Digital Technology Is Gambling With Children's Minds
Writing, reading, focusing, and remembering have all been transformed
The psychological impact of digital technology on K-12 students has been the subject of considerable research. "Internet addiction," video game violence, and cyberbullying have received much attention. The impact of digital life on children's cognition is less familiar to young users, their parents, and teachers. Yet, new technologies have altered key aspects of cognition. Writing, reading, focusing, and remembering have all been transformed, dictating new realities in the classroom and beyond.
A large proportion of interpersonal communications among those old enough to have a cellphone occurs over text messaging platforms. As early as 2012, teens between 14 to 17 years old were sending a median of 100 texts a day, according to the Pew Research Center. Much of these communications are in a language that bears little resemblance to the one they are being taught in school. This comes at a cost: It is difficult to convey meaning without the paralinguistic cues of gesture, facial expression, emphasis, and intonation, and this problem is hardly addressed by the creative addition of emoticons or bitmojis to convey feelings. Highly interpretable, the abbreviations, symbols, and pictograms of e-language cannot fulfill the role of language to express with precision and nuance specific facts or states of mind. Yet, digital-based communication is the new lingua franca.
This is compounded by the dumbing down of content. The primacy of speed in electronic communication results in missives that try to squeeze the most into unrealistically short sentences (if they can still be called that). The physical limitations, even for agile, well-trained fingers, to typing on a small screen also conspire against extraneous detail or background, grammatical demands, or social niceties. The result can be an avoidance or oversimplification of complexity and exchanges that are reduced to decontextualized opinions, abrupt declamations, or rapid transactions.
Linguists may celebrate these changes as signs of a language that is alive and evolving. The same process that transformed "it is" to "it's" may be transforming "laughing out loud" to "LOL." Still, the speed with which written expression is changing is unprecedented—LOL itself seems passé among young texters, having been replaced by pictures and various iterations of the smiley face. The abandonment of even acronyms can be seen as a sign of language regression, a sort of "evolution" toward a neo-hieroglyphic age, with real cognitive implications.
Reading is similarly transformed. Some eye-tracking experiments suggest that people read a page differently online—in a scanning "F" pattern superimposed on the page, rather than top to bottom and left to right. Research from University College London suggests that online readers "scan, flick, and 'power-browse' their way through digital content," constantly looking for distractions in the form of other online material they could be reading. These issues would seem more acute for digital natives who may have never had enough practice with "traditional" reading. As happened with writing, we have invented new ways to read, perhaps cognitively rewiring our brains along the way.
Attention, another pillar of cognition, is also compromised. The rates of attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder, including in very young children, have risen, in a manner that raises questions about the role of early and very frequent screen exposure. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the estimated number of children and adolescents who have ever been diagnosed with ADHD increased from 4.4 million in 2003 to 6.1 million in 2016. Other studies that directly assessed the link between ADHD and excessive screen time point to a strong association. This was highlighted in a large meta-analysis of 15 studies that explored the association between ADHD and "internet addiction." It concluded that internet addiction in adolescents and young adults was associated with more severe symptoms of ADHD.
Of course, such data pose a chicken-or-egg question: Do digital technology addicts develop ADHD because their attention spans shorten online, or are kids with ADHD attracted to the internet because its pace matches their compromised attention? While the answer remains elusive, the correlation is there and may have contributed to the increase seen in the number of stimulant prescriptions: Drug usage statistics suggest that the number of prescriptions for the stimulant methyphenidate—such as Ritalin and Concerta—has risen by over 27 percent between 2004 and 2014 in the United States, and the number of psychostimulants prescribed in the United Kingdom has more than doubled over the same time period. If attention shrinks, students' cognitive universe, almost by definition, will shrink.
With all manner of information at students' fingertips, why memorize anything? This is not a silly question, and students increasingly ask it of their teachers. After all, whatever knowledge nugget they might be after, it is highly likely that a quick search will yield it. Traditionally, education involved storing information into students' heads. The search engine has made it so that learning is increasingly about mastering how to navigate databases.
If, in this new paradigm, downloading has replaced retrieving information from a student's internal library, what does it purport for digital natives' memory neurons? There is still plenty that neuroscience does not know about how memories form and are accessed, but might we compromise in any way the capacity to remember if we stop "exercising" it? Or is this tremendous neuronal power simply rechanneled toward other goals, thereby making new achievements possible for today's students? The answer is largely unknown, which is why this new emphasis on the search engine rather than engine of memory would seem to amount to a gambling act.
In many ways, this is the best time to learn. Never have students had more books available than what is scanned online. Never have there been more informative TED talks they can watch, or more MOOC courses by star lecturers they can enroll in. Yet, many potential consumers of this immense body of knowledge may be too distracted to truly benefit from it. If they lose the taste for words, develop an allergy to grammar, compress their attention spans, and become impatient with the time and space it takes to develop an idea, all the "big data" at their fingertips may prove of limited value, like a wasted resource for a generation that won't know what to do with it. A frowny emoji would seem apropos here.
Vol. 38, Issue 13, Pages 26-27Published in Print: November 14, 2018, as The Digital Assault on Cognition


City as Common Good
"The city is also a collective or common good, in that urban residents share a number of its resources -- from the parks and opens spaces to streets and buildings, and even a city's culture. Much like the natural environment, the urban environment too is subject to the disproportionate consumption by the wealthy, through economic and cultural domination of its resources, depriving the less well-off of many goods necessary to survive and thrive in cities.
This is why, all over the world, city residents are utilizing, and sometimes occupying, vacant land, abandoned or underutilized buildings, foreclosed houses, and endangered local cultural institutions. They do so to protect these goods from being sold to profit-driven private interests. As investors move to buy up foreclosed homes and so-called "vacant lots" on which community gardens sit, to displace many longstanding businesses and cultural institutions, local residents and activists propose instead to take some of these properties out of the real estate market altogether. To do so, they are creating limited-equity cooperative housing, real estate investment cooperatives, and other mechanisms to stabilize neighborhoods and to preserve long-term affordable residential, commercial and artistic spaces.
The claiming of land, buildings, homes, and other urban infrastructure as essentially a "common good" is a direct response to the displacement of long term tenants, small businesses, community gardens, and significant cultural and social institutions brought about by the confluence of the economic downturn and profit-maximizing development decisions. The growing global movement for the urban commons begs the following questions. How do we maintain the dynamism of cities, allow them to grow and change, while not degrading or destroying those goods and resources vital to the ability of different classes and types of people to live and thrive in cities? How do we allocate the finite resources of the cities so that a variety of users and uses have access to them and can share them?
Cities already have many tools available to them to work with residents to help them preserve the tangible and intangible assets of their communities and to create better balance between market-oriented development and what Pope Francis in his encyclical calls "authentic development." For example, the power of cities to "take" or claim property for public use, or the common good, can be utilized to preserve the assets and resources of socially and economically vulnerable communities. States, and by extension cities, have the power to assemble underutilized land for affordable housing in center cities. Cities can also transfer titles, acquired through tax liens, of underutilized buildings or vacant lots to community land trusts for the creation of community assets like affordable housing, urban gardens and affordable co-sharing or co-working spaces that help to stabilize vulnerable communities.
The urban commons framework offers another alternative, the collaborative city, which we see emerging in places like Bologna, Italy. Last year, Bologna adopted and implemented a law which empowers residents, and others, to collaborate with the local government to undertake the "care and regeneration" of the urban commons across the city. The "urban commons" covered by the regulation includes public spaces, green spaces and abandoned or underutilized buildings and other infrastructure. The central regulatory tool is a "collaboration pact" which allows the city to enter into agreements with any group of residents, and other actors, for the long-term care and regeneration of a common resource, or for a single or short term use of the resource. The regulation also provides for the transfer of technical and monetary support for the collaboration.
If cities are the places where most of the world's population will be living in the next century, as is predicted, then we will need a different framework for developing cities that are both revitalized and inclusive. The urban commons framework recognizes that there are resources in the city in which residents have a common stake and in which decisions about those resources should not be solely in the hands of local governments, whose tendency is to accommodate the preferences of powerful economic interests in development decisions. This is not just about claiming and protecting common goods, but about securing our common future in a rapidly urbanizing world." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheila-foster/cities-inequality-and-the_b_8435316.html)


HOW WE MAKE THE AXES
Steel is iron that contains a certain amount of carbon.
The steel is purchased in various dimensions, three meter long rods, packed in giant bundles, where each bundle is weighing 8-10 tons. The steel comes from Ovako in Smedjebacken, and made to correct dimensions in the Ovako mill in Boxholm. Wetterling’s buys steel bars in five different dimensions. The steel is 100 % recycled scrap iron that is, under controlled processes, mixed to our specification, optimal for forging axes. The steel is based on the C55 carbon mixed with silicon, manganese and vanadium.
The steel rods are cut in pieces with the same weight as the eventual axe head – then forging begins.
Heating the steel
The steels optimal temperature for forging is about 1200 ° C – when it is yellowish red. The blacksmith must not heat the steel too much or for too long because the carbon in the steel burns out and the steel loses its beneficial properties – it can be difficult to cure and/or become brittle. If the steel is not hot enough, it is hard to forge and, at worst, it can destroy the forging hammer because it makes too much resistance.
At Wetterling’s we have four electrical high frequency furnaces (like a microwave oven produces micro-frequency waves, the HF furnace produces high-frequency waves). They are using induction to make the steel molecules move and quickly (in a few minutes) reach 1200 degrees centigrade. This is an effective and environmentally friendly way to heat steel.
The actual forging is done in the old Arboga forging hammers (1920 – 1930’s) that has a solid base, “table”, equipped with a number of fixed “pads” and “tools” in various forms, and a top that is constantly moving up and down with several tons clout. The blacksmith have no control of the stroke rate – it runs at the speed it’s built. Given that fact, a good blacksmith has to follow the rhythm and he or she has to strike while the iron is hot. The upper part of the hammer has a number of special tools mounted to suit the axe model forged.
The blacksmith, using a “blacksmith tongs”, brings the cut and 1200 C ° heated glowing steel slab and insert it – and then quickly takes it out, every few seconds, between the table’s cushions and tools, and the moving upper tools. The skill is for the Blacksmith to have the absolutely correctalignment between pads and tools. Step by step he or she beats the steel in the hammer and his ability to coordinate his movements is the skill to create a finished axe head. One of the hardest things in the blacksmith’s work is to get the ax straight and well balanced – and that the eye becomes perfect and sits exactly. The blacksmith controls the axe head’s proper shape. Using hammer and anvil the blacksmith can adjust the still hot blade so that it is absolutely straight and balanced before moving on to finishing.
The last process to a finished axe head contains the following:
- Impact testing
First the heads are roughly grinded, and then they get a finer grinding. The next step is heating the head again, with the help of high frequency (HF), but now only to slightly more than 800°C and only at the bottom of the head.
After a rapid cooling, in running tepid water, the axe blade is hardened. Then the heads are placed in a 195°C warm oven for about one hour. This last described procedure is called tempering. Tempering neutralizes any tension in the steel that may have occurred in the forging process.
After hardening and tempering the front of the axe head has a hardness of 57 Rockwell C.
The edge should be razor sharp so it is polished and ragged. Ragged means that the edge is polished on a rotary buffing wheel of textile rags along with grinding wax. Finishing ends with oiling the heads to prevent future rust.
When the finishing of the forged axe head is done the heads are shafted. This is done by means of a vertically extending hydraulic press with a press force of about 1000 kg.
After shafting the axes are carefully checked and provided with a edge cover of vegetable tanned, chrome-free leather.
Photos (machines) Ida Wedin with license CC-BY-SA


Rainbow emoji is one of the favorite emojis as it is liked by many people including children as well as adults. What does the rainbow emoji mean? Apart from its actual meaning, rainbow emoji is used to express positive feelings like happiness, joy, pleasure, hope and more. Besides, it is used to give positive responses like “that is great,” “I like that.” The rainbow reminds sky and nature for some people. They can use rainbow emoji as a symbol of the love of nature. As children like rainbow very much, this emoji is sometimes used in messages about cartoons and other tv programmes for kids. Apart from these, a rainbow has been regarded as the symbol of the LGBT rights. So, the meaning of the rainbow emoji can be about the rights of these people called LGBT.
Expression of positive feelings
In most cases, rainbow emoji is used to express positive feelings. These feelings can be happiness, enjoyment, hope, and more. In this context, rainbow emoji can be used in these messages: “Today is a nice day. I feel so happy”, “We had a wonderful time last evening. I will never forget that.”, “ am at the funfair. This place is great!”, “I have positive hopes about the future.”
Rainbow emoji can be put in any text when someone gives a positive response. These responses can be “That is wonderful,” “It is a great idea,” “That sounds great,” “It is excellent” and more.
Sky and nature
Some people remind heaven and nature when they see a rainbow. According to them, it is good to be part of nature, and it is good to be free. They are called nature lovers. So, they can put rainbow emoji in their text messages to represent freedom, sky, and nature.
The symbol of cartoons
Rainbow is often used as a symbol in cartoons. Most children like it very much. That is why the rainbow emoji can be added into a text that is about comics so that it can be easy to attract them.
The rights of LGBT
Rainbow emoji has been used as a symbol of the rights that belong to a group of people called LGBT. In this way, it is aimed to take notice of people to the rights of those who have different preferences. This emoji can be seen in many messages under related hashtags on social media.


Master the basics! By mastering essential third grade math skills, your child will feel more confident in the classroom. This workbook follows the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, published by the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and features interesting activities and colorful illustrations that introduce the basics covered in third grade math.
Our safety tips
- Listings with a "Shop" tag means that the publisher was curated by Jumia Deals.
- At all costs, avoid paying before seeing the item.
- Avoid sending money through untraceable methods such as Western Union or Mobile Money.
- Thoroughly check the item to make sure it's matches the assumed condition.
- If the seller doesn't have a shop, meet with him in a public place (Mall, Gas station, workplace ...).
- Do not give personal details (bank details, credit card numbers ...).
- Beware of offers that are too good to be true.


Wallace and Gromit: An Animating Love
we're all found of our anmal matter.
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1)
One man and his dog
The success of Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit animations may have been down to their proverbial premise: the renowned affinity between an Englishman and his dog. (2) Such rapport between human and canine, while famed, is a modern liaison, and culturally specific. Delving into it gives vent to some sonorous ideas inspirited by the bond between Wallace and Gromit. John Berger, in 'Why Look At Animals', registers the historical nature of the man-pet affiliation.(3) It is, he claims, a fraught relationship, anchored firmly in the industrial epoch. In a broad mapping of human-animal relations across time, Berger notes how animals, once resident at the centre of the human world, subjected but also worshipped, endowed with magical significance and anthropomorphized, "disappear", during the process of urban industrialization in the nineteenth century. They re-surface, first as machines, and later as raw materials - meat, leather and horn. Exotic animals become inmates of public zoos. Used up or caged in, animals' special and equal relation to humans vanishes. A chasm opens up between man and nature, which is really a gulf within nature. However, simultaneously, the "marginalization" of animals is revoked by the invention of the household pet. Pets, asserts Berger, are but animals reduced and drained, "mementoes from the outside world", lodging in the hermetic family-home, along with pot plants and romantic landscape paintings (p12). The owner's relationship to the pet is corrupt, because the animal is corrupted. Pets resemble their owners for they live lives like them, but in as much as they do this, they lose their animality and autonomy. In such a filiation, nature, lost to urban man, is regained in compromise form.
Wallace and Gromit dovetails with audiences because it reflects upon the dynamics of a commonplace, yet remarkable, relationship. But while Berger is appalled by devaluation of the animal in its debasement to pet-status, the homelife and frolics of Wallace and his dog demonstrate how fulfilling and equitable such a partnership may be. Their animated antics recast an abusive and unequal coupling in utopian form. In pulling together to combat time after time an evil that is technologically-enhanced, the two act out the idealized interconnectedness of man and nature.
Since the nineteenth century, children have been surrounded daily by likenesses of animals; toys, pictures, cartoons. These animal icons are frequently cute and often humanized. It is a peculiarity of the industrialised world and it ensconces early on in life the fantasy that to be at one with animals is to inhabit a lost paradise. Images of reconciliation rescind recollection of an ongoing instrumental violation of animals, as initiated by Descartes who conceived animals as soulless machines. In order to prove that animals have no soul Descartes nailed his wife's dog by its four paws to a board and dissected it alive, thereby installing a common practice for scientific researchers at London's Royal Society. Live animals flayed and dissected appeared to the vivisectionists as watch or clock mechanisms. Ostensibly activated by wheels, ratchets, springs, gears and weights, they were conceived as automatons. It is here that the cuddly toy and the faithful pet submit their counter-claim, voiding the justification for cruelty and overriding its actuality. Here Gromit, as toy (for us) and pet (for Wallace), with his resourcefulness and fidelity, rehumanizes or re-animates (from anima; Latin for soul or spirit). And he seems all the more human when confronted by the truly automated Cyberdog in A Close Shave. The pet is vindicated, the pet-man relationship sanctified. But, at the same time, the punishment meted out to animals in industrialism is never completely screened out. Gromit is falsely put behind bars in A Close Shave, and in The Wrong Trousers the diamond-thief penguin ends up in what seems to be a prison, but when the camera pulls back it is revealed to be a zoo. As Berger insists, the fact that those Victorian institutions, prisons and zoos, are so alike reveals at one blow our affinity with animals and our tragic species-isolation (p26). To keep a pet may be, however misguided, an attempt to overcome this breach.
In a radio lecture for children, titled 'True Stories about Dogs' , Walter Benjamin notes that the dog is the only animal (with the possible exception of the horse) with which man has been able to establish a bond of intimacy. (4) Benjamin attributes this familiarity to the victory of humans over animals, secured long ago, when animals were tamed and became dependent on man. Not for Benjamin Berger's idea of a pre-industrial golden age of animal-human relations, when humans depended upon animals, and so had to respect them. For thousands of years, Benjamin insists, dog has been slave and man master. But man's victory is not absolute, and dogs retain traces of their untamed and self-sufficient origin. Caught between wolfish past and devotion to humans, the dog straddles the line between nature (animality) and culture (humankind). Like any domesticated dog, then, Gromit oscillates between two worlds; from kennel to bed, from dog-bowl to dining-table. Gromit's frequent sojourns in the human world demonstrate the fantasy of pet-lovers. Their dogs are their friend and their mirror. When favoured by Wallace, Gromit lives a human's life. He knits, he does d.i.y., he listens to music. And he reads the philosophy handed down by a doggish antiquity; Pluto's Republic. He might more gratifyingly read Aristotle's History of Animals - a work that ascribes moral qualities to animals, noting that, like humans, they are capable of mildness or ill-temper, courage or timidity, fear or confidence, high spirits or low-cunning, and, they exhibit something akin to sagacity. True to Aristotle's vision and countless Disney films, Gromit's appeal, like the appeal of the pet, is that he is just like us. He is anthropomorphous.
The plastic arts
Aardman Animations, the studio that took on Nick Park while he was still a student at the National Film School, emerged into public consciousness in 1976 with a clay creature whose very name hinted at the essence of animation: Morph. This cheeky homonculus was animated using a process known variously as 3-D, clay, stop-motion/stop-frame animation. Patronage by the advertising industry and the music business brought about a flourishing of British animation. Aardman Animations were commissioned to experiment with stop-frame techniques. These forays led to the notable Sledgehammer video for Peter Gabriel(5) , and memorable advertisements, including Nick Park's theriomorphic series for the Electricity Board. The Creature Comforts animals, animated to the sounds of documented human voices, allowed Park to hone his skills in clay animation, and initiate the mundane but cute regional characterisations that have become his trademark. The tiniest movements, idiosyncratic and yet familiar ticks and quirks were reconstructed. Wallace and Gromit continued this exploration of the point at which English ordinariness segues into eccentricity. It combines familiarity and cliché with high adventure and suspense, just as it also synthesizes a demented irreality with naturalistic observation.
The rendition of Englishness in Wallace and Gromit oozes with sentiment and nostalgia. The routines of toast and jam for breakfast, four o'clock tea and day-trips at the weekend are irresistible, the simple pleasures being always the best. Framed photographs testify to past good times and companionship - recognition of the photos' motifs arouses our own private familiarity and knowledge of the storylines, as does the generic and intertextual playfulness.(6) The theme-tune, an oompahing ditty, sets up the tradition-seeped scene, echoing simultaneously the regional peculiarity of a colliery brass band and the empire-oriented World Service signature tune. Wallace and Gromit reside in West Wallaby Street, a sort of Coronation Street of Victorian back-to-backs in a Northern town. Art director Yvonne Fox travelled to Manchester to capture ideas for houses and skylines. While the skylines that surround their urban domicile do not omit the tower blocks and gasometers of late twentieth century cityscapes, the Victorian terrace house setting chimes well with prevailing ideas about pre-modernist, post-towerblock solutions to city habitation.(7) Nostalgia abides too in the technical vision. Wallace's self-built mechanisms issue from a pre-electronic age. Even though they are built to visit the moon or execute complex industrial tasks, they look mechanical rather than electrical or digital. Both the moon rocket of A Grand Day Out, and the multi-tasking machine in A Close Shave resemble old-fashioned copper brewery distilleries. But Wallace and Gromit does not simply present a twee parochialism or mourning for a lost era. It plays with those themes, unleashing them in the context of modernity. The episodes follow a pattern borrowed from the conventions of Hollywood action movies. At a certain point the chase sets in and anything can happen. There are no boundaries to what might occur and how the available implements will be used. Wonderment at Wallace's inventiveness and Gromit's good strokes (i.e. Park's ingenuity) taps cinema's very essence.
The figurines, Wallace, nine inches and Gromit, five inches high, are made of a concoction of plasticine, a shinier and more colourful American modelling clay, beeswax, and dental wax for extra sheen or hardness. The clothes are fashioned from foam latex. Non-moving parts are moulded from a modelling clay that can be baked hard, and the swirling eyes are wooden beads, whose holes in the pupils allow adjustment using the tip of a paperclip. Inside the figures is an articulated metal skeleton and magnets are used to maintain balance. The models are constructed to maximise morphability. This morphing of objects into real and non-real states fixes a utopian and infantile edge to the clay-animation form.(8) The chunkiness of the plasticine world and its slightly over-sized objects, evoking a childlike perception of scale, combines with the material's unjaded utopian and surreal faculty for moulding the potential mutability of all things into all other things. Clay-animation appears as realisation of Coleridge's esemplasticity, the imaginative law of a world where everything is made of the same stuff and everything could be everything else. This perfect unity of the universe and its contents is underscored by the similarity of our duo's features, their oblique foreheads, their squeezed together ping-pong ball eyes.
Watching inanimate objects metamorphose induces immense joy. Roland Barthes accounts for this effect in an article on plastic in Mythologies . Here he analyses the alchemical and miraculous associations of mouldable, infinitely transformable materials. He describes:
the reverie of man at the sight of the proliferating forms of matter, and the connections he detects between the singular of the origin and the plural of the effects. And this amazement is a pleasurable one, since the scope of the transformations gives man the measure of his power, and since the very itinery of plastic gives him the euphoria of a prestigious free-wheeling through Nature.(9)
In tandem with eliciting the exhilaration of an unfastening from nature's necessities, the building matter of stop-frame animation's mouldable universe draws upon potent associations. In Genesis God is cast as the original animator, who forms man of the earth's clay and exhales into his nostrils the breath of life. The poetic meaning of the word clay takes up these religious resonances, standing for the material of the human body. The formation of these clay bodies intimates an originary aspect of creation, and asserts the existence of the human.
Some have claimed that the special thing about animated puppets is that - unlike cel-animation - they tender something akin to live-action. 3-D animation is essentially vital. Such an inkling coincides with Aardman Animations' philosophy of "shoot and light" as if the animation were a live-action movie. Everything is designed and built around the camera. The clay world and the clay-puppets possess an undeniable reality. They are not shiny clean like 3-D computer animations. They cast actual shadows and throw around real weight. This morphing parallel world is a world, not a sliver of painted celluloid or a digital fantasia.
Love and craft
In 'Plastic' Barthes remarks that this infinite material can never perfectly imitate the triumphant smoothness of nature. The same might be said of Park's plasticine figurines. They are handmade, literally. It is possible to see fingerprints on the figures' bodies. In the context of an industrialised society wherein crafted goods exert a fascination, such manifest facture becomes an advantage in the quest for an audience. Imperfections place Park's animations in the realm of craft, and so by default, remove taints of self-serving commercialism. Not insignificant here is the fact that stop-frame animation was, prior to the Fall of the Wall, a tradition associated with apparently non-capitalist, i.e. non-profit-oriented, Eastern Europe. Much of the rhetoric around Nick Park and the three Oscars, "gained for Britain", identified his output as homespun, virtually a craft product in comparison to the industrial machinations from Disney's studios. This domestic sensibility is reinforced by the connection to television, specifically the BBC. Park's films all appear first on t.v. and, once for sale as home videos, they pointedly refuse to aggressively promote either the series or any other product. Wallace and Gromit, and Park himself with his shy persona, become plucky fighters against Disney corporate product. The process that produces the animations is artisanal in its methods. It is relatively low-budget. No expensive computers are needed for scanning in and out to film.(10) The characters' flexibility, their incessant movement that appears so effortlessly achieved, is in fact the result of an effort obsessional in its dedication. Each two syllable word spoken by Wallace necessitates six different facial expressions. Breaking movement up into tiny constitutive parts renders defamiliarizing close-ups of the banal, just as Adrian Rhodes' close-miking of ordinary noise makes sound extraordinary. This is the closely-observed surrealism of actuality. Each second of film may involve twenty-four movements for every clay character or prop. Each day about three seconds of film may be completed. Such work emerges, it is said, from love, devotion and obsession. The animation's theme also happens to be about love and devotion. Such a labour of love in a tale about love generates in turn its own devotees, as is testified by the internet's countless internationally-authored pages of fan stuff - all lovingly composed by adults who make it their business to broadcast quotations, images, scenarios, reviews. It is the stuff of d.i.y. and true amateurism.
Apparently low-tech, these animated lumps of moulded clay and wax dramatise questions of technology and control. Wallace, a Heath Robinson style inventor-hobbyist, self-builds or acquires his machinery, which in turn goes out of control, in some way or another. The narratives feed off rather routine fears of the techno-age. In The Wrong Trousers the ex-NASA techno-trousers are manipulated by the criminal penguin, and end up effecting Wallace's monstrous alienation from his own self-directed activity. He awakes upside-down, swinging from a museum's ceiling, about to undertake a diamond heist. In A Close Shave it is the Cyberdog who wreaks havoc. The narratives are driven by the attempt to regain control over technology run wild. In The Wrong Trousers the train set, a homely technology, is used to defeat the evil Feathers McGraw. In A Close Shave the wash-shave-knitting machine finally does the business of refurbishing the Cyberdog. Unlike Jan Svankmajer's animated surrealism, this is not a cosmic display of magic and the supernatural but demonstrates rather the extraordinary temper of technology and its alternating empathy with masters and slaves. The twentieth century fairy-tale involves the voodoo of machinery not the wizardry of goblins.
In 'The Mass Ornament'  Kracauer discusses fairy tales' intimation of genuine reason. Fairy tales, he claims, "are not stories about miracles but rather announcements of the miraculous advent of justice". He goes on to relate how in the fairy-tale; "fidelity triumphs over the arts of sorcery."(11) Truly in Wallace and Gromit it is fidelity, as 'personified' in the dog, that, in the end, triumphs over the mischievous diabolism of technology, and holds aloft the banner of love. Gromit always facilitates the victory, irrespective of Wallace's disloyalty in chasing money or seeking love elsewhere. Our pleasure in doggish fidelity signals a strong desire to be at one with nature, that is, to transgress the "new solitude", so poignantly pinpointed by John Berger (p9).
1. Finnegans Wake, Faber and Faber, London, 1971, p294.
2. Success is understood here in terms of public and critical recognition. As measure, here is an indication of the variety of awards and accolades won by the three films in the Wallace and Gromit series. A Grand Day Out, Park's graduation film, won a BAFTA. The Wrong Trousers won an Academy Award and over thirty other awards and wins a position in the International Animation Festival's shortlist of all-time animation favourites as voted on by a jury of five animation experts. Apart from its Oscar, A Close Shave won a succession of prizes at the 1996 British Animation Awards: Best film over 15 minutes; Best scenario; Public choice favourite film; Public choice funniest film. On Christmas Eve 1995 10.62 million people watched A Close Shave, comprising BBC2's highest audience that year.
3. Written in 1977 for The New Statesman, reprinted in About Looking, Writers and Readers, London, (980, p1-p26.
4. See Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriften, VII.1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main, 1989, p243-p249.
5. In collaboration with the Brothers Quay and Stephen Johnson.
6. Apart from deploying suspense-movie techniques, including Julian Nott's Bernard Herrmann style compositions, intertextual references abound. In A Close Shave, for example, there are references to Brief Encounter, Indiana Jones, The Third Man and Alien.
7. See the contribution by Robert Jones, Planning Minister at the Department of Environment, in Parliamentary Review, August 1996.
8. Childlike connotations persist with the clay form despite the adult-oriented efforts of Bruce Bickford or Xhonneux's Marquis. See Frank Zappa presents the Amazing Mr. Bickford, Honker Home Video/Barking Pumpkin Records, 1989 and Marquis, I.C.A Projects, 1989.
9. See Barthes, Mythologies, Paladin, London, 1973, p105.
10. Of course success changes things, and processes industrialize. Thirty-odd people worked on A Close Shave, with Park taking on more of a director-role. The budget was £1.3 million rather than the £650 000 spent on The Wrong Trousers. Digital technology makes easier the execution of certain optical effects and enables previously unrealizable things to be done, such as the aeroplane scene in A Close Shave.
11. In The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, Harvard University Press, 1995, p80.
More Optical Synoptix
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Rhizomorph structures confirm the relationship between Lycoperdales and Agaricaceae (Hymenomycetes, Basidiomycota)
Rhizomorphs provide systematically important traits. Therefore, in the present study the rhizomorph features of some species of (a) the gastroid genera Bovista, Handkea, and Lycoperdon, (b) the agaricoid genera Agaricus, Leucoagaricus, Leucocoprinus, Lepiota, Macrolepiota, and (c) the secotioid genus Podaxis were studied to test the molecular biological hypothesis of a systematical relationship between these genera. All genera revealed an agaricoid type of rhizomorph with very long, almost non-septate, thick-walled, dextrinoid emanating hyphae. Only Agaricus bisporus differed in this respect. In this species, the very long emanating hyphae are not thick-walled or dextrinoid. These differences can either be ascribed to the different habitat of A. bisporus in comparison to A. abruptibulbus, or are perhaps a consequence of their affiliation to different sections within this genus. It is concluded that rhizomorph structures confirm the results of DNA-sequence analyses that have already pointed out a relationship between Agaricus, Handkea, Lycoperdon, and Macrolepiota.


Shark Fin MusselApril 26, 2021
The freshwater Shark Fin Mussel (Hyriopsis bialatus) known to enthusiasts as the Shark Tooth Clam, Sailfin Clam, Pearl Mussel, Shark Tooth Mussel, or Shark Fin Shell is native to Southeast Asia and most frequently found in the sandy river bottoms of Thailand, Cambodia, and the Malay Peninsula.
In Thailand, Hyriopsis bialata is aquacultured for pearl production. Small grains of sand are introduced into the shell where it is coated over time with layers of mother of pearl. Although Hyriopsis bialatus originated in southeast Asia, it has become an invasive species in freshwater ponds, streams, and river bottoms in North America and other parts of the world.
The Shark Tooth Mussel has a bizarre shape that accurately resembles a large shark’s tooth. In their natural habitat, they can grow up to 6″ wide at the base, and sport a pointed, triangular tip at the top of the shell.
Shark Tooth Mussels (or Clams) are variable in colour. They can have a light beige to a dark brown base shell coloгr that is frequently covered longitudinally with green to yellow stripes or striations. They are not predatory and do little more than bury themselves into the substrate and filter the water they live in.
They normally do not open up their shells, and when they do, it is only a few millimeters to extend their white foot. Only dead shells remain fully open.
A single Shark Tooth Clam (Hyriopsis bialatus) should be kept in a tank of at least 20-gallon capacity, with a deep, sandy or extremely fine gravel layer of substrate for them to bury themselves into. Shark Tooth Mussels should only be kept in an aged aquarium with enough suspended particles in the water to keep them adequately fed. They thrive in detritus and mulm, so don’t worry about vacuuming the substrate. Although they need no filtration system in their tank, they should have a small powerhead to provide enough water movement to keep detritus and other food particles suspended in the water column.
Shark Fin Mussels are used by some tropical fish-keeping enthusiasts as an additional biofilter for heavily stocked community aquariums.
They usually present no problems with shrimp, snails, other clams or mussels, and most peaceful fish species, however, large crabs, crayfish, and a few species of predatory fish (loaches, Cichlids, some catfish, etc.) should never be housed with Shark Tooth Mussels. Fan shrimp or snails from the genera Brotia and Taia make excellent tank mates.
Shark Fin Mussels are filter feeders that devour small particles of suspended detritus, animal, and plant matter from the aquarium water.
In the wild where there are plenty of microorganisms and lots of detritus in the water, the clams literally live «happy as clams», but in an aquarium environment, especially with mechanical filtration, the water is too clean for them and they will eventually starve.
Over a very short period of time, the Shark Fin Mussel, even in a filterless aquarium, will quickly filter all of the food from the tank water and will have to be supplied a plankton-based food to prevent them from starving to death. Several high-quality liquid plankton-based foods are available for inverts, brine shrimp, daphnia, copepods, etc. that can be fed to Hyriopsis bialatus. Twice daily feedings are highly recommended.
Although Shark Fin Mussels are both male and female, can self fertilize their own eggs, and are aquacultured in southeast Asia for pearl production; they have not yet been successfully bred in an aquarium environment.


Ever wondered what is the very last number in the world? Is there are last number on Earth? In this article we will help you better understand the concept of whether or not numbers ever end.
What is The Last Number In Numbers?
There is no last number in the world. There are infinite amount of numbers, meaning numbers go on and on and never end.
Infinity is a concept that is difficult to understand. It is the idea that numbers go on for infinity.
Infinity can be described as an endless amount of something. For example, there are an infinite number of numbers in the world.
Here is a quote to understand the idea of infinity in terms of numbers:
“The last number in the world is 9,999,999,999. If you add one to that number it becomes 10,000,000,000. That is the next number in the world.”
What is The Second Last Number In Numbers?
There is no second last number in the world, similar to the fact that is no last number. Numbers are simply infinate in that there is no end to numbers.
What Is the Biggest Number In The World?
A Millinillion is the term for the largest number in the world. It is represented as 103003
At this time a Millinillion is known as the biggest written number in the universe.
A Googol is a well known term for one of the largest number in the world at this time. A Googol, not Google, is a number with a hundred zeros.
A Googol is not the last number in the world because you can add a thousand zeros, even a billion zeros to the end of a number and still not reach the end of the range of numbers.
How Many Numbers Are There In The World?
There is no limit as to the number of numbers that there are in the world. Numbers go on to infinity, hence they never end.
Why Do Numbers Never End?
In mathematics, infinity is a concept describing something without any bound or end.
One of the most important things to understand about infinity is that it is not a number. It can’t be added or multiplied with other numbers. But it can be written as a number with an infinite number of digits after the decimal point.
Infinity has been used in different areas of mathematics, science and philosophy for centuries.
How To Write Googol Number?
A Googol is written as: 10,
The number was named he term Milton Sirotta who was 9 years old at the time and nephew of U.S. mathematician Edward Kasner.
Is Google a Number?
What Is A Googolplex?
A googolplex is the number that is bigger than a Google. It is written as 10googol, or 1010100.
A Googleplex can also be written manually as: 1010,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
What is Rayo’s Number?
Rayo’s number has been on occasion declared as the largest number in the world at MIT in 2007. Agustin Rayo a Mexican professor gave the following definition:
“The smallest number bigger than any finite number named by an expression in the language of googol symbols or less.”
When Was Rayo’s Number Invented?
Rayo’s number was coined on 26 January 2007 at a big number duel at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
What Is The Last Number In Maths?
There is no last number in Maths, however a Googolplex is represented as the largest number. It is written as 10googol,.
What Number Is Infinity?
There are no numbers to represent infinity as it is not a tangible concept.
The symbol for infinity is represented as: ∞
What is Infinity Minus Infinity?
Infinity is a concept that is often used in mathematics, and it is typically defined as the quantity that has no end or limit. It is a number that can be used to represent any number larger than any other number.
We can think of infinity as a never-ending sequence of numbers, such as 1, 2, 3, 4…etc. But what would happen if we subtract one from infinity? This would give us -infinity.
The answer to this question will depend on how we define the concept of infinity. If we consider infinity as an infinite amount of numbers (1, 2, 3…), then subtracting one from it would give us -infinity because there are still numbers after ‘1’.
The answer to this question is a paradox. Infinity minus infinity is undefined because it does not exist.
What Is After Infinity?
The concept of infinity has been a part of mathematics for centuries. But it is not until recently that we started to understand the true nature of infinity.
Mathematicians have discovered that there are two types of infinity: countable and uncountable. Countable infinities are things like the number of seconds in a day, or the number of natural numbers less than ten. Uncountable infinities are things like the set of real numbers, or the set of points on a line.
The first type is called countably infinite and it can be put into order. The second type is called uncountably infinite and it cannot be put into order because there are too many elements in the set to compare them all at once.
What Is The Last Number Before Infinity Called?
Because there is no exact number to define infinity, there is therefore no last number before infinity.
Is Eternity Bigger Than Infinity?
Eternity is a long period of time that has no end. Infinity is a concept used in mathematics to represent something without any boundaries or limits.
In the context of the question, eternity is bigger than infinity because it has no end, while infinity has limitations and boundaries.
What Is The Smallest Number In The World?
The Smallest whole number is 0 or Zero.


NASA Tests New Rocket Motor for Future Deep Space Missions
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that its engineers fired a two-foot-diameter, subscale solid rocket booster in tests that took place on Wednesday at the Marshall Space Flight Center. During the test conducted at the center’s East Test Area, the new rocket managed to produce 92,000 pounds of thrust, NASA said Saturday.
In a statement, the space agency said the test was done as part of the booster obsolescence and life extension program. The effort is expected to yield next-generation rocket motors that would eventually be integrated into future iterations of the Space Launch System.
It was explained that the new rocket motors that would come out of the BOLE program would be larger and more powerful, able to send heavier payloads to the moon and beyond. An earlier test of the new rocket design, conducted on Dec. 2, 2021, only produced 76,400 pounds of thrust, according to NASA.
However, the latest test saw the integration of new technologies into the rocket’s design. NASA said that the rocket was lengthened with another half segment and the aft dome and nozzle were redesigned.
NASA also said that lead booster contractor Northrop Grumman used a new, more potent propellant during the latest rocket test. This was done to subject the rocket to the maximum operating pressure it could experience during the actual launch.
The space agency added that data from the test will be used to analyze how the rocket motor will perform under extreme pressure, which could happen during very hot days at the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Tags: Artemis mission BOLE program Marshall Space Flight Center NASA Northrop Grumman space Space Launch System


It’s always windy
Windy Gardens – and what to do about it.
A soft summer breeze is lovely, but not all wind is as soothing.
Smaller gardens generally suffer from two types of wind, a tunneling effect as it speeds up between narrow spaces.
Secondly, turbulence; the wind is deflected up and over walls and structures which can in turn create areas where even moderate wind speeds can cause problems.
Here’s the meteorological bit, but the basic principle is this; when wind hits a solid object it goes up and over, but it doesn’t get slowed down much. Secondly if it passes through a narrow gap it gets squashed and flows faster thus creating a wind tunnel.
Windbreaks are not designed to stop the flow of the wind, but to slow the winddown and disrupt it. So if you live in an exposed place, you really need to consider windbreaks and shelter belts, to break up the wind flow. Dealing with wind in a small garden this is harder as you don’t have the space for a proper shelter belt.
The fastest wind is shown red, the ‘broken wind’ green.
The bottom diagram represents a normal fence or wall, so the wind goes up and over and is only ‘calmed’ near the base of the fence, so most of the plants get a bit of a battering.
The top image shows a fence that has open horizontal slats on either side of a post, these allow the wind to pass through, more slowly, leaving the faster wind level above the fence line.
The top diagram here shows a more traditional shelter belt, the wind is deflected up but is also allowed to pass through the windbreak, dramatically reducing the speed of the air. In the lower diagram, the windbreak effect of a large tree is shown, airflow is reduced, but noticeably not at the base where the trunk is.
A typical garden fence
This is more the normal scenario for most homes though, a fence with a shrub behind it, as you can see, some of the wind is slowed, but not much, it is merely deflected. So how to remedy this problem, well two solutions really, firstly a windbreak that allows air to flow through and secondly a taller structure to catch the wind flowing over the fence.
Here the tree and the split open fencing, break the speed of the air, leaving you a calmer garden. You can also add trellis above the fence line to again reduce the wind speed.
Horizontal slats are by far the best, not only do they offer good privacy, but they also look nice. However you do need to ensure they are built sturdily and able to withstand the wind.
Creating a Low Maintenance Garden…
How to Design a Garden if:….


Losing a tooth or multiple teeth can have a major impact on your life. Missing teeth affect more than just your appearance. Even the loss of just one or two teeth can change the way you speak and have an impact on the way you eat. More than 120 million Americans are missing at least one tooth, making tooth loss far more common than many realize.
If you are missing teeth, there are a variety of tooth replacement options to consider, including bridges and dentures. Tooth implants are another option, one that is considered to be the most natural looking and feeling. Here's what to know about dental implants.
1. How They Work
The first thing that you should be aware of is how dental implants work. Unlike other forms of tooth replacement, the dental implant procedure involves surgery.
Dental implants are screws or brackets, typically made out of titanium, that are surgically implanted to act as an artificial tooth root. An abutment is then put in place with a crown on top in order to act as the replacement tooth.
Before the implant is put into place, your jaw must be able to support it. Bone or tissue grafts may be needed beforehand to prepare for the implant.
2. The Cost
Another thing to be aware of is that dental implants are typically one of the most expensive forms of tooth replacement available. On average a single tooth implant costs between $2,400 and $3,000. If bone or tissue grafts or other procedures are needed beforehand, costs can be closer to $4,000 to $10,000 per implant.
Getting multiple implants can be very expensive. However, it's important to note that dental implants can last a lifetime, which can make them cost-effective in the long run.
3. The Process Takes Time
If you are looking for quick tooth replacement, dentures or bridges may be the best option for you. Dental implants, since they require surgery, take some time. Healing can be a few weeks or even months.
If you require procedures such as bone grafts before the implants are put into place, the entire process can take even longer. The process of getting dental implants typically takes at least a few months from start to finish. However, for more complex cases, it can take upwards of a year.
If you are considering dental implants, there are a few things that you should know. First, it's a surgical procedure that can require months of healing. It can also cost thousands of dollars to have a dental implant put into place. From start to finish, it can take months or even upwards of a year before your implant is in place and fully functional.


This dying star in the constellation of Cygnus will soon complete its transformation into what's known as a planetary nebula, which will play a vital role in returning enriched elements to the galaxy at large.
This star, designated, IRAS 20068+4051, has run out of hydrogen fuel and has begun venting huge quantities of dust and gas. It hasn't yet become a planetary nebula, which actually has nothing to do with planets beyond its superficial resemblance to a gas giant. Instead, it's still a protoplanetary nebula, and it's one of the very few such transitional nebulae that we've managed to observe.
The structure's shape was once spherical, but powerful stellar winds have twisted it into the spiral-like shape we see now. It's a striking enough image already, but things will get really dramatic when the gas heats up enough to make the cloud glow, which will signal the proper birth of the planetary nebula in spectacular fashion.
While planetary nebulae emit lots of different kinds of radiation, including visible light, protoplanetary nebula are much more difficult to see. They only emit infrared light, which makes them nearly undetectable from the surface of Earth. That's why it's a good thing the space-based Hubble Telescope was around to observe and photograph this rare phenomenon.


Sustainability and Sustainable Development Basic Glossary
Selected by Marco Tavanti, Ph.D. from various sources
October 1, 2010
Abiotic: Non-living; devoid of life
Biodegradable: Capable of being broken down by natural processes, such as bacterial action.
Bio-diesel: A clean burning, alternative fuel derived from animal fats or vegetable oil that can be used in diesel burning engines. It does not contain petroleum products, but may be blended with petroleum-based diesel.
Biodiversity: Shorthand for biological diversity: the variability among living organisms. It includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.
Cap-and-Trade System: A regulatory or management system that sets a target level for emissions or natural resource use, and, after distributing shares in that quota, lets trading in those permits determine their price.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2): A heavy, colorless gas that does not support combustion. Made of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms, it is formed especially in animal respiration and in the decay or combustion of animal and vegetable matter. It is absorbed by plants in photosynthesis, and is an atmospheric greenhouse gas.
Carbon Footprint: A measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.
Carbon Offset: A way of counteracting the carbon emitted when the use of fossil fuel causes greenhouse gas emissions. Offsets commonly involve investing in projects such as renewable energy, tree planting and energy efficient projects.
Carrying Capacity: The maximum population (of humans and other species) that a particular environment can sustain without irreversible environmental damage.
Climate Neutral: Products or services that reduce and offset the greenhouse gases generated at each stage of their life-cycle on a cradle-to-cradle basis: the sourcing of their materials, their manufacturing or production, their distribution, use, and ultimate end-of-life disposition.
Compost: A mixture of humus-rich, decomposed vegetable matter, used as a fertilizer or soil enrichment.
Corporate Responsibility: Our obligation to consider the interests of customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment as an aspect of meeting planning, execution and evaluation so that sustainability can be achieved.
Decarbonisation: When applied to an economy, refers to the phasing out of its dependence on (carbon-containing) fossil fuels.
Desertification: The transformation of arid and semi-arid land into desert, generally due to overgrazing, deforestation, poor irrigation and tilling practices, climate change, or a combination of these factors.
Ecological Footprint: The measure of area needed to supply national populations with the resources and area needed to absorb their wastes.
Eco-label: Information (typically provided on a label attached to a product) informing a potential consumer of a product's characteristics, or of the production or processing method(s) used in its production.
Ecology: The system of relationships between organisms and their environments.
Ecosystem: A community of living organisms interacting with themselves and with their environment.
Ecotourism: Tourism that respects the culture, natural history and environment of destinations and seeks to minimize the negative impact of travel on the environment.
Energy Star Equipment: A voluntary labeling program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy that identifies energy efficient products. Qualified products exceed minimum federal standards for energy consumption by a certain amount, or where no federal standards exist, have certain energy saving features. Such products may display the Energy Star label.
Energy/Water Conservation: Practices and strategies that are designed to minimize the amount of energy and water used.
Environmentally Responsible Transportation: Transportation options that minimize environmental impact such as mass public transportation (light rail, subway, electric/hybrid/biodiesel buses) and electric/hybrid vehicles.
Extended Producer Responsibility: An obligation placed on one or more producers of a product to take back the product for recycling or safe disposal.
E-waste: Waste materials generated from using or discarding electronic devices, such as computers, televisions, and mobile phones. E-waste tends to be highly toxic to humans, plants, and animals, and has been known to contaminate water, air and dirt.
Fair Trade: Small farmers are paid a fair market price that enables them to improve their standard of living.
Fossil Fuel: An organic, energy-rich substance formed from the long-buried remains of prehistoric life.
Global Warming: A gradual, long-term increase in the near surface temperature of the Earth. The terms is most often used to refer to the warming predicted to occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases.
Green: A common expression meaning environmentally responsible.
Green Collar Job: A job connected to eco-friendly products and services.
Greenhouse Effect: The rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere (water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, for example) trap energy from the sun. Because of their warming effect, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases. Without them, more heat would escape back into space and the Earth's average temperature would be about 33ºC colder. Similarly, their rapid accumulation in the atmosphere can lead to rising temperatures.
Greenhouse Gas: A gas which contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing solar radiation. These gases include, but are not limited to, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons.
Green Seal Certified: An organization, product or process that has passed a specific environmentally responsible standard as outlined by Green Seal.
Greenwash: To falsely claim a product is environmentally sound. Also known as faux green. Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally public image.
Hybrid Vehicle: Vehicle that uses a combination of two engine types. Cars are most commonly gasoline-electric hybrids.
Human Capital: The knowledge, skills, competence and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the attainment of personal well-being.
Kilowatt Hour: 1,000 watts of electricity used for one hour.
LEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - A Green Building Rating System® is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings developed by the US Green Building Council.
Man-Made Capital: The manufactured means of production, such as machinery, equipment and structures, but also non-production related infrastructure, non-tangible assets, and the financial assets that provide command over current and future output streams. Also referred to as "human-made" or "manufactured" capital.
Natural Capital: The renewable and non-renewable resources that enter the production process and satisfy consumption needs, as well as environmental assets that have amenity and productive use, and natural features, such as the ozone layer that are essential for supporting life.
Occupancy Sensor: A monitoring device, commonly connected to a room's lighting but also occasionally to heating or ventilation, that shuts down these services when the space is unoccupied, thus saving energy.
Organic Foods: Grown without chemicals that can harm the land, water or human health. Organic certification of food can be through an independent organization or government program.
Ozone Layer: The region of the stratosphere (lying approximately 15-40 km above the Earth's surface) that contains the bulk of the world's atmospheric ozone.
Pesticide: Any agent used to kill or control insects, weeds, rodents, fungi or other organisms.
Post-Consumer Material: An end product that has completed its life cycle as a consumer item and would otherwise have been disposed of a solid waste. Post-consumer materials include recyclables collected in commercial and residential recycling programs, such as office paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastics and metals.
Post-Consumer Waste: Post-consumer waste is recycled material collected after people have tossed it in the blue bin. Office recycling programs and household recycling programs are the main source of post-consumer waste.
Public Good: A special kind of externality in consumption where the availability of a good to one individual does not reduce its availability to others (non-rivalry) and the supplier of the good cannot exclude anybody from consuming it (non-excludability).
Processed Chlorine Free (PCF): “Processed chlorine free” describes a bleaching process free of chlorine or chlorine compounds, which poisons rivers. The most common PCF bleaching agent is hydrogen peroxide (which breaks down into water and oxygen).Using PCF paper eliminates most of the toxic byproducts of traditional bleaching, such as dioxins and other organ chlorides, and this means cleaner rivers.
Recycled Paper: According to U.S. government standards, uncoated paper with at least 30% post-consumer waste and coated paper with at least 10% post-consumer waste can be called “recycled” paper.
Recycling: The collection of waste materials and reprocessing them into new materials or products, which are then sold again.
Renewable Resources: Resources that are created or produced at least as fast as they are consumed, so that nothing is depleted. Includes solar, hydro, wind power, biomass, and geothermal energy sources.
Resource: Generally, a tangible asset. In geology, resources refer to accumulations of natural materials that are known or expected to exist and for which there is a reasonable assurance that a given quantity of the material can be recovered economically at current or expected future market prices using currently available technologies or technologies that can reasonably be expected to become available in the foreseeable future.
Shade Grown Coffee: Coffee that is grown in the traditional manner, with coffee plants interspersed under a canopy of trees. End result: more habitats for birds, less need for chemical inputs, and the forest is not disrupted.
Social Capital: The networks and shared norms, values and understanding that facilitate co-operation within and between groups.
Stakeholder: Somebody who has a "stake" or interest in a public policy, programme or, in some uses of the term, a corporation's activities.
Subsidiarity: The notion that decision-making should occur at the level at which the people most directly concerned can take responsibility.
Sustainable Development: A development path along which the maximization of human well-being for today's generations does not lead to declines in future well-being.
Sustainable Food: Food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage for the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities.
Sustainability: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (as defined by the Brundtland Commission, 1987).
Triple Bottom Line: A business and development philosophy incorporating the three E's: equity, environment, economics. Also referred to as the three P's: people, planet, profit.
Vegan: Lifestyle choice which excludes the consumption and use of animal flesh and by-products.
Vegetarian: Dietary choice which excludes the consumption of animal flesh or by-products, but may include eggs and dairy.
Vegetable-based Inks: Environmentally friendly printing inks which are made from vegetable oils combined with pigments. The most common type is made from soy.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC): Compounds that have a high vapor pressure and low water solubility. Many VOCs are human made chemicals used and produced in the manufacture of paints, pharmaceuticals and refrigerants. VOCs typically are industrial solvents, such as trichloroethylene; fuel oxygenates, such as methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE); or by-products produced by chlorination in water treatment, such as chloroform. VOCs are often components of petroleum fuels, hydraulic fluids, paint thinners and dry cleaning agents. VOCs are common ground water contaminants.
Search for more related terms and definitions at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Acronyms and Glossary


The first counties in Pennsylvania were established in 1681 under a charter granted to William Penn by Charles II, King of England. Settlement occurred mainly east of the Susquehanna River until the conclusion of the Indian Treaty of 1736, when the limits of Lancaster County were extended indefinitely westward. These fertile lands were soon occupied by immigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. During the period from 1739 to 1743, a colony of Germans from the Palatinate and a colony of Dunkers or German Baptist Brethren from the Upper Rhine settled in the region of present day Manheim Township
In 1740, Michael Danner, a leader among the Dunkers, purchased from the heirs of William Penn, a large tract of land within the present limits of Manheim and adjoining townships. When the Township boundaries were established in 1747, Danner requested to the Lancaster court that it be named "Manheim " after the historic old town of Manheim on the Rhine. He also headed a petition of German Signers for the organization of a new county seat west of the Susquehanna River and was appointed to a five member commission to lay out the County of York in 1749.
Heidelberg Township, which included the site of the Borough of Hanover and a section of Adams County, was severed from Manheim in 1750. In 1816, in answer to a petition to annex the northern part of Manheim, the Township was reduced to include its present area and that of West Manheim. The formation of West Manheim Township was in 1858.
First settlement of the southwestern portion of York County occurred in and around Hanover with the granting of various titles under Maryland authority from 1729 to 1732. A temporary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland was not established until 1739. A final line was delineated by Mason and Dixon in 1768.
Manheim Township was first established as an agricultural area and has retained this stature even today. In the early years of farming much of the land was cleared of timber, and various crops of wheat, barley and corn were planted. The soil became poor until only buckwheat could be harvested in abundance. When certain fields began to lose their crop yields, they were deserted and new tracts were cleared and planted. However, improvements in farming practices and later the use of fertilizers helped to replenish the farming areas.
The Township developed around two small villages: Marburg to the north and Black Rock located near the Maryland line. In 1792, the first paper mill known to have existed west of the Susquehanna was erected in Manheim. Dub's Mill, situated on a branch of the Codorus near Marburg is one of the landmarks in the southwestern part of the County and one of the pioneer grist mills in this region.
The Township is located at the southeastern fringe of the Hanover Area which is also comprised of Hanover Borough, Penn Township, West Manheim Township, and Heidelberg Township. Pennsylvania Route 216 passes through Manheim Township and traverses southern York County. PA Route 216 divides the Township and provides access to Interstate 83, Hanover, York, and Baltimore.
Community Survey Statistics
Only 12.8% of the Manheim Township's population was born in Manheim. Manheim Township also has a 42.8% population that was born in the County of York. Consequently, 50.7% of the population was born out of state and 6.5% were born somewhere else in Pennsylvania.
Manheim Township is located in the southwestern section of York County, Pennsylvania. Regionally, the community is located in close proximity to major cities on the east coast.
Distance from Manheim Township
Baltimore, MD - 31 miles
Harrisburg, PA - 35 miles
Philadelphia, PA - 91 miles
Hanover, PA - 3.2 miles
York, PA - 13 miles
Lancaster, PA - 34 miles
Westminster, MD - 13 miles


ALTERNATE NAMES: Marsh Arabs
1 • INTRODUCTION
The Ma'dan, or Marsh Arabs inhabit the marshy area at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. They are a seminomadic tribal people with their own distinct culture.
Ma'dan culture is based on the culture of the Bedu (Bedouin) nomads of the desert, adapted for life on the watery marshes. In general, the Ma'dan way of life has changed little in thousands of years. The pattern for simple reed canoes has been passed down from generation to generation. Their methods of hunting fish and the intricate designs for the woven walls of their houses have both existed for generations.
2 • LOCATION
The marshes where the Ma'dan live are created by the annual flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Covering about 6,000 square miles (15,540 square kilometers), they can be divided into three parts: the Eastern Marshes east of the Tigris, the Central Marshes west of the Tigris and north of the Euphrates, and the Southern Marshes south of the Euphrates and west of the Shatt al Arab river.
The marshes are covered with rushes and reeds. Qasab, a kind of giant grass that looks like bamboo, covers most of the permanent marsh lands. It can grow as tall as 25 feet (7.6 meters). Natural islands, some floating and some anchored, dot the waters of the marshes. These islands are called tuhul. Their ground looks solid but it is actually very soggy.
There is no current population count for the Ma'dan. The fighting in the marshes during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–88) drove many Ma'dan from their homes. Others have left the marshes to live in the cities and towns on the "mainland." The Ma'dan and their ancient way of life may soon disappear altogether.
3 • LANGUAGE
The Ma'dan speak a form of Arabic. (Theirs is generally considered a "lower" form by other Arabic speakers).
"Hello" in Arabic is marhaba or ahlan, to which one replies marhabtayn or ahlayn. Other common greetings are as-salam alaykum, "peace be with you," with the reply of walaykum as-salam, "and to you peace." Ma'assalama means "goodbye." "Thank you" is hukran, and "you're welcome" is àfwan; "yes" is na'am and "no" is la'a. The numbers one to ten in Arabic are wahad, ithnayn, thalatha, arba'a, khamsa, sitta, saba'a, thamanya, tisa'a, and ashara.
Arabs' names consist of their first name, their father's name, and their paternal grandfather's name. Women do not take their husband's name when they marry but rather keep their father's last name.
Many Ma'dan have unusual names, especially for Muslims. Often, they give unattractive names to children to ward off the evil eye, especially for sons whose brothers died in infancy. The names Chilaib ("little dog"), Bakur ("sow"), and Khanzir ("pig") are common (even though Muslims consider those animals unclean). Other names include Jahaish ("little donkey"), Jaraizi ("little rat"), Dhauba ("hyena"), and even Barur ("dung").
4 • FOLKLORE
The Ma'dan believe in jinn, bad spirits who can take the form of humans or animals. Unique to Ma'dan folklore are two marsh monsters: the anfish, a giant serpent with hairy skin; and the afa, a giant serpent with legs. Both are said to live somewhere in the heart of the marshes, and both are considered to be deadly.
The Ma'dan also believe in a place called Hufaidh. It is an island paradise located in the southwest part of the marshes, although no one knows exactly where. The jinn can hide the island from human sight. On this island are palaces, palm trees, pomegranate orchards, and huge water buffalo. It is believed that anyone who sees Hufaidh is bewitched. Afterward, no one will be able to understand anything the person says.
5 • RELIGION
The Ma'dan are Shi'ah Muslims. However, they are not strict about following Muslim practices, such as praying five times a day facing Mecca. Karbala and Najaf are the Ma'dan's holy cities.
6 • MAJOR HOLIDAYS
Most Ma'dan observe Islamic holidays, such as Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, and Eid al-Fitr. Few Ma'dan make the traditional Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Instead, most wish to make a pilgrimage to the city of Meshed. The shrine of the holy man (imam) Ali ar Ridha is located in Meshed. Anyone who makes this pilgrimage is given the title of zair.
7 • RITES OF PASSAGE
Ma'dan boys are traditionally circumcised at puberty. However, many boys refuse because of the frequent occurrence of infection afterward.
After a death, some Ma'dan dye their turbans dark blue to signify mourning. Others put mud on their heads and clothes.
8 • RELATIONSHIPS
Ma'dan follow the traditional Arab code of honor, but with somewhat less dedication than other Arabs. The Ma'dan welcome all guests. They provide food and housing without expecting or accepting any payment. A host never helps to carry a guest's belongings out of the house because that would imply that the host wanted the guest to leave. Almost every village has a guest house, or a mudhif.
It is customary for a Ma'dan in a boat to offer the first greeting to a person on the shore. Similarly, a Ma'dan traveling downstream greets those traveling upstream.
9 • LIVING CONDITIONS
The Ma'dan live in houses built of reeds, with reed mats for floors. There is no electricity, heat, or running water. All water is scooped out of the surrounding marshes. Ma'dan have few possessions, typically just a few water buffalo, a gun, some blankets and cooking utensils, and a reed canoe coated with bitumen (tar).
Houses are built on artificial islands created by enclosing a stretch of marsh with a fence of reeds about 20 feet (6 meters) high. Then reeds and rushes are packed inside the fence, becoming the foundation for the house. If the floor sinks or the water level rises, more reeds are added to the floor to bring it back up above water level. This type of house is called a kibasha.
A more permanent site is produced when mud from the floor of the marsh is used to cover the foundation. This type of house is called a dibin. If a family leaves a dibin unoccupied for more than a year, they lose their right to it and anyone may take possession of it.
Ma'dan homes have no indoor plumbing or toilets. In spite of this lack of sanitary conditions, the Ma'dan are a remarkably healthy people.
10 • FAMILY LIFE
Each family group is headed by a sheik (leader). Marriages are arranged by parents, although a couple has some choice in the matter. Paternal first cousins have the first claim to a young woman for their bride. The father of an eligible paternal first cousin must grant permission in order for a young woman to marry anyone else. Polygyny is acceptable (up to four wives) but is rarely practiced.
Sex roles are clearly defined. Women do all the cooking and fetch the water. Men hunt and herd the water buffalo. Women never milk the buffalo. Men never pound or grind grain or make dung cakes for fuel. Ma'dan men and women do not eat together and are generally segregated in public life (although young children play together). Girls and women always sit behind boys and men in a canoe.
Children are called "chicks" by the Ma'dan.
11 • CLOTHING
Men wear a long, thin shirtlike garment that reaches to their calves or ankles. In the winter, they sometimes wear a jacket over it. They also wear the traditional Arab head cloth, usually without a rope to hold it in place (they simply tie it around the head). All grown men have short mustaches. Women wear dark robes that cover the entire body. Ma'dan women generally do not wear veils. However, they do cover their heads with long cloths or shawls. Only children wear colorful clothes; adults always wear plain light or dark clothes. Men usually wear white and women wear black.
12 • FOOD
The staple foods are fish and curdled water-buffalo milk. Some Ma'dan also grow rice. Bread is cooked over a fire on round clay platters. Men and women eat separately, and meals are always eaten in silence. All talking is done before and after the meal, never during it.
13 • EDUCATION
There are no schools in the marshes. Most Ma'dan parents want their children to have the advantages of a modern education. However, not all can afford to send them to the schools in the surrounding cities and towns. Their experience at these schools causes some young people to become unhappy with their lives and they leave the marshes.
14 • CULTURAL HERITAGE
Ma'dan culture is largely inherited from the Bedu (or Bedouin, a nomadic Arab group). They love to recite poetry, sing, and dance. Men do a war dance called the hausa. They dance in a circle holding their rifles over their heads and firing them.
15 • EMPLOYMENT
Most Ma'dan support themselves by fishing and by hunting wild boars and birds. They also keep small herds of water buffalo, which they use for milk. Some Ma'dan also grow rice. Fish are traditionally caught with a five-pronged spear thrown from the bow of a canoe. A more modern method is to stun them with poisoned bait tossed onto the surface of the water. Only professional fishers, referred to as berbera, use nets.
Collecting the grass used as fodder for the water buffalo is a constant chore, usually assigned to young boys. Weaving reed mats for sale in the surrounding towns is a common source of extra income for the Ma'dan.
16 • SPORTS
Hunting is both a necessity for survival and a favorite sport among the Ma'dan.
17 • RECREATION
Singing and dancing are popular forms of entertainment among the Ma'dan. They also play a popular Arab game called mahaibis, or "hunt the ring." The players divide into two teams. One team gets the ring. Its members sit in a row with their hands under a cloak. One member of the other team stands in front of them and tries to guess who has the ring and in which hand.
18 • CRAFTS AND HOBBIES
The most common crafts among the Ma'dan are building and repairing canoes, weaving reed mats, and blacksmithing. Ma'dan blacksmiths make fishing spears, reed splitters, sickles (curved cutting tools), and nails for the canoes. Some Ma'dan weave woolen cloth that both men and women use for cloaks.
19 • SOCIAL PROBLEMS
During the Iran-Iraq war (1980–88), many Ma'dan were driven out of their homes. Their few possessions were stolen, and their water buffalo were slaughtered for food by the armies.
Dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are reducing the flow of water to the marshes. This threatens the Ma'dan's territory and way of life. Since 1992, the Iraqi government has begun extensive irrigation projects that have included plans to drain the marshes. Young Ma'dan are leaving the marshes to live in the towns and cities. For all these reasons, the Ma'dan's numbers are decreasing rapidly.
20 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fulanain [pseud.]. The Marsh Arab, Haji Rikkan. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1928.
Hassig, Susan M. Cultures of the World: Iraq. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1993.
Thesiger, Wilfred. The Marsh Arabs. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1964.
ArabNet. Iraq. [Online] Available http://www.arab.net/iraq/iraq_contents.html, 1998.
World Travel Guide. Iraq. [Online] Available http://www.wtgonline.com/country/iq/gen.html, 1998.
Inhabitants of the vast marshlands in southern Iraq.
The Marsh Arabs lived in one of the great marsh areas of the world, a 20,000-square-mile (52,000 sq. km) area triangulated by Kut on the Tigris, alKifl on the Euphrates, and Basra on the Shatt al-Arab. A significant number may be non-Semitic in origin, perhaps descendants of the ancient Sumerians, although they have mixed with other peoples through time. Called Marsh Arabs by some owing to their language, social structures, and religion, others designate them Ma'dan to reflect that their way of life is dependent on the water buffalo. Nomads of the marshes, relying on a variety of canoes for transport, they follow buffalo herds as their desert counterparts follow camels or sheep. Most are cultivators, reed gatherers, or buffalo breeders. Traditionally they lived in villages in island settlements, on floating platforms, or on man-made reed islands. Today, their structures are of brick and concrete. Roads and causeways connect major settlements facilitating social improvements, especially in education and health.
Thesiger, Wilfred. The Marsh Arabs. New York: Dutton, 1964.


For any engineering system to be trusted, it must be safe. One of the most significant challenges facing designers of next generation robots is how to make them safe and trustworthy. Robots designed to share human workspaces and physically interact with humans must be safe, yet guaranteeing safe behaviour is extremely difficult because the robot’s human-centred working environment is, by definition, complex and unpredictable. It becomes even more difficult if the robot is also capable of learning and adapting. In this short talk I will argue that a key technology for tackling this problem exists. It is the robot simulator. But we need to use simulators in a radical new way. By incorporating a simulation of a robot, and its working environment, inside the robot’s control system, we can enable the robot to ask ‘what if’ questions about the consequences of its own actions. This approach would provide the system with a level of functional self-awareness, and might be the best way to build future adaptive systems that are safe and trustworthy.
The communication presentations (keynote talks, facilitated break-out sessions, posters) will be continuously in May and June.
Alan Winfield is Professor of Electronic Engineering and Director of the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, United Kingdom.
The research of Prof. Winfield is focussed on the engineering and scientific applications of Swarm Intelligence.
|CHIST-ERA Conference 2013 - Alan Winfield.pdf||1.1 MB|
Erhan Öztop is a Computer Science faculty member of Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey, and is affiliated with ATR, Japan as a visiting researcher.
The research interests of Dr. Öztop include computational study of action understanding and intelligent behavior, human-machine interface, cognitive neuroscience, robotics and machine learning.
The sensorimotor learning capacity allows humans to efficiently learn to use new tools and control tasks. To realize this ability in complex systems such as robots is still elusive. One promising way to approach this problem is to transfer human sensorimotor skills to robots using a human-in-the-control-loop setup. The idea is to consider the target robotic platform as a tool that can be controlled by a human. Provided with an intuitive interface for controlling the robot, the human learns to perform a given task using the robot. After sufficient learning, the skilled control of the robot by the human provides learning data points that can be used to obtain an autonomous controller so that the robot can perform the task without human guidance. The feasibility of this framework is supported by the neuroscientific findings on body schema and has been shown to work for several robot skill synthesis scenarios. From an engineering point of view, the approach relies on techniques from teleoperation and machine learning, and has the same goals with robot learning by demonstration. The key difference is that the proposed framework includes the human in the control loop and employs the human brain as the adaptive controller to accomplish a given task. Once the control proficiency has been attained, the data generated by the human performance allows the human policy to be transferred to the robot. In this talk, I will introduce the human-in-the-loop framework and outline the current challenges to be tackled for facilitating a wide impact for the development of adaptive systems for complex environments.
|CHIST-ERA Conference 2013 - Erhan Oztop.pdf||1.74 MB|
Jean Senellart is Chief Scientist at Systran, an SME specialized in Machine Translation science and technology.
Among the scientific concerns of Dr. Senellart is to automatically adapt systems from user feedback.
While natural language processing operational systems are getting more and more popularity and reaching out more type of users for instance individual users through the SIRI personal assistant application on the iPhones or the S-Translator on the Samsung Galaxy phones providing travelers with translation tools, or professional users like technical documentation translators relying on automated translation accuracy and fluency to accelerate their translation jobs through post-editing : these systems are facing one of the most challenging problem: the variety of the users input and the variety of their expectations. Think about Siri personal assistant whose goal is to handle seamlessly a huge variety of pronunciation, voice tone, elocution speed – or the S-Translator having to deal with any type of "chat" variants each user will invent to communicate – or the human translator expecting the system to follow its own specific style and terminology requirement. Usually trained on huge volume of data, these systems need to consistently adapt to each specific user using tiny bit of implicit feedbacks they would get from their usage of the system. Beyond their actual overall performance, and based on a specific application, we will show why such systems need to integrate adaptive features to keep being qualified and used as language assistants.
|CHIST-ERA Conference 2013 - Jean Senellart.pdf||1.06 MB|
Joanna Bryson is associate professor at the University of Bath (England) in the Computer Science department.
The principle scientific passion of Prof. Bryson is understanding human behaviour, human culture and natural intelligence more broadly. Main methodology for doing this is designing intelligent systems to model and test scientific theories. She builds theories of intelligence into cognitive systems — working AI models. Most (but not all) of the research of Joanna Bryson has focused on the unintentional and non-linguistic aspects of human intelligence: understanding primate behaviour, action selection, how consciousness, religion, economics (particularly costly punishment), language and other social behaviours have evolved in humans and (where appropriate) other non-primate social species, including even bacteria. Applications belong to a variety of domains besides science, including cognitive robotics, computer game characters and intelligent environments / "smart homes".
What will it take until mobile domestic assistants are as ordinary as washing machines? Both the disciplines or robotics (as demonstrated by industrial robotics) and of machine learning and vision (as demonstrated by driverless cars) have advanced to the point that reliability is not the main issue. Current problems are 1) systems integration and 2) the business case. Starting with the latter, I suggest “domestic” robots will invade as PCs did, first by replacing low-wage workers not completely, but by making other low-wage workers more productive. The PC spread when it became cheaper than the annual salary of a secretary, and it enabled a lead secretary to do the work of two or three. Once popular, PCs became even cheaper, and were then adopted to private ownership. Currently, mobile, human-sized industrial robots with force-control cost about €30,000. We need to make these into viable domestic assistants and office cleaners, under the direction of lead cleaners. Such robots will only be accepted if they simplify the management task of the supervisor over human assistants on a sufficient number of tasks. For example, a robot must learn the requirements and affordances of a particular house – what it is allowed to touch, what it must clea. It should also be able to generalise – it should recognise similar objects and offer to clean them similar ways, and eventually not need to ask. In the final few minutes, I will also review the UK’s robot ethics code, the EPSRC Principles of Robotics.
|CHIST-ERA Conference 2013 - Joanna Bryson.pdf||5.89 MB|
Wolfgang Boch is Head of Flagship Unit of the DG Connect at the European Commission.
The presentation introduces the FET programme in H2020.
|CHIST-ERA Conference 2013 - Wolfgang Boch.pdf||2.03 MB|


Children enjoyed a camp fire during the cold weather this week. Groups of children prepared either the newspaper, the kindling or the ignition fuel. Their understanding of safety and respect was further developed and children really responded positively, with some children showing previous knowledge about keeping safe. We then used the flint to ignite the fire, once it was underway children helped to prepare the cacao and milk to make hot chocolate. Some children recognised that the cacao powder was not dissolving and one child suggested we heat the milk up. Once the fire was alight and hot, the saucepan was put in position and camp fire songs were sung together. Some children suggested Christmas songs! Once the cacao had dissolved in the warm milk, children shared and enjoyed their hot drink. As the flames died down, a group sat closer to the fire bowls and stretched out their cold fingers to feel the warmth on their skin.
Fires provide a rich source of language and the multi-sensory aspects of fire engage all children. Our group of Danish pedagogues were very impressed we build fires with our young children here in Bethnal Green.
The Rachel Keeling Nursery garden really is the jewel in our crown and we recognise its importance as a learning space all year round. Children are involved in the care of the flora and fauna in our garden. Whether it is harvesting fruit and vegetables, sweeping the autumn leaves, weeding the vegetable patch or fishing unidentified objects from our pond!!
As the autumn term progresses there is less to harvest but plenty to tidy and think about. Children are always interested in the birds who visit our garden and staff have worked hard to support and develop understanding about how to care for, respect and identify our birds.
Children use information books and chart to look at the wide array of birds in the UK. They use binoculars and their sharp eyes to spot the birds and then look to match them to the charts. Pigeons, tits, blackbirds, magpies and seagulls are regularly spotted. Occasionally we have seen jays and robins as well as thrushes and wagtails.
Children have been involved in problem solving how to fill the bird feeders, using step ladders and crates to reach them. It has also taken some time and lots of self-control to remember to not scream and run towards the birds when they do land to feed!
Birds of Bethnal Green, come gather in our garden!
I'm going to let the wonderful photographs below speak for themselves. Thank you to the families, staff and children who came and shared their information books, story books, leaflets and books they made in school. Many of our children see themselves as readers and writers and every day we try to ensure our provision and teaching makes meaningful reading and writing high on the agenda. At Rachel Keeling we encourage reading of magazines, leaflets, brochures, signs and posters as well as wonderful story books and non-fiction books.
A recent survey by Nielsen Books found that only half of pre-school children in the UK are being read to daily. Research has shown the impact on cognitive development and language acquisition of being read to (even for older children).
So tonight, at the end of your busy day, try to make time to sit and share a book with your child.
We were so lucky that last week the mounted Metropolitan Police made time in their busy schedule to stop off at Rachel Keeling. Regal Blue and Scrumpy Jack were the names of the beautiful, strong horses who graced us with their presence.
The rain poured but the children still wanted to come outside and meet our visitors.
The horses enjoyed some carrots before we said goodbye so they could go and keep the streets of Bethnal Green safe.
Afterwards the children shared their thoughts about the horses:
"The horses got white and black. They eat some apples and some vegetables." Jannatul
"I was playing and they clippety clop, clippety clopped into the garden!" Vito
"I didn't see a horse before here. They eat some grass I think." Kamilah
"They eat carrots. Becky gave them carrots." Nabeelah.
Our children often come to school and share their ideas and experiences with their Rachel Keeling family. Earlier this week many children came to school talking about Halloween things they had seen in the shops and streets and "trick or treat".
We talked to children and listened to what children knew and thought about Halloween. Some children commented "I don't celebrate Halloween", others said "I saw spooky masks in the shop" and "We cut a pumpkin".
Our shoppers of the week went on a pumpkin hunt and managed to find a medium sized one which they handled, speculated what was inside and scooped out the seeds (to toast and share) and then finally carved the pumpkin for our entrance lobby.
Spicy pumpkin playdough was made with a group of children to explore and take home. Children added lots of all-spice and cinnamon to the mixture as well as an orange food colourant. All our senses were heightened with the beautiful aromas travelling around the nursery.
Provision also included spooky stories with some playful language and complex, ambitiously, descriptive language to extend children's vocabulary. Children created potions and spells, drawing and writing phonetically plausible words.
Some children came to school on Wednesday in spooky costumes too!
We have noticed whilst children are becoming confident to have a go at writing, drawing skills need developing. So some wonderful spider web drawing sessions with an adult gave children confidence and skills in developing their drawings.
In the garden, various critters were created natural resources and the glue gun and the highlight was Isabel's Thriller dance with some children!
It was certainly a week of more treats than tricks.


Welcome to our Spoken English Teaching Resources Archive! The materials here have been designed for teachers of GCSE and GCE A level English Language, but they may be useful for anyone involved in teaching about the spoken English language.
The resources consist of
- a Databank of Spoken London English
- a set of suggested Language Investigations
- a Research Digest with summaries of recent academic research relevant to spoken English
- a description of spoken English features including those illustrated in the databank
We'll be adding more resources to the Archive, so keep checking this page!
If you'd like to contribute sound clips to the Archive, contact us at email@example.com