Military and War Weapons the Rifle
About the military and war weapon the rifle, origins and history, first widespread use in the American Revolution, the rifle today.
CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON--FROM THE LONGBOW TO THE NEUTRON BOMB
Description. A rifle is a gun fired from the shoulder which has spiral grooves cut into the bore (the inside surface of the barrel). This grooving causes the bullet to spin when fired, resulting in greater range and accuracy. The spin of the bullet keeps it on a straight trajectory and combats wind and gravitational forces.
Origin. Firearms called muskets, with smooth-surfaced bores, were in existence for nearly two centuries before the rifle was developed around 1470. Knowing that feathered arrows spun while in flight, making them fly farther and more truly, the legendary inventor of the rifle, Kaspar Kollner of Vienna, Austria, discovered that grooves in a gun's bore achieved the same effect with bullets. By 1510 hunting rifles had created a sensation, because they had twice the range and better than twice the accuracy of muskets. Not comprehending the physics of rotating projectiles, medieval scientists could not explain why spinning bullets were so effective.
In 1522 Herman Moritz, a Bavarian sorcerer, announced that rifle bullets were more accurate because demons could not control spinning objects. For a while, this was accepted as the truth, and rifles were used against non-Christians and alleged witches. To test Moritz's conclusion, the Archbishop of Mainz, Germany, held a contest between two riflemen in March, 1547. One rifleman used ordinary lead bullets, while the other employed silver bullets which were engraved with crosses and had been manufactured and loaded by priests who had meticulously exorcised each round of ammunition. Since the denser, "holy" silver bullets resisted the rifle's spiraling and since their shape was distorted due to the crucifixes carved into them, none of the silver bullets hit the target, while all the lead bullets found their mark. This demonstration convinced the archbishop that rifles were weapons of the devil. He declared them illegal and had them seized and destroyed. Anyone found manufacturing a rifle was burned at the stake.
Even though the Church eventually lifted its ban on rifles, muskets remained the principal weapon of all armies for 300 years, because rifles were expensive, heavy, and very difficult to load. The first large-scale use of rifles was by American frontiersmen, who needed a light-weight, highly accurate gun for hunting and Indian fighting. Gunsmiths in eastern Pennsylvania--not Kentucky--produced the inexpensive, 10-lb., easy-loading, and extremely deadly Kentucky rifle by 1740.
First Notable Use. In 1776, during the American Revolution, some 1,200 frontiersmen with their Kentucky rifles were recruited into the American armies. At the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, near Albany, N.Y., rifles were used decisively for the first time in battle. On Oct. 7, British Gen. Simon Fraser led 1,600 elite troops armed with muskets against the Americans. Marching into a clearing near Freeman's Farm, Fraser and his redcoats were attacked by a regiment of Virginia riflemen commanded by Gen. Daniel Morgan. While the British stood in the open, pointed their inaccurate muskets, and fired in volleys, the Virginians took cover behind trees and aimed carefully. Since the American rifles could fire five times as far as the British muskets, the English lines were soon decimated. When Fraser managed to rally his demoralized troops, Morgan ordered a company of his riflemen to cut down the British general. Fraser promptly fell dead, his body riddled with rifle bullets, and the British soldiers fled, while the Americans charged into their lines to win the Battle of Saratoga.
Weapon Today. Since 1777 the Kentucky rifle has become a collector's item. Innumerable varieties of modern rifles are manufactured by legions of factories and are still the basic weapon of infantrymen and hunters throughout the world.
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Title: Education in Emergencies – Ebola’s impact on education
Children have the right to education, even during times of conflict or crisis. But how can we assure access to high quality education during an emergency and through the phases of reconstruction? In this interactive presentation, participants will learn about the Inter Agency Network for Education in Emergencies and their foundational tool, the Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery. Participants will apply the Minimum Standards to the case of the ebola outbreak in west Africa.
When: November 11th from 2-3 PM
Where: Walter library, Room 405
About the presenter: Elisheva Cohen is a PhD student in Comparative and International Development Education. Her research focuses on issues of citizenship, migration and education in the Middle East, with a particular interest in urban refugees. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Educational Development from Columbia University where she studied education in conflict, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa region. She has Bachelor’s Degrees from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in Middle Eastern Studies and Hebrew Literature, respectively. She is a member of the Inter Agency Network for Education in Emergencies and served as their Minimum Standards intern in 2010.


Aldershot Military Museum facts for kids
Aldershot Military Museum in Aldershot Military Town in Hampshire, England was conceived by former Aldershot Garrison Commander, Brigadier John Reed (1926–1992). Reed believed that it was essential to preserve the history of the military town and founded the Aldershot Military Historical Trust to raise funds for the establishment of the Museum. Reed acquired the two Victorian barrack bungalows in which the Museum is still based.
The Museum was opened by The Duke of Gloucester in 1984 and is housed in the only two surviving barrack bungalows built in the "North Camp" area of Farnborough in the 1890s. The Museum tells the story of the British Army in Aldershot, the "Home of the British Army", from the Army's arrival in the area in the 1850s to the present day. It also acts as the local history museum for the civil towns of Aldershot and Farnborough, which form the modern Borough of Rushmoor.
In 2014, ownership of the Aldershot Military Museum was transferred to the Hampshire Cultural Trust as part of a larger transfer of museums from Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council. The M and N Block barrack buildings date to 1894 and are Grade II listed buildings as they are the only surviving examples of their type.
The Museum's military gallery tells the story of the Military Town of Aldershot from 1854 to the present day, including the development of the early military camp, through to Aldershot Command and the current Aldershot Garrison. The gallery was completely refurbished in 2001, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and at that time was renamed the John Reed Gallery in memory of the Museum's founder.
The Montgomery Gallery building once stood in the grounds of Field Marshal Montgomery's home at Isington near Alton, Hampshire. It was built for him in 1947 to house his wartime caravans and was moved to the museum in 1995; it houses part of the museum's collection of larger exhibits of field guns and other vehicles, including tanks and armoured cars.
The Rushmoor Local History Gallery tells the story of Aldershot and Farnborough, and the people and businesses associated with those towns. In this gallery are displays about George Potters, drum makers to the British Army; a Victorian shop; and information on the French Imperial Family, the construction of Farnborough Abbey and the pottery industry of Farnborough and Cove.
In 1908, Farnborough was the site of Britain's first powered flight by the American, Samuel Franklin Cody. The Cody Gallery includes a reconstruction of part of Cody's Farnborough workshop, and displays artefacts such as his flying helmet.
The Boyce Building
Officially opened in November 2006, this 1930s wooden barrack block came from Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Church Crookham, and was once the home of the Regimental Administration Offices for the camp.
Carefully reconstructed at the museum thanks to a £50,000 Heritage Lottery grant, the Boyce Gallery explores the users of the barracks which was once home to the Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps, Royal Corps of Transport and many battalions from the Brigade of Gurkhas before closing in 2000.
Aldershot Military Museum Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.


MPGA is one variation of the common digital audio file format (or MPEG Audio). The full name of this format is MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio File. MPGA format is considered standard for Windows and is supported by all players of this operating system. Any multimedia software that supports MP3 format can work with MPGA audio files. MPGA files are small in size and have significant compression, and file compression is performed without loss of quality and preserving the original sound. The massive use of MPGA is related to the Android mobile OS.
KAR is the original format of audio files for creating karaoke, which are formed in a variety of software systems. It has the ability to save not only MIDI file data, but also lyrics. The KAR format is part of the .midi extension. In most cases, they are used as a source for adding special text to regular MIDI files, and they also differ from the Karaoke file. After all, there is no additional track with words that are synchronized with the main melody according to certain algorithms. As a rule, in order to realize the vocal part, you must apply the first track. For a stream of words, a second track is used. This file extension can be obtained using specialized software. But not only. It can also be created using MIDI keyboards that are connected to computer hardware. If there are appropriate plugins, then you can open the KAR file using the Media Player traditional for the Windows operating system. Anyone using the Mac OS platform can play KAR files in the Mireth Technology Music Man karaoke application. But the universal option for this pair of systems is PG Music Band-in-a-Box. This software is the most popular among analogues. Together with the .KAR extension, they sometimes provide reference data on where audio catalogs and item metadata associated with audio tracks are located. It is also possible that there is information about the artist and about the albums.


It goes without saying that overfishing is an ongoing environmental concern. As populations dwindle, oceanic ecosystems are set off-kilter — increasingly unbalanced and unhealthy.
Unfortunately, the amount of fish we're pulling from the water might be higher than anyone ever imagined. According to a recent study published in Nature Communications, the total catch taken from the world's oceans may be 53 percent higher than what has been officially reported to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization — for decades.
The study argues that the official numbers only reflect the catches of large-scale fisheries, ignoring the combined impact of small fisheries, bycatch, and other sources.
Surely, this is not good news, but University of Washington Professor Trevor Branch made an important note in response to the study, commenting that ”catches only tell us what we take out, not what the status of the remaining fish is.” It’s true that the ocean might not be any worse off than already thought as a result of these findings, but the fact remains that something needs to be done in order to reverse the ecological damage we’ve caused.
So what can you, as a consumer, do to help? In short: Be a smart shopper. Ask your fish monger to suggest a sustainable choice, or do some searching yourself on the Montery Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. They even have an app so you can compare options while you're at the store, which is what I often end up doing. Need an easier option? Add some of the recipes from our roundup of 9 Sustainable Seafood Recipes to your shopping list.
→ Read more: Global fishing catch significantly under-reported, says study from BBC


The development and application of biotechnology has the potential for far-reaching economic, social and environmental impacts. It is therefore important to outline a statistical framework to guide the measurement of biotechnology activity. This Framework is intended to provide the basis for statistical compilation work within OECD member countries and those non-member countries wishing
to adopt the standards.
The focus of the Framework is on biotechnology R&D and the application of biotechnology techniques to produce goods or services. For simplicity, these are referred to in this Framework as key biotechnology activities. End uses of biotechnology, for instance the use of products produced using biotechnology in manufacturing, agriculture or private consumption, are of increasing policy interest but are beyond the scope of this document. However, many of the statistical standards articulated here will be relevant to such uses. The Biotechnology Statistics Conceptual Model in Chapter 2 illustrates the distinction between key activities and end uses.
Under the auspices of the OECD’s National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) group, five Ad hoc Meetings on Biotechnology Statistics have been held to date. The Biotechnology Statistics Framework is based on the methodological work produced by these meetings (held from 2000 to 2004). It is hoped that publication of the Framework will encourage further statistical work in this field and stimulate debate leading to further improvements in biotechnology statistics.
The Biotechnology Statistics Framework includes the following components:
• Information on concepts, units and definitions for statistical purposes.
• An articulation of user needs and how these relate to the statistical material in the Framework.
• Guidelines for data collection
, including a model question on biotechnology R&D, a model survey of key biotechnology activities, and related methodological information.
• Classifications to support the definitions and/or describe statistical units and data.
• Links to other relevant manuals.
• A glossary of terms.


E4: Neurotransmitters and Synapses
Review Nerves content from the Core before completing this topic.
Essential Biology E4: Neurotransmitters and Synapses
Fantastic resources available from Utah, including the mouse party, neuron and synapse animations and an interactive involving pedigree charts and the role of genetics in addiction.
Spend some time here to really read around the subject of drugs and addiction – you’ll be glad you did and it really helps answer the ‘discuss the causes of addiction’ question!
Drugs and The Brain
Jellinek is a Dutch drugs education website that has some great, accessible resources for neurobiology of drugs and the brain. Animations are available in multiple languages – why can’t more organisations be as internationally-minded as this?
Be patient though -it needs a lot of bandwidth.
Neurotransmitters and Drugs:
Good powerpoint from HHMI
Excellent overview of effects of drugs (Harvard)
TOK and Biology: The Nutt-Sack Affair
Leader of advisory panel on drug safety sacked for disagreeing with UK government:
Read around the topic, and then answer these questions:
- How does this story show the conflict between science and politics?
- What do you feel the respective roles of science and politics should be in the government of a country?
- Suggest reasons why some drugs which are clearly very harmful, such as tobacco and alcohol, are still legal in many countries.
- If you were to form a new country and write a whole new set of drug laws, which would you make illegal or legal and why? Upon which sources of evidence would you rely in order to make your decisions? How would you balance political pressures with scientific evidence?
Find out more about drug laws and the rationale behind them in your own country and the countries you visit or live in.
Remember – regardless of your own opinion on drug laws, if you are caught breaking the law wherever you are, penalties can be very severe.


International Day of People with Disabilities is one day on the international calendar, yet it symbolizes the actions we should take every day, in order to create diverse and accepting communities.
Celebration – to recognize and value the diversity of our global community, and to cherish the role we all play, regardless of our abilities;
Learning – to understand and learn from the experiences of people with living with a disability;
It is a day for optimism – to look towards the future and the creation of a world where a person is not characterised by their disabilities, but by their abilities;
Action – where all people, organisations, agencies and charities not only show their support for International Day of People with Disabilities, but take on a commitment to create a world characterised by equal human rights.


By Julie Kunen
The Amazon basin—with its vast rainforests and river systems—is the most bio-diverse place on earth and, not surprisingly, a region rich in discovery. Newly described plant and animal species are a frequent occurrence.
The recent video documentation of a newly discovered fish migration is a much rarer event and particularly noteworthy this weekend as we celebrate World Fish Migration Day, a one-day global initiative to boost awareness of the importance of open rivers and migratory fish.
To be accurate, the migration of the “chipi chipi”—the local name for a pencil catfish technically known as Trichomycterus barbouri—is new only to science.
River communities in northern Bolivia have long known about this natural wonder. During the months of February and March, the chipi chipi migration causes the surface of the Beni River to shimmer with hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of fish. To local communities, they are not surprisingly a seasonally valuable food source and fishers take advantage of their abundance and catch the small fish with large nets.
In all, these tiny fish travel more than 200 miles upstream to reach the foothills of the Andes where they spawn. That distance may not seem noteworthy by the standards of the chipi chipi’s larger relative, a giant Amazonian catfish called the dorado. That species grows up to nine feet in length and travels nearly 2500 miles from the Atlantic to the Andes in what is the longest freshwater fish migration in the world. In terms of relative size, however, the journey of the inch-long chipi chipi is equally amazing in scale.
The dorado moves through the largest river system in the world. Water flowing through the Amazon Basin sustains millions of people and innumerable, diverse species of wildlife.
With a drainage area covering nearly 40 percent of South America, Amazonian waters exceed in volume the world’s next six largest rivers combined. The Amazon’s waters face growing threats from dams, roads, human-induced climate change, mining, petroleum extraction, shipping and the unplanned growth of cities, whose expanding populations consume more and more of the Amazon River’s resources.
From rural fishermen and indigenous people to villagers and urban inhabitants in cities like Iquitos, Peru and Manaus, Brazil, as many as 20 million people depend on the Amazon for clean drinking water, transportation, subsistence and commercial fisheries, and wild fruits.
Although extractives like oil and rubber have long attracted industry to the Amazon Basin, fish have proven to be its most promising extractive resource. Highly sensitive to changes in water levels, chemistry, and sediment levels, fish are the best indicators of the overall health of the Amazon River system and link its wetlands and basins ecologically.
When fish thrive in their wetland habitat (including the vast flooded forests where most aquatic biodiversity is found), it is a good bet that black caiman, manatee, river dolphins, and other aquatic animals are likewise thriving.
Whether in the tributaries of the Amazon or the rivers of Alaska, the ability of migratory fish to move unimpeded through streams and waterways is crucial for maintaining healthy populations.
News of the chipi chipi migration raises important question for conservationists and wildlife managers working in the region: How much do we know about the behavior and travels of Amazon migratory fish? Are these fish in danger of disappearing before we have had a chance to study and understand these phenomena? How could such declines impact people living along the Amazon and its tributaries?
WCS is working with partners to answer these questions, documenting the life histories of the Amazon’s most important migratory fish to understand where they spawn, how far they travel, and where it is absolutely essential to conserve the flooded forests, floating meadows and other aquatic habitats that are their nurseries and feeding grounds.
World Fish Migration Day throws an important spotlight on these questions and reminds us that fish and their successful conservation play an essential role in sustaining local communities across the globe.
Dr. Julie Kunen is Executive Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Latin America and Caribbean Program.


A study of 3,588 square kilometers of privately owned land in central Kenya offers evidence that humans and their livestock can, in the right circumstances, share territory with zebras, giraffes, elephants and other wild mammals -- to the benefit of all.
The study, reported in the journal Nature Sustainability, focused on Laikipia County in central Kenya.
"Laikipia County hosts 10 percent of Kenya's wildlife, but none of the country's national parks or preserves," said University of Illinois entomology professor Brian Allan, who conducted the study with Bard College professor Felicia Keesing . "Most people depend on livestock for income and almost 70 percent of the land is devoted to large-scale ranching or pastoralism," Allan said.
As human populations increase, so does the pressure to expand agricultural and pastoral areas into grasslands now dominated by wildlife.
Wildlife tourism is another source of revenue for landowners, however, as the area hosts exotic white and black rhinoceroses, Grevy's zebras and painted dogs, Keesing said.
"This is leading some to remove traditional barriers between livestock and wildlife because there are benefits to having multiple sources of income," she said.
There are big potential downsides to allowing livestock and wildlife to share territory, however, the researchers said. Wild cats sometimes prey on domestic animals. Wildlife and livestock may compete for water and grazing resources. They also can share diseases, including tick-borne infections like East Coast fever, Q fever and bovine anaplasmosis.
"There is no greater diversity of tick species anywhere on the earth than in eastern and southern Africa," Allan said. "And many of the ticks are host generalists, meaning they'll happily feed on a cow, a gazelle or a zebra -- and they'll also bite humans."
To determine the ecological and economic effects of raising livestock on territory also used by wildlife, the researchers surveyed tick abundance, vegetation and the dung of large herbivorous mammals on 23 Laikipia County properties in July-August, 2014 and 2015.
"We identified the ticks and sequenced DNA of tick-borne pathogens to identify infectious agents associated with the ticks," Keesing said. The team also interviewed managers and owners of each property about the type and abundance of livestock on their land and the percent of revenue derived from wildlife tourism and livestock operations.
The researchers found that the practice of regularly spraying cattle with acaricides, which kill ticks without directly endangering birds or other creatures that feed on ticks, dramatically reduced the number of ticks in the grazed areas.
"Reducing the number of ticks is one key part of a strategy to reduce the transmission of tick-borne diseases," Keesing said. "These diseases can sicken and kill people, livestock and wildlife, which is particularly devastating in a vulnerable ecosystem experiencing many competing demands."
About 16 percent of the ticks collected on the study sites carried at least one bacterial or protozoal infection, the scientists found. There was no difference in the proportion of infected ticks found on properties devoted entirely to wildlife and those where wildlife and livestock were integrated. Tick abundance, however, was 75 percent lower on integrated properties than on those hosting only wildlife.
Livestock- and wildlife-related income accounted for more than 70 percent of revenue for the properties studied. Wildlife abundance was highest on properties with moderate densities of cattle -- but not on land supporting sheep and goats, the researchers found.
There was less green grass on livestock-only and wildlife-only properties than on land shared by both, the researchers found. The quality of the forage also was highest on integrated lands.
These findings suggest that certain management practices can enhance the viability of livestock operations while also maximizing wildlife abundance and health on the same lands, the researchers said.
"It has been the attitude of conservationists that conservation lands must be kept secure and undisturbed from human uses, including livestock production, and I can sympathize with that perspective," Allan said. "But our data are starting to suggest that there could be circumstances where livestock-wildlife integration can work -- for the benefit of all. A productive savanna ecosystem may be the perfect place to try it."


A species of small crustacean is able to break down microplastics into tiny particles in just a matter of days – much faster than previously estimated, scientists have said.
Until now, the breakdown of plastics in marine environments had largely been believed to occur mainly through slow processes such as being smashed apart by wave action, and decaying through prolonged exposure to sunlight.
But researchers at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have discovered that a “very common” invertebrate found in freshwater streams is able to rapidly break down microplastics (pieces smaller than 5mm) in less than 100 hours, until the fragments become “nanoplastics”, which are pieces measuring less than one micrometre.
The study’s leader, Dr Alicia Mateos-Cardenas, from UCC said: “We have found that the freshwater amphipod, a small crustacean called Gammarus duebeni, is able to fragment microplastics into different shapes and sizes, including nanoplastics, in less than four days.
“Whilst this species lives in Irish streams, they belong to a bigger animal group of invertebrates commonly found around the world in freshwaters and oceans.
“Our finding has substantial consequences for the understanding of the environmental fate of microplastics.”
The microplastics are fragmented by freshwater invertebrate animals as part of their digestive process.
But the discovery is not necessarily good news about the plastic waste clogging oceans and waterways.
The researchers described their findings as “alarming”, and said that while microplastics are known to regularly become stuck in the guts of seabirds and fish, current understanding suggests that the smaller nanoplastic particles could go further and penetrate cells and tissues where their effects could be much harder to predict.
“The findings that such a common invertebrate animal can rapidly produce vast numbers of nanoplastics is particularly worrying for researchers,” the authors of the study said.
Dr Mateos-Cardenas said: “These invertebrates are very important in ecosystems because they are prey for fish and birds, hence any nanoplastic fragments that they produce may be entering food chains.”
“The data in this study will help us to understand the role of animals in determining the fate of plastics in our waters, but further research is urgently needed to uncover the full impact of these particles,” she said.
The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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ELDINGS-[ NOW KNOWN AS PUNCH MARKED COINS OF MAGHADA-NORTH INDIA.]
AND THE SILVER HALF KAHAPANAS OF SURASENA[ MATHURA].
Chapter III-CCC HWCodrington
Sinhala Name found on ancient Inscription- Kahavana or Kahapana- Skt-Khrsapana
2. The punch-marked coins called in Sanskrit Purana “old,” – English as “Eldlings”, are found in Ceylon as well as throughout India. They may be recognized in the “signatum argentum” offered a tribute to Alexander at Taxila, but in all probability their origin must be sought in a remoter past, The Persian Empire was bounded by the Indus from the end of the sixth century, and a money of this early type is not likely; to have been initiated when a far superior model was furnished by the darics and sigli ; if the Buddhist scriptures are to be trusted, the beginnings of the eldling coinage must be anterior to the time of Gautama. Although they do not seem to have been current in the North much after the beginning of our era, they continued in circulation in the South for some two centuries later according to Mr. Vincent A. Smith (Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. II. p. 150). Mr. Loventhal, in his “Coins of Tinnevelly, ” would extend the period of their use to about A.D. 300. The reasons adduced by Mr. Still (J.R.A.S., C.B., Vol. XIX, No. 58, 1907, p. 191,ff) to prove the circulation of this class of money in Ceylon about A.D. 1000 appear to be inadequate; the currency of the Island was closely connected with that of South India, and in all probability the employment of the eldling ceased in both countries about the same.
The Eldlings were manufactured by subdividing bars of metal or strips cut from a hammered silver, weight being adjusted where necessary by clipping the corners of each coin so formed. The obverse is usually covered with punch marks, often overlapping and clearly impressed at different times; the marks on the reverse, on the other hand, are usually fewer in number, in the great number of cases one only, are less distinct, and frequently smaller. These archaic coins were probably issued “by local authorities-money-changers or merchants” and were submitted by then for the approval of the local king or governor, whose stamp appears on the reverse. The punch marks on the other side, once blank, being those of the successive money-changers, through whose hand they passed in the course of circulation (Theobald, Notes on some Symbols; Rapson, Counter-marks). In Ceylon these marks are absent from the obverse of the majority of the later dumpy pieces[ Thousands of coin found since 1924- A fair number of them have Bankers Marks].
On none of the eldlings found locally have I been able to trace on the reverse any constantly recurring symbol which can be attributed to the Island, such as the railed swastika of the copper die-struck issues I am, therefore, inclined to the belief that all eldlings current in Ceylon were imported from India.
If the Arthasastra is to be credited, in Magadha in the time of Candragupta there were coined, at least in theory, in addition to the silver pana or eldlings, its half, quarter, and eighth, and in copper the, whole and half mashaka, corresponding with Manu’s karshapana, and its quarter and eighth, the whole and half kakini (op cit., Bk. I,Chap.12 ). As Canakya, before his master’s accession to the throne, is said to have amassed treasure by re-coining (Chap. II, sec. I) the introduction of a State mint, perhaps, may have been due to the policy of the founder of the Maurya Empire.
The standard of the silver eldling is the dharana of 32 gunjas; in the South it is said by Elliot to have been the kalanju seed, but in practice there was little or no difference, even if the two standards were not identical.
3. In Ceylon very few copper eldlings appear to be known other than the cores of silver coins, often with traces of the coating still adhering: The majority of the silver pieces are much worn, and really good specimens are rare.
The coins fall into two main classes; (1) rectangular and (2) roughly circular or oval ; each of these again has a cross division into (a) thin and (b) thick. Though no clear line of separation exists, the thickness varying from that of thin cardboard to about 0.12 inch, the difference between the thin and wide coins, usually covered with punch marks, which are the earliest (Pl. 1 ; Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 43), and the thick and rather Dumpy pieces or ingots, very often blank with a few indentations (Pl. 2), is very marked. These latter are both, rectangular, and circular, and seems to have been made in these shapes; the oval thin eldlings appear to have been originally rectangular, and subsequently reduced to their present shape by the process of clipping referred to.
WEIGHT AND DIMENSIONS
The available specimen of the thin variety up to and including a thickness of 0.039 inch weigh from 14.9 (very worn) to 50.4 grains, the average of 36 being 30.5 grains; the seventeen thinnest, however, ranging from 14.9 to 45.1 grains only give an average of 26.6. The highest weight for the available thick rectangular coins is 48.7 grains and the lowest 20.7, of which last the size is only 0.51 by. 0.43 inch; the average of twenty-one is 34.4 grains, as against Parker’s average of 32.9 for thirteen (Ancient Ceylon, p.472). The thick circular pieces, of which eight average 33.8 grains, vary from 26 to 43.2 grains. The total average of twenty-nine thick coins of both varieties is 34.3 grains. Inferences drawn from these and similar figures to prove the duration of the use of the eldling currency are apt to be fallacious, for the lighter coins may be the fractional pieces of the Arthasrastra.
4. In process of time the punch marks, perhaps only in certain localities and trough the state monopoly of coinage, become fixed, though relative position slightly varied; rectangular eldlings of this kind are figured in Loventhal’s work in Pl. I, Nos, 4, 5, and 6. The only ones reported from Ceylon bear on one side a. Three men or a man and two women standing in a row, b. A Peacock on a Caitiya, and c. A balance or scales (cf. Theobald Fig. 9) , arranged thus :-
(i) c b
: Size : 0.62 x 0.43 x 0.078 in Weight ; 46.1 gr
(ii) b c
: Size : 0.61 x 0.47 x 0.118 in Weight ; 44.7gr (CA,I,iii, Pl.X ,nos 2,3 )
On the reverse of both is symbol (b), Pieces with these punch marks appear in I.M.C., I, p 138 Nos 37-40;No. 37 shown in Pl, XIX, 3, is the same as (i) and weights 52.3 grains.
5. The double-die thick plaque, having on the obverse a dagoba and on the reverse a bo-leaf, and weighing from 77 to 83 grains, with a size of 0.51 by 0.33 inch (Lowsley, Pl.VIII, 1) is probably a votive offering as is also the plaque shown in the Taprobanian of June, 1888, p 53.
Both seems to be modern. With them may be compared crystal seal described by Mr. H. C. P. Bell in ” Two Buddhist Seals ” in the Ceylon Antiquary Vol. III Pt 1, PI, VII.
SINGLE DIE COINS
6. The next step is the union of various symbols in one die, a good specimen of which process is seen in the “Elephant and Swastika” double die large copper coins. At first, however, the die was confined to one side the reverse being either blank or punch marked.
Silver – The only coins known are in the cabinet of Mr. Bell, described by the present writer in the Ceylon Antiquary; Vol. I, pt. 3, p. 178. One is a rectangular piece, 0.47 x 0.21 x 0.11 inch in size and 25.9 grains in weight. “The design”, only half of which is on the flan, ” seems to be a solar emblem, consisting of a central ball or boss from which springs a cross-wise, four lines ending in similar balls; in each space so formed in a Taurine (CA, Pl X no 3). The reverse is blank, but possibly has one indentation”- on the rest ” the design consists of a bull, or such animal, in the lower half of the area, and a (?) fish, from whose back spring long rays upwards and , backward in upper half : both objects face to the right and have before them three symbols , which appear to be (a) a crescent at the top, (b) the sun, and at the bottom (c) a Taurine. “The die is all clearly circular”1. Of the four known, two have the reverse blank, one has a few indentations. and the remaining piece one , if not two, punch marks,
1. Rectangular Size : 0.39 x 0.37 x 0.07 in. Weight : 24.4 gr Pl. 3
2. Do. Size : 0.41 x 0.33 x 0.07 in. Weight : 24.7 gr,
3. Do. Size : 0.43 x 0.31 x 0.07 in. Weight : 25.4 gr.
4. (?) Circular Size : 0.47 x .07 in. Weight : 20.6 gr Pl. 4. (C.A.Pl.X, Nos.6-10).
A small silver coin in the same collection is clearly of the same series, but is double-die. The obverse is the same as the preceding; the design on the reverse is, perhaps, similar to the solar emblem on the first described piece but it is much worm, The coin is very thin, and may once have been circular ; it is 0.33 inch in diameter 4.9 grains in weight. In all the above coins the design is deeply struck. The standard must be that of the eldlings, the coin being halves, with the exception of the small piece just described, which may be the eighth.
COPPER OBLONG PIECES
7. Copper. — These are oblong pieces, with rounded corners, concave on one side and rough on the other The design is now quite invisible. Pl. 5
1. Tirukketisvaram Size : 0.62 x 0.51 x 0.15 in. Weight : 74.9 gr
2. Do. Size : 0.53 x 0.39 x 0.13 in. Weight : 26.6 gr.
3. Anuradapura, Buddhist Rail Size : 0.61 X 0.45 x 0..09 in. Weight : 24.2 gr.
4. Do. Size : 0.62 x 0.49 x 0.06 in. Weight : 21.6 gr,
5. Do. Selacaitya Size : 0.55 x 0.50 x 0.06 in. Weight : 16.5 gr.
A similar coin, but roughly circular and lenticular, was found at the north end of Vessagiriya, Anuradapura its diameter is 0.53 inch, and weight 29.8 grains. Alleged similar pieces unearthed at Kantarodai in the Jaffna peninsular are described by Mr. P. E. Pieris in his paper on ” Nagadipa”,in J.R.A.S., C.8., Vol, XXVIII, No. 72 of 1919. Pl. XII, Nos. 18, 19,21,22,26, Most seem to be the cores of eldlings, but one (No, 18) is distinctly concave: its size is 0.62 by 0.43 inch, and its weight is 28.6 grains, At Tirukketisvaram was also found a flat rectangular piece with rounded corners. One side is apparently blank; on the other is what seems to be a fish with long projecting fins, with which design should be compared that of the silver coins described above. It weighs in its broken condition 29.2 grains, and measures 0.49 x 0.45 x 0.11 inch. From the same place come two circular coins, which may be noticed here. One is thick, flat on one side, the design on which is undecipherable, and convex and worn smooth on the other ; the second is, perhaps, blank on both sides. The diameter and weight are 0.57 and 0.33 inch, and 3l.2 and 6.2 grains, respectively.
The single-die coins found at Anuradhapura have been described by Mr. Still in J.R.A.S., C.B., Vol XIX No. 58, 1907, pp. 200, 201. The deductions as to their age therein set forth cannot be maintained ; as, though they were discovered at the same site as the fourth and fifth century Roman coins, there is no evidence that they were actually found together, These coins found in India published by John Allen, the have been identified by Indian Numismatist as belonging to the Surasenas [ 4 Cent BC].
8. The symbols appearing on the following coins are- (1) An isosceles triangle, base uppermost, with a short horizontal line crossing the apex and a short vertical line pendent there from.
(2) Variant of the last, but the triangle is on its side ; in some instances a small vertical line projects from its side, either above or below
(3) Nandipada symbol ; a trident head. with the side prongs curved and longer than the central one, over a circle, from which it is sometimes separated by a horizontal line,
(4) Horizontal line, from each end of which rises a curved line, the two being back to back and. Crosses in the middle by another horizontal line. There is usually a similar line above the *hole, In s few instances this is doubled, the middle line being absent.
(5) A truncated cone, inverted and crossed at the top, centre, and bottom by three bands, cf: Nasik -Nos. 13, 14 (Archaeological Survey of Western India, Vol. IV).
(6) Two isosceles triangles placed vertically apex to apex with a bar across the junction ; the lower triangle is the smaller. From the left side of the upper there projects a short horizontal line. In .a variant the symbol assumes the shape of an hour glass with a projecting line on either side of the centre, cf Kuda, No.26(op, cit.).
NOTES OF SILVER DIE STRUCK COINS
These Coins have been identified as belonging to Surasena Janapadaya of India.
Surasena was one of the sixteen original Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist chronicles. The name of that country is derived for the name of Sura, the King of Surasena and the father of Vasudeva and Kunti. The location is at Braj, the region around Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. The history of this Janapada is is very obscure – the ruling family is known to have styled itself “Yadava” family, and that some of their kings were cloely related to the royal family of Avanti. Around 350 AD Surasena was conquered by Mahapadma Nanda of Magadha.
Mathura is mentioned in our Chronicals Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, is one of the homes of the descendents of Mahasammata dynasty , the origin of the Sinhalese Royalty.In Fact King Vijeya sent a message to King Pandu of Mathura and obtained a Kastriya Princess , who was consecrated as his queen.She came along with many fair Maidens , Elephants withal and horses and Waggons, and a thousand craftman of 18 guilds[ Mahavansa Chapter VII Verse 56]. It is not surprising that these coins are found here.
A few of these coins at the Anuradhapuara museum was published by Sirisoma and Amarasinghe in the book in Sinhalese HUs Ebu Kasi. These are shown below
Another coin found at Anuradhapura that was published by John Allen
These as described by J Allen was How and why these coins which were perhaps from Matura in North India.were found in the Island.These coins are said to be earlier than the 5 mark Punched Marked Coins. Sri Lanka had connections with Mathura region in the early period, in fact it is mentioned that Vijaya the first king got down the Kastriya Princess from Matura.
These silver pieces have counter marks on the reverse too. John Allen do not mention about this?.This needs further studies as the author only studied the photos published in book ” Hus Ebu Kasi”.
1: For coins with circular die and rectangular flan, cf: C.C.A., Pl. X. 265 and 266 of Jayadaman, A.D, 124-150, and Pl V, GP5 of the Andhra dynasty.


By Nicole Reisinger
For the Mitzpeh
Dragons, storm gods, and the sea were the focal points of Robert Miller’s lecture Wednesday when he addressed a group of about 30 students and faculty.
The lecture, “Dragonslaying in the Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts,” was the first of four spring semester talks organized by the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies.
Junior linguistics and Jewish studies major Rebecca Magazine said she had never attended one of these lectures before.
“I enjoy learning about things that I wouldn’t get [the chance] to otherwise,” said Magazine. “It’s an interesting topic that I don’t know anything about.”
Miller, a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, is an associate professor of Old Testament at the Catholic University of America. He’s also an affiliate of the Meyerhoff Center, spoke on the complex origins of the dragon slaying mytheme.
A ‘mytheme,’ as Miller described, is the fundamental element of every myth. In the theoretical study of myths, there are several elements one can combine in different ways, Miller said. Motifs such as the storm god slaying the dragon, the enthronement of a god or human king on a mountain, a victory banquet, the pilgrimage of a nation, or creation are combined to create what Miller refers to as constellations.
“[Mythemes are] a great way to approach religious studies as these stories are typically more organic and fluid than we approach them today,” said junior David Malamud, a history, Jewish studies, and classics major. “Studying the integral parts and plot points helps determine similarities more easily.”
Miller dated these myths, or constellations, appear in texts, narratives, poetry, and iconography back to the fourth millennium B.C.E.
From the Tobit to the Old Testament, the motif of dragon slaying is not only used as a metaphor, but also serves as the focus of the narrative itself. The myth resurfaces many times in the Torah, and Miller’s attempt to take it’s Ancient Near Eastern roots and “trace it forward,” sorting out the Canaanite and Babylonian influences along the way, helps us better understand these biblical and post-biblical texts.
In Hebrew, Baal was called the storm god, He Who Rides on the Clouds. In Phoenician he was called Baalshamin , Lord of the Heavens. Yamm —the Hebrew word for ‘sea’— was the Ugaritic god of the sea who appeared in the Baal myths that were written in the second temple texts before the Hebrew texts. Yamm is described as either a sea monster or horned serpent. Tannin was the Canaanite and Phoenician interpretation of a sea monster. These two manifestations of a chaos and evil bear relation to the Hebrew Leviathan: the notorious multi-headed monster in Jewish mythology.
However, these myths are “not just about a god who is fighting a dragon of the sea who has multiple heads,” said Miller.
For example in the Book of Judith (first century B.C.E.), God is praised for crushing wars and his opponents. Miller points out that the Greek word for crushing is also used in Psalms 46:10, 76:4-6, 89:11 and the New Testament where these texts refer to a God slaying a dragon.
In many of the Psalms, the God of Israel is referred to as a storm god. There is extensive thunder and lightning imagery and allusions to the sea that link back to the Babylonian and Canaanite notions of battles against gods and dragons. In the Psalm of Solomon 2:25 (first century B.C.E.), “Do not delay, O God, … to declare dishonorable the arrogance of the dragon,” there is a direct reference to a dragon.
However, in the Prayer of Manasseh (first century B.C.E.), “You who made heaven and earth in all their order, who shackled Yamm by your word of command, who confined the Deep and sealed it by your fearful and glorious name at whom all things shudder and tremble before your army,” Yamm in this case does not refer to the dragon-like creature of the sea. Rather, it likens the terrors of the world to a dragon, Miller said.
Miller concluded his lecture by taking questions from the audience, which was eager to share thoughts and ideas.
“As someone very interested in the Hebrew Bible and Near East, I thought the lecture was fascinating,” Malamud said.


MYTHOLOGY: Vinata, the daughter of Daksha, is married to Kashyapa. Vinata obtained a boon from Kashyapa that she would have two offsprings of tremendous power surpassing the thousand serpent sons of her sister, Kadru. Kadru is also the daughter of Daksha. Kashyapa ferlilised both his wives. Kadri had a thousand eggs, Vinata had just two. After 5000 years Kadri’s pot broke up and she had a 1000 Naga sons. Once, her sons had displeased her by refusing to do her bidding, so she cursed them to die by ordeal of fire. According to the Puranas, there is a counter-measure for all curses except those uttered by one’s own mother.
Janmejaya was the son of Parikshit, who came to the throne at a young age due to his father's untimely demise. When he came of age, and came to know that his father was killed by the king of serpents Takasha, he decided to perform a sacrifice to kill all the serpents in the world. The sacrifice was only partially successful, as most of the snakes were exterminated. Due to Vyasa’s last minute intervention, the sacrifice was incomplete. Takshaka and a few Nagas escaped his fate and continued the line of Nagas.
Now, back to our story, Vinata gave birth to two eggs, which did not hatch for a long time. In her impatience, she broke open one of them and found Aruna inside it, but he had an undeveloped lower body. But, due to the premature breaking of the egg, Aruṇa was not as bright as the noon sun as he was promised to be. Aruna was also born without thighs, so he was called ‘Aruru’ without thighs, or without feet. Aruna’s imperfect form has been supposed to be allusive to his partial appearance. He cursed his mother to bondage for her impatience. He then took to the skies and achieved great glory by becoming the charioteer of Surya, the sun.
FAMILY: Aruna is said to be married to Syeni and believed to be the father of Jatayu and Sampati, King of the Vultures. They are powerful characters in the Ramayana also. According to another version, Aruna’s wife Syeni was the daughter of Kashyapa by his wife Tamra and that he had another son by her named Syena.
VALI AND SUGRIVA: There is a story explaning how Aruna assumed a female form. Silavati, a chaste woman once performed naked tapas to redeem her husband Ugratapas from the consequence of a curse. The object of her asceticism was to prevent the next dawn-Aruna. Owing to the intensity of her tapas, the Sun ceased to rise and this no doubt gave his charioteer Aruna some rest. Aruna then came to know of a programme of a naked dance by the women in Devaloka. Now, this was a women alone dance hall.
Aruna had a special desire to witness the dance and therefore assumed a female form to sit among the Deva women.
Indra, who happened to be there saw Aruna in disguise. This beautiful female form kindled erotic sentiments in Indra and he enjoyed a night with ‘her’ not knowing that he was enjoying maya.A child was also born and before the day dawned, Aruna at the instance of Indra entrusted the child to Ahalyadevi and returned to join duty as charioteer. So in the meanwhile, Aruna had acted as Indra’s wife and called Arunadevi. Aruna was a bit late to report for duty and when questioned by the sun, Aruna had to tell the truth.
Surprise surprise, the Sun too desired to see Arunadevi, which materialised and the too enjoyed her, which also resulted in the birth of a son. This child was also entrsusted to Ahalyadevi. She brought up both the sons with tender love. But Gauama rishi did not like the legitimacy and cursed them to be monkeys. After some time Indra comes to know and searches out the monkeys. He found them. In view of the elder one having a long tail, he called Bali or Vali and the other, being radiant and beautiful, he called Sugriva. As Rksaraja, the monkey king of Kishkinda had no sons, Indra gave both the monkeys in adoption. Indra, as father, blessed Bali to the effect that half of the strength of anybody who attacked Bali would be added to his own natural power.
GARUDA: He emerged from the other egg to become Mahavishnu’s vahana. At birth Agni said to the King "My King, This is Garuda, the son of Kashyapa and Vinata. He is destined to be the King of the birds. His father had granted a boon to his mother that he will surpass all the immortals in his lusture and glory, and that is what you all are being blinded by."
Garuda is the king of all birds. He is the mortal enemy of the serpents, who are his half-brothers. He freed his mother from bondage by obtaining Amrit for the snakes. He however helped Indra trick the serpents, and recover the amrit, before they could drink it. He thus became the friend of Indra, and obtained overlorship of the birds. He obtained a boon from Maha Vishnu that he would be above him, which was accomplished by putting his emblem on the flagstaff of Vishnu's charriot. In return, he agreed to become the Vishnu’s vahana.
MAHABARATHA 1:24: There was a bit of cheating that went on when the amrit was distributed. One asura called Rahu set on the Devas side to get served first. So he drank the amrit but this ruse was observed by Surya and Chandra and reported to Vishnu. He used his sudharshana chakra to behead Rahu. But since Rahu had consumed the amrit he was alive. The head became Rahu and the torso became Ketu. They became part of the Navagrahas. Since Surya and Chandra betrayed Rahu, they both swallow Surya and Chandra, resulting in the eclipses.
Surya soon grew exceedingly angry with the other immortals, for they had suffered him to undergo this indignity. He thought that no one came to his aid and decided to destroy all creation with his great heat. Surya then started multiplying his radiance, and the generated heat threatened to burn the world. The Devas ran to Lord Brahma to save the world. He places Aruna in front of Surya. “He is of large body and has divine radiance. He will become the charioteer of Surya and shield the world from his anger." Since that day, Aruna precedes Surya in the heavens and is worshiped along with the sun.
ARUNASTAHMBA: Generally Arunastambha, Aruna-Pillar is constructed before Sun temples. In the Sun temples, he is shown up to the waist. In the Visnu temples, he is shown on the door sills, holding the reins of a horse.
Hara Hara Mahadeva
(draft Gods, Goddesses, Minor Deities and Sages) Yogi Ananda Saraswathi


Editing PPT content is as important as editing any other form of content and at times, even more important, as incorrect grammar, sentence structure, and spelling when projected on a screen ten times the size of a letter will never go unnoticed by the large audience.
The purpose of PPT, more often than not, is to act as a facilitating tool for someone delivering a presentation. While the audience reads through documents or web pages, they watch and observe the PPT content while listening to the presenter. The action of reading, though not zero, will be limited. Based on these factors, editing a PowerPoint file should be treated differently from editing regular content and the following aspects should be taken care of in addition to the usual editing guidelines:
- No clear, structured paragraphs – While editing a normal document, you will be trying to build clear structured paragraphs. However, in PPTs, they are to be strictly avoided. Ideally, the text content in a PPT has to be in the form of bullet points. Avoid long sentences and try to keep the messages short, and as simple phrases.
- No full sentences – While the editor focuses on the completeness and correctness of a sentence in a normal document, a PPT content editor focuses on using short phrases with no errors, instead of sentences. Avoid full sentences and convert them to phrases instead. Use full sentences only when quoting somebody, external content, or a definition with a reference etc.
- Not too many bullet points either – Experts suggest having a maximum of 5-6 bullet points per slide. The aim should be not ‘at least’ but the ‘least’ possible. Bullets are non-visual, in text form and boring. Keep only the bullet points that cannot be conveyed through a graphical representation and transform the rest into appealing visual formats like an image or a graph.
- Using parallel phrase structure – Using parallel phrase structure is very important in a PPT slide. In a Word document or webpage, the structure of the sentence- with a beginning and an end- will cover up the non-parallel structure, but it will be glaringly evident in a PowerPoint slide. Nouns, verbs and adjectives should be used appropriately instead of mixing up all these part of speech randomly in the bullet points. If the first point is in a noun form, the other points also should be maintained in noun forms.
- Approaching modularly – While editing PPT content, care should be taken to ensure that the content flow from one slide to another is logical. Content on one slide should ideally stand up to prove one point and lead to the information you have in the next slide. Unrelated set of information should be demarcated with a sub-title slide as appropriate, thus ensuring a seamless flow for the presentation.
- Editing narration script – Narration script an important element of a PowerPoint presentation package, especially since the presenter will be using it to convey the messages in the slide to the audience. Editing a narration script is what holds the juice and makes the big impact. It has to be made listener friendly, conversational and fragmented, just like the sentence formation that you would use in a conversation.
In any form of communication, including PowerPoint presentation, content is king. In the current era where information is plenty and insights few, the success of a PPT content editor depends on how effectively, he can bring forth the insight hidden in the information on the slides.
Wittten by Glen Mary George for Chillibreeze


Explore the Hebrew Bible through focused discussion of coretexts, including the creation stories, the binding of Isaac, the Exodus story, the revelation at Sinai and the prophetic books.
Study texts from the Rabbinic Period (300 BCE to 500 CE) to explore the relationship between God and human beings, Jewish history and ethics, and the role of ritual in our lives.
Our study of the Middle Ages (500 CE to 1600 CE) focuses on Jewish encounters with non-Jews, including political and cultural relations with Islamic and Christian civilizations.
Learn about modern Jewish thought, and explore the origins of the Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and Hasidic and Zionist movements. Wrestle with what it means to be a Jew in the world today.
Me'ah for Educators will spur your own personal and professional growth and help you in your vital role."
— Rachel Raz. Associate Director, Early Childhood Institute


A lesson about thankfulness.
D.B. – a good albeit not very bright bunny
MISS REBECCA – the teacher who sets him straight
(D.B. enters but does not speak. He is obviously in a bad mood.)
MISS REBECCA: Hey, D.B.
D.B.: Oh, hi, Miss Rebecca.
MISS REBECCA: You don’t seem to be in a very good mood, sweetie. What’s wrong?
D.B.: My mamma wants me to write my gramma a thank you note for my Christmas present.
MISS REBECCA: That sounds like a very nice thing to do. What’s the problem?
D.B.: I am not thankful for my Christmas present.
MISS REBECCA: That’s not a very nice thing to say.
D.B.: But it is true.
MISS REBECCA: What’s wrong with your Christmas present?
D.B.: She bought me socks.
MISS REBECCA: Socks can be a good present.
D.B.: But I am a puppet, and I do not have any feet.
MISS REBECCA: Well, there is that. Maybe you could wear them as ear warmers.
D.B.: They are TOE socks. (produces socks in question)
MISS REBECCA: Ah. Well, you should still be thankful that your gramma loves you enough to buy you a present.
D.B.: You sound like my mamma.
MISS REBECCA: She must be a very wise woman.
D.B.: She is, but she is wrong this time.
MISS REBECCA: Maybe you’re right.
MISS REBECCA: Why write a thank you note for a crumby gift?
MISS REBECCA: Sounds like your gramma is a very mean, uncaring grandmother.
D.B.: Wait a minute…
MISS REBECCA: Toe socks. She’s obviously a terrible person.
D.B.: No, she is not! She is a wonderful person!
MISS REBECCA: I don’t know.
D.B.: She is. Whenever I spend the night, she always makes my favorite foods, and we watch my favorite movies, and she has my favorite candy – carrot M&M’s.
MISS REBECCA: That is nice, but she obviously doesn’t love you enough to buy you any good presents.
D.B.: She does too! For my last birthday, she bought me a light saber and the Lego Watership Down video game. And last Christmas, she bought me the Star Hares Trilogy on DVD.
MISS REBECCA: Yeah, but toe socks. What was she thinking?
D.B.: She was thinking that she loves me.
MISS REBECCA: Exactly.
D.B.: Besides, I could wear them as ear warmers.
MISS REBECCA: What a good idea.
D.B.: And… Wait a minute. You tricked me.
MISS REBECCA: (innocently) Tricked you?
D.B.: You tricked me into being thankful for my Christmas present.
MISS REBECCA: I didn’t trick you so much as remind you of all you have to be thankful for.
D.B.: I am going to write my gramma the most sweetest thank you card ever.
MISS REBECCA: That’s a great idea.
D.B.: Thanks, Miss Rebecca.
MISS REBECCA: You’re welcome, D.B.
D.B.: Bye, Miss Rebecca.
MISS REBECCA: Bye, D.B.


Your baby's ninth month is full of growth and experimentation. Whereas he once needed you to do everything for him, he is now learning to explore places and things on his own. Along with his physical abilities and his sense of curiosity, his diet is also beginning to change.
Baby's Development at 9 Months
At 9 months, your baby's physical development is really starting to blossom. She should be able to support herself while sitting up, and she should also be starting to crawl. She may even be able to pull herself up to stand and cruise around while holding onto furniture. Her motor skills are also beginning to develop, as she can clap her hands and bang toys together. By this point, she should also be able to sleep through the night.
Though your baby is growing at a rapid rate, his regular feedings of breastmilk or formula are the staples of his diet. Your baby should still be having 16-24 ounces worth of these feedings, which occur four or five times per day. Since he's sleeping through the night by now, he doesn't need to be woken up for a nighttime feedng.
If you haven't started your baby on table foods yet, you can do so when she's 9 months old. She's probably used to eating runny cereal and strained fruits and vegetables, so chewing pieces of actual food might not come easily to her. However, she's capable of mastering this technique, even if she doesn't have any teeth yet. Eating table foods will also help her to build up her dexterity, as picking up foods and putting them in her mouth helps her to practice her developing motor skills.
Types of Food
Since most of your baby's nutritional needs are met with his regular feedings of breastmilk and formula, you can experiment with table foods to see what he likes. However, you'll want to stick with basic foods without a lot of seasoning that are soft enough for him to chew. You can give him foods like pasta and lean meats, along with the solid versions of the fruits and vegetables he already loves. These meals can be served with water or diluted fruit juice.
Once your baby masters table foods, she's almost done advancing through the baby food stages. All that's left is for her to start on whole milk, which occurs when she's about a year old. When that's done, she's essentially eating the same foods as she will for the rest of her life, albeit in a much smaller and chewier form.


In Sept. 2017, Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico, devasting the island along with other Caribbean islands in its path. The category 5 hurricane was responsible for countless deaths—and damages from the hurricane totaled nearly $100 billion. More than a year after Maria, many were still without power and clean water to drink.
A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey showed that, in the year following Hurricane Maria, 50 percent of Puerto Ricans indicated that their families did not have enough water to drink. More than half of those surveyed worried about the water quality in their homes and approximately two in 10 said they drank water from a natural source such as a stream or river after the hurricane hit in September 2017.
Now nearly two years since the deadly hurricane, Puerto Rico is still feeling the impacts of Maria. Steven Goldsmith and Lisa Rodrigues, associate professors of Environmental Science at Villanova, and a team of graduate students, are doing research in Puerto Rico on water quality and evaluating how stream chemistry has changed post-Maria.
The research is part of master’s student Erin Sibert’s thesis.
“My research has the potential to illustrate how a system both responds and recovers from a natural disaster like Hurricane Maria,” notes Sibert. “It is my hope that this research can exemplify the need for funds and resources to support our citizens before and after a natural disaster like this occurs.”
The United States Geological Survey estimates that Hurricane Maria triggered over 40,000 landslides in the mountainous areas of Puerto Rico—creating more fresh surfaces for chemical erosion. The resulting runoff can make its way into streams during subsequent rain storms.
“Erin’s research is focused on changes that occurred in the metal chemistry of three Puerto Rico streams pre- and post-Maria,” noted Goldsmith. “Watersheds with more landslides have more opportunities for chemical erosion to occur, potentially increasing the likelihood of metals in streamwater.”
Many residents, particularly in mountain areas, rely on streams as both a source of drinking water and for other household needs, such as laundry. The research will determine the potential exposure of these residents to heavy metals.
“It is our hope policy experts will use this information to disseminate more portable water filtration units in advance of any future hurricanes,” added Goldsmith.
Goldsmith and his team are also taking aerial drone images showing landslide scars. They are using these to compare the terrain pre- and post-Maria.


(1) Ultrasmall angles of strabismus may escape diagnosis by conventional methods of examination and are easily overlooked. Whenever stereoacuity is reduced in the presence of apparent ocular alignment with scotoma response on the 4 diopter base-out prism test, 58 p.309 the examiner must search for microtropia or other subtle anomalies of binocular vision. For the measurement of stereoacuity we prefer random dot stereo tests, such as the TNO, Randot, or Lang test. The Titmus stereotest may be used but has the disadvantage of providing monocular clues.
(2) The amblyopia in microtropia is, as a rule, mild and rarely deeper than 20/100.
(3) The Bagolini striated lens test 58, p.251 shows anomalous retinal correspondence.
(4) Fundus examination with a Visuscope 58, p.221 or a regular direct ophthalmoscope with a built-in fixation target shows parafoveal fixation.
(5) Absence of a shift on the cover test in the presence of eccentric fixation and anomalous correspondence is interpreted as an identity between the degree of eccentricity of fixation and the angle of anomaly. 28; 58, p.309
(6) Because fixation is foveolar and there is a minute shift on the cover test, no identity exists between the fixation behavior and the state of retinal correspondence.
(7) Microtropia may occur as a primary anomaly of binocular vision 37 but is more common as a secondary microtropia.
(8) Secondary microtropia occurs as an end stage of treatment of essential infantile esotropia 37, 61 (see 1.17, 1.18, and 1.19) but may also be associated with anisometropic amblyopia or amblyopia with a history of anisometropia. 28
(9) Reduced visual acuity of one eye when measured under binocular conditions with a polaroid test indicates foveal suppression of that eye.
(10) Subnormal binocular vision occurs in a primary form in family members of patients with essential infantile esotropia. 24, p.410
(11) More frequent than the primary is the secondary form of subnormal binocular vision, which is seen as an ideal end stage of the treatment of essential infantile esotropia.


Trends in heart health
With China’s rapid urbanisation and changes in dietary and lifestyle choices, cardiovascular and other chronic diseases have emerged as a critical public health threat. In 2010 the prevalence of hypertension, the most common form of cardiovascular disease, reached 33.5% (affecting an estimated 330 million people). Yet awareness and control rates remained extremely low. Although the average body mass index (BMI) of the Chinese population is lower than the global average, abdominal obesity has become common in adults. Cardiovascular disease is now the country’s most common cause of mortality.
Smoking and increasingly sedentary lifestyles contribute to these trends. Despite tobacco control efforts, the prevalence of smoking in China remains at a high level, and domestic production of cigarettes continues to rise. Work- and transportation-related physical activity levels have declined sharply. Behavioural changes are thus accelerating the epidemics of obesity and chronic diseases, with negative consequences not only for public health and individual quality of life, but also for China’s economic and social well-being.
The overall objective this research project was to identify and analyse causes of and trends in cardiovascular disease in China. With a focus on coronary heart disease and stroke and in consultation with Swiss Re experts, the primary investigator:
- Conducted a systematic review of risk factors for cardiovascular disease in China and estimated the risk contribution of each factor to cardiovascular disease outcome. Disease burdens were expected to be the most effective way to communicate the urgency of China’s cardiovascular health challenges to government officials, policymakers, the media and the lay public.
- Compared the time trend in each cardiovascular risk factor in subpopulations stratified by gender, age group, demographics and socioeconomic status and projected the future values in each subpopulation. Whilst the risk factors for cardiovascular disease in China are similar to those in other countries, their distribution is distinctive.
- Examined the effects of having medical insurance on cardiovascular disease risk factors and disease burdens and predicted the related disease burden changes associated with potential insurance coverage.
To the extent that the findings of this research shed light on the drivers of cardiovascular disease in China, it has the potential to benefit many millions of individuals at risk as well as national and international authorities, NGOs and businesses that have an interest in improving China’s public health.


By John Wihbey
The social cost of carbon — “SCC,” as it’s known. Sounds a bit wonky. Yet it is becoming a crucial new instrument in putting a “price on carbon,” even as for many its meaning remains elusive, hard to grasp.
“It’s the most important figure you’ve never heard of,” says economist Michael Greenstone, a key architect of the concept as Chief Economist of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors.
The EPA defines it as “an estimate of the economic damages associated with a small increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, conventionally one metric ton, in a given year.” The dollar figure assigned, then, “represents the value of damages avoided for a small emission reduction (i.e. the benefit of a CO2 reduction).” The current dollar value is $37 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted.
Greenstone, now director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, hastens to add, “It’s not just wonky cost-benefit. It’s what our grandchildren would want us to do.”
The figure, in other words, has a unique moral dimension. So perhaps, then, it’s our moral duty to understand it.
Connecting Social Costs to Our Own Lives
The government now has a specific number it can use to make rule changes, taking into account economic damages as a result of climate change. If policy X — let’s say, a rule allowing the expansion of a power plant — prevents the generation of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, multiply those tons by $37 to get the value of damages avoided by the rule. That number is then counted as a net social benefit.
Grasping the true meaning of giant, industrial-size dollar figures can be difficult. But there’s a simple way to think about it, based on a little back-of-the-envelope calculation:
The activities of every American right now produce about 18 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
About one-third of that, let’s say six tons, comes from transportation.
So multiply six by $37, and you get $222. That’s how much the daily commute, rides to the grocery store and road trips — all our carbon-producing travel — cost in societal damages each year.
The University of Chicago’s Greenstone says that there has been an “explosion” of research on the economic impacts of climate change in recent years, none yet factored into the current models. He’s working with experts at several other academic institutions to formulate an updated model.
Continue reading at Yale Climate Connection…


Sometimes, the most “innocent” images are the most dangerous.
Confirmation of this statement can be found in the children’s stories that have for many years employed characters taken from the world of the gypsies in order to indoctrinate children and teach them obedience. During the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some of the teaching designed to inculcate the values of the official culture and promote family discipline was carried out through stories in which rebellious children—those who dared to disobey their parents and leave their comfortable homes—frequently ended up being stolen by bands of gypsies and vanishing into thin air.
These kidnappers, described as living on the fringes of civilized society, represented all the evils of barbarism—pagan, immoral, uncouth and criminal—in contrast to the alleged virtues of the national culture. Heading the long list of illegal actions attributed to gypsies in these stories, that of child stealing is a hackneyed theme that appears over and over again in European children’s literature.
Mariska is just one of the most famous of these girls in fiction stolen by the gypsies, the sweet daughter of a well-to-do man who, one unfortunate day, came face to face with danger because she failed to take care when out riding her horse:
An ugly old crone looked her straight in the face.
“Ha, ha, ha!” the old crone laughed, as a huge tooth in the front of her mouth bobbed up and down.
Now she looked like a large bird of prey that had caught a tiny bird.
She immediately stuffed a ball of cloth in the little girl’s mouth and tied a rag around it.
Soon afterwards, they arrived at a caravan. There, they took all Mariska’s pretty clothes off and dressed her in some ugly dirty disgusting rags. Her face, hands and feet were smeared with grime, and her pretty clothes were then soaked in oil and burned. It was awful. And that woman was there and did not stop cackling with laughter. Every now and then, they would pull poor Mariska’s hair.
“Haven’t we made you into a lovely beggar? Go back to your father’s farm now, and you’ll soon see, they’ll call you a filthy gypsy and set the dog on you.”
The gypsy children were soon tormenting Mariska, pulling her hair, and punching and kicking her. And what upset Mariska most of all was their rudeness. They called her really nasty things. Then they grabbed Mariska again, stuffed a ball of cloth in her mouth and shoved her into a large wooden chest.
“Right, that’s that,” said the man. We’ve often taken things over the border this way.
Sandor Kis, Mariska, Princess of the Circus (Mariska de Circusprinses), 1955, .
Jean Kommers, an anthropologist interested in processes of image formation, especially the construction of images of cultural alterity, studied this and four hundred other similar stories that were published in books for young children and teenagers in the small country of Holland between 1825 and 1980. To do so, he employed the discipline of Imagology, which was used to good effect in academic circles in northern and central Europe to analyse the role of images in processes of national identity formation, but making the focus of his study representations that affected marginalized or dominated social groups. In 1993, he published a book about the image of gypsies in children’s literature, Kinderroof of Zigeunerroof? Zigeunners in kinderboeken [Stealing Children or Stealing Gypsies? Gypsies in Children’s Literature] (Utrecht: Van Arkel), a revised edition of which is now being prepared in Spanish.
In this study, Jean Kommers came to some important conclusions that remain valid twenty years later, among them, that the “innocent” and “trivial” literature of children’s stories has played a substantial role in disseminating images that convert gypsies into the dregs of society, a group that does not deserve to have civic rights. The title of Kommers’ book sums up his main conclusion, since it alludes to the “stealing” myth, at the same time as it turns it round. Through the accumulation of negative stereotypes about them, children’s literature has robbed gypsies of the opportunity to be seen as respectable people by successive generations of adolescents.
Accusing them of crimes such as child stealing is analysed in terms of its symbolic value, as marking a dividing line that categorically separates some groups from “others”. The attention paid to the structural features of this type of literature—especially the repeated recourse to binary oppositions (black/white, civilized/barbarian, Christian/pagan)—enables the author to point out the hidden foundations and social effects of expressions of xenophobia that can also arise in the present. In parallel to all of this, Kommers’ work suggests that “these ‘innocent’ books, whose stated intentions were to teach children about the importance of behaving like good Christians in life, were also in fact—more than anything else—books about power, (…) the power of the dominant society over another dominated one. They were about social inequality and played an important part in prolonging it”.
The social significance and scientific originality of Kommers’ study mean that it certainly deserves to be recuperated. This is the purpose of the Spanish edition, which is to be published before the end of 2015. The Editorial Universidad de Sevilla [Seville University Press] has taken on the translation from Dutch of this book, which had a small print run and scant circulation when it first came out, and will publish it, under the supervision of María Sierra, in its Colección de Geografía e Historia [Geography and History Collection]. The new book not only includes the eminently useful study originally published in 1993, but also adds two texts that revisit it and bring it closer to the present (social and academic) state of affairs. On the one hand, the author himself contributes an essay entitled “Twenty Years Later…” in which he subjects the results of his work to criticism and discussion, indicating the need to add other perspectives of a historiographical kind to the anthropological approach employed originally. María Sierra, for her part, endeavours to respond to the challenge in her “Introductory Study”, in which she explains the origin and meaning of this unusual Hispano-Dutch publishing venture.
As Jean Kommers points out in his exercise in self-criticism, while we do need to ask about changes in the interpretation of symbols inscribed within very persistent images, it is also worth reflecting on the fact that the representations that most gadjé have of the gypsies do not come from direct contact with them, not even in Spain, a country with more than half a million gypsies and a growing number of self-representation associations in the roma community. Recent initiatives designed to review and dissolve stereotypes, directed at very diverse segments of official culture, from the mass media to the Royal Academy of Language, still have plenty of work ahead of them.
Past and present, minority and minorities; the study of representations also serves to illuminate relations between phenomena of marginalization and social injustice at different times and with different protagonists. The words this summer of the Mayor of the small Austrian town of Grosskirchheim refusing to give shelter to refugees, look as if they have been copied from one of the stories about gypsies analysed in Kommer’s book (Janse: Er komen vreemde logeergasten [Strangers are coming to stay] 1979):
This is our town. We are used to leaving our doors open at night. Because there are no pickpockets or thieves around here. All that will change when those shelters are opened, and we don’t want that to happen.
“The refugees are the new gypsies”, has stated the Hungarian philosophe Gaspar Miklós Tamás in view of recent events. His remark is the best way to conclude this post about a book concerned with the processes of image formation and the maintenance or transfer of their symbolic contents. Representations of alterity and social marginalization form a two-way circuit.
And not forgetting, at the same time, that there are a good many “former” gypsies among the refugees.
(*) In this text, the word gitano [gypsy] is used intentionally and for various reasons that we would like to clarify. First of all, because this is the term used in the literature that we are referring to. Secondly, because, in spite of being aware that the word gypsy has a strong pejorative component in English and other languages, which makes those who are addressed as such reject it in favour of Rom (Roma, Romani), in Spanish, the term gitano has a positive meaning from an identitarian point of view for those who are proud to call themselves such. This is why this entry uses the term differently depending on the linguistic context.


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The young solar system was a dangerous place for planets. Several of today’s worlds got blasted by other planets. Earth was hit by a planet as big as Mars, giving birth to the Moon. And Uranus was hit by an even bigger planet, knocking it over on its side.
Mercury probably got hit, too. The Sun’s closest planet is also the smallest. Yet it’s quite heavy. It has a big, dense iron core wrapped in fairly thin layers of rock. That suggests that something big hit the planet when it was quite young, blasting away most of its outer layers.
One problem with that idea is that most models say the debris should fall back onto Mercury within a million years or so. Yet that clearly didn’t happen. And a recent study suggested a possible reason why.
The young Sun was more magnetically active than it is today. That produced a faster, thicker “wind” of charged particles.
If Mercury got hit during the Sun’s first 10 million years, the wind probably blew the debris away from the Sun. In fact, some of that material could have been incorporated into the young Earth. If the impact came a little later, though, then the debris would have been pulled into the Sun. Either way, the young planet was stripped of its outer layers — leaving it small but heavy.
And Mercury is just peeking into view in the dawn sky. It looks like a moderately bright star quite low in the east-northeast as twilight paints the sky. It’s well to the lower left of Venus, the “morning star.”
Script by Damond Benningfield


Poverty is evident all over the world. There are homeless people roaming the streets even in progressive countries, what more in struggling third-world nations that are often riddled with problems of inequality, corruption, lack of opportunities and political unrest. Unfortunately, there are many countries now in the world that fits the description. If you haven’t heard it in the news yet, famine continues to ravages several African nations.
Widespread poverty is one of the triggers of famine. Famine is often unheard of in civilized countries because the government can always intervene and prevent it from happening. However, many people die of hunger from various African places you haven’t heard of. Aside from the issue of war, climate change likewise has a big role as to why famines happen and persist in the first place.
“Where people exceed food supply, widespread hunger and famine results and many may die as we have repeatedly experienced in many countries, particularly in the Horn of Africa. The complexity of the hunger debacle in Africa also incriminates many factors apparently unrelated though intricately intertwined. Population control and management are needful. There are just some levels or limits to which new houses, schools, stadia, roads, railways, airports, markets, recreation grounds can be established.
“Each country has a fixed land space. Space determines the carrying capacity as regards food production hectares. Import of food that depends on the hard earned foreign exchange is risky when funds dry up. If the human population fills her territory, migration becomes inevitable. The days of empire expansion through the power of might is long past,” he said.
Akoroda, a professor, in his presentation, ‘From Hunger and Starvation to Sufficiency: Proffering Solutions to Africa’s Predicament’, charged Nigerian governments to endeavour to abide strictly by the Maputo Declaration for African Union countries which stipulated spending at least 10 percent of their national budgets on food and agriculture, noting that this has continued to remain a mirage due to neglect, ignorance, and inaction.
“The result of not heeding such proposition has not helped us in reducing or removing hunger fromAfrica,” Akoroda lamented.
Hunger is a big problem in Africa. The land is all dried up and no crop can ever grow anymore. Water is scarce as well, so people had to rely on government rations to survive. Unfortunately, not everyone can make it so the body count keeps on increasing until now because the issues on famine haven’t been solved yet.
Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are suffering from a famine that affects 20 million people. According to eVolo magazine, over 40 percent of people living in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty. In the last three decades, absolute poverty has been reduced from 40 percent to 20 percent worldwide. Unfortunately, the green revolution including clean energy, fertilizers, irrigation, and high-yield seeds that doubled grain production between 1960 and 2000 on other continents has failed multiple times in Africa due to limited markets, bad infrastructure, civil wars, and an ineffective government.
The eVolo magazine presents and discusses architecture embodying technological advances, sustainable concepts, and innovative designs. Each year, eVolo hosts a competition and awards the structures that they admire most. This year’s top prizewinners were two Polish architects, Pawel Lipinski and Mateusz Frankowski. They designed the Mashambas Skyscraper which houses a farm, an education center, and a community center.
The ingenious structure facilitates the training of subsistence farmers in modern farming techniques. Providing the farmers with inexpensive fertilizers and state-of-the-art tools enables them to increase their crop yields dramatically. The skyscraper also creates a local trading area, which helps to maximize profits. The objectives are self-sufficient farming and overcoming poverty and famine.
Vertical farming is one of the options considered by experts to help solve the famine issues the world over. Moreover, the lack of agricultural space is no longer that big of an issue when you can plant a lot of crops on a small piece of land. The population is exploding, so the food supply should be able to catch up as well or else many people will end up hungry and sick just like what is happening now in Africa.
For years now, these poor African nations have relied on non-profit organizations for assistance but the increasing armed conflict in the region make it difficult for help to arrive. Also, other parts of the world are ravaged by disasters as well and are the reason why donors’ money and other resources are stretched thin and only a small portion gets to Africa. If only armed conflict won’t get in the way of help, perhaps it can save countless lives and people no longer have to suffer from hunger any longer.


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Recently deployment of renewable energy such as sunlight and wind power or deployment of process technologies for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is indispensable to reduce the CO2-emission. However, there are some issues to be solved in order to accelerate the mass deployment of renewable energy. Since amount of renewable energy quite changes unstably with time, which depends on weather and place, development of process systems technology is an issue for stable and effective utilization of electric power that is generated by fluctuating renewable energy.
Those in national institute of National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) agree that process technologies on energy conversion of renewable electricity into hydrogen energy carrier are very useful to deploy long-term storage and long-distance transport of much more renewable inside and outside Japan. Ammonia is a potential hydrogen carrier that contains 17.6 wt% of hydrogen. Moreover, as an energy carrier, ammonia is thought to be a clean fuel as only water and nitrogen are produced on direct combustion.
Many researchers and engineers consider that ammonia plants using hydrogen produced by solar electricity or wind electricity will be much smaller than those currently used. This implies process development in a different direction than that practices in the traditional chemical industry, according to Minnesota research group that has developed a small-scale Haber process . For example, there is an issue of low pressure condition for feed of raw material gas, since hydrogen and nitrogen are produced by water electrolysis and pressure swing adsorption (or cryogenic air separation) respectively. Ammonia synthesis under the conventional pressure conditions needs increase in power for compression of the feed gas. Moreover, low temperature operation has advantage in getting higher ammonia concentration of equilibrium limitation. In order to promote the reaction under the lower pressure conditions, lower reaction temperature condition is desirable due to a limitation of equilibrium.
In Japan, the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) supports the research and development of catalyst with high catalytic activities in the low-temperature region, and our research group plans to demonstrate performance of developed catalysts by small-scale ammonia plants that will be built in Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute, AIST (FREA). Ruthenium (Ru) catalysts have received particular attention owing higher activity for ammonia synthesis, since the pioneering study of Aika et al. [2-3] Great efforts have been paid to develop supported Ru catalysts using Al2O3, MgO, Cs-MgO and so on. However, there is a small number of studies for influence of time-variation of flow rate of hydrogen to kinetics of ammonia synthesis by using the supported Ru catalysts from the viewpoint of design of the small-scale ammonia production systems by using renewable energy. In the present study, we investigate influence of flow ratio of hydrogen (H2) to nitrogen (N2) to dynamic behavior of ammonia production by using the developed Ru catalyst under low pressure conditions (< 2.5 MPa). Then effects of addition of alkaline earth metal to Ru catalyst will be discussed.
Laboratory kinetic experiments for the developed catalyst, which was called “Ru-catalyst A”, was carried out by using a quartz tubular reactor (Φ14 mm x 370 mm). The catalyst of about 2 milliliters was packed in the middle. As the preliminary step to activate the catalyst, hydrogen and nitrogen was flowed in a stoichiometry ratio for 30 minutes under condition of 600 °C and ambient pressure. In the present study, ammonia synthesis was carried out by changing temperature (T) in a range of 325 – 425 °C and gage pressure (P) in a range of 0.0 – 2.5 MPa. The produced ammonia was analyzed by the decrease of electron conductivity in the sulfuric acid solution.
First, data maps for space time yield (STY) for ammonia production by using Ru-catalyst A were created by changing the flow ratio of hydrogen to nitrogen (γ) in a range of 0.25 – 4.0. When a data map for T = 425 °C and P = 2.5 MPa was compared with one for T = 350 °C and P = 2.5 MPa, high values of STY were seen in a wide region of higher g than 0.67 that indicated maximum of STY for the case for 350 °C. Then a tendency of higher STY for γ = 1 and T = 400 °C than a case for stoichiometry ratio (γ = 3) was remarkably observed by increasing pressure. We analyzed kinetics of ammonia production under the ambient pressure condition, by using the power law expression (r = k PN2l PH2m PNH3n). In this kinetic analysis, the exponent of partial pressure for hydrogen (m) was positive. Then it was seen that order of m for T = 400 °C was higher than one for T = 325 °C in the analytical region of γ > 3. It was considered that the developed Ru-catalyst A could perform stable production of ammonia with high STY in an operation range of γ < 3 by increasing reaction temperature.
Next, effects of addition of alkaline earth metal to metal catalyst carrier were investigated by using three different preparation methods; co-precipitation and physical mixing. For physical mixing, the alkaline earth metal and the metal catalyst carrier were mixed in a ball mill (Retsch MM400). Data maps for STY for ammonia production by using Ru catalyst containing alkali metal promoter, which was called “Ru-catalyst B”, were created by changing experimental condition as mentioned previously. When a data map for application of physical mixing was compared with one for co-deposition for cases of T = 375 °C and P = 2.5 MPa, maximum of STY were seen at 1.5 of γ higher than 1.0 that indicated maximum of STY for the case for application of co-deposition. For these three catalysts prepared with different methods, it was seen that the trend for effect of temperature was quite comparable. At lower temperature, it was considered that the highest catalytic activity was achieved under operating condition of lower γ. Whereas, with increase in temperature, it was inferred that the catalytic activity increased with relative increase in hydrogen concentration in reactant stream.
Moreover, it was seen that maximum of STY for Ru-catalyst B that was prepared by that physical mixing method was very close to maximum STY for the above-mentioned Ru-catalyst A in a case of T = 375 °C, although the supported amount of ruthenium for Ru-catalyst B was less than one for Ru-catalyst A. Then, in the same previously mentioned kinetic analysis for ammonia production under the ambient pressure condition, lower value of the exponent of partial pressure for hydrogen (m) was estimated by comparing the analytical result for Ru-catalyst A. It is necessary for characterization of existence form of magnesium in reaction conditions to make clear influences of preparation method to retardation of ammonia decomposition and enhancement of the overall reaction efficiency in future work.
This work was supported by Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), “Energy carriers” (funding agency: Japan Science and Technology Agency, JST).
 M. Malmali et al., Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 55(2016) 8922-8932.
 K. Aika et al.; J. Catal., 27 (1972) 424-431.
 K. Aika et al.; J. Catal., 92 (1985) 296-304.