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1927 – Born on the 31st of March.
1942 – He graduated from the eighth grade. He could not attend high school because his father Librado had been in an accident and did not want his mother Juana to work in the fields. Instead, Cesar became a migrant farm worker. After two years he joined the Navy and served a two-year enlistment.
1948 – Chavez married Helen Fabela.
– He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta.
1965 – Filipino farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike on the 8th of September to protest in favor of higher wages.
1966 – These activities led to similar movements in South Texas, where the UFW supported fruit workers in Starr County, Texas, and led a march to Austin, in support of UFW farm workers’ rights.
– César Chávez’ movement inspired the founding of two Midwestern independent unions: Obreros Unidos in Wisconsin.
1967 – Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Ohio.
1969 – Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers’ use of undocumented immigrants as strikebreakers.
1973 – The United Farm Workers set up a "wet line" to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States.
1975 – Former UFW organizers would also found the Texas Farm Workers Union.
1992 – Chavez was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award.
1993 – Died on the 23rd of April, of unspecified natural causes in a rental apartment in San Luis, Arizona.
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| 0.967433 | 343 | 3.671875 | 4 |
When war broke out in 1914, Britain’s standing army of about 450,000 was dwarfed by the conscript-heavy armies organizing in Europe. Lord Kitchener, Britain’s new Secretary of State for War, wanted to avoid the political hot potato of conscription, but believed “the last million men” Britain could send into battle would decide success. Manpower was the key.
A widely publicized poster, featuring a stern Kitchener pointing directly at viewers, captioned, “Your Country Needs You” fanned the flames of patriotism, especially after Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II reportedly referred to Britain’s “contemptible little army.”
An escape from the grinding poverty and tedium of everyday life; decent food, clothing, and pay (one shilling a day for privates) and the promise of post-war employment for returning veterans, encouraged further enlistment. But more soldiers were needed.
Men like Lord Derby and Sir Henry Rawlinson realized that whole groups might enlist more readily if they could serve with people they knew. Recruiting in Liverpool in 1914, Lord Derby coined the term “Pals.” The idea of Pals’ (or Chums’) battalions caught on. Crowds flocked to recruitment centres. Stockbrokers, artists, footballers, journalists, shop assistants, teachers, Glasgow Tramways workers, Tyneside Irish, and many other groups of friends, neighbours, relatives, and colleagues formed quickly.
These cohesive units would train together, travel together and serve together, fighting side by side with friends, not with strangers. Unforeseen was how many pals would die together.
On the opening day of the Battle of the Somme—July 1, 1916—the British Army suffered its greatest single loss in its history. The nearly 60,000 casualties overall, of whom more than 19,000 died, included devastated Pals battalions. Some 720 Accrington Pals of East Lancashire who went over the top into No Man’s Land were “mown down like meadow grass” in less than half an hour. They suffered 235 dead and 350 wounded. Leeds Pals lost about 750 of 900. News travelled back to small towns where whole districts drew their blinds and listened to tolling church bells.
“Never such innocence again,” Philip Larkin wrote of the eager men lining up to enlist in 1914. The success of Pals as a recruiting tool came at too high a price in practice. A surviving Pal said, “Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history.”
This memorial to the 124th Pals battalion at its first barracks, Jesse Ketchum School, honours the one thousand men commanded by Lt. Col. Vaux Chadwick, recruited in a two-week “whirlwind campaign” from December 27, 1915 until the end of the first week of January, 1916. “Join the Pals” was the cry.
Inoculated and vaccinated at the Armories, trained at Toronto, Camp Niagara, and Camp Borden, they sailed for England aboard the Cameronia in August 1916. In Boulogne, France, by March 11, 1917, and redesignated 124th Pioneers (4th Canadian Division), they served at Arras, Vimy, Hill 70, Ypres, and Passchendaele. Some went as reinforcements to other units. All would face the same grim prospects as the British Pals.
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| 0.959975 | 738 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
The steering law in human–computer interaction and ergonomics is a predictive model of human movement that describes the time required to navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel. The tunnel can be thought of as a path or trajectory on a plane that has an associated thickness or width, where the width can vary along the tunnel. The goal of a steering task is to navigate from one end of the tunnel to the other as quickly as possible, without touching the boundaries of the tunnel. A real world example that approximates this task is driving a car down a road that may have twists and turns, where the car must navigate the road as quickly as possible without touching the sides of the road. The steering law predicts both the instantaneous speed at which we may navigate the tunnel, and the total time required to navigate the entire tunnel.
The steering law has been independently discovered and studied three times (Rashevsky, 1959; Drury, 1971; Accot and Zhai, 1997). Its most recent discovery has been within the human–computer interaction community, which has resulted in the most general mathematical formulation of the law.
The steering law in human–computer interactionEdit
Within human–computer interaction, the law was rediscovered by Johnny Accot and Shumin Zhai, who mathematically derived it in a novel way from Fitts's law using integral calculus, experimentally verified it for a class of tasks, and developed the most general mathematical statement of it. Some researchers within this community have sometimes referred to the law as the Accot–Zhai steering law or Accot's law (Accot is pronounced ah-cot in English and ah-koh in French). In this context, the steering law is a predictive model of human movement, concerning the speed and total time with which a user may steer a pointing device (such as a mouse or stylus) through a 2D tunnel presented on a screen (i.e. with a bird's eye view of the tunnel), where the user must travel from one end of the path to the other as quickly as possible, while staying within the confines of the path. One potential practical application of this law is in modelling a user's performance in navigating a hierarchical cascading menu.
Many researchers in human–computer interaction, including Accot himself, find it surprising or even amazing that the steering law model predicts performance as well as it does, given the almost purely mathematical way in which it was derived. Some consider this a testament to the robustness of Fitts's law.
In its general form, the steering law can be expressed as
where T is the average time to navigate through the path, C is the path parameterized by s, W(s) is the width of the path at s, and a and b are experimentally fitted constants. In general, the path may have a complicated curvilinear shape (such as a spiral) with variable thickness W(s).
Simpler paths allow for mathematical simplifications of the general form of the law. For example, if the path is a straight tunnel of constant width W, the equation reduces to
where A is the length of the path. We see, especially in this simplified form, a speed–accuracy tradeoff, somewhat similar to that in Fitts's law.
We can also differentiate both sides of the integral equation with respect to s to obtain the local, or instantaneous, form of the law:
which says that the instantaneous speed of the user is proportional to the width of the tunnel. This makes intuitive sense if we consider the analogous task of driving a car down a road: the wider the road, the faster we can drive and still stay on the road, even if there are curves in the road.
Derivation of the model from Fitts's lawEdit
This derivation is only meant as a high level sketch. It lacks the illustrations of, and may differ in detail from, the derivation given by Accot and Zhai (1997).
Assume that the time required for goal passing (i.e. passing a pointer through a goal at distance A and of width W, oriented perpendicular to the axis of motion) can be modeled with this form of Fitts's law:
Then, a straight tunnel of length A and constant width W can be approximated as a sequence of N evenly spaced goals, each separated from its neighbours by a distance of A/N. We can let N grow arbitrarily large, making the distance between successive goals become infinitesimal. The total time to navigative through all the goals, and thus through the tunnel, is
|(applying L'Hôpital's rule ...)|
Next, consider a curved tunnel of total length A, parameterized by s varying from 0 to A. Let W(s) be the variable width of the tunnel. The tunnel can be approximated as a sequence of N straight tunnels, numbered 1 through N, each located at si where i = 1 to N, and each of length si+1 − si and of width W(si). We can let N grow arbitrarily large, making the length of successive straight tunnels become infinitesimal. The total time to navigative through the curved tunnel is
|(... by the definition of the definite integral)|
yielding the general form of the steering law.
Modeling steering in layers Edit
Steering law has been extended to predict movement time for steering in layers of thickness t. The relation is given by
- Drury, C. G. (1971). Movements with lateral constraint. Ergonomics, 14, 293–305. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5093722
- Johnny Accot and Shumin Zhai (1997). Beyond Fitts' law: models for trajectory-based HCI tasks. Proceedings of ACM CHI 1997 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 295–302. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/258549.258760 http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/steering/chi97.pdf
- Johnny Accot and Shumin Zhai (1999). Performance evaluation of input devices in trajectory-based tasks: An application of the steering law. In Proceedings of ACM CHI 1999 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 466–472. http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/steering/chi97.pdf
- Johnny Accot and Shumin Zhai (2001). Scale effects in steering law tasks. In Proceedings of ACM CHI 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 1–8. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/365024.365027 http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/EASEChinese/Scale.pdf
- Kattinakere, Raghavendra S., Grossman, Tovi and Subramanian, Sriram (2007): Modeling steering within above-the-surface interaction layers. In Proceedings of ACM CHI 2007 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007. pp. 317–326. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1240624.1240678 http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~tovi/papers/chi%202007%20steering.pdf
- Rashevsky, N. (1959). Mathematical biophysics of automobile driving. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 21, 375–385. http://www.springerlink.com/content/e21715050741p065/
- Shumin Zhai and Johnny Accot and Rogier Woltjer (2004). Human Action Laws in Electronic Virtual Worlds: An Empirical Study of Path Steering Performance in VR. Presence, Vol. 13, No. 2, April 2004, 113–127. http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/LawsOfActionManuscript.pdf
- Contains references to, and discusses differences with, earlier work on the "steering law" by Rashevsky and by Drury.
- Crossing-based interface — any graphical user interface that uses goal crossing tasks as the basic interaction paradigm
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).|
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Miners in front of the Jacob's Smelter in Stockton, Utah, circa 1890.
The Jacob's Smelter site is located in the town of Stockton, Tooele County, Utah. Stockton is a community with 437 residents located on State Route 36, approximately 5 miles south of Tooele City, Utah. The town is approximately 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. Development of the mining industries in Stockton started following the discovery of silver and lead in the foothills east of the town. Numerous smelters were built around Stockton to support more than 100 mines and claims operating in the area. Mining activities were at their height during the 1870's.
Studies completed by the Utah Department of Envrionmental Quality ( UDEQ) and the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) have found elevated levles of lead and arsenic in the soils in the area.
A Public Health Assessment (PHA) was conducted for the smelter site and surrounding area. The PHA was completed in 1999.
- Public Health Assessment
- The PHA evaluated the potential for long-term health impacts in the community.
- The Jacob's Smelter Site is considered a public health hazard (ATSDR health hazard category B) because of the high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil in residential areas. However, biological testing for blood lead and urine arsenic did not indicate that the residents were exposed to excessive levels of lead or arsenic.
- Children living in this area should have their blood-lead levels tested.
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If you are left-handed - do not despair!
Some of the best calligraphers and letterers are left-handed, so any difficulties you may experience can be overcome. One of the most well known calligraphers in the world is Gaynor Goffe, who is left-handed.
The greatest problem you will experience is that of pen angle. If a right-hander wants to hold the pen at 45° to the horizontal to write Italic letters, then that is not a problem. For a left-hander, though, holding the pen in a similar way means that the letters will be formed with a 'mirror image' angle. So the pen must be held in a different way and many left-handers find that special left oblique nibs help them in this. It is possible to use straight cut nibs, as right-handers do, and simply twist the wrist to the left to achieve the correct angle, but this may cause tension and strain.
However, there are some lettering styles, such as Uncial, or Half-Uncial where the pen is held either at 0° to the horizontal, or almost 0°, and these don't present quite so many challenges for left-handers.
It may also help to set your board up in a slightly different way, as shown here, although having the paper straight is usually recommended.
Setting up a board for left-handers
Taken from the British Library Companion to Calligraphy, Illumination and Heraldry by Patricia Lovett MBE
Hints for left-handed calligraphers from Gaynor GoffeThere are three possible hand positions for left-handed calligraphers:
- Underarm – this is the usual writing position used by left-handers, where the hand rests underneath the line of writing.
Taken from Calligraphy Made Easy by Gaynor Goffe
- Hook – this pen hold is where the pen writes letters from above the line, and the hand makes a hook-shape.
- Writing line at 90° to the horizontal – rather than writing with the paper horizontal, the paper is lined up at 90° to the horizontal which makes the arm a little more free for left-handers.
I recommend the underarm hand position (position 1 above), the main advantage being that all letter strokes have exactly the same direction as for right-handers (which is not the case with position 2 above where push strokes become pull strokes and vice versa. The other advantage of position 1 is that the paper/writing line is in the same position as for right-handers (which is not the case with position 3 above, see diagrams).
The underarm method can feel difficult to begin with, especially if you are used to everyday handwriting with your hand in the hook position, however there are various ways to minimise any difficulties:
- Use left-oblique nibs. This makes it easier to obtain the steeper pen angles, such as those required for Italic.
- Use a wide drawing board, approximately 30 inches or 75 cm or more, as it helps to write with your left hand slightly to the left of the body to obtain the required pen angles without constricted arm movement.
- Move the writing paper to the left once or twice a line to begin with, this may help in maintaining the steeper pen angles. Once you are used to the underarm writing position it will not be necessary to move the paper to the left much or at all.
- Though I prefer the writing sheet horizontal (as it is easier to judge letter slope), it may help to begin with to slant the sheet down towards the right to help obtain the steeper pen angles (see diagram above).
- Turn the left hand back towards the left, the steeper the pen angle the more the hand is required to turn, a flexible wrist helps!
- Move the left arm as freely as possible from the shoulder when writing and avoid a tight, cramped elbow. Practising large letters with a chisel-edged felt-tip pen helps encourage movement.
The 'hook' position, (2 above), may seem easier if you already handwrite this way, and it is easier, initially, to move the arm freely in this position and easier to obtain all pen angles (though the nib is upside down). However, all the pull strokes of letters become push strokes and vice versa using this position, and this is a considerable disadvantage to the flow of the writing.
Writing with the writing line at 90° to the horizontal (3 above) also allows free arm movement and all pen angles are easily obtained, but it is more difficult to judge letter slope and the fact that the writing is from top to bottom rather than left to right takes some getting used to.
The writing position adopted depends on individual preference, but for the reasons discussed above, I have no hesitation in recommending the underarm writing position; with practice the pen angles can easily be obtained and the arm moved freely.
The Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, 54 Boileau Road, London SW13 9BL England
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|About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us|
A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
According to an old joke (perhaps a true story), there's this ad in a magazine:
Learn to write novels.
You send money to the given address and in return they send you a dictionary with the instructions "Some assembly required."
Joke aside, that's all there's to it really, whether you want to write stories, poems, or novels, though learning that assembly takes time and practice, often years.
Writing is crafted by putting together small blocks to make bigger ones, letters to words, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, and so on.
This week we'll feature five words made using combining forms.
What are combining forms? You can think of them as Lego (from Danish, leg: play + godt: well) bricks of language. As the term indicates, a combining form is a linguistic atom that occurs only in combination with some other form which could be a word, another combining form, or an affix (unlike a combining form, an affix can't attach to another affix).
adjective: Displaying a rainbow of colors that change when seen from different angles.
From Latin irido- (rainbow), from iris (rainbow, iris plant, diaphragm of the eye), from Greek iris. Iris was the goddess of rainbows in Greek mythology. Earliest documented use: 1794.
"Coast Guard pilots who have flown over the spill describe it as an iridescent sheen on the water."
Travis Griggs; Crist: 'It is in God's Hands'; Pensacola News Journal (Florida); Apr 28, 2010.
See more usage examples of iridescent in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. -Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)
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- Sexual abuse is the most concealed, most distressful,
and most controversial form of child abuse and occurs far more
often than is generally believed.
- The majority of child victims are molested by a family
member or someone known to the child.
- The child may be approached sexually at any age and the
sexual contact may be once or repeated over a period of time.
- The child has been taught to respect and obey adults and
therefore may have readily submitted to the known authority figures.
The child may therefore be unclear about whether or not the act
is wrong or unusual.
- The inherent reluctance of a child to challenge adult
authority and the possibility of retaliation may result in the
child's ambivalence about reporting the abuse, and later changing
- Although studies indicate that most child victims of sexual
abuse are female and most offenders are male, it should be noted
that boy victims are relatively common and may suffer more neglect
from lack of effective intervention than female victims.
- When several indicators are present, action is called
for, going through channels set up in the community and in conjunction
with the Child Abuse Reporting Law. Reports may be made to the
police or sheriff's department or the Children's Protective Services.
Even one indicator, if persistent, calls for consultation with
child sexual abuse professionals or the Children's Protective
What to look for in identifying
a sexually abused child:
- Unusual (as would be indicated by the child's age and
developmental stage) knowledge and/or interest in sexual acts and
- A child who is unusually seductive with other children
- Extreme fear of showers and restrooms. These are common
places for sexual abuse to occur.
- Extreme fear of being alone with men or boys.
- Frequent absences from school that are justified by one
parent only, apparently without regard for child's school performance.
(This of special concern if the child is home alone during the day
with a father or stepfather and he writes the excuses.)
- Repeated attempts to run away from home by a child who
is otherwise not a behavior problem.
- Fear of interpersonal relationships.
- A child who is unusually reluctant or fearful of going
home after school.
- Unusual or offensive odors.
- Chronic illness, complaints or pain, evidence of physical
trauma around genital areas, venereal disease or urinary infections.
- Nightmares, consistent thumb sucking when child is too
old for that behavior or bed- wetting.
- Bruises, burns or continuing injuries.
- Pregnancy when the child refuses to reveal any information
about the father of the baby and/or complete denial of the pregnancy
by the child and her family.
What parents may look for
in identifying a sexually abused child:
- A strained or an overprotective relationship between the
child and one of the parents.
- A child's reluctance to be alone with one of the parents.
- Acting out sexually in ways that are not developmentally
appropriate, such as excess masturbation.
- A parent may frequently arrange to be alone with a child
in a room with the door closed.
- One parent may try to alienate the child from the other
- Physical changes in the child without medical explanation.
- Suicide attempts by parent or child.
- Severe mood changes.
- Child begins to "boss" other parent around.
- Parent makes sexual remarks about child.
- One parent wants child to sleep in the same bed.
- Discharges or bleeding on underwear or bed clothes.
- Child says she has been told not to mention their secret.
Some ways to identify possible
- Lack of emotional involvement with the child, especially
when assistance is being sought for the child.
- Hesitation to seek medical help and/or unconvincing explanation
of a child's injuries.
- Distorted belief in physical fears.
- Expectations for child are unrealistic given the age and
- Extreme overprotectiveness to child, refuses to allow child
to participate in any social activity.
- Family characterized by marked role reversal between mother
- Family characterized by extreme paternal dominance.
- Families' severe overreaction to child receiving any kind
of sex education.
- Families are socially isolated from the rest of community
and attempt to isolate children.
When the child reports sexual
- Direct report - child reports the abuse directly to a
teacher, counselor, nurse or other person in authority.
- Indirect report - child tells classmates hoping they will
report to authority for them.
- Disguised report - "I know a person who
- Child tells a teacher or counselor or other adult but makes
them promise they won't tell. (Child is attempting to shift responsibility
for report to someone else but still wants intervention.)
- Remember that history and description of family interaction
are the most important determinants of sexual abuse since there
are often no visible signs of the abuse.
- Other family members (non-participative parent and siblings)
frequently will deny the child's report and become extremely abusive
and rejective toward the child who is revealing the "family
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| 0.901828 | 1,085 | 3.078125 | 3 |
With swine flu now in at least 22 countries and the World Health Organization announcing that you may be able to get sick from eating pork from infected animals, pigs appear to be on people's minds 24/7. Here are some facts about pigs that you might not catch on the nightly news:
Pigs snuggle close to one another and prefer to sleep nose to nose. They dream, much as humans do. In their natural surroundings, pigs spend hours playing, sunbathing, and exploring. People who run animal sanctuaries for farmed animals often report that pigs, like humans, enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.
Pigs communicate constantly with one another; more than 20 vocalizations have been identified that pigs use in different situations, from wooing mates to saying, "I'm hungry!"
Newborn piglets learn to run to their mothers' voices and to recognize their own names. Mother pigs sing to their young while nursing.
According to Professor Donald Broom of the Cambridge University Veterinary School, "[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly [more so than human] 3-year-olds. "
Pigs appear to have a good sense of direction and have found their way home over great distances. Adult pigs can run at speeds of up to 11 miles an hour.
Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University has found that pigs can play joystick-controlled video games and are "capable of abstract representation. " Dr. Curtis believes that "there is much more going on in terms of thinking and observing by these pigs than we would ever have guessed."
Pigs do not "eat like pigs" or "pig out." They prefer to eat slowly and savor their food.
Suzanne Held, who studies the cognitive abilities of farmed animals at the University of Bristol's Centre of Behavioural Biology, says that pigs are "really good at remembering where food is located, because in their natural environment food is patchily distributed and it pays to revisit profitable food patches."
Pigs are clean animals. If given sufficient space, they will be careful not to soil the area where they sleep or eat. Pigs don't "sweat like pigs"; they are actually unable to sweat. They like to bathe in water or mud to keep cool, and they actually prefer water to mud. One woman developed a shower for her pigs, and they learned to turn it on and off by themselves.
In his book The Whole Hog, biologist and Johannesburg Zoo director Lyall Watson writes, "I know of no other animals [who] are more consistently curious, more willing to explore new experiences, more ready to meet the world with open mouthed enthusiasm. Pigs, I have discovered, are incurable optimists and get a big kick out of just being."
These are just a few of the many reasons not to eat pigs. Click here to learn more about pigs.
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Transcript: Can Gargling Prevent The Common Cold?
Gargling is one of the best things to do to treat a sore throat. As one of my medical mentors Dr. Klaper instructs, you ” take a glass of warm water, add a pinch of salt, hold the glass of salt water in your hand, open your mouth, and take a deep breath. Tilt your head back, slide a generous mouthful to the back of your throat, and, with your mouth still open, gently breathe out through the water. Continue until the end of the breath, and then spit it into the sink. Repeat until the full glass of salt water is used.” Works wonders to soothe a sore throat, when you have a cold. But I had never heard of gargling to prevent a cold. Though not popular in the Western world, gargling has been strongly recommended in Japan to prevent upper respiratory tract infections, such as the common cold. However, there have been no controlled trials, and it remained unresolved as to whether gargling was really effective, until this one was published in 2005. “They found a significant drop in the incidence of the common cold, but not the flu, suggesting that simple plain water gargling is effective to prevent respiratory infections among healthy people. This virtually cost-free modality would appreciably benefit people both physically and economically around the world. What do they mean economically? Well most Americans, for example, report about 2 and a half colds a year. Between medical costs and work absenteeism, we’re talking nearly $40 billion dollars a year. So even if you take into account the 71 seconds it took on average to walk to and from the sink and gargle, and multiply that by the average wage to calculate the “cost of gargling” in wasted time, it’s still considered a cost-effective strategy. Here’s the latest, a new study on whether it works in kids. Gargling for Oral Hygiene and the Development of Fever in Childhood. a total of nearly 20,000 preschoolers were observed for 20 days, and just like the study in adults, gargling appears to lower the odds of illness by about a third, and gargling with green tea appeared to work better. Note they speculate that the fact that tap water is chlorinated may have played a role, so gargling with filtered water may be less effective, and I would stay away from iodine solutions such as betadine since one can run into the same kind of iodine overload thyroid dysfunction you can get by eating too much kelp.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Jonathan Hodgson.
To help out on the site please email firstname.lastname@example.org
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NGC5236 (M83), SINGG Survey
About this image
Gas-rich galaxies display a wide range of structures and properties, but one thing they all seem to have are some newly formed stars. Images from the Survey for Ionization in Neutral Gas Galaxies (SINGG), an NOAO Survey Program (obtained with the CTIO 1.5m telescope), are designed to highlight areas of star formation in gas rich galaxies.
This image shows Messier 83 (M83), one of the brightest spiral galaxies. The disks of these classic galaxies (what one usually thinks of when hearing the word), form when the gas in the system collapses. The spiral pattern is caused by a density wave in the disk which can cause enhanced star formation along the arms to make a grand design spiral. M83 hosts a strong starburst in its nuclear regions which appears white in this image.
The image is displayed so that stars have a cyan-blue appearance, while ionized hydrogen (H-alpha) emission appears orange-red to yellow. The H-alpha emission marks where the gas in the galaxies has been stripped of electrons, and is now recombining. It takes very hot O stars to ionize the gas; these stars have very short lifetimes (a few million years). As a result, red tones in these images typically mark the location of newly formed hot stars.
Gerhardt Meurer of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, is the principal investigator for SINGG. For more information, see: http://sungg.pha.jhu.edu/
Minimum credit line: The SINGG Survey Team and NOAO/AURA/NSF
Comments by e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.org
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Massive stars can provide valuable information on a Galactic, extragalactic, and even cosmological scale. The radiative signatures observed in HII regions and star-forming galaxies are determined by massive stellar populations. Long-duration gamma-ray bursts, produced during the core-collapse deaths of unusual massive stars, can be utilized as powerful probes of the high-redshift universe. Finally, massive star populations in the Milky Way and Local Group allow us to closely examine how these stars evolve, how their physical parameters are impacted by host environments, and how they contribute to interstellar and intergalactic enrichment through processes such as nucleosynthesis, mass loss, and supernova feedback. I will present recent research focused on the next generation of current stellar population synthesis models, detailed studies of gamma-ray burst host galaxies, and the impact of host environments on the physical properties and evolution of the Local Group massive star population. Combining examinations of distant star-forming galaxies and gamma-ray bursts with the study of nearby stellar populations in this manner will greatly improve our understanding of massive stars and their utility as tools that can directly contribute to our greater picture of the cosmos.
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"I removed them far off among the nations, I have scattered them among the countries, yet have I been as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come"
Infused with a sense of the holy, the synagogue is the focal point of Jewish life: the main place of communal worship and also often the scene of educational, social, and cultural activity. When the Temple, the people’s national spiritual center, was destroyed in 70 CE, the offering of sacrifices came to an end. The synagogue, referred to in the sources as a “little sanctuary [or temple],” remained as the heart of religious life. Prayer replaced sacrifice, and reading from the Torah scroll – the synagogue’s most sacred object, which imparts its sanctity to the place as a whole – became an important part of the service.
The ark (aron kodesh or heikhal) that houses the Torah scrolls is located on the side of the synagogue facing Jerusalem, since Jewish prayer is always oriented toward the site of the Temple. When the scrolls are brought out for reading, they are placed on the raised reader’s desk (bimah or teivah), which is also where the person leading prayers usually stands. Apart from these constant structural features, synagogues vary greatly over time and from place to place. Jewish sources mention a range of principles regarding location, construction, external appearance, and interior design. These different rules are combined with local architectural practice, resulting in a wealth of synagogue styles.
Four original, reconstructed synagogues from three continents are displayed here, along with Torah scroll ornaments representing communities around the globe. The synagogue route, embracing a long historical and geographic journey, reveals the diversity of sacred spaces and objects, as well as a common religious tradition and a shared desire to beautify what is holy.
The Vittorio Veneto Synagogue
The Horb Synagogue
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue
The Tzedek ve-Shalom Synagogue
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Am Yisrael was liberated from the burdens of slavery in Egypt, experienced “Ma’amad Har Sinai” and received the Torah, and is now on its way to the Land of Israel in order to found the first kingdom based on Divine values revealed in the Torah. But things do not turn out as planned.
As it approaches Eretz Yisrael, the nation chooses to send 12 spies from among the respected people of the nation to explore the land and examine it; these spies went into the land and explored it for 40 days.
So far, so good. But here the story starts to get complicated. The spies return to Am Yisrael’s camping site in the desert carrying bad news: “…the people who inhabit the land are mighty, and the cities are extremely huge and fortified… We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we… The land we passed through to explore is a land that consumes its inhabitants…” (Bamidbar 13, 28-32).
Only two of the spies disagree with this pessimistic assessment and claim: “We can surely go up and take possession of it, for we can indeed overcome it” (Bamidbar 13, 30).
Am Yisrael, which had until now believed that God would take care of it and lead it safely to the Promised Land, completely breaks down. Desperation takes hold and the future looks bleak. Their reaction is severe: “The entire community raised their voices and shouted, and the people wept on that night.
“All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the entire congregation said, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this desert. Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword; our wives and children will be as spoils. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?’
“They said to each other, ‘Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!’” (Bamidbar 14, 1-4) God’s reaction to this situation is swift. All the adults, He says to Moshe, will not be privileged to enter the Land of Israel, with the exception of those two spies who trusted Him and did not despair. For this reason, the nation will be detained in the desert for 38 more years, until all those who despaired perish. Only when a new nation is formed, which was not a part of that same sad and distressing affair, will the nation enter the longed-for land, Eretz Yisrael.
All of the Torah’s commentators struggled with the questions this story raises, with the main question being: In what way did the spies sin, and in what way did the nation sin? In actuality, the spies did not lie, but reported the truth. And was it not for this that they were sent? Moreover, the reaction of despair was natural.
Why was the nation punished with this significant delay, ensuring this generation was not privileged to enter Eretz Yisrael? One of the most interesting answers to these questions was given by the Gerrer Rebbe – Rabbi Yehuda Arieh Leib Alter (1847-1905) – in his book Sefat Emet.
According to him, the words of the spies were just a cover for their main concern.
The fear and concern of the battle with the inhabitants of the land was not the real motivation behind their opposition to entering Eretz Yisrael. What motivated them, perhaps subconsciously, to slander the land was a different concern altogether.
To understand their fear, according to the Sefat Emet, we must imagine Am Yisrael’s life in the desert – and it was the most peaceful life we can imagine. There was no need to worry about sustenance – food came down straight from heaven; and no need for an army – “clouds of glory” surrounded and protected the nation. What did the nation do in the desert? Simply, it was fully immersed in spirituality, in learning and fulfilling mitzvot. They had nothing else to do.
And now, this special spiritual experience was about to end. The entrance to the Land of Israel signaled the need to create a strong military. From now on, the nation would have to develop the land, agriculture, building, trade and everything necessary to found a state, and concern itself with subsistence and food.
The spies were not prepared to agree to this, and even the nation agreed with them. Of the entire nation, only two understood that the practical dealings of founding a state are the most correct way of worshiping God.
Walking the straight path involves not just “religious” areas; in all areas of life, we must practically express values based on Torah and mitzvot. On the contrary, “this is the Torah which Moses gave to Bnei Yisrael”: A life of work and of action according to the Torah.
God’s reaction suited this exact situation. Whoever is not capable of including a religious quality in every earthly and material action will not be privileged to do so. Only those who internalized the correct perspective on religion, which is not limited to the “synagogue” but works and influences us also in business, agriculture and the running of the state – only they will be privileged to do this, and enter Eretz Yisrael.The writer is rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.
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Calorie for calorie, leafy green vegetables like rocket and watercress with their delicate texture and jade green colour provide more nutrients than any other food. The darker the leaves, the greater the nutrient content. Like other greens, lettuces are very low in calories and contain mostly water, with only a trace of fat. Nonetheless lettuces contain many vital phytochemicals, anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals depending on the variety. Rocket for example is a good source of folate. A staggering number of women are not getting enough folate in their diet. Folate is a B Vitamin that has long been known for its role in making new body cells, preventing certain birth defects and a growing body of research suggests a link between folate and heart disease. Some research papers suggest that people with low levels of folate or Vitamin B12 may be at a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease. My practical nutrition suggestion – Although we tend to think that lettuce is only eaten raw in salads, we can also add them to different soups or even braise them as a side dish. Some food adventurers even mix them with spinach leaves in stir-frys, hovering up those excess leaves in the bottom salad drawer of the fridge or from the garden patch.
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Issue 7 Failure Summer 2002
Things Fall Apart: An Interview with George Scherer
Jeffrey Kastner and George Scherer
A professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, George Scherer is a materials scientist and a leading researcher in the field of stone conservation. Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Scherer began his career in industry, working for companies including Corning and DuPont, where he specialized in sol-gel processing, a low-temperature method for producing ceramics with consumer applications including scratch-resistant coatings for eyeglasses. In the late 1980s, Scherer attended a conference where George Wheeler, a conservator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, discussed the use of various treatments, including sol-gel technology, in the preservation of art objects and architecture made from stone. After arriving at Princeton in 1996, Scherer began a research program into the effects of various environmental factors on stone artworks and monuments and potential ways to counteract them. Speaking on the phone with Cabinet editor Jeffrey Kastner, Scherer discussed the threats posed to stone by water, salt, wind, and pollution; the utilization of predictive modeling in forecasting their impact on various types of stone; and the potential application of such models in speculating about the long-term fate of objects ranging from marble sculpture to the face of Mount Rushmore.
What are the main environmental threats to stone?
Water is basically the problem. The conservator at the Cloisters says that 90% of art conservation is controlling the flow of water, and that's right. Many times you can do a lot by just fixing the roof and the downspouts and that kind of thing. One main mechanism of deterioration is freeze-thaw damage and another is salt crystallization. You can get salt into materials from a variety of directions—sometimes it's in the groundwater, sometimes you can leach it out of the mortar, and sometimes it forms directly by chemical reaction with air pollution. And once those salt crystals start to grow, they can cause a lot of damage.
Are most treatments designed primarily to protect stone from harmful environmental effects or to stop deterioration that's already started? Are these two very different kinds of processes?
They are different kinds of processes, and we may try to do one or the other or both. For instance, if you have an object that's going to remain outdoors and it's beginning to deteriorate, you would like to stop whatever's doing the harm and restore some of its strength. Sometimes you can stop the problem and sometimes you can't. Suppose I have a sculpture out in the middle of a plaza—there's nothing I can do to stop rain from hitting it, so it's going to get wet and it may not even be possible to prevent water from getting into it. You could imagine putting a water-repellent coating on the top surface, but if it's standing out in the open, there's a good chance that water will rise up from the ground by capillary action, the way it rises into a sponge. And if you can't stop water from getting into it you can't stop frost damage. So maybe the only thing you can do is to try to restore some strength to the stone and so you're just treating the symptom and not the cause. There are other cases where you can treat the cause. So if you have small object sitting on a pedestal, you can take it inside and put a water-repellent coating on all of the surfaces so that water can't get into it from any direction. And then you can eliminate the cause of the problem.
Are there treatments that do both things?
There are treatments that do both and treatments that only do one. For instance, putting a water-repellent coating on the material doesn't restore any integrity to the internal structure. On the other hand, there are things you can soak into the stone, because most stones are surprisingly porous and will soak up material that will provide, say, water repellency and at the same time act like a glue to restore strength to the material.
We've been talking a lot about water repellency, but generally speaking that's something that conservators are wary of. You can put a coating on a wall of a building you're trying to conserve, but you can't necessarily stop water from getting in through a leaky roof or rising up from the foundation. And if you let water get into a wall that has a sealed surface, then the water can't get back out, and a freezing event can destroy the whole surface.
So you have to be careful what you're trapping inside?
Exactly. The tendency is to use breathable coatings at the least, if not to avoid water repellency altogether, because it's dangerous to trap moisture inside.
One main area of your current research deals with salt damage, with a process that works to reduce the destructive tendencies of salt crystals.
Yes. What I particularly like about that is that we're attacking the mechanism and not just dealing with the consequence. Most of the things that people do to defend against salt have to do with restoring strength or controlling the flow of water, but what we're trying to do is to deal with cases where you can't prevent the water from getting in. For instance, you have a cathedral that's too immense to treat and you may not be able to prevent the water from getting in, but this treatment would allow the crystals to come and go without doing any harm.
You know, the Sphinx is being damaged and there are reports by Egyptian experts who claim that the damage is mostly being done by salt, and that it has to do with the rise and fall of the Nile water table. When the water rises, it brings salty water up into the Sphinx and then when it dries out, the salts precipitate and do harm. And this is a case where you can't get underneath the object and stop the water from rising up. Now it's also possible that there's an important issue of thermal shock, because the temperature changes quite a lot. And there was a recent paper that said you could go out in the morning and hear the Sphinx popping. It claimed that that was because the salts were precipitating; but you could argue that maybe it was the temperature going up.
Another important issue, of course, is acid rain. Limestone, the material the Sphinx is made from, is relatively soluble in acid and so is marble, whereas sandstones are not. Just the natural acidity of rainwater will dissolve marble and limestone away at a rate such that medieval marble sculpture would be showing serious distress. As the acid runs down it converts the calcium carbonate into a soluble salt that washes off. Natural rainwater in the most pristine environment is slightly acidic because of the CO2 that's naturally in the air—a pH of 7 is neutral and you bring it down to 5.6 with the natural CO2 concentration. Incidentally, the "greenhouse effect," the increase in CO2 in the air, has almost no impact on that, because you could double the amount of CO2 in the air and it would make very little change in the acidity. What really changes the acidity is other kinds of air pollution—so if you're in New York City, the pH of the water could be down to 4 because you've got sulfates and nitrates and other things from burning fossil fuels. And those things bring down the water pH so much that they grossly accelerate the dissolution.
How important is geography?
A marble sculpture sitting in a pristine environment will decay slowly, and the same sculpture sitting in New York might decay 40 times faster—that's the difference between a pH of 4 and of 5.6. So if you have a medieval sculpture sitting in a little village in Italy where it's quite clean, it would show distress. A sculpture in Rome would have been fine up until about 1850, but in the 150 years since it might have lost all the features of its face. You can find dramatic photographs that show a sculpture photographed in the 19th century and it looks perfectly okay—it might be a little dirty, but all its features are there—and 60 or 100 years later it has no face.
So the Sphinx might also be showing the effects of the Cairo metropolitan pollution?
Yes. You'd also want to find out which way the wind was blowing.
Prevailing winds carrying pollution are an issue. What about wind erosion in general?
I think that's a pretty minor effect. From what I've read about this, the sand grains aren't easily picked off the ground by the wind. Typically the grains that are relatively heavy don't get picked up more than about a meter—and the Sphinx, you'll recall, is sunk in the ground, in a pit. In fact, that pit is large enough that the sand grains that come across fall into the pit and don't hit the sculpture. But in the past, you know, it was buried in the sand and in that case it was being scoured by the sand that was actually able to come right up to the surface and hit it. And at various times over these thousands of years, the levels of the dunes varied. So apparently there's a considerable amount of damage that was done by erosion in past centuries, when it was buried, and the damage would only occur right at the line where the tops of the sand dunes were.
So there are a lot of different things we need to be thinking about–wind, geography, the relation of geography to pollution patterns.
In the city, the sheltering of neighboring buildings and the direction of the wind can also have a big effect. And it's not unusual to find that one wall or one corner of a building is deteriorating much faster than another, because it gets more wet, or whatever.
Are there models that can predict the effects of these various conditions on different objects? Could you take the David, for instance, and put it in Florence and turn the time machine to 100 or 200 years from now and get a sense of what might be happening to it based on these kinds of variables?
In some cases there are, and the easiest one is acid dissolution. Because you can measure how fast a marble or a limestone dissolves in acid. And if you know that it will take off a millimeter in 50 years, then you can extrapolate how long it will be before the nose is gone. For that kind of thing, you would need to know the level of pollution and the pH of the rainwater and how much rain falls in a year in that location.
But is the decay regular enough so you can say a millimeter is coming off the surface of the whole thing? Or is it conceivable that a millimeter lost in a certain place could then weaken some feature and cause it to fall off?
It's a very good point. It wouldn't lose surface uniformly all over—the rain for instance would probably hit it from one direction or another. Moreover, as the water runs down the cliff, the acid in the water is consumed by reaction with stone, so it becomes more dilute, and the resulting damage is not uniform over the surface.
Could we play this game with Mt. Rushmore? It's not necessarily the case that the decay would be consistent over a large feature-rich environment like that.
I don't know offhand what kind of stone it is, but in a place like that, I would guess that air pollution isn't a big problem. Freeze-thaw damage certainly should be. You could imagine that there might be a weak layer at the base of the nose—you don't have to wear away the nose from the tip back, you could just snap it off. So the heterogeneity of the cliff is an issue. If there's a weak layer somewhere, then that's where the damage will happen and everything in front of it could come off.
What about vegetation?
Things like lichen dissolve the stone. The way they get a foothold is that they exude acids and they can chew away at the surface and then send their roots down. There are some pretty dramatic photos of roots embedded in various kinds of stones—they're capable of chewing up anything.
Everything from bacteria to algae to mosses and higher plants are capable of invading stone. The little guys will dissolve away the surface and get a foothold, but the rate at which they do damage is probably not so great. But as the higher plants move in, they're capable of sending their roots down and really doing macroscopic damage. You've seen seedlings growing up through asphalt—they can sink their roots in and their roots swell and they can generate enormous pressures.
Like when the tree in front of your house flips your sidewalk up?
Exactly. So you could easily imagine that happening on Mt. Rushmore. You can use biocides to prevent plants from invading. I don't know if they actually send people out to climb around and pull out saplings, but that could be a major cause of deterioration—if a plant opens a crack then the water gets in. Or it could work the other way around, where you have a fairly nice surface of stone that soaks up moisture and then in a sudden freeze, you get cracking from the freezing and that opens up an opportunity for plants to get in.
Is there a way to use models to forecast the long-term future of a large-scale formation like Mt. Rushmore? Presumably the weakening of the wrong area could lead to a catastrophic case of decay that can't be forecast because you can't know where it's going to get weak.
Honestly, I doubt you could very accurately. You can do a predication like that under certain particular circumstances that you've touched on already—if the material's homogeneous and it decays away at a uniform predictable rate and it doesn't have any veins in it. But in the case of a mountain, that's not likely to be the case. There are going to be faults in it and there are going to be places where moisture or plants or roots can get in and then you can have chunks coming off at a time. I mean you could have a whole ear or a whole nose fall off. In principle, you should be able to look around at the structure of the cliff and figure out where the danger spots are—if you can find porous layers or pockets where water could get trapped. If you were to show me a vein that was different from the bordering material, I could say, "This looks like a place we should divert water away from," but I wouldn't be in a position to say, "It's going to fail in 50 years." I would be surprised if you could really project forward 500 or 1,000 years.
George Scherer is a materials scientist and a leading researcher in the field of stone conservation. He teaches in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University.
Cabinet is published by Immaterial Incorporated, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Cabinet receives generous support from the Lambent Foundation, the Orphiflamme Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Opaline Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Danielson Foundation, the Katchadourian Family Foundation, and many individuals. All our events are free, the entire content of our many sold-out issues are on our site for free, and we offer our magazine and books at prices that are considerably below cost. Please consider supporting our work by making a tax-deductible donation by visiting here.
© 2002 Cabinet Magazine
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C is a favored and widely used programming language, particularly within the fields of science and engineering. C Programming for Scientists and Engineers with Applications guides readers through the fundamental, as well as the advanced concepts, of the C programming language as it applies to solving engineering and scientific problems. Ideal for readers with no prior programming experience, this text provides numerous sample problems and their solutions in the areas of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, physics, chemistry, and more. It begins with a chapter focused on the basic terminology relating to hardware, software, problem definition and solution. From there readers are quickly brought into the key elements of C and will be writing their own code upon completion of Chapter 2. Concepts are then gradually built upon using a strong, structured approach with syntax and semantics presented in an easy-to-understand sentence format. Readers will find C Programming for Scientists and Engineers with Applications to be an engaging, user-friendly introduction to this popular language.
Click HERE to preview Chapter 1
Features & Benefits
Complete solutions with documentation, code, input, and output is included at the end of each chapter and has been thoroughly run and tested.
Pointer and dynamic pointers are presented in depth with sample code and end-of-chapter complete solutions.
Input and output in C is presented with several alternate ways of data input and data output, including standard input/output and file input/output.
Provides an early introduction to modular programming concepts and functions.
Instructor’s resources include an instructor’s manual with full solutions to all review and end-of-chapter exercises.
Critical thinking questions are included throughout. Review questions at the end of each section and end-of-chapter questions are designed to enhance critical thinking.
Appropriate for introductory courses in C programming offered within the departments of Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry.
1 Introduction to Computers and Programming
2 Basic Elements of the C Programming Language
3 Input and Output
4 Control Structures
5 Modular Design and Function
6 Storage Classes
7 One-Dimensional Arrays
8 Multidimensional Arrays
9 Characters and Strings
10 Pointers and Dynamic Storage
Carol Ziegler-University of Arkansas at Little Rock
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Power operational amplifiers (POPs) are becoming increasingly common in control circuitry. Their primary advantages over conventional amplifiers are reduced part counts, increased reliability, and simplified design. And while the individual components of a power op amp may cost more than alternatives, total cost, including design time, logistics, and production costs, may be less.
There are other advantages as well. When used as linear motor drivers, operational amplifiers produce lower electrical noise than their fast-switching digital counterparts.
An op amp is considered to be a power device if it has an output current greater than ±50 mA and a supply voltage greater than 44 V (±22 V for a dual-supply device). Some power op amps have internal power dissipations of up to 500 W, and can deliver up to 1,000 W of peak power in audio applications. So far, most of these devices are found in submarine sonar units.
Some devices can dissipate 500 W continually and deliver 30 A of current. The power and current handling capability is primarily the result of new packaging and protection techniques.
POP designers give close consideration to thermal characteristics. Manufacturers use copper-alloy packages and lead frames over steel because of its superior thermal conductivity. Copper conducts heat over five times faster than steel. To isolate localized substrate heating, and prevent cracking, multiple substrates are used. New soldering processes eliminate voids under the die and substrate, allowing higher safe operating areas (SOA).
Some op amps incorporate a voltage-current limiter circuit to protect the amplifier from SOA damage such as a short to ground. The limiter senses both output current and voltage, and increases current limit value as output voltage approaches supply voltage. The circuit is activated by connecting a programming resistor.
Power op amps often use circuits that minimize the number of power-handling components. In many power amps, the output devices may take some 70% of the silicon die area and, thus, bear appreciably on device cost. Older designs frequently used at least three power components, a quasi-complementary pair of output transistors and a standoff diode. These components were required to provide class AB operation.
The alternative to power op amps in most applications is to build comparable circuits with discrete power transistors. The discrete approach has often been less expensive in applications that do not demand high performance. Typically, discrete designs must use class C power outputs (where output transistors are off for much more than half the cycle) rather than class B or AB complementary output used on hybrids.
One reason discrete designs are often built class C is because their outputs cannot be thermally matched sufficiently to obtain a class B output. The problem is that the voltage needed to drive a given amount of current through a transistor drops appreciably with temperature. Thermal tracking circuits that compensate for the effect are difficult to construct with discrete components because the circuits must precisely register the temperature of the base-emitter junction of the power transistor. On the other hand, hybrid circuits (and monolithic devices) can provide tracking more easily because of the close proximity of components.
Discrete power amps based on class C operation commonly use a feedback circuit to obtain adequate response. Manufacturers say that such designs are often acceptable where loop response time is less than 1 msec and where amplified signals are below 1 kHz. But these designs may be difficult to stabilize at higher speeds. Feedback in class C designs is nonlinear with rapid changes in stage gain as the circuit goes from threshold to full on. Because of such difficulties, discrete power circuits may produce greatly distorted outputs when operating at frequencies of around 10 kHz.
Automatic test equipment manufacturers often use power op amps in programmable power supplies. They are also used in phased-array sonar because of their accurate phase response and linearity. And head-up displays for fighter planes are simplified because of the high slew rates of POPs.
Many POP designs ultimately drive some type of dc motor. Manufacturers warn of several considerations that must be taken into account for such circuits, particularly back electromotive force. When the motor suddenly stops or reverses, a large voltage develops across the amplifier output stage. The output transistor also current limits, and this combination must be checked against the SOA.
Other inductive loads such as lead wires or coils can also drive a POP out of its SOA. To guard against transients, some amplifiers have built-in protection diodes that clip flyback voltages greater than Vs. In other designs, external diodes must be used.
Large capacitive loads can cause POPs to oscillate. Usually, critical capacitance depends on the amount of feedback. The lower the gain, the lower the capacitance that can start oscillations. Op amp manufacturers can suggest ways to deal with capacitive loads and prevent ringing.
Because POPs operate at high currents, manufacturers have issued precautions for prototype designs.
- When a circuit is powered up for the first time, power supplies should be set to the minimum operating level indicated on the data sheet.
- Current limit levels should be set by current limiting resistors, not the lab power supply. A low current setting on the supply does not always provide surge protection from the filter capacitors. Current limiting resistors ensure operation in the SOA, and prevent breakdown of the bipolar output stages.
- Once basic circuit operation is verified, the current limit can be raised. After the worst case operating conditions have been checked, supply voltages can be increased.
- Improper grounding also causes POP performance problems, since large output currents can cause ground loops. In general, loops can be avoided by returning grounds (for load, output compensation, and low-level signals) separately to the same point. Improper grounding of test equipment also causes difficulties. A common recommendation is to eliminate any direct ground connection between the signal generator and oscilloscope timing input.
- Although a POP may be rated to dissipate 90 W continuously, it cannot do so unless properly mounted on a heat sink. One manufacturer reports that customers sometimes drill a single hole encompassing both pins in the heat sink to mount a TO-3 package. Because most heat comes from inside the pin circle, a long thermal path and poor operation result.
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The continuing battle to cool spent fuel rods at Japan's Fukushima's nuclear power station puts a spotlight on the growing amount of radioactive waste accumulating at American nuclear power plants.
Because there is yet no permanent storage facility for spent fuel, this very hazardous material is kept near the reactors which generated it. According to a new Associated Press investigation, the nation now maintains nearly 72,000 tons of nuclear waste. And this amount is growing by about 2,200 tons every year.
Nuclear fuel waste -- which stays toxic for thousands of years -- is currently housed in two types of temporary storage: cooling pools and dry casks. Fuel rods must first cool in the pools for at least five years before transfer to the casks that keep the material safe for about 100 years. AP reports that many of the pools are overloaded, some with four times what they were designed to hold. Almost 55,000 tons of waste are still in pools.
U.S. commercial nuclear waste is housed at 119 power plants in 31 states. (Fifteen of these plants are no longer operating.) California has four such facilities. (Two are producing electricity, two are closed.) California's current waste totals 3,186 tons (2,180 in pools, 956 in dry casks). See AP's interactive map for statistics on other states' inventory.
PHOTO CREDIT: A SMUD technician walks over the pool where the first fuel rods are being kept before being loaded into the new Rancho Seco nuclear reactor. 1974 Sacramento Bee photo by Andrew DeLucia.
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AFGHANISTAN HAS the highest rate of ‘violence against women’ cases in the world such that during the last six months more than 2000 cases of violence have been registered throughout the country. It is said that most cases of violence against women are not reported due to the traditional and cultural complexities in Afghanistan; these cases include physical torture, murder, marital exchange and acts of suicide under extreme psychological pressure.
According to the ministry of Women’s Affairs, more than 57 per cent of Afghan girls are married before their legal age.
It is estimated that 99 per cent of cases of family violence remain unreported that adds to the complication of the matter.
According to a recent report by an International Organisation of Women’s rights, Afghan women lack their primary necessities and are subject to extreme violence. The report adds that although seven years have passed since the Taliban regime’s collapse, women are still unsafe in the country. Based on the report, ratio of suicides committed by Afghan women is higher than that of men. The government has also been criticised for not being able to implement pro-women laws, which have diversely affected the social and political presence of women in Afghanistan.
Recently, a shocking news about a men cutting off his wife’s nose and ears was reported. The victim said her husband wanted to remarry and therefore committed the criminal act; in contrast, the husband accused his wife of adultery, a claim denied by the police and women’s affairs.
Ministry of Women’s Affairs said that in coordination with other governmental organisations and the international community, it is trying to help better the situation of women in Afghanistan, a claim whose accuracy is to be judged by the passage of time.
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Learn something new every day
More Info... by email
Spyware refers to programs that use your Internet connection to send information from your personal computer to some other computer, normally without your knowledge or permission. Most often this information is a record of your ongoing browsing habits, downloads, or it could be more personal data like your name and address.
Different strains of spyware perform different functions. Some might also hijack your browser to take you to an unexpected site, cause your computer to dial expensive 900 numbers, replace the Home page setting in your browser with another site, or serve you personal ads, even when you're offline. The form that serves personalized advertisements is called adware also known as malware or scumware.
Some programs that have included spyware, like RealPlayer, disclose this information in their terms and conditions when RealPlayer is installed, though most users don't read the terms and conditions when they install software, particularly if it is free. KaZaA, a free file sharing program, also includes it, and there are many others.
But spyware doesn't have to come bundled with another application to find its way on to your computer. In fact, most is installed surreptitiously. You might visit a website that pops up a window informing you the site won't display correctly unless you allow it to install a file or plug-in. Answering yes to a prompt that you don't understand can allow spyware to be loaded. You might also agree to load a program that, unbeknownst to you, has spyware code included.
The concern with spyware, whether its presence is disclosed or not, and the reason it is universally reviled by so many, is that the user cannot verify or monitor what is actually being gathered and sent from their computer. There is no built-in mechanism for the user to oversee the process and no checks-and-balances in place, legally or otherwise to ensure the security of, or confirm just how the information is being used. Spyware is virtually unregulated. Add to this unfavorable scenario the fact that it uses personal resources: your bandwidth, processing power, and memory, to perform work for an outside entity at the expense of your privacy. Still, some programs that include it are very popular.
It is estimated that 90% of all computers on the Internet are infected with spyware.
Some telltale signs of infection are:
Some anti-spyware programs will scan your computer for existing software and alert you to what it finds. You can quarantine suspected bugs so they can no longer function. It is very important to read the manual as removing spyware can lead to system or software problems if done incorrectly.
After running software to quarantine or remove the spyware, make sure you're using software to prevent new programs from being installed.
These programs do not load into memory or run in the background. They rely on internal databases of known spyware keys, which they use to scan and protect your system. Therefore, like a virus program, their databases must be updated regularly.
Does Aol work with FBI or Homeland Security to hack our computers?
The well known are as follows:
Downloader: A kind of malicious program can download penetration from Internet.
Dropper: A kind of design used to put other malicious software into computers which are attacked.
Backdoor: A kind of application used to communicate with remote attacker, allowing them to gain access to the system and control system.
Keylogger: The program can record user information when typing in each keyboard and then send the information to remote attackers.
Dialer: A kind of program used to connect additional billing numbers. Users almost can't pay attention to the creation of a new connection. Dialer only can harm the users who use dial-up modems.
A Trojan usually adopts an executable file form with the extension exe
. If files on computer are detected b the Trojan, you should delete them as it is the most likely to contain malicious code.
Famous Trojan horse examples: NetBus, Trojandownloader. Small. ZL, Slapper.
If you have been infected with a Trojan virus, you need a trojan remover software to help you scan and kill the Trojan.
I find one of the best defenses when trying a new site is to use McAfee Site Advisor. Site Advisor is a free plug-in that tests almost every website you search for. The application either gives a green, yellow, red, or grey light to alert you to the potential dangers of opening a web page.
The green light means that the site has been tested clean for downloads, email spam, and malicious links. The yellow bubbles will alert you to a site with potentially questionable downloads, or excessive emails. The red bubbles mean that the site has malicious links, emails, and downloads. Lastly, the grey bubbles means McAfee has not tested the site
The application is not an adware or spyware removal tool, but it will detect malicious software and alert you to it before you visit the site.
Google does a pretty good job of scanning sites that try to install spyware on visitors' computers. If you visit such a site from a search result on Google, they will give a very clear warning before you click through to the destination.
Of course using anti-spyware software is the more comprehensive approach. But, using Google to test new sites can work as good backup.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!
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First name origins & meanings:
- English: Rough road
- Middle English: Occupational name meaning “landowner”; also place name: Lander, Wyoming
- French: Entrepreneur
First name variations: Landree, Landre, Landri, Landrie, Landrue, Landor, Landis, Landers, Landman, Lander
Last name origins & meanings:
- French (also English, imported to Britain by the Normans): from the
Germanic personal name Landric, a compound of land
‘land’ + rīc ‘powerful’, ‘ruler’.
- The name has been recorded in Quebec City since 1659, taken there
from Perche, France. In LA, Landry families of Acadian
origin are numerous.
Comments for Landry
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Forest Health in Georgia
A top priority of the Georgia Forestry Commission is protecting the health of Georgia's forests.
The Forest Health Program staff conducts and oversees a variety of pest surveys to monitor and detect the presence of insects, diseases, and invasive plants that can harm Georgia's forests; monitors damage caused by disaster events such as wildfire, hurricanes, and tornadoes that can affect forest health; provides support for issues that are not easily diagnosed or occurring on a regional scale; and, offers technical assistance and training to land managers in order to minimize the impact of regional issues such as periodic pine bark beetle outbreaks, heterobasidion root disease, and non-native exotics such as the hemlock woolly adelgid, gypsy moth, and the redbay ambrosia beetle/laurel wilt disease.
County Foresters and Chief Rangers provide the majority of forest health assists to landowners in Georgia. Foresters are available for a variety of insect, disease, and invasive plant diagnosis and advice.
Contact the Forest Health Staff
Thanks to our partner in conservation and protection for providing project funding. The GFC is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.
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This text was copied from Wikipedia on 23 June 2016 at 3:25PM.
|This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)|
|Second Anglo-Dutch War|
|Part of the Anglo-Dutch wars|
Top: Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667 Pieter Cornelisz van Soest c. 1667. The captured ship Royal Charles is right of centre.
Bottom: The Royal Prince and other vessels at the Four Days Fight, 11–14 June 1666 (Abraham Storck) depicts a battle of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In the foreground the Swiftsure with Berkeley sinks. On the right the grounded Prince Royal with admiral Ayscue surrenders by firing white smoke; de Ruyter on the Zeven Provinciën accepts. In between the Royal Charles can just be seen with a broken mast.
| Dutch Republic
Bishopric of Münster
|Commanders and leaders|
| Michiel de Ruyter
Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam
Pieter de Bitter
Cornelis de Witt
Willem Joseph van Ghent
Claus von Ahlefeldt
Joseph de La Berre
| Duke of York
Sir Thomas Teddiman
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle
Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Fortress, 250 men
|Casualties and losses|
23 warships lost
10 civilians killed
2 Ships Captured
29 warships lost
The Second Anglo-Dutch War (4 March 1665 – 31 July 1667) was a conflict fought between England and the United Provinces for control over the seas and trade routes, where England tried to end the Dutch domination of world trade during a period of intense European commercial rivalry. After initial English successes, the war ended in a Dutch victory. It was part of a series of four Anglo-Dutch Wars fought between the English (later British) and the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The First Anglo-Dutch War was concluded with an English victory in the Battle of Scheveningen in August 1653, although a peace treaty was not signed for another eight months. The Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell tried to avoid further conflict with the Dutch Republic. It did not come to the aid of its ally, Sweden, when the Dutch thwarted the Swedish attempt to conquer Denmark in the Battle of the Sound on November 8, 1658. The Commonwealth was at war with Spain—the Anglo-Spanish War of 1655–1660. The English feared Dutch intervention in this war on the side of the Spanish, in part, because the Republic contained a strong Orangist party hostile to Cromwell. The leading personage of the Royal House of Orange was young Prince William who was the grandson of Charles I the lately beheaded king of England. Thus, the Commonwealth of England feared that the Orange party was under the influence of exiled English royalists.
In reality, however, the Dutch were busy building up their shipping and trading fleet again following the devastation of the First Anglo-Dutch War. While the English had won a great many naval battles and destroyed a great many Dutch ships during the First Anglo-Dutch War, they failed to win the war. The Republic was in a better financial position than the Commonwealth of England; as a result, the Dutch could keep on fitting out their naval fleet to make up for the losses they sustained at a pace the English were unable to match. While the war continued, the Dutch had also been free to expand their trade networks along the main sea routes outside English home waters without fear of English retaliation due to their lack of available ships. English commerce was grinding to a halt as they lost access to the Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas, and when the two sides signed the peace treaty in 1654, the English were in essentially the same position that they had begun: watching the Dutch Republic outstrip their economy to become the premier European trade power.
To make matters worse, the conclusion of this war was immediately followed by the Anglo-Spanish War of 1654-1660, which disrupted the remnants of trade the Commonwealth had with Spain and Southern Italy and gave the Dutch free rein to expand their influence in the area: this period was one of the highest points in the Dutch Golden Age, and ironically the English interference was partly to blame.
The real problem with the English trading system was that it was based on tariffs and customs while the Dutch system was based on free trade. Dutch goods were much more attractive around the world because they lacked the additional taxing on imports and exports that came with English goods. The end of the First Anglo-Dutch War had not changed this dynamic. Indeed, the end of the war had set the United Provinces free to expand their trade while the English were still hindered by the same tariff system. Thus, another war seemed inevitable to many people of the time, lest the Commonwealth lose their naval and economical superiority for good.
The Treaty of Westminster itself planted the seeds of future conflict because of its secret annexe which contained the Act of Seclusion. The Act of Seclusion forbade the Province of Holland (and by practical extension, any other province of the United Provinces of the Netherlands) from installing any member of the House of Orange as their stadtholder. On April 22, 1654, the States-General of the entire United Provinces approved the Treaty of Westminster, unaware of the secret annexe that had been attached to the Treaty in the version that the English had ratified. It was expected that each province in the United Provinces of the Netherlands would vote for a separate Act of Exclusion in which each province would refuse to install any member of the House of Orange as stadholder of that particular province. Of course the most important province was Holland. Thanks to the influence that Johan de Witt could exert over the States-General, the Province of Holland was hardly ever overruled in the States General. On May 4, 1654, the Province of Holland passed its own Act of Exclusion.
The Restoration of Charles II, in 1660, produced a general surge of optimism in England. Many hoped to reverse the Dutch dominance in world trade. At first, however, Charles II sought to remain on friendly terms with the Republic, as he was personally greatly in debt to the House of Orange, which had lent enormous sums to Charles I during the English Civil War. Nevertheless, a conflict soon developed with the States of Holland over the education and future prospects of his nephew William III of Orange, the posthumous son of Dutch stadtholder William II of Orange, over whom Charles had been made a guardian by his late sister Mary. The Dutch, in this coordinated by Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, tried to placate the king with prodigious gifts, such as the Dutch Gift of 1660. Negotiations were started in 1661 to solve these issues, which ended in the treaty of 1662, in which the Dutch conceded on most points. In 1663, Louis XIV of France stated his claim to portions of the Habsburg Southern Netherlands, leading to a short rapprochement between England and the Republic. During this time, Lord Clarendon, serving as chief minister to King Charles II of England, felt that France had become the greatest danger to England.
In 1664, however, the situation quickly changed. Clarendon's enemy, Lord Arlington, became the favourite of the king and began to cooperate with the king's brother James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral. Both James and Lord Arlington agreed that war with the United Provinces of the Netherland was more in the interests of England than war with France. They coordinated their efforts in order to bring about war with the Dutch. They both expected great personal gain from any war with the Dutch. James, the Duke of York, headed the Royal African Company and hoped to seize the possessions of the Dutch West India Company. The two were supported by the English ambassador in The Hague, George Downing (after whom Downing Street in London is named). George Downing despised the Dutch and from his position in the Hague gave a full and detailed account of all the political affairs in the United Provinces. Downing reported back to London that the Republic was politically divided between Orangists, who gladly would collaborate with an English enemy in case of war, and a States faction consisting of wealthy merchants that would give in to any English demand in order to protect their trade interests.
Lord Arlington planned to subdue the Dutch completely by permanent occupation of key Dutch cities. Charles was easily influenced by James and Arlington as he sought a popular and lucrative foreign war at sea to bolster his authority as king.:65 Many naval officers welcomed the prospect of a conflict with the Dutch as they expected to make their name and fortune in battles they hoped to win as decisively as in the previous war.:66
As enthusiasm for war rose among the English populace, privateers began to attack Dutch ships, capturing them and taking them to English harbors. By the time that Charles II of England declared war on the United Provinces about two hundred Dutch ships had been brought in the English ports Dutch ships were obligated by the new treaty to salute the English flag first. In 1664, English ships began to provoke the Dutch by not saluting in return. Though ordered by the Dutch government to continue saluting first, many Dutch commanders could not bear the insult. Still, the resulting flag incidents were not the casus belli, as in the previous war. To provoke open conflict, James already in late 1663 had sent Robert Holmes, in service of the Royal African Company, to capture Dutch trading posts and colonies in West Africa.:67 At the same time, the English invaded the Dutch colony of New Netherland in North America on 24 June 1664, and had control of it by October. The Dutch responded by sending a fleet under Michiel de Ruyter that recaptured their African trade posts, captured most English trade stations there and then crossed the Atlantic for a punitive expedition against the English in America.:68 In December 1664, the English suddenly attacked the Dutch Smyrna fleet. Though the attack failed, the Dutch in January 1665 allowed their ships to open fire on English warships in the colonies when threatened. Charles used this as a pretext to declare war on the Netherlands on 4 March 1665.
The war was supported in England by much propaganda; the cause célèbre was the previous Amboyna Massacre of 1623. That year, ten English factors, resident in the Dutch fortress of Victoria on Ambon were executed by beheading on accusations of treason. During the trial, the English prisoners were allegedly hung up with cloth placed over their faces, upon which water dripped until the victims inhaled water (this is today called waterboarding). After some time, they were taken down to vomit up the water, only to repeat the experience. The Dutch also allegedly placed candles on the victims' bodies to demonstrate the translucence of the flesh. The English at the time milked the alleged atrocity for all it was worth in a long drawn-out diplomatic incident. The English East India Company published an extensive pamphlet in 1631, setting out its case against the Dutch VOC, and this was used for anti-Dutch propaganda during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Though the matter was supposed to be settled with the Treaty of Westminster (1654), now pamphleteers reminded the public of it as the war neared. Additionally, broadsheets demonized the Dutch as drunken and profane, with Andrew Marvell's 1653 insult of Holland, "The Character of Holland," reprinted ("This indigested vomit of the Sea,/ Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety"). When De Ruyter recaptured the West African trading posts, many pamphlets were written about presumed new Dutch atrocities, although these contained no basis in fact.: 290–291
The deeper cause of the conflict was mercantile competition. The English sought to take over the Dutch trade routes and colonies while excluding the Dutch from their own colonial possessions. Contraband shipping had gone on from English colonies in America and Surinam for a decade, and the English felt that they were being cheated of their revenues. The Dutch, for their part, considered it their right to trade with anyone anywhere, defending the principle of the mare liberum. However, they enforced a monopoly in the Dutch Indies, and threatened to expand it to India, after taking over the Portuguese settlements on the Malabar coastline. The vilification of Dutch traders in England was at least partially an expression of unease with the presence of notable Cromwellian politicians and officers in Holland in exile. Charles II had reason to be nervous about the possibility of a Dutch invasion coordinated with an uprising within England. In addition, many members of the English elite would gain personally if Dutch ships were captured.
After their defeat in the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch became much better prepared. Beginning in 1653, a "New Navy" was constructed, a core of sixty new, heavier ships with professional captains. Losses had been consequently replaced after this. However, these ships were still much lighter than the ten "big ships" of the English navy. In 1664, when war threatened, it was decided to completely replace the core Dutch fleet with still heavier ships. Upon the outbreak of war in 1665, these new vessels were mostly still under construction, and the Dutch only possessed four heavier ships of the line. During the second war, the new ships were quickly completed, with another twenty ordered and built. England, meanwhile, could only build a dozen ships, due to financial difficulties.
In 1665, England boasted a population about four times as large as that of the Dutch Republic. This population was dominated by poor peasants, however, and so the only source of ready cash were the cities. The Dutch urban population exceeded that of England in both proportional and absolute terms and the Republic would be able to spend more than twice the amount of money on the war as England, the equivalent of ₤11,000,000.:79 The outbreak of war was followed ominously by the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, hitting the only major urban centre of the country. These events, occurring in such close succession, virtually brought England to its knees, as the English fleet had suffered from cash shortages even before these calamities, despite having been voted a record budget of ₤2,500,000 by the English parliament. The navy did not pay its sailors with money, but with "tickets", or debt certificates. Charles lacked an effective means of enforcing taxation. The only way to finance the war, in effect, was to capture Dutch trade fleets. English penury made the war's outcome dependent on the fortunes of its privateers; in fact Dutch privateers would be the more successful.:78
The first encounter between the nations was, as in the First Anglo-Dutch War, at sea. Fighting began in earnest with the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June, where the English gained a great victory; it was the worst defeat of the Dutch Republic's navy in history. The English, though, were unable to capitalise on the victory. The leading Dutch politician, the Grand Pensionary of Holland Johan de Witt, quickly restored confidence by joining the fleet personally. Under De Witt, ineffective captains were removed and new tactics formalised. In August Michiel de Ruyter returned from America to a hero's welcome and was given supreme command of the confederate fleet. The Spice Fleet from the Dutch East Indies managed to return home safely after the Battle of Vågen, though at first blockaded at Bergen, causing the financial position of England to deteriorate.:70 For every warship the English built during the conflict, the Dutch shipyards turned out seven.
In the summer of 1665 the bishop of Münster, Bernhard von Galen, an old enemy of the Dutch, was induced by promises of English subsidies to invade the Republic. At the same time, the English made overtures to Spain. Louis XIV, though obliged by a 1662 treaty to assist the Republic in a war with England, had postponed his aid on the pretence of wanting to negotiate a peace. Louis was now greatly alarmed by the attack by Münster and the prospect of an English–Spanish coalition. Intent on conquering the Spanish Netherlands, Louis feared that a collapse of the Republic could create a powerful Habsburg entity on his northern border, as the Habsburgs were the traditional allies of the German bishops. He immediately promised to send a French army corps, and French envoys—under the grand name of the célèbre ambassade—arrived in London to begin negotiations in earnest, threatening the wrath of the French monarch if the English failed to comply.
These events caused great consternation at the English court. It now seemed that the Republic would end up as either a Habsburg possession or a French protectorate. Either outcome would be disastrous for England's strategic position. Clarendon, always having warned about "this foolish war", was ordered to quickly make peace with the Dutch without French mediation. Downing used his Orangist contacts to induce the province of Overijssel, whose countryside had been ravaged by Galen's troops, to ask the States General for a peace with England conceding—so the Orangists naively thought—to the main English demand that the young William III would be made Captain-General and Admiral-General of the Republic and ensured of the stadtholderate. The sudden return of De Witt from the fleet prevented the Orangists from seizing power. In November, the States General promised Louis never to conclude a separate peace with England. On 11 December it openly declared that the only acceptable peace terms would be either a return to the Status quo ante bellum or a quick end to hostilities under a uti possidetis clause.
In the winter of 1666 the Dutch created a strong anti-English alliance. On 26 January, Louis declared war. In February, Frederick III of Denmark did the same after having received a large sum. Then Brandenburg threatened to attack Münster from the east. The promised English subsidies having remained largely hypothetical, Von Galen made peace with the Republic in April at Cleves. By the spring of 1666, the Dutch had rebuilt their fleet with much heavier ships — thirty of them possessing more cannon than any Dutch ship in early 1665 — and threatened to join with the French.:71 Charles made a new peace offer in February, employing a French nobleman in Orange service, Henri Buat, as messenger. In it he vaguely promised to moderate his demands if the Dutch would only appoint William in some responsible function and pay £200,000 in "indemnities". De Witt considered it a mere feint to create dissension among the Dutch and between them and France. A new confrontation was inevitable.
The result was the Four Days' Battle, one of the longest naval engagements in history. Despite administrative and logistic difficulties, a fleet of eighty ships, under General at Sea George Monck, the Commonwealth veteran (afterwards the Duke of Albemarle), set sail at the end of May 1666. Prince Rupert of the Rhine was then detached with twenty of these ships to intercept a French squadron on 29 May (Julian calendar), which had been thought to be passing through the English Channel, presumably to join the Dutch fleet.:72 In fact, the French fleet was still largely in the Mediterranean.
Leaving the Downs, Albemarle came upon De Ruyter's fleet of 85 ships at anchor, and he immediately engaged the nearest Dutch ship before the rest of the fleet could come to its assistance. The Dutch rearguard under Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp set upon a starboard tack, taking the battle toward the Flemish shoals, compelling Albemarle to turn about, to prevent being outflanked by the Dutch rear and centre, culminating in a ferocious unremitting battle that raged until nightfall.:73 At daylight on 2 June, Albemarle's strength of operable vessels was reduced to 44 ships, but with these he renewed the battle tacking past the enemy four times in close action. With his fleet in too poor a condition to continue to challenge, he then retired towards the coast with the Dutch in pursuit.
The following day Albemarle ordered the damaged ships forward covering their return on the 3rd until Prince Rupert, returning with his twenty ships, joined him.:74 During this stage of the battle, Vice-Admiral George Ayscue, on the grounded Prince Royal — one of the nine remaining "big ships" —, surrendered, the last time in history for an English admiral in battle.:75 With the return of the fresh squadron under Prince Rupert the English now had more ships, yet the Dutch decided the battle on the fourth day, breaking the English line several times. When the English retreated, De Ruyter was reluctant to follow, perhaps because of lack of gunpowder. The battle ended with both sides claiming victory: the English because they contended Dutch Lieutenant Admiral Michiel de Ruyter had retreated first, the Dutch because they had inflicted much greater losses on the English, who lost ten ships against the Dutch four.
One more major sea battle would be fought in the conflict. The St. James's Day Battle on 4 and 5 August, ended in English victory but failed to decide the war as the Dutch fleet escaped certain annihilation. At this stage, simply surviving was sufficient for the Dutch, as the English could hardly afford even a victory. Tactically indifferent with the Dutch losing two ships and the English one, the battle would have enormous political implications. Cornelis Tromp, commanding the Dutch rear, had defeated his English counterpart, but was accused by De Ruyter of being responsible for the plight of the main body of the Dutch fleet by chasing the English rear squadron as far as the English coast. As Tromp was the champion of the Orange party, the conflict led to much party strife; because of this on 13 August Tromp was fired by the States of Holland. Five days later Charles made another peace offer to De Witt, again using Buat as an intermediary. Among the letters given to the Grand Pensionary, by mistake was included one containing the secret English instructions to their contacts in the Orange party, outlining plans for an overthrow of the States regime. Buat was arrested; his accomplices in the conspiracy fled the country to England, among them Tromp's brother-in-law Johan Kievit. De Witt now had proof of the collaborationist nature of the Orange movement and the major city regents distanced themselves from its cause. Buat was condemned for treason and beheaded.
The mood in the Republic now turned very belligerent, also because in August English vice-admiral Robert Holmes during his raid on the Vlie estuary in August 1666, destroyed about 130 merchantmen (Holmes's Bonfire) and sacked the island of Terschelling, setting the town of West-Terschelling aflame. In this he was assisted by a Dutch captain, Laurens Heemskerck, who had fled to England after having been condemned to death for cowardice shown during the Battle of Lowestoft.
After the Fire of London in September, the next peace offer by Charles came, again reducing his demands. Small "indemnities", the return of the nutmeg island of Pulau Run and a deal over India would suffice now; no more mention was made of the position of William. The States General simply referred to its declaration of 11 December 1665, no longer willing to make a slight concession that would allow Charles to withdraw from the war without losing face.
Early 1667, the financial position of the English crown became desperate. The kingdom simply lacked the money to make the entire fleet seaworthy, so it was decided in February that the heavy ships would remain laid up at Chatham. Clarendon explained to Charles that he had but two options: either to make very substantial concessions to Parliament or to begin peace talks with the Dutch under their conditions. In March these were indeed started at Breda, in the southern Generality Lands, as negotiations in the provinces themselves would by the conventions of the day be considered a sign of inferiority for the Dutch. Charles, however, did not negotiate in good faith. He had already decided to turn to a third option: becoming a secret ally of France to obtain money and undermine the Dutch position.:76 On 18 April he concluded his first secret treaty with Louis, stipulating that England would support a French conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. In May the French invaded, starting the War of Devolution; Charles hoped, by procrastinating the talks at Breda, to gain enough time to ready his fleet in order to obtain concessions from the Dutch, using the French advance as leverage.
De Witt was aware of Charles's general intentions (though not of the secret treaty). He decided to end the war with one stroke. Ever since its actions in Denmark in 1659, involving many landings to liberate the Danish Isles, the Dutch navy had made a special study of amphibious operations. In 1665 the Dutch Marine Corps (then under the name of Regiment de Marine) had been created. De Witt personally had arranged for the planning of a landing of marines at Chatham. At both the Four Days' Battle and the St James's Day Fight a Dutch marine contingent had been ready to land in the Medway immediately following a possible Dutch victory at sea. Conditions had not allowed for this in either battle, however. But now there was no English fleet of any quality able to contest command of the North Sea. It lay effectively defenceless at Chatham and De Witt ordered it destroyed.
In June, De Ruyter, with Cornelis de Witt supervising, launched the Dutch "Raid on the Medway" at the mouth of the River Thames. After capturing the fort at Sheerness, the Dutch fleet went on to break through the massive chain protecting the entrance to the Medway and, on the 13th, attacked the laid up English fleet. The daring raid remains England's greatest naval disaster. Fifteen of the Navy’s remaining ships were destroyed, either by the Dutch or by being scuttled by the English to block the river. Three of the eight remaining "big ships" were burnt: the Royal Oak, the new Loyal London and the Royal James. The largest, the English flagship HMS Royal Charles, was abandoned by its skeleton crew, captured without a shot being fired, and towed back to the Netherlands as a trophy. Its coat of arms is now on display in the Rijksmuseum. Fortunately for the English, the Dutch marines spared the Chatham Dockyard, England's largest industrial complex; a land attack on the docks themselves would have set back English naval power for a generation.:77A Dutch attack on the English anchorage at Harwich had to be abandoned however after a Dutch attempt made on Landguard Fort ended in failure.
The Dutch success made a major psychological impact throughout England, with London feeling especially vulnerable just a year after the Great Fire (which was generally interpreted in the Dutch Republic as divine retribution for Holmes's Bonfire). This, together with the cost of the war, of the Great Plague and the extravagant spending of Charles's court, produced a rebellious atmosphere in London. Clarendon ordered the English envoys at Breda to sign a peace quickly, as Charles feared an open revolt.
War in the Caribbean
The Second Anglo-Dutch war had spread to the Caribbean islands in 1665 and the English had been quick to capture the Dutch island of Sint Eustatius. A French declaration of war on the side of the Dutch in mid April 1666 took the situation a step further and buoyed a Dutch counterattack. Quickly the French under Joseph-Antoine de La Barre took over the English Caribbean islands offsetting English control. First the English half of St Kitts fell, quickly followed by Antigua and Montserrat. The Dutch meanwhile under Admiral Abraham Crijnssen had reconquered the island of Sint Eustatius and following that captured Suriname. With the Caribbean clearly in Franco-Dutch control Abraham Crijnssen and de La Barre combined forces and agreed to a Franco-Dutch invasion of Nevis on 20 May 1667. However, this invasion was repelled by the English in a confused naval action. After this failed attack and the fallout that followed, the French, under Admiral Joseph de la Barre, moved to Martinique. The Dutch under Crijnssen sailed to north to attack the Virginia colony.
In early June a new English fleet, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir John Harman, reached the West Indies. Harman brought reinforcements and attacked the French at Martinique and by 6 July virtually sunk, burnt or captured the vast majority of the French ships, 21 in all. Harman with the French fleet neutralized then attacked the French at Cayenne forcing its garrison to surrender and then went on to recapture Suriname by October. These English victories, though absolute, came too late to have any significant impact on the result of the war. Crijnssen sailed back to the Caribbean in horror only to find the French fleet vaporized and the English back in possession of Suriname. However, on 31 July the English and Dutch had signed the Treaty of Breda, and news of this filtered through by the end of October, beginning of November, ending hostilities. Part of the treaty was a stipulation that each side would keep the possessions it held on 31 July, so Surinam again returned to the Dutch.
On 31 July 1667, the Treaty of Breda sealed peace between the two nations. The treaty allowed the English to keep factual possession of New Netherland (renamed New York, after James), while the Dutch kept control over Pulau Run and the valuable sugar plantations of Suriname which they had conquered in 1667. This temporary uti possidetis solution would be made official in the Treaty of Westminster (1674). The Act of Navigation was moderated in favour of the Dutch.
The peace was generally seen as a personal triumph for Johan De Witt. The Republic was jubilant about the Dutch victory. De Witt used the occasion to induce four provinces to adopt the Perpetual Edict (1667) abolishing the stadtholderate forever. He used the weak position of Charles to force him into the Triple Alliance of 1668 which again forced Louis to temporarily abandon his plans for the conquest of the Southern Netherlands. But De Witt's success would eventually produce his downfall and nearly that of the Republic with it. Both humiliated monarchs intensified their secret cooperation and would, joined by the bishop of Münster, attack the Dutch in 1672 in the Third Anglo-Dutch War. De Witt was unable to counter this attack, as he could not create a strong Dutch army for lack of money and for fear that it would strengthen the position of the young William III. That same year De Witt was assassinated, and William became stadtholder.
- Rommelse, Gijs (2006) The Second Anglo–Dutch War (1665–1667): raison d'état, mercantilism and maritime strife, Uitgeverij Verloren, p. 184
- Phillipson, Coleman (2008) Termination of War and Treaties of Peace, The Lawbook Exchange, p. 222
- "Chatham: Dutch in the Medway", Luitenant-Admiraal Michiel de Ruyter
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995) p. 736.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477–1806, p. 727.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 721.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 721.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 727.
- Maurice Ashley, Great Britain to 1688: A Modern History (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1961) p. 365.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, p. 722.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 722.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 733.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 723.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, pp. 713–714.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1896, p. 753.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 750
- John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XVI: 1667–1714 (Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 1999) pp.33–34.
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic, Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 2.
- Rodger, NAM (2004), The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649–1815, Penguin .
- Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806, p. 766.
- Pomfret, Charles O (1973), Colonial New Jersey:A History, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 22
- Swindler, William F., ed. (1973–79), Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions 6, Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications, pp. 375–7
- Van Zandt, Franklin K (1976), Boundaries of the United States and the Several States, Geological Survey Professional Paper 909, Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, p. 79
- Pincus, Steven C.A. (2002), Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650 – 1668, Cambridge U.P. .
- “It can hardly be denied that the Dutch raid on the Medway vies with the Battle of Majuba in 1881 and the Fall of Singapore in 1942 for the unenviable distinctor of being the most humiliating defeat suffered by British arms.” – Charles Ralph Boxer: The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th Century, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London (1974), p.39
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Photo via Makezine
Bold, ornate and influenced by floral motifs, Hawaiian quilts offer a unique take on hand appliqué. With a rich history, Hawaiian-style quilts often included symbols to help record moments in history, like the birth of royalty. There are four distinctive elements you can use to help identify Hawaiian quilts, including their construction and common design elements.
Hawaiian quilts use large applique cut from a single piece of fabric.
Hawaiians traditionally created a material called “tapa” which was pounded from plant bark and shaped into garments and bedding. Europeans landing on the Polynesian islands introduced sewing and patchwork techniques to the Hawaiian people in the early 1800s, but they seemed to favor whole-fabric applique rather than patchwork techniques as quilting grew in popularity.
Hawaiian quilts use symmetry and a folding method to cut fabric.
Remember when you folded paper and cut out shapes to make a paper snowflake? This is a similar technique to what is seen in Hawaiian quilts. The large floral motifs are cut from fabric folded into quarters or eighths, which is reminiscent of the early designs Hawaiian women stamped onto their tapas. The resulting fabric cuts are symmetrical and can be hand appliqued onto a quilt top.
Traditional Hawaiian quilts use just two contrasting colors.
Hawaiian-style quilts typically use solid or near-solid fabrics in only two colors. With one color in the background and another contrasting color used in the foreground and border, these quilts were historically made from the fabrics that were most readily available, which was often red and white.
Echo quilting is a typical finishing method for traditional Hawaiian quilts.
The graceful, flowing quilting lines surrounding the floral motifs on Hawaiian quilts are most often an echo or outline quilting style. Some quilt historians believe this quilting style is in line with the cherished relationship Hawaiian people had with nature and their island.
Leimomi of The Dreamstress shares a finished Hawaiian Quilt made from white appliqué on a soft blue background. The pineapple is a popular motif in Hawaiian quilts, and she quilted the fruits with a simple crosshatch design while echo quilting the background.
Craftsy member Mary Geehan shows off her hand appliqué techniques in this Blue Hawaiian Baby Quilt made from solid and batik fabrics. The dolphin and seashell motifs are echoed throughout the quilt center and in the border.
Denyse Schmidt shares more about her Hawaiian-Style Appliqué quilt from the book Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration in an interview with Sew, Mama, Sew! She encourages quilters to create their own unique motif, perhaps making a simplified version of a pattern that inspires them for quicker needle-turn appliqué.
Phyllis Paulo hand appliquéd and machine quilted this Hawaiian Quilt as an anniversary gift. This project shows how the block designs can be made on a smaller scale and appliquéd to the quilt in rows to resemble quilt blocks.
If you’ve ever wanted to add this technique to your repertoire, we recommend the following tutorials:
- Makezine shares how to make a Hawaiian quilt from cutting the design to binding your finished quilt.
- The Purl Bee teaches how to make an easy felt floor pillow using Hawaiian-style applique.
- Quilts Hawaii shares a tutorial on how to use the Hawaiian quilting technique on your own projects.
- Martha Stewart posts a tutorial on how to make a Hawaiian quilted pillow cover.
Have you long admired Hawaiian quilts?
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What is Mindfulness and what are its benefits?
- Mindfulness is the gentle effort to be continuously present. It means paying attention on purpose, in the present, non-judgmentally. So many of us spend our lives worrying about the past or worrying about the future. The present moment is the only time in which we can truly be alive, yet many of us live in the past or the future.
- Practicing mindfulness through meditation aids in managing stress, improving focus, and in improving our capacity for effective, quality work. It also helps us to foster a wedge of awareness that can improve patience and lessen the impact, intent, characterization pattern that defines much of legal practice. For example, when someone says something we do not like, that impact instantly leads us to thoughts of purposeful intent, personal characterizations, and negative responses.
- Our work as teachers, employees, students, advocates, mediators, and litigators requires focus and being in the present moment. To cultivate that ability requires meditation practice!
How do I meditate?
- In a chair sit with your feet uncrossed and flat on the floor away from the chair back so your posture is self-supporting. Alternatively use one of multiple seated floor positions (kneeling, sitting cross-legged, or a lotus position) and a cushion can also be used. It is important not to slouch and hands can be placed palm up or down, on your knees, or folded in your lap.
- Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. As you breathe in, gather in any worry or tension as if collecting water in a sponge. During each exhale, mentally wring out the sponge. Continue to focus on your breathing and, without controlling it, notice its characteristics. Is it smooth, jagged, fast, slow, etc?
What should I do when my mind wanders?
As your mind wanders, refocus your mind on your breathing, perhaps using one of these techniques:
- Inhale & think “Breathing in I know that I am breathing in.” Exhale & think “Breathing out I know that I am breathing out.”
- Try to think of your next thought.
- View your wandering thoughts as though on a ticker at the bottom of CNN or ESPN. Notice your thoughts (e.g., I heard the clock ticking), then let them go, and refocus on your breathing.
- Manage an upcoming difficult event or conversation by imagining yourself in that moment. Breathe & sit with the sensation and then see yourself finding the right words to handle the situation. When you are actually in that moment, some part of you will have been there before.
What are the opportunities for mindfulness @ MSU Law?
Technically you can do this anytime and while doing any activity by being mindful of your breathing and fully present in what you are doing. In only 30 seconds you can breathe deeply and refocus yourself.
Try the “Stop, Breathe & Think App” The app directs you to check in with yourself, and then recommends a guided meditation.
Weekly Meditation Practice (Each Tuesday when class is in session at 1 p.m., Courtroom 428) Professor Pappas or a substitute will lead a guided mindfulness meditation.
All students, faculty, and staff are welcome. Please join us!
Sponsored by the ADR Program
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THE FIRE ANT PROBLEM
Fire ants are a major problem in the southern regions of the United States and account for billions of dollars in damage to crops, farm equipment and residential property. They were accidentally introduced in the 1930's through cargo that came to the USA via the port in Mobile, Alabama and rapidly expanded.
Fire Ants build mounds in the ground that can range from several inches to several feet in diameter. When disturbed, fire ants emerge from the mound and aggressively attack. The workers are 1/16" to almost 1/4" in length and are a reddish-brown color. The sting is painful and usually leaves a red welt on the skin with swelling and itchiness. One or more times during the spring through fall seasons, the ants will begin a mating swarm and the queen and drone ants with long silver-translucent wings can be seen in the mound.
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| 0.961981 | 183 | 3.578125 | 4 |
* Prices may differ from that shown
This is not a bad book on the whole. I’m glad to see that collaboration with shriver has calmed Atkins’ somewhat complicated and irrational manner of describing things. Published by Oxford university press once again, this book is in the same series as Physical Chemistry by Atkins. The book is still vastly mono-colour, but the explanations of the topics covered seem to be fairly comprehensive and complete at this stage in my course. The text is written in easy to understand English, and not like Physical Chemistry which seems to be in some other obscure language unbeknown to me. The topics are explained fully from basics, building-up to more complicated examples as your knowledge increases. Worked example questions feature throughout the text and are a useful guide to check your understanding of a particular area of the work. I would say that this book is an essential buy for any undergraduate studying Chemistry. It is an essential reference book for anyone involved in this field. My only criticism of this book is, as with many all-in-one books, that sometimes specific areas are not sufficiently expanded upon. In these cases, it is necessary to turn my attention to other more specialised texts. Definitely worth the price, but not to be relied on exclusively.
Inorganic chemistry is an important subject, covering the chemistry of over 100 elements. This book conveys the important principles and facts in a way that is both understandable and enjoyable to undergraduates. Chemical facts are presented in a framework of interpretation. Thus, reactions and structures are presented within the context of broad chemical concepts and periodic trends. The material is reinforced with illustrations. Examples in the text help to illustrate important points, and end-of-chapter exercises and problems help to emphasize their importance.
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As part of the federal government’s efforts to prepare for a possible pandemic involving avian influenza (bird flu), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is supporting the development and testing of candidate avian influenza vaccines. The Institute has initiated a series of clinical trials to evaluate these vaccine candidates. This set of questions and answers pertains to these clinical trials of H5N1 and H9N2 influenza vaccines.
The H5N1 virus is one of 16 different known subtypes of influenza virus. All influenza viruses (human and avian) are of significant concern to public health officials because these viruses can mutate rapidly and have a tendency to acquire genes from flu viruses that infect other animal species. In addition, some H5N1 viruses are highly pathogenic, meaning they can cause severe disease and death in humans.
In the past decade, highly pathogenic avian influenza A viruses, specifically H5N1 viruses, have caused widespread sickness and death in domestic and wild bird populations around the world. As the spread of H5N1 infection among birds increases, so does the opportunity for H5N1 to be transmitted directly from birds to humans. When an influenza virus “jumps” species from an animal, such as a chicken, to infect a human, the result is usually a “dead-end” infection that cannot easily spread further in the human population. However, mutations in the virus could develop that allow efficient human-to-human transmission.
As of January 12, 2007, H5N1 has infected 265 humans worldwide, resulting in the death of more than half of the infected individuals. (For up-to-date numbers, see the World Health Organization Web site at http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/en/index.html.) While human cases remain relatively rare and are largely the result of direct virus transmission from infected birds, a few suspected cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported. The severity of disease and the potential for sustained and efficient human-to-human spread has caused great concern among public health officials and provided a major incentive to accelerate developing a human vaccine for avian influenza.
If avian and human influenza viruses were to simultaneously infect a person or animal, the two viruses might swap genes. The result could be a new virus that is readily transmissible between humans and against which humans would have no natural immunity. Such an event could trigger a worldwide influenza pandemic.
Subtypes of influenza virus are named according to two specific proteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, that appear on the surface of the virus. Hemagglutinin allows the virus to “stick” to a cell and initiate infection, while neuraminidase enables newly formed viruses to exit the host cell. Currently, there are 16 known variants of hemagglutinin protein and 9 known variants of neuraminidase proteins. This particular subtype of influenza virus has hemagglutinin type 5 and neuraminidase type 1, so it is known as H5N1.
In 2004, NIAID awarded two contracts for production and clinical testing of investigational vaccines against H5N1. Both sanofi pasteur (Swiftwater, PA) and Chiron (Emeryville, CA) are producing vaccines made from inactivated H5N1 viruses for NIAID to test in clinical trials. Under these contracts, sanofi pasteur has already delivered more than 8,000 doses to NIAID; Chiron has delivered more than 1,000 doses.
Also in 2004, NIAID directed Chiron Corporation to produce 40,000 doses of an experimental H9N2 vaccine. This strain of avian influenza infected two children in Hong Kong in 1999.
For more information on avian influenza clinical trials, see ClinicalTrials.gov.
The H5N1 reference virus (the strain used to produce the H5N1 vaccines for NIAID’s clinical trials) was developed by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, using a technique known as reverse genetics. NIAID provided this H5N1 reference virus to both sanofi pasteur and Chiron in spring 2004 for vaccine production.
The first clinical trial began in April 2005; it tested the H5N1 vaccine produced by sanofi pasteur in 451 healthy adults ages 18 to 64. This trial, which is completed, evaluated the safety of the vaccine and its ability to generate an immune response (immunogenicity). A report published in the March 30, 2006 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine showed that two doses of the 90-µg dosage H5N1 candidate vaccine generated the highest immune response among those dosages tested.
A trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the sanofi pasteur H5N1 vaccine in persons 65 and older began in October 2005. A similar trial in children ages 2 through 9 years old opened in January 2006. Immunogenicity data for both elderly and pediatric trials are expected in early 2007.
NIAID also supported a trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity in healthy adults of a Chiron/Novartis H9N2 vaccine combined with an adjuvant known as MF59. Adjuvants are substances that are added to a vaccine to improve the immune response to the vaccine. A report published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in November 2006 showed that a good antibody response was generated among the lowest dosage of the adjuvant-containing H9N2 vaccine. Studies also showed that a single dose of vaccine with adjuvant was as good as two doses of unadjuvanted H9N2 vaccine.
NIAID is also interested in the development of other vaccine technologies including alternative strategies to egg-based vaccine production. Through a subcontract with Baxter International (Deerfield, IL), NIAID is supporting trials of a whole-virus H5N1 candidate vaccine that was produced using the company’s vero-cell-based technology platform. This strategy produces high yields of influenza virus without the addition of any animal-derived serum.
Additionally, in December 2006, scientists with the NIAID Vaccine Research Center (VRC) in Bethesda, MD, launched the first clinical trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza. Unlike conventional flu vaccines, administered as a weakened or killed form of the virus, the DNA vaccine designed by VRC scientists contains no infectious material but only portions of the influenza virus’ genetic material. Once inside the body, the DNA instructs human cells to make proteins that act as a vaccine against the virus.
Yes, NIAID studies are evaluating various strategies to optimize a limited vaccine supply. NIAID has completed a Phase I trial to evaluate the response to intradermal (under the skin) administration of the sanofi pasteur H5N1 vaccine; the purpose of the study is to determine if a smaller intradermal dose may be as immunogenic as a larger dose administered intramuscularly (see question 8). NIAID also is conducting H5N1 and H9N2 vaccine trials with adjuvants.
All dose regimens of inactivated influenza A/H5N1 vaccine administered intradermally and intramuscularly were safe and well tolerated for all study participants. It was concluded that at the doses tested there was no clear advantage with regard to immunogenicity of intradermal administration when compared with intramuscular administration. Additional studies of H5N1 vaccine delivery are under consideration.
NIAID is evaluating the H5N1 vaccine with aluminum hydroxide adjuvant in two studies in healthy adults and healthy elderly. These trials are being conducted at NIAID’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs). These trials are designed to investigate the safety, reactogenicity and dose-related immunogenicity of an investigational inactivated influenza A/H5N1 vaccine when given alone or combined with aluminum hydroxide. NIAID is also assessing safety and dose-related immunogenicity of H5N1 vaccine adjuvanted with aluminum hydroxide or MF59 in healthy adults in a separate trial.
NIAID has initiated a series of clinical trials of H5N1 candidate vaccines. These clinical trials are being conducted at NIAID’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs). This network of university research hospitals across the United States conducts Phase I and II clinical trials to evaluate candidate vaccines for infectious diseases. Not all VTEUs are involved in every trial of H5N1 vaccines; rather, various VTEUs are involved in different stages of this series of clinical trials. NIAID’s VTEU sites are as follows:
The trial in healthy adults was initiated at three VTEU sites: the University of Rochester; the University of Maryland; and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The trial in elderly subjects is taking place at four sites: UCLA; University of Cincinnati; University of Rochester; and Vanderbilt University. The pediatric trial is being conducted at three VTEUs: the University of Maryland, UCLA; and Saint Louis University.
Currently, NIAID is testing a range of concentrations, known as dosage levels, of the sanofi pasteur H5N1 and the Chiron/Novartis H9N2 vaccines to evaluate safety and immunogenicity.
No, you cannot get the flu from receiving an inactivated H5N1 or H9N2 vaccine.
A major objective of these clinical trials is to evaluate the immune response generated by an H5N1 or H9N2 vaccine made from an inactivated form of the same virus. The immune response is determined by measuring levels of infection-fighting antibodies in those vaccinated, to see whether the antibodies reach a level that scientists think should be able to provide protection.
We know that flu viruses change over time (a process known as “antigenic drift”). However, in response to the increasing number of H5 cases reported in early 2004, public health officials deemed it critical to move ahead quickly and select one of the available human H5 viruses for vaccine production. If a distinct H5N1 virus should suddenly emerge, an additional new vaccine against that strain may be needed. Ultimately, the experience gained by manufacturers in producing the current H5N1 vaccine should make us better prepared for the next time.
Influenza vaccines are given as a preventive measure to elicit a protective immune response in the body. When immunized, the body is poised to remember this virus and can better fight an infection caused by it. Antiviral drugs, on the other hand, are medicines given to people either prophylactically to prevent influenza or therapeutically once they are already infected.
Data from the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance Network indicate that the recently circulating H5N1 strains are susceptible to two antiviral drugs approved for use in the United States to treat human influenza infections—oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (sold as Relenza). However, these medicines need to be started early enough—usually within the first two days of infection—to be effective.
Many of the recently circulating H5N1 influenza viruses have been shown to be resistant to two older, inexpensive antiviral drugs—rimantadine and amantadine. Scientists are studying how the H5N1 viruses became resistant to these older drugs and carefully watching for any signs of resistance to the newer drugs.
No. The seasonal flu vaccine contains two strains of the most recent form of influenza A as well as one strain of influenza B. These strains have widely circulated in humans for a number of years.
The NIAID clinical trials are testing a vaccine made with the H5N1 strain of influenza that mainly infects birds and other small animals. The H5N1 strain is highly lethal to both birds and humans—more lethal than the seasonal flu. The process used to manufacture the sanofi pasteur H5N1 influenza vaccine is similar to that used to make the seasonal influenza vaccine that is licensed for use in the United States each year. Because the processes are similar, the FDA will more easily be able to evaluate this candidate H5N1 vaccine than if it were made with an entirely new process.
Migratory birds, the poultry trade, and human travel are among the possible mechanisms that experts believe could introduce pandemic flu into the United States. Public health officials are monitoring these and other possible mechanisms as priorities for the health of the nation.
Persons interested in participating in a clinical trial of candidate H5N1 vaccines can monitor www.ClinicalTrials.gov for ongoing and upcoming clinical trials information.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Pandemic Influenza Plan includes information about influenza pandemic preparedness and populations that will be considered to receive vaccinations during a pandemic. For more information, visit www.pandemicflu.gov.
Media inquiries can be directed to the NIAID News and Public Information Branch at 301-402-1663, email@example.com.
NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of
infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research,
and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health ®
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Last Updated January 30, 2007
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Day 4: Puppy Classes & Home Training
Laboratory study has revealed a variety of reinforcement schedules. Puppy training has revealed that most of these are notorious ineffective, or impossible to administer in practice, with the notable exceptions of variable ratio and especially, differential reinforcement. Yet educators and trainers persist in using these relatively ineffective schedules of reinforcement when trying to teach children and employees and when attempting to train husbands and dogs. Wake up! Puppy training has taught us that most of this stuff doesn’t work too well.
Continuous Reinforcement (CR) — the dog is rewarded after every correct response, for example, the dog is rewarded after every sit
Ironically, continuous reinforcement is the biggest problem in reward-based education and training today. The dog receives far too many rewards, usually food. Certainly CR temporarily increases the frequency of behavior but CR is hopeless for maintaining the frequency and quality of behavior and CR is absolutely no good for improving the quality of behavior. If you reward a dog for every correct response, approximately 50% of the time you will reward the dog for above–average responses and 50% of the time you will reward a dog for below average responses. Consequently, the quality of the behavior will not improve. It is simply too silly to reward a dog for below-average responses.
To make matters worse, consistent reinforcement often causes behavior to decrease in frequency and quality. Since the dog knows that he will always be rewarded … eventually, there’s no need to hurry and so, the dog eventually does it in his own way, in his own good time and his slow sloppy behavior gets rewarded. Spoiled dog syndrome.
And it gets even worse. Rewarding the dog for every correct response makes it very difficult to phase out food rewards in training and usually, response-reliability becomes dependent on the owner having food in their hand or on their person. The dog may deign to work for you if he feels like it and if you have food, but the first time you don’t come up with a food reward, he’ll go on strike.
Basically, think food vending machine. You only use it when you want to (when you’re hungry) and if it fails to deliver food on a just a single occasion, you get mad at the machine and then never use it again.
NEVER use a continuous reinforcement schedule.
However, please do not confuse continuous reinforcement with the classical relationship between a secondary and primary reinforcer, e.g., between a click and a treat. If you click, you must always treat, however, you should progressively refine your criteria so that you click no more than 50% of previously correct responses. Also, you can never give a dog too much praise, too many hugs, or too many pieces of food when classically conditioning the dog to like people, especially children men and strangers and other dogs. But you must kick this food habit if you would like to train dogs to respond reliably to verbal cues.
Fixed Duration Reinforcement (FD) — the dog is rewarded after a specific time, for example, after every five seconds of sit-stay (FD5)
FD is no good for improving the quality of performance. In fact, FD produces marked inconsistencies in the quality of behavior — performance-quality tends drops off immediately after each reward. Performance-quality progressively improves as each expected reward-time comes closer but immediately after the dog is rewarded, attention and quality of behavior decrease (because the dog knows that the next reward is sometime in the future).
Fixed Ratio Reinforcement (FR) — the dog is rewarded after a specific number of responses, for example after every five sits (FR5)
Initially FR is very good at increasing the frequency of behavior. However, performance-quality often takes a nose-dive and the dog rushes through repetitions to get another reward. Also, if the ratio is stretched too much and too many responses are required for a single reward, the dog may slow down after being rewarded. If the ratio is stretched even more, the dog may give up altogether.
Fixed schedules are pretty hopeless in dog training. Fixed schedules are pretty useless for reliably increasing the frequency or duration of behavior and they do nothing to increase quality. Fixed schedules do nothing to specifically instruct the dog how to do better and they do not reinforce the dog for improving the quality of behavior. Performance-quality become inconsistent and usually decreases over time.
I would never use any fixed schedule of reinforcement to train a puppy. However, amazingly, the entire world’s work force is maintained on fixed schedules — FD Pay Day and FR Piece Rate. You simply cannot motivate people on an FD schedule. The reward (pay day or year-end bonus) is now expected. Quality of performance may improve as pay day or the year-end bonus approaches but you’ll still get Monday-morning mourning and January-blahs. Similarly, FR Piece Rate may increase speed of production but usually quality control takes a beating as workers rush to meet their quota. And of cause, the workers will strike if ever the quota is too much to ask for limited pay. Fixed schedules are no way to motivate and reinforce puppies, or the world’s work force.
Variable Duration Reinforcement (VD) — the dog is rewarded after unpredictable length durations, for example, for a VD5, the dog is rewarded after varying durations of sit-stay that average out to be five seconds.
Variable duration reinforcement is really good at getting dogs to perform for increasing lengths of time and preparing them to work without the prospect of reinforcement. VR makes it much easier to phase out training rewards. Since the reward-time is unpredictable, the dog’s behavior does not drop off immediately after each reward because the next one could be just one second later.
However, few people could calculate the ratio and train the dog at the same time. For example, to reinforce a dog’s sit-stay using a VD5, we would have to reward the dog after 5, 1, 7, 2, 6, 5, 9, 3, 4, and 8 seconds, for example. I can do this in my head because I am good at mental arithmetic. But what’s the point? Dog training shouldn’t comprise a mathematics test. Dog training should be relaxing and enjoyable. Much easier would be a Random Duration Reinforcement schedule. Just reward your dog after random lengths of sit-stay and progressively increase the average duration over time. Ahh! Now we’re getting there. We are going to rapidly increase the duration of stays and gradually phase out food rewards at the same time. Also, the dog will give you more attention. But … variable duration reinforcement does not the quality of performance.
Variable Ratio Reinforcement (VR) — the dog is rewarded after an unpredictable number of responses, for example, for a VR10, the dog is rewarded after varying numbers of sits that average out to be ten sits per reward.
VR reinforcement is wonderful for maintaining high frequencies of behavior for longer and longer durations and for fewer and fewer rewards. VR makes it much easier to phase out food rewards because the dog gets used to working for an increasing number of repetitions without reward. Think slot machine. What do you do when it hasn’t paid out on your last seven dollars? You take your eighth dollar and rub it and kiss it because you’re absolutely certain that this is the one. And then after three more dollars without a payout, you get five dollars back and the machine has you hooked.
Of course, we have the same problem as with all variable schedules that few human brains could calculate the schedule and train the dog ant the same time. But you know what? A Random Ratio schedule is just as good. Just reward recalls and sits at random and your dog is going to keep coming and sitting forever.
I just love the concept of random reinforcement — the notion that we can be utterly random, consistently inconsistent, a total ditz even, yet still maintain motivated levels of high frequency responding in our dogs. Love it. However, VR does not improve the quality of performance because you are still reinforcing as many below average responses as above average responses.
Differential Reinforcement (DR) — the dog is given different valued rewards that reflect the quality of the performance, for example, only reward the dog for above-average responses, give better rewards for better responses and give the best rewards for the best responses.
Years ago, I picked up my son from Montessori school and he showed me his previous night’s homework with glee — a gold star. I was furious. I explained to the teacher that the homework was rubbish and that it didn’t deserve a gold star, or a silver star, or a bronze star, or an oblong, or a triangle, or any geometric shape of any color. The homework deserved a massive red “F”. I wanted the grade to reflect the quality of the work. I wanted Jamie to realize that stellar homework was worth a gold star, but rubbish homework was barely worth the ink in the ”F”.
Right from the outset — the puppy’s very first lesson — differential reinforcement is the only way to go to continually and progressively increase the reliability, frequency, panache and pizzazz of performance. Basically, the value of the reward varies according to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance. As a guideline, never reward a dog for more than 50% of correct responses. Approximately 50% of responses will be below average and there is absolutely no pint in rewarding the dog for those and less you want his behavior to worsen.
For example, time a dog doing ten recalls and then work out his average recall time. Then only reward your dog for faster-than-average recalls. Recalculate his average after every ten recalls and you will find it is steadily improving as training proceeds. For every ten recalls, you will find than five or six are faster than average. (Because of the long tail of misbehavior — a single lengthy recall considerably biases the average.)
Products from Dr. Ian Dunbar
Day 3: Off-leash Verbal Control, Phasing out Food Lures and Motivating Your Dog to Perform Quickly and Reliably
Day 1: Business, Promotion, People Training and Games
In this DVD lecture, veterinarian and animal behaviorist Dr. Ian Dunbar addresses one of the most worrying behavior problems any dog owner can face — dogs that fight.
Every Picture Tells A Story is an educational aid for children to explore the language of dogs. Dr. Ian Dunbar spends a day exploring the relationship between children and dogs.
Dr. Dunbar has always been one of the best at explaining dog training from the dog’s point of view, and in this video he highlights many of the most common mistakes humans make when trying to train their dogs.
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Explorers visit newly discovered 9.000-strong colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica
Three members of Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth Antarctica team became the first humans to have visited and photographed a newly-discovered 9.000-strong colony of emperor penguins on Antarctica’s Princess Ragnhild Coast.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey first discovered the colony of one meter tall emperor penguins using satellite imagery. Their findings and the locations of several populations was published in a 2009 paper by Peter T. Fretwell and Philip N. Trathan, “Penguins from space: faecal stains reveal the location of emperor penguin colonies”.
However, the colony’s existence was unconfirmed until expedition leader Alain Hubert, station chief mechanic Kristof Soete and Swiss mountain guide Raphael Richard traveled to the colony in early December 2012.
“Since we started operating along Princess Ragnhild Coast we have encountered so many emperors penguins that I was convinced that a colony must be installed somewhere in the east”, said Hubert.
“I knew from last year’s satellite study that there could potentially be an emperor colony east of Derwael ice rise. Because we were operating not far from this the satellite location, I decided to force the way and try to access to this remote and unknown place. The surprise was even more than all I could have expected or dreamed about: I realized while counting the penguins that this was a very populated colony.”
“It was almost midnight when we succeeded in finding a way down to the ice through crevasses and approached the first of five groups of more than a thousand individuals, three quarters of which were chicks. This was unforgettable moment!”
Hubert and Soete were part of an International Polar Foundation team supporting scientific research on the Derwael Ice Rise, some 50km from the colony, and 250km from Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. The projects carried out at the site included IceCom, which aims to gain a better understanding of the rate of the loss of ice – now and in the past - from the Antarctic ice sheet in the Dronning Maud Land area.
The Be:Wise project aims to improve understanding of ice-shelf flow dynamics by focusing on the buttressing role of ice rises and pinning points, small offshore mountains which support Antarctic ice shelves from underneath.
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John Constable (1776–1837) created landscapes that ranged from sketches with broad, loose strokes to highly polished and tightly rendered finished paintings. He would often arbitrarily end the painting process at any degree of finish in between. The four-by-six-foot painting The White Horse (1819), part of the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art, seemed to have been painted in one of these intermediate styles at the time of its donation in 1942.
Once considered a same-size second version of the highly finished The White Horse in the Frick Collection, New York City, the Widener White Horse showed a halfway degree of finish that became problematic in determining its attribution. If the painting had been more of a sketch, experts likely would have attributed it to Constable, because over the course of his career he had created nine four-by-six-foot paintings for the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy. For all but The White Horse, he had first created a full-size sketch. Because the Gallery's painting seemed more like a finished work than a sketch, and was somewhat awkwardly realized in a technique that did not really match any of those typically seen in Constable’s paintings, by 1977 scholars concluded that the painting was a lesser copy by another artist.
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X-43A / Hyper-X - On March 27, four decades of supersonic-combustion ramjet propulsion research culminated in a successful flight of the X-43A hypersonic technology demonstrator, the first time a scramjet-powered aircraft had flown freely. After being launched by Dryden's venerable B-52B mothership off the coast of Southern California, a modified first-stage Pegasus booster rocketed the X-43A to 95,000 feet before the X-43A separated and flew under its own scramjet power at an airspeed of Mach 6.8, or about 5,000 mph, for about 11 seconds. On Nov. 16, another identical scramjet-powered X-43A did it again, this time reaching hypersonic speeds above Mach 9.6, or about 6,800 mph, in the final flight of the X-43A project. Both flights set world airspeed records for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine, and proved that scramjet propulsion is a viable technology for powering future space-access vehicles and hypersonic aircraft.
Access 5 - In May, Access 5, the joint government-industry program to enable use of the national airspace by remotely operated unmanned aircraft was kicked off. Primarily funded by NASA through the High-Altitude, Long-Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft in the National Airspace project within the Vehicle Systems Program, Access 5 brings NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense and six major industry members together to plan the safe, orderly and efficient integration of unmanned aircraft into civil airspace over the next five years. The focus is not only on development of procedures and standards, but also on technologies such as command and control, detection and avoidance.
Airborne Science - Advanced technology was used to improve our understanding of biological and cultural resources and their sustainable development. The Central and South America AirSAR 2004 mission used an Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar aboard NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory. The mission took place during the several weeks in March over Costa Rica, Chile, Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Other major Earth science missions during the year involving the converted jetliner included the INTEX global air pollution surveys and an AirSAR mission that captured 3-D images of seven active Alaskan volcanoes to evaluate volcanic hazards and to improve the understanding of the eruption process and frequency. NASA Dryden's ER-2 high-altitude science aircraft also was kept busy during 2004 on a variety of atmospheric sampling and imaging missions.
Active Aeroelastic Wing - After a lengthy hiatus, Dryden's Active Aeroelastic Wing F/A-18 returned to the skies in mid-December to begin its second phase of research flights. Following completion of the first phase that evaluated the flight characteristics of a more flexible wing, NASA Dryden and Boeing Phantom Works engineers developed control laws over the past 18 months to enable active control of wing flexibility for primary maneuvering control. About 35 flights at both subsonic and supersonic speeds are planned in Phase II of the AAW project before it concludes next spring. Initial data from the first four research flights indicate that AAW control law roll rates were higher than predicted. Active Aeroelastic Wing employs conventional control surfaces such as ailerons and leading-edge flaps to aerodynamically induce twist. From flight test and simulation data, the program will develop structural modeling techniques and tools to help design lighter, more flexible high aspect-ratio wings for future high-performance aircraft, which could enable more economical operation or greater payload capability.
- B-52B "Mothership" Retirement - After almost 50 years of serving as a test and research aircraft, NASA's venerable Boeing B-52B air-launch "mothership" was retired from service on December 17. With no future programs needing its capability envisioned in the foreseeable future and maintainability becoming increasingly difficult for the one-of-a-kind aircraft, the decision was made to retire the eight-engine converted bomber to a place of honor on display at the Edwards Air Force Base north gate. First flown in June 1955, the B-52B air-launched a variety of exotic research aircraft ranging from the X-15 rocket plane of the 1960s to the X-43A scramjet of 2004 during its storied career.
In 2005, NASA Dryden will be supporting both the Vision for Space Exploration and Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight with several engineering and flight research tasks.
Exploration Systems - NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate selected Dryden to participate in two research and technology development activities. Dryden has been tasked with leading the Aero Assisted Mars Transfer Vehicle Study, with other NASA centers and universities supporting the effort. For the second, the Ceramic Aft Heat Shield Hot Structures Test, Dryden would provide the necessary thermal and load testing of a candidate aft heat shield design for the planned Crew Exploration Vehicle. Additionally, the directorate has tasked Dryden to provide increased support to a number of engineering disciplines that support the overall exploration vision via integrated product and design teams.
- Space Shuttle Return to Flight - NASA Dryden will support Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight engineering efforts with a series of flights by the center's F-15B Research Testbed aircraft in early 2005. The flights will obtain data on the shuttle's external fuel tank insulating foam debris or "divot" trajectories for computer code validation. Among several objectives, the flights will help engineers quantify divot trajectories using high-speed videography and provide flight verification of debris tracking systems to be used for the next shuttle launch.
(Editors who want to pursue story topics may call Dryden public affairs at (661) 276-3449, or visit the NASA Dryden web site at http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/home/index.html where text and photos suitable for publication are posted.)
- end -
To receive status reports and news releases issued from the Dryden Newsroom electronically, send a blank e-mail message to email@example.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail message to firstname.lastname@example.org. The system will confirm your request via e-mail.
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Fred Newman and the Historical Roots of the Newmanites
The history of the Newmanites starts with a history of its primary
theoretician, Dr. Fred Newman. In 1968 Newman and several followers formed "IF....THEN",
a political collective in New York City." IF....THEN" prided
itself on its anarchistic and confrontational approach to organizing
and consciousnessraising. During the early 1970's Newman and his followers
established a group called Centers for Change in New York City. Centers
for Change (CFC) was characterized by a more introspective approach to
political organizing. CFC described itself as:
"...a collective of liberation centers including; a school for
children, ages 3 to 7; a community oriented therapeutic and dental clinic
located in the Bronx; and a press (CFC Press) operating out of the CFC
offices....Also, the Community Media Project; (an) information service
for the people of the upper west side...."
While involved with CFC, Newman and others in his circle began developing
a unique perspective within the evolving theory of radical psychology.
This movement attracted attention and debate in progressive circles;
Newman, however, soon branched off from the mainstream of the radical
psychology movement and eventually developed a theory of "social
therapy". By 1973 CFC was offering therapy and counseling at its
At the same time, another New York political organizer, Lyndon H. LaRouche,
Jr., was also espousing controversial psychological theories, and Newman
began to examine LaRouche's writings on psychology and economics which
were appearing in published collections of Marxist analysis.
Lyndon LaRouche in 1973 was the leader of the National Caucus of Labor
Committees (NCLC), a Marxist political organization based in New York
City. LaRouche, using the name Lyn Marcus, had led the Labor Caucus of
the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) until SDS voted to expel
LaRouche and his followers in 1969. The controversy inside SDS arose
when the SDS Labor Caucus under LaRouche called for support of striking
members of New York City's teacher's union. A key union issue was opposition
to community control of schools in New York City--a demand of community
leaders which had the support of many Black parents. The union's opposition
to community control of schools was widely perceived in the progressive
political community as having racist overtones. After being expelled
from SDS, LaRouche created the National Caucus of Labor Comittees, which
in 1973 had at least 1,000 members nationwide.
Newman says he first made contact with Lyndon LaRouche's forces within
the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) in October of 1973. In
January of 1974 Newman's organization, Centers for Change (CFC), published
a newsletter <Right On Time> which called for the organization
of leftist political cadres and relied heavily on psychoanalytic terminology.
LaRouche's theories were in many ways similar to those espoused by Newman,
and in June of 1974, Newman led almost 40 CFC members into an official
political alliance with LaRouche and the National Caucus of Labor Committees
Newman's Alliance with LaRouche
Even NAP supporters concede that Newman and some of his followers worked
for a time under the political leadership of LaRouche. What keeps this
aspect of the controversy alive is what critics feel are misrepresentations
regarding the character of the relationship and the nature of the LaRouche
organization at the time of the alliance. NAP's position is stated in
a letter circulated by its supporters under the name "The Committee
to Set the Record Straight:"
"Five years prior to NAP's founding, a handful of activists, five
of whom now sit on NAP's 40-member national Executive Board, joined the
National Caucus of Labor Committees, then a left organization founded
by LaRouche. At the time, it was attracting many organic progressive
leaders from the welfare, trade union, and electoral arenas. Dr. Newman
was one of those who joined. He and his colleagues' membership in the
NCLC lasted approximately two months."
"Following their departure in the summer of 1974, they began an
extensive political and methodological critique of LaRouche and the NCLC
and by 1975 became among the first on the Left to explicitly identify
LaRouche as a neo-fascist."
This characterization of the Newman/LaRouche relationship is at best
self-serving and at worst largely fictional. With some ten percent of
the current NAP executive board comprised of persons who at one time
chose to put themselves under the political leadership of Lyndon LaRouche,
it becomes crucial to examine the relationship carefully.
During most of 1974, the NCLC under LaRouche was primarily attracting
middleclass and upper-class white intellectual students from prestigious
eastern and mid-western college campuses--hardly a core of trade unionists
and welfare recipients as characterized by Newman's supporters.
A former member of LaRouche's NCLC remembers the arrival in 1974 of
what were called the "Newmanites:"
"They put themselves under the actual political leadership of
LaRouche for a few months, and we came to believe that what Newman really
wanted during that period was to act as an understudy to LaRouche--to
learn his methods and techniques of controlling persons in an organization."
"The individuals in Newman's group seemed to lack clarity and
political focus and were obsessed with psychology and sexuality. Newman
was clearly the leader and it was obvious that LaRouche's ego and Newman's
ego were too big to allow them to work together in the same organization
While actual membership by New Alliance Party executive board members
in LaRouche's NCLC may have lasted only a few months, the working alliance
between groups led by LaRouche, Newman and a third New York political
leader named Gino Parente lasted far longer. Some activists from New
York remember the three groups working in a loose alliance around issues
such as welfare reform, farm labor, and organizing the working class
for a period as long as one year. One internal NCLC discussion of the
Newmanites describes "ten months of serious political discussion" before
several months of actual membership." Joint forums" between
the Newmanites and the LaRouchites were held in November and December,
1973, and the Newmanite split took place in late August, 1974.
Even after officially leaving NCLC in August, 1974, Newman and his
followers continued to debate and criticize LaRouche and the NCLC over
issues of shared political ideology as if it represented legitimate leftist
theory long after the rest of the American Left had denounced NCLC as
either proto-Nazi Brownshirts, a sick political cult, or outright police
Fred Newman insists his group was not sophisticated about the American
Left when it joined with LaRouche, yet when the Newmanites split from
NCLC, they announced the formation of a "vanguard" Marxist-Leninist
political party. In the resignation letter signed by Newman and 38 of
his followers, there is a significant use of Marxist-Leninist terminology
which suggests a far greater degree of political sophistication than
admitted. Announcing that Newman's International Workers Party (IWP)
had "now become the vanguard party of the working class," the
letter went on to say:
"The organization of the vanguard party is, as Marx makes clear,
the organization of the class. The formation of the IWP has grown from
our attempt to organize the [NCLC] from within that it might move from
a position of left hegemony to a position of leadership of the class."
When joining the NCLC, Newman announced he was putting himself and
his followers under the political "hegemony" of LaRouche. After
leading his followers out of the NCLC, Newman continued to struggle with
LaRouche over theory within the principles of criticism among friends.
None of this indicates a casual, naive or short-lived relationship.
The Nature of NCLC During the Newmanite Alliance
Still, Newman's merger and split with LaRouche would have little merit
as a criticism of NAP (after all it is a sign of political maturity to
recognize mistakes) were it not for how supporters of Newman relentlessly
misrepresent the nature of LaRouche and the NCLC in late 1973 and 1974--the
period when Newman grew close to NCLC and then put himself and his followers
under the political leadership of LaRouche.In 1974 NCLC was not attracting "organic
progressive leaders " from the welfare rights movement, as claimed
by the Newmanites. In fact, it was having trouble attracting significant
Black support at all, since it was leading a successful attempt to destroy
the Black-led National Welfare Rights Organization and defame its popular
leader, the late George Wiley.
During the same period, LaRouche also propounded ideas which were widely
perceived to represent outright racism. LaRouche, for instance, offended
the Hispanic community in a November, 1973 essay (published in both English
and Spanish) titled "The Male Impotence of the Puerto-Rican Socialist
Party." An internal memo by LaRouche asked "Can we imagine
anything more viciously sadistic than the Black Ghetto mother?" He
described the majority of the Chinese people as "approximating the
lower animal species" by manifesting a "paranoid personality....a
parallel general form of fundamental distinction from actual human personalities."
As early as the spring of 1973 LaRouche had begun to articulate a psychosexual
theory of political organizing and began descending into a paranoid style
of historical analysis that stressed not Marxist dialectical materialism
and class analysis, but macabre conspiracy theories and a subjective
egocentric analysis. LaRouche warned of a global plot by the CIA/KGB
to kidnap and program his membership to assassinate him. His homophobia
became a central theme of the organization's conspiracy theories. He
said women's feelings of degradation in modern society could be traced
to the physical placement of sexual organs near the anus which caused
them to confuse sex with excretion.
A September, 1973 editorial in the NCLC ideological journal <Campaigner> charged
that "Concretely, all across the USA., there are workers who are
prepared to fight. They are held back, most immediately, by pressure
from their wives...." Writing in an August, 1973 memo, LaRouche
propounded the startling and sexist psychological theory that "the
principle source of impotence, both male and female, is the mother." LaRouche
claimed only he could cure the political and sexual impotence of his
followers. NCLC members were forced into what was called psychological
therapy and "deprogramming" but were what former members call "brainwashing" and "egostripping" sessions.
The NCLC rapidly became totalitarian in style, with a peculiar obsession
with sexuality and homophobia used as a weapon against internal dissent." To
the extent that my physical powers do not prevent me," LaRouche
told his followers in August, 1973, "I am now confident and capable
of ending your political--and sexual-impotence; the two are interconnected
aspects of the same problem."
By 1974 LaRouche had started his swing toward fascist economic and
political principles--well before Newman and his followers joined NCLC
and announced that they would place themselves under LaRouche's political
leadership and "hegemony." It was during this period that LaRouche
began talking of the need for rapid industrialization to build the working
class. He talked of a historic tactical alliance between revolutionaries,
the working class and the forces of industrial capital against the forces
of finance capital. He began developing an authoritarian world view with
a glorification of historic mission, metaphysical commitment and physical
confrontation. He told reporters that only he was capable of bringing
revolution and socialism to the United States, and his speeches began
to take on the tone and style of a demagogue. LaRouche, in short, began
to adopt the same ideas and styles which had formed the basis of National
Socialism, a political tendency that historically became part of the
European fascist movement and eventually played a key role in Hitler's
rise to power in Nazi Germany. In fact, LaRouche was denounced as a Nazi
by U.S. Communists following physical attacks on them in 1973 by NCLC
members who were likened to Hitler's violent Brownshirts.
From May to September of 1973, LaRouche followers engaged in "Operation
Mop-up" which consisted of NCLC members brutally assaulting rivals
such as members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Socialist
Workers Party (SWP). NCLC thugs used bats, chains, and martial arts weapons
(<numchukas>) in their campaign to control and establish "hegemony" over
the American revolutionary movement. There were many injuries and some
persons required hospitalization.
"Operation Mop-up" was front-page news in virtually every
American progressive newspaper during 1973, and it is difficult to believe
it was not known to Newman and his followers when they first contacted
NCLC a few weeks after Operation Mop-Up was declared a success by LaRouche.
Furthermore, physical assaults by NCLC members against critics were reported
regularly well into 1976, and periodic assaults by LaRouche fundraisers
still occur. In 1974, many former NCLC members report, they were still
required to take paramilitary training classes led by fellow members.
The trigger for Operation Mop Up was a March, 1973 warning by NCLC
to the Communist Party, USA. to stop opposing the creation by LaRouche
of an alternative to the Black-led National Welfare Rights Organization
(NWRO) which LaRouche denounced as being part of a "union-busting
slave-labor" alliance. LaRouche set up an alternative, the National
Unemployed and Welfare Rights Organization (NUWRO), and, according to
LaRouche, NCLC then sent delegations into public Communist Party meetings, "demanding
that this criminal behavior of the CP leadership"--that is, support
for the original NWRO--"be openly discussed and voted down by the
Eyewitnesses recall this "discussion" usually consisted of
primarily-white and young NCLC members standing up and disrupting meetings
of the primarilyBlack and older NWRO with calls for a debate on LaRouche's
charges against NWRO leaders until members of the audience were forced
to physically drag the NCLC members out of the meeting. These confrontations
became formalized under Operation Mop-Up.
When the Socialist Workers Party joined in supporting the original
Black-led NWRO, they too were attacked by the predominantly white NCLC
supporters. While the Operation Mop-Up attacks were officially ended
in late 1973 or early 1974, another campaign of assaults was launched
in 1974 against local rank-andfile leaders of the United Autoworkers
and other industrial unions. Reports of these assaults continued through
1976, and NCLC members have continued until recently to assist in assaults
on members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union and another rank-and-file
Teamster reform group, PROD.
In 1974, according to former NCLC members, LaRouche first began to
seek contact with extremist and anti-Semitic right-wing groups and individuals
around the idea of tactical unity in opposing imperialism and the ruling
class in general, and the Rockefellers in particular. LaRouche's obsession
with conspiracy theories blossomed in 1974, and during this period he
began expounding a view linking certain Jewish institutions to a plot
to destroy Western civilization and usher in a "New Dark Age".
This is the character of the NCLC that attracted Newman and his followers
in early 1974. In his 1974 book <Power and Authority>, Newman wrote
that his followers would "organize in the spirit outlined" by
LaRouche. The question is not how long the Newmanites worked under the
political leadership of Lyndon LaRouche, but how they can explain what
attracted Newman and his followers to LaRouche in the first place. To
this day NAP leadership has refused to renounce or to deal candidly or
accurately with the fact that the Newmanites at one time joined an organization
which was at best a collection of paranoid sexist homophobic thugs and
at worst a nascent fascist political movement.
Using the FBI to Harass Dissidents
It was during the period that the Newmanites were involved with NCLC
that NCLC began to collect and disseminate intelligence on progressive
groups. It is well documented that NCLC went on to provide intelligence
to domestic and foreign government agencies. While documents released
under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that U.S. government agencies
frequently dismissed the material provided by the NCLC, it was provided
nonetheless. As early as February, 1974, NCLC representatives met with
an official in the U.S. Department of Commerce to "provide substantial
evidence which would exonerate President Nixon from Watergate charges," according
to a Commerce Department memorandum released under the Freedom of Information
The Newmanites were at the center of the first documented instance
of NCLC collaboration with U.S. intelligence agencies. In 1974, several
Newmanites in NCLC attempted to use the FBI to locate and spy on a former
Newmanite who had left at the time of the NCLC/Newmanite merger and taken
his child with him. Jim Retherford had left the Newmanites citing psychological
manipulation among other reasons. His spouse, Ann Green, remained in
the organization and quite reasonably sought access to their child. Green
and Newmanite Harry Kresky, an attorney, contacted the FBI and suggested
that Retherford was a former member of the Weatherman faction of SDS,
had harbored Weather Underground fugitives, and was in contact with Jane
Alpert, a fugitive the FBI was particularly keen on locating.
Supporters of Newman claim he was unaware of the contact with the FBI.
However, a former member of Newman's Centers for Change who joined and
left NCLC with Newman, and then later split with the Newmanites, recalls
the FBI incident was widely known within NCLC and the Newmanite faction." The
CFC [Centers for Change/Newmanite] people for the most part stuck together
while in the NCLC....denying Fred Newman knew about the communications
with the FBI is utterly absurd."
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the moral values of alice in wonderland is?
Answers 4Add Yours
someone help me pls..
Alice says "Curiosity often leads to trouble" but of course it was the curiosity which saw Alice grow up and develop so much during the story.
Alice has good manners and this often helps her get out of scrapes.
Think about who steals, lies, cheats, harms anyone else in the book. Where does this immoral behaviour get the character in the end?
Remember, in the book, that Alice's dad had the satiny waistcoat on. And when she saw the rabbit, the rabbit had the same waistcoat as Alice's father. So I think that the rabbit was Alice's father.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Do you know how politicians always argue over things? Well Tweedledee and Tweedledum were like politicians. They always argued over things.
Alice In Wonderland, book
Alice in The wonderland is a better story for teens.Because its about growing up.
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When you go to the park, what do you like to do? Do you fish, row a boat, sail a boat, pick little flowers, walk your dog (or pet monkey), play a trombone, knit, sit and watch other people doing things? A writer who saw this painting the first time it was shown in public 100 years ago in Paris counted 50 people in it, and he called them life-size. In a sense they are all life-size because it is 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. The people in the front of the picture, which artists call the ``foreground,'' are the same size as real people. When we look across a park or down a street, people appear smaller and smaller the farther away they are. Artists call this ``perspective.''
The writer saw all different types of people, young and old, dressed up and in working clothes. There are even soldiers in uniform. Although the painter, Georges Seurat, made them look mostly like cut-out silhouettes, there is somehow a natural liveliness to the scene.
Georges did not always draw figures like that. He has beautifully shaded and rounded drawings. But he wanted to make pictures showing the ideas he had gotten from geometry. The writer remarked that these figures in ``Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'' looked like someone had just told them, ``Stand up straight!''
Once Georges became interested in painting, he was able to go to art school and follow his career. His parents provided this for him so he did not have to struggle to get started as did some other famous artists. He was shy and never spoke much about his family or his feelings to his artist friends. But he would explain the theories on color and light that he read about in various books.
If you went up close to the painting, you would see it is all tiny dots of different colors. The artist wanted to show that small bits of pure color can blend in our eyes as we look at them without his mixing, say, red and yellow to make orange on his palette. When he discovered this, he became so excited that he painted colored dots all over the surface of this big canvas even after he thought it was finished. He painted in a border of variously colored dots all around it. His type of painting is called ``pointillism,'' coming from the same root as our word ``point.''
Using colored markers, we can see how this is done without the effort Georges had to put in. You could paint a red ball by filling in a circle with red dots, not too close together. Yellow dots over the top make a sunlit area (a ``highlight'') and blue dots on the bottom a shadow. When the dots are mixed just right, the ball will be ``luminous.'' That is, it will seem to give out light from itself. If grass is put around the ball using the same idea, the colors will change each other and continue to glow. And this is how this odd way of painting makes things look the way they do on a bright summer day with sunshine sparkling on the water in a park on an island.
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The integer class is a wrapper for integer value. Integers are not objects. The Java utility classes require the use of objects. If you want to store an integer in a hash table, you have to "wrap" an Integer instance in it.
Understand with Example
The Tutorial illustrate a code that helps you in understanding a Integer exception in java. The program given below describes the way of handling integer exception .In the program given below we have created -
1) Buffer Reader - This is used to read text from the character input stream. The program will ask the user to enter the number , if the user enter the number other than integer it will gives an exception error. if the user enters integer it will display the number which the user have entered.
2) Read line( ) - This is used to read a line from the character
3)Integer.toString( ) - This return you the string representation irrespective of any data type passed as argument in it.
In case the user enter a value other than integer, exception will caught in the catch block and println print the "Please enter the value as integer".
Output of the program
|Enter the integer value:
Please enter the value as integer
Posted on: June 13, 2009 If you enjoyed this post then why not add us on Google+? Add us to your Circles
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| 0.779711 | 277 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Twenty-year-old Kelly Slauson doesn’t know life without rheumatoid arthritis.
Diagnosed when she was just 18 months old, Slauson’s life as she knows it has always included medications, doctor’s appointments and joint stiffness.
“I thought every kid had to get shots on Friday nights and go to the doctor all the time,” said Slauson, who lives in Camas.
When Slauson was only about 7 or 8 months old, she started walking. But her parents later realized something wasn’t right.
Slauson would walk, but then, after napping, would wake up and revert to crawling. Or, if she did walk, it would be with a limp. Her pediatrician referred her to a rheumatologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissue.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder that affects the lining of the joints, causing a painful swelling that can eventually result in bone erosion and joint deformity, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Rheumatoid arthritis typically begins between the ages of 40 and 60. Among children younger than 16, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is the most common type of arthritis. Symptoms of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis typically begin before age 16 and can appear in children as young as 6 months, according to the National Institutes of Health.
An estimated 1.5 million Americans have rheumatoid arthritis, according to the Arthritis Foundation.
Slauson’s early diagnosis gave her, her parents and her rheumatologist an early start at treatment with the goal of preventing joint damage. Doing so would mean fewer limitations for Slauson.
Growing up, Slauson played soccer and was on a swim team. When she was about 8 years old, she went into remission and didn’t need any medication. Doctors thought she might have outgrown arthritis.
But about three years later, her arthritis flared up again. She again needed weekly injections and regular injections into her joints to prevent pain and swelling.
She gave up soccer for lower-impact sports, such as yoga, but continued to swim. When she was 15, her rheumatologist told Slauson she had a very active disease. She wouldn’t be outgrowing it.
“It’s something that I’ll live with for the rest of my life,” she said.
But Slauson hasn’t let the disorder take over her life.
She still needs weekly injections, which she performs on herself at home, and every eight weeks she heads to her rheumatologist’s office for a 30-minute medication infusion. Every five years, she has X-rays done to check for joint damage. She still has none.
The medications keep her condition under control, for the most part. She’s usually a little stiff after getting out of bed in the morning, but after a couple hours she’s fine. She’s also had to learn balance. If she pushes herself too much physically, she’ll feel sore the following day.
Still, Slauson enrolled at the University of Portland after graduating high school. She lived in the dorms her freshman year, but her weakened immune system — a result of the arthritis medications — meant she was constantly fighting illness. She landed in the hospital for several days at the end of her freshman year as a result.
After that, she realized dorm life probably wasn’t for her, but she continued to attend classes. She works as a nanny for a couple area families, and this fall, she’ll begin nursing school.
Her interest in nursing stemmed from her own journey with a chronic condition. She hopes to work in patient advocacy, being the voice for patients trying to navigate the health care system, or perhaps in pediatrics.
“I have had so many amazing people help me along this journey,” Slauson said. “So if I can be that for somebody else, I want to do that.”
Slauson’s mom, Lynne, isn’t surprised by her daughter’s career aspirations. They’ve traveled to Washington, D.C., several times to lobby Congress on issues, such as access to specialists and medications, on behalf of people with arthritis. Slauson also volunteers as a counselor for the Arthritis Foundation’s annual summer camp for kids and their families. And each year the family has a team in the foundation’s Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis in Portland.
“She certainly has developed a tremendous amount of empathy,” Lynne Slauson said.
Even though she’s lived with a painful chronic condition since she was a toddler, Slauson feels fortunate her condition is well controlled on most days and she has the support of her family to help her through the days when it’s less controlled.
“This could be worse,” she said. “So let’s be grateful for the good days I have, and the bad days make the good days that much better.”
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|[This is a MPIWG MPDL language technology service]|
Introduction (n.) The act of introducing, or bringing to notice.
Introduction (n.) The act of formally making persons known to each other; a presentation or making known of one person to another by name; as, the introduction of one stranger to another.
Introduction (n.) That part of a book or discourse which introduces or leads the way to the main subject, or part; preliminary; matter; preface; proem; exordium.
Introduction (n.) A formal and elaborate preliminary treatise; specifically, a treatise introductory to other treatises, or to a course of study; a guide; as, an introduction to English literature.
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“Authentic learning experiences” would have to be the result of starting our classroom blog on January 29th: http://weallbeelong.blogspot.com/ . Currently I am using our blog to showcase students’ work and classroom activities. We have created digital stories, digital story retells, examples of cause/effect and problem/solution and posted these to our blog. We also use Audioboo at the end of each day to recap the day or explain a new concept. We have our Audioboos linked to our Twitter account. Our Twitter account is on our blog. All of our work is ‘out there’ for the world to see! In fact we have a cluster map that shows when visitors view our blog. How has that affected my students?
My students have become aware that their work is now viewable by a much greater audience. (Prior to this our work was viewed by whoever was strolling through the school hallway, and cared to look at the wall outside of our room.) My students work diligently as they write what they want to say in their story retells. As they work, one sees with clarity writing being used as a tool for communication and not as an end in itself. In fact writing and revisions happen quickly and accurately to aid the students in clear audio recordings. I love that students reread their writing, determine what they left out, inserting a carat to add this word or that thought. Their writing and oral communication transforms into an authentic learning experience.
As I mentioned we are using a cluster map on our blog to determine who is visiting us. We keep a world map and a map of the USA in front of our room. When we have a visitor from a new state or country we mark this off on our map. This experience has produced wonderful discussions about the differences between a state and a country. The students are becoming familiar with the location of various states and countries. Another authentic learning experience coming from the use of our blog!
I am looking forward to witnessing a continuation of authentic learning experiences through our classroom blog! I would love to hear how your classroom blog has transformed your class!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
(Life has been busy, and I have not blogged in many months. Our school has switched to the Common Core Standards and Understanding By Design lesson plans. I am also back in school, but enough excuses!)
I am trying to develop meaningful and authentic experiences of using Web 2.0 tools for my students. My principal introduced me to Audioboo. Audioboo allows my students to make an audio recording which I can link to our first grade Twitter account. For the past few days we have recorded daily highlights. At the end of the day my students tell me what they felt was the best part of the day or something interesting that they learned. We compose a message together, and then one student creates an Audioboo. I invited our parents to follow us on Twitter and to comment on our “boos”. I want my students to see how their ideas elicit responses from others. While we have only been “booing” for three days, we have not received any twitter comments. I want to have my students create more interactive boos which will engage their audience and create response.
I also think that after a little more modeling I will turn the process over to the students. Perhaps I will have once person direct the conversation, another person write the “boo”, and a third person record the boo. This will give the student’s more ownership over the process. I am looking forward to see how this experience helps us to grow as readers, writers and speakers. I'll let you know!
Monday, June 6, 2011
What can the “Harvard Business Review” learn from first grade? Maybe a lot!
One of my favorite blogs to read is the “Harvard Business Review”. I enjoy reading about the 21st century skills that are valued in the business world, as this is the world that my students will one day enter. I want my students to be prepared. A couple weeks ago I read Adam Richardson’s “Collaboration is a Team Sport and You Need to Warm Up” on the Harvard Business Review blog and carefully considered the following comment:
But there are barriers to collaboration, many of which exist even before somebody arrives for their first day of work. In the US, our education system is largely focused on individual efforts, and team work is not actively taught in the classroom even at the graduate level.
Richardson elaborates and says that collaboration does not just happen but goes through a “warm-up” process first by creating a personable atmosphere of trust and relationship building.
As I read this I had to laugh, clearly Richardson has not been in an elementary school lately!
In my first grade I value, encourage and teach collaboration. In the beginning of our school year we work on creating and building a learning community based on trust and respect. . I use strategies like Think-Pair –Share, team discussions, partner reading to encourage repectful listening and sharing. Throughout the year students collaborate on reading extension activities, creating power points, using centers, SMARTboard and SMART table. In math students are put in small groups to engage in and solve real-life problems. Nothing gives me greater than pleasure than listening to students plan strategies and try to come to a consensus. Our room is set up to support collaboration. Desks are arranged to make teams/tables. Students also work collaboratively in centers around the room. This fall we are looking forward to removing desks and replacing them with tables in order to further support an environment of collaboration.
I know my classroom is similar to many other classrooms that teach and encourage collaboration. I have to wonder about Richardson’s comment. When will the business world see the results of the collaboration found in our grade schools? I see our educational system as encouraging a collaborative spirit. What are your thoughts? How do you encourage collaboration in your classroom?
Thursday, May 26, 2011
What was more interesting today. . .
A first grade ‘expert’ standing alongside of an interactive whiteboard guiding the audience through a presentation on African wild dogs, pointing to maps depicting the dogs habitat, discussing the need for this carnivorous animal to have jagged fangs, while pointing to a picture of its sharp teeth.
Or maybe. . .
A first grade audience engrossed in their classmates’ presentations on endangered animals, processing information, making connections to prior learning experiences, recalling their own research on whales and asking “Do white spotted dolphins have blubber too?”
Or perhaps. . .
The teacher sitting in the back of the room listening to her young experts, assisting by tapping the forward button on the power point presentation in case it should stick.
Today was a wonderful day as my first grade students presented their power point presentation on endangered animals to their class. They demonstrated leadership and pride beyond first grade as the spoke with authority about their research, and discussed each image in the power point. The whole process that led to this culminating event was very educational for me. My students were very engaged from the time they began their research to the time the presented their power point. They even asked on several days if they could come up after lunch recess to work on their power point.
As I reflect on the process, I find myself asking: What kept them engaged? Was it completing research? Working on the computer? Creating the power point? Searching for images? Sharing with their classmates? Leading a question and answer session? I have to think it was the whole process. The students selected an endangered animal and became the expert. The animal became “theirs” and the desire to share what was “theirs” with classmates was sincere. Is this what passion-based learning looks like in first grade? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Monday, May 23, 2011
I just read Wes Fryer’s “Passion, Learning and Innovation”. I loved his question: "Is your curriculum wide enough that it can provide room for students to connect with, deepen their knowledge of and share topics about which they are passionate?" Much of what we read in education today deals with passion-based learning, allowing students to explore topics that they are passionate about. In my own classroom experience, I have learned that passion-based learning increases student engagement.
A topic of interest with one of my guided reading groups this year has been animals/wildlife. I capitalized on this topic in this group by finding reading material about wild life. My students wanted to delve further into the animal life that they were introduced to by completing more research. They wanted to share the information with their classmates. We worked together on creating Power Point presentations. The experience allowed the students to develop many skills: main idea/details, organization, story boarding, relating pictures with details, public speaking, power point etiquette and collaboration. A couple of students created their power point presentations at home. Their enthusiasm spread throughout the class. Soon all of my reading groups wanted to do similar work. This week one of my groups has completed research and a power point on endangered animals. Each student selected an endangered animal to become “the expert” on. They incorporated a way to help protect the endangered animal.
This experience has been very exciting and educational for me! This upcoming year I will spend more time with passion based learning by learning what my students are passionate about and incorporating that into my planning!
How are you using passion based learning in your class? I love to hear ideas (especially in the primary grades)!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
“Mrs. Long are the boys in the story brothers or are they friends?” . I had my first grade students ‘partner reading’ a story, when two of my students posed this question to me during our whole group reading time. My objective was to explore problem and solution in the story, but I set my plans aside and asked, “What do you think?” The two girls had different opinions and cited different examples in the book. I suggested that they ask their classmates their opinion. The girls eagerly went to the front of the room with their book in hand, posing the question to their classmates. What followed was a lively, intelligent and engaging discussion. The students in the class were fully engaged, books opened and pages turning to look at each others examples. My students listened to their classmates’ viewpoints and offered their own. (My only job in this discussion was to let go of my plans and remind the students that all opinions should be supported by an example and a page number.) As I sat in the back of the room recording their ideas on my laptop, I had to smile. My students were so taken up in the discussion, that they hardly knew I was present. I thought this is what it means to be the “guide on the side and not the sage on the stage”.
As I reflect on this powerful experience, I have to ask myself what elements come into play? What caused this example of student engagement? First, I believe my students felt comfortable taking a risk. The two students who led the discussion were at ease standing before their classmates and leading a discussion. (I have to add that one of the girls would have nothing to do with being in the front of the class in the beginning of the year!) The rest of the class felt safe and supported expressing their opinions. Second, I believe the students had grown accustomed and confident in solving problems on their own. They realized that they did not need me to answer their questions. Finally, rules and behaviors for respectful listening and speaking were modeled often throughout the year.
As I continue to reflect on student engagement in this blog, I believe that creating an environment where students feel comfortable and safe to take risks is essential. I also find helping students to discover their ability to answer their own questions and solve their own problems to be equally important. Finally, I believe the teacher should act as a guide encouraging students to become independent learners.
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By: Gotthard Deutsch
Formerly a German dukedom; since 1866 it has formed a part of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. In 1865, immediately before its union with Prussia, it had a total population of 465,636, including 6,995 Jews. Adjacent to the Rhine, upon which the oldest Jewish settlements of Germany are found, it undoubtedly had Jewish inhabitants in early medieval times. But the first positive mention of a Nassau Jew, Levi of Lorch, occurs in a document in the "Judenschreinsbuch" of Cologne, dated 1266 (Aronius, "Regesten," p. 299, No. 719). From some older documents, however, it appears very probable that Jews lived in that country before Henry of Isenburg, in 1213, transferred to two Jews to whom he owed money a claim for 230 marks due him from the Laach Abbey (Aronius, "Regesten," p. 173, No. 391). Archbishop Conrad of Cologne, in 1253, deeded to the counts Walram and Otto of Nassau the sum of 500 marks, which was in part payable from the Jew-taxes of Siegen (ib. p. 253, No. 591). Lambert of Lüttich (1169-83), in his life of St. Mathias, speaks of the miraculous cure of a man in Lahnstein who had in vain sought aid from Jewish physicians (ib. p. 143, No. 316). During the medieval persecutions the Jews of Nassau had their share of suffering. The memor-books mention Limburg (on the Lahn) as among the places where Jews were massacred during the Rindfleisch riots of 1298; Diez and Montabaur, during the Armleder persecutions in 1337; and all three places, during the persecutions at the time of the Black Death (Salfeld, "Martyrologium," Index).Restrictions.
The German king Adolph of Nassau maintained the policy of extortion begun by his predecessor by not permitting the burial of Meïr of Rothenburg until a ransom had been paid. Another Adolph of Nassau, as Bishop of Cologne, freed the Jews of his diocese from the payment of the Leibzoll (1384), not from humanitarian motives but because he had promised as much to them in return for a special contribution. The various duchies into which Nassau was divided at the beginning of the nineteenth century abolished the Leibzoll (Sept. 1, 1806; "Zeitschrift für die Gesch. der Juden in Deutschland," v. 126-145, 335-347). It was not until June 18, 1841, that the special Jewish taxes ("Schutzgeld") paid to the state were abolished; the special Jewish communal taxes ("Beisassengeld") were abolished on Jan. 18, 1843, and the Jews were allowed to participate in all communal benefits, except the privilege in regard to free wood ("Loosholz"). The law which prohibited the cession to Christians of debts due to Jewish creditors was abolished about the same time.
In the nineteenth century, like all the smaller states of Germany Nassau endeavored to organize the Jewish communities, of which there were 77 scattered among 222 towns and villages. In 1840 was issued the law which compelled Jews to adopt family names. An edict of Oct. 18, 1842, introduced the Reform services of the Württemberg prayer-book into the synagogues and created four district rabbinates (those of Weilburg, Wiesbaden, Schwalbach, Dietz; later reduced to three, those of Ems, Weilburg, and Wiesbaden); the teachers were appointed for life. A subsidized normal school for Jewish teachers was established in Langenschwalbach by the government, and the sanitary laws in cases of circumcision were enforced (July 2, 1844). Nassau was among the first German states to introduce a constitutional government (1848). Religious freedom was proclaimed March 4, 1848, but petty reactionary measures were introduced here as elsewhere in the "fifties," and not until Sept. 26, 1861, was the oath More Judaico abolished. The annexation agreement with Prussia in 1866 recognized the rights acquired by the Jews of the duchy, including exemption from the oath More Judaico, which was still in force in Prussia, but did not agree to continue the subsidies for the normal school, nor to give state support to congregational institutions. But recently (1904) the Prussian minister of public worship decided that the law declaring that only the district rabbi could solemnize marriages was abolished.
Among the rabbis of Nassau were Abraham Geiger (at Wiesbaden, 1832-38), Benjamin Hochstadter (at Ems), and R. Silberstein (at Wiesbaden). H. Herz, as early as 1820, was appointed "Medizinalrath" (health officer) in Weilburg—one of the first cases of a Jew holding a state office in Germany.
- Zeitschrift für Gesch. der Juden in Deutschland, ii. 34-35.
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Prepared in part by John Troynaski of Queens College 's Writing Center and in part by Mikhail Gersovich of Baruch College 's Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute
I. Organization, Structure, and Coherence
It is important that your essay hold together and have a structure that makes it easy for the reader to follow your ideas. Your essay needs to have :
- A beginning : Your opening paragraphs need to establish what you will be doing in the essay and the texts you will be working with. Your early paragraphs set up what happens throughout the rest of the essay.
- A middle: This is where you work to make the points you wish to make. The paragraphs in the middle of your essay will present most of your ideas about the two readings in response to the exam question. Remember that each main point gets its own paragraph and that you need to move smoothly from paragraph to paragraph. It's crucial that you stick to the plan you set forth in the beginning and do what the beginning of your essay suggests you'll do.
- An end: This is where you bring together everything you've done earlier in the essay. For example, if you've devoted the earlier sections of your essay to considering and synthesizing readings A and B, your ending paragraphs should consider what the two readings say in light of your own experiences. The end is important – don't ignore it. Develop the end as fully as you can.
Plan your essay before you start writing. Begin by preparing the middle section of your essay (the body) first .
- Outline what you are asked to summarize in the long reading that you were given in advance. (Hint: be sure to summarize only what you are directed to summarize; don't bother with “extras”; don't summarize the entire essay.)
- Outline the points you plan on discussing that relate the long reading to the short reading you received at the test. Focus primarily on what you find in the two texts. (Hint: usually the end of the sentence in the writing assignment that begins “Draw a relationship between” provides you with some focus on what you should choose to include in your discussion.) Save your personal experiences for later in your essay.
- Outline what you know or have observed about the shared theme of the two texts that you have been asked to write about. (Hint: you can include things that you have learned in classes or that you have read about or have observed in your community or at work or among your friends and family, for instance.)
- Outline your personal individual perspective on the extent to which you agree or disagree with either or both of the authors. (Hint: this is the part of your essay where you can be as subjective as you like.)
Now you need to prepare a beginning (introduction) for your essay .
- The first sentence of the “Writing Assignment” declares the general theme that your essay is supposed to discuss. So, thinking about the ideas in that first sentence and what you now know you are prepared to do in the rest of your essay, plan a few sentences that will relate the theme of the two texts you are writing about with what you know and think about this topic.
- You might begin by identifying the two texts and their authors and state the general theme they both address in their writings. You can then state (briefly) whether they generally agree or disagree in what they say about this theme. Then you can state (and this, really, will be your essay's thesis statement) how your knowledge, experience, and thoughts cause you to adopt a particular perspective on what these authors say about this theme.
Briefly note what you might say to conclude your essay. Try not simply to say again what you have already said in your essay .
Remember, the above suggestions present only one, very “linear” way to prepare to respond to a CPE writing assignment. There are others. For instance, in the body of your response, once you summarize what you are asked to from the long reading, you can mix together in a less-structured fashion points from the middle section that you outlined above. However, this “looser” method is recommended for more experienced and successful essay writers.
Your essay is made of paragraphs. To have a well-structured essay, you need paragraphs that are themselves well-structured.
- Each paragraph of your essay needs to develop one, and only one , main point or idea.
- Make sure that your reader knows what that point or idea is right from the start. The topic of a given paragraph should be obvious right away (the first sentence of a paragraph is often called the “topic sentence”).
- Develop the main point of each paragraph as fully as you can. Use specific detail to back up your point. Avoid brief, undeveloped paragraphs.
- Each sentence of the paragraph must relate to the point you are trying to make and, it follows, to every other sentence in the paragraph. Sentences which do not support the idea a given paragraph will appear to stick out and will take away from the unity and coherence of that paragraph and the essay as a whole.
- Avoid switching topics mid-paragraph. If you find yourself moving off the topic in a given paragraph, begin a new one.
- Avoid rough transitions from paragraph to paragraph. Make sure that each paragraph follows smoothly from the one before it and leads easily into the one that follows it.
It is a good idea, as you move to a new idea from another, to indicate that shift with some sort of transitional word or phrase. There are many of these, but the most common ones and the sort of relationships they signal are:
- Addition: moreover, likewise, further, again, furthermore, in addition, besides, next, also, equally important;
- Comparison: similarly, likewise, in like manner;
- Contrast: however, in contrast, still, otherwise, nevertheless, at the same time, after all, on the contrary, on the other hand, notwithstanding;
- Result: hence, thus, therefore, then, accordingly, consequently, as a result;
- Give examples: for example, for instance, to illustrate;
- Summary, intensification: to sum up, to be sure, in brief, in other words, on the whole, in sum, in short, indeed.
One of the most important parts of your essay is your summary of the long reading. This is where you illustrate that you understand the author's ideas by briefly restating them in your own words.
- Use you own words and, if you quote from the passage, use quotation marks (see the section on paraphrase and quotation below). If you merely copy from the text, it is not clear to the grader that you understand the author's ideas and you will receive a lower grade.
- Accurately reflect the author's ideas, and do not include your own interpretation or opinion. If you want to include your own analysis of the ideas being summarized, make sure you identify which ideas are yours and which ideas come from the text.
- Identify the author whose work you are summarizing. Again, it is important that you give the author credit for his/her ideas.
- Give the main points and include a limited amount of details, facts, examples, illustrations and other specifics. Readers do not want to read unrelated information. It is more important for you to get the main ideas of the text right than for you to expand you essay to fill more pages.
- Be brief. Use fewer words than the sources being summarized.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Thoreau went to live in the woods so that he could find the essential truth of life—whether it was terrible or wonderful—so that he could live fully and not regret how he lived when it is time for him to die.
III. Referencing Texts—Paraphrasing and Quoting
You can also refer to the texts when you discuss them by paraphrasing or quoting from them. But it's important to remember that you need to clearly separate your ideas from other authors, so be sure you mention the author's name each time you introduce a summary, paraphrase, or quote.
Paraphrasing is expressing someone's ideas, sentence by sentence, in your own words. You have to be careful; you cannot use the same sentence structure and merely substitute your words for the author's.
Let's take part of the passage used above:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.”
--Henry David Thoreau
Unacceptable Borrowing of Structure : The basic structure of the sentence is the same as the author's, but the writer has replaced some of the words.
Thoreau went to live in the woods because he wished to live thoughtfully, to confront only the basic parts of life.
Unacceptable Borrowing of Words/Phrases : Words and phrases are copied from the author's sentence without quotation marks.
Thoreau isolated himself in the woods so that he could live deliberately and only deal with the essential facts of life.
By living in the woods, Thoreau hoped to learn about life's basics.
Quoting from your sources is a good way to support the argument you're trying to make. However, when you quote, make sure you put the quoted matter between quotation marks, and that you copy the passage exactly.
Many American writers have extolled the virtues of the simple life. One of the first of these was Thoreau, who wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.”
Thoreau acknowledged the need to focus on the important things in life when he spoke about trying to “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life” in Walden .
Some things you should keep in mind as you quote:
- Direct quotations must have a lead-in to identify the author and at least one or two sentences following the quote to explain it and its significance.
- Quote only strong, well-written and/or memorable statements.
- Quote to be accurate and to avoid misinterpretation.
- Short direct quotes are set off from the rest of the sentence they appear in by a comma and the first set of quotation marks; the period at the end of a short quotation appears within the second set of quotation marks: Thoreau said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”
- NOTE: Your CPE essay should be primarily your own writing, NOT a series of connected quotes. Quoting extensively, in an attempt to pad your essay, is a poor strategy and may indicate that you do not fully understand the text.
It's a good idea to budget your time during the writing so that you have some time left over at the end to proofread what you've written. After all, you'll be under a great deal of stress and you can't be sure that your hand wrote what your mind thought unless you take some time to actually read what you've written. You can also use this opportunity to catch any mistakes you might have made.
While rereading what you've written for its sense, you might also check to make sure you've avoided the most common errors of grammar and punctuation: sentence fragments and run-ons, comma-splices, subject-verb agreement errors, verb form errors, verb tense mistakes, pronoun problems (pronouns with no antecedents or pronoun-antecedent agreement errors), incorrect noun plural forms, and word form errors. If you are not sure of what these are, any writing handbook will refresh your memory, or you can review these problem areas by accessing the CUNY Writesite online by going to http://www.writesite.cuny.edu
Don't worry too much about these surface problems; what's most important is that the reader understands what you're saying.
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CHICAGO: Helmeted bicycle riders have a 58 percent reduced odds of severe traumatic brain injury after an accident compared to their non-helmeted counterparts, according to researchers from the University of Arizona, Tucson. Their findings were presented today during the 2015 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.
The researchers performed an analysis using the 2012 National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) of the American College of Surgeons, analyzing records of 6,267 patients who had a traumatic brain injury after a bicycle related accident. Among the group of patients, just over 25 percent were wearing helmets.
"We know for a fact that helmets help you prevent head bleeds in case you get into a bicycle-related accident," said Ansab Haider, MD, one of the study coauthors. "But the real question was, if you get into a bicycle-related accident and end up with a head bleed, does helmet use somehow protect you?"
The researchers found that among this group of patients--those who sustained traumatic brain injury after a bicycle related accident--the ones wearing helmets had a 58 percent reduced odds of severe traumatic brain injury and a 59 percent reduced odds of death. Further, the use of helmets reduced by 61 percent the odds of craniotomy (an operation to remove part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain) and facial fractures by 26 percent.
"If you are severely injured and you were wearing a helmet, you are going to fare better than if you were not," said Bellal Joseph, MD, FACS, lead study author. "When you hone in on that severe group of people who actually developed a brain injury, and then look at how they did, the helmet really made a difference."
The researchers also looked at the impact of age and gender on bicycle accidents where a traumatic brain injury occurred.
"We tried to see how the pattern of helmet use varied over different age groups," Dr. Haider said. "The lowest incidence of helmet use was seen in the age group of 10-20 years of age. But as we went up every 10 years, the likelihood of helmet use went up."
Drs. Joseph and Haider said that the trend of helmet use increasing with age continued to rise with each decade of life, until the age of 70, when the rate went back down for the first time. They also found that females are more likely to wear helmets than males.
The researchers also found that in the patients they studied, the likelihood of facial fractures was higher for those who weren't wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. Dr. Haider said that helmet use helped prevent fractures to the upper part of the face, including the area around the eyes, the orbital lobe. However, helmet use wasn't as effective at preventing fractures to the lower part of the face, such as mandibular jaw or nasal fractures.
As a result of their findings, Drs. Haider and Joseph said that the next step is to create injury prevention programs to increase helmet use among bicyclists, to manufacture better helmets, and to develop and enforce stricter laws for helmet use. They said that they already participate in many prevention programs in Tucson, which is a very bike-friendly city.
"That's where future efforts need to focus in on--making helmets that really make a difference," Dr. Joseph said. "Ultimately, the important message is patient care and how we can make our patients safer and more protected. We need to take this data and take it to the next level and move forward with policy and injury prevention, especially for the younger age groups."
Other study participants included Peter M. Rhee, MD, FACS; Mazhar Khalil, MD; Narong Kulvatunyou, MD, FACS; Bardiya Zangbar Sabegh, MD; Terence O'Keeffe, MBChB, FACS; Andrew L. Tang, MD, FACS; Rifat Latifi, MD, FACS; and Randall S. Friese, MD, FACS.
"FACS" designates that a surgeon is Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
About the American College of Surgeons
The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.
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In January, the ball was dropped when Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) deferred the February 10, 2009 deadline that it set in 2008 for producers and importers of children's goods to test for lead and phthalates, chemicals commonly used in plastics.
The initial deadline was set last summer when Congress imposed the toughest lead standards in the world by passing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). The measure requires testing to ensure children's products don't contain more than 600 parts per million for children 12 or younger. The law was driven by a national outcry by parents and health experts over a series of recalls of toys and children's products contaminated by lead and other dangerous material.
Because young children often chew on toys and can thus easily absorb toxins, it is of critical importance to make sure these products are free of potentially dangerous chemicals. In 2005, the European Union permanently banned phthalates as they have been linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and developmental problems in children.
While the decision to delay testing gives manufacturers more time to establish guidelines for testing of products and offers businesses relief from paying for the testing-which can be quite expensive; up to $15,000-it raises questions about how retailers will know whether the toys they already on their shelves meet existing federal lead standards. And while larger manufacturers say they can handle the costs of compliance, "Mom and Pop" toy and children's clothing makers say the costs of the testing could put them out of business in the current economy.
A CPSC spokesperson said the goal of the postponement was to give companies a more realistic timetable to set up rigorous testing procedures. Manufacturers and importers could still, however, face civil and criminal penalties if they sell products that exceed mandatory lead and phthalates limits, mandatory toy standards, and other requirements. Currently manufacturers must test children's products for small parts than may break off, lead content in children's jewelry, and lead paint, especially on items such as cribs.
The industry is still awaiting guidance on whether toys and clothing made from natural materials will be exempted from the law. And a disturbing fact: the stay of enforcement on testing does not address thrift and second-hand stores because they are not required to test and certify products under the CPSIA because they blasted the commission with objections.
CPSC spokeswoman, Julia Valiese emphasized that secondhand stores cannot sell products that exceed lead limits and should avoid products that could contain lead. The commission urges thrift and secondhand stores to visit its website at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09120.html to help determine whether a product meets the lead standard and other guidelines.
A press release issued by the CPSC on February 6, 2009 states: "Sellers will not be immune from prosecution if CPSC's Office of Compliance finds that someone had actual knowledge that one of these children's products contained more than 600 ppm lead or continued to make, import, distribute or sell such a product after being put on notice. Agency staff will seek recalls of violative children's products or other corrective actions, where appropriate." Still, some merchants have understandable confusion about the new law and how to comply.
In a statement from a coalition of public interest organizations released in January, the group urges the commission to "promptly address reasonable concerns that have been raised regarding compliance, and provide better information about the new law," agreeing that while the law is fundamentally sound, it also urges President Obama to appoint new leadership at the CPSC to help implement the measure.
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Slow Movement News
The definition of ‘fast food’ according to the Wikipedia is food cooked in build and in advance, kept warm or re-heated to order....
Slow Food in collaboration with the region of Liguria, has just finished celebr4ating the event Slow Fish 2007. It was a great success with 42,000 visitors, a much higher number than expected. ...
ABC Wed Jul 11 07 The Mayor of Maroochy Shire on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Joe Natoli, says it could be another 12 months before the CSIRO is able to undertake a flood modelling study in the Sunshine Coast region because the research body is under-funded. ...
An influx of treechangers into a rural community can keep population levels steady but it can change the needs and expectations within the community. ...
Making the connection to food
One of the most basic area of connection for the slow movement is in the area of food all aspects of the food system. This means we need to connect to:
- Traditional seeds;
- Food production;
- Food sourcing;
- Food buying;
- Food preparation;
- Traditional recipes and ingredients;
- Food consumption; and
- Waste food disposal.
Our connection to our food is as important as the food itself.
Food is part of our cultural identity and cultural heritage. The slow movement aims to preserve this identity, and to keep the connection between the food we eat and the land it comes from. In preserving our cultural heritage the slow movement and the slow food movement in particular also preserves our physical environment by supporting and promoting sustainable systems of agriculture such as organic and biodynamic, and the use of traditional seeds and agricultural practices.
People from some western countries may feel they lack traditional foods and recipes, but this isn’t so. Sure fast-food may reign supreme, but there is still a legacy of traditional foods waiting to be rediscovered.
One of the first things we can do to connect with our food is to grow some of our own food. Just a couple of vegies or a fruit tree makes a lot of difference in our connection to our food and in the amount of environmental damage created by commercial food production. What we don’t grow ourselves we can purchase directly from the producer if we have the opportunity, or from as close to the producer, in the sale chain, as possible. Eating from our foodshed has always been important in terms of our own health, the economic health of our community, and the resilience of our community. Gary Paul Nabhan has written a great book Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods which explores dietary and spiritual subsistence questions such as 'Does it matter where our food comes from? Do we, our communities, and the planet do better if we choose food grown by local sources we trust?' Nabhan reminds us that eating close to home is an act of deep cultural and environmental significance.
There are many different community food systems operating that we can choose from, such as box schemes, community supported agriculture, consumer groups, U-Pick-It farms, roadside stalls, and farmers’ markets.
With the emphasis on traditional food production systems and sustainability, we need to ensure that the food we buy is organic. This not only helps our environment but our bodily health by providing wholesome nutrients and healing ingredients to our immune system.
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Patents exist to protect inventors (and their investors) from those who would steal their idea for, say, a new cell phone charger and manufacture a cheap knock-off. But what happens when companies patent genes?
The question of whether companies should be allowed to patent something that exists in nature and can grow, mutate, and replicate on its own is far from resolved. A case before the U.S. Supreme Court this year will set an important precedent for what can and cannot be patented that will impact agribusiness, biotechnology firms, and consumers for decades to come.
Pro: Patents Encourage Innovation and Protect Investment
CNN reports that last week an Australian federal judge upheld a U.S. biotech company’s patent on the BRCA1 gene, which signals an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
Myriad Genetics, the company in question, says that about seven percent of breast cancer cases and 15 percent of ovarian cancer cases are caused by mutations on the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene (Myriad also owns a patent on BRCA2).
According to Myriad, patients with BRCA mutations have "risks of up to 87 percent for breast cancer and up to 44 percent for ovarian cancer by age 70." Women, especially of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, whose close relatives were diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer before age 50 are often urged to undergo genetic testing for these mutations.
The Australian judge said that because the process of isolating the gene for testing requires human ingenuity, the resulting isolated gene could be patented.
Proponents of gene patenting say that private companies like Myriad are doing a vital public service through their medical research, and that they should be allowed to protect the product of techniques they’ve invested millions of dollars to develop.
Con: Don’t Monopolize Life-saving Science
The Association for Molecular Pathology, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and patient advocacy groups who brought the lawsuit against Myriad say that by giving a single company the exclusive right to test for mutations on the BRCA1 gene, the test could be made prohibitively expensive.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that Myriad’s test cost $3,340, with a $700 supplemental test to achieve more accurate results.
By restricting who can and cannot test for BRCA mutations, patient advocates worry that women who need it will not receive the test, or the personalized preventative care they may require. Patenting will also discourage other companies and research labs from developing a fast, cheaper, and more sensitive test for breast cancer gene mutations.
According to a news release from the ACLU, “The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted thousands of patents on human genes—in fact, about 20 percent of our genes are patented. A gene patent holder has the right to prevent anyone from studying, testing or even looking at a gene. As a result, scientific research and genetic testing has been delayed, limited or even shut down due to concerns about gene patents.”
Opponents of gene patenting add that patenting a naturally occurring piece of human DNA is a slippery slope, as companies rush to patent (and price) genes for everything from eye color to cholesterol, and so restrict the ability of scientists to study them.
For now, Myriad Genetics is not enforcing their patent protections on BRCA1 and 2, but the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides on April 15.
The Big Question
Should companies be able to patent the very genes that make us human? Should the results of vital healthcare research—even research financed by the private sector—be part of the public domain?
Tell us what you think. Email firstname.lastname@example.org and include your first name and hometown. We’ll publish the top reader comments next week.
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Facts and Events
Seaxburh (died c. 674) was a Queen of Wessex. She is also called Queen of the Gewisse, an early name for the tribe which ruled Wessex. She is said to have ruled Wessex for about a year after the death of her husband, Cenwalh, in 672. It was extremely rare for a woman to rule in her own right in Anglo-Saxon England, and she was the only woman to appear in a regnal list. She may have ruled for over a year, as the next reign is entered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 674.
However, Bede said that after death of Cenwalh "sub-kings took upon themselves the government of the kingdom", so the chroniclers may have tidied up a complicated situation.
She was succeeded in about 674 by Æscwine.
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Gene mutation passed on from long-extinct Neandertal ‘cousins’ seems to help modern Tibetans survive at high altitudes
Tibet has been called the “roof of the world.” It’s a vast region in southwest China that sits on the highest plateau on Earth. It's cold and dry. What’s more, its air has 40 percent less oxygen than does the air at sea level. That should make it difficult for people to live there. But Tibetans comfortably survive such extreme conditions. And it’s due in part to an ancient genetic gift from their ancestors. These were amazingly ancient ancestors, a new study finds. Those long-extinct folk were essentially cousins of Neandertals.
Scientists have known that Tibetans carry an unusual form of a gene called EPAS1. A gene is a snippet of DNA, found inside cells. It tells a cell how to make the molecules that will help it function. The EPAS1 gene helps the body use oxygen. The version of this gene in the native people of Tibet helps them deal with their homeland’s extremely low levels of oxygen.
Researchers had wondered when that altered gene first evolved. Its small but important genetic tweak almost certainly came from an ancient group of pre-human relatives, scientists now report. They share their analyses in the July 2 Science.
Anna Di Rienzo, who studies genes at the University of Chicago, did not work on the new study. She says the new findings provide evidence that humans picked up genetic changes from other ancient species. The gene may have been passed along when two closely related species produced offspring together, she told Science News. Such breeding across closely related species likely introduced other helpful genetic changes as well, she adds.
Rasmus Nielsen led the new study. Earlier, this geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, had looked for the source of the Tibetan gene variant in other peoples. In one study, he showed it probably did not come from the Han Chinese. They are closely related to Tibetans. In another study, he probed the DNA of ancient Neandertals. Again, no match.
“So we just put it aside because we couldn’t make sense of the data,” Nielsen told Science News.
But in 2010, researchers discovered a finger bone from a previously unknown ancient group of pre-human folk. Scientists named these hominids Denisovans (Deh-NEE-so-vuns). In 2012, researchers finished describing the entire Denisovan genome (all of an individual’s DNA). To their surprise, when Nielsen and his team looked at this genome, they now found a match. The Denisovans had the same EPAS1 change that helps Tibetans survive in low-oxygen environments.
The discovery indicates that the Tibetans probably inherited the genetic tweak from those Denisovans.
Pontus Skoglund is not entirely convinced, however, that the genetic journey from Denisovans to modern humans is as straightforward as it might at first seem. Skoglund is a geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. Denisovans interbred with that other ancient group, the Neandertals, he notes. And scientists have found evidence that ancient humans interbred with Neandertals. Modern people, including Tibetans, still have some DNA inherited from Neandertals. So, Skoglund told Science News, “there's still a little wiggle room for [the EPAS1 variant] to have come from Neandertals.”
archaic An adjective meaning ancient. Something from a far earlier period in time, often thousands, if not millions, of years ago.
Denisovans An ancient humanlike population whose existence is known only because of a few fossils discovered in a cave in Siberia.
DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid)A long, spiral-shaped molecule inside most living cells that carries genetic instructions. In all living things, from plants and animals to microbes, these instructions tell cells which molecules to make.
evolution A process by which species undergo changes over time, usually through genetic variation and natural selection. These changes usually result in a new type of organism better suited for its environment than the earlier type. The newer type is not necessarily more “advanced,” just better adapted to the conditions in which it developed.
gene A segment of DNA that codes, or holds instructions, for producing a protein. Offspring inherit genes from their parents. Genes influence how an organism looks and behaves.
genetic Having to do with chromosomes, DNA and the genes contained within DNA. The field of science dealing with these biological instructions is known as genetics.
hominid A primate of an animal family that includes humans and their fossil ancestors.
Neandertal (sometimes spelled Neanderthal) A species (Homo neanderthalensis) that lived in Europe and parts of Asia from about 200,000 years ago to roughly 28,000 years ago.
oxygen A gas that makes up about 21 percent of the atmosphere. All animals and many microorganisms need oxygen to fuel their metabolism.
variant (in genetics) A gene having a slight mutation that may have left its host species somewhat better adapted for its environment.
T. Saey. “Tibetans live the high life thanks to extinct human relatives.” Science News. July 2, 2014.
S. Ornes. “Tiny fossil tales big tale.” Science News for Students. Sept. 21, 2012.
S. Ornes. “Your inner Neandertal.” Science News for Students. May 26, 2010.
B. Bower. “Where do humans come from?” Science News for Students. Nov. 5, 2013.
S. Ornes. “Neandertal ancestor?” Science News for Students. July 7, 2014.
S. Ornes. “Ancient DNA sparks new mystery.” Science News for Students. Jan. 3, 2014.
S. Ornes. “Becoming human.” Science News for Students. April 4, 2012.
Original Journal Source: E. Huerta-Sánchez et al. Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA. Nature. Published online July 2, 2014. doi:10.1038/nature13408.
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Stirling officer among casualties at chateau
Southerners at War
The order to attack came through on December 1, 1917. Two days later, the men of the 1st Battalion of Otago and the 1st Battalion of Canterbury found themselves leading the assault on Polderhoek Chateau, a run-down Belgian estate turned German stronghold and headquarters.
The plan was to begin the assault in broad daylight – zero hour was noon on December 3 – to take the Germans by surprise. Machinegun fire and mortars would provide cover for the two-pronged attack, with the battalions crossing into enemy territory in separate waves, backed up by reserves ready for the German defence.
But the brutality of war had no intention of letting things run to plan.
Two companies at the front of the assault, the 4th and the 10th, were caught in the firing line.
The eldest son of James and Margaret Bryce, Stirling man Colin Bryce entered the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces as a Lieutenant in the 16th Reinforcements, Otago Infantry Battalion, D Company. He was eventually made Captain.
Before the war, Colin Bryce was a farmer.
On June 26, 1905, he married Jane Draper at her parents' Milton home, and the couple went on to have four children together.
But then war came, and Colin Bryce set off for Devonport, England, aboard the Navua on August 20, 1916. The troops making the journey aboard the ship called into port at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, before reaching England on October 24.
A piece by war correspondent Malcolm Ross, published in the Ashburton Guardian on March 22, 1918, recounted how the chateau and a pillbox prevented the advance of "the Otagos".
"But their officers' gallantry strove against the odds, setting a brave example to their men, till two of them were killed and no fewer than six wounded ... three Otago officers were killed or wounded in an endeavour to take the chateau, and several of their men fell gallantly fighting by their side ... while the attack was held up, more especially on the left, the Canterburys, according to plan, formed a defensive flank on the right facing the Ghelevelt position. But all attempts were in vain and by 1.40pm ... it seemed as if little further ground could be won. Reinforcements failed to make the necessary impression, and the chateau remained in German hands. The New Zealanders then settled down to consolidate the little ground they had won."
Captain Bryce was one of those who lost his life that day at Polderhoek Chateau. He was commanding the 10th Company when he fell.
Among the names in an article in the Evening Post on December 17, entitled: `While doing their duty: casualties at the front', Captain Bryce's death is reported.
"The deceased soldier was well known and greatly respected in the Stirling district, where he was engaged at contracting work prior to enlistment with the 16th Reinforcements. He was the elder son of Mrs and the late Mr JBryce (Stirling), and had lived most of his life at that township, receiving his education at the local school. Captain Bryce was a keen rifle shot and a member of the old volunteers and the Kaitanagata [sic] Rifle Club. He had secured many trophies as a result of his marksmanship, and was the possessor of quite a collection of cups, medals, and shields," it read.
He is buried at Hooge Crater Cemetery in Belgium, and is also commemorated on the war memorial at Stirling, near Balclutha. – Sources: Gary Ross at the South Otago Museum, Archives New Zealand, Evening Post, Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database, Ashburton Guardian.
STIRLING WAR MEMORIAL
The memorial at Stirling commemorates the loss of 33 lives in World War I. Engraved on the memorial are the words: "Memorial to Stirling's fallen soldiers who died under the flag during the Great European War 1914-1918. In honour of these deathless dead who died that we might live."
The death of one other man from Stirling, WEA Inglis, who died in World War II, is also commemorated on the memorial. – Information: New Zealand History Online, Ministry for Culture and Heritage
- The Southland Times
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Nairobi is the largest urban area in Kenya and is located in its own province.
The Kenya Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development overseas management and development of Nairobi. In 1963 when Kenya became independent, Nairobi had a population of about 350,000; now more than 2.5 million people live in the city. While people from all tribes in Kenya live in Nairobi, the predominant representative tribes are Kikuyu, Luo, Kamba and Luhya. Asians, Europeans, and Arabs also live in Nairobi.
Nairobi consists of eight constituencies: Starehe, Makadara, Lang'ata, Kamukunji, Westlands, Kasarani, Dagoretti, and Embakasi. The population of the Nairobi area in 2009 was as follows:
Photo: Subhadip Mukherjee via stock.xchng
Urban Areas >
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What are heathland ecosystems?
Heathlands are characterised by dense, low shrubs with scattered, twisted trees – a function of the harshness of the environment where they occur.
They support a very high floral diversity, a large number of small mammals and rich bird life. They are widespread in Victoria, particularly near the coast and in the south-west.
- Occur where drainage is poor so distribution is often patchy
- Soils have extremely low levels of nutrients
- Dominated by tough, hard leaved plants and terrestrial orchids - many are rare or threatened in the state.
Fire is a fundamental environmental factor. Fire allows regeneration of many small ground layer species, however fire regimes that are too infrequent or too large in scale pose a major threat to this ecosystem.
Heathlands support more than 80 species of birds and small marsupials such as dunnarts, bandicoots and potoroos and mammals such as the Swamp Rat and New Holland Mouse, which are prone to predation by foxes.
Heathlands are also particularly prone to Phytophthora cinnamomi (a fungal dieback) and invasion by woody native species
Where do I find heathlands?
- Cape Conran Coastal Park
- Wilsons Promontory National Park
- Anglesea Heath
- Grampians National Park
- Jilpanger Nature Conservation Reserve
Find out more
Deptartment of Environment and Primary Industries – Distribution map and information about the different types of heathlands found in Victoria.
09 Jun 2016
Parks Victoria is looking for people, groups and businesses to nominate for the Parks Victoria Environmental Sustainability Award which is one of this year’s Regional Achievement and Community Awards. “As a sponsor of these awards, we are aiming to recognise those who are making a difference in regional communities,” says…
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In Web industry, to streamline your development process, Designing is done, and before final design is presented to be further developed or be tested, some other intermediate steps are involved :
Step 1: Getting Inspiration :
If you continually observe what other designers or sites are doing for their wireframes, you will slowly get a picture in your mind of how a wireframe helps to organize information for the screen.
and for that you can use "Wirify" Wireframing tool, just add the big link to your bookmark and got on any desired website, click the bookmark, you'll see the website turning into wireframe.
Step 2: Designing Your Process :
Different designers approach wireframing and its translation to visuals or code in different ways,
Here it's not just designer to choose the path to be followed, sometimes clients prefers to directly make mockups, and some prefer more systematic,
Sketch => Wireframe => Mockup => Code
Step 3: Sketching :
Now when you're inspired have some rough ideas and a planning of approach, its always good to start with sketching, no mater how good you're at controlling your mouse / stylus or whatever you use, they can not beat paper, pencil at simplicity.
Hand sketching on paper is always a good starting point for any designer. It provides a quick and easy way to focus and organize. If you’re very precise with sketching, you could even use this as your final wireframe.
Step 4: Wireframing :
Creating a wireframe is one of the first steps you should take before designing.
A wireframe helps you organize and simplify the elements and content within a website and is an essential tool in the development process.
A wireframe is basically a visual representation of content layout in a design.
Like the foundation of a building, it has to be fundamentally strong before you decide whether to give it an expensive coat of paint.
Things to consider while creating a wireframe are:
Pick Your Tools
Here is Mashable's list of 10 Free Wireframing tools for Designers
Setting a Grid
Grids are very necessary to achieve a symmetric and parallel design.
whenever you look at a good designed website you'll find that it's content start from a specific point in body and ends at one, those are managed by use of grids.
Determine Layout With Boxes
Define Information Hierarchy With Typography
What to Avoid While Wireframing :
Benefits of wireframing :
- Too much happening on the page.
- Emphasis on color and design
- Too much detail
Creating a wireframe gives the client, developer, and designer an opportunity to take a critical look at the structure of the website and allows them to make revisions easily early on in the process.
Wireframing brings the following key benefits:
It gives the client an early, close-up view of the site design (or re-design).
It can inspire the designer, resulting in a more fluid creative process.
It gives the developer a clear picture of the elements that they will need to code.
It makes the call to action on each page clear.
It is easy to adapt and can show the layout of many sections of the website.
Step 5: Mockups / Visual :
Now final Wireframe can be converted to final Mockups or Visual:
Some common tools for Mockuos are Adobe photoshop, Corel Draw and very new but already populare Sketch, etc.
Things to consider while converting to a Mockup are:
You may need to consider what to be highlighted and what to be side information, and color scheme, re-positioning and typography are so decided.
Choose visually appealing and readable typography for website with right combination of alternatives. Font-size, weight and colors play a crucial role in readability.
A Color scheme representing Brand Identity and psychological colors as Red for danger, green for Success, etc.
Step 6: Prototypes :
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.
Wireframes handle structure, mockups handle visuals, and prototypes handle usability (in web / app products).
A prototype product is made and then this is tested and POC (Prof of concept) is done, Now we can head to Real product (obviously if there’s no change needed)
Link to original article with images and other links
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Breathe Easier: Learn About Asthma Archived
Wheezing, coughing,and shortness of breath are serious health problems for people with asthma. In the past 25 years, the United States has seen an increase in the number of people with the disease. This podcast discusses how people can manage asthma to help prevent attacks or decrease the overall health effects of this disease. Created: 12/6/2007 by MMWR. Date Released: 12/6/2007. Series Name: A Minute of Health with CDC.
- Page last reviewed:March 12, 2015
- Page last updated:March 12, 2015
- Content source:
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On the Road: NC - NCDC Dataset Workshop IL - NWS Convective Workshop, MRCC Mesonet Workshop, IL GIS Assoc. Spring Conference, NWS Open House DC - Congress and Climate Partners Meetings FL - Drought Monitor Forum IN, MI, OH - MRCC Spring Regional Road Trip UT - Climate Prediction Apps Science Workshop
The Great Ohio Valley Flood of 1913
Sarah Jamison, Service Hydrologist NWS Cleveland and Silver Jackets member
100 years ago this March, one of the greatest natural disasters to strike the nation came in the form of a cataclysmic flood. The rain started on Easter Sunday, March 23rd, 1913 and continued for three days and nights. Before the rain was over, hundreds of thousands were relocated as towns along creeks and rivers were inundated with flood waters. Levees built to previous record stages were quickly overtopped, burying towns with debris-filled, rushing water that uplifted roads, tore down bridges, and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. When the rains finally stopped, three state capitals (Indianapolis, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; and Albany, New York) were under water. Property damage was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars — approximately 5-7 billion dollars today — and around a thousand lives had been lost.
"Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness."
— James Thurber
At the time of the disaster, the Ohio Valley was home to a quarter of the nation’s population and was the largest producer of the country’s coal, natural gas, and steel. When the region was decimated by the floods, the ripple effect was felt across the country. This was the largest and most widespread disaster to strike the United States at that point, and is comparable with the more recent Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
1913 Flood Storm Summary
On the morning of Easter Sunday, March 23rd, the low responsible for the Great Flood was over Colorado. By Sunday afternoon, temperatures, humidity, and winds out of the southeast had increased notably across the Midwest. This warm and unstable airmass provided the fuel for severe and tornadic storms that day and night. Strong southerly winds, sustained over 35 mph with gusts in the 50s, had developed over central Kansas, resulting in a severe dust storm. The strong winds then moved into Missouri, this time associated with heavy rain and hail.
By evening on Sunday, stations observed sustained southerly winds of 40 to 50 mph with gusts to 60 mph, mainly over Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. From Chicago to Milwaukee there were reports of roofs blown off and city houses overturned. Significant tornadoes tore through several states, resulting in over 150 fatalities, most notably in Omaha, Nebraska and Terre Haute, Indiana.
Given the extensive telephone, telegraph, and power line damage from this event and the previous storms, there was little way to forewarn others of the powerful and destructive storm heading their way. In addition to severe storms and winds, the rain began to fall in sheets over Illinois and Indiana. The warm moist air coming out of the south provided unusually heavy rainfall for late March, with rainfall heaviest over northwest Ohio and central Indiana, where rain averaged over two inches for the day.
On the night of the 23rd, the storm system deepened. It rained most of the night, with intense rainfall leading to the onset of flash flooding starting in Indiana. The ground was unable to absorb the rapidly falling rain, resulting in washouts of roads and railway tracks.
As if perfectly designed for maximum rainfall, a quasi-stationary front, the type generally considered to be the most efficient heavy-rain producer, was stalled over the Ohio Basin on Monday, March 24th. Rainfall on this day measured highest in southern Indiana and western Ohio averaging 3 to 6 inches. Storm total rainfall between Easter Sunday through Monday was a swath of 3 to 8 inches over Ohio, Indiana, and southern Illinois, surpassing monthly rainfall totals in less than 48 hours. The rain however, was far from over.
On Monday night and the morning of Tuesday the 25th, the second storm system was moving into southern Indiana and Illinois, resulting in scattered reports of tornadoes and damaging winds. Over the Ohio Valley, the rain continued to fall on Tuesday the 25th, and more railroads and bridges were being damaged or destroyed across Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania as powerful floodwaters swept the states. Communities were cut off from the outside world, becoming islands in many instances.
It wasn’t until midday on March 27th that a cold front, followed by an area of high pressure, was finally able to drive the trough of low pressure eastward into Pennsylvania and New York, slowly ending the heavy rain over the Ohio Valley. In Indiana, the rain was replaced with heavy snow, with amounts up to 8 inches over the hardest hit central and northern portions of the state. In Ohio, light snow followed the cold front that pushed through on Thursday, which was followed by cold high pressure centered over Kentucky the next day, and resulted in widespread frosts down into the Gulf States. Total precipitation across the region during this historic event is shown in the figure above. Visit the 100th Anniversary website for a more detailed storm summary.
During the last century, state and federal agencies developed numerous flood warning, awareness, and protection services to protect life and property for those who live in flood zones. Some of the strategies include:
Prevention measures (building, zoning, storm water management, floodplain regulations)
Public information (outreach, technical assistance, education)
Flood Warnings and alerts
In this spirit, the newly developed Silver Jackets Teams, composed of local, state, and federal agencies, provide a unified approach to find common solutions to manage flood risk. What did the lessons of the 1913 flood teach us about safe and sustainable flood management? The Great Flood of 1913 attracted Congressional interest and investment in controlling or managing flood-prone areas that later resulted in the Flood Control Act of 1917. This was the first of several 20th century legislative actions that eventually resulted in the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program of 1968, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979 and the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Act of 1988.
Although the flood management systems of today have performed remarkably well, we should still ask what we can learn and how to continually improve the overall system. In the goal of learning from past floods to improve future flood fights, the Silver Jackets seek further improvements through a comprehensive approach.
100th Anniversary Website
For the 100th Anniversary of the Great Flood, the Silver Jackets have teamed with the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) to spread the word about this historic event and increase flood awareness. The website, “The Great Flood of 1913 – 100 Years Later” tells the stories of many communities impacted by this disaster, as well as the meteorological and hydrological conditions before and during. Resources for flood awareness, preparation, and mitigation are available for families, educators, agriculture and businesses.
For over a decade, the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) has offered paid summer internships to undergraduate students, most often majoring in an atmospheric science discipline. These internships have provided students with an opportunity to work directly with historical atmospheric data and realize the diverse applications and needs of acquiring and maintaining this data. From serving the public’s need for climate information, to participating in applied climate research, to contributing to the development of tools and resources for accessing and interpreting climate data, summer interns gain an appreciation for the field of climate sciences.
The MRCC is located within the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS). In 2008, the ISWS became a Division of the Prairie Research Institute of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With a fully equipped, fully functional weather observing site in its backyard, the MRCC and ISWS not only get to experience the reward of contributing to a long history of climate data for a location, but also realize the complexity and challenges that data collection carries in terms of quality control.
The MRCC is one of 6 Regional Climate Centers across the United States that has been supported through federal funds since the early 1980s. Its mission has four components:
Provide high-quality climate data, derived information, and data summaries for the Midwest region
Monitor and assess regional climate conditions and their impacts
Prepare specialized historical climate data sets
Coordinate and conduct applied research on climate-related issues and problems
Student interns have the opportunity to spread their time between providing support in the MRCC Climate Service Office in addition to supporting an applied climate project. Past projects have covered topics from examining climate teleconnection relationships to widespread drought, using climate data to study and compare heat waves in Chicago, identifying extreme precipitation events that have impacted major metropolitan areas, to improving the metadata records of national climate datasets. One former MRCC intern had the opportunity to present his applied climate internship project at the 2013 American Meteorological Society meeting. Two current climatologists at the MRCC were former summer interns at the MRCC and other interns have gone on to pursue and succeed in careers within the climatology and atmospheric sciences.
This year, the MRCC is offering 2 paid summer internships! One internship will be awarded to an undergraduate student (currently of either Sophomore or Junior standing) who is majoring in an atmospheric science discipline. The other internship will be awarded to either an undergraduate or graduate student with computer programming experience along with an interest in working with large atmospheric datasets. For more information on these internship opportunities, please email Beth Hall.
Winter temperatures were above normal for the Midwest but trended from much above normal in December to below normal in February. Throughout the winter, temperatures swung between above and below normal with the below normal periods becoming colder and more frequent later in the season. Warm spells in December and January led to hundreds of record highs but record lows were much less frequent occurring mostly in just two of the cold spells, one each in January and February.
Winter precipitation was above normal for most of the Midwest, a welcome respite from last year’s drought. The locations of the plentiful precipitation changed throughout the season but by the end of the three-month period most of the region was above normal. Western Iowa and northwest Missouri were the biggest exception with slightly below normal totals for the winter. Totals exceeded normal in two swaths, one across northwest Minnesota and a second extending from south central Wisconsin ENE across lower Michigan. Read more...
Last Spring Freeze: The last spring freeze starts the growing season each year and is monitored by NWS personnel, farmers, and gardeners. The MRCC spring freeze maps document the timing of the last spring freeze (32°F and 28°F thresholds) at several hundred stations across the Midwest and High Plains. The maps are updated each day. Stations with sufficient data are noted by dots indicating the amount of time that has passed since the last freeze. When the dots are shaded completely, that indicates that the minimum temperature has been greater than the threshold (either 32°F or 28°F) for at least the past 14 days. Additional maps show the median date for the last spring freeze for 1981-2010 for comparison with the current year. State maps can also be viewed by clicking on a state in any of the regional maps.
mPING – Mobile Precipitation Identification Near the Ground
The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has been involved with a research project that seeks to improve precipitation algorithms for the weather NEXRAD radars. Located across the United States, NEXRAD radars show where precipitation is presumed to be falling including the type of precipitation. In order to improve the NEXRAD precipitation algorithms, NSSL needs a lot of ground observation data.
The mPING mobile application is a free app that the public can download to help with this NSSL research project. Using the GPS location capabilities of most mobile devices, the app allows the user to submit the current precipitation type that is occurring (including “None”) at their location that can then be spatially correlated with data from the nearby radars. This app is available for both Apple and Android devices. For more information, see the PING Project web site at http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/
Asheville, NC (Mar. 19-21) - NCDC Dataset discover Day Workshop #2: Frost/Freeze Data
Allan Curtis will be presenting work the MRCC has led in conjunction with numerous NWS offices and other agricultural experts on the development of frost/freeze guidance products. He will also talk about the future direction of the suite of products and some of the positive results and feedback from the user base.
Lincoln, IL (Mar. 21) - NWS Convective Workshop
Beth Hall will be presenting recent enhancements and product updates to the MRCC frost/freeze guidance project website to the local NWS office’s convective workshop.
Champaign, IL (Mar. 27-28) - MRCC Mesonet Workshop
Beth Hall, Leslie Stoecker, and Nancy Westcott will be hosting a workshop to bring mesonet (atmospheric and soil monitoring network of observing stations over a relatively small region) operators and managers from Missouri, Michigan, Kentucky, and Illinois together to discuss opportunities to consolidate data into the Applied Climate Information System that the Regional Climate Centers and other climate partners use to access climate information.
Washington, DC (Apr. 8-12) - Meet with Congress and Climate Partners
Beth Hall will be spending a week meeting with various climate partners and congressional delegates concerning the national Regional Climate Center program.
West Palm Beach, FL (Apr. 13-15) - Drought Monitor Forum
Mike Timlin will meet with the National Drought Mitigation Center staff, Drought Monitor authors, and other contributors to discuss the production of the weekly US Drought Monitor.
Champaign, IL (Apr. 17-18) - Illinois GIS Association Spring Conference
Zoe Zaloudek will be attending this conference to continue to develop and learn new GIS skills. This event will feature structured workshops, technical sessions, technology demonstrations, project updates, as well as national and state speakers.
Northern Indiana, Michigan, and Northern Ohio (Apr. 22-26) - MRCC Spring Regional Road Trip
Beth Hall and Allan Curtis will be embarking on their 2nd annual MRCC Spring Regional Road Trip. They are still in the early stages of planning visits for this trip, so if you’re anywhere in these regions and would like the MRCC to stop by, please let them know!
Logan, UT (Apr. 23-25) - Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop
Mike Timlin will be attending this workshop that will bring together climate researchers, climate product producers, and users to share developments in research and climate service or prediction applications used for decision-making.
Romeoville, IL (May 4) - NWS Romeoville (Chicago) Open House
Beth Hall will be representing the MRCC at the local NWS Open House to the public.
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The anti-abortion movement is support for the opinion that abortion is wrong. Another word for this movement is pro-life (meaning support for life). Such people think that abortion is wrong and that the law should not allow it. People who think the law should let women decide whether to have abortions are called pro-choice.
People who are pro-life believe that all humans, including the unborn, have a right to life. For this reason, they believe abortion is wrong and that it is murder. They think the law should make abortion a crime in order to protect embryos and fetuses. Most believe that an unborn baby is a living person as soon as it has been conceived. Many pro-life people think women who are pregnant and do not want to raise a child should look for alternatives to abortion such as adoption. Some pro-life people think that abortion is okay in some conditions such as rape or incest.
There are many advocacy groups that want to help women considering abortion, and try to convince more people that abortion is wrong.
Being anti-abortion is most associated with conservative politics. In a Gallup poll 66% of conservatives called themselves pro-life. It is also associated with Catholicism. Pope Francis has said that "Every child that isn't born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, has the face of the Lord."
References[change | change source]
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pro-life movement|
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A Pedagogy of Place
Outdoor Education for a Changing World
Brian Wattchow and Mike Brown
A ‘pedagogy of place’ refers to an alternative vision for outdoor education practice. This timely book, A Pedagogy of Place, calls into question some of the underlying assumptions and ‘truths’ about outdoor education, and in turn offers alternatives to current practice that are responsive to local conditions and cultural traditions. In this renewal of outdoor education philosophy and practice, the emphasis is upon responding to, and empathising with, the outdoors as particular places, rich in local meaning and significance.
Current outdoor education theory and practice is influenced by cultural ideas about risk and adventure, and by psychological theories of personal and social development. However, in recent decades the professional discourse of outdoor education has made a noticeable shift to include education for the ‘environment’ and ‘nature’. This has resulted in a mismatch between theory and practice: traditional notions of proving oneself ‘against’ the challenges of the outdoors are antithetical to the development of an empathetic relationship with outdoor places, which growing concern with today’s environment demands.
This book will be the first of its kind to articulate a renewal of philosophy and practice for outdoor education that is in keeping with the educational needs of today’s young people as they grapple with considerable social and ecological changes in a rapidly changing world. The authors draw extensively on international, national and local literature and provide compelling case studies drawn from the Australian and New Zealand contexts.
‘a major contribution to the place-conscious educational literature’,
— Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association
'A Pedagogy of Place is an extremely pertinent and important text both practically and academically and it successfully ‘troubles’ taken for granted assumptions and practices current in much outdoor education, providing possibilities for rethinking and re-enacting new and more enriching approaches to outdoor education pedagogy. We strongly recommend the book to academics, researchers, students and practitioners who want to develop their thinking, conceptualisation and practice of outdoor learning and experience. It has global relevance and we forecast that the book will find a place in most higher education libraries.'
— Alan Hockley & Barbara Humberstone, Managing Leisure, 17(1), 75-77, 2012
'This book offers a very different perspective on outdoor education and it holds the potential to sow many seeds about what outdoor education could become. I hope that it will also become a conceptual framework around which to organise a substantive body of research in outdoor education.'
— Robyn Zink, Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 15(1), 56–58, 2011
'This is an excellent book and is a valuable addition to contemporary discussion about what we are trying to achieve in outdoor education in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.'
— Dave Irwin, Out and About, August 2011
'Wattchow and Brown have written a book that is readable, and actually enjoyable. It mixes enjoyable personal narratives, with well structured reviews of academic literature. The book recognizes a challenging ideal and a changing world. It is an excellent addition to the body of literature and will definitely give me ‘food for thought’ in both designing my next placed-based field school on Haida Gwaii and using A Pedagogy of Place as a key text.'
— Patrick T. Maher, e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 9, No. 4, 2011
About the authors
Brian Wattchow is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director of Sport and Outdoor Recreation (SOR) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He is a foundation member of the
Movement, Environment and Community (MEC) research group at Monash. Brian has published more than 30 articles in academic journals, scholarly books and in the public domain, most often centring on his interests in outdoor pedagogy, sense of place and land identity. He co-authored Group Management in the Wilderness (University of Calgary, 1989) with Bill March and has recently published his first collection of poetry titled The Song of the Wounded River (Ginninderra Press, 2010).
Away from work Brian is an avid golfer and reader, and enjoys camping, travelling and ‘toiling’ under the hot Australian sun on the small Gippsland farmlet where he lives with his family.
Mike Brown is a Senior Lecturer in the Sport and Leisure Studies Department, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato. He has worked in the outdoors in the UK, Australia and New Zealand over a twenty year period. During this time he has combined field positions with tertiary appointments which have proven to be useful opportunities for seeing outdoor education practice and theory from a variety of contexts. His research has appeared in a number of outdoor education peer reviewed and professional journals as well as in a number of edited books. He has examined some of the fundamental assumptions on which much outdoor education practice is based, with a view to strengthening outdoor educators’ understanding of the teaching and learning process. He serves on the board of several outdoor education trusts and is the editor of the New Zealand Journal of Outdoor Education.
Outside of work Mike keeps active by competing in triathlons, undertaking the occasional sea kayaking trip and more recently ‘family camping’ – oh the joys of a thick airbed and a trailer to carry stuff, as compared to a thin foam mattress and a backpack!
For media inquiries, please contact our Marketing Coordinator, Sarah Cannon.
While many of our books are published online for free, this does not mean that the books are in the 'public domain': copyright laws do still apply.
Copyright for all material published on this site is owned or licensed exclusively to Monash University Publishing. All rights reserved. Apart from any uses permitted by Australia's Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process or in any form without prior written permission of the copyright owners. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher, Monash University Publishing.
Readers are free to read, copy, download, print and display a work provided that:
• this is solely for personal use or use within the reader’s organisation;
• full acknowledgement is made of the author/s and the original copyright owner;
• the work is not used for any commercial gain in any form; and
• the reader in no way alters, transforms or builds on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without the express permission of the author and publisher of the publication in question.
In all cases of re-use or distribution, readers or authors must make clear to others the license terms of the work. Enquiries should be directed to Monash University Publishing.
Authors of Monash University Publishing titles are not permitted to publish these works on any website other than their personal sites, without written permission from the publisher. Authors are encouraged to post the title of their book on any website and post links on any site that direct readers to the Monash University Publishing site.
Every effort has been made to obtain copyright permissions for the images reproduced in our publications. If you are a copyright owner of materials reproduced in one of our works and have concerns regarding their use please contact Monash University Publishing.
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We see a variety of weather over the southern Plains during the year. We have become accustomed to large hail, tornadoes, blinding snow storms, flash flooding, and deadly heat. But there is another subtle, yet very significant risk that we face during this time of year.
This year the first day of Autumn occurs at 9:49 am on Saturday, September 22. In and around the Autumnal Equinox, including the week before and the week after, the sun spends roughly an equal amount of time above and below the horizon. The rising sun aligns itself perfectly with our many east-west roadways, including busy freeways such as Interstate 40. It is during the first 15 to 45 minutes of sunrise that
Our sunrise over the next couple of weeks will range from 7:15 to 7:25 am CDT, which corresponds with the morning rush hour when people are going to work or taking kids to school. What seems like a perfect, sunny day could take a serious turn for the worst, or even deadly due to virtual blindness from the sun. Hundreds of accidents, many of them deadly, have occurred over the last several years across the United States.
A similar situation occurs during the late afternoon/early evening hours. Motorists traveling westbound can also experience sunglare as the sun drops lower toward the horizon.
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To find out exactly what time the sun rises and sets at your location, you can click here.
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German jurist; born at Mayence March 3, 1829; brother of Friedrich Dernburg. The Dernburgs are related to the French family of Derenbourg, which, before its settlement in France, was called "Dernburg" (see Derenburg). Dernburg was educated at the gymnasium of Mayence and the universities of Giessen and Berlin, graduating from the latter in 1851. In the same year he became privat-docent of the juridical faculty of the University of Heidelberg. In 1852 he was called to Zurich as assistant professor, and was appointed professor in 1855. In 1862 he accepted a similar position in the University of Halle, which he represented in the Prussian Herrenhaus (Upper House) from 1866 to 1873, when he became professor of Roman and Prussian law in the University of Berlin. He reentered the Herrenhaus in 1873. With Brinckmann and others he founded in 1851 the "Kritische Zeitschrift für die Gesammte Rechtswissenschaft."
Among his works may be mentioned: "Geschichte und Theorie der Kompensation," Heidelberg, 1854; 2d ed., 1868; "Das Pfandrecht," Leipsic, 1860-64; "Die Institutionen des Gaius, ein Kollegienheft aus dem Jahre 161 nach Christi Geburt," Halle, 1869; "Lehrbuch des Preussischen Privatrechts und die Privatrechtnormen des Reiches," ib. 1871-80; "Das Vormundschaftsrecht der Preussischen Monarchie," Berlin, 1875; 3d ed., edited by Schultzenstein, 1886; "Das Preussische Hypothekenrecht" (with Hinrichs), Leipsic, 1877-91; "Pandekten," ib. 1884-87; 6th ed., 1900-01; "Die Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in Ihrem Personalbestande seit Ihrer Einrichtung bis 1885," ib. 1885; "Das Bürgerliche Recht des Deutschen Reiches und Preussen," Halle, 1898-1900.
The father of Dernburg and his whole family became Christians.
- Brockhaus, Konversations-Lexicon, 1901, s.v.
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Learn something new every day
More Info... by email
The difference between a whole number and an integer, unfortunately, depends a great deal on who is talking about the numbers in question. This is because there is a great deal of disagreement over what this type of number represents, which has led to confusion and frustration among students of mathematics. Integers are easier to understand, however, since the set of integers simply refers to all natural numbers, including negatives, positives, and zero. These numbers are often said to refer to only the positive natural numbers, though zero is sometimes included, and some people use the term “whole number” synonymously with “integer.”
Understanding the difference between a whole number and an integer can be difficult, since it depends on how a person is using the term “whole number.” It can be easiest to begin by establishing what integers are, since there is an agreed upon definition for “integer.” Integers are natural numbers, including negatives, zero, and positive numbers. These are only natural numbers and do not include fractions, decimals, irrational numbers, imaginary numbers, or anything else that cannot be expressed as a simple, natural number.
With reference to these integers, however, whole numbers can be much more complicated. Many people consider only the positive integers, also called counting numbers, to be whole numbers, in which case zero would not be a whole number. Others regard these numbers as non-negative integers, which would include all positive integers, but include zero since it is not a negative number. To further contribute to this confusion, there are also people who use the terms “whole number” and “integer” synonymously, meaning that in such a usage there would be no difference between the two terms.
This is why the term is not frequently used in higher level courses and discussions of mathematics, since it can be taken by different people to mean different things. It is often best to use the terms "integers," "negative integers," "positive integers," and "non-negative integers." Integer would then refer to all natural numbers, including negatives, zero, and positives; while negative integer would refer only to negative natural numbers, not including zero since it is not negative. Positive integer can be used to refer to any positive natural number, though this would exclude zero since it is not positive; while non-negative integers would be all positive natural numbers and zero, since it is not negative.
I wasn't the best math student in the world when I was in school. I did fine in my other classes, but once I got to high school and the more advanced math courses I struggled. I was fine with adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers, but when we got into all the fractions, negatives numbers, and variables I got lost.
Anyway, like I said, I was fine with math until I got to high school. so I assumed I would be able to help my kids with their math homework up until high school at least. My daughter, who was in third grade at the time came home one day and said she needed me to check
over her homework to be sure she hadn't missed any.
I was more than happy to see she was so conscientious, and I was happy to help. That night, when I looked at her homework I was totally confused. I could tell it was math, but that was about it. I actually had to study her text book for a couple hours that night before I could figure out what she was doing. And she was working with whole numbers, no fractions. It was the same basic math I had learned, but with new ways of solving equations.
This brings back memories of grade-school math classes. As I remember it, when I was a student the teacher used the term whole number to refer to any number that wasn't a fraction. That's what the word whole means--not part of a number or a fraction, but all of the number, the whole number.
I don't even remember the term integers. I'm not saying we didn't use the term, but it has been a long time ago since I was a math class, and I don't remember too much about any of them.
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Health Centers > Mental Health Center > Mental Disorders > Personality Disorders > Avoidant Personality Disorder > Causes, Frequency, Siblings and Mortality - Morbidity
- The exact cause of APD is unknown.
- The disorder may be related to temperamental factors that are inherited. Specifically, various anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence have been associated with a temperament characterized by behavioral inhibition, including features of being shy, fearful, and withdrawn in new situations. Components of this temperament have been identified in infants as young as 4 months.
- Genetic factors have been hypothesized to cause APD and social phobia because both conditions are found more frequently in certain families. The exact mechanism of transmission is unknown, and phenotypic expression of any underlying genetic vulnerability may include other anxiety disorders.
- Although not specifically studied in cases of APD, traumatic experiences, parental overprotection, poor social skills, and parental anxiety have been found to be related to social anxiety.
- Retrospective studies of adults with APD report high levels of childhood emotional abuse (61%). Physical abuse, however, may be more closely linked with a diagnosis of another personality disorder or PTSD.
- A multifactorial model of causation is likely, with several of the above factors exerting variable influence in individual cases.
From an evolutionary point of view, the "fight-or-flight" dichotomy suggests that both hostility & avoidance are naturally occurring responses to fear. Both are thought to be based on anxiety evoked by the presence of a feared stimulus object or situation. However, avoidance can co-vary with fear, vary inversely or vary independently (Rachman & Hodgson, 1974). Therefore, avoidance behavior seems to be more complex than is accountable for by the simple presence of fear or anxiety. What appear to be purposeful hostile reactions to others, for example, may be indicative of highly complex psychological processes.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
- Epidemiology and Phenomenology
- Diagnostic Guidelines
- ICD-10 Criteria
- Diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV-TR)
- Differential Diagnosis
- Mortality / Morbidity
- Associated Features
- Historical Developments
- Review of Empirical Literature Studies
- Treatment Recommendations
- L Cognitive and Behavior Therapies
- L Psychodynamic Therapy
- L Interpersonal Therapy
- L Psychopharmacological Treatment
- L Group Therapy
- L Family Therapy
- L Medications
It is commonly believed that biological factors, including heredity & prenatal maternal factors, set the foundation for personality & personality disorders, while environmental factors shape the form of their expression (Millon & Everly). In the case of avoidant personality disorder, the evidence of major biogenic influences in its etiology & development is speculative & weak (Millon & Everly). However, there is some evidence that a timid temperament in infancy may predispose individuals to developing APD later in life (Kaplan & Sadock, 1991). While shyness appears to indicate underactivity, Kagan believes that this inherited tendency to be shy is actually the result of overstimulation or an excess of incoming information. Timid individuals cannot cope with the excess of information & so withdraw from the situation as a self-protective measure. The inability to cope with this information overload may be due to a low autonomic arousal threshold (Venebles, 1968). The same mechanism may also be responsible for the avoidant's hypervigilence. However, it is generally believed that these biological substrates exist within the avoidant personality as a biological foundation for the emergence of the disorder itself & that full development of APD is likely due to significant environmental influences (Millon & Everly).
A common and serious mental disorder characterized by loss of contact with reality (psychosis), hallucinations (false perceptions), delusions (false beliefs), abnormal thinking
As the individual gets older there are fewer mandatory (like school) activities that will force them to engage in the world. Their social connectedness can become more and more limited. Their avoidance behaviors can have severe consequences on their social and occupational functioning.
- In the US: The frequency of APD in children is not known because current psychiatric practice is to avoid labeling children and adolescents with personality disorders and to describe their traits instead. However, in the adult general population, the prevalence is estimated to be 2.1-2.6%.
- Internationally: The international frequency has not been studied in children.
- Sex: APD is estimated to be equally common in males and females.
Many individuals experience avoidant personality characteristics at one point or another in their lives. The occasional feelings of self-doubt and fear in new and unfamiliar social or personal relationships is not unusual, nor is it unhealthy, as these situations may cause feelings of inadequacy and social avoidance in even the most self-confident individuals. Avoidant personality traits only emerge as a disorder when they begin to have a long-term, negative impact on the individual, cause functional impairment by significantly altering lifestyle and impacting quality of life, and trigger feelings of distress for the individual.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), the standard diagnostic reference for mental health professionals in the United States, states that at least four of the following criteria (or symptoms) must be present in an individual for a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder:
- The avoidance of occupational or school activities that involve significant interpersonal contact due to an unreasonable or excessive fear of rejection or criticism.
- An unwillingness to enter into an interpersonal relationship unless there are assurances of acceptance.
- Restraint in interpersonal situations because of an unreasonable fear of being ridiculed.
- Preoccupation with criticism and the possibility of rejection in social situations.
- Inhibition with others in interpersonal relationships due to feelings of inadequacy.
- Self-perception of social inadequacy and inferiority to others.
- Reluctance to participate in new activities or take any personal risks because of a perceived risk of embarrassment.
Avoidant personality disorder can occur in conjunction with other social phobias, mood and anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. Diagnosis may be complicated by the fact that avoidant personality disorder can either be the cause or result of other mood and anxiety disorders. For example, individuals who suffer from major depressive disorder may begin to withdraw from social situations and experience feelings of worthlessness, symptoms that are also prominent features of avoidant personality disorder. On the other hand, the insecurity and isolation that are symptoms of avoidant personality disorder can naturally trigger feelings of depression.
The order in which children are born within the family structure has a profound influence on their personality development. That is to say, the parents' expectations and treatment of the oldest child cannot be identical with that of the youngest one and so forth. The conclusion is that each child experiences a different environment within the same family.
Accompanying the obvious physical distinctions between male and female there is a complex biochemical system which not only distinguishes between the sexes in function, but also creates emotional differences which are further differentiated by the roles and expectations of the society in which they live.
Mortality / Morbidity
The most common syndromes seen with APD include agoraphobia, social phobia (some clinicians see APD as possibly a generalized form of social phobia), generalized anxiety disorder, dysthymia (an emotion of depression), major depressive disorder (the syndrome with all the associated signs and symptoms), hypochondriasis, conversion disorder, dissociative disorder, and schizophrenia.
- School refusal and poor performance: As many as one third of children who refuse to go to school may have significant social anxiety.
- Conduct problems and oppositional behavior: Many children with severe social anxiety refuse to participate in social activities and may have behavioral outbursts or panic attacks when placed in a social situation.
- Poor peer relations: Patients with APD often have few friends and refuse social overtures as children, behavior patterns that persist through adolescence and adulthood.
- Lack of involvement in social and nonsocial activities: Patients with APD demonstrate lower levels of participation in athletics, extracurricular activities, and hobbies than children with depression or other personality disorders.
Some Facts on Avoidant Personality Disorder
Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD) is a serious condition characterised by a pattern of withdrawal, self-loathing and heightened sensitivity to criticism. According to DSM IV, people who suffer from AVPD display many of the following traits (Note: These must greatly interfere with the individual's everyday life):
- Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection.
- Is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked.
- Shows restraint initiating intimate relationships because of the fear of being ashamed, ridiculed, or rejected due to severe low self-worth.
- Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations.
- Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy.
- Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
- Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing.
Treatment: Sometimes symptoms can be reduced by taking SSRI antidepressants. Therapy programs typically involve social skills training, cognitive behavioral therapy and group therapy. Getting help with their sensitivity to criticism, their intense fear of rejection, and their social fears is a central part of therapy.
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LEHIGH - Participants paddled through time Saturday afternoon during an "Archeology on the River" event organized by Webster County Conservation.
The educational group float focused on the geological and cultural history of the Des Moines River Valley as the mass of kayaks and canoes meandered along from the Deception Hollow Wildlife Area south of Lehigh to the Boone Forks Wildlife Area access point in Hamilton County. The event drew 35 people who were led by in their river adventure by Mark Anderson, an archeologist with the Office of the State Archeologist.
"Our land use is such that we are losing archeological resources fast," he said, "which is why education and outreach such as this is so important."
The days of surprise discoveries and big digs are fast slipping away, Anderson said. People may still find arrowheads in fields, but often they are mixed together and out of context, providing no real insight into the people who crafted and used them. The work he typically does now are surveys and assessments to determine the archeological importance of areas impacted by proposed construction, bridge and road projects.
With this limited scope of discovery, private landowners have become key in finding and preserving sites of importance.
"Landowners are our front line of stewardship," Anderson said. "They know their property and what is on it. The public also is a fabulous safekeeper, sharing what they find and alerting us to any new sites."
The Des Moines River Valley shows evidence of Paleoindian sites from 13,000 years ago to all kinds of more recent historic sites, he said. However, the different sites are not necessarily so easy to spot from the river. Most Paleoindian and Archaic period sites are upland because at the time that those people were establishing themselves, the river filled the valley. Still, being relatively close to the water was essential to aid in mobility.
"Waterways were prehistoric highways," Anderson said. "They facilitated transportation and were even used in the winter by walking them once they had frozen over."
Geographic evidence of glaciers and the ice age are easily viewed in the river's surrounding bluffs and riverbanks, though, since the river was the main drainage of the last large ice events in Iowa.
The Paleoindian period, Anderson explained, is the time period where humans were thought to have crossed over to North America from Asia using the Bering land bridge. They were nomadic hunters of animals such as mammoth, mastodon and caribou. Evidence of people of the Paleoindian period being active in Iowa is often reportedly found near areas where rivers and tributaries come together.
The archaic period was between 8,000 to 3,000 years ago and is really when people spread out across the entire landscape, Anderson said. They were hunters and gatherers who also developed and implemented tools, such as axes. The Woodland period was around 2,800 years ago. The people of the period established a coordinated, widespread trade network and built the burial mounds in Dolliver Memorial State Park.
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See also ComposeFunction
An operation on functions, usually denoted by a middot, a circle or juxtaposition. In the following, let us denote composition by a lowercase 'o'.
(f o g)(x) = f(g(x))
, we have the predefined function "." which is composition:
f . g = \x -> f (g x)
Composition can be used extensively to build processing lines out of individual building blocks. You often see code as the following in Haskell:
nextmoves breadth = pruneBadMoves breadth . pruneImpossible . genNextMoves
pruneBadMoves breadth = pruneByValue breadth . estimateMove . pruneByDepth 3
Some people define InverseFunctionalComposition
to avoid these read-last-to-first definitions, e.g.
f >>> g = \x -> g (f x) -- in Haskell's Control.Category
...and some people use ForthLanguage or JoyLanguage instead.
, we have the predefined operator "o" which is composition
shows that you can do almost everything with just composition of well-chosen primitives.
View edit of May 16, 2011
or FindPage with title or text search
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| 0.818102 | 264 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Information is at the heart of political participation, as it allows citizens to be aware of the actions and priorities of public authorities as well as those holding or running for elected office. With much public information now provided on the internet, it is particularly important that web-based information be accessible for persons with disabilities. One step towards achieving this can be statutory accessibility standards for websites that provide public information.
Article 9 (1) of the CRPD specifically requires state parties to take measures to ensure the accessibility of “information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems”. Promoting e-accessibility is also at the heart of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, the eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015 and the Digital Agenda, which set a target of full accessibility for public sector websites by 2015. In 2012, the European Commission published a proposal for a Directive on the accessibility of public sector bodies’ websites which would set a European standard for web-accessibility.
This indicator measures whether public and private providers of internet and web-based information in the EU Member States are obliged by law to ensure that the information they publish is subject to accessibility standards, in particular the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA standards. These standards are published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organisation for the internet, and aim to make web-based content accessible to people with disabilities.
Are there legal accessibility standards for public and private providers of internet and web-based public information in EU Member States?
Source: FRA, 2014
Sixteen EU Member States have no legal accessibility standards in place for providers of internet and web-based public, the analysis shows. Only four Member States, Austria, Belgium, Malta and Spain, have statutory accessibility requirements for both public and private providers, set out in laws on electronic communication and/or equal treatment of persons with disabilities. In Belgium, for example, the Institute for Postal services and Telecommunications – a regulatory and competition authority in the telecoms sector – can require from telecommunication providers that end-users with disabilities have access to services adapted to their disability and have the same choice of telecommunication providers as other users.
In eight Member States, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden, website accessibility standards only apply to public providers. For example, in Germany federal authorities are obliged to design their websites so that (WCAG) 2.0 AA standards are met. In the Czech Republic there is a similar regulation concerning information on websites of government offices.
In several of the Member States where FRA’s analysis found no legal accessibility requirements for providers of web-based information, there are some non-binding recommendations. The Danish parliament, for example, issued a resolution stating that the government should ensure that the public’s use of information technology complies with open standards, among others WCAG 2.0. Similarly, the Advisory Committee on Information Management in Public Administration in Finland issued recommendations for web services in public administration which provide for a minimum accessibility standard of WCAG 2.0 A level to be met.
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Phase Difference and Sound Image Localization
Psychoacoustical tests on sound image localization versus phase-difference between two channels have been carried out. Under conditions of the experiments, single-frequency theories, which have been proposed so far, do not always predict the direction of the sound image of real sources. The results of our experiments show that for equal strength signals there exist some definite relationships between sound image localization and phase difference. In-phase signals produce a sharp centrally located image. As phase difference becomes larger, the sound image gradually moves int he direction of the loudspeaker to which the leading phase signal is applied, and the distribution of the directions given in the listener's responses is slowly dispersed, until the phase difference of about 90 degrees is reached. Above 90 degrees, the distributor is more dispersed and localization becomes uncertain. At 180 degrees, localization is almost completely uncertain. Regardless of the type of sound source, the overall tendencies of localization versus phase difference are similar, except for a sound source of impulsive nature.
Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!
This paper costs $33 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.
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Teaching & Learning Update
Science Venture to Enlist Girls in After-School Programs
One new effort to spark student enthusiasm for science targets a particular audience: younger girls.
A nonprofit educational organization, the Academy for Educational Development, is launching a drive to use after-school programs to increase female students’ interest and achievement in science.
Great Science for Girls will use existing after-school programs at schools, community centers, and other facilities to cultivate that interest, especially among girls in grades 3-8, said Barbara Sprung, the co-director of the educational equity center at the AED, located in Washington. Encouraging girls to build their science skills and eventually pursue college majors and careers in those areas is an issue of renewed concern among education leaders and elected officials.
The five-year AED project is supported by a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation; money will flow to regional nonprofits and other organizations to deliver services, said Ms. Sprung. The idea is to hook girls on science through informal and inquiry-based lessons—an approach that focuses on building knowledge through students’ use of scientific investigations and hands-on activities, rather than simply through teacher-led presentations. Many after-school educational programs use that model already, Ms. Sprung said.
“The education that goes on there is informal, interactive, and project-oriented,” she noted.
Vol. 26, Issue 14, Page 16
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Market Status: Not officially announced
Add phone to compare
|Device type||Smart phone|
|Features||Light sensor, Proximity sensor|
System chip - Most modern handsets use an advanced chip that includes many of the device’s hardware modules like the processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and sometimes even the wireless radio. This field shows what particular system chip (or System-on-a-Chip) is used in the phone.
Processor - The processor is the main computing component of a phone and is a major factor when it comes to the overall speed of the device. Some more powerful smartphones use dual-core and quad-core processors designed to deliver greater performance.
|Octa-core, ARM Cortex-A15|
|Filter by||Album, Artist, Playlists|
|Features||Album art cover, Background playback|
Features - Shows any special features of the particular phone's multimedia
|Zoom, Stretch to fullscreen|
|Other||Computer sync, OTA sync|
|Notifications||Haptic feedback, Music ringtones, Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration, Flight mode, Silent mode, Speakerphone|
|Other||Voice dialing, Voice commands, Voice recording|
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| 0.654532 | 260 | 2.59375 | 3 |
This is the CURRENT VERSION of the study guide.
The exam is designed to:
- Reward students who have read works, attended class, participated in group work, and reviewed course material
- Gauge students’ ability to identify important passages from texts and explain their significance.
- Measure how well students can discuss issues and ideas associated with the Romantic Period.
- Spend time reviewing the reading list. Look at particular authors and jar your memory about their works and what makes the writers distinctive.
- Reread the introduction on the Romantic period and review the author bios.
- For essays, make sure you can remember main points and ideas.
- For poets, try to review the plots or main ideas (especially the ones we discussed in class). Try to remember key themes and techniques.
- Make outlines to answers for essay questions to study/practice.
- Study with classmates, but beware of breaking up the list of questions; peers occasionally make mistakes.
Part I. Short Answer: Answer five of six questions with a brief response (5 x 5=25 total points). Some will require a word or two; others will require a sentence or two.
These questions will be factual questions based on information from the introduction to the period, PowerPoints, class notes, the author biographies, and the literature you read. You will need to know some of the important historical dates we emphasized, significance of historical events, facts about the authors lives, and details from the plots. Some of this information will come from works we discussed, but a significant portion will come from works on the reading list that we did not discuss in class.Part II. Identification: Choose 4 of the 5 quotations or images and identify author/artist and title of the work (2 pts.). Then in two or three sentences explain the significance of the lines (why the lines are especially important to the work) or important features of the image (if it's a painting). (6 pts.). (4x8=32 total points)
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
Wordsworth's "We Are Seven"
This poem depicts a conflict between a man who uses reason to count and a little girl who counts with her heart. When the man asks her how many brothers and sisters she has, she says "seven," but "two are dead," so the man thinks she has five siblings. Wordsworth gives the little girl the last line asserting that "We are seven" and suggests that emotion is an important factor in experiencing the world and questions the value of only relying on the neoclassical value of reason. The exclamation points the man uses in the first and second lines of the stanza show that the man who is supposed to be more reasonable has, ironically, lost his cool in this argument.
Note that writer addresses the big picture idea of the poem and uses details from the passage to support his response. If people lose points on this part of the test, it is because they don't point to details from the passage or explain the significance of the passage--they just identify it and move on or simply tell how it fits with the plot of the poem.
If I ask you to identify an image/painting, you'll need to know the title and painter and to explain how one of the features of the painting ties to one of the central ideas of the period.
Part III. Essay: Choose 1 of 2 and answer in a brief essay. (43 total points). Make sure to plan your answer before writing it. Begin your answer with a clear thesis statement that forecasts your answer (no need for an extensive introduction, but you may if you want to), and then develop your thesis with organized paragraphs that include topic sentences, use specific references (concrete details, not necessarily quotes) to the texts, have clear analysis which explains your answer to the question or addresses the topic. Take time to proofread your answer before you turn it in. These questions test both your ability to write in depth about particular ideas and make connections across genres and periods.
I'll choose TWO at random from among this list to include on the exam--you will answer ONE.
- As we've discussed on numerous occasions, the French Revolution was a significant influence on several writers of the Romantic period. Pick two POETS and explain how the ideas of the French Revolution influenced each of their work in two or three different ways. Make sure to use specific examples.
- We've spent a fair amount of time talking about imagination (and the book's introduction spends several pages discussing this important concept). Using Coleridge's concepts of the Primary and Secondary Imagination, discuss how two different writers display characteristics of the primary and/or secondary imagination. As part of your answer, you'll need to define these two important concepts.
- One of the old-fashioned takes on the Romantics is that they are poets of isolation and solitude; however, several of the poems we have read this semester emphasize the importance of sympathy and/or community. Select two of those poems (by different authors) and explain how each poet stresses the importance of community in different ways.
- The nineteenth century was a period of significant religious change in Great Britain. Dissenting groups were gradually given more religious freedom and some competed with the Church of England for members. Select two poems that deal with Christianity and explain what attitude they express and how they express that attitude differently.
- For obvious reasons, Wordsworth is often called the "Poet of Nature." Using two of his poems explain how/why Nature is so significant to him.
- Romantic poets besides Wordsworth also value nature—select two poets (besides Wordsworth) and explain how/why Nature is significant to them.
- Select two ESSAYISTS with opposing views about the French Revolution and explain the reasons behind their different views.
- Byron's Don Juan was often criticized as being immoral, but in many ways this is a very moral poem. Pick two social issues the poem addresses and explain how the poem subtly makes a moral comment on them.
- We saw a strain of sexism in some of the poems we read this semester. Choose poems by two different authors and explain how their poems might appear sexist to twenty-first century readers. In other words, how did the poets depict women in different ways that seem sexist today?
- Pick two poems by different authors and explain how they use very different strategies or styles in their works to encourage people to revolt against the status quo.
- One pattern we saw in the work of John Keats was his struggle between reality and dreams, between things as they are and an idealized world in which he'd like to live. Select one of his poems and explain how he negotiates this struggle. What are the strengths and benefits of each side and how does he resolve this struggle?
- Like many poets, Keats is very interested in issues of permanence (immortality) vs. impermanence (mortality). Explain how Keats explores this conflict in a poem from our reading list and why this conflict is so important to him.
- Some of the female poets we read reinforce traditional gender stereotypes and roles while others challenge those roles. Select two poems by women authors, one that reinforces traditional gender roles and one that challenges them, and compare and contrast these poems.
- Austen's Northanger Abbey presents a satire of gothic romance. Pick two examples of how she satirizes gothic romance and explain what point she seems to be making with this approach.
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Finding Gender in Shakespeare's Sonnets
I apologizing for not being able to finish this, but I'm under a time constraint. If you could just read and give some feedback on what you see here, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks guys!
In many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, it can be difficult to understand who he’s writing them for, especially when it comes to the gender of the recipient. This has caused quite a few debates among scholars, and in his essay “Sexing Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Reading Beyond Sonnet 20” William Nelles explores the different arguments that are both for and against the gender assumptions for the Youth and Dark Lady sonnets. But let’s face it: it can be quite difficult to understand just who Shakespeare might have to been talking to, like in sonnet 20: “A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted/ With shifting change as is false women’s fashion” (20.3-4), but in Nelles’ essay, he points out that “lyric is meant to be voiceable by anyone reading it, [so] it deliberately strips away social specification, including gender.” So, in exploration of this subject, this is the question posed: Is it really a matter of gender of the addressee, or more a matter of the presentation of the sonnets from one person to another in which gender matters? It would be fair to say that it can go both ways, and that the gender of the addressee shouldn’t matter, but when it comes to Shakespeare as the contributor, it seems gender is something that a great number of the critics are hung up on. This essay will show that the gender of the recipients of those sonnets is irrelevant, as it’s more about the person giving the sonnet.
Annotating the Essay
William Nelles opens “Sexing Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Reading Beyond Sonnet 20” by introducing the two distinct groups when it comes to engendering the sonnets, those that see the sonnets as a “collection [rather] than a sequence” (Edmondson, Wells, 2004) and those that “[find] a narrative line connecting the rest of the sonnets” (Nelles). Nelles writes that because of discoveries in the last few decades, the assumption that the Fair Youth and Dark Lady sonnets were written to the same young man and woman has been overturned, but the sequence the sonnets were published in was done so according to Shakespeare’s “consent and…wishes” (Burrow, 2002). But because of lack of evidence to any conflicting information, it has been a general rule of thumb to assume that sonnets 1-126 are addressed to one man, and sonnets 127-152 are addressed to the same woman. Nelles also points out that this lack of evidence “cannot suffice to carry such a burden of proof” (Nelles, 2009).
Nelles continues his introduction by describing both sides of the debate, namely those that view the sonnets as a collection and those that view these specific sonnets as two separate narratives. But while he says the former group does have all the evidence to back their argument, Nelles does view “both sides [as] correct, but in different ways” (Nelles, 2009). This leads to a new thread, in which Nelles begins to point out the inconsistencies of Helen Vendler’s work, in which she both says that there are specific addressees of the sonnets, but “the majority of the sonnets do not reveal the gender of the [addressee].”
In his evaluation of Vendler’s literary work concerning Shakespeare’s sonnets, Nelles points out that her arguments starts out by stripping the sonnets fo gender, possibly more for the sake of the person voicing the sonnet rather than the actual author, using the evidence that “few of the sonnets include gendered pronouns.” As she concludes her argument, however, Vendler decides to return to the accepted assumption that the order of the sonnets is Shakespearean, and because of this common sense readers should continue to assume that sonnets 20-126 are about a young boy, and 127-152 are about a dark haired woman. This conclusion of her work begins presents a very slippery slope, according to Nelles. The conclusion of Vendler’s work actually seems to go directly into Nelles’ next paragraph, setting up his essay by looking at two different approaches to viewing these sonnets: either the two groups of sonnets are “read as belonging to sustained and usually interlaced narrative sequence” or the sonnets are simply “mini sequences connected by themes and images” (Nelles, 2009). Nelles then goes on to explain that he hopes to “point out some of the weaknesses and inconsistencies” in order to redistribute the “burden of logical proof where it belongs” (Nelles, 2009).
Going into his actual argument, Nelles begins by pointing out the discrepancy that seems to revolve around the gender specific pronouns that are actually used in the “Young Youth” or “Dark Lady” sonnets. While many of the critics that have counted come up with different specific numbers, the agreement seems to be that 72% of these sonnets are “entirely unmarked for gender.” He then shows his reader that if someone was to take the few gendered pronouns in the sonnets, and apply them to the entirety of the collection “should be regarded with a higher degree of skepticism” (Nelles, 2009) than it has been granted. To prove his point, Nelles brings out a chart that shows which specific sonnets include gendered pronouns, and what pronouns they are (male or female). He then begins criticizing other critics that take these sonnets and, rather than acknowledge the lack of gender in them, will twist and turn and manipulate their view to make the disambigious sonnets gendered. But before leaving this matter of gender, Nelles drops one more firecracker: is it possible that the speaker of these sonnets is not male, as is generally assumed, but female? This opens a whole new can of worms on the subject, and so he begins comparing and contrasting the sonnets alongside Shakespeare’s plays, noting another argument by Edmonson and Wells: “When read alongside the plays, the Sonnets can soon seem like a collection of fourteen-line monologues, compressed character studies which, in the plays, are given fuller dramatic development” (pg. 101). Other information shows up to support the theory that women could just as well be speakers as the men could, namely that out of 26 lines from sonnets used in Shakespeare’s plays, eleven of those were spoken by female characters. So, all things considered really, it could be just as likely for a woman to have spoken the sonnets, which just adds more confusion to finding the likely gender of the recipients of these sonnets.
After looking at the gender issues of those sonnets, Nelles then turns to the other side, that being the correlation of imagery that is used in the sonnets and “the manifold connections that they find linking consecutive series of sonnets” (Nelles, 2009), which is really just a fancy way of saying that quite a few of the sonnets are talking about the same thing. Nelles begins looking at psychology as a way to help order the sonnets, using an experiment of Stephen Booths (as described in An Essay on Shakespeare’s Sonnets) that had to do with having a child sort different kinds of blocks according to their similarities. Nelles then correlates the child with the blocks to the reader with Shakespeare’s sonnets, but using Booths’ words to prove the point: “As a child’s mind moves in and out of different systems for perceiving relationships, so does the mind of Shakespeare’s readers” (Booth, pg. 117). Then, Nelles decides to try out the experiment on his own students: generating random sonnets together and asking his students to find correlations between those random sonnets. While he was expecting his students to act like the child did, meaning after they tried to sort the sonnets, they would just “give up trying to sort the blocks and just sit and cry in frustration” (Booths, pg. 117), in the end Nelles was in for quite a surprised. Out of all the groupings he had, only one set of students wasn’t able to find a correlation within their sonnets. Out of the correlations that were found, there was imagery of seasons, comparing to famous literary analogues, and rhetorical continuity. Nelles discovered that his “students found very much the same…patterns that real critics have found” (Nelles, 2009).
When looked at from the outside though, Nelles attests that this way of looking at the sonnets and finding correlations is more valid, as other critics tend to “cherry-pick [their] own groups according to [their] interpretive agenda” (Nelles, 2009). To support this claim, he brings in Joseph Pequigney’s Such is My Love, where Pequigney “defends Shakespeare’s supposed order by abandoning it.” In trying to say that Shakespeare’s order is the only way to read the sonnets, Pequigney actually skips around in the sonnets and uses it to bolster his arguments.
In the very end, though, Nelles basically says “screw everything that everyone else says, because there is no right or wrong way to read the sonnets.” He urges everyone to “quit giving free passes” to those that say there is only one specific way to read the sonnets, and all other ways are wrong. So, critics, “enjoy your playlist, but stop insisting that you took it from Shakespeare. Leave your students the freedom to do the same. As for me, I will leave my sonnet iPod on shuffle play.” (Nelles, 2009)
Everyone has their own way of looking at Shakespeare’s sonnets, and making their own assumptions about said sonnets.
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Ki Tetzei 5769
Posted on March 23, 2011
by Bekah Hakimian
In this week’s parsha, Moshe continues the repetition of the laws by which Israel must live. These laws deal with a variety of topics, but most are concerned with moral values. A brief summary of the moral laws follows.
The following deal with Marital and family relationships: Women who are taken captive by the Israelites due to war must be treated humanely; men with two wives musty treat all their wives’ children equally; defiant sons are to be disciplined by their parents. The community intercedes if the parents are not successful. Also, if an individual is put to death for a capital offense, his corpse must still be treated with respect. The parsha goes to say all men and women must wear clothing appropriate to their gender. To conclude the moral laws, the Israelites are commanded to wear tzitzit on the four corners of their clothing.
The next set of laws deals with civil and criminal matters. Adulterers shall be put to death. A man may not marry his father’s former wife. Workers shall be paid on a daily basis. Finally, the Israelites must be honest in business dealings; all weights and measures are to be reliable. Ki Teitzei ends with the admonition, “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” This idea is so deeply rooted in Jewish tradition that many important enemies of the Jewish people came to be identified as “Amalekites.” The most famous of these is Haman.
In the introduction to the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides states that the total number of precepts in the Torah is 613. Two hundred forty-eight of them are positive and equal to the number of bones in the human body. The remaining 365 commandments are negative and equal to the number of days in a solar year. Maimonides traces this information to a Rabbi Simlai, a Palestinian teacher of the Rabbinic period. According to Maimonides, Ki Teitzei contains some 72 of these positive and negative mitzvoth. The first laws which this portion addresses deal with the taking of hostages as a result of war. Ki Teitzei means, “when you go out” (to battle).
Many of the mitzvot presented in this portion were meant to help establish a strong foundation for family life. In this next few weeks in particular, take the time to spend time with your families and loved ones and try to make personal goals of self-improvement before the High Holidays. These are the times to make your “New Years” resolutions and become better individuals, Jews, sons, daughters, etc. Shabbat Shalom!
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In the nineteenth century, smallpox ravaged through the United States and Canada. At this time, a botanical preparation, derived from the carnivorous plant Sarracenia purpurea, was proclaimed as being a successful therapy for smallpox infections.
Botanicals: the (partially) unexplored country. Sometimes folk wisdom has pharmaceutical potential.
Via Chris Upton + helpers
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NAACP Claims Climate Change Is Civil Rights Issue
Climate change has recently been a prevalent item of discussion in the nation, and groups concerned about it are watching Ohio and its energy standards law.
As Statehouse correspondent Andy Chow reports, that includes a national group which claims climate change is a civil rights issue.
The NAACP says minority communities are disproportionately hurt by the effects of climate change. Jacqueline Patterson is the group’s environmental policy director.
She says 68% of African Americans live near coal-fired power plants and are therefore more likely exposed to carbon emissions.
Patterson: “We tie all of this to our civil rights agenda in terms of people’s rights to clean air and clean water—safe living conditions—the right to work—freedom from discrimination in terms of access to public goods—all of these are impacted by both climate change and disproportionate exposure to environmental impact.”
Patterson, who was in Columbus Friday to discuss the NAACP’s view on climate change, says the answer to this civil rights issue is to aggressively shift away from fossil fuels dependence.
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21 years into democracy thousands of ex gold miners are suffering from silicosis, without the compensation, testing and care they need. We are calling on Anglo American and all the companies that made their fortunes from apartheid gold to pay up now.
Under apartheid, mining was South Africa's biggest industry. Hundreds of thousands of miners worked underground in appalling conditions, digging for gold. Production levels were high, and profits were prioritised over the safety of its workers. Black miners undertook the dustiest jobs, and protective measures were often not provided.
Please support our work and those suffering with silicosis by taking to Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms with a link to one of our our campaign videos
By watching these videos and sharing them with your friends and followers we can raise awareness of silicosis and the responsibility that companies like Anglo American have in ensuring that miners past and present receive justice.
What is silicosis?
Silicosis is a lung disease caused by prolonged or intensive exposure to silica dust in underground gold mines. It decreases lung capacity, making it difficult to breathe, and it massively increases the risk of TB. The combination of silicosis and TB is often fatal.
How many people are affected?
Over many decades, hundreds of thousands of miners worked underground at Anglo mines in South Africa. It is estimated that thousands of miners are suffering from silicosis.
Do they receive treatment?
Unfortunately, there is no cure and no specific treatment for silicosis. But it is essential that medical care is provided for diagnosis and to treat ancillary diseases such as TB, the risk of which is greatly increased in silicosis sufferers. Yet, for most former miners, medical facilities are not available.
Why is Anglo American responsible?
Anglo American was the largest gold miner in South Africa throughout the 20th century. Black miners at Anglo American’s South African mines undertook the dustiest jobs, unprotected by respirators. A series of published studies over the past decade reveals silicosis rates of around 25 per cent in long-term miners, including among miners at Anglo American mines.
What should Anglo American do?
Anglo American should live up to its CSR promises and take urgent steps to provide decent compensation (the statutory scheme is inadequate and inaccessible) and improve the medical services for the thousands of miners formerly employed on Anglo's South African gold mines who are suffering from silicosis and their families.
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In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. . . .
Thirty-six days after leaving the Canary Islands, where he refitted and resupplied his ships, he made landfall in the Bahamas. As Columbus himself indirectly acknowledged, it is possible that other intrepid mariners saw the New World before he did, but his landing is rightly celebrated, for it marked the start of continuous, recorded exploration and settlement of the Western Hemisphere, first by Spaniards and then, as Spain declined following the defeat of her Armada, by many other nations.
The 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage will take place in 1992. Getting a five-year head start on the quincentennial, Robert H. Fuson's new translation of "The Log of Christopher Columbus" will be published this Columbus Day. It is hard to imagine that another book could do more than this one to transform Columbus from a near-mythic icon into the living, breathing, imperfect, fascinating man he apparently was.
Fuson is a geographer by profession. He is also a Columbus enthusiast and scholar of long standing. In his prologue and introductory chapters he gives us the background we need before reading the log, and he acquaints us with the persistent controversies surrounding Columbus, most notably those concerning his origins, the site of his first landfall and the provenance and validity of the log itself. But Fuson wisely leaves for a series of appendices a more detailed discussion of these and other matters that may be of interest mainly to historians and Columbus devotees.
The log is a triumph. For bringing history alive, nothing can match a first-person account, but Fuson deserves much credit as the translator. Without ever making Columbus sound like our contemporary, Fuson makes his words accessible to the modern reader. Through Columbus' words, we come to know the man.
As he set out, Columbus wrote, "I was to go by way of the West, whence until today we do not know with certainty that anyone has gone." He was honest, then. Honest enough not to claim to be the first to take that route. It is soon apparent that he had courage, too, and great enthusiasm for the undertaking.
As a sailor and navigator he was without peer. He was an incurable optimist as well: Beginning in mid-Atlantic, he took everything as a sign that land was near. He saw a pelican and wrote, "This is a sure sign that land lies to the NNW because these birds sleep ashore . . . and they do not fly 60 miles." He saw a whale, "which is another sign of land, for whales always stay near the coast." He was still 20 days from his historic landfall.
Although he took some captive natives with him when he returned to Spain, for a man of his time his treatment of the Indians was remarkably enlightened. And yes, it was Columbus, in his log, who first called them Indios . To his dying day he believed that Asia lay just beyond the island he had discovered.
Because he was only human, he had his failings. He was ambitious for power and position, probably difficult at times, and as Fuson impishly reports in a footnote, he was a terrible botanist.
Fifty years after Columbus arrived in the New World, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived in Kansas. In the meantime, Pizarro had subdued the Incas and Cortes the Aztecs, and Spain had learned much about her new-found lands. The journeys of Columbus and Coronado mark the beginning and the end of a half century of discovery that remains unparalleled in history. We are fortunate indeed to have former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall's "To the Inland Empire: Coronado and Our Spanish Legacy" published in the same month as Fuson's "Log."
Udall has written extensively about this nation's land and environment. "To the Inland Empire" is his first history. In it he demonstrates the abilities of a seasoned historian, and he transmits to the reader his love of his subject.
During the years 1540-1542, Coronado and his lieutenants explored parts of what are now the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and possibly California. In Kansas, finding no wealthy cities and judging correctly that the oft-told tales of El Dorado were chimerical, Coronado turned around and went back to New Spain (Mexico), but he had established that the North American continent was far larger than most Europeans believed at the time.
Udall is careful to distinguish between generally agreed-upon facts about the Coronado expedition and his own more speculative conclusions, where the facts are in dispute. But like Fuson, he never bogs down in arcane controversies. He keeps the story moving and he writes it well. He considers Coronado's feelings and motives in addition to his deeds.
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|Intro to Setting Gems
A setting is a metal form into which a gemstone is placed to make jewelry. The metal, known as a mounting or finding in the jewelry trade, may be made of a precious metal like gold, silver or platinum; or some less valuable metal like tungsten steel or titanium.
The setting uses claws, prongs, a bezel, or other means to hold the gemstone securely in place. The task of setting a gemstone can be simple or complicated, depending on the size and shape of the gem and the type of setting.
The simplest case of setting a gemstone is one where a gemstone in a calibrated size is placed in a standard mass-produced setting. Some of these standard settings are designed for inexperienced consumers to use with only very simple tools. Some cleverly designed mountings will snap shut once the gem is placed in the correct position, merely requiring the claws or prongs to be tightened to ensure that the setting is secure. However, most gemstone buyers still go to their local jeweler to have their gemstones set.
The term calibrated size refers to a gemstone that is sized to fit in these standard settings. There are a variety of calibrated sizes for each popular gemstone shape. The sizes are measured in millimeters, and the measurements for most gems have two values, such as 7 x 5 mm. This means the gem is 7 millimeters long and 5 millimeters wide. Since gemstones are three dimensional, they obviously have a depth measurement as well. But this measurement is generally not important for the size of the setting, so the size is usually given with two numbers only. The exception to this is round stones, where the length and width is the same. So calibrated sizes for round stones are stated with a single number, which indicates the diameter of the stone.
Nearly any round gem can be put in a standard claw or prong setting, even if the gem is not a calibrated size. That's because it's easy to adjust the prongs in a 4 or 6 claw round setting. With other shapes, there are various factors to be considered. As a rule, gems under one carat can be within .1 mm of the calibrated setting size. For gemstones over one carat in weight, a .2 mm variance can usually be accommodated and sometimes more.
If a a non-round stone is not close enough to a calibrated size, it will require a custom setting. This means that instead of using a cheaper mass-produced setting, the jeweler will have to create a setting especially designed for the specific gemstone. This will be more expensive and time-consuming, but for a special or unique gemstone it is usually worth the effort and expense.
- First Published: August-06-2008
- Last Updated: July-30-2014
- © 2005-2016 GemSelect.com all rights reserved.
Reproduction (text or graphics) without the express written consent of GemSelect.com (SETT Company Ltd.) is strictly prohibited.
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Infinite Energy Magazine
Cold Fusion Demonstration During MIT Short Course
Christy L. Frazier
From January 23 to 31, MIT Electrical Engineering Prof. Peter Hagelstein conducted a course on cold fusion at MIT. “Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments” was part of MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP), during which students can take credit or non-credit courses in a variety of subjects (some, like cold fusion, not offered as part of MIT’s regular course selection).
Five MIT students attended the course, four of whom had been students of Hagelstein’s. Another 15 or so individuals from outside MIT were also in attendance. During the first week, Hagelstein provided a theoretical and experimental overview of the cold fusion field, with lectures focusing on (but not limited to): excess power in Fleischmann and Pons’ early experiments; claim of energy production without chemical or nuclear products; theoretical difficulties and overview; hydrogen/deuterium evolution reactions and electrochemical models; excess power as a function of loading; vacancies and codeposition; the nuclear ash problem; correlation of He-4 with excess power; excess power in the NiH system.
Figure 1. January 30 run, JET Energy driving calorimeter and NANOR,
delta T (normalized to input power) and input power.
For the final two days of the course on January 30 and 31, Dr. Mitchell Swartz spoke to the class about experimental lattice-assisted nuclear reaction/cold fusion (LANR/CF) systems, including those engineering modifications discovered by JET Energy, Inc. and other groups for controlling and increasing the excess heat obtained from activated CF/LANR devices. On January 30, Swartz presented a broad background covering LANR/CF aqueous, gas, and nanomaterial systems. He began with discussions of the evolution of CF/LANR developments starting with thermometry, calorimetry, and the control standards and engineering used to actually determine the activity of a driven LANR/CF material. This led up to presentations of excess heat and generated electricity from aqueous (nickel and palladium) systems, from codepositional and nanomaterial systems. Swartz stated, “The emphasis was to transfer to them the pattern recognition used to recognize active CF/LANR systems and materials. On that background came improvements that led to marked increases in activity like Optimal-Operating-Point control and metamaterial JET Energy PHUSOR® cathodes.” His final emphasis that day was on the mathematics and developments that led to the more successful results with paired Stirling engines and electricity producing systems.
After presenting background on nanomaterials in general, Dr. Swartz led the class back to Prof. Peter Hagelstein’s lab, where a “Series 6 NANOR™” experimental run was already underway. Like its 2003 (ICCF10) predecessor demonstration at MIT, this NANOR-inspired device also showed excess heat, which was monitored three ways by class members. Swartz reported, “The group watched as the cold fusion demonstration performed like the Energizer Bunny, producing excess energy which appeared on the meters and computer graph in front of them, from the production of de novo helium-4 from deuterons.” These results were analyzed by the class the next day. One of the confirmatory measurements from the first day of the open demonstration of CF/LANR at MIT during the course is in Figure 1.
Swartz explained the curves: “Shown in Figure 1 are the incremental increase in temperature normalized to be input electrical power, for both the ohmic control and the NANOR, and the input electrical power to each. The graph shows first the response of the ohmic control, and then the response of the NANOR. It can be seen that despite lower input electrical power to the NANOR, the incremental temperature differential observed in the core was higher than expected, as compared to the ohmic control. The graph heralds the great efficiency and the excess power gain of the cold fusion/LANR NANOR device.”
On January 31, Swartz focused on CF/LANR nanomaterials, including recent developments on how to better handle and activate them. He concluded with several types of new NANOR results, including the results from the group’s previous day experimental CF/LANR run. This cold fusion demonstration had an average energy gain (COP) of 14.12 over the several hours that were observed (and which followed).
Swartz noted, “The duty cycle was split with half going to a control portion consisting of a carefully controlled electrical DC pulse into an ohmic resistor which was used to thermally calibrate the calorimeter. For the entire month of February, the NANOR continued to produce excess energy, with daily calibrations against an ohmic thermal control; thus, it also confirmed the existence of CF/LANR daily during that time.”
Compared to the 2003 MIT CF/LANR demonstration, the new calorimeter shown at the lab also had additional monitoring diagnostics “for improved verification, such as the measurement of heat flow, to thereby provide for three independent ways of monitoring excess heat semiquantitatively compared to a thermal ohmic control. The excess heat, which the NANOR demonstrated, was monitored three ways.” Swartz and others at JET Energy created a unique calorimeter and driving system whose unique design was its driving configuration and implementations which were made especially for portability to MIT along with other features. Swartz noted that, compared to the 2003 demonstration at MIT, this second demo had improvements of size, response time, diagnostics and output energy. The current set-up was designed to run at low power input levels to increase the likelihood of longer runs and safety at the educational institution for its month-long stay.
Swartz expounded on the improvements over the 2003 demo: “First, the 2012 IAP demo has used an entirely new, more reproducible configuration of cold fusion. It showed a significant improvement over the previous demonstration because it was composed of an entirely new line of CF/LANR nanomaterials. At its core is a specially prepared CF nanomaterial developed by JET Energy, and constructed into a NANOR which is a member of the sixth generation of these mini CF/LANR devices which certainly appear to have a place in the future of cold fusion. Second, and most importantly, the NANOR used in the January IAP demonstration had a much higher energy gain compared to the 2003 demonstration unit [energy gain 14.1 in 2012 vs. energy gain ~2.7 in 2003]. The current NANOR series have had higher power gain (to beyond 30) and energy gain (to 16) levels, but the group was quite satisfied with a COP of 14 for hours. Third, another unique quality of the NANOR is precise, safer containment. In this case, the mini-sized NANOR is a sixth generation CF/LANR device, and it is smaller than a few centimeters, with an active site less than a gram. Fourth, in the case of the sixth generation NANORs, unlike the others, the pre-loaded devices can be simply electrically driven. The activation of this cold fusion reaction is, for the first time, separated from its loading. In every other system known—Fleischmann and Pons, Arata, Miles and others—the loading was tied to activation. The next step with the NANOR research is to increase input power, energy production density and temperature.”
The NANOR on display during the IAP course at MIT in January had been giving out excess heat since the beginning of January, through February 2012. Also worth noting, the 2003 demo set-up needed two full tables, whereas the new 2012 NANOR demo needed only a single standard sized desktop (with most of the space taken up by a computer and meters, not the device itself). In addition, the new calorimeter was cycleable in hours rather than requiring an entire day, making it applicable to the MIT course.
Hagelstein said of the NANOR experiment, “I like the approach. It is a bulk effect. The whole NANOR is participating, whereas the Pons and Fleischmann experiment was only active at the surface. This is important because you don’t want to have a process that destroys your host.”
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I am really stuck on a question..
(Q) Find x from the following:
34.56, x, 24, 20.
The asnwer is 28.80. I don't know how to get that. The two fomula you can use are Tn = a+(n-1)d or Sn= n/2 [2a+(n-1)d]
Thanks if you can show me how to do it!
So we must look elsewhere.
In fact, this is a Geometric Progression, where the ratio of consecutive terms is constant. You do it like this:
The ratio of to is . In other words, we must multiply by to make . If this sequence is a GP, we shall be able to multiply by to get , and then multiply by to get . And this works!
Try it out: , and .
(In fact, the common ratio of a GP is the ratio that will take you from left to right through the sequence of numbers; in this case that's the ratio the other way round; i.e. , or .)
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Saturday, June 30, 2007
Did you know that after the original thirteen states of the United States won independence from England, America's founding fathers and founding mothers were unsure just how to run the new government and the new society? After all, no one in modern times had tried a republican experiment on such a large scale.
Should U.S. officials take their cue from the royalty that still ran most European countries? Or, should they dress, behave, entertain, and live in some other manner that befitted the American experiment?
Our forefathers took these questions seriously. They were aware that they were setting precedents and customs for future generations of Americans. Plus, the survival of this new republic was not guaranteed. They wanted to give it the best start that they could, in the hope that it would hold its own among the more established countries of the world.
This meant crafting a government and society that other, older countries would treat with respect. Yet, at the same time, they wanted to clearly be a government and society that was of the people, by the people, and for the people. The founding fathers walked a fine line between being taken seriously by European monarchies and, yet, remaining true to their republican ideals.
Perhaps none were so affected by this dilemma as George and Martha Washington. We can guess from reading biographies of them that after the Revolutionary war, they would have loved to retire in privacy to their beloved Mt. Vernon.
Even during the Revolutionary War, George must have been homesick. He wrote to Martha, "I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years."
But, George was called first to be commander in chief, and, then, to be the nation's first president. Both George and Martha put duty above their personal wishes.
Questions arose about what to call the new president and his wife, as well as the Vice-President and other officials. Several fancy names were put forth, but these were rejected as sounding too much like royalty. Finally, it was decided to call Mr. Washington simply "The President of the United States". Other government titles fell in line with this simple dignity.
Martha, herself, was known as Lady Washington. The term "First Lady" was not created until after her death.
Throughout it all, Martha remained devotedly by Washington's side. Martha had been a young, wealthy, beautiful widow with two living infants and two deceased infants at the time she married George. Apparently, though they both had suffered broken hearts in the past, they always remained quite content with each other.
A White House biography of her reads, "From the day Martha married George Washington in 1759, her great concern was the comfort and happiness of her husband and children. When his career led him to the battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War and finally to the Presidency, she followed him bravely. Her love of private life equaled her husband's; but, as she wrote to her friend Mercy Otis Warren, " I cannot blame him for having acted according to his ideas of duty in obeying the voice of his country." As for herself, 'I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'
"At the President's House in temporary capitals, New York and Philadelphia, the Washingtons chose to entertain in formal style, deliberately emphasizing the new republic's wish to be accepted as the equal of the established governments of Europe. Still, Martha's warm hospitality made her guests feel welcome and put strangers at ease. She took little satisfaction in ' formal compliments and empty ceremonies' and declared that 'I am fond of only what comes from the heart.' Abigail Adams, who sat at her right during parties and receptions, praised her as "one of those unassuming characters which create Love and Esteem.'"
So, in keeping with Emma's posts last week about personal presentation, we might ask how Martha Washington worked out the issue of dress and personal presentation.
Would Mrs. Washington try to compete with the ornately attired women of European courts? Would she dress even like some of the younger, fashionable women who were connected to America's fledgling government? Or, would she dress more in keeping with what she really was -- the happy, friendly, dignified, modest, middle-aged wife of an American planter?
Abigail Adams answered this question for us in something she wrote after spending time with Mrs. Washington in New York City:
"She (Mrs. Washington) is plain in her dress, but that plainness is the best of every article. Her hair is white, her teeth beautiful, her person rather short than otherways..Her manners are modest and unassuming, dignified and feminine, not a a tincture of hauteur (arrogance) about her."
Above, I've included images of Martha from different stages in her life. We here in the U.S. are accustomed to seeing paintings both of Mrs. Washington and of George Washington from their middle and later years. But, we forget that they were, of course, once young. So, I've included a couple of portraits of Mrs. Washington as a younger woman, as well some that show her as as the plump, grandmotherly lady we all recognize.
Finishing School News...
Didn't Emma do a lovely job with the subject of personal presentation? I have a lot to think about and to put into practice.
This week, we're taking a "semi-break", since it's Independence Day in the U.S. However, I will do some posts that contain snippets about different American ladies. Each tidbit will fit into the subjects of our "Finishing School Course." So, keep checking with me this week at the Merry Rose!
Friday, June 29, 2007
Did you see Emma's post about grooming?
Ouch! Why did I schedule Emma's week on personal presentation first! Of course, her articles are so sweet and gently put. And, it's fun to talk about these subjects.
However, this is one area where I really need to step up. Emma's posts are a good reminder for me.
When I was younger, I always kept myself in trim and neatly turned out. Now, amidst business and fatigue, I can let this slide so easily. I dress fairly neatly. But, when it comes to taking care of hair, nails, weight, etc., I need to get back on track. I can justifty this negligence with a lot of excuses, some of which even sound noble. But, the bottom line is that I know my husband and children appreciate it when I put a little more effort into how I present myself.
I also know that these statements from Beautiful Girlhood are true: "The proper care of her person and dress will make an otherwise homely girl good-looking. What is more distasteful than a slovenly, untidy woman?...Though she might have a kind heart and many other desirable qualities, yet her unkempt appearance hides them from view. But, a person who always keeps herself tasefully and tidily dressed and her person clean and neat is attracive and pleasing."
In the description of the Proverbs 31 woman, most verses are devoted to her inner character. But, there is one verse that gives us a clue to her outward apperance. It says she is dressed in fine linen and purple.
Now, here is a woman who obviously did not spend hours and hours primping in front of the mirror. With all that she had going on in her life, she did not have time to be vain or silly about her looks. However, it's apparent that did devote some part of her busy days to her appearance. She dressed with dignity.
Is this surprising? Given all of the remarks about her capable, industrious nature, can you imagine that she went around looking sloppy? Do you envision her as slumping or slouching?
Somehow, I can't picture her that way. I imagine her as having a classic and understated look, good posture, a smile on her face, and neat hair. I would suspect that since she was so in tune with detail in every other are of her life, that she carried some of this over into the way she presented herself, as well. I would also think that she managed this with great efficiency, so that it didn't take her hours and hours to groom herself. (If we follow Emma's suggestion to develop beauty routines, it won't take us hours and hours, either.)
I suspect that the noble woman's husband, who was an elder in the land, trusted that her appearance would represent him well. I also guess that her children, who called her blessed, were proud of how she carried herself. And, I have a hunch that she was a walking advertisement for her handiwork. I would think that someone could tell by looking at her that she was capable of turning out fine sashes and linen garments to sell.
As is said in Beautiful Girlhood: "Seek goodness and purity first, then strive to keep the body in harmony with the beauty of the heart." The focus of the worthy woman was not on her outward apperance, but her outward apperance was in keeping with her noble character.
In striving to be like her, I've decided to keep a little notebook in which I write a record of my progress. I'm going to start by taking some of the steps toward a feminine character, health, posture, and grooming that Emma has suggested. I plan to track this for six months to a year. I am looking forward to making some beneficial new habits.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Are you enjoying Emma's posts as much as I am. She is inspiring me to set goals to improve my health and personal presentation. Her post for yesterday-- regarding posture -- was especially helpful to me. (http://charmingthebirdsfromthetrees.blogspot.com)
Fortunately, good posture and good health feed into each other. If you feel well, you naturally want to stand straighter and walk with more joy in your step. If you work on your posture, you will likely feel better. That, in turn, will make you want to have even better posture. Isn't it nice when you get started on an upward cycle?
Several years ago, I had surgery to correct deteriorated discs in my neck and a pinched nerve. Though the nerve started in my cranium and neck, it ran a long way down my body. Thus, I had pain in strange places, which I never connected to the problem in my neck. Eventually, I began to lose the use of my right arm.
I learned that the neck is one of the first places to wear out, as we use it so much. Hence, middle age and a long-ago car wreck were the biggest contributors to my disc/nerve problem. But, I learned something else as well. Poor posture, especially when sitting at the computer, probably
added something to the mix, as well. Mom was right all of those years that she gently urged me to attend to my seated and standing posture!
There are a number of ways that poor posture can contribute to poor health: It crowds your internal organs and puts unnatural pressure on them. It causes some of your muscles to become habitually shortened and others to become stretched out, which in turn leads to poor muscular support of the spine. It can compress nerves and vertebra. Emotionally, poor posture can signal to yourself and others around you the emotions of depression, sadness, overhwhelming fatigue, and defeat. Thus, if you slump because you are tired, you may end up feeling more tired.
Good posture allows you to breathe properly. It holds the body in the way it was designed to function, thus giving your organs, nerves, and bones the proper room they need in order to function. Emotionally, good posture signals to yourself and others a positive outlook, dignity, grace, and energy. If you make the effort to stand and sit correctly, even when you are tired, you may find that you begin to feel better than you otherwise would.
If you have allowed yourself to form bad habits with regard to your carriage, changing these will take a good deal of energy. At first, you may feel more fatigued and even sore. You may wonder if it's worth the effort. Keep persevering! Your muscles will adjust to better habits, and, when they do, you will find that sitting, standing,and walking take less effort than they used to. You'll wonder how you got along with poor posture for so long without realizing the toll it was taking on your energy level.
Good posture is natural and efficient, thus leading to energy. Poor posture is unnatural and inefficient, thus leading to fatigue.
It's possible that poor posture contributes to headaches, breathlessness, fatigue, certain types of back and neck and chest aches, carpel tunnel syndrome, and other ailments. Do not, however, attribute any of these ailments to poor posture without checking with your doctor!! There are many different causes for each of these symptoms, and it would be both dangerous and foolish to try to sort this out on your own.
However, even as you seek medical help, maintaining good posture can't hurt. Better yet, nip certain ailments before they even start by practicing good posture while you are young and healthy.
Here are a few posture tips that I find helpful, when I use them. (Again, thank you Emma, for reminding me to tend to this!)
1) You may unknowingly carry a lot of stress in your neck, shoulders, and upper back, as well as in your facial muscles. Even when your day is filled with happy and delightful things, you may find yourself hunching up your shoulders, tightening the muscles around your eyes and mouth, and feeling fatigue in your neck and upper back. During a busy day, take a few breaks to consciously relax these muscles and let them return to their natural position.
2) Remember, our bodies were designed to move. In modern times, however, we sit or stand in one position for long periods of time. If you must sit for some time -- such as when on a plane, at the computer, or at a sewing machine -- take frequent breaks. Do some ankle circles. Get up and walk about a bit. Stretch. If you are embarrassed to do this in an office or on a plane, retire to the ladies room. Perhaps, you can stretch there. But, even if you can't, the act of walking to and from the washroom will provide allow you some movement. Regarding a plane ride, doing a few ankle circles every hour and stretching or moving every hour is not only good for your posture, but for your circulation, as well.
3) When sitting or standing, do not duck your chin or head forward unnaturally. If you wear glasses or have worn them in the past, you might be particularly prone to this. Find ways to read and do other tasks with your head held in correct position. Do not slump, round, or hunch your shoulders. It's not necessary to hold your shoulders tightly in perfect military posture. If you are positioning your neck and body correctly, your shoulders should fall easily into a straight, yet relaxed place. Stand perpendicular to a mirror and look at how your head and shoulders are positioned. Adjust accordingly.
4) Make sure your purse and other bags that you carry are not too heavy. Also, try to carry purses in a way that balances the weight. Obviously, the purses that look like backpacks do distribute the weight easily. I don't particularly like the way those look on me, so I just try to switch the arm I carry my purses with from time to time. Carrying all of the stuff that goes along with a baby is a challenge. But, do the best you can to watch your posture. Also, avoid jerky movements as you pick up baby's car seat, stroller, or diaper bag.
5) Check your breathing. Sometimes, in a misguided attempt to achieve straight posture or flat abs, a person will breathe more from his or her chest than from the diaphragm. The same is true if someone has recently recovered from a respiratory ailment, has chronic sinus or allergy problems, has a rushed schedule, is under stress, has had recent surgery, or other otherwise has experienced an interruption in their normal breathing cycle.
Our upper chest muscles are designed for emergency breathing -- such as when running from a burning building or competing in the the 50-yard dash. If we use them for everyday breathing, we may begin to hyperventilate on a chronic, low-level basis. Or, we may even have episodes of severe hyperventilation. This is not generally dangerous, but it can make you feel awful!
According to respiratory therapist, Dinah Bradley, in normal, relaxed breathing, the diaphragm does about 70 to 80 per cent of the work. The lower chest muscles do about 20-30 per cent. The accessory muscles in the neck and shoulders are merely on standby in case a need for quick oxygen should arise.
Chronic over-breathersreverse this ratio. Thus, they put undue strain on muscles that are meant to be normally at rest. They also take in more breaths per minute than are needed. A range of ten to fourteen breaths per minute is fairly normal for adults. Some people breathe up to twice this rate!
If you notice a healthy baby at rest, the baby naturally breathes from the diaphragm. The baby has not yet experienced any traumas that might interrupt his natural breathing cycle. Nor, has he been told false information about how to stand and how to breathe. So, he naturally breathes the way his body was intended. Healthy toddlers do the same.
How do you know if you habitually breathe from your chest or diaphragm? Lie down and place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach, just below your diaphragm. Take a natural breath. See which hand rises. If the hand on your chest rises first, you may not be breathing as your body was intended to. If the hand on your stomach rises, good for you! Note: You may breathe correctly when you do this test simply because you are thinking about it. That's ok, as it reinforces a good habit. Just keep checking from time to time to make sure that you are maintaining this beneficial habit.
If you think your breathing needs some gentle correction, there are many books and Internet sources that offer information about how to improve. One of the best resources is Dinah Bradley's book, Hyperventilation Syndrome. If you read about this subject on the Internet, use caution. There are a lot of medical myths floating around on the net. Be sure that the article you are reading is written by someone with identifiable credentials.
Please note that there are a very few health conditions in which normal breathing cannot be attained and should not be attempted. If you are in poor health, check with your doctor before trying to correct your breathing. Otherwise, enjoy how much better you'll feel when you breathe correctly!
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Classes Are Underway!
Emma started us off today with two lovely posts about personal presentation. In the first one, she asked us to think about whether we project feminine loveliness and strength. In the second one, she talked about health as an important building block to our personal presentation. I'm so glad that Emma reminded us to think about these things.
I especially needed a little prodding when it comes to taking care of dh's and my health. We set out at the beginning of the year to work on our health. For various reasons, including a severe illness in our extended family, our usual routine has gotten knocked a little off course, and, if anything, we have gone backwards! So, I need to be creative and disicplined in thinking of ways to help us eat more healthfully, to exercise, and to get rest and relaxation.
It's not too late to jump in! Here's Emma's link: http://charmingthebirdsfromthetrees.blogspot.com
Next week, we'll take a little break due to U.S. Independence Day. In keeping with our subject, however, I will do some posts regarding ladies from American history.
Then, the next week, since it will be Bastille Day in France, I will blog about how French culture has influenced art, house styles and furnishings, etc. I'll also talk us step by step through preparing a simple French meal. And, I'll talk about why it was so imporant in Finishing Schools of the past for women to learn about other languages and cultures, particularly French. So, join me back here during July 8-14 for our second "class".
Our third teacher will be none other than Julieann, who will teach us how to bake some romantic and feminine little goodies. We'll give you further information about how to find her blog and the rest of the teachers' blogs.
Monday, June 25, 2007
First Day of School!
Well, really, it's more like summer camp. So, get ready to have fun and learn some things in the process!
Today is the first day of our online Finishing School. Emma tells me that she will have the first post of our school published by this evening! So, if you visit her site today, but you don't see anything up yet, do not worry. Just check back tonight.
Again, here is the link to Emma's site: http://charmingthebirdsfromthetrees.blogspot.com
Emma will start us off with a discussion of our personal presentation -- grooming, posture, etc. Those of you who are familiar with her site, Charming the Birds from the Trees, know that she has a passion for bringing loveliness into our homes and into our daily lives.
I can't wait to read what Emma has to say, as this is one area where I need to spruce up a little.
In the meantime, I have it on my to-do list today to tend to give myself a pedicure (It's sandal time!) and to curl my hair. I have been letting my hair go. I have sort of a "wash-and-wear" do, which is ok, if I make the effort to fluff it into place. But, tonight, I want to look a little special.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The time has come!
Announcing the beginning of the first annual
Online Finishing School for Ladies....
As promised, our first annual Online Finishing School for Ladies begins on Monday. Emma will start us off with a discussion of personal presentation, posture, grooming, etc. Here's a link to her blog: http://charmingthebirdsfromthetrees.blogspot.com.
If you missed our previous posts about this idea and would like to know what this is all about, please read the following: http://tinyurl.com/ypzogm
Here's how it will work:
Each week for twelve weeks, one "teacher" will blog about a particular subject. She will post at least five times that week. Emma, for example, will do five posts about a woman's personal presentation starting on Monday.
Any of us who are interested will read the "teacher's" blog that week. We students can leave comments on her blog to encourage the "teacher" and let her know what we're learning.
Additionally, any of us who choose can post our thoughts about that same subject on our own blog, as well. If we are already experienced in subject, we can share hints that others might enjoy. Or, if we're new to a subject, we can post what we're learning as we read along with the "teacher".
Don't worry if you don't have a blog. You don't need one to participate. All you need is access to the Internet in order to read the blogs of the "teachers".
We'll gather all of the posts into one blog especially dedicated to the Finishing School. We'll give you that link in a few days. After a subject has been covered, the "teacher's" posts will be archived on the Finishing School Blog. That way, you can catch up if you have been out of town or had a busy week. You can also use it to refer back to a particular subject.
1) This school is for fun and to provide a resource for those who have an interest in these topics. There will be no homework, no tests, and no pressure to accomplish certain goals. The teachers will suggest practice exercises. You can choose to do them or not, as you have time and interest. (You are also free to use this as part of a homeschooling project, of course, in which case you would set your own expectations for your children.)
2) We won't be able to cover each subject as thoroughly as it would be covered in a real finishing school. Each teacher will list resources you can use if you would like to learn more about the subject on your own. Essentially, we are providing a taste of different topics, and you can choose which ones, if any, you want to pursue in more depth. If we all enjoy this, we might do a Finishing School, Course II at some point.
3) These are subjects that can add beauty our lives. They will also be of use as we strive to live out our faith, to love others, and to make a home for our family. HOWEVER, you can be a loving, faithful, and capable woman without ever taking a course in any of these subjects! So, please take what you find that is interesting and useful to you, and don't worry about the rest. The last thing we want to do is to make busy wives and mothers feel that they have to fit some human-made ideal of the "finished lady". All we want to do is to have fun and to learn a few things in the process.
4) We realize that many of you may be just as versed in a subject as "the teacher" is, or even moreso. We invite you to participate along with us. Some of us will know very little about a subject to begin with, while others may know quite a bit. But, no matter what each person's current skill level is, we can always grow.
Here's our projected schedule. We may tweak this as we go along. Each week, we'll give you the name of each teacher, along with a link to her blog. We'll also provide a little introduction telling why she is interested in this topic.
Week I: June 25-30 Personal Presentation, Part I. posture, grooming, health, clothing care, etc.
Break: July 1-7 – Independence Day in America – We’ll give our teachers and readers a semi-break. However, we might do some posts about American customs/culture during this week.
Week II: July 8-14 Bastille Day in France -- How French culture has influenced decorating, fashion, cooking, etc. How to prepare a simple French meal. Why it was considered important for finishing school students to learn about other cultures and how that can still be useful in today’s world. Simple French phrases that you might come across when reading books in English.
Week III: July 15-21: Baking: A romantic cake. Tea goodies.
Week IV: July 22-28 – the culture of Central Asia, what we can learn from Central Aisian women.
Week V: July 29-August-4 Creating a lovely needlework pillow.
Week VI: August 5-11 Flowers, flowers, and more flowers!.
Week VII: August 12-18 Correspondence and Etiquette – particularly modern etiquette: email, cell phones, etc.
Week : VIII August 19-25 The best things we can learn from various cultures, customs in European countries
Week IX August 26-Sept. 1 – How to sew a pretty handkerchief (or nightgown, we're still deciding), ribbon embroidery – a woman can choose to purchase something ready-made on which to do the ribbon embroidery.
Week X: September 2-8 -- How to set a pretty table for various occasions; the correct way to set a table for a casual lunch, a buffet, a dinner, a shower, etc.
Week XI September 9-15 Another week on personal presentation, keeping our bedrooms pretty and organized
Week XII September 16-22 Gracious Living on a Budget
See you at Emma's for class on Monday!
Friday, June 22, 2007
I planted some four-o'clocks at the same time this spring that I planted some morning glories.
I grew morning glories sucessfully last year and am intrigued with how they really do bloom in the morning. I've heard people rave about four-o-clocks and how sweet they smell when they open in the evening. I thought it would be neat to plant both this year, so that one would bloom in the morning and one in the evening. The morning glories are in the front of the house and the four-o-clocks are at the back.
Well, my morning glories are not quite as glorious this year as last year, but they are pretty and are blooming. I couldn't find the pretty blue color I had last year, but do enjoy this year's white with slight red stripe. It's been a tough year here keeping everything watered and fresh, as we've had a little drought -- so my poor morning glories sometimes get the last attention in the yard.. The four o'clocks are green and growing, but they are moving very slowly. They are just now ready to begin twining up something, while the morning glories have reaching the top of my mailbox. There are no flowers on the four o'clocks yet.
It's odd that the four o'clocks are growing more slowly than the morning glories, as they are growing just outside my kitchen window, and I run out to water them more frequently. I have them in containers placed so that they will wind up the deck fence and railing. Is it ok to have them in big pots?
Do four o'clocks bloom later in the season than morning glories? Or, am I doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Proper Use of Mrs. and Miss
When I was a little girl, most women were called either Mrs. or Miss by all except for family and close friends.
Unless you were obviously someone's peer or someone's elder in age, you did not use someone's first name unless he or she invited you to do so. If someone wished you to call them by first name, they would say, "Please, call me ______ (the woman's first name)".
In certain situations, a woman might be called Miss or Mrs. even by her peers, unless she specifically invited someone to do otherwise. This was especially true if a woman visited a doctor's office or other place of business. Even if she worked for a company, she was likely to be called Mrs. or Miss by others, particularly if she were older or held a superior position in the organization.
Certainly, few children ever referred to adults by their first names. Even once a child reached adulthood, he continued to call his or her parents' peers by Mr. Mrs. or Miss. The exception might be for someone especially close to the family, who might then be called by a special name -- such as Aunt Louise.
By the time I married at age twenty-five (in 1980), Ms. had generally replaced Mrs. and Miss. At the same time, culture and business were becoming increasingly casual. The use of first names in all types of settings became more common. Some bosses invited their employees to call them by first names. Telemarketers even began referring to the people they phoned by their first names in an effort to draw them into conversation.
Most of my personal friends took their husband's last names when they married, as did I. A very few of my friends and acquaintances kept on using their maiden name as their surname, even after marriage. None of my daughter's friends kept their maiden name as a last name upon marriage -- or at least none that I can think of. All seemed to have taken their husband's name.
Of course, we live in the South, where we are a little slower to part with some traditions. Just when we finally get around to changing something, the rest of the country has changed it back again!
Now, I'm just describing my observations of a cultural change in how names are used. It's not my intention in this article to comment one way or the other about whether this trend has been a good one or not.
I leave it entirely up to you to decide how you want to be addressed by others. I also leave it up to you to choose your own signature.
However, I have noticed that there are a number of younger women would like to return to using the title, Mrs. ___ ____(Mrs. and their husband's first name and surname.) Since this represents a revival of a custom that has all but disappeared, I thought some readers might enjoy hearing what Mrs. Post had to say about the correct usage of Mrs. and Miss in her 1950 edition of Etiquette. Whether or not you agree with the old rules or not, it's not bad to know what they are. That way, even if you choose to do something different, it will be a conscious choice and not merely an error.
This first section has to do with how you write another woman's name or how you sign your own name in both personal and business correspondence.
"A married woman should always sign a letter to a stranger, a bank, business firm, etc., with her (birth) name and add, in parentheses, her married name. Thus:
Very truly yours,
Mary Jones Smith
(Mrs. John Smith)
If for all general purposes her writing paper is marked with her full name and address, her signature, Mary Jones Smith, needs no explanation.
Never Sign a Letter "Mrs."... A Lady writing to another lady, or to a gentleman, should sign her name this way to every friend and acquaintance who perfectly well knows her married name:
To acquaintances who may not know which Mrs. or possibly Miss Jones she is, she signs her name
(Mrs. John Jones)
An unmarried lady signs her name
(Miss) Mary Jones
Those who fear to sign their names "Mary" because they think someone might then feel privileged to call them "Mary" can write clearly beneath their signature, " "Kindly reply to Mrs. John Smith." And, they can moreover sign their name "M.J. Smith" instead of "Mary Jones Smith."
Never under any circumstances sign a letter with Mr., Mrs., or Miss as an unseparated part of one's signature unless one is willing to be considered both ignorant and rude."
(Please note that Mrs. Post was writing during an era where the rules about using Mrs. and Miss were more generally known than they are now. I will not think you are either ignorant or rude if you fail to sign your correspondence according to Mrs. Post's directions!)
So, on which occasions did Mrs. Post think a woman should sign her name as Mrs. ___ ____? According to Mrs. Post, she should do so when signing something like a hotel register or when sending a business telegram. Obviously, few of us send telegrams anymore, but I gather that the modern usage might be that you would write your name as Mrs. ___ ____ when signing anything that might be of public record.
Here is one quote from Mrs. Post that I do feel strongly about. This concerns how to address a a letter to a widow:
Correctly a widow keeps her husband's name. According to best taste no note or social letter should ever be addressed to a married woman, even if she is a widow, as Mrs. Mary Town. Correctly, a widow keeps her husband's name always. If her son's wife should have the same name, she becomes Mrs. James Town, senior, or simply Mrs. Town, if there is no other with the same name. Of course if, in a certain community, it is customary for widows to prefix Mrs. to their birth names and they themselves have no objection, their names are certainly their own to use as they choose. But to those of you who want to keep your husband's name, best taste and truth agree that the man gave his name when he gave the wedding ring -- both were for life, or until the woman marries again.
The reason I feel strongly about that is that there are many widows living today who married during the time when people still adhered to certain ideas about how to Mrs. and Miss in both correspondence and conversation. Addressing a widow who learned etiquette in the nineteen forties, -fifties, or even -sixties as Mrs. Mary Town, instead of Mrs. James Town, implies to her that you think she was divorced, rather than widowed. It also sends a message to her that you have forgotten or care little about the years she was married.
An older woman, who cherishes memories of her husband and of her marriage, could be greatly hurt by this. Perhaps, she will allow for the fact that today's etiquette is less precise than it once was. However, it's always better to show respect for an older woman and for her late husband than it is to be too casual in this particular matter.
So, if you do send a card or an invitation to a widow, please address the envelope thusly, Mrs. James Town. (the widow's late husband's first and last names.) Inside the card, use whatever name you normally call her. For example, if you truly are on a first name basis, it is OK to say Dear Mary. Or, if she happens to be her grandmother, of course, you would write Dear Grandma or Dear Mimi or whatever name you generally use. If you are not a relative or her peer or elder in age, and she has not asked you to call her by her first name, it is best to say Dear Mrs. Town.
In Mrs. Post's Day, the old rule was that a divorced woman used her maiden name and her husband's name. For example, if she was Mary Smith before she married and divorced Mr. Smith, she would sign her name Mrs. Mary Simpson Smith. In today's world, fewer people would recognize that rule. At any rate, I'm not interested in calling attention to the fact that a particular woman is divorced, but I do think it's important to honor widows according to the manners they were taught.
In Mrs. Post's day, the custom of calling the eldest daughter of the family Miss Smith and her younger sister Jane Smith was still around. Jane Austen fans will recognize that this point of etiquette goes back for centuries. However, in Mrs. Post's day, the custom was beginning to change. Originally, this tradition was developed to show respect for the elder daughter's position in society. However, it came to be associated with unflattering stereotypes of "spinsters". Therefore, in Mrs. Post's Day, it became more common to address envelopes to unmarried girls or women in this way, "Miss Alice and Miss Jane Smith".
Now, even though it was not considered proper to sign your own name as Mrs. ___ ____ in the signature of a letter, it was considered proper to address an envelope to another woman by using her married title, Mrs. _______ _______.
In the salutation of a letter, you might write Mrs. ________. At least this was true unless the two women were both peers in age and friends, in which case they would naturally write salutations to each other using their first names.
If Mary Jones (Mrs. Oscar Jones) wanted to write to Mrs. Marks, and she was not on a first name basis with her, she would word her letter this way:
Dear Mrs. Marks:
Julian Gibbs is going to Buffalo on January tenth to deliver a lecture on his Polar expedition, and I am giving him this note of introduction to you. He is a very great friend of ours, and I think that perhaps you and Mr. Marks will enjoy meeting him as much as I know he would enjoy knowing you.
With kindest regards, in which Oscar joins,
Note that in the example above, it's obvious that Mrs. Marks knows enough about Mary Jones to know that Oscar is her husband. The Marks and the Jones are well enough acquainted that Mrs. Jones feels comfortable referring to her husband by his first name. She also does not feel the need to add Mrs. Oscar Jones in parentheses below her signature, since Mrs. Marks already knows she is Mrs. Oscar Jones. But, for some reason, Mary Jones does not assume that she can address Mrs. Marks by her first name.
Perhaps, Mary Jones simply does not know Mrs. Marks well enough to assume a first-name relationship. The two women obviously live in different towns. Perhaps, Mrs. Jones visits relatives in Buffalo from time to time, and, thus, she has become acquainted with their dear friend, Mrs. Marks. Yet, they are not direct friends.
Or, more likely, Mrs. Marks is older than Mary Jones. Mrs. Marks might even be someone who is of the same generation as Mary Jones' mother.
In another scenario, let's assume Mrs. Oscar Jones is writing a business letter to Mrs. Marks. In this case, the two women have never met. Mrs. Jones might word the letter this way.
Dear Mrs. Marks:
Your bed and breakfast was recommended to me by Mrs. Arthur Norman.
I would like know what accommodation you can offer me for the weekend of August 21st. I need one double room with a bath for my husband and myself, as well as a double room for my daughters and a single room for my son.
Please send me a brochure containing your floor plan and prices, and I will let you know my decision by return mail.
M. J. Jones
(Mrs. Oscar B. Jones)
Mary Jones could use Mary instead of sighing the letter M. J., particularly if she anticipates forming a friendship with Mrs. Marks.
Also, Mary Jones would need to add the Mrs. Oscar B. Jones only if she is using stationary on which her married name is not already engraved or printed. If you would like to use your married name in correspondence, you might consider having some personal and/or business stationary made. Please note that business letters are generally typed (nowadays on the computer), while social letters are handwritten. As much as those with horrible handwriting, like me, would like to type personal letters, they look impersonal to the person who receives them. Of course, emails must, by definition, be typed.
If, as explained above, Mrs. Jones would prefer that Mrs. Marks not address her as Mary, she could write underneath M. J. Jones or Mary Jones, "Please reply to Mrs. Oscar B. Jones".
Or, Mrs. Jones might write a letter this way:
Dear Mrs. Marks:
Thank you for your interest in my home sewing business. Yes, I do have a collection of mother/daughter apron patterns, and I will be happy to make an apron for both you and your daughter according to the pattern and sizes you select. I have enclosed a brochure and price list for your information.
(Mrs. Oscar B. Jones).
As far as conversation goes, here is a little of what Mrs. Post has to say:
"Every child should at least be taught never to call a grown person by his or her first name -- unless told to do so by that person. In many cases, really intimate friends who are devoted to the children -- those who do not like the formality of Mr. and Mrs. and yet do not want to be called by their first name -- suggest nicknames for themselves. Otherwise, everyone is of course called Mr. and Mrs."
Mrs. Post argues that it is not fair to a child to fail to teach him to address adults properly, as those who overhear the child might criticize his lack of manners. By that same logic, encouraging a child to call you by your first name might also place the child in an unfair situation.
"In speaking about other people, one says "Mrs.", "Miss," or "Mr." as the case may be." Note
that Mrs. Post is speaking in this instance when the listener is not on a first name basis with the person in question.
Here are two examples:
You speak of a woman -- Mary Jones (Mrs. Oscar B. Jones) in conversation with Susan Brown (Mrs. Daniel Brown). Susan either does not know Mary Jones personally and/or is much younger than Mrs. Jones. So, you say, "Mrs. Jones is heading up the PTO project this year. She's asking for volunteers. Would you be interested in helping?"
On the other hand, if you and Susan both know Mary Jones well, you would say, "Did you know that Mary (or Mary Jones, if you both know more than one Mary) is heading up the PTO project this year. She's asking for volunteers. Would you like to help?"
"On the telephone, a lady says to another whom she knows socially, but who is not a "first-name-calling" friend, "Hello, Mrs. Smith? This is Mary Jones." Mrs. Smith answers, "Good morning, Mrs. Jones!"
Now, have I made all this as clear as mud! LOL! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I'll try my best to answer them.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Bold, Adventurous Man
Have you ever known a man who seemed ready to take decisive action from birth! He is bold, adventurous, and a natural born leader. He may have a consuming passion in life or a sense of mission. Whatever he's up to -- for good or for ill -- you have a feeling that he will succeed.
Some time ago, we talked about the strong, silent hero, a male stereotype which is often portrayed in books and movies. This stereotype came about because many men in real life are strong and silent, quiet and thoughtful.
Similarly, some men are bold, active, and adventurous. This has lead to another common movie type: the dashing and brave hero.
Suppose we go to see a movie featuring the bold, adventurous man. Unlike the strong, silent type, this man does not have to be pushed into leadership. He already either is in charge or wants to take charge.
In fact, if our hero is very young and hasn't yet learned a lot of life lessons, he may have a higher opinion of his ability to lead than is warranted. He may ignore the advice of older, wiser men to his peril. Iin a movie, which is always tidier than real life, our hero generally learns his lesson without bringing too much injury upon himself and others. After he learns his lesson, his natural leadership qualities become a gift.
Just as the strong, silent hero and the vivacious, outgoing, high-achieving heroine often end up together, the bold, adventurous man usually has a quieter, more thoughtful woman around who adores him. He may not even notice her at first. He's too busy learning how to fly jet planes or hitchin' up the wagon to move west or conquering new worlds in space to notice our quiet-spoken heroine.
However, as the events of the movie unfold, the strong, silent type notices our kind, quiet heroine's true worth. In fact, her quiet courage and her undying loyalty become essential to his success. At the end of the movie, he not only realizes how much he loves her, but he also realizes that without her by his side he would have failed. (I hesitate to use Jerry McGuire as an example as it has some questionable elements in it. But, the character of Jerry McGuire is an ambitious, high-powered, creative man who, after much trial, comes to love and appreciate his quietly loyal wife.)
So, what happens to our bold, adventurous hero and our more quiet-spoken, thoughtful heroine after they ride off into the sunset together? We'd like to believe that everything flows smoothly from that point on. However, we know that there will likely be a few bumps along the way to building a beautiful partnership.
So, what is our quiet, thoughtful heroine to do? If you're married to a bold, adventurous man, here are some ideas you might try:
1) Remember, your bold, adventurous husband counts on your loyal love for him. Once he has wooed you and won you, he may feel secure in your commitment to him. So, he may dash happily off to other adventures -- such as his career or a sport or a mission that he feels strongly about. Meanwhile, you feel neglected, and you may feel that he is neglecting your children, as well. The key in communicating with the bold, adventurous man is not to take his driven nature personally. It's not that he doesn't love you anymore; he's simply an achiever by nature. Once he sets his mind on a goal, he pursues it full bore, and he may not realize the cost this brings to others. Gently and calmly get his attention and talk to him about your needs. (Take note of the examples of Esther and Abigail. They both plead their cases to high-powered men.) Nagging and pushing will be sure to make the bold, adventurous man run in the opposite direction. So, do prepare yourself to speak the truth in love. Also be prepared to discuss this topic again, as you move through different stages in life. If you and your husband cannot solve such dilemmas on your own, seek the counsel of a wise, older couple. Look for a couple who can help you both set your priorities in order. Take heart: a young man who is extremely driven generally becomes more sensitive to his family's needs as he matures.
2) Be thankful that you are married to a man who will accomplish much for good and who will be full of life in the process. Learn how to be a teammate with him. You two will draw closer as you overcome obstacles and bear good fruit together.
3) Your bold, adventurous husband can be a valuable resource as you pursue goals of your own. For example, he will believe that you can start that home business you've been dreaming of, when you, yourself, feel too timid to try. Or, he may be of help if you find yourself in charge of some kind of committee. Learn from your husband's courage and from the fact that bold, adventurous people generally don't fear failure. They see failure as an opportunity to learn, rather than as the end of the world.
4) Watch for the effect your bold, adventurous man has on others. Likely, he will inspire and encourage many, many people. On the other hand, he might bowl over some quieter, less vocal people. If he is a goal-oriented man and you are a "people person", you can be invaluable in helping him understand how other people think. Telling him when he has been inspirational will be easy, but it may be harder to talk to him about the fact that he has hurt someone's feelings. In broaching this subject, be careful not to come across as his mother or to nag him. Simply offer a gentle hint when needed. Also, your husband may pick up on this strength in you and he may ask for your opinions in this area. Be prepared to answer, again speaking the truth in love.
5) The bold, adventurous man may enjoy sports and pursuits that scare you. Sometimes, you may prefer to cheer from the sidelines. That's OK. But, your marriage will benefit if you try to do some exciting things with him, as your physical ability allows you to. Your bold, adventurous husband will appreicate your compaionship, your support, and the fact that you continue to gow and to be an interesting person in your own right. Who knows? You might end up enjoying something new. Your bold, adventurous man will help you develop as a person.
6) The bold, adventurous man is always full of ideas. Remember, that just because he brainstorms about something doesn't mean that he will follow through on it. So, don't over-react every time he makes a suggestion. Listen. Appreciate the merit in what he has said. If nothing else, focus on the positive fact that he is always thinking of ways to improve situaitons. Consider the pros and cons with him without putting him down.
7) The bold, adventurous man may want to move or to start a business or to make some other life change that scares you. Again, don't reject this out of hand. A new challenge might prove to be just what your family needs. Calmly consider the options with him.
8) The bold, adventurous man may be vigorous physically. He may not need as much sleep, rest, or family time as you do. He may unwittingly fill up your mutual schedule with more activities than you can handle. He may expect you to soldier on when you are tired, just like he does. He is not a mind-reader. So, if you want him to understand your needs, you will have to verbalize them. It may take more than one try before he understands that you (and/or your children) simply must have more rest. Gentle words will go farther than getting angry with him or nagging him will. Again, here is where the counsel of a wise couple can help you understand and adapt to each other.
9) In the same vein, the bold, adventurous man may run a lot on the energy of his personality. He might overestimate just how vigorous his body really is. He may need more sleep, more relaxation, and better quality of food than he admits to himself. This is true of my dear husband, and I am currently seeking ways to help him in his efforts to become more thoughtful of his health. (Suggestions, anyone?) Anyhow, this type of man is the famous "Type A" man who goes and goes and goes until he suddenly drops. You can't force him the Type A man take care of himself. But, you can respectfully discuss any concerns you have for his health with him. You can also create an environment in the home that will support him in the decision to lead a healthful life. Fix nutritous meals; ask him if he would like you to pack nutritious snacks for him to take to work; ask him if he will take a relaxing stroll with you after dinner. Give him a back rub. Bring him a glass of tea. Be creative in your endeavors to watch out for his health -- and yours, as well.
10) The bold, adventurous man may not know what to do during those times when he feels vulnerable and weak. He may, for example, be impatient while recovering from a broken leg or devastated when laid off from work. Such times may be hard, but they can also be good for a high-achieving man. They can drive him to seek God rather than to depend on himself. At such times, you can be a great support and comfort. He may not open up to you readily; he may not even understand enough about what he's feeling to put his emotions into words. But, if you continue to support him, he will learn how to voice his vulnerable feelings to you. Don't try to take away his feelings of weakness and vulnerablity; you can't and probably shouldn't. Instead, show him that you love and respect him even in times when he comes face to face with his own humanity.
11) Remember, the bold, adventurous man needs your support. Such a man often cares little what the crowd thinks, but he usually cares deeply what his wife thinks. (Read the story of Michal and David for an example.) Even if your husband gets a lot of attention from others for his achievements, that praise may mean nothing to him unless he knows that you also respect him. Also, if he has not yet acheived his dreams, he needs your continued support to continue to strive for the good. The spiritual danger that presents itself to a high-achieving man is to think more highly of himself than he ought, rather than to be humble and faithful in heart. Thus, a wife may mistakenly try to correct this by withholding the deep respect that he needs from her. Yet, in doing so, she, herself, is violating the Word, and trying to fight wrong with wrong always backfires. In withholding her respect from her husband, such a wife is actually producing the opposite effect than she desires. She is tempting her bold, adventurous man to become even more prideful in his attempts to win her respect. Or, he may give up trying to win her respect and focus more on the encouragment he gets outside of his marriage. Needless to say, this is not healthy.
12) A wife who knows how to give the right kind of support is a high-achieving man's treasure. Though the following saying is true of every man, it's doubly true for the bold, adventurous man: Beside and behind every great man, there is a great woman!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
"No speaker who searches for words is interesting. Beautiful speech is like a brook that ripples on and on. Irritating speech is like the pufing o a locomotive, each puff broken with er-er -- and-er, the listener in sharing in the search and also sharing in the effort which which each word is pronounced." EP
Mrs. Post has me on this one. When speaking in front of a group, I nervously add "er" or "uh" or "you know" between phrases. Perhaps, I even do this in one-on-one conversation.
I must change this. However, it seems that Mrs. Post is not merely chastising me for saying "er".
She is also giving me permission here to babble on and on like a brook! I have it in writing!!
Of course, I do know that's not what Mrs. Post intends to say. That's fortunate for my irl friends. They know that the last thing I need is encouragement to talk too much!
Quick to listen, slow to speak...Quick to listen, slow to speak...!
If I just keep reminding myself of that...
Monday, June 11, 2007
Emily Post's Etiquette Book -- 1950 Edition
I brought home book from my dad's house. It is the 1950 edition of Emily Post's book, "Etiquette", which was originally written and published in 1922. My mother consulted this book on some rare occasion when she had forgotten some finer point of etiquette, and I remember reading some of it a a young girl. Since the book is older than I am, it is of interest to me historically, as well as concerning manners.
A few of you may remember that Emily Post was once considered one of the foremost experts in American etiquette. Her first works predated even those of Amy Vanderbilt and Letita Baldridge, who also became well-known etiquette experts in the twentieth century.
A few more of us will have some memory of Mrs. Post's daughter, Elizabeth. She took up her mother's mantle and became known as an etiquette expert in her own right.
Emily Post lived from 1872 to 1960. If you would like to read about her story, follow this link: http://www.answers.com/topic/emily-post.
In the 1940's, Mrs. Post founded an institute devoted to manners -- The Emily Post Institute. The Institute still functions today, with her great-granddaughter-in-law serving as its current spokesman. You can find their web site if you do a search of Emily Post's name. Her geat-grandson also writes about manners.
Mrs. Post's descendants have continued to revise Mrs. Post's Etiquette book. Thanks to her great-granddaughter-in-law, the latest edition even deals with e-mail manners, a consideration that I'm sure Mrs. Post could never have foreseen.
I haven't had a chance to read much of the 1950 edition of Etiquettesince I brought it home. But, just from glancing through it, I'm struck by how often Mrs. Post refers to "the modern woman" and "the modern world". In her mind, she was living in a new era in which manners had changed to accommodate the equality and independence of the modern woman. She offers much advice to men and women about how to conduct themselves in this brave new society. That's fascinating to me, since the 1950's are so often portrayed as a repressive time for American women.
It seemed to me when flipping through Etiquette that if the only source of etiquette advice you had on hand was the 1950 edition of Mrs. Post's book, you wouldn't stray too far afield in your manners. Much of her advice still applies.
Admittedly, some of Mrs. Post's advice might sound quaint -- or at least quaintly worded -- to our even more modern ears. Some of her advice might even be truly obsolete. Still, there are many gems hidden within the pages of the 1950 book.
Here's one gem that Mrs. Post wrote:
"The secret of popularity is unconsciousness of self, enthusiastic interest in almost anything that turns up, and inward generosity of thought and impulse outwardly expressed in good manners."
Mrs. Post directed this advice toward young girls, who were taking their first few steps into the adult world. She warned girls not to measure their success by superficial standards of popularity. Instead, she advised them to focus on being a true friend to others. She deemed it better to be liked for one's lovely character than to be the prettiest, showiest girl at a party.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Tip for the New Mother #4 -- Your Health in the First Year
Ideas about when a new mother should return to her normal activites have varied throughout history. According to the culture or the time in which you give birth, a mother is given particular advice about this matter. Also, this depends on the mother's individual state of health, as well. So, given all of these variables, one woman may follow different counsel than another woman -- past or present.
When I had my babies back in the early eighties, the American ideal was to get Mom and Baby up and out of the house as soon as possible. It was often pointed out that in some societies, women give birth in the field and then keep on working. The implication was that we should do likewise. I have met a lot of moms from a lot of different cultures, but I've never personally encountered anyone who got right up from childbirth to harvest peas. So, if you actually have done this, please let me know!
My peers and I thought nothing of taking our babies to church or even out shopping before two weeks from delivery was out! I knew one very faithful mom -- a preacher's wife -- who conducted a woman's Bible study from her bed the next day after giving birth! A few women came over, including one who was interested in becoming a Christian came over, and she taught them right in her room! I still appreciate her heart to help others.
When I was born the thinking that both Mom and Baby would benefit from staying in and resting for a month. I think things are swinging back in that direction, now. The latest I hear is that some doctors are advising moms not to bring Baby to church for about four weeks.
When I was born, women stayed in the hospital for at least a week after a normal delivery. When I had babies, three days was the norm for a normal delivery. A few years after that, women were sent home within hours of giving birth. Statistics came out that these quick hospital stays endangered the mother's health, and hospital stays went back up again.
Of course, when my father was born in 1919, women gave birth at home, with doctors in attendance. But, I don't think women were rushed out of bed very quickly. Many people enjoy home deliveries today.
I think I've mentioned this before in an earlier post, but it bears repeating: It takes about a year after childbirth for your internal organs to knit themselves completely back together. Throughout the first year, no matter how great you may feel, you must be mindful of this fact.
This bit of advice was given to me after the birth of my second child. How do I know this advice is true? I ignored it and suffered some unpleasant consequences. This wasn't too bright on my part, especially since my babies were only fourteen months apart. Overall, I felt fantastic. Yet, my insides still had a lot of recovering to do, as I found out.
Here's what I learned after ignoring this point to my detriment: It's fine and even beneficial to ease back into your life's routine as your doctor or midwife approves. Once you have your doctor's or midwife's ok, the right kind of exercise will do wonders for you. But, please be careful. In the first month, avoid any quick and jerky movements and unnecessary bending. Move slowly and gently. Do this in addition to following any precautions your doctor or midwife has advised. Throughout the first year, avoid lifting heavy objects. Of course, you will be lifting Baby. But, when it comes to things like re-arranging the furniture or setting out to become the world's weight-lifting champion -- don't!
Throughout your childbearing years, watch out for things like anemia, cavities in your teeth, a cold that lingers on too long, allergies, corrections that need to be made in your vision, etc. I know how it is to be so busy taking care of everyone else that you neglect your own body. And, I know how expensive it is to keep up-to-date on all of your health needs. But, think how much more effective you can be in loving your family if you take care of little things that can easily be treated.
Regarding your iron level: Men and post-menopausal women don't generally need supplemental iron. Nor, do they need a diet heavy on iron-rich foods. In fact, there is some evidence that this can be harmful. Iron can build up in your arteries and cause heart problems. That's why you see many multivitamin formulations now that do not include iron.
However, women of childbearing years often have low iron stores due to menstruation and childbirth. Many, if not most, teen girls and women of childbearing age sit on the borderline between having a normal blood count and being anemic. I know that my daughter and I both have experienced this. So have several of our friends.
Watch out for these signs of a low blood store: unusual fatigue, feeling winded easily, palpitations, feeling cold, heavier than usual periods, etc. The unusual fatigue could be the only symptom that you feel, so don't dismiss unwarranted fatigue without finding out the root cause. Talk to your doctor to make sure that you are truly low on iron; diagnosing yourself would not be wise. Also, don't fall into the thinking that if you need to add a little extra iron to your diet, that a whole lot must be even better for you. Too much is as harmful as too little. And, don't assume that if you need extra iron this year that you will always need extra iron; have this checked periodically so that you don't overdo. But, if you truly are low in iron, it will do wonders for you if you add iron-rich and Vitamin C rich foods to your diet or if you take a multi-vitamin with iron.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
1) Appreciate and savor this season of life. We are always moving into a new season, to which we must adapt. For example, right now, my father is in a health crisis and is staying with us. Naturally, this has altered our household's normal activities. It's hard, especially to watch my father suffer! But, even so, I treasure the moments I have with him. In the same way, a new baby alters the schedule of a married couple. Savor the moments you have with your new baby. When you are constantly changing diapers, feeding a baby day and night, and laundering baby clothing, each day can seem long. But, when you look back at the end of your baby's first 365 days, you'll realize just how fleeting the year really was. So, enjoy!
2) When people offer to come over for an hour or so to help you, let them! It is okay to accept help! Sometimes, people may offer to do something for you, but they won't know exactly what you need. If they ask, offer a concise, non-demanding suggestion. You could say something such as, "Thanks for asking. I'm so behind on the laundry. If you could throw in a load for me, that would be such a comfort to me."
3) Make every effort to grow in your relationship to God. "But women will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety." I Timothy 2:15 NIV
The process of being pregnant, giving birth, and beginning to raise a child is a wondrous and profound experience. Provided that you keep a teachable heart, God will use that profound experience to show you his glory and his love more deeply. He will also use motherhood to refine your character. I admire single women who have the gift of devoting their life to God without marriage and children. But, I think God knew that I needed to be a wife and mother to force me to confront and crucify my natural selfishness.
I remember that when I had my first child, DH and I were urgently seeking a deeper relationship with God. I propped my Bible on my knees while I nursed my baby at night. I still treasure those quiet moments when it was just God, my baby, and me. I'm sure my physical eyes were bleary from lack of sleep, but God still used that time to open the eyes of my heart to so many things in his word.
4) Write scriptures on cards and carry them with you or place them in places where you will see them as you go through your day. Jot down on a card things you want to pray about. That way, even on the busiest day with Baby, you can make use of small amounts of time to take God's word into your heart and to pray.
5) Whether you are a naturally scheduled person or you are someone who finds it hard to be scheduled, you may be surprised by how many interruptions to your days that a new baby brings. This requires that you learn how to alter your activities when your baby needs you. Yet, you will need to maintain a certain amount of routine to your life so that you can function. Some mothers adapt easily to this balance between being scheduled and flexible; for others of us, this balance doesn't come so easily. I know that it wasn't easy for me. Here's where prayer and, also, the wisdom of a godly older mother are invaluable.
God is a God of order, and we are made in his image. Both we and our children will thrive best if we can establish some routine and pattern in our lives. On the other hand, we must not get too uptight about our personal idea of how our day should go. Though Jesus was intensely focused on his mission while on earth, he was also approachable. He stopped to bless babies, to touch a leper, to heal a blind man, to call a man down out of a tree and have lunch with him.
Knowing how to meet baby's emotional and physical needs, while at the same staying close to God, meeting the needs of Dh, taking care of your health, and helping others is a delicate balance that requires much prayer and advice. It also requires fully surrendering your day to the Lord.
6) When you have a new baby in the house is not the time to do deep cleaning or spring cleaning. If you can keep things reasonably picked up, the kitchen sanitary, the beds made, and the bathrooms wiped, your house will have a feeling of order and comfort. You can tackle dust bunnies, closets, bookshelves etc., later on. You're not trying to get into House Beautiful right now. Your goal is to maintain a reasonably comfortable and pleasant haven for your family.
7) When you have a new baby is not the time to try out a high maintenance hairdo or to acquire clothing that needs a lot of maintenance, as well. As I said in an earlier post, develop quick and easy personal care routines that help you feel fresh and pretty. Note: Use a burp cloth and also be prepared too change tops often!
8) Accept the fact that you may not feel like everything is perfectly done or completely finished right now. That's ok, provided that you are tending to what is most important in your life. Pray that God will show you what He wants you to accomplish and trust that he will give you the strength and ability. Also, check with your dh to see how he feels about how things are going. (If your dh has what you feel like are unrealistic expectations for you right now, talking with a godly older couple can help you both sort things out).
At the end of each day, be thankful for what you did get done, rather than allow yourself to feel gloomy about what you didn't get done. It is wise to take stock at the end of the day to discern how you can improve. And, if you have been lazy, of course, it's time to repent. But, if you get in the habit of berating yourself over things that you failed to accomplish with your day you are setting yourself up to spiral downwards emotionally. This will drain you physically, making it even harder to accomplish important goals. The result is you will feel worse about your days. Thankfulness, by contrast, will lead to happiness which can lead to more energy, thus creating an upwards spiral. A thankful outlook is essential to your emotional health and will be good for your baby, as well!
9) You may have been used to being on the go as a single woman and, also, as a married woman with no children. Yet, now, you must learn how to operate more of your life from home. So, look for little opportunities to be of service in your neighborhood. Bake a batch of cookies for a new neighbor, for example. Within boundaries that protect your safety, wave to any people who are out in their yards and get to know them as you take your baby for a stroll. Take time to talk to children who are interested in your baby. Be espeically kind if an elderly person expresses an interest in your child; perhaps, you might be the only person they talk with all day! A happy mom with a happy child can be a great encouragement to an entire neighborhood.
What if you live in a neighborhood where no one is home during the day? On warm nights, ask Dh to stroll with you in the later afternoon or early evening, just as people are getting home from work. Also, reach out to other mothers you might meet at the park. You can even have an encouraging conversation with other mothers you see in the waiting room of your doctor's office. Also, you can encourage someone else and receive encouragement yourself if you make it a point to chat with one person for a short time on the phone every day. Don't let phone time get out of hand. But, a short call each day can help you stay in touch with others.
Or, you might write notes that encourage others. Read Jane McWhorter's book, "Special Delivery", which is a course in letter writing. You will find good suggestions for writing letters that will bring joy or comfort to people in many different life situations. Who knows what good you can do if you take five to fifteen minutes at least once a week to dash out a heartfelt, short, impactful note to someone and take it to the mailbox. If you do this once a week, you will have made at least a small difference in the lives of 52 people by year's end!
As you feel like it, have someone over for lunch. Or, let a teen come over and help you one afternoon, while you share an interest in her life. Take baby to visit someone in a nursing home, if that is allowed. Elderly people often are greatly cheered by babies.
If you are creative, you will find many ways to be of service, even when you have a baby under the age of one.
10) Sometimes, you may need to rest when baby rests -- especially in the six months. It may be hard to take time to do this when you know you could get so many things done while Baby is asleep! However, a little investment in your health now will pay off later on. Look at this as a way to maintain your stamina throughout your childbearing years.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Help for the new mother -- Part II
Some of my most precious memories are of holding my babies and feeding them. I could fill volumes describing how much I loved nursing my children.
Of course, in today's world, we're all aware of the benefits of nursing. Some of these are as follows: hormones are released that bond the baby and the mother; colostrum and mother's milk are specifically created by God for the human infant and thus provide the most complete nourishment; colostrum and mother's milk provide antibodies that protect a baby's immune system; mother's milk is an always available source of food for the child; if a mother nurses completely, nursing does seem to space out conceptions somewhat; and nursing is comforting and relaxing to both mother and child. Beyond that, nursing adds to much to the happiness of the mother and the baby.
As wonderful as nursing is, not every moment will go smoothly. Here are some tips I hope will help the process:
1) A few women simply cannot nurse for medical reasons. This has been true throughout history. In the old days, if a woman could not nurse, another mother was found to step in for her and to provide her baby with the needed milk. Later on, bottles and formula were invented, and a mother who could not nurse could feed her own baby via a bottle.
I have a friend who had her heart set on nursing her child. However, it turned out that she needed to take some medicine which could pass into her milk and, thus, might harm her child.
If you find yourself in a situation where you absolutely cannot nurse, there is no need to feel guilty or to let this mar the joy of having a new baby. While mother's milk may be ideal, your baby will thrive on formula.
Since our mothers were sadly discouraged from breastfeeding, there's a whole generation of us baby boomers who have already lived forty to sixty years after being bottle fed as children! And, we're still going strong. (My mother did nurse me for six weeks, but I think that was about as long as anyone ever nursed back then. Most mothers did not nurse at all, but were prescribed medicine to dry up their milk).
Remember, the most important nourishment you give your child is your love. You can give that whether you nurse or not.
2) On the other hand, I've known mothers who were able to nurse, but who found it hard to get the whole process started. Many became frustrated when their nursing experience didn't fit the perfect picture they had formed in their mind. Some have told me of being sorely tempted to give up.
In the main, nursing is an instinctive process for both baby and mother. However, some babies are slow to follow their instincts in this area. They may have trouble at first with some aspect of nursing, such as latching on. There are many reasons for this, most of which are correctable.
Or, a tired and nervous mother may psyche herself out of being able to nurse. If she lets her mind and body stay tense, she may find it hard to maintain a good milk flow.
If you and your baby find the nursing process difficult, yet you really want to breastfeed your baby, do not give up too soon!! It just takes some mothers and some babies longer to get the process down. But, once you do, the rewards will be great!
The most important thing you can do in this situation is to relax. Instead of worrying if you're doing everything right when it comes to nursing, focus more on enjoying your baby. If you keep an optimistic, peaceful attitude, your baby will sense it. Eventually, nursing will fall in place for both of you.
In the meantime, consult an experienced mom or a lactation specialist for help. Also, let your physician monitor the baby's growth to make sure he or she is thriving.
You may want to purchase an old book by the La Leche League. Be forewarned. The La Leche League takes nursing very seriously. Perhaps, this is because they were formed at a time when they had to defend nursing against a culture that was used to bottle feeding. I found that reading some of their literature and talking to a mom who was a member of LLL was a great boon to me. At any rate, don't feel obligated to live up to every aspect of the organization's teaching. Just know that some of their books -- such as the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding -- do provide helpful information for the mother who needs help with nursing. Any nursing mother will benefit from LLL advice. But, when you need encouragement to keep on in the face of problems, that's where they really help. Take what works for you and don't worry about the rest.
3) Remember, women have been breast-feeding for thousands of generations. By this time, people have found solutions for most of the little problems that may crop up with nursing. From what to do when your baby cuts his first tooth to how to cope with mastitis to what to do for after cramps with a second or third baby -- someone's discovered an answer. So, once again, stay relaxed and optimistic. If you should encounter a troublesome question, it probably won't be insurmountable. Just consult an experienced mother or a good book on nursing.
4) Nursing seems to bring out strongest opinions of any subject in infant care. Should you nurse or not? If you do nurse, when should you wean the baby? When should you first introduce foods along with nursing? Should you give a newborn some water or only mother's milk? Questions like these provoke much discussion.
As we mentioned in the last post on infant care, don't let conflicting advice confuse you. Most of all, don't let it unnerve you. Stay humble. Listen. Honestly ask yourself if the advice you are being given is true and sound. But, in the end, your husband and you (and quite possibly your doctor) will have to decide what is right for you and your baby.
5) If you are a nursing mother, take care of your own health. Also, find simple personal care routines that will help you stay feeling fresh and pretty, yet won't sap a lot of your time and energy. This is helpful for you, for your dear hubby, for your new baby, and for any future babies you might have.
6) Nursing moms get a lot of their needs for cuddling and attention met from holding their babies so much. Enjoy nursing, but keep your priorities straight. Your baby will thrive best in an atmosphere where you keep God first in your heart and in your life and where you continue to build a solid, happy marriage with your dh. Don't neglect your marriage while you are nursing! Find little ways to let your husband know that you care. Also, resume a physical relationship as soon as you are medically able to do so after childbirth.
Of course, caring for a nursing infant (or any infant) does require a lot of time, energy, and attention. Nursing mothers do get tired. And, a nursing mother will not be able to do all that she did when she was single or married without children. We must find creative ways to be fruitful and happy in whatever season of life we find ourselves. You will need to be patient with yourself as you nurse. Your husband and any older children in the family will also need to be patient.
However, the best thing you can do for your nursing baby is to order your priorities rightly now in your heart and to find creative ways to put your priorities in action as you can. Getting off to a good start now will pay off as your child grows to be an adult.
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|The city coat of arms, awarded to Puerto Real in 1503|
|Dr. William Hodges at the Musee de Guahaba, Limbe, Haiti|
In 1975, in a remote corner of Haiti, Dr. William Hodges, a medical missionary and founder of the Hôpital le Bon Samaritain in Haiti, stumbled almost unexpectedly upon the ruins of the long-lost and nearly forgotten Spanish city of Puerto Real. The city had existed on the northern coast of what is today Haiti between 1503 and 1578, as an outpost of the Spanish empire inhabited by Spaniards, American Indians and Africans. Abandoned for more than four centuries, Puerto Real is today covered by agricultural and grazing fields near the town of Limonade, an invisible but archaeologically tangible remnant of a very early chapter in European-American history - the rise and decline of the Spanish empire in the Caribbean.
Hodges, a medical missionary and lifelong avocational scholar of the Spanish presence in Haiti, discovered Puerto Real while searching for an even earlier remnant of the Spanish empire - the lost fort of La Navidad. La Navidad had been established by Christopher Columbus in 1492 when his flagship, the Santa Maria wrecked off the coast near Puerto Real. Dr. Hodges and his family carried out preliminary tests at Puerto Real to determine whether or not it might be the site of La Navidad, but soon realized they had discovered the remains of Puerto Real. When they had documented the magnitude of the find, Dr. Hodges contacted Dr. Charles Fairbanks of the University of Florida, who accepted the invitation to join forces with him in the study of the Spanish town.
Ultimately, through the concerted efforts of the Haitian Institute de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Nacional, the Organization of American States, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Musee de Guahaba in Limbé, Haiti, and the University of Florida, a seven-year-long interdisciplinary study of Puerto Real was launched. The work has been conducted by many archaeologists, historians, zooarchaeologists and architects. Their work is summarized below, and is reported in more detail in Puerto Real: The Archaeology of a Sixteenth Century Spanish Town in Hispaniola (1995, edited by Kathleen Deagan, University Press of Florida).
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International Research Funding Opportunities
Initiatives in Natural Resources/Ecology
National Science Foundation (NSF) Many funding opportunities that would involve international research and collaborations.
Developing Global Scientists and Engineers -International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) and Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Projects (DDEP). The IRES component of the program supports groups of US undergraduate or graduate students conducting research abroad in collaboration with foreign investigators. The DDEP component supports the dissertation research abroad of one doctoral student in collaboration with a foreign investigator.
Young Explorers Grant (YEG) offers opportunities to individuals ages 18 to 25 to pursue research, conservation, and exploration-related projects consistent with National Geographic's existing grant programs, including: the Committee for Research and Exploration (CRE), the Expeditions Council (EC) and the Conservation Trust (CT).
The Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) supports other targeted international research and education experiences for early-career scientists and engineers via the Research Experience for Undergraduates program, the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for US Graduate Students, the Pan-American Advanced Studies Institutes (for advanced graduate students and post-doctoral fellows), the International Research Fellowship Program (for post-doctoral fellows or new faculty), and the International Research and Education: Planning Visits and Workshops. Read more.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Multiple funding opportunities with a variety of deadlines.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Supporting research in science and technology is an important part of NASA's overall mission. NASA solicits this research through the release of various research announcements in a wide range of science and technology disciplines. NASA uses a peer review process to evaluate and select research proposals submitted in response to these research announcements. Researchers can help NASA achieve national research objectives by submitting research proposals and conducting awarded research. This site facilitates the search for NASA research opportunities.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long recognized the US higher education community as a national asset and a valued partner in international development. The community fosters creative new approaches to development problems which USAID is working on throughout the developing world in support of US national interests. Most USAID business with the US HEC is conducted through competitive processes which ensure consistency with USAID development strategies, objectives and quality while eliciting the best ideas. At the same time, we welcome unsolicited concepts and proposals (that support USAID goals and objectives) with the recognition that funding for these is limited.
Higher Education for Development (HED) supports the worldwide development goals of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), primarily by coordinating the engagement of the higher education community to address development challenges.
Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the US government and is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” With this goal as a starting point, the Fulbright Program has provided almost 300,000 participants—chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential — with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Young Explorers Grant An initial grant from National Geographic helped launch the careers of many of the Society’s, and our planet’s, most renowned explorers. We are committed—as we have been for more than a century—to supporting new generations of archaeologists, anthropologists, astronomers, conservationists, ecologists, geographers, geologists, marine scientists, adventurers, storytellers, and pioneers. Today, Young Explorers grants help cover field project costs for hard-working, passionate, creative individuals with great ideas. We focus on the disciplines we're known for, and also on emerging fields that matter most to understanding—and improving—the world we share.
Conservation Trust Program The Conservation Trust supports both efforts in the field and public-education campaigns that inform individuals about global issues, connect conservation issues to daily life, and enable people to take action.
Marine Conservation Biology Institute—funding currently suspended. In the face of increasing evidence that the world's oceans are in trouble, MCBI established the Mia J. Tegner Memorial Research Grant in Marine Environmental History and Historical Marine Ecology. This grant is among the first in the world awarded specifically to help scientists document the composition and abundance of ocean life before humans altered marine ecosystems. This information is crucial for helping lawmakers, regulators, managers and activists set appropriate targets for marine conservation efforts.
Michigan Tech contact: Priscilla Khoury, Director of Foundation Relations (487-1608, email@example.com)
Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) Human activity is causing global warming, rapid loss of biodiversity, and accelerating degradation of Earth's life support systems. These developments threaten the livelihoods, health, and security of people in all nations and cultures as well as the well-being of the greater community of life. The RBF's sustainable development grant making endeavors to address these challenges by supporting environmental stewardship that is ecologically based, economically sound, socially just, culturally appropriate, and consistent with intergenerational equity. The Fund encourages government, business, and civil society to work collaboratively on environmental conservation and to make it an integral part of all development planning and activity. Recognizing the global nature of many environmental problems, the Fund also promotes international cooperation in addressing these challenges.
Rufford Small Grants (RSGs) for nature conservation are aimed at small conservation programmes and pilot projects. We offer five different grants.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society.
Orangutan Foundation has been administering a small grants programme focussing on orangutan research for several years. Recognising the importance of the 'bigger picture' the Foundation has more recently decided to encourage a broader portfolio of funded research by promoting and supporting research concerning all aspects of the forest ecosystem.
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| 0.914657 | 1,277 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Commercial jets pump out some 700 million tons of CO2 a year—about two percent of global emissions. That jet exhaust helps warm the planet, especially in the Arctic. Which is especially unfortunate for future fliers. Because climate change may stir up more turbulence over the North Atlantic, causing bumpier flights there. That's according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change. [Paul D. Williams and Manoj M. Joshi, Intensification of winter transatlantic aviation turbulence in response to climate change]
Researchers used climate simulations to fast-forward to the year 2050. They fed that future climate data to 21 turbulence-predicting algorithms, focusing on a type called "clear air turbulence," which literally comes out of the blue—pilots can't spot it, and neither can satellites or radar. The models forecast that by mid-century, clear-air turbulence will be more violent, and transatlantic flights will hit it twice as often, especially during the winter.
Beyond spilling drinks, severe clear-air turbulence can injure or kill passengers, and damage planes, too—it once ripped an engine off a DC-8. The researchers say airlines may have to fly more detours in the future to avoid it, a waste of time and fuel that ups emissions. Which could mean higher ticket prices, and even less friendly skies.
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
[Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.]
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Horticultural oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons containing traces of nitrogen and sulfur-linked compounds that is used to control plant pests. It is an acceptable alternative to control pests in organic farming (Olkowski; et.al., 1995: pp. 54, 84-87, 252). However, horticultural oil usage is poorly understood since the product labels give little information on the content.
Types of horticultural oil
Dormant oil - used for woody plants during the dormant season. Dormant oil now refers to the time of application rather than to any characteristic type of oil.
Mineral oil - any oil found in the rock strata of the earth. The white mineral oil is the tasteless petroleum used for pharmaceuticals or medicinal purposes.
To control powdery mildew, add 3 tbsp of kerosene to 1 gallon of water containing 1/2 tsp of detergent soap. Mix well and stir or shake constantly your extract container while in the process of application.
Narrow-range oil - highly refined that has a narrow range of distillation.
Petroleum oil - synonymous to horticultural oil and a more common term of reference.
Spray oil - designed to be mixed with water and applied to plants as a spray for pest control.
Summer oil/Foliar oil - used on plants when foliage is present.
Supreme oil - highly refined and distilled oil.
Vegetable oil - derived from the seeds of some oil seed crop.
To control powdery mildew, add 3 tbsp of oil to 1 gallon of water containing 1/2 tsp of detergent soap. Mix well and stir or shake constantly your extract container while in the process of application.
Botanical plant oil - derived from parts of the plant known to have insecticidal properties.
Botanical plant/vegetable oil
- Garlic oil spray
- Chinaberry oil spray
- Citrus oil
- Custard apple seed oil extract
- Garlic oil spray
- Neem oil spray
- Pongam oil spray
- Corn earworm
- Fall armyworm
- Spider mites
- Fungal diseases
- Algae growing on fruit and fruit trees
Precautions when using horticultural oil
Do not apply on sensitive plants and avoid drift onto them.
Do not apply on drought-stressed plants. Plants that are under-stress may be damaged.
Do not apply during freezing weather or when humidity is above 90% for longer than 36 hours.
Do not apply when plant foliage is wet or when rain is expected.
Do not spray during shoot elongation and when buds are fully-opened.
Do not apply in combination with sulfur or sulfur-containing pesticides.
Do not use spray tank that previously contained a sulfur-based fungicide.
Do not mix oil with fungicide and do not spray oil within 2 weeks after fungicide treatment.
Standard procedures for the preparation and application of homemade extracts
- Read and follow the label instructions carefully. Ask for assistance from your local agriculturist office when using horticulture oil
for the first time.
- Spray in the early morning or late afternoon.
- Use utensils for the extract preparation that are not use for your food preparation and for drinking and cooking water containers. Clean properly all the utensils every time after using them.
- Do not have a direct contact with the crude extract while in the process of the preparation and during the application.
- Make sure that you place the extract out of reach of children and house pets while leaving it overnight.
- Harvest all the mature and ripe fruits before extract application.
- Always test the extract formulation on a few infected plants first before going into large scale spraying. When adding soap as an emulsifier, use a potash-based one.
- Wear protective clothing while applying the extract.
- Wash your hands after handling the extract.
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There has been a lot of interest in muscle powered electronic devices, due in large part to the success of Perpetual Torch
Perpetual Torch, also known as battery-less LED torch. The battery-less torch consists of a voltage generator to power the LEDs, an electronic circuit to condition and store the voltage produced by the voltage generator and high efficiency white LEDs.
The muscle powered voltage generator is based on Faraday's law, consisting of a tube with cylindrical magnets. The tube is wound with a coil of magnet wire. As the tube is shaken, the magnets traverse the length of the tube back and forth, thus changing the magnetic flux through the coil and the coil therefore produces an AC voltage. We will come back to this later in the Instructable.
This Instructable shows you how to build an electronic, batterless dice. A photograph of the built unit is seen below.
But first some background --->
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Leg 204 was originally scheduled to begin in San Francisco, California, and end in San Diego, California. As a result of an impending West Coast dock strike, both port calls were ultimately moved to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Leg 204 officially began with the first line ashore, Westcan Terminal B at 0655 hr on 7 July 2002.
In many ways, the leg turned out to be extraordinary. Almost all science objectives were successfully achieved during the course of drilling/coring the seven primary sites and two alternate sites. In addition, a series of holes geared specifically toward the rapid recovery and preservation of hydrate samples was cored at the end of the leg at Site 1249 as part of a hydrate geriatric study funded by the Department of Energy.
Some significant statistics of Leg 204 are listed below, followed by a more descriptive discussion:
Special tool deployments and successes during the leg included the following:
Operations on the southern Hydrate Ridge also required coordination with several other oceanographic research vessels. The Sonne, a German research vessel, operated in the same area, deploying and recovering instrumented seafloor landers. The Ewing, from LDEO, worked in conjunction with the JOIDES Resolution conducting two-ship seismic operations and independent research, including the setting of ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS) packages on the seafloor. The Atlantis, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was on site for 4 days of Alvin diving at the ridge crest. And finally, the New Horizon, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography vessel, was on location briefly doing independent oceanographic research work.
The leg also included a two-ship seismic program conducted in conjunction with the Ewing to acquire vertical, constant-offset, and walk-away VSPs. A new Schlumberger tool called the Vertical Seismic Imager (VSI) was used for most of the VSP work, whereas the older Well Seismic Tool (WST) was used for the remaining holes. Deployment of the VSI tool was problematic because of its fragile construction and because the tool is not designed to have the electric line slacked off during the data acquisition period. Nonetheless, the tool worked well enough to achieve most of the seismic objectives.
Eight of the sites were drilled using LWD technology. A developmental LWC system, jointly developed by LDEO, Anadrill, and Texas A&M University (TAMU), was also successfully tested using a RAB-8 LWD tool. This marked the first time that core samples have been recovered simultaneously with LWD data.
Several other specialized tools developed all or in part by TAMU were successfully deployed during the leg. These include the PCS, MT, APCT shoe, DVTP, and DVTPP.
Two other developmental pressure coring systems developed by the European consortium (HYACINTH) were deployed. These tools were designed to allow transfer of a pressurized core sample from the downhole tools autoclave chamber to a pressurized logging chamber. The FPC and HRC were deployed 10 times and 8 times, respectively. Two runs with the FPC and four runs with the HRC successfully recovered core at or near in situ pressure. Functionally, the pressurized core transfer and logging chambers worked well, although some tolerance variations with the FPC made the transferring of the FPC cores more problematic.
Prior to the leg, TAMU worked with Fugro-McClelland on the adaptation of their piezoprobe tool to the ODP/TAMU bottom-hole assembly (BHA). This tool was deployed twice on the first site, with the second attempt fully successful. Data from this electric linedeployed tool will be compared to DVTPP data. The DVTPP tool is deployed in a much faster and simpler fashion by being free-fall deployed and then recovered using the standard ODP coring line.
LDEO deployed its DSA tool to gather downhole data in support of the HYACINTH tool deployments and also as part of an experimental study using the APC as an energy source. The APC impact energy was recorded using OBS stations placed on the seafloor earlier by the Ewing. Initial results indicated that this experiment was successful and that useful data were obtained.
The scientific and operational achievements were impressive; however, the leg was extremely demanding because of the confined operating area. All nine drill sites were located within 3.6 nmi of each other. As a result of the close proximity of the sites, all moves between sites were done using the ship's dynamic positioning system. Because of the commonality of the coring BHAs to be used, most of these moves were made with the pipe suspended below the ship. When a BHA change or bit replacement was required, the move was made simultaneously with the pipe trip to and from the surface. With no transit time, other than traveling to and from port and limited pipe trips between sites, the operating time available for drilling and coring was considerable. For the 57.1-day leg, 50.4 days, or 88.3%, of the available time was spent on site. The remaining 6.7 days was spent in port (4.14 days) and under way (2.54 days).
Leg 204 operations were confined to an area located ~50 nmi off the coast of Oregon. The close proximity of land meant that this leg was a candidate for numerous changes of personnel and equipment. An initial supply boat rendezvous was planned to allow removal of specialized and expensive VSP equipment along with an Anadrill VSP engineer. This soon grew to include numerous other personnel changes via helicopter, and another supply boat brought out special pressure vessels, dewars, and liquid nitrogen to support the add-on effort to recover and preserve the additional hydrate samples. Ultimately, there were a total of nine rendezvous completed with the JOIDES Resolution, including seven helicopters and two supply vessels.
Leg 204 officially ended at 0900 hr on 2 September 2002, with the first line ashore Westcan Terminal Pier B in Victoria.
Next Section | Table of Contents
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Tallahassee, FL - Kurt Zimmerman treats hundreds of athletes each year as Maclay's athletic trainer. This is his seventh year at the school. But Zimmerman only started learning about concussions four years ago.
He's now using the ImPACT testing tool, a computerized-based system that helps determine whether an individual can return to play. It's a staple in Leon County, one of the only counties in Florida to implement this protocol at the high school level.
But detecting concussions while observing the field of play can sometimes be difficult.
"Sometimes somebody gets hit in the body and you can get a concussion by being hit in the body," said Zimmerman, who has worked as an athletic trainer in Leon County for 10 years. "So, it's very, very tough to tell without talking to the athlete."
In the past year, Zimmerman said he's had about five athletes with concussions, more than usual.
"I think it's my responsibility to recognize that a kid is concussed and communicate that with the coach and hold them out," he said.
Doctor Jacob VanLandingham studies brain injures at Florida State's College of Medicine.
"Once someone is released to play, that individual's brain is considered to be safe, to be healed and all of these things," said VanLandingham, who has researched concussions for the past 16 years. "And I think currently we are developing more diagnostics to make sure that we've got that call right."
Researchers at FSU's Human Performance Lab use a three-step aerobic process. It involves memory retention on a treadmill, a bike and a balancing device. This helps determine the severity of a player's concussion.
"They're no longer dizzy, they're balance is stable, they're psychologically performing at the intellectual stage that they were prior to the injury, then we feel as though that brain has recovered and now it's safe to go back in," VanLandingham said.
But VanLandingham said there may never be a permanent solution.
"Look for drugs that can potentially be provalactic (preventitive). But not equipment - it won't ever completely stop concussions," he said.
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Cape Mountain Zebra (Equus zebra zebra)
The Cape Mountain Zebra is the smallest of the zebra species, and has a mass of 230-260 kg and a shoulder height from 1.16 m to 1.28 m. Since the stripes on the body are narrower than those on the Burchell's zebra, there are more. The horizontal stripes on the legs extend right down to the hooves. Hind quarters are covered with broad black stripes, and a gridiron pattern of narrow, transverse dark markings appear on the rump. The bellies are white and devoid of any stripes. They have long ears (220 mm) and distinctive dewlaps.
They congregate in breeding herds consisting of one to five mares and their foals, under the leadership of a single stallion. Excess stallions congregate in bachelor groups.
Where they are found
Formerly widely distributed in the mountain ranges of the Eastern and Western Cape. Due to hunting pressure this species was almost extinct in the mid-1930's. It was saved by the 1937 proclamation of the Mountain Zebra National Park, in the Cradock district of the Eastern Cape Province. Today only three naturally occurring populations still exist, namely in the Kamanassie mountains, Gamka mountains and the Mountain Zebra National Park.
A new population at the De Hoop Nature Reserve is comprised of individuals translocated from the Mountain Zebra National Park, the Kamanassie mountains, and the now extinct populations of the Kouga and Outeniqua mountains. Other smaller populations have been established in the Eastern Cape and the Small Karoo on smaller game reserves, by translocations from the Mountain Zebra National Park.
Once referred to in the South African Parliament as 'donkeys in football' jerseys the Cape Mountain Zebra fortunately survived a vote to have a reserve established specifically for their protection. The numbers had dropped to below fifty and a discussion by the South African government in the 1930's fortunately led to a reserve been established, despite some fierce opposition.
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Catfish are a fascinating and diverse group of fish which have become hugely popular as aquarium fish.
They range from the tiny Otocinclus to giants like the Red-Tailed catfish. All catfish possess one or more pairs
of barbels, one of their most distinguishing features. Catfish are also scaleless, and some are protected instead
by 'armour' consisting of bony plates. The variety of size and form of catfish means there is a species to suit
almost any aquarium setup.
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B. In 1987, Egyptologist Gay Robins, and Charles Shute, wrote a book onm the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP). Five years later Egyptologist John Legon wrote on the KP and closely related arithmetic proportions used in the RMP. The KP and RMP report the same method to find the largest term in arithmetic progressions. The method: take 1/2 of the difference, 1/2 of 5/6 (5/12 in the KP) times the number of differences (nine times 5/12 = 15/4 in the KP) plus the sum of the A.P progression (100 in the KP) divided by the number of terms (10 , meaning 100/10 = 10 in the KP). Finally add column 11's result, 3 3/4, to 10, and the largest term, 13 3/4.
In unit fractions, the context of the text, add column 11: 5/12 times 9 writing 3 3/4 as 3 2/3 1/12 to 10 in column 12 beginning with the largest term 13 2/3 1/12. The scribe subtracted 5/6 nine times created remaining terms of the arithmetic progression.
Robins-Shute confused aspects of the problem by omitting the sum divided by the number of terms, a topic cited in a closely related RMP 40 problem. A scribal algebraic statement matched pairs added to 20 reporting five pairs summed to 100, a set of facts included in RMP 40.
The complete KP method found the largest term facts reported in RMP 64 and RMP 40 by John Legon in 1992. Scholars have parsed Rhind Mathematical Papyrus 40 a problem that asked that 100 loaves of bread to be shared between five men by finding the smallest term of an arithmetic progression.
C. A confirmation of the Kahun Papyrus arithmetic progression method must include discussions of RMP 40 and RMP 64. In RMP 64 Ahmes asked 10 men to share 10 hekats of barley with a differential of 1/8 defining an arithmetical progression. Robins and Shute reported: "the scribe knew the rule that, to find the largest term of the arithmetical progression, he must add half the difference to the average number of terms as many times as there are common differences, that is, one less than the number of terms".
1. number of terms: 10
2. arithmetical progression difference: 1/8
3. arithmetic progression sum: 10
The scribe used the following facts to find the largest term.
1. one-half of differences, 1/16, times number of terms minus one, 9,
1/16 times 9 = 9/16
2. The computed parameter(1), was found by 10, the sum, divided by 10, the number of terms. It was inserted by Robins-Shute, but had not been high-lighted, citing 1 + 1/2 + 1/16, or 1 9/16, the largest term. The remaining nine terms were found by subtracting 1/8 nine times to obtain the remaining barley shares.
That is, the KP scribe used formula 1.0:
(1/2)d(n-1) + S/n = Xn (formula 1.0)
d = differential, n = number of terms in the series, S = sum of the series, Xn = largest term in the series allowed three(of the four) parameters: d, n, S and Xn, to algebraically find the fourth parameter.
Note that Robins-Shute omitted the sum divided by the number of terms (S/n):
A modern footnote cites Carl Friedrich Gauss implementing as a grammar school student a solution to the n = even case. Ahmes and Gauss found the sum for 1 to 100 by using d = 1 following the same rule. Ahmes and Gauss reached the sum 5050 based on 50 pairs of 101 (1 + 101 = 2 + 99 = 3 + 98 = ...) by using an identical arithmetic progression rule.
D. A four level review of a Kahun Papyrus problem that reported 1365 1/3 khar as the volume of cylinder with a diameter of 12 cubit and height of 8 cubits summarized by:
1. Level 1 shows that pi was set to 256/81, and knowing one khar equaled 3/2 of a hekat, the scribe computed 1365 1/3 khar began with the area of a circle, A=(pi)r2 , and input pi = 256/81 and D = 2, considering:
a. A = (256/81)(D/2)(D/2) = (64/81)(D)(D)
b. A = (8/9)(8/9)(D)(D) (algebraic formula 1.0)
This formula appeared in MMP 10, RMP 41, RMP 42, RMP 43, RMP 44, RMP 45, and RMP 46. In RMP 42 Ahmes adding height (H) and created two volume formulas.
c. V = (H)(8/9)(D)(8/9)(D) cubits squared (algebraic geometry formula 1.1)
d. V = (3/2)(H)(8/9)(8/9)(D)(D) khar (algebraic geometry formula 1.2) converted cubits to khar unit
In the Kahun Papyrus and RMP 43 algebraic geometry formula 1.2 indirectly scaled by 3/2 considering
e. (3/2)V = (3/2)(H)(3/2)(8/9)(8/9)(D)(D) = (H)(4/3)(4/3)(D)(D)
f. V = (2/3)(H)[(4/3)(D)(4/3)(D)] khar (algebraic geometry formula 1.3)
g. or directly considering V = (3/2)(H)(8/9)(8/9)(D)(D) =(32/27)(D)(D)(H) =(2/3)(H)(4/3)(4/3)(D)(D) khar
published by Robins-Shute in "Rhind Mathematical Papyrus" 1987, on page 46, confirming a scribal algebraic relationship.
To numerically verify scribal algebraic geometry was used, input scribal raw data D = 12, H = 8 (from the Kahun Papyrus):
h. (4/3)(12) was reported as (16)(16) = 256 such that
i. V = (2/3)8(256)=(1365 + 1/3)khar
RMP 43 input D = 8 and H = 6 into the same formula
j. V = (2/3)(6)[(4/3)(8)(4/3)(8)] = (4)(32/3)(32/3) = 4096/9 = (455 + 1/9) khar
k. A 4-quadruple hekat (400 hekat) division required RMP 43 and the Kahun Papyrus by the volume (V) formula.
V = (2/3)(H)[(4/3)(4/3)(D)(D)] (khar)
RMP 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, and 47 also input khar times 1/20 data as 4-hekat units to scale the ancient hekat to a modern 4800 ccm. In RMP 47 400-hekat was multiplied by 1/10 and 1/20 to 10 4-hekat and 5 4-hekat, respectivelu. As important RMP 47 multiplied 100-quadruple hekat (100 1-hekat) written as (6400/64)hekat by 1/30, 1/40, 1/50, 1/60, 1/70, 1/80, 1/90 and 100 to obtain 1-hekat quotients and 1-ro remainders.
An archaeological study can test scribal feeding rates for quail, dove, duck and geese by considering RMP 83 data. This class of study can test 1/10 a hekat scaled to 480 ccm. A recent feasibility study shows1 hekat may have equaled 250-500 ccm for geese and ducks.
2. Level 2 reported relative values of 12 fowls in terms of a set-duck unit paid in the following problem by:
a. 3 re-geese unit value 8 set-ducks = 24
b. 3 terp-geese unit value 4 set-ducks = 12
c. 3 Dj. Cranes unit value 2 set-ducks = 6
d. 3 set-duck unit value 1 set-duck = 3
total value 45 set-ducks.
Not calculated, but included in the valuation of (12 - 1) = 11 with 100 - 45 = 55, cited 55/11 as the total value as 5 times the value of one set-duck, with each water fowl given a value based on the daily, 10 day, 30 day and total hekat of grain consumed at rates reported in RMP 83. RMP 83 used the same (64/64) scaling method reported in the Akhmim Wooden Tablet and in RMP 47.
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Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Two hundred years ago three quarters of the population worked outdoors in the natural light, a percentage which has dramatically dwindled over the years and currently stands at just 10 per cent. During the summer months whilst there are plenty of daylight hours, working inside does not seem to cause a problem for many individuals.
However, when the clocks change and daylight hours are dramatically reduced, the body's internal clock struggles to regulate itself when it is deficient of natural light. This process can often lead to the inset of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or the winter blues as it is sometimes known.
On this page
Who suffers from SAD?
SAD is a recognised medical condition which affects an estimated 7 per cent of the population every winter between September and April, in particular during December, January and February.
There are various levels of SAD but at its most severe it is a seriously disabling illness causing a variety of side effects such as sleep problems, overeating, depression, family and social problems, lethargy, physical complaints, behavioural problems and a general weakening of an individuals ability to function normally without medical treatment.
Many individuals in the UK (around 17 per cent) also suffer from a milder form of the condition which is known as subsyndromal SAD, a condition which brings about similar effects to those mentioned above, but on a lesser scale.
Because the UK and Ireland are situated in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere, we experience significant changes in the levels of light between summer and winter. This seasonal change in light combined with dark and gloomy weather, lifestyle and environmental factors all mean that more people than ever before are suffering with SAD. The onset of SAD is most common in individuals aged between 18 and 30 years old and though it does occur in both northern and southern hemispheres it is far less common in those living within 30 degrees of the Equator, where there are consistent and long daylight hours.
What are the causes of SAD?
Circadian rhythm imbalance
Circadian rhythm is the term used to describe physical, mental and behavioural changes which follow a 24 hour cycle, usually responding to light and darkness in an individuals environment.
Correctly timed rhythms work to regulate mood, sleep, wake, appetite, digestion and energy, all of which are usually timed on certain light cues such as the sun. When the body clock receives the right type of light, the body will produce active and energetic hormones ensuring that energy cycles are regulated. For example, when we wake during the winter without the signal of morning sunlight, the body will not produce the hormones we need to help us wake up and feel active and this can result in us feeling tired, moody and sluggish.
As it gets dark the pineal gland begins producing melatonin, a hormone which signals to our body clock that it is night time and time to sleep. In contrast to this, the sun rising in the morning sends a message to the pineal gland to stop producing the melatonin and thus we awake.
In a similar fashion, the production of the body's feel good hormone serotonin also takes its cues from natural light, which explains why dark winters results in lower serotonin production and subsequently higher levels of depression.
Scientific evidence also supports this notion as evidence has been found which proves serotonin levels increase with exposure to bright light, with researchers also finding that bright light makes a difference to brain chemistry.
What are the symptoms of SAD?
There are various symptoms which are indicative of SAD but generally a diagnosis can be made after three or more consecutive winters of symptoms, which may include a number of the following:
Often those suffering from SAD find any tension and stress in their lives much harder to deal with.
Overwhelming negative thoughts and feelings, a loss of self-esteem and feelings of loneliness and hopelessness which are different and more extreme compared to normal sadness are common among sufferers of SAD.
Fatigue is often so extreme and incapacitating that it prevents the sufferer from carrying out their everyday routine.
Loss of libido
A reduced sex drive and a lack of interest in physical contact is a common symptom.
It is not unusual for sufferers to crave foods which are either carbohydrate or sugar laden, often leading to a weight increase which in turn contributes to a loss of self esteem.
Reduced cognitive function
Ability to concentrate will often be affected as will memory.
Sleep issues are a huge problem with sufferers, who tend to either heavily oversleep or wake extremely early and struggle to stay awake during the day.
Sufferers may notice an increased level of irritability which will make social interactions difficult.
Sudden mood changes in spring
When the mornings and evenings begin to get lighter as Spring starts to set in, sufferers will more than likely notice a difference in their mood. This could be anything from agitation and restlessness through to short periods of hypomania.
What treatment options are available?
Antidepressant non-sedative SSRI drugs such as sertraline (Lustral), paroxetine (Seroxat) and fluoxetine (Prozac) are effective ways of reducing depressive symptoms of SAD and work well when used in combination with light therapy.
Though prescribed medication such as antidepressants have been found to be effective in many cases of SAD, in recent years the use of light therapy has emerged and has been found effective in up to 85 per cent of diagnosed cases.
A lack of light in the winter months is what causes an excess of melatonin and a depletion in our serotonin. However, a process which can rectify this mix up and alleviate any symptoms of SAD is exposure to a very bright light which emulates summertime levels of brightness.
Light therapy is a treatment which involves exposure to a very bright light for up to four hours every day. Ordinary domestic light bulbs are not strong enough to provide the recommended 2500 lux (technical measure of brightness) and instead a light box must be brought in which emulates the effects of a bright summers day (which can produce up to 100,000 lux).
Light therapy should begin in the Autumn time when sufferers begin to notice symptoms arising and throughout winter the light box should be used on a daily basis. Generally individuals will be required to sit two to three feet away from the light box which will allow the light to shine into their eyes, although users of boxes emitting over 10,000 can sit further away if they wish. Whilst in front of the box users can carry out normal activities such as working at a computer, reading, writing, eating etc.
The effects of treatment will usually be visible within three or four days and symptoms will further improve with continued use.
As it stands light boxes are not available on the NHS, though they are VAT free when bought from specialist retailers for medical purposes.
SAD can be an extremely debilitating condition to live with and unfortunately it leaves many individuals dreading the colder months. However, there are various treatments and therapies available which can help sufferers to have a more positive winter.
Talking treatments such as counselling, psychotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy have been used by many an individual in a bid to help them discover any contributing factors which may be fueling their depression and they also work extremely well at tackling the cause of a problem from its root in a bid to prevent any future reoccurrence.
Cognitive behavioural therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has recently been praised as a highly successful method of treatment for SAD, after a report published in the journal Behaviour Issue found that just seven per cent of sufferers treated with CBT had a reoccurrence of symptoms compared to almost 37 per cent of those treated with light therapy.
The aptly named cognitive behavioural therapy is essentially a combination of both cognitive and behavioural therapies, and involves changing the way you think (cognitive) and the way in which you respond to certain thoughts (behaviour).
It is thought that this method works so well for the treatment of SAD because much of the focus is placed upon changing the way you think and behave so that a situation no longer makes you unhappy. The process of CBT involves focusing on current issues instead of investigating the root cause and more often than not will break problems down into more manageable sections which can be described as thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and actions all of which have the ability to influence one another (e.g the way you think about certain things can influence how you feel on an emotional and physical level and ultimately can affect your behaviour).
Cognitive behavioural therapy helps you to identify and understand negative patterns of behaviour so that eventually you can break the the negative cycle of altered thinking, feelings and behaviour and implement a more positive sequence.
CBT treatment will involve a number of sessions with a qualified therapist who will form an individual treatment plan tailored to your needs.
Counselling and psychodynamic psychotherapy
Because one of the most prominent side effects of SAD is depression, there are various talking therapies which are typically used to treat depression which sufferers find extremely useful. Counselling for instance gives individuals an opportunity to discuss their feeling openly in complete confidence. More specifically, psychodynamic psychotherapy involves sufferers discussing how they feel about both themselves and others as well as endeavouring to find out whether anything in your past is influencing how you feel today.
If you would like to find out more information about the various types of counselling and psychotherapy available please visit the types of therapy section of this site.
What should I be looking for in a counsellor or psychotherapist?
There are currently no laws in place stipulating what training and qualifications a counsellor must have in order to treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD). However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have developed a set of guidelines that provide advice about the recommended treatments.
In terms of psychological treatments, NICE recommend that SAD be treated in the same way as depression, which may involve psychological treatments (like CBT) and/or medication. In regards to light therapy, NICE recommendations say patients should be aware that there is no substantiated evidence for it's effectiveness in the long term, however it does no harm and can be used as a complementary therapy.
Read the full NICE guidelines:
You may also be interested in
What our experts say
- A new year or a black hole?
Jayne Phillips, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, Dip Couns, MBACP Registered8th January, 2016
- Autumn blues: are you back?
Ilaria Tedeschi12th November, 2015
- Impacted by the autumn weather? Tips to help you survive it
Alison Sutcliffe MBACP & ACTO Member9th November, 2015
- 10 Tips to help you beat the autumn blues
Joshua Miles MBACP Integrative Psychotherapist & Bereavement Counsellor29th October, 2015
- What is seasonal affective disorder and how to manage it
Joshua Miles MBACP Integrative Psychotherapist & Bereavement Counsellor13th July, 2015
- Social anxiety - another form of SAD
Geoff Boutle MBACP (Snr Accred)8th January, 2015
This is where you can submit feedback about the content of this page.
We review feedback on a monthly basis.
Please note we are unable to provide any personal advice via this feedback form. If you do require further information or advice, please visit the homepage & use the search function to contact a professional directly.
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Gov. Brown calls for conservation statewide, directs state to manage water for drought
With California facing water shortfalls in the driest year in recorded state history, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. proclaimed a state of emergency and directed state officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for these drought conditions.
"We can't make it rain, but we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California's drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities and increased fires in both urban and rural areas," Brown said. "I've declared this emergency and I'm calling all Californians to conserve water in every way possible."
In the state of emergency declaration, Brown directed state officials to assist farmers and communities that are economically impacted by dry conditions and to ensure the state can respond if Californians face drinking water shortages. The governor also directed state agencies to use less water and hire more firefighters and initiated a greatly expanded water conservation public awareness campaign (details at www.saveourh2o.org ).
In addition, the proclamation gives state water officials more flexibility to manage supply throughout California under drought conditions.
State water officials say that California's rivers and reservoirs are below their record lows. Manual and electronic readings record the statewide snowpack water content at about 20% of normal average for this time of year.
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Successful applicants will receive:
- An innovative, free resource that provides educators with an engaging way to teach American history, culture, and other subjects through the use of artistic images.
- Public, private, parochial, and charter and home school consortia (K-12), as well as public libraries in the United States and its territories, may receive a total of 40 high-quality, laminated reproductions (approximately 24” x 36”). (Preview the art by visiting the image gallery or downloading a PowerPoint presentation of the images in the collection.)
- An illustrated Teachers Resource Book, with activities organized by elementary, middle and high school levels. The resource book will help K-12 teachers use the images to teach core curriculum subjects such as: American history, social studies, civics, language arts, literature, science, math, geography, and music. (Preview these resources by downloading the entire resource book.)
- Access to the Picturing America Web site, which contains additional information and resources, including innovative lesson plans.
In return for receiving the Picturing America reproductions and Teachers Resource Book, schools are required to encourage teachers to use the reproductions in the classroom. Schools and libraries are required to keep as many of the reproductions as possible on continual exhibit in classrooms or public locations in the school or public library during the April 2009 – April 2010 grant term, and to retain the reproductions for future display and educational use.
The submission deadline is November 14. So, what are you waiting for?
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The so-called Maiden mummy of a 15-year-old Incan girl who was sacrificed 500 years ago is giving up some secrets, revealing the teenager suffered from a bacterial lung infection at the time of her death, scientists report Wednesday (July 25).
The researchers analyzed tissue proteins, rather than DNA, from the Maiden and another young Inca mummy who died at the same time.
Over the last decade, DNA techniques have proven useful in helping solve ancient mysteries, such as how King Tut died. But these techniques aren't without faults. For example, finding evidence of a malaria-causing parasite in King Tut's system doesn't necessarily mean the Egyptian king suffered any malaria symptoms. Additionally, the environment can easily contaminate DNA samples, if researchers aren't careful.
On the other hand, analyzing a sample's proteins, which are less susceptible to environmental contamination, yields a whole different set of information. "Being the expression of DNA, proteins really show you what the body is producing at the time when the individual is being sampled — or, in our case, at the time of death," study researcher Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the City University of New York, told LiveScience. In particular, proteins can tell you if the body's immune system has activated to fight a disease, she added. [The Mummy Quiz: Test Your Smarts]
In their study, Corthals and her colleagues took lip swabs from two Andean Inca mummies, a 7-year-old boy and "the Maiden," as well as samples from the boy's bloodied cloak. The two child mummies, discovered in 1999, were originally buried on the summit of the Argentinian volcano Llullaillaco, 22,100 feet (6,739 meters) above sea level, after being sacrificed in a ceremonial ritual.
Past research found the boy and girl had been fattened up before sacrifice, being fed a typical peasant diet of potatoes and other common vegetables up until a year before their sacrifice, when evidence suggests they were given "elite" foods like maize and dried llama meat.
Once sacrificed, the freezing temperatures, among other factors, naturally preserved their fattened bodies. [Photos of the Inca Child Mummies]
"What I really wanted to do originally was see where the blood I found on the mummies' clothing and lips came from," Corthals said. "But we found a whole lot more than we were expecting."
Archaeologists also found a third mummy, a 6-year-old girl, along with the other two. This mummy appears to have been struck by lightning, which could potentially interfere with test results, so Corthals and her team didn't take any samples from it.
The researchers used a technique called shotgun proteomics. They placed their samples into a device called a mass spectrometer, which broke all of the sample's proteins into their constituent parts, amino-acid chains. Sophisticated software compared these parts with existing proteins of the human genome to determine the actual proteins in the samples, Corthals explained. "You couldn't use this technique for an organism that we don't have the complete genome for," she said.
They found that the Maiden's profile of proteins match that of a chronic respiratory infection patient. X-rays taken of the Maiden's lungs after she was discovered also showed signs of a lung infection. To see if the Maiden was harboring anything that could cause such an infection, they turned to DNA analysis and discovered evidence of bacteria in the genus Mycobacterium, which is known to cause upper respiratory-tract infections and tuberculosis (TB). Statistical models suggested the bacterium falls into the cluster group that causes TB, but the exact species isn't known, likely because its DNA hasn't been sequenced yet.
The Llullaillaco boy didn't have signs of disease or pathogenic bacteria.
The research shows that shotgun proteomics can play a critical role in determining the disease or death in archeological, medical and criminal cases, Corthals said, adding that the method may even be able to determine which pathogen is the killer in a case of multiple infections. For now, Corthals is interested in seeing whether the technique can be used with less pristine samples, such as skeletal material or Egyptian mummies.
Down the line, the protein technique's utility will likely go beyond just archaeology, researchers said. "I expect [the method's] biggest impact will be in criminal forensic science," Corthals said.
The new study is detailed online today (July 25) in the journal PLoS One.
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en
| 0.962546 | 950 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Categories: Herbs & Spices
Small brown round seeds indigenous to the west coast of Africa and used as a spice. This member of the ginger and cardamom family is also called alligator pepper, Guinea pepper and Melegueta pepper. Though hot and pungent, this spice has an exotic spicy quality that hints of ginger, cardamom, coriander, citrus and nutmeg. Grains of paradise was a popular spice in Europe during the 13th and 14th centuries but lost favor in the 15th and 16th centuries, when less expensive spices such as black pepper, cloves, mace and nutmeg became available. Outside of North Africa and the west coast of Africa, this spice is not widely used in everyday cooking. It can occasionally be found in gourmet markets and is usually available through mail order.
From The Food Lover's Companion, Fourth edition by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst. Copyright © 2007, 2001, 1995, 1990 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
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en
| 0.943029 | 208 | 2.75 | 3 |
BIOGRAPHY 7.1 Pafnuty L. Chebyshev (1821 -1894)
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev was born in Okatovo, Russia. His parents, who belonged to the gentry, had him privately tutored. He quickly became fascinated by mathematics and eventually studied mathematics and physics at Moscow University. Even as a student, he won a silver medal for a now-famous paper on calculating the roots of equations. It was only the first of many brilliant papers that he wrote while teaching mathematics at St. Petersburg University and pursuing a keen interest in mechanical engineering. (Among other things, he contributed significantly to ballistics, which gave rise to various innovations in artillery, and he invented a calculating machine.) Always, he stressed the unity of theory and practice, saying:
Mathematical sciences have attracted especial attention since the greatest antiquity; they are attracting still more interest at present because of their influence on industry and arts. The agreement of theory and practice brings most beneficial results; and it is not exclusively the practical side that gains; the sciences are advancing under its influence as it discovers new objects of study for them, new aspects to exploit in subjects long familiar.
Chebyshev typically worked toward the effective solution of problems by establishing algorithms (methods of computation) that gave either an exact numerical answer or an approximation that was correct within precisely defined limits. A most important example of this approach in the field of statistics is his formulation of what is now called Chebyshev's theorem, discussed in Chapter 7.
For practical purposes, many a frequency distribution that is only slightly skewed (with a coefficient of skewness between -0.5 and +0.5, for example) can be treated as a perfectly symmetrical one, and the higher percentages applicable to a normal curve (discussed in Application 7.1, Standard Scores) can be applied to estimate the proportions of observations falling within specified distances from the mean.
Chebyshev's theorem, however, demonstrates a radical change: He was the first mathematician to insist on absolute accuracy in limit theorems. In the words of A. N. Kolmogorov, another eminent Russian mathematician, "he always aspired to estimate exactly in the form of inequalities absolutely valid under any number of tests the possible deviations from limit regularities."
Source: Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol.3 (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1971), pp. 226 and 231.
Copyright © 2003 South-Western. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer
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http://www.swlearning.com/quant/kohler/stat/biographical_sketches/bio7.1.html
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en
| 0.956314 | 527 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The sudden thinning in 1997 of Jakobshavn Isbræ, one of Greenland's largest glaciers, was caused by subsurface ocean warming, according to research published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The research team traces these oceanic shifts back to changes in the atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic region.
The study, whose lead author was David Holland, director of the Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science, part of New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, suggests that ocean temperatures may be more important for glacier flow than previously thought.
The project also included scientists from the Wallops Flight Facility, Canada's Memorial University, the Danish Meteorological Institute, and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.
Jakobshavn Isbræ, a large outlet glacier feeding a deep-ocean fjord on Greenland's west coast, went from slow thickening to rapid thinning beginning in 1997. Several explanations have been put forward to explain this development. The scientists in the Nature Geoscience study sought to address the matter comprehensively by tracing changes in ocean temperatures and the factors driving these changes.
In doing this, they relied on previous results published by others that used NASA's Airborne Topographic Mapper, which has made airborne surveys along a 120-kilometer stretch in the Jakobshavn ice-drainage basin nearly every year since 1991. While many other glaciers were thinning around Greenland, these surveys revealed that Jakobshavn Isbræ thickened substantially from 1991 to 1997. But, after 1997, Jakobshavn Isbræ began thinning rapidly. Between 1997 and 2001, Airborne Topographic Mapper surveys showed an approximately 35-meter reduction in surface elevations on the glacier's 15-kilomater floating ice tongue. This is far higher than thinning rates of grounded ice immediately upstream.
The researchers reported that these changes coincided with jumps in subsurface ocean temperatures. These temperatures were recorded by the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources from 1991 to 2006 over nearly the entire western Greenland continental shelf. These data indicate a striking, substantial jump in bottom temperature in all parts in the survey area during the second half of the 1990s. In particular, they show that a warm water pulse arrived suddenly on the continental shelf on Disko Bay, which is in close proximity Jakobshavn Isbræ, in 1997. The arrival coincided precisely with the rapid thinning and subsequent retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ. The warm water mass remains today, and Jakobshavn Isbræ is still in a state of rapid retreat.
The remaining question, then, is what caused the rise in water temperatures during this period.
The researchers traced these oceanic changes back to changes in the atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic region. The warm, subsurface waters off the west Greenland coast are fed from the east by the subpolar gyre--or swirling water--of the North Atlantic, by way of the Irminger current. The current flows westward along the south coast of Iceland. Since the mid-1990s, observations show a warming of the subpolar gyre and the northern Irminger Basin, which lies south of Greenland. The researchers attributed this warming to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which is a large-scale fluctuation in the atmospheric pressure system situated in the region. The surface pressure drives surface winds and wintertime storms from west to east across the North Atlantic affecting climate from New England to western Europe.
Specifically, they noted a major change in the behavior of the NAO during the winter of 1995?, which weakened the subpolar gyre, allowing warm subpolar waters to spread westward, beneath colder surface polar waters, and consequently on and over the west Greenland continental shelf.
"The melting of the ice sheets is the wild card of future sea level," Holland explained, "and our results hint that modest changes in atmospheric circulation, possibly driven by anthropogenic influences, could also cause future rapid retreat of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds a far greater potential for sea level rise."
The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs.
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en
| 0.931452 | 861 | 3.96875 | 4 |
This chapter describes the development and implementation of a qualitative geometric representation. The representation facilitates reasoning methods that overcome some of the limitations of AI systems discussed in previous chapters - in particular, the limitations of robots that cannot solve problems using ``commonsense'' spatial reasoning, and the limitations of experimental qualitative reasoning systems that cannot make use of spatial information.
The qualitative geometric representation incorporates ideas and techniques that have been described in the previous two chapters, and are now used in a new overall context. The first part of this chapter discusses issues that need to be considered while developing any spatial representation or geometric modelling system if it is to be useful in robot reasoning. The second part considers how two major solid modelling techniques can be adapted to qualitative methods, and describes how each resulted in a different approach to two dimensional scene description. The third section presents these two different approaches in detail, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the fourth section discusses further extensions which have not yet been implemented.
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http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/publications/masters/node36.html
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en
| 0.911007 | 193 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Drawing on data from a range of contexts, including classrooms, pharmacy consultations, tutoring sessions, and video-game playing, and a range of languages including English, German, French, Danish and Icelandic, the studies in this volume address challenges suggested by these questions: What kinds of interactional resources do L2 users draw on to participate competently and creatively in their L2 encounters? And how useful is conversation analysis in capturing the specific development of individuals' interactional competencies in specific practices across time? Rather than treating participants in L2 interactions as deficient speakers, the book begins with the assumption that those who interact using a second language possess interactional competencies. The studies set out to identify what these competencies are and how they change across time. By doing so, they address some of the difficult and yet unresolved issues that arise when it comes to comparing actions or practices across different moments in time.
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en
| 0.92871 | 182 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The eligibility rules for British passports are more complicated than those of many other countries, partly due to the legacy of the former British Empire. Anyone holding British citizenship is entitled to apply for a UK passport, but six different forms of British citizenship exist: citizenship, overseas citizenship, overseas territories citizenship, national (overseas), protected person and subject. Age is no barrier to holding a passport; you can apply for a passport for your child immediately after it is born, but bear in mind that children’s passports are only valid for five years.
Born Before 1983
January 1, 1983, is an important date for British immigration law. You are entitled to apply for a British passport if you were born before that date as long as you were a citizen of the UK or its former colonies on December 31, 1982, and had “right of abode” on that date. “Right of abode” means that you could live and work in the UK without any restrictions and didn’t need permission from an immigration officer to enter the country. This rule includes people born in the UK, people born in former British colonies who had right of abode, people who registered as British citizens, people holding naturalization certificates and people whose father – but not mother – fell into one of these categories.
Born After 1983
The regulations are different for persons born in 1983 or later. You can become a British citizen, and therefore apply for a British passport, if you were born after January 1, 1983, and either your mother or father was a British citizen when you were born or was settled in the UK at that time. Bear in mind that, up to 2006, unmarried fathers could not automatically pass British citizenship on to their children. If you were born before 2006, you can only gain British citizenship through your father if he married your mother, although it makes no difference whether the marriage took place before or after you were born.
British Overseas Territories Citizens and British Overseas Citizens
Certain other people can also apply for a British passport through their connection to British overseas territories and parts of the former British Empire. British Overseas Territories are places like Gibraltar and Bermuda which remain British dependencies. People from these territories are entitled to apply for a British passport. British Overseas citizens, on the other hand, are people with provable connections to former parts of the British Empire, like the African country of Kenya. They may also be entitled to apply for a British passport. If, however, you think you fall into this category, you should check your eligibility with the UK Border Agency.
Becoming a UK Citizen
If you do not fall into any of these categories but have lived in the UK for at least five years, you can become eligible for a British passport by applying to become naturalized as a British citizen. You will have to complete an application form and take a test to prove your knowledge of British life. If you do not speak English to a reasonable standard you will also have to pass an English language course.
- UK Border Agency: What Is British Citizenship?
- DirectGov: Who Can Apply for a Child Passport and When
- DirectGov: Nationality Groups Who Are Eligible For a British Passport
- UK Border Agency: Standard Requirements for Naturalisation
- UK Border Agency: Knowledge of Language and Life in the UK
- UK Border Agency: ESOL Course in English With Citizenship
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http://traveltips.usatoday.com/eligibility-information-uk-passport-106298.html
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en
| 0.97541 | 694 | 2.65625 | 3 |
How has the scarcity of water in the American West resulted in so much controversy? A free online course offered beginning April 1 by experts at the University of Colorado Boulder will answer that question and take students on a virtual journey, following water as it makes its way from snow-capped peaks to the taps in the drier valleys across the Western United States.
Water in the Western United States, CU-Boulder’s latest massive open online course, or MOOC, will unfold over four and a half weeks, allowing students the opportunity to explore the scientific, legal, political and cultural issues impacting water and climate in the West.
During the course, students will use the history of water use in the Colorado River Basin as a case study and explore some of the controversial water issues facing the region today, from the increased demand created by hydraulic fracturing to the impacts of climate change to the needs of a growing population.
The course, which does not require any prior knowledge, is being taught by Anne Gold, climate literacy and geoscience education specialist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and Eric Gordon, program manager of the Western Water Assessment (WWA), part of CIRES on the CU-Boulder campus.
“This is a relatively quick and easy way to learn where your water supply comes from and what affects it,” Gordon said.
Gordon and Gold worked with more than a dozen other experts in water management, policy and research to create a series of short video lectures. Students can watch each week’s videos on their own schedules, and they will participate in various exercises and activities, just as they would if they were in a live classroom.
“You get content from the best experts that are out there in little 10-minute bites,” Gold said. “This is designed to be a short, approachable course about something that’s pretty complex.”
Educators, who can earn graduate-level credit by signing up for a parallel course through CU-Boulder’s Division of Continuing Education, are especially encouraged to participate.
Water in the Western United States is being offered through Coursera, an educational platform that partners with universities and institutions worldwide to offer free online courses.
The course has been recognized by the White House Office of Science and Technology as a project that supports the president’s Climate Education and Literacy Initiative.
For a full syllabus or to sign up for the course, visit https://www.coursera.org/course/waterwestus.
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http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/03/11/free-online-course-cu-boulder-tackles-water-issues-american-west
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en
| 0.952904 | 528 | 3.59375 | 4 |
This year's statewide ballot measures, like those in other recent election years, have been subjected to complex litigation not on their provisions, but how those provisions are presented to voters in official ballot titles and summaries.
Those who fight ballot language wars do so because they believe that how a measure is officially presented on the ballot could affect the outcome of the election. And -- in a masterpiece of timeliness -- two political scientists have written a 28-page research paper delving into that belief, one aspect of which is the Proposition 8 language clash.
Judges have ordered changes in wording in some cases, and left the official words intact on others. One judge, for instance, ordered that the summary of Proposition 25, the highly controversial measure that would eliminate the two-thirds vote on state budgets, be changed to eliminate the phrase "Retains two-thirds vote requirement for taxes.
It was a victory for opponents who said the measure could, in fact, allow taxes to be increased without a two-thirds vote. But very quickly, an appellate court overruled the judge and allowed the disputed words, written by Attorney General Jerry Brown's office, to remain on the ballot.
It was not the first time Brown's ballot measure verbiage had been challenged. Most famously, he declared that Proposition 8, the 2008 measure to prohibit same-sex marriage, would "eliminate" such same-sex marriage rights because the state Supreme Court had sanctioned such marriages. Brown's words survived legal challenge but Proposition 8 passed, only to have a federal judge, Vaughn Walker, declare it to be unconstitutional.
The two political scientists, Vladimir Kogan of the University of California, San Diego, and Craig Burnett of Appalachian State University in North Carolina, conducted that they call a "unique survey experiment based on three actual ballot measures that have appeared in several states to explore this question." They concluded that ballot summaries could affect outcomes, but "the effect of framing is far from absolute."
The surveys used for the study involved questioning 6,000 voting-age adults that were "representative of the American population."
"Exposure to campaign information -- in particular, endorsements from prominent interest groups -- attenuates the effect of a framed ballot measure, helping voters cast reasoned votes," they concluded. "The results suggest that, in a realistic campaign environment where voters are bombarded by millions of dollars in advertising and direct appeals from political parties and other elites, ballot measure framing is unlikely to change election outcomes."
The paper, which is to be delivered to the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington next month, can be accessed here.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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en
| 0.965703 | 533 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Hydropower Generation Basics
The process of generating electrical power involves converting one form of energy to another. Energy can never be created or destroyed but it can change form. Hydroelectric power production converts moving water into electrical power. Kinetic, or moving energy, is created by water in motion such as a waterfall or river. The amount of kinetic energy created depends on the speed of the moving water which varies depending on factors such as streamflow and change in elevation (head).
To generate hydroelectricity, water from a river or reservoir is directed into a large pipe called a penstock. Water flows from the penstock through the turbine, causing the turbine to rotate at a fast speed. The turbine is connected to a rotor by a shaft so the rotor rotates at the same speed as the turbine. The outside edge of the rotor is comprised of very strong electromagnets connected in a way to provide alternating polarity around the rotor.
Another generator component is called a stator. The stator encompasses the rotor, is made of steel with many coils of small copper wire inside, and is placed close to the rotor. The energy produced by the water pressure turning the turbine and rotor, combined with the strong electromagnets, creates voltage across the stator coils which are connected in patterns that allow the voltage to be controlled. By changing the strength of the magnets on the rotor and the amount of the water flowing in the penstock, the amount of electricity being generated can be regulated.
Once generated, the electricity is conveyed to transformers via large copper bars called buses, where it is converted to a very high voltage for long-distance transmission to power customers.
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<urn:uuid:225afefb-c41e-494a-9f6c-34f9f19a472f>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.usbr.gov/uc/power/hydropwr/genbasics.html
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en
| 0.950849 | 336 | 4.0625 | 4 |
- Order Strigiformes: families Strigidae (typical owls such as tawny owls and eagle owls) and Tytonidae (barn owls and their relatives).
- Flammulated Owls are small owls with short ear-tufts that can be held erect or flush to the head.
- Common predators of house sparrows include cats and other mammalian predators, birds of prey, and owls.
- The great majority of past studies in this area have been on birds of prey and owls.
- Charlie is more of an owl - he likes to stay awake as long as he can at night and to take his time waking in the morning.
- Ideally, people should wake at the same time everyday, but being an owl, you can probably cope quite well when your sleep pattern is disrupted.
owlery noun (plural owleries)
- Example sentences
- Metalfly rushed up the stairs, flying through the owlery and the annex connected to it.
- He delved into ornithological archives, visited owleries in France and England and trawled charity shops in search of kitsch-looking toy owls as part of his research.
- Example sentences
- She stared at the crowd with enormous owl-like eyes that blinked in mechanical measure just above a slight aquiline nose.
- In appearance, he was a rotund, rather owl-like figure, usually casually dressed.
- His thick, rimmed glasses made him look rather owl-like.
Old English ūle, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch uil and German Eule, from a base imitative of the bird's call.
The name of the owl probably comes from an imitation of its call. The bird was traditionally taken as a symbol of wisdom—in classical times it was associated with the Greek goddess Athene—and to call someone owlish (late 16th century) suggests that they look solemn or wise. It is a nocturnal bird, and its name is also used for someone, a ‘night owl’, who habitually goes to bed late and feels more lively in the evening. The opposite is a lark. In the 17th century owling was the term for smuggling wool or sheep out of England, to avoid paying tax. Although possibly a different word, it may also come from the bird's nocturnal habits, since such smuggling would have been done at night.
Words that rhyme with owlafoul, befoul, cowl, foul, fowl, growl, howl, jowl, prowl, Rabaul, scowl, yowl
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: owl
Definition of owl in:
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Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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<urn:uuid:66c7d7ec-e3c5-4fc3-b90c-e0f43ca37b7d>
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http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/owl
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en
| 0.969388 | 604 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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