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0.971191 | This article is based on a talk presented by John Riddell and Ian Angus to the Socialist School in Toronto, October 9, 2004. It has also been serialized in Socialist Worker.
This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, and also of another, less remembered event, the uprising by Canadian soldier-conscripts against being sent to Europe to join the fighting.
These two events symbolize the dual character of the Second World War in Canada: a war against Germany and a conflict within Canadian society.
What we call World War II encompassed many different wars, many of them progressive: the Soviet struggle against Nazi invasion, the resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe, and the colonial liberation struggle in China, India, and elsewhere. But Canada's war had little relationship to these progressive struggles and was not anti-fascist in character. It formed part of what Leon Trotsky termed a struggle of imperialist slaveholders for a new division of the globe. How did socialists in Canada respond to this conflict?
We have begun work on a history of the Trotskyist movement in Canada from 1928 to 1961, entitled Against the Stream. This is an initial sketch of the chapter on the Second World War.
Many aspects of Canada in 1939 are unfamiliar to us today.
Canada was then part of the British Empire, was automatically part of Britain's wars, and was ruled by an Anglo-Saxon elite who looked with scorn on those not of British extraction.
Within North America, Canada was a bastion of reaction. In the 1930s there was no breakthrough here by unionism, no legislated labor code, no New Deal.
In 1939 Canada was still gripped by depression, with 23% of the work force unemployed.
Most working people dreaded war. In the prewar years, the CCF, predecessor of the NDP, responded with a pacifist stance: support to the League of Nations but opposition to Canada's entering an imperialist war.
In Quebec, there was massive opposition to a war in defense of the British Empire. Resentment was still fierce against Ottawa's imposition of conscription in World War One, which had led to massive demonstrations, pitched battles with police, and widespread acts of resistance across Quebec.
The Canadian government, headed by Mackenzie King, secured Parliament's adoption of a declaration of war on September 8, 1939, through a promise not to conscript men for overseas service.
Civil liberties were the war's first casualty. First the Trotskyists, then the pro-Stalin Communist Party were driven underground. Quebecois antiwar activists were hounded and arrested.
Even the CCF was not immune. When Charlie Millard, head of Canada's steelworkers and a prominent CCFer, spoke critically of the war, he was clapped in jail, and the next day the RCMP raided the Toronto offices of the CIO—the industrial union federation—carting off piles of union documents.
In mid-1940 the government imposed conscription for home defence, along with sweeping controls over the economy and labour power. It interned 110 leaders of the CP, along with German nationals, Quebecois nationalists, and—soon—Canadians of Japanese ancestry.
Coercive measures were also applied to the industrial work force. Young workers could not get a job unless they proved they had applied for and been refused by the armed forces. Industrial workers could not change jobs without the bosses' permission.
Canada's rulers wanted to build a massive military establishment, but there weren’t enough volunteers for overseas service. So in 1942 the King government held a referendum on a proposal to empower it—despite its promises—to send conscripts to fight overseas.
In Quebec a united front campaigned for a "no" vote arguing that the no-conscription pledge had been made to Quebec, so only Quebec could revoke it—in essence, asserting Quebec's right to self-determination.
Result: 72% of Quebec voters, and about 85% of Francophones voted no.
Elsewhere in Canada a significant minority, 20%, voted "no." The outcome was a defeat for King: he had his majority, but was now afraid to use it.
Government efforts now focused on coercing the home-defence conscripts, now derisively termed "Zombies," to volunteer for overseas service. Recruitment posters blanketed the country, war heroes lectured the conscripts, volunteers were incited to harass them; and recalcitrants were demoted and punished.
One general commented, "I hate the sight of French-Canadians." The minister of defense reportedly said that the army could not do anything with Quebeckers. "They can't speak English. Their fighting ability is questionable."
Over time, the Zombies' refusal took on an air of dogged heroism. They enjoyed support in the general population, where 50% of those in their 20s opposed conscription for overseas service.
In November 1944, King ordered that 16,000 conscripts be sent to Europe. In B.C., where most of them were stationed, there was a wave of demonstrations and mutinies. At a base in Terrace B.C., French- and English-speaking troops joined forces, armed themselves, took over the camp, and mounted guns to command the approaches. Popular slogans were "Down with conscription" and "Conscript money as well." One placard read, "We can end the war here at home." Another, "Zombies strike back."
These disturbances died down, but there were recurring bouts of rioting and sit-down strikes. Half the 16,000 went AWOL and only a fifth of the missing men were ever retrieved—a sure sign of strong community support.
The hunt for deserters proved hazardous. In Drummondville, Quebec, on 24 February, a 100-man raiding party was attacked by a mob, their vehicles overturned and smashed, while fighting lasted on the streets for three hours, and scores required hospital treatment.
Even after sending conscripts to Europe, opposition was so high that King had to promise not send them to fight in the Pacific unless they agreed. Result: when Canada's most powerful and prestigious warship, the HMCS Uganda, was ordered to move against Japan, the crew voted overwhelmingly to end their participation in the war and sailed back to a Canadian port.
The struggles of the working class outside the army followed a similar course. The federal government, while rewarding capitalists with lucrative cost-plus contracts, froze workers’ wages, limited the right to strike, and used troops and police to break strikes.
Even this was not enough for the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, which in 1941 termed the CIO unions "foreign-dominated" and "Communist." They were "disrupting" the war effort, "holding up production," and fomenting unrest, the CMA said, calling on the government to outlaw industrial unions.
Yet strikes took place anyway, and forced government and bosses to back off. For example, in a major Hamilton factory, National Steel Car, workers struck in April 1941 to protest the firing of union organizers. The government was forced to take over the plant and hold a recognition vote, which the union won.
That summer, in Quebec, a wildcat strike by 10,000 smelter workers in Arvida led to a plant occupation. The Army was sent in. But the workers held firm, and after five days won a pay raise plus increased rights to use the French language in the plant.
Workers poured into the industrial unions, but many employers continued to deny them recognition. A 1943strike by miners in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, brought matters to a head. A militant 11-week strike for recognition, with wide public support, went down to defeat when the bosses absolutely refused to budge.
The defeat in Kirkland Lake helped move the labor insurgency into political action. The Canadian Congress of Labour, formed in 1940 after the CIO’s industrial unions were expelled from the Trades & Labour Congress, shifted in 1943 to outspoken opposition against the government. It endorsed the CCF, and within a year union locals with 50,000 members affiliated to the party.
The bosses now faced the prospect of a national CCF government closely linked to insurgent labor. In response, they launched a coordinated, well-financed, and near-hysterical campaign against the CCF, charging—to sum up a torrent of abuse—that it was a pro-Nazi, totalitarian, foreign- and Jewish-dominated conspiracy led by academic snobs.
Simultaneously, they moved to concede many of labor's immediate demands. In 1944, the King government finally provided a legal mechanism for union recognition, and enacted Family Allowances—the first major social benefit. More was promised after the war.
What we’ve tried to show so far is that, contrary to the usually presented picture of a country united for a common purpose, the class struggle did not take a holiday during World War II. A majority of Quebecois and a significant minority outside of Quebec opposed conscription. The industrial working class embarked on the biggest strike wave and organizing drive since 1919, a drive that extended into independent labour political action on a massive scale.
This situation posed huge opportunities and challenges for socialists in Canada.
At the end of the 1930s, two organizations dominated the Canadian left—the Communist Party, loyal to the Stalinist leadership of the Soviet Union, and the CCF, a social democratic party that began as an agrarian movement in 1933. They were of similar size and influence in the labour movement.
There was also a third far smaller group, the Socialist Workers League, Canadian section of the Fourth International, usually labeled Trotskyist. It had set itself the goal of building a revolutionary party with a Leninist program in Canada—although given its very small numbers and resources, its immediate goal was to keep that program alive and relevant under extremely adverse conditions.
"We stand resolutely against all participation in imperialist wars…. Canada must refuse to be entangled in any more wars fought to make the world safe for capitalism."
In 1937, CCF leader J.S. Woodsworth proposed a resolution in Parliament which declared that Canada would remain neutral in any war.
But for most of the CCF leadership, those fine words didn’t last a day past the beginning of a real war. In September 1939, the CCF national council voted 13-9 to support the government’s declaration of war. In the House of Commons, only one CCF M.P., party leader J.S. Woodsworth, spoke and voted against the war.
This was a major betrayal of CCF principles, and it’s very likely that a majority of the CCF’s membership would have opposed the war if they had been given a say.
By the time of the 1942 Referendum, the CCF was giving all-out support to the war effort, including conscription. It strongly opposed the anti-conscription movement in Quebec.
However, in important ways the CCF upheld independent labour political action. It consistently ran candidates against the Liberals and Conservatives, despite intense pressure to do otherwise, coming from the Communist Party, which wanted it to ally with the Liberals, and from the Liberals, who wanted free rides for new Cabinet Ministers in by-elections.
In Ontario and B.C. many, perhaps most of its candidates were union activists and leaders.
Above all, the CCF-oriented leaders of Canadian Congress of Labour refused to join the old-line Trades & Labour Congress in a "No Strike" pledge, and led many militant strikes during the war years. In 1943, despite the war, more workers went on strike than in any year since 1919—and most of those strikes were led by CCF members.
The CCF’s support for independent labour political action, and for the right of workers to organize and fight, won it substantial support in the new industrial unions and among labour militants. That in turn won it growing electoral support—it received a plurality of the votes in B.C. in 1941, became the official opposition in Ontario in 1943, and formed the government in Saskatchewan in 1944.
On the other hand, the CCF’s support of the war was part of a steady move to the right. Although the Regina Manifesto remained official party policy until 1956, dumping the policy on war in 1939 was just part of a long-term trend away from even a reformist-vision of socialism, towards welfare capitalism.
We would scarcely have expected the CCF to follow revolutionary policies, but the Communist Party of Canada was ostensibly Leninist. Nevertheless, its policies and actions during World War II bore little resemblance to the anti-war policies Lenin advocated in the previous World War.
Lenin condemned any support to the inter-imperialist war. Even after the Russian Revolution, when Russia was fighting German invasion, Lenin never suggested that revolutionaries in England and France should support their government’s war effort in order to protect the new Soviet government. Sadly, that’s what the Communist International—and of course its Canadian party—did between 1939 and 1945.
Until 1939, Stalin’s foreign policy aimed to build alliances between the democracies and the Soviet Union against German fascism and Japanese imperialism. As part of the effort to win the confidence of the "democratic capitalists," the parties of the Communist International favored suspending the class struggle in the capitalist democracies.
In August 1939, Stalin suddenly changed direction. Having failed to win an alliance with Britain, he signed a treaty with Germany. Germany invaded Poland just days after the Stalin-Hitler pact was signed.
This stand led to the party being outlawed. Many of its leaders were imprisoned without trial, and others, including Tim Buck, fled to the United States.
The CP set up "Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees" to fight for a "yes" vote in the 1942 referendum. The CP’s press, which had hailed Montreal mayor Camillien Houde as an anti-war hero, now condemned him and the entire Quebec nationalist movement as fascist.
In 1943 the Communist party regained legal status by renaming itself the "Labor Progressive Party." The LPP’s founding program specifically advocated universal conscription and urged the labour movement to voluntarily abstain from strikes for the duration of the war.
Remember, this was 1943, the year in which there were more strikes than any time since 1919. Canadian workers were joining the new industrial unions by the tens of thousands, and striking in nearly unprecedented numbers to win better pay and working conditions—but the Communist Party was officially and vehemently opposed to all strikes. In its newspapers, on the shop floor, in union meetings and during actual strikes, the CP fought for a no-strike policy.
In electoral politics, the Communist Party advanced a program that was well to the right of the CCF—for example, it explicitly opposed the CCF’s call for socialism as sectarian and ultraleft!
More importantly, from June 1941 on, the CP consistently opposed independent labour political action, campaigning instead for an electoral alliance between labour and the Liberal Party. The main practical result of this was the defeat of CCF candidates in ridings where the Liberals used the LPP’s proposed alliance to split the labour vote.
In the most extreme case, in 1945, a member of the Communist party who ran against the CCF as a "UAW-Liberal-Labour" candidate was elected to the Ontario legislature and sat as a member of the Liberal Caucus.
The Trotskyist Socialist Workers League was tiny by any standard—it had fewer than 100 members in 1939.
Still, it did what it could to oppose the imperialist war. The day after war was declared, the SWL held a street corner meeting in Toronto, at Brunswick and Bloor, to denounce the war. At that meeting Frank Watson became the first person to be arrested imprisoned under the Defense of Canada Regulations—that repressive law was so new that copies weren’t available for the prosecutor to use during his trial!
The Socialist Workers League was illegal throughout the war. No printer would produce its newspaper or leaflets, and the publications of its U.S. co-thinkers in the Socialist Workers Party were stopped at the border. Many members dropped away—and many, especially those outside of major cities, lost contact, because even the mails weren’t safe.
Still the organization did whatever was possible to get its program out. It published some issues of a mimeographed magazine, and produced leaflets that it distributed by tossing them off tall building rooftops into lunch-time crowds, or by inserting them into Marxist books on the shelves of the public library. Trotskyists who were in the army smuggled pamphlets and newspapers across the border from Buffalo in their baggy uniform trousers.
They used whatever organizational means were available to them, In Prince Rupert, for example, Trotskyist leader Paddy Stanton organized a boxing club to provide a cover for labor militants to meet.
Most of the SWL’s members in Ontario and B.C. joined the CCF, and played a part both in the CCF itself and in the CCL unions. In British Columbia, in particular, Trotskyists led the left-wing opposition to the CP leadership of the International Woodworkers Union—shortly after the war, they were elected as leaders of the major local there.
When the anti-conscription movement exploded in Quebec in 1942, the Toronto branch sent one of its members to Montreal to make contact. Landon Ladd was not only well-received, he was invited to speak at a mass anti-conscription rally in Montreal on March 24. Andre Laurendeau, who later described the event in his book, La crise de la conscription, said the applause that greeted the his speech was "thunderous."
"He was certainly," Laurendeau wrote, "the only English-Canadian speaker in a League meeting ever to express, in English, an anti-conscription point of view."
Ladd’s experience helped educate the small Trotskyist movement about the potential of the Quebec nationalist movement, at a time when all the rest of the left was writing it off as at best backward, at worst fascist. That education helped ensure that the Trotskyists—again unlike all the rest of the left—responded positively when Quebec nationalism exploded again in the 1960s.
Ross Dowson, a machinist in his 20s who became the main leader of the Toronto branch early in the war, made two cross-country organizing tours, hitch-hiking from town to town to reunite the individuals and small groups that had become isolated by wartime restrictions and censorship. Remarkably, they were able to pull together an underground national conference in Montreal in 1944. That meeting decided to launch a public newspaper, Labor Challenge, in 1945—and that newspaper was the organizer that pulled together the SWL members from the thirties and wartime recruits into a new organization, the Revolutionary Workers Party.
The war ended on August 14, 1945. On August 20, the government tried to force Canadian soldiers to work in industrial jobs, but under army discipline and for army pay. In Oakville the soldiers carried out sit-down strikes, walkouts and other protests. These protests forced an end to the slave labour program within five days. A key leader of the protest, a private who had resigned a captain’s commission to stay with his comrades in the ranks, was Ross Dowson. He was discharged two months later and became National Secretary of the Revolutionary Workers Party.
In August 1945, the Trotskyist and Stalinist newspapers both ran large front-page headlines to mark the end of the war.
Labor Challenge: "THERE IS NO PEACE!"
Canadian Tribune: "A-BOMB KO’s JAPS!"
In just a few words, those headlines summed up the difference between the revolutionary policy and program of Trotskyism, and the conservatism social-patriotism of Stalinism.
The wave of wartime struggles enabled labor to achieve a breakthrough—Canada was no longer an anti-union bastion among capitalist powers. But the failure of the CCF and the Communist Party to provide leadership and a class struggle program during World War II had profound short and long-term consequences.
The Social Democrats and Stalinists didn’t just abstain from the anti-conscription movement—they opposed and condemned the movement and the Quebec nationalism that underlay it. They provided no alternative leadership to the right-wing nationalists, effectively handing Quebec over to Duplessis on a platter. They missed a major opportunity to build the left in Quebec, and socialism in Quebec remains weak to this day.
The underlying motivation for the Communist Party’s policy in the labour movement between 1941 and 1945 was the view that protecting the Soviet Union was the overriding task of the international working class—and that suspending the class struggle in countries allied with the USSR was the best way to achieve that. This policy of subordinating the Canadian class struggle to the needs of Stalinist diplomacy was a disaster.
The CP did make some short-term gains. It elected some MPs and MLAs, and it won some support in the conservative Trades & Labour Congress unions.
But at the same time it alienated the militants who were building the CCL, ensuring that it had few allies on the left when the anti-communist witch-hunts came after the war. Its anti-Quebec stance led to the split of most of its Québécois cadre; another left-wing split took place in B.C. Deprived of its wartime alliance with the Liberals, the isolated Communist Party quickly lost most of its influence in the unions in the postwar years.
The Trotskyists were far too few and too scattered to have a major impact, but they emerged from the war with a far stronger organization than they had at the beginning. They were well-respected in several major unions, and were playing leadership roles in the left-wing of the CCF and labour movement.
At the beginning of the war, the SWL’s main leaders were middle-class academics. Few of those survived the intense pro-war pressure—so by the end of the war the group’s entire membership and leadership was solidly rooted in the industrial working class and the new industrial unions.
Even more important, the Trotskyists preserved their revolutionary program, learned to explain and promote it in conditions of repression and illegality, and even evolved it through the experience in Quebec. They had laid a firm basis for the next wave of radicalization, which came in the 1960s. |
0.996703 | It can take a while for birds to get used to feeding at the table. Make sure feeding stations topped up regularly in winter and early spring when natural food sources are more limited.
Seeds and grain. They attract introduced birds that out-compete natives.
Bread. Birds are likely to become malnourished.
Milk. It can't be digested by birds and causes stomach upsets. Fermented dairy products such as cheese are okay.
Honey or honey water. Never put out honey or honey/water for birds. Birds love it, so do bees. so this practice can spread bee diseases.
Cooked oats or porridge. This can harden around a bird's beak. Uncooked oats are okay.
Before you start feeding native birds, it is important to make sure your backyard is a safe place for them to visit.
Set traps to control introduced predators like rats, stoats, and possums.
Keep your cat inside, particularly at night.
Put any feed stations well out of reach of introduced predators.
Clean your feeder regularly to avoid the spread of disease.
Provide water, particularly in summer, so birds are able to stay hydrated.
What should I feed native birds?
Native plants and shrubs are the best way to attract native birds to your garden. Try growing species that provide nectar, seeds, and berries all year-round so birds always have food available to them.
When leaves fall off your plants and shrubs, do not pick them up or relocate them. Over time, a thick layer of mulch will build up. This boosts insect populations, which provides a great food source for insectivorous birds.
Try hammering some nails into a board and securing pieces of fruit to the table. Half-cut oranges, apples, and pears can attract tauhou (silvereyes), korimako (bellbird), and tūī, as well as kākā and hihi if they are present.
Sugar water is a great supplementary food for nectar-loving birds like tūī, korimako (bellbirds), and kākā.
To make sugar solution, dissolve half a cup of sugar in four cups of water. The best sugar to water ratio is 1:8. Anything higher may attract bees and wasps or start to ferment more quickly.
You can leave sugar water in a shallow dish or make a feeder using household items.
To make a sugar feeder, take a one-litre milk bottle and attach the lid to a shallow dish or jar lid. Fill the milk bottle with sugar water and make a few small holes about half a centimetre from the bottom of the bottle. Screw it into the lid and turn the dish upside down. Sugar solution will come out of the bottle and fill the dish to the height of the holes. |
0.99998 | Can animals learn and plan without a concept of time?
Experiments show that animals may not have any concept of the past or future.
Human beings have two important abilities to help us understand time: We are able to remember a sequence of events and we are able to anticipate future needs or events. Studies show that animals may have these abilities -- but to a lesser extent.
Scientists have tested animals' working memories (short-term memory) and reference memories (long-term) to see how well the animals recall sequences of events. In working memory tests, pigeons and primates must remember a sequence well enough to peck or pick it in the right order again to get a reward [sources: Parker, Devine]. The animals did fairly well at these tasks, but their memory faded fast. Roberts thinks they were probably learning going from weakest memory to strongest memory, rather than actually "learning" or "remembering" a sequence.
Other researchers found that pigeons and monkeys performed well at reference memory tests in which they needed to remember a sequence after a delay between learning and testing [sources: Straub, D'Amato]. But, it took extensive training for the animals to learn these sequences, suggesting to Roberts that the ability did not come naturally to them. From these tests, it seems that animals would perceive time differently from humans, who have a relatively reliable and sophisticated memory of sequence of events.
In addition, animals don't seem to anticipate future needs and rewards very well, suggesting to researchers that they don't have a concept of the future. For instance, when given the choice, pigeons and rats chose a smaller immediate reward over a larger future reward [source: Rachlin, Tobin]. In one test, researchers presented primates with a choice between one banana and two bananas. Understandably, they chose two bananas consistently. However, as the supply of the two choices got larger, they started showing less of a preference -- they weren't hungry enough at that moment to eat 10 bananas, so they chose five bananas half the time [source: Silberberg]. Roberts concludes from these experiments that these animals sought to satisfy immediate hunger needs, and didn't plan for future hunger. This is very unlike humans, who usually use reason and forethought to anticipate future needs, from deciding to pack a lunch for work to investing in a 401(k) retirement plan.
So what about squirrels and other animals that hoard food for the impending winter months? That behavior seems to imply the animals anticipate future needs. Actually, maybe not. Studies have found that animals don't stop hoarding even when their supplies inexplicably disappear. This could mean the animals don't understand why they hoard, what it means for their future or even what future is. They simply do it out of instinct [source: Roberts] Humans, on the other hand, understand their preparations and quickly change strategies when plans go awry.
If animals are "stuck in time," as Roberts suggests, this could mean understanding time is uniquely and fundamentally human. It's your choice whether to relish that fact or try to learn something from the canine, carefree outlook of "living in the moment."
To read more about dogs and their amazing abilities, explore the links on the next page. |
0.992541 | Why does a spacecraft become very hot when it enters the Earth's atmosphere and how are the astronauts protected?
A spacecraft in re-entry moves through the air much faster than the speed of sound. Air molecules displaced by the spacecraft create friction. The flow temperature is so high that air molecule’s chemical bonds break creating charged plasma around the craft. In order to withstand the high temperatures of re-entry, special external tiles are used. On the shuttles, silicon tiles are placed over aluminum skin for insulation. On the wings leading edges, carbon-carbon composite materials are used. Other crafts have used ablative heat shields which are made of special ceramic materials and are designed to slowly burn away during re-entry. |
0.98007 | Примечание: История Англии от революции 1688 года до смерти Георга II Полный вариант заголовка: «The history of England, from the revolution in 1688 to the death of George the Second : Designed as a continuation of mr. Hume's History : In 4 vol. Vol. 2».
Примечание: История Англии от революции 1688 года до смерти Георга II Полный вариант заголовка: «The history of England, from the revolution in 1688 to the death of George the Second : Designed as a continuation of mr. Hume's History : In 4 vol. Vol. 3».
Примечание: Англии от революции 1688 года до смерти Георга II Полный вариант заголовка: «The history of England, from the revolution in 1688 to the death of George the Second : Designed as a continuation of mr. Hume's History : In 4 vol. Vol. 1».
Полный вариант заголовка: «The history of the British revolution of 1688-9 : Recordong all the events connected with that transaction in England, Scotland and Ireland, down to the capitulation of Limerick, in 1691 in the last of these kingdoms inclusive / By George Moore».
Полный вариант заголовка: «History of the Commonwealth of England : From its commencement, to the restoration of Charles the Second. Vol. 2. To the death of Charles I».
Полный вариант заголовка: «Memoirs of the reign of George III. : Vol. 2 : from the treaty of Amiens, A.D. 1802, to the termination of the regency, A.D. 1820 : in 2 volumes / by William Belsham».
Полный вариант заголовка: «History of the commonwealth of England : Vol. 1. The Civil war : from its commencement, to the restoration of Charles the Second / by William Godwin».
Полный вариант заголовка: «An authentic account of an embassy from the king of Great Britain to the emperor of China : Taken chiefly from the papers of earl of Macartney, embassador extraordinary a. plenipotentiary to the emperor of China: In 2 vol. Vol. 2, pt. 2».
Полный вариант заголовка: «An authentic account of an embassy from the king of Great Britain to the emperor of China : Taken chiefly from the papers of earl of Macartney, embassador extraordinary a. plenipotentiary to the emperor of China: In 2 vol. Vol. 1».
Полный вариант заголовка: «Specimens of early English metrical romances : Vol. 2 : chiefly written during the early part of the 14 century : to which is prefixed an historical introduction, intended to illustrate the rise and progress of romantic composition in France and England : in 3 volumes / by George Ellis».
Полный вариант заголовка: «Specimens of early English metrical romances : Vol. 1 : chiefly written during the early part of the 14 century : to which is prefixed an historical introduction, intended to illustrate the rise and progress of romantic composition in France and England : in 3 volumes / by George Ellis».
Полный вариант заголовка: «Specimens of early English metrical romances : Vol. 3 : chiefly written during the early part of the 14 century : to which is prefixed an historical introduction, intended to illustrate the rise and progress of romantic composition in France and England : in 3 volumes / by George Ellis».
The penultimate volume of Peter Ackroyd’s masterful History of England series, Dominion begins in 1815 as national glory following the Battle of Waterloo gives way to post-war depression, spanning the last years of the Regency to the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. In it, Ackroyd takes us from the accession of the profligate George IV whose government was steered by Lord Liverpool, who was firmly set against reform, to the reign of his brother, William IV, the 'Sailor King', whose reign saw the modernization of the political system and the abolition of slavery. But it was the accession of Queen Victoria, aged only eighteen, that sparked an era of enormous innovation. Technological progress – from steam railways to the first telegram – swept the nation and the finest inventions were showcased at the first Great Exhibition in 1851. The emergence of the middle classes changed the shape of society and scientific advances changed the old pieties of the Church of England, and spread secular ideas across the nation. But though intense industrialization brought boom times for the factory owners, the working classes were still subjected to poor housing, long working hours and dire poverty. It was a time that saw a flowering of great literature, too. As the Georgian era gave way to that of Victoria, readers could delight not only in the work of Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth but also the great nineteenth-century novelists: the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Thackeray, and, of course, Dickens, whose work has become synonymous with Victorian England. Nor was Victorian expansionism confined to Britain alone. By the end of Victoria’s reign, the Queen was also an Empress and the British Empire dominated much of the globe. And, as Ackroyd shows in this richly populated, vividly told account, Britannia really did seem to rule the waves. |
0.979573 | How does Qualcomm's BREW compare to J2ME?
Qualcomm's BREW is a proprietary API that allows the developer to access CDMA features without having access to the CDMA source code, or the CDMA chipset.
1. What Java development options are there for BREW?
A. While QUALCOMM itself isn't providing a Java runtime for BREW, we are working with several partners to provide our developers with choices. At this time we cannot provide access to these Java solutions, but we expect to in the near future. In the meantime, you can use any standard Java development environment if you are developing a J2ME/CLDC/MIDP application or midlet. We also expect there to be direct access to BREW APIs in some of the execution environments.
They are referring developers to the J2ME api's, and suggest to eventually make their BREW api's available to the J2ME environment soon.
Hope this helps. I work with Qualcomm as well, and can probably get a little more detailed information if you so need it. |
0.999996 | Ever had to buy a gift for someone you didn't really know but really had to impress? Think bosses and in-laws. Choosing items for these people is generally challenging because, unlike a best friend, you don't know their tastes, sizes, allergies, and restrictions.
In many ways, pitching someone in a sales email is a lot like shopping for your boss or in-laws: you want to impress your potential customer with the benefits your company can offer. But how can you be sure you're selling the right features and benefits to that person? The answer is, by getting to know your customer like you would your best friend.
To do this, you need to create a profile for your ideal customer that includes as much detail as possible--their demographics, interests, challenges, business objectives, industry, job title, key competitors, recent activity, and anything else you can find. This is called a buyer persona, and it's one of the best techniques you have as a salesperson when it comes to better understanding your customer.
Not sure where to start? Follow these three steps to start learning about your current customer, ideal customer, and the ones you want to avoid.
1. Compile research and data to understand your current customer.
If you already have customers, gather data about them to build buyer personas. Separate the data into categories, such as demographics, industries, departments, challenges you could solve and overall business objectives.
If you don't have any data on your customers, it's time to prioritize getting some. Start with a basic data analytics tool, and also mine the information in customer surveys and social media platforms. Watch the news to see changes in your prospective customer's industry that would drastically affect their work, for better or worse.
Next, determine which categories are most important for your business. For example, if you've developed an accounting tool that can serve any finance department in any small business, you don't need to focus so much on specific industries as you do company size.
If you don't have customers yet, research your competition and find out who their customers are. You may not get as much data, but it's a great start.
2. Analyze your current customer to develop the profile of your ideal buyer.
As you evaluate your current customer, decide what characteristics you want to add or change. Say, for example, your current customers are Marketers, but you believe your service is also relevant to Sales. In this case, create multiple buyer personas, like Vice President of Sales or Director of Marketing.
Don't go overboard, though, and create a profile for every employee in the potential customer's department. Focus on a few, such as those that offer the highest value or whose business challenges could most use your product or service. Expand as you acquire more customers and data.
3. Create a "negative" buyer persona to understand who you don't want.
Knowing your ideal buyer is important, but it's just as crucial to understand who you don't want to work with or who would be a bad fit.
Determine the traits of customers you want to exclude, such as those who will cost too much time or money to acquire, have business objectives and systems that don't align with yours, or are just plain hard to work with.
For example, if a business works exclusively with an IT systems provider that is incompatible with your product, wait until their provider or your product changes to pursue them seriously.
You may be tempted to write off any potential customer that doesn't fit your ideal buyer persona. But remember, you only started with a few profiles. As you expand your business and add additional buyer personas, your customer base will expand. At that point, you'll want to have separated the customers you want to work with from the ones you want to avoid.
How do you go about finding your ideal customer? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! |
0.999983 | Hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, La Cage Aux Folles and Mack and Mabel are home to some of the most popular musical heroines of all time, and have given Jerry Herman the distinction of being the only composer-lyricist in history to have had three musicals that ran more than 1,500 consecutive performances on Broadway.
His credits also include the Broadway mega-hits Mame(1966), Dear World (1969), Mack and Mabel (1974) – Jerry’s favourite score, The Grand Tour (1979), which received two Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Score, and La Cage Aux Folles (1983), which is considered to be one of Jerry’s greatest accomplishments earning nine Tony nominations, including six awards for: Best Musical, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Director of a Musical, Best Book, Best Score and Best Costume Designer. In 1985, Jerry's Girls, a collection of Jerry’s favorite Broadway songs, made its debut on Broadway.
Jerry’s credits extend beyond Broadway, with his work in television and film, as well as the release of several albums. In1996 he wrote songs and collaborated with his friend and former colleague Angela Lansbury to produce Mrs. Santa Claus. Jerry also united with comedienne, entertainer and singer Carol Channing to complete the album Hello, Dolly! with Carol Channingthat contained music from the 1964 Broadway hit. |
0.957256 | Please Explain Me The Meaning Of These Sentences?
Please explain me the meaning of these sentences.
1: He took me for all i had.
In the above sentence took has meaning of to obtain money from esp. fraudulently. According to me correct sentence should be He took me from all i had. Does for has meaning of from in sentence 1.
2: After twelve years of school some kids feel they're entitled to ph*ck off.
What does entitled mean in the above sentence?
1. No, for doesn't mean the same as from.
He took me for all I had - this is an idiomatic phrase. It means that he 'conned' me out of all of my money.
He took me away from all I had - this would mean that he removed me from my environment.
1: In what way sentence 1 is idiomatic phrase because I can't see any idiom in it.
Let me restate sentence 2 again.
2: After twelve years of school some kids feel they're entitled to 1234 off (1=f, 2=u, 3=c, 4=k).
3: One of the meanings of ramp is to stand or advance menacingly with forelegs or with arms raised.
How can one raise his forelegs while standing or advancing? Please explain me.
1. The idiom is "he took me." It means, as Nona says, that he conned me. "for all I had" = everything I owned. He conned me out of all my money.
2. Entitled means they feel they are justified in doing this, as Nona said.
3. I've never heard "ramp" used this way.
3. I've never heard ramp used as a verb, although it does appear in dictionaries. I don't think this is a word you need to learn - very few people would understand what you meant. The forelegs part applies to 4-legged animals.
Nona The Brit 3. I've never heard ramp used as a verb, although it does appear in dictionaries. I don't think this is a word you need to learn - very few people would understand what you meant.
The forelegs part applies to 4-legged animals.
I've thought about rear, but it has the same limitation of being applied only to 4-legged animals.
If you google "rampant lion" you will find images that make the meaning clear.
Nona The Brit 1. No, for doesn't mean the same as from.
I didn't say he took me away from all I had. Does he took me from all I had mean the same as he took me for all I had?
Please Explain The Meaning Of This Quotation?
Could You Explain Me The Meaning? (Punctuation)? |
0.999698 | Hello new website manager! Just wanted to leave some thoughts I had for the website going forward since I am leaving.
All of the work I did with the website involved me having 0 coding experience, so if you do have coding experience there are probably design changes you could make to make the website look better formatted. If you don't have any coding experience, then you will be fine, since I was fine.
If you haven't worked with Squarespace before, you can find tutorial videos on their website here, which I found very helpful and would recommend watching if you have time. Other than that, the best way to learn is simply to play around with the functions of the website.
Now for a confusing excerpt on how I've been designing the website(apologies in advance): The tabs at the top of the website are the 'folder' icons you see on the 'Pages' section of the Squarespace website editor. Those folders hold editable 'pages' which are the dropdown options when you hover over each tab on the website. Some of those pages carry links in (usually) bolded text to different files that are currently 'not linked' on the website. This is because 'Indexes' cannot be put under 'Folders' so you have to separately link them through creating new 'pages' under each 'folder'. I apologize if this is really confusing, but it will make sense once you play around with what I've done. I suggest looking at how I've linked the 'About Us'--> 'Our Volunteers' section to the unlinked Index: 'Our Volunteers (unlinked)' that are where the biographies are located.
There are some extra 'pages' in the 'not linked' section under 'WIP's' folder, which are projects that have been started or ideas for projects that haven't been started, that may be good to follow up on. I've left some notes on them so you can understand what my thought process for how it could be completed or implemented going forward. Either click on the page itself or look in the 'settings' (the cog on the right as you hover over the page) of that page to see my comments. |
0.999933 | A two-part chair created with a series of plywood laminations.
Design and produce a piece of furniture.
I began this project by researching biophilic design, which is a concept used currently by architects, where they seek to rekindle the relationship between people and the natural environment within built structures. It draws from the belief that humans have an innate affinity for nature. During this research, I found that connecting to nature either through direct stimulus or constructed stimulus is important is it can decrease stress for those who interact with it, increase attention, promote well-being, and nurture a love of place. When people are asked where their favorite places to be are, a majority answer with a place in the natural environment.
I was inspired by the benefits of nature and began thinking about how to combine design that resembled the organic with furniture, which, like architecture, is a built structure. I was particularly interested in the idea of nature-inspired design generating a love of place.
Prior to figuring out what I wanted to make, I created three main criteria that I was interested in my furniture having. I wanted it to be well-made, in that it considered ergonomics, it was durable and therefore could be kept based on how long the user wanted to keep the furniture, rather than the construction dictating the furniture’s lifetime. In addition, I wanted the materials for my furniture to be used effectively in that they are used for what they do well, which also supports the idea of durability.
Next, I created my design brief. I wanted to design furniture inspired by the organic that would generate both a visual and physical space of comfort. This would take into consideration the ergonomics of the chair, and having a visually interesting piece of furniture I hoped would establish a deeper more emotionally invested connection with the user.
I began by looking at images of nature, and I decided that I was interested in designing a chair. Three concepts that arose during this phase were the idea of envelopment, inside and outside of the chair, as well as smooth curvilinear forms found in nature. I wanted my chair to play with the idea of encompassing the user when in use, almost as a layer of protection. I was also interested in investigating the openness of the chair in that it would have a sense of privacy for the user through the enveloping aspect, but also for the user to have space in the furniture itself and be able to access the space outside of the chair with ease.
Wood became an apparent as a material for the construction of the chair, not only because it itself if a natural material, but that it can be bent into different shapes using either laminations or steambending. In my preliminary sketches, I was interested in the idea of having the back wrap around the user.
My preliminary models played with the idea of having a single lamination as the back piece, but I realized that the interaction between the back and the base of the chair was very planar. I started to think about how to create a compound curve while using laminations.
Meanwhile, I was creating full-scale mockups to finalize the proportions.
I eventually settled on the idea of using two laminations – one that would form the base of the chair, and another that would act as the back and armrests. To further play with the idea of open vs. closed, I experimented with the negative space at the back of the chair.
My concept eventually evolved into that of the chair pictured below at the bottom right.
To create my chair, I needed to construct three different jigs. In the left image below, the two jigs at the bottom of the image were for the upper portion of the chair, and the one above was for the legs of the chair. I decided to connect the two laminations at an angle in order to further improve the ergonomics of the chair.
To attach the two laminations, I used biscuits on each side. Below on the right is an image of the glue-up of the legs of the chair.
The top and bottom of the chair are attached using screws, which makes the chair easier to transport and distribute, as well as assemble.
My ideal environment for this chair would be to be in an apartment living room environment, where common activities of the space generally involve relaxation. With this chair, I hoped to enhance the innate quality of the living room space. |
0.964202 | I’ve often wondered what the ultimate classic Mario title would consist of. While Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World arguably still hold that title, Super Mario Maker certainly gives these classics a run for their money, and it manages to do so with very little actual gameplay content made by Nintendo. It offers virtually all that a die-hard Mario fanatic would want in a classic platformer; a nearly infinite amount of content, a nice blend of nostalgia and modern Mario gameplay and, most notably, the ability for the player to take center stage and create their own levels, which they can share with the world. This feature is sure to satisfy many an amateur game designer, creative folks, show-offs, and/or control freaks who prefer their gameplay experiences crafted by their own hand.
Not only is the aforementioned feature the biggest appeal and selling point for most, but it is indeed the meat-and-potatoes of this game; which is ironic because the level designer feature doesn’t quite qualify as “gameplay”. And yet, I had an absolute blast sitting back on my gamepad with a stylus in hand, crafting my own Mario concoctions.
The level design and creation in surprisingly easy to get used to, thanks in part to the intuitive touch controls on the gamepad screen. The interface provides a clean and relatively simple layout of a basic, randomly generated stage from which you can use as a foundation (or can choose to start from scratch), as well as a palette of tools at your disposal, which are marked by easy to recognize pictures. You can also instantly jump into your stage and give it a test run, further adding to the intuitive and seamless nature of the level creator. Simply put, it just feels “right” .
Nintendo further eases the learning curve by rationing out the assets/functions at your disposal, holding back some of the more intricate ones for later. While this trickling out of available content may annoy some of the more impatient folks and those completionists who want everything to play with right out of the gate, I found it did help keep the confusion to a minimum.
Still, there are a few quirks here and there that take a little extra time to uncover and to pin down. For instance, the useful ability to drag and select multiple objects for movement or copying is a little tricky to locate within the interface, and even once discovered, can be awkward to use at times. There is also a feature that allows you to grab and shake enemies in order to alter them in some way. While this is a neat little addition, it is easy to forget about, and is not always the most convenient method to use when frequently experimenting and looking to spruce up your level with different enemy varieties. Still, these are more nitpicky aspects that don’t generally hinder what is overall a well crafted and easy-to-learn system.
Despite the aforementioned user-friendly interface and simplicity there is still quite a lot to play around with right out of the gate. You are initially granted only the New Super Mario and the original Super Mario Brothers themes, though these prove to be more than enough anyway. The more you play around with your levels, and add various assets, the more goodies you will receive - or rather, you will receive them more quickly. In other words, you will still gain access to all the game’s content/features (as they run on a designated schedule), but those who clock more time will speed up this schedule, granting incentive to toy around with this function in greater depth.
Even on the offset of the game, this virtual toolbox comes loaded with a variety of enjoyable assets and abilities which can be utilized in seemingly endless ways, making the only real limitation your imagination. Nintendo has pretty much provided you with the ability to make your stage as action-packed and/or frustrating as possible, with massive array of enemies at your disposal. Everything from traditional goombas, troopas, and piranhas, all the way up to the more obscure chain chomps, wigglers, and magikoopas make an appearance. You can even give many enemies wings, make them pop out of pipes, or turn them into giant versions of themselves by simply dragging a mushroom onto them. The selection of powerups and building materials is similarly vast, allowing you to add your own personal flare and create an artistic design and layout that is uniquely yours.
Speaking of powerups, there is additionally the Super Mario Maker exclusive “mystery” mushroom, which transforms Mario into a variety of random characters from other Nintendo games. This is where the Amiibo support comes into play, as a player can use a number of different supported Amiibo to create the ability for Mario to turn into anything from Link to Yoshi, and even the inklings from Splatoon. Like many games that support the Amiibo, it comes across as a bit of a tacked on afterthought. Still, it is nonetheless a cool little novelty that helps add a unique flavor to the ever-familiar nostalgic Mario experiences that dominate the game.
Another quality that makes the game somewhat unique from the Mario classics it resembles is the ability to mix and match the majority of the assets for any Mario game theme, even if they yet to have been invented for that particular game. This means you can use a thwomp with the Super Mario Bros. 1 overlay, or place a Magikoopa in the Super Mario Bros. 3 style. Factor this in with the ability to create stages using several of the major Mario level themes - even the airships made famous in Super Mario 3 and the ghost houses straight out of Super Mario World, and you can quickly see the endless stream of potential that lies in this seemingly simple level creator.
It won’t come as much surprise then, that using this create function can prove to be a pretty time-consuming endeavor if you are at least semi-serious about crafting a level with some depth. Though, I had enjoyed this process so much that time tended to fly by anyway (which may perhaps be a positive or a negative depending on your perspective). One thing that most will agree with, however, is that you a given quite the feeling of satisfaction upon completing your work of gaming art, even if you do notice it is suddenly three hours later than your realized. Indeed - even a small and simplistic stage could eat up a decent chunk of time, particularly when you are still new to the process and finding your bearings. And it is a bit strange to find yourself completing your stage in about 1/20th the time it took you to design it. But still, that aforementioned feeling of satisfaction makes it well worth it, and is only further heightened once you’ve uploaded your level online for all the gaming world to experience.
"A Mario platforming haven that lets you create, play, and share"
Super Mario Maker is ranked #145 out of 1434 total reviewed games. It is ranked #9 out of 110 games reviewed in 2015. |
0.967553 | What makes Power BI for Excel such a vast improvement over detailed Excel worksheets is the PowerPivot Data Model, which allows data to be pulled together from multiple tables and multiple databases. This course is designed for Power BI for Excel Designers who are ready to create custom data models for themselves and for other Power BI Designers. Topics covered include database design concepts, how to build both general purpose and customized data models, building data hierarchies, and how to use basic DAX language and functionality to extend the capabilities of data models for in-depth and customized analysis of information.
Excel levels 1, 2 and 3, including PivotTable & Pivot Chart skills; plus a basic understanding of database concepts. Data Analysis using Excel - Level 1 - Report Builders. |
0.98404 | Which biochemical pathways are regulated by mechanical signals?
Cells are capable of relaying mechanical stimuli from their physical environment all the way down to the nucleus through electrochemical, biochemical or mechanical pathways. In many cases the activation or suppression of a given pathway by a mechanical cue gives rise to alterations in gene expression. This may be described by a simplified model where the local rigidity of the extracellular matrix is first detected at focal adhesion sites by stretch-activated and integrin-like transmembrane receptors (reviewed in ). The transduction of the signal subsequently occurs via physical (localized contraction or alteration of the cytoskeleton) or chemical (diffusion of soluble intermediates) pathways.
Simplified model of mechanotransduction. Focal adhesions detect physical stimuli from the substrate, and transmit this information to the nucleus, either directly along the actin cytoskeleton or in conjunction with biochemical signaling pathways, such as phosphorylation. Purely mechanical signaling is fast, on the order of milliseconds, while a combination of mechanical and biochemical signaling takes seconds.
A long-distance propagation of mechanical force can take place through physical modulation of the cytoskeleton which requires the cell to have non-uniform stiffness (as predicted by the tensegrity model ). Such physical force propagation (often referred to as stress wave ) takes less than a milli second to reach the nucleus. On the other hand, extracellular mechanical signals can also be transmitted to the nucleus via biochemical pathways initiated through conformational changes in mechanosensitive proteins and leading to chemical signal propagation and amplification. Unlike the rapid propogation of signals via stress waves, diffusion of soluble proteins or ligands through the cytoplasm can take tens of seconds to occur. These proteins or ligands must also interact with downstream mediators before eventually reaching the nucleus and initiating changes in gene expression. This final ‘end point’ in the pathway can be achieved through activation of transcription factors, the formation of transcription complexes or through a physical remodeling of chromatin or other nuclear components.
Of particular importance in biochemical mechanotransduction are phosphorylation events or other post-translational modifications of proteins, as these events are often associated with changes in transcription (reviewed in ). This is observed, for example, when mechanosensitive proteins such as zyxin, paxillin, β-catenin, which are normally situated within focal adhesion complexes or at cell-cell junctions, translocate to the nucleus upon mechanosignal-induced phosphorylation. Similarly, transcription-relevant factors may be sequestered in the cytoplasm (e.g., NFkB, STAT3, NFAT) and translocate to the nucleus after they are phosphorylated by upstream mechanosensitive mediators (e.g., focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activates NF-kB in response to fluid shear stress ). In other cases, the transcription-related factors may already reside inside the nucleus (e.g., EGR1 ) and when stimulated, bind to specific regulatory sites on DNA to initiate gene expression.
What types of signals do cells use to communicate?
How can disrupted mechanosignaling lead to diseases?
What is the Canonical Wnt Receptor Signaling Pathway?
What is the Hippo-YAP/TAZ tumor-suppressor pathway?
What is the NF-kB pathway?
What is epidermal growth factor signaling? |
0.974064 | I was just going to see you.
but you need to mention what you were about to do.
I was just about to go to you.
I was just going to try and find you!
I was just leaving to go look for you.
I was on my way to come see you.
I was about to head your way.
Thanks so much for dropping by. I was going to come to you. I didn't mean for you to have to come to me.
going and coming are usually deictic, expressing the speaker's point of view, but that point-of-view can be reversed in situations where politeness and deference come into play, for example.
Is “How to say something in English” a wrong sentence? |
0.999542 | Is this a "fake media" report or true: "arguing that he is a member of a "protected class," and likening his support for the MAGA creed to a religious belief. "???
His spiritual beliefs “entirely transcend the political realm,” the suit claims, and are loosely related to the 30-year-old tourist’s sympathy for the victims of 9/11. |
0.999392 | A NUMBER of distinctly South African words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Some have been introduced to English from various African languages and Afrikaans.
Afrikaans, the dictionary notes, has been a particularly rich source of loanwords.
Well, the dictionary always did kick off with "Aardvark" (warthog), closely followed by "Aardwolf" (hyena) and "Aasvogel" (vulture), with "Zulu" about third item from last.
New words included are "deurmekaar", an adjective applied to something that is confused, muddled, or mixed up – inspired no doubt by the Brexit debacle - and "voetstoots", first used as a legal term to describe "the buying or selling of items in their existing condition and today used more generally as an adverb to describe actions carried out unconditionally, without reservation or qualification."
Yes, voetstoots is a term used in Roman-Dutch law – pushing away with the foot – meaning that an item is sold as is, the seller not responsible for any subsequent defect.
How would the English language manage without our input?
Other new words in the Oxford Dictionary are "Amakhosi" (1857), a collective term of Xhosa and Zulu origin for tribal leaders or chiefs in traditional Nguni societies, and "ubuntu" (1860), a word signifying the fundamental values of humanity.
Other words on the list, including some slang, are: bunnychow, district surgeon, dwaal, eina, gumboot dance, howzit, ingcibi, ja, ja well, kasi, kif, Mzansi, sakkie-sakkie, sarmie, shackland, skedonk, spaza, tickey box, traditional healer and wine of origin.
I'm surprised they weren't all there already, though I must confess to being mystified by "incibi" and "kasi". "Mzansi" is a rather silly name for South Africa. It means "down there".
"Tickey box" is surely a little archaic. The tickey was the small, silver threepenny bit that disappeared with the calamity of decimalisation. A tickey box was a telephone booth, which doesn't exist any more, while the idea of a call of unlimited duration for the equivalent of two-and-a-half cents is today in the realm of fantasy.
There's a way to go. Future editions of the Oxford English Dictionary need to contain words like skebenga (politician), bambaduza (dancing close) and poepdronk (very drunk).
It all adds up to enrichment of the language, coloration of our vocabularies and is to be encouraged.
IT'S with sadness that I note the death of Stephanie Churton, a grand old lady of art in Durban.
Steph began drawing and painting when she was a child of 11. She died the other day at the age of 92, still painting. Her prodigious output included portraits, landscapes, still life – roses were a speciality – and some amusing experimentations.
Her early mentor was Professor Jack Grossert, and from there she took off, painting mainly in oils though also using other mediums. Her skill and decorative flair made her work popular. One of her last projects was a portrait of her much-loved friend and care-giver Bonnie Nene, who was also teaching her Zulu. This was a lively mind.
I count myself fortunate to have three of Steph's paintings hanging in my flat.
A STREAKER runs through a golf club with a towel covering his face. Three female members are sitting in the lounge.
"At least that's not my husband," says one.
"No, it isn't," says the second.
"He's not even a member," says the third.
Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming about 10 inches too high. |
0.999986 | This article describes a highly specialized aspect of its subject in the "Terminology and legal definitions" section. Please help Wikipedia by adding more general information.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic chemical compounds that have high enough vapour pressures under normal conditions to significantly vaporize and enter the atmosphere. A wide range of carbon-based molecules, such as aldehydes, ketones, and hydrocarbons are VOC's. The term often is used in a legal or regulatory context and in such cases the precise definition is a matter of law. These definitions can be contradictory and may contain "loopholes"; e.g. exceptions, exemptions, and exclusions. The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines a VOC as any organic compound that participates in a photoreaction; others believe this definition is very broad and vague as organics that are not volatile in the sense that they vaporize under normal conditions can considered volatile by this EPA definition. The term may refer both to well characterized organic compounds and to mixtures of variable composition.
The most common VOC is methane, a greenhouse gas sometimes excluded from analysis of other VOCs using the term non-methane VOCs, or NMVOCs. Major worldwide sources of atmospheric methane include wetlands, ruminants such as cows, energy use, rice agriculture, landfills, and burning biomass such as wood.
Common artificial sources of VOCs include paint thinners, dry cleaning solvents, and some constituents of petroleum fuels (eg. gasoline and natural gas). Trees are also an important biological source of VOC; it is known that they emit large amounts of VOCs, especially isoprene and terpenes. Another significant source of VOC emission is crude oil tanking. Both during offloading and loading of crude oil tankers VOC are released to the atmosphere. Lately there has been an environmental focus on this issue resulting in both VOC handling on newer tankers and also crude oil loading terminals.
Considered a factor in indoor air quality issues such as sick building syndrome, VOCs "are generated by photocopiers, carpets, and furnishings as they are used or when components oxidize.... One irritant, formeldahyde, present in hundreds of office components, including wood and laminated furniture, shelving, and wall covers. It also evaporates from paints, varnishes, and chemicals used for sealing and finishing walls." Tobacco smoke can contribute high levels of VOCs.
VOCs including halogenide and sulfide are emitted through human respiration, and formaldehyde is emitted at a lower rate from the surface of the human body.
Also many VOCs are found in brownfield sites.
VOCs are sometimes accidentally released into the environment, where they can damage soil and groundwater. Vapours of VOCs escaping into the air contribute to air pollution.
VOCs are an important outdoor air pollutant. In this field they are often divided into the separate categories of methane ((CH4)2) and non-methane (NMVOCs). Methane is an extremely efficient greenhouse gas which contributes to enhanced global warming. Other hydrocarbon VOCs are also significant greenhouse gases via their role in creating ozone and in prolonging the life of methane in the atmosphere, although the effect varies depending on local air quality. Within the NMVOCs, the aromatic compounds benzene, toluene and xylene are suspected carcinogens and may lead to leukemia through prolonged exposure. 1,3-butadiene is another dangerous compound which is often associated with industrial uses.
Some VOCs also react with nitrogen oxides in the air in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. Although ozone is beneficial in the upper atmosphere because it absorbs UV thus protecting humans, plants, and animals from exposure to dangerous solar radiation, it poses a health threat in the lower atmosphere by causing respiratory problems. In addition high concentrations of low level ozone can damage crops and buildings.
Many VOCs found around the house, such as paint strippers and wood preservatives, contribute to sick building syndrome because of their high vapour pressure. VOC's are often used in paint, carpet backing, plastics, and cosmetics. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found concentrations of VOCs in indoor air to be 2 to 5 times greater than in outdoor air. During certain activities indoor levels of VOCs may reach 1,000 times that of the outside air. Not all organic compounds are volatile; many plastics (polymers) and other large molecules may not have significant vapor pressure at normal temperatures.
Air quality with reference to Volatile Organic Compund Emission.
There are a number of different ways to collectively refer to those chemical compounds that participate in photochemical reactions. That is, those that react with other pollutants, in the presence of sunlight, to form tropospheric ozone.
While all these terms are used, it is not always clear which pollutants are included in each term. The term "VOC" has the advantage of having precise definitions codified by regulators such as the European Parliament and the US EPA.
Worldwide, legal definitions of the term "VOC" are in many respects, more a matter of policy than a matter of science. For example, because the US EPA Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) has characterized a compound as having "negligible photochemical reactivity" it does not necessarily imply that it is, at any particular time, less reactive than those compounds which are not on the list. Since first establishing the list of exempt compounds in 1977, the EPA has added several to the list, and frequently has several petitions undergoing review.
The traditional US standard to determine if a compound is a non-VOC is to compare its reactivity to that of ethane, which was the least reactive compound on the original list. Unfortunately, this is a very difficult comparison to make as it is frequently impossible to duplicate the real-world conditions in a laboratory. To complicate the issue, typical real-world conditions are different from day to day and from place to place. However, there is ongoing study on the use of a compound's reactivity as a better tool for pollution control regulation than the "is or isn't" approach currently in use.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency definition of VOCs is published in the Code of Federal Regulations. It defines VOCs as "any compound of carbon, excluding carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, metallic carbides or carbonates, and ammonium carbonate, which participates in atmospheric photochemical reactions," but also includes a list of dozens of exceptions for compounds "determined to have negligible photochemical reactivity."
Under European law, the definition of "VOC" is based on evaporation into the atmosphere, rather than reactivity. For example European Union Directive 2004/42/CE which covers VOC emissions from paints and varnishes defines a VOC as any organic compound having an initial boiling point less than or equal to 250°C measured at a standard atmospheric pressure of 101.3 kPa. Directive 94/63/EC which regulates VOC emissions from storage and distribution of petrol simply defines vapours as any gaseous compound which evaporates from petrol.
The British coatings industry has adopted a VOC labelling scheme for all decorative coatings to inform customers about the levels of organic solvents and other volatile materials present. Coatings manufacturers use standard terminology, text and categories for all products. Information is provided according to five ‘bands,’ and manufacturers may label products with either a British Coatings Federation text box on the back panel, or a graphical globe symbol, the latter subject to licensing from with B&Q plc. Both styles of labels contain the same text, and warn that VOCs contribute to atmospheric pollution.
An example of text box labelling for the Minimal band is shown below, while examples of the graphical globe symbols may be seen on websites of some British coatings companies.
^ "ESPERE Climate Encyclopedia." (Website.) Atmospheric Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. "Industry" section. Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
^ "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis" Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published on United Nations Environmental Programme/GRID-Arendale website. Section 4.2.1.1: "Non-CO2 Kyoto Gases, Methane (CH4)." Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
^ 2007-05-02. "Sick Building Syndrome - New Treatments, May 2, 2007" (Website). Library of the National Medical Society. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ "Indoor Air Facts No. 4 (revised) Sick Building Syndrome." (Website). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ Hajima, Tamura, Yoneda Shuji, Fujii Shuji, Yuasa Kazuhiro, Suzuki Miyako. 1999. "Measurement of volatile organic compounds generated from human being." Kuki Seijo to Kontamineshyon Kontororu Kenkyu Taikai Yokoshu, vol. 17, pp. 131-132 (Japanese), via English-language abstract on sciencelinks.jp. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ Air Resources Board: Reactivity Background (Website). Air Resources Board, California Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ 2007-08-30. "Title 40: Protection of Environment, Part 51-Requirements for Preparation, Adoption, and Submittal of Implementation Plans, Subpart F—Procedural Requirements, 51.100: Definitions." (Website). GPO Access: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR), United States Government Printing Office. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ "Directive 2004/42/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council" (Website.) EUR-Lex, European Union Publications Office. Retrieved on 2007-09-27.
^ "European Parliament and council directive 94/63/EC of 20 December 1994." (Website.) Estonian Legal Language Centre, Justiits Ministeerium (Justice Ministry of Estonia). Retrieved on 2007-09-27.
^ "What are VOCs." (Website). The British Coatings Federation. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
^ "VOCs" (Commercial website). ICI Paints. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Volatile_organic_compound". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |
0.968033 | How do you get your hair straight without heat or chemiclas?
5 ways to straighten your hair without heat Indeed, the natural appeal of the hair cannot be beaten by anything out there, but human nature wants to change. After a while, one tends to get bored of the monotonous hair style and looks for a new trendy appearance. |
0.912335 | Location of the Uzbek SSR within the Soviet Union.
The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR; Uzbek: Ўзбекистон Совет Социалистик Республикаси, Oʻzbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasi'; Russian: Узбекская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Uzbekskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika), also referred to as Soviet Uzbekistan or Uzbekistan, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union. It was created in 1924. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist Party, the only legal political party, from 1925 until 1990. In December 1991, it became independent as the Republic of Uzbekistan.
In 1925, the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed along ethnic lines determined by Vladimir Lenin’s Commissar for Nationalities, Joseph Stalin. The Turkestan ASSR, the Bukharan People's Republic, and the Khorezm People's Republic were abolished and their territories were divided into eventually five separate Soviet Socialist Republics, one of which was the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR), created on 27 October 1924. The next year the Uzbek SSR became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union).
The Uzbek SSR included the Tajik ASSR until 1929, when the Tajik ASSR was upgraded to an equal status. In 1930, the Uzbek SSR capital was relocated from Samarkand to Tashkent. In 1936, the Uzbek SSR was enlarged with the addition of the Karakalpak ASSR taken from the Kazakh SSR in the last stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. Further bits and pieces of territory were transferred several times between the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR after World War II.
In 1928, the collectivization of land into state farms was initiated, which lasted until the late 1930s.
In 1937–38, during the Great Purge, a number of alleged nationalists were executed, including Faizullah Khojaev, the first prime minister.
World War II poster commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Uzbek SSR.
During World War II, many industries were relocated to the Uzbek SSR from vulnerable locations in western regions of the USSR to keep them safe. Large numbers of Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities accompanied the factories, altering the demographics of the republic. The demographics situation was further aggravated by Stalin’s relocation of some ethnic groups suspected of collaboration with the Axis powers from other parts of the USSR to the Uzbek SSR. This included large numbers of ethnic Koreans, Crimean Tatars, and Chechens.
During the Soviet period, Islam became a focal point for the antireligious drives of Communist authorities. The government closed most mosques, and religious schools became anti-religious museums. On the positive side was the virtual elimination of illiteracy, even in rural areas. Only a small percentage of the population was literate before 1917; this percentage increased to nearly 100 percent under the Soviets.
Another major development, one with future catastrophic impact, was the drive initiated in the early 1960s to substantially increase cotton production in the republic. This drive led to overzealous irrigation withdrawals of irrigation water from the Amu Darya and the subsequent Aral Sea ecological disaster.
The Communist Party was the only legal party in the Uzbek SSR until 1990. The first secretary, or head, of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan was consistently an Uzbek. Long-time leader of the Uzbek SSR was Sharof Rashidov, head of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan from 1959 to 1983. Islam Karimov, leader of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan since 1989 and subsequently head of that party's reincarnation, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), became president of the Uzbek SSR in 1990.
On 1 September 1991, the Uzbek SSR was renamed Republic of Uzbekistan, formally remaining a part of the Soviet Union until 26 December 1991. With the final collapse of the Soviet Union, the Uzbek SSR became the independent nation of Uzbekistan. Karimov has been its President ever since.
1963-02-16 Syr Darya Oblast (center: Gulistan) is formed. "In 1973 a large part of the oblast’s territory was transferred to the newly formed Dzhizak Oblast"
1927 Uzbek SSR including Tajik ASSR and Khodzhent.
Uzbek SSR, 1 December 1938.
Uzbek SSR in the Soviet Union, 1989 (Navoi Oblast not shown).
↑ Syr Darya Oblast definition of Syr Darya Oblast in the Free Online Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com.
↑ 1936 Constitution of the USSR, Part I. Departments.bucknell.edu.
This page was last modified on 22 May 2016, at 00:01. |
0.999995 | Как я могу получить иммигрантские привилегии, в качестве подвергнутого жестокому обращению супруга или ребенка?
If there is any dispute arising out of the Website and/or the Services, by using the Website, you expressly agree that any such dispute shall be governed by the laws of Hungary, without regard to its principles on conflicts of laws, . Any action to enforce this Agreement shall be brought in the courts of Hungary only. |
0.990739 | “Moonrise by the Sea” by Caspar David Friedrich was painted in 1822 depicting a romantic seascape scene. Three young people, two women side by side and a man further back, are sitting on a large boulder by the sea, silhouetted against the sky as they watch the moon rising to the east above a band of clouds. In the distance are two sailing vessels, ghosting on a light breeze. The painting is a view of the Baltic Sea, near Friedrich’s birthplace in Swedish Pomerania.
This painting is held in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, a similarly named painting by Friedrich is at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg with is much larger and painted in 1821.
Swedish Pomerania was a Dominion under the Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815, situated on what is now the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. After multiple wars, disputes and treaties, the Congress of Vienna it transferred to Prussia in 1815.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic or megalithic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich’s paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale.
The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s saw a resurgence in Friedrich’s popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect. Fortunately in the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.
Is Caspar David Friedrich the master of silhouetted figures against the night sky? |
0.976058 | For Mains: Recent amendments and the issues related.
Context: The Supreme Court has asked five states to give their response to a petition filed by social activists questioning the state amendments made to the land acquisition law, which the petitioners claim have diluted the safeguards the central law provides for against forcible acquisition.
The activists have questioned the changes made to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (Land Acquisition Act), 2013 by Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. The petitioners have contended that the amendments by the states are identical and go against the “basic structure” of the central law.
According to the petition the states amended the act by way of ordinances to exempt broad categories of land projects from consent provisions, social impact assessment, objections by affected citizens and participation of local bodies. Projects exempted are linear category projects such as industrial corridors, expressways, highways etc.
Petitioners have challenged the power of the states to introduce such amendments that are conflicting with the central law and want them to be declared as illegal.
Petitioners contend that the amendments made by the states were in violation of Article 21, which guarantees the right to live with dignity and personal liberty.
Clearly defines various types of “public purpose” projects for which, Government can acquire private land.
Acquiring land: For private project, 80% affected families must agree. For PPP project, 70% affected families must agree. Only then land can be acquired.
Social impact assessment: Under Social impact assessment (SIA) even need to obtain consent of the affected artisans, labourers, share-croppers, tenant farmers etc whose (sustainable) livelihood will be affected because of the given project.
Compensation: Compensation proportion to market rates. 4 times the market rate in rural area. 2 times in urban area. Affected artisans, small traders, fishermen etc. will be given one-time payment, even if they don’t own any land.
To ensure food security: Fertile, irrigated, multi-cropped farmland can be acquired only in last resort. If such fertile land is acquired, then Government will have to develop equal size of wasteland for agriculture purpose.
Private entities: If Government acquires the lands for private company- the said private company will be responsible for relief and rehabilitation of the affected people. Additional rehabilitation package for SC/ST owners.
Safeguards: State Governments have to setup dispute settlement Chairman must be a district judge or lawyer for 7 years.
Accountability: Head of the department will be made responsible, for any offense from Government’s side. If project doesn’t start in 5 years, land has to be returned to the original owner or the land bank. Establishment of Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority for speedy disposal of disputes.
The Central Act of 2013 was brought to give effect to pre-existing fundamental right to livelihood of citizens. It ensures that livelihood will not be taken away unless(i) it is in public interest and that is seen by social impact assessment (ii) The affected citizens are given rehabilitation. The amendments made without considering the above factors will take away fundamental rights of the citizens. |
0.999461 | Become the author of your own powerful story.
Welcome to Juniata College. We are a cohesive community of interesting, inquisitive, hardworking, and fun individuals who think deeply about who we are meant to be. We come to this place of stunning natural beauty because it provides for us the perfect backdrop for reflecting upon, deciding upon, and designing our individual pathways to rewarding careers and lives of meaning and happiness.
Those who share this experience with us are compelling, talented, and inevitably surprising. Each of us has our own story and way of looking at the world. And yet we meet as friends—and partners—whether we are students, professors, staff, alumni, or community members. We support each other’s journeys. We learn from and with each other. We enjoy one another. And we take Juniata with us no matter where we go. |
0.94658 | Based on time series gene expressions, cyclic genes can be recognized via spectral analysis and statistical periodicity detection tests. These cyclic genes are usually associated with cyclic biological processes, for example, cell cycle and circadian rhythm. The power of a scheme is practically measured by comparing the detected periodically expressed genes with experimentally verified genes participating in a cyclic process. However, in the above mentioned procedure the valuable prior knowledge only serves as an evaluation benchmark, and it is not fully exploited in the implementation of the algorithm. In addition, partial data sets are also disregarded due to their nonstationarity. This paper proposes a novel algorithm to identify cyclic-process-involved genes by integrating the prior knowledge with the gene expression analysis. The proposed algorithm is applied on data sets corresponding to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster, respectively. Biological evidences are found to validate the roles of the discovered genes in cell cycle and circadian rhythm. Dendrograms are presented to cluster the identified genes and to reveal expression patterns. It is corroborated that the proposed novel identification scheme provides a valuable technique for unveiling pathways related to cyclic processes.
The eukaryotic cell hosts several cyclic molecular processes, for example, cell cycle and circadian rhythm. The transcriptional events in these processes can be quantitatively observed by measuring the concentration of the messenger RNA (mRNA), which is transcribed from DNA and serves as the template for synthesizing the corresponding protein. To achieve this goal, the microarray experiments exploit high-throughput gene chips to snapshot genome-wide gene expressions sequentially at discrete time points. The sampled time series data present three main characteristics. First, most data sets present small sample size, for example, no more than 50 data points. Obtaining large sample size data sets is not financially affordable, and besides, in the long run the cell culture loses synchronization and the data become meaningless if they are sampled much later on. Second, the data might not be evenly sampled, and many time points could be missing. In order to capture critical events with minimal cost, biologists usually conduct microarray experiments and make measurements when these events happen. Third, the data are highly corrupted by experimental noise, and a robust stochastic analysis is desired.
Based on time series data, various approaches have been proposed to identify periodically expressed genes, which are sometimes believed to be involved in the cell cycle. Assuming the cell cycle signal to be a simple sinusoid, Spellman et al. and Whitfield et al. performed Fourier transformations on the data sampled with different synchronization methods, Wichert et al. applied the traditional periodogram and Fisher's test, while Ahdesmäki et al. implemented a robust periodicity test assuming non-Gaussian noise. In , Giurcǎneanu explored the stochastic complexity of detecting periodically expressed genes by means of generalized Gaussian distributions. Alternatively, Luan and Li employed guide genes and constructed cubic B-spline-based periodic functions for modeling, while Lu et al. employed up to third harmonics to fit the data and proposed a periodic normal mixture model. De Lichtenberg et al. compared the approaches [1, 6, 7] and proposed a new score combining the periodicity and regulation magnitude. Interestingly, the mathematically more advanced methods seem not to achieve a better performance compared with the original Spellman's method that relies on the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method. As an important observation, notice that the majority of these works deal only with evenly sampled data. When data points are missing, in general for the adopted methods, the vacancies are usually filled by interpolation in time domain for all genes, or the genes are disregarded if there are more than 30% of data samples missing.
The biological experiments generally output unevenly spaced measurements. The change of sampling frequency can be attributed to missing data. Besides, the measurements are usually event-driven, that is, more observations are recorded when certain biological events happen, and the observational process is slowed down when the cell remains quiet or no event of interest occurs. Therefore, the analysis based on unevenly sampled data sets is practically more desirable and technically more challenging. Notice that in the case of uneven sampling, the harmonics exploited in the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) are no longer orthogonal. Lomb and Scargle demonstrated that a phase shift suffices to make the sine and cosine terms orthogonal again, and consequently a spectral estimator can be designed in the presence of uneven sampling. The Lomb-Scargle scheme has been exploited by Glynn et al. in analyzing the budding yeast data set. Notice also that a number of alternative schemes were proposed recently to cope with missing and/or irregularly spaced data samples. Stoica and Sandgren updated the traditional Capon method to cope with the irregularly sampled data. Wang et al. designed the missing-data amplitude and phase estimation (MAPES) approach, which estimated the missing data and spectra iteratively through the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. Although Capon and MAPES methods aim to achieve a better spectral resolution than Lomb-Scargle periodogram, for small sample size, the simpler Lomb-Scargle scheme appears to possess better performance in the presence of realistic biological data .
Most of the algorithms proposed in literature identify cyclic genes by exploiting mathematical models to explain the gene's time series pattern. Employing these models and statistical tests, the periodically expressed genes are normally identified. Finally, the detected genes are compared with the genes that had been experimentally discovered to participate in specific processes like cell cycle. Notice that these practically verified cycle-involved genes only serve as a golden benchmark to evaluate the performance of the proposed identification algorithms. They are not fully exploited in the implementation of the identification algorithm. Notice also that most of the existing algorithms fail to utilize all the available data information. For example, the elutriation data provided in was usually discarded when performing the spectral analysis. In other experiments, some data sets were also disregarded due to either loss of synchronization or nonstationarity. Herein, we propose a novel algorithm to detect periodically expressed genes by integrating the gene expression analysis with the valuable prior knowledge offered by all available data. The prior knowledge can consist of two data sets, that is, the set of genes involved in a cyclic process and the set of noncycle-involved genes recognized in biological experiments. The cycle-involved genes are used to initialize the proposed algorithm, and the noncycle-involved genes are employed to control the false positives. The expression analysis is composed of the spectral estimation technique and the computation of gene expression distance. The underlying approach relies on the assumption that genes expressing similarly with genes of a process of interest are also likely to participate in that process. This assumption is actually exploited to apply the clustering schemes on the microarray measurements in order to partition genes into different functional groups. The proposed algorithm identifies potential cyclic-process-involved genes and guarantees that the verified cycle genes will be included with 100% certainty into the output gene set, and at the same time the verified noncycle-involved genes are removed from the derived set with 100% certainty. Although most of the existing power-spectra-based algorithms can be crafted into the proposed algorithm seamlessly, herein we are using the Lomb-Scargle periodogram due to its simplicity and good performance. The proposed algorithm will also lay a ground for the following cycle pathway research.
The proposed algorithm is composed of a spectral density analysis and a gene distance computation based on the time series microarray data. All existing spectral analysis schemes can be incorporated into the proposed algorithm. However, the Lomb-Scargle periodogram is recommended here due to its convenience of implementation and excellent performance for small sample size. The nonparametric Spearman's correlation coefficient is accepted to construct the measure of distance between two genes.
Microarray measurements usually have a large portion of missing data points. Besides, the sampling frequency is tuned to adapt to nonuniformly occurring events. Lomb-Scargle periodogram appears as an excellent candidate for analyzing these irregular data .
A rejection of the null hypothesis based on a -value threshold implies that the power spectral density contains a frequency with magnitude substantially greater than the average value. This indicates that the time series data contain a periodic signal, and the corresponding gene is cyclic in expression.
where ( ) stand for the rank pair of the measurements of genes and . The parameter counts the number of sampling points where both gene and gene present available observations. This distance measure always assumes values between 0 and 1.
The proposed algorithm is formulated as Algorithm 1. Lines 1 to 9 accept inputs and initialize the target cyclic gene set with the spectral analysis results and the prior cycle-involved genes. Inside them lines 4 to 8 exclude genes whose peak periodicity, , is in contrast with the prior knowledge of the frequency range of the researched phenomenon. Lines 10 to 17 represent the iterative accumulation part. They iteratively insert into the potential cyclic gene set the genes expressed similarly as the genes within that set. Lines 18 to 25 stand for the false positive control part, which constructs the control set iteratively to suppress the potential false positives by using the prior knowledge. Line 26 subtracts the control set from the established target set and finalizes the cyclic gene set. The simulation results on the yeast data set showed that the iterative accumulation part controls the false positives pretty well.
Algorithm 1: Identifying cyclic process involved genes.
The algorithm will surely converge to a set. This is because in each iteration of the accumulation and false positive control part, there have to be new members added into the target gene sets. The number of set members keeps increasing, and the set in the previous iteration is a subset of the later set. However, this increase is upper-bounded by the full gene set that contains all the measured genes. Therefore, both the iterative accumulation part and false positive control part converge, and the proposed algorithm also converges.
Usually some general idea about the phenomenon of interest can be used to determine the two bounds and of the frequency range. For example, the circadian rhythm has a periodicity around 24 hours, which can be somehow compressed or prolonged by experimental protocols. If no prior knowledge exists, the set can be used. The other two thresholds are to be specified. The first is the threshold for the periodicity test. To effectively control the false alarm rate, multiple testing correction can be applied and a -value threshold can be specified. In practice, can be chosen around 0.15. This threshold can also be decided by comparing the spectral analysis results with the prior knowledge. Such an approach is more attractive when the proposed algorithm is combined with other periodicity detection methods. We are inclined to use a more stringent threshold, which also represents a trade-off between the number of conserved genes and the number of experimentally verified genes. The second threshold is the distance threshold . It keeps decreasing along the iteration. For example, the initial value is assigned to be 0.25, which means high correlation according to Cohen's rule of thumb . Each iteration decreases this threshold by 0.05 until it reaches 0.1, then it remains constant at 0.1. This technique in practice helps to prevent the amplification of false positives.
The proposed algorithm was applied on the data sets provided by unicellular Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast) and multicellular Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), respectively. The in silico results are discussed briefly here. The full list of identified potential cell cycle genes is presented in the additional files.
Although various time series data sets have been available, including the experiments on human cells , the yeast data set published by Spellman et al. is still among the most popular research targets or benchmarks of computational biology, since this data set excels in its large size of samples and the simplicity of the genome. The mRNA concentrations of nearly 6200 Open Reading Frames (ORF) were measured for the yeast strains synchronized by using four different methods, that is, factor, cdc15, cdc28, and elutriation. The data set contained in total 73 sampling points for all genes, while there existed missing observations for some experiments. The detected periodicity matched the yeast cell cycle. Our prior knowledge was derived from two sources: Spellman et al. revised 104 cell cycle genes that were verified in previous biological experiments, while de Lichtenberg et al. summarized 105 genes that were not involved in the cell cycle.
Spellman et al. designed a periodicity metric, namely, CDC score, based on the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of three experiments factor, cdc15, and cdc28. The observations of elutriation were discarded due to a computation obstacle. Although later a bunch of other methods were proposed to identify the cell cycle genes, for example, [3, 6, 7], de Lichtenberg found that Spellman's FFT-based method still excelled in testing power and detected the most verified cell cycle genes . However, as admitted in , the selection of the number of conserved genes was fairly arbitrary. As Figure 1 illustrates, when the number of conserved genes increases, the number of verified genes increases at a decreasing rate. Actually, after 400 genes have been identified, the curve becomes relatively flat. Therefore, we conserved the 400 genes with top CDC scores as the initialization set in the proposed algorithm. This means a more stringent test threshold for the spectral analysis part.
Performance of Spellman et al.'s CDC score on Saccharomyces cerevisiae data. A specified number of genes are conserved as periodically expressed genes. These genes are compared with the published 104 cell cycle involved genes. The matched genes are counted. Most experimentally discovered cell cycle genes possess high periodicity scores. When the number of conserved genes is greater than 400, Spellman et al. method's identification ability degenerates, as shown by the flat tail of the curve.
Figure 2 compares the simulation results with the 800 genes identified by Spellman et al. . Before the running of the false positive control, the proposed algorithm identified 725 genes, in which 104 genes were from the prior experimental knowledge, and 400 genes were from Spellman et al.'s spectral analysis method. These two sets overlapped in 84 genes. We identified 199 genes that were neither identified by Spellman et al.'s method nor reported in the prior knowledge of the 104 genes. The false positive control removed 3 genes and left 722 genes marked as potential cell cycle involved genes. The identified genes are provided in the additional files in MS Excel format.
Venn graph of identified Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes. The proposed algorithm identified 722 genes as potential cell cycle genes. 725 genes were identified before running the false positive control procedure. False positive control removed 3 genes, which are marked within the parenthesis. Various sets are differentiated by their colors.
As an example of a gene detected by the proposed algorithm, Figures 3(a)–3(d) plot time series data for two genes CWP2 (YKL096W-A) and CCW12 (YLR110C). These two genes indicated a strong correlation, with the correlation coefficient 0.19, in their expressions for all four experiments. Both genes are annotated to encode cell wall mannoprotein. CWP2 is cell-cycle regulated at the S/G2 phase . It was assigned a CDC score of 2.031, which ranked 478 in all ORFs. Therefore, it was selected in Spellman et al.'s 800 genes. A stringent CDC score threshold, for example, 2.37 that conserves 400 genes, will make CWP2 discarded from cell cycle genes. CCW12 was not selected in Spellman et al.'s 800 genes because its CDC score was 0.297, which was very low and ranked 4092 in all genes. It has been found that the cell wall accounts for around 30% of the cell dry weight, and its construction tightly coordinated with the cell cycle . Smits et al. summarized that among 43 discovered cell wall protein encoding genes, in which CCW12 was not included at that time, more than half of them were verified to be cell-cycle regulated. In other words, cell wall proteins are highly likely to be involved in the cell proliferation process. Based on the similarity between the expressions of CWP2 and CCW12 in the cell cycle arrest experiments, we hypothesize that CCW12 is also cell cycle regulated at phase S/G2.
YKL096W-A(CWP1) and YLR110C(CCW12) time series expressions in four datasets. Both CWP1 and CCW12 are cell wall protein encoding genes. CWP1 has been verified to be involved in the cell cycle experiment.
All the detected 722 genes are hierarchically clustered in Figure 4. The hierarchical clustering was selected mainly because it was convenient for visualization, and it avoided to specify the number of desired clusters. It is worthy to note that more advanced methods, for example, self organizing map (SOM) could achieve a better clustering performance. Most clusters indicate a strong periodicity pattern, as can be discerned by the red and green regions which are positioned alternately. There is an exotic cluster, which exhibits fast oscillation in the cdc15 experiments. This cluster contains 130 genes that are illustrated in Figure 5. By examining the existing annotations for these genes, we found that most of them either encode nucleolar proteins or are involved in ribosome biogenesis. It has been verified that ribosome biogenesis consumes up to 80% of proliferating energy, and it is linked to cell cycle in metazoan cells. However, in yeast, the ribosome biogenesis is not regulated by the cell cycle in the same manner as in advanced organisms due to the closed mitosis of the yeast . Defects in nucleolar genes halt the cell at the Start checkpoint . The ribosome biogenesis controls the growth of the size and inhibits the cell cycle until the cell has reached a satisfiable size .
Clustering analysis of identified Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes. Gene expression levels are indicated by the heatmap. There are 722 genes identified by the proposed algorithm to participate in the cell cycle. Most genes exhibit strong periodicity, as indicated by alternately positioned red and green regions.
The exotic clustering of identified Saccharomyces Cerevisiae genes. Gene expression levels are indicated by the heatmap. This cluster contains 130 genes. The gene expressions in the cdc15 experiment oscillate between low and high levels. Most of these genes are nucleolar genes.
In order to measure valid time series samples, the cell culture has to be synchronized. In other words, all cells within the culture should be homogeneous in all aspects, for example, cell size, DNA, RNA, protein, and other cellular contents. Cooper in [26, 27] argued that the ideal synchronization is an impossible mission because different dimensions, like cell size and DNA content, could not be controlled at the same time. Therefore, current popular synchronization methods, like serum starvation and thymidine blocking, are only one-dimensional synchronization methods and fail to achieve a complete synchronization. It is fully possible that the discovered periodicity is completely caused by chance or by the specific synchronization method. Based on the Spellman et al.'s spectral analysis with CDC scores, it is obvious that the most experimentally verified cell cycle genes exhibit top CDC scores. Hence, the spectral analysis is still highly valuable. However, due to the loss of synchronization and nonstationarity, the choice of threshold for the periodicity test has to be much more stringent in order to suppress false positives. When the cell culture is not ideally synchronized or stationary, the spectral analysis may fail for some data sets, such as the elutriation data set. However, the proposed algorithm is still capable to identify a set of genes which are closely correlated to the verified cell cycle genes based on all the available data. The exploitation of the prior knowledge, consisting of experimentally verified cell cycle genes and noncell-cycle genes, can help to improve the detection accuracy and combat the negative effects induced by the loss of synchronization and nonstationarity.
The multicellular Drosophila melanogaster serves as a good prototype for the research of mammalian diseases because it has only 4 pairs of chromosomes, on which are located abundant genes with mammalian analogs. Our in silico experiments are performed on the Drosophila melanogaster data set published by Arbeitman et al. . With the usage of cDNA microarrays, the RNA expression levels of 4028 genes were measured, and these stood for about one-third of all found fruit fly genes. The synchronization of the cell culture was yielded by the Cryonics method. In Arbeitman et al.'s experiments, 75 sequential sampling points were observed, starting right after fertilization and through embryonic, larval, pupal, and early days of adulthood. There were 134 experimentally verified cycling circadian genes . Among these 134 genes, 52 were measured in Arbeitman's experiment . We did not locate the set of noncell-cycle genes in the Drosophila literature. Therefore, the false positive control procedure was not performed. The least time interval between any two sampling points was 30 minutes, which was much larger than the Drosophila's cell cycle period. However, the pupal data set had sufficient sampling points to provide insights into the circadian rhythm.
The spectral analysis was accomplished by applying the Lomb-Scargle periodogram on the nonuniformly sampled pupal data. We found that cyclic genes concentrated most of the power spectral density at the frequency band with the period of tens of hours. By posing a q-value threshold at 0.1, 50 genes were preserved for the initialization of the proposed algorithm. Then, there were 344 genes identified by the proposed algorithm. A dendrogram for these genes is illustrated in Figure 6. The top and bottom parts constitute two complementary groups. Most of the experimentally verified genes (46 out of 52) are located in the bottom part, exhibit a transition from the repressed level to the induced level around the time of 11 hours after fertilization.
Clustering analysis of identified Drosophila melanogaster genes. Gene expression levels are indicated by the heatmap. There are 344 genes identified by the proposed algorithm to be involved in the circadian rhythm. The dendrogram can be split into the top and bottom groups, respectively, which are complementary in their expressions.
Two most extensively studied genes involved in the Drosophila circadian rhythm are and . In Arbeitman's experiment, showed relatively prominent periodicity in the pupal stage. However, the period was prolonged to be more than 24 hours. This was due to the fact that the synchronization method slowed down the biological process. Unfortunately, was not measured in the experiment. A large portion of identified genes have been verified to participate in metabolism, a process closely controlled by circadian rhythm. A cross-species knowledge might be valuable. However, special precautions must be considered when the two organisms are too different, like the yeast and fly. The yeast is a unicellular organism with closed mitosis while fly is multi-cellular with open mitosis. The difference between multicellular organisms is less prominent. Therefore, we hypothesize that the prior knowledge of the Drosophila might be valuable for the identification of more advanced species, for example, Homosapiens. The complete list of identified genes is provided in the supplementary materials .
A novel algorithm is proposed to identify the cyclic-process-involved genes through the incorporation of microarray data analysis with the prior knowledge of genes participating in the cyclic process. The in silico experiments were conducted based on the data sets corresponding to the unicellular Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the multicellular Drosophila melanogaster. The potential cell cycle and circadian rhythmic genes were identified and compared with the existing computational results. It is corroborated that the proposed algorithm is capable to exploit all the available data and propose potential cycle-involved genes. |
0.998918 | It’s that time of the year again where the warm, summer days are waning and brisk, autumn mornings are prevalent. With the changing of the seasons, common colds are common place so it is important to try to prevent them as much as possible to perform and be the best possible version of yourself. To sum up what it takes to have a high functioning immune system, proper adjustments, eat healthy foods (avoid food sensitivities), and supplementation.
Before we get into how adjustments, food, and each supplement can help your immune system, we should first get a basic understanding of the immune system. There are 3 lines of defenses in the human body, which the goal of all of it is to prevent bacteria, viruses, and parasites (pathogens) out of blood to prevent damage to human body (pathogenesis). The first line is barriers to keep pathogens out, which consists of skin (oily and acidic to prevent pathogen adherence), mucous membranes (digestive tract), white blood cells (neutrophils), as well as stomach acid (extremely low pH).
The second line of defense is the inflammatory response, which the goal of that is to stop the spread of infection if the pathogen was to get past the first line of defense. The general mechanism of the inflammatory response is the release of histamines, which cause increased blood to an area (vasodilation) to bring blood into an area, which means more macrophages to eat bacteria and interferons to chemically block virus replication. Signs and symptoms of the inflammatory response are redness, swelling, coughing, sneezing, redness, and runny nose. Finally, the third line of defense is specific cells that specifically attack the most pathogenic microorganisms to remove them from the human body using T and B cells. The B cells are responsible for creating antibodies and tagging the pathogen, while the T cells, which natural killer cells are a subset, are responsible for dissolving the pathogens.
As a practitioner/clinic that focuses on prevention, I would make the argument that optimizing the first line of defense is the most important factor when it comes pathogen related illness prevention. The way to optimize the first line of defense is through adjustments, eat healthy foods (avoid food sensitivities), and supplementation as stated earlier. The way proper chiropractic adjustments can help is by stimulating the Vagus nerve as well as re-establishing bodily communication between areas of the body that weren’t able to communicate properly. The Vagus nerve stimulation is important in that it controls most of the digestive tract (up until the distal 1/3 of the colon- from there it is the sacral plexus that is responsible), which makes up 80% of the immune system (depends on the source you look at, but the human digestive system definitely makes up the majority of the immune system).
There are many reasons why the digestive tract makes up 80% of your immune system, but a very important reason is that the digestive tract held together tightly, and doesn’t have any destruction to tight junction proteins (zonulin and occludin), which hold intestinal epithelial cells together. If there is destruction to those tight junction proteins, there’s a “leaky gut” situation that could happen where unwanted molecules (like lipopolysaccharides from Gram negative bacteria) given off by pathogens squeeze through those tight junctions and ends up going into the blood stream.
As a side note, those same proteins, zonulin and occuldin, are also responsible for the keeping the blood brain barrier cells together- so if an individual has leaky gut, they probably have a “leaky brain” situation going on, which a common symptom is brain fog. Another very important role of the digestive tract is that it (as well as other mucous membranes) continuously secretes immunoglobulins (secretory IgA) that protect the digestive tract from toxins and pathogens by entrapping them in mucous and then removed from the body via bowel movements.
Since secretory IgA and tight junction proteins are made up of amino acids, it is important for protein metabolism to be optimum. When the body isn’t functioning optimally (Vagus nerve impairment, toxins, stress, food sensitivities, etc.) one of the first molecules in the human body that is affected is stomach acid, which is supposed to dissolve any bacteria on food that’s consumed. A state of decreased stomach acid (hypochlorhydria) or absent stomach (achlorhydria) can result in improper amino acid absorption, leading to decreased immunoglobulin and enzyme production.
Another important concept with decreased or absent stomach acid is peristalsis, which is the smooth muscle contractions of the digestive tract that moves and mixes the food for digestion. Low/absent stomach acid means that when food is broken down in the stomach into chyme (liquid-like mixture of food consumed), the pH of that chyme is altered. For the digestive tract to have the strongest peristaltic contraction, the chyme must be at a low (acidic) pH.
When the pH is higher (more alkaline), the peristaltic contractions are decreased, meaning that leads to decreased food motility (constipation) and poor nutrient absorption. Poor nutrient absorption includes micronutrients not being absorbed to make cofactors for proper enzyme function as well as macronutrients not being absorbed, like fat that would be used to make skin oily to prevent pathogens from infecting the skin. Bringing this whole concept back to diet, eating the correct foods (and avoiding food sensitivities) sets the body up to deal with any sort stressors, and in this case pathogens that can cause illness.
With that basic understanding (there’s A LOT more to it than that), we can talk about particular strategies that will help each part of the immune system. Keep in mind everyone has their own unique physiology, and should consult with their functional medicine/nutrition practitioner before starting a regiment. To start off, probably the most important thing a person can do is removing any food sensitives from their diet, and the most common I see in my practice is wheat, dairy, and sugar.
Removing food sensitivities from the diet is like removing something that itches the skin, in that it will allow the body to heal since that itch isn’t irritating the tissue in the digestive tract. Not mention that the cells lining the sinuses and digestive tracts are embryological homologues, meaning they are derived from the same embryological tissue, and an irritant to one tissue is an irritant to the other which will then elicit a response from the body to deal with it. So if there is a food sensitivity to wheat in the digestive tract, that will cause a runny nose or increased mucous production in the sinuses, since that is how the digestive tract and sinuses deal with irritants.
Items to add include consuming apple cider vinegar (ACV) or supplementing betaine HCL, which will help increase stomach acid that will dissolve bacteria on food, breakdown protein for better absorption, and peristaltic contractions that improve gastrointestinal motility and nutrient absorption. Consuming or supplementing L-glutamine, vitamin A and D, and zinc (zinc carnosine) will help with tight junction formation. Another interesting thing with zinc is that it activates the CD4+ pathway, allowing your T helper cells to develop faster, which is a part of your third line of defense. Vitamin A and D are also involved with the third line of defense by being responsible for TH1/TH2 modulation by upregulating TH3 cells (along with glutathione and butyrate).
Vitamin C also helps with T cell maturation by the CD8 pathway. Taking pancreatic enzymes can also help breakdown food and increase nutrient absorption. Probiotics can also be taken to ensure that your gut has healthy bacteria that will benefit you (making short chain fatty acids for colonocytes) rather than unhealthy bacteria that will harm you (making lipopolysaccharides [LPS] that can lead to depression).
When it comes to second line of defense, the inflammatory cascade is at the heart of it. Inflammation is necessary to get rid of pathogens as well as to heal tissue, however, too much inflammation can be detrimental (must be just right). The typical US citizen has a pro-inflammatory diet and isn’t consuming enough omega 3 fish oil (anti-inflammatory), which predisposes them to a hyperinflammatory response, which does more harm than good. An anti-inflammatory diet and fish oil supplementation would be recommended, as well as selective pro-resolving modulators (SPMs) that resolve inflammation.
If there are questions about a certain topic, be sure to check out my other blogs or consult with a functional medicine/nutrition practitioner about how everything works in your body!
Dr. Eric Johnson, Doctor of Chiropractic and Diplomate of the American Clinical Board of Nutrition as well as owner of Functional Wellness and Chiropractic Center in Madison, WI, is a functional medicine doctor that identifies root causes of pain and/or dysfunction. His systems-based, not symptoms-based, approach is a comprehensive, holistic approach that helps identify mental, chemical, and physical stressors that are underlying numerous health conditions. If you are in the Madison, Middleton, Verona, Waunakee area and looking to not only feel better, but live better, contact Dr. Eric at (608) 203-9272.
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0.943517 | According to popular legend, Manali is the abode of Manu or the law maker of Mankind. However, the documented history marks the beginning of modern day Manali with the coming of the British colonizers. The enchanting beauty of Manali and the cool climate captured the heart of the British who stayed in Manali particularly in the summer months.
The popular town of Manali is cocooned in a complex and variable topography. The gorgeous beauty of the Himalayas needs no introduction. The rolling verdant valleys, the forested hill sides, the sparkling streams serve unending charm and have attracted tourists time and again to this beautiful land. The Sutlez River and the Beas River criss cross through the grassy meadows and the rocky terrain. Manali also offers access to the Kinnaur, Lahaul, Spiti regions of Himachal Pradesh and the Leh and Zanskar regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
The name Kullu derives from the word &;Kulant Peeth& meaning &end of the habitable world. As per legends, during the Great Flood, Manu visited this valley, but was unable to cross the Rohtang pass. He named the last settlement he found as Kulant Peeth, and chose to settle and meditate in what has now become the town of Manali (Manu& Place). The name further devolved into ;Kulut, as the kingdom was known for a long time before finally being known by the current name of Kullu or Kulu.
The Buddhist pilgrim monk Xuanzang visited the Kullu Valley in 634 or 635 CE. He described it as a fertile region completely surrounded by mountains, about 3,000 li in circuit, with a capital 14 or 15 li in circumference. It contained a Stupa built by Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, which is said to mark the place where the Buddha preached to the local people and made conversions, Stupa was taken away by a Mughal ruler and put in feroz shah kotla maidan in Delhi. There were some twenty Buddhist monasteries, with about 1,000 monks, most of whom were Mahayanist. There were also some fifteen Hindu temples, and people of both faiths lived mixed together.
The egalitarian society of Kinnaur community believe in equal division of labor between the sexes. Gujjar is another important tribe of the region who are commonly referred to as the wandering tribe of the region.Blessed with a rich traditional art and craft from the ancient times, Manali is famous for the indigenous folk songs and dance of the region. Accompanied with the enchanting melodious folk songs, the dancers perform their art with perfection and great enthusiasm.
The indigenous tribal population of Manali prefer to wear the traditional attire. Usually spun out of wool, the colorful and attractive apparels reflect the culture of the local people of the area.Manali people, culture and festivals display the varied yet enriched socio-cultural life style of the local tribal population.
Nestled in the Himalayas, Kullu is a valley gifted with nature's charm and scenic beauty. Splashing rivers, water streams and lofty mountains with the finest of slopes make it a place perfect for adventure sports. It has numerous temples and is, therefore, called the "Valley of Gods". Celebration of Dussehra is in itself a prime attraction of the valley drawing many tourists every year.
One of the prime tourist attractions of Kullu is the Raghunath Temple which is dedicated to Lord Ram, one of the most important deities of Hinduism. This temple was constructed by Raja Jagat Singh in the year 1660 to seek pardon for his sins. The king got an idol of Lord Ram from Ayodhya and placed it in this temple. Another popular hill destination, the beautiful Manali is often visited along with Kullu. It has a lot to offer tourists. Here are a few places of interest in Manali.
Also known as the Dhundri temple, this temple is made out of wood and stone. Constructed in 1553, the Hadimba Temple was built in honour of Goddess Hadimba, the wife of Bhim, from Mahabharata epic. The walls of the temple are covered with wood carvings and on the month of May each year, animal sacrifices are carried out here for the three-day Dhungri Mela. Located at an altitude of 1,640 metres above sea level, Kasol is known for its scenic beauty. It has wide open clearings sloping down to wide expanses of clear white sands at the Parvati River. Located at a distance of 45 km from Kullu, Manikaran is famous for its hot springs and is also an important religious destination for Hindus and Sikhs. The hot water springs here are so hot that the heat from the water is used to cook food.
Hamta Pass trek is most beautiful trek around Manali and can be done by anyone reasonably fit. Hamta pass lies on beautiful Pir Panjal range and is small corridor between Lahaul and Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh. Hamta village is located below Sethan village and from where it got its name. This pass is frequently used by Sheperds of lesser Himalayan region. Seeking for high altitude grassland in the dry cold desert of Lahaul during summer time. Numbers of wild flowers, varieties of herbs can be found at the altitude between 3000 to 3800m.
Setting off from Manali we drive to Sethan village 2700m and continue to Panduropa - Jobri. Our starting point of trek. Setting off from Jobri first we cross the ford on Jobri nallah originating from Deo Tibba massif. The route from Chikka to Jobri passes through forest of Deodar, Oak, walnut and Birch tree. Gradual climb to Jwara and Balu ka gera. Balu ka gera is better known for Bear's den or Bear's circle. Can see only during May end to mid June. Final ascent leads through boulder and scree to the pass. Spectacular view of Indrasan 6221m and Deo Tibba 6001m only can have on clear sky. Crossing river near Shea goru camp we descend to river bed and follow the left bank of Chandra River to Chatru. Further 45 km on dirt road, driving up to Kunzom La pass (4551m) having a view of Spiti valley, 8 kms trek down in large meadows, lake of moon approached. It is 4 hrs drive back to Manali crossing Rohtang pass. With magnificent view of Manali and Solang valley while descending to Kothi.
Located on Pir Panjal range and the extreme west of Manali, this Saurkundi pass 3950m and Khanpari lies at an altitude of 4025m, is one of the best and perfect spot to view Beas River valley at once. To the West lies Kalihani pass at an altitude of 4830m Connecting remote Bara Bangahal village of Kangra district. During summer to late Automn this area is mainly inhabited by Shepherds and this pass is frequently used by them to go rain shadow of high grassland. Apart from Sheperds route this area has one of the best trekking route in Manali region. Spectacular view of Great Himalayan Range and snow clad peak rising above 6000m i.e. Indrasan 6220m, Deo Tibba 6001m to the East and Maker Beh 6068m, Shikar Beh 6200m to the North and looking down the beautiful Kullu valley are main characteristics of this trek.
Setting off from near Hadimba we climb gently through thick forest of Cedar and Oak. Climbing up through the Manalsu River valley the gentle slopes and lush green meadows of Lamadug appears. Later trek beneathe the ridge of Khanpari Tibba (4,025m) we arrive at a place from where Indrasan (6,220m.) And Deo Tibba (6,001m.) peaks can be seen. One can see the full view of Manali town and upper Kullu valley. Continue going upward through brilliant shrubs of Rhododendro, Birch pave on the way and wild flowers all around. Arriving at dome of Khanpari to have spectacular 360 degree view of Great Himalayan Range to the East, Dhauladhar to the West and Pir Panjal to the North. Keep your attention towards wildlife to see Monal, Fox and Bear.
Located at a distance of 45 km from Kullu, Manikaran is famous for its hot springs and is also an important religious destination for Hindus and Sikhs. The hot water springs here are so hot that the heat from the water is used to cook food.
This small town attracts tourists visiting Manali and Kullu to its hot springs and pilgrim centres. An experimental geothermal energy plant has also been set up here.Manikaran is a pilgrimage centre for Hindus and Sikhs. The Hindus believe that Manu recreated human life in Manikaran after the flood, making it a sacred area. It has many temples and a gurudwara. There are temples of the Hindu deities Rama, Krishna, and Vishnu.The area is well known for its hot springs and its beautiful landscape.
The villages have their own gods and goddesses. It is said that in olden days, the King (or the Raja) used to sit in the Dhalpur ground with his courtiers under the Pipal Tree to look at the traditional dances. Earlier 16 Gods used to participate in the fair, but as the years rolled by, the fair lost its grandeur. Every night during the festival, cultural programs are performed by the various cultural groups at Kala Kendra which is a big open-air theater. The cultural groups and reputed artists come from all over India to perform in the festival.
Dussehra (Dushehra) is celebrated in most parts of the country on Vijya Dashmi(Dushehra) to commemorate the victory of Rama over demon king Ravana. The highlight of this fair is The victory of good over evil. Kullu Dussehra (Dushehra) is however, different in certain ways from Dussehra celebrations in the other parts of the country. It presents cultural ethos of the people and their deep rooted religious beliefs which manifest during this festival with traditional songs, dances and colorful dress. It begins on Vijya Dashmi and lasts for a week. There is an interesting story behind the beginning of Dussehra Festival. And now also, the internationally famous Dussehra (Dushehra) of Kullu is celebrated in the same tradition.
Manali is an adventure lover’s paradise, and is a great base camp for treks. With many trails for all kindsof trekkers ranging from mild to extreme, the Himalayas in Manali offer something for everyone.Trekking in Manali is a great way to explore the Himalayas as well as to experience the rich culture of Himachal Pradesh. Along with awesome treks you can also find some of the best camping locations in Manali. Here we bring you some of the best treks in Manali so that you can unwind and find your rhythm in these majestic mountains.
Numerous Trekking Routes are accessible in Manali. Significant treks in manali are Beas Kund Trek, Bhrigu Lake Trek, Chandrakhani Trek, Chandra Taal Trek and some more. The check rundown of the types of gear required for trekking in manali incorporates of Comfortable strolling shoes with a decent hold on the lower legs. Water verification warm jacket.Woolen/tennis scocks and leggings.
Manali has always been a hotshot travel destination for everyone, all through the year in the north of India. Skiing, paragliding, snowboarding, snow surfing, and ice skating have been the primary attractions of Manali. However, only a few know that Manali also possesses some of the best rafting stretches. And trust us they are among the best in the mountains of India.
If you are looking for the excitement of pure downhill, day after day through ever changing scenery, the Manali to Leh traverse is hard to beat. Riders will have the option of ascending a total of 3800 meters to cross the four main passes on the route. Cycling will truly be an unforgettable experience as one will get to witness some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. This may not sound particularly great, especially to road orientated cyclists, but difficult terrain and tough ascents will make any cycling in this region a challenge for everyone.
"This was my first experience on trekking (+living with nature) and it was amazingly exceptional. The guide was very friendly and helpful and the best part was the food, very diversified and good quality. The whole team was co-operative. I enjoyed the trip very much. Love from Bangladesh."
Mr Krishnamurthy – Bangalore – Karnataka, 19th Sep. – 23rd Sep. |
0.980119 | How many people actually believe in astrology?
Astrology and horoscope columns are a familiar feature of tabloid newspapers, women's magazines and the web. They claim, controversially for some, that there is a meaningful relationship between celestial and terrestrial events, especially human affairs.
Astrology as we know it now, linking planets to the 12 zodiac signs in order to manage life on Earth, was devised in the Middle East and classical Greece between the fifth and first centuries BCE. It was largely transmitted to the 21st century via the Islamic world.
These days, astrology arouses vilification from two corners. On one side are evangelical Christians who regard it as seriously misleading at best, and Satanic at worst. On the other, sceptics denounce the idea that our destiny may lie in the stars as fraudulentand even harmful.
If such claims are true, it's important to work out how many people believe in astrology, and why. The time is ripe for some serious investigation.
Just how many people believe in astrology and why they still do – even when their own experiences prove otherwise – is a curiosity for many. But in order to answer these questions, we need to first develop more fluid categories of belief and disbelief. We cannot simply say that followers of astrology wholly believe in it, or that others completely disbelieve. It is a complex question, even for professional astrologers and researchers.
Evidence suggests that over 90% of adults know their sun (zodiac) signs. Some surveys also indicate that well over half agree that the signs' character descriptions are a good fit: Ariens are energetic, Taureans stubborn, and Scorpios secretive, for example.
To find out what the most involved "believers" – that is, those who are dedicated followers or professionally involved in astrology – think, I distributed questionnaires to public groups and astrology conferences from 1998 to 2012. The purpose of this recently published research was specifically to establish how many people believe in astrology, and why. Most published figures for belief in astrology are derived from Gallup polls taken in Britain, Canada and the US between 1975 and 1996 – to which around 25% of adults polled answered "yes" to questions such as "do you believe in horoscopes?".
We might expect that all practitioners and students of astrology would say they believe. However, when I put the question to delegates at a British Astrological Association conference, just 27% said "yes" – about the same as the general population. When I asked the astrologers who didn't "believe" for their reasons, they replied that astrology is no more a matter of belief than television or music: it is real, so has nothing to do with belief. Or to put it another way, people only believe in things which don't exist. Which is why public surveys on belief can come up with misleading results.
During my research, I followed an established method of asking a series of questions on attitudes and activity, while avoiding mention of belief altogether. The picture which emerged is much more complex than the simple binary distinction between belief and disbelief suggests.
In one of my groups – of mostly male students aged 18 to 21 – I found that 70% read a horoscope column once a month and 51% valued its advice. Other questions produced a huge variation: 98% knew their sun sign, 45% thought it described their personalities, 25% said it can make accurate forecasts, and 20% think the stars influence life on Earth. The higher figures are close to previous research which showed that 73% of British adults believe in astrology, while the lowest figures are similar to those found by Gallup's polls.
I asked other questions about the students' behaviour as well as their attitudes. Nearly half (45%) confessed to finding out potential or actual partners' sun signs so they could manage their relationships better, and 31% had read their predictions for the year ahead.
What became clear from all my surveys is that when we ask questions about personal experience, meaning and behaviour – such as valuing an astrologer's advice or finding out partners' signs – positive responses are about twice as high, if not more, than when we ask for statements of objective fact (such as "does astrology make accurate forecasts?").
My samples were small, and each one represented a snapshot of a particular group, which makes it difficult to generalise. But all suggest that when we ask a variety of questions we arrive at different answers. How many people believe in astrology? It could be 22%. It may be 73%. The difference between the two figures is what I call the "belief gap", the zone of doubt and uncertainty between deep and shallow commitment.
So why do people believe in astrology? The problem we have is in establishing reliable research. If we can't actually get to first base and find out how many people believe in it, then attempts to establish why people find it meaningful – a better word than belief – get stuck.
"How many people actually believe in astrology?"
-More than you might expect. A very large percentage of the world in fact.
In a Smithsonian Magazine article from around the 80's, interviewing the head of the Royal Observatory in South Africa, he said that the human nervous system acts like an antenna to pick up magnetic field interactions between the Earth's magnetosphere,the solar wind and other celestial influences. My work with RFID strongly supports this interpretation. Perhaps we just haven't discovered the exact mechanism yet?
O course i believe in astrology. Almost every horoscope I read eventually comes true. I'd say 90% of them.
But I do have to admit that the other 11 are vague enough so that they also come true. That's the secret to getting people to believe, say things like "you will discover happiness during an important journey soon", or " a stranger will offer you a challenge"
I highly doubt you've 'worked with RFID" if you think they're anything like human neurology. Or neurology in general.
Every religion is based on Astrology. Don't believe me, watch "Zietgiest:The documentary" on Netflix. I was blown away by it and for me, it explains all the BS that goes on in all religions. Have a look for yourself.
I once read a book, "Linda Goodmans Sunsigns ", after reading it from cover to cover, I instantly became a firm believer!
PTTG: You are certainly quite wrong in your comment. I suggest you check out the Smithsonian article before making judgements. BTW, the human nervous system affects RFID signals just like the old clothes hanger and tinfoil people used to put on their TV sets as rabbit ears (and like your hat, I suppose). |
0.997268 | The unfolding of interactive competition selects not only for mass and allometries; it selects more generally for any trait that will enhance the interactive quality of the reproducing unit. But these traits require energy, and their evolution is dependent on an interactive competition that occurs frequently enough to balance their energetic requirements. This frequency is given by the competitive interaction fix-points of the selection attractors on mass; with the selection of major life history transitions between the attractors.
To predict life history evolution by interactive competition we need to determine the selected frequency of interference competition and the associated resource bias in the population.
This bias is given by the competitive interaction fix-points for the selection attractors on mass. The most straightforward fix-point is maybe the attractor for the multicellular animal with a stable net energy and mass. It defines a body mass invariant interference that generates a resource bias of unity [ ψι** = 1 ]. The increased net energy of the larger individuals is then out-balancing the quality-quantity trade-off, making relative fitness independent of mass.
i) Initially, for replicating molecules and the smallest self-replicating cells with an internal metabolism, there is an absence of a resource bias [ ψι** = 0 ].
ii) For the somewhat larger interacting cell, the resource bias is increasing from zero to one with an evolutionary increase in mass [ 0 < ψι** < 1 ].
iii) For the multicellular animal with an upward constrained net energy there is an equilibrium mass with a selected resource bias of unity [ ψι** = 1 ].
iv) For unconstrained selection in multicellular animals, there is an exponential increase in net energy and mass at an evolutionary steady-state with a somewhat higher level of interference [ ψι** = (4d - 1) / (2d - 1) ].
v) And with an upward constrained mass, the level of interference may increase towards infinity [ ψι** → ∞ ].
It is the interference of the competitive interaction fix-points that constrain the reproductive potential of multicellular animals. The average reproductive potential will evolve to be exactly so high that the left-over from the toll of mortality and density regulation results in an equilibrium abundance that generates the level of interactive competition that is selected by the attractor of the competitive interaction fix-point. This makes the reproductive potential inversely related to the probability to survive to reproduce.
The energetics of the organism is optimised by natural selection to match the reproductive potential of the competitive interaction fix-point. This selects for a trade-off where an increase in the rate of reproduction generates increased mortality in the offspring and/or the parent, with the physiological optimum being Lack’s clutch size.
Senescence is a deterioration of tissue with age, and it has traditionally been seen as a contingent character that evolves from the intrinsic constraints of a soma that is not passed on in either sexual or asexual reproduction. When a soma is present, there is a decline in the force of selection with age, and this selects for early reproduction and survival at the cost of an energetically costly maintenance that will prevent the soma from deteriorating.
Yet the decline in the force of selection with age is present also in asomatic organisms, and it is therefore more likely that the soma is the phenotypic trait thought which senescence is expressed. In the multicellular animal where the exponent of the mass bias in net energy is at least one, it follows that a deteriorating soma may evolve as a competitive trait where the energy that can be used for tissue maintenance is allocated into competitive interactions instead. This selection is avoided in self-replicating cells with a mass bias exponent that is smaller than one.
Large interacting units can dominate units with fewer individuals, but they suffer from the cost of resource sharing. This makes the evolutionary equilibrium for the size of the interacting unit proportional to the level of interference competition in the population. For the self-replicating cell with a mass bias exponent below unity the optimal interactor is the individual itself. The optimal units for multicellular organisms contain two individuals for the competitive interaction fix-point of a mass in evolutionary equilibrium, three to four individuals for the fix-point of the evolutionary steady state, and a plenitude of individuals for the fix-point with an upward constrained mass.
Interacting units with more than one individual can enhance their competitive ability by evolving interacting individuals that specialise in interactive competition at the cost of reproduction. Such units will suffer from a reduced reproductive potential that is known as the two-fold cost of the male. The optimal number of interacting individuals is determined by the level of intra-specific interference competition, and for single celled replicators with low interference competition the optimal reproducer is the individual itself. The optimal reproducing unit contains one reproducing and one interacting individual at the competitive interaction fix-point of a mass in evolutionary equilibrium, one reproducing and two to three interacting individuals at the fix-point of the evolutionary steady state, and one reproducing and a plenitude of interacting individuals at the fix-point with an upward constrained body mass.
Reproducing (female) individuals can use sexual reproduction to attract interacting (male) individuals. The females that allocate the largest fraction of the male genome to the offspring may attract the competitively superior males. While this increases the interactive quality of the female’s reproducing unit, it is costly owing to the sharing of the genome in the offspring; a cost known as the two-fold cost of meiosis. The selection optimum to the degree of sharing is determined by the level of interference competition, with the optimum at the competitive interaction fix-point of a mass in evolutionary equilibrium being equal sharing between a male and a female. This causes sexual reproduction to evolve in multicellular animals, while asexual reproduction is found to be the optimum in single celled organisms.
Where the optimal reproducing unit is the male-female pair in multicellular animals with equilibrium masses, the unit contains one or two extra interacting individuals in species with exponentially increasing masses at evolutionary steady states, and an almost unlimited number of interactors in species with upward constrained body masses. But should these extra interactors be offspring workers or sexually reproducing males?
With the interactive quality of the male being transferred by sexual reproduction to potential offspring workers, there is a diminishing return in the interactive quality that can be gained by increasing the number of males that participate in sexual reproduction. The result is selection for co-operative families and eusocial colonies, where the extra interactors are sexually produced offspring workers that evolve at the cost of unknown forms of sexual reproduction with several males per female.
With sexual reproduction between a female and a male being selected as a trait that optimises the frequency dependent trade-off between reproduction and competitive interaction, there is selection for a heritable code that ensures an equal parental share of the genome that is replicated to the offspring. While different codes can be imagined, the diploid genome, where the female and the male supplies a copy of all the genes in the offspring, is maybe the best solution to avoid selection conflicts between the genes of the parents.
But equal sharing is strictly fair only when the energetic fitness of the male and the female are equally important for the successful reproduction of the unit. This is the case when the interactive behaviour of the male is just as essential as the reproduction of the female. It is also the case in cooperating and eusocial units where the male behaviour is essential and the two sexual individuals form a lasting bond, as in the eusocial and diploid termites. It is, however, not the case in hymenoptera-like eusocial species, where the energetics of the male is irrelevant as he is needed only for mating; with the energetic cost of the male selecting for a male-haploid female-diploid genome. |
0.916725 | Geology is the science and study of the composition, structure, properties, and history of the Earth, as well as the processes by which it is formed, moved, and changed.
The field is a major academic discipline, and is commercially important for mineral and hydrocarbon extraction, as well as for predicting and understanding earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It is also an important foundation for many other science and engineering disciplines, including evolutionary biology, paleoclimatology, and geotechnical engineering.
The word geology was first used by Jean-André Deluc in 1778 and introduced as a fixed term by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in 1779. The word is derived from the Greek "gê", meaning "earth" and "logos", meaning "speech".
The study of the physical material of the Earth dates back at least to ancient Greece when Theophrastus (372-287 BC) wrote "Peri Lithon" (On Stones). In the Roman period, Pliny the Elder wrote in detail of the many minerals and metals then in practical use.
Modern geology began in the medieval Islamic world. Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni (973–1048 AD) was one of the earliest Muslim geologists, whose works included the earliest writings on the geology of India, hypothesizing that the Indian subcontinent was once a sea. Islamic scholar Ibn Sina (Avicenna (981–1037) proposed detailed explanations for the formation of mountains, the origin of earthquakes, and other topics central to modern geology, which provided an essential foundation for the later development of the science.
In China, Shen Kua (1031–1095) formulated a hypothesis for the process of land formation. Based on his observation of fossil animal shells in a geological stratum in a mountain hundreds of miles from the ocean, he inferred that the land was formed by erosion of the mountains and by deposition of silt.
Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) is credited with the law of superposition, the principle of original horizontality, and the principle of lateral continuity: three defining principles of stratigraphy.
James Hutton is often viewed as the first modern geologist. In 1785, he presented a paper entitled "Theory of the Earth" to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In his paper, he explained his theory that the Earth must be much older than had previously been supposed in order to allow enough time for mountains to be eroded and for sediments to form new rocks at the bottom of the sea, which in turn were raised up to become dry land. Hutton published a two-volume version of his ideas in 1795..
Sir Charles Lyell first published his famous book "Principles of Geology", in 1830. The book influenced the thought of Charles Darwin, and successfully promoted the doctrine of uniformitarianism. This theory states that slow geological processes have occurred throughout the Earth's history and are still occurring today. In contrast, catastrophism is the theory that Earth's features formed in single, catastrophic events and remained unchanged thereafter. Though Hutton believed in uniformitarianism, the idea was not widely accepted at the time, and is somewhat oversimplified compared to today's knowledge. Listen HERE to a radio debate that illustrates how little was understood about these processes as recently as 1965.
Much of 19th-century geology revolved around the question of the Earth's exact age. Estimates varied from a few thousand to billions of years. By the early 20th century, radiometric dating allowed the Earth's age to be estimated at two billion years. The awareness of this vast amount of time opened the door to new theories about the processes that shaped the planet.
The most significant advances in 20th century geology have been the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, and the refinement of estimates of the planet's age. Plate tectonic theory arose out of two separate geological observations: seafloor spreading and continental drift. The concept was first mentioned by Antonio Snyder-Pelligreni in 1858, who attributed it to the Biblical flood. In 1912, Alfred Wegener, proposed a theory which accounted for the movement of the continents and the apparent wandering of the north and south poles. However, it was not until the mid-1960's, that Wegener's theory was widely accepted by the geological community, Tuzo Wilson of the University of Toronto being one of the significant contributors. The theory revolutionized the Earth sciences.
The history of the Earth (also called the chronology or timeline) is inferred from the minerals found in older rocks and from the fossils found in younger rocks, as observed in outcrops and well bores drilled for oil and other minerals, as well as those drilled specifically to elucidate the issue of plate tectonics, for example the Ocean Drilling Program that discovered the mid-oceanic ridges and documented sea-floor spreading.
The earliest Solar System material is dated to 4567.2 ± 0.6 million years ago, and by 4540 million years ago, the Earth and the other planets in the Solar System had formed out of the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun. This assembly of the Earth through accretion was largely completed within 10 to 20 million years. Initially molten, the outer layer of planet Earth cooled to form a solid crust when water began accumulating in the atmosphere. The Moon formed shortly thereafter, 4530 million years ago, due to a collision between Earth and a Mars sized object.
Other major events led to the precursors of life and finally to the Earth we know today.
About 7 million years ago, ancient predecessors to humans emerged, and look at the mess we are in now! |
0.999974 | Like every year, we approach a season with many holidays, which starts with Halloween and ends with Epiphany. Since october we begin to see around social media images of cats dressed up in costumes ranging from Batman to Freddy Krueger, to Santa Claus, not to mention the endless variety of hats and headbands.
Why is it wrong to have a cat wear a costume? Here are some reasons.
The tactile sensitivity of cats is very high, this means that whatever comes into contact with the cat's body causes an immediate discomfort. You will have noticed that as soon as a cat has something on its hair, he immediately removes it by licking or shaking. Imagine how annoying it can be to have a costume or an object on his head that completely covers the body!
A costume causes a feeling of constriction. A cat defends his freedom more than anything else, he does not tolerate any form of constraint, so the experience of feeling forced into a piece of cloth that wraps around his body or other very delicate parts, such as the head or the paws, is terrible for him.
I often hear people say "it does not bother him, he's staying still, so he must be ok with it". At this point, it's important to know that, faced with a stimulus that causes discomfort, an animal (human included) can respond with one of three reactions: an escape reaction, an attack reaction, or a freezing reaction. The latter is what happens in most cases in which a cat seems still and calm while being dressed: in reality, his stillness is given by a sense of total impotence or, worse still, of terror.
Many of these costumes and disguises have not undergone any safety testing for animals, and can, therefore, put the animal at risk of injury. In addition, they always have an odour, given by industrial processing, which makes the experience even more negative and unpleasant for the cat. This is due to fact that cats have an infinitely more developed sense of smell than ours and cannot help but feel the unpleasant smell of the fabric which will remain on their hair even once the costume is removed, forcing them to obsessively clean themselves, sometimes even for days (a situation that, unfortunately, is often not noticed or understood by humans who live with the cat).
The cat may associate the negative experience of the disguise to the person who obligated him to live it, consequently going to undermine the relationship of trust between the cat and his reference human. After the experience of the disguise, episodes of aggression or irritability on the cat's part towards other members of the family, both human and non-human, are frequent.
If you are thinking "but I'll make him wear it only for a few minutes, just long enough to take some pictures", try to be tickled with a feather under your armpit for a few seconds and you'll understand how even a very short time lived with discomfort can be unbearable.
There is a last consideration, no less important than the others, to make: putting a costume on a cat will draw everyone's attention to the cat. Generally, cats, hate being at the center of attention, as they are reserved animals, often fearful towards strangers, very sensitive to visual and body communication, and who need their time and space before deciding to approach someone with confidence. Suddenly feeling at the center of attention, trapped in a costume that prevents natural movements and therefore slowing down a possible escape, can be a genuinely terrifying experience.
WARNING: there may be medical conditions that require the use of clothes or bandages on the cat's body. Obviously, in these cases the need for the planned treatment prevails. Yet, it must be kept in mind that the cat will have undergone a stress condition and therefore will need, once the period of treatement is finished, special care aimed at reducing the negative stress and bring the cat back into a proper balanced psycho-physical condition. |
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0.995281 | Say you are going to cut a hole in the postcard, then ask whether he or she could climb through it.
then ask whether he or she could climb through it.
助言をしたい場合は？ "should" or "had better" |
0.91326 | Our lime tree produces fruit that is too sour. Is there a soil amendment to help make the fruit less tart?
Citrus fruits tend to develop their sweetness later and limes are suppose to be harvested unripe as it is. Harvesting a little later (but before they turn yellow) should help. Trees also produce sweeter fruit when they have ideal conditions. So make sure to provide it with adequate fertilizer and plenty of water. Growing lime trees in good, well-draining soil is also important, so adding some compost to the soil should help alleviate any current issues that may be present. |
0.948418 | (CNN) Logic suggests that the White House, under crushing political pressure, would be forced to back down on its hardline immigration policy amid outrage over searing depictions of kids separated from their parents at the southern border.
But while the swirling political crisis over the "zero tolerance" approach to undocumented migrants might convince a conventional White House to seek a way out, this administration is so far digging in. It is sticking to a strategy of falsely blaming Democrats and past administrations for a practice that it decided to adopt and could change anytime it wanted to.
"The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility," President Donald Trump declared on Monday.
A climbdown on this issue would represent more than a huge embarrassment for the President. It would undermine his political image and philosophy and require him to admit he's wrong and to temper instincts that force him to counterattack.
He would risk alienating base voters who prize his strongman image on one issue above all -- immigration -- and are more inclined to believe that people who cross the border illegally get what they deserve than to react with compassion to reports by media outlets they disdain.
Among those reports Monday came one of the most haunting moments to come thus far in the immigration debate with the release of ProPublica audio recorded last week inside a US Customs and Border Protection detention facility, where children separated from their parents can be heard sobbing. At one point, a traumatized child can be heard calling for "Daddy."
Whether that could sway the President must be weighed against the certainty that a reversal would dilute the Trump mythology that underwrote his rise as a political figure. Giving in to criticism from all the living first ladies, or the United Nations, or Washington Republicans like Arizona's Sen. John McCain, would mean bending to the kind of internationalist, traditional establishment forces his entire political project was built to destroy.
Trump goes to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, where his congressional allies spent Monday trying to find some kind of legislative solution to the border crisis, though many Republicans -- even those who've supported the President in the past -- say Trump can end the family separation issue with a simple phone call.
Mercedes Schlapp, the White House director of strategic communications, offered potential White House flexibility Tuesday when she said that Trump was ready to discuss a standalone bill on ending the separations being authored by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
"We are looking into the legislative text on the Cruz bill," she told reporters.
Life had been tough for administration officials forced, unlike Trump, to undergo questioning Monday and make policy arguments that could not match the emotional storm stirred by the separations.
"Separating parents from children is not a policy that we want to pursue. At the same time, letting children and parents come across the border ... illegally, is not a policy either," Marc Short, Trump's White House director of legislative affairs, said on CNN's "The Situation Room."
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders did nothing to dispel the notion that Trump is using the separations as leverage to force Democrats into caving on his plans to reshape the immigration system when she rejected the idea of standalone legislation on separations.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tried and failed to quell the public relations disaster by flying back from New Orleans for the White House press briefing.
Nielsen blamed "loopholes" left open by Congress and previous administrations and doubled down on the administration's false contention that it has no option under the law but to funnel people who come across the border illegally into the criminal justice system -- a designation that forces authorities to separate children from their parents while they are in custody.
Nielsen's briefing was more tempered than previous administration efforts to explain the situation, but the fact that she, and the President, are trying to blame it on Democrats showed that even they don't want to own the consequences.
And at times, Nielsen seemed to lack sensitivity to the anger and empathy that have been triggered over a weekend of heart-rending news coverage and that prompted Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to describe the separations on CNN as "government-sanctioned child abuse."
Nielsen said conditions in facilities where separated children are kept are good, though she ignored the emotional and humanitarian needs of kids cut off from their parents.
"We give them meals and we give them education and we give them medical care. There are videos. There are TVs," Nielsen said.
The administration's defense on Monday failed to keep pace with the accelerating politics of the issue, as even some of its allies eyed a grim midterm election environment or made their own moral calls on the practice of separation.
"This has to stop," said Cruz, who is up for re-election in November.
"We should keep children with their parents. Kids need their moms. They need their dads," said Cruz, who is introducing a bill that will mandate that families are not separated.
Another Republican who often sides with Trump, South Carolina's Sen. Lindsey Graham, said, "Americans are pretty decent folks. They don't like illegal immigration, they want to do it right. But they're moved by the fact that families are being separated and we've got to find a better way."
In another sign of the subtle politics of the issue, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who is on a tightrope in a re-election race in West Virginia, where Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016, criticized the President.
"That's the most inhumane enforcement I've ever seen in my life," said Manchin. "The American dream and hope of the world, where'd all that go?"
Still, Trump may believe he has political grounds to stick to his guns.
A new CNN poll Monday showed that while the President had a 59% disapproval rating on immigration, 58% of Republicans favored the new policy toward undocumented immigrant families on the southern border. And 81% of respondents who approve of Trump also give his immigration policy high marks.
Given that this is a presidency almost exclusively rooted in efforts to secure Trump's base, it might not be surprising if the President looks at such numbers and decides his own political interests -- as distinct from the wider Republican Party's -- augur no course correction.
Over dizzying months of busted conventions, political outrages and assaults on the normal protocol of the presidency, Trump has often confounded predictions that finally he would be forced to mitigate his approach inside America and toward the rest of the world.
It would be ironic if immigration, the issue that powered his rise to the White House, were also the one that forced him finally to moderate his political character. But no one should hold their breath.
CNN's Lauren Fox and Maeve O'Brien contributed to this article. |
0.772484 | Nuclear energy is produced during reactions in the nucleus of an atom. Atoms can be thought of as miniature solar systems with the nucleus at the center like a sun and electrons orbiting around it like planets. Densely packed neutrons and protons make up the nucleus, which is held together with great force, the "strongest force in nature." When the nucleus is bombarded with a neutron, it can be split apart, a process called fission. Uranium is the heaviest natural element and has ninety-two protons. Because uranium atoms are so large, the atomic force that binds it together is relatively weak, so fission is more likely with uranium than other elements.
of energy, but the energy is released so quickly and uncontrollably that fusion has not yet been harnessed as a usable source of energy.
Physicists formulated the principles of nuclear power in the early twentieth century. In 1939 German scientists discovered the process of nuclear fission, triggering a race with American scientists to use the massive energy release of fission to create a bomb. The atomic bomb was created by the United States in 1945; it was used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II.
the 1960s, bombs were being set off above and below ground to test different ideas, resulting in radionuclide contamination of the soil that is still being addressed today.
A more successful use of atomic power was nuclear reactors that controlled the release of energy. Admiral Hyman G. Rickover guided the development of small reactors to power submarines, greatly extending their range and power. By the late 1950s, nuclear power was being developed for commercial electric power, initially in England. Morris, Illinois, was the site of the first U.S. commercial reactor. Nuclear weapons research was advanced by Russia and the United States during the Cold War, and a number of other countries, including China and India, have now developed nuclear weapons.
Uranium is one of the least plentiful of minerals, making up only two parts per million (ppm) in the earth's crust. But because of its radioactivity, it is a plentiful supply of energy: one pound of uranium has as much energy as three million pounds of coal.
In 2002 there were 104 nuclear power reactors licensed to operate in the United States, and they accounted for 20 percent of the nation's electricity production and more than one-fourth of nuclear power capacity in the world. Many other countries, including France, Japan, and the United Kingdom, have nuclear power plants. Nuclear power accounts for about 80 percent of France's electrical power production.
In nuclear power plants, neutrons collide with uranium atoms, splitting them. This split releases neutrons from the uranium that, in turn, collide with other atoms, causing a chain reaction. This chain reaction is regulated (or governed) by "control rods" that absorb neutrons. Fission releases energy that heats water to approximately 520°F in the core of the plant. The steam that is created is then used to spin turbines that are connected to generators, which produce electricity.
After the steam is used to power the turbine, it is cooled off and condensed into water. Some plants use water from rivers, lakes, or the ocean to cool the steam; returning this water to the environment can cause thermal pollution. Other plants use the hourglass-shaped cooling towers that are the familiar hallmark of many nuclear plants. For every unit of electricity produced by a nuclear power plant, about two units of wasted heat are sent into the environment.
Nuclear reactors are also used to power military submarines and surface ships. As in land-based reactors, nuclear-powered vessels use the heat produced by the chain reaction to make steam for a turbine. The turbine is connected to the propeller shafts aboard the ships rather than generators that produce electricity.
By 1995 over 32,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste had been produced by American nuclear reactors. That number is expected to rise to 75,000 metric tons by 2015.
Before the mid-1970s, the plan for fuel removed from nuclear reactors was to reprocess it and recycle the uranium into new fuel. Because a by-product of reprocessing is plutonium, a highly unstable element that can be used to make nuclear weapons, President Jimmy Carter ordered the end of reprocessing in 1977 due to security risks. Reprocessing also had a difficult time competing economically with the production of new uranium fuel.
Since then, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been studying storage sites for the long-term burial of such waste and is now focusing on Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The DOE has built a full-scale system of tunnels in the mountain at a cost of over $5 billion. Although the Yucca Mountain site is still controversial, there are no other sites presently under consideration.
Meanwhile, radioactive waste continues to be stored at the nuclear plants where it is produced. The most common option is to store it in a large steel-lined pool. As these pools fill up, fuel rods are stored in large steel and concrete casks.
SEE ALSO R ADIOACTIVE F ALLOUT ; R ADIOACTIVE W ASTE ; T HERMAL P OLLUTION ; Y UCCA M OUNTAIN .
Mazuzan, George T., and Walker, J. Samuel. (1984). Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation 1946–1962. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Asimov, Isaac. (1991). Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos. New York: Truman Talley Books.
Daley, Michael J. (1997). Nuclear Power: Promise or Peril? Minneapolis: Lerner Publications.
Ramsey, Charles B., and Modarres, Mohammad. (1998). Commercial Nuclear Power: Assuring Safety for the Future. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Columbia College Web site. "Nuclear Energy Guide." Available from http://www.spacekid.net/nuclear . |
0.999999 | organization web site design organization web site design When the value is retrieved later, each element in the value appears once, with elements listed according to the order in which they were specified at table creation time. For example, suppose that a column is specified as SET('a','b','c','d'): mysql> CREATE TABLE myset (col SET('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')); If you insert the values 'a,d', 'd,a', 'a,d,d', 'a,d,a', and 'd,a,d': mysql> INSERT INTO myset (col) VALUES -> ('a,d'), ('d,a'), ('a,d,a'), ('a,d,d'), ('d,a,d'); Query OK, 5 rows affected (0.01 sec) Records: 5 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0 Then all of these values appear as 'a,d' when retrieved: mysql> SELECT col FROM myset; +------+ | col | +------+ | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | +------+ 5 rows in set (0.04 sec) If you set a SET column to an unsupported value, the value is ignored and a warning is issued: mysql> INSERT INTO myset (col) VALUES ('a,d,d,s'); Query OK, 1 row affected, 1 warning (0.03 sec) mysql> SHOW WARNINGS; +---------+------+------------------------------------------+ | Level | Code | Message | +---------+------+------------------------------------------+ | Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'col' at row 1 | +---------+------+------------------------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.
organization web site design 04 sec) mysql> SELECT col FROM myset; +------+ | col | +------+ | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | | a,d | +------+ 6 rows in set (0.01 sec) If strict SQL mode is enabled, attempts to insert invalid SET values result in an error. SET values are sorted numerically. NULL values sort before non-NULL SET values. Normally, you search for SET values using the FIND_IN_SET() function or the LIKE operator: mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE FIND_IN_SET('value',set_col)>0; mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col LIKE '%value%'; The first statement finds rows where set_col contains the value set member.
organization web site design The second is similar, but not the same: It finds rows where set_col contains value anywhere, even as a substring of another set member. The following statements also are legal: mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col & 1; mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE set_col = 'val1,val2'; The first of these statements looks for values containing the first set member. The second looks for an exact match. Be careful with comparisons of the second type. Comparing set values to 'val1,val2' returns different results than comparing values to 'val2,val1'. |
0.999912 | Galactic very high energy gamma ray sources in the inner Galaxy tend to cluster within 1 degree in latitude around the Galactic plane (Fig. 1), with only three sources (HESS J1442-624/RCW 86, HESS J1356-645 and the recently discovered source HESS J1507-622 covered in this SOM) at latitude below -1.5 degr. and none above +1 degr. At a latitude of -3.5 degr., HESS J1507-622 is located at the very edge of the survey range and stands out. HESS J1507-622 (Fig. 2) is slightly extended, with an estimated intrinsic source size of 0.1 degr., hence most likely a galactic rather than extragalactic source. Its latitude implies that it is either rather close - within about 1 kpc, or is located well off the Galactic plane. The gamma ray flux is about 10% of the Crab Nebula's flux. A search for counterparts in other wavelength regimes - X-rays (ROSAT), infrared (MSX) and radio (MOLONGLO) - failed to show obvious counterparts; of the three very faint ROSAT X-ray sources in the field, two are well outside the gamma-ray source, one (X1) at its edge (Fig. 2), with a luminosity less than 10% of the gamma-ray luminosity.
What could HESS J1507-622 be? One explanation is in terms of an old pulsar wind nebula, where magnetic fields have decayed and where radiative losses have cooled electrons to the extent that most of the synchrotron emission falls below the X-ray regime and cannot be detected. The modest extension of source - with 0.1 degr. smaller than other pulsar wind nebulae - would then argue for a multi-kpc distance and a location well below the plane. Another explanation might be in terms of a supernova remnant expanding into the uniform low-density medium away from the Galactic plane. This scenario faces the problem that a remnant of the size of the gamma ray source would have to be fairly young, and should be visible in X-rays (as is the supernova SN 1006, despite a much lower gamma-ray flux).
Reference: O. Tibolla et al., "New Unidentified H.E.S.S. Galactic Sources", Proceedings of the 31st International Cosmic Ray Conference, Lodz, 2009, and arXiv:0906.0574.
Fig. 2: Smoothed gamma-ray count map of HESS J1507-622. The green contours show 3, 4, 5 and 6 sigma significance. White circles indicate three faint ROSAT X-ray sources. |
0.953939 | Is Driskill Hotel in Austin haunted?
The Driskill Hotel, a Romanesque style building completed in 1886, is the oldest operating hotel in Austin, Texas, USA, and is one of the best-known hotels in Texas. The Driskill was conceived and built by Col. Jesse Driskill, a cattleman who spent his fortune constructing "the finest hotel south of St. Louis"
It is common at the hotel for people to claim that they hear people playing upstairs. They also claim that they feel something touching their face and arms.
Some people even say that they see figures in their windows and sitting in chairs. On the 3rd floor of the Hotel in one of the hallways there is a painting of a little girl holding flowers, witnesses report when they looked at the picture a weird sensation came over them.
It was like something was lifting up the heels of their feet, a tingling sensation causing their equilibrium to be off for the next few hours. Legend also has it that Col. Jesse Driskill haunts the top floor and elevators of the hotel he built in 1886. |
0.999985 | examples of metallic minerals Examples of nonmetallic minerals include sulfur, phosphorus, iodine, carbon, selenium, limestone, dolomite, gemstones, clay and mica. Nonmetallic minerals are minerals that do not contain metal. Physically, they are very volatile and have low elasticity.
Metallic Minerals: Metallic mineral re those minerals which can be melted to obtain new products.. Iron, cooper, bauxite, tin, manganese are some examples.
examples of metallic minerals Metallic minerals would include copper, gold, silver. Non-metallic minerals would include quartz, feldspar, mica, and calcite.
examples of metallic minerals Metallic Minerals: I. Metallic mineral re those minerals which can be melted to obtain new products. II. Iron, cooper, bauxite, tin, manganese are some examples.
For example, copper pyrites is a metallic mineral as it can form copper after proper processing while sodium chloride is a non-metallic mineral. Metallic mineral can be melted to form new products such as minerals of iron, cooper, bauxite, tin and manganese. Such types of minerals are generally found in igneous rocks.
Answer Wiki. most minerals are metallic, however, the term metallic mineral refers to a mineral that is used as an ore for the metal in the mineral. For example, Covellite Wikipedia is considered a metallic mineral and is a source of copper.
mineral resources (non-metallic) mineral resources (non-metallic) A raw material qualifying as a 'mineral resource' is a concentration or occurrence of material of economic interest in or on the earth's crust in such form, quality and quantity that there are reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. |
0.941966 | Geographically and climatically, Bulgaria is noted for its diversity, with the landscape ranging from the Alpine snow-capped peaks in Rila, Pirin and the Balkan Mountains to the mild and sunny weather of the Black Sea coast, from the typically continental Danubian Plain (ancient Moesia) in the north to the strong Mediterranean influence in the valleys of Macedonia and the lowlands in the southernmost parts of Thrace. Bulgaria comprises portions of the classical regions of Thrace, Moesia, and Macedonia. The southwest of the country is mountainous with two alpine ranges - Rila and Pirin, and further east are the lower but more extensive Rhodope Mountains. Rila mountain includes the highest peak of the Balkan Peninsula, peak Musala at 2,925 meters (9,596 ft); the long range of the Balkan mountains runs west-east through the middle of the country, north of the famous Rose Valley. Hilly country and plains are found in the southeast, along the Black Sea coast in the east, and along Bulgaria's main river, the Danube in the north. Other major rivers include the Struma and the Maritsa river in the south. There are around 260 glacial lakes situated in Rila and Pirin, several large lakes on the Black Sea coast and more than 2,200 dam lakes. Mineral springs are in great abundance located mainly in the south-western and central parts of the country along the faults between the mountains.
The Balkan mountain range (Bulgarian and Serbian: ����� �������, Stara planina, "Old Mountain") is an extension of the Carpathian mountain range, separated from it by the Danube River.
The Balkan range runs 560 km from eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea.
The highest peak on the Balkan peninsula is Musala in the Rila mountains near Sofia (Rila range) with 2,925 m, closely followed by Mount Olympus in Greece and Vihren (Pirin range).
The highest peaks of the Stara planina itself are in central Bulgaria. The highest peak is Botev (2,376 m), located in the Central Balkan National Park (established 1991).
Close to it is Kalofer, the birth place of Hristo Botev, a Bulgarian poet and national hero who died in the Western Stara Planina near Vratsa in 1876 in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Also close to Botev peak is the Shipka Pass, the scene of the four battles in Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 which ended Turkish rule in the Balkans. Close to the pass in the village of Shipka there is a Russian Orthodox church, built to commemorate Bulgarian bravery during pass defence.
Stara Planina is remarkable for its flora and fauna. Edelweiss grows there in the region of Koziata stena.
Sofia is one of the oldest capital cities in Europe, blending its past and present in a remarkable architectural style. Historic landmarks include the 10th century Boyana Church (one of the UNESCO World Heritage protected sites), the Alexander Nevski Cathedral (one of the world's largest Orthodox churches), and the early Byzantine Church of St Sophia.
More modern architecture is represented by the Bulgarian National Opera and Ballet, the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, the Rakovski Str theatre district, Slaveykov Square's outdoor book market, and the NDK, which is Southeastern Europe's largest cultural and congressional centre.
Sofia is the see of an Eastern Orthodox and of a Roman Catholic diocese.
Sofia has also a huge nightlife scene with many different night clubs, live venues, pubs, mehani (Bulgarian traditional taverns), and restaurants.
The city also offers many places of special interest such as the Sts. Cyril and Methodius National Library (which houses the largest national book collection and is Bulgaria's oldest cultural institute), the Sofia State Library, the British Council, the Russian Cultural Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, the Hungarian Institute, the Czech and the Slovak Cultural Institutes, the Italian Cultural Institute, the French Cultural Institute, Goethe Institut, Instituto Cervantes, and the Open Society Institute. Families with children can enjoy Sofia Land, the nearly nine-acre amusement park adjacent to the Sofia Zoological Garden (founded in 1888) as well as the Museum of Natural History.
Sofia currently enjoys a booming film industry as the filming ground of several international film productions. Vitosha Boulevard, also called Vitoshka � ranked as the world's 22nd most expensive commercial street � represents numerous fashion boutiques and luxury goods stores and features exhibitions by world fashion designers. Sofia's geographic location, situated in the foothills of the weekend retreat Vitosha mountain, further adds to the city's specific atmosphere.
Plovdiv is located on the banks of the Maritsa river in the central part of Upper Thrace. The surrounding countryside is sparsely populated and bare, yet the city itself is particularly striking, since it, like Rome, is nestled in between seven hills. Tourists, however, are likely to count only six of those, as one of hills was virtually destroyed at the beginning of the 1900s, and there is only a small outcrop of rock left to show where it once stood.
During its long history, Plovdiv was inhabited by many peoples who gave it different names: in Thracian: Eumolpias, Pulpudeva; Greek: Φιλιππούπολη, Φιλιππούπολις / Philippoupoli, Philippoupolis; Turkish: Filibe. In the Middle Ages the Bulgarians called the city ������ or �������. The city was usually known as Philippopolis in English until the early 20th century.
Plovdiv is one of the oldest cities in Europe. It is a contemporary of Troy and Mycenae, and older than Rome, Athens, Carthage or Constantinople. Archaeologists have discovered fine pottery and other objects of everyday life from as early as the Neolithic Age, showing that in the end of the 7th millennium B.C there already was an established settlement there. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Plovdiv's written post-Bronze Age history lists it as a Thracian fortified settlement named Eumolpias. In 342 BC, it was conquered by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, who renamed it "Φιλιππόπολις", Philippopolis or "the city of Philip" in his own honour. Later, it again became independent under the Thracians, until its incorporation into the Roman Empire, where it was called Trimontium (City of Three Hills) and served as metropolis (capital) of the province of Thrace. Thrimontium was an important crossroad for the Roman Empire and was called "The largest and most beautiful of all cities" by Lucian. In those times, the Via Militaris (or Via Diagonalis), the most important military road in the Balkans, passed through the city. The Roman times were a glorious period of growth and cultural excellence. The ancient ruins tell a story of a vibrant, growing city with numerous public buildings, shrines, baths, and theatres. Many of those are still preserved and can be seen by the curious tourist wishing to experience the charm of ancient Rome up close.
Varna (Bulgarian: �����) is the largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, and 91st-largest in the European Union, with a population of 357,752 ().
Varna is among Europe's oldest cities. Miletians founded the apoikia (trading colony) of Odessos in 570 BC (in the time of Astyages) at the site of an earlier Thracian settlement. The name Odessos, first mentioned by Strabo, was pre-Greek, perhaps of Carian origin. Long before the Thracians populated the area by 1200 BC, several prehistoric settlements best known for the eneolithic necropolis, eponymous site of the Varna culture and the alleged world's oldest gold treasure (5th millennium BC radiocarbon dating), existed within modern city limits. For centuries, Odessos was a contact zone between the urban Ionians and the Thracians (Getae, Crobyzi, Terizi) of the hinterland. In the 4th century BC, it was a mixed Greco-Thracian community (see also Darzalas).
In 339 BC, the city was unsuccessfully besieged by Philip II but surrendered to Alexander the Great in 335 BC, and was later ruled by his diadochus Lysimachus. The Roman city, Odessus (annexed in 15 AD to the province of Moesia, later Moesia Inferior), occupied 47 hectares in present-day central Varna and had prominent public baths, Thermae, erected in the late 2nd century, now the largest Roman remains in Bulgaria (the building was 100 m wide, 70 m long, and 20 m high) and fourth largest known Roman baths in Europe. Odessus was a Christian centre, as testified by the ruins of early basilicas, monasteries, and indications that apostle Ampliatus (������, Amply), disciple of Saint Andrew, served as bishop there. In 442, a peace treaty between Theodosius II and Attila was done at Odessus.
Theophanes the Confessor first mentioned the name Varna, as the city came to be known with the Slavic conquest of the Balkans in the 6th-7th century. In 681, Asparukh, the founder of the First Bulgarian Empire, routed an army of Constantine IV north of the Danube delta and reached the so-called Varna near Odessos. Recent scholarship has suggested that the first Bulgarian capital was perhaps located around Varna before it moved to Pliska. Asparukh fortified the Varna river lowland by a rampart against a possible Byzantine naval landing; several 7th-century Bulgar settlements have been excavated.
Varna is an important and growing economic centre for Bulgaria and the Black Sea region.
The economy is service-based, with 61% of net revenue generated in trade and tourism, 16% in manufacturing, 14% in transportation and communications, and 6% in construction. The city is the easternmost destination of Pan-European transport corridor 8 and is closely connected to corridors 7 and 9 via Rousse. Major industries traditionally include transportation (Navigation Maritime Bulgare�Navibulgar), Port of Varna, Varna International Airport), distribution (Logistics Park Varna ), and shipbuilding (which is declining, even though new private ship repair yards have been built), and other marine industries.
With the nearby towns of Beloslav and Devnya, Varna forms the Varna-Devnya Industrial Complex, home to some of the largest chemical, power generating and manufacturing plants in Bulgaria, including the sites of the two largest cash privatization deals in recent history.
In June of 2007, Eni and Gazprom disclosed the South Stream project whereby a 900-km-long offshore natural gas pipeline from Russia's Dzhubga with annual capacity of 30 billion cubic meters is planned to come ashore at Varna, possibly near the Galata offshore gas field, en route to Italy and Austria.
Tourism is of foremost importance, with the suburban beachfront resorts of Golden Sands, Holiday Club Riviera, Sunny Day, Constantine and Helena, and others with a total capacity of over 60,000 beds (2006), attracting millions of visitors each year (4.74 million in 2006, 3.99 million of which international tourists ). The resorts received considerable internal and foreign investment in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and are environmentally sound, being located reassuringly far from chemical and other smokestack industries. Varna is also Bulgaria's only international cruise destination (with 26 cruises scheduled for 2007) and a major international convention and spa centre.
Real estate is booming, with some of the highest prices in the nation, often surpassing Sofia. Commercial real estate is developing international office tower projects such as Business Park Varna . In retail, the city not only has the assortment of international big-box retailers and new shopping malls now ubiquitous in larger Bulgarian cities, but boasts made-in-Varna national chains with locations spreading over the country such as retailer Piccadilly, restaurateur Happy, and pharmacy chain Sanita.
Economically, Varna is considered among the best-performing Bulgarian cities; unemployment, at 2.34%, is 4 times lower, and per capita income is higher than the national average (2007). Many Bulgarians regard Varna as a boom town; some, including from Sofia and Plovdiv, but mostly from Dobrich and the greater region, are relocating.
In September 2004, FDI Magazine (a Financial Times Business Ltd publication) proclaimed Varna South-eastern Europe City of the Future citing its strategic location, fast-growing economy, rich cultural heritage and higher education. In April 2007, rating agency Standard & Poor's announced that it had raised its long-term issue credit rating for Varna to BB+ from BB, declaring the city's outlook "stable" and praising its "improved operating performance". |
0.801572 | This article is about the unification of 1871. For the unification of East and West Germany in 1990, see German reunification.
The German Empire of 1871–1918. Because the German-speaking part of the multinational Austrian Empire was excluded, this geographic construction represented a lesser Germany (Kleindeutsch) solution.
The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco-Prussian War. Unofficially, the de facto transition of most of the German-speaking populations into a federated organization of states had been developing for some time through alliances formal and informal between princely rulers—but in fits and starts; self-interests of the various parties hampered the process over nearly a century of autocratic experimentation, beginning in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire (1806), and the subsequent rise of German nationalism.
Unification exposed tensions due to religious, linguistic, social, and cultural differences among the inhabitants of the new nation, suggesting that 1871 only represented one moment in a continuum of the larger unification processes. The Holy Roman Emperor had been often called "Emperor of all the Germanies"; contemporary news accounts frequently referred to "The Germanies", and in the empire, its members of higher nobility were referred to as "Princes of Germany" or "Princes of the Germanies"—for the lands once called East Francia had been organized and governed as pocket kingdoms since times before the rise of Charlemagne (800 AD). Given the mountainous terrains of much of the territory, it is obvious that isolated peoples would develop cultural, educational, linguistic, and religious differences over such a lengthy time period. Germany, or the Germanies, of the nineteenth century enjoyed transportation and communications improvements tying the peoples into a greater, tighter culture, as has the entire world under the influence of better communications and transportation infrastructures.
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had included more than 500 independent states, was effectively dissolved when Emperor Francis II abdicated (6 August 1806) during the War of the Third Coalition. Despite the legal, administrative, and political disruption associated with the end of the Empire, the people of the German-speaking areas of the old Empire had a common linguistic, cultural, and legal tradition further enhanced by their shared experience in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. European liberalism offered an intellectual basis for unification by challenging dynastic and absolutist models of social and political organization; its German manifestation emphasized the importance of tradition, education, and linguistic unity of peoples in a geographic region. Economically, the creation of the Prussian Zollverein (customs union) in 1818, and its subsequent expansion to include other states of the German Confederation, reduced competition between and within states. Emerging modes of transportation facilitated business and recreational travel, leading to contact and sometimes conflict among German speakers from throughout Central Europe.
The model of diplomatic spheres of influence resulting from the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 after the Napoleonic Wars endorsed Austrian dominance in Central Europe. However, the negotiators at Vienna took no account of Prussia's growing strength within and among the German states and so failed to foresee that Prussia would rise up to challenge Austria for leadership. This German dualism presented two solutions to the problem of unification: Kleindeutsche Lösung, the small Germany solution (Germany without Austria), or Großdeutsche Lösung, the greater Germany solution (Germany with Austria).
1797: The French First Republic annexed the Left Bank of the Rhine as a result of the War of the First Coalition.
1802: Previous annexations by France confirmed following its victory in the War of the Second Coalition.
1804: Francis I of Austria declared the new Austrian Empire as a reaction to Napoleon Bonaparte's proclamation of the First French Empire in 1804.
1806: As a result of the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon I annexed some territories East of the Rhine, replaced the Holy Roman Empire by the Confederation of the Rhine as a French client-state.
1807: Prussia lost one half of its territory following the War of the Fourth Coalition.
1815: After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna reinstated the Germanic states into the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire.
1819: The Carlsbad Decrees suppressed any form of pan-Germanic activities to avoid the creation of a 'German state'; the Kingdom of Prussia, however, initiated a customs union with other Confederation states.
1834: The Prussian-led custom union evolved into the Zollverein that included almost all Confederation states except the Austrian Empire.
1848: Revolts across the German Confederation, such as in Berlin, Dresden and Frankfurt, forced King Frederick William IV of Prussia to grant a constitution to the Confederation. In the meantime, the Frankfurt Parliament was set up in 1848 and attempted to proclaim a united Germany, but this was refused by William IV. The question of a united Germany under the Kleindeutsch solution (to exclude Austria) or the so-called Großdeutsch (to include Austria) began to surface.
1861–62: King Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and he appointed Otto von Bismarck on 23 September 1862, Minister President and Foreign Minister, who favoured a 'blood-and-iron' policy to create a united Germany under the leadership of Prussia.
1864: The Danish-Prussian War started as Prussia protested against Danish incorporation of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark. The Austrian Empire was deliberately drawn into this war by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia. The Austro-Prussian victory led to Schleswig, the northern part, being governed by Prussia and Holstein, the southern part, being governed by Austria, as per the Treaty of Vienna (1864).
1866: Bismarck accused the Austrian Empire of stirring up troubles in Prussian-held Schleswig. Prussian troops drove into Austrian-held Holstein and took control of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein. Austria declared war on Prussia and, after fighting the Austro-Prussian War (Seven Weeks' War), was swiftly defeated. The Treaty of Prague (1866) formally dissolved the German Confederation and Prussia created the North German Confederation to include all Germanic states except the pro-French, southern kingdoms of Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg.
1870: When the French emperor, Napoleon III, demanded territories of the Rhineland in return for his neutrality amid the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck used the Spanish Succession Question (1868) and Ems Telegram (1870) as an opportunity to incorporate the southern kingdoms. Napoleon III declared war against Prussia.
1871: The Franco-Prussian War ended with Prussian troops capturing Paris, the capital of the Second French Empire. Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg were incorporated into the North German Confederation in the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871). Bismarck then proclaimed King Wilhelm I, now Kaiser Wilhelm I, as leader of the new, united Germany (German Reich). With the German troops remaining in Paris, Napoleon III dissolved the French Empire and a new republic, the Third French Republic, was created under Adolphe Thiers.
For more details on this topic, see Holy Roman Empire.
Germania, a personification of the German nation, appears in Philipp Veit's fresco (1834–36). She is holding a shield with the coat of arms of the German Confederation (see enlargement below). The shields on which she stands are the arms of the seven traditional Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
Prior to 1806, German-speaking Central Europe included more than 300 political entities, most of which were part of the Holy Roman Empire or the extensive Habsburg hereditary dominions. They ranged in size from the small and complex territories of the princely Hohenlohe family branches to sizable, well-defined territories such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Prussia. Their governance varied: they included free imperial cities, also of different sizes, such as the powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories, also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and dynastic states such as Württemberg. These lands (or parts of them—both the Habsburg domains and Hohenzollern Prussia also included territories outside the Empire structures) made up the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, which at times included more than 1,000 entities. Since the 15th century, with few exceptions, the Empire's Prince-electors had chosen successive heads of the House of Habsburg to hold the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Among the German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire administrative and legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the organization of imperial circles (Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including economic cooperation and military protection.
The War of the Second Coalition (1799–1802) resulted in the defeat of the imperial and allied forces by Napoleon Bonaparte. The treaties of Lunéville (1801) and Amiens (1802) and the Mediatization of 1803 transferred large portions of the Holy Roman Empire to the dynastic states and secularized ecclesiastical territories. Most of the imperial cities disappeared from the political and legal landscape, and the populations living in these territories acquired new allegiances to dukes and kings. This transfer particularly enhanced the territories of Württemberg and Baden. In 1806, after a successful invasion of Prussia and the defeat of Prussia and Russia at the joint battles of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon dictated the Treaty of Pressburg, in which the Emperor dissolved the Holy Roman Empire.
For more details on this topic, see French period.
A common language may have been seen to serve as the basis of a nation, but as contemporary historians of 19th-century Germany noted, it took more than linguistic similarity to unify these several hundred polities. The experience of German-speaking Central Europe during the years of French hegemony contributed to a sense of common cause to remove the French invaders and reassert control over their own lands. The exigencies of Napoleon's campaigns in Poland (1806–07), the Iberian Peninsula, western Germany, and his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 disillusioned many Germans, princes and peasants alike. Napoleon's Continental System nearly ruined the Central European economy. The invasion of Russia included nearly 125,000 troops from German lands, and the loss of that army encouraged many Germans, both high- and low-born, to envision a Central Europe free of Napoleon's influence. The creation of such student militias as the Lützow Free Corps exemplified this tendency.
The debacle in Russia loosened the French grip on the German princes. In 1813, Napoleon mounted a campaign in the German states to bring them back into the French orbit; the subsequent War of Liberation culminated in the great Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of Nations. In October 1813, more than 500,000 combatants engaged in ferocious fighting over three days, making it the largest European land battle of the 19th century. The engagement resulted in a decisive victory for the Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden, and it ended French power east of the Rhine. Success encouraged the Coalition forces to pursue Napoleon across the Rhine; his army and his government collapsed, and the victorious Coalition incarcerated Napoleon on Elba. During the brief Napoleonic restoration known as the 100 Days of 1815, forces of the Seventh Coalition, including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher, were victorious at Waterloo (18 June 1815). The critical role played by Blücher's troops, especially after having to retreat from the field at Ligny the day before, helped to turn the tide of combat against the French. The Prussian cavalry pursued the defeated French in the evening of 18 June, sealing the allied victory. From the German perspective, the actions of Blücher's troops at Waterloo, and the combined efforts at Leipzig, offered a rallying point of pride and enthusiasm. This interpretation became a key building block of the Borussian myth expounded by the pro-Prussian nationalist historians later in the 19th century.
For more details on this topic, see Congress of Vienna.
After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna established a new European political-diplomatic system based on the balance of power. This system reorganized Europe into spheres of influence, which, in some cases, suppressed the aspirations of the various nationalities, including the Germans and Italians. Generally, an enlarged Prussia and the 38 other states consolidated from the mediatized territories of 1803 were confederated within the Austrian Empire's sphere of influence. The Congress established a loose German Confederation (1815–1866), headed by Austria, with a "Federal Diet" (called the Bundestag or Bundesversammlung, an assembly of appointed leaders) that met in the city of Frankfurt am Main. In recognition of the imperial position traditionally held by the Habsburgs, the emperors of Austria became the titular presidents of this parliament. Problematically, the built-in Austrian dominance failed to take into account Prussia's 18th century emergence in Imperial politics. Ever since the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg had made himself King in Prussia at the beginning of that century, their domains had steadily increased through war and inheritance. Prussia's consolidated strength had become especially apparent during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War under Frederick the Great. As Maria Theresa and Joseph tried to restore Habsburg hegemony in the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick countered with the creation of the Fürstenbund (Union of Princes) in 1785. Austrian-Prussian dualism lay firmly rooted in old Imperial politics. Those balance of power manoeuvers were epitomized by the War of the Bavarian Succession, or "Potato War" among common folk. Even after the end of the Holy Roman Empire, this competition influenced the growth and development of nationalist movements in the 19th century.
German language area (here including Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, and Luxembourgish) based on 19th century language maps with close German language islands shown with today's European state borders.
Despite the nomenclature of Diet (Assembly or Parliament), this institution should in no way be construed as a broadly, or popularly, elected group of representatives. Many of the states did not have constitutions, and those that did, such as the Duchy of Baden, based suffrage on strict property requirements which effectively limited suffrage to a small portion of the male population. Furthermore, this impractical solution did not reflect the new status of Prussia in the overall scheme. Although the Prussian army had been dramatically defeated in the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, it had made a spectacular come-back at Waterloo. Consequently, Prussian leaders expected to play a pivotal role in German politics.
The surge of German nationalism, stimulated by the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period and initially allied with liberalism, shifted political, social, and cultural relationships within the German states. In this context, one can detect its roots in the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period. The Burschenschaft student organizations and popular demonstrations, such as those held at Wartburg Castle in October 1817, contributed to a growing sense of unity among German speakers of Central Europe. Furthermore, implicit and sometimes explicit promises made during the War of Liberation engendered an expectation of popular sovereignty and widespread participation in the political process, promises that largely went unfulfilled once peace had been achieved. Agitation by student organizations led such conservative leaders as Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich, to fear the rise of national sentiment; the assassination of German dramatist August von Kotzebue in March 1819 by a radical student seeking unification was followed on 20 September 1819 by the proclamation of the Carlsbad Decrees, which hampered intellectual leadership of the nationalist movement.
Metternich was able to harness conservative outrage at the assassination to consolidate legislation that would further limit the press and constrain the rising liberal and nationalist movements. Consequently, these decrees drove the Burschenschaften underground, restricted the publication of nationalist materials, expanded censorship of the press and private correspondence, and limited academic speech by prohibiting university professors from encouraging nationalist discussion. The decrees were the subject of Johann Joseph von Görres's pamphlet Teutschland [archaic: Deutschland] und die Revolution (Germany and the Revolution) (1820), in which he concluded that it was both impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures.
For more details on this topic, see Zollverein.
Another institution key to unifying the German states, the Zollverein, helped to create a larger sense of economic unification. Initially conceived by the Prussian Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow, as a Prussian customs union in 1818, the Zollverein linked the many Prussian and Hohenzollern territories. Over the ensuing thirty years (and more) other German states joined. The Union helped to reduce protectionist barriers among the German states, especially improving the transport of raw materials and finished goods, making it both easier to move goods across territorial borders and less costly to buy, transport, and sell raw materials. This was particularly important for the emerging industrial centers, most of which were located in the Rhineland, the Saar, and the Ruhr valleys.
By the early 19th century, German roads had deteriorated to an appalling extent. Travelers, both foreign and local, complained bitterly about the state of the Heerstraßen, the military roads previously maintained for the ease of moving troops. As German states ceased to be a military crossroads, however, the roads improved; the length of hard–surfaced roads in Prussia increased from 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) in 1816 to 16,600 kilometres (10,300 mi) in 1852, helped in part by the invention of macadam. By 1835, Heinrich von Gagern wrote that roads were the "veins and arteries of the body politic..." and predicted that they would promote freedom, independence and prosperity. As people moved around, they came into contact with others, on trains, at hotels, in restaurants, and for some, at fashionable resorts such as the spa in Baden-Baden. Water transportation also improved. The blockades on the Rhine had been removed by Napoleon's orders, but by the 1820s, steam engines freed riverboats from the cumbersome system of men and animals that towed them upstream. By 1846, 180 steamers plied German rivers and Lake Constance, and a network of canals extended from the Danube, the Weser, and the Elbe rivers.
As important as these improvements were, they could not compete with the impact of the railway. German economist Friedrich List called the railways and the Customs Union "Siamese Twins", emphasizing their important relationship to one another. He was not alone: the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a poem in which he extolled the virtues of the Zollverein, which he began with a list of commodities that had contributed more to German unity than politics or diplomacy. Historians of the Second Empire later regarded the railways as the first indicator of a unified state; the patriotic novelist, Wilhelm Raabe, wrote: "The German empire was founded with the construction of the first railway..." Not everyone greeted the iron monster with enthusiasm. The Prussian king Frederick William III saw no advantage in traveling from Berlin to Potsdam a few hours faster, and Metternich refused to ride in one at all. Others wondered if the railways were an "evil" that threatened the landscape: Nikolaus Lenau's 1838 poem An den Frühling (To Spring) bemoaned the way trains destroyed the pristine quietude of German forests.
The Bavarian Ludwig Railway, which was the first passenger or freight rail line in the German lands, connected Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835. Although it was 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) long and only operated in daylight, it proved both profitable and popular. Within three years, 141 kilometres (88 mi) of track had been laid, by 1840, 462 kilometres (287 mi), and by 1860, 11,157 kilometres (6,933 mi). Lacking a geographically central organizing feature (such as a national capital), the rails were laid in webs, linking towns and markets within regions, regions within larger regions, and so on. As the rail network expanded, it became cheaper to transport goods: in 1840, 18 Pfennigs per ton per kilometer and in 1870, five Pfennigs. The effects of the railway were immediate. For example, raw materials could travel up and down the Ruhr Valley without having to unload and reload. Railway lines encouraged economic activity by creating demand for commodities and by facilitating commerce. In 1850, inland shipping carried three times more freight than railroads; by 1870, the situation was reversed, and railroads carried four times more. Rail travel changed how cities looked and how people traveled. Its impact reached throughout the social order, affecting the highest born to the lowest. Although some of the outlying German provinces were not serviced by rail until the 1890s, the majority of the population, manufacturing centers, and production centers were linked to the rail network by 1865.
As travel became easier, faster, and less expensive, Germans started to see unity in factors other than their language. The Brothers Grimm, who compiled a massive dictionary known as The Grimm, also assembled a compendium of folk tales and fables, which highlighted the story-telling parallels between different regions. Karl Baedeker wrote guidebooks to different cities and regions of Central Europe, indicating places to stay, sites to visit, and giving a short history of castles, battlefields, famous buildings, and famous people. His guides also included distances, roads to avoid, and hiking paths to follow.
The words of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben expressed not only the linguistic unity of the German people but also their geographic unity. In Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, officially called Das Lied der Deutschen ("The Song of the Germans"), Fallersleben called upon sovereigns throughout the German states to recognize the unifying characteristics of the German people. Such other patriotic songs as "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the Rhine") by Max Schneckenburger began to focus attention on geographic space, not limiting "German-ness" to a common language. Schneckenburger wrote "The Watch on the Rhine" in a specific patriotic response to French assertions that the Rhine was France's "natural" eastern boundary. In the refrain, "Dear fatherland, dear fatherland, put your mind to rest / The watch stands true on the Rhine", and in such other patriotic poetry as Nicholaus Becker's "Das Rheinlied" ("The Rhine"), Germans were called upon to defend their territorial homeland. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt argued that national character reflected geographic influence, linking landscape to people. Concurrent with this idea, movements to preserve old fortresses and historic sites emerged, and these particularly focused on the Rhineland, the site of so many confrontations with France and Spain.
The period of Austrian and Prussian police-states and vast censorship before the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany later became widely known as the Vormärz, the "before March", referring to March 1848. During this period, European liberalism gained momentum; the agenda included economic, social, and political issues. Most European liberals in the Vormärz sought unification under nationalist principles, promoted the transition to capitalism, sought the expansion of male suffrage, among other issues. Their "radicalness" depended upon where they stood on the spectrum of male suffrage: the wider the definition of suffrage, the more radical.
Despite considerable conservative reaction, ideas of unity joined with notions of popular sovereignty in German-speaking lands. The Hambach Festival (Hambacher Fest) in May 1832 was attended by a crowd of more than 30,000. Promoted as a county fair, its participants celebrated fraternity, liberty, and national unity. Celebrants gathered in the town below and marched to the ruins of Hambach Castle on the heights above the small town of Hambach, in the Palatinate province of Bavaria. Carrying flags, beating drums, and singing, the participants took the better part of the morning and mid-day to arrive at the castle grounds, where they listened to speeches by nationalist orators from across the conservative to radical political spectrum. The overall content of the speeches suggested a fundamental difference between the German nationalism of the 1830s and the French nationalism of the July Revolution: the focus of German nationalism lay in the education of the people; once the populace was educated as to what was needed, they would accomplish it. The Hambach rhetoric emphasized the overall peaceable nature of German nationalism: the point was not to build barricades, a very "French" form of nationalism, but to build emotional bridges between groups.
A German caricature that mocks the Carlsbad Decrees, which suppressed freedom of expression.
As he had done in 1819, after the Kotzebue assassination, Metternich used the popular demonstration at Hambach to push conservative social policy. The "Six Articles" of 28 June 1832 primarily reaffirmed the principle of monarchical authority. On 5 July, the Frankfurt Diet voted for an additional 10 articles, which reiterated existing rules on censorship, restricted political organizations, and limited other public activity. Furthermore, the member states agreed to send military assistance to any government threatened by unrest. Prince Wrede led half of the Bavarian army to the Palatinate to "subdue" the province. Several hapless Hambach speakers were arrested, tried and imprisoned; one, Karl Heinrich Brüggemann (1810–1887), a law student and representative of the secretive Burschenschaft, was sent to Prussia, where he was first condemned to death, but later pardoned.
The economic, social and cultural dislocation of ordinary people, the economic hardship of an economy in transition, and the pressures of meteorological disasters all contributed to growing problems in Central Europe. The failure of most of the governments to deal with the food crisis of the mid-1840s, caused by the potato blight (related to the Great Irish Famine) and several seasons of bad weather, encouraged many to think that the rich and powerful had no interest in their problems. Those in authority were concerned about the growing unrest, political and social agitation among the working classes, and the disaffection of the intelligentsia. No amount of censorship, fines, imprisonment, or banishment, it seemed, could stem the criticism. Furthermore, it was becoming increasingly clear that both Austria and Prussia wanted to be the leaders in any resulting unification; each would inhibit the drive of the other to achieve unification.
For more details on this topic, see Revolutions of 1848.
For more details on this topic, see Frankfurt Parliament.
The widespread—mainly German—revolutions of 1848–49 sought unification of Germany under a single constitution. The revolutionaries pressured various state governments, particularly those in the Rhineland, for a parliamentary assembly that would have the responsibility to draft a constitution. Ultimately, many of the left-wing revolutionaries hoped this constitution would establish universal male suffrage, a permanent national parliament, and a unified Germany, possibly under the leadership of the Prussian king. This seemed to be the most logical course since Prussia was the strongest of the German states, as well as the largest in geographic size. Generally, center-right revolutionaries sought some kind of expanded suffrage within their states and potentially, a form of loose unification. Their pressure resulted in a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the Prussian three-class franchise, which granted to some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier, landed ones—greater representative power.
Pre-parliament delegates process into Paul's Church in Frankfurt, where they laid the groundwork for electing a National Parliament.
On 27 March 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament passed the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St. Paul's Church) and offered the title of Kaiser (Emperor) to the Prussian king Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared opposition from the other German princes and military intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of "clay". Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft a constitution and reach an agreement on the kleindeutsch solution. While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms.
Scholars of German history have engaged in decades of debate over how the successes and failures of the Frankfurt Parliament contribute to the historiographical explanations of German nation building. One school of thought, which emerged after The Great War and gained momentum in the aftermath of World War II, maintains that the failure of German liberals in the Frankfurt Parliament led to bourgeoisie compromise with conservatives (especially the conservative Junker landholders), which subsequently led to the so-called Sonderweg (distinctive path) of 20th-century German history. Failure to achieve unification in 1848, this argument holds, resulted in the late formation of the nation-state in 1871, which in turn delayed the development of positive national values. Hitler often called on the German public to sacrifice all for the cause of their great nation, but his regime did not create German nationalism: it merely capitalized on an intrinsic cultural value of German society that still remains prevalent even to this day. Furthermore, this argument maintains, the "failure" of 1848 reaffirmed latent aristocratic longings among the German middle class; consequently, this group never developed a self-conscious program of modernization.
More recent scholarship has rejected this idea, claiming that Germany did not have an actual "distinctive path" any more than any other nation, a historiographic idea known as exceptionalism. Instead, modern historians claim 1848 saw specific achievements by the liberal politicians. Many of their ideas and programs were later incorporated into Bismarck's social programs (e.g., social insurance, education programs, and wider definitions of suffrage). In addition, the notion of a distinctive path relies upon the underlying assumption that some other nation's path (in this case, the United Kingdom's) is the accepted norm. This new argument further challenges the norms of the British-centric model of development: studies of national development in Britain and other "normal" states (e.g., France or the United States) have suggested that even in these cases, the modern nation-state did not develop evenly. Nor did it develop particularly early, being rather a largely mid-to-late-19th-century phenomenon. Since the end of the 1990s, this view has become widely accepted, although some historians still find the Sonderweg analysis helpful in understanding the period of National Socialism.
This depiction of Germania, also by Philipp Veit, was created to hide the organ of the Paul's Church in Frankfurt, during the meeting of the Parliament there, March 1848–49. The sword was intended to symbolize the Word of God and to mark the renewal of the people and their triumphant spirit.
After the Frankfurt Parliament disbanded, Frederick William IV, under the influence of General Joseph Maria von Radowitz, supported the establishment of the Erfurt Union—a federation of German states, excluding Austria—by the free agreement of the German princes. This limited union under Prussia would have almost entirely eliminated Austrian influence on the other German states. Combined diplomatic pressure from Austria and Russia (a guarantor of the 1815 agreements that established European spheres of influence) forced Prussia to relinquish the idea of the Erfurt Union at a meeting in the small town of Olmütz in Moravia. In November 1850, the Prussians—specifically Radowitz and Frederick William—agreed to the restoration of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. This became known as the Punctation of Olmütz, but among Prussians it was known as the "Humiliation of Olmütz."
We cannot conceal the fact that the whole German question is a simple alternative between Prussia and Austria. In these states, German life has its positive and negative poles—in the former, all the interests [that] are national and reformative, in the latter, all that are dynastic and destructive. The German question is not a constitutional question but a question of power; and the Prussian monarchy is now wholly German, while that of Austria cannot be.
Unification under these conditions raised a basic diplomatic problem. The possibility of German (or Italian) unification would overturn the overlapping spheres of influence system created in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The principal architects of this convention, Metternich, Castlereagh, and Tsar Alexander (with his foreign secretary Count Karl Nesselrode), had conceived of and organized a Europe balanced and guaranteed by four "great powers": Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria, with each power having a geographic sphere of influence. France's sphere included the Iberian Peninsula and a share of influence in the Italian states. Russia's included the eastern regions of Central Europe and a balancing influence in the Balkans. Austria's sphere expanded throughout much of the Central European territories formerly held by the Holy Roman Empire. Britain's sphere was the rest of the world, especially the seas.
This sphere of influence system depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner presented significant questions. There was no readily applicable definition for who the German people would be or how far the borders of a German nation would stretch. There was also uncertainty as to who would best lead and defend "Germany", however it was defined. Different groups offered different solutions to this problem. In the Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Prussian Hohenzollerns; in the Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Austrian Habsburgs. This controversy, the latest phase of the German dualism debate that had dominated the politics of the German states and Austro-Prussian diplomacy since the 1701 creation of the Kingdom of Prussia, would come to a head during the following twenty years.
Other nationalists had high hopes for the German unification movement, and the frustration with lasting German unification after 1850 seemed to set the national movement back. Revolutionaries associated national unification with progress. As Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote to German revolutionary Karl Blind on 10 April 1865, "The progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation [that] possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to dominate other peoples but to lead them along the path of duty, to lead them toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will be destroyed." Garibaldi looked to Germany for the "kind of leadership [that], in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of relieving the suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life and all those who are now enduring foreign oppression."
In the spring of 1834, while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe. Its basic, and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in the no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed [to] in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of a league or society of independent nations would be realized in his own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary.
The convergence of leadership in politics and diplomacy by Bismarck, left, reorganization of the army and its training techniques by Albrecht von Roon (center), and the redesign of operational and strategic principles by Helmuth von Moltke (right) placed Prussia among the most powerful states in European affairs after the 1860s.
King Frederick William IV suffered a stroke in 1857 and could no longer rule. This led to his brother William becoming Prince Regent of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1858. Meanwhile, Helmuth von Moltke had become chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, and Albrecht von Roon would become Prussian Minister of War in 1859. This shuffling of authority within the Prussian military establishment would have important consequences. Von Roon and William (who took an active interest in military structures) began reorganizing the Prussian army, while Moltke redesigned the strategic defense of Prussia by streamlining operational command. Prussian army reforms (especially how to pay for them) caused a constitutional crisis beginning in 1860 because both parliament and William—via his minister of war—wanted control over the military budget. William, crowned King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved the crisis in favor of the war minister.
The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this disarray, the convergence of von Moltke's operational redesign, von Roon and Wilhelm's army restructure, and Bismarck's diplomacy influenced the realignment of the European balance of power. Their combined agendas established Prussia as the leading German power through a combination of foreign diplomatic triumphs—backed up by the possible use of Prussian military might—and an internal conservativism tempered by pragmatism, which came to be known as Realpolitik.
Bismarck expressed the essence of Realpolitik in his subsequently famous "Blood and Iron" speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies on 30 September 1862, shortly after he became Minister President: "The great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood." Bismarck's words, "iron and blood" (or "blood and iron", as often attributed), have often been misappropriated as evidence of a German lust for blood and power. First, the phrase from his speech "the great questions of time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions" is often interpreted as a repudiation of the political process—a repudiation Bismarck did not himself advocate. Second, his emphasis on blood and iron did not imply simply the unrivaled military might of the Prussian army but rather two important aspects: the ability of the assorted German states to produce iron and other related war materials and the willingness to use those war materials if necessary.
The need for both iron and blood soon became apparent. By 1862, when Bismarck made his speech, the idea of a German nation-state in the peaceful spirit of Pan-Germanism had shifted from the liberal and democratic character of 1848 to accommodate Bismarck's more conservative Realpolitik. Ever the pragmatist, Bismarck understood the possibilities, obstacles, and advantages of a unified state. He also understood the importance of linking that state to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which for some historians remains one of Bismarck's primary contributions to the creation of the German Empire in 1871. While the conditions of the treaties binding the various German states to one another prohibited Bismarck from taking unilateral action, the politician and diplomat in him realized the impracticality of such an action. In order to get the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a casus belli to rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in the events leading up to the war. The traditional view, promulgated in large part by late 19th and early 20th century pro-Prussian historians, maintains that Bismarck's intent was always German unification. Post-1945 historians, however, see more short-term opportunism and cynicism in Bismarck's manipulation of the circumstances to create a war, rather than a grand scheme to unify a nation-state. Regardless, Bismarck was neither villain nor saint: by manipulating events of 1866 and 1870, he demonstrated the political and diplomatic skill that had caused Wilhelm to turn to him in 1862.
From north to south: The Danish part of Jutland in purple and terracotta, Schleswig in red and brown, and Holstein in lime yellow. The Schleswig-Holstein Question was about the status of those territories.
Three episodes proved fundamental to the administrative and political unification of Germany. First, the death without male heirs of Frederick VII of Denmark led to the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Second, the unification of Italy provided Prussia an ally against Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Finally, France—fearing Hohenzollern encirclement—declared war on Prussia in 1870, resulting in the Franco-Prussian War. Through a combination of Bismarck's diplomacy and political leadership, von Roon's military reorganization, and von Moltke's military strategy, Prussia demonstrated that none of the European signatories of the 1815 peace treaty could guarantee Austria's sphere of influence in Central Europe, thus achieving Prussian hegemony in Germany and ending the dualism debate.
The first episode in the saga of German unification under Bismarck came with the Schleswig-Holstein Question. On 15 November 1863, King Christian IX of Denmark became king of Denmark and duke of Schleswig and Holstein. On 18 November 1863, he signed the Danish November Constitution and declared the Duchy of Schleswig a part of Denmark. The German Confederation saw this act as a violation of the London Protocol of 1852, which emphasized the status of the kingdom of Denmark as distinct from the independent duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The populations of Schleswig and Holstein, furthermore, greatly valued this separate status. The German Confederation could use the ethnicities of these duchies as a rallying cry: large portions of both Schleswig and Holstein were of German origin and spoke German in everyday life (though Schleswig had a sizable Danish minority). Diplomatic attempts to have the November Constitution repealed collapsed, and fighting began when Prussian and Austrian troops crossed the border into Schleswig on 1 February 1864. Initially, the Danes attempted to defend their country using an ancient earthen wall known as the Danevirke, but this proved futile. The Danes were no match for the combined Prussian and Austrian forces, and they could not rely on help from their allies in the other Scandinavian states because Denmark had nullified its alliance rights by violating the London Protocol. The Needle Gun, one of the first bolt action rifles to be used in conflict, aided the Prussians in both this war and the Austro-Prussian War two years later. The rifle enabled a Prussian soldier to fire five shots while lying prone, while its muzzle-loading counterpart could only fire one shot and had to be reloaded while standing. The Second Schleswig War resulted in victory for the combined armies of Prussia and Austria, and the two countries won control of Schleswig and Holstein in the concluding peace of Vienna, signed on 30 October 1864.
The second episode in Bismarck's unification efforts occurred in 1866. In concert with the newly formed Italy, Bismarck created a diplomatic environment in which Austria declared war on Prussia. The dramatic prelude to the war occurred largely in Frankfurt, where the two powers claimed to speak for all the German states in the parliament. In April 1866, the Prussian representative in Florence signed a secret agreement with the Italian government, committing each state to assist the other in a war against Austria. The next day, the Prussian delegate to the Frankfurt assembly presented a plan calling for a national constitution, a directly elected national Diet, and universal suffrage. German liberals were justifiably skeptical of this plan, having witnessed Bismarck's difficult and ambiguous relationship with the Prussian Landtag (State Parliament), a relationship characterized by Bismarck's cajoling and riding roughshod over the representatives. These skeptics saw the proposal as a ploy to enhance Prussian power rather than a progressive agenda of reform.
The debate over the proposed national constitution became moot when news of Italian troop movements in Tyrol and near the Venetian border reached Vienna in April 1866. The Austrian government ordered partial mobilization in the southern regions; the Italians responded by ordering full mobilization. Despite calls for rational thought and action, Italy, Prussia, and Austria continued to rush toward armed conflict. On 1 May, Wilhelm gave von Moltke command over the Prussian armed forces, and the next day he began full-scale mobilization.
In the Diet, the group of middle-sized states, known as Mittelstaaten (Bavaria, Württemberg, the grand duchies of Baden and Hesse, and the duchies of Saxony–Weimar, Saxony–Meiningen, Saxony–Coburg, and Nassau), supported complete demobilization within the Confederation. These individual governments rejected the potent combination of enticing promises and subtle (or outright) threats Bismarck used to try to gain their support against the Habsburgs. The Prussian war cabinet understood that its only supporters among the German states against the Habsburgs were two small principalities bordering on Brandenburg that had little military strength or political clout: the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They also understood that Prussia's only ally abroad was Italy.
Prussian Prince Friedrich Carl orders his enthusiastic troops to attack at the Battle of Königgrätz. The Crown Prince and his troops had arrived late, and in the wrong place, but when he arrived, he ordered his troops immediately into the fray. This decisive battle, which the Prussians won, forced the Habsburgs to end the war and laid the groundwork for the Kleindeutschland (little Germany) solution, or "Germany without Austria."
Although several German states initially sided with Austria, they stayed on the defensive and failed to take effective initiatives against Prussian troops. The Austrian army therefore faced the technologically superior Prussian army with support only from Saxony. France promised aid, but it came late and was insufficient. Complicating the situation for Austria, the Italian mobilization on Austria's southern border required a diversion of forces away from battle with Prussia to fight the Third Italian War of Independence on a second front in Venetia and on the Adriatic sea. The day-long Battle of Königgrätz, near the village of Sadová, gave Prussia an uncontested and decisive victory.
For more details on this topic, see North German Confederation.
A quick peace was essential to keep Russia from entering the conflict on Austria's side. Prussia annexed Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and the city of Frankfurt. Hesse Darmstadt lost some territory but not its sovereignty. The states south of the Main River (Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria) signed separate treaties requiring them to pay indemnities and to form alliances bringing them into Prussia's sphere of influence. Austria, and most of its allies, were excluded from the North German Confederation.
The end of Austrian dominance of the German states shifted Austria's attention to the Balkans. In 1867, the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph accepted a settlement (the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867) in which he gave his Hungarian holdings equal status with his Austrian domains, creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Peace of Prague (1866) offered lenient terms to Austria, in which Austria's relationship with the new nation-state of Italy underwent major restructuring; although the Austrians were far more successful in the military field against Italian troops, the monarchy lost the important province of Venetia. The Habsburgs ceded Venetia to France, which then formally transferred control to Italy. The French public resented the Prussian victory and demanded Revanche pour Sadová ("Revenge for Sadova"), illustrating anti-Prussian sentiment in France—a problem that would accelerate in the months leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. The Austro-Prussian War also damaged relations with the French government. At a meeting in Biarritz in September 1865 with Napoleon III, Bismarck had let it be understood (or Napoleon had thought he understood) that France might annex parts of Belgium and Luxembourg in exchange for its neutrality in the war. These annexations did not happen, resulting in animosity from Napoleon towards Bismarck.
For more details on this topic, see Causes of the Franco-Prussian War.
At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Metternich and his conservative allies had reestablished the Spanish monarchy under King Ferdinand VII. Over the following forty years, the great powers supported the Spanish monarchy, but events in 1868 would further test the old system. A revolution in Spain overthrew Queen Isabella II, and the throne remained empty while Isabella lived in sumptuous exile in Paris. The Spanish, looking for a suitable Catholic successor, had offered the post to three European princes, each of whom was rejected by Napoleon III, who served as regional power-broker. Finally, in 1870 the Regency offered the crown to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a prince of the Catholic cadet Hohenzollern line. The ensuing furor has been dubbed by historians as the Hohenzollern candidature.
Over the next few weeks, the Spanish offer turned into the talk of Europe. Bismarck encouraged Leopold to accept the offer. A successful installment of a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen king in Spain would mean that two countries on either side of France would both have German kings of Hohenzollern descent. This may have been a pleasing prospect for Bismarck, but it was unacceptable to either Napoleon III or to Agenor, duc de Gramont, his minister of foreign affairs. Gramont wrote a sharply formulated ultimatum to Wilhelm, as head of the Hohenzollern family, stating that if any Hohenzollern prince should accept the crown of Spain, the French government would respond—although he left ambiguous the nature of such response. The prince withdrew as a candidate, thus defusing the crisis, but the French ambassador to Berlin would not let the issue lie. He approached the Prussian king directly while Wilhelm was vacationing in Ems Spa, demanding that the King release a statement saying he would never support the installation of a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain. Wilhelm refused to give such an encompassing statement, and he sent Bismarck a dispatch by telegram describing the French demands. Bismarck used the king's telegram, called the Ems Dispatch, as a template for a short statement to the press. With its wording shortened and sharpened by Bismarck—and further alterations made in the course of its translation by the French agency Havas—the Ems Dispatch raised an angry furor in France. The French public, still aggravated over the defeat at Sadová, demanded war.
Emperor Napoleon III (left) at Sedan, on 2 September 1870, seated next to Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, holding Napoleon's surrendered sword. The defeat of the French army destabilized Napoleon's regime; a revolution in Paris established the Third French Republic, and the war continued.
For more details on this topic, see Franco-Prussian War.
Napoleon III had tried to secure territorial concessions from both sides before and after the Austro-Prussian War, but despite his role as mediator during the peace negotiations, he ended up with nothing. He then hoped that Austria would join in a war of revenge and that its former allies—particularly the southern German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria—would join in the cause. This hope would prove futile since the 1866 treaty came into effect and united all German states militarily—if not happily—to fight against France. Instead of a war of revenge against Prussia, supported by various German allies, France engaged in a war against all of the German states without any allies of its own. The reorganization of the military by von Roon and the operational strategy of Moltke combined against France to great effect. The speed of Prussian mobilization astonished the French, and the Prussian ability to concentrate power at specific points—reminiscent of Napoleon I's strategies seventy years earlier—overwhelmed French mobilization. Utilizing their efficiently laid rail grid, Prussian troops were delivered to battle areas rested and prepared to fight, whereas French troops had to march for considerable distances to reach combat zones. After a number of battles, notably Spicheren, Wörth, Mars la Tour, and Gravelotte, the Prussians defeated the main French armies and advanced on the primary city of Metz and the French capital of Paris. They captured Napoleon III and took an entire army as prisoners at Sedan on 1 September 1870.
The humiliating capture of the French emperor and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery"), threw the French government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew his government and proclaimed the Third Republic. The German High Command expected an overture of peace from the French, but the new republic refused to surrender. The Prussian army invested Paris and held it under siege until mid-January, with the city being "ineffectually bombarded". On 18 January 1871, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Under the subsequent Treaty of Frankfurt, France relinquished most of its traditionally German regions (Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine); paid an indemnity, calculated (on the basis of population) as the precise equivalent of the indemnity that Napoleon Bonaparte imposed on Prussia in 1807; and accepted German administration of Paris and most of northern France, with "German troops to be withdrawn stage by stage with each installment of the indemnity payment".
18 January 1871: The proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Bismarck appears in white. The Grand Duke of Baden stands beside Wilhelm, leading the cheers. Crown Prince Friedrich, later Friedrich III, stands on his father's right. Painting by Anton von Werner.
Victory in the Franco-Prussian War proved the capstone of the nationalist issue. In the first half of the 1860s, Austria and Prussia both contended to speak for the German states; both maintained they could support German interests abroad and protect German interests at home. In responding to the Schleswig-Holstein Question, they both proved equally diligent in doing so. After the victory over Austria in 1866, Prussia began internally asserting its authority to speak for the German states and defend German interests, while Austria began directing more and more of its attention to possessions in the Balkans. The victory over France in 1871 expanded Prussian hegemony in the German states to the international level. With the proclamation of Wilhelm as Kaiser, Prussia assumed the leadership of the new empire. The southern states became officially incorporated into a unified Germany at the Treaty of Versailles of 1871 (signed 26 February 1871; later ratified in the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871), which formally ended the war. Although Bismarck had led the transformation of Germany from a loose confederation into a federal nation state, he had not done it alone. Unification was achieved by building on a tradition of legal collaboration under the Holy Roman Empire and economic collaboration through the Zollverein. The difficulties of the Vormärz, the impact of the 1848 liberals, the importance of von Roon's military reorganization, and von Moltke's strategic brilliance all played a part in political unification.
For more details on this topic, see German Empire.
The new German Empire included 25 states, three of them Hanseatic cities. It realized the Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German Solution", with the exclusion of Austria) as opposed to a Großdeutsche Lösung or "Greater German Solution", which would have included Austria. Unifying various states into one nation required more than some military victories, however much these might have boosted morale. It also required a rethinking of political, social, and cultural behaviors and the construction of new metaphors about "us" and "them". Who were the new members of this new nation? What did they stand for? How were they to be organized?
For more details on this topic, see Constitution of the German Empire.
The 1866 North German Constitution became (with some semantic adjustments) the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire. With this constitution, the new Germany acquired some democratic features: notably the Imperial Diet, which—in contrast to the parliament of Prussia—gave citizens representation on the basis of elections by direct and equal suffrage of all males who had reached the age of 25. Furthermore, elections were generally free of chicanery, engendering pride in the national parliament. However, legislation required the consent of the Bundesrat, the federal council of deputies from the states, in and over which Prussia had a powerful influence; Prussia could appoint 17 of 58 delegates with only 14 votes needed for a veto. Prussia thus exercised influence in both bodies, with executive power vested in the Prussian King as Kaiser, who appointed the federal chancellor. The chancellor was accountable solely to, and served entirely at the discretion of, the Emperor. Officially, the chancellor functioned as a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (bureaucratic top officials in charge of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) acted as unofficial portfolio ministers. With the exception of the years 1872–1873 and 1892–1894, the imperial chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister of the imperial dynasty's hegemonic home-kingdom, Prussia. The Imperial Diet had the power to pass, amend, or reject bills, but it could not initiate legislation. (The power of initiating legislation rested with the chancellor.) The other states retained their own governments, but the military forces of the smaller states came under Prussian control. The militaries of the larger states (such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony) retained some autonomy, but they underwent major reforms to coordinate with Prussian military principles and came under federal government control in wartime.
Germania, also called the Niederwald Monument, was erected in 1877–83 at Rüdesheim.
The Sonderweg hypothesis attributed Germany's difficult 20th century to the weak political, legal, and economic basis of the new empire. The Prussian landed elites, the Junkers, retained a substantial share of political power in the unified state. The Sonderweg hypothesis attributed their power to the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the middle classes, or by peasants in combination with the urban workers, in 1848 and again in 1871. Recent research into the role of the Grand Bourgeoisie—which included bankers, merchants, industrialists, and entrepreneurs—in the construction of the new state has largely refuted the claim of political and economic dominance of the Junkers as a social group. This newer scholarship has demonstrated the importance of the merchant classes of the Hanseatic cities and the industrial leadership (the latter particularly important in the Rhineland) in the ongoing development of the Second Empire.
This monument to Kaiser Wilhelm, at Koblenz, where the Moselle River (upper river) meets the Rhine River (lower river), called the Deutsches Eck, or the German corner.
A key element of the nation-state is the creation of a national culture, frequently—although not necessarily—through deliberate national policy. In the new German nation, a Kulturkampf (1872–78) that followed political, economic, and administrative unification attempted to address, with a remarkable lack of success, some of the contradictions in German society. In particular, it involved a struggle over language, education, and religion. A policy of Germanization of non-German people of the empire's population, including the Polish and Danish minorities, started with language, in particular, the German language, compulsory schooling (Germanization), and the attempted creation of standardized curricula for those schools to promote and celebrate the idea of a shared past. Finally, it extended to the religion of the new Empire's population.
For some Germans, the definition of nation did not include pluralism, and Catholics in particular came under scrutiny; some Germans, and especially Bismarck, feared that the Catholics' connection to the papacy might make them less loyal to the nation. As chancellor, Bismarck tried without much success to limit the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and of its party-political arm, the Catholic Center Party, in schools and education and language-related policies. The Catholic Center Party remained particularly well entrenched in the Catholic strongholds of Bavaria and southern Baden, and in urban areas that held high populations of displaced rural workers seeking jobs in the heavy industry, and sought to protect the rights not only of Catholics, but other minorities, including the Poles, and the French minorities in the Alsatian lands. The May Laws of 1873 brought the appointment of priests, and their education, under the control of the state, resulting in the closure of many seminaries, and a shortage of priests. The Congregations Law of 1875 abolished religious orders, ended state subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the Prussian constitution.
For more details on this topic, see History of the Jews in Germany.
The Germanized Jews remained another vulnerable population in the new German nation-state. Since 1780, after emancipation by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Jews in the former Habsburg territories had enjoyed considerable economic and legal privileges that their counterparts in other German-speaking territories did not: they could own land, for example, and they did not have to live in a Jewish quarter (also called the Judengasse, or "Jews' alley"). They could also attend universities and enter the professions. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, many of the previously strong barriers between Jews and Christians broke down. Napoleon had ordered the emancipation of Jews throughout territories under French hegemony. Like their French counterparts, wealthy German Jews sponsored salons; in particular, several Jewish salonnières held important gatherings in Frankfurt and Berlin during which German intellectuals developed their own form of republican intellectualism. Throughout the subsequent decades, beginning almost immediately after the defeat of the French, reaction against the mixing of Jews and Christians limited the intellectual impact of these salons. Beyond the salons, Jews continued a process of Germanization in which they intentionally adopted German modes of dress and speech, working to insert themselves into the emerging 19th-century German public sphere. The religious reform movement among German Jews reflected this effort.
For more details on this topic, see Historiography and nationalism.
Another important element in nation-building, the story of the heroic past, fell to such nationalist German historians as the liberal constitutionalist Friedrich Dahlmann (1785–1860), his conservative student Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896), and others less conservative, such as Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) and Heinrich von Sybel (1817–1895), to name two. Dahlmann himself died before unification, but he laid the groundwork for the nationalist histories to come through his histories of the English and French revolutions, by casting these revolutions as fundamental to the construction of a nation, and Dahlmann himself viewed Prussia as the logical agent of unification.
Heinrich von Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1879, has perhaps a misleading title: it privileges the history of Prussia over the history of other German states, and it tells the story of the German-speaking peoples through the guise of Prussia's destiny to unite all German states under its leadership. The creation of this Borussian myth (Borussia is the Latin name for Prussia) established Prussia as Germany's savior; it was the destiny of all Germans to be united, this myth maintains, and it was Prussia's destiny to accomplish this. According to this story, Prussia played the dominant role in bringing the German states together as a nation-state; only Prussia could protect German liberties from being crushed by French or Russian influence. The story continues by drawing on Prussia's role in saving Germans from the resurgence of Napoleon's power in 1815, at Waterloo, creating some semblance of economic unity, and uniting Germans under one proud flag after 1871. It is the role of the nationalist historian to write the history of the nation; this means viewing that nation's past with the goal of a nationalist history in mind. The process of writing history, or histories, is a process of remembering and forgetting: of selecting certain elements to be remembered, that is, emphasized, and ignoring, or forgetting, other elements and events.
Mommsen's contributions to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica laid the groundwork for additional scholarship on the study of the German nation, expanding the notion of "Germany" to mean other areas beyond Prussia. A liberal professor, historian, and theologian, and generally a titan among late 19th-century scholars, Mommsen served as a delegate to the Prussian House of Representatives from 1863–1866 and 1873–1879; he also served as a delegate to the Reichstag from 1881–1884, for the liberal German Progress Party (Deutsche Fortschrittspartei) and later for the National Liberal Party. He opposed the antisemitic programs of Bismarck's Kulturkampf and the vitriolic text that Treitschke often employed in the publication of his Studien über die Judenfrage (Studies of the Jewish Question), which encouraged assimilation and Germanization of Jews.
↑ See, for example, James Allen Vann, The Swabian Kreis: Institutional Growth in the Holy Roman Empire 1648–1715. Vol. LII, Studies Presented to International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions. Bruxelles, 1975. Mack Walker. German home towns: community, state, and general estate, 1648–1871. Ithaca, 1998.
↑ Robert A. Kann. History of the Habsburg Empire: 1526–1918, Los Angeles, 1974, p. 221. In his abdication, Francis released all former estates from their duties and obligations to him, and took upon himself solely the title of King of Austria, which had been established since 1804. Golo Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main, 2002, p. 70.
↑ Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1808). "Address to the German Nation". www.historyman.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
↑ James J. Sheehan, German History, 1780–1866, Oxford, 1989, p. 434.
↑ Although the Prussian army had gained its reputation in the Seven Years' War, its humiliating defeat at Jena and Auerstadt crushed the pride many Prussians felt in their soldiers. During their Russian exile, several officers, including Carl von Clausewitz, contemplated reorganization and new training methods. Sheehan, p. 323.
↑ Sheehan, pp. 465–467; Blackbourn, Long Century, pp. 106–107.
↑ (German) Hans Lulfing, Baedecker, Karl, Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, p. 516 f.
↑ (German) Peter Rühmkorf, Heinz Ludwig Arnold, Das Lied der Deutschen Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001, ISBN 3-89244-463-3, pp. 11–14.
↑ Raymond Dominick III, The Environmental Movement in Germany, Bloomington, Indiana University, 1992, pp. 3–41.
1 2 Sheehan, pp. 610–613.
↑ (German) Badische Heimat/Landeskunde online 2006 Veit's Pauls Church Germania. Retrieved 5 June 2009.
↑ Examples of this argument appear in: Ralf Dahrendorf, German History, (1968), pp. 25–32; (German) Hans Ulrich Wehler, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918, Göttingen, 1973, pp. 10–14; Leonard Krieger, The German Idea of Freedom, Chicago, 1957; Raymond Grew, Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United States, Princeton, 1978, pp. 312–345; Jürgen Kocka and Allan Mitchell. Bourgeois society in nineteenth-century Europe. Oxford, 1993; Jürgen Kocka, "German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg." Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January, 1988), pp. 3–16; Volker Berghahn, Modern Germany. Society, Economy and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, 1982.
↑ World Encyclopedia V.3 p. 542.
↑ For a summary of this argument, see David Blackbourn, and Geoff Eley. The peculiarities of German history: bourgeois society and politics in nineteenth-century Germany. Oxford & New York, 1984, part 1.
↑ Jürgen Kocka, "Comparison and Beyond.'" History and Theory, Vol. 42, No. 1 (February, 2003), pp. 39–44, and Jürgen Kocka, "Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg", History and Theory, Vol. 38, No. 1 (February, 1999), pp. 40–50.
↑ The remainder of the letter exhorts the Germans to unification: "This role of world leadership, left vacant as things are today, might well be occupied by the German nation. You Germans, with your grave and philosophic character, might well be the ones who could win the confidence of others and guarantee the future stability of the international community. Let us hope, then, that you can use your energy to overcome your moth-eaten thirty tyrants of the various German states. Let us hope that in the center of Europe you can then make a unified nation out of your fifty millions. All the rest of us would eagerly and joyfully follow you." Denis Mack Smith (editor). Garibaldi (Great Lives Observed), Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969, p. 76.
↑ Bismarck had "cut his teeth" on German politics, and German politicians, in Frankfurt: a quintessential politician, Bismarck had built his power-base by absorbing and co-opting measures from throughout the political spectrum. He was first and foremost a politician, and in this lied his strength. Furthermore, since he trusted neither Moltke nor Roon, he was reluctant to enter a military enterprise over which he would have no control. Mann, Chapter 6, pp. 316–395.
↑ The Situation of Germany. (PDF) – The New York Times, July 1, 1866.
↑ A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman. Oxford, Clarendon, 1988. Chapter 1, and Conclusion.
↑ Sheehan, p. 906; Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro Prussian War: Austria's War with Prussia and Italy in 1866. Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1996, pp. 82–84.
↑ Wawro, pp. 50–60; 75–79.
↑ Blackbourn, Long Century, pp. 225–301.
↑ David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley. The peculiarities of German history: bourgeois society and politics in nineteenth-century Germany. Oxford [Oxfordshire] and New York, Oxford University Press, 1984. Peter Blickle, Heimat: a critical theory of the German idea of homeland, Studies in German literature, linguistics and culture. Columbia, South Carolina, Camden House; Boydell & Brewer, 2004. Robert W. Scribner, Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, Germany: a new social and economic history. London and New York, Arnold and St. Martin's Press, 1996.
↑ To name only a few of these studies: Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German right: radical nationalism and political change after Bismarck. New Haven, 1980. Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910.New York, 2005. Richard J. Evans,Society and politics in Wilhelmine Germany. London and New York, 1978. Thomas Nipperdey, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck, 1800–1866. Princeton, New Jersey, 1996. Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in nineteenth-century Germany. Princeton, N.J., 1984. (1997).
↑ For more on this idea, see, for example, Joseph R. Llobera, and Goldsmiths' College. The role of historical memory in (ethno)nation-building, Goldsmiths sociology papers. London, 1996; (German) Alexandre Escudier, Brigitte Sauzay, and Rudolf von Thadden. Gedenken im Zwiespalt: Konfliktlinien europäischen Erinnerns, Genshagener Gespräche; vol. 4. Göttingen: 2001; Alon Confino. The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918. Chapel Hill, 1999.
↑ Blackbourn, Long Century, pp. 283; 285–300.
↑ Jonathan Sperber. Popular Catholicism in nineteenth-century Germany, Princeton, N.J., 1984.
↑ Karin Friedrich, The other Prussia: royal Prussia, Poland and liberty, 1569–1772, New York, 2000, p. 5.
↑ Many modern historians describe this myth, without subscribing to it: for example, Rudy Koshar, Germany's Transient Pasts: Preservation and the National Memory in the Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill, 1998; Hans Kohn. German history; some new German views. Boston, 1954; Thomas Nipperdey, Germany history from Napoleon to Bismarck. |
0.998688 | In South Africa in 2014, more than 1,000 white rhinos were poached for their horns—most in famed Kruger National Park. At current poaching levels, white rhinos could become extinct in the wild within 20 years.
What can South Africa's rhino horn trade proponents learn from experiences with the South American vicuña?
Southern white rhinos could go extinct in the wild in less than 20 years.
Conservation efforts saved the species from an earlier brush with extinction. There were no more than 50 white rhinos in South Africa at the end of the 19th century. Today South Africa holds nearly all of Africa's estimated 20,135 white rhinos.
But more than 1,215 were poached for their horns in 2014. A similar number were killed in 2013. The animals are expected to be in net decline by next year.
And yet in the lead-up to the next big meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to be held in Cape Town in October 2016, South Africa is expected to push hard for legalization of trade in the horns of southern white rhinos.
In Vietnam, among other Asian nations, powdered rhino horn is said to treat fevers and cure cancer, although no scientific studies exist to support such beliefs.
A legal trade, proponents argue, would reduce incentives for poaching of wild rhinos and the illegal trade of their horns. People who are pro-trade view rhino horn as a renewable resource because the horns gradually regrow after they're cropped.
The idea is that rhinos would be intensively managed under farmed, or at least semi-captive, conditions, and that the animals would be sedated while their horns are harvested. Profits from the sale of horns would be invested in maintaining "viable, free-ranging" populations in "natural habitat," as South African trade advocate Michael 't Sas-Rolfes and others envision—although they leave the quoted terms "open to interpretation." This overall approach falls under the label "sustainable use."
Many rhino horn trade advocates tout the Andean vicuña—an iconic South American mammal in the camel family that's related to llamas, alpacas, and guanacos—as an example of successful conservation through sustainable use. The vicuña has been valued for thousands of years for its soft, fine wool.
Excessive hunting for European markets drove vicuñas to the brink of extinction in the 1960s. The animals were usually shot and the fleeces sheared off their carcasses.
In the early 1970s, CITES—which regulates the global wildlife trade—and the countries where the vicuñas range in the wild took measures that included a ban on trade in their wool, putting them on a path to recovery. By the 1990s, their numbers had rebounded to more than 200,000 (most of them in Peru), and regulated legal trading in wool resumed.
The wool of vicuñas—found in the Andean highlands of Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile—has been prized for thousands of years. Poaching of vicuñas is on the rise despite a legal trade in their wool.
Back then, ecologist Cristian Bonacic, of Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago, was at the forefront of developing best practice guidelines for sustainable, ethical use of vicuñas.
Bonacic, a doctor of veterinary medicine, is a leading expert on South American camelids, the taxonomic group that includes vicuñas, with more than 30 years of research experience on wild populations. Because of his work with Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, vicuña management practices were aimed at reducing stress during capture, handling, and shearing.
Today, wild vicuñas number more than 340,000 in the Andean highlands of Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, but once again, poaching and illegal trading are threatening them.
Bonacic says that although inherent differences between rhinos and vicuñas mean that "sustainable" management practices of the two species would differ in detail, there are broad parallels between the two—and that lessons learned over the years with vicuñas apply to rhinos.
Speaking from his university office, Bonacic explains his recent shift away from the notion of sustainable use of wildlife, why a legal trade in vicuña wool has led to more—not less—poaching, and why he thinks a legal trade in rhino horn could be catastrophic for the species.
Tell us about the "sustainable use paradigm" and how it shaped your conservation vision more than 20 years ago.
According to the sustainable use paradigm, if wildlife can be used, it can be saved. This means that farming of wild animals and their conservation are explicitly interlinked. The idea was that if you can provide income to local communities from sustainable use of a wild animal, this will exclude illegal poaching. And indeed, the trend in the '90s did prove this approach successful in a number of places with a number of species. In Chile, we followed this paradigm like a religion.
But the world has changed, and many indigenous communities are now much more globalized. There are many more roads, many more exchange routes, including the Internet, which allows you with one click to buy something banned in one country and not in another. The romantic view that local communities can use an animal sustainably is simply no longer feasible in the 21st century.
What was the Vicuña Convention?
Vicuñas nearly went extinct from overhunting in the wild in the 1960s. In response, CITES placed a 30-year moratorium on trade in vicuña wool. From 1960 to 1980, there was no trade, but in the 1990s we reinitiated discussion about sustainable use of vicuñas under the Vicuña Convention—a specific agreement among the countries where the vicuña naturally occurs.
The agreement was for vicuñas to be sheared alive and returned to the wild, with benefits from the sale of fiber going to local communities. This plan required maximum cooperation of government agencies, local communities, and international conservation organizations like the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
Importantly, the trade in wool wouldn't reopen until after vicuñas had recovered in the wild. That didn't happen at the same pace in each of the vicuña range countries, or even within each country, with some populations remaining in jeopardy.
This is something that's happening for rhinos and elephants and other wildlife in Africa and presents a major challenge to "sustainable use"—that is, you can't guarantee that by starting a program of trade in a place where the animal is in abundance, you won't drive the animal to extinction through illegal use where they're still in danger.
While the vicuña populations in northern Chile are currently out of danger of extinction, the populations in the south are not.
Vicuñas were hunted to near extinction by the 1960s for their fleeces. Today, humane capture and shearing methods are widely used.
When did trade in vicuña wool begin again?
In 1997 at the CITES 10th Conference of Parties, in Zimbabwe, Peru was authorized to sell three tonnes [3.3 tons] of stockpiled vicuña fiber and develop trade in raw fleece. This marked the reopening of an international trade in wool sheared from live vicuñas.
Tell us about vicuña capture and wool harvesting.
We know from years of research on the stress physiology of vicuñas and guanacos that any human contact can be stressful for a wild animal. From the very onset, I led research and developed management practices to avoid the animals suffering while they were captured and sheared.
Between 2001 and 2005 we initiated a project—through a grant from the European Union—in the north of Argentina to institute sustainable use for the explicit purpose of protecting wild populations of vicuña. If sustainable use could provide a means of generating income in communities, and if these communities could demonstrate that their local vicuña populations had recovered, then they would be entrusted to use wild vicuñas to supply the trade in fiber.
Essentially, our model was based on the traditional chaku, in which wild animals were rounded up and sheared by Inca servants more than 600 years ago, before the Spanish arrived.
We funneled vicuñas into a series of corrals, placing hoods on them and shearing them without sedation—as wouldn't be the case for rhinos when cropping their horns—then released them back into the wild within their same social structure. The system proved to be animal-friendly, with almost no mortality, and easy to implement by local communities on their own.
Chilean ecologist Cristian Bonacic—a leader in developing best practice guidelines for sustainable, ethical use of vicuñas—believes lessons learned from trade in vicuña wool are applicable to the survival of white rhinos in the wild.
Prior to our efforts, Argentina had wild-sourced vicuñas for "farms," much smaller than Peru's "ranches," a pilot initiative that soon failed to prove to be socially and environmentally just. Some of Argentina's farms were established outside the natural distribution of the vicuña, and animals were even given to people who were not members of local communities.
Ranching was Peru's method of corralling vicuñas into large fenced plots, which can best be described as "semi-captive" conditions. This is a euphemism for saying that the animals were restricted in their movement and not really under proper care.
Our training of how to responsibly harvest wool from wild vicuñas was replicated in other communities across Argentina, and also in Bolivia and Chile. However, despite our best efforts, different conditions in different communities across vicuña range countries were instituted in such a way that we couldn't guarantee that animals were properly managed everywhere.
Poor welfare affects the population by adding a new mortality factor, impeding future captures and shearing, and hindering the economic viability of the program.
The concern now is that given low production volumes of wool, there's a shift from wild management—shearing of wild vicuñas as was agreed under the Vicuña Convention—to captive management schemes.
How do vicuñas fare under captive management?
Captive management, or farming, inevitably means artificial selection of certain vicuña traits, higher risk of disease transference—particularly when vicuñas and domestic animals are penned together—even lack of sufficient food because of overgrazing.
Sometimes, people put domestic llamas and alpacas in the same plots with vicuñas, creating hybrids that are not a desirable outcome of using wild animals.
There's impact on vicuña behavior from restricting habitat use, and even higher risk of predation on vicuñas when they're fenced and unable to flee a predator.
In other words, farming—unlike the chaku—leads to domestication, changes in health and behavior, and "genetic improvements," none of which are good for wild vicuñas.
Most of these problems are relevant to rhino farming.
Moreover, it seems to me that even less is known about rhinos than about vicuñas. The life history cycle of a rhino is different from [that of] a vicuña. The product—horn—that would be harvested from rhinos is crucial for their reproduction and behavior. What sort of conditions does a dehorned rhino require? How is it vulnerable without its horn? How is its mate competition and communication affected by dehorning or horn cropping? Can a farmed rhino ever be released into relatively more wild or free-ranging conditions?
We know from years of research that you can't shear vicuñas and then keep them penned, as they'll lose their adaptive response to cold, given that their fleece and mobility are what keep them warm. Isn't weaponry in the form of a horn part of a rhino's adaptive response, and if so, how do they compensate for its lack?
Why has a managed legal trade in vicuña wool not led to a decrease in poaching in the wild?
The availability and affordability of vicuña wool has ultimately not worked to protect wild populations from poaching. In fact, poaching has even increased over the past ten years in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
The opening of the vicuña wool industry led to market expansion, which we did not anticipate. Increasing demand in turn led to more poaching, not less. Our worry now is that globalization could increase demand for vicuña wool beyond natural production limits, threatening wild vicuñas yet again. Already, illegal trade in vicuña fiber is creating tensions at the borders between vicuña range countries.
Vicuña poaching is not only increasing, it's also becoming more dangerous. In Chile, there are recent incidents of park rangers being killed by vicuña poachers. We've never had such a situation before. Chilean rangers don't use guns—they never had to.
The trade in vicuña wool also led to "stakeholder dominance," with Italian and Argentinean traders controlling the market. This means that benefits to traders are much greater than those enjoyed by local people of the Andean communities who source and supply the raw product. This gives communities less incentive to protect wild vicuñas.
Furthermore, as vicuñas are highly territorial, this affects how they distribute themselves across the landscape, which can incite poaching in one community's area by members of another community. This raises the complex issue of ownership.
Finally, the product—vicuña wool—is difficult to distinguish from the wool of guanacos and alpacas, which can be the same color as vicuña [wool]. We suspect that illegal trade is made possible by shipping vicuña wool out under the label of baby alpaca or baby llama wool. There's no easy way to verify the authenticity—or legality—of the product, as would also be the case for rhino horn, especially once it's ground up into powder.
Can you discuss other relevant experiences in Chile?
We shouldn't forget the example of the chinchilla, which is endemic to Chile. At the beginning of the past century, when chinchillas were in decline because of overuse for their pelts, someone took several pairs to North America and developed an entire new breed in captivity. Farming did not stimulate care for wild chinchillas, nor did it help avert their current near-extinction in the wild.
RELATED VIDEO: Researchers in Argentina tag a newborn vicuña in 2011 as part of a study to help in the conservation of the animal and one of its predators, the puma.
How can Chile's experience with vicuñas be a cautionary tale for South Africa?
There are a lot fewer wild rhinos than there were wild vicuñas at the start of the trade in their wool. If there's increased rhino poaching following trade legalization—even for a brief period and at a relatively low level compared with the present—this could be catastrophic for rhinos.
How would the profits of rhino horn trade be transferred to wild population recovery, ecosystem conservation, and local communities? How can responsible use of funds be guaranteed, given recent news of misappropriation of money gained from South Africa's elephant ivory sale in 2008?
What are the social benefits of using rhino horn as compared to vicuña wool? Would the world be promoting medical fraud by supporting rhino horn trade and usage?
Moreover, is it ethically acceptable to breed animals for the sole use of their horns for some so-called medicinal purpose? Societies should be prepared to ask themselves whether fashion and folk medicine can be allowed to drive species like vicuña and rhino to what could be their extinction in the wild in the 21st century.
Rhinos have a tremendous potential as a source of income if they're retained in the wild because of their huge tourist appeal. Rhinos attract far more ecotourism than vicuñas do, and are likely just behind elephants in that appeal.
I strongly believe that farming rhinos for horn production will drive the last specimens of a unique species into a scenario where they'll become more tame and less able to be part of the African ecosystem.
When you drive a magnificent animal away from its ecological relationships, you're taking away the whole meaning of wildlife conservation.
Follow Katarzyna Nowak on Twitter. |
0.95748 | A cassette deck is a type of tape machine for playing and recording audio compact cassettes. Consumer electronics formerly used the term deck to distinguish them from a tape recorder, the "deck" being part of a stereo component system, while a "tape recorder" was more portable and usually had a self-contained power amplifier (and often speakers).
Although the two terms became interchangeable, a recorder is typically thought of as a low-fidelity portable device, while a deck is considered a high fidelity component.
The first consumer tape recorder to employ a tape reel permanently housed in a small removable cartridge was the RCA tape cartridge, which appeared in 1958 as a predecessor to the cassette format. At that time, reel to reel recorders and players were commonly used by enthusiasts, but required large individual reels and tapes which had to be threaded by hand, making them less-accessible to the casual consumer. Both RCA and Bell Sound attempted to commercialize the cartridge format, but a few factors stalled adoption, including lower-than-advertised availability of selections in the prerecorded media catalog, delays in production setup, and a stand-alone design that was not considered by audiophiles to be truly hi-fi.
The "compact cassette" (a Philips trademark) was introduced by the Philips Corporation at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin in 1963 and marketed as a device purely intended for portable speech-only dictation machines.[citation needed] The tape width was 1⁄8 inch (actually 0.15 inch, 3.81 mm) and tape speed was 1.875 inches (4.8 cm) per second, giving a decidedly non Hi-Fi frequency response and quite high noise levels.
Early recorders were intended for dictation and journalists, and were typically hand-held battery-powered devices with built-in microphones and automatic gain control on recording. Tape recorder audio-quality had improved by the mid-1970s, and a cassette deck with manual level controls and VU meters became a standard component of home high-fidelity systems. Eventually the reel-to-reel recorder was completely displaced, in part because of the usage constraints presented by their large size, expense, and the inconvenience of threading and rewinding the tape reels - cassettes are more portable and can be stopped and immediately removed in the middle of playback without rewinding. Cassettes became extremely popular for automotive and other portable music applications. Although pre-recorded cassettes were widely available, many users would combine (dub) songs from their vinyl records or cassettes to make a new custom mixtape cassette.
In 1970, the Advent Corporation combined Dolby B noise reduction system with chromium dioxide (CrO2) tape to create the Advent Model 200, the first high-fidelity cassette deck. Dolby B uses volume companding of high frequencies to boost low-level treble information by up to 9 dB, reducing them (and the hiss) on playback. CrO2 used different bias and equalization settings to reduce the overall noise level and extend the high frequency response. Together these allowed a usefully flat frequency response beyond 15 kHz for the first time. This deck was based on a top-loading mechanism by Nakamichi, then soon replaced by the Model 201 based on a more reliable transport made by Wollensak, a division of 3M, which was commonly used in audio/visual applications. Both featured an unusual single VU meter which could be switched between or for both channels. The Model 200 featured piano key style transport controls, with the Model 201 using the distinctive combination of a separate lever for rewind/fast forward and the large play and stop button as found on their commercial reel to reel machines of the era.
Most manufacturers adopted a standard top-loading format with piano key controls, dual VU meters, and slider level controls. There was a variety of configurations leading to the next standard format in the late 1970s, which settled on front-loading (see main picture) with cassette well on one side, dual VU meters on the other, and later dual-cassette decks with meters in the middle. Mechanical controls were replaced with electronic push buttons controlling solenoid mechanical actuators, though low cost models would retain mechanical controls. Some models could search and count gaps between songs.
Cassette decks soon came into widespread use and were designed variously for professional applications, home audio systems, and for mobile use in cars, as well as portable recorders. From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s the cassette deck was the preferred music source for the automobile. Like an 8-track cartridge, it was relatively insensitive to vehicle motion, but it had reduced tape flutter, as well as the obvious advantages of smaller physical size and fast forward/rewind capability. A major boost to the cassette's popularity came with the release of the Sony Walkman "personal" cassette player in 1979, designed specifically as a headphone-only ultra-compact "wearable" music source. Although the vast majority of such players eventually sold were not Sony products, the name "Walkman" has become synonymous with this type of device.
Cassette decks reached their pinnacle of performance and complexity by the mid-1980s.[citation needed] Cassette decks from companies such as Nakamichi, Revox, and Tandberg incorporated advanced features such as multiple tape heads and dual capstan drive with separate reel motors. Auto-reversing decks became popular and were standard on most factory installed automobile decks.
As a part of the Digital Revolution, the ongoing development of electronics technology decreased the cost of digital circuitry to the point that the technology could be applied to consumer electronics. The application of such digital electronics to cassette decks provides an early example of mechatronic design, which aims to enhance mechanical systems with electronic components in order to improve performance, increase system flexibility, or reduce cost. The inclusion of logic circuitry and solenoids into the transport and control mechanisms of cassette decks, often referred to "logic control," contrasts with earlier "piano-key" transport controls and mechanical linkages. One goal of using logic circuitry in cassette decks or recorders was to minimize equipment damage upon incorrect user input by including fail-safes into the transport and control mechanism. Such fail-safe behavior was described in a review by Julian Hirsch of a particular cassette deck featuring logic control. Some examples of fail-safe mechanisms incorporated into logic control decks include: a mechanism designed to protect internal components from damage when the tape or motor is locked, a mechanism designed to prevent the tape from being wound improperly, among others. Some logic control decks were designed to incorporate light-touch buttons or remote control, among other features marketed as being convenient. In the car stereo industry, full logic control was developed with the aim of miniaturization, so that the cassette deck would take up less dashboard space.
The Dolby B noise reduction system was key to realizing low noise performance on slow, narrow, cassette tapes. It works by boosting the high frequencies on recording, especially low-level high-frequency sounds, with corresponding high frequency reduction on playback. This lowers the high frequency noise (hiss) by approximately 9 dB. Enhanced versions included Dolby C (in 1980) and Dolby S types. Of the three, however, only Dolby B became common on automobile decks.
Bang & Olufsen developed the HX Pro headroom extension system in conjunction with Dolby Laboratories in 1982. This was used in many higher-end decks. HX Pro reduces the high-frequency bias during recording when the signal being recorded has a high level of high frequency content. Such a signal is self-biasing. Reducing the level of the bias signal permits the desired signal to be recorded at a higher level without saturating the tape, thus increasing "headroom" or maximum recording level.
New tape formulations were introduced. Chromium dioxide (referred to as CrO2 or Type II) was the first tape designed for extended high frequency response, but it required higher bias. Later, as the IEC Type II standard was defined, a different equalization settings was also mandated to reduce hiss, thus giving up some extension at the high end of the audio spectrum. Better-quality cassette recorders soon appeared with a switch for the tape type. Later decks incorporated coded holes in the shell to autodetect the tape type. Chromium dioxide tape was thought to cause increased wear on the heads, so TDK and Maxell adapted cobalt-doped ferric formulations to mimic CrO2. Sony briefly tried FerriChrome (Type III) which claimed to combine the best of both; some people, however, stated that the reverse was true because the Cr top layer seemed to wear off quickly, reducing this type to Fe in practice. Most recent decks produce the best response and dynamic headroom with metal tapes (IEC Type IV) which require still higher bias for recording, though they will play back correctly at the II setting since the equalization is the same.
A variety of noise reduction and other schemes are used to increase fidelity, with Dolby B being almost universal for both prerecorded tapes and home recording. Dolby B was designed to address the high-frequency noise inherent in cassette tapes, and along with improvements in tape formulation it helped the cassette win acceptances as a high-fidelity medium. At the same time, Dolby B provided acceptable performance when played back on decks that lacked Dolby circuitry, meaning there was little reason not to use it if it was available.
The main alternative to Dolby was the dbx noise reduction system, which achieved a high signal-to-noise ratio, but was essentially unlistenable when played back on decks that lacked the dbx decoding circuitry.
Philips developed an alternative noise reduction system known as Dynamic Noise Limiter (DNL) which did not require the tapes to be processed during recording; this was also the basis of the later DNR noise reduction.
Dolby later introduced Dolby C and Dolby S noise reduction, which achieved higher levels of noise reduction; Dolby C became common on high-fidelity decks, but Dolby S, released when cassette sales had begun to decline, never achieved widespread use. It was only licensed for use on higher end tape decks that included dual motors, triple heads, and other refinements.
Dolby HX Pro headroom extension provided better high-frequency response by adjusting the inaudible tape bias during the recording of strong high-frequency sounds, which had a bias effect of their own. Developed by Bang & Olufsen, it did not require a decoder to play back. Since B&O held patent rights and required paying license fees, many other manufacturers refrained from using it too.
Other refinements to improve cassette performance included Tandberg's DYNEQ, Toshiba's adres [ja] and Telefunken's High Com, and on some high-end decks, automatic recording bias, fine pitch adjustment and (sometimes) head azimuth adjustment such as the Tandberg TCD-330 and TCD-340A.
By the late 1980s, thanks to such improvements in the electronics, the tape material and manufacturing techniques, as well as dramatic improvements to the precision of the cassette shell, tape heads and transport mechanics, sound fidelity on equipment from the top manufacturers far surpassed the levels originally expected of the medium. On suitable audio equipment, cassettes could produce a very pleasant listening experience. High-end cassette decks could achieve 15 Hz-22 kHz±3 dB frequency response with wow and flutter below 0.022%, and a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 61 dB (for Type IV tape, without noise-reduction)[citation needed] . With noise reduction typical signal-to-noise figures of 70-76 dB with Dolby C, 80-86 dB with Dolby S, and 85 - 90 dB with dbx could be achieved. Many casual listeners could not tell the difference between compact cassette and compact disc.
Some companies, such as Mobile Fidelity, produced audiophile cassettes in the 1980s, which were recorded on high-grade tape and duplicated on premium equipment in real time from a digital master. Unlike audiophile LPs, which continue to attract a following, these became moot after the Compact Disc became widespread.
Almost all cassette decks have an MPX filter to improve the sound quality and the tracking of the noise reduction system when recording from a FM stereo broadcast. However, in many especially cheaper decks, this filter cannot be disabled, and because of that record/playback frequency response in those decks typically is limited to 16 kHz. In other decks, the MPX filter can be switched off or on independently from the Dolby switch. On yet other decks, the filter is off by default, and an option to switch it on or off is only provided when Dolby is activated; this prevents the MPX filter from being used when it's not required.
A key element of the cassette's success was its use in in-car entertainment systems, where the small size of the tape was significantly more convenient than the competing 8-track cartridge system. Cassette players in cars and for home use were often integrated with a radio receiver, and the term "casseiver" was occasionally used for combination units for home use. In-car cassette players were the first to adopt automatic reverse ("auto-reverse") of the tape direction at each end, allowing a cassette to be played endlessly without manual intervention. Home cassette decks soon added the feature. In-car cassette players are preferred by some particularly for their cheaper cost and serviceability.
Cassette tape adaptors have been developed which allow newer media players to be played through existing cassette decks, in particular those in cars which generally do not have input jacks. These units do not suffer from reception problems from FM transmitter based system to play back media players through the FM radio, though supported frequencies for FM transmitters that aren't used on commercial broadcasters in a given region (e.g. any frequency below 88.1 in the US) somewhat eliminates that problem.
Cassette equipment needs regular maintenance, as cassette tape is a magnetic medium which is in physical contact with the tape head and other metallic parts of the recorder/player mechanism. Without such maintenance, the high frequency response of the cassette equipment will suffer.
The heads and other metallic components in the tape path (such as spindles and capstans) may become magnetized with use, and require demagnetizing (see Cassette demagnetizer).
Isopropyl alcohol and Denatured alcohol are both suitable head-cleaning fluids. (Rubbing alcohol may contain oil which is not suitable.) Head cleaning fluid is a relatively expensive way to buy isopropyl alcohol.
Analog cassette deck sales were expected to decline rapidly with the advent of the compact disc and other digital recording technologies such as digital audio tape (DAT), MiniDisc, and the CD-R recorder drives. Philips responded with the digital compact cassette, a system which was backward-compatible with existing analog cassette recordings for playback, but it failed to garner a significant market share and was withdrawn. One reason proposed for the lack of acceptance of digital recording formats such as DAT was a fear by content providers that the ability to make very high quality copies would hurt sales of copyrighted recordings.
The rapid transition was not realized and CDs and cassettes successfully co-existed for nearly 20 years. A contributing factor may have been the inability of early CD players to reliably read discs with surface damage and offer anti-skipping features for applications where external vibration would be present, such as automotive and recreation environments. Early CD playback equipment also tended to be expensive compared to cassette equipment of similar quality and did not offer recording capability. Many home and portable entertainment systems supported both formats and commonly allowed the CD playback to be recorded on cassette tape. The rise of inexpensive all-solid-state portable digital music systems based on MP3, AAC and similar formats finally saw the eventual decline of the domestic cassette deck. Tascam, Marantz, Yamaha, Teac, Denon, Sony, and JVC are among the companies still manufacturing cassette decks in relatively small quantities for professional and niche market use. By the late 1990s, automobiles were offered with entertainment systems that played both cassettes and CDs. By the end of the late 2000s, very few cars were offered with cassette decks. The last vehicle that played cassettes is the 2010 Lexus SC 430. As radios became tightly integrated into dashboards, many cars lacked even standard openings that would accept aftermarket cassette player installations.
Despite the decline in the production of cassette decks, these products are still valued by some. Many blind and elderly people find the newest digital technologies very difficult to use compared to the cassette format. Cassette tapes are not vulnerable to scratching from handling (though the exposed magnetic tape is vulnerable to stretching from poking), and play from where they were last stopped (though some modern MP3 players offer savestating electronically). Cassette tapes can also be recorded multiple times (though some solid-state digital recorders are now offering that function).
^ Cook, Diana; Morton, David. "RCA Cartridges: 1958 - 1964". A History of Magnetic Audio Tape. Diana Cook. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
^ Mourning and Celebrating 50 years of Compact Cassette - SoundBlog, 23 March 2013. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
^ van Amerongen, Job (2005). "Chapter 12: The Role of Controls in Mechatronics". In Bishop, Robert H. Mechatronics: An Introduction. CRC Press. p. 12.1. ISBN 978-1-4200-3724-1.
^ United States 3347996 A, Goji Uchikoshi, "Control system for a magnetic recorder", published 1967-10-17 "By the provision of a logical circuit in the control circuit for a magnetic recorder, even when the keys of the key board are actuated in any desired sequence, the magnetic recorder and its associated devices can be promptly and precisely controlled without causing any damages thereon."
^ Hirsch, Julian (May 1979). "Eumig 'CCD' Cassette Deck" (PDF). Popular Electronics. pp. 39–44. Retrieved 18 Dec 2017. The transport controls are fully logic operated through solenoids. Any transport control button can be touched while the machine is running in any mode without risking damage to tape or deck. Even the button for the cassette compartment door can be operated while the tape is running.
^ Takahata, Masato; et al. (1991). "Logic Controlled Cassette Deck Mechanism "DK-76"" (PDF). FUJITSU TEN Technical Journal (4): 52–60. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
^ Hirsch, Julian (May 1979). "Aiwa Model AD-6900 cassette deck" (PDF). Popular Electronics. pp. 28–31. Retrieved 18 Dec 2017. There was a slight "clunk" from the solenoids as they operated, but the buttons themselves required almost no activating pressure, and the control logic appeared to be as foolproof as claimed.
^ Takai, Kazuki (1985-02-01). "Ultra-Compact, Full-Logic Cassette Mechanism". SAE Technical Paper 850024: 20. doi:10.4271/850024. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
^ Sutherland, Sam (26 Sep 1981). "Better Cassette Quality Urged". Billboard. 93 (38): 3, 6. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
Audio Asylum Tape Trail – A discussion forum of interest to those involved in cassette technology.
Vintage Cassette Decks - A collection of Vintage cassette decks of all brands. |
0.999858 | Living things access energy by breaking down carbohydrate molecules. However, if plants make carbohydrate molecules, why would they need to break them down? Carbohydrates are storage molecules for energy in all living things. Although energy can be stored in molecules like ATP, carbohydrates are much more stable and efficient reservoirs for chemical energy. Photosynthetic organisms also carry out the reactions of respiration to harvest the energy that they have stored in carbohydrates, for example, plants have mitochondria in addition to chloroplasts.
Photosynthesis produces oxygen as a byproduct, and respiration produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
In nature, there is no such thing as waste. Every single atom of matter is conserved, recycling indefinitely. Substances change form or move from one type of molecule to another, but never disappear (Figure 16).
CO2 is no more a form of waste produced by respiration than oxygen is a waste product of photosynthesis. Both are byproducts of reactions that move on to other reactions. Photosynthesis absorbs energy to build carbohydrates in chloroplasts, and aerobic cellular respiration releases energy by using oxygen to break down carbohydrates. Both organelles use electron transport chains to generate the energy necessary to drive other reactions. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration function in a biological cycle, allowing organisms to access life-sustaining energy that originates millions of miles away in a star. |
0.950735 | The revenge is accomplished terribly and fittingly. Coming from such an eminent source, every consideration is due this opinion.
Distrust is a key theme that is conveyed within scene three when Polonius and Laertes advise Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet. His family, his sweetheart, and his school friends all appear to turn against him and to ally themselves with the evil predicament in which Hamlet finds himself.
What does it truly mean? So declares Ibsen in Hedda Gabler. To verify this, She married; O most wicked speed, to past. More importantly though it was an advantage that his "antic disposition", isolated him from the rest of the court because of the people not paying attention to what he thought or did because of his craziness.
What he hesitates to do may be necessary, or even just, as the world goes, but it is a defilement of personal ideals, difficult for a wise mind to justify. Although what was important to note was that all tragic heroes of plays at that time delayed their actual revenge until the end of the play.
He is an anti-hero because he has heroic qualities but he is more of a philosopher than the archetypal hero of deeds and actions. This curious fact constitutes the crux of the plot, "the Hamlet Mystery.
Hamlet is neither 'weak' nor 'unpractical,' as so many call him. The task set by the dead is a simple one. Hamlet is upset with his mothers hasty marriage to his King Uncle Father, Claudius following his fathers death.
Odysseus is finally home, on Ithaca, and is then helped by Athena and disguises himself as an old beggar. Tragedy Essay Tragedy Essay Over the course of time, many things tend to change significantly. In todays world it is shown that humans are very easily divinity and animal.
This causes Hamlet to go crazy, insane, and mad. Aristotle said that the spectacle by rousing in us pity and fear purges us of hese emotions, and this remains the best explanation.
How to cite this article: This flawless morality can be envisioned to act both jointly and independently as a perfection and imperfection of the Princes character. Hamlet takes this to be an accusation that his feelings are false. Melancholia, hysteria, psychic epilepsy, neurasthenia, madness or whatever you will, has been presented in turn to explain Hamlet's procrastination.
This moment could be interpreted as foreshadowing of the impending deaths of most of the principle characters.
Before, Hamlet has been appalled and revolted by the moral corruption of the living. The circumstances he has to manage emotionally are difficult, to say the least. Hamlet was one of the greatest of all time.
The first is that the language of Hamlet parallels that of the Bible, and is almost as familiar by quotation in common speech.
Hamlet without Seneca is inconceivable. It is so great a defilement, and a world so composed is so great a defilement that death seems preferable to action and existence alike.
Many in the audience know all-too-well what is to suffer the death of a family member—because we are human, and because death is one of those few things apart from our birth that remain, quite simply, beyond our direct control. Similarly, insanity may be a constant but slight and imperceptible over-tension of the nerves as well as the wild raving of a maniac.
Coleridge remarks in part: Is hamlet a hero essay Is Hamlet a hero or a villain?The revenge tragedy, or revenge play, is a dramatic genre in which the protagonist seeks revenge for an imagined or actual injury. The term, revenge tragedy, was first introduced in by A.H.
Thorndike to label a class of plays written in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras (circa s to s). by Alice Temnick Is it a relief to know that there is a shared belief in life as tragic, troubled, and full of misery?
Would a plan for engaging in meaningful conversation, feeling significant and taking responsibility relieve us from. Critical Essays Shakespeares Tragedy Free hamlet revenge essays and papers helpmecom, revenge and vengeance in shakespeare's hamlet speculation about whether the shakespearean drama hamlet On Law Morality And Politics 2nd Edition Hackett Classics.
Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Hamlet has endured the tests of time and successfully lived on till our present era due to its exploration of prominent themes and core values which appeal to the human condition and resonate deeply in the contemporary world.
Soliloquy Analysis In Shakespeares Hamlet English Literature Essay. Print Reference this. Disclaimer: Hamlet ponders whether he should take action against his sea of troubles and seek revenge for his father’s death or live with the pain of his father’s murder.
enjoining what is good. Prompt action without concern for morality is. Hamlet is the main character of Shakespeares play Hamlet. He stars as a young man who recently lost his father in a trecherous plot made by his uncle to kill the king Hamlet is a very consious being who thinks on his action before he does it He is also very smart, so smart in fact that he was able. |
0.971292 | Economics Professor N. Gregory Mankiw wrote an article for The New York Times this week, imparting one message to college freshmen around the country: take Economics, preferably using Mankiw’s book.
Lloyd Blankfein: Harvard Donor, History Buff?
After the recent report that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein '75 was copied on an e-mail suggesting Goldman knew that Harvard would lose in a $500 million credit default swap, his loyalty to Harvard may have come into question. But it is worth noting that Blankfein has donated millions to Harvard, creating a scholarship fund for lower-income students and endowing a professorship in the Department of History.
Winthrop is Harvard’s most welcoming and illustrious House with probably the best corps of alumni that Harvard can offer.
Princeton Economics Professor and Nobel Laureate Paul R. Krugman compared the Obama administration’s fiscal policies to the government’s policies during the Great Depression in a speech at MIT on Friday, predicting a prolonged recession with high unemployment for years to come.
Former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 has struck again with another op-ed panning the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body—this time in the Huffington Post.
The Boston Globe has named Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren its 2009 Bostonian of the Year for bringing “a sense of sanity to the economic crisis” as the official overseer of the U.S. bank bailout program.
<p>The quick and dirty about what's been going on around the Ancient Eight (and some other schools too).</p><p>A Yale sophomore died last Sunday. Andre Narcisse '12—an Exeter graduate and aspiring Economics concentrator of Haitian descent—dreamed of someday becoming a Wall Street executive. Yale police officials do not suspect foul play. Yale College Dean Mary Miller told the Yale Daily News that it would be premature and inappropriate to speculate, but added she is hoping to address concerns about alcohol and drug use on campus.</p><p>A freshman at Princeton is suing the university during midterm season, after her request to receive extended time on exams because of her learning disabilities was denied. She argued that poor midterm exam grades freshman fall would cause her “irreparable harm.” FlyBy sympathizes but thinks she should chill out.</p><p>More after the jump.
For all the optimism surrounding Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith’s recent announcement about a windfall surplus in the school’s budget, some professors at yesterday’s Faculty meeting questioned the school’s health in light of the cutbacks that have occurred.
Members of the task force on Harvard’s libraries emphasized the dire problems confronting one of the University's most cherished resources.
FAS Dean Michael D. Smith delivered the news Friday that the school had posted a $58.6 million surplus in its unrestricted funds for the fiscal year that closed in June 2009.
In a move that clarified why administrators have tamed fiscal messages of late after months of stressing the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ impending financial deficit, FAS Dean Michael D. Smith delivered the news Friday that the school had posted a $58.6 million surplus in its unrestricted funds for the fiscal year that ended June 2009.
It's the weekend, and midterms are winding down, so FlyBy thinks it's time for another round of Around the Ivies. |
0.998654 | Bakersfield went from having no poke restaurants to three in a matter of months! Killer Poke, 24th Street Poke, and Poke Luau are the only three stand-alone poke spots in town, so it was time to battle them out.
Jada Montemarano ordered a bowl from all three places. To keep it consistent, she ordered bowls with white rice, spicy tuna, salmon, crab, seaweed salad, avocado and edamame (when offered), topped with spicy mayo and ponzu sauces. Killer Poke and Poke Luau offered avocado and edamame, but 24th Street Poke did not.
Owner of 24th Street Poke did say they may add the two toppings to the menu in the near future.
This battle was judged using three categories: taste, price, and variety.
Very tasty, fish was fresh, large portion.
$10.75 for a regular bowl + .75 for avocado = $11.50 plus tax.
Large variety of toppings and fish options.
$13.00 for a regular bowl + $1.50 = $14.50 plus tax.
Tasty, fish was fresh, small portion.
Small variety of toppings, similar fish options to other two.
After judging based on these three categories, Poke Luau was named the winner of the battle with Killer Poke coming in close second. Both restaurants offered a huge variety and large portion sizes, but it came down to price. 24th Street Poke came in third because it did not have as many options when creating your own bowl.
Thank you to all three restaurants for participating in the battle! All bowls are tasty and worth a try!
Killer Poke: 1002 19th St. Bakersfield, CA. Hours: Sunday-Thursday: 10:30 am - 7 pm. Friday/Saturday: 10:30 am- 8 pm.
24th Street Poke: 1201 24th St. Bakersfield, CA. Monday-Friday 11 am - 8 pm. Saturday/Sunday 11 am- 7 pm. |
0.999863 | As a future-focused entity, Hewlett Packard Enterprise - the new company that came out of the Hewlett-Packard separation - had to toe the line between pointing to a bold future while acknowledging the brand's storied past. On October 6, 2014, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman announced that the company would be separating into two companies: HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, with the former comprising HP's printing and personal systems business and the latter carrying on the company's enterprise technology infrastructure, software and services businesses. The separation completed on November 1, 2015.
For Hewlett Packard Enterprise and global branding agency Siegel + Gale, the marketing challenge was to create something new and distinct, both from HP Inc. and the competition. "Initially, we had to differentiate not only from the existing HP and its 75-year heritage, but also from what HP Inc. would be", says Susan Popper, SVP of marketing at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. "We had a lot to do to create that differentiation, both in terms of how we positioned ourselves and also visually". In the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise brand, the color green was chosen to make the company stand out in a sea of blue tech industry logos. "Green is a color that symbolizes life and growth", says Howard Belk, co-CEO and chief creative officer of Siegel + Gale. "And growth is a big part of the story". The striking rectangle logo was designed to evoke transparency and possibility, and as Whitman noted, for the first time in history, the two "t's" in "Hewlett" now connect to symbolize partnership.
Belk says five years ago, his company might have had as long as a year to create a branding strategy and logo. In this case, the agency had about 45 days to develop a market strategy and positioning plan, and then another 45 days to craft the visual treatment. "The pace of business now is so fast that any team thats creating something like this has to keep up. Everyone is moving at breakneck speed". What's the advice for other marketers considering an identity change? Belk says that designers should mimic the pace of software engineers. "Have teams working in parallel, iterating quickly in a 'test, fail, improve' mindset", he says. That said, the creative process of forming a new brand identity has challenges that are distinct from coding. Below are some hard-earned lessons that the Hewlett Packard Enterprise team learned over the course of the brands redesign.
1. Make the logo simple but unique This is the primary challenge in creating a logo, particularly one that's designed to be displayed in many countries and formats. For Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the solution was to use a distinctive color (green) and visual treatment (rectangle) that stood out.
2. Don't run from history Rebrands should not take on the "out with the old, in with the new" mentality as a company's heritage provides credibility and can calm existing stakeholders who may be afraid of change. Successful rebrands begin with a nod to the past - noting the company's journey to where they are today - but look ahead to the future.
3. Align to a new corporate mission A new brand presents a unique opportunity to build a new company culture to match. Greg Mason, CEO of digital content provider Purch, stated in a recent Entrepreneur article, "Defining what's most important to your company from the top down, both internally and externally, will form the backbone of your new identity." The simplicity of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise logo expresses the agility and focus of the new company. It's a promise of sorts that's also a challenge to individuals within the company who are reminded every day to live up to it. |
0.999993 | Essay You are required to prepare a 1500 word essay, supported by a minimum of 6 scholarly references. The purpose of this task is for you to extend your skills in sourcing information from nursing journals, apply this information to a nursing topic, further develop your academic writing skills and practice your referencing skills in a written essay. Please select ONE question from the below choices: 1. Explain how nursing, as either a profession or a discipline, has been shaped by the social and cultural changes that have occurred over the last 200 years. 2. Nurses in Australia are members of a regulated profession. Please discuss the importance of regulation in nursing, and explore why regulation is necessary due to the nature of nursing work. 3. There are ten National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards which were developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC). Please discuss at least two of the standards, as they relate to nursing, and explain why it is essential that nurses are aware of the quality and safety frameworks that govern nursing practice. 4. Select an influential figure from nursing, past or present. Explain the significance of this individual, including their contribution to the profession and/or discipline, how they created change, and their lasting legacy on nursing. 5. Select a nursing theorist, and discuss how they have made a significant contribution to society or the advancement of nursing. 6. Discuss the role of virtue ethics in the formation of a nurse`s professional identity. 7. Nursing has been subject to many stereotypes. Please identify and discuss at least two nursing stereotypes, and explore the ways they have impacted the perception of nursing as a profession. 1. Clearly addresses the main points of the chosen question. Develops a logical argument, with a clear introduction, body and conclusion (30%) 2. Structure and written expression is clear and grammatically correct (25%). 3. Evidence of in-depth engagement with appropriate academic literature and other resources, using a minimum of 6 scholarly sources (25%%). 4. Referenced using Harvard style (in-text and in reference list) (20%). Links to unit`s intended learning outcomes 1,2, 3 & 4. |
0.999999 | Let's say you are one of several executives being considered for a big promotion. Imagine that a closed-door conversation is under way about potential candidates for the job. After discussing the top three candidates, one of the key decision makers has this to say: "We are fortunate to have three strong choices; every one of these candidates has a demonstrated track record of success. However, Joe is the only one who has significant customer and market experience. A couple of years ago, he developed a performance goal that required him to visit at least one customer per month. In the beginning, Joe asked a friend of his in the sales organization if he could 'tag along' on a customer visit simply to learn and observe. I know for a fact that these days, Joe is being invited to attend customer meetings. This guy understands the customer and really adds value."
Are you Joe? Let's hope that you are, because this vignette is based on a true story. The real-life Joe is now a senior vice president of supply chain for a large company. Joe distinguished himself by getting to know the customer. Before that, he was seen as an "inside guy" who did a great job "behind the scenes." He knew, however, that to achieve his aspirations, he would need to broaden his experience. Although getting out into the field to meet customers was uncomfortable at first, Joe ultimately learned a lot about his company's customers and how a supply chain professional with passion can add value to the customer relationship.
Now, with Joe's experience in mind, take a look at your own career objectives and goals for 2010. Are any of them related to enhancing revenue, customer acquisition, market share, or customer satisfaction? If you do have customer-related goals, that's great! Your company appears to embrace supply chain management's role in driving profitable growth. If you do not, don't worry; that doesn't mean you never will. The traditional role of the supply chain executive is evolving, albeit slowly, in many companies and industries.
To help push this change forward, it may be beneficial to ask ourselves, why do supply chain professionals sometimes believe that customers are "off limits"? After all, supply chain management embodies the entire business system. The last time I looked, the customer was a major part of this system. Are we hindered by the stereotype of a supply chain professional being primarily an internal player who is analytically oriented and maybe even introverted? Do we, perhaps, have a negative stereotype of the sales profession, which typically handles face-to-face customer meetings? Do we see them as nonanalytical extroverts who will promise anything to make the sale?
These are important questions. If you are candid with yourself, you can ask them with courage, face the answers objectively, and do something to dismantle the stereotypes that are holding you back from direct customer contact.
An important step is to recognize that stereotypes about sales and supply chain management being incompatible are not logical. The best supply chain leaders have terrific people skills that enable them to get things done, often without formal authority. Successful supply chain executives have great influencing skills, and they persuade others by connecting with their hearts and minds. Think about it: Doesn't this sound a bit like the description of an effective sales executive? Don't you "sell" your ideas and plans to other people every day?
Even after recognizing the similarities between sales and supply chain management, some of us may still feel apprehensive about engaging directly with customers. We may feel uncomfortable moving into an unfamiliar area. Maybe we are concerned that we might make a mistake and look bad. But taking this risk is worth it in the long run; it will help each of us build a personal "leadership brand" that includes a strong personal relationship with customers.
Your leadership brand comprises all the associations that people make when they think about you. Like any good commercial brand, it can be a source of great equity-or, if not developed and managed properly, a drag on your career. Think of a great brand that you admire. What goes through your head when you hear that company's name? What associations do you make with its products?
Personal brands operate the same way. Imagine that right now, 200 people who have interacted with you hear your name. What associations do they make? Are they associations you desire for yourself?
Certainly, you want those associations to be positive: "Jane is a strong leader and a risk taker; I'm confident in her ability to get results." Now, what if we add this association: "Jane understands customers." Imagine what will happen when all of the people who interact with Jane have that same customer-focused association whenever they think of her. My bet is that Jane's career will be a long and successful one.
If you want your personal brand to include a strong customer-focused association, then you will need to get out of your office and spend time in the market. Ask your supporters to look for opportunities to meet customers. Ask to attend sales and marketing meetings to observe and get to know the people who provide customer access. Open your mind to a new opportunity to grow. Most importantly, don't be afraid to venture into new territory.
It has often been said that what you conceive and believe you can achieve. If you believe you belong in the customer's office, you will get there. It is up to you to make it happen. |
0.908663 | There are few sports that are not practised in Luxembourg. Which is why you find aerodromes offering flying lessons, paragliding and skydiving. Next to that, there is a karting center with a number of dynamic sports activities for the whole family. When the weather permits, you can find many balloons over the skyline in Luxembourg. In winter, ice skating is most popular, or cross-country skiing and sledding in the Ardennes. |
0.999383 | You are asking about an impossible scenario. As far as I know, there was never any released version of Teradata that ran on a 32-bit Linux platform. Our Teradata for Linux releases have always been for 64-bit platforms. |
0.981116 | Find out information on history and origin of Kumbh Mela.
Kumbh derives its name from the immortal Pot of Nectar, which the Demigods (Devtas) and Demons (Asuras) fought over, described in ancient Vedic scriptures known as the Puranas. It is these Vedic literatures that have stood the test of time, out of which the tradition has evolved into the one that the world now knows as The Kumbh Mela. Legend tells a tale from the bygone days of the universe when the demigods and the demons conjointly produced the nectar of immortality. The demigods, because cursed, were crippled of fear that eventually made them weak. The task being too sturdy for them alone, the demigods made a mutual agreement with the demons to complete it in full and share the nectar of immortality in half. It is said that the demigods and the demons assembled on the shore of the milk ocean that lies in the celestial region of the cosmos. And it began!
For the task of churning the milk ocean, the Mandara Mountain was used as the churning rod, and Vasuki, the king of serpents, became the rope for churning. With the demigods at Vasuki’s tail and the demons at his head, the churning began. At first, the churning of the milk ocean produced a deadly poison which Lord Shiva drank without being affected. As Lord Shiva drank the poison, a few drops fell from his hands which were licked by scorpions, snakes, and similar other deadly creatures. Also, during the churning, the Mandara Mountain began to sink deep into the ocean, seeing which Lord Vishnu incarnated as a great tortoise and supported the mountain on His back. Finally, many hurdles and 1000 years later, Dhanwantari appeared with the Kumbh of immortal nectar in his hands. The demigods, being fearful of the demons' ill intent, forcibly seized the pot with its safety entrusted onto the four Gods - Brahaspati, Surya, Shani, and Chandra.
Demons, after learning that their part of the agreement has not been kept, went after the demigods and for 12 days and 12 nights, the chase continued. Wherever the demigods went with the pot of nectar, fierce fighting ensued. It is believed that during this chase, a few drops from the Kumbh fell at four places - Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. There is also a prevalent legend that it was actually the demons that were being chased by the demigods for 12 days and 12 nights, during which the drops of elixir of immortality fell at these four places. These four places are since believed to have acquired mystical powers. Because 12 days of Gods are equivalent to 12 years for humans; the Kumbh Mela is celebrated once every 12 years in each of the four places - banks of river Godavari in Nasik, river Kshipra in Ujjain, river Ganges in Haridwar, and at the Sangam of Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati in Allahabad, where the drops are believed to have fallen. Millions of devout, come together to partake in ritualistic bathing and ceremonies to cleanse themselves of all sins. |
0.99898 | National History Day 2012 Theme: REVOLUTION, REACTION, REFORM IN HISTORY . Welcome to National History Day! You are about to become a better student!
2012 Theme Activities: Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History Revolution, reaction, reform. Can you think of three words that conjure up more active or engaging possibilities for topics?
Computer 13 Advanced Chemistry with Vernier 13 - 1 Determining the Enthalpy of a Chemical Reaction All chemical reactions involve an exchange of heat energy; therefore, it is tempting to plan to follow a reaction by measuring the enthalpy change ( ∆H ).
Reaction of Magnesium with Hydrochloric Acid Your Name: Date: Partner (s): Objectives: React magnesium metal with hydrochloric acid, collecting the hydrogen over water.
Computer 30 Chemistry with Vernier 30 - 1 Rate Law Determination of the Crystal Violet Reaction In this experiment, you will observe the reaction between crystal violet and sodium hydroxide.
493 Ultrasound Appearance of Decidual Reaction in the Uterus During Normal Pregnancy Richard J. Turner1 and Barbara A. Carroll1 Received January 9,1979; accepted after rev ision May 2,1979. |
0.99934 | The lowest in the hierarchy of precious metal named credit cards, silver credit cards have been around since the conception of credit cards in the mid-1950s. Today silver cards have been surpassed in prestige by gold credit cards and platinum credit cards and so have more commonly come to be known as ‘standard’ or ‘basic’ credit cards. Advantages of silver credit cards The advantages that silver credit cards have over other types of cards include: * lower annual membership fees (if any) * lower threshold salary which you need to earn if you want to apply * the same credit limit as other credit cards if you have a good credit history or manage your card sensibly * 0% interest for between 6 – 9 months when transferring your account balance from one credit provider to another The simple fact is, if you are not that fussed over the ‘image’ you portray when you are out shopping with your credit card, and are more concerned with how you manage your credit card debit, then silver credit cards are certainly more favourable than any other credit cards on offer. Disadvantages of silver credit cards * lower cash withdrawal limits * less rewards in rewards promotion packages, such as a lower percentage rate cash back return with cash back credit cards or lower airmiles with airmile credit cards * less travel perks – for example, if you have a gold or platinum card you may be entitled to automatic upgrades when travelling, but as there are far more standard silver credit cardholders, it is unlikely this benefit will be afforded to you as well * less prestige, which may mean retailers are less willing to give you the same service as they may provide to gold and platinum cardholders. |
0.998802 | Let me start off by saying that there is a fundamental difference between a movie and a film. An example of a movie is Ghostbusters. An example of a film is Braveheart. Evita is a film. It is an epic film.
It is also a musical, which, in my book gives it an unfair advantage over other films and movies. Tim Rice (The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera) put the words to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical masterpiece many years ago: in the mid 70's. Webber is, of course, responsible for hit after musical hit: Jesus Christ Superstar, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Starlight Express, etc. However, under director Alan Parker's duress these two conceded to write a new song so that the ending of the movie could be reorganized. The result: "You must love me" which won a Golden Globe award for best original song. Another song which has been and will be loved forever is "Don't Cry for me Argentina". The music of this movie is exceptional as are the other aspects of the film. The music in this movie is powerful, touching, and, for me, seemed to grab my emotions as it went for a ride. The soundtrack for this movie, by the way, took a year and a half to record.
Madonna, however, was not alone. Antonio Banderas completely took me by surprise as the ever-present Che. He was great! He proves here that he is very talented. I also enjoyed the performance of Jonathan Pryce in the role of President Juan Per�n. In fact, everyone in this film was perfect. This includes the over 40,000 extras that were needed to create this wonderful film.
However, what truly impressed me was the cinematography. I do not think that I have ever seen a film so real, yet so amazingly artistic. The color of each scene set the appropriate mood. Shadows appeared in the perfect places. And the lines on peoples faces and the moisture in their eyes seemed to imitate the music.
The movie begins with thousands upon thousands mourning the loss of Eva Per�n. Why and how could so many feel this way? The answer to this question is the remainder of the film.
How would you rate the movie Evita?
There have been 8574 people to visit this page since Fri, Feb 7, 1997. And you are the first person to visit this page today! |
0.992993 | first. inclined with dumbbell. 6 set of 10 reps.
second. flat bench press. 3 set of 10 reps.
third. inclined with barbell. 3 set of 10 reps.
fourth. front seated shoulder. 2 set of 8 reps.
Have you tried it? Does it really work? I have some doubts.. My friend says it won't work. It's too short. |
0.999569 | Could Earth ever get sucked into a black hole?
Two other features can characterize a black hole - the accretion disk and jets. An accretion disk is matter that is drawn to the black hole. In rotating black holes and/or ones with a magnetic field, the matter forms a disk due to the mechanical forces present. In a Schwarzschild black hole, the matter would be drawn in equally from all directions, and thus would form an omni-directional accretion cloud rather than disk. The matter in accretion disks is gradually pulled into the black hole. As it gets closer, its speed increases, and it also gains energy. Accretion disks can be heated due to internal friction to temperatures as high as 3 billion K, and emit energetic radiation such as gamma rays. This radiation can be used to "weigh" the black hole. By using the doppler effect, astronomers can determine how fast the material is revolving around the black hole, and thus can infer its mass. Jets form in Kerr black holes that have an accretion disk. The matter is funneled into a disk-shaped torus by the hole's spin and magnetic fields, but in the very narrow regions over the black hole's poles, matter can be energized to extremely high temperatures and speeds, escaping the black hole in the form of high-speed jets. |
0.999996 | Before joining 3D Engineering Solutions, I worked for Texas Instruments and 3M. Currently at 3D Engineering, a lot of the projects I’m working on involve industrial CT scanning, 3D laser scanning, structured light scanning, reverse engineering, CAD modeling and long range laser scanning.
What is additive manufacturing? Additive manufacturing is the process of taking a powder generally of a metal, for example for aerospace, and using lasers to center the powder together and build a part up layer by layer. |
0.969587 | Who does not like the softness and taste of a good cake? This is one of the world delights that is hit wherever you go. They mark great moments of life, such as celebrations of victories, birthdays, weddings, among many others.
But for a cake to become differentiated and beautiful it takes some cake supplies that make all the difference.
Cake supplies can be as diverse as possible, but some rely heavily on the creativity of the confectioner. A true artist stands next to a great cook, so see what tools he can use.
Beads: Beads, or polka dots, that are used to finish the cake. They can be sweet and edible, usually being sugar or chocolate. The most commonly found sizes range from 2 to 8 millimeters.
Dyes: Food colors are those responsible for giving all kinds of colors to the final product raising the level of creativity of the confectioner.
Confectionery Gel: Gels are edible and palatable while keeping the flavored product fresh for a longer period of time. They are famous for making writings about cakes.
There are supplies for cakes focused on decorations that depend on a computer and a machine for the process, as is the case of the plotter, which are printed images that are usually placed on the part to finalize the product. The surface is almost smooth and the paper is edible and tasty.
There are also other types of printing that become popular over time.
The supplies for cakes are very important, because the piece they help create, mark moments, fix glances, create memories and eternalize the palate. |
0.999991 | Why do students drop out of online classes? Often students are unprepared for the unique challenges of online learning. All too often, students fail or drop out of online courses because of insufficient preparation for the special challenges and the unfamiliar format of online learning. This can be a result of any of a number of factors, including writing, reading, communication, workload, time management, and technology. Preparing students for effective academic computer-mediated communication will enable them to better transition from their accustomed traditional learning format to a new online learning experience. Ensuring success requires initial orientation and follow-up with ongoing practice and reinforcement across the curriculum. These innovative strategies increase initial and continued success, as well as retention, in online classes.
Ensuring success in online learning requires both initial preparation plus follow up that includes continued practice and reinforcement across the curriculum. Through the systematic and ongoing practice and reinforcement of these strategies, students are able to develop and maintain self-directed learning habits that will enhance their current and future academic work.
Aside from the technological aspect of online education, there are other elements that must be addressed with new online learners. Self-directed learning behaviors and good time management skills are mandatory for successful online learning. Another, and perhaps the most important, element is communication. Learners must be capable of communicating effectively via text. Text-based communication is usually not, but certainly should be, a major component of orientation to online learning.
Orientation and success activities used within the curriculum content provide opportunities for learners to think critically, reflect effectively, and research topics and issues that support their assignments. Writing is one of the most essential skills for success in online learning; practice and reinforcement in academic writing skills, through peer review, is an integral part of every unit of study in every content course.
Orientation activities that promote student success and retention in online classes include multiple, ongoing opportunities to learn and practice all of the skills that will be necessary for success in the online learning environment.
These activities not only helped during online classes, but the structured activities helped me with seated classes as well.
This was my first on-line class and the planning tools definitely helped me. While taking this class I did learn how to be way more organized with my school work and keep things in place a lot better. These on-line activities definitely got me ready for my next on-line class.
I loved these activities. At first I thought they were silly, but they were a great tool. I LOVED the task planners and I printed them off and put them on my fridge so I knew what I had to do each week with every activity.
These activities will help me be more successful in the future to plan work this way.
The weekly plans and task logs helped a whole lot because I remembered what I had to do or what to go back over! I have to say I am way more organized than I was when I started.
I liked the success activities we had in this course. I really liked the time management assignments because they got me into the habit of keeping track of time in my other classes and I can use this in future classes. The note taking got me into the habit of writing things down in other classes. These habits will help me at work too.
I have to say at first I thought this was all too simplistic. I mean really? Assign weekly task calendars and notes and documentation of time spent on reading and work as homework each week? Well boy was I wrong. Those simple tools made all the difference in the grades in my class because students were able to manage time and plan their work throughout the semester on a weekly basis. This was the first semester ALL student projects came in on time; not a single one was late. Awesome!
The learning summary/reflection and the activity requiring students to copy feedback from the previous week's assignment and show the specific improvement on the current week's assignment was more effective than I would have imagined. Students actually started reading comments and implementing my suggestions.
My intro course online students come into the classroom without a clue because most have never taken an online class. My school does not offer an orientation or success course (although short LMS tutorials are available). We have a writing center, free tutoring, and many other free services for online students but they never have time to use them. These classroom success activities were helpful throughout my math course. Students started acclimating to the online class procedures much more quickly than in previous semesters when I didn't use these.
I recommend using these activities for all beginning classes in all subject areas. In other classes, these can be used individually with students who are having difficulty getting work done on time or keeping up with class activities. I had a student who was failing by the end of the first quarter and I emailed to ask if he would use these handouts. He said yes and we arranged a schedule for him to email them to me each week. All of a sudden he was making A's instead of F's. What a huge difference a little help with time management will make.
Access: Handouts are available for all students to use online or to print, whichever works best for them.
Learning Effectiveness: Students gain valuable self-directed learning skills, develop good study habits, learn to effectively manage time, and become proficient in the use of technology.
Student Satisfaction: Students like the planning and reflection handouts. If they are having difficulty keeping up in class, these tools help them get on track and stay on track. Some students have reported better grades in online classes after having used these success strategies.
Instructor Satisfaction: Instructors spend far less time dealing with technical and time management issues that students invariable fall prey to in online classes. Instructors definitely like the fact that late work decreases throughout the class and fewer students fail or drop out of their classes.
Scale: These strategies can be easily implemented in all online classes and can be used with all students in a class or personalized for individual students who are having difficulty keeping up in the online class.
Any word processing program can be used to prepare handouts and exercises to help students with orientation to online learning. Instructors can also get pre-made handouts from my conference presentations.
There is no cost to implement these strategies in any online class. |
0.999951 | How do search engines operate? Each and every search engine uses unique complicated mathematical formulas to generate search final results. The outcomes to get a distinct query are then displayed around the SERP. Search engine algorithms take the key elements of a web web page, including the web page title, content and keyword density, and come up having a ranking for where to place the results around the pages. Every search engine’s algorithm is unique, so a top rated ranking on Yahoo! does not assure a prominent ranking on Google, and vice versa. To create factors additional complicated, the algorithms used by search engines are certainly not only closely guarded secrets, they're also constantly undergoing modification and revision. This means that the criteria to greatest optimize a site with should be surmised by way of observation, also as trial and error - and not only once, but continuously.
Gimmicks less respected SEO firms tout because the answer to better web page rankings could perform at ideal for only a brief period ahead of the search engine’s developers become smart to the techniques and adjust their algorithm. Much more most likely, sites using these tricks might be labeled as spam by the search engines and their rankings will plummet.
Search engines only “see� the text on web pages, and use the underlying HTML structure to determine relevance. Big photos, or dynamic Flash animation mean nothing to search engines, but the actual text in your pages does. It is actually hard to create a Flash site that may be as friendly to search engines; consequently, Flash sites will tend not to rank as high as sites developed with nicely coded HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets - a complex mechanism for adding types to website pages above and beyond frequent HTML). When the terms you should be discovered by do not appear within the text of your website, it will likely be quite tricky for your website to yield higher placement in the SERPs.
A search engine is a web-based tool that enables customers to locate data around the Globe Wide Web. |
0.980166 | Taylor began his undergraduate education at McGill University (B.A. in History in 1952). He continued his studies at the University of Oxford, first as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College (B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics) in 1955, and then as a post-graduate, (D.Phil. in 1961), under the supervision of Isaiah Berlin and G.E.M. Anscombe.
He succeeded John Plamenatz as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford and became a Fellow of All Souls College. For many years, both before and after Oxford, he was Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he is now professor emeritus. Taylor was also a Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy at Northwestern University in Evanston for several years after his retirement from McGill.
Taylor was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. In 1991, Taylor was appointed to the Conseil de la langue française in the province of Quebec, at which point he critiqued Quebec's commercial sign laws. In 1995, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 2000, he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. He was awarded the 2007 Templeton Prize for progress towards research or discoveries about spiritual realities, which includes a cash award of US$1.5 million. In 2007 he and Gérard Bouchard were appointed to head a one-year Commission of Inquiry into what would constitute "reasonable accommodation" for minority cultures in his home province of Quebec, Canada. In June 2008 he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in the arts and philosophy category. The Kyoto Prize is sometimes referred to as the Japanese Nobel.
In order to understand Taylor's views it is helpful to understand his philosophical background, especially his writings on Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Taylor rejects naturalism and formalist epistemologies. He is part of an influential intellectual tradition of Canadian idealists that includes John Watson (philosopher), Paxton Young, C.B. Macpherson, and George Parkin Grant.
In his essay "To Follow a Rule", Taylor explores why people can fail to follow social rules, and what kind of knowledge it is that allows a person to successfully follow a rule, such as the arrow on a sign. The intellectualist tradition presupposes that to follow directions we must know a set of propositions and premises about how to follow directions.
Following Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Michael Polanyi, and Wittgenstein, Taylor argues that it is mistaken to presuppose that our understanding of the world is primarily mediated by representations. It is only against an unarticulated background that representations can make sense to us. On occasion we do follow rules by explicitly representing them to ourselves, but Taylor reminds us that rules do not contain the principles of their own application: application requires that we draw on an unarticulated understanding or "sense of things"—the background.
Philosophically naturalism was largely popularized and defended by the unity of science movement that was advanced by logical positivist philosophy. In many ways, Taylor’s early philosophy springs from a critical reaction against the logical positivism and naturalism that was ascendant in Oxford while he was a student.
Initially, much of Taylor’s philosophical work consisted of careful conceptual critiques of various naturalist research programs. This began with his 1964 dissertation The Explanation of Behavior, which was a detailed and systematic criticism of the behaviorist psychology of B.F. Skinner that was highly influential at mid-century.
From there Taylor also spread his critique to other disciplines. The still hugely influential essay, “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man,” was published in 1972 as a critique of the political science of the behavioral revolution advanced by giants of the field like David Easton, Robert Dahl, Gabriel Almond, and Sydney Verba. In 1983’s “Cognitive Psychology” Taylor criticized the naturalism he saw distorting the major research program that had replaced B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism.
But Taylor also detected naturalism in fields where it was not immediately apparent. For example, in 1978’s “Language and Human Nature” he found naturalist distortions in various modern “designative” theories of language. While in 1989’s Sources of the Self he found both naturalist error and the deep moral, motivational sources for this outlook in various individualist and utilitarian conceptions of selfhood.
Concurrent to Taylor’s critique of naturalism was his development of an alternative. Indeed, Taylor’s mature philosophy begins when as a doctoral student at Oxford he turned away, disappointed from analytic philosophy in search of other philosophical resources which he found in French and German hermeneutic and phenomenology.
The hermeneutic tradition develops a view of human understanding and cognition as centered on the decipherment of meanings (as opposed to, say, foundational theories of brute verification or an apodictic rationalism). Taylor’s own philosophical outlook can broadly and fairly be characterized as hermeneutic. This is clear not only in his championing of the works of major figures within the hermeneutic tradition like Dilthey, Heidegger, Merleau Ponty, and Gadamer. It is also evident in his own original contributions to hermeneutic and interpretive theory.
Taylor (as well as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Gad Barzilai) is associated with a communitarian critique of liberal theory's understanding of the "self." Communitarians emphasize the importance of social institutions in the development of individual meaning and identity.
In his 1991 Massey Lecture, "The Malaise of Modernity," Taylor argued that political theorists, from John Locke and Thomas Hobbes to John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, have neglected the way in which individuals arise within the context supplied by societies. A more realistic understanding of the "self" recognizes the social background against which life choices gain importance and meaning.
However, Taylor’s most impressive contribution to date is his book A Secular Age which argues against the secularization thesis of Max Weber, Steve Bruce, and others. In rough form, the secularization thesis holds that as modernity (a bundle of phenomena including science, technology, and rational forms of authority) progresses, religion gradually diminishes in influence.
Taylor begins from the fact that the modern world has not seen the disappearance of religion but rather its diversification and in many places its growth. He then develops a complex alternate notion of what secularization actually means given that the secularization thesis has not been borne out. In the process, Taylor also greatly deepens his account of moral, political, and spiritual modernity that he had begun in Sources of the Self.
Taylor was a candidate for the social democratic New Democratic Party] on three occasions in the 1960s, beginning with the 1962 federal election when he came in third.
↑ 1.0 1.1 (1996) Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers, 774–776, London: Routledge.
↑ Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter T. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. URL accessed on 19 April 2011.
↑ Robert Meynell, Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom: C.B. Macpherson, George Grant, and Charles Taylor. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011.
↑ Taylor, Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 1.
↑ Taylor, The Explanation of Behavior (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1964).
↑ Taylor, Philosophy and The Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 15-57.
↑ Taylor, Human Agency and Language, 187-212.
↑ Taylor, Human Agency and Language, 215-247.
↑ Taylor, “Self-Interpreting Animals,” in Human Agency and Language, 45-76.
↑ A Catholic Modernity?: Charles Taylor's Marianist Award Lecture, ed. James Heft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Varieties of Religion Today (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
↑ Taylor, A Secular Age (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007).
↑ includeonly>"Part 5: 10 leaders on how to change multiculturalism: Charles Taylor", Globe and Mail, 21 June 2012.
1964. The Explanation of Behavior. Routlededge Kegan Paul.
1994. Multiculturalism: Examining The Politics of Recognition.
Forthcoming. With Hubert Dreyfus, Retrieving Realism.
2011 : Robert Meynell, Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom: C.B. Macpherson, George Grant and Charles Taylor. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press (2011).
1995 : James Tully and Daniel M. Weinstock ed., Philosophy in an Age of Pluralism: The Philosophy of Charles Taylor in Question. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1995).
«Rencontre avec Charles Taylor» (25/11/2001) ; Chasseurs d’idéeshttp://fora.tv/2007/05/04/Keynote_Lecture_with_Charles_Taylor, Télé-Québec.
«La religion dans la Cité des modernes : un divorce sans issue?» (14/10/2006) ; Charles Taylor and Pierre Manent, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, «Les grandes conférences Argument». |
0.991394 | the Saône-et-Loire, the Jura and the Ain.
The demarcation line at Chalon. The line was identified in various ways, from sentry boxes...Source: National Résistance Museum - Champigny ... to a simple placard.
Refugees crossing the demarcation line at Vierzon.
After the collapse of the French army in June 1940 the new government, led by Marshal Pétain, resigned itself to the defeat and requested an armistice on the 17th June 1940, whilst General de Gaulle went to England and on the 18th June launched an appeal from London to continue the fight against the Nazi occupying forces. Signed in Rethondes on the 22nd June 1940, the Franco-German Armistice planned the division of France into several zones, separated by a demarcation line. I - Dividing France following the armistice of the 22nd June 1940 From the 25th June 1940, the demarcation line divided France into two large principal zones: The occupied zone (or "the northern zone") Occupied by the Germans, this zone was placed under the authority of the military governor of Paris and covered about 55% of the country. It was renamed the northern zone in November 1942, the date from which the Germans also occupied the free zone.
The free zone (or "the southern zone ") On the 2nd July 1940, the French government settled in Vichy which became a sort of "capital" of the free zone, commonly known as the " nono zone " (for non occupied). On the 10th July 1940, Parliament voted for full powers for Marshal Pétain who announced "the French state" and shortly afterwards engaged in a policy of collaboration with the occupying Nazis. In November 1942 the free zone was renamed the "southern zone" when it was invaded by the Germans.
Following an abstract and arbitrary route, the demarcation line divided départements, towns, fields and woods. On the ground, this line would be subject to various modifications, as dictated by the whim or demands of the occupying Germans. Around 1200 kilometres long, the demarcation line started at the Spanish border, level with the town of Arnéguy, in the Basses-Pyrénées (the Pyrénées-Atlantiques) département and then passed through Mont-de-Marsan, Libourne, Confolens and Loches; it then ran up to the north of the Indre département to fork off to the east and then, after crossing Vierzon, Saint-Amand-Montrond, Moulins, Charolles and Dole, it joined the Swiss border level with Gex. In addition the occupying Germans gave special status to some French areas that were almost cut off from the rest of France: The Alsace and the Lorraine In August 1940, the Alsace and the Lorraine, annexed in fact by Nazi Germany, were administratively attached to a Gau (an administrative district in the Nazi organisation): one to the Bade Gau and the other to the Sarre-Palatinat Gau. The Nord and the Pas-de-Calais These two very industrialised départements, rich in coalfields, were placed under the authority of the Militärbefehlshaber (military governor) of Holland and Belgium; they were cut off from the rest of France by the line of the Somme.
From the mouth of the Somme to the Rhone This zone, which extended from the mouth of the Somme to the Rhone where it leaves Lake Léman, was called the "reserved zone" by the Germans, but was commonly known as the "forbidden zone" by the French who surrendered it with great difficulty. Controls were tightened at its extremities, along the Channel coasts and the Franco-Swiss border. The Italian "occupied zone" This zone extended from Lake Léman to the Mediterranean. It passed to the east of Chambéry, Grenoble and Gap and went as far as, and including, Nice. However, the Italians only effectively occupied a few points in this area. The "Atlantic wall" In the autumn of 1941, a new forbidden zone was created along the coasts of the Channel and the Atlantic, a prelude to the construction of the Atlantic wall. The only people allowed to enter and circulate there were those who had lived there for at least three months, civil service personnel working for the German army and the mobile personnel of the SNCF. In addition, the sending of telegraphs and telephone calls were forbidden. With the division of the country established by the armistice, the occupying Germans thus reserved the right to the principal industrial regions and the whole Atlantic coast.
II - Movement restricted until 1944 Following the armistice of the 22nd June 1940, the Germans quickly put in place a series of measures to restrict the movement of people and goods across the country, as well as postal traffic between the two major zones. By "opening" and "closing" the demarcation line at will according to its needs, the occupying Nazis had a means for applying pressure to the French and ensuring their stranglehold on the country and its economy. The inter-zone card and free passes No post could move from one zone to the other until September 1940 when the inter-zone card, also called the family card, was introduced. It bore a series of pre-printed words and only permitted the provision of brief and impersonal news, without leaving the possibility of adding any words. Sending letters and parcels thus became the object of the first illegal traffic.
Apart from the main crossing points by road or rail, the line could was not always automatically identifiable. Depending on the lay of the land, posts in German colours were erected here and there. Sentry boxes and barriers were set up at crossing posts, which were signposted. On the French side, a similar system, though very patchy due to the lack of manpower and funding, was established.
The occupation authorities carried out rigorous surveillance along the demarcation line, which could only be crossed with permission at official crossing points on presenting an identity card and an Ausweis (free pass) issued by the Kommandanturen (German authority offices responsible for the military and civil administration of a particular zone). Any request had to be accompanied by a complete file submitted to the German authorities, including identity photographs, an address certificate and the reason for the request... A free pass could only be granted for recognised emergencies (births, funerals or the serious illness of close relatives) and applicants requesting to cross were subject to interminable formalities and a great deal of administrative hassle. In addition, people living ten kilometres either side of the line could request an "Ausweis für den kleinen Grenzverkehr" (free pass for a small cross-border journey) allowing them movement for a limited period across their dissected département. The issue of these free passes was under the jurisdiction of the local Feldkommandanturen and Kreiskommandanturen.
Refugees and the demarcation line In May and June 1940 the advance of German troops led to an exodus of several million people fleeing along the roads. Following the armistice of the 22nd June 1940, they wanted to return home. The return home of the refugees took a year of organisation from the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1941. The Germans authorised the opening of crossing points, whilst the armistice army set up stopover accommodation. From the autumn of 1940, the conditions for returning became more difficult.
The Germans replaced the free pass with a repatriation certificate and, at the beginning of 1941, only four crossing points were allowed: at Langon (Gironde), Vierzon (Cher), Moulins (Allier) and Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire). In the summer of 1941, measures were taken to help to group together the families of refugees who wished to remain in the southern zone. In addition, restrictive measures were taken regarding foreigners and Jews, for whom the regulations just kept on getting harder. From September 1940, the latter were no longer authorised to return to the northern zone. In October 1940, a pass was made compulsory for foreigners wanting to cross to the southern zone and then, on the 23rd October 1941, the demarcation line was closed to them.
Illegal crossings From the start, there were many illegal crossings of the line, mostly for commercial or private reasons. Later, crossings were increasingly arranged by real networks created to help French prisoners of war and British escapees, people from the Alsace and Lorraine who refused to enlist in the German army, volunteers wanting to join the Free French and anyone who felt under threat to cross into the so-called "free" zone. Consequently, the controls became more numerous and stricter, especially from the spring of 1941, when the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were replaced by customs officers.
Although there were few arrests before 1941, the patrols and controls increased from this year onwards, with chases and shooting into the non-occupied zone no longer being rare occurrences. From the summer of 1940, residents close to the demarcation line were the channels through which the line could be crossed on foot, by bicycle, by rowing boat, in carts of manure and in barrels - by all possible means. Illegal crossings were initially carried out by a few isolated smugglers, before becoming increasingly organised by bona fide networks.
Many were those, both men and women, who took part privately in such action, often before becoming involved with escape networks, whether it was just to do a favour, because they found the idea of a border unbearable, or because they were against the oppressive yoke. Money, civilian clothing and supplies were collected to be handed to escapees before they left. Teams were organised, such as railway workers, policemen and gendarmes. Greed was not however absent from the actions of some who wouldn't think twice about profiteering from their services, by abandoning or quite simply handing over their charges to the German or French authorities.
The economic consequences of the demarcation line The demarcation line led to an imbalance between the north and the south of the country. The Germans had kept the richest agricultural and areas for themselves: the occupied zone produced 72.5 % of all the wheat, 78 % of the barley, 80 % of the oats, 70 % of the potatoes, 87 % of the butter, 95 % of the steel and 76 % of the coal.
Due to the raw materials "confiscated" to benefit the German economy, the southern zone saw its manufacturing and farming industries heavily handicapped, even completely paralysed. The situation proved particularly difficult in the border zone, with businesses finding themselves cut off from their workforce and farmers from their fields. Because of higher prices in the northern zone, smuggling and a black market developed despite the control measures that were adopted. Supply problems made the risk of famine, or at least scarcity, a reality. Just like the movement of people, the transport of goods was subject to authorisation by the German authorities, with the North-South traffic being the most monitored. In May 1941, there was some relief when Darlan obtained, through an exchange with his counterparts in Syria, the reestablishment of traffic of goods and commodities, essentially moving from the non-occupied zone towards the occupied zone. Despite some shortages of energy, raw materials and labour, the economy picked up slowly, only to deteriorate once again in 1942-1943 and to collapse in 1944. In February 1943, the demarcation line was abolished by the Germans who had occupied all French territory since November 1942. However, it did not disappear from the German military command maps and some restrictions remained, especially regarding the movement of goods. The threat of its reintroduction having weighed on the French until the end of the war, the demarcation line remained until 1944 a means of pressure. |
0.999988 | Modem-HOWTO: Serial Port Devices /dev/ttyS4, (or /dev/ttys/4) etc.
9. Serial Port Devices /dev/ttyS4, (or /dev/ttys/4) etc.
9.1 Serial Port Names: ttyS4, tts/2, etc.
Once upon a time the names of the serial ports were simple. Except for some multiport serial cards they were named /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1, etc. Then around the year 2000 came the USB bus with names like /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyACM1 (for the ACM modem on the USB bus).
A little later with kernel 2.4 came the "device file system" (devfs) with a whole new set of names for everything. The use of the device file system was optional and many still continued using the old system. Then in 2003-4, it was claimed that devfs had unsolvable problems and will be replaced with what's called "udev". Although udev doesn't provide all the functionality of devfs it does handle hot plugging. With all this confusion, most distributions use neither devfs nor udev.
If you use devfs or udev, ttyS1 becomes tts/1, ttyUSB1 becomes /usb/tts/1, and ttyACM1 is /usb/acm/1. Note that the the number 1 above is just an example. It could be replaced by 0, 2, 3, 4, etc. One may use devfs but have the conventional names linked (via symlinks) to the new names. So they use the new system with the old names but may also use some of the new names for some devices. It's even possible ?? to use the new names for the old (non-devfs) system.
Since DOS provided for 4 serial ports on the old ISA bus: COM1-COM4, ttyS0-ttyS3 (tts/0-tts/3) most serial ports on the newer PCI bus use higher numbers such as ttyS4 (tts/4) or ttyS14 (tts/14) for kernel 2.6. This permits one to have both ISA serial ports and PCI serial ports on the same PC with no name conflicts. 0-3 are reserved for the old ISA bus and 4-upward (or 14-upward) are used for PCI. It's not required to be this way but it often is. On-board serial ports on motherboards which have both PCI and ISA slots are likely to still be ISA ports. Even for all-PCI-slot motherboards, the serial ports are often not PCI. They are either ISA, on an internal ISA bus or on a LPC bus which is intended for slow legacy I/O devices: serial/parallel ports and floppy drives.
In kernel 2.4 the devfs was created only to be obsoleted in favor of udev in kernel 2.6. devfs creased a new system of device naming which was continued with udev. The naming system makes it easier to deal with a huge number of devices. But there's also a popular option to continue using the old names. However, a new device may not have an old-style name so then one must use the new name. For a detailed description of devfs see: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/docs/devfs.html Also see the kernel documentation tree: filesystems/devfs.
Some more examples of devfs names: ttyS2 becomes tts/2 (Serial port), tty3 becomes vc/3 (Virtual Console), ptyp1 becomes pty/m1 (PTY master), ttyp2 becomes pty/s2 (PTY slave). "tts" looks like a directory which contains devices "files": 0, 1, 2, etc. All of these new names should still be in the /dev directory although optionally one may put them elsewhere.
For devfs, device names in the /dev directory are created automatically by the corresponding driver. Thus, if serial support comes from a module and that module isn't loaded yet, there will not be any serial devices in the /dev directory. This can be confusing: you physically have serial ports but don't see them in the /dev directory. However, if a device name is told to a communication program and the serial module isn't loaded, the kernel is supposed to try to find a driver for it and create a name for it in the /dev directory.
This is works OK if it finds a driver. But suppose there is no driver found for it. For example, if you try to use "setserial" to configure a port that the driver failed to detect, it claims there is no such port. How does one create a devfs port in this case?
Before the device file system, devices in Linux had major and minor numbers. The serial port ttySx (x=0,1,2, etc.) was major number 4. You could see this (and the minor numbers too) by typing: "ls -l ttyS*" in the /dev directory. To find the old device names for various devices, see the "devices" file in the kernel documentation.
There formerly was a "cua" name for each serial port and it behaved just a little differently. For example, ttyS2 would correspond to cua2. It was mainly used for modems. The cua major number was 5 and minor numbers started at 64. You may still have the cua devices in your /dev directory but they are now deprecated. For details see Modem-HOWTO, section: cua Device Obsolete.
For creating the old devices in the device directory see: the Serial-HOWTO: "Creating Devices In the /dev directory".
Dos/Windows use the COM name while the messages from the serial driver use ttyS00, ttyS01, etc. Older serial drivers (2001 ?) used just tty00, tty01, etc.
The tables below shows some examples of serial device names. The IO addresses are the default addresses for the old ISA bus (not for the newer PCI and USB buses). The major/minor numbers aren't needed for the devfs, but they often exist anyway just in case the devfs method of locating drivers can't be used.
For more info see the usb subdirectory in the kernel documentation directory for files: usb-serial, acm, etc.
On some installations, two extra devices will be created, /dev/modem for your modem and /dev/mouse for a mouse. Both of these are symbolic links to the appropriate serial device in /dev which you specified during the installation Except if you have a bus mouse, then /dev/mouse will point to the bus mouse device).
Historical note: Formerly (in the 1990s) the use of /dev/modem was discouraged since lock files might not realize that it was really say /dev/ttyS2. The newer lock file system doesn't fall into this trap so it's now OK to use such links.
Each ttyS device has a corresponding cua device. But the cua device is deprecated so it's best to use ttyS (unless cua is required). There is a difference between cua and ttyS but a savvy programmer can make a ttyS port behave just like a cua port so there is no real need for the cua anymore. Except that some older programs may need to use the cua.
What's the difference? The main difference between cua and ttyS has to do with what happens in a C-program when an ordinary "open" command tries to open the port. If a cua port has been set to check modem control signals, the port can be opened even if the CD modem control signal says not to. Astute programming (by adding additional lines to the program) can force a ttyS port to behave this way also. But a cua port can be more easily programmed to open for dialing out on a modem even when the modem fails to assert CD (since no one has called into it and there's no carrier). That's why cua was once used for dial-out and ttyS used for dial-in.
Starting with Linux kernel 2.2, a warning message is put in the kernel log when one uses cua. This is an omen that cua is defunct and should be avoided if possible. |
0.994109 | Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (ポケットモンスター ルビー・サファイア Pocket Monsters Ruby and Sapphire) are the first two games introduced for Generation III series. This set of games takes place in the Hoenn region and features new Pokémon in comparison to the previous versions.
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire featured a number of upgrades and differences from the previous games.
The game takes place in a new region, Hoenn.
An additional 135 Pokémon were introduced.
Brand new Moves and TM's were made available.
The player can participate in Pokémon Contests.
Seperate icons for each Pokémon.
As is tradition, the player can choose one of three different Starter Pokémon at the start of the game. The player will need to choose either Torchic, Mudkip, or Treecko of his/her choice to save Professor Birch, who was being attacked by a Poochyena. Also, in tradition, the three Pokémon are Fire, Water or Grass types, respectively.
Both Team Magma and Team Aqua are featured in the Ruby and Sapphire games, respectively. Depending on which game it is though will determine which Team the player will need to fight against. Ruby will feature Team Magma and Sapphire will have Team Aqua.
As in every other main series Pokémon game, there are a set of Legendary Pokémon which were first featured in Ruby and Sapphire.
Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are the first Pokémon games where the player can not choose the name of their rival at the start of the game.
These two games are the first games of the main series where Professor Oak isn't encountered.
These games are also the only games where the player will encounter your rival's starter at the arena where the player battled Steven.
These games are the first main series games where the player can't access Kanto.
Ruby and Sapphire are the first games to not have the slogan, "Gotta Catch 'em all".
Ruby and Sapphire have the least in game trades.
Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are the only main-series Pokémon games in which the protagonist speaks (other than answering "yes" or "no"). He/she says "Where did he go?" and "Why did he go?", referring to the Magma/Aqua leader in the hideout.
Ruby and Sapphire are the first Pokémon games to begin with the player starting in a vehicle rather than in his/her bedroom.
Ruby and Sapphire are the first Pokémon games to feature automobiles.
Ruby and Sapphire are the only games to have the protagonist have a father.
Ruby and Sapphire are the only Pokémon games to contain uncensored swear words.
On May 7, 2014, Nintendo announced that Ruby and Sapphire will receive remakes, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, set to be released in November 2014. Before this announcement, there was much speculation to the creation of these remakes, as numerous hints were given throughout Pokémon media.
Ruby and Sapphire are the only games where the rival is based off what gender you choose to be.
This is because, technically, Lucas/Dawn are not rivals to the player.
This page was last edited on 10 May 2014, at 15:40. |
0.999858 | Perhaps the most commonly cited alternative therapy approach for autism is the gluten free/casein free diet. The idea was promoted largely based on the “leaky gut” and “opiod excess” idea of autism. The basic idea was that the intestines of autistics are for some reason “leaky” and incompletely digested proteins from gluten (grains) and casein (milk) enter the bloodstream and act much like an opiod (drug) causing (somehow) autism. Multiple research teams have looked for evidence of these “opiods” without success. But the idea that eliminating gluten and/or casein as an autism treatment.
Timothy Buie is perhaps one of the most respected gastroenterologists in the autism communities. He has recently written a literature review on the topic: The relationship of autism and gluten.
Autism is now a common condition with a prevalence of 1 in 88 children. There is no known etiology. Speculation about possible treatments for autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has included the use of various dietary interventions, including a gluten-free diet.
The goal of this article was to review the literature available evaluating the use of gluten-free diets in patients with autism to determine if diet should be instituted as a treatment.
A literature review was performed, identifying previously published studies in which a gluten-free diet was instituted as an autism treatment. These studies were not limited to randomized controlled trials because only 1 article was available that used a double-blind crossover design. Most publish reports were unblinded, observational studies.
In the only double-blind, crossover study, no benefit of a gluten-free diet was identified. Several other studies did report benefit from gluten-free diet. Controlling for observer bias and what may have represented unrelated progress over time in these studies is not possible. There are many barriers to evaluating treatment benefits for patients with autism. Gluten sensitivity may present in a variety of ways, including gastrointestinal and neurologic symptoms. Although making a diagnosis of celiac disease is easier with new serology and genetic testing, a large number of gluten-sensitive patients do not have celiac disease. Testing to confirm non-celiac gluten sensitivity is not available.
A variety of symptoms may be present with gluten sensitivity. Currently, there is insufficient evidence to support instituting a gluten-free diet as a treatment for autism. There may be a subgroup of patients who might benefit from a gluten-free diet, but the symptom or testing profile of these candidates remains unclear.
To paraphrase the conclusions: The evidence is not there for eliminating gluten from the diets of autistics. Perhaps some minority has a gluten sensitivity but so far there is no good test for this possible subgroup.
Although this seems like a solid scientific approach, I disagree with the conclusion, or at least with the implications for treatment. Since gluten-free diets are relatively harmless, the best approach for a doctor to take would be to suggest that the parent give it a try. The doctor might provide some background information, and might even run a gluten allergy test, but ultimately, each parent, and each autistic individual, should decide for themselves whether it helps.
In our case, the doctor said that current medical research does not support the effectiveness of gluten free diets, but he suggested that we give it a try for several weeks, and keep a log of foods, as well as behaviors, sleeping patterns, emotional stability, and so on. The effects we noted were minor and gradual, and we saw nothing that we felt was conclusive. When we re-introduced gluten, on the other hand, the effects were dramatic. Sleeping patterns were disrupted, language and emotional stability regressed, and repetitive behaviors shot up to a level that we were getting notes from teachers and therapists asking what had changed.
Although this is not a scientific study, we have witnessed the same reaction five times now, and three of those times started 24 to 48 hours after receiving gluten. (The other two times were unexplained.) Scientific? Hardly. Sufficient to justify a modified diet? Absolutely.
Those are just the three most common theories. There are dozens of others. In our case, for example, we have known for a long time that our son has unusually low levels of stomach acid. These low levels might lead to insufficient digestion of food proteins, and therefore insufficient levels of certain amino acids. Some people believe that amino acid imbalances can trigger symptoms of autism. This is kind of a fringe theory, but it points to a very important detail that a lot of research misses: Every child is different.
We know that autism has a genetic basis, we just know very little about how the genetic differences affect the brain. Research on autism and glutamate receptors, for example, is in its infancy.
We have friends who have tried the gluten free diet, and did not notice any difference at all. Should we assume that they are wrong? Should we assume that we are? Or is it remotely possible that the genetic condition they are dealing with is substantially different from the one we are dealing with?
Considering the vast number of genetic issues that may be linked to autism, I think the odds that there may be different types of autism are approaching 100%. As such, the odds that a single treatment method will work for all autistics is approaching 0%. Somewhere in between 0% and 100% is the chance that a gluten free diet will help any given individual (autistic or not).
If we were talking about stem cell therapy, then we could safely reject anything under 50% just because of the poorly-understood risks. But what, exactly, are the risks of a gluten-free diet?
The risks are malnutrition. Do you think that most parents keep a log and administer a restrictive diet under the guidance and monitoring of a physician or registered dietician or are most ‘DIYers’? It may seem like a harmless intervention and maybe helpful with the proper oversight however I don’t believe that is the case with many or most.
I would add: how many are working with a dietician who is not biased towards the alt-med approach to autism? I.e. eliminate that bias.
Early on I wanted advice on nutrition for my kid. A local autism school recommended a dietician. Unfortunately, said dietician was DAN!. I got much better advice, at less cost of time and money, from a regular dietician. Frankly, the DAN! dietician’s advice was horrendous. After two hours of ignoring my questions and throwing guilt and bad science at me to get me onboard for a full DAN! approach, I was able to get said dietician to answer my main question: how do I approach an extremely picky eater? Answer, “starve him/her”. Seriously. “Starve him/her. After a couple of days s/he will eat whatever you put in front of him/her”. The diet recommended just supported the picky eater style and would have resulted in a *less* nutritious diet.
For less money, a real nutritionist helped me log my kid’s diet, calculated the nutrition my kid was getting and gave suggestions on how to improve the diet. This nutritionist followed up on no charge to see how my kid was progressing.
Matt, One of the problems with the DAN approach is that a lot of bad science is in the mix. I am not sure it is fair to reject every part of it just because some parts are unproven.
We had a similar problem finding a dietitian (or, if you are using the U.K spell-check: “dietician”) who actually understood diet and autism. We ended up getting better advice from cookbooks.
Oddly, the “let ’em starve” approach usually works for typical kids. (They get hungry, they eat.) For autistic kids, it almost always fails. I don’t have to tell you why, but apparently someone should tell the DAN “dietitians”.
Keep in mind, he isn’t saying there is never any benefit. As a treatment for sensitivity to gluten, there would be. As a treatment for autism, the evidence doesn’t support it.
Also note that I didn’t say that one should reject all of DAN because some parts are unproven.
First, let’s take the last part–it’s unproven. Beyond unproven, some parts are just downright wrong. They are based on an incorrect, obviously false, view of autism. A good example is chelation. Some aspects carry risks with no benefit. Calling it merely “unproven” is a major understatement.
Most of the rest is basically guesswork based on a number of poorly formed ideas of autism. Jim Laidler’s discussion is linked to above. He has a good discussion either there or elsewhere of how much of autism alternative medicine is just one or more people’s pet ideas and it gets picked up.
As to the “let them starve” approach. For a time, there was a belief among alternative medicine practitioners that autism was mitochondrial dysfunction was a cause or a comorbid condition of autism. The idea of starving a kid with mitochondrial dysfunction is pretty horrifying.
One of the strangest comments I’ve read came from a prominent “rescue angel”. In supporting the idea that soy should be removed from diets as well, said Rescue Angel commented that soy is just a marketing effort by big agriculture. In reality, according to the Angel, no one in Asia consumes soy. We are just told that as part of Big Agriculture’s marketing.
Science Mom: Malnutrition is a risk with all autistic children. Is there some evidence that the risk is worse with kids on a “voluntary” gluten-free diet? If there is such evidence, then it would be an important point to consider. If there is no such evidence, then the argument has no validity.
I don’t know what percent of autistic kids refuse some sort of food, but my experience is that it is pretty high. I don’t agree with the theory that removing gluten automatically makes a diet less balanced. In fact, our experience was that removing the gluten improved my son’s average diet, by encouraging him to eat more proteins in place of wheat.
i understand that gluten-free is not for everyone. Just because something is not for everyone, though, does not mean that it could lead to malnutrition. By that definition, video games could lead to malnutrition because kids would be playing instead of eating.
Parents who have autistic kids need to (and usually do) step up to the plate and take some responsibility for what their children eat. If a child refuses to eat veggies, for example, it is the parents job to sneak it into “milkshakes” and muffins and whatever.
It is not fair to assume that a parent who tries a gluten free diet on their child would suddenly decide that going gluten-free is a substitute for proper nutrition. Our experience has been that parents who are interested in the proteins their child eats are also interested in the vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
If we are talking about uninformed parents, then the risk is not the diet, it is the lack of information. Adding gluten will not improve the information flow.
A high percentage of abnormal IPT values were found among patients with autism (36.7%) and their relatives (21.2%) compared with normal subjects (4.8%). Patients with autism on a reported gluten-casein-free diet had significantly lower IPT values compared with those who were on an unrestricted diet and controls. Gastrointestinal symptoms were present in 46.7% of children with autism: constipation (45.5%), diarrhoea (34.1%), and others (alternating diarrhoea/constipation, abdominal pain, etc: 15.9%). FC was elevated in 24.4% of patients with autism and in 11.6% of their relatives; it was not, however, correlated with abnormal IPT values.
Note that this had a large group compared to others looking for intestinal permiability changes; ~ 200 kids with autism IIRC.
Although this is not a scientific study, we have witnessed the same reaction five times now, and three of those times started 24 to 48 hours after receiving gluten.
Yeah, sounds exactly like our experiences.
LOL and so true. Most American children get plenty of wheat, and we are over run with children with diabetes and obesity, conditions which used to be unknown in children.
Frankly, the DAN! dietician’s advice was horrendous.
That is terrible, but is just annectode. My regular pediatrician gave us horrible advice too, but that’s no reason to disregard the all pediatricians, or even all of that pediatrician’s particular advice.
I would have an exit strategy: how long to try to and how to measure success.
The exit strategy *should be*, I gave a challenge of the restricted food and nobody could tell a difference. You don’t tell teachers/ therapists/grand parents/whoever that you are challenging, and then see what happens.
Which, after decades, still doesn’t support the idea that removing gluten is a treatment for autism. So, yes, there’s nothing new there.
There are a grand total of 2 placebo based studies; I’m not sure why Biue didn’t include the Elder study, which was placebo controlled, blinded, and cross over. It was small (13 participants), and while no ‘group level’ changes were seen, two individuals did improve and blinded therapists noted improvements in those children.
You can’t go on and on about ‘after decades’, and pretend that it has been studied; if we exclude Elder, like Biue did, you’re talking about a grand total of thirty kidsthat participated in gold standard studies. It isn’t about the length of time, it is about the number of quality studies. According to Biue, the number of quality studies is one.
Meanwhile, someone draws blood from eight thousand kids, throws it at a sequencer in a desperate attempt to find CNVs, finds seven kids with a mutation on SHANK3, and everyone claps about how it clearly shows a predominantly genetic condition. Meanwhile, in de Magistris, which I linked to above, altered intestinal permiability was observed in over a third of children with autism.
A gluten heavy diet is malnutrition. These are empty calories eaten to try and fill up a low income diet. White flour has been linked to high blood sugar and diabetes too.
You disagree with Dr. Buie’s conclusion, but your discussion doesn’t really address this issues. There is no solid evidence that in general this is a treatment, there is no evidence that it is a treatment for autism rather than a treatment for some sensitivity, there may be a group who responds to an elimination diet but they are likely not a large group–and this may not be specific to autism.
1) try it for at least six months (or longer). If you don’t see any improvements (who doesn’t improve over six months?) it may be that a tiny amount of gluten (or whatever is being eliminated) got into the diet.
3) if it doesn’t work for your child, then you haven’t tried enough biomed and you should try more.
(2) and (3) point to the use of elimination diets as “gateway” therapies to even less supported and more risky approaches.
When one eliminates some part of the diet and reintroduces it, there will be an adaptation period. I can recall eliminating red meat from my diet. Taking it out was met with no immediate effect. Reintroducing it was definitely met with digestion issues and discomfort. I’m not innately sensitive to red meat, but I did need time to adjust to digesting it again. I’m not saying that all who reintroduce a food and see a difference are going through that, but one should be aware of this.
You should be aware that your theory #2 *is* the opiod excess/leaky gut theory. Opiod “peptides” are key to that theory. Your link doesn’t point to which researchers have found these peptides. My guess is they are pointing to Paul Shattock, whose work has failed to replicate and goes back to pre-Wakefield days (he influenced Wakefield).
By the way–the idea that there are more than one autism is old. I have a New York Times article from the ’70s talking about it, and I bet there was discussion in the literature about it before that.
But I think I was pretty clear about why I disagreed with his conclusions. All he did was review literature, and weighted the single double-blind study so heavily that it displaced more than one study that reached the opposite conclusion. For example: Where does http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22564339 appear in his research? Did he exclude it, or did he just decide that the results were “insufficient”?
How exactly, did he discount the other studies? Did he apply his own adjustment for parent bias? Are we supposed to round up parents who have observed results, and tell them they are wrong, based on the results of a very small double-blind study that was done on someone else?
Based on my experience, tests that were applied to other autistic children are not a very good indicator of the results that I will see. As you mentioned, the idea that there are many different forms of autism is nothing new.
As far as the typical period of re-adjustment, it certainly makes sense that once the human body has “forgotten” how to digest certain foods, it will take a while to re-introduce those foods. I am not sure that is a good argument to just “keep drinking”, as it were.
Which, after decades, still doesn’t support the idea that removing gluten is a treatment for autism. So, yes, there’s nothing new there. There’s nothing new in the fact that there is no evidence to support the idea.
How, exactly did he discount other studies? What other studies? Parent reports like the study you link to? Dr. Buie is on the front lines of working with autistic children with GI problems. He is sought out by the very parents who would report benefit of GFCF. Again, this is why this study is remarkable.
When confronted with a parent who is asking about claims that repetitive behaviors can be reduced by having their child wear penny loafers instead of sneakers, the best approach for a doctor to take would be to suggest that the parent give it a try.
When confronted with a parent who is asking about claims that repetitive behaviors can be reduced by having their child wear their hair short rather than long, the best approach for a doctor to take would be to suggest that the parent give it a try.
When confronted with a parent who is asking about claims that repetitive behaviors can be reduced by having their child wear a tin foil hat, the best approach for a doctor to take would be to suggest that the parent give it a try.
Ethically, the best approach for any physician is to advise parents to steer clear of unproven therapies. Gluten free/casein free diets are expensive and difficult to maintain and–as the one double blind study that’s been done suggests–if they are useless, then they are making fools of desperate parents who should be seeking legitimate therapies.
Besides, with all that kids on the spectrum have to face in life, it would be sad to think they have to do it without occasionally enjoying a waffle and glass of milk.
So what you are saying is that any time a double blind study has been done on a potential diet, all doctors and parents should accept that one study as the gold standard of proof, and ignore their personal observations, as well as a good handful of other studies and medical tests?
Even in situations where the double-blind study was done on a very small number of individuals? And even when the study materials raised questions as to whether every potential target group was included?
Assuming we were talking about a fringe theory like in your tinfoil-hat-and-penny-loafers example, I might even agree with you. Since we are talking about a theory based on commonly observed relationships, I would most likely disagree. The original article describes one such relationship in detail: “Their findings included positive skin test results in 36% of children with autism compared with 5% in a control group of unaffected children…” If autistic children are more likely to have gluten allergy, then it seems like a relatively short leap from there to testing a gluten-free diet on a wide variety of autistic kids.
If your analogy, you are acting as if there were some clinical research that indicated a possible benefit to penny loafers, short hair, or tinfoil hats. Here is why I found your analogy so tedious and offensive: The original paper by Buie contained the sentence: “Statistically significant higher plasma concentration of IgA antibodies against α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, casein, and gliadin were found in the children with autistic disorder.” Do you understand why a doctor reading that sentence might suggest that a parent give it a try?
If not, then why not? Because your statement that the parent might look foolish seems pretty weak. Buie evaluated Knivsberg and D’Eufemia and other studies that showed proven benefits of a gluten-free diet, and he even described the results. It was not clear why he decided to discount them in his conclusion, but he certainly struck a much less conclusive tone than you did.
After reading the Knivsberg study, I would be much more inclined to err on the side of caution. Even Buie admitted that the main drawback of GFCF research was that GFCF did not work for every autistic individual. Since it is hard to identify which subset would benefit, he came to the conclusion that a GFCF diet should not be recommended as a treatment for all autistic individuals. This is not the same as saying it doesn’t work. As far as your theory that we should also give tinfoil hats a try, that seems like something a troll would say, without bothering to read the article.
In fact, as you might know, research continues on gluten, glutamate receptors, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, interference with methylation, inflammation that comes from other wheat proteins, gliadin, and on and on… I have previously mentioned that I suspect some of that other research will prove more fruitful than the “leaky gut” theory. Matt has pressed me repeatedly to choose one theory or another, but I have refused, and will continue to do so. I don’t know why it seems to work, but it does seem to work.
Considering that Matt got all offended that I let a very slight note of sarcasm sneak into my comment, imagine what I must think about yours. Especially considering that all you did was repeat things other people had already said, and go out of your way to repeat them in the most sarcastic and insipid way you could possibly imagine.
I disagree that it is the doctor’s responsibility to advise patients to “steer clear” of unproven therapies, particularly in those cases where LBRB gets to determine what is proven and what is not. After all, every therapy was “unproven” at some point. Each doctor’s primary responsibility is to research the facts, and make sure the patient (or the legal guardian) is as well-informed as possible on each potential treatment.
If my doctor were to suggest that he had read a single study, and that he advised me to “steer clear” of the gluten-free diet based on that single study, i would think he was not taking his responsibilities as a physician very seriously. In fact, I had the opposite experience with one doctor. When we first asked him about the GFCF diet, he said that his general impression was that it was only helpful in cases of celiac. A few months later, he wrote to tell me that he had read up on the subject extensively, and now believed that it might be worth a try. He then advised me not to rely on it too much, and he gave me literature that described how to do a test, and what a positive result might look like.
We are perfectly aware that some of the progress we have noticed might be unrelated to gluten. One side-effect of the diet is that my wife cooks a much higher percentage of our food from scratch, and so has improved the diet in a number of ways other than just removing wheat. We are eating less pesticides, less preservatives, less refined sugar, and less processed soy protein. We are also eating more protein, more fruit, more veggies, and, oddly, more coconut oil. Any one, or any combination of these, might account for my son’s improved sleep habits, decrease in outbursts, or his new-found ability to stay on task for minutes at a time.
Or it might be totally unrelated. But let me ask you: If you had these results, would you risk losing them? If you threw the old penny loafers away, and all that progress went away, you would go get new penny loafers, wouldn’t you?
There’s nothing enjoyable about a waffle or a glass of milk if it leaves you in tears on the floor an hour later or with an explosive trip to the bathroom. A gluten free waffle and a glass of almond milk produce as much pleasure and no distress.
Please allow families with a history of digestive issues (Chron’s, colitis) to treat their autistic relatives with the same individually, results-based care and attention to nutrition and overall health that the rest of us automatically enjoy.
Personally, I have discovered that unless your child has stomach issues… diahhrea, nightmares/terrors… then there is no point in it. Children with intolerances benefit from food removal to find the intolerance. Telling parents “some autistic children are like that”… is not appropriate. Since that “some autistic kid” was definately stoned until we removed casien protien from his diet refusing to address the issues of diahhrea.. was simply poor behaviour on the part of both the Dev Ped and Dr. Gluten didn’t do anything.
FWIW… the severe one without the stomach issues…. no change.
There is much research. Not much good research. For example, I do not consider the “insert proprionic acid into the brains of rats” (one of the Ontario projects which purports to link autism to a leaky gut) as being illustrative.
Take a look at the comments by John D. Stone and Farmer Geddon…they’re gems.
I’ve read the entire case study and can pick it apart easily. What is glaringly obvious at first glance, is that there is no time interval provided on the EEG tracings that were published in the study…i.e. was the very abnormal EEG tracing illustrated in the study done during the postictal state, which may last for 48 hours…or more…when the EEG will be very abnormal?
Tsk, Tsk, Drs. Herbert and Buckley…why didn’t you provide that information?
The ketogenic diet has long been known to be effective in children with epilepsy.
With that background, I would like to see a decent study done of the ketogenic diet for children with co-morbid autism. I suspect there would be improvements if seizures were interfering with their ability to play/learn/benefit from behavioral therapy. I doubt non-epileptic kids would benefit, and it seems irresponsible to put this case-study out for parents to start experimenting. Autistic kids who starve themselves are also getting into an often prolonged ketogenic state – there is no remitting of autism in these kids – we would have heard about it by now if ketosis worked for autism.
I have been on a ketogenic diet for about 6 weeks now (LCHF mostly paleo), after getting results back on the first stage of getting a diabetes diagnosis (if I fail the test again in a few weeks, I will get a formal diagnosis, I am trying to stave that off with lifestyle changes).
As a side effect I have noticed a huge improvement in IBS symptoms, which have been an issue for the last few years,corresponding with the blood sugar problems. I have not lost much weight (I wasn’t overweight to start with). So I guess the grains were not good for MY gut in the first place. (Paleo removes all neolithic grains, not just those with gluten). I eat meat, most veges, berries and nuts, and I eat well. When I have sorted the diabetes scare out long term, i will add back starchy veges and other fruit. I use a lot of coconut oil which is high MCT.
There is no thought of depriving my fussy eating, severely autistic, lad of his popcorn, pretzels and bread these days. We did a GFDF trial years ago using expensive substitutes, tracking measurements/comments from his teachers who were unaware – none noticed a difference between phases. I did the GFDF trial mainly to show my DH’s family that we HAD looked into it and it was not right for our boy.
Here, a 3-part interview with Dr. Julie Buckley…with all her *theories* about biomedical/dietary interventions. She’s anti-vaccine to the core of her being, attributing the onset of autism for her own child and the child in her study, to vaccines at age four. (There are quite a few similarities between her child and the child in her study).
BMC Med. 2012 Feb 7;10:13. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-10-13.
Sapone A, Bai JC, Ciacci C, Dolinsek J, Green PH, Hadjivassiliou M, Kaukinen K, Rostami K, Sanders DS, Schumann M, Ullrich R, Villalta D, Volta U, Catassi C, Fasano A.
Well, sorry, not very friendly this format for me. I repeated your post and after I presented my opinion.
It all depends on the individual presentation. Here there is a report that confirm the need of personalized medicine, to consider complexity with the view of system biology at the XXI level.
J Child Neurol. 2010 Jan;25(1):114-9. Celiac disease presenting as autism. Genuis SJ, Bouchard TP.This case is an example of a common malabsorption syndrome associated with central nervous system dysfunction and suggests that in some contexts, nutritional deficiency may be a determinant of developmental delay. It is recommended that all children with neurodevelopmental problems be assessed for nutritional deficiency and malabsorption syndromes.
Also note that I didn’t say that one should reject all of DAN because some parts are unproven.First, let’s take the last part–it’s unproven.
Even when I disagree with the application part- many parts- , the biochemical aspects addressed by Jon Pangborn are very interesting . Unproven what and for whom and in what context what advice and what – if you want- model of autism? All is unproven at this point somehow, where is the high quality evidence with proof weight for sure for all ASD?
Beyond unproven, some parts are just downright wrong. They are based on an incorrect, obviously false, view of autism. A good example is chelation.
It all depends if a child diagnosed has or not heavy metals bioaccumulation. This is a whole completely different discussion and I agree that better diagnostic tests are needed- to begin with far before to consider chelation… But to dismiss the problems due to lack of knowledge about how to diagnose it in complex situations is not equal to say that the problem does not exist. To focus in extremisms is not fair. Back to 2004….
Some aspects carry risks with no benefit. Calling it merely “unproven” is a major understatement.
These are personal opinions, based on anecdote. My personal experience is completely different. Even more I respect very much anecdotes- because there are autisms…as you know there are some people that think that new approaches- such as the Single Controlled Case approach is needed in ASD.
I do not know a profesional that thinks that let them starve is an option. To present as paradigmatic an extremism is simply not fair to the discussion. About mito dysfunction as a problem there are ways to test and to know about, under proper advice.
I do not know a profesional that thinks that let them starve is an option.
I have run into more than one professional who has advocated the “let the starve” approach as useful for teaching picky eater autistics to eat different foods.
No, these are not. For example, the DAN approach to chelating autistics based on faux “heavy metal poisoning” is based on the incorrect approach that autism is caused by mercury intoxication. That isn’t a personal opinion and it is not based on anecdote. This is a part of the DAN approach and it is wrong. Jim Laidler’s reports are anecdotes–anecdoes of how the DAN community creates their approach. He saw it firsthand.
I have never seen an autism parent discussion which presented the results from a real medical toxicologist. I have seen many (MANY) do-it-yourself parents assume heavy metal intoxication and get mail-order chelators or “natural” chelators. I have seen much faux testing (e.g. porphyrins or hair tests or challenge chelation testing) which is used to support chelation but which is not a way to diagnose heavy metal intoxication. I.e. there are practitioners who subject a child to some test which is bogus and, based on those results, start chelating regimens.
I have seen chelation regimens applied which are far outside the norms. I’ve read of children chleated for *years*.
My child would never be subjected to a DAN doctor’s chelation approach. Were I to suspect heavy metal poisoning, I would seek out the best people I could find in the field. People who specialize in diagnosing and treating heavy metal poisoning. People who have years of training and practice. Not people who decided (falsely) that autism is caused by heavy metals and have convinced themselves that some fake test is actually useful. Medical Toxicologists are not that hard to find (http://www.acmt.net/cgi/page.cgi/findtoxicologist.html).
Which is interesting, but not on point. No one says do not treat the medical conditions of an autistic (or anyone else). Celiac can be diagnosed and treated. That’s very different from stating that a gluten free diet is a treatment for autism.
This case is an example of a common malabsorption syndrome associated with central nervous system dysfunction.
This gets to a point I keep bringing up here,because I don’t think it can be stated enough times.Once you have found an underlying cause,especially one that can be treated like this,it stops being autism,and becomes something else.There is a big problem of autistic children,and adults not getting enough of the right medical tests they need to look for possible underlying medical causes.Doctors of all kinds,both DAN! types and more mainstream doctors are guilty of this.
Although the AMA has not done double blind studies, families have done plenty of research by eliminating it and seeing huge differences. The amount of people who have gone GF and sees the difference out weights the number of research studies any medical body could do. there are labs like Cyrex that test for the 18 proteins of gluten, so one can determine how sensitive they are too it. Just stop giving people more excuses to say there is no validity in GF by saying there’s no research from the AMA, it’s about feeling better, and there are more people speaking out then ever about how it has changed their lives. we need to support what is out there in research, and get that to the media. The AMA is not the organization who should have the final say as they are fighting it. itshould be the person and their health. doctors should be trained to respect that, as well as educate themselves on the truth of what is out there, insteadof always saying there is no research! Research can be hidden, as well as falsified! listen to your gut!
My gut tells me the same thing as my brain: run, don’t walk, away from alternative medical practitioners who claim to have an understanding of autism which they clearly do not.
“research can be hidden, as well as falsified”? There’s someone interested in hiding research on gluten? “Big Wheat”?
Lots of baking, including even vegetarian and vegan alternatives are made from extracted gluten. The wheat grown today is genetically very different from the wheat grown 100 years ago. For one thing, the gluten content is much higher, and the amount of gluten that ends up in our diet has grown by leaps and bounds. Wheat is one of the three most common food sources, by any definition, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that billions of dollars are at risk each time an ingredient like this is challenged.
Are you saying that corporations would never endanger public health just to increase their profits? Oh please. We are talking about companies that market beer to children, for heaven’s sake. In 2008, more than 54,000 babies were sent to the hospital because a Chinese company tried to inflate a protein test using melamine. (And the infant formula market is chump change compared to the wheat market.) These people would give pot brownies to their own kids for a billion dollars.
Are you just saying that more research needs to be done? That seems like a fair position. It also seems like the same argument that tobacco companies used to make.
Very few people buy into the fringe theories that wheat is evil. Rather is is grown, processed, and sold to us just the same way as hundreds of consumer products. Only more successfully. Wheat ends up in so many final products that you can hardly eat a meal anywhere without getting some wheat. If you check the allergy list at most restaurants, you will find wheat gluten in at least one product that you never expected. Hamburgers, milkshakes, even salad dressing is often loaded with gluten.
The reason is simple, it is cheap, tastes great, and is slightly addictive.
Addictive? Sure. In my case it is because I live in a constant sugar/insulin cycle. For many other people, the exogenous opioid peptides find their way through the stomach barrier into the bloodstream, and end up making contact with opiate receptors. To do this, they would have to survive the digestion process, and much medical research has been devoted to the theory that they do not.
It also doesn’t prove that the exorphins are bad for you. Similar exorphins are found in all sorts of foods, including spinach, for example. Some of these have been shown to improve memory in lab rats, with almost no ill-effect. So we can hardly blame all the world’s problems on wheat. (For one thing, autistic children tend to produce excess beta-endorphin, naturally, without the benefit of wheat.) What we can say is that some of the arguments made against wheat, for certain groups, may turn out to be true.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to test if the opiate receptors are part of the issue. Naltrexone is available, and its use as an opiate receptor blocker is well-studied. Even though not medically approved for treatment of autism symptoms, there are several studies of naltrexone and autism.. And, overall, the studies lean towards naltrexone being a useful treatment for some kids. It seems most effective in decreasing self-injurious behavior, which is what you might expect, if you believed in the opiate theory.
It would be interesting to see if children who benefited from naltrexone would be the same (subset of) autistic kids who might benefit from a gluten-free, casein-free diet. I have looked, but have not found any such studies. Maybe someone here can help me with that particular question.
Let me be very clear again: Even if this were studied, GFCF is not a cure by any definition. For another thing, the genetic conditions that lead to other autism symptoms are not All that means, though, is that wheat is not the root cause of autism. We already knew that. The only question we were trying to decide is can you improve the symptoms of autism, in certain individuals, by eliminating wheat?
Fortunately, this question has been researched.
Oddly, Buie and others decided to read this research and decide that it is not worth the paper it is printed on. Why is that exactly? His paper does not say, but I assume he simply discounted every other study except the one he agreed with.
This is bad science. It adds to the number of studies that support his conclusion, without actually doing any study at all. All he did was read other people’s literature, and ignore any conclusions he disagrees with.
I could do the same thing. And, in fact, I have.
Not sarcasm at all. Just a simple question. Who is supposed to be exerting influence which is supposed to be keeping the purported harmful effects of gluten out of the medical research. What you’ve done is given the stock answer: there is a lot of money involved. Right. Propose a mechanism whereby the author of the study discussed above is influenced by “Big Wheat”. How about the researchers he relies upon for his review.
Typically the “Big Pharma” argument is two pronged. First is the “they make lots of money argument”. Then there’s the “there is evidence that they have influenced others”. Left out is the direct evidence that they have any influence on the research in question. For example, “Pharma is a multi-billion dollar industry. Look at Vioxx.” And then vague, if any, statements about the researchers involved in whatever study people are trying to discredit. Without part three of the discussion, I find the argument hollow. You’re version lacks part 2 *and* three of the argument.
Sarcasm? Or straw man? Or both?
Wow. Such contempt. “not worth the paper it is printed on”. How did you come to that judgment? By your own statement, you don’t know how he decided to weigh other studies more. But you jump to the conclusion that he completely dismisses the study.
Who is “we”? And, why don’t “we” read the abstract above, and/or find the actual article? Because then “we” would see that “we” have built a straw man as Dr. Buie leaves that possibility open.
Ah, so we are back to the opiod excess theory, which I believe you stated above was not the basis for the claims that gluten should be removed from the diets of autistics.
The simple method is to test if there are opiods in the systems of autistics. Simple and already performed. Multiple times. People like Paul Shattock (whom you cite in your link above) have claimed that they are present. Multiple other researchers say no.
Right. Tim Buie, a man who has probably performed as many or more legitimate examinations of autistics with GI disease as anyone, who gave this interview, is so biased?
What you have failed to do is present any research which counters the statements made.
I’ve worked in the field of pediatric feeding disorders for decades. Many people recommend “starving” or deprivation. It often fails miserably with all children, typical or otherwise. It should never be used in individuals with compromised medical status or low weight/poor growth. A thoughtful approach will take into consideration the child’s current weight/growth status, any GI problems, and eating habits.
I’ve implemented elimination diets for many children. They have all had food allergies. We identify and remove the allergen. The person usually feels much better but any underlying disorder will still be present.
Does anyone have any comments on Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride’s Gut and Psychology (GAP) theory / protocol?
We don’t do it 100% but i always keep carbs very low otherwise his poop deteriorates fast.
She ripped off the Weston A. Price Foundation diet (free from local online sites). Basically she just added an elimination protocol to it. The elimination protocol risks malnutrition, but the full Weston A. Price diet is healthy enough if balanced with commonsense (and you have a stay-at-home parent) – it encourages a wide variety of traditional non-processed foods.
The major problem with WAP is that some factions (it has chapters world wide, they focus on local food) suggest supplementing infants with foods before 6 months (they should BF only) and they also encourage eating organ meats including brains. Pate is fine, but brains or CNS tissue are a bad idea (mad cow disease, scrapie etc).
They (WAP and Dr NCM) also maintain you should only use raw milk (they are big on this) – again a really bad idea, especially for kids. Modern cows have been bred for excessively large udders and are prone to infection; organically bred cows suffer quite a lot. My brother-in-law is a New Zealand organic beef/milk farmer, who dropped the milk part – modern cows are not designed for organic milking, it is cruel to the cow and dangerous for the human. One of the most awful things I have seen was a cow suffering from mastitis who could not be given antibiotics, they transfer the worst to a non-organic farm for treatment, but delay this as it wastes an expensive organic cow. They waited too long, and the cow ended having to be shot. If you want raw milk, get your own goat.
Both WAP and DrNCM are very time intensive for food preparation. Bread is home-made fermented sourdough or sprouted grain, and basically everything is home-made – yoghurt, kefir and the like. Everything is made from scratch. Bone broths (the basis for a lot of recipes and the staple of the DrNCM elimination protocol) take hours if not days of baking bones, boiling, cracking etc.
As to the GAPS theory – she basically claims that processed food is the cause of absolutely everything that can go wrong with a person. She has no evidence for this. She also claims that processed food and not breastfeeding makes a child vulnerable to vaccinations. This is nonsense. Many child are diagnosed before eating processed food – including my son who was breastfed til 14 months in a junkfood-free home. Looking back, he clearly showed autistic signs while drinking only breast-milk and eating exactly the natural foods DrNCM recommends. She is just laying a huge guilt trip on mothers who can’t BF or use commercial baby foods.
The major flaw in this study is mentioned right in the beginning: they tried a gluten free diet, and not a gluten free AND casein free diet. Since both proteins have the same effect, it the study could not find anything else than no effect or little effect.
What saddens me is that this will discourage parents from trying the GFCF diet, and it is a wasted opportunity for the kids . This diet brought SPECTACULAR improvements in both my children with Asperger and ADHD. Their allergy tests were negative, but we cannot miss the effects when we make an exception and let them have some wheat pastry or ice cream.
My son with Asperger is successful in regular school and has friends instead of growling in a corner. I will NEVER forget the eye contact i got from him after just 4 days on the diet. i did not want the moment to end but thank god, the bright eyes stayed. My 11 year old daughter with ADHD is depressive and thinks of suicide when she eats 4 pastries in 2 days.
And regarding malnutrition: wheat has more health detriments than benefits, in this era of Roundup Ready Wheat. As for milk, its calcium is not even well absorbed. My kids dont even need calcium supplements. It seems the green vegetables are sufficient after all.
This is a great discussion and I appreciate all of the thought that has gone into many of the answers. All I can add is that I would not do anything for 13 years if it doesn’t show positive, measurable results, and that is how long my son has been GFCF. He is eats a variety of foods and is healthy, of normal height and weight, and still autistic.
There is a history of digestive disorders and food sensitivity in our family. It’s a factor.
I find no benefit to belittling or otherwise dissing parents and physicians who work to find ways to safely treat the symptoms – co-morbid or tangential – of people with digestive problems who also suffer from a disorder for which there is still no known cause (ASD). I am mystified that people fail to understand that anyone who has digestive distress is crabby – and that if your stomach hurts all the time you are crabby all the time. Taking away the pain, especially from someone who can’t express that pain – just always seems like a good idea.
We will never stop trying to address the many facets of our son’s emotional, social and cognitive development, and, when necessary we will approach any issue the way we always have: assess, adjust, take data, re-assess, and adjust again. It’s a more complicated, data-driven version of parenting but in the end it’s the kind of parenting any child deserves.
Because of the weight of anecdotal evidence, a lot of parents are going to try GFCF regardless of studies showing limited effectiveness. We did – if only to exclude the remote possibility that it would have any effectiveness – in the face of repeated well-meaning advice from family and friends. Now we say that we tried it and it didn’t work.
For parents who maintain it is working – have you done a proper reversal? That is introduce one of the offending items for a set time (like a few weeks) and see if outside observers notice a difference. (He nicked a cracker then had a meltdown, is not a proper reversal). If you have not done this, there is no basis for claiming the diet did anything.
For families who do want to trial these diets – base your conclusions on repeated measurements by people who do not know of the diet changes – teachers and the like. Take a baseline of measurements before you start. Set a finite time – if you are not seeing notable improvement (as measured by outsiders) after 3/6 months it is a wash (and remember all children will improve over time). Also, if you think the diet has done something good, it is important to do a reversal – introduce the gluten or dairy again (if your child is really responsive it may only be to one of these), and again take measurements by people who are unaware. Otherwise you are likely to be attributing natural development to the diet (which I think is what is happening with most advocates).
Saw this land the other day, and then remembered this conversation.
The TL/DR; is, the autism group showed increased IgG antibodies to gliadin compared to the normal group, and this response was increased in children with GI symptoms. Genotyping for alleles associated with celiac showed no relationship.
There are a lot of quotes on the web from the authors and other researchers saying that this is just a piece of the puzzle, and, not a reason to try a gf diet in and off itself. None the less, it is always to know a little more than we did the day before, so there you go. It is certainly a lot different than finding no difference in gliadin antibodies between the groups, that’s for sure.
Great explanation…. again… sigh. You never said in your conclusion that it wouldn’t be of some benefit to anyone. How many times do people want to raise a “discussion” and expect a different answer when they are raising a point that you don’t repute. People, read very carefully, “It MAY be of some BENEFIT, but it is not a PROVEN therapy for the ASD population.” Both my son and myself are on the spectrum and we don’t need to be nor want to be fixed. Obviously we are very high functioning, but we do suffer from some negatives. That said, working with a trained therapist to help with anxiety and social skills works for US. I will tell you that for US, messing with UNPROVEN and experimental therapies to look for a CURE to our autism only serves to make our anxieties and self soothing behaviors worse. ASK someone with autism what sets them off and you will get a different answer almost every time. The clear answer that might possibly encompass it all is acute pain/panic do to sensory stimulation…. too much or too little.
FYI, meltdowns can occur as a result of intense emotions… happiness and excitement included. Has anyone thought that perhaps a child with autism (and no proven gluten allergy or sensitivity) could have meltdowns due to being excited by the stimulation of familiar and favorite foods that have been witheld from them??? If all of the other points are valid then let’s give this a thought, shall we? Any of the well meaning parents here ever talk to a higher functioning adult with autism who, perhaps, might be able to communicate for themselves better than a child… to gain a different perspective? We are talking about individuals who are non-communicative and at best have difficulties with traditional communication. Maybe we should TRY to obtain their perspective?
More Spam with a YouTube link.
Ha: The spam keeps drawing me back to this article.
This article was helpful to me because it made me re-think (and re-research) some things I had accepted without proof. Reading back over the comments: My apologies to Matt if I misrepresented your statements. It was not my intent, sorry.
Another anecdote to add: My son was rolling around on the floor last Saturday during a certain class, to the point where I pulled him from class and asked him what was going on. He could not answer, of course, but we started going back over his food log to see if we found any red flags.
The only missing entry was Friday night, where he was at a party for several hours. We asked him if he had gotten cake at the party, and he said “no”. As he remembered the party, though, he grew a big smile, and said: “I love animal crackers”.
If something as simple as sharing a snack at a kid’s party makes him happy, then I am certainly not going to steal crackers from him. As Halloween approaches, I expect there will be other opportunities for him to get “forbidden” goodies without us knowing about it. For him, that might be more than half the fun of Halloween.
I doubt any of that will do any permanent damage. In fact, low levels of occasional gluten may help preserve the body’s ability to digest. I have searched around for research on the subject, but searching the internet for real research is like searching the ocean for a message in a bottle.
Its such as you read my thoughts! You appear to know so much approximately this, like you wrote the e book in it or something.
minutes and actual effort to make a top notch article… but what can I say… I put things off a lot and never manage to get anything done.
Theere is definately a great deal too learn about this issue.
It might be interesting to understand what it is about this post, in particular, that attracts the robots? Do the authors of spam bots believe gf eaters are preferential to random clickers? Is there a critical set of keywords that has drawn them here? |
0.975997 | Special forces of the Ukrainian police, known as 'Berkut', gather in the grounds of Dynamo Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, where violent protests have broken out.
Over the last two and half months, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have protested the increasingly authoritarian direction of President Viktor Yanukovych's government. At the forefront of Ukrainians' objections to the government are a special police force known as the Berkut, or "Golden Eagle."
During the Euromaidan Protests, Yanukovych has deployed up to 5,000 members of the Berkut to assist in protest management, including the use of water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Rather than quelling the disturbances, the Berkut has fanned the flames, using increasingly brutal measures to fight protesters.
The Berkut are a special police force that has had a long history of brutality, abuse, torture, and other measures in service of whatever political regime is in control of Ukraine. The force was first formed in 1988 as part of the Soviet OMON (Special Purpose Police Unit), an elite riot police and paramilitary force.
In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the force reformed as the Berkut under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was stationed in every province. Originally established to fight organized crime, the force has been increasingly utilized to maintain law and order and break up "mass events," such as riots and protests.
Since their inception, they have been involved in numerous scandals, including violently dispersing peacefully protesting coal miners in 1998, violently attacking protesters during the Ukraine Without Kuchma protests in 2001, as well as sadistically attacking protesters during the current Euromaidan protests.
Berkut members are carefully selected and trained extensively. Prior to joining, Berkut men must have army service, as well as two to three years of law enforcement experience. They are usually paid between one and half to two times more than a regular police officer.
Berkut officers clash with anti-government protesters in Vinnytsia, 125 miles southwest of Kiev.
The semi-autonomous Berkut police often act with impunity for their actions, leading some to call them a "mafia-style organization." Some efforts have been made over the years to rein in Berkut power, most notably by Yuriy Lutsenko (now an opposition leader) under President Viktor Yushchenko. Lutsenko set up human rights experts and oversight groups to monitor the activities of the Berkut and other members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
When current President Yanukovych came to power, these measures were rolled back. Yanukovych appointed a close ally to run the MIA and, since, the Berkut has upped its brutality.
Berkut police officers hold a man lying on the ground during clashes between police and pro-European protesters in Kiev.
The Euromaidan Protests may have started over a trade agreement dispute, but it's end could hinge on serious reform of the country's most brutal police force. |
0.950513 | Probably the first serious effort to build computing machines was made by the Greeks, who built analogue and digital computing devices that used intricate gear systems, although they were subsequently abandoned as being impractical. The first practical "computers" were accounting systems used by the Incas that employed ropes and pulleys. Knots in the ropes represented the binary digits. They used these systems for tax and government records, and stored information about all of the resources of the Inca Empire, allowing efficient allocation of resources in response to disasters such as storms, drought, and earthquakes. All but one of these systems was destroyed by Spanish soldiers acting on the instructions of Catholic priests, who believed that they were the work of the Devil (a view probably still applied by some to the computers in use today).
In the 1800s, Charles Babbage invented a programmable device for controlling weaving machines. These devices used Hollerinth (punch) cards for data storage. The cards contained the control codes for the various patterns. In 1822 Babbage presented plans for a machine he called the "Difference Engine" to the Royal Society. It was intended for the calculation of astronomical and mathematical tables, and he received the society's approval and a grant to build the device. Unfortunately, due to various problems, the work was never completed.
Babbage meanwhile turned his attention to the design of a more general-purpose calculating machine, which he dubbed the "Analytical Engine". Difficulties in obtaining funding meant that only a few test components were ever actually built. Babbage continued to work on the design, however, and with the collaboration of long-standing friend Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, wrote a series of documents describing the operation of the device and formulating the algorithms it would employ. The Countess was considered by some to be the first computer programmer, and the Ada programming language is named after her. In 1991, a difference engine was constructed using Babbage's original drawings, and worked perfectly.
In the 1900s, researchers started to experiment with both analogue and digital computers using vacuum tubes. Some of the most successful early computers were analogue computers capable of performing advanced calculus problems. The real future of computing was to be digital, however, and digital computer technology owes much to the technology and mathematical principles used in telephone and telegraph switching networks.
During the 1930s, Konrad Zuse, a construction engineer for the Henschel Aircraft Company in Germany, produced several automatic calculators to assist him with engineering calculations. In 1936, he created a mechanical calculator called the Z1, which is now generally considered to be the first binary computer. In 1939, he produced the Z2, the first electro-mechanical computer. The Z3 followed in 1941, and embodied most of the architectural features later described by John Von Neumann, with the notable exception that only the data being worked on was held in memory. The programs were stored on celluloid film of the type used for early movies.
At around the same time (1939 – 1942), John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry were building an electronic digital computer (thought to be first such computer in the world) at Iowa State University. The computer introduced several innovations, including the use of binary arithmetic and the separation of memory from computing functions.
One of the first practical applications for digital computers was the generation of artillery tables for the British and US military. The first digital computer used for such a purpose, called the MARK 1, weighed five tons and was developed at Harvard University by Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper. It was completed in 1944 and was used by the US Navy for gunnery and ballistic calculations. The computer employed a large number of electro-mechanical relays, was capable of a range of mathematical calculations including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and could retrieve the stored results of previous calculations for use in new calculations.
Another computer intended for military use, developed by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert in 1946, was the Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator (ENIAC). Although the war with Japan was by that time over, ENIAC (which weighed thirty tons) was put to work on a number of other applications, including the development of the hydrogen bomb.
In 1948, Eckert and Mauchly started their own company, and in 1949 and launched the BINary Automatic (BINAC) computer, which used magnetic tape as a data storage medium. In 1950, the company was taken over by Remington Rand, and further research resulted in the UNIVersal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). The first customer to take delivery of a UNIVAC computer was the US Census Bureau in 1951, and Remington Rand became the first US manufacturers of a commercial computer system. UNIVAC also had the effect of making Remington Rand a direct competitor to IBM in the computer equipment market.
At around the time Eckert and Mauchly were developing ENIAC, Sir Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn were developing a technique for storing data using cathode-ray tubes as an early form of random access memory (RAM). This technique was in widespread use for several years until it was rendered obsolete by the use of ferrite core memory in the mid 1950s. The first computer to employ a stored program using the technique was the "Manchester Baby" developed at Manchester University by Kilburn and Geoff Tootill.
The invention of the transistor by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947 has been called one of the most significant developments of the 20th century, and certainly revolutionised the development of the computer. The first digital computers used vacuum tubes to implement logic circuits. These devices were bulky, consumed significant amounts of power, created a lot of heat, and had to be frequently replaced.
The replacement of vacuum tubes with transistors enabled computers to become several orders of magnitude smaller, cheaper, and more power-efficient. The first commercially-produced transistorised computer was IBM’s 7090 mainframe computer, which appeared in 1960 and was the fastest computer in the world at that time. IBM subsequently dominated the mainframe and minicomputer market for the next twenty years.
By the late 1950s, both Texas Instruments and the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation had independently developed the technology to place large numbers of circuit components, and the circuitry required to connect them together, onto a single silicon or germanium crystal. The resulting integrated circuit (IC), sometimes called a chip, provided the means to produce much smaller computers, at a much lower cost than was previously possible.
The first commercially available ICs appeared in 1961, marketed by Fairchild Semiconductor. From that point forward, all computers were manufactured using ICs rather than discrete components. ICs also appeared in the first portable electronic calculators. By 1970, the first memory chips were available. The newly-formed Intel company released its 1103 1 kilobyte dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chip, which became the best-selling semiconductor memory chip worldwide within two years, while Fairchild Semiconductor produced the first 256 kilobyte static RAM (SRAM) memory chip.
By the early 1970s, it had become possible to create very small ICs that contained very large numbers of transistors and other components, and in 1971 Intel produced the world’s first single-chip, general-purpose microprocessor, the Intel 4004. The new chip contained 2,300 transistors, and the same processing power as the 30-ton ENIAC, despite having approximate dimensions of only 3 x 4 mm.
The chip subsequently proved successful in a broad range of applications, and despite being incomparably faster and more sophisticated, today’s 64-bit microprocessors are based on the same techniques and principles. At this time, the microprocessor is still the most complex mass-produced artefact man has ever conceived of.
In 1971, IBM introduced the memory disk (better known today as the floppy disk). It consisted of an eight-inch diameter flexible plastic disk coated with magnetised iron oxide, and held 110 kilobytes of data. Data is stored on the surface of a magnetic disk as microscopically small areas that hold different patterns of magnetisation, depending on whether the bit being stored is a one or a zero. The chief advantage of the floppy disk was the fact that it was highly portable, could be used to store relatively large amounts of data, and was extremely useful for transferring data from one location to another.
The size of the disks got smaller as the data storage capacity increased. By the time IBM brought out their PC in 1981, the size of a floppy disk had decreased to 5.25 inches in diameter, while the amount of data that could be stored had risen to up to 1.2 megabytes (MB). The first 3.5 inch floppy was produced by Sony in 1981, with an initial storage capacity of 400 kilobytes. This later rose to 720 kilobytes, and then 1.44 megabytes. Today, floppy drives have largely disappeared, and have been replaced by high-capacity optical media (CD-ROM and DVD-ROM) and USB flash drives.
By the early 1970s, interest was growing in the concept of the microcomputer (or "personal computer"). Between 1974 and 1977, several manufacturers marketed computers fit this general description, most in kit form. During this time a company called MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems), who were in the calculator business, were experiencing severe difficulties due to competition from Texas Instruments.
Forced to seek an alternative market niche, they decided to produce a personal computer in kit form. The result was the Altair 8800 (apparently the name was inspired by an episode of Star Trek), which was based on the new Intel 8080 microprocessor, had a 250 byte RAM card, and sold for $400.00.
The Altair was a huge success, and attracted the attention of programmers Bill Gates and Paul Allen (who later went on to found Microsoft). Gates and Allen wrote a version of the BASIC programming language that would run on the Altair (once the memory was increased to 4096 bytes). The Altair 8800 is considered by many to be the spark that ignited the subsequent explosion of interest in home computers.
In 1975, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a collaboration that would produce the first Apple computer, released in April 1976, and lead to the creation of Apple Computers. The Apple I was built around the Rockwell 6502 microprocessor, had a built-in display screen and keyboard with 8 kilobytes of dynamic RAM, and sold for $666.66.
The Apple II, also based on the 6502 processor but with colour graphics and a selling price of $1298, appeared in 1977. A later (and more expensive) version increased the size of the RAM from its initial 4 kilobytes to 48 kilobytes, and replaced the cassette tape drive originally provided with a floppy disk drive.
Another computer based on the 6502 microprocessor, the Commodore PET, also appeared in 1977 at a price of $795, considerably cheaper than the Apple II. It provided 4 kilobytes of RAM, built-in monochrome graphics and keyboard, and a cassette tape drive. The package included a 14k ROM-based version of BASIC written for the PET by Microsoft. The successor to the PET was the VIC-20 first seen in 1980, which was the first personal computer to sell over one million units.
1979 saw the release of VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program written for the Apple II by Dan Bricklin. The significance of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program written for a personal computer, was huge. Companies were quick to see the potential time savings possible in using this software for financial projections that previously had to be done manually, and for which any adjustment entailed hours of additional work. Adjustments made to a VisiCalc spreadsheet were recalculated and applied to the entire document immediately.
VisiCalc was eventually bought by the Lotus Development Corporation, where it eventually (circa 1983) evolved into the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet for the PC. 1979 also saw the arrival of Wordstar, a word processing package for microcomputers developed by Micropro International, which became the most popular software application of the early 1980s.
In August 1981 IBM launched the IBM 5150 Personal Computer (PC). It was built around a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor, had 16 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 256 kilobytes), and either a single or two 160 kilobyte floppy disk drives. A colour monitor was optional, and prices started at $1,565.
Perhaps the most significant development was that the new computer was constructed using standard, off-the-shelf components, had an "open" architecture, and was marketed through independent distributors. Although IBM "clones" have proliferated in the intervening years, and both the speed and the capacity of the IBM PC has grown at an astonishing rate, the underlying architecture of the personal computer has remained essentially unchanged for nearly forty years.
The advent of IBM's PC also afforded an opportunity to Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and the fledgling Microsoft company to become serious players in the software industry when they were asked to provide the operating system for the new computer. The result was IBM PC-DOS (Disk Operating System), later marketed by Microsoft virtually unchanged as MS-DOS.
In 1983, Apple released the "Lisa" computer which was aimed at businesses. It was the first personal computer to implement a graphical user interface (GUI), based on ideas first developed by the Xerox Corporation at their Paulo Alto Research Centre (PARC) in the 1970s. The package included a hierarchical file system and a suite of office applications. The user interface included virtually all of the features found on a modern desktop computer, including windows, icons, menus and a mouse.
The mouse was by no means a new device, having been first invented in 1964 by Douglas Englebart as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system", but it had not previously been paired with a personal computer. The Lisa was not a commercial success, but Apple learned some valuable lessons from the experience and in 1984 produced the Lisa 2 (subsequently renamed as the Macintosh XL). At approximately half the price of the original model, the Lisa 2 / Macintosh computer met with somewhat more commercial success, although it was never to seriously challenge the IBM PC and its clones in the business world.
Despite this, the significance of the GUI in terms of popularising personal computers was not lost on Microsoft. In November 1985 they released the first version of the Windows operating system. The new "operating system" was, in fact, little more than a desktop management application that ran on top of the real operating system, MS-DOS. It was slow and prone to errors, and triggered a legal dispute between Microsoft and Apple Computers over alleged copyright infringement. Nevertheless, the arrival of software programs written for the new Windows environment, notably a desktop publishing package called Aldus PageMaker (the first application of its kind for the PC), helped to keep Windows afloat. Realising that they still had some way to go, Microsoft set about creating an improved version of Windows.
Windows 2.0 was released in December 1987, and made Windows based computers look more like the Apple Macintosh. Although this triggered a further lawsuit from Apple, Microsoft eventually won the ensuing court case and meanwhile released Windows version 3.0 in May 1990. The new version had many improvements over the previous two and, significantly, gained broad support from third-party vendors. The proliferation of Windows-compatible software was an incentive for end users to purchase a copy of Windows 3.0, and three million copies were sold in the first year.
Version 3.1 became available in April 1992, and sold three million copies in the first two months following its release. Windows 3.1 was the dominant operating system for PCs during the next three years, only being displaced by the advent of Windows 95, which was a true operating system in the sense that it did not run over MS-DOS (although an updated version of DOS was still a major component of the operating system’s core software).
Windows 95 was highly user-friendly, and included an integrated TCP/IP protocol stack and dial-up networking software. Successive versions of the Windows desktop operating system (the current version is Windows 10) have added new features, support for new hardware, and an increasingly sophisticated range of value-added services.
The predominance of Microsoft in the desktop operating system market now looks to be under serious threat from the open source software community, with Linux now taking a significant (albeit still relatively small) share of the desktop market, and application software like Open Office being offered as a viable (and freely licensed) alternative to Microsoft’s proprietary software. Contributing to this process is the apparent willingness of hardware vendors to provide support for operating systems other than Windows, and the growing community of open source users willing to contribute their time and expertise in promoting the use of open source software.
Meanwhile the cost of computer hardware has fallen to such an extent that ownership of one or more personal computers is almost as commonplace as ownership of a television or refrigerator, while the parameters describing maximum processor speed, memory size and storage capacity are being adjusted almost daily. |
0.999979 | Imagine a fight going on between two strangers in a public place like a restaurant They are loud and disturbing everyone around them. The female throws a plate on the floor and people start to stare and are maybe getting upset or distracted by the situation. What do they look like? Are they red in the face? Do their eyes look like they are about to pop out of their skull? How are they standing? What is their body language like? What chemicals are going on in their brain? Taking a deeper look can help with understanding what being angry really means.
Everybody gets angry at some point in their life. There’s really no way to get around it. For some, their heart starts racing, their palms get sweaty, and/or they feel a heated response to whatever set them off. Plenty of things can get someone angry all the way from someone spilling milk, to the anger felt after a loved one leaves or passes away. But everyone feels and handles things a little different from the person next to them. Some people relate it to fear with the fight or flight reflex. It is more than what we see on the surface though. There are even those out there who we all know can hold grudges for a very long time. But do we know why any of this happen? |
0.943309 | Polylingual Text Classification (PLC) consists of automatically classifying,according to a common set C of classes, documents each written in one of a setof languages L, and doing so more accurately than when naively classifying eachdocument via its corresponding language-specific classifier. In order to obtainan increase in the classification accuracy for a given language, the systemthus needs to also leverage the training examples written in the otherlanguages. We tackle multilabel PLC via funnelling, a new ensemble learningmethod that we propose here. Funnelling consists of generating a two-tierclassification system where all documents, irrespectively of language, areclassified by the same (2nd-tier) classifier. For this classifier all documentsare represented in a common, language-independent feature space consisting ofthe posterior probabilities generated by 1st-tier, language-dependentclassifiers. This allows the classification of all test documents, of anylanguage, to benefit from the information present in all training documents, ofany language. We present substantial experiments, run on publicly availablepolylingual text collections, in which funnelling is shown to significantlyoutperform a number of state-of-the-art baselines. All code and datasets (invector form) are made publicly available. |
0.990675 | Who among us hasn’t mistakenly walked into a large clean wall of glass? For humans, the result is most often a short period of embarrassment. However, for our feathered friends, colliding with a pane of glass can have deadly consequences. The high number of bird-glass collisions in urban areas is both cause for concern, and incentive to develop building materials which allow us to more harmoniously coexist with urban wildlife populations.
One example of a building material developed with wildlife conservation in mind is bird-friendly glass. To reduce the number of avian fatalities in urban centers, glass manufacturers are actively developing exterior glazing which creates visual ‘noise’, alerting birds to the presence of a physical barrier. One method of accomplishing this is to produce glass imprinted with a UV pattern detectable by birds, but not humans.
Applying materials and processes which help to ameliorate the quality of life for non-human inhabitants of the city is one of the many ways that architects and designers can actively work towards developing more sustainable urban environments. |
0.949863 | QUESTION: Creationists keep missing one very important detail; what happened between Noah and Jesus? That's only 2,500 years. God killed all life on land, even that which creepeth on the earth. If I take the Bible literally, then he killed worms, beetles, microbes, bacteria, and everything else that makes the soil fertile. When Noah landed, he only had two worms, two beetles, two microbes, etc. He also only had seven people with him. Given these severe restrictions, Noah had to found the kingdom of Egypt, the dynasties of China, the Indian culture of North and South America, in perhaps only a hundred years. Modern Archeology can provide dates not only through carbon dating, but in the case of China, from one the history of one uninterrupted culture. Noah had one square inch of fertile soil on the side of Mount Ararat, thousands of hungry animals, and seeds waiting to be planted. He also had to found all of our modern human cultures. Make a timeline specific to location and population, in decade increments. It's only 2,400 years--that's a heck of a lot easier than 4 billion.
RESPONSE: Creationists haven't missed that little detail, but I think you missed some of what the Bible says. There were two qualifications for the animals on board the Ark: they not only had to be those which moved about on the earth, but also those that had the breath of life, or "nephesh." The word "nephesh" refers to those animals with soul: or, if you like, "responsive personality." Thus, you would have all mammals that lived on land, reptiles, and birds. Amphibians did not need the Ark, and insects, worms, bacteria, etc., do not have a nervous system which is complex enough to mark the animal or organism as having a uniqueness and the trainability which "nephesh" implies. Thus, these organisms were preserved in various ways outside the Ark through the flood.
Regarding the food situation, if you read Genesis, you will notice that no one disembarked until the dove brought back an olive shoot. Olives do not grow as quickly as grass, and so there is the indication that the vegetation was quite adequate for survival immediately after release from the Ark.
As far as the cultures are concerned, you will find a very accurate and widely-referred-to Table of Nations in Genesis 10. It is used by archaeologists, historians, and linguists to help trace the roots of various ancient cultures and has proven to be quite accurate. As far as repopulation of the earth is concerned, not much time was needed for the early civilizations. In Genesis 11 you will read of the long ages (although only half of what they were pre-flood), which then went down again after the event of Peleg's time and gradually, after that, to what we know today as the upper limit on human ages--about 120 years. In the early generations, we read of families being rather large, and when the average family has about six children or more, the population can grow quite rapidly. |
0.967709 | ЦЕЛЬ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ. Анализ частоты и причин диссекции ствола левой коронарной артерии, правой коронарной артерии с переходом диссекции на аорту при диагностических и эндоваскулярных вмешательствах; современные подходы к лечению таких осложнений.
МАТЕРИАЛ И МЕТОДЫ. Проанализированы результаты эндоваскулярных вмешательств у 2317 больных. Диссекция ствола левой коронарной артерии возникла у 3 больных (0,13%), в одном случае с распространением на аорту.
РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ. Cтентирование ствола левой коронарной артерии с закрытием расслоения оказалось эффективным в 2 случаях, в одном наблюдении диссекция сразу не была выявлена.
ВЫВОДЫ. Стентирование для закрытия начала диссекции («входных ворот») является основным методом для ликвидации осложнения; при относительно ограниченных по протяженности диссекциях без тенденции к распространению возможно консервативное ведение больных.
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34. Park I.W., Min P.K., Cho D.K., Byun K.H. Successful endovascular treatment of iatrogenic coronary artery dissection extending into the entire ascending aorta // Can. J. Cardiol. – 2008. – Vol. 24, N. 11.– P. 857– 859.
35. Perez-Castellano N., Garcia-Fernandez M.A., Garcia E.J., Delcan J.L. Dissection of the aortic sinus of Valsalva complicating coronary catheterization: cause, mechanism, evolution, and management // Cathet. Cardiovasc. Diagn. – 1998. – Vol. 43, N. 3. – P. 273–279.
36. Puymirat E., Barbey C., Chassaing S., et al. Iatrogenic dissection of the right coronary artery and the ascending aorta during coronary intervention // Ann. Cardiol. Angeiol. (Paris). – 2010. – Vol. 59, N. 3. – P. 168–171.
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Для цитирования: Прозоров С.А. СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ ПОДХОДЫ К ПРОФИЛАКТИКЕ, ОЦЕНКЕ И ЛЕЧЕНИЮ ОСЛОЖНЕНИЙ ЭНДОВАСКУЛЯРНЫХ ВМЕШАТЕЛЬСТВ НА КОРОНАРНЫХ АРТЕРИЯХ. ЧАСТЬ II. ДИССЕКЦИЯ СТВОЛА ЛЕВОЙ КОРОНАРНОЙ АРТЕРИИ, ПРАВОЙ КОРОНАРНОЙ АРТЕРИИ С ПЕРЕХОДОМ ДИССЕКЦИИ НА АОРТУ. Журнал им. Н.В. Склифосовского «Неотложная медицинская помощь». 2014;(3):16-21. |
0.939522 | Which foods could be dangerous for my dog?
Can cause intoxication, coma, and death.
The leaves, seeds, fruit, and bark contain persin, which can cause vomiting and diarrhoea.
Can cause obstruction or laceration of the digestive system.
Generally too high in protein and fats.
...vomiting and diarrhoea and be toxic to the heart and nervous systems.
If fed exclusively or in high amounts can result in a thiamine (a B vitamin) deficiency leading to loss of appetite, seizures, and in severe cases, death.
Contain an unknown toxin, which can damage the kidneys. There have been no problems associated with grape seed extract.
Unknown compound causes panting, increased heart rate, elevated temperature, seizures, and death.
Can damage the lining of the digestive system and be toxic to the other organs including the liver and kidneys.
Contain an unknown toxin, which can affect the digestive and nervous systems and muscle.
Can depress the nervous system, cause vomiting, and changes in the heart rate.
Some adult dogs and cats may develop diarrhoea if given large amounts of dairy products.
Can contain multiple toxins causing vomiting and diarrhoea and can also affect other organs.
Can contain toxins, which may affect multiple systems in the body, cause shock, and result in death.
Contain sulfoxides and disulfides, which can damage red blood cells and cause anemia. Cats are more susceptible than dogs. Garlic is less toxic than onions.
Seeds can cause intestinal obstruction and enteritis.
Can cause obstruction of the digestive tract.
Contain an enzyme called avidin, which decreases the absorption of biotin (a B vitamin). This can lead to skin and hair coat problems. Raw eggs may also contain Salmonella.
May contain bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli, which can cause vomiting and diarrhoea.
Contain oxalates, which can affect the digestive, nervous, and urinary systems.
If eaten in large quantities it may lead to electrolyte imbalances.
Can become trapped in the digestive system; called a "string foreign body."
Can lead to obesity, dental problems, and possibly diabetes mellitus.
Table scraps are not nutritionally balanced. They should never be more than 10% of the diet. Fat should be trimmed from meat; bones should not be fed.
Contains nicotine, which affects the digestive and nervous systems. Can result in rapid heart beat, collapse, coma, and death.
Can expand and produce gas in the digestive system, causing pain and possible rupture of the stomach or intestines.
Can cause very low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia), which can result in vomiting, weakness and collapse. In high doses can cause liver failure.
*We suggest that people considering a raw diet for their pet educate themselves thoroughly regarding the safe handling and preparation of raw ingredients, and the proper balance of nutrients required to maintain their pet's health.
We are life-long dog lovers. Our mission is to support and promote the ethical treatment of animals in business. We have many years of experience in the canine industry, spanning several countries in SE Asia.
Free delivery to most airports across Thailand! |
0.999545 | The benefits of a Good Cup of Coffee Every Morning other than being a substitute to other popular beverages like tea, it's also known to provide a few health benefits. However, like any other beverage, it's beneficial only on moderate consumption.
Some of the benefits of drinking it are as follows: however, the enumerated benefits aren't based on any medical or scientifically proved results. Are more of what researchers proclaim. Coffee has been a popular drink and there have been major changes in process of growing beans as well as brewing it to lend it rich taste and special flavor. Gourmet coffee makes a perfect example of the changes and the development that took place in the overall process of growing beans to brewing it.
You feel more active - A cup of gourmet coffee heightens your senses. You feel more energetic. It extends your concentration span. You feel like grasping your subject matter in a better way. However, it's not wise to consume lot of it, just to keep yourself active, better to have it in moderation. it's best to have it twice a day or maximum four times a day.
Zero calorie count - A cup of black coffee contains zero calorie count. Therefore, it proves to be a great drink for all those who are on a diet or want to lose their excess weight. However, it's beneficial only when you cut away milk, cream and sugar. Moreover, its caffeine content keeps you energetic and thus you don't feel low even while on a diet.
Rich In antioxidant - Everyone seems to love coffee. The main reason behind this can be its antioxidant content. Moreover, it's prepared in such a way that it retains almost all of its antioxidant values. Thereby, you enjoy maximum health benefits with every cup. Antioxidants are also known to slow down aging process, thus, you retain your youth for long by drinking it.
Acts as antidepressant - The beans for organic coffee are grown through organic farms and thus these beans contain no harmful chemicals or pesticides. However, they're rich in antioxidants and other useful nutrients. You can even go for decaffeinated variant of the drink. Having some amount of caffeine is good. However, nutritional values of organically grown beans along with high antioxidant values acts as antidepressant. Therefore, you feel good and happy after having a cup of your favorite gourmet coffee.
Improves digestion - Coffee is rich in diuretic and therefore its regular. Moderate consumption of improves your digestion. Therefore, along with giving your day a fresh and energizing start, it also improves your general digestion. There are a lot more in the list of benefits of drinking gourmet coffee. Other than the aforementioned we can't ignore the rich taste and flavor that it offers to make our day a beautiful day.
Other potential health benefits associated with drinking coffee include: protecting against type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, liver disease, liver cancer, and promoting a healthy heart. |
0.994321 | What do you think this story is about (from the title)?
A woman in China who pretended to be pregnant so she could get a seat on train was found out when the fake stomach she was wearing slipped out of her shirt and fell to the floor.
The woman, named as Zhang, had constructed the ruse in a bid to encourage train passengers to give up their seats.
The fraud was discovered when the fake silicon stomach she paid about $50 for failed, according to The Beijing News.
Unfazed, Zhang then complained to her local fair trading bureau about the poor quality of the stomach.
Zhang claimed the belt tying it to her waist came loose, leaving her “found out and mocked” by other passengers, The South China Morning Post said.
Zhang has been criticized for a “shameless” and “disgraceful” stunt.
A report in Want China Times says fake pregnancy bellies have become a hot online shopping item in the country.
"Shoppers use the items — among other reasons — for faking a pregnancy before adopting a child, to avoid being laid off at work, and to enjoy the privileges to which pregnant women are accustomed."
A lady in China brought a fake stomach. She used the stomach to pretend she was pregnant. She did this so that people would give her a seat on the train. The fake stomach fell out. Train passengers saw it. They mocked her. She then complained to the fair trade bureau. She said the fake stomach was poor quality. Her complaint was rejected. Fake pregnancy stomachs are a popular item in China. They are selling well.
What are some common frauds now-a-days?
Would you pay $50 and wear something heavy just to get a seat?
What have you bought that was poor quality?
What are hot (shopping) items at the moment?
Do you shop on-line much? What do you buy?
Have you used the bar code reader app that gives the cheapest price on Amazon for that product?
What kind of things do you or the people you know pretend to do?
Do you have a rejected story?
What kind of things do you drop on the floor (by mistake)?
When do you need encouraging?
Who do you encourage and how?
Tell me a 'failed' story.
Is their an organization like a 'fair trade bureau' in your country?
What (can / would) you do if the product you buy is defective or not the same as that advertised?
Have you ever returned a product?
What's it like being pregnant? / What do you imagine it's like being pregnant?
What problems are associated with adopting a child?
What things do you avoid?
If you went to another country, what do you think it would be difficult to become accustomed to?
What do you think it is difficult for foreigners to become accustomed to in your country?
According to the news, the big bang last night was from a meteorite.
According to the weather report, their will be lots of yellow sand from China tomorrow.
According to this travel book, Amanohashidate, Miyazu City is a beautiful place to visit.
According to experts, it will take many years to clean up the nuclear disaster.
According to the fortune teller, I will marry and live happily ever after.
According to the sign, Imabuki Waterfall is this way.
According to history, there is an earthquake there once every 80 years.
According to him, 20 people will come. |
0.999338 | The best books on feeding your dog a homemade diet.
Over the past few months, I’ve read more than 30 books on homemade diets for dogs. Many offered recipes that were dangerously incomplete; a smaller number provided acceptable guidelines but were confusing, unduly restrictive, overly complicated, or had other issues that made me recommend them only with reservations. A few were good enough to recommend without reservation.
The books reviewed here are the most complete and accurate guides to feeding your dog a home-prepared diet currently available. They offer clear instruction for making certain that the diet you feed is nutritionally complete.
This review is about the cream of the crop: three relatively new books (or new editions of an older book) whose authors have taken the time to analyze their recipes to ensure that they meet the latest nutritional guidelines established by the National Research Council (NRC). All three books offer boneless recipes as well as some that include raw meaty bones (RMBs), giving you the option of choosing either style of feeding, or a combination of the two, depending on what works best for both you and your dogs.
These three books take an approach that’s very different from the books that focus on just raw meaty bone diets, which I reviewed in December (“Reliable Guides for Raw Diets”). Those books provided dietary guidelines rather than recipes, relying on common sense and mimicking the evolutionary diet of the wolf rather than nutritional analyses to provide diets that are complete and balanced. I believe such an approach is valid and follow it myself, but the guidelines are often misinterpreted, leading to diets that are missing critical ingredients or overloaded with others, and thus nutritionally unbalanced and incomplete.
The books reviewed also differ from the boneless diet books I reviewed in the January issue (“No Bones About It”): none of those books provided recipes that had been analyzed to ensure that they met NRC guidelines. The best of those books gave good guidelines for creating a complete homemade diet, but each required careful attention to the text to ensure that nothing was left out. People who just follow the recipes are likely to end up feeding an incomplete diet.
The three books included in this review are quite specific about what you should feed and what supplements you need to add. They offer peace of mind for those concerned that the diet they’re feeding may not meet all of their dog’s nutritional needs. They provide a reliable alternative for those who are not able to feed, for whatever reason, the wide variety of foods needed to provide a complete and balanced diet without supplementation. They offer help to people whose dogs are experiencing health problems that could be related to their diet. And for those of us who just want to understand more about where essential nutrients come from in the diets that we feed, and what might be missing, the information they provide is fascinating.
Two of these books provide recipes that meet requirements for all life stages, while the third can be used for adult maintenance only. It’s important to pay attention to this factor when you’re looking for books to help you feed your puppy or pregnant or nursing female.
I can’t recommend these books highly enough, not only for those interested in starting their dogs on a homemade diet, but also for people who already feed one. Reading through them has made me look more carefully at the diet I feed my own dog and the dietary guidelines that I give others, particularly regarding supplements. When I’m done with the book reviews, I plan to write about the changes I’m making based on what I’ve learned from these books.
Two books published fairly recently include recipes for both boneless and raw meaty bones (RMB) meals. These two books have similarities, as the authors have worked together in the past and relied on much of the same research. Both are particularly appropriate for those concerned that their homemade diets meet NRC guidelines, as all recipes have been designed and analyzed to ensure that they do.
These are the only homemade diet books that address the issue of balanced fats, going beyond the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. Modifying fats may be beneficial for dogs with skin problems and other inflammatory conditions. Both books stress feeding lean meats, which they recommend feeding raw, but light cooking is acceptable for boneless meat. Both also advise using bone meal, or other supplements that combine calcium and phosphorus such as MCHC or dicalcium phosphate, rather than plain calcium to balance the boneless recipes. The extra phosphorus is needed to meet requirements for puppies, as the recipes are designed for all life stages.
Both books omit dairy products and grains (except for one recipe with a small amount of oat bran in Brown’s book), and limit the amount of starchy vegetables. This can be beneficial for some dogs, particularly those prone to weight gain or inflammation from health issues such as allergies and arthritis. Carbohydrates, however, reduce the cost of a homemade diet. Those with large dogs who do not feed RMBs (which are usually less expensive than muscle meats) may find these diets cost-prohibitive. Very active dogs and females used for breeding can also benefit from more carbohydrates in the diet.
1. Dr. Becker’s Real Food for Healthy Dogs & Cats is the perfect book for those who want simple, clear recipes that meet NRC and AAFCO requirements for both puppies and adult dogs. I loved the 2009 edition that I originally read, but I’ve also had a chance to preview the 3rd edition and it’s even better. The basic recipes are the same, but the new edition provides many more details, including nutritional analyses of all recipes. The authors still recommend feeding all of the foods in their original recipes, but the new edition offers options for omitting certain foods, telling you what additional supplements need to be provided in those cases.
2. For those who really want to understand the whys and wherefores of homemade diets, Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet is ideal. Author Steve Brown delves into the ancestral diet of the dog and compares it to the latest NRC guidelines. Brown is the creator of Steve’s Real Food for Dogs (he no longer owns the company) and See Spot Live Longer Homemade Dinner Mixes. Step by step, he investigates the nutrients supplied by different foods, and how to go about combining those foods to achieve balanced meals that meet NRC guidelines without the use of synthetic supplements (he adds vitamin E and also includes bone meal in recipes that don’t include bone). Particular attention is paid to ensuring that fats are properly balanced, going beyond the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.
3. Monica Segal’s book, K9 Kitchen, offers guidelines and sample recipes for diets based on raw meaty bones, cooked diets, and combinations of the two. Segal’s moderate approach encourages you to pick the style of feeding that you’re most comfortable with and that works for your dog. Sample weekly recipes for all three styles of feeding are included for dogs of various weights and activity levels.
Much more information about these books – their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their prices, length, and where you can find them – can be found in the March issue of WDJ, A Review of the Best Books on Home-Prepared Dog Food Diets on the Market.
Mary Straus investigates canine health and nutrition as an avocation. She is the owner of the DogAware.com website. She and her Norwich Terrier, Ella, live in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
0.999955 | Use Microsoft Excel to make calendars, and output calendars in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format. It is easy to use, powerful and flexible.
Using XLCalendar, you can make variouskinds of perpetual calendars. For example, monthly calendar on multiple worksheets, yearly calendar on one worksheet. The yearly calendar can be used with various month layouts, such as the 1x12 month layout, 2x6 month layout, 3x4 month layout and 4x3 month layout.
* Customizing your own calendarsYou can make calendars in your own language, formats, layouts and styles, add your own holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events, and add the month name, weekday name that you like.
XLCalendar supports numerous holidays, such asChristmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Labor Day. It supports various holidays for different countries, such as United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. You can represent holidays using day (such as Feb 14) or weekday (such as the first Monday in Oct).
XLCalendar is a template-based calendar tool. All formatting is done directly in Microsoft Excel. You can take full advantage of Microsoft Excel including cell formatting, conditional formatting, formulas, drawing and pictures, page setup, headers and footers, preview and printing, VBA, and more. |
0.995876 | What are some of the points the author brings up to support his argument that the United States and the world should base the stability of their currency on their gold reserves? What’s happened to Greece is one of the best examples that the media and economists use to illustrate the worst that can befall a country which spends beyond its means and borrows to make up the difference. The U.S. has not yet suffered the same types of dire problems, but that’s because of the dollar’s status as a world reserve currency. This means it can pay its debts by simply printing more of its own money. However, even the U.S. cannot keep printing its own money forever without eventually its currency becoming devalued-it’s actually happening even now, to a degree.
What can be done, if anything, about the growing debt that we’re imposing on our children and grandchildren? What will the dollar be worth in five or ten years? Why has the economy stagnated, and why is unemployment as high as it is? How will euro problems affect the U.S.? Why does the national debt keep increasing? These are other questions the author seeks to answer in his well-researched book.
One great aspect about the book is that Contoski tries to explain economic concepts and how they affect the average person in layman’s terms as much as possible. For instance, when Contoski refers to something called “yuan-trading hubs,” and why many countries would like to become offshore yuan-trading hubs, though only Hong Kong is one now. China, according to the author, “has been rapidly diversifying its reserves and getting out of dollars.” To you and I, this means that China is trying to supplant the dollar with the yuan as the new world reserve currency. China “believes its turn has arrived for world leadership and the United States is in decline.” Sadly, there are many indications that point to the possibility that China might be correct in thinking this, though if the U.S. undertakes certain actions, they might still retain their status as the world’s economic powerhouse. |
0.999326 | This paper discusses a target tracking system that provides improved estimates of target states using target orientation information in addition to standard kinematic measurements. The objective is to improve state estimation of highly maneuverable targets with noisy kinematic measurements. One limiting factor in obtaining accurate state estimates of highly maneuvering targets is the high level of uncertainty in velocity and acceleration. The target orientation information is helpful in alleviating this problem to accurately determine the velocity and acceleration components. However, there is no sensor that explicitly measures target orientation. In this paper, the Observable Operator Model (OOM) is used together with multiple sensor information to estimate target orientation measurement. This is done by processing the sensor feature measurements from different aspect angles and the estimated target orientation measurement is used in conjunction with kinematic measurements to conclusively estimate target states. Simulation results show that the incorporation of target orientation can enhance the tracking performance in the presence of fast moving and/or maneuvering targets. In addition, the Posterior Cramer-Rao lower bound (PCRLB) that quantifies the achievable performance is derived. It is shown that the proposed estimator meets the PCRLB.
The Observable Operator Model (OOM) approach have been proposed as a better alternative to the Hidden Markov Model (HMM). However the basic modeling of OOMs assume that the data is generated by some discrete state variable which can take on one of several values which is unreasonable for most classification problems. Main limitation of existing OOM classification is that they require substantial training data, assumed to be similar to the data on which the algorithm is tested. In many applications the target is observed from multiple target-sensor orientations (or aspects), and the underlying feature information is highly aspect dependant and continuous variable. The multi-aspect target classification method presented based on continuous-valued Observable Operator Model (OOM), from which a full posterior distribution of a target class is inferred. It is possible to extend a discrete OOM as a continuous-valued OOM using a membership function. Further, predefined set of classes were used in training based joint target tracking and classification methods. These methods perform poorly, when new target present in the surveillance region which is not in the available class-set. In order to overcome this shortage, we propose an online training algorithm for OOM, which identifies new incoming target classes and add them into the available class-set. As the number of target class increases with the online learning procedure, there is a need for an adaptive class-set selection in order to reduce computational cost. An adaptive class-set approach for joint target tracking and classification is formulated via hypotheses testing, which reduces computation cost compared to calculating OOM likelihood for each target class. Simulation results are given to demonstrates the merits of continuous-valued Observable Operator Method (OOM) for target classification over discrete OOM, advantages of online training OOM and the efficiency of class-set adaptation algorithm.
In this paper, a new joint target tracking and classification technique based on Observable Operator Models (OOM) is considered. The OOM approach, which has been proposed as a better alternative to the Hidden Markov Model (HMM), is used to model the stochastic process of target classification. These OOMs afford both mathematical simplicity and algorithmic efficiency compared to HMM. Conventional classification techniques use only the feature information from target signatures. The proposed OOM based classification technique incorporates the target-to-sensor orientation together with a sequence of feature information from multiple sensors. The target-to-sensor orientation evolves over time and the target aspect is important in determining the target classes. The multi-aspect classification is modeled using OOM to handle unknown target orientation. This algorithm exploits the inter-dependency of target state and the target class, which improves both the state estimates and classification of each target. Measurement ambiguity is present in both kinematic and feature measurement and therefore, the OOM based classifier is integrated into the multiframe data association framework that is used to resolve measurement origin uncertainties. This technique enables one to overcome ambiguity in feature measurements while improving track purity. A two dimensional example demonstrates the merits of the proposed OOM based joint target tracking and classification algorithm.
Particle filter based estimation is becoming more popular because it has the capability to effectively solve nonlinear and non-Gaussian estimation problems. However, the particle filter has high computational requirements and the problem becomes even more challenging in the case of multitarget tracking. In order to perform data association and estimation jointly, typically an augmented state vector of target dynamics is used. As the number of targets increases, the computation required for each particle increases exponentially. Thus, parallelization is a possibility in order to achieve the real time feasibility in large-scale multitarget tracking applications. In this paper, we present a real-time feasible scheduling algorithm that minimizes the total computation time for the bus connected heterogeneous primary-secondary architecture. This scheduler is capable of selecting the optimal number of processors from a large pool of secondary processors and mapping the particles among the selected processors. Furthermore, we propose a less communication intensive parallel implementation of the particle filter without sacrificing tracking accuracy using an efficient load balancing technique, in which optimal particle migration is ensured. In this paper, we present the mathematical formulations for scheduling the particles as well as for particle migration via load balancing. Simulation results show the tracking performance of our parallel particle filter and the speedup achieved using parallelization.
The particle filter is an effective technique for target tracking in the presence of nonlinear system model, nonlinear measurement model or non-Gaussian noise in the system and/or measurement processes. In this paper, we compare three particle filtering algorithms on a spawning ballistic target tracking scenario. One of the algorithms, the tagged particle filter (TPF), was recently developed by us. It uses separate sets of particles for separate tracks. However, data association to different tracks is interdependent. The other two algorithms implemented in this paper are the probability hypothesis density (PHD) algorithm and the joint multitarget probability density (JMPD). The PHD filter propagates the first order statistical moment of multitarget density using particles. While, the JMPD stacks the states of a number of targets to form a single particle that is representative of the whole system. Simulation results are presented to compare the performances of these algorithms.
The particle filter is an effective technique for target tracking in the presence of nonlinear system model, nonlinear measurement model or non-Gaussian noise in the system and/or measurement processes. However, the current particle filtering algorithms for multitarget tracking suffer from high computational requirements. In this paper, we present a new implementation of the particle filter, called the tagged particle filtering (TPF) algorithm, to handle multitarget tracking problems in an efficient manner. The TPF uses a separate sets of particles for each track. Here, each particle is associated with the closest (in terms of likelihoods) measurement. The particles for a particular track may form separate groups in terms of the measurements associated with them and they evolve independently in groups till two or more groups of particles are separated by a distance large enough to be called separate tracks. A decision is made as to which of the groups is to be retained. Since this algorithm keeps a separate set of particles for each track, the state estimation for individual tracks does not require any additional computation. Also, this algorithm is association free and target class information can be added to the state for feature aided tracking. Simulation results are obtained by applying this tracking filter to a spawning target scenario. |
0.999854 | On Sunday, February 9, in 1964, 73 million viewers in the US and millions more in Canada watched the Beatles' American television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The band's very first LP, "Meet the Beatles," sold 3.6 million albums in the first two months in the US, and Capitol Records went on to sell 15 million Beatles albums in the States in 1964. These were different albums, with different combinations of songs than the Beatles albums released in England. That separate release pattern continued until June 1967 with the release of the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, which was exactly the same record all over the world.
Now, with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first US appearance in full swing, Capitol Records has remastered the entire US catalog and released 12 individual albums and a deluxe box set. I spoke with the project's audio supervisor, Steve Berkowitz, and mastering engineer, Greg Calbi, to learn about how they fine-tuned the sound. The project stretched out for months as they auditioned a vast number of analog and digital masters of the US and British Beatles albums. Berkowitz and Calbi also had access to unplayed original US Beatles LPs, and they used them to get a handle on the sound that Beatles fans heard the first time around.
What's the best archived version of a Beatles song? That gets really complicated, and something Berkowitz and Calbi had to sort out, and did so on a track-by-track basis. Then when those tunes were assembled to make complete albums, it was Calbi's job to make them sound good together. When I did a series of comparisons on my own with LP and CD versions there were clear sonic differences, but I was thrilled with the 2014 US Beatles remasters' sound. Unlike the 2009 stereo-only British CDs, each US album has stereo and mono versions of every tune. That's a pleasant surprise; the 13-disc "Beatles in Mono" box that came out in 2009 currently sells for over $170 on Amazon.
The two US movie soundtrack albums, "A Hard Day's Night," and "Help!" had Beatles tunes and a handful of non-Beatles score tracks, but the British albums had Beatles songs only. The new US remasters have the score tracks, which were mastered from the original analog tapes. I always skipped over the score tunes when I was a kid, but I'm really enjoying them now.
I bought the US Beatles Capitol Albums sets when they were remastered in 2004, and compared those discs with the 2014 remasters. Frankly, there's no comparison; the new ones sound better. They're more fleshed out, less compressed, and clearer. So even if you own the 2004 sets I'd recommend buying at least some of the 2014 Beatles albums.
I was hoping Capitol would have remastered the only official Beatles concert album, "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl," which debuted in 1977 on LP, and never appeared on CD. I'm sure that'll eventually happen. New vinyl isn't in the plans right now for the US Beatles catalog, and neither are high-resolution downloads, but there's always next year. |
0.999987 | Any beer company with a monkey as its mascot and a healthy sense of parody in its advertising has to be good, and our very own Nimbus Brewing Company lives up to the expectations. Nimbus' varied beers are tasty and memorably named: You may forget what you did after downing a couple of pints of Old Monkeyshine, but you won't forget that you were drinking Old Monkeyshine. And in proper Tucson fashion, Nimbus' Dirty Guera is an international melting pot of flavor: Bisbee killer-bee honey gives a Southwestern edge to those German hops. Even the boringly named Red Ale and Brown Ale are delicious. We raise our Nimbus pint glasses full of brew and paraphrase the words of Benjamin Franklin: There will be good living where there is good drinking. |
0.999767 | When do you think Canada will go out of recession? How many years will this crisis last?
I have no idea, but it won't be as short as the last few recessions, that's for sure.
Some say this will be the worst year and then slowly it will get back to normal. I personally don't think so. This will be long and deep recession. Nobody can predict how long it will be and the best think will be to save as much as you can for rainy days.
This recession (let's hope it's recession only) will last well into 2010 in my opinion or even longer. The economic news is all bad, and unfortunately we are at least a year behind the US, and this means Canada is yet to feel some serious pain from this economic downturn.
I expect a decent recovery in the second half of 2009. The stock markets are oversold and are due for a big bounce. The Canadian real estate is fairing much better than the US one and in general our economy is in better shape.
The markets are not oversold and they will go down from here. What you are missing is that the earnings in 2009 will be much, much lower compared to 2008, which will make the current stock valuations fair at best.
As for the real estate, we are not better than US, we are just a year or two behind.
I hope it won't last too long, but it sure looks like a nasty one. |
0.788375 | The immortal game was a chess game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. It is one of the most famous chess games of all time.
Adolf Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and was considered by many to be the world champion after winning the 1851 London tournament. Lionel Kieseritzky lived in France much of his life, where he gave chess lessons, and played games for five francs an hour at the Café de la Regence in Paris. Kieseritzky was well known for being able to beat lesser players despite handicapping himself - by playing without his queen, for example.
The immortal game was an informal one, played between these two great players at the Simpson's-in-the-Strand Divan in London. Kieseritzky was very impressed when the game was over, and telegraphed the moves of the game to his Parisian chess club. The French chess magazine La Regence published the game in July 1851. This game was later nicknamed "The Immortal Game" in 1855 by the Austrian Ernst Falkbeer.
The immortal game has resurfaced in many unusual guises. The town of Marostica, Italy has replayed the immortal game with live players, dressed as a chess pieces, every year from September 2, 1923. The position after the 20th move is on a 1984 stamp from Surinam. The final part of the game was used as an inspiration for the chess game in the 1982 science fiction movie Blade Runner, though the chessboards used in the film are not arranged exactly the same as those in the immortal game (indeed, although the film's game is played remotely by two people, each with a supposedly identical board, the boards do not actually match each other). It was also the basis of a detective novel of the same name by Mark Coggins.
This game is acclaimed as an excellent demonstration of the style of chess play in the 1800s, where rapid development and attack were considered the most effective way to win, where many gambits and counter-gambits were offered (and not accepting them would be considered slightly ungentlemanly), and where material was often held in contempt. These games, with their rapid attacks and counter-attacks, are often entertaining to review, even if some of the moves would no longer be considered the best by today's standards.
In this game, Anderssen wins the game despite sacrificing a bishop on move 11, both rooks starting on move 18, and the queen on move 22 to produce checkmate. He offered both rooks to show that two active pieces are worth a dozen sleeping at home. Anderssen later demonstrated the same kind of approach in the Evergreen Game.
The game Friedrich Saemisch – Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen 1923, is sometimes called the "Immortal Zugzwang game" because the final position is widely accepted as being a rare instance of zugzwang occurring in the middlegame. |
0.999999 | Garcinia cambogia é uma fruta pequena, em forma de abóbora, amarela ou esverdeada.
Suplementos de Garcinia cambogia são feitos a partir de extratos da casca da fruta.
A casca da fruta contém grandes quantidades de ácido hidroxicítrico (HCA), uma substância ativa que demonstrou ter algumas propriedades de perda de peso.
Os suplementos de Garcinia cambogia são feitos a partir de extratos da casca da fruta Garcinia gummi-gutta. Eles contêm quantidades elevadas de HCA, que está ligada a benefícios de perda de peso.
Muitos estudos em humanos de alta qualidade testaram os efeitos da perda de peso da garcinia cambogia.
Além disso, a maioria deles indica que o suplemento pode causar uma pequena perda de peso.
Em média, a garcinia cambogia demonstrou causar perda de peso de cerca de 2 libras (0,88 kg) mais do que um placebo, durante um período de 2–12 semanas.
Por exemplo, o maior estudo – em 135 pessoas – não encontrou diferença na perda de peso entre aqueles que tomavam garcinia cambogia e o grupo placebo.
Como você pode ver, a evidência é mista. Suplementos de Garcinia cambogia podem produzir perda de peso modesta em algumas pessoas – mas sua eficácia não pode ser garantida.
Alguns estudos determinaram que a garcinia cambogia causa perda de peso modesta, enquanto outros estudos não relatam efeitos perceptíveis.
Como isso ajuda a perda de peso?
Há duas maneiras principais que garcinia cambogia é pensado para ajudar a perda de peso.
Estudos em ratos mostram que aqueles que recebem suplementos de garcinia cambogia tendem a comer menos.
Da mesma forma, alguns estudos em humanos descobriram que a garcinia cambogia suprime o apetite e faz você se sentir satisfeito.
Seu mecanismo não é totalmente conhecido, mas estudos com ratos sugerem que o ingrediente ativo da garcinia cambogia pode aumentar a serotonina no cérebro.
Como a serotonina é um inibidor de apetite conhecido, níveis sanguíneos mais altos de serotonina podem reduzir o apetite.
No entanto, esses resultados precisam ser tomados com um grão de sal. Outros estudos não observaram diferença no apetite entre aqueles que tomavam este suplemento e aqueles que tomavam placebo.
Esses efeitos podem depender de cada indivíduo.
Mais importante ainda, garcinia cambogia afeta as gorduras do sangue e a produção de novos ácidos graxos.
Estudos em humanos e em animais mostram que pode reduzir os altos níveis de gordura no sangue e reduzir o estresse oxidativo em seu corpo.
Um estudo também sugere que pode ser especialmente eficaz na redução do acúmulo de gordura da barriga em pessoas com excesso de peso.
Ao inibir a citrato liase, pensa-se que a garcinia cambogia reduza ou bloqueie a produção de gordura no seu corpo. Isso pode reduzir as gorduras do sangue e diminuir o risco de ganho de peso – dois fatores principais de risco de doença (33).
Garcinia cambogia pode suprimir o apetite. Ele também bloqueia a produção de novas gorduras em seu corpo e foi mostrado para reduzir os níveis de colesterol e triglicérides no sangue em pessoas com excesso de peso.
Além disso, garcinia cambogia poderia impulsionar o seu sistema digestivo. Estudos em animais sugerem que ele ajuda a proteger contra úlceras do estômago e reduz os danos ao revestimento interno do trato digestivo.
Garcinia cambogia pode ter alguns efeitos anti-diabetes. Também pode ajudar a proteger contra úlceras no estômago e danos no trato digestivo.
Every entrepreneur who wishes to protect his/her business from any danger or damage should contract a corporate security administrations supplier. Notwithstanding, several corporate security administrations suppliers flourish and it is essentially difficult to figure out which one is dependable and will work to your best advantage.
A trustworthy corporate security administrations supplier ought to have every single important grant and accreditations to lead business in such an industry. Keep in mind: the lives of your representatives and the welfare of your business properties are in question. Depend these critical issues just to faculty who originate from suppliers that are sufficiently careful to experience and pursue exacting guidelines in their field.
One thing more: recollect that the security faculty you will contract ought to have the experience and legitimate foundation to be regarded compelling in security work. Procuring unpracticed security work force may demonstrate cataclysmic to your business if an episode happens because of your security staff’s failure to comprehend the issues at hand.
Corporate security administrations suppliers should realize that security staff, regardless of how experienced they might be, will think that its hard to satisfy their obligation in the event that they are not furnished with the correct gear. Propelled types of gear like ID scanners, GPS following, and FLIR gadgets, among others, ought to be given in-house by your picked supplier. Access to occurrence and mishap announcing programming and online planning arrangements is additionally perfect for a productive methods for correspondence to specialists and the administration should the need emerges.
The rate offered by a corporate security administrations supplier ought not be the main thing to see while procuring individuals will’s identity depended with security-related obligations. Make sure to search for the three qualities referenced above so as to enlist the correct supplier. Try not to jeopardize your business, premises, and your representatives by settling on a wrong decision for less.
Fandoms happen to be online communities devoted for you to a particular superstar, TELEVISION SET series, novel or perhaps performer, to name a new several. Perhaps nuptials have their particular fair share from the infatuation. Wedding themes vary from typically the classic to the hippest and most popular sujet more recently. Thanks to interpersonal media, vlogs, plus Pinterest, engaged couples may possibly right now personalize their nuptials having themes like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney plus the epic Game regarding Thrones!
Do you have a radical friend who is about to tie the knot? Subsequently this is for a person! Participate in the fun together with give the most unforgettable gift ever!
Help your beloved close friends start things up having home decorations and basics for their brand-new residence. Cooking area and eating lies are perennial absolute favorites yet give it a little angle to suit their fandom preferences. Make their home together with dining encounter exclusive and they’re going to surely appreciate you in making cooking and even eating a component of their infatuation.
As for residence decors, your present should be attractively geeky and sophisticated. If you wish your present in order to be small yet useful, imagine lamps and night time lights, book ends, lighting or throw cushions. They will surely love a careful compliment!
Support them make their a short time burning hot as couple for a lasting matrimony. Perhaps you should give matching robes, fandom undergarments or some sort of gift bag filled together with fandom stuff with regard to their very first nights? How about wine glasses for two, etching together with symbols or game titles of the obsessions, for an romantic toast to their very own union? You can generally lower by at your regional geek shops or even look the Internet for more ideas plus alternatives to give your buddies. This sexier the better. The more often creative the more it’ll cling.
That they may already have pair fandom shirts and hooded sweatshirts or they might in addition have attires of their particular favorite characters. What about a pair of towels together with their preferred fandom logos or maybe models? Matching boots and shoes or maybe inside slippers are usually as well available for fanatic couple. Shops dedicated to fandoms come out like mushrooms so you can surely find 1 about your area. In the event that not, then on the net stores got a lot of finds excellent for the pair. ThinkGeek, ThisIsWhyImBroke, Firebox and a lot more will be just right with regard to you.
If most likely crafty and good at Photoshop, then coming up with the perfect present is merely a good easy!
Terrariums are usually definitely popular nowadays. In case your pals are in to Pokemon, The Hobbit or maybe The Hunger Games, in that case take out the landscape and put it in a glass for the excessively preoccupied couple! They’re somewhat easy to generate (not to mention fun), along with the Online has tons of actions and procedures in doing one with the motif of your choice.
Photoshop is a wonder within the 21st hundred years. Imagine the limitless photograph modifying you can do! Have them for you to outer room with the Star Trek, Star Wars, Thor or Guardian’s of the Universe throw in party regarding their out-this-world relationship. Recruit them inside the Recon Corp with Levi and this gang in the Titan-slashing world of Attack about Ti (symbol). The list will go on.
If you’re typically the type that loves intending beyond your restraints (and have the means), after that prepare to blow individuals minds by simply buying your own personal couple pal tickets into a much-awaited Comic Con or even similar events? How with regards to tickets to their favored artist’s shows? What about a new collectible, a fixed version or the latest memorabilia item with an autograph? Give a short message for the set then they have an pure excess.
As you can see, the Net contains a myriad of issues we need to pull through within this generation. It’s a wellspring regarding ideas regarding seekers, and if you’re one, then your quest won’t be in vain. Obtaining the excellent wedding product for buddies is definitely not an easy task because many of us want to present the best current achievable. But then again, just simply like whatever they always express, it’s the concept (and effort) that matters. Almost any present is admired when it’s a product associated with real friendship between folks.
The fibonacci collection has fascinated mathematicians to get many years. Let’s have a good look at just how these kinds of numbers might influence on lotto applications.
This sequence is simply a group of numbers where every amount is the sum involving the previous two.
What is definitely of interest is the relation of any a couple of statistics approaches the “golden number” of 1. 6180 which usually appears in nature through the Egyptian pyramids through to help the petals on many flower variety. The higher the number, the short the ratio is to help 1 . 6180.
With first glance the sequence doesn’t appear to offer us any kind of help with Lotto selections.
You will find also many numbers in the particular very first decile and several even numbers.
Where typically the numbers may be useful is using the set to make selections by created combos.
What ever assortment program you make use of, the number of achievable combinations is likely in order to be large.
For instance , a good gruppo calculator would likely make 924 combinations for only 10 unique numbers.
That will be way too many lines for an individual player, but a person could use the particular fibonacci sequence to work outside which lines to select.
The classiness of the particular series is that a person may start with any two figures and create your own own sequence.
5 15 15 25 40 66 a hundred and five etc.
You can then choose lines by the combinations produced structured on the fibonacci statistics. By way of example you may well pick traces 5, 10, 18 and the like.
Depending on your starting point that could lower the number of lines in order to less than 12-15, a more controlable amount for an individual parte player.
Players could separate out the combinations to get rid of unlikely patterns making the fibonacci choices even a great deal more optimal.
Another option could be to use some sort of unique number generator in order to create the starting position for the series, or even to have range of different sequences to be able to experiment with.
The concept is to use the sequence to make your personal selection system which you in that case refine and try out.
This article has presented the idea of applying a confirmed precise theory to lottery selections. The fibonacci pattern can be a great example connected with the balance concerning some sort of seemingly arbitrary event plus implementing professional strategy to achieve a great outcome.
Security is a lose-lose situation business. On one hand you can say you needn’t bother with security benefits as nothing has transpired previously, and then again really having security administrations appears as though a misuse of cash as they are not counteracting anything…that you are aware of.
There are many archived instances of renowned individuals who have been far from home and had their homes focused by criminals. Increasingly genuine cases have detailed the people family being held at blade point.
Stories, for example, these could have been maintained a strategic distance from by methods for a basic hazard appraisal. On the off chance that you are going on vacation or leaving town for a few days and a large portion of the world know where you are, at that point you should assemble a straightforward security intend to defend your home and additionally family. What individuals at some point overlook, is that it’s not simply the well behaved natives who are perusing the news papers and magazines.
For famous people who need the media for their professions, they should recollect that what keeps them in the open eye can likewise be their adversary. I saw a vast photograph in a newspaper news paper of a football player going out, wallet close by, and it was obviously loaded down with £50 notes!
It is anything but an instance of encircle yourself with protectors. It’s tied in with making yourself mindful that being in the open eye can make you an objective, and raising your own security mindfulness could drastically decrease your odds of turning into a casualty of wrongdoing. Because something hasn’t occurred, doesn’t imply that it won’t occur later on.
The main standard of individual security is that YOU are in charge of your very own security!
This standard doesn’t mean you need to attempt each part of your own security. Simply perceiving that you have to roll out certain improvements and revealing them to the security director is an extraordinary begin. In the event that you work for an extensive company or are a big name in your field, you will for the most part have an in-house security chief you can request guidance. They should then have the capacity to make a few suggestions for you. On the off chance that you don’t have an in-house security director yet remember you may need to roll out certain improvements, at that point reaching a believed, proficient and experienced organization like Capitol Risk is a decent spot to begin.
Providing security benefits now days is something beyond about providing security officers. Legislative center Risk for instance can compose for you to be grabbed, headed to a private airplane terminal to meet a private flying machine and afterward traveled to a selective extravagance heaven island. At that point once you are completely loose, present to all of you the path back home to your entryway step. On the off chance that you would one day be on vacation and happen to end up amidst a political uprising, at that point we would likewise be in a situation to get security officers to you and get you out of the nation. Broad systems and associations empower us to bring you completely overseen security administrations for each part of your life.
With the strategy of globalization, the expansion regarding the organization entities has reached to even the particular country and remote sections from the globe. In present world, it has come to be quite definitely clear for some sort of country to enter directly into international trading for this sake of global acknowledgement. A similar is the event with the binary options investing in which trading is conducted on the stocks plus merchandise in the economic markets. The profit as very well as loss situation inside binary trading is centered for the mobility in typically the price of often the shares or commodities. As being the planet’s overall economy is establishing advances and bounds, the binary buying and selling can be the lucrative trading if implement with careful research simply by the investor.
Binary trading has become this most popular forex trading platform, and even due to the swift growing of this enterprise, growth throughout binary possibilities brokers’ toughness is using place. The importance connected with typically the brokers cannot end up being ignored as the major function of the broker is to carefully handle the deal of the investor simply by helping him through any wide and thin of binary trade. Behind the success of every deal, the binary options dealer is the main quitar. With the advance of new broker entities in the meeting place business platform, it may be significantly easier to select this best agent according to help the choice. It is definitely the dealer who assists the investor in taking the best selection from the perfect timing to avoid the loss and limit the potential risks.
Trader inside binary possibilities buying and selling provides the complete authority to choose the asset and approach the money management insurance policy. On the other hand, it is the particular binary options broker that guides the trader inside the best possible way concerning typically the asset type that will is great for trading. The assistance of the agent has a lot regarding value as he or she is usually experienced in the discipline of trading and it is quite professional in his strategy. For the long-term positive aspects together with profits to the particular investor, it would turn out to be the best idea to adopt help from the brokerage. Binary option broker relieves the particular dealer in tough periods by providing with a really good counter strategies to make enormous outcome from each trade. Traders, that are exact a great deal interested in acquiring a prosperous career inside binary trading globe, certainly not avoid the services together with assistance of the finest binary agent.
Just how can Binary Option Brokers Help to make Their Money?
There happen to be 2 binary selection enterprise versions currently at the rear of the particular industry. Typically the mostly CySEC-regulated single market-maker (European) company model, and the exchange-based (US) model.
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The “CySEC” unit dangles a vast selection of fraud possibilities for stockbrokers, and some do without a doubt take full advantage of such opportunities. These people change their prices, they stimulate slipping to trigger investments to lose together with they offer bonus items traders can certainly not hope to gain out. Some of these types of procedures are done by way of brokers who will be otherwise governed and qualified too.
Often the exchange-based business structure, used by simply all US-licensed agents, and even some of their Western equivalent too, is a inherently fairer one. Around this sort of setup, traders act as often the market-makers, which means of which they establish pricing, relating to the dynamic involving source and demand. The particular downside is naturally the fact that root assets which fail to get enough curiosity will simply not necessarily possess any pricing accomplished. By way of an exchange like NADEX and DAWEDA, stock traders industry against their peers instead of against the “house”. Just what this means is that will this exchange operator features no good engage in not fair practices, thus skewing the trading equation one way or another. When some sort of broker wins some sort of trade in an exchange, they takes property money misplaced by one more trader. Typically the exchange slashes a percentage upon entrance into a trade, along with upon deal expiry, from the winner. That way, the change loves the steady flow connected with revenue, while the merchants appreciate a level playing-field.
The most creative – in addition to at the same time period the majority of disgusting – procedures are perpetrated by means of agents operating out of what can easily be identified as the “Wild West” region of this binary solution dealing business. Such brokers are certainly not accredited and regulated, plus they reply to no authority in different shape or form. So, they have a free hand to be able to fleece typically the unfortunate merchants who slip for their charades, any kind of which way they will discover fit. Such scammers can indeed get very creative and they’ll stop at nothing.
1 of a well liked tricks can be to designate dealers an “account manager” who else after that does the actual “trading” with the victim’s income, inside the most “optimal” approach. Optimum in this scenario relates to the rip-off of the trader regrettably, this is why those who also drop for many of these “offers” can inevitably constantly see their particular accounts purged. The normal MO of these artificial account managers is quite suspicious. They first “win” a number of trades for their particular clients, prodding them regarding their potential, and growing and maintaining the seeds involving greed in them. They subsequently get in touch with them directly in addition to try to persuade these individuals to make additional build up, promising fantastic profits. In the event traders draw the brand and even refuse to comply, the container of their particular accounts begins within zeal. If they try to help to make the deposit, numerous documents shall be questioned of them plus little by little, all transmission will probably be gotten rid of with them as typically the cash disappears from their particular accounts.
How can Binary Option Brokers Make Their Money? |
0.958813 | What does it mean when you hear the term Classical Pilates vs. Contemporary Pilates? To start, those who follow what we call ‘Classical Pilates’ try their best to teach the Pilates Method as close to the style and routine as Joseph Pilates taught. While it is true that Joseph Pilates taught many years ago and has since passed, we have black and white photos, film clips, and his students that we can reference as a way to obtain our information. His most famous disciple, the woman who he chose to carry on his legacy, Romana Kryzanowska, stayed relatively true to his teaching methods and passed on his teachings to her own students. In 1998 she created the first Teacher Manual so that future generations would have actual documentation of the work. That being said, there are also some exercises that Romana adapted or even created that we often consider Classical, but with the caveat that it was from Romana and not Joe. Most of the Teacher Trainers that are currently teaching the Classical Method of pilates have been students of Romana, or students of one of her students (first generation or second generation).
In regards to apparatus, there are significant dimensions that are used in the manufacturing of equipment that make it Classical or Contemporary. Again, Classical apparatus stays as true as we know it to be to the apparatus that Joseph Pilates used. On the other hand, Contemporary apparatus tends to be slightly bigger, albeit definitely different, in the dimensions, and, the apparatus often allows for a lot more changes… for example, more springs, different angles of bars, eye hooks, more gears for different heights of people, etc. A Classical reformer is pretty set on 4 springs all of the same tension, up or down for foot bar only , 3 or 4 gears and not many changing parts (ropes, risers, etc). Likewise, a Classical Wunda Chair has a set angle from seat to pedal, and a Classical Spine Corrector has a much more shallow dip than a Contemporary one.
Which is better? Well, as a Classical Instructor, I certainly believe in the Classical method. I believe that the routine of the method allows us to deepen our practice with every session. We know what to expect, we learn how to make the exercise more, we engage the powerhouse in every exercise and there is a reason for the order … every exercise builds upon the previous one. There is a progression from one exercise to the next, and the apparatus is a tool to either correct alignment, develop strength, open hips or chest, work into extension, along with many other things. When doing Contemporary work that is typically different every time, uses lots of props, and is often changing, it is hard to find that depth as you are always trying to figure out what is next, where do I go from here, and what is the goal of each individual session, as opposed to what is the goal of my practice. That being said, I think that each individual needs to experience Pilates in their own way and decide what feels best for the body, mind and soul. As I like to say, Pilates is a lifestyle, not just a moment in time that you take a class. |
0.999993 | How often do you eat fermented foods? At university I've been constantly hearing about the health benefits so I try to eat something fermented on a daily basis. Maybe a sandwich with sauerkraut, a dollop of kimchi on top of my soup or daal, a miso dressing on salad, yogurt with granola or fruit and so on. They're full of friendly gut bacteria that do a lot of good. But I wanted to know exactly how good so I pulled up a recent study published in the Journal of Scientific Research early this year that praises fermented foods and I'd like to share it with you.
2. Restore proper pH balance in the gut.
3. Raw fermented foods are rich in enzymes.
4. They increase the vitamin content.
5. They help absorb nutrients from the foods we eat with them (like legumes!).
6. Help preserve food for a longer period of time.
8. They enhance the flavor of other foods.
9. Helps those with lactose intolerance enjoy dairy with products such as yogurt, buttermilk, kefir, etc.
10. Improvement of Immunity - those that consume fermented foods don't get sick as often!
11. Prevents toxins from being absorbed by the body.
12. Breaks down phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient that many grains and legumes contain, so that nutrients can be absorbed more easily.
13. Anti-inflammatory effect - protects against infection.
14. Anticarcinogenic - prevents various cancers.
Here's the reference: Hassan, M.N., Sultan, M.Z., Mar-E-Um, M. Significance of Fermented Foods in Nutrition and Food Science. Journal of Scientific Research. Published: May 1, 2014.
Now that I've got you interested in fermented foods, why not make some? The easiest and mildest is sauerkraut, which is about 1 kilogram of cabbage to 2 tablespoons of sea salt. The longer fermented foods sit, the more sour they get. I just finished a kimchi that's been sitting around my fridge for 8 months and I just LOVED how sour it got -- it contributed the perfect acidity to my daal! Note: I like to enjoy fermented foods best raw instead of cooking them because the cultures are alive and most beneficial for health.
Salt is really important in keeping harmful bacteria at bay, so it's necessary to use the recommended amount of salt given in the recipe. Generally speaking, one kilogram of vegetables requires 2 tablespoons of salt.
It is crucial to sterilize all your equipment: After washing your jar in hot soapy water, add some boiling water to it to sterilize it further. The bowl you use to massage your vegetables should be clean. Your vegetables should be washed thoroughly. Your hands as well! And your utensils. It's the best way to make sure no scary bacteria gets in there. But once the mixture sits and becomes sour -- the pH rises and that prevents the bad bacterias from forming because they don't like the highly acidic environment.
After 2-3 days of sitting out on your counter, place your ferment in the fridge. It's the safest place and will also make sure that things don't get overly sour for your taste. (The warmer it is, the more sour it will get and also the longer it sits, the more sour it will get.) Just make sure there's enough liquid to cover the surface to prevent mold from forming on the top. You can add extra boiled, salted water in case your jar does not have enough liquid.
It's the holiday season so why make some kimchi instead of buying something they'll never use? They make a great host/hostess present as well! ENJOY!
1. Wash and prepare all your veg - a food processor helps!
2. In a very large bowl, place all your veg along with the chili powder and salt. Massage the contents very well until everything is well combined. Allow to sit on the counter for an hour or so, after which point a good amount of liquid should be released.
4. Make sure that the vegetables are tamped down and that liquid is above the vegetables as this protects the kimchi from mold development. You can add extra boiled, salted water in case your jar does not have enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Loosely place the lid on the jars and place in a warm area, maybe on a tray (just in case) for 1 - 2 days. After 24 hours, open the lid and smell it, does it smell sour? If not, allow it to continue to ferment. It's usually after 48 hours that I smell that it's sour and it starts to bubble inside, which is another sign that the process has begun! When this happens, place the closed jars in the fridge and enjoy regularly over a myriad of dishes! Kimchi pancakes anyone? |
0.941513 | Former NBA superstar Michael Jordan is part of a group that has agreed to purchase the Charlotte Bobcats.
(CNN) -- Retired basketball icon Michael Jordan bought a majority share of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats, officials said Saturday.
Jordan, who was already a minority owner of the team, headed a group that bought a majority share of the team from businessman Robert Johnson, Johnson said in a statement.
Johnson said he has signed a "definitive agreement" to sell majority interest of Bobcats Sports and Entertainment to Michael Jordan and MJ Basketball Holdings, LLC. The deal is subject to NBA approval. Details on the purchase price were not available.
Jordan has overseen the team's basketball operations in recent years. He won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls.
Johnson, who founded BET and sold it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2001, announced that he had been looking for someone to buy earlier this year.
His fortune was depleted by an expensive divorce, but in a 2009 interview with CNN, Johnson estimated his net worth was still $1.1 billion.
Johnson's resume is full of firsts: BET was the first African-American owned company traded on the NYSE. He was the first African-American billionaire in the United States. And, in 2002, he became the first African-American majority owner of a professional sports franchise. |
0.998948 | ons will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. 注意:此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答.
40. D) It was frequently interrupted by commercials.
12. A) The man is fond of traveling. B) The woman is a photographer. C) The woman took a lot of pictures at the contest. D) The man admires the woman's talent in writing.
13. A) The man regrets being absent-minded. B) The woman saved the man some trouble. C) The man placed the reading list on a desk. D) The woman emptied the waste paper basket.
14. A) He quit teaching in June. B) He has left the army recently. C) He opened a restaurant near the school. D) He has taken over his brother's business.
15. A) She seldom reads books from cover to cover. B) She is interested in reading novels. C) She read only part of the book. D) She was eager to know what the book was about.
16. A) She was absent all week owing to sickness. B) She was seriously injured in a car accident.
C) She called to say that her husband had been hospitalized. D) She had to be away from school to attend to her husband.
17. A) The speakers want to rent the Smiths' old house. B) The man lives two blocks away from the Smiths. C) The woman is not sure if she is on the right street. D) The Smiths' new house is not far from their old one.
18. A) The man had a hard time finding a parking space. B) The woman found they had got to the wrong spot. C) The woman was offended by the man's late arrival. D) The man couldn't find his car in the parking lot. Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
19. A) The hotel clerk had put his reservation under another name. B) The hotel clerk insisted that he didn't make any reservation. C) The hotel clerk tried to take advantage of his inexperience. D) The hotel clerk couldn't find his reservation for that night.
20. A) A grand wedding was being held in the hotel. B) There was a conference going on in the city. C) The hotel was undergoing major repairs. D) It was a busy season for holiday-makers.
21. A) It was free of charge on weekends. B) It had a 15% discount on weekdays. C) It was offered to frequent guests only. D) It was 10% cheaper than in other hotels.
22. A) Demand compensation from the hotel. B) Ask for an additional discount. C) Complain to the hotel manager. D) Find a cheaper room in another hotel. Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23. A) An employee in the city council at Birmingham. B) Assistant Director of the Admissions Office. C) Head of the Overseas Students Office.
D) Secretary of Birmingham Medical School.
24. A) Nearly fifty percent are foreigners. B) About fifteen percent are from Africa. C) A large majority are from Latin America. D) A small number are from the Far East.
25. A) She will have more contact with students. B) It will bring her capability into fuller play. C) She will be more involved in policy-making. D) It will be less demanding than her present job. Section B Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. 注意:此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答. Passage One Questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
26. A) Her parents thrived in the urban environment. B) Her parents left Chicago to work on a farm. C) Her parents immigrated to America. D) Her parents set up an ice-cream store.
27. A) He taught English in Chicago. B) He was crippled in a car accident. C) He worked to become an executive. D) He was born with a limp.
Questions 29 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29. A) He suffered a nervous breakdown. B) He was wrongly diagnosed. C) He was seriously injured. D) He developed a strange disease.
30. A) He was able to talk again. B) He raced to the nursing home. C) He could tell red and blue apart. D) He could not recognize his wife.
31. A) Twenty-nine days. B) Two and a half months. C) Several minutes. D) Fourteen hours.
32. A) They welcomed the publicity in the media. B) They avoided appearing on television. C) They released a video of his progress. D) They declined to give details of his condition. Passage Three Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
33. A) For people to share ideas and show farm products. B) For officials to educate the farming community. C) For farmers to exchange their daily necessities. D) For farmers to celebrate their harvests.
34. A) By bringing an animal rarely seen on nearby farms. B) By bringing a bag of grain in exchange for a ticket. C) By offering to do volunteer work at the fair. D) By performing a special skill at the entrance.
35. A) They contribute to the modernization of American farms. B) They help to increase the state governments' revenue. C) They provide a stage for people to give performances.
46) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once. Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage. |
0.998812 | Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy. Born in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in a poor family. Self-educated, he became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, state legislator and Congressman. He left government to resume his law practice, but angered by the success of Democrats in opening the prairie lands to slavery, reentered politics in 1854. He became a leader in the new Republican Party and gained national attention in 1858 for debating and losing to national Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas in a Senate campaign. He then ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North and winning.
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the U.S. economy.
Born in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in a poor family. Self-educated, he became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, state legislator and Congressman. He left government to resume his law practice, but angered by the success of Democrats in opening the prairie lands to slavery, reentered politics in 1854. He became a leader in the new Republican Party and gained national attention in 1858 for debating and losing to national Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas in a Senate campaign. He then ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North and winning.
Southern pro-slavery elements took his win as proof that the North was rejecting the Constitutional rights of Southern states to practice slavery. They began the process of seceding from the union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter, one of the few U.S. forts in the South. Lincoln called up volunteers and militia to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.
As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South; War Democrats, who rallied a large faction of former opponents into his camp; anti-war Democrats (called Copperheads), who despised him; and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination. Lincoln fought the factions by pitting them against each other, by carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people.:65–87 His Gettysburg Address became an iconic call for nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy.
He suspended habeas corpus, and he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade that shut down the South's trade. As the war progressed, he maneuvered to end slavery, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863; ordering the Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraging border states to outlaw slavery, and pushing through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery across the country.
Lincoln managed his own re-election campaign. He sought to reconcile his damaged nation by avoiding retribution against the secessionists. A few days after the war's end at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, on April 14, 1865.
Abraham Lincoln is remembered as the United States' martyr hero. He is consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U.S. presidents.
Lincoln depicted protecting a Native American from his own men in a scene often related about Lincoln's service during the Black Hawk War.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been opnen to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
"In his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color".
Lincoln's image carved into the stone of Mount Rushmore.
1 2 Discharged from command-rank of Captain and re-enlisted at rank of Private.
↑ William A. Pencak (2009). Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America. ABC-CLIO. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-313-08759-2. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Finkelman, Paul; Gottlieb, Stephen E. Toward a Usable Past: Liberty Under State Constitutions. U of Georgia Press. p. 388.
1 2 3 Randall, James Garfield (1962). Lincoln: The Liberal Statesman. Dodd, Mead. ASIN B0051VUQXO.
1 2 Lindgren, James (November 16, 2000). "Ranking Our Presidents for dealing with the American Civil War, and slavery" (PDF). International World History Project. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 31, 2012.
1 2 "Americans Say Reagan Is the Greatest U.S. President". Gallup.com. February 28, 2011. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 Donald, David Herbert (1996-11-05). Lincoln. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780684825359.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Warren, Louis A. (2017-10-21). Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816-1830 (Classic Reprint). Fb&c Limited. ISBN 9780282908300.
↑ Thomas, born January 1778, would have been 8 at the attack, May 1786. Older sources (e.g. Herndon's Informants use six.
↑ Wilson, Douglas Lawson; Davis, Rodney O.; Wilson, Terry; Herndon, William Henry; Weik, Jesse William (1998). Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. University of Illinois Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0-252-02328-6. Archived from the original on January 13, 2018.
1 2 Bulla, David W.; Borchard, Gregory A. (2010). Journalism in the Civil War Era. Peter Lang. ISBN 9781433107221.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 White, Ronald C. (2009-01-13). A. Lincoln: A Biography. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9781588367754.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Bartelt, William E. (2008). There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indiana Youth. Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 9780871952639.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Harcourt, Brace. 1926. OCLC 6579822.
↑ Miller, William Lee (2002-01-01). Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780375401589.
↑ Madison, James H. (2014). Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253013088.
1 2 Oates, Stephen B. (2009-06-30). With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061952241.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Thomas, Benjamin P. (2008). Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. Southern Illinois University. ISBN 978-0-8093-2887-1.
↑ Gannett, Lewis (Winter 2005). ""Overwhelming Evidence" of a Lincoln-Ann Rutledge Romance?: Reexamining Rutledge Family Reminiscences". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. Springfield, IL: The Abraham Lincoln Association. pp. 28–41. Archived from the original on April 3, 2017.
↑ Lamb, Brian; Swain, Susan, eds. (2008). Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-676-1.
1 2 Baker, Jean H. (1989). Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-30586-9.
↑ Jason Emerson (2012). Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln. SIU Press. p. 420. ISBN 978-0-8093-3055-3. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Shenk, Joshua Wolf (October 2005). "Lincoln's Great Depression". The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
1 2 Jr, Edward Steers (2010-05-11). The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-178775-1.
↑ 1943-, Foner, Eric (1970). Free soil, free labor, free men : the ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. Oxford University Press. OCLC 1066794386.
↑ Olver, Lynne. "The Food Timeline—Presidents food favorites". foodtimeline.org. Archived from the original on February 4, 2016. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
↑ Kenneth J. Winkle (2001). The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln. Taylor. pp. 72–79. ISBN 978-1-4617-3436-9. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
1 2 Winkle, Kenneth J. (2001-04-01). The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln. Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 9781461734369.
1 2 Simon, Paul (1990). Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Legislative Years. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-00203-8.
↑ Weik, Jesse William. "Abraham Lincoln and Internal Improvements". Abraham Lincoln's Classroom. Archived from the original on February 12, 2015. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
1 2 3 4 "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery". doi:10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim040100206.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Boritt, G. S. (1994). Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252064456.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Oates, Stephen B. (1974). "Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865". In Woodward, Comer Vann. Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct. New York City: Dell Publishing Company. pp. 111–123. ISBN 978-0-440-05923-3.
1 2 3 4 Harris, William Charles (2007). Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700615209.
↑ "US Congressman Lincoln – Abraham Lincoln Historical Society". Abraham-lincoln-history.org. Retrieved 2019-02-02.
↑ Heidler, David Stephen; Heidler, Jeanne T. (2006). The Mexican War. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313327926.
↑ "Lincoln's Spot Resolution". National Archives Building, RG 233, Entry 362: Thirtieth Congress, 1847–1849, Records of Legislative Proceedings, Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House, 1847–1849. US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. December 22, 1847. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
1 2 3 Holzer, Harold (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9964-0.
1 2 3 4 5 Lincoln, Abraham (2008-10-01). The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Wildside Press LLC. ISBN 9781434477071.
↑ Gerleman, David J. (Winter 2017). "Representative Lincoln at Work: Reconstructing a Legislative Career from Original Archival Documents". The Capitol Dome. 54 (2): 33–46.
1 2 McGovern, George S. (2009). Abraham Lincoln: The American Presidents Series: The 16th President, 1861-1865. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805083453.
↑ "Lincoln's Spot Resolutions". National Archives. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
↑ Arnold, Isaac Newton (1885). The Life of Abraham Lincoln. 2. Chicago, IL: Janses, McClurg, & Company. p. 81. Archived from the original on April 3, 2017.
↑ Pfeiffer, David A. (Summer 2004). "Bridging the Mississippi". Prologue Magazine. Vol. 36 no. 4. Archived from the original on September 23, 2008. Retrieved 2019-02-13 – via National Archives.
↑ McGinty, Brian (2015-02-09). Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780871407856.
↑ "Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model: Improvement for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals". Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on August 25, 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
↑ Dirck, Brian R. (2007). Lincoln Emancipated: The President and the Politics of Race. Northern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-87580-359-3.
↑ Richards, John T. (2015-07-12). Abraham Lincoln: The Lawyer-Statesman (Classic Reprint). Fb&c Limited. ISBN 9781331281580.
↑ Library, Philosophical (2010-11-09). The Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. Open Road Media. ISBN 978-1-4532-0281-4.
↑ Harrison, J. Houston (1935). Settlers by the Long Grey Trail. J.K. Reubush. OCLC 3512772.
↑ Zarefsky, David (June 1993). Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-97876-5.
1 2 3 4 Jaffa, Harry V. (2000). A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780847699520.
1 2 McPherson, James M. (2005-09-29). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. OUP USA. ISBN 9780195168952.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Carwardine, Richard (2003). Lincoln. Pearson/Longman. ISBN 9780582032798.
↑ Lincoln, Abraham (December 20, 1859). "Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested" (Letter). Letter to Jesse W. Fell. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
↑ Luthin, Reinhard H. (July 1944). "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff". The American Historical Review. 49 (4): 609–629. doi:10.2307/1850218. JSTOR 1850218.
↑ Hofstadter, Richard (October 1938). "The Tariff Issue on the Eve of the Civil War". The American Historical Review. 44 (1): 50–55. doi:10.2307/1840850. JSTOR 1840850.
↑ J. Michael Martinez (2011). Coming for to Carry Me Home: Race in America from Abolitionism to Jim Crow. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-4422-1500-9. Archived from the original on January 13, 2018.
↑ Chadwick, Bruce (2009). Lincoln for President: An Unlikely Candidate, An Audacious Strategy, and the Victory No One Saw Coming. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks. pp. 147–149. ISBN 978-1-4022-4756-9. Archived from the original on April 2, 2017. Retrieved April 1, 2017.
↑ Murrin, John. Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People. Belmont: Clark Baxter, 2006.
↑ Mansch, Larry D. (2005). Abraham Lincoln, President-elect: The Four Critical Months from Election to Inauguration. McFarland. ISBN 9780786420261.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nevins, Allan (1950). The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861. Scribner. ISBN 9780684104164.
↑ Edgar, Walter B. (1998). South Carolina: A History. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 9781570032554.
1 2 Potter, David M. (1977-03-15). The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061319297.
↑ Vorenberg, Michael (2001-05-21). Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65267-4.
1 2 Vile, John R. (2003). Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2002. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851094288.
↑ Lupton, John A. (September–October 2006). "Abraham Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment". Illinois Heritage. 9 (5): 34. Archived from the original on August 24, 2016.
↑ Sandburg, Carl (November 2002). Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-602752-6.
↑ Nevins, Allan (1959). The War for the Union. Scribner.
↑ Sherman, William T. (1990). Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman. BiblioBazaar. ISBN 978-1-174-63172-6.
↑ Heidler, David Stephen; Heidler, Jeanne T.; Coles, David J., eds. (2002). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393047585.
↑ Neely, Mark E. (1992). The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–31.
↑ Randall, James Garfield (1946). Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-306-80754-1. Archived from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved May 16, 2016. quoted in Kevin Peraino, Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power (2013) pp 160–61.
↑ Thomas, Benjamin Platt; Hyman, Harold Melvin (1962). Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 71, 87, 229–30, 385 (quote).
↑ Ambrose, Stephen E. (April 1996). Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff. LSU Press. ISBN 9780807155394.
↑ "Henry W. Halleck". American Battlefield Trust. June 15, 2011.
1 2 3 Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005-10-25). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780684824901.
↑ Mackubin, Thomas Owens (March 25, 2004). "The Liberator". National Review. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved December 12, 2008.
1 2 Guelzo, Allen C. (1999). Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 9780802838728.
↑ McPherson, James M. (1992-06-04). Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195076066.
↑ Guelzo, Allen C.; Guelzo, Director of the Civil War Era Studies Program Allen C. (2004). Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743221825.
↑ Wills, Garry (2012-12-11). Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781439126455.
↑ McPherson, James M.; McPherson, George Henry Davis 86 Professor of American History James M. (2009). Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195374520.
↑ "The Peacemakers". The White House Historical Association. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved May 3, 2009.
↑ Neely Jr., Mark E. (December 2004). "Was the Civil War a Total War?". Civil War History. 50 (4): 434–458. doi:10.1353/cwh.2004.0073.
↑ Fish, Carl Russell (October 1902). "Lincoln and the Patronage". The American Historical Review. 8 (1): 53–69. doi:10.2307/1832574. JSTOR 1832574.
↑ Tegeder, Vincent G. (June 1948). "Lincoln and the Territorial Patronage: The Ascendancy of the Radicals in the West". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 35 (1): 77–90. doi:10.2307/1895140. JSTOR 1895140.
1 2 Grimsley, Mark; Simpson, Brooks D. (2001). The Collapse of the Confederacy. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803221703.
↑ Randall, James Garfield; Current, Richard Nelson (1955). Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure. Lincoln the President. IV. Dodd, Mead.
1 2 3 Paludan, Phillip Shaw (1994). The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0671-9.
↑ Noll, Mark A.; Noll, Prof Mark A. (2002-10-03). America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 9780195151114.
↑ "House passes the 13th Amendment – History.com This Day in History – 1/31/1865". History.com. Archived from the original on November 10, 2012. Retrieved November 19, 2012.
↑ "Primary Documents in American History: 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
↑ Lincove, David A. (2000). Reconstruction in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-313-29199-9. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Foner, Eric (2010). The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W. W. Norton. pp. 334–36. ISBN 978-0-393-34066-2. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
1 2 Donald, David Herbert (2016-03-22). Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era. Open Road Media. ISBN 9781504034029.
↑ Summers, Robert. "Abraham Lincoln". Internet Public Library 2 (IPL2). U. Michigan and Drexel U. Archived from the original on October 22, 2011. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
↑ Cox, Hank H. (2005). Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Cumberland House. ISBN 9781581824575.
↑ Schaffer, Jeffrey P. (1999). Yosemite National Park: A Natural History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails. Berkeley: Wilderness Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-89997-244-2.
↑ Blue, Frederick J. (1987). Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics. Kent State University Press. ISBN 9780873383400.
↑ "Biographical Directory of Federal Judges". Federal Judicial Center. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
↑ "Federal judges nominated by Abraham Lincoln". BallotPedia. Archived from the original on September 9, 2015. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
↑ Harrison, Lowell (2010-09-12). Lincoln of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813129402.
↑ Martin, Paul (April 8, 2010). "Lincoln's Missing Bodyguard". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2010.
↑ Fox, Richard (2015). Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-24724-4.
↑ Abel, E. Lawrence (2015). A Finger in Lincoln's Brain: What Modern Science Reveals about Lincoln, His Assassination, and Its Aftermath. ABC-CLIO. Chapter 14.
↑ "OUR GREAT LOSS; The Assassination of President Lincoln". The New York Times. 1865-04-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
↑ Donald 1997, pp. 598–599, 686 Witnesses have provided other versions of the quote, i.e. "He now belongs to the ages." and "He is a man for the ages."
1 2 Trostel, Scott D. (2002). The Lincoln Funeral Train: The Final Journey and National Funeral for Abraham Lincoln. Cam-Tech Publishing. ISBN 978-0-925436-21-4. Archived from the original on July 12, 2013.
↑ Goodrich, Th (2005). The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253345677.
↑ Peck, Garrett (2015). Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. 118–23. ISBN 978-1-62619-973-6.
1 2 3 Martha Hodes (2015). Mourning Lincoln. Yale UP. ISBN 978-0-300-21356-0. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
1 2 3 Wilson, Douglas L. (1999). Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln. Random House Digital, Inc. ISBN 978-0-307-76581-9. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Carwardine, Richard J. (Winter 1997). "Lincoln, Evangelical Religion, and American Political Culture in the Era of the Civil War". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 18 (1): 27–55. hdl:2027/spo.2629860.0018.104.
↑ On claims that Lincoln was baptized by an associate of Alexander Campbell, see Martin, Jim (1996). "The secret baptism of Abraham Lincoln". Restoration Quarterly. 38 (2). Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved May 27, 2012.
↑ Mark A. Noll (1992). A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Wm. B. Eerdmans. pp. 321–22. ISBN 978-0-8028-0651-2. Retrieved June 27, 2015.
↑ Brodrecht, Grant R. (2008). "Our Country": Northern Evangelicals and the Union During the Civil War and Reconstruction. University of Notre Dame.
↑ Parrillo, Nicholas (2000). "Lincoln's Calvinist Transformation: Emancipation and War". Civil War History. 46 (3): 227–253. doi:10.1353/cwh.2000.0073. ISSN 1533-6271.
1 2 Verghese, Abraham (May 20, 2009). "Was Lincoln Dying Before He Was Shot?". The Atlantic. Palo Alto, California: Emerson Collective. Archived from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
↑ Diggins, John P. (1986-08-15). The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226148779.
↑ Burton, Orville Vernon (2008-07-08). The Age of Lincoln: A History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9781429939553.
↑ Belz, Herman (1998). Abraham Lincoln, constitutionalism, and equal rights in the Civil War era. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823217687.
↑ Douglass, Frederick (2008). The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Cosimo Classics. ISBN 978-1-60520-399-7.
↑ Taranto, James; Leo, Leonard (2004). Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House. Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-5433-5.
↑ Densen, John V., ed. (2001). Reassessing The Presidency, The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute. pp. 1–32. ISBN 978-0945466291.
↑ Ridings, William H.; McIver, Stuart B. (2000). Rating The presidents, A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, From the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. New York City: Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0806519692.
↑ Chesebrough, David B. (1994). No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow: Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln. Kent State University Press. ISBN 9780873384919.
↑ Fornieri, Joseph R.; Gabbard, Sara Vaughn (2008). Lincoln's America: 1809 – 1865. Carbondale, Illinois: SIU Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0809387137.
↑ Carwardine, Richard; Sexton, Jay, eds. (2011). The Global Lincoln. Oxford, England: Oxford UP. pp. 7, 9–10, 54. ISBN 9780195379112.
↑ Schwartz, Barry; Schwartz, Barry (July 2000). Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-74197-0.
1 2 3 4 Schwartz, Barry (2008-11-15). Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-74188-8.
↑ Havers, Grant N. (2009-11-13). Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love. University of Missouri Press. p. 96. ISBN 9780826218575. Apart from neo-Confederates such as Mel Bradford who denounced his treatment of the white South.
↑ Belz, Herman (2014-05-20). "Lincoln, Abraham". In Frohnen, Bruce; Beer, Jeremy; Nelson, Jeffrey O. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. Open Road Media. ISBN 978-1-932236-43-9.
↑ Graebner, Norman (1959). "Abraham Lincoln: Conservative Statesman". In Basler, Roy Prentice. The enduring Lincoln: Lincoln sesquicentennial lectures at the University of Illinois. University of Illinois Press.
↑ Smith, Robert C. (2010-09-09). Conservatism and Racism, and Why in America They Are the Same. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-3233-5.
↑ Zilversmit, Arthur (1980). "Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. Springfield, Illinois: Abraham Lincoln Association. 2 (1): 22–24.
↑ Barr, John M. (Winter 2014). "Holding Up a Flawed Mirror to the American Soul: Abraham Lincoln in the Writings of Lerone Bennett Jr". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. Springfield, Illinois: Abraham Lincoln Association. 35 (1): 43–65.
↑ Bennett, Lerone, Jr. (February 1968). "Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?". Ebony. Vol. 23 no. 4. ISSN 0012-9011.
↑ Dirck, Brian R. (2008-12-12). Lincoln the Lawyer. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252076145.
↑ Striner, Richard (2006-02-12). Father Abraham: Lincoln's relentless struggle to end slavery. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518306-1.
↑ Cashin, Joan E.; Cashin, Associate Professor of History Joan E. (2002-10-06). The War was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691091747.
↑ Kelley, Robin D. G.; Lewis, Earl (2005-04-28). To Make Our World Anew: Volume I: A History of African Americans to 1880. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198040064.
↑ Hirschkorn, Phil (January 17, 2009). "The Obama-Lincoln Parallel: A Closer Look". CBS News. New York City: CBS Corporation. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
↑ Jackson, David (January 10, 2013). "Obama to be sworn in with Lincoln, King Bibles". USA Today. Mclean, Virginia: Gannett Company. Archived from the original on March 24, 2015. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
↑ Hornick, Ed (January 18, 2009). "For Obama, Lincoln was model president". CNN. Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Broadcasting Systems. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
↑ Spielberg, Steven; Kushner, Tony; Kearns Goodwin, Doris (2012). "Mr. Lincoln Goes to Hollywood". Smithsonian. Vol. 43 no. 7. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 46–53.
↑ Stokes, Melvyn, "Abraham Lincoln and the Movies", American Nineteenth Century History 12 (June 2011), pp. 203–31.
↑ Houseman, Donna; Kloetzel, James E.; Snee, Chad (October 2018). Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps & Covers 2019: Confederate States, Canal Zone, Danish West Indies, Guam, Hawaii, United Nations. Amos Media Company. ISBN 9780894875595.
↑ Dennis, Matthew (2018-07-05). Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501723704.
↑ "Nebraska.gov". nebraska.gov. Archived from the original on March 16, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
↑ "Mount Rushmore National Memorial". U.S. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 23, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
↑ "The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum". Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Archived from the original on October 25, 2011. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
↑ "About Ford's". Ford's Theatre. Archived from the original on October 25, 2011. Retrieved September 23, 2009. |
0.999998 | This tomb require a simple task to be done in order to receive a prize. You need to swing the wooden basket with wind that is blowing from the window in order to jump on a wooden ledge, that is on a wall, the basket get swung to.
The First step you need to do, is to close the window so that the wind can stop blowing inside, then wait for the lowest shutter to open up, and then quickly raise the wooden basket and jump on it. When it is on a full swing, jump on a wooden piece at a wall, and jump again to reach the wooden ledge. From here simply continue to a platform above the room, and proceed to tomb chest.
When the lowest shutter opens, quickly raise the wooden basket.
Jump on it fast, and wait to get swung to the piece of wood on the wall.
Double jump in order to reach this wooden ledge.
From there continue to left up to the balcony. |
0.999574 | Questions about example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "Siguiente"
Su hermana me dijo que no le molestara. Su hermana me dijo que le gustaba.
Please show me example sentences with (Alguien me podria decir si la siguiente oracion esta en voz pasiva? :"Smatphones are now being released with as much 4gb ram".).
It is in passive voice, yes, and it sounds perfect. Active would be: "Samsung and Apple are now releasing smartphones with as much as 4GB of RAM". The active form emphasizes that these are actions of Samsung and Apple. The original passive form emphasizes the large amount of RAM.
How do you say this in English (US)? "usualmente mi rutina es la siguiente"
@Ophiuchusss "Mow the lawn" means to cut the grass.
¿Me ayudan a corregir la redacción del siguiente texto por favor?
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "enunciado"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "spech"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "siguen"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sigues"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "siguientw"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "siguinificado"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sigurado"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "siguraduhin"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sihatu"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sihir"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sihira"
Example sentences with, and the definition and usage of "sihirli" |
0.838669 | Favorite movies Desu Noto 1 & 2, A Clockwork Orange, The Fifth Element, LotR Series, HP Series... Favorite bands / musical artists Voltaire, The Brobdingnagian Bards, Emerald Rose, Nightmare, Culture Club, Within Temptation Favorite writers Author - Terry Goodkind Favorite games Tetris! [And the Spyros games...though A New Beginning really isn't that good.] Favorite gaming platform Whatever I can play Tetris and Spyro on. Tools of the Trade Camera, pencil and paper Other Interests Try finding something that's not part of my interests.
Kitty Von Bismarck was an orange tabby cat who found me coming home the eve of St. Patrick's Day, 2010. He was chasing Kitty, my neighbor's Calico, across the driveway, where she decidedly turned and hit him. He wasted no time in turning his tail up and marching his way to mewhere she then tried to chase him across the yard, hissing and spitting.
I chased Kitty away, far as I could tell this new cat had done nothing to her. He purred, allowing me to pet him and hold him; he was skinny, I could feel his ribs. I laid out food and water bowls for him,wondering where he had come from. No one knew had moved into town anywhere near my house, and I had certainly never seen him before.
He was still around when my parents arrived home an hour or so later, just as friendly to them as he was to me. They couldn't figure out where he had come from either, though my dad supposed he was around 2 years in age.
Days went by. Weeks went by. The little orange tabby still strutted around our backyard, he just wasn't underweight anymore, and was larger than Kitty. Kitty still didn't like him, she hissed and tried to swat him whenever he came near.
My family let him on the back porch so Kitty wouldn't eat his food. Leave him alone too long, and I ended up with cat poop to clean up. Leave the kitchen door open, and I had to chase him through the house. A little flea collar was a nice help, as my father then stopped complaining about any flea bites when he picked up Bizzy, as I had begun to call him.
My father told me, "Looks like he's not leaving...If he's going to hang around you should get him neutered." I started looking around at the Vet Clinics,I didn't have a lot of money, and anyone with a pet knows they can get expensive. After a few days, "you should get him neutered" turned into "you should get him neutered and get his shots done". Which later turned into "get this test done, and that test done...".
Borrowing a pet carrier from Quentin's girlfriend, Aja, I brought Bismarck to the Vet. I needed my father's help getting him in, and he cried the whole way. We believe he was scared we were going to dump him somewhere!
A little timid when first brought back home, he quickly came out of it, he rather enjoyed being able to strut through the house...even if he was only starting one room at a time. He found my room without being shown, and jumped right up onto the bed, a nice loud purr following suit. Despite my father's reaction, I bought a food and water bowl into my roomBismarck decided he liked eating in my room better than the kitchen or back porch.
Months went by; he quickly learned his way around the house,and was very vocal when he wanted attention or decided he wanted to go outside. He loved playing with his toys,especially the ones on stretchy strings and his squeaky mouse. He enjoyed bottle caps, too; but would stop the moment he knew you were watching him. He gave my brother John a strange look every time he was called"Mix-Master Biz".
The foot of my bed was his. I made the mistake of sitting there once, and he tried to push me off rather than choose a different area to lie on.
On Wednesday, the 18th of August, Bismarck and I were playing in my room when I noticed a flea. I promptly brought him outside, I would have to give him a bath later. I worked that day, and the next,and the next. Today, Saturday the 21st,I slept in, later than I had intended to. My mother had fed Bismarck just a couple hours earlier, and we decided since we both were off work to givehim his flea bath.
I went outside, calling him, taking his little mouse toy with me. He didn't come, I walked around, looking in all his usual hiding spots, but couldn't find him anywhere. Then I saw him, curled up onthe side of the house beside the glass doors to the pool room. I called him, he didn't move. I went up to him, he looked up at me slowly. His right hind leg had deep red marks in it.
I ran inside calling my mother, she wasn't answering, but Quentin heard me, and ran downstairs. "Get Mom," I told him, "Bismarck's hurt."
He ran into my mother's room as I ran back outside. I picked Bismarck up carefully, his right hind leg just hung. He felt "top heavy". I met my mother at the backdoor, we brought him upstairs, and she looked at his leg. It bent in every direction, and his thigh was like a blood pocket. I grabbed my wallet as Quentin called his girlfriendwe had to find a Veterinary Clinic open after 4pm on a Saturday. Easier said than done.
The three of jumped in the van and started down Lexington Avenue,originally to get Aja and Ashton. My mother was holding a crying Bismarck and Quentin was on the phone with Aja trying tofigure out where we were going to go. We skipped picking up Aja and Ashton, as we found somewhere out of town to go.
I stopped in front of PetSmart, my mother got out and ran inside with Bismarck as I parked the van. Initially the nurses at the hospital centre there were just going in the order everyone had shown up, my mother trying to keep Bismarck from crying and jumping away from the nearby dogs. After my brother and I ran up the nurses asked us what was going on, and we were quickly seen to a room.
A nurse came in, took a quick look at Bizzy, and said it looked like he had been hit by a car.
He was taken back to have IVs attached and X-rays taken. The upper part of his little leg was in shambles, they said a brace wouldn't be able to fix it, they would haveto put a plate in, and that would be if they didn't have to amputate it alltogether.
"But that isn't what concerns us," the Vet told us, pulling another X-ray up on screen.
The car hit had busted his diaphragm. All his lower organs were pressing up against his heart and lungs.
If they could get his stable, they could transfer him to an emergency animal hospital not too far away, where they could attempt to move his organs back to where they should be. It requires special training that most Vets don't have, and it's a procedure rarely done. IF he were to survive that, they would have to make sure he was stable again before they could attempt the leg. And IF he survived everything, he would be spending a few weeks in intensive care, if not longer,and then he could still get an infection which would be dangerous. Either way, he'd be in a lot of pain for along time. Overall I'd be spending over $5,000, and chances are high he wouldn't even make it.
I made the hardest decision I can remember making, and had him put down. Quentin, mom, and I said our goodbyes, and were there with him as they did it. It was like he just fell asleep.
Now I don't have a little orange tabby greeting me each day I come home from work. No little Bismarck crying in the hall because he wants to play and everybody's busy.
Haven't seen or talked to you in such a long while.
It's been almost a year since you've been on. Just wanted to stop by and let you know that I've been thinking of you and hope you're doing well.
It's ~ChiiLuna on my new account.
Sure am! =^^= I had some serious RL issues, mainly work related that prevented my online time a lot. But yes, I am back! |
0.999971 | Is 1984 our past or future?
In the novel"1984," George Orwell provides clues to an inarticulate future. In the book's totalitarian society (1) language is narrowed by outlawing certain words, (2) diversity in language and opinion is curtailed, (3) critical analysis of anything is decried, and (4) determining truth through mental investigation and conversation is forbidden.
Orwell's prophetic novel was published in 1949.
He created a new vocabulary about totalitarian control with words such as "newspeak", "doublethink," and "thoughtcrime."
His warnings were powerful in his portrayal of a chillingly credible 'negative utopia,' with 'big brother' always on the watch, and a deeply anxious populace falling into an unthinking conformity. Sound familiar? |
0.999912 | Morand, S and Krasnov, B.R. The Biogeography of Host-Parasite Interactions. Oxford University Press; 2010. 277 pages, ISBN 978-0-19-956134-6 (Hbk.), 978-0-19-956135-3 (Pbk.).
When starting to read the book, I first decided to come back to the definition of what is biogeography? Biogeography is the study of the distribution of living organisms spatially and temporally. The scope of this multi-disciplined field aims to reveal where organisms live, at what abundance, and why they are, or are not, found in a certain geographical area. The patterns of species distribution across geographical areas can usually be explained through a combination of historical factors such as speciation, extinction, continental drift and glaciation, in combination with the geographical constraints of landmass areas and isolation, and the available ecosystem energy supplies. Biogeography is also important in extrapolating the ripple effects of natural and man-made impacts on organism range and distribution. More generally, biogeography is the science that attempts to document and understand patterns of biodiversity, which means that biogeographers seek to understand the interactions between populations, species and ecological communities with their environment, in space and time.
Astonishingly, consideration of population and species health and viability is still rare in biogeography whereas the role of parasites in regulating host population abundance and in exterminating local species - thus what can make one species common and even abundant, and what can make another species rare - has received much attention over the past decade. The biogeography of some hosts may be influenced by the distribution of parasites, quite apart from the abiotic influences and, in contrast, the biogeography of parasites is determined by host suitability and availability and therefore by the geographical distribution of their host species. As already suggested , host-parasite systems may be viewed as keystones in biogeography, and this book by Serge Morand and Boris Krasnov is addressing this important, but largely neglected, issue in biogeography.
The book comprises five sections: (i) Historical Biogeography, (ii) Ecological Biogeography and Macroecology, (iii) Geography of Interactive Populations, (iv) Invasion, Insularity, and Interactions, and (v) Applied Biogeography. Instead of describing each one of these and the many (18) chapters constituting the book, I will concentrate this review on what I really liked, and disliked, in it. First, the two scientific editors succeeded in gathering together a very impressive list of authors (38 including the foreword, the introduction and conclusion), some, if not all, being among the leading scientists in the fields of host-parasite systems, ecology or biogeography. This resulted in a vast list of examples and case-studies ranging from obligate mutualists of plants to animal parasites and human pathogens. The diversity of studies we can read in this book is undoubtedly one of its major strengths. Graduate students, research scientists and lecturers, as well as a broader audience within the fields of geography, epidemiology and veterinary medicine, will find here a goldmine in which to dig for minerals to illustrate their lectures or to influence their own research. I have already used some of these studies to illustrate some of my lectures and conference presentations, and I can imagine that many readers will do the same. My main negative criticism, as recurrently found with this type of multi-authored book, concerns its inherent diversity of writing style, of viewpoints and opinions on what biogeography really is, and of the main objectives to be addressed for this type of published work among the different chapters. In addition, here and there, some wording and typographical errors still persist, suggesting that its production may have been done too rapidly.
A title for this book review could have been Host-parasite biogeography, or simply patterns of sampling effort only? Reading the book, and after having finished reading Chapter 10 "Gap analysis and the geographical distribution of parasites" by Mariah E. Hopkins and Charlie L. Nunn, I then decided to stop my review work for a while. Not because of too much work to do in other areas, but because this chapter reaches an important conclusion that patterns of sampling efforts might (strongly) impact our knowledge of host-parasite biogeography. Since curiously a pdf file of this book can be easily downloaded from the Web, I checked how many times the sampling effort, sampling artefact or sampling effect expressions were used in the previous chapters and even in those subsequent. The term sampling(s) is used on very rare occasions but with another explanation, and it is used on page 90 only to discuss its confounding, perverse effect on parasite data. From chapter 11 to the conclusion, the term sampling appears 3 times but again for another reason, and in the Conclusion on page 268, by the editors, to re-discuss the importance of sampling in the biogeography of host-parasite interactions.
This chapter by Hopkins and Nunn is at the heart of what is, or what should be, the biogeography of host-parasite interactions, i.e., greatly influenced by geographically inconsistent sampling patterns (in terms of unexplored regions, unsampled host species, heterogeneous sampling efforts,...). This chapter in itself is questioning the validity of a biogeographical perspective in studies of host-parasite biogeography, when not checking for perverse effects exerted by sampling biases in space. Interestingly, it also suggests that gap analysis can be applied to guide spatial patterns in host-parasite systems sampling efforts. The above comments must be seen in the light of the next Chapter 11 "In the hosts' footsteps? Ecological niche modelling (ENM) and its utility in predicting parasite distributions" by Eric Waltari and Susan L. Perkins. Using ENM, the authors explore the distributions of parasites and their hosts, based on the attributes of some chosen bioclimatic, environmental and biological parameters. Several illustrations are given, and notably that of a tritrophic model, i.e., a tortoise, a tick and an apicomplexan pathogen; an invasive host species, the ant Solenopsis invicta, and its two microsporidian species; and 10 Anopheles species and human malaria in Africa. To come back to my earlier comments, it seems, based on my own survey of the literature, that we are dramatically lacking such examples of the geographic distributions of one host species, its potential vector species and its pathogen species over their overall ranges of distribution. In my opinion, this is exactly the research direction that the biogeography of host-parasite interactions should take. One needs to select some host species or host taxa, and to explore over their entire geographical ranges the distribution of their associated organisms like vectors, reservoirs and parasites. This will permit a cross-checking of all these with epidemiological data (prevalence, incidence, morbidity, mortality,...) and organism life-history traits (host susceptibility, nutritional status, pathogen virulence,...) in order to better understand host-disease interactions in a geographical dimension. Morand and Krasnov are proposing some interesting research perspectives that should be taken into account by the community within this field of research in the near future.
To end this review, the reader will find in this book some excellent chapters, which will certainly provide stimulation and creativity for new research perspectives in host-parasite biogeography. Essentially, because sampling bias is, as usual, the demon in ecology, evolution and biogeography, host-parasite biogeography will need first to exorcize it using optimization techniques on where to prioritize the sites to visit, the order in which to visit them, the host taxa and even the parasite taxa to sample in a time where we are describing more and more disease agents , and more specifically viruses and protozoans. |
0.998766 | Starset is an American rock band from Columbus, Ohio, United States, formed by Dustin Bates in 2013. They released their debut album, Transmissions, in 2014 and their second album, Vessels, on January 20, 2017. The band has found success in expanding the ideas of their concept albums through social media and YouTube, with the band generating over $230,000 in revenue from views from the latter as of November 2016. Their single "My Demons" had accumulated over 280 million YouTube views in the same time period. Their most commercially successful song, "Monster", peaked at number 2 on the Billboard US Mainstream Rock Songs chart in May 2017.
"Satellite" is the second single from American rock band Starset's second album, Vessels, after first single "Monster".
Transmissions is the debut studio album by American rock band Starset, released on July 8, 2014 through Razor & Tie.
Vessels is the second studio album by American rock band Starset, released on January 20, 2017 through Razor & Tie.
"My Demons" is a single by American rock band Starset, their first off of their studio album Transmissions.
In advance of Starset’s Tuesday night show at Concord Music Hall, Bates talked tech, Tommy Lee, and why Starset is not like “Lost.” The following is an edited transcript of that conversation: Q: There are cubes involved in your new stage show.
"How Rock Band Starset Found Huge Success on YouTube, Without Even Trying"
"POZ Showcase: Starset — PropertyOfZack"
"STARSET TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM TRANSMISSIONS ON JULY 8th : Razor & Tie Direct L.L.C"
"Rob Graves on Twitter: "As of 4 pm eastern today, the making of Starset 2 has officially commenced"" |
0.999996 | Neurofeedback in Boulder, CO and Beyond!
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The FDA has approved Neurofeedback for Stress Reduction!
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Neurofeedback is cutting-edge technology with decades of history and research. Neurofeedback has been utilized for more than 30 years with the first published study of its efficacy appearing in 1970. Ample research supports the effectiveness of Neurofeedback on a plethora of symptoms. Leaders in the field of Neurofeedback experience a success rate of nearly 90 percent (Robbins 2008). Efficacy studies continue to be published and many well-educated and well-trained clinicians have found this modality to be an effective adjunct to multi-disciplinary treatment.
There is more research on the effectiveness of Neurofeedback then there is on Ritalin!
“I was dreading adopting the four year old that had lived with us for the last two years. |
0.902612 | A celebrated performer in film and on stages in America and his native England, Jonathan Pryce brought quiet intensity to such features as "Brazil" (1985), "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), "Ronin" (1998) and all three "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Blessed with a piercing gaze and a sonorous voice, he was frequently cast as cerebral heavies, but he was best used as sympathetic everymen, as evidenced by "The Ploughman's Lunch" (1983), "Carrington" (1995) and Keira Knightley's worried father in the "Pirates" franchise. Pryce surprised many when he transformed himself into a song and dance man for such lavish musicals as "Miss Saigon," "Oliver!" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," though he was equally adept at straight drama. The recipient of numerous film and stage awards, including two Tonys for "The Comedians" and "Miss Saigon," his breadth of talent in so many mediums made him one of the most versatile performers of his time.
Born John Price in Holywell, Wales on June 1, 1947, he was the son of Isaac Price, a coal miner and shopkeeper, and Margaret Ellen Williams, a retail cashier. His early years were marked by a strained relationship with his father, a heavy drinker who was often away from home at the pub. As a boy, he flirted with the idea of becoming a pop singer, but after attending Holywell Grammar School, he went to Edge Hill College with the intention of becoming a teacher. A performance in a school production so impressed a friend of his that he got Pryce an application to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Pryce won a scholarship to the prestigious drama school, where his classmates including Kenneth Branagh, Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson.
His tenure at RADA was marked by clashes with the faculty - a tutor reportedly told him that he would never play anything except villains on the popular but lowbrow police drama "Z Cars" (BBC, 1962-1978) - and an overall dislike for the school's stuffy veneer. But he graduated and went on to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Nottingham Playhouse before joining the Liverpool Everyman Theatre Company. He soon established himself as a formidable figure on the London stage scene of the 1970s and 1980s, with the 1975 production of Trevor Griffith's "Comedians" earning him a Tony when the play traveled to Broadway in 1976. Four years later, he won the Olivier Award for his turn as Hamlet, which was credited by many critics as one of the definitive portrayals of all time.
He made his onscreen debut as a police constable in a 1972 episode of the science fiction series "Doomwatch" (BBC, 1970-72), with his first movie role coming four years later in "Voyage of the Damned" (1976). Pryce would go on to appear in television productions and the occasional film - most notably the acclaimed music business drama "Breaking Glass" (1980), for which Pryce learned how to play saxophone for his role as a drug-addicted horn player - but would not achieve widespread fame until 1983, when Walt Disney Pictures cast him as the malevolent Mr. Dark in the long-gestating production of Ray Bradbury's fantasy classic, "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Though the film, directed by Jack Clayton, was an expensive failure, his performance as Dark, a supernatural being who collects the souls of curious visitors to his traveling carnival, was praised by critics, and led to Pryce's typecasting as cold-hearted heels of all stripes.
The British film and TV industry saw more in Pryce than just the villain of the week, as demonstrated by his deeply thoughtful turns in "The Ploughman's Lunch" (1983) as a TV reporter caught up in a love triangle with a fellow journalist and her mother (Rosemary Harris). Director Terry Gilliam noticed Pryce's soulful qualities as well, bringing him to a cult audience with his astonishing dystopian fantasy, "Brazil" (1985). Pryce played Sam Lowry, a put-upon paper pusher whose heroic daydreams run contrary to the reality of his life under a complex, totalitarian government. Despite the film's torturous production and post-production issues, it was widely recognized as a visionary project that served as the high point of Gilliam's directorial career. Its reputation also gave Pryce a boost, though it would be several years before he would transition to major films.
While maintaining an active and celebrated career on stage - most notably in a 1985 production of "The Seagull" and the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "Macbeth" in 1986 and 1987 - Pryce dabbled in American films while keeping a foot in homegrown product. His stateside work was largely forgettable - dreary comedies like "Haunted Honeymoon" (1986) and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1987) - while his UK movies were offbeat works like "Consuming Passions" (1988), about a chocolate factory that becomes a success after a worker falls into the candy, or Gilliam's disastrous "The Adventures of Baron Munchasen" (1988).
By the early 1990s, the hard work paid off with more noteworthy roles, especially his meek bar patron bowled over by Al Pacino's hotshot salesman in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), and the real-life investor Henry R. Kravis, whose involvement in the storied purchase of RJR Nabisco was dramatized by Larry Gelbart in "Barbarians at the Gate" (HBO, 1993), which earned Pryce Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. That same year, he co-starred with Judy Davis in the experimental drama "Dark Blood," which went unfinished due to the premature death of its lead, River Ph nix in 1993. He also began a yearlong tenure as the spokesperson for the Infiniti line of cars, which were widely decried and parodied for their elitist tone.
During this period, Pryce attended the original London production of "Les Miserables," and was bowled over by the reaction that the audience gave to its performers. He decided to become a musical performer, and launched his career in that genre in earnest with a bonafide spectacle: "Miss Saigon," the story of a Vietnamese girl searching for her American military lover in the wake of the Vietnam War. Pryce played the Engineer, a sleazy but charismatic French-Vietnamese pimp who, like all of the play's characters, has dreams of immigrating to America. The massive production, which featured a life-sized helicopter which dropped to the stage during one scene, was a runaway smash in London, earning Pryce a Drama Desk Award in 1991 and inclusion in the Broadway version. However, Actors' Equity Association (AEA) protested his casting, citing that a white actor in an Asian role was equivalent to a minstrel show, and refused to allow him to appear in the New York version. Response to the statement by British Equity and members of the acting community was swift and heated, with producer Cameron Mackintosh threatening to cancel the entire production, despite massive advance ticket sales. Eventually, the AEA relented, citing their concern that the boycott would result in lost income for performers and stage technicians. Pryce joined the company, and won a Tony Award in 1991 for his work. He would return to the musical stage on numerous occasions throughout the '90s, including "Nine" in 1992 and as Fagin in "Oliver!" in 1994.
In 2001, Pryce made headlines for his turn as Professor Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" - not so much for his performance, which was critically praised, but for his handling of a backstage conflict with former pop singer and soap star Martine McCutcheon, who was his Eliza Doolittle. McCutcheon missed the majority of her contracted appearances in the show, forcing Pryce to appear with no less than four alternate Elizas during its 140-month run. At one point, he cheekily offered the role to anyone in the audience. His televised reaction to McCutcheon's Olivier award for her performance - Pryce was nominated in his category but did not win - was reportedly shown in drama schools as the proper way to handle a crushing defeat on camera.
Pryce's interest in musicals briefly crossed over to his film career. In 1995, he was Juan Peron to Madonna's "Evita" in the big-screen adaptation of the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show. The project was not well received, and marked the beginning of a lengthy stint of failed features including the horror film "Stigmata" (1999), "The Affair of the Necklace" (2001), and P.J. Hogan's offbeat "Unconditional Love" (2001), which cast Pryce as a lounge singer opposite Barry Manilow and Kathy Bates. The Cole Porter biopic "De-Lovely" (2004) also tanked, though it afforded Pryce - as the archangel Gabriel - a moment to sing Porter's "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" with star Kevin Kline. And his third feature with Terry Gilliam, "The Brothers Grimm" (2005), was as troubled as his previous collaborations with the director, although it showed a profit once the worldwide grosses were tallied.
Despite the laundry list of flops, Pryce did score some substantial hits during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including one blockbuster franchise that provided him with some of the greatest exposure of his career. The James Bond actioner "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) gave him one of his juiciest bad guy roles as Elliot Carver, a diabolical media mogul (reportedly based on Rupert Murdoch) who creates the global tragedies that his network covers, while John Frankenheimer's nail-biting thriller "Ronin" (1998) cast him as a ruthless Irish Republican Army soldier who contracts Robert De Niro's gang of mercenaries to retrieve a mysterious suitcase. However, both were trumped several times over by the global success of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise - "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" (2003); "Dead Man's Chest" (2006) and "At World's End" (2007 - based on the popular Disney theme park attraction. Pryce played Governor Weatherby Swann, the very English, somewhat weak-willed father of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the franchise's heroine. Called upon to do little more than seem outraged by the film's parade of colorful characters, Pryce was still able to convey a genuine love for his daughter, as well as a heartfelt melancholy in his final scene, where he meets his daughter in the afterlife.
While the "Pirates" franchise was cleaning up at the box office, Pryce was busy treading the boards in London. In 2003, he returned to straight drama with the powerful "A Reckoning," about a woman who confronts her father with disturbing allegations from her childhood, then earned another Olivier nomination for the lead in "The Goat or Who is Sylvia," Edward Albee's meta-drama about a troubled marriage that falls even further into ruin after the husband is revealed to be in love with a goat. Pryce co-starred with his real-life spouse, Kate Fahey, in the 2004 London production. From 2007 to 2008, he replaced John Lithgow as the lead in the Tony-winning musical adaptation of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," before transitioning back to the West End to play the doomed salesman Shelley Levene in a 2008 production of "Glengarry Glen Ross." In 2010, he played the mysterious old man, Davies, in a production of Samuel Beckett's "The Caretaker."
Pryce's film output was fairly limited in the post-"Pirates" years; he was the narrator of the Adam Sandler hit "Bedtime Stories" in 2009, and turned up, briefly and rather improbably, as the President of the United States in "G.I. J : The Rise of Cobra" (2009). UK television gave him more worthy showcases for his talents; "My Zinc Bed" (HBO/BBC, 2008) cast him as a wealthy industrialist interviewed by a journalist (Paddy Considine) and recovering alcoholic who finds himself obsessed with Pryce's wife (Uma Thurman), also in recovery. And in 2010, he received an Emmy nomination as industrialist Mr. Buxton, whose thorny exterior hides a heart wounded by the loss of his wife, in "Return to Cranston" (BBC 1, 2009).
Played supporting role in period drama "The Affair of the Necklace"
Reprised role of Elizabeth's father Governor Swann in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
Cast as Rachel Griffith's dad in "Very Annie Mary"
Cast as James Bond's nemesis in "Tomorrow Never Dies"
Offered another villainous turn as a scheming cardinal in "Stigmata"
Returned to his musical roots to portray a murdered pop star in "Who Shot Victor Fox?"
Appeared in BBC ensemble miniseries "Cranford"
Played the U.S. President in "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra"
Co-starred with Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal in period comedy "Hysteria"
Reprised President role in sequel "G.I. Joe: Retaliation"
Played Sir Stuart Strange on "Taboo"
Was cast as John Dickens in "The Man Who Invented Christmas"
Landed breakthrough starring role in Christopher Hampton's "Carrington"
Acted with Royal Shakespeare Company in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Antony and Cleopatra"
Once again cast opposite Depp and Orlando Bloom in Gore Verbinski's sequel "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"
Made film-acting debut in "Voyage of the Damned"
Made Broadway debut as Gethin Price in "Comedians"
Portrayed Juan Perón opposite Madonna's Eva in screen version of pop opera "Evita"
Played Cardinal Wolsey on "Wolf Hall"
Gave an arresting performance as the High Sparrow on HBO's "Game of Thrones"
Kate Fahy. Actor. Irish; together since 1972; have three children together.
Isaac Price. Coal miner, shopkeeper. Died in 1976 two years after being attacked by local teen.
Patrick Pryce. Born in 1983; mother, Kate Fahy.
Gabriel Pryce. Born in 1986; mother, Kate Fahy.
Phoebe Pryce. Born in 1990; mother, Kate Fahy. |
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