, in France
Raymond O. Barton
Theodore Roosevelt Jr
Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben
Utah Beach was the codename for one of the Allied landing beaches during the
D-Day invasion of Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord on 6 June, 1944. Utah was added to the invasion plan toward the end of the planning stages, when more landing craftbecame available.
Despite being substantially off course, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division landed there with relatively little resistance, in contrast to
Omaha Beachwhere the fighting was fierce.
Utah beach, about 3 miles (5 km) long, was the westernmost of the five landing beaches, located between
Pouppevilleand the village of "La Madeleine" [ Citation
last = Ambrose
first = Stephen E.
title = D-Day
place = New York
publisher = Simon & Schuster
year = 1994
edition = First
isbn = 0-684-80137-X] , which became the right flank anchor of the allied offensive along the
left bankof the Douve river estuary. [Per googlemaps and basic reasoning]
Plan of attack
The landing was planned in four waves. The first consisted of 20
Higgins boats or LCVPs, each carrying a 30-man assault team from the 8th Infantry Regiment. The 10 craft on the right were to land on Tare Green Beach, opposite the strong point at les Dunes de Varreville. The 10 craft on the left were intended for Uncle Red Beach, 1,000 yards (900 m) farther south. The entire operation was timed against the touchdown of this first assault wave, which was scheduled to take place at 06:30 am. Eight LCTs (or Landing Craft, Tanks), each carrying four amphibious DD Tanks, were scheduled to land at the same time or as soon thereafter as possible.
The second wave consisted of another 32 Higgins boats with additional troops of the two assault battalions, some combat engineers, and also eight naval demolition teams that were to clear the beach of underwater obstacles.
The third wave, timed for H plus 15 minutes, contained eight more Higginses with dozer tanks.
It was followed within 2 minutes by the fourth wave, mainly detachments of the 237th and 299th Engineer Combat Battalions, to clear the beaches between high- and low-water marks.
Two hours before the main invasion force, a raiding party, armed only with knives, swam ashore at
Îles Saint-Marcouf, thought to be a German observation post. It was unoccupied.
The first wave arrived at the line of departure on time and all 20 craft were dispatched abreast. Support craft to the rear were firing machine guns, possibly with the hope of exploding mines. When the LCVPs were 300-400 yards (270-360 metres) from the beach, the assault company commanders fired special smoke projectors to signal the lifting of naval support craft fire. Almost exactly at
H Hourthe assault craft lowered their ramps and 600 men waded into waist-deep water for the last 100 or more yards to the beach. The actual touchdown on the beach was therefore a few minutes late, but the delay was negligible and had no effect on the phasing of the succeeding waves. Enemy artilleryhad fired a few air bursts at sea, but otherwise there was no opposition at H Hour.
The first troops to reach shore were from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry. The 1st Battalion landed a few minutes later. Both came ashore considerably south of the designated beaches. The 2nd Battalion should have hit Uncle Red Beach opposite Exit 3. The 1st Battalion was supposed to land directly opposite the strong point at les Dunes de Varreville. The landings, however, were made astride Exit 2 about 2,000 yards (1,800 metres) south.
This error was potentially very serious, for it could have caused great confusion. But, in fact, it did not. The original plans, in which each assault section had a specific mission, could not be carried out in detail, of course.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., assistant commander of the 4th Division, had requested several times, against his commander's best judgement, to go in the first wave and personally lead the initial attack on the beach strong points. His written request was finally approved by Gen. Barton, 4th Division Commanding General.
Roosevelt was the only general to land with the initial seaborne assault wave on D-Day and, at 57, he was the oldest soldier to land. When Roosevelt realized the landing craft had drifted south with the current and smoke more than a mile from their objective—and that the first wave was a mile off course—he personally made a reconnaissance of the area immediately to the rear of the beach to locate the causeways which were to be used for the advance inland. He then returned to the point of landing, contacted the commanders of the two battalions (Lt. Cols.
Conrad C. Simmonsand Carlton O. MacNeely), and coordinated the attack. Roosevelt's famous quote was, "We’ll start the war from here!" These impromptu plans worked successfully and with little confusion. With artillery landing close by, each followup regiment was personally welcomed on the beach by a cool, calm and collected Roosevelt, who inspired all by humor and confidence. He pointed almost every regiment to its changed objectives. For his actions on Utah beach, Roosevelt was later awarded the Medal of Honor.
The German forces responsible for the defense of the beach were elements of the 709th Infantry Division, commanded by Generalleutnant
Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, and the 352nd Infantry Division, commanded by Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss.
By the end of D-Day, some 23,250 troops had safely landed on the beach, along with 1,700 vehicles. Only about 200 casualties were recorded during the landings. Several factors contributed to the success at Utah compared to the bloody battle at nearby Omaha:
* Fewer German fortifications: The defense of the area was largely based on flooding the coastal plain behind the beaches, and there were fewer bunkers.
* Effective pre-invasion bombardment: Many of the known large bunkers, such as the coastal battery near
Saint-Martin-de-Varreville, were destroyed from the air prior to D-Day. B-26 Marauder medium bombers of the U.S. Ninth Air Force, flying below 5,000 feet (1,500 m), provided close air supportfor the assaulting forces.
DD tanks: Nearly all of these swimming tanks made the beach because they were launched half as far out as at Omaha and were able to steer into the current more effectively to avoid swamping in the rough seas.
* Mis-landings: Because most of the invasion force landed opposite Exit 2, this one was the most used; other exits were more heavily fortified.
* Paratroopers: The most significant difference was the 13,000 men from the
101st Airborne Divisionand the 82nd Airborne Division already fighting inland. For 5 hours before the first Utah landings, the paratroopers (and glider forces) had been fighting their way out toward the beach, clearing the enemy from positions along the exits. The paratroopers also greatly confused the enemy and prevented any significant counterattack to the landing area.
The true cost of Utah Beach is reflected in the heavy airborne casualties: The 101st alone lost about 40% of its forces on D-Day. Also, the 1,000 casualties during
Exercise Tiger, a practice run for the Utah assault, also could be considered part of the price for D-Day.
Notable people on Utah Beach
Philip Hart- U.S. senator
Elliot Richardson- Nixon-era politician, medical officer in the 4th wave ashore
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.- 4th ID general, landed in the 1st wave
J. D. Salinger- U.S. author
James Van Fleet- 4th ID colonel
Hugh Nibley- Celebrated Mormon scholar
Utah beach song
In June 1994, the town of Carentan (Normandy), near Sainte-Mère-Eglise, produced an important show to commemorate its liberation by the 101st airborne forces in June 1944. This song, written by Daniel Bourdelès, is extracted from this show.
Lace waves on its bared back
the beach is soft and hurtless
pulling on it the sea rollers
as we ride up a blanket
They won't keep cold our memories
kings can born and die in the future
White balls are bouncing lights
pushed by the children laughs
These are immensely songs of peace
in this ambush world
Utah Beach colored it is almost beautiful
even with its all on edge pain
The old requiem long shivers
always undulate on the beach
Seaweed make chrysanthemum dreams
on the shell marble
Some ladies go on a pilgrimage
between Sainte-Mère-Eglise and clouds
Original French song written by Daniel Bourdelès in the CD "La mémoire du ciel".
*Much of this text is taken from the official US Military History " [http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/BOOKS/WWII/utah/utah.htm Utah Beach to Cherbourg] ", written by Roland G. Ruppenthal. This work is in the public domain.
short filmentitled "A Soldier's War", tells the story of a fictional squad that lands on Utah Beach and moves inland to link up with the 101st Airborne Division. The film reflects more on the psychological and personal effects of war, rather than on action sequences.
* [http://www.americandday.org "American D-Day: Omaha Beach, Utah Beach & Pointe du Hoc"]
* [http://www.abmc.gov/memorials/memorials/ut.php Utah Beach American Memorial] on the
American Battle Monuments Commissionweb site
* [http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/utah/en_index.php D-Day : Etat des Lieux : Utah Beach]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
Utah-Beach — Chars amphibies sur la plage d Utah Beach le 6 juin 1944. Informations générales Date 6 juin 1944 Lieu Pouppeville … Wikipédia en Français
Utah Beach — Utah Beach was one of the two main landing sites of U.S. forces in the Normandy landings during D Day on 6 June 1944. It was situated between Pouppeville and La Madeleine in northern France. The landing of 23,000 men was one of the most… … Historical Dictionary of the Roosevelt–Truman Era
Utah Beach — 49°25′05″N 1°10′35″O / 49.41806, 1.17639 … Wikipédia en Français
Utah Beach — Der Landungsplan für Utah Beach Utah Beach war bei der Landung der Alliierten in der Normandie im Zweiten Weltkrieg der Deckname für einen französischen Küstenabschnitt von knapp fünf Kilometern Länge zwischen Pouppeville und La Madeleine am Fuß… … Deutsch Wikipedia
Utah Beach — ▪ World War II Introduction the westernmost beach of the five landing areas of the Normandy Invasion of World War II. It was assaulted on June 6, 1944 (D Day of the invasion), by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and was taken with … Universalium
Utah Beach — … Useful english dictionary
Utah (disambiguation) — Utah is a state in the United States.It may also refer to:;Person *Utah Phillips, a folk singer and storyteller;Sports teams *Utah Grizzlies, ECHL hockey team *Utah Jazz, NBA basketball team *Utah Stars, ABA basketball team *Utah Utes, athletics… … Wikipedia
Utah — (Details) (Details) … Deutsch Wikipedia
Utah Democratic Party — Chairman Jim Dabakis Jim Judd, Vice Chair Senate leader Ross I. Romero House leader David Litvack Headquarters 825 N 300 W, Suite … Wikipedia
Utah Grizzlies — Gründung 1994 Auflösung 2005 Geschichte Denver Grizzlies 1994 – 1995 Utah Grizzlie … Deutsch Wikipedia


DURHAM – Duke University biomedical engineers are hoping a rapid testing platform originally designed to detect Ebola can also be used to catch antigens to COVID-19.
Now thanks to a $119,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the team is getting to put it to the test.
If it works, it could potentially shorten the wait time for coronavirus testing from days or hours down to just 30 minutes, said principal investigator Ashutosh Chilkoti, the Alan L. Kaganov Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke.
The diagnostic tool, called the D4 assay, is a self-contained, inkjet-printed test on a small glass slide. It can detect low levels of antigens, the protein markers of a disease, from a single drop of blood or from a throat or nose-swab sample.
“We’ve shown a proof-of-concept by detecting a biomarker of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19), and the next step would be to validate this with patient samples,” Chilkoti said. “Our test is designed to be truly point-of-care, and this pandemic is clearly a scenario when a portable, fast and cost-effective diagnostic would be most useful.”
The D4 assay tool has two types of antibodies printed on its surface: detection antibodies tagged with a fluorescent marker; and capture antibodies, which are primed to find the antigens specific to a pathogen.
When a sample is placed on the slide, the detection antibodies separate from the array and bind to the target antigen proteins in the sample. These antibody-antigen complexes then attach to the capture antibodies on the slide, which fluoresce in response to the connection.
A handheld scanner is then used to look for lights indicating the presence of the antigen.
Unlike other antigen diagnostic tests, Chilkoti said, the D4 assay is printed on a polymer brush coating, which prevents non-target proteins from attaching to the slide’s surface. This removes any “background noise” on the chip, making it easier to detect low levels of the target proteins.
Chilkoti said they hope to start testing the technology with COVID-19 patient samples in the next few months. It would be in collaboration with Chris Woods, a clinical investigator and professor of global health and medicine and Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at Durham’s VA Medical Center, across the street from Duke.
However, human testing depends on FDA approval.
“Challenging times also create opportunities,” Chilkoti said. “Given that this is a huge societal and public health challenge, those of us who create new technologies have a responsibility to act, and we’re grateful that the support from the National Science Foundation allows us address this challenge head-on.”
(C) N.C. Biotech Center
Original Article Source: WRAL TechWire


Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by garbonzo, Jun 4, 2013.
It produces change and nature selects the best adaption or traits.
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Actually I am not fond of the term Natural Selection. It suggests an act of selection, but the opposite is true. Natural selection is a passive function; those who survive to reproduce have been selected, by default, each in there own niche.
For an odd example of natural selection; The silvery salamander is an interesting species, all offspring are exact clones of the mother.
Darwin used the term in reference to artificial selection, after pointing out that crops and livestock had been modified over generations by the deliberate selection of breeding pairs. Artificial selection is one of the facts dismissed by Creationists, although it probably has forced their hand on admitting to microevolution.
As for imposing order in allele frequency, it's a variation about the mean, and the studies tend to show Gaussian distributed variation, which is the natural distribution for populations (hence "normal distribution"). It's slightly counterintuitive - at first blush the uniform distribution would seem to be the default, but with just a little analysis we find that this is not the case.
That being said, there is a kind of order that arises by the splitting of one Gaussian distribution into two populations centered about different means. It's just not meaningful to say which one is "more ordered" other than to say perhaps that one has a lower variance, but that's just a raw statistic, not anything meaningful as far as the ability to dominate a niche.
Another way of thinking of order from the standpoint of statistics is to note that the overall tendency is to continually diversify, and the tendency to perpetually open new niches can be seen as a sort of disorder.
The politics of this is that the Creationists have seized the concept of order, and wherever they see in come up in science, that attribute it to God. Usually this is in the context of entropy, which has become a linchpin of Creation Science. But for all of their forays into that subject they will never properly treat the topic of interest as a closed system, so the analysis is never even close to being valid.
Statistics is really the downfall of all Creationism anyway. The fact of randomness at all completely dismantles the notion of intelligent design. It was Darwin's reflections on the fact that the Darwin's finches were created after the Galapagos rose from the ocean floor which he knew would spell doom for the theory of special creation. It would require God to continually come back in and intervene in genetic selection, and in niche creation itself, just to perpetuate new instances of not-so-special creation. After all, for what purpose would 14 species of Darwin's finches have been placed on remote islands unreachable by early humans? Just so Darwin could come along later and cause the schools to eventually have to teach the kids that God may not have intended things to be the way they are?
Long before Einstein would wistfully opine that God does not play dice, Darwin had already shown that there was a huge casino out there, and business was booming.
Thank you for that explanation.
True, but in view of the fact that some 90% of all species have disappeared, perhaps this "complexity" (variety) is what allows some species to consistently remain the survivor and assure offspring.
You're right about the high rates of extinction. Some estimates place it around 99%. It's one of those things that's impossible to nail down with certainty since there's no accounting for most soft-body organisms in the fossil record.
Variation is the life of evolutionary success, that's for sure, too. It's really remarkable that we can toss this idea around - is it more or less orderly if the mean of one distribution shifts right or left, etc. - and it's a politically neutral question. It's just observation and a discussion about how we might categorize or classify one parameter or another. But allow the creationist into the discussion, and the polemic begins and objectivity loses its creative mind. It's literally insane to politicize science, but, at least where the battle lines have been drawn, there is almost no choice.
I can remember the first time I noticed that biology texts started reserving a page or two to explain the origins and history of the polemic to students. It's a distraction - something that belongs in a class on Government or Sociology. But now it's fully embedded in the life science classes even in small towns in Appalachia. It's really remarkable that Creationism has hung on as long as it has but of course world views tend to change on the scale of generations.
Back to statistics - it's really the understated piece of evolutionary biology during the polemic, but it's the huge component of "cause" and it's the whole basis for "binning" species. The only reason to declare that a particular fossil belongs in one bin or another - or whether a new bin has to be opened - has to do with the paleontologist's interpretation of the statistical evidence that's being studied.
Order vs complexity is also an interesting question. It forces us to decide what we mean. One way to look at this is that when the genome gets longer there is greater probability that the variance in allele frequency can widen. But there's a counterintutive side to this, too. For example, we might tend to think that later species would have longer genomes, or that even humans should have the longest genome since we think of ourselves as the pinnacle of nature, and in many ways the most complex. Yet that's not true of our genome - in fact an innocuous looking plant has the longest known genome and therefore the greatest "complexity" from the information science point of view. Of course this may change tomorrow due to some new animal found in a cave, or maybe a glob of slime found in some stagnant pond.
The other crazy thing about complexity, from the perspective of molecular genetics, is that humans are so much like a banana, or a yeast. It just goes to show, no matter how many ways the Creationists keep oversimplifying - that the truth is stranger than fiction. And all the more reason to keep them out of the classroom, I might add. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
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The creationists keep a stable of well-educated science students on hand for these encounters. 30 years ago we attended a debate between a real scientist and one of these so-called "creation scientists." These are the real evildoers within the movement. They actually know that they're preaching antiscience, but they've been so thoroughly co-opted by their churches that they lie in order to bring the uneducated masses into their religions.
The creationist very carefully picked a few samples from the fossil record that appeared to prove his point, without letting anyone see the thousands of others. His "peer reviews" were primarily undergraduate papers from unaccredited fourth-rate church-run universities like (now mercifully defunct) Ambassador College. And of course he was an expert communicator so he was very persuasive. As I've noted many times, real scientists tend to be absolutely shitty communicators so it's not too hard to shoot them down.
Fortunately this took place in West Los Angeles near UCLA, so he didn't win any converts.
Especially since the leaders of all major religious denominations (including the Pope himself) have said in public that the legends of religion are merely literary metaphors that, like all metaphors, are simplifications to help us understand reality. Jesuit universities have been teaching evolution for decades, and plate tectonics since it became a canonical scientific theory. They don't believe that it serves any useful purpose to teach intelligent adults that the world was created in six days with the continents in their current spots and the ecosystem just as it is today--except for the fact that there was no violence so sharks and tigers ate vegetables and flowers. I've always wondered how big their stomachs must have been in those days, in order to host a multi-chambered bacteria culture to digest all that starch, like cattle and elephants.
Isn't this something that is true overall, but not at the species level? Notwithstanding that one plant, don't animals as a kingdom have longer genomes than plants, which are longer than algae, which are longer than fungi, which are longer than archaea and bacteria? (I don't know which of those last two kingdoms is regarded as the more complex. I also don't know whether I have algae and fungi in the right sequence of complexity.)
In any case, that organism with the longest genome is, at least, a plant, not a bacteria!
Don't we share something like 40% of the DNA of a banana tree?
It's as though (like many people) they're misinterpreting Occam's Razor. They seem to take the popular misinterpretation, "The simplest solution is usually the right one," rather than the proper meaning, "Always test the simplest solution first, in order to save yourself a lot of time and effort in case it turns out to be right."
Since creationism is a major problem, it obviously should be discussed in schools. But it belongs in civics or sociology, not biology.
The main reason the simplest solution is best, is it allows more people to participate in the discussion. The most complex solution puts understanding in the hands of only a few, who then tell everyone what to think. This is good for those who wish to lord of the herd, but it removes the checks and balances of diverse options and tends to degenerate to dogma.
Water is important to evolution but its impact is not fully included in the complex dogma. Using the basic principles of evolution, water is the environment for natural selection at the atomic and molecular level.
If we had animals, evolving within the polar regions of the earth, these environmental conditions set constraints which will be reflected in the direction of the selection process. If they migrated there and evolved from that point we would expect warm fur will be selected. At the level of the molecules that need to evolve into life, these have to deal with the constraints set by water.
We do have animals evolving in the polar regions you dolt!
Continuing gibberish in the science secion of the forum...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I just wanted to say thanks Aqueous ID ...(ID is that Intelligent Design???)
So a longer genome could be a disadvantage as the cell has to reproduce so much baggage. Even though I think it might actually be an advantage, with having the genetic code for variety already written. It is just a matter of switching on a redundant bit on when needed rather than going through the problem of redesigning a protein.
But, Aqueous ID, did god not separate the waters from the firmament? You can't now say that everything is waterbased.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. There never was a separation of water from the firmament. The bible was wrong, not science.
The galaxies in the visible Universe are flying off in all directions, and so even hydrogen will become as scarce as hen's teeth in time to come.
The only galaxy (The Milky Way) remaining in our view will gradually be reduced to a single black hole and hence there will be nothing left at all other than the dark matter, and oodles of empty space.
What will become of the dark matter?
Change is not the same as increase in complexity, which is what you claimed.
True, a better way to say it would have been; evolutionary change "yields an increase in efficiency". This might even come from simplification rather than greater complexity
The below chart shows that older simpler organisms seem to have required more individual building instructions than later more complex organisms which managed to combine certain instruction into a simpler form (instead of 2+2+2+2+2, an instruction 2 (x5).
The most general way to look at the impact of water, on evolution ,can be seen connected to mixing water and oil. If we mix these and then add energy by shaking them, we can increase the system entropy/disorder to form an emulsion. This increase is disorder/entropy will not last, since this situation creates surface tension within water thereby adding potential energy to the water. This aqueous energy will need to lower causing the organics and water to phase out thereby lowering system entropy. Free energy is a combination of entropy (disorder) and enthalpy (chemical energy), with the chemical energy increase within the water, due to entropy, getting stronger when water interacts with carbon compounds.
As an example, RNA can form a single helix while the DNA only forms a double helix. This sense of higher order by evolving from RNA to DNA, is connected to the water. DNA has more reduced groups, compared to RNA, therefore exposure of the DNA, as a single helix, will increase the aqueous surface tension much more than RNA. Although this separation of the DNA is in the direction of higher entropy, the energy/enthalpy increase in the water, and the need to lower this energy, will force the double helix to form even if this lower entropy into order.
If you look at the direction of evolution, from RNA to DNA, this progression involved adding more reduction potential to the RNA template material; the RNA become more reduced in the sugar and bases. This evolutionary change follows the direction of adding more carbon based energy (reduction), relative to water, thereby forcing the hand of water; water will push this carbon into order. If we were to anticipate the future of the DNA, we would expect further reduction, such as methylation and maybe even ethylation, causing the DNA into even tighter order.
Interesting that you are looking at future evolution. If DNA gets too tight it might become too difficult for the enzymes to split in the replication process. Therefore multiplication stops and evolution stops.
Is this then the self limiting step.
"Best", in a "solution", has absolutely nothing to do with whether you like being told what to think.
Complex and difficult understandings may indeed degenerate to dogma - simplistic mistaking doesn't need to degenerate, to suffer that fate.
This is a good intuition, but I would explain the logical outcome differently. If we make the DNA double helix tight, by chemically reducing the DNA, to increase the surface tension with water, we can eliminate random reactions on the DNA, and make life more ordered.
As an analogy, say we had a door with the lock barely touching the strike plate (early loose DNA). This allows the door to easily open in many ways. One can lean on it, the wind can blow it open, other doors opening and closing can cause the internal pressure to push it open. This allows the cat to escape. But as we tightening up the lock (push of water) now it is not easy to open the door; involves keys. The future will require stronger enzyme keys, with the DNA being less vulnerable to chaos and chance. Change will involve locks and keys.
This lock and key arrangement is common to enzymes too. Enzymes would have been expected to be much less specific in the old days of evolution. An exact lock and key was the inevitable result, because of water, so there was less breaking and entering by chance. This is also due to the oil and water analogy.
Proteins have unique folds, which may not have always be the case in the old days. What is cool about the unique fold and therefore the specific lock and key, is once the door is open by the key, the potential in the local water increases because the innards are exposed and surface tension raises it ugly face again. This is like the spring on a door that slams the door, locked.
But how does the DNA adapt ?
Does the DNA become though less adaptable ? Is my question
DNA has no "surface tension with water". Chemically "reducing" DNA, whatever that means, does not make its standard first order double helix structure "tighter", and any higher order structures are mediated by proteins, not ambient water. An imaginary "tightening" of DNA coils would hypothetically interfere as much with repair mechanisms as anything else, rendering such events as radiation damage more rather than less effective at burdening the DNA with "random reactions".
"Tightening" the spiral in a stretch of DNA will not increase the "orderliness" of life, regardless of its effects.
The notion of "life" becoming "more ordered" is meaningless anyway.
As far as contributing to a discussion of the denial of evolution, one awaits the connection. It seems to have more promise than a discussion of planetary orbits in pre-Galilean terms, at least.
I can't comment any more for it is way out of my field.
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Outsider Scientists describes the transformative role played by “outsiders” in the growth of the modern life sciences. Biology, which occupies a special place between the exact and human sciences, has historically attracted many thinkers whose primary training was in other fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, linguistics, philosophy, history, anthropology, engineering, and even literature. These outsiders brought with them ideas and tools that were foreign to biology, but which, when applied to biological problems, helped to bring about dramatic, and often surprising, breakthroughs.
This volume brings together eighteen thought-provoking biographical essays of some of the most remarkable outsiders of the modern era, each written by an authority in the respective field. From Noam Chomsky using linguistics to answer questions about brain architecture, to Erwin Schrödinger contemplating DNA as a physicist would, to Drew Endy tinkering with Biobricks to create new forms of synthetic life, the outsiders featured here make clear just how much there is to gain from disrespecting conventional boundaries. Innovation, it turns out, often relies on importing new ideas from other fields. Without its outsiders, modern biology would hardly be recognizable.


Here we go again.
According to a paper by security expert Robert Moskowitz, the new WPA security scheme designed to protect 802.11 wireless networks has a fundamental flaw. The problem isnt with the scheme itself, but with how keys are exchanged.
Using a Pre-Shared Key (PSK) scheme—as opposed to 802.1X—can leave a network wide open in certain situations. The PSK is similar to a WEP key, in that it is a single string of bytes unique across an entire SSID.
When home users or naive network managers choose a PSK passphrase of less than 20 characters using English words, such as "Dragon Food" or "That Seventies Show," the PSK can easily be deciphered via a relatively simple dictionary attack.
And once the PSK has been swiped, its simple to then gain the Pairwise Master Key (PMK), which is used to protect transmissions from a computer to another device. The additional parameters used to generate the PMK, including both MAC addresses and the SSID, can be found simply by passively snooping network traffic.
According to Moskowitz, this type of network penetration should be easier to execute than WEP-based ones.
To be safe, anyone setting up a WPA-based wireless network should use a PSK passphrase larger than 20 characters, using a mix of letters and numbers. This is standard practice for most network administrators, certainly. But because most home wireless router products let end users enter in any word or phrase, this could become a major problem for small businesses and homes—and the corporate networks they connect to.
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There is something operatic about a Winter Storm named Heracles, an icy-hearted anti-hero derailing trains, crippling big rigs and ripping down power lines. The gripping quality of these scenes of destruction have to do with staging—the raising of the normal progress of winter to the level of theatrical spectacle.
We can thank the Weather Channel for this turn towards the dramatic. They’re the ones who think that Mother Nature needs to strengthen her brand by forcing her to give birth to celebrity storms. These are the stars that will gain a mass audience both of those warming themselves in front of their televisions as well as those shivering outside, the name of “Hercules” frozen to their lips.
For all its colorful effects, computerized graphics, high-definition images and pounding theme music this dramatization of the elements cannot match the greatest of wintery stagings, the Frost Scene from Henry Purcell’s King Arthur. This semi-opera — “semi” because the main characters do not sing, that detour from normal human discourse being left to supernatural figures or drunks — was premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in London in 1691, as the Little Ice Age of the seventeenth century trudged onward.
The poet John Dryden had written an earlier version of the libretto in 1684 to mark the 25th anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. Cold was on the minds of all Londoners that year: the Great Frost of 1683-4 made that winter the most extreme in the recorded history of the city. The “backward” Spring of 1684 had an April whose mean temperature was below freezing.
The 1691 production with music by Purcell took place in May or June after another bitter winter; the Spring was marginally warmer than expected; the summer even described as “hot.” In those days there was plenty of what we now call extreme weather.
Rather than centering on the Kings of the Round Table, Dryden’s King Arthur takes as its theme the contest between the Britons under Arthur and the Saxons under their King Oswald, the climax coming in the form of a sword-fight duel between the opposing leaders. Arthur disarms his opponent, but spares his life and orders the Saxons back to Germany. It’s ironic then that German Hanoverians would ascend the English throne little more than twenty years after Dryden’s entertainment.
Hailed by many as one of Purcell’s greatest theatrical accomplishments, the Frost Scene comes at the center of the spectacle, in the third of the work’s five acts. Both the Briton and the Saxon King are fighting not only over territory and political dominion, but also over the love of a woman named Emmeline.
The plot thickens like molasses in winter, when Oswald’s magician, Osmond, falls in love with her, too. The sorcerer drugs his own royal master and sets about seducing Emmeline himself. Encountering the lecherous conjurer in an enchanted wood, Emmeline spurns his advances; she is, as the libretto puts it by way of introducing the crucial meteorological theme, “frozen with terror.” Osmond then “assures her that Love will thaw her and demonstrates by using his magic wand to change Britain’s mild clime to Iceland and farthest Thule’s frost.” With this trick Dryden set up the opportunity for the Restoration theater to display its own magic with the special effects of seventeenth-century stagecraft that turned the scene from summer to winter at thrilling speed. Given the bitterness of the weather outside the theater, such a scene probably sent chills down the spines of an audience happy to be enjoying a temperate spring.
With nature now mirroring Emmeline’s frozen heart, Osmond summons Cupid to warm her. Cupid descends to the flapping, flighty figures of an orchestral prelude in bright C Major. The God of Eros then conjures the warmth of love in an ardently declaimed recitative, spiced with chromatic feints.
What ho! thou genius of this isle, what ho!
Liest thou asleep beneath those hills of snow?
Stretch out thy lazy limbs. Awake, awake!
And winter from thy furry mantle shake.
This struck a chord with an English public beset by harsh weather patterns, an audience ready for, and wary of, winter at any time of year. Purcell unforgettably demonstrates the power of music to freeze the heart in the “Cold Song” that follows: just thinking about the piece would bring the body temperature down in the middle of the Sahara.
Conjured by the nefarious magician, Osmond, the Cold Genius takes to the stage, Purcell’s music transforming at a stroke the scene from the sunny C major to arctic C minor, each chord stabbed four times before trudging onward to the next bleak, searing sonority. The music traverses the severe chromatic terrain in which Purcell was an unsurpassed guide until at least the heartbeat slows in a final deadly lament.
What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow?
See’st thou not how stiff and wondrous old,
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold,
I can scarcely move or draw my breath?
Let me, let me freeze again to death.
Purcell wrote the piece for a bass voice descending into deepest winter’s lowest temperatures. The most evocative performance of the song comes from Finnish bass Petteri Salomaa with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissant on a 1995 recording. Extracted from its semi-operatic setting, the Cold Song can be heard on YouTube along with historic images of Thames Frost Fairs held on the frozen-over river.
The Cold Song was the calling card of German glam counter-tenor, Klaus Nomi, whose repertoire extended from Purcell to Chubby Checker; aside from operatic appearances and his own solo shows, Nomi was also one-time back-up singer for David Bowie. Nomi did the Cold Song in many guises, from acoustic to electronic, the high register and piercing clarity of his voice perhaps bringing to mind Winter’s icy grip around the gonads. Nomi’s always bizarre and sometimes beautiful performances extracted from the brittle vocal lines and icy stabs of the harmony the surrealistic modernity of Purcell’s genius for cold.
The magical onset of freezing theatrical weather in the Cold Song might strike many in this Age of the Great Warming as chillingly prescient since the leading climactic model predicts the turning off of the Gulf Stream with increased fresh water in the North Atlantic and the conversion of England to a sub-arctic zone akin to that of Spitzbergen, the isle’s verdant fields and spreading oaks converted to tundra and scrub firs.
The English love to talk about the weather. Thankfully Purcell had them sing about it too. The rogue winter storm unleashed in the Queen’s Theatre in the spring of 1691 will remain in the collective memory long after Heracles’ 2014 muscles have melted and sea levels risen that much higher.


We’ve all had bad days – even bad weeks. Something stresses us out or scares us and in turn, we get snappy or short or even spiteful. Well, this happens to kids, too – although they may express themselves differently, like pushing another child, having a tantrum or kicking over a sand castle. Except kids these days get tagged quickly as ‘the bad kid’ and the use of such labels has a potential to damage young lives. Children change and develop but labels, unfortunately, tend to stick. This can make it hard for children to leave behind negative reputations and start afresh.
Read on for some other reasons why labeling children as ‘bad kids” can be harmful:
It diminishes self-worth
Labeling a child is incredibly destructive because of its impact on the child’s self-worth. Imagine, for a moment, a child who constantly hears that they are “bad”. When a child is labeled as naughty, they starts to believe that label is their identity. They starts accept these words as true and they will continue to believe in that label as they grows up. Kids misbehave for any number of reasons, just as adults do. But telling a kid that’s what they are allows them to internalize the message. This can lead to even worse behavior and psychological issues including depression and anxiety.
It focuses on the person, not the action
When your child misbehaves, focus on the action instead of using the situation to characterize. Tell your child that pushing another child is “harmful” rather than telling your child that he or she is “evil”. Or call out the behavior as being bad and continue to reinforce that the kid is, in fact, a good person capable of doing good. Calling out the behavior, and not the kid, also allows parents to connect it to natural consequences, as in: “You threw the book and now the book is going to be put away.” That is a much more effective action than telling a child that they are a bad person.
It doesn’t give them the opportunity to explain themselves
Give a child a chance to describe the reasons for their behavior. Kids often want to explain themselves and be heard. Asking why allows for a constructive dialogue, a sign of a healthy parent-child relationship. You may discover reasons for their behavior that you couldn’t have anticipated. When your child shares his or her reasons, it provides an opportunity to guide how to avoid negative behavior and repeat positive behavior.
It often highlight the negative characteristics of a child
Nobody is perfect. When you label a child as “bad”, the focus becomes the one issue the child struggles with and not the myriad of things the child can do successfully. This ties into the self-worth issue above. It makes them feel like there is no room for improvement. Children are not motivated to behave by hearing time and time again that they are naughty.
Labels are more powerful than we realize and they impact your behavior as parent as well.. If you look at a child through the lens of a negative label, your response to their actions is likely to be more critical. All kids deserve a fair shake – even if they are simply having an off day.


Definition: a bacterial species found in the feces of milk-fed infants and also in the feces of older persons on a high milk-, lactose-, or dextrin-containing diet.
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Examples: glitazone, GI cocktail, etc.


A team of UCLA researchers has found a way to speed and simplify the detection of proteins in blood and plasma opening up the potential for diagnosing the early presence of infectious diseases or cancer during a doctor’s office visit. The new test takes about 10 minutes as opposed to two to four hours for current state-of-the-art tests.
The new approach overcame several key challenges in detecting proteins that are biomarkers of disease. First, these proteins are often at low abundance in body fluids and accurately identifying them requires amplification processes. The current approach uses enzymes to amplify the signal from proteins. However, enzymes can break down if they are not stored at proper temperatures. Also, to avoid a false positive, excess enzymes need to be washed away. This increases the complexity and cost of the test.
The study, which included researchers from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the California NanoSystems Institute, and the David Geffen School of Medicine, was published online in the journal ACS Nano.
The researchers included lead author Donghyuk Kim, a UCLA post-doctoral researcher in bioengineering and Dino Di Carlo, professor of bioengineering. They collaborated with Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering and Omai Garner, assistant professor of pathology and medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
The UCLA team devised an approach to amplify a protein signal without any enzymes, thus eliminating the need for a complex system to wash away excess enzymes, and that would work only in the presence of the target protein. This new approach made use of a molecular chain reaction that was strongly triggered only in the presence of a target protein.
The molecular chain reaction is driven by a cycle of DNA binding events. The process begins with a DNA key divided into two parts. If the target protein is present, the two parts bind together to form a DNA complex. The formation of the DNA complex generates DNA signaling molecules, which in turn generates the same DNA complex, leading to more signaling molecules, thus propagating repeated cycles.
“By cutting the DNA ‘key’ into two parts, we found that each part could not catalyze or ‘open’ the reaction separately, but only when a protein acted as glue — essentially bridging the parts together, does the DNA key became functional again,” said Kim, a member of Di Carlo’s laboratory.
The UCLA team’s findings build on previous work that employed this enzyme-free mechanism of nucleic acid amplification to detect DNA.
“Unlike previous approaches to achieve an amplified readout of proteins, such as the proximity ligation assay, this approach does not require multiple enzymes, longer polymerization-based enzymatic reactions, or temperature control to amplify signal,” Di Carlo said. “In fact the new assay operates at room temperature and achieves results in about 10 minutes.”
The team demonstrated the approach with two target proteins — streptavidin, widely used as a test protein for new diagnostic assays, and influenza nucleoprotein, which is a protein associated with the influenza virus.
In the long term the team aims to combine the technique with portable readers that could be particularly beneficial in clinics in resource-poor areas.
“Because the technique requires fewer steps than other assays, it can have a significant impact on distributed diagnostics and public health reporting, especially in combination with cost-effective portable and networked reader technology that our lab is developing,” Ozcan said.
The team demonstrated a synergistic handheld microplate reader suitable for protein diagnostic assays based on a cellphone’s optical and computational systems earlier this year.
Garner, who is also the associate director of the clinical microbiology lab at UCLA Health, emphasized the broad application of the technique. “Although demonstrated initially in detecting protein associated with flu, we envision the approach can be generalized to a range of protein biomarkers associated with infectious diseases and cancer,” said Garner. He noted it could be configured to detect diseases such as Zika or Ebola.
The researchers emphasized that additional work is required to adapt the assay to complex clinical samples that may have other interfering compounds, and further optimization of the reagents for the assay can enhance performance.
This interdisciplinary work was supported through a team science grant from the National Science Foundation Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program.


This involves measuring key health behaviours in the population. It may also explore the reach of the agency by assessing community exposure to the programmes and campaigns supported by the funding body.
Where reducing the prevalence of risk behaviours in the population is a stated objective of the funding agency, it is very important that the evaluation framework includes a clear and reliable system for monitoring trends in health behaviour in the community. However, while such data may provide important information for compiling a profile of the funding body’s operating environment, there is some danger in using them as performance indicators for the agency in the short or even medium term, for reasons outlined earlier in this section.
Population evaluation, if included, is the most long-term of the proposed evaluation strategies, and the measures identified for this level are further from the direct influence of the funding agency than the previous components described.
These surveys are used to measure changes in awareness, knowledge, attitudes, intentions and behaviour among the adult population, in addition to measuring exposure to the programmes conducted by the funding agency. The community surveys should be based on independent cross-sectional samples and representative of the populations in the main regions. Community surveys will measure:
- demographic variables;
- awareness, knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and behaviour in relation to health behaviours, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, or nutrition;
- awareness, knowledge, and attitudes in relation to risk behaviours such as driving while intoxicated or substance abuse;
- perceptions of health and perceived control over health;
- exposure to the campaigns or programmes funded by the agency, such as a ‘Quit Smoking’ media campaign;
- exposure of children in the family to school programmes funded by the agency; and
- community support for, and attitudes towards, the activities of the funding body.
Data collection methods
Ideally, these surveys should be conducted when the funding agency is first established and then at intervals of three or four years.
For example, Healthway has carried out a community survey four times in twelve years. It has been organized by a university-based evaluation group, with the fieldwork sub-contracted to a market research agency. Data collection involves household interviews in the Perth metropolitan area, as well as telephone interviews in the rural and outer metropolitan areas.
World Health Organization. (2004). The establishment and use of dedicated taxes for health. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific.