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For many people suffering from hypoglycemia, low blood sugar can cause symptoms that are strikingly similar to the effects of alcohol. Diabetes and many other kinds of diseases can result in hypoglycemia if blood sugar levels are not monitored and controlled. If blood sugar levels do dip below normal, sufferers can experience slow and slurred speech, poor balance, impaired motor control, staggering, drowsiness, flushed face, disorientation and even fainting. Many of those symptoms are equally as characteristic of drunkenness as they are for low blood sugar. Will a police officer be able to distinguish the cause of similar symptoms?
You may think field devices that test blood alcohol level would reveal that you were not drunk, if you became impaired from low blood sugar while driving. However, these portable breath testing devices (PBTs) can be fooled by the symptoms of hypoglycemia as well. Diabetics and other sufferers of hypoglycemia can experience ketoacidosis, a state that increases the amounts of acetones in the breath. Since PBTs pick on any compound in the methyl group, including acetones, and not just the ethanol of drinking alcohol, this state can cause higher readings on PBTs. It causes the PBT to reflect more than just the alcohol that might have been consumed by the person being tested.
Hypoglycemia can produce the same visual symptoms as drunkenness and can’t be distinguished by field testing; some of the flaws of DUI symptoms are exposed in just this one circumstance.
Contact us at Petersen Johnson, and we’ll find the flaws. We’re on your side. | <urn:uuid:173d46c9-b468-4587-ba70-1fa6ba82d65c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://petersenjohnson.com/hypoglycemia-and-dui-can-you-be-falsely-convicted/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999676283/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060756-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945103 | 339 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Cognitive Therapy - 2
Why do we feel the way we do? While Cognitive Therapy - 1 explained how our perceptions and thoughts are largely responsible for our moods and actions, it helps to be aware that all our emotions have a common thought pattern or cognitive model or theme. Learning to recognize our personal thought patterns that trigger our emotions is necessary to break out of a bad mood:
- Anxiety, worry, fear, nervousness or panic occur when we believe we are in danger and or perceive something bad is about to happen - "What if she laughs at me?", "What if this lump is a sign of cancer?"
- Anger, irritation or resentment is felt when we think that someone is treating us unfairly or trying to take advantage of us in someway.
- Frustration results from unfulfilled expectation. We insist things should be different - either with our own performance ("I should have been more careful"), someone else ("Why can't he wash the dishes immediately") or an event ("Why does it only rain when I don't have an umbrella?").
- Sadness results from thoughts of some loss - we believe we have lost something important and dear to us - failure to achieve some goal, romantic rejection etc.
- Guilt or shame: Guilt results from thoughts of self-condemnation ("I did a bad thing", "I should have helped" etc). Shame involves the fear that somebody might find out about what you did and look down upon you.
- Inferiority or inadequacy genrally result when we compare ourselves and think that we are not as good in comparison with others. "He's smart and rich. I'm just average. There's nothing special about me."
- Loneliness is felt when we tell ourself that we are bound to feel unhappy because we are alone and aren't getting enough love and attention from others.
- Hopelessness or discouragement occurs when we convince ourselves that our problems will go on forever and things will never improve. "I'll never find a good job" or "I'll always be alone".
One of the greatest misconception about cognitive therapy is that you should continuously analyze your moods and try to feel happy all the time.
There will be many occasions when negative emotions and feelings are healthy and appropriate. For example, when a loved one is ill, it is but natural to feel concerned; or to feel dejected when we lose a job, and so on. In such cases, it is often better to reach out to people for empathy and understanding.
Recognizing when a feeling is appropriate and healthy is as important as learning to change our distorted thinking.
(This article is incomplete and a work in progress.) | <urn:uuid:fe0801e1-2ad6-4c18-beb0-12801d6aaa32> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://spiritize.blogspot.com/2006/07/cognitive-therapy-2_12.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999676283/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060756-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955387 | 554 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter
Vulcanologists classify volcanoes into three groups: active, dormant and extinct. A dormant volcano is one that isn’t currently active or erupting, but geologists think that it’s still capable of erupting.
One of the best examples of a dormant volcano is Mauna Kea, one of the five volcanoes that make up the Big Island of Hawaii. The peak of Mauna Kea is 4,207 meters above sea level, but 10,203 meters above the base of the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Geologists classify Mauna Kea in the post-shield stage of volcanic evolution. It stopped being a shield volcano about 200,000 years ago. Mauna Kea’s last eruption is thought to be 2460 BC.
Volcanoes become dormant because the Earth’s plates are constantly shifting above volcanic hotspots. Each time the hotspot reaches the surface, it creates a new volcano. The tectonic plate continues to shift above the hotspot, and eventually the volcano is shut off from the magma chamber beneath. And so the magma finds a new source to the surface, creating a new active volcano. The older volcano stops erupting and becomes dormant. Here’s more information on the active volcanoes in the world.
Dormant volcanoes do still erupt from time to time, however, sometimes with devastating results for people who thought the volcano was completely extinct.
We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth. | <urn:uuid:e0aab124-d2b4-4250-8376-f8e4bcc36a37> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.universetoday.com/28881/dormant-volcanoes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999676283/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060756-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924153 | 344 | 4.21875 | 4 |
As a teen, Donna Warner worshiped the sun from dawn to dusk. Eager to achieve a bronze complexion like her dark-haired siblings, her fair skin took a beating. Ignoring the painful sunburns she often endured, Donna continued to tan for many years. She would frequent tanning salons during the colder months to maintain her tan, and eventually purchased an indoor tanning bed for her home.
Three years ago, during a routine check-up with her primary care physician, she mentioned a sore on her nose that wouldn't heal. A consultation with a dermatologist revealed basal cell carcinoma. After closer inspection, an additional spot on her back gave her the scare of her life.
She was home alone when she received the phone call from her doctor. The pathology showed melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer and one of the most common types of cancer in those under the age of 30.
Now cancer free, Donna hopes her story will prevent teens from heading down the same road. She learned a very important lesson that she wants to share with anyone who tans: “Tanning isn’t worth it. Your life is too important.”
In the near future, indoor tanning beds could carry prominent warning labels indicating that children younger than 18 should not use them and that people who do use them need regular cancer screening. Learn more about this proposal from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. | <urn:uuid:63d7800d-986a-40bc-8317-b2809d2a8619> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | https://www.roswellpark.org/cancertalk/201305/melanoma-survivor-warns-teens-ditch-tanning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999676283/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060756-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974028 | 295 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus; RUBL) experienced one of the most significant declines ever documented among a once-common North American bird. Recent research on RUBLs has yielded information about the basic ecology of this understudied coniferous wetland breeder, but the critical factors responsible for their precipitous decline (> -90%) and their failure to recover remain unknown. One factor may be an “ecological trap” where birds nest in regenerating logged areas adjacent to wetlands (Powell et al. 2010) and are exposed to disproportionately high nest predation compared to wetlands in unharvested forest. Timber harvest likely affects abundance and diversity of nest predators.
Project Title: Will an ecological trap prevent the recovery of the Rusty Blackbird in Northeastern North America?
To address this issue, we propose to study the nesting ecology of and nest predation rates in the Rusty Blackbird throughout the Northeastern United States. The project goal is to evaluate what role an ecological trap may have on the potential recovery of the species in the northeast. We have four objectives:
- Determine the primary predators on bird eggs and nestlings
- Compare abundance and diversity of predators and nest predation rates in wetlands adjacent to regenerating clearcuts and adjacent to unharvested forest
- Identify stand- and landscape-level habitat variables that influence nest predation rates between these two habitats
- Identify linkages between predation, competition, habitat and other factors such as climate change to permit inferences about the likelihood of recovery for this species across our region.
Location: Various locations throughout Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York
Shannon H. Buckley (M.S. candidate)
Dr. Carol Foss, Patti Newell (Ph.D. candidate)
Stacy McNulty, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Thomas P. Hodgman, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife
Dr. Carol Foss, New Hampshire Audubon
Funding: To be determined (potentially: Sussman Foundation, Northern New York Audubon, and Northeastern States Research Cooperative)
Stacy McNulty, SUNY ESF Adirondack Ecological Center, 6312 State Rt. 28N, Newcomb, NY, 12852, USA
Phone: 518-582-4551 x102 Fax: 518-582-2181 Email: [email protected] | <urn:uuid:5b278e1a-3777-4166-bc2e-551661caf1d9> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.rooseveltstation.org/species-at-risk/birds/rusty-blackbird/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011149514/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091909-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.855644 | 507 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)
If you have been diagnosed with depression , bulimia , obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) , or panic disorder , among other conditions, your doctor may prescribe a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Several different drugs are considered SSRIs, but in one way or another they all work to increase levels of serotonin in the brain, a chemical believed to affect mood.
Type of Medication
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
***Please note: In March 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Public Health Advisory that cautions physicians, patients, families and caregivers of patients with depression to closely monitor adults, teens, and children receiving certain antidepressant medications. The FDA is concerned about the possibility of worsening depression and/or the emergence of suicidal thoughts at the beginning of treatment or when there’s an increase or decrease in the dose. The medications of concern—mostly SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors)—are: Prozac (fluoxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), Paxil (paroxetine), Luvox (fluvoxamine), Celexa (citalopram); Lexapro (escitalopram), Wellbutrin (bupropion), Effexor (venlafaxine), Serzone (nefazodone), and Remeron (mirtazapine). Of these, only Prozac (fluoxetine) is approved for use in children and adolescents for the treatment of major depressive disorder. Prozac (fluoxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), and Luvox (fluvoxamine) are approved for use in children and adolescents for the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder. Evidence available through 2006 suggests an excess risk of suicidal thoughts or actions among children and adolescents, but does not yet clearly confirm that risk for adults. For more information, please visit http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants .
Medications and Their Commonly Used Brand Names
|Generic name||Brand name|
What They Are Prescribed For
- Depression (all five SSRIs)
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, sertraline)
- Bulimia nervosa (fluoxetine)
- Panic attacks and panic disorder (paroxetine, sertraline)
How SSRIs Work:
These medications increase the activity of serotonin, a brain chemical that is associated with a sense of well-being.
It may take several weeks for you to notice the effects of an SSRI.
Precautions While Using These Medicines
See Your Doctor Regularly
It is important that your doctor check your progress at regular visits, to allow for dosage adjustments and to help reduce any side effects. Also, tell your doctor if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or thinking of becoming pregnant; this may affect the choice and/or dosage of medication.
Alert your doctor if you are taking any of the following medications; some should not be taken with SSRIs, while others may require a different dosage level.
- Alprazolam (Xanax)
- Anticoagulants (Miradon, Dicumarol, Coumadin, Warfarin sodium, Normiflo, Fragmin, Lovenox, Heparin, Orgaran)
- Astemizole (Hismanal)
- Bromazepam (Lectopam)
- Bromocriptine (Parlodel)
- Buspirone (BuSpar)
- Cisapride (Propulsid)
- Clozapine (Clozaril)
- Dextromethorphan (cough remedies: Benylin, Cough-X, Creo-Terpin, Delsym, Diabe-TUS DM, Hold DM, Pertussin, Robitussin, Sucrets 4 Hour, Trocal, Vicks 44)
- Diazepam (Valium)
- Digitalis medicines (Lanoxin, Digitoxin, Digitalis)
- Dihydroergotamine (Cafergot, Cafetrate, DHE 45, Ercaf, Ergomar, Ergostat, Migergot, Wigraine)
- Fenfluramine (Pondimin)
- Levodopa (Sinemet)
- Lithium (Cibalith, Eskalith, Lithane, Lithobid, Lithonate, Lithotabs)
- Meperidine (Demerol)
- Metoprolol (Lopressor)
- Midazolam (Versed)
- Moclobemide (Manerex)
Monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors
- Furazolidone (Furoxone)
- Isocarboxazid (Marplan)
- Phenelzine (Nardil)
- Procarbazine (Matulane)
- Selegiline (Eldepryl)
- Tranylcypromine (Parnate)
- Nefazodone (Serzone)
- Other SSRIs
- Pentazocine (Talwin)
- Phenytoin (Dilantin)
- Propanolol (Inderal)
- Street drugs (LSD, MDMA [e.g., ecstasy], marijuana)
- Sumatriptan (Imitrex)
- Terfenadine (Seldane)
- Theophylline (Theo-Dur)
- Tramadol (Ultram)
- Trazodone (Desyrel, Trazon, Trialodine)
- Triazolam (Halcion)
- Amitriptyline (Elavil)
- Amoxapine (Asendin)
- Clomipramine (Anafranil)
- Desipramine (Pertofrane)
- Doxepin (Sinequan)
- Imipramine (Tofranil)
- Nortriptyline (Aventyl)
- Protriptyline (Vivactil)
- Trimipramine (Surmontil)
- Venlafaxine (Effexor)
Tell your doctor about all the medications you take; some should not be taken with SSRIs, while others may require a different dosage level.
Be especially careful with monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors (furazolidone, phenelzine, procarbazine, selegiline, or tranylcypromine). Do not take an SSRI within two weeks of taking an MAO inhibitor, and do not take an MAO inhibitor for at least five weeks after taking an SSRI. If you do, you may develop dangerously high blood pressure, convulsions, or other severe effects.
Avoid drinking alcohol while taking an SSRI.
Be Cautious With Certain Medical Conditions
The presence of other medical problems may affect the use of SSRIs. Tell your doctor if you have any other medical problems, especially:
- History of seizures--the chance of having a seizure may increase while taking an SSRI
- Diabetes --the amount of insulin or oral medicine that you need may change
- Kidney or liver disease--higher blood levels of the SSRI may occur, increasing the chance of side effects
- Parkinson's disease --this condition may be worsened with an SSRI
- Weight loss--fluoxetine and sertraline may cause weight loss, which is usually small, but if a large weight loss occurs, it may be harmful to some people
- Thoughts of suicide--people being treated for depression may also be at risk for suicide. This risk does not subside immediately with the initiation of SSRI therapy. People who have suicidal thoughts should be closely monitored during initial therapy and until clinical remission is apparent
- Mania or a history of mania--this may be aggravated with some SSRIs
- Brain disease or mental retardation
Watch Your Skin
Alert your doctor as soon as possible if you develop a skin rash, hives, or itching while you are taking an SSRI.
Beware of Drowsiness
SSRIs may cause some people to become drowsy or less able to think clearly, or to have poor muscle control. Make sure you know how you react to these drugs before you drive, use machines, or do anything else that could be dangerous if you are not alert and able to control your movements.
Don't Stop Suddenly
Do not stop taking your SSRI without first checking with your doctor. You should be weaned off this medication to avoid unpleasant symptoms.
Citalopram, Sertraline: Check with your doctor on how to deal with a missed dose, since citalopram and sertraline may be given to different patients at different times of day.
Fluoxetine: If you miss a single dose it is not necessary to make up the missed dose. Skip the missed dose and continue with your next scheduled dose. Do not double doses. If you miss multiple doses you should talk with your doctor about how to take medication more effectively.
Fluvoxamine: What to do when you miss a dose of fluvoxamine depends on your dosing schedule:
One time a day--take the missed dose as soon as possible if you remember the same day and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses.
Two times a day--skip the missed dose and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses.
Paroxetine: If you miss a dose, take it as soon as possible. However, if it is almost time for your next dose, skip the missed dose and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses.
Possible Side Effects
The side effects listed here have been reported for at least one of the SSRIs, not necessarily all of them. However, since many of the effects of SSRIs are similar, it is possible that these side affects may occur with any one of these medicines, although they may be more common with some than with others.
Check with your doctor if any of the following side effects occur frequently and/or become bothersome:
These side effects are considered more common:
- Decreased sexual drive or ability
- Skin rash, hives, or itching
These side effects are considered less common:
- Agitation, anxiety, or nervousness
- Blurred vision
- Changes in, or pain in urinating
- Chills or fever
- Decreased appetite or weight loss
- Dryness of mouth
- Fast or irregular heartbeat
- Increased sweating
- Joint or muscle pain
- Lack of emotion
- Loss of memory
- Menstrual changes
- Muscle pain or weakness
- Nausea or vomiting
- Stomach or abdominal cramps, gas, or pain
- Trouble breathing
- Trouble sleeping
- Twitching, trembling, or shaking
- Unusual tiredness or weakness
After you stop taking an SSRI, your body may need time to adjust. During this time, check with your doctor if you notice any of the following side effects:
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- Feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings
- Increased sweating
- Nausea or vomiting
- Trembling or shaking
- Trouble sleeping
- Unusual tiredness or weakness
Other Uses For SSRIs
Once a medicine has been approved for marketing for a certain use, experience may show that it is also useful for other medical problems. Although these uses are not included in product labeling, SSRIs may be used in certain people with these conditions:
- Bipolar disorder (fluoxetine)
- Obesity (fluoxetine)
- Panic attacks and disorder (fluoxetine)
- Myoclonus (fluoxetine)
- Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline)
- Premature ejaculation (paroxetine)
MedlinePlus: Drug Information
National Institutes of Health.
National Institute of Mental Health
Gunnell D, Saperia J, Ashby D. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and suicide in adults: meta-analysis of drug company data from placebo controlled, randomised controlled trials submitted to the MHRA's safety review. BMJ . 2005 Feb 19;330(7488):385.
Martinez C, Rietbrock S, Wise L, Ashby D, Chick J, Moseley J, et al. Antidepressant treatment and the risk of fatal and nonfatal self-harm in first episode depression: nested case-control study. BMJ . 2005 Feb 19;330(7488):389.
Last reviewed October 2006 by Lawrence Frisch, MD, MPH
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2011 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:64a544bd-82e3-49cd-bef2-13d11231ed13> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.beliefnet.com/healthandhealing/getcontent.aspx?cid=%0D%0A%09%09%09%09%09%0914462 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021384410/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120944-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.835317 | 2,878 | 2.671875 | 3 |
This case presentation aims to identify and determine the general heath problems and needs of the patient with an admitting diagnosis of Open Complete Comminuted Fracture at the left tibia, fibula. This presentation also intends to help patient promote health and medical understanding of such condition through the application of the nursing skills.
- To raise the level of awareness of patient on health problems that he may
- To facilitate patient in taking necessary actions to solve and prevent the
identified problems on his own.
- To help patient in motivating him to continue the health care provided by the
- To render nursing care and information to patient through the application of
the nursing skills.
A fracture is any break in the continuity of bone. Fractures are named according to their severity, the shape or position of the fracture line, or even the physician who first described them. It is defined according to type and extent. In some cases, a bone may fracture without visibly breaking. Fractures occur when the bone is subjected to stress greater than it can absorb. It can be caused by a direct blow, crushing force, sudden twisting motion, or even extreme muscle contraction. When the bone is broken, adjacent structures are also affected, resulting in soft tissue edema, hemorrhage into the muscles and joints, joint dislocations, ruptured tendons, severed nerves, and damaged blood vessels. Body organs may be injured by the force that caused the fracture or by the fracture fragments. Among the common kinds of fractures are the following:
- Open (compound) fracture: The broken ends of the bone protrude through the skin. Conversely, a closed (simple) fracture does not break the skin.
- Comminuted fracture: The bone splinters at the site of impact, and smaller bone bone fragments lie between the two main fragments.
- Greenstick fracture: A partial fracture in which one side of the bone is broken and the other side bends; occurs only in children, whose bones are not yet fully ossified and contain more organic material than inorganic material
- Impacted fracture: One end of the fractured bone is forcefully driven into the interior of the other.
- Pott’s fracture: A fracture of the distal end of the lateral leg, with one serious injury of the distal tibial articulation.
- Colles’ fracture: A fracture of the distal end of the lateral forearm in which the distal fragment is displaced posteriorly.
Fractures may also be described according to anatomic placement of fragments, particularly if they are displaced or nondisplaced. Injuries to the skeletal structure may vary from a simple linear fracture to a severe crushing injury. The type and location of the fracture and the extent of damage to surrounding structures determine the therapeutic management. Maximum functional recovery is the goal of management.
The most common fracture below the knee is one of the tibia and fibula that results from a direct blow, falls with the foot in a flexed position, or a violent twisting motion. Fractures of the tibia and fibula often occur in association with each other. The patient presents with pain, deformity, obvious hematoma, and considerable edema. Frequently, these fractures are open and involve severe soft tissue damage because there is little subcutaneous tissue in the area.
The signs and symptoms of a fracture include unnatural alignment, swelling, muscle spasm, tenderness, pain and impaired sensation and decreased mobility. The position of the bone segments is determined by the pull of attached muscles, gravity, and the direction and magnitude of the force that caused the fracture.
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
Each lower limb has 30 bones in four locations: (1) the femur in the thigh; (2) the patella; (3) the tibia and fibula in the leg; (4) and the 7 tarsals in the tarsus, the 5 metatarsals in the metatarsus, and the 14 phalanges in the foot.
The femur, or thigh bone, is the longest , heaviest and strongest bone in the body. Its proximal end articulates the acetabulum of the hip bone. Its distal end articulates with the tibia and patella.
The patella, or kneecap, is a small, triangular bone located anterior to the knee joint. It is a sesamoid bone that develops in the tendon of the quadriceps femoris muscle.The patella functions to increase the leverage of the tendon of the quadriceps femoris muscle, to maintain position of the tendon when the knee is bent, and to protect the knee joint.
The tibia, or shin bone, is the larger, medial, weight-bearing bone of the leg. The tibia articulates at its proximal end with the femur and fibula, and its distal end with the fibula and the talus bone of the ankle. An interosseous bone connects the tibia and fibula.
The fibula is parallel and lateral to the tibia, but it is considerably smaller than the tibia. The proximal end, the head of the fibula, articulates with the inferior surface of the lateral condyle of the tibia below the level of the knee joint to form the proximal tibiofibular joint. The distal end has a projection called the lateral malleolus that articulates with the talus bone of the ankle.
The tarsus is the proximal region of the foot and consists of seven tarsal bones. They include the talus and calcaneus, the cuboid, the three cuneiform bones called the first, second, and third cuneiforms.
The metatarsus is the intermediate region of the foot and consists of five metatarsal bones numbered I to V, from the medial to the lateral position. The first metatarsal is thicker than the others because it bears more weight.
The phalanges comprise the distal component of the foot and resemble those of the hand both in number and arrangement. They are numbered I to V being with the great toe, which is medial. | <urn:uuid:b462e9bd-05a9-4f61-9ed7-1e8d0aa6116d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://nursingcrib.com/case-study/tibial-fracture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642168/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913458 | 1,276 | 3.1875 | 3 |
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In Jonas’s perfect world, everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. But when Jonas learns the truth, there is no turning back.
In a utopian community where there are no choices–where everyone has his or her place in the world assigned according to gifts and interests–the time has come for 12-year-old Jonas to become the new Receiver of Memory. He will be the one to bear the collective memories of a society that lives only in the present, where “Sameness” is the rule. But Jonas soon recognizes the losses and discovers the lie that supports his community. He decides he will change his world–but he cannot predict how that change will come about, or what that change will mean for himself and the “newchild” Gabriel, whom he has resolved to protect.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Lois Lowry has written over 20 novels spanning several genres. Her Anastasia Krupnik series, set in contemporary Boston, follows with poignant humor the exploits of Anastasia (a precocious adolescent), her younger brother Sam, and their artistic parents. Books like Rabble Starkey and A Summer to Die focus on families and crisis, and examine the strength and love that bind them together. Number the Stars, Lowry’s first work of historical fiction and a Newbery Medal winner, is set during the Holocaust. The Giver, Lowry’s first work of fantasy, is now joined by its companion novel, Gathering Blue.
The Giver is a gripping story that draws the reader into a unique world with disturbingly close echoes of our own. It asks deep and penetrating questions about how we live together in a society.
What must we give up, for example, in order to live in peace? How much should the individual lose of himself or herself for the collective good? Can we ignore and minimize pain in our lives--both physical and emotional--to live happier existences? These ideas, combined with an ending that can be interpreted in two different ways, can lead to a classroom experience that challenges, provokes, and perhaps disturbs.
Have students create a “perfect” community, giving it a name, a system of government, and a physical description, and accounting for how its people spend their days. Discuss how that community would change and grow. What roles would history and memories of painful events play in the growth of the community? What would have to be added to our own society in order to make it perfect? What would be lost in this quest for perfection?
Family—Parental Relationships–In The Giver, each family has two parents, a son, and a daughter. The relationships are not biological, but are developed through observation and a careful handling of personality. In our own society, the makeup of family is under discussion. How are families defined? Are families the unchanging foundations of a society, or are they continually open for new definitions?
Diversity–The Giver pictures a community in which every person and his or her experience is precisely the same. The climate is controlled, and competition has been eliminated in favor of a community in which everyone works only for the common good. What advantages might “Sameness” yield for contemporary communities? In what ways do our differences make us distinctly human? Is the loss of diversity worthwhile?
Euthanasia–Underneath the placid calm of Jonas’s society lies a very orderly and inexorable system of euthanasia, practiced on the very young who do not conform, the elderly, and those whose errors threaten the stability of the community. What are the disadvantages and benefits to a community that accepts such a vision of euthanasia?
Feelings–Jonas remarks that loving another person must have been a dangerous way to live. Describe the relationships between Jonas and his family, his friends Asher and Fiona, and the Giver. Are any of these relationships dangerous? Perhaps the most dangerous is that between Jonas and the Giver–the one relationship built on love. Why is that relationship dangerous and what does the danger suggest about the nature of love?
CONNECTING TO THE CURRICULUM
Philosophy–A number of utopian communities were established in the U.S., such as the Shakers in the eighteenth century or Fruitlands, led by Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott), in the mid-nineteenth century. Have students choose one of these communities and list the principles that guided it, as well as the assumptions behind those principles. What generalizations might be made about why such a community may not last?
Science–While throwing an apple back and forth, Jonas suddenly notices that it “changes”; in fact, he is beginning to perceive color. Divide the class into groups and have them research and report on the following subjects: the nature of color and of the spectrum, how the human eye perceives color, what causes color blindness, and what causes the body to react to any stimulus. Is it possible to train the human eye so that it does not perceive color?
Language Arts–The ending of The Giver may be interpreted in two very different ways. Perhaps Jonas is remembering his Christmas memory–one of the most beautiful that the Giver gave to him–as he and Gabriel are freezing to death, falling into a dreamlike coma in the snow. Or perhaps Jonas does hear music and, with his special vision, is able to perceive the warm house where people are waiting to greet him. In her acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal, Lois Lowry mentioned both possibilities, but would not call one correct, the other not. After discussing the role of ambiguity in writing, have students craft short stories that end on an ambiguous note. Discuss some in class, noting the writers’ clues for such an ending.
Sociology–Choose a group in the U.S. today that actively seeks to maintain an identity outside of the mainstream culture: the Amish or Mennonites, a Native American tribe, the Hasidic Jewish community, or another group. Have students research and report on the answers to questions such as the following: What benefits does this group expect from defining itself as “other”? What are the disadvantages? How does the mainstream culture put pressure on such a group?
Using the Companion Novels Together
Language Arts–Gathering Blue is a companion novel to The Giver. Discuss the difference between a companion novel and a sequel. Talk about the similarities and differences in the two novels. Ask students to write a letter that Kira, the main character in Gathering Blue, might write to Jonas where she tells him the frightening truths that she discovers about her community. Share the letters in class, and discuss what Jonas might write back to her.
Lois Lowry helps create an alternate world by having the community use words in a very special way. Though that world stresses what it calls “precision of language,” in fact it is built upon language that is not precise, but that deliberately clouds meaning. Consider what Jonas’s community really means by words such as: released (p. 2), feelings (p. 4), animals (p. 5), Nurturer (p. 7), Stirrings (p. 37), replacement child (p. 44), and Elsewhere (p. 78).
Examine the ways that Jonas’s community uses euphemism to distance itself from the reality of what they call “Release.” How does our own society use euphemism to distance the realities of death, bodily functions, aging, and political activities? What benefits and disadvantages are there to such a use of language?
A Newbery Medal Book
An ALA Notable Children’s Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Boston Globe—Horn Book Award Honor Book
A Booklist Children’s Editors’ Choice
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Horn Book Fanfare
The Regina Medal
An IRA—CBC Children’s Choice
An NCTE Notable Trade Book for
the Language Arts
An NCSS—CBC Notable Children’s Book
in the Field of Social Studies
* "The simplicity and directness of Lowry's writing force readers to grapple with their own thoughts.. . ."--Starred, Focus Review/ Booklist
* "A richly provocative novel."--Pointer, Kirkus Reviews
* "The final flight for survival is a riveting as it is inevitable. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time."--Starred, Publishers Weekly
* "The theme of balancing the values of freedom and security is beautifully presented."--Starred, The Horn Book
* "A powerful and provocative novel."--The New York Times
OTHER TITLES OF INTEREST
A Companion to The Giver
Fear • Courage • Friendship
Truth • Freedom
Grades 7 up / 0-440-22949-9
Dell Laurel-Leaf Readers Circle
The Sign of the Beaver
Elizabeth George Speare
Adventure • Cultural Diversity
Grades 5—9 / 0-440-47900-2
A Single Shard
Linda Sue Park
Courage • Survival • Honesty
Hope • Family • Death
Grades 4—8 / 0-440-41851-8
Prepared by Gary D. Schmidt, Director of English, Calvin College.
Click here to download the Teacher's Guide PDF | <urn:uuid:ba791fe6-2b9c-4a2f-b1ff-285ef3b054a4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780440237686&view=tg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642168/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942527 | 1,960 | 2.875 | 3 |
What's New- removed all banners from main page;
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App DescriptionEducational game "Mix2Color" will not only aid your child in developing creative thinking but will also teach him how to mix colors. There are two game modes "Draw a picture" and "Color a picture".
"Color a picture" mode features 18 different pictures. In order to color them correctly a child has to use 15 different colors, but only 5 of them (blue, red, yellow, white, black) are directly available. The remaining 10 colors can be obtained via mixing the primary ones.
"Draw a picture" game mode allows a child to draw anything he wants. There are 3 types of brushes, 12 different colors, 11 funny stamps and a sponge for corrections.
The game is accompanied with joyful music and great sound effects. Intuitive interface allows child to quickly understand the game.
January 29, 2014 New version 2.5.1
October 04, 2013 New version 2.5
September 26, 2013 New version 2.4
June 14, 2013 New version 2.3
April 20, 2013 New version 2.2
February 24, 2012 Initial Release | <urn:uuid:0828a4aa-dd1c-41fb-afb6-466a35cf0ca6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.148apps.com/app/493516695 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999677941/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060757-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915392 | 244 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Did you know that diabetes can hurt, stiffen, and even disable your shoulders, wrists, fingers, and other joints? None of these conditions is well understood. So how can you prevent them and deal with them?
Of course, people without diabetes can have joint issues, but having diabetes raises your risk. All of these conditions seem to be related to thickening or stiffening of connective tissues — the ligaments and tendons that hold our bodies together. These tissues are mostly made of collagen, a protein that should have some give and flow to it, like a soft rubber ball. When collagen stiffens, joints start to hurt and don’t work as well.
Here are four of the more well known diabetes-related joint conditions:
- Frozen shoulder, also known as adhesive capsulitis, is a condition in which the range of motion of the shoulder joint is severely restricted. According to the American Diabetes Association, it affects 20% of people with diabetes and 5% of the general population. It usually starts with shoulder pain and inflammation and can progress to stiffness and near-complete immobility. Then it starts to resolve, and is usually gone within two years, especially with treatment.
- Diabetic stiff hand syndrome is a painless disorder caused by an increase in collagen in and just below the skin. It can sharply limit hand function.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a painful condition caused by pressure on the median nerve, which passes into the hand through a narrow “tunnel.” If this tunnel is squeezed by thickening of ligaments or other structures, severe pain can result. CTS is often associated with typing or other repetitive work that keep wrists in unnatural positions.
- Trigger finger is a condition where one or more fingers curl up and are difficult to straighten. The tendons that bend and straighten fingers “catch” and then may suddenly “click” open again. Trigger finger can be painful and is usually worse in the morning. Repetitive gripping motions can bring it on or make it worse.
All of these conditions involve some combination of inflammation and stiffening. So what does diabetes have to do with it? Some think that high blood glucose changes the balance of proteins, stiffening the collagen. Or perhaps some other inflammatory process contributes to the diabetes and the joint disease. But either way, what are some strategies for preventing dealing with these conditions?
Prevention and Treatment
One thing all joint experts agree on is that prevention of these conditions is easier than treatment. Fortunately, there are things we can do for our joints at any state of health.
- Stretching. Joint stiffness is a vicious cycle. A part hurts, so you don’t move it. So it stiffens up and hurts more, and you use it even less. It’s important to break that cycle by moving the joint, even if it hurts a bit (but not severely). “Inflammation should be taken into consideration…, but unless the shoulder is severely inflamed, you would want physical therapy” says Michael Mueller, PT, PhD, about frozen shoulder. You might want to apply heat to loosen a joint before stretching.
Orthopedists at the University of Oklahoma created this illustrated guide to stretches for carpal tunnel.
Trigger finger stretching is mostly a question of pulling the finger into a straight position and holding it. See a video about it here.
- Heat and cold applications. According to MedicineNet, heat relaxes stiff tendons, while cold reduces pain and swelling. You might want to alternate them or explore to see which works better for you.
- Pain medicines. If needed, anti-inflammatory medicines like ibuprofen can help. Sometimes you need to take those to be able to stretch.
- Massage. The University of Maryland Medical Center reports that “massage has been shown to calm pain and spasm by helping muscles relax, by bringing in a fresh supply of oxygen and nutrient-rich blood, and by flushing the area of chemical irritants that come from inflammation.” Massage should probably be avoided when joints are hot, swollen, or tender to touch.
- Avoid straining. Bruce Anderson, MD, writes that “You should limit overhead positioning, reaching, and lifting. These restrictions can be eased as pain decreases and flexibility increases.”
- Improve blood glucose control. This can’t hurt, and it probably helps.
- Physical therapy. Therapists have an amazing variety of equipment and knowledge to help stiff and painful joints. These include ultrasound, fluid therapy, paraffin treatments, and many others.
- Splinting (for trigger finger). If you wake with curled fingers, you might try sleeping in finger splints to keep them straighter.
I strongly advise adding joint care to your self-management routine. If a shoulder, wrist, fingers, or ankles are becoming stiff and/or painful, do some gentle self-massage and apply heat once in a while. Give yourself some strokes. It’s one form of self-care that feels good. | <urn:uuid:224f1dc2-4ea0-430d-950d-d865db4366a6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/blog/david-spero/diabetes-and-your-hands/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999677941/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060757-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947887 | 1,054 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Identity theft is a serious crime. It occurs when your personal information is stolen and used without your knowledge to commit fraud or other crimes. Identity theft can cost you time and money. It can destroy your credit and ruin your good name.
Deter identity thieves by safeguarding your information.
- Shred financial documents and paperwork with personal information before you discard them.
- Protect your Social Security number. Don't carry your Social Security card in your wallet or write your Social Security number on a check. Give it out only if absolutely necessary or ask to use another identifier.
- Don't give out personal information on the phone, through the mail, or over the Internet unless you know who you are dealing with.
- Never click on links sent in unsolicited emails; instead, type in a web address you know.
The Collierville Police Department continues to strive to provide crime information tips as part of our efforts to reduce the risk of citizens in this community "falling victim" to identity theft. Although the Collierville Police Department continues to provide information to our citizens, we realize that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes across the nation. As part of our effort to reduce your chances of becoming a victim, we would like to share below some tips that can easily help reduce your risk of identity theft.
- Keep your firewalls, anti-spy ware, and anti-virus software to protect your home computer; keep them up-to-date.
- Don't use an obvious password like your birth date, your mother's maiden name, or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
- Keep your personal information in a secure place at home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help, or are having work done in your house.
The above safety tips are some of the important general tips you can use to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. You can use these tips along with others provide through the links below to become better aware of what you can do to help protect your identity. If you become a victim of identity theft, contact your local police department for assistance.
Additional information on identity theft can be obtained on the Internet at the following links: | <urn:uuid:3a75a3f6-b022-4506-bb89-5d0d2272a427> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://colliervillepolice.org/faq/identity-theft | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923791 | 456 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Sea Turtle Life Cycle
(illustration adapted from Lanyon & Limpus)
The sea turtle life cycle is typical for all 7 of the world’s species.
Coastal water feeding area
Sea turtles become sexually mature between about 11 and 40 years old. Much of their juvenile and adult lives are spent in coastal feeding areas.
Once sexually mature adult males and females migrate towards the area where they hatched. This migration can be thousands of kilometres.
Mating mainly occurs offshore from nesting beaches and females mate with a number of different males. Females store the sperm and use it to fertilise several clutches of eggs that they will lay in the course of the nesting season.
Males return to feeding area
Males return to their feeding areas once the females begin to nest.
Females usually nest at night to avoid the sun’s heat. They crawl out of the water and seek a suitable location to dig a nest in the sand and lay their eggs.
They dig a body pit with their fore flippers then excavate an egg chamber with their rear flippers. They may repeat this process several times until they are satisfied that the nesting conditions are correct, at which point they will lay a clutch of eggs.
They then fill in the nest with sand and return to the water where they begin the fertilisation process again with sperm that they have previously stored. This process is repeated about every 2 weeks.
Depending on the species, a female may lay between 50 and 130 eggs, and as many as 7 clutches of eggs each nesting season.
Females return to feeding area
Females return to their foraging grounds once the nesting season is over. They may not breed again for several years though this is dependant on the availability of food.
Eggs hatch after about 7-12 weeks, depending on the species and environmental conditions. Sand temperature determines the sex of the turtle: cooler sands produce more males, warmer sands produce more females.
Hatchlings emerge from their eggs and make their way upwards where they wait just under the sand surface. A drop in temperature is the trigger for them all to emerge together and make their way to the sea. This usually happens at night and they orientate themselves by looking for the lowest light horizon.
Once in the water they swim for several days, but are also taken by ocean currents towards deeper offshore waters.
Open-ocean feeding area ‘the lost years’
Hatchlings enter a phase known as ‘the lost years’ where little is known about their movements. They are thought to spend time feeding in oceanic areas where flotsam attracts a plentiful food supply.
Enter coastal feeding area
Older hatchlings join the juveniles and adults at the coastal feeding areas when they are about 5-10 years old and have reached about 30 centimetres in length.
Find out more about individual species of sea turtles. | <urn:uuid:cf42eeb5-fdbd-4dd3-9d28-41bc4db7097a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://seaturtlefoundation.org/sea-turtle-life-cycle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953835 | 602 | 3.984375 | 4 |
Nelson Mandela arrived in the world on 18 July 1918 in Mvezo Village, in South Africa's Cape Province (Umatutu). He was given the name Rlihlahla, meaning beloved troublemaker. As he grew, people used his Madiba clan name. His paternal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, ruled the Thembu tribe in the Transkeian Territory in today's eastern Cape Province.
His great-grandfather, a king, had a son called Mandela. The name was used as the family name. Mandela was born of an Ixhiba clan wife. As a 'left-hand house,' the children descended from this family branch could not inherit the throne. They were considered born to advisory roles or councillorship. Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, Nelson Mandela's father, was appointed as a councillor to the king in 1915. The departing councillor was accused of illegal acts by a white officer of the state. In 1926, Mandela's father Gadla was also released after an accusation of improper dealings and corruption. Nelson later learned his father lost the job for daring to contest the official's wrongful demands.
Gadla had four wives as a congregant of the fertility-minded Qamata (son of Thixo, the sun god, and Jobela, the goddess of earth). He fathered 13 children. The Mandela children were scattered in various South African villages. Nelson's mother, Nosekeni Fanny, was Gadla's third wife. She was the daughter of the legitimate 'Right-hand house' and amaMpemvu Xhosa clan.
Nelson Mandela's early years dominated by the old ways of South Africa. He tended cattle as a young boy and felt at ease outdoors. He was educated at a Methodist Christian school until early grade school and was baptised a Protestant. He was given the name Nelson by Miss Mdingane, a teacher. At age nine, Mandela's father died of an unknown disease. The loss of his father registered quite deeply. He admired the father's "rebelliousness" and sense of fair dealings. His mother then brought Mandella to Mghekezweni, the Great Place, where he was made a guardian of the king, Jongintaba Dalindyebo. His love of the Christian faith intensified during childhood and teen years as he attended Sunday services. He studied African history, along with English, geography and Xhosa and grew to love the rich African verbal tradition passed down through the elders. At 16 years, he traveled to Tyhalarha with schoolmates for the symbolic circumcision ceremony marking his transition to manhood. He was named "Daliunga." | <urn:uuid:d6898b59-d134-404c-a656-390d059edf19> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.mandela-tribute.com/early-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984112 | 556 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Philadelphia Timeline, 1824
- March 31. Legislature incorporated a company to construct a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, in Lancaster County; the company to be called "The President, Directors and Company of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company."
- During the year Schuylkill water was introduced into 3,954 private houses, and 185 manufactories.
- May 9. Fire in the Northern Liberties, Third Street near Brown. About thirty houses destroyed.
- September 27. Arrival of Gen. Lafayette in Philadelphia stopping and sleeping at the Frankford Arsenal.
- Grand procession on the 28th. Reception in Independence Hall.
- A census taken in 1824 showed that the city contained fifty-five printing offices, one hundred and fifty printers.
Excerpted from "Happenings in ye Olde Philadelphia 1680-1900" by Rudolph J. Walther, 1925, Walther Printing House, Philadelphia, PA | <urn:uuid:38734598-a038-4cd3-a350-d693dd5b3b1b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ushistory.org/Philadelphia/timeline/1824.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915083 | 189 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Preserving our past is important for preserving our future. In understanding the experiences of our ancestors one can better understand how our culture has helped to shape who we are. As generations come and go, a wealth of information can be documented about a particular family's genealogy, highlighting ege Archivist Jeff Sauve began working at St. Olaf three years ago, he did not imagine that a significant amount of his time would be devoted to researching information about alumni. Now, Sauve commits 10 to 20 percent of his time to answering e-mails from people who want to obtain information about a deceased relative that attended St. Olaf. Sauve receives on average five e-mails per week from people, asking him to provide any information he may have on their ancestors. Sauve typically consults a checklist of ten sources, choosing the ones that are most applicable to the situation. His checklist includes the Manitou Messenger database, which is a link on the St. Olaf website. Sauve believes that St. Olaf is possibly the only college in the United States to have indexed every single newspaper article. A person can type the name of the individual and the database will list each article that the person was mentioned in. These articles are important for determining extracurricular involvement or accomplishments. Sauve can also search the St. Olaf collections database to find further information. Sauve also turns to matriculation records, which are thick cards that provide academic records and other personal information. Records were very important in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The matriculation records provide the date and place of birth along with who they were confirmed by. Although these are seemingly small details, Sauve sees them as a springboard into a new lead. In just knowing who a person was confirmed by, the questioning party can then find the church where they were confirmed and check with the church's archives for more information. Other sources include photographs, alumni magazines, alumni files, and the Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA), which is located across from the college archives. The NAHA has different information than the college archives such as obituary documents of deceased alumni, as well as information about accomplishments of prominent Norwegian-Americans. "Between the two archives, we can really zone in on families to help them with research," said Sauve. When Sauve receives e-mails about ancestry research, he tries to find as much information as possible to give families a lead. The college archives has a detailed collection of documents, photographs and artifacts, yet does not have extensive information about student life. In the beginning to middle of the nineteenth century, documenting student life was not as much of a priority. Letters from the college president and the Dean's office were more prevalent at that time. Many people are hesitant to begin their research because tracking ancestors from over one hundred years ago can be a difficult task. Some know so little about who they want to research that the task becomes like searching for a needle in a haystack. In many cases, Sauve has been able to take a name and deliver many promising leads to people. In one case, a man had e-mailed Sauve asking him about his ancestor by the last name of Skaare who may have attended St. Olaf in the late 1800s. Around the same time Sauve received the e-mail, a former St. Olaf history professor, Christopher Grasso, had moved into the old house of former St. Olaf President Mohn. The Mohn family had moved out of the house, yet Grasso discovered that the Mohn family forgot to take a large box of correspondence letters. Grasso gave the box to the college archives. Knowing the letters were written around the time of the late 1800s when the college was forming, Sauve scanned some of the documents, each written in Norwegian, and happened to come across the name Skaar in one of the letters. The letter, dated Nov. 5,1883, was from a pastor in Norway who wrote to recommend Imbart Skaar to St. Olaf. In just one letter, Sauve was able to tell the man where Skaar was from, where he lived and worked. Small details can often unravel the beginnings of a long ancestral history. The St. Olaf archive website links to reputable websites to research on local, state, and national levels. On the local level, the NAHA can be found at www.naha.stolaf.edu and the Goodhue County Historical Society at www.goodhuehist.mus.mn.us. On the state level, the American Association for state and local history can be found at www.aaslh.org; the Association of Midwest useums at www.midwestmuseums.org; the Minnesota Historical Society at www.mnhs.org; and the University of Minnesota Archives at www.special.lib.um n.edu/uarc. Finally on the national level, one can research information on vital records in the United States at www.vitalrec.com and also on the website for the Association of Moving Image Archivists at www.amianet.org. Sauve believes that the popularity of the Internet has helped to increase interest in genealogy. "Some people are savvy about the Internet. People can create connections and do research at home and not have to go to every library to find information. The Internet allows the average genealogist to become quite skilled," said Sauve.
ISSUE 116 VOL 9 PUBLISHED 11/15/2002
Learning from the information
After researching about one's ancestors and where they came from, an individual can better understand their roots to reveal their origin and more specifically, why they may act the way they do. Certain characteristics are valued in each culture, often being passed through generations. Such characteristics are formed by religion, geography, history and cultural values. Paul Anderson, a Lutheran Pastor in Minneapolis, published an article titled "Breaking the stronghold of the Jante" after reading Aksel Sandemoses book "The escapes from Jante." In the book, Sandemose depicts the ugly side of Scandinavian small town mentality. The term Janteloven, which means "Jante Law," explains the unspoken rules of Scandinavian communities. Sandemose noticed ten traits after observing them in the Norweigian culture. His observations are as follows: do not think you are anything special, do not think you are as important as we are, do not think you are wiser than we are, do not fool yourself into thinking you are better than we are, do not think you know more than we do, do not think you are more than we are, do not think that you are good at anything, do not laugh at us, do not think anyone cares about you, do not think you can teach us anything. Anderson brought forth his evaluation of Sandemoses novel to shed light on how some Scandinavian families treat each other. In this specific case, Anderson argues that the Jante Law levels people off so no one feels like rising above anyone else. Although such unwritten rules may characterize individual cultures, researching such "rules" can explain stark characteristics in family members. One may find that certain traits have indeed been passed down from past generations. Such research allows people to better understand themselves by understanding the culture from which their ancestors were influenced. Another important resource is consultation of living relatives. By consulting these relatives before they pass away, one can gain information on what they know about their ancestors. Most grandparents for example would be willing to share their experiences.
How to record the research
Once information is obtained, whether complete in detail or not, some find it important to document their findings. Documenting is important to preserve the information that exists up to the current point in time. Several options exist. For those who are intrigued by family photographs, a scrapbook is a popular way to present a family's history. Making a scrapbook allows a person to combine all of their photographs into one place. It can either be detailed for the very creative person, using heritage color schemes and classic embellishments such as buttons and eyelets, or it can even be as simple as placing the photos in photo corners. Either way, a scrapbook serves the purpose of putting a face to the name. Photographs, personal documents and journaling serve as an intimate link to what our ancestors were experiencing. An alternate option is to conduct an oral interview. If an oral interview is conducted, it may be very important to come up with a set of questions to ask. In order to record the conversation, bring a tape recorder to capture their voice on tape. The tape will become a dear artifact after the relative is deceased. Another option is to purchase a book that allows relatives to journal about certain events. At Archiver's, a local scrapbooking store, one can purchase a book that asks questions and leaves room for a response. The value of having hand written responses from a relative will also become very sacred. In any form, documenting family research is valuable for current and future generations to understand their family history. | <urn:uuid:e8cac0bd-8992-4438-b77e-20ac9be73f4f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://fusion.stolaf.edu/mess/index.cfm?section=article&article_number=697&issue_volume=116&issue_number=9&issue_date=11/15/2002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968673 | 1,862 | 2.609375 | 3 |
'For the third quartet alone, this disc is worth acquiring ...
an important musical document of one of those
who perished in the holocaust ...'
PETER LUNDIN listens to the
'undesired' quartets of Pavel Haas
Entartete Musik (a term coined by the Nazi propaganda machine
designating music undesired by the third reich) became a revitalised musical
symbol during the latter part of the 1990s - not least when the British
record label Decca started releasing a series of CDs labelled Entartete
Musik. Among the composers rediscovered by a large new audience were
Victor Ullmann, Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff and Pavel Haas, whose string
quartets are under consideration here.
Pavel Hass was born on 21 June 1899 in the Moravian capital, Brünn
(today Brno). After serving in the first world war he entered the Brno conservatory
in 1919. There he studied music with Jan Kunc and Vilém Petrzelka,
and later with Leos Janácek for his masters degree in composition.
Haas was not able to sustain himself as a composer until 1935, when his
opera 'Sarlatán' (Charlatan, available in the Decca series) became
a tremendous success at the Brno Opera. Like many Jewish composers in Germany
and the annexed countries Haas was deported to the model camp Terezin in
October 1941. Then three years later, on the last train out, he was sent
to Auschwitz. There he and many other important Jewish artists were executed
on 17 December 1944. (Haas's total output is less than 25 works. Whilst
in the concentration camp he wrote an unfinished symphony and the studies
for string orchestra. The latter was performed by the Theresienstadt orchestra
under Karel Ancerl.)
Copyright © 10 June 2000 Peter Lundin,
PURCHASE THIS DISC FROM AMAZON
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CD INFORMATION - PRAGA PRD 250118
& Vision home French bonbons >>
||To listen to the aural illustrations in this review,|
you may need to download RealNetworks' realplayer G2. | <urn:uuid:40677654-c8a9-448a-85a8-cbc3d94ea313> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2000/06/cshaas1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922698 | 485 | 2.5625 | 3 |
|1.||Also called: firn a mass of porous ice, formed from snow, that has not yet become frozen into glacier ice|
|2.||a snowfield at the head of a glacier that becomes transformed into ice|
|[C19: from Swiss French névé glacier, from Late Latin nivātus snow-cooled, from nix snow]|
|névé (nā-vā') Pronunciation Key
partially compacted granular snow that is the intermediate stage between snow and glacial ice. Firn is found under the snow that accumulates at the head of a glacier. It is formed under the pressure of overlying snow by the processes of compaction, recrystallization, localized melting, and the crushing of individual snowflakes. This process is thought to take a period of about one year. Annual layers of firn may often be detected by thin films of dust or ash that accumulate on the surface during each summer.
Learn more about neve with a free trial on Britannica.com. | <urn:uuid:0feb2bd6-5373-4b03-9c83-dcbae6ee9cac> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/neve | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678694630/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024454-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940966 | 225 | 3.765625 | 4 |
To determine the survival in a population of German patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Patients and methods:
Information about 94 patients born between 1970 and 1980 was obtained by telephone interviews and questionnaires. In addition to age of death or actual age during the investigation, data concerning clinical course and medical interventions were collected.
67 patients with molecularly confirmed diagnoses had a median survival of 24.0 years. Patients without molecular confirmation (clinical diagnosis only) had a chance of 67 % to reach that age. Grouping of our patient cohort according to the year of death (before and after 2000), ventilation was recognized as main intervention affecting survival with ventilated reaching a median survival of 27.0 years. For those without ventilation it was 19.0 years.
Conclusion and clinical relevance:
our study provides survival data for a cohort of DMD patients in Germany stratified by year of death. Median survival was 24.0 years in patients confirmed by molecular testing. Ventilated patients had a median survival of 27 years. We consider this piece of information helpful in the medical care of DMD patients.
Key words: duchenne muscular dystrophy, survival, ventilation | <urn:uuid:666cf1ce-e449-428c-abbc-a73172db2a37> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC3476855/?report=abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678694630/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024454-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934947 | 240 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Making a Prairie Garden
(download this brochure in .pdf format)
Easy-to-grow prairie plants are among nature’s most spectacular flowers, producing waisthigh blooms of brilliant yellow, flaming crimson and soft lavender. Because of their extensive root systems, prairie plants can be the answer to problem garden spots. Once established, they require little maintenance.
Small patches of prairie grow throughout much of Ohio. They are relicts of a time 4,000- 6,000 years ago when a sustained warm, dry period caused the expansion of drought resistant western plants eastward through Ohio to western Pennsylvania.
When the rain and cooler summers eventually returned, the eastern edge of the prairie again gave way to forest except for pockets of land where erosion, shallow dry soils or prolonged seasonal flooding prevented tree seedlings from developing. Today, because of agricultural expansion, only a few scattered prairie remnants survive.
Choosing the Site
The first step in creating a prairie landscape is to choose the site. Except for needing full sunlight, prairie plants adapt to most conditions. Prairie plants grow in a diversity of soil, from clay to sand, and tolerate a wide range of soil fertility and acidity. Prairie plants also grow in dry shallow soils or marshy soils that most plants cannot tolerate.
Prairies are divided into three types—dry, mesic (moderately moist) and wet. Mesic and dry prairie plants prefer loose soil with good drainage. Wet species grow in poorly drained areas, where water stands after a heavy rain. Using a wide range of prairie species can help disguise problem areas, such as a boggy hollow or gravel hill.
Once the site is selected, you may want to draw a planting plan. The following tips can help you design an attractive and healthy garden.
Prairies are grasslands, but check local weed control ordinances before planting prairie grasses. Instead, you may prefer to concentrate on prairie wildflowers.
Use native Ohio species whenever possible.
Match plants to your soil—dry, mesic or wet.
Fit the size of the plants to the size of your area.Keep tall plants to the edges.
Planting in curves, instead of rows, will give you a more natural look.
Allow one species to dominate, then blend into another.
Try for continuous color throughout the growing season.
In a large prairie garden, you may want to make paths to walk along.
You can turn your prairie garden into a wildlife oasis by selecting plants that are attractive to butterflies, birds and other wildlife.
Nurseries that sell prairie seeds or books about prairie flowers can help you select the best species to suit your needs.
Many prairie plants are rare or endangered and are protected by law when growing on public land.
Scout prairie areas during the peak blooming season, late July through August, to find which seeds you want to collect. Then draw a map or mark the flowers with a stake or tie.
Seeds should be collected when they become ripe in the fall. Leave enough seeds at the collection site for it to propagate itself. Digging a mature plant is not a good idea—its deep roots make it almost impossible to transplant.
Preparing & Planting
Once collected, seeds should be spread on a screen to dry, which prevents mold. Remove any surrounding plant material from the seeds.
Because the seeds have to go through a cold spell to trigger germination, they have a better chance of germinating if they are planted in the fall, as soon as they become ripe. However, fall planting increases the toll taken by rodents, birds and insects during the winter, so plant more seeds than needed.
If you cannot plant when collected, store the seeds in a cool place until spring. During winter, you can use the trunk of your car or the crawl space of your house for storage. However, as soon as it starts to get warm, place them in the refrigerator. All it takes is one 80° day to break the germination cycle and the seeds will have to go through another cold spell before growing.
Hard dense seeds may need their seed coat scratched before germinating. Shaking them in a small coffee can lined with rough sandpaper is a good way to do this.
Prairie seeds need light to sprout. Once the garden is plowed and cultivated, just scratch the surface, then pack the seeds down by stepping on them.
Maintaining Your Prairie Garden
The biggest challenge of prairie gardening is controlling weeds during the first two or three years. Prairie plants spend the first years of their life rooting while Eurasian weeds put all their energy above the ground, crowding out prairie seedlings.
You can control weeds in a variety of ways using herbicides, mulching or hand weeding. Planting a groundcover crop the first summer, like oats or annual rye, will take up space so weeds cannot crowd out prairie plants. Since they only live one year, they will allow prairie plants room to expand the second year.
Mowing and raking every spring also helps control weeds and promote growth. You should mow in late June with the blade set above 5-8 inches high. This will cut back early growing annual weeds, but not affect slower-growing prairie plants.
By the third year, there is little for the prairie gardener to do but enjoy their colorful landscape!
Prairie gardens require no covering, no pruning, no spraying, no irrigating and little, if any, fertilizing—saving prairie gardeners hundreds of dollars in maintenance costs and hours of labor.
The Prairie Garden: 70 Native Plants You Can Grow in Town or Country. J. Robert Smith and Beatrice S. Smith, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.
Nursery Sources: Native Plants and Seeds. Available from New England Wildflower Society. Garden in the Woods, Hemenway Rd, Dept FG, Framingham MA 01701.
Ohio Sources for Native Plants and Seeds:
The Division of Natural Areas and Preserves encourages the use of native plants in your landscape. Here is a list of native plant nurseries that have a large selection of Ohio native plants for sale. This list is not meant as an endorsement to any business. If you know of an Ohio native plant nursery that is not listed, please contact us at: 614.265.6453.
*Look for nursery propagated seeds/plants. Do not buy plants that were collected from the wild.
AULLWOOD AUDUBON CENTER
1000 Aullwood Road
Dayton, OH 45414
12511 Fowlers Mill Rd.
Chardon, OH 44024
ENVIROTECH CONSULTANTS, INC
5380 Twp 143 NE
Somerset, OH 43783
2209 Stratford Road
Delaware, OH 43015
5081 Woodenshoe Hollow Lane
Cincinnati, OH 45232
35707 Loop Rd
Rutland, OH 45775-8900
NATURALLY NATIVE NURSERY
13737 St. Rt. 582
Bowling Green, OH 43402
OHIO PRAIRIE NURSERY
P.O. Box 174
Hiram, Ohio 44234
PORTERBROOK NATIVE PLANTS
Dr. Frank Porter
49607 St. Rt. 124
Racine, OH 45771
2295 River Road
Delaware, Ohio 43015
3351 State Route 37 W
7851 Twp. Rt. 562
Homesville, OH 44633 | <urn:uuid:5456e898-3fc0-4fd9-8371-36cd3736b46a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/prairiegarden/tabid/21156/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999643993/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060723-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897845 | 1,590 | 3.625 | 4 |
In 2000, about 14.5 million cases of serious pneumococcal disease were estimated to occur among children under 5y and about 820 000 childhood deaths due to pneumococcal disease, 90% attributable to pneumonia, may have occurred (O'Brien et al., 2009). Cases and deaths are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV), which enhance immunogenicity through conjugation of capsular polysaccharides to diphtheria toxoid protein, were developed in the 1990s, and the first of these was introduced in the USA in 2000, then progressively in other industrialised and emerging economy countries. Various higher-valency vaccines have since been developed to address the insufficient serotype coverage in industrialised countries and highly limited coverage in developing and high-burden countries.
In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended global expansion of PCV vaccination, with priority introduction in “countries where mortality among children aged <5 years is >50/1000 live births or where >50 000 children die annually" (WHO, 2007). PCV implementation in developing countries, mainly financed through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and Advance Market Commitment mechanisms, is expected to roll out over the next decade.
PCV may be the single most important new vaccine in terms of preventable global disease burden. While the introduction of PCV poses immense challenges in most developing countries (obstacles to delivery include by poverty, weak health systems, lack of human resources and infrastructure and the geographical remoteness of target populations), specific vulnerable populations deserve special attention and stand to potentially benefit disproportionately from PCV vaccination. | <urn:uuid:36641199-a06a-4b04-ba99-28f4ca2359e8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://pedrad.org/associations/5364/wfpi/Outreach/WHOvaccines(PCV).aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999655040/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060735-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927262 | 350 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Interrupt vector table
||It has been suggested that Interrupt_descriptor_table be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2011.|
||This article needs attention from an expert in Computing. (December 2011)|
An interrupt vector table, a concept common across various processor architectures, is a table of interrupt vectors that associates an interrupt handler with an interrupt request in a machine specific way. A dispatch table is one method of implementing an interrupt vector table.
An interrupt vector table is used in all 3 of the 3 most popular methods of finding the starting address of the interrupt service routine:
The "predefined" method loads the PC directly with the address of some entry inside the interrupt vector table. The jump table itself contains executable code. While in principle an extremely short interrupt handler could be stored entirely inside the interrupt vector table, in practice the code at each and every entry is "JMP address" where the address is the address of the interrupt service routine (ISR) for that interrupt. The Atmel AVR and all 8051 and Microchip microcontrollers use the predefined approach.
The "fetch" method loads the PC indirectly, using the address of some entry inside the interrupt vector table to pull an address out of that table, and then loading the PC with that address. Each and every entry of is the address of an interrupt service routine. All Motorola/Freescale microcontrollers use the fetch method.
The "interrupt acknowledge" method, the external device gives the CPU an interrupt handler number. The interrupt acknowledge method is used by the Intel Pentium and many older microprocessors.
- Interrupt Descriptor Table (x86 Architecture implementation)
- "dsPIC33F Family Reference Manual" section 29.1.1 Interrupt Vector Table
- "AVR Libc User Manual" section: Introduction to avr-libc's interrupt handling
- Roger L. Traylor. "Interrupts: AVR interrupt servicing"
- Gary Hill. "Atmel AVR Interrupt and Timing Subsystems: ATMEGA328P interrupt vector table"
- Huang, Han-Wat (2005). Pic Microcontroller: An Introduction to Software and Hardware Interfacing. Cengage Learning. p. 247. ISBN 978-1-4018-3967-3. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
- Intel® Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 3: System Programming Guide
- Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 3A:System Programming Guide, Part 1 (see CHAPTER 6, INTERRUPT AND EXCEPTION HANDLING and CHAPTER 10, ADVANCED PROGRAMMABLE INTERRUPT CONTROLLER)]
- Motorola M68000 Exception and Vector Table | <urn:uuid:3a30f833-d5fc-4657-8521-3d74d058f29f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt_vector_table | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.796693 | 584 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Returns the argument with the largest (most positive) value.
FORTRAN 77 and later
result = max(a1, a2 [, a3 [, ...]])
a1- The type shall be
a3, … - An expression of the same type and kind as
The return value corresponds to the maximum value among the arguments, and has the same type and kind as the first argument. | <urn:uuid:84c8871f-8f75-40ea-a03e-307b3cc33d20> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://fortranwiki.org/fortran/show/max | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.686476 | 86 | 2.546875 | 3 |
I've marked this as a follow-up to an answer that included a crude calculation.
To do a more accurate calculation, you might do something like this.
1. Call the mass of the bottle m, and its volume V. We want to calculate x, the fraction of the bottle's volume to fill with water. The density ρ of the water is very close to 1.0 gm/cm3
. So the initial mass is m+ρVx. Call the initial pressure p.
2. You have to figure out how much momentum each little increment of expelled water gives to the remaining rocket, whose mass is the rocket mass plus the remaining water mass. The change in momentum of the remaining rocket is equal to the speed s of the ejected mass in the frame of the rocket. I don't quite know how to calculate s because I'm not sure how it depends on the pressure. The pressure drops as the empty volume grows, approximately inversely proportional to volume. (For specialists- I'm using isothermal, although adiabatic may be closer.)
3. The speed change of the rocket is s*(ejected mass) / (remaining mass)
4. Since the pressure and the remaining mass keep changing, you have to do an integral over little increments of ejected mass to get how the rocket speed changes as the mass gets ejected. You also need to use the changing s to calculate how much mass is ejected per time, so that you can convert that to distance traveled.
So that's the outline. Even this calculation involves some approximations, such as neglecting air friction. You see why I recommended just trying a few different fill levels around the 1/2 filled value. That saves doing a tough calculation and avoids any approximations or forgotten influences in the calculation.
p.s. I tried playing around a little with doing that integral, still using some approximations. It looks like in the approximate calculations for a range of guesses about the weight of the bottle somewhere around 30% filled gives about as good a result as you can get.
(published on 05/09/11) | <urn:uuid:989f8feb-f224-477f-9912-648bb2b9bced> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=17080 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010824553/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091344-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946052 | 439 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Dodd-Frank Creates Obstacles, Restricts Growth
Just over one year ago, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law. Dodd-Frank, a response to the 2008 financial collapse, was intended to increase oversight of massive financial institutions, such as large banks and stock brokers, and to monitor consumer transactions, such as payday loans and mortgages. It was meant to address the concern that U.S. financial institutions had grown “too big to fail” and would need to be “bailed out” by the government to prevent a banking system collapse.
However, Dodd-Frank gives the federal government increased power to control not only large banks, but also small banks and businesses. Ironically, financial-sector concentration has continued to increase. Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, notes that before the banking crisis, the top 10 banks in the United States held 55 percent of banking sector total assets; today, they hold 77 percent.
Though Dodd-Frank is still in the implementation phase, it is becoming clearer that this complex legislation imposes regulatory burdens that will stifle efforts to grow businesses, but will not result in beneficial financial reforms.
What Does Dodd-Frank Do? At least 10 federal agencies will be tasked with ensuring compliance with roughly 300 new rules created by Dodd-Frank, says the Congressional Research Service. Several new agencies were created. One of them, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), opened its doors recently. The head of the CFPB will be appointed for a five-year term. Once confirmed by the House and Senate, he or she will have free rein to spend $500 million without interference from Congress, since the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, rather than congressional appropriations.
Costs to Financial Institutions. Banks will be required to file paperwork reporting their compliance with all mandates of Dodd-Frank to the various oversight agencies. For example, banks must confirm the ability of prospective borrowers to repay loans and report their confirmation to the monitoring agencies. This provision is designed to eliminate “no document” and “liar” loans, but it will increase paperwork costs. The cost will vary among firms, but David L. Schnadig, managing partner with the Cortec Group, estimates it will cost his firm $75,000 to $100,000 annually.
Dodd-Frank also limits bank debit card swipe fees. Banks previously charged merchants an average of $0.44 to process a debit card transaction. Banks will now be allowed to charge only $0.21 plus 0.05 percent of the transaction. They are expected to make up the lost revenue elsewhere, through increased fees for checking accounts or higher interest on loans.
The Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA), located in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), will give the largest firms a comparative advantage. Rep. Royce notes that OLA intervention will be more likely for large banks that pose a threat to the economy, while small banks are likely to bear the burden of any crisis on their own. This means that larger institutions will benefit from implicit government support, while smaller institutions are perceived as “too small to save.”
Small financial services firms must also comply with Dodd-Frank. It requires recording of “all oral and written communications provided or received concerning quotes, solicitations, bids, offers, instructions, trading and prices, that lead to the execution of transactions in a commodity interest or cash commodity, whether communicated by telephone, voicemail, facsimile, instant messaging, chat rooms, electronic mail, mobile device or other digital or electronic media.” The Commodity Futures Trading Commission estimates that the cost of complying with Dodd-Frank will be $16,750 to $61,750 per firm initially, and $12,600 annually once they have records systems in place.
Costs to Small Businesses. A major concern is that small businesses will be unable to obtain financing as a result of Dodd-Frank. When there are more restrictions on the loans banks can make, fewer loans are made. In fact, loans to small businesses have tumbled to a five-year low [see the figure]:
- Lending to small businesses has decreased annually since 2008.
- Small business lending fell during the 2010 fiscal year.
- Loans to small businesses in 2011 are at the lowest level since 2006.
Because the law governs everything from traditional small business loans to personal credit cards and home equity loans, access to capital for small businesses will be restricted. As Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) notes:
- The last Federal Reserve Survey on Small Business Finance found nearly half of all small firms used personal credit cards to finance their enterprise.
- In another survey, one in five entrepreneurs reported using a home equity loan for business purposes.
These small businesses, which employ over half of private sector employees and are responsible for more than six out of 10 new jobs, will face increased costs and limited access to capital as a result of Dodd-Frank. Reform and regulation of powerful financial institutions may be needed, but Dodd Frank creates obstacles for small banks and businesses, while failing to actually provide checks against massive financial firms.
Karlyn Gorski is a research assistant with the National Center for Policy Analysis. | <urn:uuid:700fe639-1f18-424f-ba48-7ebcd0f2e34d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba755 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010824553/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091344-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956655 | 1,096 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Antarctica represents a key component in the investigation of the geological history and reconstruction of the supercontinents Rodinia and Gondwana. Remnants of the formation and disintegration of these former land masses can be found, although great uncertainties remain in the location of tectonic boundaries beneath the ice sheet of Antarctica due to general lack of outcrops and the limited amount of geological data. Space and airborne measurements are the only possibility to obtain comprehensive spatial data coverage of geophysical data over the extensive large polar areas.Common knowledge of the geological framework displays three major tectonic events which formed Dronning Maud Land (DML): the Grenvillian Orogen (1.1 Ga) build up Rodinia, the Pan-African-Antarctic Orogen (EAAO, 500 Ma) rose in the supercontinent Gondwana and finally the breakup of Gondwanaland, at around 180 Ma.During this work, as part of the VISA project (Validation, densification and nterpretation of satellite data for the determination of magnetic field, gravity field, ice mass balance and structure of the Earth crust in Antarctica using airborne and terrestrial measurements), four years of investigated airborne based data (2001-2005) are processed, compiled and interpreted. The methods of measurements are explained in the methodology chapter, focused on the complex computational and time-consuming processing, to handle topographic-, magnetic-, and gravity data.Finally, the thesis displays a compilation of a homogeneous database for the DML region from 14°W to 20°E and from 70°S to 78.5°S. Furthermore, comprehensive studies and techniques, such as wavelength-filtering, depth estimation routines, isostatic analysis and Curvature discussions, are applied for final geological interpretation.The presented maps display detailed boundaries of geologic and tectonic structures, which already have been suggested or discussed in recent literature, but have never been known to full extent, concerning detail, locations, boundaries and structures. With respect to earlier conducted geophysical investigations in DML, up to 85% of the gravity data and 65% of the magnetic data, presented in this thesis, cover unexplored regions and contribute therefore a large amount of new data to the Antarctic geological research.Old lithospheric boundaries between the Archaen Craton, the Grunehogna Province, and a Proterozoic to Early Paleozoic mobile belt, the Maudheim Province, were be interpreted on the basis of the new database and the use of isostatic and curvature analysis. Detailed mapping of thrust faults show the strike of major tectonic events. All of these observations constitute an integrated geological model, which is confirmed by recent seismologic-, seismic, - and geologic results. | <urn:uuid:bc2b50f2-40e0-4b09-a6e9-9d8550e98c9e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://epic.awi.de/20643/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011192582/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091952-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885071 | 566 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Advantages and disadvantages of private limited companies
Financial Accounting Is the information to make decisions related to the organizations, it begins with the principles, concepts, and applications of financial accounting.
Financial Accounting follows a set of rules and legislation known as accounting concepts, accounting policies, and procedures like the entity and prepayments.
Financial Accounting explains for us what are the financial statements, tells us what are the rules of legislation while they are getting prepared, shows us how the financial accounts are prepared, helps us to understand how the various fields of business work together. It also keeps tracks of company’s financial business like the cash flow and cash inflow.
It provides stakeholders with official information like for Example: balance sheet account, profit and loss account, trading account.
►Sole Trader: It is owned by only one person, that has no exact legislation and has one or more employees, their main aim is to make profit.
Sole Trader Advantages:
They can make decisions easily and quickly
Owner can control anything.
Less legal formalities.
It is simple to set up
Sole Trader Disadvantages:
1- Lack of capital.
2- They have to work and think hard because For Example: If the owner is sick, they will not be able to work.
3- Unlimited liability.
►Partnership: is between 2 to 20 partners or shareholders that works together and easy to setup, the owners share with each other the profits or losses of their business, and their main aim is to make profit.
Advantages of a Partnership:
It is easy to setup by the deed of partnership
More capital is available.
There are few paper to work on
Disadvantages of a Partnership:
Lack of goals to be achieved
Profits have to be divided between the partners
►Private Limited Company: Is known as ( LTD), it must have one or more director, they do not need a trading diploma, and it offers limited liability to its shareholders but it places certain limits on its ownership.
Advantages of Private Limited Company:
More serious than the status of a sole trader.
Disadvantages of Private Limited Company:
The corporation tax has to be paid.
Cannot sell shares to public.
►Public Limited Company: Is known as “ PLC “, it’s a company whose shares may be purchased by the public and whose share capital is not less than a statutory minimum, and must have minimum 2 directors.
Advantages of a Public Limited Company:
greater borrowing power
the shareholders have limited liability
shareholders can sell their shares freely to public
Disadvantages of A Public Limited Company:
The personal touch may be lost
Published accounts have to be prepared
Difficult to control and manage
Too many legal formalities
► Clubs: It is the business that is connected from two or more people that has the same goal that they want to achieve.
Their main objective is to provide services to the community
► Charities: It is known as the charities that we know for foundation like Dubai cares.
Their main objective is to help other peoples or countries that are unable to pay for their needs and wants.
The Advantages of being a Charity
The Charity task can provide advice and information to assist a charity administration.
Charities are not liable to pay Corporation Tax which is charged on clubs, societies and voluntary organisations.
The Disadvantages of Being a Charity
Limited rules that are carried on by charities.
Trustees are not generally allowed to benefit financially from the charity.
Companies Act ( 1985 )
► Is the act of the congress of the UK, which will help the companies to register and to set responsibilities of the companies, their secretaries and directors.
The act was the instance of consolidation of many other pieces of company legislation, and was one constituent part of the rules governing companies, it was governed by its own articles of relationship.
The act is applied only to companies that will form into a legal corporation under it, or under older company’s acts.
In the act limited liability partnerships, sole traders, and partnerships were not governed by it.
Companies Act ( 1989 )
►Is an act to amend the law relating to the accounts of company, to make new provisions, to amend the companies act 1985 with respect of powers to get information, to create new provision with respect to the registration of charges in the company and to modify the law related to companies, to rephrase the fair trading act 1973, to allow provision to be made.
Partnership Act ( 1890 )
►It’s the relation which exists between persons holding on a business in common with the view of profit.
No interest is to be charged on drawings.
Profits and losses are shared equally among partners.
The relation between members of any company like:
1- It is not a partnership within the meaning of this act
2- Registered as a company under the companies act 1862
Rules for Determining Existence of Partnership
To determine whether a partnership does or does not exist, you should follow the rules:
1- “Joint property, Joint tenancy, tenancy in common, common property, or part ownership does not of itself create a partnership, whether the owners do or do not share any profits made by the use”
2- “The sharing of gross does not create a partnership, whether the persons sharing returns have or have not a common right or interest in any property”
Business Entity Concepts:
►It is a separated business and completely different from the owner at that business. It also can be applied to limited business like the charities.
The owner’s personal spending is not recorded in the books at the business. The owners personal transaction appear in the book is when the introductions capital or makes drawings.
►It is a rule which applies to the materials that are not always included in accounting rule; it’s applied to sole traders, partnership, limited companies, clubs and charities.
Going Concern Concepts:
►It is the statement that business will continue operating in the future except if there a strong evidence or if there a weak evidence, the value is not taken from their “ break-up” value which is the amount that they can sell it in a slow way.
In final accounts of a business one of them prepares on the basis that there is no intension to close down the business.
Accruals (Matching) Concepts:
►It is the income that will be received in some trading, lost profit and loss accounts. They should be given out from time to time to be paid. It also allows some people to go against other accounts if the amounts were so small that will be misled, in another words it’s when we have use something in a period of time. E.g.: bill phone, gas bill, and water bill.
►It states that the inventory and the profits should not be expected but also included in the profit and loss account.
This concept is known as conservation, If we applied this concept ensures that the account present a practical pictures of the state of the business. This concept is applied for making provisions for reduction of debts and stock valuation.
►It is a way that accounting method uses it to there business, and the business has to keep on using it from time to another.
In some areas of accounting a choice of method is available, and when it will be chosen, then they should apply it consistently from years to years.
Money Measurement Concepts:
►It shows the transactions that can be used in monetary terms and in using measuring unit for financial reports.
The account at a business only records the information which can be expressed in monetary terms. The value of a good manager that contains loyal work force, high stall morale, will make great benefits to the business.
Historical Cost Concepts:
►It is the account that asset the price and the balance sheet that is based to an original cost when the company require it.
Duality (Double Entry) Concepts:
►It is only one account that is joined together.
For every transaction there is aspect in accounting that is made on the basis. A giving and a receiving is known as Dual Concept of all transaction. This is known as double entry.
Principles of Relevance Concepts:
►It is a fact that is known to be gathered from one point of view and keep it.
►It is a degree of person, measure, or object.
It is important that profit is only recorded when it has actually been earned. Profits are not regarded as being earned when a customer places an order for goods. Profit is regarded as being earned at the time of goods or services pars to the customers.
► It is the quality of the things that is used in business.
Information in financial statements in a business can be more useful. it is compared with similar information about the same business for some other period of time or with other similar information about other business.
► It’s how you understand the others and be able to talk and communicate to them.
Information should not be omitted from the financial statements because it is believed it is too complex for users to understand financial statements must be capable of being understood by the users of those statements.
They have two types in UK and US
In US they have a lot of rules but when they prepare for their account they use the rule book and if it doesn’t cover the rules, the rule book is approved to be used.
In UK there is a general law applied to the accounting practice, but the only difference between US and UK that in UK they have an over riding requirements, the account has to be required it is called “true and fair views”
►It is rules and procedures which are followed by all the organization it also guides the organization for the preparation of their accounts.
Rules and Procedures Which Apply To Financial Statements:
►Financial statement shows only the business that can be given in a monetary terms.
►It is a company that has the free choice in choosing the company policies, procedures, and also it will affect on the reduction of the money amount that is used in your normal time in life.
The organization has two methods to choose from:
the straight line depreciation
Each method of them will result with a different amount of depreciation being charged against the profits.
The balance sheet reflects the amount of the money that the organizations owing it from sales, there is a lot of debtors that may not be able to pay the full amount. So
The organizations need to allow a percentage of bad depts.
The organization can choose what percentage they want and when to write the bad debts to make a provision, at the end it will affect the over all profit recorded.
Provision for Doubtful Debts:
►It is a small amount that is set aside for something very expensive or something will happen later in the future (Debtors who may not pay their bills to the company) , they usual state the percentage of the great trade debtors.
In future accounting, the profit periods would be twisted if the entity suffered a whole series of bad debts. So it seems cautious to allow for the chance that some debts may become bad.
►It is an amount due for a service provided during a particular accounting period but still not paid for at the end of it.
We should include them in our accounting before the year ends to show the “true and fair views “the organization need to ensure that this accounts is complying with accounting concepts.
The addition will be included in the amount charged to the profit and loss account for the period as part of the cost of the service provided.
►It is an amount paid in cash during an accounting period for a provision that will be provided in a later period.
Prepayments made will be deducted from the amount charged to the profit and loss account.
Valuation of Stock:
►It should be valued at the lower cost and to be on the net value to observe with the conservative and caution concept.
It has three main methods of valuing stock:
Each will lead to different value and will affect the profit level.
The Similarities and Differences of Sole Trader and Partnership
It is owned by only one person.
One has to keep careful evidence if he is self-employed.
If the business falters; his personal assets are likely to be liquidated.
They don’t need to divide there profit.
It’s easy to set up.
It’s owned by two or more people together.
Profits are shared either equally or as per the terms given.
If profits are to be shared, so are the liabilities too.
Partners can profit from limited liability and collect tax advantages.
Application of Accounting Conventions and Regulations
We have in accounting a concept called “true and fair view " which help to ensure that accounting information is presented accurately and consistently.
The most commonly encountered convention is the “historical cost convention"
This requires transactions to be recorded at the price ruling at the time, and for assets to be valued at their original cost.
Under the "historical cost convention", therefore, no account is taken of changing prices in the economy.
And there are other conventions in accounting we can summarize as follows:
Monetary Measurement: Like workforce skill, morale, market leadership, brand recognition, quality of management…And the accountants should not account for items unless they can be quantified in monetary terms.
An important convention.. The concept of "materiality" is an important issue for auditors of financial accounts.
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Get lyrics on your iphone or Android phone with the karnatik app!
The beginning lessons in Carnatic music were created about 500 years ago by the great composer Purandara Daasa and are still in use today. Whether you are a beginner or an expert in Carnatic music, whether you sing or play an instrument, these exercises will improve your technique. In singing, they strengthen your voice and they will help anyone hit the swarasthanas correctly. These lessons are meant for beginners but all students of music would be wise to practice them regularly.
The Lessons are listed below, along with a brief description. Be sure to read "Before you begin" before starting.
NEW! Now you can also download the PDF versions of these lessons (for personal use only). Click here to download. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader. In addition, you can get a zipped version of all of the audio files (personal use only!) by following the instructions here.
Lesson 1: sarali varisai
Lesson 2: janTai varisai
Lesson 3: taaTu varisai
Lesson 4: mElstaayi varisai
Lesson 5: mandrastaayi varisai
Lesson 6: alankaaram
This page provided by Geocities | <urn:uuid:54afb811-b6d4-45cb-a7e6-038e695749a2> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.karnatik.com/beginner.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021727061/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121527-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900543 | 274 | 2.921875 | 3 |
From Divine Caroline:
Trust is what keeps our society functioning. Evolutionarily speaking, we must trust to survive. But it can be a slippery thing. What makes us trust people? And more curiously, what makes us trust some people but not others?
1. Familiarity. The more contact you have with someone, the more information you collect about him or her. The more information you have, the more confident you can be in your expectations.
2. Resemblance. If someone looks, dresses, or acts like you, you’re more likely to believe his or her actions and reactions will be similar to your own. A 2002 study at a Canadian university showed that people are more likely to trust someone whose facial features resemble theirs.
3. Consistency. The more someone behaves with consistency, the better you’re able to establish patterns and form expectations. | <urn:uuid:be8b46d4-ae59-4ad9-a4bd-02907d077179> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/goodnews/2010/11/trust-me-build-trust-with-these-14-steps.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678696864/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024456-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961454 | 181 | 2.921875 | 3 |
There have long been debates about the merits of an all-girls school education or the benefits of attending a trade or vocational high school.
Well, what about a charter school that prepares teenage girls for careers as welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians and other trades? Check and check.
The school, Rosie the Riveter High, is located in Long Beach, CA and is actually attended by both girls and boys although its intent and mission is to open doors for women seeking nontraditional careers largely dominated by men.
Lynn Shaw, one of the women who helped start the school, has worked as a miner, steelworker, and longshoreman over the years. Being the only woman on the job is all too familiar to Shaw, but determined to break that gender divide she earned a doctorate in electrical engineering, pursued a teaching career, and began advocating for vocation equity. Today she heads the board of directors for Women in Non Traditional Employment Roles, a nonprofit economic development group that sponsors Rosie the Riveter High, and is a professor of Electrical Technology at Long Beach Community College.
About helping start Rosie the Riveter High Shaw says, “It’s about trying to change the way society looks at women…We just feel that women should have an equal opportunity.”
An equal opportunity for pursing nontraditional careers and the salaries that accompany them.
“Women in nontraditional jobs earn 20% to 40% more than women in what are considered ‘traditional’ women’s jobs.” says Shaw. “That’s $1 million over a lifetime.”
On top of hands-on vocational training, students take a full range of academic courses to earn a high school diploma and often receive college credits that are transferable to any 4-year university. More importantly, the students – both girls and boys alike – learn to embody the “We can do it!” attitude Rosie the Riveter made famous during World War II.
Rosie, a fictional character in American history, represents the American women who worked in war factories during World War II to replace the male workers who joined the military. In 1942 Rosie was made famous after she was depicted in a motivational poster with the slogan “We can do it!” calling on women to help fill the manpower shortage in factories while the men were at war. Unfortunately, when the war ended and then men returned home, the women were quickly forced out of their jobs and “back to the kitchen” but that injustice is for another post on another day.
Shaw herself serves as an example of the “can do” spirit the school embodies. Her determination to create a world where women don’t have to worry about being the only one on the job, has created a unique space for young girls to receive the training, skills, and confidence they need to enter these male dominated fields.
This “can do” spirit is also echoed throughout the school with reproductions of the 1942 Rosie the Riveter poster around every corner. I only wish I had been so lucky to inherit such an inspiring feminist icon as my high school “mascot.” I unfortunately got stuck with a frog (yes a frog – ribbit, ribbit).
Photo copyright: Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Times -http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rosie3-2009dec03,0,2061384.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Flocal+%28L.A.+Times+-+California+|+Local+News%29
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers. | <urn:uuid:a36ea05e-2f90-40e6-944c-9ca045f1876d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.care2.com/causes/rosie-the-riveter-high-training-girls-to-be-women-welders-plumbers-carpenters-and-electricians.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678696864/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024456-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96066 | 825 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Published on October 12th, 2011 | by Charis Michelsen5
Fossil Fuel Subsidies Still Too High
Big oil gets big money from the government — as CleanTechnica readers may remember, $4 billion was awarded to big oil in the form of tax breaks in 2011 alone. Given that subsidies worldwide rose to at least $470 billion worldwide in 2010 — according to International Energy Agency analysts — that is perhaps more surprising than it should be.
You read that correctly — fossil fuel subsidies ROSE in 2010, despite G20 member countries agreeing to reduce them. To be fair, total subsidies were lower than 2008 (the great oil price peak of the 21st century) — but they were still much higher than 2009.
While the governments paying out like to tell us that they’re helping keep the cost of gas down, only about a quarter of the subsidies benefit gasoline. According to the IEA, only 8% of the subsidies reach their alleged beneficiaries — the poorest 20% of the population.
Also low on the list of facts made public is increased dependence on foreign oil — the cheaper oil is, the more of it countries are encouraged to buy. The percentage of domestically generated (and hopefully cleaner) energy drops.
If fossil fuel subsidies could be eliminated over the next ten years, the IEA believes global energy demand would drop as oil demand drops. CO2 emissions could also drop by as much as 1.7 billion tons per year (that’s the current total output of the UK, Germany, Italy, and France combined). Half the G20 countries are said to be taking steps, according to the IEA, but money speaks the loudest. Vote with your wallets, guys. Go green and buy less oil. | <urn:uuid:7efdc2d3-273d-4d2a-a182-92b225db0777> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://cleantechnica.com/2011/10/12/fossil-fuel-subsidies-still-too-high/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972744 | 357 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The Entropy of a Language
Entropy is basically a measure of randomness. This is all well and good, but this results in it being a measure of several other things which really all turn out to be the same thing. Rather than repeat the obscure and uninformative definition I was treated to in no fewer than 3 courses this year, here is an exploration of the way I understand the concept of Shannon entropy.
Let's reduce our alphabet to just 28 characters: letters a to z, the space and the full stop. With this, we can write words and arrange them into sentences. Take a string of these characters of length n. How many possible strings exist? 28n (because for each character we have 28 choices). We then ask ourselves how many of these strings are legal in a given language. The higher the proportion of legal strings, the higher the entropy.
Note that here we define a language as a set of rules which define whether a string is legal or not. This includes natural languages such as English, binary code, random languages and the rule that any string is permitted so long as it contains alternating vowels and consonants. You should also note that the space full stop characters are being treated like any other, so among the possible strings are ".. .. " and " d ".
Entropy is a measure of surprise
Suppose we choose a language where only strings containing only the letter l are allowed. You are reading a book written in this language. You have just finished the first page (which was covered in ls). Quick! Before, turning to the next page, what is the following character going to be?
Were you surprised at discovering the l on the following page? No? This is because such a language has zero entropy. Now consider a language where all strings are allowed. Can you predict the following character in this string? uqoaxul jtb.yjhdcn. Because it could be any of the 28, you have only a slim chance of being correct. This is the language whose entropy is maximal. The concept carries over to English: Like most natural languages, English has a relatively low entropy, which is why you are easily able to guess the last 6 characters of this sen... Because many natural languages have a fixed set of legal words, it is more interesting to look at word entropy. But for purposes of simplicity, we'll stick to character entropy in this article.
Entropy is a measure of information
Now, let's see how much information is carried by the two languages discussed in the previous paragraph. Measuring information is rather tricky. Clearly, in the language composed only of bs each character conveys no information, because if you know what the language is, you already know what character come next. We'll give it an entropy of 0: no information per character. Remember twenty questions? That we are able to define a concept with yes-no questions shows that one answer could be defined as a piece of information. As such, a random binary code has an entropy of 1 bit per character. This will be our measure of entropy.
You might think that, in a 28 character alphabet, each character conveys 28 pieces of information; namely the presence of one and the absence of the others. This is not quite correct: Because the presence of one character automatically forces the others' absence, we don't get that much information. It is as if I told you that a cloud was white and then went on to say it wasn't black: no additional information. Binary code again shows us how to measure the entropy of our random language: because it takes log2n bits to code a n-character alphabet, the random language has an entropy per character of 4.8. That means that a 28-character alphabet can encode a maximum of 4.8 bits (or pieces) of information with each character.
In natural languages, entropy is quite hard to measure. Most of them have an entropy somewhere around 1.5 bits per character. It might seem that this is a bit of a waste (entropy at higher level, such as word and sentence is also very low). But this high level of redundancy is what allows us to only read the shape of words; what allows us to understand each other even in noisy environments. Computers who recognize human speech try to use this low entropy in order to make sure they didn't misinterpret a sound; but this doesn't always work, as the redundancy only exists because a very large number of rules comes with the language and it is difficult to tell a computer about all of them.
In fact, the only point where low entropy is a problem is in computer science. When saving or sending information as plain text, it is not random: it has the rules of English, Java or XML and so contains much redundant information. This is what compression programs do: they take a file with low entropy and convert it into a language (set of rules) which has a higher entropy, thus saving space.
Entropy also comes in handy when defining the concept of unicity distance in cryptography. This basically tells us that if we know what cipher is used, and that we try each of the keys in turn to decode the secret message and if we know that the decoded message should be in English, then because of English's low entropy, it is highly unlikely there be more than one decoding which actually follows the rules of English. This problem is usually solved by having a very high number of keys, thus increasing the effort needed to decode with each of them in turn and increasing the probability of having more than one meaningful output.
Does this entropy have anything to do with the entropy I learnt in physics?
Yes and no. Language entropy is obviously not a physical concept and has little to do with thermodynamics. Physical entropy, however, can also be seen as a measure of randomness or information. The classical example I learnt was that of having a basin full of red and blue balls: The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the basin will eventually become a random mix of red and blue balls. So we can liken this random state to the random language, where each particle contains maximal information (it's position). And we can liken the state where the red balls are on one side and the blue on the other to the b language, where each ball tells us nothing, because we already know where it is. As noded elsewhere, physical entropy doesn't work at ball-sized level but at particle level.
This concludes our little foray into the world of entropy. Just remember that, as in all things, there are formal definitions and layman's explanations. When you do learn about language Entropy in a CS course, you can only use this as a conceptual aid: Entropy is a measure of randomness, information, surprise and number of rules.
This node brought to you by 3 CS courses which left me thoroughly confused and one kind professor who had me help him write next year's course thanks to whom I finally understood entropy by having to write an introduction to it myself. (That introduction was specifically for cryptography and thus bears little resemblance to this article.) | <urn:uuid:73095fb7-86a6-42fa-a10d-8da32da65617> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://everything2.com/user/themanwho/writeups/entropy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958538 | 1,460 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Amazing as it seems, the London Underground is celebrating 150 years of operation this week. On its first day of operation, more than 40,000 people queued to get on the trains, and now more than one billion people ride it each year – and I think that they were all crammed onto my route to work when I lived there.Originally, the technique for digging the tunnels was called “cut and cover” where the workers would dig the tunnel and then cover it back up. Later on, a tunneller was developed so that roads were not affected. Interestingly, much of the Tube runs under streets because if it went under buildings, there was a hefty fee to pay to the building owner.
The iconic map of the Tube was developed in 1933 by Harry Beck, who was a draftsman for an electric company. He used his knowledge of electric circuits to make the map. It survives today with very few changes – only updates. However, if you lay the map over the existing lines, there’s very little correlation.
Of course, who could leave well-enough alone? Not graphic designers, who’ve come up with some clever interpretations on the tube map.
All you need to know, really.
The classic roundel was first developed in 1908 and then refined from a solid red disc to a red circle. A typeface was commissioned to go along with the logo, and more than 100 years later, the classic image still stands, unchanged.
- During WWII, people sheltered in the Tube stations while London was being bombed.
- With 2.7 million trips on the Tube each day, only three babies have been born on the Tube.
- There are only two tube station names that contain all 5 vowels – ‘Mansion House’ and ‘South Ealing’.
- Bank Station is the only stop with a name of one syllable.
- Aldgate station (close to where I stayed in March!) is built on a massive plague pit, where more than 1,000 bodies were buried in 1665.
- The phrase MIND THE GAP originated on the Northern line in 1968.
- The oldest tube line in the world is the Metropolitan line, which opened on the 10th of January in 1863.
- Almost 60% of the London Underground is actually above the ground and not underground
Happy 150th Birthday! | <urn:uuid:0190f446-7cf4-4624-b0fd-1f0317f4010f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://pigtown-design.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-tube-at-150.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977636 | 490 | 3.390625 | 3 |
From the 7th to the 3d cent. B.C., Etruscan art flourished throughout central Italy, including Latium and Rome. It was strongly influenced by the early art of Greece, although it lacked the basic sense of rational order and structural composition of the Greek models. The influence of native Italic and Middle Eastern art was also strongly felt, particularly during the archaic period (before c.400 B.C.).
Sections in this article:
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:fadcc5e2-abfb-4ad5-9349-c36a21de6d37> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/roman-art-early-influences.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944226 | 117 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Peptidoglycan, also known as murein, is a polymer consisting of sugars and amino acids that forms a mesh-like layer outside the plasma membrane of eubacteria. The sugar component consists of alternating residues of β-(1,4) linked N-acetylglucosamine and N-acetylmuramic acid residues. Attached to the N-acetylmuramic acid is a peptide chain of three to five amino acids. The peptide chain can be cross-linked to the peptide chain of another strand forming the 3D mesh-like layer. Some Archaea have a similar layer of pseudopeptidoglycan. Peptidoglycan serves a structural role in the bacterial cell wall, giving structural strength, as well as counteracting the osmotic pressure of the cytoplasm. A common misconception is that peptidoglycan gives the cell its shape; however, whereas peptidoglycan helps maintain the structure of the cell, it is actually the MreB protein that facilitates cell shape. Peptidoglycan is also involved in binary fission during bacterial cell reproduction.
The peptidoglycan layer is substantially thicker in Gram-positive bacteria (20 to 80 nm) than in Gram-negative bacteria (7 to 8 nm), with the attachment of the S-layer. Peptidoglycan forms around 90% of the dry weight of Gram-positive bacteria but only 10% of Gram-negative strains. In Gram-positive strains, it is important in attachment roles and sterotyping purposes.
Some antibacterial drugs such as penicillin interfere with the production of peptidoglycan by binding to bacterial enzymes known as penicillin-binding proteins or transpeptidases. Penicillin-binding proteins form the bonds between oligopeptide crosslinks in peptidoglycan. For a bacterial cell to reproduce through binary fission, more than a million peptidoglycan subunits (NAM-NAG+oligopeptide) must be attached to existing subunits. Mutations in transpeptidases that lead to reduced interactions with an antibiotic are a significant source of emerging antibiotic resistance.
Considered the human body's own antibiotic, lysozymes found in tears work by breaking the β-(1,4)-glycosidic bonds in peptidoglycan (see below) and thereby destroying many bacterial cells. Antibiotics such as penicillin commonly target bacterial cell wall formation (of which peptidoglycan is an important component) because animal cells do not have cell walls.
The peptidoglycan layer in the bacterial cell wall is a crystal lattice structure formed from linear chains of two alternating amino sugars, namely N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc or NAG) and N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc or NAM). The alternating sugars are connected by a β-(1,4)-glycosidic bond. Each MurNAc is attached to a short (4- to 5-residue) amino acid chain, normally containing D-alanine, D-glutamic acid, and mesodiaminopimelic acid. These three amino acids do not occur in proteins and are thought to help protect against attacks by most peptidases. Cross-linking between amino acids in different linear amino sugar chains by an enzyme known as transpeptidase result in a 3-dimensional structure that is strong and rigid. The specific amino acid sequence and molecular structure vary with the bacterial species.
- Madigan M; Martinko J (editors). (2005). Brock Biology of Microorganisms, 11th ed., Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-144329-1.
- Salton MRJ, Kim KS (1996). Structure. In: Baron's Medical Microbiology (Barron S et al, eds.), 4th ed., Univ of Texas Medical Branch. (via NCBI Bookshelf) ISBN 0-9631172-1-1.
- Bauman, R. (2007). Microbiology with Diseases by Taxonomy. Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 0-8053-7679-8.
- Spratt BG (1994). "Resistance to antibiotics mediated by target alterations". Science 264 (5157): 388-93. PMID 8153626.
- Ryan KJ; Ray CG (editors) (2004). Sherris Medical Microbiology, 4th ed., McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-8385-8529-9.
|Mucin||CD43 - CD164 - MUC1 - MUC2 - MUC3A - MUC3B - MUC4 - MUC5AC - MUC5B - MUC6 - MUC7 - MUC8 - MUC12 - MUC13 - MUC15 - MUC16 - MUC17 - MUC19 -MUC20|
|Other||Haptoglobin - Intrinsic factor - Orosomucoid - Peptidoglycan - Phytohaemagglutinin|
There is no pharmaceutical or device industry support for this site and we need your viewer supported Donations | Editorial Board | Governance | Licensing | Disclaimers | Avoid Plagiarism | Policies | <urn:uuid:0f3c30b4-515f-44c6-a22b-3b4a05d819a6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Peptidoglycan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.831588 | 1,103 | 3.4375 | 3 |
It was the presence of this woman – Houben's "helper" – that set alarm bells ringing among sceptics, including James Randi, who suspected that a discredited technique known as "facilitated communication" was being used to produce the words attributed to Houben. On our website we have just published a piece by Nicholas Pearson, in which he examines the Houben story and explains the contrioversial history of facilitated commuinication. Here's how he describes the technique:
"The main point of contention is the use of Houben’s “helper”, as this appears to be a case of “Facilitated Communication” (FC), a controversial technique that has previously been used with profoundly autistic children and other communicatively-impaired individuals. In facilitated communication the facilitator supports the arm of an incapacitated person while using a keyboard or similar device to spell out words and sentences. In cases involving autistic children this was found to be due to the ideomotor effect – the facilitators were typing, unaware of their own unconscious movement. The same phenomenon has been investigated and found to be responsible for dowsing and Ouija boards."Pearson's article is an important reminder of the need for scepticism when we encounter stories of apparent "medical miracles" in the press. You can read the whole piece over on our main website. | <urn:uuid:c3ce1777-4c99-4a05-bcc4-3449e1f75d50> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2009_11_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010048333/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090048-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964748 | 283 | 2.546875 | 3 |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Families of venomous snakes[change | edit source]
Over 600 species are known to be venomous -- about a quarter of all snake species.
|Atractaspididae (Atractaspidids)||Burrowing asp, Mole viper, Stiletto snake.|
|Colubridae (Colubrids)||Most are harmless, but others have toxic saliva and at least five species, including the Boomslang (Dispholidus typus), have caused human fatalities.|
|Elapidae (Elapids)||Cobra, Coral snake, Krait, Mamba, Sea snake, Sea krait and Australian elapid.|
|Viperidae (Viperids)||True viper and Pit viper, including Rattlesnake.| | <urn:uuid:0d01afbd-03a1-4012-afab-e46511c47c71> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_snake | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010901252/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091501-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.762738 | 179 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Most of the outliers know that being strange, unique, and original has always been advantageous to creative ingenuity and discovery. Drawing, for example, is not simply the muscle memory of the hand, but a different way of ‘seeing’. Actors and writers succeed mostly due to their ability to craft alternate realities based on experiences from their twisted past. Scientists, futurists, inventors, political scientists and philosophers make history by asking heretofore unthinkable questions, and proposing even more absurd answers (both of which may have elicited some odd looks from peers and family members alike).
It’s about time science recognized the value of being a loser, an outcast, or a social reject. Many successful ventures, after all, may have been the result of a fair bit of name-calling back in middle school.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Cornell have recently found that the socially rejected might also be society’s most creatively powerful people.
The study, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, is called “Outside Advantage: Can Social Rejection Fuel Creative Thought?” It found that people who already have a strong “self-concept”–i.e. are independently minded–become creatively fecund in the face of rejection. “We were inspired by the stories of highly creative individuals like Steve Jobs and Lady Gaga,” says the study’s lead author, Hopkins professor Sharon Kim. “And we wanted to find a silver lining in all the popular press about bullying. There are benefits to being different.”
The study consisted of 200 Cornell students and set out to identify the relationship between the strength of an individual’s self-concept and their level of creativity. First, Kim tested the strength of each student’s self-concept by assessing his or her “need for uniqueness.” In other words, how important it is for each individual to feel separate from the crowd. Next, students were told that they’d either been included in or rejected from a hypothetical group project. Finally, they were given a simple, but creatively demanding, task: Draw an alien from a planet unlike earth.
Kim found that people with a strong self-concept who were rejected produced more creative aliens than people from any other group, including people with a strong self-concept who were accepted. “If you’re in a mindset where you don’t care what others think,” she explained, “you’re open to ideas that you may not be open to if you’re concerned about what other people are thinking.”
In other words, you’re better off if you learned early not to worry about the club. In a larger sense, businesses could learn a lot from these findings, instead of hiring the same vapid acolytes to the status quo. There’s more to the study, so read about it here, and look for it in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. | <urn:uuid:da0db3bf-8deb-42aa-811e-4415a7d437c8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://disinfo.com/2012/09/social-rejects-are-more-creative/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011217448/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092017-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968866 | 619 | 2.890625 | 3 |
What is the cornea?
The cornea is the clear, dome-shaped surface at the front of the eye. It is the main focusing mechanism of the eye.
What is corneal blindness?
Corneal blindness is a visual impairment that is caused when the cornea becomes clouded, scarred, or misshapen. This condition may be the result of injury, infection or disease.
What is the corneal transplant?
The transplant is a surgical procedure which replaces a diseased or non-functional cornea with a new, healthy donor cornea.
Is the whole eye transplanted?
No, only the cornea is transplanted; however sections of sclera (the white, fibrous shell of the eye), can be used to mend punctured eyes or be used for other surgical purposes.
How common is the corneal transplant?
The corneal transplant is the most frequently performed human transplant procedures performed. Since 1960, more than 500,000 corneal transplants have been performed, restoring sight to men women and children ranging in age from one day to 103 years.
How successful is the corneal transplant?
Approximately 94% off all corneal transplant operations successfully restore the corneal recipient’s vision.
Why should someone want to donate their eyes?
There is no substitute for human tissue. The transplantation process depends upon the priceless gift of corneal donation. Eyes are needed for transplantation as well as for research and education. Without corneal donors, those in need would not receive the gift of sight.
Who can be an eye donor?
Anyone can be an eye donor. Cataracts, poor eye sight, and other similar conditions would not prohibit you from being an eye donor. It is important for individuals wanting to be donors to inform their family members of their wishes.
If a person has signed a donor card or a driver’s license, how can they be sure that their wishes regarding donation will be carried out?
Tell your family you want to be an eye donor. Next of kin consent is required for donation, so it is helpful if your family knows ahead of time how you feel about it.
How great is the need for corneas?
Although more than 44,000 corneal transplants were performed in North America last year, the need for corneal tissue is never satisfied.
Will the quality of medical treatment be affected if one is a donor?
Strict laws protect the potential donor. The attending physician involved would not be involved with the donation process. It is only after the donor’s death will the family be asked to donate their loved ones eyes.
Will the family of the donor know who received their loved ones corneas?
The gift of sight is made anonymously. Identifying information about the donor or donor’s family is not available to the recipient. If the donor’s family or recipient wishes to send correspondence, the eye bank will convey the messages with permission from the receiving party.
Are there religious objections to eye donation?
No. Donation is an opportunity to help save a life or restore someone’s sight. As such, eye, organ and tissue donation is consistent with the beliefs of all major religions. For a list of the world’s major religious beliefs on donation, please click here.
Is there a fee associated with eye donation?
It is illegal to buy or sell human eyes, organs, and tissues. Any costs associated with procurement are absorbed by the organization which retrieves the tissue.
Is there any delay in funeral arrangements?
Eye procurement is performed within hours of death, so families may proceed with funeral arrangements without delay or interruption.
Why are the families of potential donors asked so quickly if they would like to donate? Can’t the question be asked at a later time?
We, at Southern Eye Bank, understand that losing a loved one is a most stressful and sorrowful time; however to ensure that healthy cells in the cornea remain viable; the recovery must take place as soon as possible. The time limit for recovery of just a few hours is recommended. Most families are also comforted in knowing that out of something so tragic, a wonderful and selfless act may result.
Will eye donation affect the appearance of the donor?
Great care is taken to preserve the appearance of the donor. Funeral arrangements, including a viewing (open casket) may proceed as scheduled.
What happens if the corneas are not suitable for transplant?
After recovery, corneal tissue is carefully evaluated at Southern Eye Bank’s laboratory. Corneas determined to be unsuitable for transplant may be used for research and teaching.
How do researchers use donated eyes?
Donated eyes are vital to the work of researchers studying the causes and treatment of eye disease such as glaucoma, retinal disease, macular degeneration, and diabetic eye disease. This research will eventually lead to the discovery of ways to prevent and cure these devastating and debilitating diseases.
What is an eye bank?
An eye bank recovers, evaluates and distributes eyes donated for corneal transplant, research, and education. Currently, there are 88 eye banks in the United States. Southern Eye Bank is the 4th oldest eye bank and was the only one in the South until 1953. Southern Eye Bank is a fully accredited member of the Eye Bank Association of America.
How does the eye bank ensure safe corneal tissue for transplantation?
The donated eyes and the donor’s medical history are carefully evaluated by the eye bank. With the recipient’s safety in mind, only corneas that have met strict evaluation guidelines set forth by Southern Eye Bank are distributed.
I have/had cancer, can I still donate my eyes?
There are certain cancers that do not affect your decision to be an eye donor such as brain, breast, bone and cancers affecting other organs. Lymphomas and leukemias do, however, limit your ability to donate your eyes with the intention of transplantation only. Researchers and educators often use this ocular tissue for the purpose of helping others with these diseases and the associated ocular problems. If you have or had cancer, please discuss your wish to donate either for education or transplant with your family.
I belong to a civic group that is interested in your cause, how can we help?
Southern Eye Bank has a development department to assist you in your needs. Organizations that are interested in speakers should email our development/education department to schedule a speaker. Donated eye glasses are also collected to help others less fortunate see their world a little clearer. Monetary contributions are very much appreciated. Our non-profit organization relies on public support to continue our work. For tax-identification numbers, please contact our development department or call our office for more information. Monetary and other contributions are fully deductible according to IRS guidelines and standards. | <urn:uuid:698270fb-1c29-46e1-928c-51e8b5d08796> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://southerneyebank.com/eye/faq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011217448/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092017-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950366 | 1,433 | 2.953125 | 3 |
South DakotaEdit This Page
From FamilySearch Wiki
United States > South Dakota
|*If you are interested in being the moderator for South Dakota, please contact a Sysop.|
|Did You Know?|
| * In the Black Hills of South Dakota, stands the national memorial, Mount Rushmore, created by Gutzon Borglum. It was designed as a testament to the growth of the country and its great leaders. This magnificent rock carving depicts the 60-foot high (18.3 m) faces of four great U.S. Presidents: (left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Borglum started drilling into the 6,200-foot mountain in 1927; however, he died in 1941 before it could be completed. The head of Washington was completed first, followed by Jefferson and Lincoln. Roosevelt's head was unfinished when Borglum died. The memorial was finished later that year by his son, Lincoln. Borglum's original design was a sculpture of the four presidents to their waists, but time and money only provided for their heads. From http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/mountrushmore.html
Welcome to South Dakota, The Mount Rushmore State
When the United States acquired South Dakota, most of the land became part of the public domain. The federal government surveyed available land into townships and transferred it to private ownership through local land offices. The first land office was established at Vermillion in 1861. See the United States Land and Property article for more information about the land entry process. To locate the land-entry or homestead case file for your ancestor, you will need to know either the patent number or the legal description (range, township, section) of the land. The county recorder of deeds may be able to tell you the legal description of the land, or you may be able to pinpoint the exact location by searching the entries in the tract book covering the approximate area concerned.
Extinct or Renamed Counties:
Armstrong | Ashmore | Big Sioux | Boreman | Bramble | Bruguier | Burchard | Burdick | Cheyenne | Choteau | Cole | Cragin | Delano | Ewing | Forsythe | Greely | Jayne | Lugenbeel | Mandan | Martin | Meyer | Midway | Mills | Nowlin | Pratt | Presho | Pyatt | Rinehart | Rusk | Schnasse | Scobey | Sterling | Stone | Thompson | Wagner | Washabaugh | Washington | Wetmore | White River | Wood
- Find which county a town is in, what town a cemetery is in, even where a postoffice or building is by using the United States Geographical Survey's Geographical Names Information System.
- David Rumsey Map Collection is a large online collection of rare, old, antique historical atlases, globes, maps, charts plus other cartographic treasures.
- The South Dakota GenWeb Project has a wealth of information and is a part of the larger USGenWeb Project. The USGenWeb Project provides internet information on every county in every state in the United States.
Things you can do
In order to make this wiki a better research tool, we need your help! Many tasks need to be done. You can help by: | <urn:uuid:0ebe4461-b8e7-4717-9ec8-b3b3ecb78486> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/index.php?title=South_Dakota&oldid=301070 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678699721/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024459-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917769 | 698 | 2.75 | 3 |
The bullying epidemic
The New York Times this week profiled Billy Wolfe, a high school sophomore who has been the target of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his classmates. Three years ago, for whatever mysterious, cruel reason, the school bullies determined that he was unacceptable. Since then he has been beaten and terrorized, again and again.
The parents have documented the assaults, kept careful records, and complained repeatedly to school officials, but still they continue. After Billy was beaten in shop class, a school official refused to call the police, because “it looked like Billy got what he deserved.” In an MP3 that goes along with this story, Billy recounts another time he was beaten and threatened and the assistant principal told Billy’s mother there was nothing he could do. This sort of thing, the assistant principal explained, happens “all the time.” “I guess death threats are normal,” Billy says quietly.
Sadly, Billy Wolfe is hardly alone. There’s an epidemic of bullying, and it’s only getting worse. It’s estimated that 160,000 children in the United States miss school each day as a result of being bullied. Parents who dismiss bullying as part of childhood are playing a dangerous game. Children who are bullied suffer long-term physical and emotional damage; they’re at risk for suicide as well as violent acts. (The perpetrator of the Virgina Tech massacre was a bullying victim, as were many other school shooters.) Adding to the emotional and physical abuse that can occur in real life, there’s now cyberbullying. (Even adults—hello, fellow bloggers!—are all too aware of how much easier it is to be cruel when you’re not face-to-face with your victim.) According to author and psychologist Dr. Michele Borba, bullying these days is “far more intense, far more relentless and occurs at younger ages,” than before.
The bullies, meanwhile, need help just as much as the bullied. It’s easy to demonize them, but we should all realize that 1) they’re troubled, and 2) they may just be our kids. A recent study showed that most children bully others at some point. Over a third of kids surveyed said they bullied at a moderate level throughout school. And bullies suffer from their misdeeds: just like their victims, they have an increased risk of depression and suicide; in addition, they are more likely to be convicted of crimes in adulthood.
The problem of bullying doesn’t end with graduation, either: a recent survey showed that 37% of American workers reported being bullied on the job. These adult bullies’ assaults may be more subtle, but being terrorized emotionally can wreak even more long-term havoc than being punched. Workplace bullying has been found to be more emotionally damaging than sexual harassment, possibly because sexual-harassment victims have more recourse. Verbal and psychological abuse can cause workers to spiral into depression and even leave their jobs. Some states are pursuing anti-bullying legislation to protect workers, but just as in schools, a bullying environment is often seen as part of the workplace culture. It’s how things are, and if you can’t take the heat, you know where to go.
It’s this acceptance of bullying that leads to its pervasiveness. The bullying expert Dr. Warren Blumenfeld observes in one article that “the culture has to see bullying as a problem of society, not just a youthful problem that will go away…We need to look at systemic reasons why people are perpetrating violence.” The increasing problem of workplace bullying shows how true this is. Bullying doesn’t go away: it changes. And no matter when it occurs, it can have a devastating effect on all parties.
It’s clear that bullying has to be addressed early and aggressively; there are several anti-bullying campaigns and programs being used in schools, but no real studies yet on their effectiveness. Meanwhile, what can the parents of bullied children do? In Billy’s case, The parents are pursuing what they believe is their only recourse: suing the bullies. In addition, they’re considering suing the district. To my mind, the school should have been the sole focus of their lawsuit: under Title IX, schools are legally obligated to create a non-hostile environment for all children. It’s obvious from the response of Billy’s school administration that they failed utterly in that task. And in doing so, they’ve harmed both the bullied and the bullies.
As always, please share your thoughts and personal experiences. | <urn:uuid:dac53b05-1188-4ac3-814f-6d54fc15d879> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://alphamom.com/parenting/the-bullying-epidemic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972653 | 972 | 3.015625 | 3 |
.- A federal report on national family growth found that many young adults in the U.S. are postponing marriage and instead choosing “to cohabit with a partner,” despite the fact that doing so increases the likelihood of a later divorce.
“People are marrying for the first time at older ages, and many adults cohabit with a partner before ever marrying,” said a March 2012 National Health Statistics report.
Using data based on the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth, the report analyzed current trends in marriage.
It discovered that in recent years, “women and men married for the first time at older ages than in previous years.”
From 2006 to 2010, the median age for a first marriage was 25.8 for women and 28.3 for men, the report found.
In 1995, women had a 59 percent chance of being married by age 25. In 2006-2010, that probability had dropped to 44 percent.
While the delay in marriage may be partly due to a struggling economy, the report found that premarital cohabitation – or living together in a sexual relationship without being married – has also contributed to the phenomenon.
The percentage of currently cohabiting women rose from 3 percent in 1982 to 11 percent in 2006-2010, said the report.
It found that many couples are now entering into cohabiting relationships at about the same point as couples entered into marriages in the past.
“Among women, 68% of unions formed in 1997–2001 began as a cohabitation rather than as a marriage,” it added.
This is true despite the fact that studies show cohabitation to be a significant risk factor for divorce.
“It has been well documented that women and men who cohabit with their future spouse before first marriage are more likely to divorce than those who do not cohabit,” the report explained.
It pointed to statistics showing that women who cohabit with their first husband – regardless of whether they were already engaged when they moved in together – have a lower chance of having their marriage last 20 years than women who did not cohabit first.
In general, first marriages in 2006-2010 had a slightly more than 50 percent chance of surviving for 20 years, the report said.
“These levels are virtually identical to estimates based on vital statistics from the early 1970s,” it observed.
The National Center for Health Statistics also found that couples are increasingly likely to have children while they are cohabiting instead of waiting until they are married.
While the average age at first birth has not changed since 2002, first births to cohabiting women increased by 83 percent from 2002 to 2006-2010, it said.
Acknowledging that marriage has “changed dramatically” in recent decades, the report expressed hope that its findings will lead to studies that “yield new insights into marriage and cohabitation and their effect on adults and children in the United States.” | <urn:uuid:9b4132e4-2972-4af0-99c8-81bf6fd52332> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/study-finds-cohabitation-leading-to-delayed-marriages-in-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97546 | 621 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Bamboo Bike Project
The Bamboo Bike Project is a project by Scientists and Engineers at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa. The ultimate goals of the project are:
To build a much better bike for poor Africans in rural areas at a price they can afford
To stimulate a bicycle building industry in Africa by Africans to satisfy local needs.
We have determined that it is possible to source the material and supplies necessary to build a bamboo cargo bicycle in Africa, and train the local people to build the bikes. The next steps are:
To setup systematic bamboo cargo bike building facility in Africa beginning in Ghana
To setup a supply chain of necessary parts and supplies.
To scale the effort so that it makes an impact on rural poverty. | <urn:uuid:0bddabf5-0bdd-492d-95fb-fe9b636f3594> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/outreach/bamboo-bike-project | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924984 | 170 | 3.296875 | 3 |
In Nell Leyshon’s The Colour of Milk, fifteen-year-old Mary is a young farm girl who is content with her lot in life. It is not without difficulties (poverty and hard work, spiteful older sister, overbearing and rage-filled father), but she focuses on speaking her mind and concentrating on the best of her experiences (beautiful country side, her love for her ailing grandfather, and the truth she feels in her own nature). She doesn’t let anything get her down. Mary’s natural curiosity and zest for life may endear her to readers, but to her father, she’s expendable. When he has the opportunity to earn money from her labor, he sends her into town to live with the minister’s family as housemaid. Mary’s story is concerned with what happens to her while living there – in unfamiliar circumstances, and housed with the minister’s son – who has a roving eye and an unsavory reputation.
Mary’s story is not a happy one, but it is one that takes a turn that neither she or readers will quite be expecting. A smart girl, she has the opportunity to learn to read and write, and she takes it – no cost is too great for her to obtain that knowledge. The price, however, is very high. Many books have examined the extreme power dynamics existing between master and servant, but The Colour of Milk is told (written, actually) with the charm, personality and distinctiveness of this simple girl from the English countryside who has just learned to read and write, and struggles to master the language so she can tell her story. In every sentence Mary conveys the beauty she sees in life, her appreciation for its simplicity and her place within it. The power in Leyshon’s novel comes from the pride Mary takes in her accomplishment, and though her story is a short one, taking place over the course of a year, the sad, tension-filled narrative feels much longer. Highly Recommended. | <urn:uuid:6c4ad37f-e71c-4fa3-9e81-c40c932f8676> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.linussblanket.com/readings-the-colour-of-milk-by-nell-leyshon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978532 | 423 | 2.609375 | 3 |
WATER RECYCLINGThe increasing incidence of water stress and water crises over the last few years have made “Water Recycling” a hot issue. Penang has very few water catchments and it draws 80 % of its water needs from the Sungai Muda which has its origins in Kedah. The 1997/98 El Nino laid bare the fact that water will be a major issue for Penang in the 21st Century. With the ever increasing demand for water placing a potentially undeliverable demand on the available resources, the time has come for all to play a part in water conservation. WWP is formed to educate and promote the “Wise Use of water”. WWP promotes a new ethos within society which should now see water as a limited resource in a similar way to gas or electricity, rather than as an unlimited one. The days of an unlimited supply of potable water are over, making way for water recycling and the concept of dividing water needs into potable and non-potable uses. An area of particular relevance is within the domestic environment where currently all water usage is of a potable standard. Actual water consumption that requires water of a potable standard is of a few percent of the total, typically 4-5%.
The potential for the remaining water to be generated through recycling within the house is extensive. The limiting factor in any such application is based on the quality and quantities of the various waste generated within the house. One basic division is made with water from the WC being separated from the rest, this being refereed to as black water. The remaining waters are generically referred to as greywaters, excluding water from the kitchen sink and washing machine due to the grease and high chemical loads these produce.
The level of treatment required varies considerably and is ultimately determined by the criteria that are established for each application. No criteria currently exist within the UK, although the Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) have recently released some guidelines which may in the future become the basis of the water reuse standards adopted in this country. In terms of non potable reuse opportunities, which are referred to as a medium level risk, the guidelines suggest the total removal of faecal coliforms as the only criteria for reuse. Standards such as these can be effectively achieved by simple filtration followed by disinfection processes, offering a relatively simple treatment scheme. If, however, more stringent guides are adopted which follow the example of America, where no odours or colour are permitted, more extensive treatment would be required. The current thrust within the UK is towards the reuse of greywater to flush toilets. This is an attractive proposition as the quantities of greywater produced roughly match the volumes required to flush the toilet. This negates the use of stored rainwater which has been adopted in other countries, reducing the need for large storage volumes, which are required to cancel the effects of intermittent rain fall. Economic assessment of the units currently limits their application to large dwelling such as hotels and colleges to ensure the payback periods are sufficiently short. A number of commercial units are available based on this idea-all use standard filtration devices with disinfection , usually via chlorine blocks. Early indications are that such units may provide a adequate level of treatment for the application of toilet flushing, saving roughly 30% of water supply requirements to a domestic house. | <urn:uuid:83c0565f-8638-477d-8fa4-c8743d52961d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.waterwatchpenang.org/water-recycling.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961895 | 687 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Clinical Trials To Fight Cancer
Clinical trials or clinical studies are research studies that test how new methods work in diagnosing and treating patients. Cancer research studies specifically test new methods and treatments for cancer patients. These studies use volunteer patients to help doctors find new and improved cancer treatments. Many times these studies lead to new standard treatments. Studies like these led to the development of most standard treatments used today. The studies also help scientists and physicians answer important questions and develop new studies.
Patients who take part in cancer research clinical trials usually receive either a new treatment or the best available standard treatment for their cancer. There is no guarantee that the new treatment will be better, and it may have unknown risks and side effects. If the new treatment is found to be effective, it may become a new standard treatment.
The St. Vincent's Mary Virginia Terry Cancer Center participates in cancer research clinical trials through nationally known research groups and pharmaceutical sponsored studies. A number of prevention and treatment trials have included:
- The STAR study
- The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial
- The National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (a national cooperative study with the University of Kentucky)
- The Gynecologic Oncology Group
- Various pharmaceutical-sponsored studies
For information about cancer research studies at St. Vincent's, you can talk to your cancer doctor or call the Cancer Research office at 904-308-8634.
For information about cancer research studies anywhere, call the Cancer Information Service at 800-4-CANCER. You can also check for cancer research studies on the National Cancer Institute's website at http://cancertrials.nci.nih.gov. For more information about cancer trials in Florida, visit www.floridacancertrials.com. | <urn:uuid:52f1b378-a2e0-4f10-9378-eda8a559d155> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.jaxhealth.com/services/cancer/about/clinical-trials/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893729 | 367 | 3.015625 | 3 |
festivals &public holidays
The offical calander is the western Gregorian one as in Europe, but religous festivals, some of which are public holidays , are celebrated according to the Muslim Lunar calendar.As the Lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the Solar year used for the Gregorian system, the Muslim festivals appear to arrive that many days earlier each year.
While friday is the Muslim sabbath , it is not their holiday.Mosques are often crowded on a friday noontime.The day of rest, a secular one is sunday, although in tourist areas many facilities are available throughout the week.
The two main religious holidays are ;
Þeker Bayramý (Sugar holy festival)
This is a 3 to 5 day celebration,which follows the month of daylight fasting of Ramazan.Traditionally , children go from door to door receiving sweets and treats from their neighbour.Muslims Exchange greeting cards and pay social calls where special foods will be offered.Everybody enjoys a drink,normally tea in the luxury of the daylight hours.During this national holiday , banks and offices are closed.
Kurban Bayramý (Holy festival of Sacrifice)
Two months and ten days after Þeker bayramý , Kurban bayramý is the most important religious holiday of the year.Is is equivalent to Christmas in Christian counties.The festival commemorates Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son,Isaac , on mount Moriah.In the story , God orders Abraham to take Isaac up to the mount to sacrifice him.Abraham takes Isaac and lays him on th atlar , but at last moment, God stops him and congratulates him on his faithfullness.God then orders him to sacrifice a ram, which had been tangled in a bush nearby , instead of his son. Following the tradition ,over 2.5 million sheep or , in the case of poorer families,goats are sacrificed on the kurban bayramý in Turkey each year.A proportion of the meat must be donated to the needy and the skins are often given to charities which can sell them to leather production companies.Greeting cards are exchanged and many people take to the roads,going home to their families and old friends.
Kurban Bayramý is a four days holiday.Banks maybe closed for a whole week,normal business is interrupted , transportation crowded and resorts packed with holiday makers.
Festivals & Public Holidays
1st January : New years day
23rd April : Independence Day &Children’s Day, celebrating the first meeting of the new republican government in Ankara , 1920
19th May : Youth &Sports Day ,commemorating Atatürk’s Birthday , 1881
1st July : Navy Day
30th August : Victory Festival,celebrating the Turkish victory over the Greek forces at Dumlýpýnar ,1922.
29th October : Republic Day,commemorating the proclamation of the Republic by Ataturk 1923.
Apart from Navy Day , banks and offices will normally be closed on those days.
Non-religous holidays are celebrated with speeches and children’s parades in banner-clad streets and town squares with the obligatory Atatürk statue as the unvarying focal point. | <urn:uuid:5777616a-61c6-4774-89a6-3047cbc00304> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.virtualtourist.com/hotels/Middle_East/Turkey/Nevsehir_Ili/Goreme-1841405/Hotels_and_Accommodations-Goreme-Stone_House_Cave_Hotel-BR-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950116 | 690 | 2.875 | 3 |
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- intransitive v. To move with a slight tremulous motion; tremble, shake, or quiver.
- intransitive v. To beat with excessive rapidity; throb.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. to throb, beat strongly
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- intransitive v. To beat rapidly and more strongly than usual; to throb; to bound with emotion or exertion; to pulsate violently; to flutter; -- said specifically of the heart when its action is abnormal, as from excitement.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To beat or pulsate rapidly; throb; flutter or move with slight throbs (said specifically of the heart when it is characterized by an abnormal or excited movement); tremble; quiver.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. shake with fast, tremulous movements
- v. cause to throb or beat rapidly
- v. beat rapidly
The ob-gyn uses two fingers to palpitate the organs inside while pressing on the patient's abdomen from the outside, the so-called bimanual exam.
Years have made me realize, surroundings, ambiance, the drone which makes the heart palpitate, the intimacy, the interplay, the friendships one makes does go to the value of where the heart resides and stays.
Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.
My husband and I just visited my son at school where the excitement and hope of things to come palpitate in every young person I met.
It was a cold half-ass dribble from them bold black-swirl clouds, the kind that make the heart palpitate before the storm.
I am right now and it's causing my heart to palpitate!
Guirgis has created characters that palpitate and suffer, characters with whom we identify.
In reality, the clock-hand did palpitate nervously during the Bush years, and the world is a muchhappier and safer place without him.
You write down the name, take it home, fall in love with the piano on "Um Dia," feel your chest palpitate during "Libramor," laugh and long for the accordion flourishes on "Na Nha Rubera."
But with my body feeling like Humpy Dumpty one second before his biggest fall, I'm trying more often than not -- at least every time I feel my heart palpitate -- to turn my clunker of a car around and drive against the traffic. | <urn:uuid:d83b8a16-1508-446c-8cb0-ab8ac5b4b75e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | https://www.wordnik.com/words/palpitate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932128 | 586 | 2.53125 | 3 |
"We are in trances – every single one of us – every single day."
During Friday’s Please Explain about anger, Dr. Philip Muskin brought up a man named Phineas Gage, who, he said, “was a very responsible manager on the railroad. One day a tamping rod went through his eye, through his brain, and basically gave him a frontal lobotomy. And Phineas Gage then became basically a ne’er do well. He was not responsible, he drank, he caroused, he lost his temper all the time. That is, the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain is really important.”
Phineas Gage was 25 in 1848, and the foreman of a crew building a new railroad track in Vermont. He was packing explosives with a tamping iron that was “43 inches long, 1.25 inches in diameter and weighing 13.25 pounds,” according Steve Twomey, writing in Smithsonian magazine, when an explosion shot the tamping iron through his head—it entered through his cheek and exited through the top of his skull. He survived, but his doctor and friends noticed a remarkable change in his personality in the months following the accident. He became the most famous patient in neuroscience because his injury demonstrated a connection between brain trauma and personality change and showed that specific parts of the brain were responsible for our moods. Read more about Phineas Gage—and see a photograph of him with the tamping iron that injured him—in Smithsonian Magazine.
In February, Dr. V. S. Ramachandran spoke with Leonard about his work in neuroscience, and he described how strokes cause brain trauma that can alter senses and change personalities. One patient started drawing with incredible detail after he suffered a stroke, although he was never particularly interested in or skilled at making art before. In Dr. Ramachandran's book The Tell-Tale Brain, he gives a number of examples of how brain injuries reveal the ways the brain works. You can listen to that interview here.
Anger is one of the forces that has sparked protests across the Middle East, from Egypt to Libya to Syria. It can be a motivating force, but it can also be destructive and damaging when it goes unchecked. On this week’s Please Explain, we’re taking a look at the roots and consequences of anger. Dr. Philip Muskin, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, and Dr. Howard Kassinove, Professor of Psychology and Director, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Anger and Aggression, and author of Anger Management: The Complete Treatment Guidebook for Practitioners and Anger Management for Everyone, explain when anger becomes a problem and how anger management works. | <urn:uuid:be527515-5042-4c40-969f-2f9713b36f5d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.wnyc.org/people/philip-muskin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010980041/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091620-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973136 | 573 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Science and technology have played an important role in the
United States. They have been especially influential in the American economy,
where new inventions have often fueled the flames of industry. Follow the
directions below to increase your understanding of the influence of science and
technology on American history.
Read the list below of events in science and technology.
Organize and create a timeline of the events with an illustration and
appropriate one-sentence summary of each event’s influence on history.
Interpret your timeline to write an answer that explains how technological
advances led to rapid industrialization in the United States.
Compare the effects of scientific discoveries and technological innovations
that have influenced daily life in different periods of U.S. history.
Describe how scientific ideas influenced technological developments during
periods of U.S. history.
Identify examples of how industrialization changed life in the United States.
Industrial revolution begins in England. People in factories make things with
machines rather than by hand. This increases production and standardizes
Samuel Slater returns from England with plans for a textile factory. He builds
the factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and is known as the father of the
Eli Whitney invents a machine, called the cotton gin, to separate seeds from
cotton fiber. His invention revolutionizes the textile (cloth) industry by
making it much easier to make cotton products.
Eli Whitney manufactures identical gun parts so that the parts could be
exchanged with parts in other guns. Thus, the parts were “interchangeable.”
This idea was applied to the manufacture of other products and eventually led
to the assembly line.
Robert Fulton builds a steamboat that paddles up the Hudson River and travels
150 miles in 32 hours. Steamboats gradually replace horse-drawn or
human-powered boats on America’s inland waterways.
Construction of the Cumberland road begins in Maryland. By 1852, this
hard-surface road is used to transport goods from Maryland to Illinois.
The Erie Canal is completed. It stretches for 363 miles across New York and
makes the transportation of goods from the Great Lakes and the nation’s Midwest
regions to Eastern and European markets much faster and more efficient.
The Stourbridge Lion, a locomotive, makes the first successful train trip in
the United States.
Cyrus McCormick invents the mechanical reaper. A horse drawn contraption, it
makes harvesting wheat, hay, and similar crops much easier.
John Deere invents the steel plow. It replaces wooded-bladed plows and makes
farmers more productive.
Samuel Morse invents the telegraph that allows people to communicate by wire
over long distances.
Elias Howe invents the sewing machine that revolutionizes the way clothing is
Clipper ships—invented in the United States—transport goods across the ocean at
a rapid rate of speed. With enough wind, the clipper ships could outrun
steamships of the time.
Cyrus Field lays telegraph cable across the Atlantic and connects the United
States with Europe.
First transcontinental telegraph is completed.
First transcontinental railroad is completed. | <urn:uuid:5589fcbd-6bd0-412c-acf0-94092329b536> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://info.teachtci.com/resources/ha/haus/topic28.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999651907/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060731-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905293 | 677 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Diseases of the Blood Vessels
Arteriosclerosis is hardening of the arteries. This occurs with aging as the elastic fiber of the tunica intima is replaced with non-elastic collagen. Arteries become brittle and are subject to rupture.
Atherosclerosis occurs when fat-cholesterol deposits called plaque form within the walls of arteries. This narrows the opening and may completely occlude it. Occlusions will prevent the blood from reaching the organs supplied by that vessel. This produces a condition known as ischemia and can lead to a myocardial infarction (heart attack) or a stroke (cerebrovascular accident CVA).
Thrombosis and Embolism
When you are cut, excessive loss of blood is prevented by the formation of a clot or thrombus. Clots can also form inside intact blood vessels. Clots tend to form in vessels where blood flows more slowly, as in veins. Another frequent site of clot formation is in the area of heart valves that are damaged.
Platelets are cellular fragments that initiate clotting when they clump together. This clumping is favored by atherosclerotic plaque, heart damage due to Rheumatic fever and inflamed walls of veins (Phlebitis). Certain medications, such as aspirin and Ibuprofen, interfere with clot formation by inhibiting the clumping of platelets.
Phlebitis is the inflammation of the inner lining of a vein which results from infection, poor circulation and obesity. In the deep veins of the leg, this inflammation can lead to thrombus formation. This will prevent the proper return of blood to the heart. If the thrombus becomes dislodged it can travel to the heart as an embolism or moving clot. From the heart, the embolism can travel to the lungs and block a pulmonary artery (pulmonary embolism). This interferes with the oxygenation of the blood.
Aneurysm is a weakening in the wall of a blood vessel, typically an artery. A person may be born with this defect (congenital) or it may develop from atherosclerosis. As it increases in size it may rupture. If the aneurysm is located in the aorta, coronary artery or a cerebral artery and ruptures, the resulting loss of blood (hemorrhage) will lead to an infarct (dead region) in vital organs.
Varicose veins form in superficial veins of the leg, ankle and foot. When blood cannot effectively return to the heart form the lower extremities, these veins become swollen, painful and show a knot-like appearance under the skin. Normally, the contractions of the leg muscles (muscle pumps) help to milk the blood upwards from one venous valve to the next.
When individuals remain seated for long periods, blood tends to pool in these veins. Fluid leaks from the vessels into the surrounding tissues. Persons on long duration air travel will see an accumulation of fluid around their ankles and feet. Passengers are advised to stand, walk and use their leg muscles to help return blood to the heart.
Hemorrhoids are varicose veins of the rectum and anus. They often develop to the straining defection of constipation. They also develop in women during pregnancy.
Hypertension or high blood pressure is called the silent killer. It is the leading cause of stroke (CVA) and congestive heart failure. Risk factors for hypertension are; obesity, smoking, high salt intake, high intake of lipid and cholesterol. There are also hereditary factors that may predispose for high blood pressure. The pressure of the blood depends on two major components:
Hypertension and Kidney Disease
As kidney function decreases with age, water and salt retention increases. This elevates blood pressure and leads to hypertension. On the other hand, long standing hypertension produces arteriosclerosis of the renal arteries. This reduces blood flow to the kidneys and damages them. In addition, the kidneys respond to the reduced blood flow by releasing a substance the triggers very high blood pressure throughout the body (renal hypertension).
Effects of Hypertension
Treatment for Hypertension
Shock is a vascular response to physical or psychological trauma. In general, blood pressure and venous return are reduced dramatically. There are different forms of shock: | <urn:uuid:10d44492-e35d-4307-85ae-3540f88a0872> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-potter/Diseases%20of%20the%20Blood%20Vessels.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010491371/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090811-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924203 | 904 | 3.796875 | 4 |
The Box Elder County Geographic Information System (GIS) contains geographical information for the County.
GIS is an important tool for creating databases that enhance decision making, improve organizational integration and producing maps.
The County's GIS information includes: Base data such as Digital Orthophotos and elevation data; Environmental data such as rivers, water bodies and land use; Administrative areas such as voting districts, zoning areas and emergency response districts; and County Roads. This data is constantly updated and maintained by Box Elder County GIS personnel.
This website was created for the dissemination of news and some of Box Elder County's GIS information. Most of the data presented here is in map form which will require Adobe's free Reader software.
Use the links above to navigate through the Box Elder County GIS website. | <urn:uuid:1f80339b-9717-4b3b-88b5-0aa11d608e9c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.boxeldercounty.org/gismaps.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918393 | 162 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Something or someone’s immortalization in a portrait is a testament to that individual or thing’s value and beauty. Down through the years people, some rich, some poor, and some of little consequence in the world’s view, have been captured in portraits. The artists that chose to portray these individuals have each seen something wonderful in their muses, something so worthy of attention that they wanted others to see it too. This is how portraitist Camille Seaman feels about her subjects: icebergs.
For eight years, Camille Seaman depicted icebergs in portraits. She first saw an iceberg on the Weddell Sea on a trip to Alaska. The sight of the iceberg shook Camille to her core and reminded her of her humanity and frailty. It also made Seaman desire to depict these mammoths in her own personal artwork and display them for all to see.
Photographing icebergs has become somewhat of a love affair for Camille Seaman. She doesn’t merely view icebergs as huge hunks of ice, as some do, but rather as living, breathing personalities. Seaman is blessed not to perceive things the way the average person does, or even the typical artist. Rather, she sees the way her grandfather instructed her to.
When Camille Seaman was a child, her grandfather taught her to view nature in a way that was consistent with her tribal heritage. He encouraged her to see the soul of an inanimate object. For example, he taught her to study a tree until it became as familiar to her as a “relative.” Ms. Seaman’s grandfather is partially responsible for her sensitive approach to her artistry and her depiction of icebergs.
Part of an artist’s job is to give people “new eyes” with which to see something. Giving others this gift enables them to venture beyond their own perceptions and journey into new possibilities of truth. An artist can give someone new eyes by presenting a subject in a fresh way. This is what Camille Seaman has done with icebergs, portraying them in such a manner as to give voice to their true personalities. This has helped many individuals see the true beauty and majesty that icebergs possess.
Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here) | <urn:uuid:9ff3e2ba-3610-4d96-a9f3-e6dba50c8907> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/seeing-soul-iceberg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999671474/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060751-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974583 | 481 | 2.59375 | 3 |
In Early 1970s C.E. (Ed) Jones and Joe Plummer blazed historic trail which is an important part of Oklahoma Panhandle's rich heritage.
These two pioneers established trading posts on Wolf Creek in central Ochiltree county Texas sout of Beaver. Supplies for post where first hauled from Dodge City, Cansas railhead by wagon over trail to Fort Suppy and then westward to site. Later became Beaver county buffalo hides major traid item for Jones and Plummer were first cargo over new route with bore their names.
Critical supplies for Generals Nelson Miles and Philip Sheridan where brought over the trail to support famous 1974 campaign against plains indians. Materials hauled down trail to build Fort Elliott in north west Wheeler County Texas which then became southern terminus. Later thousands of cattle where herded over trail to Dodge City for rail transport to eastern markets.
Midway of trail near Beaver River crossing James Lane built sod house in 1880 and established station to accommodate teamsters and cowboys using ths road near this point on south side of river section of rutted trail later became Beaver's main street.
Beaver County Historical Socity 1983
Oklahoma Historical Society.
Next to Jones - Plummer Trail museum at Beaver County fairgrounds, S Douglas St., Beaver, Oklahoma
The museum displays many artifacts that tell the tales of Beaver County and the Panhandle people who pioneered this area. The Jones and Plummer Trail Museum houses artifacts and prototype rooms from early day No Man's Land. | <urn:uuid:f6f9f2a2-a6d4-4474-839a-1f7286e69ac0> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.blogoklahoma.us/place.aspx?id=804 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999671474/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060751-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932296 | 308 | 2.796875 | 3 |
According to a recent article by the BBC(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7337145.stm), Italy has one of the lowest rates of female employment in the European Union, with only 46 percent of women holding jobs.
That amounts to about six million women who do not have a job or are not looking for employment. And only five percent of managerial positions in the country are held by women.
"In any country, if you had six million men out of the job market, it would be an emergency," Italy's Minister for European Affairs, Emma Bonino told the BBC. "In Italy, you have six million women and, apparently, it is thought to be normal."
According to Italian economist Fiorella Kostoris, women are having great difficulty getting jobs because they are not seen as good job candidates due to the importance that the Italian culture places on having children and taking care of families, women are often absent from the workforce. In fact, a recent survey reveals that Italian women spend an average of 5 hours on household tasks per day, as opposed to men who spend only one hour on the same.
"In Italy, family and domestic responsibility fall almost completely on women's shoulders," Mariella Zezza of RAI news said in a statement to the BBC.
Therefore many women, even those who do not have children, stay at home to care for their family members.
The solution that the article highlights focuses not on creating new jobs for women, but rather on addressing segregation to open up existing jobs to women. Bonino is pushing for companies to put more women on boards as currently only 5% of senior managerial positions are held by women.
Zezza identifies the importance of offering tax incetives to women, and getting the state more in tune with the needs of working mothers by building nurseries for instance. Shealso encourages women to not accept their current status and to try to further their own situations. | <urn:uuid:a11c1dd7-c274-41a5-9732-09d4fe5bf917> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.fastcompany.com/818653/italian-women-out-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980486 | 405 | 2.671875 | 3 |
furnish the best source of information upon the juvenile delinquency and dependency of any neighborhood; the attendance
officer, under the suggested change of law, will issue work permits and will find mothers' pensions of great value in supplementing this work.
So we see, at the very least, that mothers' pensions were promoted by
proponents of the children's cause as measures to aid in the enforcement of
the laws and to promote other community goals. To be sure, effective community support does seem to be associated with the eventual introduction
of mothers' pensions. However, one would be misinterpreting the motivations behind Progressive reform if one underestimated the greater priority
Progressive reformers placed on raising educational and family standards
as compared to relieving poverty.
Mabel Brown Ellis, "Mothers' Pensions," in
National Child Labor Committee, Child Welfare in Tennessee ( Nashville: Tennesse Industrial School, Printing
Dept., 1920), p. 514.
Calculated from data in
U.S. Children's Bureau, Mothers' Aid, 1931, Bureau
Publication No. 220 ( Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933).
Mary Holiday Mitchell, "Child Labor," in
National Child Labor Committee, Child Welfare in Tennessee ( Nashville: Tennessee Industrial School, Printing
Dept., 1920), p. 375.
Gertrude H. Folks, "Schools," in
National Child Labor Committee, Child
Welfare in Tennessee ( Nashville: Tennesse Industial School, Printing Dept., 1920),
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Book title: The American Welfare System:Origins, Structure, and Effects.
Contributors: Howard Gensler - Editor.
Place of publication: Westport, CT.
Publication year: 1996.
Page number: 185.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may
not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means. | <urn:uuid:4ad13143-5c34-4a8d-895b-263dd249c078> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.questia.com/read/51035958/the-american-welfare-system-origins-structure-and | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011372778/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092252-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894969 | 423 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The popularity of spinal anesthesia has undergone various accessions and regressions since its discovery by Corning in 1888. In the hands of such master surgeons as Matas, who was the first in this country to perform an operation employing it, spinal anesthesia proved satisfactory; but for others less experienced and resourceful, it gave unsatisfactory results.
During the second decade of the present century interest in the production of anesthesia by regional injections seems largely to have died out, and the advent of the World War put a temporary embargo on such physiologic experimentation as might have provided better and safer means of administering it. A full decade after the war ended, however, Pitkin brought forward his "controllable" spinal anesthesia, a method which was almost immediately to revolutionize the previous conceptions of the hazards and inconveniences of this particular form of surgical analgesia.
Briefly, the drawbacks had always been (1) a | <urn:uuid:a47a581d-50b4-4b98-8985-555e06baa5a8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=543869 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975914 | 184 | 2.625 | 3 |
Founded in 1997, BookFinder.com has become a leading book price comparison site:
Politicians invoke grand ideas: social justice, democracy, liberty, equality,community. But what do these ideas really mean? How can politicians across the political spectrum appeal to the same values?
This revised and expanded edition of Political Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide for Students and Politicians, answers these important questions. Accessible and lively, the book is an ideal student text, but it also brings the insights of the world's leading political philosophers to a wide general audience. Using plenty of examples, it equips readers to think for themselves about the ideas that shape political life.
Democracy works best when both politicians and voters move beyond rhetoric to think clearly and carefully about the political principles that should govern their society. But clear thinking is difficult in an age when established orthodoxies have fallen by the wayside. Bringing political philosophy out of the ivory tower and within the reach of all, this book provides us with tools to cut through the complexities of modern politics. In so doing, it makes a valuable contribution to the democratic process. [via] | <urn:uuid:f32f7eb0-1079-4bc3-9d9d-62e7bcb31575> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.bookfinder.com/dir/i/Political_Philosophy-A_Beginners_Guide_for_Students_and_Politicians/0745635326/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935206 | 231 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Two parameters are discussed: (1) the orientation of the plate assembly, consisting of the original hologram and a copy plate, relative to a laser copying beam, and (2) the separation between the original hologram and the copy plate. The data presented demonstrate that the optimum arrangement for the production of hologram copies requires that the plate assembly be held in vacuum contact, and that the laser copy beam enters the plate assembly in the reference beam direction of the original hologram. These optimum copies display reconstructed virtual images identical in angular extent and similar in quality to those reconstructed from the original. Copies made at angles other than the optimum angle display only certain portions of the original scene. The portion of the scene displayed is related to the copy angle and the angle in which light was scattered when the original hologram was exposed.
© 1967 Optical Society of America
Original Manuscript: June 21, 1967
Published: November 1, 1967
M. J. Landry, "The Effect of Two Hologram-Copying Parameters on the Quality of Copies," Appl. Opt. 6, 1947-1956 (1967) | <urn:uuid:550b1a9c-d7c3-4ed8-a593-148e956f99bd> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-6-11-1947 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.847695 | 228 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Artificial skin could give robots a lighter touch
Two US teams have developed artificial skins that are sensitive enough to detect the touch of a butterfly.
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed what they call e-skin, a pressure-sensitive electronic material created from semiconductor nanowires.
"The idea is to have a material that functions like the human skin, which means incorporating the ability to feel and touch objects," said research leader Ali Javey.
"Humans generally know how to hold a fragile egg without breaking it. If we ever wanted a robot that could unload the dishes, for instance, we'd want to make sure it doesn't break the wine glasses in the process. But we'd also want the robot to be able to grip a stock pot without dropping it."
The material could also one day restore the sense of touch to patients with prosthetic limbs.
Previous attempts to develop an artificial skin relied upon organic materials because they are flexible and easier to process.
"The problem is that organic materials are poor semiconductors, which means electronic devices made out of them would often require high voltages to operate the circuitry," said Javey. "Inorganic materials, such as crystalline silicon, on the other hand, have excellent electrical properties and can operate on low power. They are also more chemically stable"
Unfortunately, though, they've been inflexible and brittle.
But the UC Berkeley team used a new fabrication technique, growing the germanium/silicon nanowires on a cylindrical drum, which was then rolled onto a sticky substrate. As the drum rolled, the nanowires were neatly deposited, or 'printed', onto the substrate.
For the e-skin, the engineers printed the nanowires onto an 18-by-19 pixel square matrix measuring seven centimeters on each side. Each pixel contained a transistor made up of hundreds of semiconductor nanowires. The transistors were then integrated with a pressure-sensitive rubber layer to provide the sensing functionality. The matrix required less than five volts of power to operate and maintained its robustness even after being bent 2,000 times.
They found the e-skin could detect pressure from 0 to 15 kilopascals - comparable to the force used for typing or holding an object.
Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford have used a different technique, using a sheet of the elastic polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with holes cut out. When the PDMS is squashed, its capacitance is altered, rendering it sensitive to pressure.
The team says it's so sensitive that it's able to detect a butterfly landing on it. | <urn:uuid:2f6ce3e4-72ba-4a42-ba89-83a24cea308b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/51506-artificial-skin-could-give-robots-a-lighter-touch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949868 | 547 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Explain The Carbon Cycle
Before we begin to explain the carbon cycle, let us share something about carbon.
Carbon is an element that is found in many things in the air, water and land. It is found in the gases in the air (for example, carbon dioxide), it constitutes a large proportion of living and non-living matter like rocks, plants and animals (including you and I) on land, and it is also dissolved in large quantities in the water and ice in the oceans.
Definition to explain the carbon cycle
It is not hard to explain the carbon cycle. Basically, the carbon cycle depicts the constant flow of carbon between the air, land, sea and living things.
Under natural circumstances, the carbon cycle plays a significant balancing role in maintaining appropriate levels of carbon in the earth's atmosphere, so that there is sufficient level of green house effect to keep the Earth warm and suitable for life, and yet not too heat from the sun becomes trapped by the carbon dioxide in the air that leads to global warming (see definition for global warming).
The following steps explain the carbon cycle – how carbon changes from one form to another as it is repeatedly being exchanged between the atmosphere, land, water and the living beings.
- Absorption of carbon by plants from atmosphere: In the atmosphere, carbon is usually present as carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the important green house gasses. Plants make food through the process of photosynthesis -- they absorb CO2 in the air and in the presence of sunlight and water, produce oxygen and glucose. The glucose produced is stored and used by the plants in growth. Through this process, plants act as a form of carbon storage for the planet, and serve as a means by which carbon is changed into a form that can be used directly by living things.
- Movement of carbon from plants into the animal world: The carbon absorbed by plants is transferred to animals through feeding. As smaller animals get eaten by bigger animals, this carbon is moved up the food chain.
- Movement of carbon from living things to the atmosphere: When plants and animals respire, glucose stored in the plants and animals are broken down to release CO2, water and energy. Through this process, CO2 is released back into the atmosphere.
- Movement of carbon from living things to the land: As plants and animals die and decay or decompose (or when animals defecate and their waste materials decompose), the carbon found in them are released to the environment. When the decaying matter bodies get buried under the ground and are subjected to high pressures and other physical and chemical changes for millions of years, they change into fossil fuels.
- Movement of carbon from fossil fuels to the atmosphere: When the fossil fuels are burnt in power plants, factories, cars and trucks, most of the carbon rapidly enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas. Each year, more than five and a half billion tons of carbon is released by burning fossil fuels. Of the huge amount of carbon that is released from fuels, 3.3 billion tons enters the atmosphere and most of the rest becomes dissolved in sea water.
- Movement of carbon from the atmosphere to the oceans: The oceans, and other water bodies, soak up about a quarter of the carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere. However, this uptake process is slow. Similarly, under normal conditions, the release of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere from the ocean is also at a very low rate.
From above points to explain the carbon cycle, it is clear that the total amount of carbon in the environment remains constant. There is no formation or demolition of carbon in this process and it only involves the movement of this element from one form to another.
Through this carbon cycle, the level of carbon in the atmosphere is kept at an optimum level. There is sufficient carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to trap the sun’s heat to keep the Earth’s surface sufficiently warm for living things, yet there is not excessive trapping of heat.
Nature has served the planet well, by maintaining the balance of CO2. Unfortunately, as man increasing learns to make use of “ancient sunlight” (as mentioned by Thom Hartmann, author of the book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight) stored in the form of fossil fuel to drive our industries and economies, at the same time as we cut down our forests on a large scale, we have substantially increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and upset the carbon cycle. CO2 in the atmosphere cannot be taken up by the plants fast enough. They remain in the atmosphere and cause global warming. Read about the consequences of global warming.
Explain the carbon cycle to the people and children around you today, and help spread the message that we need to work on carbon emission reductions.
Return from this page on Explain the Carbon Cycle to page on Facts on Global Warming/b>
Return from this page on Explain the Carbon Cycle to Eco Green Living and All Recycling Facts Homepage | <urn:uuid:a486a0fc-5b6c-42f3-b215-b905c42dab98> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.all-recycling-facts.com/explain-the-carbon-cycle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999653645/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060733-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943331 | 1,019 | 3.5 | 4 |
This enhanced-color image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a landscape of sand dunes and buttes among a background of light-toned (tan-colored) bands and dark-toned (blue-colored) bands in the Candor Chasma region of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system.
The scene includes examples of thin dark lines bordered by light-toned bedrock [Figures 2A, 2B, and 2C]. The dark lines are interpreted as fractures, called joints, that were formerly underground but have been exposed at the surface by erosion of overlying material. The light-toned material along the joints is interpreted as features called halos, resulting from mineral alteration (bleaching, cementation or both) of the walls of the fractures by fluid moving through the fractures.
The image was acquired on Sept. 30, 2006, during winter in Mars' southern hemisphere, at a local Mars time of 3:29 p.m. It combines separate band passes taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment in blue-green light, red light and near-infrared light.
The scene is illuminated from the west (left) with a solar incidence angle of 58.5 degrees. The image scale is 26 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, the scale of the red bandpass image. The other bandpasses were acquired with two-by-two pixel binning to 52 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel.
The image, in the camera's catalogue as TRA_000836_1740, is centered at 5.7 degrees south latitude, 284.6 degrees east longitude. A locator map [Supplement 2] based on elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor indicates this location in the context of the Candor Chasma region. A full resolution file of this image is available for download by clicking here (82 MB).
A subframe of the full image [Figure 1] shows the locations of smaller pull-outs selected for showing details of interest.
Supplement 3 shows light-toned and dark-toned layers. Meter-scale dune forms are commonly observed within the dark layers. Also shown are joints and surrounding halos. In contrast to Figure 2, the halos along these joints are laterally more extensive and less localized along the trace of the joint.
Supplement 4 shows two streamlined mesas of layered bedrock. The windward slopes of these mesas appear smooth, consistent with wind erosion. Boulders are common along the northwest slopes of the mesas. The horizontal spacing of joints appears to control the lateral dimensions of many of the largest boulders.
Supplement 5 shows a high-density population of joints.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo. | <urn:uuid:056a8990-54fc-49db-854d-211f8fd4c6e8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09190 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915883 | 654 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Glaucoma is the most common neurodegenerative disease and the second most common cause of blindness worldwide after cataract. While the diagnosis of end-stage glaucoma can be made by any physician trained in the use of the ophthalmoscope, it is preferable to diagnose glaucoma at an early stage, when intervention can alter the course of the disease and change the prognosis. Packed with superb illustrations, Fast Facts: Glaucoma is bursting with practical information on the disease, including: a concise overview of the glaucoma subtypes and their global prevalence; a clear explanation of the pathophysiology alongside what the patient actually experiences; the questions to ask when taking a history; the key elements of a comprehensive eye examination; how to minimize the impact of the disease on the patient and reduce risk factors; the latest medical and surgical treatments; and, monitoring of the condition - including detail of follow-up examinations. Fast Facts: Glaucoma is a highly readable practical reference for all medical and eyecare practitioners, an aid for students and scientists involved in the study of eye disease and a sound overview for anyone interested in this challenging disease. What is Glaucoma? How can it be detected? How can it be treated? Fast Facts: Glaucoma answers all of these questions. | <urn:uuid:6be0f741-994a-403b-ada4-f5644f3dc027> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.bol.com/nl/p/fast-facts/1001004006574761/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903943 | 275 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Some school-aged children can’t wait to get home from school, stake out a place on the couch, and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV. Physical activity is just not on their radar screens, at least not by choice.
Stopping the Slippery Slope of Childhood Obesity:
Not surprisingly, children who fit this profile may be on a slippery slope to a life of obesity. There are a lot of them. Several years ago, when a group of children 6 to 12 years old participated in programs of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, only 50% of girls and 64% of boys could walk or run a mile in less than 10 minutes. If that same study were conducted today, when the obesity epidemic seems to be gaining momentum, those statistics might be even more troubling.
Making Exercise Into a Lifelong Habit:
During your child’s school-age years, your goal should be not only to get your child moving, but to turn exercise into a lifelong habit. There are plenty of opportunities for your child to keep active.
Getting Involved in Organized Sports:
In most communities, children in this age group can choose to get involved in a number of organized sports, including:
Team sports are fun and the perfect fit for many children, and they can help them manage their weight.
But, Sports Aren't For Everyone...
However, group activities like these aren’t for everyone. Some obese children feel self-conscious about participating in team sports and are much more comfortable getting their exercise in unstructured settings. For them, free play on the playground, ice skating, in-line skating, bowling, or even running through sprinklers is good exercise.
Let your child choose something that he finds enjoyable, and once he discovers it, encourage him to make it a regular part of life. At the same time, limit TV watching or time spent on the computer or playing video games to no more than 1 to 2 hours a day. Studies have shown that the more time children devote to watching TV, the more likely they are to consume foods like pizza, salty snacks, and soda that contribute to weight gain.
If Your Child Insists He Doesn’t Want to Do Any Physical Activity:
Explain that it’s important and might even be fun to find a new activity. Try to find activities that fit the family’s budget and time commitments and have him choose among several alternatives.
How to Involve Friends & Family in Fitness Activities:
Some children might prefer to go with a friend or parent. Be creative and emphasize participation, not competition. To help your school-aged youngster become physically active, recruit the entire family to participate. Let your overweight child know that all of you, parents and siblings alike, are in his corner, and even if he has rarely exercised before, he can start now with the entire family’s support.
No matter what you choose, regular activity not only burns calories, but also strengthens your child’s cardiovascular system, builds strong bones and muscles, and increases flexibility. It can also diffuse stress, help him learn teamwork and sportsmanship, boost his self-esteem, and improve his overall sense of well-being. | <urn:uuid:e555ce35-8598-4d3d-91e0-cfe0de194577> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/fitness/Pages/Making-Fitness-a-Way-of-Life.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965101 | 667 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The Life of Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti (Telugu:జిడ్డు కృష్ణమూర్తి) or J. Krishnamurti (May 11, 1895–February 17, 1986), was born in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India and discovered, in 1909, as a teenager by C.W. Leadbeater on the private beach at the Theosophical headquarters at Adyar in Chennai, India. He was subsequently raised under the tutelage of Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater within the world-wide organization of the Theosophical Society, who believed him to be a vehicle for a prophesied World Teacher. As a young man, he disavowed this destiny and also dissolved the Order established to support it, and eventually spent the rest of his life travelling the world as an individual speaker and educator on the workings of the human mind. At age 90 he addressed the United Nations on the subject of peace and awareness, and was awarded the 1984 UN Peace Medal. He gave his last talk in India a month before his death, in 1986, in Ojai, California.
His supporters, working through charitable trusts, founded several independent schools across the world—in India, England and the United States—and transcribed many of his thousands of talks, publishing them as educational philosophical books.
His official biographer, Mary Lutyens wrote a book about Krishnamurti's early life in India, England, and finally in Ojai, California, entitled Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening. She was a close associate of his from the Order of the Star, and knew him from the early days until the end of his life. This book contains many insights into this period of his life, about which he rarely spoke. Lutyens wrote three additional volumes of biography: The Years of Fulfillment (1983), The Open Door (1988), and Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals (1996). Additionally, she published and abridgement of the first three volumes, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti (1991). Other published biographies of Krishnamurti include: Krishnamurti, A Biography (1986), by associate Pupul Jayakar and Star In the East: Krishnamurti, The Invention of a Messiah (2002), by Roland Vernon.
Jiddu Krishnamurti came from a family of Telugu-speaking Brahmins. His father, Jiddu Narianiah, graduated from Madras University and then became an official in the Revenue Department of the British administration, rising by the end of his career to the position of rent collector and District Magistrate. His parents were second cousins, having a total of eleven children, only six of whom survived childhood. They were strict vegetarians, even shunning eggs, and throwing away any food that the "shadow of an Englishman crossed". (Lutyens, Awakening, p 1)
He was born in a small town about 150 miles (250 km) north of Madras, India. His birthdate has been also stated as May 12, however Mary Lutyens, points out, that the Brahmin day is calculated from dawn and he was born at 12:30 AM, so therefore on May 11. It's only the Western world who would state this was May 12. "As an eighth child, who happened to be a boy, he was, in accordance with Hindu orthodoxy, called after Sri Krishna who had himself been an eighth child."
In 1903, the family moved to Cudappah and Krishna contracted malaria, a disease with which he would suffer recurrent bouts over many years. In 1904, his eldest sister died, aged twenty. In his memoirs, he describes his mother as "to a certain extent psychic" and how she would frequently see and converse with her dead daughter. Krishna also states that he saw his dead sister on some occasions. In Dec 1905, his mother, Jiddu Sanjeevamma, died at Cudappah, when Krishnamurti was ten years old. Krishna says: "I may mention that I saw her [my mother] after she died" (Lutyens, p 5)
"Narianiah, though an orthodox Brahmin, had been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1881 (Theosophy embraces all religions)." (Lutyens, p 7). This was while Helena Blavatsky was still its alive and living in India. Narianiah had retired at the end of 1907 and wrote to Annie Besant to recommend himself as a caretaker for the 260-acre Theosophical estate at Adyar. He had four boys and Annie thought they would be a disturbing influence and so turned him down. He continued his requests and finally was accepted as an assistant to the Recording Secretary of the Esoteric Section. His family which included, himself, his four sons, and a nephew moved there on Jan 23, 1909. It was a few months after this last move that Krishna was discovered by C.W. Leadbeater, who believed him to be the awaited vessel.
This discovery created a bit of a problem, as there was already a conflicting claim made for Hubert van Hook (b 1896), son of Dr Weller van Hook, a surgeon in Chicago, and the General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in the United States. Hubert was also chosen by Leadbeater and after she left her husband, his mother brought him to India for special training. After Krishna was found, Hubert was soon dropped. (Lutyens, p 12)
Leadbeater had a history of being in the company of young boys, and gossip about that was vehemently denied by Annie Besant. The gossip erupted into a scandal in 1906 and led to Leadbeater's resignation from the Theosophical Society, however at the end of 1908 he was re-instated on a vote. (Lutyens, p 15)
Hubert and Mrs Van Hook, his mother, also arrived at Adyar and stayed there for some time.
Separation from father
Krishna, or Krishnaji, as he was often known, and his younger brother Nitya were educated at the Theosophical compound and later taken to England to finish their education. His father at first grateful of the oportunities they got this way but also pushed into the background by the swirl of interest around Krishna, ended up in a lawsuit against the Society to try to protect his parental interests. As a result of this separation from his family and home, Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya became extremely close and in the following years they often travelled together.
A philosophical awakening
Lutyens states that there came a time when Krishnamurti fully believed that he was to become the World Teacher. The death of his brother Nitya on November 11, 1925 at age 27 from tuberculosis, however, shook his fundamental belief in the masters, the leaders of the Theosophical Society and the whole idea of the world teacher (Lord Maitreya) project. He had prayed for his brother's life to be spared and it was not. The experience of his brother's death shattered his remaining illusions. [more on the World Teacher Project]
From The Song of Life (1931):
My brother died; We were as two stars in a naked sky. He was like me, Burnt by the warm sun...
He died; I wept in loneliness. Where'er I went, I heard his voice and his happy laughter. I looked for his face in every passer by and asked each if he had not met with my brother; But none could give me comfort. I worshipped, I prayed, But the gods were silent. I could weep no more; I could dream no more. I sought him in all things, in every clime. I heard the whispering of many trees Calling me to his abode. And then, in my search, I beheld Thee, O Lord of my heart; In Thee alone I saw the face of my brother. In Thee alone, O my eternal Love, Do I behold the faces Of all the living and all the dead.
From 1925 onward things were to never be the same again.
...An old dream is dead and a new one is being born, as a flower that pushes through the solid earth. A new vision is coming into being and a greater consciousness is being unfolded. ...A new strength, born of suffering, is pulsating in the veins and a new sympathy and understanding is being born of past suffering---a greater desire to see others suffer less, and, if they must suffer, to see that they bear it nobly and come out of it without too many scars. I have wept, but I do not want others to weep; but if they do, I know what it means. (from The Herald of the Star, January 1926)
In 1925, he was expected by Theosophists to enter Sydney, Australia walking on water, but this did not eventuate and he visited Australia the following year by ship.
This new vision and consciousness reached a climax in 1929, when Krishnamurti rebuffed attempts by Leadbeater and Besant to continue with The Order of the Star, the section of the Theosophical Society devoted to the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti subsequently disbanded the Order, whose head he was. On the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, August 2, 1929, in front of several thousand members, he gave a speech disbanding the Order, saying:
You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to help him organize it."
I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path.
After disbanding the
Order and drifting away from the Theosophical Society and its belief
system, he spent the rest of his life holding dialogues and giving
public talks on his observations on the nature of truth, sorrow and
freedom. Krishnamurti did not accept followers, because he saw the
relationship between a guru and a disciple as essentially exploitative.
He asked people to explore together with him and "walk as two friends".
He accepted gifts and support given to him (his main residence being on
donated land in Ojai, California) and continued with lecture tours and
the publication of books for more than half a century.
Later years and "farewell talks
In his later years, J. Krishnamurti spoke at the United Nations in New York, on the 11th April 1985, where he was awarded the United Nations 1984 Peace medal.
In November of 1985, he revisted the places he had grown up in India, holding a last set of farewell talks between then and January 1986. These last talks were on fundamental principles of belief and lessons. Krishnamurti commented that he did not wish to invite Death, but was not sure how long his body would last, he had already lost some 6 kg (13 lb) and once he could no longer talk or teach, he would have no further purpose. He said a formal farewell to all four points of the compass, the so-called 'elephant's turn', on the Adayar shore where he had long ago come to the attention of others. His final talk, on January 4, 1986, invited his co-participants to examine with him the nature of inquiry, the nature of life, and the nature of creation. It ended:
"So we are inquiring what makes a bird. What is creation behind all this? Are you waiting for me to describe it, to go into it? ... Why? Why do you ask [what creation is]? Because I asked? No description can ever describe the origin. The origin is nameless; the origin is absolutely quiet, it's not whirring about making noise. Creation is something that is most holy, that's the most sacred thing in life, and if you have made a mess of your life, change it. Change it today, not tomorrow. If you are uncertain, find out why and be certain. If your thinking is not straight, think straight, logically. Unless all that is prepared, all that is settled, you can't enter into this world, into the world of creation."
"It ends." (these two words are hardly audible, breathed rather than spoken)
"This is the last talk. Do you want to sit together quietly for a while? All right, sirs, let us sit quietly for a while."
(quotes in this section from "The Future Is Now: Last Talks in India")
J. Krishnamurti passed away two and a half months later at the age of 90 from pancreatic cancer. His remains were cremated and scattered by friends and former associates in the three countries where he had spent most of his life, India, England and United States of America.
Throughout his long life, Krishnamurti exerted a great influence at the confluence of educated philosophical and spiritual thought. Because of his ideas and his era, Krishnamurti has come to be seen as an exemplar for modern spiritual teachers - particularly those who disavow formal rituals and dogma. His conception of truth as a pathless land, with the possibility of immediate self-realization, is mirrored in New Age teachings as diverse as those of est, Bruce Lee, and even the Dalai Lama.
Krishnamurti was close friends with Aldous Huxley. Huxley wrote the foreword to The First and Last Freedom. Krishnamurti was also friends with, and influenced the works of, the mythologist Joseph Campbell and the artist Beatrice Wood.
Criticism of Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti has been criticized, sometimes as to whether he practiced what he preached. A number of people who knew him through the years pointed out that Krishnamurti’s life expresses something of the Indian Brahmin lifestyle, for he was supported, even pampered, through the years by devoted followers and servants. The questions then arise as to whether his attitudes were conditioned by indulgence and privilege.
In her 1991 book, Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti, Radha Rajagopal Sloss, the daughter of Krishnamurti's associates, Rosalind and Desikacharya Rajagopal, wrote of Krishnamurti's relationship with her parents including the secret affair between Krishnamurti and Rosalind which lasted for many years. The public revelation was received with surprise and consternation by many individuals in the Krishnamurti community, and was also dealt with in a rebuttal volume of biography by Mary Lutyens (Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals, 1996).
Sloss's allegations were centered around the notion that the secret liasion indicated that Krishnamurti had lead a deceptive double life in that he was believed to be celibate by his public following. A later biographical volume by Roland Vernon (Star in the East: Krishnamurti, the Invention of a Messiah), questions the ultimate impact of the revelations when compared to Krishnamurti's body of work as a whole.
Krishnamurti's once close relationship to the Rajagopals deteriorated to the point that Krishnamurti in his later years, took Rajagopal (head of Krishnamurti Writings, Inc.) to court in order to recover certain rights, manuscripts and personal corespondence being witheld by Rajagopal. The resulting litigation and cross complaints continued for many years, and were not resolved until after the death of Krishnamurti in 1986. Krishnamurti's biographer Mary Lutyens placed the preponderance of responsibility for the acrimony of the lawsuits and resulting damage to Krishnamurti's reputation on the personal animosity of the Rajagopals resulting from their loss of influence in Krishnamurti's life. | <urn:uuid:2c44ca89-d0ef-4307-80d0-a4ca9c019de0> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/biography.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00019-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984538 | 3,534 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Author: Philip Carr
Author: Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil
Paperback: ISBN: 0230573142 9780230573147 Pages: 352 Price: U.K. £ 25.99
The second edition of this successful introductory guide has been thoroughly updated and expanded to take into account latest developments and current teaching. It features three new chapters on phonological weight (Chapter 10) and Optimality Theory (Chapters 11 and 12), as well as new exercises and suggestions for further readings. | <urn:uuid:2896b1d1-53f5-442d-907d-81f6c1813b50> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-4768.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999654285/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060734-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896959 | 104 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Last week I discussed vertical gardening with vines for added garden interest. This week we will talk horizontal gardening — filling spaces with groundcovers.
Perhaps the most common problem that brings up the subject of groundcovers is that of growing grass in shady areas. Too little sun on turfgrasses results in thin, weedy-to-nonexistent grass. Rather than trying to grow grass where it does not do well, grow a groundcover instead.
There are a number of plants to choose from for shady locations. English ivy (Hedera helix) may be the most common. Periwinkles (Vinca major and V. minor) also are common with V. minor being more shade tolerant. Variegated bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podagraria “Variegatum”) is drought tolerant once established.
These vines can cover massive areas if needed. They continue to spread fairly rapidly although they are easily pulled or cut back for control.
Other plants to consider for shady areas that are not vines include bugleweed (Ajuga species), lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis), lilyturf (Liriope) and sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum). These will generally take longer to cover an area unless many plants are placed close together. Sweet woodruff requires more water than the others and does best in a protected area.
All of these plants are hardy in our area and require little ongoing attention. Some annual cleanup and trimming will be needed, particularly for the Liriope. Although most will have some flowers, they are grown primarily for their foliage and their ability to cover the ground.
Replacing shaded grass is not the only place to consider groundcovers. Sunny areas offer more opportunity for colorful as well as functional groundcovers. Both periwinkles will grow in sunny areas with V. major being the better plant for this exposure. Liriope also will work in sunny locations.
Other plants for sunny areas include tiny plants like creeping thyme (some Thymus species and cultivars) that hug the ground and can be walked on, to groundcover or carpet roses (some Rosa species and cultivars) that are much taller and shrubby.
One of the most popular groundcovers in our area is plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) which also will grow in partial shade, but is not evergreen. Others include ice plant (Delosperma species and cultivars), speedwell (Veronica species and cultivars), soapwort (Saponaria x lempergii) and stonecrop (Sedum species
There also are a number of mat-forming perennials that can serve as groundcovers — snow in summer (Cerastium tomentosum), pinks/carnations (some Dianthus species and cultivars), sundrops (Calylophus serrulatus) and some others.
My experience with these generally has been good. I’ve had many different Dianthus species throughout the years and have found some are more long-lived than others and would be more suitable to use as a groundcover. Bath’s pink garden pink (Dianthus “Bath’s Pink”) is one that I have, but unfortunately I do not know the name of the other which was given to me by a friend.
Like vertical gardening with vines, horizontal gardening with groundcovers will add to your garden’s charm.
Bob Hatton is a volunteer at the Amarillo Botanical Gardens. He may be reached at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:20a8cdfd-8d6b-40a3-8a05-91bc3cc109c5> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://amarillo.com/lifestyle/our-town/2012-06-18/hatton-groundcovers-act-horizontal-element | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010701848/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091141-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936332 | 774 | 2.640625 | 3 |
In this blog post I demonstrate how to map statistically significant differences between (groups of) texts. For this I contrast the different emphasis in the Russian and English language Wikipedia pages about the Russian protests of 2011
Visualising textual data is complicated. Simple efforts, created by Wordle or similar, are not great. Partly this is, as Drew Conway pointed out, because they use space and colour in a meaningless way; only the size of the word says anything about its significance. Conway attempted to improve the word cloud by plotting words on an axis - words more associated with Sarah Palin to the left, words more associated with Barack Obama on the right.
I think this is an excellent idea, but my main gripe with the approach is that it's not especially robust statistically. So below I present a way to compare any two texts or groups of text, and then visualise statistically significant differences between them.
Below I outline how to load and process two texts or corpuses and to graph qualitative differences between the two sets. All going well, we should end up with an image something like that on the left
Getting the data
First we need to conduct a keyword analysis by identifying words or word pairings disproportionately present in the text.
To do this I first loaded the texts into R. Make sure to set R to the appropriate locale! This will save you a lot of trouble if dealing with almost any language except English. I chose to include a stop list, that is a list of words to be excluded from the analysis. I excluded common words such as prepositions, personal pronouns, some adjectives etc. For a full list see (here). Removing these words greatly reduces the number of terms in the data, and also reduces the degree to which the common words obscure less common terms.
# required libraries If using foreign languages, Set the locale to # 'Russian' Sys.setlocale('LC_CTYPE','russian') # get some data. E.g. the English language wikipedia page about Russia, # and the Google translate version of the Russian language page: txt1 <- readLines("http://pastebay.net/pastebay.php?dl=1182135", warn = F) txt2 <- readLines("http://pastebay.net/pastebay.php?dl=1182136", warn = F) # Alternatively, get the bible, split into old and new testaments: txt <- # readLines('http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10/pg10.txt') a <- # grep('The Gospel According to Saint Matthew',txt,ignore.case=T) txt1 <- # txt[1:a] txt2 <- txt[a:length(txt)] # Or load locally stored files(s) into R. This latter method allows you to # specify a directory source, meaning a large number of texts can be # loaded txt1<-readLines('myfile.txt') txt2<-readLines('myfile2.txt') # Load a custom stoplist (optional) # stopList<-readLines('d:/temp/listStemmed.txt') # stopList<-tolower(stopList) stopList<-data.frame(stopList)
Processing the data
To process the texts I used the tm package. Before analysing the texts I removed duplicated lines, as might be caused for instance by titles being printed twice. When counting words every unique term is identified, thus 'Victory', 'victory', and 'victory!' are considered unique terms. To avoid this I converted the texts to lower case, removed punctuation. Additionally, because Russian is an inflectional language, I used the Snowball stemmer to stem the documents. This has the positive effect of treating 'succeeded' and 'succeeds' equally, but the unwanted effect of also merging distinct terms such as 'Victor', 'Victoria', and 'Victory'. Numbers are also removed at this stage
# remove duplicated lines require(tm) library(stringr) txt2 <- unique(txt2) txt1 <- unique(txt1) # remove punctuation. Note: tm has a tool for this, but it doesn’t work # with Russian, as it identifies some Cyrillic characters as punctuation # rather than letters. txt1 <- str_replace_all(txt1, "\\.|\\?|\\:|\\;|\\!|\\,|\\\"|\\-", " ") txt2 <- str_replace_all(txt2, "\\.|\\?|\\:|\\;|\\!|\\,|\\\"|\\-", " ") txt2 <- Corpus(VectorSource(txt2), pos = .GlobalEnv) txt1 <- Corpus(VectorSource(txt1), pos = .GlobalEnv) # remove white space, convert to lower case, and stem the document This # may take some time. Experiment with a small sample and tweak code before # attempting to process large data! txt1 <- tm_map(txt1, stripWhitespace) txt1 <- tm_map(txt1, tolower) txt1 <- tm_map(txt1, stemDocument, language = "english") txt1 <- tm_map(txt1, removeWords, stopwords("english")) #or: stopwords(stopList) #if using custom list txt1 <- tm_map(txt1, removeNumbers) txt2 <- tm_map(txt2, stripWhitespace) txt2 <- tm_map(txt2, tolower) txt2 <- tm_map(txt2, stemDocument, language = "english") txt2 <- tm_map(txt2, removeWords, stopwords("english")) txt2 <- tm_map(txt2, removeNumbers)
After the documents had been processed they were loaded into a document term matrix. The matrix presents the number of times each unique term features in each distinct document. Then add all the documents together to get aggregate scores. Finally, any missing values are removed, and the data is converted to a data frame:
dtmOne <- (DocumentTermMatrix(txt1)) dtmTwo <- (DocumentTermMatrix(txt2)) dtmOne2 <- data.frame(as.matrix(dtmOne)) dtmTwo2 <- data.frame(as.matrix(dtmTwo)) v1 <- as.matrix(sort(sapply(dtmOne2, "sum"), decreasing = TRUE)[1:length(dtmOne2)], colnames = count) v2 <- as.matrix(sort(sapply(dtmTwo2, "sum"), decreasing = TRUE)[1:length(dtmOne2)], colnames = count) v2 <- v2[complete.cases(v2), ] v1 <- v1[complete.cases(v2), ] wordsOne <- data.frame(v1) wordsTwo <- data.frame(v2)
The tm package is slow and processor intensive (r is not well suited for textual analysis). When dealing with larger databases I have used the tm.plugin.dc package to create (distrubted corpora )[Author: Ingo Feinerer, Stefan Theussl], which keeps the data stored on the hard drive rather than in memory.
# When using a distributed corpus it helps if texts are pre-processed. # This may be done in R using a loop, or more efficiently by command line # using sed, awk, grep etc. (Cygwin is great for this). If analysing large # databases, use the code below: require (tm.plugin.dc) pattern is # optional. It allows only part of a directory's content to be selected, # in this case all .txt files txt1 <- # DistributedCorpus(DirSource('directory1',pattern='.txt')) txt2 <- # DistributedCorpus(DirSource('directory1',pattern='.txt')) # continue as above
If comparing only two texts the tm package may be bypassed altogether. The tm_map function above merely applies a function to a corpus, the functions within may be used independently, after which a keyword table may be created using table(). To use this method texts should first be split into a list of words:
# require(stringr) require(tm) txt1 <- tolower(txt1) txt1 <- # stripWhitespace(txt1) txt1 <- str_replace_all(txt1, # '\\.|\\?|\\:|\\;|\\!|\\,|\\'|\\-',' ') txt1 <- # unlist(str_split(txt1, ' ')) #break text into individual words. Needed # for stemming: txt1 <- stemDocument(txt1, language = 'russian') txt1 <- # data.frame(table(txt1))
Now the data is formatted we can merge the two tables by row names, and remove any words found in the stoplist. For this to work the stoplist must also be stemmed!
wordsCompare <- merge(wordsOne, wordsTwo, by = "row.names", all = TRUE) wordsCompare[is.na(wordsCompare)] <- 0
Calculating statistical significance
Next we calculate the relative number of mentions per term by calculating proportions. Now, one might wonder whether differences between texts are random, or whether there is some consistent difference. Clearly I am interested in the latter, so we use the proportions to calculate whether the observed differences between the two datasets are statistically significant using a z-test. We can now remove insignificant terms at our chosen confidence level. Normally this would be 95% which corresponds to a z-score of 1.96, but for the sake of this example we'll keep all the data. A two-proportion z-test is calculated using this formula
wordsCompare$prop <- wordsCompare$v1/sum(wordsCompare$v1) wordsCompare$prop2 <- wordsCompare$v2/sum(wordsCompare$v2) wordsCompare$z <- (wordsCompare$prop - wordsCompare$prop2)/((sqrt(((sum(wordsCompare$v1) * wordsCompare$prop) + (sum(wordsCompare$v2) * wordsCompare$prop2))/(sum(wordsCompare$v1) + sum(wordsCompare$v2)) * (1 - ((sum(wordsCompare$v1) * wordsCompare$prop) + (sum(wordsCompare$v2) * wordsCompare$prop2))/(sum(wordsCompare$v1) + sum(wordsCompare$v2))))) * (sqrt((sum(wordsCompare$v1) + sum(wordsCompare$v2))/(sum(wordsCompare$v1) * sum(wordsCompare$v2))))) #z formula # keep only data of at least moderate significance. Use (abs) to keep # significant negative z-scores. # wordsCompare<-subset(wordsCompare,abs(z)>1.96)
Now for data visualisation. First let's inspect the data to check that everything looks OK, then lets calculate how different the two proportions are. Finally, let’s plot this, indicating which data points are statistically significant, as well as quantifying the degree of difference. This allows us to make a judgement on whether a difference is meaningful as well as statistically significant (statistical significance is the curse of large data. Or something):
wordsCompare <- wordsCompare[order(abs(wordsCompare$z), decreasing = T), ] #order according to significance # calculate percentage reduction: wordsCompare$dif1 <- -100 * (1 - wordsCompare$prop/wordsCompare$prop2) # calculate percentage increase wordsCompare$dif2 <- 100 * (1 - wordsCompare$prop2/wordsCompare$prop) # merge results. Very clunky, must be better way: wordsCompare$dif <- 0 wordsCompare$dif[wordsCompare$dif1 < 0] <- wordsCompare$dif1[wordsCompare$dif1 < 0] wordsCompare$dif[wordsCompare$dif2 > 0] <- wordsCompare$dif2[wordsCompare$dif2 > 0] wordsCompare$dif1 <- NULL wordsCompare$dif2 <- NULL require(ggplot2) ggplot(wordsCompare, aes(z, dif)) + geom_point()
as we can see, there is a non-linear relationship between z score and higher percentage difference between the samples, due to the fact that many of the differences, large in relative terms, are very small in absolute terms. We can also see there are a number of points at 100%, meaning a word is present in one sample but not the other. These points may be interesting, but should probably be removed - one cannot really compare something to nothing. We can tidy up the plot by adding labels, limiting the number of points, add colour to indicate statistical significance, as well as axis labels. I've also flipped the axes and made the z-scores absolute:
require(ggplot2) wordsCompare$z2 <- 1 wordsCompare$z2[abs(wordsCompare$z)>=1.96] <- 0 wordsCompare <- wordsCompare[wordsCompare$z>-99&wordsCompare$z<99,] #exclude terms infitiely more or less used wordsCompare <- wordsCompare[order(abs(wordsCompare$prop2+wordsCompare$prop),decreasing=T),] ggplot(head(wordsCompare,50), #select number of points in plot aes(dif,log(abs(v1+v2)),label=Row.names,size=(v1+v2),colour=z2))+ #plot z value against difference geom_text(fontface=2,alpha=.8)+ scale_size(range = c(3, 12))+#specify scale ylab("log number of mentions")+ xlab("percentage difference betwen samples\n <---------More on Russian language page ------|-----More on English language page-------->")+ geom_vline(x=0,colour="red",linetype=2)+theme_bw()+theme(legend.position="none")+ ggtitle("terms featuring differently in \n Russian and English language Wikipedia pages about Russia")
Some trends are immediately obvious: firstly, the English language is a lot more focused on the actual protests, on opposition activity, on demonstrations, etc. Bolotnaya and the white ribbon campaign feature, while Vladimir Putin and Navalny is a major actor.
The Russian language page focuses more on the numbers involved, people, the details of the election.
The graph also highlights how terms in the centre of the graph may be due to random differences. They are plotted in a different colour to highlight they have not met the 95% threshold and hence not statistically significant. They may nonetheless warrant closer inspection. This emphasises that for terms that feature only a few times to appear significant, they must feature very disproportionately in one sample. A larger sample, for instance a corpus of texts, would reveal many more significant terms.
To enhance the illustration above one might examine the results and identify terms that yield little meaning, add these to the stoplist, and re-run the script; this would reduce clutter and help emphasise significant differences.
Finally, we can also list terms that feature significantly more in one sample. Note how this must be treated with care; formatting differences will often appear significant. Note for instance the presence of roman numerals, Wikipedia terms such as 'edit', etc.
# print terms significantly overrepresented on the Russian language page: wordsCompare$Row.names[wordsCompare$z < -1.95]
"ralli" "polic" "opposit" "meet" "thousand" "action" "citi" "edit" "power" "million" "detain" "repres" "citizen" "duma" "note" "boulevard" "violat" "agre" "festiv" "pond" "central" "immedi" "process" "releas" "system" "prepar" "detent" "doe" "word" "camp" "clean" "wrote" "resolut" "banderlog" "becom" "caus" "chistoprudni" "morn" "walk" "complet" "connect" "kudrinskaya" "marsh" "nikitski" "promis"
# print terms significantly overrepresented on the English language page: wordsCompare$Row.names[wordsCompare$z > 1.95]
"protest" "squar" "demonstr" "report" "activist" "bolotnaya" "X...." "white" "journalist" "station" "claim" "politician" "X.edit." "vote" "former" "offici" "ribbon" "alexey" "union" "yabloko" "embassi" "soviet" "densiti" "fine" "manezhnaya" "origin" "permit" "protestor" "run" "sergey" "writer" "account" "chirikova" "fund" "luzhniki" "maximum" "novosti" "promin" "provid" "ria" "told" "twitter" "war" "whilst" "corrupt" "denounc" "element" "evid" "falsif" "mcfaul" "musician" "nashi" "organis" "record" "spoke" "third" "tweet" "visit" "vladivostok" "yavlinski" "yevgeniya" | <urn:uuid:e4cea714-3841-4250-ad4c-6137759a041d> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://quantifyingmemory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/mapping-significant-textual-differences.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010701848/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091141-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.809735 | 3,889 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Cambodia’s garment industry represents 90 percent of the country’s exports and employs more than 300,000 workers by some estimates. It survived the 2008 global financial crisis, although job losses were registered across all special economic zones. But despite its vital contribution to the local economy, the garment sector has been facing criticism that it has been able to maintain global competitiveness only at the expense of providing its labor force with better working conditions and benefits. Indeed, the statutory minimum wage of Cambodia’s garment workers is currently the lowest in the Mekong region.
Last year, more than 200,000 workers in the garment sector went on strike in protest over their pauperized working conditions. The government responded by reminding employers to strictly enforce the occupational safety and health standards required by law.
To further highlight the demands of garment workers, the Asia Floor Wage network organized Cambodia’s first ever People’s Tribunal on Minimum Living Wage and Decent Working Conditions early this month. It was also the first tribunal in the Asia-Pacific aimed at establishing a standard on the issue of fair pricing for garment manufacturers and, in particular, strengthening the bargaining power of female workers within the global supply chain.
Aside from the wage issue, the tribunal also discussed the alarming rise of mass fainting incidents in many garment factories. In 2011 alone, the Free Trade Union reported that 2,300 workers fainted in five factories. Initial investigations revealed that many workers suffered from low blood sugar, malnutrition, dehydration, food poisoning and over-exertion. The government later confirmed that the fainting cases were related to poor working conditions in many factories.
During the tribunal, workers in the “fainting factories” recalled how they regularly work for 12 to 14 hours a day while being exposed to strong chemicals in hot and poorly ventilated environments. Most of the female workers said they also have to travel long hours, standing in overcrowded trucks, to get to work each day.
To stop the fainting, factory owners merely need to ensure that occupational safety and health policies are implemented. Specifically, workers should be taught how to properly handle chemicals and electrical equipment. In addition, workers should be given time to rest at the weekend, while any overtime worked during peak factory production periods should be undertaken in compliance with the law.
The tribunal succeeded in articulating the demands of garment workers, but the proposed reforms still need to be aggressively presented to the government and the global clients of Cambodia’s garment factories. Just a week ago, 162 garment workers in a Preah Sihanouk factory were reportedly rushed to various hospitals and clinics after they fainted at work.
A few years ago, there was a global outcry over the recruitment of child workers in Southeast Asia’s infamous sweatshops, an outcry that forced Western companies, employers, buyers, and local governments to sign a pact against this unfair labor practice. Today, consumers should likewise be informed that clothing companies are able to cut the prices of goods at the expense of Cambodia’s fainting workers. | <urn:uuid:841dcbc2-17f2-47fe-ae9f-67e43991ead4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://thediplomat.com/2012/02/cambodias-fainting-workers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011149514/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091909-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958099 | 626 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Robert Glatter, MD, Contributor
I cover breaking news in medicine, med tech and public health
On July 30, the House of Representatives passed H.R 2094, The School Access To Emergency Epinephrine Act, a measure that may allow schools to be better prepared for students who develop anaphylactic reactions–sudden and profound life-threatening allergic reactions, often caused by foods, especially nuts, as well as bee stings.
The measure’s aim is to give asthma grant preferences to states that come up with policies to make epinephrine– a drug used to treat anaphylactic shock-available in schools.
The proposed legislation would also encourage schools to allow trained personnel to administer epinephrine (via EpiPen Auto-Injectors) to students who are felt to be having anaphylactic reactions, while additionally ordering states to examine their liability laws to make certain that trained personnel have reasonable legal safeguards when they help students who are felt to be having such life threatening reactions.
Anaphylactic shock can develop in minutes after consuming such foods as peanuts, shellfish, eggs, milk or eggs, as well as from bee stings. Epinephrine injected in the lower extremity through a device called an EpiPen Auto-injector is effective in reducing the potentially lethal swelling affecting the tongue and tissues in the throat and upper airway.
The School Access To Emergency Epinephrine Act, which passed the House earlier today, was sponsored by Rep. Phil Roe, MD, (R-TN), and Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House’s Democaratic Whip.
Hoyer applauded the passage of the bill in his press release, stating, “as the grandfather of a child with food allergies, I know firsthand how worrisome it can be knowing that exposure to even a minuscule amount of allergen could quickly develop into life-threatening anaphylaxis.”
Rep. Roe in his press release explained that “you can never be too careful when protecting the life of a child and this legislation will ensure we’re taking every precaution possible to ensure children are safe should they have an allergic reaction at school.”
In his statements, Roe further ephasized that nearly 6 million children suffer from food allergies—or 1 out of every 13 children under age 18. Though some states do allow children with a known history of allergies to bring certain medications to school, roughly 25% of cases of anaphylaxis occur in schools among students with no previous history of a documented allergy or a previous allergic or anaphylactic reaction. Having emergency epinephrine readily available can save lives.
William T. Durkin, Jr., MD, MBA, FAAEM, President of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM), who endorsed the bill, explained the significance of such a measure.
“As emergency physicians, we understand that prompt action is imperative in the situation of anaphylaxis. The bill allows for a potentially life saving treatment to be administered immediately onsite rather than wait for EMS personnel to arrive on scene. At times, the extra time lost can make a difference between life and death. The Academy is pleased to have been a sponsor of this bill that will truly make a difference in the health and well being of the public.”
An analogy made by the lawmakers compared availability of epinephrine to the availability of emergency defibrillators in schools. Both interventions are time sensitive and lifesaving in nature.
The measure, co-sponsored by 16 Republicans and 20 Democrats, is endorsed by Food Allergy Research & Education, (FARE), the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI), as well as the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM).
The legislation is now headed to the Senate for consideration and a potential vote in the near future. | <urn:uuid:3ede40d8-98f9-4512-bc5d-1ffe16ce54c6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2013/07/31/house-passes-bill-to-protect-students-at-risk-for-fatal-allergic-reactions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011149514/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091909-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956052 | 801 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Climate Expert: Jackson has greatest warming in short time span— July 2, 2013
In the last 50 years the average of the coldest temperatures in Jackson increased by 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s the largest rise in temperature climate expert Steve Running has ever seen in such a short time span.
Running, a professor of ecology and director of the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group at the University of Montana, averaged the temperatures of the five coldest days in each of the last 50 years and then compared the averages. It is an unusual way to look at climate change, but it’s the way it should be evaluated, instead of the more common method of looking at annual average temperatures, he said.
“(Annual temperature average) is probably the least dynamic part of the entire record because it changes so slowly because it is an average,” Running said.
Looking at the extremes — both temperature highs and lows — shows how quickly and how much things are changing, he said. It is the extremes that cause the most impact.
“Living and dying happens at the extreme events,” he said.
Running took the five coldest days, instead of just the single coldest, in his calculations, in case the coldest day in any one year was an anomaly.
There are plant and animal species that can adapt to a few degrees shift in temperature, but can’t survive major swings. Running uses mountain climbers that can scale Mt. Everest as an example. They can be hyper-fit, the top specimens physically of the human population, able to make the extreme and arduous trek up the mountain. But if they are climbing and a major cold snap hits, no matter how fit they are, they can die within an hour, he said. The same results happen on the other end of extremes. Ultra-marathon runners who train and race in the desert are physically strong and acclimated to heat, but no matter how fit they are, or how much they train for heat, if they encounter an extreme heat event, they can still die.
Running looked at Jackson’s data before presenting to the Yellowstone Business Partnership in Grand Teton National Park in May.
Running’s data was important, but not surprising to Janice Brown, executive director of the group. A long-time Idaho resident she’s noticed the brutal winter days old-timers talk of in stories have actually become legend.
For business owners it’s important to think about the future, especially if the extremes increase another 15 degrees in the next 50 years, she said.
“There could be some very big implications for business and investments,” she said.
Some impacts could be good — longer growing and tourism seasons, while other consequences, like less snow and a shorter winter sports season, could hurt some businesses. Plus there are all the unknowns that climate change creates, she said.
Running believes the highs and lows are changing elsewhere, too, but not many people are analyzing the extremes of particular areas.
Research is showing places at higher latitudes and higher altitudes are warming more and warming faster than other areas, he said. While global climate data isn’t incorrect, area-specific analysis gives a better idea of what is happening in a person’s own backyard, Running said.
Analysis similar to Running’s evaluation of Jackson’s extremes has been performed on Missoula, Mont., where the past two winters temperatures haven’t dropped below zero degrees, Running said. There has been little change in overall average temperatures in Missoula, but the extreme events, like cold below zero degrees, is changing significantly, he said.
The world is changing, Running said. There are species that thrive in warmer weather while other species will struggle to survive. The warming in Jackson may have some positives for the tourism industry, he said. It could mean longer summers and fewer days in the winter that are too cold to ski. But it’s too difficult to know exactly the overall impact of warming on the broader ecosystem that includes Jackson Hole. The next piece of analysis, Running said, is to look at extreme heat events, average the hottest days, or how many days climb to 100 degrees or more each year.
— “Peaks to Plains” is a blog focusing on Wyoming’s outdoors and communities. Kelsey Dayton is a freelance writer based in Lander. She has been a journalist in Wyoming for seven years, reporting for the Jackson Hole News & Guide, Casper Star-Tribune and the Gillette News-Record. Contact Kelsey at [email protected]. Follower her on twitter @Kelsey_Dayton
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more quality Wyoming journalism, please consider supporting WyoFile: a non-partisan, non-profit news organization dedicated to in-depth reporting on Wyoming’s people, places and policy. | <urn:uuid:64979cb5-68ad-4f9f-a4b1-bb70af5c32ad> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://wyofile.com/kelsey-dayton/23312/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011149514/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091909-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944124 | 1,028 | 2.609375 | 3 |
These rocks are not pretty but they are interesting! This is the project I am working on at the moment. I am trying to understand the rocks on the west side of Broughton Bay on the Gower Peninsula. I know that they are Hunts Bay Oolite Subgroup of the Carboniferous Limestone from looking at the geology map – but that is just the beginning of the understanding.
Not all the rock looks the same. There seem to be two main parts. The upper part of the cliff looks a bit of a mess, a bit of a jumble, coarse sediments and lots of fractures, ?faults, and various lenses and bands of material. Sometimes it looks like some sort of breccia. It is mostly examples of the appearance of the rock in the upper part of the cliff that are featured in this post. By comparison, the lower part of the cliff tends to be a different colour, is more solid, massive, and continuous, with fewer fractures, and containing obvious fossils.
In this and subsequent posts I am just putting down my thoughts as I read more about the subject. I have already found a couple of good references to help me. What I really need to do is visit the “type location” for this particular rock type, from which this particular subgroup of the Carboniferous Limestone was first properly identified and described. Perhaps the next time I am in Gower. Maybe it will all become a lot clearer then. Meanwhile, I will continue my attempts to identify the components of the rock and understand their origins.
First of all, it should be noted that in the photographs shown here, the orange, yellow, and black patches are modern lichens living on the surface of the rock and are nothing to do with the rock itself. The white colour on the rock close-ups is usually crystalline calcite. The top picture in this post shows the general location where the following photographs were taken, from just before Twlc Point to Foxhole Point on the west side of Broughton Bay. The boulders on the beach at the foot of the low cliff are covered with living barnacles attached to mussels, and by green seaweed.
The Hunts Bay Oolite Subgroup (HBO) is the most recent nomenclature for this type of rock but it was first named and defined as the Hunts Bay Group by Wilson et al (1990). The type section is the cliffs and foreshore reefs between Bacon Hole and Pwlldu Head, Southgate, Gower, South Wales (SS 5604 8674 – 5728 8632).
This is a work in progress and I will amend and annotate the text and pictures as I learn more, as well as adding new posts on the subject! If you, as a reader and expert geologist, know that I as an amateur have made a mistake in my understanding about these rocks, please do drop me a line and put me right.
I am currently reading:
Waters C N, Waters R A, Barclay, W J, and Davies J R (2009) A lithostratigraphical framework for the Carboniferous successions of southern Great Britain (onshore), British Geological Survey Research Report RR/09/01, NERC, Keyworth, Nottingham.
Willoughby, C (1996) Environments of Deposition in the Carboniferous Limestone of South East Gower, Bsc Geology Thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Wilson, D, Davies, J R, Fletcher, C J N, and Smith M. (1990) Geology of the South Wales Coalfield, Part VI, the country around Bridgend. Memoir of the British Geological Survey, Sheets 261 and 262 (England and Wales).
COPYRIGHT JESSICA WINDER 2013
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Can you visualise whether these nets fold up into 3D shapes? Watch the videos each time to see if you were correct.
What happens to the perimeter of triangle ABC as the two smaller
circles change size and roll around inside the bigger circle?
Can you discover whether this is a fair game?
Some puzzles requiring no knowledge of knot theory, just a careful
inspection of the patterns. A glimpse of the classification of
knots and a little about prime knots, crossing numbers and. . . .
The image in this problem is part of a piece of equipment found in the playground of a school. How would you describe it to someone over the phone?
A half-cube is cut into two pieces by a plane through the long diagonal and at right angles to it. Can you draw a net of these pieces? Are they identical?
Watch these videos to see how Phoebe, Alice and Luke chose to draw 7 squares. How would they draw 100?
Find all the ways to cut out a 'net' of six squares that can be
folded into a cube.
In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?
You have 27 small cubes, 3 each of nine colours. Use the small
cubes to make a 3 by 3 by 3 cube so that each face of the bigger
cube contains one of every colour.
This task depends on groups working collaboratively, discussing and
reasoning to agree a final product.
The second in a series of articles on visualising and modelling shapes in the history of astronomy.
This is the first article in a series which aim to provide some insight into the way spatial thinking develops in children, and draw on a range of reported research. The focus of this article is the. . . .
Can you mentally fit the 7 SOMA pieces together to make a cube? Can
you do it in more than one way?
This article explores ths history of theories about the shape of our planet. It is the first in a series of articles looking at the significance of geometric shapes in the history of astronomy.
What can you see? What do you notice? What questions can you ask?
I found these clocks in the Arts Centre at the University of
Warwick intriguing - do they really need four clocks and what times
would be ambiguous with only two or three of them?
Imagine starting with one yellow cube and covering it all over with
a single layer of red cubes, and then covering that cube with a
layer of blue cubes. How many red and blue cubes would you need?
Is it possible to remove ten unit cubes from a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made from 27 unit cubes so that the surface area of the remaining solid is the same as the surface area of the original 3 by 3 by 3. . . .
This article introduces the idea of generic proof for younger children and illustrates how one example can offer a proof of a general result through unpacking its underlying structure.
Choose a couple of the sequences. Try to picture how to make the next, and the next, and the next... Can you describe your reasoning?
The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right
hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of
How many moves does it take to swap over some red and blue frogs? Do you have a method?
What is the shape of wrapping paper that you would need to completely wrap this model?
Problem solving is at the heart of the NRICH site. All the problems
give learners opportunities to learn, develop or use mathematical
concepts and skills. Read here for more information.
Generate three random numbers to determine the side lengths of a triangle. What triangles can you draw?
Can you describe this route to infinity? Where will the arrows take you next?
Here is a solitaire type environment for you to experiment with. Which targets can you reach?
Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an
opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and
Imagine you have six different colours of paint. You paint a cube
using a different colour for each of the six faces. How many
different cubes can be painted using the same set of six colours?
This article for teachers discusses examples of problems in which
there is no obvious method but in which children can be encouraged
to think deeply about the context and extend their ability to. . . .
Show that among the interior angles of a convex polygon there
cannot be more than three acute angles.
Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.
At the time of writing the hour and minute hands of my clock are at
right angles. How long will it be before they are at right angles
Which of the following cubes can be made from these nets?
This problem is about investigating whether it is possible to start at one vertex of a platonic solid and visit every other vertex once only returning to the vertex you started at.
If you can copy a network without lifting your pen off the paper and without drawing any line twice, then it is traversable.
Decide which of these diagrams are traversable.
Given a 2 by 2 by 2 skeletal cube with one route `down' the cube.
How many routes are there from A to B?
A tilted square is a square with no horizontal sides. Can you
devise a general instruction for the construction of a square when
you are given just one of its sides?
See if you can anticipate successive 'generations' of the two
animals shown here.
Here are four tiles. They can be arranged in a 2 by 2 square so
that this large square has a green edge. If the tiles are moved
around, we can make a 2 by 2 square with a blue edge... Now try. . . .
Slide the pieces to move Khun Phaen past all the guards into the position on the right from which he can escape to freedom.
Start with a large square, join the midpoints of its sides, you'll see four right angled triangles. Remove these triangles, a second square is left. Repeat the operation. What happens?
These are pictures of the sea defences at New Brighton. Can you
work out what a basic shape might be in both images of the sea wall
and work out a way they might fit together?
Can you recreate these designs? What are the basic units? What
movement is required between each unit? Some elegant use of
procedures will help - variables not essential.
How many different ways can I lay 10 paving slabs, each 2 foot by 1
foot, to make a path 2 foot wide and 10 foot long from my back door
into my garden, without cutting any of the paving slabs?
Use the interactivity to listen to the bells ringing a pattern. Now
it's your turn! Play one of the bells yourself. How do you know
when it is your turn to ring?
Imagine you are suspending a cube from one vertex (corner) and
allowing it to hang freely. Now imagine you are lowering it into
water until it is exactly half submerged. What shape does the
surface. . . .
The whole set of tiles is used to make a square. This has a green and blue border. There are no green or blue tiles anywhere in the square except on this border. How many tiles are there in the set?
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Nashville Public Library's Green Hills Branch to Host National Exhibition on the Civil War
Nashville, TN (PRWEB) May 08, 2013
Green Hills Library will host Civil War 150, a national traveling exhibition, on display from May 20-June 10. The Civil War is one of most transformative periods in U.S. history. After long-simmering sectional tensions led to seven slaveholding states seceding, the ensuing political strife gave way to war in April 1861. Four years of fighting resulted in 1.5 million casualties making the Civil War the bloodiest conflict in US history. One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the voices of soldiers and their families still ring true.
Experience the battle through the eyes of major political figures, soldiers, families, and freedmen. By virtue of letters, personal accounts, and images, learn how people grappled with the end of slavery, the nature of democracy and citizenship, the human toll of civil war, and the role of a president in wartime. The Gilder Lehrman Institute developed the exhibition to mark the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The Civil War 150 is divided into five panels: The Nation Divides, 1861: The Union is Dissolved, This Cruel War, 1863: Turning Points, and The Price of Victory (1864–1865). Drawing from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, each section traces major events during the Civil War. The Green Hill library is one of fifty sites nationwide selected to host the Civil War 150 exhibition.
Though the Civil War took place one hundred and fifty years ago, people today can still identify with the thoughts and fears of ordinary citizens and soldiers, many of which reflect a humanity that is forever consistent. The library is sponsoring free programs and other events for the public in connection with the exhibition. Visit http://www.library.nashville.org for more information.
Developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in partnership with The Library of America, this exhibition was made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The exhibition is part of Civil War 150: Exploring the War and Its Meaning through the Words of Those Who Lived It, a major three-year project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project is centered on the four-volume Library of America series The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It.
About the National Endowment for the Humanities
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities. The National Endowment for the Humanities grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge, and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, museum exhibitions, and programs in libraries and other community places. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available on the Internet at http://www.neh.gov.
About the Library of America
A nonprofit publisher and cultural institution, The Library of America was founded in 1979 with seed funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation to help preserve and foster appreciation for the nation’s literary heritage by publishing and keeping permanently in print authoritative editions of America’s best and most significant writing. Since then more than 200 hardcover volumes have been published, and the series, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007, is widely recognized as the unofficial national edition of American writing. More information about The Library of America may be found at http://www.loa.org.
About the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of history education. The Institute has developed an array of programs for schools, teachers, and students that now operate in all fifty states, including a website that features the more than 60,000 unique historical documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection, http://www.gilderlehrman.org. Each year the Institute offers support and resources to tens of thousands of teachers, and through them enhances the education of more than a million students. The Institute’s programs have been recognized by awards from the White House, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Organization of American Historians. | <urn:uuid:32cb5e27-4343-46ea-bc5f-33e1f3918983> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1232664 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642168/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929678 | 924 | 2.890625 | 3 |
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The painter Guy Péne du Bois was a visual chronicler of upper class American urban life, taking his artistic cues from the vital locale and times in which he lived, and his own distinctive artistic heritage. As the critic Royal Cortissoz wrote in 1931, “The atmosphere in which he grew up literary and sophisticated was one to turn him into a more or less caustic observer.” (1) The subjects of Péne du Bois’ “caustic” observations were the denizens of New York society, witnessed through a larger worldview that sharpened his understanding of the pretensions of America’s wealthy classes.
Guy Pène du Bois was born in Brooklyn on January 4,1884. The son of journalist and bibliophile Henri Pène du Bois, the artist was named after Guy de Maupassant, a famous French nineteenth-century novelist and short story writer. The scion of a French Creole family from Louisiana, Henri was an erudite man of letters who “encouraged his son to read and think, write and draw.” (2) He instilled in his son a lifelong admiration for Gallic culture—as a child Guy spoke only French with his family
In 1899, Guy enrolled in the New York School of Art, where his first teacher, William Merritt Chase, was a highly experienced instructor whose bravura painterly style insured his successful career as an artist. Later, Péne du Bois studied with J. Carroll Beckwith and Frank Vincent du Mond. Beginning in 1902, he entered the class of Robert Henri, one of the members of “The Eight.” From Henri, Péne du Bois learned to value both the “quality of paint” and the “quality of the subject.” According to art historian Betsy Fahlman, in Henri’s classes there was less emphasis on brushwork than there had been in Chase’s classes, and Henri taught his students that, “Everything in life is a subject, but it is not the subject that counts; it is what you yourself bring to it.” (3) Pène du Bois advanced quickly and was appointed a teaching assistant. His understanding of Henri’s theories and his own predilection to communicate a sense of irony through his art led him to embrace realism for the rest of his career.
In April of 1905 Guy accompanied his father to Europe where the elder Péne du Bois had been sent by the New York American newspaper to review exhibitions.
The young artist enrolled briefly at the Atelier Colarossi, and took private lessons from the painter Theophile Steinlein, but spent most of his time exploring the city and experiencing the public life of its residents. He frequented the cafes, parks and other spaces or events where they gathered, and his art reflected his study of the social interaction of Parisians. Unfortunately, Henri Péne du Bois’ became ill in May of 1906, and he died during the journey home in July of that year. The loss of his father, and his financial support, led Guy to take a job with his father’s old newspaper, the New York American as a reporter in order to earn a living. In 1908 he was assigned as an art critic for the paper and remained until 1912. He later wrote for other art publications, notably the magazine Arts and Decoration, where he was an editor between 1917 and 1921. His career as an art writer (and later as a teacher) was useful in providing for his family (he married Florence Duncan in 1911) but he chafed at losing the time to devote to his painting.
Péne du Bois continued to work in his studio, however, and participated as fully as possible in the art world of New York City. He was a member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors and helped with the organization of the Armory Show in 1913. Six of his own works were shown, and Kraushaar Galleries began to include him in group shows, as well as hiring him to write text for catalogues. (4) His paintings were small in scale and continued to demonstrate the influence of Henri with loose brushwork and subdued, neutral coloration. These works maintain the artist’s focus on incidents of social interaction in public places such as restaurants, art galleries and theatres.
In 1917, the artist received his first exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club, an exhibit space sponsored by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney that supported the work of contemporary American artists. By the 1920s his style had evolved away from that influenced by Henri and The Eight, to what is recognized as his typical later style: the figures tighter, more monumental and stylized, with stronger background coloration and a lighter palette overall. In 1924, he felt successful enough as an artist to abandon writing and teaching and move to France and pursue painting full time.
These years in France (1924 to 1930) were some of the most productive of his career. Living near Paris in the village of Garnes, he was close the city and its wealth of subjects, but his isolation helped him to focus on his work more intently. Throughout his life, Péne du Bois suffered from an inability to budget his time and money, and was consistently in financial difficulty. Although his experience in France was stimulating, he was finally forced by the economic disaster of the worldwide depression of the 1930s to return to the United States to live and again take up writing and teaching. He participated in the government sponsored mural projects of the thirties, and this work, in addition to some portrait commissions, managed to keep the family afloat.
Péne du Bois’ later years were bittersweet. He never achieved true financial security, but collectors and museums purchased his works, and he won a number of competitive prizes, including the First Altman Prizse at the National Academy of Design and another from the Salgamundi Club. Despite this type of practical recognition, however, the art world had passed him by with the ascendancy of Modernism. He joined Edward Hopper, Isabel Bishop and a number of his contemporaries in founding a short-lived journal called Reality: A Journal of Artists’ Opinions that was designed to promote the by then unfashionable style of realism. (5) He published his autobiography, Artists Say the Silliest Things, in 1940. After spending a final three years (1953-1956) in France with his daughter Yvonne, he died on July 18, 1958.
(1)Royal Cortissoz, Guy Péne du Bois, American Artists Series, (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1931): 7.
(2) Charles Edward Doherty, Guy Péne du Bois’ Paintings of Estrangement: Women and Men, 1912-1924, MA Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984: 2.
(3) Betsy Fahlman, Guy Pène du Bois: Painter of Modern Life (New York: James Graham & Sons, 2004): 10.
(4) Ibid, 21-22.
(5) Ibid.: 64.
Letha Clair Robertson/mla.ed./September 2004
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1. Your object to mosaic should be clean and dry and have a smooth surface.
2. Transfer your design onto the surface of the object to mosaic by taping carbon transfer paper and your pattern in place and tracing over the pattern with a pen (FIG. 1).
3. Remove the pattern and carbon paper. Hardline the pattern directly onto the surface by tracing over the carbon lines with a marker.
NOTE: If you mosaic onto a clear glass object you do not need to transfer your pattern. Tape the pattern behind the glass surface, follow the pattern and glue pieces directly onto the glass surface.
Step 2 - Adding Tesserae (pieces used in a mosaic)
1. On a flat surface covered with newspaper or a drop cloth, place your project to mosaic. If you must glue pieces to a vertical surface, hold your tesserae in place with tape until the glue dries. Remove tape once the glue has set and before grouting.
2. Start with the main or central item in the pattern. MOSAIC TIP: always wear eye protection when nipping tile and glass. Nip tesserae to fit inside the pattern outline. Leave 1/8" between each piece of tesserae and away from the edge to leave room for the grout. When you are pleased with the design, lift each piece and place a small amount of glue onto the backside of the tesserae and reposition (FIG. 2).
3. Once the main subject is glued down, nip more tesserae to fill in the background. If necessary, use a tweezers to place small pieces into position (FIG. 3).
4. Allow glue to set for 24 hours.
Step 3 - Grout Project
1. Following the measurements on the grout package, mix up the grout for project. Wear a dust mask when mixing grout.
2. Work grout into spaces between the tesserae with a glove covered hand or a rubber spatula (FIG. 4).
3. Remove excess grout with your hands or a damp sponge (FIG. 5). Grout should be level with the tesserae and all voids and spaces should be filled.
4. Allow grout to dry. A haze will appear on the glass. Remove any excess grout and buff tesserae clean with a paper towel or a soft cloth (FIG. 6).
5. Allow the project to dry for an addition 24 hours. A grout sealant may be applied if desired. Apply as directed but remove all sealant from the glass with a paper towel before sealant dries.
Craft Ideas Mobile
Craft Ideas Mobile
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- The definition of disparate is things that are different from each other, especially when the differences are dramatic.
An example of disparate is treatment when men are treated better than women in the workplace.
disparate definition by Webster's New World
Origin: Classical Latin disparatus, past participle of disparare, to separate ; from dis-, apart, not plush parare, to make equal ; from par, equal: see par
disparate definition by American Heritage Dictionary
- Fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar: “This mixture of apparently disparate materials—scandal and spiritualism, current events and eternal recurrences—is not promising on the face of it” (Gary Wills).
- Containing or composed of dissimilar or opposing elements: a disparate group of people who represented a cross section of the city.
Origin: Latin disparātus, past participle of disparāre, to separate : dis-, apart; see dis- + parāre, to prepare; see perə-1 in Indo-European roots.
- disˈpa·rate·ly adverb
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Proper Instrument Reprocessing
All the steps in instrument reprocessing are important. Failure in any single one can result in a failed process, meaning an unsafe instrument—one not suitable for use on the next patient.
There are two basic methods to insure that instruments are getting clean. The first is to verify that the cleaning equipment is working properly. The second is to directly inspect instruments for cleanliness.
Verify Proper Working Order
There are two methods to verify the performance of equipment, and these are not mutually exclusive either and both should be done.
Parameters: In sterilization, we often speak about monitoring parameters of sterilization, including temperature, pressure, steam quality, time, etc. The same should be done with cleaning equipment. The key parameters of cleaning are:
1. Water quality and water temperature
2. Concentration of cleaning solution (detergent and/or water),
3. Adequate time for each stage of the cycle for the cleaning solution to breakdown and remove the target soil,
4. Proper mechanical action (i.e., spray arms spinning in a washer, cavitation energy in a sonic),
5. The human factor - proper loading of instruments in the equipment.
Surrogate challenge device: Use a suitable surrogate device to test the overall cleaning performance of the equipment. A suitable surrogate is based upon the kind of surgical instrument and the kind of soil the instrument is likely to be contaminated with from clinical use. For instance, most surgical instruments are:
1. Manufactured of stainless steel
2. Are soiled with blood
3. Provide a physical challenge to cleaning, such as hinges, crevices, lumens, etc.
The surrogate device should as closely as possible simulate these features of a surgical instrument. The surrogate should be run in the same cleaning cycle(s) as the surgical instrument. A passed test (e.g., all test soil is removed) will indicate that equipment is working properly. Failure will indicate some key parameter(s) (see above) is not right and further investigation is need.
There are two methods for direct inspection and again, these methods are not mutually exclusive and both should be done.
Visual inspection: For the longest time, the only standard in the healthcare industry was “visually clean.” By that it was meant that at the completion of the cleaning process, direct visual inspection of the instrument for residual soil be done. Today, AAMI, AORN and other key industry groups recommend that additional testing should be done (such as testing equipment performance described above). This recommendation comes from the realization that visual inspection is subjective and also today’s complex instruments often do not allow direct visual inspection (such as flexible endoscopes). This does not mean, however, that visual inspection should be abandoned. Quite the contrary. It is still vital that each instrument be directly inspected by sterile processing staff prior to preparation for sterilization. This is the last line of defense. Inspection can be done unaided, but increasingly optical inspection tools, such as desktop magnifying glasses, USB microscopes, are being used to aid the naked eye in visual inspection. Tools, such as fiberscopes, are the newest tools in this regard. These thin fibered scopes allow for visual inspection inside of lumened devices such as suctions, shavers and the like.
Chemical analysis: Beyond visual inspection, chemical analysis can be conducted. Various simple and rapid reagent tests for blood, protein, carbohydrates and other organic residuals are available. Typically, these tests involve swabbing a surface or flushing water through a channel and then testing that recaptured sample for residual organic soils. Like the surrogate challenge device, the best choice for a reagent test is one which is sensitive to the organic soil(s) the surgical instrument is likely to come in contact with during clinical use. Again, a common one again is blood, but depending on the area of the body, may be some other soil such as carbohydrates. | <urn:uuid:29b35a11-8c08-4153-897b-52312c05bfff> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.surgicalproductsmag.com/articles/2012/09/proper-instrument-reprocessing?cmpid=related_content | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931447 | 821 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Landfill Harmonic: lessons in improvisation
By Siu-Lan Tan
On the first day of class in my ‘Psychology of Music’ course, I often ask students to create their own musical instruments. The catch is… they have to make them out of whatever they happen to have in their backpacks and pockets that day!
They scrape the spiral spines of notebooks with pencils; blow into pen-caps and rolled-up folders; attach keys to jangle from ankles; drink just the right amount of water from water-bottles to strike out the tones of a scale… and create music in many inventive ways.
They then divide up into small goups to form small bands and perform a short piece together. Two memorable examples: Katy Perry’s “Firework” played on water bottles and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on a marimba of pencils.
The Recycled Orchestra
The makeshift bands serve as more than just an ice-breaker on the first day of class. I also want my students to open their ears to sound – and discover that pitch and rhythm and timbre reside in everyday things.
So imagine how moved I was to watch a recent episode of 60 Minutes and discover the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, Paraguay. I learned that Cateura is a village built on a landfill and one of the poorest areas in Latin America. Most of the residents make a living by sorting garbage in the landfill for the recycling industry, dragging bags for miles on foot to deliver for a few cents.
Some years ago, a man named Favio Chávez opened a music school in Cateura with the hope of giving the children a sense of purpose, and keeping them off the streets. As the students owned no instruments, Favio and a resident of Cateura known as ‘Cola’ Gómez began to handmake each instrument out of pieces of discarded trash – creating what they call the ‘Recycled Orchestra’.
Flutes, guitars, violins, cellos, clarinets, saxophones … all made out of trash?! I was riveted.
The astonishing story is captured in a forthcoming documentary entitled Landfill Harmonic. I found the trailer on their website, as well as uploaded by Landfill Harmonic on YouTube (length 3:27 mins). Apparently, it has gone viral!
This story beautifully illustrates resistance to a cognitive bias known as ‘functional fixedness’. Identified by Karl Duncker in 1945, functional fixedness refers to our tendency to see objects only in terms of their typical use. Most of us would not think of using coat buttons, bottle-caps, and door-keys, to make the keys of a flute.
Infants are not yet susceptible to functional fixedness. They naturally use their senses and motor actions to explore all the possibilities of an object. Gradually children learn ‘what objects are for’, and with this gain comes a loss in flexible thinking. By about six years of age, children succumb to ‘functional fixedness’.
How would you do on this test? German and Defeyter (2000) gave five, six, and seven-year-old children this puzzle: A puppet has to reach a high shelf but is not tall enough. Nearby, there is a box containing these objects: a coin, pencil, eraser, bricks, and a toy car. What should the puppet do? (And by the way, the bricks themselves are not tall enough to boost the puppet.)
Answer: Turn over the cardboard box and use it as a platform for the brick tower. When the problem was presented in this manner, the five-year-olds were more likely to solve the problem correctly than the six- and seven-year-olds (who were more likely to be primed to think of the box only as a ‘container’, as the other objects had been packed inside the box).
If you didn’t think about using the box as a stepstool, or didn’t even really notice the box in the description as you assumed it was just housing the objects of interest — you also fell prey to ‘functional fixedness’. (Don’t worry- this would be typical of adults and it doesn’t mean you’re not creative.)
Life Requires Improvisation
The Recycled Orchestra is a sparkling example of how resisting ‘functional fixedness’ opens up a new world of possibilities. Forks anchor violin strings. A discarded pipe — and a handful of old buttons, bottlecaps, and door-keys — takes the shape of a saxophone.
A rusty oil-can, some discarded wood, a meat tenderizer, and a tool for shaping pasta makes a cello with a rich tone, on which Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 can be played with great musical sensitivity.
Beyond mere functional fixedness, objects that have been labeled as ‘trash’, ‘useless’, ‘without value,’ are re-imagined and re-assigned as meaningful, functional, and vital. This requires another kind of flexibility beyond functional fixedness — a significant shift of perspective and reframing of meaning.
The word ‘bricolage’ — the construction of something from whatever happens to be at hand — comes to mind. Out of necessity, Favio and ‘Cola’ used whatever happened to be available to fashion musical instruments. Not having access to the parts they needed, they improvised, and created something magical.
As I read more about the story behind the documentary, I learned that the film-makers too had improvised. Initially, they had set out to make a documentary about the ‘underserved children of Paraguay’ and only later found out about the Recycled Orchestra. Imagine if they had stuck to a fixed plan, rather than taken the paths that opened up along the way.
Perhaps, I began to think, life requires this sort of flexibility and improvisation from us — a spirit of ‘bricolage’. Maybe it’s not a matter of waiting for everything to come together in complete sets, but about cobbling something useful and beautiful together from whatever comes our way.
The people of Cateura transformed trash into musical treasures. And with this alchemy, there comes social transformation and renewal. Music-making by the youth of Cateura is giving a voice to a population that has toiled quietly for so long. I was thrilled to learn that the Recycled Orchestra has traveled abroad to perform in great concert halls, and received tutoring by top musicians, and that a world tour is currently being planned. This is a story that lifts the human spirit and reflects the power of music and creativity for enriching the lives of youth and a whole community, and in turn, all of us.
Siu-Lan Tan is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kalamazoo College, where she has taught developmental psychology and psychology of music for 15 years. She is co-editor and co-author of the recently published 2013 book, The Psychology of Music in Multimedia. It is the first book to consolidate the research on the role of sound and music in film, television, video games, and computer interfaces. A version of this post also appears on Siu-Lan’s blog, What Shapes Film: Elements of the Cinematic Experience on Psychology Today. Read her previous OUPblog articles. | <urn:uuid:545011a2-1bb2-4be9-a1a8-3fd38aa1d5d7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blog.oup.com/2014/01/landfill-harmonic-recycled-orchestra/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=oupblogmusic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96224 | 1,576 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Read more on each of these topics in the PDF version.
The Federal Deficit
The federal budget deficit is the amount of money the federal government spends minus the amount of money it takes in for a given year. In 2012, this gap between federal revenues and federal spending is projected to equal $1.32 trillion, down from $1.37 trillion in 2010, but still one of the largest deficits since the end of World War II. These deficits have been driven almost entirely by three key factors—tax cuts originally enacted under President George W. Bush and extended under President Barack Obama; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror; and the lingering effects of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. If not for these factors, the United States would not be facing this huge deficit this year.
Last summer, an agreement by Congressional leaders and President Obama to raise the federal debt limit led to enactment of the Budget Control Act (BCA). That law will reduce the deficit by nearly $1 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade by placing binding caps on discretionary spending – the 40 percent of the federal budget that is controlled by the annual appropriations process.
Bush Tax Cuts
Although the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, and extended in 2010 are a significant factor in the growth of the federal deficit, Congress has so far been unable to reach any agreement on including revenues in any deficit reduction package. However, the tax cuts enacted under Presidents Bush and Obama are set to expire at the end of 2012 which will force Congress to focus on the revenue side of the budget. There is bipartisan agreement that the tax cuts benefitting the middle class should be extended for at least one year but there are a number of areas of disagreement. In July, the Senate and the House passed two very different tax bills that would have very different consequences for North Carolina households. | <urn:uuid:c4476d76-b513-4fa8-b74a-ec6fa36be70a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=special-campaigns/election-2012-issue-brief-federal-deficit-sequestration-and-bush-tax-cuts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94807 | 386 | 3.796875 | 4 |
History of SNOMNH Invertebrate Paleontology
The OMNH Invertebrate Paleontology Collection
are an amalgamation of collections by OMNH curators, faculty
at the University of Oklahoma School of Geology and Geophysics,
and staff of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Invertebrate paleontology
is an integral part of the geology degree program at the School
of Geology and Geophysics.
The museum was established by the Territorial
Legislature in 1899 as a Department of Geology and Natural
History, with Dr. A.H. Van Vleet, Professor of Biology of the
fledgling University of Oklahoma, as the Territorial Geologist
and Curator of the Museum. Dr. Charles N. Gould was hired the
following year to teach geology at the University and shared
Dr. Van Vleet’s
office. During this territorial era, the collections of the museum
were divided into zoological, botanical and geological sections,
with Dr. Gould caring for the geological collections.
The original Invertebrate Paleontology
Collection consisted of specimens that Dr. Gould brought from
Kansas and collections that he made from various locations
as part of his study of Oklahoma geology. This collection perished
in a fire in 1903. To replace this loss, Dr. Gould purchased
geological specimens and cases in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s
Fair, and continued collecting and studying Oklahoma geology.
Dr. Gould became the first State Geologist in 1908 with the
establishment of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He later became
one of the founding members of the AAPG (American Association
of Petroleum Geologists).
In 1907, Dr. Chester Reeds, a former student of
Dr. Gould’s, joined
the School of Geology and Geophysics staff and taught Invertebrate
Paleontology until 1909. Dr. Reeds pioneering work on the geology and
invertebrate paleontology of the Silurian and Devonian in the Arbuckle
Mountains formed the basis of all subsequent studies. He was later employed
by the American Museum of Natural History.
Dr. D.W. Ohern took over the teaching of Invertebrate Paleontology from
1909 to 1911. Dr. Ohern was the head of the OU School of Geology and Geophysics
(1908-1911) and later became the director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey
(1911-1914). Dr. Ohern was also one of the founding members of the AAPG.
The first formal Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the museum was
Dr. Irving Perrine from 1912 to 1915. Dr. Perrine later became one of
the founding members of the AAPG and participated, with Dr. Ohern, in
the first seismic reflection project for the exploration of oil and gas
Dr. M.G. Mehl was also a founding member of the AAPG as the first secretary-treasurer.
He taught a course in the Paleontology of Oklahoma in 1915 before embarking
on a long career with the University of Missouri.
Dr. Charles E. Decker became the next Curator of
Invertebrate Paleontology and faculty member of the School of Geology
and Geophysics in 1916. He retired in 1943 but continued his research
activities until his death in 1958. He was also a founding member of
the AAPG and served as its secretary-treasurer from 1919 until 1926.
During his tenure at the University of Oklahoma, the collections underwent
significant growth from teaching, research, and student activities.
Among other contributors to the collection during Dr. Decker’s
tenure were Dr. J. Willis Stovall (1930-1953), Dr. R.W. Harris (1929-1943
and 1947-1977), Dr. Cecil Lalicker (1934-1941), Dr. E.A. Fredrickson
(1941-1963), Dr. G.G. Huffman (1948-1984), and Dr. C.C. Branson (1950-1972)
of the School of Geology and Geophysics, and T.W. Amsden (1955-1985)
of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Beginning in 1950, a new numbering
system was instituted, which has been continued to the present. In 1954,
Dr. Huffman was appointed Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology for the
Museum and served until 1961.
In 1961, Dr. P.K. Sutherland became the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology.
Dr. Sutherland and his students made numerous additions to the collections,
particularly middle to upper Paleozoic corals and Carboniferous brachiopods.
Dr. Sutherland retired in 1990 although he remained active as curator
emeritus until his death in August, 2000.
In 1998, Dr. Stephen Westrop became the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology
and continues on a long tradition of teaching and research for the OMNH
and the University of Oklahoma School of Geology and Geophysics. In 1999,
BP-Amoco donated an extensive collection of invertebrate fossils to the
OMNH. These collections add breadth to the existing specimens and include
materials from several continents.
Dr. Charles E. Decker
Dr. Charles E. Decker (1868-1958) became the Curator
of Invertebrate Paleontology and faculty at the School of Geology and
Geophysics in 1916. He continued to be active long after his retirement
in 1943 and continued research and publications until his death in 1958.
He was a founding member of the AAPG, serving as secretary-treasurer from
1919 to 1926.
During his tenure at the University of Oklahoma, the
Invertebrate Paleontology Collection underwent significant growth from
teaching, research, and student activities. He published some 99 papers
on subjects including graptolites, hydrozoans, trilobites, eurypterids,
and algae. He also published on biostratigraphy, sedimentology, structural
geology, quaternary geology, structural geology, economic geology and
Decker is best known for his work on graptolites,
and the composition of the C.E. Decker Collection reflects this focus.
This important component of the Invertebrate Paleontology Collection
includes specimens from the Athens Shale, Viola Group, Arbuckle Group,
and Hunton Group. In addition, 136 specimens from Decker’s publications
are included in the Type and Figured Collection. | <urn:uuid:735f6541-4d05-49eb-a185-22448bb3c577> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/collections-research/cr-sub/invertpaleo/history.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945776 | 1,430 | 3.125 | 3 |
A professional type designer is highly skilled and knowledgeable about the anatomy of typefaces as well as type history. Type designers create new typefaces from scratch or based on existing typeface designs. Today, with the ready availability of font editors and type design software, anyone can modify fonts or create new ones and can be considered a type designer, although the best typefaces are still generally created by dedicated, professional type designers.
Type Design by Type Designers
"Geometry can produce legible letter but art alone makes them beautiful. Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character trascending mere measurement." — Paul Standard
"Type design is one of the most visible and widespread forms of graphic expression in daily life. It is still not noticed by all readers of newspapers, magazines or books. Nevertheless letter forms reflect the style of a period, and its cultural background. We are surrounded by them everywhere." — Hermann Zapf | <urn:uuid:e3f0de04-3b0c-426c-94ab-33d535885ff1> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossaryt/g/typedesigner.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943737 | 190 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Google Advance Search:
1) Type in the word biography and if needed the word chef in the box with all of the words
2) Type in the full name of the chef you want to research within the with the exact phrase box
3) Then hit the search button.
Includes more than 33,000 brief biographies of notable men and women covering ancient times to the present day. The dictionary can be searched by names, dates, positions held, professions, literary and artistic works, achievements, and other keywords. Includes suggested ways to use for students and teachers and an annotated list of other biographical resources on the Internet. Updated regularly.
http://www.s9.com/biography/ or http://www.s9.com/biography/search.html
Search or browse 25,000 biographies of notable personalities from antiquity to the present. The profiles range from one paragraph to several. Searchable by name of person only. Entries include dates, career information, and alternate spellings/versions of the name. More recent entries can include photograph, list of works, video, and related Web links. Material comes from the Cambridge Encyclopedia Database, the Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, as well as the A&E family that includes the Biography and History Channels and Biography Magazine.
http://www.biography.com/ or http://www.biography.com/search/index.jsp (10 January 2008)
Columbia Encyclopedia - 6th Edition
Containing nearly 51,000 entries (marshalling six and one-half million words on a vast range of topics), and with more than 80,000 hypertext cross-references, the current Sixth Edition is among the most complete and up-to-date encyclopedias ever produced. http://www.bartleby.com/65/
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
A reference site for students, educators, and parents synthesizing editorially reviewed reviewed websites and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual Web-based free-content encyclopedia wiki service. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to a web browser. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page | <urn:uuid:3af8c5de-2ba4-402e-847c-a6ed76157b09> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://library.kcc.hawaii.edu/SOS/resources/culinary/bibiography.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.855562 | 486 | 2.796875 | 3 |
the term 'plastics' is used to describe a wide variety of resins or polymers
with different characteristics and uses.
polymers are long chains of molecules, a group of many units, taking its
name from the greek 'poly' (meaning 'many') and 'meros'
(meaning 'parts' or 'units').
while all plastics are polymers, not all polymers are plastic.
for the discussion of recycling, an understanding of two basic types of
polymers is helpful:
* thermoplastic polymers can be heated and formed,
then heated and formed again and again. the shape of the polymer
molecules are generally linear or slightly branched. this means that the
molecules can flow under pressure when heated above their melting point.
* thermoset polymers undergo a chemical change when they are heated,
creating a three-dimensional network. after they are heated and formed,
these molecules cannot be re-heated and re-formed.
comparing these types, thermoplastics are much easier to adapt to recycling.
plastic from a blow mold (the neck of the bottle is narrower than the body)
has a slightly different structure from the exact same plastic used in an
injection mold (where the opening is the widest part of the product).
plastic identification / recycling code
when working with plastics there is often a need to identify which
particular plastic material has been used for a given product.
most consumers recognize the types of plastics by the numerical coding
system created by the society of the plastics industry in the late 1980s.
there are seven different types of plastic resins that are commonly used to
package household products. the identification codes listed below can be
found on the bottom of most plastic packaging.
#1- polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
soda & water containers, some waterproof packaging, tennis balls.
#2 - high-density polyethylene (PE)
milk, detergent & oil bottles. toys and plastic bags.
#3 - vinyl / polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
food wrap, vegetable oil bottles, blister packages.
#4 - low-density polyethylene
many plastic bags. shrink wrap, garment bags.
#5 - polypropylene
refrigerated containers, some bags, most bottle tops,
some carpets, some food wrap, chairs (back/seats).
#6 - polystyrene
throwaway utensils, meat packing, protective packing.
#7 - other. usually layered or mixed plastic.
no recycling potential - must be landfilled.
although all plastic containers bear the chasing arrows symbol with a
number in the middle, suggesting that all such products are recyclable,
it is only 1s and 2s that can be.
there is no market for bottles numbered 3 through 7.
most of the products which are manufactured from what is
recycled, can't be recycled a second time.
so, what you set out at your curb is only one generation away
from a landfill!
recycling PET is similar to the polyethylenes.
bottles may be color sorted and are ground up and washed.
unlike polyethylene, PET sinks in the wash water while the plastic caps
and labels are floated off. the clean flake is dried and often repelletized.
PVC bottles are hard to tell apart from PET bottles,
but one stray PVC bottle in a melt of 10,000 PET bottles can ruin the entire batch.
it's understandable why purchasers of recycled plastics want to make sure that
the plastic is sorted properly.
equipment to sort plastics is being developed, but currently most recyclers are
still sorting plastics by hand (and in the third world)
that's a hard and ugly work, it's expensive and time consuming.
plastics also are bulky and cumbersome to collect.
in short, they take up a lot of space in recycling trucks.
virgin resin production outpaces recycling
currently only about 3.5% of all plastics generated is recycled,
compared to 34% of paper, 22% of glass and 30% of metals.
at this time, plastics recycling only minimally reduces the amount of
virgin resources used to make plastics.
recycling papers, glass and metal, materials that are easily recycled more than
once, saves far more energy and resources than are saved with plastics recycling.
the recycling rate for all PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles,
which represent 44 percent of total plastic bottle production,
dropped to 25 percent.
PET soda bottles, which represent one fourth of all plastic bottles produced,
and nearly two thirds of all PET bottles, dropped to 36 percent last year.
plastic bottle recycling has not kept pace with the dramatic increases in
virgin resin PET sales, particularly for PET bottles.
most of the increase in virgin resin sales has been for single-serve PET
soda bottles (under 24 oz) that now make up 60 percent of soda bottle
'bottle to bottle' recycling or downcycling ?
when glass, paper and cans are recycled, they become similar products
which (theoretically) can be used and recycled over and over again.
with plastics recycling, however, there is usually only a single re-use.
some soda bottles make it to a recycler who must scramble
to find a buyer, and often ends up selling the bottles at a loss
to an entrepreneur who makes carpeting or traffic strips,
-- anything but new bottles.
and what is the plastic bottling industry doing to create a stronger
recycling market for its product? nothing.
see soda companies and recycling
if you think the latest fashions on the runway are trashy, you might just be right.
PET can be recycled into fibres that are used for polyester fabrics.
major designers used recycled plastic bottles for haute couture.
the strength, warmth, and durability properties of virgin and recycled yarns are
the same. the only difference is that recycled yarns have a matte rather than the
glossy finish of virgin polyester.
five PET bottles yield enough fiber for one extra-large t-shirt or
twenty-five two-liter bottles can make one sweater.
five two-liter PET bottles yield enough fiberfill for a ski jacket.
carpet companies can often use 100% recycled resin to manufacture polyesther
carpets in a variety of colors and textures.
PET is also spun like cotton candy to makr fiber filling for pillows and quilts.
it takes 35 two-liter PET bottles to make enough fiberfill for a sleeping bag.
PET can also be rolled ito clear sheets or ribbon for VCR and audio cassettes.
the PET bottle is one seventh the weight of a glass bottle of the same size,
and is resealable, unbreakable as well as being recyclable
deutsche gesellschaft für kunststoff-recycling mbH (DKR)
extremely rapid growth of the material PET for non-reusable packaging
german PET forum on recycling
the 'green bottle' is the first commercially-produced bottle in the world made
entirely of 100 percent recycled curbside-collected food grade plastic.
although in theory all plastic is recyclable, market forces, transportation costs and
handling constraints often make recycling plastic prohibitively expensive.
back to PET bottle article
- design and recycling -
|disposal of bottles, unfortunately
the recycling process is messy | <urn:uuid:d89731fc-d0fc-419c-b1f6-e04cb8cd3249> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.designboom.com/eng/education/pet/recycling.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905554 | 1,612 | 3.71875 | 4 |
(Access to Coverage of Tobacco Treatment In Our Nation)
Shaping Policies | Improving Health
April 10, 2012 Menthol cigarettes may pose an even greater risk for stroke than other types of cigarettes, especially for women and non-black smokers, says a new, large study. In the latest look at the hazards of menthols vs. regular cigarettes, Canadian researchers found the stroke risk for those who smoked menthols was more than twice that for regular-cigarette smokers. And for women and non-blacks, the risk was more than three times higher. But no elevated risk was seen between mentholated cigarette smoking and high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure, and the lung disease chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the researchers said. Exactly how, or if, smoking menthol cigarettes raises risk of stroke more than other cigarette types is not fully understood.
Complete the form below to subscribe to the ActionToQuit listserv. Join the conversation about tobacco control policy and receive weekly updates.
All Content © ActionToQuit. All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:1af80c41-923d-4e53-8bf1-e0a0fdf34615> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://actiontoquit.org/news/could-menthol-cigarettes-pose-even-higher-stroke-risk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999643993/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060723-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920923 | 220 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Vitamin and Mineral Sources
WebMD Medical Reference
Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD/LD
(Also known as):
||Cod liver oil, dairy products, sweet potatoes, carrots, leafy vegetables, and fortified foods such as breakfast cereals.
||Needed for good eyesight and normal functioning of the immune system.|
||Enriched, fortified, or whole-grain products, such as bread, pasta, and cereals.
||Helps the body process carbohydrates.|
||Organ meats, breads, fortified cereals, almonds, asparagus, cooked eggs, dark meat chicken, and cooked beef.
||Used in many body processes, such as converting food into energy. It also participates in the metabolism of many drugs and helps in the production of red blood cells.|
||Light-meat chicken, tuna, salmon, turkey, enriched flour, peanuts, and fortified cereals.
||Aids in digestion and converting food into energy. Also used by the body to help make cholesterol.|
||Fortified cereals, fortified soy-based meat substitutes, baked potatoes with skin, bananas, light-meat chicken and turkey, eggs, and spinach.
||Vital for a healthy nervous system. Helps the body break down proteins. Helps the body break down stored sugar.|
|B-12||Beef, clams, mussels, crabs, salmon, poultry, soybeans, and fortified foods.
||Needed for creating red blood cells.|
|C (Ascorbic acid)
||Citrus fruits, red berries, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, red and green bell peppers, cabbage, and spinach.
||Helps promote a healthy immune system and is required to help make collagen, which holds cells together. It is also required for making chemical messengers in the brain.|
|D||Fortified milk, cheese, and cereals; egg yolks; salmon; and sunlight.
||Needed to process calcium and maintain bone health.|
||Leafy green vegetables, almonds, hazelnuts, and vegetable oils like sunflower, canola, and soybean.
||Functions as an antioxidant.|
|Folate (Folic acid)
||Fortified cereals and grain products; lima, lentil, and garbanzo beans; and dark leafy vegetables.
||Vital for cell development, prevents birth defects, promotes heart health, and helps red blood cells form.|
|K||Leafy green vegetables like parsley, chard, and kale; olive, canola, and soybean oils; and broccoli.
||Helps clot blood and maintains bone health.|
||Dairy products, broccoli, dark leafy greens like spinach and rhubarb, and fortified products, such as orange juice, soy milk, and tofu.
||Helps build and maintain strong bones and teeth.|
||Some cereals, beef, turkey, fish, beer, broccoli, and grape juice.
||Helps maintain normal blood sugar (glucose) levels.|
||Organ meats, oysters, clams, crabs, cashews, sunflower seeds, wheat bran cereals, whole-grain products, and cocoa products.
||Aids in metabolism of iron and red cell formation. Helps in the production of energy for cells. |
||Fluorinated water, teas, marine fish, and some dental products.
||Prevents dental cavities and stimulates new bone formation.|
||Processed foods and iodized salt.||Works to make thyroid hormones.|
||Leafy green vegetables, beans, shellfish, red meat, poultry, soy foods, and some fortified foods.
||Needed to transport oxygen to all parts of the body via the red blood cells.|
|Magnesium||Whole-grain products, leafy green vegetables, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, lima beans, black-eyed peas, avocados, bananas, kiwifruit, shrimp, and chocolate.||Helps muscles and nerves function properly, steadies heart rhythm, maintains bone strength, and helps the body create energy and make proteins.|
|Manganese||Pecans, almonds, legumes, green and black tea, whole grains, and pineapple juice.||Involved in bone formation and wound healing, metabolism of proteins, cholesterol, and carbohydrates. It is also an antioxidant.|
|Molybdenum||Legumes, grain products, and nuts.||Plays a role in processing proteins and other substances.|
|Phosphorus||Dairy products, beef, chicken, halibut, salmon, and whole-wheat breads.||Helps cells function normally and help the body make energy. Helps red blood cells deliver oxygen. Important in the formation of bone. |
|Potassium||Broccoli, potatoes (with the skins on), prune juice, orange juice, leafy green vegetables, bananas, raisins, and tomatoes.||Aids in nervous system and muscle function. Also helps maintain a healthy balance of water in the blood and body tissues.|
|Selenium||Organ meats, shrimp, crabs, salmon, halibut, and Brazil nuts.||Helps protect cells from damage and regulates thyroid hormone action and other processes.|
|Zinc||Red meat, fortified cereals, oysters, almonds, peanuts, chickpeas, soy foods, and dairy products.||Vital to many internal processes and supports immune function, reproduction, and the nervous system.|
Published Oct. 1, 2004.
SOURCES: Institute of Medicine. USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center. Harvard School of Public Health. Nemours Foundation.
©2004 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Last Editorial Review: 10/1/2004 8:42:23 PM | <urn:uuid:c276cb5d-0796-4d00-91cf-96e4d03ba618> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55779 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999643993/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060723-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.846397 | 1,246 | 3.03125 | 3 |
- Website: http://www.allisonguy.com
- Next Nature Researcher
This last Monday rang in the Chinese Year of the Dragon. Not restricted just to the benevolent, snake-like creature of Chinese mythology, or to the greedy, princess-stealing monster from Europe, dragon-like creatures occur throughout the world. Legendary reptiles occur as far apart as the feathered snake of Precolombian America and the rainbow serpent of Aboriginal Australia. It may be that, like flight in bats, pterosaurs and birds, the dragon “evolved” multiple times independently throughout human mythology.
If, indeed, the dragon can be considered a cultural universal – it may be that “large scaly monster” is too general a category to be meaningful – several theories purport to explain their origin. Giant reptiles like the crocodile or monitor lizard are obvious suspects. It’s easy to imagine how word-of-mouth could transform an already terrifying beast into something that flies or breathes fire. Dinosaur bones may have inspired other dragon myths, while the rotten carcasses of sharks and whales are even today routinely mistaken for sea monsters. By far the most interesting theory is that of anthropologist David E. Jones, who argues that dragons are a mash-up of the predators that ate our distant primate ancestors. Dragons prey on what we’re genetically primed to fear.
Plastic is a part of the earth’s ecosystem, but it’s a part that no one wants. At Harvard, scientists are looking to replace single-use plastic bottles, plates, and cups with packaging that not only biodegrades, but tastes great. These so-called Wikicells are made up of liquid or solid food contained within an organic membrane that’s held together by electrostatic forces – the same forces that cause cling wrap to cling. In the wonderful world of Wikicells, the wrap around a cut of in-vitro beef could contain the sauce, or an ice cream cone could be made from actual cream. If the scientists get it right, we may soon have an edible way to stop using plastic bags and bottles that take 500 to 1,000 years to degrade.
Photo via The Way We See the World.
While evidence indicates that humans domesticated themselves, we’re not the only primates capable of self-domestication. Bonobos and baboons have shown they are just as capable of turning a kinder, gentler, and more cuddly culture into hardwired changes in their genomes.
Bonobos, aka the “sexy ape”, look a lot like chimpanzees and share the same forest habitat. It stands to reason that they should be similar in most other regards, but the two species are wildly different. On a physical level, bonobos have smaller skulls and canine teeth, but their greatest differences lie in the social realm. Bonobos are the laid-back lovers compared to the chimpanzee’s neurotic warmongers.
Bonobos spend more time playing and grooming than chimps. They have sex for just about any reason: so say hello, to solve conflicts, to celebrate finding food. A “bonobo handshake” is not how humans would want to start a business meeting. In the bonobo’s reduced physical stature and playful spirit, researchers have recently recognized the same changes that occurred when wolves became dogs, or when aurochs became cattle. But while dogs needed humans for domestication, bonobos have done it all on their own.
They might not be as fast, but goats offer several advantages over diesel-powered lawnmowers. They’re quieter, they emit fewer greenhouse gases, and they fertilize soil as they go for no extra charge. They can easily climb slopes where mowers can’t reach, and can clear thick brush without the help of herbicides. City Grazing of San Francisco has capitalized on the benefits of goats, and leases out their 50-member herd for landscaping needs around the city.
These back-to-the basics of landscapers who replace mowers with goats, or farmers who replace tractors with horses, represent an unusual trajectory for the Hierarchy of Technology.* Technologies normally become accepted and widely-used before they are superseded by new technologies and sink out of sight. Except for meat production, livestock has largely lost out to machinery in industrialized settings. In a time where oil was cheap and global warming unknown, goats and horses were clearly obsolete. But in other contexts – greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion, cuteness – it becomes clear that old-fashioned, four-legged technologies can become cutting-edge a second time.
*For more about the Maslow-style Hierarchy of Technology, get your hooves on a copy of the Next Nature book.
Cities have seen guerilla gardens, rooftop honey production, and fire escape chicken coops. Now, urban farmers may be adding aquaculture to the mix. Headed by ex-banker Christopher Toole, the Society for Aquaponic Values and Education in the Bronx, New York, raises tilapia in tanks and trashcans. Closed recirculating systems use the waste from the fish to fertilize herbs like mint and basil. Toole and his girlfriend and partner, Anya Pozdeeva, envision a future where neighborhood fish like “Bronx Best Blue Tilapia” become a thriving local industry.
Efforts from Toole and other New York tilapia pioneers like NYU professor Martin P. Schreibman may represent the future of fish. As cities grow, and wild fish stocks dwindle to near-depletion by 2050, the urban production of hardy, freshwater species like the tilapia could be a sustainable way for city-dwellers to have their fish and eat it too. Urban aquaculture faces some steep hurdles before becoming a profitable venture. Similar small-scale city fish farms have flopped over costs and lack of demand. However, there is one bright spot: In China, which has practiced fish farming since 2,000 BC, indoor recirculating aquaculture is doing a booming business.
Photo via Blue Ridge Aquaculture.
Famed for its jaguars, orchids, and horrifying parasites, the Amazon is just as famous for what it lacks: human presence. For many years, the prevailing wisdom has been that throughout history, the Amazon rainforest has only been sparsely occupied by nomadic tribes. However, new evidence of permanent and complex human settlement is emerging from the forest floor. The role of these geoglyphs, trenches carved into the ground 1,000 to 2,000 years ago, are largely mysterious, but they may share characteristics with the Nazca Lines.
Researchers first became aware of the geoglyphs in the 1970s. As deforestation accelerates, more and more of the gigantic geometric shapes are coming to light. These discoveries are helping to upend traditional notions of the Amazon as a primordial, pristine wilderness. Large portions of Amazonia may in fact be a second-growth forest that regenerated after European warfare and disease wiped out massive portions of the native population.
The first Spanish explorers to the region reported finding settled towns and cities with palisades, roads, and fortifications. Though their accounts have usually been dismissed as exaggerations, their descriptions may in fact provide an accurate portrait of a lost civilization. According to geographer William Woods, “If one wants to recreate pre-Columbian Amazonia, most of the forest needs to be removed, with many people and a managed, highly productive landscape replacing it.”
Image via Google Maps. For a history of the search for civilizations in the Amazon, read Finding the Lost City.
The earth operates on a 24 hour cycle, and so do humans. For most of history, we didn’t have much choice in the matter. However, in the absence of visual cues light sunlight, some research indicates that humans naturally stick to a 25 hour schedule. So why rely on the earth’s rotation to order our lives?
I-Weather is a website and app that cycles through blue and orange light for a period of 25 hours, 40 minutes and 7 seconds. The blue ‘day’ suppresses the hormone melatonin and promotes wakefulness. The orange ‘night’ has no impact on melatonin or other hormones, allowing users to work or to drift off as they please. I-Weather acts like an online sun,”creating the world’s first artificial climate to satisfy the metabolic and physiological requirements of a human being in an environment partially or completely removed from earthly influences.” It’s good for travelers, insomniacs, and anyone with a grudge against sunlight.
For a more practical way to regulate your circadian rhythms, check out F.lux.
Improving on photosynthesis has long been a dream for scientists. The so-called artificial leaf – which wouldn’t necessarily look like one – would run on only solar energy and CO2, just like a normal leaf. But unlike a real leaf, an artificial leaf could be made far more efficient at collecting solar energy, and would turn that energy into electricity.
With their new ‘bionanodevice’, researchers at the University of Michigan have moved one step closer to that goal. Splicing together proteins from cynobacteria, Synechococcus, and Clostridium with nano-scale wire, they have created a frankenstein device that is more efficient at photosynthesis than any of the bacteria on their own. Their research joins recent efforts at MIT, where scientists have developed a ‘leaf’ that produces hydrogen from water and sunlight.
Fake leaves producing real energy are still a way off, since producing nanodevices cheap and tough enough for mass production will prove difficult. Even though these devices are double the efficiency of natural leaves, they still only convert 4 to 5% of solar energy into useable electricity. Artificial photosynthesis may have to triple the efficiency of actual plants in order to compete with more conventional means of producing electricity.
Image of MIT artificial leaf via Geek.com
In cities across Germany, Big Brother looks like a smiley face. The Fühlometer, a piece by Julius von Bismarck, Benjamin Maus, and Richard Wilhelmer, uses security cameras and sophisticated software to ‘read’ the faces of pedestrians, and then categorize them according to their emotions. The giant robot mirrors the mood of the city’s inhabitants, and perhaps encourages them to put on a happy face… or else.
City rats, it seems, prefer the same foods that humans do: Greasy, fatty, sweet, and salty. Although rats are usually seen as the billy goats of city life, ready to chow down on anything remotely edible, they show a marked distain for healthy vegetables. According to author Robert Sullivan, “A rat might starve in an alley full of raw carrots”. Like a human that missed the low-carb fad, Rattus norvegicus instead loads up on white bread, fried chicken, and mac and cheese.
Rats don’t only exhibit a human-like tendency to indulge in junk food. Although they naturally opt for sweet over spicy, their cultural background plays in a role in what they eat. In Manhattan’s East Harlem, home to one of the city’s biggest Latino populations, rats have reportedly developed a preference for the same spicy food that other rodents would reject.
Rats mirror our urban lives, eating what we don’t, absorbing our culture, and taking up residence in even the more undesirable real estate. Maybe they make us uneasy because they’re too good at acting human.
Artist Jaroslav Kyša has invented a novel form of social protest. By scattering seed in front of targets in London, he can attract droves of pigeons that disrupt shoppers and slow down traffic. Kyša’s tactic might be a useful diversion for the Occupy protestors. After all, birds are immune to capsaican, the active ingredient in pepper spray.
Via Edible Geography.
Protei is a sailing robot that’s designed to clean up oil spills without human assistance. After sailing upwind, the bot drifts downwind, zigg-zagging across the surface to absorb oil in its long, tail-like boom. Since Protei is self-righting, it will be able to operate even under hurricane conditions, keeping human crews out of danger from both high winds and toxic chemicals. The robots can be operated by remote control, or can be programmed to work together as an autonomous swarm.
Though it’s currently only a prototype, the eco-friendly, open-source Protei may some day radically change how we clean up the ocean. Though it was originally designed to sop up future Deepwater Horizons, modified Protei could possibly be used to gather plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
More photos after the jump.
Some blackbirds have found city living so much fun (the theater scene! the restaurants!) that they have given up migrating south for the winter. Cities are usually warmer than the surrounding country, with lots of discarded food for the birds to scavenge. If the non-migratory birds start breeding sooner, the two populations may eventually split into different species. Even if we can’t predict what fully urban blackbirds will look like, we do know that they will likely be smarter than their country counterparts.
Photo via TarikB
Humans are the only species on earth that cooks its food. Not only do we cook our food, but we usually find the flavor of cooked foods preferable to the raw version. Compare the smell of raw and pan-fried bacon. Which version makes you drool?
It’s no coincidence that your dog may be drooling alongside you. Several animals that have never eaten cooked food show a marked preference for a nice roast or stir-fry. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans all prefer cooked carrots, sweet potatoes, and even meat.
This natural predisposition has important implications for human evolution. Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham argues that cooking is not some simple, pleasant cultural development. Instead, it is the central driving force that transformed us from primitive hominids into Homo erectus and on through to Homo sapiens.
Clothing giant H&M no longer uses real humans in its online catalog. The company has admitted that it pastes real models’ heads on computer-generated bodies. At least there’s a “racially diverse” example thrown in with the caucasian cyborgs. CGI humanity: For when even Photoshop can’t invent a perfect body.
Thanks to Stefan. Story and image via Jezebel.
Corals are the master builders of the animal kingdom. Powered on plankton and their symbiotic algae, hard corals extract the carbon dissolved in seawater and turn it into their calcium carbonate skeletons. Now a company is trying to replicate this process, not to grow reefs, but to create cement.
Cement, though it may seem like a neutral material, is a massive source of carbon emissions. The cement industry is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions, with each ton of cement producing a ton of CO2. Biomineralization expert Brent Constantz hopes to green the production of cement by capturing flue gases from factories, running them through a saline solution, and using electricity to convert the gases into solids. For 542 million years, corals have been sequestering carbon dissolved in water. Constantz’s company Calera may have figured out how to do the same on a much shorter time scale.
Black wolves should probably not exist. The same species as their gray relatives, these wolves have a genetic mutation that causes them to produces excess melanin, a pigment responsible for coat color. The origin of black wolves has long been a puzzle. Unlike domestic animals, wild species usually don’t exhibit such dramatic variations in coloration, especially within the same population. While all tigers are orange and striped, and all grizzly bears are brown, “gray” wolves range from pure white to brown to red to black.
Researchers at Stanford University have discovered that dogs may be the cause of the wolves’ unusual coloration. Dogs have a unique gene for melanism, which is also shared by European, Asian and American black wolves. Scientists estimate that the gene arose somewhere between 12,779 and 121,182 years ago, with a preferred time of around 50,000 years. Even if European wolves were the first to don a black coat, it was domestic dogs that brought the gene to the wolves (and coyotes) of North America.
Most new mutations tend to disappear within a few generations. With North American wolf, however, this accidental genetic loaner from dogs has become a stable part of their population’s DNA. Clearly, black wolves derive some benefit from their coloration. The reasons why are still a mystery: Black coat color doesn’t aid in camouflage, but since it occurs more frequently in southern, forest-dwelling wolves, it may have some advantage for life in warmer climates.
The melanism gene in wolves is one of the few instances, perhaps even the only instance, in which interbreeding with a domestic animal has conferred an adaptive edge on a wild animal. As climate change progresses, and forests march northward, it may be that the “gray” wolf population will soon switch to black, all thanks to some melanistic, prehistoric pooches.
Thanksgiving is fake-for-real. While it’s true that there was a minor harvest feast in 1621, held by English immigrants and Wampanoag Indians, the event was never celebrated regularly, and largely dropped off the national radar for the next 200 years. It took the Civil War for Abraham Lincoln to formalize the holiday, a political move he hoped would promote national unity.
Even if the holiday is invented, at least the food is real, right? When Americans sit down to groaning tables on Thursday, it’s tempting to think we’re participating in a culinary tradition not that far removed from the time of the Pilgrims. Thanksgiving food is, after all, as authentic and naturally American as apples (Kazakhstan), potatoes (Peru), and green bean casserole (Campbell Soup Company). Maybe we can find some culinary authenticity hiding between the gravy boat and the cranberry sauce. Hope you’re hungry… | <urn:uuid:4cf0e3cf-3dc0-4c95-b3f3-007f67453515> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nextnature.net/author/allisonguy/page/10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999643993/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060723-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9359 | 3,876 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Tag Archives: food that cause cancer
Cancer is a disease that can strike anyone, there are certain factors that can make us more vulnerable to develop it in our body, Here are 7 foods that are known carcinogens
Cancerous cells feed on:
Sugar is a cancer-feeder. by eliminating the sugar it cuts off one important food supply for cancer. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be honey, but a small amount. Table salt contains chemicals that make it white. A better alternative is sea salt.
Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk, cancer cells begin to die of hunger.
Cancer cells thrive in acidic environments. A meat-based diet is high in acid, it is best to eat fish and some chicken to eat beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially in people with cancer.
A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. The remaining 20% can be from cooked food including beans. The fresh vegetable juice (carrot juice obtained with a pump, strengthens the immune system) provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius.
Avoid coffee, tea and chocolate, which have high caffeine. The green tee (green tea) is an excellent alternative and has properties that fight against cancer. Purified water or outlet filter, the tap water contains high levels of toxic metal. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
The protein in meat is difficult to digest and requires many digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.
The walls of the cancer cells are covered with tough protein. Eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body to produce cells that kill cancer cells. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Essiac, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs, etc..).
Be careful of what you eat and avoid major complications.
1. Hot dogs: The Cancer Prevention Coalition recommends that children should not eat more than 12 hot dogs per month because of the riskof cancer. If you must have your hot dog fix, look for those without sodium nitrite listed among the ingredients.
2. Processed meats and bacon: These meats almost always contain the same sodium nitrite found in hot dogs. You can find some without nitrites, but you’ll have to look for them in natural grocers orhealthfood stores. Bacon is also high insaturated fat, which contributes to the risk ofcancers, including breast cancer. Limiting your consumption of processed meats and saturated fats also benefits the heart.
3. Doughnuts: Doughnuts contain hydrogenated oils, white flour, sugar, and acrylamides. Essentially, they’re one of the worst cancer foods you can possibly eat. Reader’s Digest calls doughnuts “disastrous” as a breakfast food, and manyexpertsagree it’s probably one of the worst ways to start the day.
4. French fries: Fries are made with hydrogenatedoiland fried at high temperatures. Some chains even add sugar to their fry recipe to make them even more irresistible. Not only do they clog your arteries with saturated fat and trans fat, they also contain acrylamides. They should be called “cancer fries,” not French fries.
5. Chips / crackers / cookies: These generally contain white flour and sugar as well as trans fats, but it’s not enough to simply look for these ingredients on the label; you have to actually “decode” the ingredients list that food manufacturers use to deceive consumers. They do this by hiding ingredients (such as hiding MSG inyeast extract, or by fiddling with serving sizes so they can claim the food is trans fat free, even when it contains trans fats (the new Girl Scout cookies use this trick). | <urn:uuid:f6e525ef-6400-4261-81a6-2bdd908d8025> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.chicanol.com/en/tag/food-that-cause-cancer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999655040/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060735-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94447 | 934 | 2.875 | 3 |
Free banking refers to banking without government deposit insurance or a lender of last resort and free of legal restrictions on interest rates, bank portfolios, branch banking, and, most interestingly, private and competitive note (currency) issuance. The most general and fundamental question addressed by free-banking theory is, how would a monetary and banking system operate under laissez faire? An answer to this question is essential for a proper, critical understanding of the effects of government intervention in the monetary system. Just as it would be impossible to understand the full implications of restrictive tariff policies without reference to a theory of free trade, so to is it impossible to understand the full implications of legal restrictions in banking without reference to a theory of free banking--an understanding that is crucial both to understanding monetary history and to making predictions concerning the likely consequences of future deregulation and financial innovations. Surprisingly, monetary economists did not begin to construct such a theory until the mid 1970s, and there is still much work to be done.
Interest in free banking increased during the 70s owing to the perceived shortcomings of monetary regulations (including central bank behavior) and also thanks to studies of the pre-Civil War U.S. "free banking era" by Hugh Rockoff, Arthur Rolnick, and Warren Weber, showing that that regime was far more successful than had previously been supposed.
The U.S. "free banking" episode was, nevertheless, far removed from genuine monetary laissez faire. A closer approximation was the Scottish free banking era, which ended in 1845 and was the subject of Lawrence H. White's 1984 book, Free Banking in Britain. Since 1984, numerous other free-banking episodes have been uncovered and examined. My article, "Free Banking in Foochow" (in Kevin Dowd's volume, The Experience of Free Banking) examines one of many Chinese cities that had free banking systems until the early decades of the twentieth century.
My main interest has been in the general, theoretical implications of monetary deregulation. My 1987 Economic Inquiry article (with Lawrence White) on "The Evolution of a Free Banking System" offers a partly conjectural history of how banking institutions evolve under laissez faire. Such a conjectural history serves to motivate assumptions about the structure of a free-banking system. My 1988 book, The Theory of Free Banking, and my 1994 Economic Journal article "Free Banking and Monetary Control" (JSTOR link) explore the determinants of the supply of bank money under free banking. My Cato Journal article, "Legal Restrictions, Financial Weakening, and the Lender of Last Resort" and my 1994 Critical Review article, "Are Banking Crises Free Market Phenomena?" dispute the claim that banking panics are a problem inherent to fractional reserve banking, and propose a "legal restrictions" alternative the the conventional theory of banking panics. My article, "In Defense of Bank Suspension," for the Journal of Financial Services Research, argues (contra. Diamond and Dybvig) that, in the rare event of a general run on a free banking system, solvent banks could protect themselves without harming their customers by exercizing a contractual right to suspend payments. Finally, my and Lawrence White's 1994 Journal of Economic Literature article, "How Would the Invisible Hand Handle Money?" (JSTOR link) surveys pre-1994 writings on monetary laissez faire. This article as well as most of the other articles mentioned above are gathered, with an introduction, in my 1996 book, Bank Deregulation and Monetary Order. (Check my C.V. for details, including the locations of individual articles.)
While my research treats fractional-reserve banking as a potentially stable and largely beneficial market-based institutional arrangement, some (though not all) self-styled "Austrian" economists claim that it is both inherently fraudulent and inherently inflationary. I respond to some of their arguments in my Independent Review article "Should We Let Banks Create Money?"
The claim that monetary systems can function smoothly in the absence of government regulations sometimes raises the question, Why do governments intervene in money? Although economic misunderstanding and pressure from special interests within the banking industry account for many observed forms of intervention, Lawrence White and I suggest, in our 1999 Economic Inquiry paper, "A Fiscal Theory of Government's Role in Money", that government intervention in the money industry has largely been a result of fiscal pressures to extract revenue from money holders.
Here is an interview I did on free banking for the Richmond Fed's Region Focus magazine, and here is a podcast from Russ Robert's EconTalk. | <urn:uuid:4f4d1919-a8c5-436d-8a44-c660e9fb8778> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.terry.uga.edu/~selgin/freebanking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933762 | 932 | 2.671875 | 3 |
A single enterprise shrewdly planned and resolutely executed.
The Wyandots or Hurons, a once numerous and powerful tribe of Iroquois, located for many years in Northwestern Ohio, were, until the end of the last century, driven alternately east and west by the Six Nations and Sioux. They were placed on a reservation in Kansas in 1832, and in 1855 many became citizens. A small remnant of this tribe, numbering two hundred and fifty, have twenty-one thousand seven hundred and six acres in the Quapaw Reservation, Indian Territory, most of it suitable only for grazing. They are engaged in farming and cattle-raising, and have sixty-four children at the Mission School. The Hurons, alone among the Indian tribes, held it disgraceful to turn from the face of an enemy when the fortunes of the fight were adverse.
The expulsion of the Wyandot-Huron tribe from the valley of the St. Lawrence by the fury of the Iroquois, in 1649, is one of the most important events in the history of the Northern Indians, their villages were destroyed and their people slaughtered. Some fled to Canada (their descendents are still at Lorette, near Quebec), others were incorporated with the Iroquois, and others still subsequently settled at Detroit. This expulsion thus brought a part of that ancient tribe into the basin of Lake Huron, which derives its name from their residence upon some of its principal islands. Michilimackinac, with its natural cliffs and rocky barriers, offered an eligible retreat to the fugitive tribes, while its fertile calcareous soil offered them the means of cultivating extensive gardens. The vestiges of decomposed limestone strata cover large areas of the island’s interior, which is well sheltered and has an elevated position above the waters of the lake. But from this strong position the Hurons were eventually driven by the war-canoes of the conquering Six Nations. They were then compelled to flee to the western shore of Lake Superior.
While this tribe had their council-fire on the island (which bore the name of Ticonderoga in their dialect), Kondiaronk (the rat), sometimes called Adario, was the leading chief and counselor in their transactions. He was an able, brave, and politic chief, possessing an uncommon degree of energy and decision of character, united to a keen foresight. Much of what is known of the Wyandot history might be narrated in connection with a sketch of his life, but of this we must restrict ourselves to a mere outline.
The Wyandots having been dispossessed of their ancient possessions on the St. Lawrence by their relatives, the Six Nations, on account of their alliance with the French, and the hostilities of the Six Nations having been continued against the French settlements, it became the policy of the Wyandots to avail themselves of this hostility and keep up this irritation, in order to draw the vengeance of the French against the Iroquois. French they were at heart when expelled from the St. Lawrence, and French they exhibited themselves in policy; and accordingly it was their object to keep the English from participating in the fur-trade of the Northwest. In the attempted execution of both these designs Adario took an active part.
In 1688 the English of the province of New York resolved to avail themselves of a recent alliance between the two crowns, and to attempt a participation in the fur-trade of the upper lakes. They persuaded the Iroquois to set free a number of Wyandot captives, who were induced to guide them across the lakes, so as to open an intercourse with the Northwestern Indians. Owing to the high price and scarcity of goods, this plan was well received by Adario and his people, and also by the Ottawas and Pottawatomies, but the enterprise nevertheless failed. Major McGregory, who led the party, was intercepted by a large body of French from Mackinac, and the whole party was captured, and their goods distributed gratuitously to the Indians. The Lake Indians, who had covertly countenanced this attempt, were thrown back entirely on the French trade, and were henceforth subjected to suspicions which made them uneasy in their councils, and they became anxious to do away with the mistrust entertained of their fidelity by the French. In order to prove his fidelity, Adario marched a party of one hundred men from Mackinac against the Iroquois. When he stopped at Fort Cadurackui to get intelligence which might guide him, the commandant informed Adario that the Governor of Canada, Denonville, was in hopes of concluding a peace with the Six Nations, and expected their ambassadors at Montreal in a few days. He then fore advised the chief to return. Should such a peace take place, Adario feared that it would leave the Iroquois free to push the war against his nation, which had already been driven from the banks of the St. Lawrence to Lake Huron. He dissembled his fears, however, before the commandant, and loft the fort, not for the purpose of returning home, but to waylay the Iroquois delegates at a portage on the river where he knew they must puss. He did not wait over four or five days, when the deputies arrived, guarded by forty young warriors, who were all surprised, and either killed or taken prisoners. His next object was to shift the blame of the act on the governor of Canada, by whom, he told his prisoners, he had been informed of their intention to pass this way. The Iroquois were much surprised at this apparent act of perfidy on the part of the French, and they assured Adario that they were truly and indeed on a mission of peace. Adario affected rage against Denonville, declaring that he would some time be revenged on the French for making him a tool, and for committing so horrid a treachery. Then looking steadfastly on the prisoners, among whom was Dekanefora, the head chief of the Onondaga tribe, “Go,” said he, “my brothers: I untie your bonds, and send you home again, although our nations be at war. The French governor has made me commit so black an action that I shall never be easy after it until the Five Nations have taken full revenge.” The ambassadors were so fully persuaded of the truth of his declarations that they replied in the most friendly terms, and said the way was open to their concluding a peace. He then dismissed his prisoners with presents of arms, powder, and ball, keeping but a single man (an adopted Shawnee) to supply the place of the only man he had lost in the engagement. Thus by one bold effort he rekindled the fire of discord between the French and their enemies at the moment it was about to expire, and at the same time laid the foundation of a peace with his own nation. Adario delivered his Shawnee prisoner to the French on reaching Mackinac, who, in order to keep up the old enmity between the Wyandots and the Five Nations, ordered the Shawnee to be shot. On this Adario called up an Iroquois prisoner who was a witness of this scene, and who had long been detained among them, and told him to escape to his own country and give an account of the cruelty of the French, from whom it was not in his power to save a prisoner he had himself taken.
This trick increased the rage of the Five Nations to such a pitch that when Denonville sent a message to disown the act of Adario, the Indians put no faith in it, but burned for revenge. Nor was it long before the French felt the effects of their rage. On the 26th of July, 1688, they landed with twelve hundred men on the upper end of the island of Montreal, and carried destruction wherever they went. Houses were burned, plantations sacked, and men, women, and children massacred. About a thousand of the French inhabitants were killed, and twenty-six were carried away prisoners, most of whom were burned alive. In October of the same year the Iroquois renewed their incursions, sweeping over the lower part of the island. The consequences of these inroads were most disastrous to the French, who were thus reduced to the lowest point of despondency. They burned their two vessels on Cadarackui Lake, abandoned the fort, and returned to Montreal. The news spread far and wide among the Indians of the upper lakes, who, seeing the fortunes of the French on the wane, made treaties with the French, and thus opened the way for their commerce on the upper lakes.
Such were the consequences of a single enterprise, shrewdly planned and resolutely executed. The fame of its author spread abroad, and he was everywhere regarded as a man of address, courage, and abilities. From this time the ancient feud between the Wyandots and their kindred, the Five Nations, began to die out. A few years afterwards, the Wyandots settled on the Straits of Detroit, where, up to the close of the war of 1812-15, they exercised a commanding influence among the Lake tribes, acting as keepers of the general council-fire of the nations.
Drake, Francis S. ed. The Indian Tribes of the United States: Their History, Antiquities, Customs, Religion, Arts, Language, Traditions, Oral Legends, and Myths. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1884. 400-03. Print. | <urn:uuid:60863a06-fedd-4745-9b60-23f02be54d7b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture/history/published/wyandot-hurons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983184 | 1,978 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Extraction of Metals
Electrolysis of Potassium Chloride.
must be heated until it is molten
before it will conduct electricity.
Electrolysis separates the molten ionic compound into its elements.
The reactions at each electrode are called half
The half equations are written so that the same number of electrons
occur in each equation.
2K+ + 2e-
metal at the (-)cathode).
2Cl- - 2e- Cl2 (chlorine gas at the (+)anode).
electrons (reduction) to form
Chloride ions lose electrons (oxidation) to form chlorine atoms.
The chlorine atoms combine to form molecules of chlorine gas.
The overall reaction is
2K+Cl-(l) 2K(s) + Cl2(g)
See some other examples of electrolysis.
Links Electrolysis Revision Questions
gcsescience.com The Periodic Table Index Metal Quiz gcsescience.com
Home GCSE Chemistry GCSE Physics
Copyright © 2014 Dr. Colin France. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:5e9c5d1c-2519-48b8-a9d7-0a68607b0eda> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.gcsescience.com/ex6.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010824553/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091344-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.759274 | 234 | 4 | 4 |
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami
is a series of waves created when a body of water, such as an ocean, is rapidly displaced. Earthquakes, mass movements above or below water, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions, landslides, large meteorite impacts comet impacts and testing with nuclear weapons at sea all have the potential to generate a tsunami. The effects of a tsunami can range from unnoticeable to devastating. The Latin derivative of the word for the smaller waves experienced across the Italian coast was Fillius Sum Sunamus which means, son of tsunamis, inspired by the Japanese word similar to "tsunami" after relations with the shogun of Japan. The term tsunami comes from the Japanese words meaning harbour
. . For the plural, one can either follow ordinary English practice and add an s
, or use an invariable plural as in Japanese. The term was created by fishermen who returned to port to find the area surrounding their harbor devastated, although they had not been aware of any wave in the open water. Tsunamis are common throughout Japanese history; approximately 195 events in Japan have been recorded. A tsunami has a much smaller amplitude (wave height) offshore, and a very long wavelength (often hundreds of kilometers long), which is why they generally pass unnoticed at sea, forming only a passing "hump" in the ocean. Tsunamis have been historically referred to tidal waves
because as they approach land, they take on the characteristics of a violent onrushing tide rather than the sort of cresting waves that are formed by wind action upon the ocean (with which people are more familiar). Since they are not actually related to tides the term is considered misleading and its usage is discouraged by oceanographers.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) December 26, 2004, with an epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 m (100 ft). This was the ninth deadliest natural disaster in modern history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Myanmar were hardest hit. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (½ in) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska The disaster is known by the scientific community as the Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake
, and is also known as the Asian Tsunami
and the Boxing Day Tsunami
. The tsunami occurred exactly one year after the 2003 Bam earthquake and exactly two years before the 2006 Hengchun earthquake. The plight of the many affected people and countries prompted a widespread humanitarian response. In all, the worldwide community donated more than $7 billion (2004 US dollars) in humanitarian aid. | <urn:uuid:21652b45-0203-4f50-a204-ab50334e026e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.shvoong.com/social-sciences/1715065-tsunami/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011192582/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091952-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962185 | 646 | 4.34375 | 4 |
A old Illustration done in January of 2008
may 5 or "cinco de mayo" is conmemorative date in Mexico. General Ignacio Zaragoza and the mexican army defeat in combat to the french army in Puebla. So, my salute to mexican people in this day
... BTW, Pancho Villa is not related to this battle, but... well, u catch the point XD
Feliz 5 de mayo a los amigos mexicanos
como lo prometido es deuda, aqui esta Pancho Villa.
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, better known as Francisco "Pancho" Villa, came from the northern state of Durango. He was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. Villa with his army of Villistas joined the ranks of the Madero movement. He led the Villistas in many battles, such as the attack of Ciudad Juárez in 1911 (which overthrew Porfirio Díaz and gave Madero power), the Battle of Celaya.
In 1911, Victoriano Huerta appointed Villa his chief military commander. During this period Huerta and Villa became rivals. In 1912 when Villa's men seized a horse and Villa decided to keep it for himself, Huerta ordered Villas execution for insubordination. Raúl Madero, brother of President Madero, intervened to save Villa's life. Jailed in Mexico City, Villa escaped to the United States. Soon after the assassination of President Madero, Villa returned with a group of companions to fight Huerta. By 1913 the group had become Villa's División del Norte (Northern Division). This army led by Villa had numerous American members. Villa and his army, along with Carranza and Obregón, joined in resistance to the Huerta dictatorship.
Villa and Carranza had different goals. Because Villa wanted to continue the revolution, he became an enemy of Carranza. After Carranza took control in 1914, Villa and other revolutionaries who opposed him met at what was called the Convention of Aguascalientes. The convention deposed Carranza in favor of Eulalio Gutiérrez. In the winter of 1914, Villa and Zapata's troops entered and occupied Mexico City. Villa's treatment of Gutiérrez and the citizenry outraged more moderate elements of the population, who forced Villa from the city in early 1915.
Columbus, New México after being attack by Pancho Villa.
In 1915, Villa took part in two of the most important battles during the revolution, the two engagements in the Battle of Celaya, on April 67 and from April 1315. Obregon defeated Villa in the Battle of Celaya, one of the bloodiest of the revolution. Carranza emerged as the winner of the war and seized power. A short time after, the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico. On March 9, 1916, Villa crossed the United StatesMexico border and raided Columbus, New Mexico, in a vengeance attempt against the arms dealer who sold the ammunition used on the Battle of Celaya which was useless for Villa's forces. During this attack, 18 Americans were killed as well as 90 of Villa's men.
Pressured by Public Opinion (mainly driven by Hearst Newspapers) to confront Mexican attacks, US President Wilson sent General John J. Pershing and 10,000 U.S. troops on an unsuccessful pursuit to capture Villa. It was known as the Punitive Expedition. After nearly a year of pursuing Villa, Pershing was called off and given command of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. The American intervention had been limited to the western sierras of Chihuahua.It was the first time the American Army used airplanes on military operations.
Regardless of the intervention, the loss of the Battle of Celaya meant the rise to power of Carranza and the Sonora generals.
In 1920, Obregón (one of the sonorenses) finally reached an agreement with Villa, who retired from the armed fighting. In 1923 Villa was assassinated by gunfire while traveling in his car in Parral. It is pressumed such assassination was ordered by the sonorenses who feared a suppposed bid for the presidency by Villa, breaching the 1920 agreement.
Photoshop CS/cant remember the time, but was arround 6 hours/bamboo. | <urn:uuid:93110f93-0b73-4038-99ef-df36b8fa56e7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://genzoman.deviantart.com/art/Pancho-Villa-121497463 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021727061/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121527-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963273 | 932 | 2.96875 | 3 |
New Zealand and the United Nations
|Permanent Representative||Jim McLay|
New Zealand is a founding member of the United Nations, having taken part in 1945 in the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco.
Since its formation, New Zealand has been actively engaged in the organisation. New Zealand sees the UN as a means of collective security, mainly in the South Pacific region, particularly because New Zealand is a relatively small nation and has very little control over much larger countries or significant events. The UN was also seen as a way of safe-guarding New Zealand, at the time, a somewhat fledgling country. The successor New Zealand governments also felt that the United Nations was an important political and military ally to have as it was an integral part of New Zealand's "Collective Security".
- 1 History
- 2 New Zealand and the United Nations Security Council
- 3 New Zealand supported UN Military actions
- 4 New Zealand supported UN aid Programmes
- 5 New Zealand and the United Nations Humans Rights Council
- 6 Diplomatic Representation
- 7 See also
- 8 References
- 9 External links
New Zealand (founder) membership of the United Nations was a considerable change in foreign policy, although strongly supported by the First Labour Government which in 1935 had a firm belief in the concept of collective security through the League of Nations . Previous governments had put all their political and military reliance in the "Mother Country", and expressed reservations about particular policies privately.
During the Second World War, New Zealand realized that it could no-longer rely on Britain to protect her. After the Royal Navy's defeat in the Pacific, New Zealand began searching for a way to increase security of its waters and people through mainly collective security arrangements. The Prime Minister of the time after the war Peter Fraser became actively involved in the creation of the United Nations. He believed that an organization such as the UN could be a place to solve international problems peacefully, ensure New Zealand a say in world affairs, protect the interests of small powers and ally her with major world powers like the United States (later reinforced by the ANZUS security agreement). Although on some issues Peter Fraser disagreed with fellow founding members over, especially on the creation of the United Nations Security Council, he was against giving major countries veto power, because it allowed one power to stop any action and would exclude smaller powers from having a say in world issues. He failed, the USA, USSR, UK and France (China not being a major power of the time) would not accept equal status with smaller countries. Fraser later quoted on the issue: "It is very bad if one nation can hold up the advancement of mankind".
New Zealand and the United Nations Security Council
New Zealand has served on the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member for the Western European and Others Group; from 1954–1955, in 1966 and again from 1993–1994. New Zealand is lobbying for a non-permanent seat on the Council in 2015-16; see United Nations Security Council Election, 2014.
New Zealand supported UN Military actions
Right from the start, Peter Fraser supported the formation of Israel. Successive governments have provided military support in the Middle East, Kashmir, India/Pakistan, Cyprus, Cambodia and Korea. Also more recently New Zealand peace-keeping troops have been sent to East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.
New Zealand was among the first nations to respond to the United Nations call for help. New Zealand joined 15 other nations including the United Kingdom and the United States in the anti-communist war. But the Korean War was also significant, as it marked New Zealand's first move towards association with the United States and United Nations in supporting that country's stand against communism.
New Zealand contributed six frigates, several smaller craft and a 1044 strong volunteer force (known as K-FORCE) to the Korean War. The ships were under the command of a British flag officer and formed part of the U.S. Navy screening force during the Battle of Incheon, performing shore raids and inland bombardment. New Zealand troops remained in Korea in significant numbers for four years after the 1951 armistice, although the last New Zealand soldiers did not leave until 1957 and a single liaison officer remained until 1971. A total of 3,794 New Zealand soldiers served in K-FORCE and 1300 in the Navy deployment. 33 were killed in action, 79 wounded and one soldier was taken prisoner. That prisoner was held in North Korea for eighteen months and repatriated after the armistices. This showed the United Nations that New Zealand was committed to the organization and was willing to support the UN if required.
In 1952, three New Zealand officers were seconded as military observers for the United Nations Military Observer Group in the Kashmir, to supervise a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Many New Zealand officers, including Territorial Force officers, saw service with the force until 1976.
East Timor 1999-2003, 2006
Following East Timor's vote for independence in 1999, the United Nations INTERFET (International Force for East Timor) was dispatched into the area. INTERFET was made up of contributions from 17 nations, about 9,900 in total. At its peak, the New Zealand Defence Force had 1,100 personnel in East Timor - New Zealand's largest overseas military deployment since the Korean War. Overall New Zealand's contribution saw just short of 4,000 New Zealanders serve in East Timor. In addition to their operations against militia, the New Zealand troops were also involved in construction of roads and schools, water supplies and other infrastructural assistance. English lessons and medical aid were also provided.
Iraq (2003 to date)
The New Zealand government opposed and officially condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States-led "Coalition of the Willing" and did not contribute any combat forces. However in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483 New Zealand contributed a small engineering and support force to assist in post-war reconstruction and provision of humanitarian aid. The engineers returned home in October, 2004 and New Zealand is still represented in Iraq by liaison and staff officers working with coalition forces.
New Zealand supported UN aid Programmes
New Zealand supported aid programmes through UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund). In 1947, New Zealand joined ECAFE (Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East), a UNO regional commission from Iran to Japan, which tries to promote Economic development. Promoting economic development was seen as a way of maintaining global peace because it believed that poverty and unemployment was a main factor in social unrest that could lead to uprise or war.
New Zealand and the United Nations Humans Rights Council
|This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. (September 2010)|
New Zealand is standing for election next year to the 47-seat United Nations Human Rights Council for the term 2009-2012, and New Zealand is the first country from the Pacific region to stand. New Zealand’s bid for election is supported by Canada and Australia, who are its partners under the 'CANZ' agreement. New Zealand has a long history of legislation that advances human rights, such as being the first country to give women the right to vote.
Internationally, New Zealand works closely with Pacific Island partners to support and assist the promotion and protection of human rights to influence positive and real change that makes lasting differences in people’s lives. In May 2008 New Zealand’s work to improve the rights of people with disabilities both domestically and internationally was recognised through the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award.
New Zealand Permanent Representative to the United Nations--Jim McLay
New Zealand currently has a permanent diplomatic mission to the UN in New York City and also has Permanent Missions to the United Nations Offices in Geneva and Vienna, which focus on human rights and disarmament issues respectively. Mission staff is engaged in Multilateral diplomacy with many different countries and organizations. Representatives from the Missions communicate New Zealand’s policy positions to UN officials and foreign delegates, and to convey their views back to Ministry representatives in Wellington and New Zealand’s overseas posts. The Missions also promote New Zealand’s positions in negotiations on UN resolutions, reports and activities.
New Zealand’s contribution to the budget for 2008 was 0.256% of the total United Nations budget totaling NZD$7.3m. New Zealand will provide NZD$1.2m in 2008 to financing of the Capital Master Plan for the phased renovation of the UN Headquarters. New Zealand will also pay further instalments each year until 2011. In the 2006/07 New Zealand financial year, it contributed NZD$16.9m to 14 UN Peacekeeping operations around the world. New Zealand will contribute NZD$986,000 in 2008 to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Several New Zealanders currently serve on the following United Nations bodies:
- Ms Helen Clark is the current head of the United Nations Development Programme
- Sir Kenneth Keith is a judge of the International Court of Justice
- Mr Paul Hunt is the Special Rapporteur on the right to health
- Mr Laurence Zwimpfer currently chairs the UNESCO Information For All Programme
New Zealand is currently represented on the following United Nations bodies:
- World Food Programme Executive Board
- Economic and Social Council
- Joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Programme Coordinating Board
- New Zealand
- United Nations
- Foreign relations of New Zealand
- United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
- 2006 East Timorese crisis
- List of Permanent Representatives of New Zealand to the United Nations in New York
- List of Permanent Representatives from New Zealand to the United Nations in Geneva
- List of Permanent Representatives from New Zealand to the United Nations in Vienna
- List of Permanent Delegates from New Zealand to UNESCO
- Bowen, George; Agent, Roydon & Warburton, Graham (2007) . "8". Year 11 History. North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand: Pearson Education New Zealand. pp. 142–143. ISBN 978-0-7339-9280-3.
- McGibbon, I.C. (1981) Blue-Water Rationale:The Naval Defence of New Zealand 1914-1942 , page 256 (GP Print, Wellington, NZ) ISBN 0-477-01072-5
- Bowen, George (1997, 1999, 2000, 2001) . "4". Defending New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Addison Wesley Longman. p. 12. ISBN 0-582-73940-3.
- "Minister to lobby for Security Council seat". Stuff. 12 May 2011. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
- "New Zealand UN Security Council Candidate 2015-16". New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Retrieved 3 January 2012. "New Zealand is seeking a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2015-16. Elections are in 2014."
- NZ Candidature for Human Rights Council 2009 - 2012 - Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
- NZ seeks UN Human Rights Council seat - New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
- United Nations - NZ's engagement with the UN - NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade - Inside Page
- United Nations - NZ's contribution - NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
- New Zealand Government Official Site
- "New Zealand and the United Nations", historical overview on a New Zealand government website
- United Nations Official Site | <urn:uuid:3fe6a176-c40b-4c14-9b2f-a8cff9f8c7e4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_and_the_United_Nations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010048333/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090048-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934947 | 2,385 | 2.84375 | 3 |
ARTICLE IN BRIEF
Investigators reported an elevated risk for dementia in people with high glucose levels, as well as in individuals with levels below those associated with diabetes or even prediabetes.
Higher glucose levels are associated with an increased risk for dementia even when diabetes is not present, according to a study that followed more than 2,000 persons age 65 or older.
While some previous research has found an association between diabetes and dementia, this study found an elevated risk for dementia even when blood sugar levels were far into the normal range, well below levels associated with diabetes or even prediabetes. Non-fasting glucose values of 100 mg/dL were associated with a higher risk for dementia than non-fasting glucose values of 90 mg/dL.
“In this prospective, community-based cohort study, we found that higher glucose levels were associated with an increased risk of dementia in populations without and with diabetes,” the researchers concluded in the study, published in the Aug. 8 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. “The data suggest that higher levels of glucose may have deleterious effects on the aging brain.”
The analysis was based on 2,067 patients who were evaluated every two years for dementia, for a median follow-up time of 6.8 years. Researchers then analyzed multiple blood glucose tests taken by the patients during that time to see if there was any correlation between average blood glucose levels and the risk for dementia.
Paul K. Crane, MD, the study's lead author and associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Washington, told Neurology Today that “there have been a lot of studies that looked at diabetes as a potential risk factor for dementia, but there has not been much research looking at people who do not have diabetes, which is a lot of people.”
His study did not find that any particular “threshold” of blood glucose level divided low risk and high risk for dementia. In fact, the analysis found that risk for dementia steadily increased along with an increase of average sugar levels within the range of 90 to 120 mg/dL.
Among people with diabetes, the risk for diabetes was especially prominent with higher blood glucose levels, with steadily increasing risk at average blood glucose levels higher than 160 mg/dL.
Dr. Crane said it was premature to say whether clinicians should adjust their thinking on what is considered an acceptable blood glucose level. Still, “this study, along with studies on other organ systems, suggests yet another reason why controlling blood sugar might be beneficial.”
STUDY PROTOCOLS, RESULTS
The new study used data collected for the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study, which initially included 2,581 randomly selected, dementia-free members of the Group Health Cooperative in Washington State. Participants were 65 or older when they were enrolled from 1994 through 1998. An additional 811 participants were enrolled between 2000 and 2002. Participants were evaluated every two years using the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument.
This latest research involved 2,067 (839 men and 1,228 women; 232 people with diabetes and 1,835 without) persons from the original cohort who had at least one follow-up visit, been enrolled in Group Health for at least five years before the study began, and had at last five measurements of glucose or glycated hemoglobin over the course of at least two years before study entry. The blood tests were done as part of normal health care, and patients on average had 22 different test results related to blood sugar, Dr. Crane said.
The researchers then analyzed whether there was an association between developing dementia and average blood sugar levels over time. They looked at the risk for the most recent five-year period and also for the period of five to eight years back. During the follow-up period, dementia developed in 524 participants, 74 with diabetes and 450 without.
“Among participants without diabetes, higher average glucose levels within the preceding 5 years were related to an increased risk of dementia,” the researchers concluded. An average glucose level of 115 mg/dL was associated with an 18-percent increased risk for developing dementia compared with individuals with an average glucose level of 100 mg/dL.
“We found a monotonically increasing association between the glucose level and the risk of dementia among people without diabetes, which suggests that any incremental increase in glucose levels is associated with an increased risk for dementia,” the researchers said.
In addition, “we found the same relationship between glycemia and risk of dementia among people with diabetes at the higher end of the range of glucose levels,” they reported. An average blood level of 190 mg/dL was associated with a 40-percent increased risk for dementia compared to individuals with an average glucose level of 160 mg/dL.
Dr. Crane said the fact that higher average blood sugar levels in the more recent five-year period, as opposed to the more distant past, were especially associated with dementia risk suggests “there may be some reversibility associated with whatever mechanism is responsible for the association.”
“This means that there may be an opportunity to intervene, once we learn what is causing this association,” he said. Intervention was not tested in this study.
Dr. Crane said there are any number theories on how elevated blood sugar could be associated with higher dementia risk. Glucose could have a direct toxic effect on the brain, could be associated with insulin resistance, or could be an indicator of some other process such as inflammation that that has a deleterious effect on the brain. There could be some other relationship that is not yet understood, Dr. Crane said.
Dr. Crane and his team are continuing their research looking at related questions, such as the relation between blood glucose and cognition over time. He said 30 percent of study participants have agreed to donate their brains, which will yield even more information on the connection between glucose levels and dementia.
James Mortimer, PhD, a professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida who has studied the connection between exercise, blood glucose, and dementia, said the latest study was “a very interesting paper because it was based on a large sample of people who were followed prospectively over time.” He was particularly curious about why the risk for dementia took off in the low range of normal.
“The question is: 'Are there really subtle things going on in the range of 90 to 100?'” Dr. Mortimer said. Two different mechanisms could be at work — factors related to insulin-resistance could be causing deleterious effects at the pre-diabetes stage, while very high blood sugar levels in diabetics may lead to vascular problems associated with dementia.
While this new study suggests that lower blood sugar levels help minimize the risk off dementia, too low of a level can be harmful, he said.
Rachel Whitmer, PhD, led a study published in 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that in older persons with type II diabetes, a history of severe hypoglycemic episodes was associated with a higher risk of dementia. Very tight glycemic control in persons with diabetes has also been associated with an increased risk of death, she said.
“Being too high is bad and being too low is bad,” Dr. Whitmer, an epidemiologist and senior research scientist at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, told Neurology Today. “We need to better understand what is the best level of glycemic control.”
Dr. Whitmer and colleagues just published in the inaugural edition of The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology the details of a risk-assessment scale they developed to predict whether a person with diabetes is likely to develop dementia.
A fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dL is used to diagnosis diabetes, while a fasting glucose level of 100 to 125 mg/dL is considered “prediabetes,” a status that typically prompts doctors to advise patients to exercise more, watch their weight, and cut down on sweets. These thresholds are for fasting glucose levels, which are always below the average daily glucose levels characterized in the New England Journal ofMedicine study, typically by 30–40 mg/dL, Dr. Crane said. | <urn:uuid:8786da8b-2707-4623-9cc0-b825e6bbb1fe> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://journals.lww.com/neurotodayonline/Fulltext/2013/09190/High_Glucose_Levels_Associated_with_Increased_Risk.7.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021866360/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121746-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966446 | 1,696 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Child poverty is on the rise in the U.S., a new study shows.
According to the data, the recession has caused child poverty rates to increase in 38 states. The research found that 20 percent of American children - nearly 15 million - were living below the poverty line in 2009. That figure reflects a 2.5 million increase in the number of poor kids since 2000.
Children in Nevada have been hardest hit by the recession. The Midwest state has the highest number of children whose parents are unemployed or underemployed.
About 13 percent of children in Nevada have been kicked out of their homes because of unpaid mortages.
Between 2000 and 2009, child poverty rates increased nationwide nearly 10 percent, according to the research. | <urn:uuid:97a5e86e-4c1c-4a57-a184-5bf296716ad9> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2011/August/US-Child-Poverty-Rate-Continues-to-Rise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021866360/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121746-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9613 | 150 | 2.875 | 3 |
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 (Vol. 3, No. 6) p. 3
1540-7993/05/$31.00 © 2005 IEEE
Published by the IEEE Computer Society
Published by the IEEE Computer Society
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Butler Lampson's provocative opening address at the US National Science Foundation's 2005 Cyber Trust meeting this fall proposed a security architecture for ordinary computing based on two colors: red and green. A typical user would have two environments: a red (risky) one, open to the myriad enchantments and attacks of today's Internet, and a green (safe) one, which would be much more protected and have limited communication with the red world.
In the red environment, you could browse the Web, download, view, and compute whatever you like. On the green side, you could do your taxes, maintain your health records, and keep your communications with your stockbroker or, I suppose, your paramour. The green side would be carefully locked down and, in most cases, professionally managed.
The decision of what information could enter the green side would be tied to the sender's accountability. To be accountable, the sender would have to pledge something of value—reputation, money, friendship—so that the recipient of a malicious message or program could penalize the sender. Today's Internet and the applications that use it provide relatively weak support for this kind of accountability, but perhaps it could be strengthened.
The scheme could be implemented using two separate machines, but, Butler argued, most people won't put up with that (just ask former CIA director John Deutsch—only a presidential pardon rescued him from the consequences of using his classified office laptop to access the Internet from home). More likely, it would mean two different environments on one machine—separated by a virtual machine monitor, for example.
Anyone concerned with computer and communication security in the context of military systems will recognize this approach. Encryption devices have long had a red side, where data is unencrypted and vulnerable, and a black side, where the data is encrypted and safe. The US military, which probably depends more on the open Internet than any large company, has tried to segregate its networks and systems into two classes: those that are relatively open to the Internet and those that are accessible only to cleared individuals.
Of course, military information is classified into more than two categories, but efforts to support automated labeling and manipulation of multiple levels and compartments have generally foundered on the complexity of the interface presented to the user.
But are two domains really enough? As individuals, we easily separate what we tell our doctors from what we tell our lawyers, our stockbrokers, and our librarians. But the technology we've been able to create so far doesn't adequately hide the complexity of this kind of segregation or provide the assurance of separation we might want.
Later in the same meeting, Joel Birnbaum, former senior technical advisor to HP, made a strong case for the urgent need to find ways to hide the complexity of managing security. Moreover, David Brailer, the US National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, made it clear that if you live in the US, your health record will be increasingly automated. Hopefully, this automation will reduce errors and costs, but it is also likely to put more sensitive information on your own computer. (Video and viewgraphs of all three talks, and other related information, is available at www.ics.uci.edu/~cybrtrst.)
A rich R&D agenda flows from these points. We need computing and networking environments that support many forms of accountability, but we also need to understand how to construct systems with interfaces simple enough to be usable, yet capable of supporting the kinds of security policies we employ intuitively every day. It's hard to think of a simpler place to start than a separation of one environment into two; if we can't handle that, then what can we do? As Butler pointed out, whether you think a red/green solution will work or not, it's clear that nearly all of the computers people use in their homes today are red, not green. We need to start getting the red out and moving toward green computing. | <urn:uuid:6a04ee04-57fd-4b4f-a5a5-336c966164f7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi?doc=abs/html/mags/sp/2005/06/j6003.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021866360/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121746-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947148 | 868 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Korea has two major religions-Buddhism and Christianity. You might have guessed that they would be Buddhist, but you probably didn’t know that South Korea is the most Christian country in Asia after the Philippines.
In South Korea, Christianity is broken down into two main sections-Catholics and Protestants. Even though they are two sects in the same religion, in Korea they are completely different groups. In fact, Korea has a pretty interesting religious breakdown.
The first, and oldest, group is the Buddhists. Sometimes it’s almost as if Buddhism is no longer truly a religion but an integral part of cultural life. Temples are everywhere, representing a few different Buddhist sects. Seollal, the Lunar New Year, is a major holiday. Children and grandchildren bow to their elders on certain special occasions or after not seeing them for a long time. On the anniversary of an ancestor’s death the family prepares a special shrine in remembrance.
The second group, and the newest, is Protestants. There are Presbyterians and other more evangelical groups. Sometimes you might be walking down the street and run into a bevy of little old ladies handing out flyers. They’ll stop you and invite you to their church, and try to convince you to come, even if you don’t speak Korean and they don’t speak English. Most Protestants have made a clean break with Korea’s Buddhist roots. Their religious culture is a lot like that in the US. It seems that a large percentage of the Koreans who have moved to America are part of this religious group.
The third group is the Catholics. Although they are Christians they sometimes have tensions with the Protestants. Why? Catholics sort of bridge the gap between the other two religious groups. Although they believe in God and Jesus, they also maintain Buddhist traditions. They celebrate Lunar New Year, bow to their elders, and prepare shrines for their ancestors. Something about the Pope decreeing that their traditions were not contrary to Catholicism.
So, Catholics and Buddhists actually form a more cohesive group. They have different views on spirituality, but maintain the same basic set of traditions. These two groups sometimes get annoyed at the Protestants for forsaking tradition and trying so hard to convert them. Meanwhile, many Protestants worry about their Buddhist and Catholic friends and family because they maintain forms of idolatry.
Of course, during a normal day everyone gets along and none of these divisions arise. Still, though, it’s an interesting mix.
Korean word of the post: 종교 (jong-gyo) religion
I guess one place that I almost never think to visit is a church. I might go to my church on Sunday with my family and certainly on the holidays, but it usually doesn’t occur to me to visit a strange church for no reason.
In Pittsburgh I passed some beautiful churches. And so, I went inside. The doors were open, the lights were on, so why not?
I discovered an unexpected beauty. Every church, cathedral, temple, shrine, and synogogue is built with love and reverance. After all, these places not only honor one’s creator(s) but they also act as a community center, a place of safety, and therefore they deserve to have a bit of beauty. No matter how simple, a place of worship is made with a certain care and respect.
So, I went inside these churches in Pittsburgh. They had high ceilings with gorgeous lights, alcoves and nooks for silent prayer and contemplation. Candles and wreaths. Statues and icons. Next time I travel, I think I’ll keep my mind open to the possibilities.
Seneca word of the post: Hawëníyu’ God | <urn:uuid:194365bc-d4a1-4681-b043-591fc5ee963f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://paulpingminho.tumblr.com/tagged/religion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969035 | 782 | 2.71875 | 3 |
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In Buddhist philosophy, the miraculous powers obtained through meditation and wisdom. They include the ability to travel any distance or take any form at will, to see everything, to hear everything, to read minds, and to recall former existences. A sixth miraculous power, available only to Buddhas and arhats (saints), is freedom by undefiled wisdom (Enlightenment). The powers are signs of spiritual progress but their indulgence is a distraction from the path toward Enlightenment.
This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. For the full entry on abhijna, visit Britannica.com.
Seen & Heard
What made you look up abhijna? Please tell us what you were reading, watching or discussing that led you here. | <urn:uuid:dcdf49b8-d1dc-450e-b332-9c56d11a3c8f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/abhijna | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932198 | 176 | 2.671875 | 3 |
- Information for Patients
Information for Patients
An estimated 2.7 million Americans suffer from some form of epilepsy. Even under the care of general neurologists or epileptologists, approximately 25 percent of patients with epilepsy do not attain adequate seizure control, thus making their seizures intractable. People with intractable seizures often need more intensive and comprehensive care than is available through their neurologist. | <urn:uuid:e41e22ca-5f41-4271-bba7-e7c6c3b4fc89> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://epilepsy.med.nyu.edu/information-for-patients | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928302 | 79 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Introduction to Functions
A function is a relatively small task that should be performed aside but can be accessed any time to give a result. In Transact-SQL, a function is considered an object. Based on this, you must create a function and execute it before using it. The function then becomes part of a database and it can be accessed.
Function Creation Fundamentals
There are various ways you can start the creating of a function:
In Transact-SQL, the primary formula of creating a function is:
CREATE FUNCTION FunctionName()
We mentioned already that, in SQL, a function is created as an object. As such, it must have a name. In our lessons, here are the rules we will use to name our functions:
For a function to be useful, it must produce a result. This is also said that the function returns a result or a value. When creating a function, you must specify the type of value that the function would return. To provide this information, after the name of the function, type the RETURNS keyword followed by a definition for a data type. Here is a simple example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS Decimal(6,3)
After specifying the type of value that the function would return, you can create a body for the function. The body of a function starts with the BEGIN and ends with the END keywords. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS Decimal(6,3) BEGIN END
Optionally, you can type the AS keyword before the BEGIN keyword:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS Decimal(6,3) AS BEGIN END
Between the BEGIN and END keywords, which is the section that represents the body of the function, you can define the assignment the function must perform. After performing this assignment, just before the END keyword, you must specify the value that the function returns. This is done by typing the RETURN keyword followed by an expression. A sample formula is:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS Decimal(6,3) AS BEGIN RETURN Expression END
Here is an example
CREATE FUNCTION GetFullName() RETURNS varchar(100) AS BEGIN RETURN 'Doe, John' END
After a function has been created, you can use the value it returns. Using a function is also referred to as calling it. To call a function, you must qualify its name. To do this, type the name of the database in which it was created, followed by the period operator, followed by dbo, followed by the period operator, followed by the name of the function, and its parentheses. The formula to use is:
Because a function returns a value, you can use that value as you see fit. For example, you can use either PRINT or SELECT to display the function's value in a query window. Here is an example that calls the above Addition() function:
As an alternative, to call a function, in the Object Explorer, right-click its name, position the mouse on Script Function As, SELECT To, and click New Query Editor Window.
Because a function in Transact-SQL is treated as an object, it may need maintenance. Some of the actions you would take include renaming, modifying, or deleting a function.
If you create a function and execute it, it is stored in the Scalar-Valued Functions node with the name you gave it. If you want, you can change that name but keep the functionality of the function.
To rename a function, in the Object Explorer, right-click it and click Rename. Type the desired new name and press Enter.
If you create a function and decide that you don't need it any more, you can delete it.
To delete a function in the Object Explorer, locate the function in the Functions section, right-click it and click Delete. The Delete Object dialog box would come up. If you still want to delete the function, click OK; otherwise, click Cancel.
To programmatically delete a function:
As mentioned already, in the body of the function, you define what the function is supposed to take care of. As a minimum, a function can return a simple number, typed on the right side of the RETURN keyword. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS int BEGIN RETURN 1 END
You can also declare new variables in the body of the function to help in carrying the assignment. A variable declared in the body of a function is referred to as a local variable. Once such a variable has been declared, it can be used like any other variable. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition() RETURNS int BEGIN DECLARE @Number1 int SET @Number1 = 588 RETURN @Number1 + 1450 END
In order to carry its assignment, a function can be provided with some values. Put it another way, when you create a function, instead of, or in addition to, local variables, you may want the code that will call the function to provide the values needed to perform the assignment. For example, imagine you want to create a function that would generate employees email addresses when a user has entered a first and last name. At the time you are creating the function, you cannot know or predict the names of employees, including those who have not even been hired yet. In this case, you can write the whole function but provide one or more placeholders for values that would be supplied when the function is called.
An external value that is provided to a function is called a parameter. A function can also take more than one parameter. Therefore, when you create a function, you also decide whether your function would take one or more parameters and what those parameters, if any, would be.
We have already seen that a function's name is also followed by parentheses. If the function doesn't use an external value, its parentheses can be left empty. If a function will use an external value, when you create the function, you must specify a name and the type of value of the parameters. The name of the parameter is created with the @ sign, like a variable as we saw in the previous lesson. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition(@Number1 Decimal(6,2))
When a function takes a parameter, in the body of the function, you can use the parameter as if you knew its value, as long as you respect the type of that value. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition(@Number1 Decimal(6,2)) RETURNS Decimal(6,2) BEGIN RETURN @Number1 + 1450 END
When you call a function that takes one parameter, you must supply a value for that argument. To do this, type the value of the parameter in the parentheses of the function. Here is an example:
Instead of only one parameter, you can also create a function that takes more than one parameter. In this case, separate the arguments in the parentheses of the function with a comma. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition(@Number1 Decimal(6,2), @Number2 Decimal(6,2))
Once again, in the body of the function, you can use the parameters as if you already knew their value. You can also declare local variables and involve them with parameters as you see fit. Here is an example:
CREATE FUNCTION Addition(@Number1 Decimal(6,2), @Number2 Decimal(6,2)) RETURNS Decimal(6,2) BEGIN DECLARE @Result Decimal(6,2) SET @Result = @Number1 + @Number2 RETURN @Result END; GO
When calling a function that takes more than one parameter, in the parentheses of the function, provide a value for each parameter, in the exact order they appear in the parentheses of the function. Here is an example:
PRINT Variables1.dbo.Addition(1450, 228);
You can also pass the names of already declared and initialized variables. Here is an example that calls the above function:
DECLARE @Nbr1 Decimal(6,2), @Nbr2 Decimal(6,2) SET @Nbr1 = 4268.55 SET @Nbr2 =26.83 SELECT @Nbr1 As First, @Nbr2 As Second, Variables1.dbo.Addition(@Nbr1, @Nbr2) AS Result
This would produce:
|Previous||Copyright © 2007-2012 FunctionX||Next| | <urn:uuid:69ca299f-28b7-49e9-8126-312290bb229a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.functionx.com/sqlserver2005/Lesson06.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.82809 | 1,845 | 4.375 | 4 |
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