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As broadcast equipment becomes more sophisticated, especially in the digital domains, the speed at which information is transferred, processed, etc., through the equipment itself, becomes a very important factor. With computer processors that drive broadcast equipment today operating in the Gigahertz range, what good does it do if the remainder of the infrastructure works considerably slower?
Superconductors will go a long way in resolving this issue. Earlier this year, researchers led by Dr. Jun Akimitsu of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo achieved a significant milestone when they announced that magnesium boride, a readily available metal compound known since the 1950s, has unexpectedly turned into the latest breakthrough in superconductors technology.
Magnesium boride is commonly used in some chemical reactions, but no one had ever tested its worth as a superconductor at low temperatures, where it demonstrates properties of moving electrons with virtually no resistance.
After hearing about Dr. Akimitsu's discovery and working with the substance, Dr. Paul C. Canfield, a professor of physics at Iowa State University and a researcher at Ames Laboratory said: “It's a fantastic discovery! We've been able to do a lot of neat stuff with it in the past month.”
The material is very light and, from reports, is easier to work with as compared with the more complex superconducting materials such as the copper oxides, a so-called high-temperature superconductor. The more complex superconducting materials work at higher temperatures, but magnesium boride is comparatively inexpensive, selling for about $175 per 100-gram bottle.
Dr. Canfield said he and his colleagues at Iowa State and Ames Laboratory have worked extensively investigating magnesium boride and have already fashioned superconducting wires by exposing fibers of boron to magnesium vapors. At present, though, the wires are short; only couple of inches long, and brittle. Dr. Canfield said: “It's not something you can curl around your finger.”
But then, who'd want to curl it around their finger? Magnesium boride, as a superconductor, is such only at temperatures up to minus 389 degrees, or about 29 degrees higher than any other simple metallic compound. Although not the solution, it is being hailed as a significant step in that direction, so stay tuned.
Send questions and comments to: firstname.lastname@example.org
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The subject of batteries for field shooters used to be as simple as charging them until the red light went out, slapping them on the camera and shooting until they died. Now, the typical ENG/EFP crew carries a much wider array of battery-operated devices. Notebook computers, cell and satellite phones, PDAs, belt-clipped radios, micro-mixers and even GPS receivers may accompany camcorders and batt-lights. Modern field shooters must know their way around battery systems.
Modern batteries communicate digitally to chargers like the Anton-Bauer Dual 2702 Powerchager shown above while talking to the user through an LCD window.
Batteries are usually defined by the chemistry they use. The three most common types are nickel cadmium (NiCd), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), and lithium ion (Li-ion). Each has its strengths and weaknesses. We’ll compare their performance later in the article. But first, let’s define the specifications we use to judge them.
Regardless of the battery type involved, there are a few fundamental specifications that field crews will frequently encounter, including energy density, fast-charge time, self-discharge time, maintenance requirement and C-rate.
Energy density is a measure of how much power the battery will deliver for its weight, and is usually measured in watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). This is one of the central factors in matching battery type to application.
Fast-charge time is another factor to consider. Usually measured as a fraction of the battery’s rated capacity over time, this parameter has seen dramatic advances with the advent of battery-centric charging using smart batteries and chargers.
Another primary factor in matching batteries to their uses is a spec called “self-discharge time,” usually measured as a percentage of capacity per month. This refers to the rate at which the fully charged battery will lose its charge while at rest. Self-discharge is an important parameter because this decline in voltage is not linear.
This photo shows the two most common camera battery mounts. The camera on the left has the Anton-Bauer Gold Mount. The other has the Sony V-mount.
Most battery types tend to lose a significant portion of their charge within the first 24 hours of storage, followed by a slower but steady discharge. Storage at higher-than-normal room temperatures will degrade internal resistance and accelerate self-discharge on any battery.
A significant specification is the maintenance requirement. This typically refers to how often an equalizing or topping charge should be applied. In the case of nickel-based batteries, the maintenance requirement will include “exercising” the battery by running it down to its end-of-discharge voltage and then fully recharging to combat the infamous memory effect in NiCd batteries.
The C-rate is a measurement of the charge and discharge current of the battery. A discharge of 1C will equal the published current capacity of the battery. A battery rated at 500 mAh (milliamp hours) will discharge at 1C to deliver that current for one hour. If discharged at 2C, the same battery should provide 1000 milliamps for a half hour. Note that the measurement is made from maximum capacity to the end-of-discharge level, not to 0V. On NiCds, for instance, the typical end-of-discharge level is 1V per cell. Li-ions generally discharge to 3V.
While there are many other battery specs, such as load current, cost-per-cycle, overcharge tolerance and cycle life, the specs mentioned above will form the basic stepping stones to a good battery-to-application match. Let’s see how the various battery chemistries compare on these main specs.
Despite the emergence of new battery types, the nickel-cadmium or NiCd batteries maintain a prominent place in powering professional camcorders, batt-lights and portable comm radios. This is due to their exceptional performance in high-current applications. NiCds also accept fast charges quite well compared to the other battery chemistries. Typical fast-charge time on NiCd units is one hour, while NiMH batteries will fast-charge in two to four hours and deliver about one-fourth the load current.
Cameras have shrunk while lenses and batteries have kept their size and weight, allowing each to balance the other. Without rear-mount batteries, smaller cameras would be front-heavy, and on shoulder-mounted cameras, balance rather than weight is the critical factor.
NiCd batteries will self-discharge slightly faster than NiMH and much faster than Li-ion types. The big edge that the NiMH and Li-ion batteries have over NiCd is in energy density. In applications that require a high power-to-weight ratio, the Li-ion is the king of these beasts, with a typical spec of 100Wh/kg to 130Wh/kg. By comparison, NiMHs offer a power-to-weight ratio ranging from 60Wh/kg to 120Wh/kg, while NiCds range from 45Wh/kg to 80Wh/kg.
The Achilles heel of NiCd batteries is their maintenance requirement. They must be regularly exercised (some harried shooters might say exorcised) to avoid the formation of crystals inside the battery and the resulting tendency to discharge only as far as the minimum voltage level to which they have been frequently run. Also, since cadmium is an environmentally toxic metal, NiCd batteries are increasingly seen as a liability. Some countries now severely limit their use due to disposal problems.
Memory or mismatch?
Frequently, what appears to be a memory effect may be a mismatch between the cutoff voltage level of the device and that of the battery. To get the full capacity of the battery, its end-of-discharge voltage must be higher than the cutoff voltage for the camcorder or other device being powered. A mismatch in these values will cause the device to quit while the battery still has power. Mimicking the memory effect, this will cause a nickel-based battery to be repeatedly recharged before reaching its own end-of-discharge voltage and eventually develop a real memory.
Getting simpler again
The latest “smart” batteries, chargers and cameras can communicate digitally. The battery can control the smart charger for the perfect charge cycle and the cameras can display all the needed power parameters right in the viewfinder. Just when the mix of battery chemistries and their characteristics was becoming increasingly complex, the advent of digital communication between the central components promises to make things a good bit easier.
Bennett Liles is a writer and TV production engineer in the Atlanta area.
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Gender-Responsive Climate Change Adaptation and Egypt
Neither the impacts of climate change on people, nor the ways in which people respond to climate change are gender-neutral. Women usually bear the burden of climate changes because they are the bulk of the Egypt’s poor and have fewer resources for coping with global warming and the ensuing related disasters already occurring with more frequency and intensity. The mortality rates for women in Egypt continue to be higher than men, and climate change will worsen mortality expectancies for women, who are more likely to die in natural disasters and, indirectly because it is women and girls who sacrifice food to eat when it is scarce. Gender inequalities and different gender roles, needs and preferences that vary over space and over time, influence the different ways in which young, adult, and elderly males and females experience the impacts of climate change and develop strategies to adapt to or mitigate them.
Gender equality is both a development goal in itself – reflected, for example, in the third Millennium Development Goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) — and a condition for the achievement of sustainable development. As such, gender equality is also a condition for successful adaptation to climate change, and the successful transition to low-carbon pathways in Egypt, because the women livelihoods are more directly threatened, as they make up the majority of the small farmers. Their ability to migrate in search of economic opportunities makes it easier for men to deal with crisis, and may result in benefits for the family as a whole. However, male migration to Cairo the city capital of Egypt often increases women’s workload, as they are left behind to manage the household in addition to usual tasks.
Climate change can also increase women’s exposure to other risks, such as gender-based violence and HIV infection. In addition to the challenges described above, climate change has implications for food preparation and storage (in terms of water for food preparation and the vulnerability of food stores to extreme events, such as cyclones and floods). Harvests may be reduced or even wiped out by floods or droughts. This affects market prices and the availability of surplus to sell, placing pressure on both men and women to identify other sources of income and reduce major expenditures (e.g. school fees). In times of food shortage, women are often expected to feed other members of the family before attending to their own needs.
The implementation of several elements of any environmental plan will strongly depend on the input of women. This will, in particular, be the case for a successful implementation of measures in the National Water Resources Plan of Egypt category of ‘Protecting health and environment’ but also for some measures in the other categories in the same plan. The governments of Arab Spring countries should adopt the following policy principles with respect to gender issues in water management:
• Equal opportunities for men and women with regard to:
− involvement in discussion and decision making on water use and resources issues;
− dissemination of information and communication about water resources and water use issues and financial consequences provided by institutions concerned;
− Active participation in decision-making bodies dealing with water resources and irrigation management
• Equal benefits for men and women deriving from effective and efficient water resources management
., which means promoting the involvement of women as well as men in consultation and decision-making from the community level to the highest level of organizational management. This will require further efforts to be made in creating space for women in planning and implementation processes, as well as to facilitate their participation through capacity building.
Gendered water resources management will lead to greater:
• Effectiveness: the infrastructure, as well as valuable water resources, will be more widely and optimally used and sustained by all user groups;
• Efficiency: the presence of limited water resources the sector agency can reach more individuals;
•Development: the service and its social process will not only bring water, it will increase consumption, production, income environmental security, health and overall family welfare;
• Sustainable use in freshwater ecosystem: women’s and men’s direct and fair participation in research and project implementation can increase the potential flexibility and creativity in responding to environmental insecurity and changes in resource system;
• Equity: burdens and benefits will be shared more equitably between women and men in the community at large, as well as in the household.
The importance of involving women as well as men in water resources management is not only to improve women’s situation, but also essential element for effective development, is the utilization and management of water resources. There is an increasing urgency in the need to mainstream a gender perspective at the overall water resources level because of the new emerging international perspectives on water resources.
The ugly truth we face is that most gender issues being tackled are merely used as “page filling” in a report without real application in real life. This is likely due to the personal note that such strategies for gender equality related to climate change reports in Egypt that lack effective strategies for systematic integration of gender in their adaptation and mitigation work. Especially with regard to projects funded by donors agencies outside the MENA region, experiences of integrating gender in their work on climate change, some level of awareness, policy commitments and efforts or plans to scale up successful pilot projects exist. Much work remains for gender to become truly and systematically incorporated into their climate change policies and programs.
Donors’agencies, such as USAID, do not generally lack gender or climate change capacities, but may lack the capacity, resources and clear mandates to connect them. Both climate change and gender capacities usually exist within each donor organization, backed in some cases by strong gender policies, but gender integration, particularly in climate change portfolios, is often weak. This is in part due to technical barriers and poor communication between climate change and gender experts. A lack of clear mandates and concepts in mainstreaming processes leads to ‘mainstreaming fatigue’, a lack of adequate human and financial resource allocation for gender mainstreaming, and a lack of strategies to identify gender entry points across climate change policy work and program cycles.
Ayman Ramadan Mohamed Ayad is an engineer and Water Resources Advisor at National Water Resources Plan (NWRP-CP), and has been involved in the future vision for Alexandria integrated water urban development. He also teaches applied hydraulic at Alexandria Universities, and serves as the Egyptian Coordinator for NAYD (Network of African Youth for Development).
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The deeper I get into the history of events in central and western Maryland, the more I am convinced that the “despot’s heel” argument really holds little weight. Not only is the state song out of date, it never really reflected the Civil War era opinion of the state as a whole.
What prompted today’s thought was my seeing a comment made elsewhere about why Maryland didn’t jump in as a seceding state. More or less, the argument was that it was because there were so many Federal troops present that the legislature couldn’t make the move to secession that they (maybe I should place emphasis on “they”, knowing how some legislators in the deeper South made it clear that “they” felt that they often knew better what to do than the citizens) really wanted. This was just part of a larger discussion and Maryland wasn’t THE focus of it all.
In regard to the presence of Federal troops suppressing Maryland’s “will”, I think this is exaggerated. True, we have the incident in Baltimore with the boys from Massachusetts on April 19, 1861 (but they were just passing through), and… even from Unionists, I’ve seen that there was plenty of hub-bub about the control over the legislature (even in the western part of the state) and Governor T.H. Hicks’ handling of situations. Nonetheless, even in the midst of this, there was plenty of pro-Union sentiment being expressed by Maryland’s citizens… especially in the central and western part (keep in mind that this region is the greater focus of my work and I haven’t spent a great deal of time with the eastern part of the state).
There is no doubt that there were plenty who wanted secession, and we can see that more than a fair number of Marylanders ended up wearing gray. I’m sure most of them felt oppressed, repressed, and depressed by the continual downturn of events against their interests, BUT, and this is a critical point… was it any different than the feelings of Unionists in neighboring Virginia? Furthermore, in the aftermath of all that took place in the first half of 1861, Unionists retained a voice in Maryland and it wasn’t by any means weak. Quite a few expressed their support (and, perhaps, may have been able to do so because of keeping the secessionists in check) for the Union by enlisting in Maryland’s Union regiments and many continued to express it in other ways. When we realize the numbers of these people, why is that some still see Maryland as a state under the despot’s heel? Sure, some people felt it, but not the state as a whole.
I think there is a lot more to learn from the Civil War-era Maryland than that presented through the narrow understanding offered through the state song. I especially think that an understanding of Maryland’s secessionists may help us to better understand the feelings of the unwavering Unionists in the secessionists states. In fact, I’ve encountered some interesting experiential parallels between the two groups. As I’ve mentioned before in other posts, in examining my home county in Virginia, I’ve discovered stories that reveal a number of heavy-handed methods used by secessionists against anyone who posed a threat to secession and the success of the Confederacy. In turn, I’ve encountered some instances of mob-rule (no different than that which I’ve seen in Virginia) in Washington County, Maryland where secessionists have been not only driven out, but beaten down, literally! I’ll eventually share a story that I found about one rather vocal secessionists and what he experienced at the hands of mob-rule in Williamsport, Md. in 1861.
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From 1879 to the late 1970s, Major League Baseball players were subject to the "reserve clause" in a standard player contract. This essentially meant that teams owned the right for a player to play for them, like property. Players couldn't voluntarily leave their teams, they could only be traded. It also meant that they received only one contract offer. They either took the offer and played or were forced to sit out.
This was a rule very common in pro sports at the time, originating from when they were just nascent businesses growing out of organized clubs. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there wasn't much of a market for pro sports stars. They were making 10 or 50 times the wages of a blue-collar worker for playing a game in a league with much less exposure and market power.
There wasn't much of a reason to fight for more money. Many clubs at the time were so financially fragile, there just wasn't more money to be given.
This is why, in 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that baseball was just an "amusement," not an organized business, and therefore was not considered interstate commerce. This gave baseball a critical shield, because it was now free from antitrust regulations. Owners could do as they pleased without being regulated like any other business. They got a free pass on collusion just 12 years after Standard Oil was ordered dissolved for doing the same thing.
At the time, no one imagined the economic potential of pro sports. By the late 1960s, however, MLB was up to 24 franchises and was spreading all over the country. Games could be seen on television now. Stars were household names across the country.
All of this benefit went to the league. Willie Mays made $130,000 in 1966 and was the highest paid player at the time. That's $841,000 in today's dollars. And that was only 30 percent more than Joe DiMaggio was making 17 years earlier, in a much different scenario. Players were starting to grumble louder, demanding more and talking of organizing.
After the 1969 season, the Cardinals traded three-time All-Star outfielder Curt Flood to the Phillies as part of a six player deal. Flood refused to go. He didn't technically have a contract at all at the time, but he could only play for the Phillies. The Phillies had offered him a contract but he didn't want to take it and thought he should be able to consider deals from other clubs.
When baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn refused his request for free agency, Flood brought suit.
Flood v. Kuhn made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the court didn't rule in his favor, it did say that baseball was interstate commerce and the courts would not protect baseball as immune to antitrust regulations. Flood was receiving threats from people who believed he was destroying the sport.
Finally, by 1976, an arbitration decision created true free agency in baseball. The owners employed the arbitrator in that case, and he was fired the very next day. Owners have never gotten over their lost monopoly and seem to take it a little too personally.
Maybe I just want my hockey back.
Bill Sayer is a financial analyst in the insurance industry and holds a degree in economics. A native of upstate New York, Bill enjoys watching college football, the NFL, NHL and Premier League soccer from his home in Palmyra. Have a suggestion, link or question?
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Canadian Forest Service Publications
Boreal forest fire regimes and climate change. 2001. Stocks, B.J.; Wotton, B.M.; Flannigan, M.D.; Fosbert, M.A.; Cahoon, D.R.; Goldammer, J.G. Pages 233-246 in M. Beniston and M.M. Verstraete, editors. Remote sensing and climate modeling: synergies and limitations. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Available from: Northern Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 18536
Stretching in two broad transcontinental bands across Eurasia and North America, the global boreal zone covers approximately 12 million square kilometres, two-thirds in Russia and Scandinavia and the remainder in Canada and Alaska. Situated generally between 45 and 70 degrees north latitude, with northern and southern boundaries determined by the July 13°C and July 18°C isotherms respectively, the boreal zone contains extensive tracts of coniferous forest which provide a vital natural and economic resource for northern circumpolar countries. The export value of forest products from global boreal forests is ca. 47% of the world total (Kusela 1990, 1992).
The boreal forest is composed of hardy species of pine (Pinus), spruce (Picea), larch (Larix), and fir (Abies), mixed, usually after disturbance, with deciduous hardwoods such as birch (Betula), poplar (Populus), willow (Salix), and alder (Alnus), and interspersed with extensive lakes and organic terrain. This closed-crown forest, with its moist and deeply shaded forest floor where mosses predominate, is bounded immediately to the north by a lichen-floored open forest or woodland which in turn becomes progressively more open and tundra-dominated with increasing latitude. To the south the boreal forest zone is succeeded by temperate forests or grasslands.
Forest fire is the dominant disturbance regime in boreal forests, and is the primary process which organizes the physical and biological attributes of the boreal biome over most of its range, shaping landscape diversity and influencing energy flows and biogeochemical cycles, particularly the global carbon cycle since the last Ice Age. The physiognomy of the boreal forest is therefore largely dependent, at any given time, on the frequency, size and severity of forest fires. The overwhelming impact of wildfires on ecosystem development and forest composition in the boreal forest is readily apparent and understandable. Large contiguous expanses of even-aged stands of spruce and pine dominate the landscape in an irregular patchwork mosaic, the result of periodic severe wildfire years and a testimony to the adaptation of boreal forest species to natural fire over millennia. The result is a classic example of a fire dependent ecosystem, capable, during periods of extreme fire weather, of sustaining the very large, high intensity wildfires which are responsible for its existence.
This chapter presents data on recent and current trends in circumpolar boreal fire activity, with particular emphasis on Canada, Russia and Alaska, and describes the physical characteristics of boreal fires in terms of fuel consumption, spread rates, and energy release rates. The potential impact of a changing climate on boreal fire occurrence and severity, with resultant impacts on atmospheric chemistry and the global carbon budget, is discussed in detail, with reference to current research activities in this area.
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Create a protective sphere
Hand gesture, fear, concentration
Orb Shield is the ability to create a sphere or barrier out of orbs in order to defend oneself or others. It is a form of Force Field which appears as translucent blue energy. This power is a highly focused advancement of Telekinetic Orbing, developed by Wyatt Halliwell and Paige Matthews.
Using this power, the possessor can:
- Shield against harm; most notably projectile attacks.
- Repel enemies and powers with the force of the shield.
- Project a shield around something in order to protect or contain it.
Wyatt Halliwell was the first shown user of this power. He was usually using it in a form of protective bubble, he used it in this form for the first time in the episode "Baby's First Demon", when he was attacked by a demon for the first time. Paige developed this power when being attacked by demons in the comic "Innocents Lost". While alerting Piper to a demon's approaching fire throwing power, Paige raised her arm, blocking the attack with an Orb Shield. She used this power at will for the first time in "Unnatural Resources", while protecting herself from falling debris and fireballs.
The Orb Shield can be manipulated by other powers. A demon was seen hitting the Orb Shield with a beam, which caused the bubble to fly away, along with everything inside of the bubble. In "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World", Gideon was able to orb the protective bubble with Wyatt inside by channeling Electrokinesis into the bubble, establishing contact, and then orbing away with it. In "The Heavens Can Wait", Paige kept the shield around her sisters long enough for Phoebe to lift it with her Levitation and for Piper to move it across a battlefield with her Molecular Acceleration.
In "Sam, I Am", Wyatt created this shield over Piper's stomach while he was in her womb. This was the first time an Orb Shield was used, however, it had differed from the later usual spherical form. In "Prue Ya Gonna Call?", when Prue Halliwell acquires this power during the magical switch, she produces a small Orb Shield in front of her right arm, resembling the form Wyatt used from the womb in "Sam, I Am".
- So far, the Orb Shield was shown to protect four people at most.
- Although he used other powers from inside the womb, this was the first power Wyatt Halliwell used after he was born.
- This was the first new power gained in the Comics.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
From Wikipedia: Werner Karl Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and philosopher who discovered (1925) a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices. For that discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932. In 1927 he published his uncertainty principle, upon which he built his philosophy and for which he is best known. He also made important contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles, and he was instrumental in planning the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe, together with a research reactor in Munich, in 1957. Considerable controversy surrounds his work on atomic research during World War II.
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Visual Models of Morphogenesis (Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz et al.)
Grow more plants with algorithm
- a population of 1000; [think about local maximum- could be a problem for sparse samples across the set]
- some evaluation to score each individual/ fitness function.s
- kill the ones underscore certain threshold;
- the survivor breed offspring. HOW?
- the likely hood of mutation M, say 3%
- crossover C, 5%
- parametric representation of the individuals.
0000 01110 | 0000 0011
- repopulate the died portion
BOOK an introduction to genetic Algorithms (complex adaptive systems)
BRIAN SCAZ lecture
Outline of the Basic Genetic Algorithm
1.[Start] Generate random population of n chromosomes
2.[Fitness] Evaluate the fitness of each chromosome
3.[New population] Create a new population by repeating:
A.[Selection] Select two parent chromosomes based on their fitness
B.[Crossover] With a crossover probability cross over the parents to
form new offspring (children). If no crossover was performed,
offspring is an exact copy of parents.
C.[Mutation] With a mutation probability mutate new offspring at
each locus (position in chromosome).
D.[Accepting] Place new offspring in a new population
4.[Replace] Use new generated population for a further run of algorithm
5.[Test] If the end condition is satisfied, stop, and return the best
solution in current population
6.[Loop] Go to step 2
“Evolving 3D Morphology and Behavior by Competition “
- Evolving Morphology with Control , i.e. body and brain
- Evolution at times involves more than competition with the environment
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This case study was developed for a lower-division lecture class on “World History 1400-1870” with the goal of creating an opportunity for students to “discover” gender. We used a central primary source, “The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Related by Herself.”1 This first-person account was written by British abolitionists and disseminated through the London Society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1831. We chose “The History of Mary Prince” because the types of labor that Prince performed as a slave cover the three areas of slave work that we specifically ask students to explore: plantation work; housework; and work for other slaves.
We departed from the traditional lecture format and pursued a pedagogical method known as “problem-based learning” (PBL). PBL takes a particular “problem” (instead of the more conventional “topic”) as its point of departure, and asks students to generate a collective “solution” by working in research teams. Students develop the skills and acquire the content knowledge needed to solve the issue at hand.
Our PBL asked students to produce a mock “script” for a documentary film to be shown on HBO during women’s history month. The film explains how and why male and female slaves in the Americas and/or Africa come to have distinct (or similar) labor responsibilities within local economies and what impact such gender divisions of labor have on women’s and men’s experience of slavery. Students were divided into collaborative teams and presented with a timetable for the completion of the task as well as guidelines for group work.
The actual process included the following steps: brain-storming research questions and ranking the questions in order of importance; dividing up the questions; carrying out the research and reporting the findings back to the group; reviewing all findings and generating larger arguments as a group; and finally, writing up project reports and preparing an oral presentation. Students were graded on the basis of their individual project component (submitted in essay form), their collaborative work (such as intermittent electronic reports), and their group participation (including peer evaluation). We provided students with a list of primary and secondary sources for their research and a set of questions to focus their efforts.2
A. Different Types of Work Involved in Producing An Export Commodity
Under this rubric we asked students to consider how and why labor for the production of an export commodity was distributed among men and women, female and male children and how authority was maintained at the work site. Mary Prince is mainly involved in making salt on behalf of an owner. Both men and women (as well as young children) are indiscriminately used in gangs that bail water, turn a press, and shovel the end product. The slave-owner directly supervises his slaves and cruelly disciplines them.
Students are encouraged to explore how this scenario contrasts with the broader secondary literature about frequent division between the labor performed by men’s gangs and women’s gangs on plantations producing sugar, cotton, and tobacco. To what extent do differences in divisions of labor reflect the requirements or social meanings of specific commodities (salt versus cotton), the size of a property or slave-holdings (Prince’s owner has relatively few slaves for money-making), and/or ideas about what is appropriate male and female work?
Finally, students were encouraged to think about how slave women (like Prince) and white abolitionists (like those who sponsored the publication of her history) might have had different investments in constructing women as being “naturally” unsuited for certain types of labor. “The History of Mary Prince” repeatedly bemoans the inhumanity of Mary being forced to do hard labor, the same labor as men. This condemnation is often inseparable from the narrative’s broader condemnation of extraordinarily cruel labor practices, such as whippings or maimings. The absence of gender divisions in labor was, paradoxically, the crux of how slave labor was gendered: slave women were denied qualification as “real (white) women” who might deserve “protection” as “the fairer sex.”
B. Different Types of Work Performed by Household-Based Slaves
Here we asked students to explore why specific male and female slaves were assigned to particular tasks, and how this division of labor impacted a slave’s relationship to the authority of a master or mistress. If so-called “fieldwork” often blurred distinctions between men and women’s labor, domestic service was more rigidly gender divided, especially when a slave’s work involved proximity to white women’s bodies. Mary Prince worked mostly in arrangements of domestic service, at one point as a chief housekeeper. She was involved in cooking, nursing children, cleaning, washing laundry, and ministering to her owners’ personal needs.
In particular, she relates her shame at being forced to bathe her master’s naked body, indicating that female slaves were frequently obliged to perform personal service for white men in an often sexualized, if not explicitly sexually exploitative manner. Prince’s narrative suggests that the oppression that women slaves suffered in arrangements of domestic service was often more arbitrary, violent, and deadly than that they encountered working in commodity production such as in the salt ponds (or tobacco fields). How does Prince’s narrative contribute to ongoing debates about the extent to which “fieldwork” or “housework” were more exploitative and/or enabling of slaves’ ability to resist dehumanization and slavery as an institution?
C. Slaves Working For Themselves and the Question of Resistance
In this third segment, students were instructed to think about the kind of work slaves perform on their own behalf and how it contributed to forming slave communities and resisting slavery. Prince used her position as head housekeeper to sell coffee, pork products, and yams in local markets in an (ultimately futile) effort to save money to purchase her freedom. Some of the money for manumission came from a certain “Captain Abbott”—a white man with whom Prince had a sexual relationship, although this is not explicit from the text (see Natalie Zemon Davis, below). Prince also mentions various forms of barter, exchange, and charity between slaves that helped sustain crucial friendships and material alliances among slaves, including those with different masters.
Here we posed the question why, in the case of “labor on their own behalf,” slaves often observed strict gender divisions of labor, with women at the forefront of agricultural subsistence and marketing activities. How were these divisions similar to/different from assignments by masters in the fields and household?
Last, we ask students to consider what sorts of “labor on one’s own behalf” constituted “resistance” to slavery. Prince’s own survival strategies and attempts to escape slavery were highly individualized, involving multiple attempts to save money and broker deals with whites in order to purchase her freedom. She is reportedly most successful when she converts to Christianity, marries, repents past sins, and seeks out an alliance with white abolitionists. Beyond encouraging students to recognize this sequence as reflecting the moral agenda of white abolitionists, we also urge them to think about the differences between collective and more individualized forms of “labor on one’s own behalf” and to make explicit arguments about where they see work connected to “resistance.”
Our PBL exercise was an experiment, and we were very pleased with its results. Although students at first expressed some skepticism about the place of collaborative work in a large lecture course, their presentations and papers indicated that we had won them over by the end of the term. Many presentations involved dramatic enactments, multimedia displays or mock pitches to the HBO film board. We apparently struck a real chord with these students and inspired them to be creative. A sizeable group produced some of the best historical writing either one of us had ever seen in an undergraduate setting. Their analysis was simply superb, and the presentation of the material highly imaginative. They had come to understand the meaning of gender as a “category of historical analysis” without us ever introducing the term. This was particularly gratifying.
1 “The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself,” in Henry Louis
Gates, Jr., ed. Six Women’s Slave Narratives, (Oxford, 1988).
Full text available online as part of the “Documenting the American South” project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2 In order to explore these questions and prepare the final movie script, students read Mary Prince’s story alongside the following secondary sources. Secondary historical literature allows students to generate answers. Claire Robertson and Martin Klein, for example, argue that American plantation slavery’s preference for employing men in agricultural labor represented a sharp reversal of many West African societies’ custom of entrusting agriculture and marketing exclusively to women. Hilary Beckles and Jacqueline Jones contend in their work on life in the slave barracks that strict sexual divisions of labor were employed as a counter to white efforts to dehumanize slaves by treating men and women as interchangeable. Beckles’ work, which also has chapters on slave women obtaining freedom through their sexual relationships with men, is also of use in getting students to consider Mary Prince’s mention of her connection to “Captain Abbot.” To what extent did “sex” constitute a realm of work that (largely) slave women performed? Could these relationships afford some women limited forms of bargaining power along with heightened vulnerability?
Beckles, Hilary Mc D. Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados, (Rutgers, 1989).
Davis, Natalie Zemon.” Non-European Stories. European Literature,” in Berichten, Erzaehlen, Beherrschen: Wahrnehmung und Repraesentation in der fruehen Kolonialgeschichte Europas, edited by Susanna Burghartz et al. (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2003), 200-219.
Guy, Jeff. “Gender Oppression in Southern Africa’s Precapitalist Societies” in Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, edited by Cherryl Walker (Cape Town: D. Philip 1990), 33-47.
Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present, (Basic Books, 1985).
Karasch, Mary. “Slave Women on the Brazilian Frontier in the Nineteenth Century,” in More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, edited by David Gaspar and Darlene Hine (Indiana University Press, 1996), 79-96.
Klein, Herbert “African Women in the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in Women and Slavery in Africa, edited by C. Robertson and M. Klein (Madison, 1983), 29-39.
Klein, Martin A. “Women in Slavery in the Western Sudan,” in Women and Slavery, 67-94.
MacCormack, Carol. “Slaves, Slave Owners, and Slave Dealers: Sherbo Coast and Hinterland,” in Women and Slavery, 271-294.
Moitt, Bernard, “Women, Work and Resistance in the French Caribbean,” in Verene Shepard, Bridget Brereton, Barbara Bailey, eds., Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective, (St. Martins, 1995), 155-175.
Robertson, Claire and Martin Klein, “Women’s Importance in African Slave Systems,” in Women and Slavery, 3-28.
Thornton, John. “Sexual Demography: The Impact of the Slave Trade on Family Structure,” in Women and Slavery, 39-48.
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Next to bragging about which community enjoys or endures the most weather, Canadians like to boast how their province or territory compares with the warmest, snowiest or the windiest. To settle arguments as to which jurisdiction can legitimately lay claim to being tops in weather, David Phillips, Environment Canada's Senior Climatologist analyzed 30 years of recent weather data for each of Canada's ten provinces and three territories. His results are sure to provide for entertaining conversation but could also assist provincial and territorial governments, industries, tourism and recreational businesses and those seeking weather information to make decisions on where to reside for retirement or health purposes.
Province-Territory Weather Winners is a follow-up to the highly popular Canadian Cities Are Weather Winners site released in 2003. This new study looks at how each Canadian province and territory ranks in 70 different weather categories, including those groupings used in the city weather winners. Data for 30 years from 150 weather stations, representative of the geography in each province and territory, were used to compute averages for each jurisdiction. Among the categories included are: the warmest province or territory year-round, the hottest in summer, the coldest in winter, the sunniest year-round, the province or territory with the most freezing rain days, the most heavy snow days, the most thunderstorm days, etc. The website allows you to view how your province or territory ranks for each of the categories and includes the weighted-average value for the category in question.
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Two months after the failure of COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced the creation of an all-men advisory body for climate change financing*. With an ambitious task of “build[ing] momentum towards a successful negotiation of a comprehensive climate change agreement," the body is expected to mobilise funds amounting to US$100 billion annually until 2020 to support the poorest nations affected by climate change.
While the formation of an advisory body is an expected measure out of the weak Copenhagen Accord, its all-men membership came as a surprise, especially as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has increasingly recognised the dire impacts of climate change on women and the latter's contribution to rehabilitating and keeping the earth's resources.
“If we want to overcome gender inequalities, we need to have women in climate change decision-making process”, remarked Ulrike Roehr, GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice board member. “Women like Joke Waller-Hunter [predecessor of Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC-Executive Secretary] have guided the process in many positive ways,” she added. “The nomination of the next UNFCCC-Executive Secretary is another chance to implement gender equity: let her be female!”
While we are aware that the appointment of women does neither necessarily translate into women's empowerment nor gender equality, we need to ask: Has the world run out of women experts? Is the planet consisting of men alone? Is it not for such imbalances that this climate crisis exists?
GenderCC, alongside with women and gender experts from all over the world, therefore asks UN-Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to make sure that the climate change financing group as well as the whole process respects gender parities and gendered perspectives.
There’s no climate justice without gender justice!
* Update: French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde has been added to the list, so it's 19:1 now...
GenderCC - Women for Climate Justice (www.gendercc.net
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You are here
The New Grid
Plugging into California’s clean-energy future
Take a look at the nearest light switch: is it up or down? The answer means more than you think. When you flip a switch — or run a washing machine, or plug in a space heater — you’re creating demand. And on a vast, interconnected electrical grid like California’s, supply must always meet demand. Otherwise, it’s lights out.
For more than a century we’ve taken the balancing act between supply and demand for granted, and for the most part, it’s worked. To accommodate sudden spikes in demand, engineers overbuilt the grid with excess slack, including wires that were thicker than they needed to be and standby fossil-fuel power plants that could fire up at any instant.
“Renewables integration into the grid poses a fundamentally new problem.”
Sascha von Meier
But today our 19th-century grid is being inundated by 21st-century innovations — among them the remote, large-scale solar and wind plants that are leading the state toward its clean-energy future. California has added nearly 2,800 megawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, almost equal to what it gained in the previous 13 years combined, the California Public Utilities Commission reports. In response to the Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, the state has required its three largest utilities to acquire at least 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, up from the current 21 percent. Some analysts — and utilities — are aiming for well over 40 percent.
These new energy sources fluctuate according to nature’s whims and can’t be switched on at a moment’s notice. The more we rely on solar and wind to replace steady sources like fossil fuels, the less slack remains in the system, and the smaller the margin gets between peak supply and peak demand.
“Renewables integration into the grid poses a fundamentally new problem,” says Sascha von Meier, MA ’90, Ph.D. ’95, Energy and Resources Group, co-director of electric grid research for the California Institute for Energy and Environment. In various ways, von Meier says, the solar and wind energy that most of us in California are clamoring for — or already installing on our rooftops — is slowly transforming the system through which we deliver and receive power. And we’re not entirely sure what to do about it.
Many of the state’s top energy thinkers — including researchers in the Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and the College of Natural Resources, and their graduates now employed within the industry — are working to find an answer. In the end, it’s clear that no single approach will do; rather, a blend of public policies, technological innovations, energy-storage solutions, and increased flexibility on the demand side (that means you and me) will work together to help California reach its clean-energy goals and push well beyond them.
Renewable but unpredictable
Nancy Rader, MA ’92, ERG, has spent the bulk of her career championing renewable energy. From 1994 to 1998 she served as West Coast representative to the American Wind Energy Association, a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying group (in 1996, she was named its “Wind Industry Person of the Year”). For the last 12 years she has worked with the California Wind Energy Association, including 10 as its executive director. But even she doesn’t slough off the considerable challenge that large-scale wind power poses to California’s grid.
“We recognize that we’re an inconvenient energy source. Fossil fuels are incredibly convenient, except for the climate disruptions and other environmental issues they cause,” she says with a chuckle, as if to suggest that there’s no way fossil fuels’ benefits could outweigh their environmental impacts. But she acknowledges that fossil fuels provide reliable power. It’s there when we need it, capable of being fired up to accommodate peak demand, and on top of that, it’s pretty cheap.
For Rader, that’s just the beginning of the conversation. With integration of wind energy into the grid presenting a new set of problems, her job is to find solutions. She has plenty of ideas to help increase wind power’s reliability and reduce its cost. One of the biggest takes aim at a policy of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) — an independent body that operates the state’s electrical grid — that requires power plant operators to schedule their production 38 hours in advance. Rader and the wind industry want that time frame reduced to as little as 15 minutes.
The reason is simple: wind-power operators can’t always accurately predict their output, which is dependent on temperatures, weather patterns, and storms, even an hour in advance. When predictions are off, problems arise — costly ones. “If you can’t predict what your resource is going to do, you have to have someone waiting to come online at a minute’s notice, which is expensive,” Rader explains. “So the more accurately you can predict wind, the less standby generation you need, which translates to lower cost.”
CAISO is considering making the move within the next year or two. The change would all but eliminate one of the bigger obstacles to integrating wind power into the grid, and could be an immediate boon to the industry in California.
Large-scale solar energy faces similar challenges, though to a different extent. With its day-on, night-off schedule, solar power is in one sense more predictable than wind. But wind power tends to ramp up and down gradually, while a massive 500-megawatt solar plant in the Mojave Desert can be nearly incapacitated by a passing cloud, then just as suddenly return to full production.
The bottom line is the same: it’s not enough for energy to come from a clean, renewable source; it also must be there when we need it. “We have to balance the grid from moment to moment,” Rader said. “It’s important that the system as a whole be planned to ensure stability.”
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which oversees the state’s investor-owned utilities, plays a key role in the new grid. CPUC energy advisor Michael Colvin, ’05, M.P.P. ’07, says it is the commission’s job to help California achieve its environmental and energy-policy goals of 33 percent renewables by 2020 “without a huge sticker shock.” In addition to enforcing standards for reliable service and reasonable rates from large-scale solar and wind farms, the CPUC is developing innovative standardized contracts to help small-scale providers plug in at the local level. Sara Kamins, M.S. ‘06, ERG, the lead CPUC advisor on renewable energy programs, said accomplishing the state’s goals involves aligning the business, environmental, technical, and policy pieces. “Designing the state’s renewable energy policies requires finding win-win solutions that consider the interests of a diverse network of stakeholders.”
Feeding rooftop solar into the grid
Many renewable-energy advocates promote solar panels, or photovoltaics, on rooftops and over parking lots as the gold standard in clean power. Rooftop panels not only sidestep the environmental impacts of remote solar plants and wind turbines, but also generate power closer to where it’s used, are less susceptible to large-scale fluctuations due to their distributed nature, and, in the case of the increasingly popular parking-lot panels, offer a valuable bonus: shade. But one point most advocates miss is that photovoltaics can toss a monkey wrench into the gears of a local energy grid.
“There’s a lot of interesting phenomena that are happening at that level due to rooftop solar that’s feeding power into the grid,” says von Meier, who is currently teaching a new course on electrical power systems at Berkeley. “One of the things we’re studying very carefully [is] the effects of distributed generation on the power quality and the management of distribution circuits.”
Preliminary research has shown that rooftop solar panels can degrade power quality in their immediate area. In some cases, upon reaching a certain saturation point — one that varies from neighborhood to neighborhood and is difficult to identify in advance — their interaction with outdated voltage regulation equipment may cause damaging power surges or dips in neighboring homes, possibly frying computers and other sensitive equipment.
“Ultimately, all we care about is making power in equal power out.”
The details can quickly become arcane for anyone who’s not an electrical engineer, but even experts don’t know quite what to expect as adoption of rooftop solar becomes more widespread, von Meier says. Some neighborhood circuits could be just fine, while others could experience significant issues; it varies on that small a scale. “There’s a lot of uncertainty and worry on the part of utilities that it may produce technical problems,” she says. “It’s very much a patchwork quilt, and no two circuits are the same.”
The first step in assessing the risk posed by rooftop solar is to gather more data. Utilities up and down the state are beginning to install devices on distribution circuits that record information about how much power is flowing and in which direction. Smart meters can serve a similar purpose. Before they were implemented across California over the past few years, utilities had so little information about local circuits that they didn’t know a neighborhood had lost power until irate customers called to complain; even then they couldn’t remotely pinpoint the source of the problem. Now smart meters, although controversial among some privacy and health advocates, are one component of an evolving “smart grid” that can provide real-time data on the flow of electricity through local circuits.
“You need to have a good understanding of what’s happening before you take action,” von Meier says. Once that’s accomplished, the next move toward ensuring reliability — the true gold standard for power within the industry — could be to install state-of-the-art voltage regulation devices on local circuits, which can smooth out the peaks and valleys resulting from intermittent sunshine feeding rooftop panels.
Such localized disruptions are nothing compared to the risk of remote solar and wind plants potentially triggering blackouts or brownouts due to unexpected fluctuations in output. “What happens when 30 percent of our power comes from solar or wind, and a cloud goes over or it doesn’t blow?” asks Tim Woodward, ’82, managing director for Nth Power, a San Francisco–based energy-technology venture capital firm. “How do we deal with that?”
The most commonly prescribed solution is massive batteries that can store and distribute energy as needed, increasing the buffer between supply and demand. Yet affordable, cost-effective batteries remain at least five to ten years away, says Woodward. Until we experience an actual grid failure or similar event triggered by renewables, he predicts, a market for the batteries is unlikely to materialize.
In the near term, a complementary — and increasingly popular — approach is to focus on accommodating variability at the other end of the system: inside the homes and businesses where we actually consume the power. Duncan Callaway, an assistant professor of energy and resources, is a believer. He spends much of his time studying what’s known as demand response, or load flexibility, in which users adjust their demand according to supply.
“Ultimately, all we care about is making power in equal power out,” he says. “If you can accomplish that by encouraging electricity consumption at different times, you can do it without having to build more storage infrastructure.” Manual demand response — where utilities phone their customers and ask them to please ease back on the air conditioning — has been around for decades, but the new wave is automated, continuous, and sufficiently seamless that most people won’t even notice. It works by sending wireless signals to smart appliances and other devices — again with the help of smart meters — about how much energy to use within a set of consumer-determined performance parameters that could potentially be programmed, like a thermostat or light timer.
The aim isn’t just to use less energy, Callaway says, but to use it at the right times. Such a fine-toothed approach, which will require both technological advances and regulatory work to become feasible, would help the grid adapt to the uneven profile of renewables on an ongoing basis, as well as avoid outages during peak events.
Sometimes energy draw can even be nudged upward to account for renewables. In 2010, a storm caused a field of wind turbines in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge to nearly overwhelm the grid with power, prompting local agencies to pilot a new method of storing excess electricity: remotely cranking up the dial on special water and space heaters inside participating customers’ homes.
Information is power
Successfully adopting both batteries and demand response will take an intimate understanding of how California’s grid functions on a real-time basis. That’s precisely the goal of a powerful new model out of UC Berkeley, developed first for California by Matthias Fripp, M.S. ’03, Ph.D. ’08, ERG, while completing his dissertation and later expanded to all of western North America and then overseas by Dan Kammen and his students. Kammen is the director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, an ERG and Goldman School of Public Policy professor who was Fripp’s faculty advisor.
California’s Energy Commission and Air Resources Board have already begun to employ the model to calculate carbon emissions caused by electricity generation, Kammen says. But it can also be used to solve for both cost and reliability, especially in regard to the intermittent output of most renewables.
“On the supply side for wind and solar, we’re incredibly detailed,” Kammen says. The model integrates current meteorological data and will permit electricity infrastructure and operational issues to be integrated with data on current and forecasted climate change, which allows a diverse power supply pool to be managed with far more sophistication than it is today, Kammen says. “The energy world of the future will look more like a real-time eBay. Ultimately your house, car, and the local industry can all be seen as buyers and sellers of energy, ideally valued highly on their cleanliness.”
In other words, California is on the brink of experiencing radical changes not only to how electricity is generated and consumed, but also to how it’s distributed. Some of the technology needed to make that happen already exists; some of it still needs to be developed. Yet with the world’s eighth-largest economy this committed to the cause, the biggest question left to answer isn’t if, but when.
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I was reminded this morning of why Twitter can be so useful – I usually check the latest #mathchat tweets and saw Richard Wade’s tweet with a link to the latest Teach Maths newsletter, on ‘Ten Great Ideas’. The first item includes this wonderful Composite Number Tree by Jeffrey Ventrella – I’m looking forward to trying that with students after half term. I think it would make a great starter. Students could work out themselves how the tree is being formed and comment on any patterns they notice. Also included in the first Newsletter item is the excellent Primitives application by Alec McEachran, I included this myself with some resources for looking at Prime Factors in an earlier post.
It’s a small world! I see the second item is on Craig Barton’s Web Whizz video on Teachmathematics. You can see all Craig’s videos here on TES Resources.
On WolframAlpha, if you query on a word you can see a word frequency history, see this on Mathematics for example (the history is based on a Google books sample of one million books). An opportunity for some cross curricular work perhaps?
WolframAlpha is still free to check working for as many queries as you want making it very useful for students but now step by step solutions are limited to three a day unless you sign up to WolframAlpha Pro, so choose your three carefully! The new style step by step solutions are clearly presented – see this integration by parts for example:
(See this page for WolframAlpha examples showing the syntax for many different queries. I have added a couple of new slideshows for older students recently, on Set Theory & Logic and Differential Equations).
Finally, still on the subject of reading, I enjoyed Andrew Old’s post on ‘What Ofsted Say They Want’. Just what is good teaching all about? This is so sensible!
For UK teachers I hope you enjoyed half term last week or like me are looking forward to a week off this coming week!
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Hull-Oakes Lumber Company's Steam-Powered Sawmill: A Case Study in Industrial Archaeology
Hull-Oakes Lumber Company's Steam-Powered Sawmill: A Case Study in Industrial Archaeology, by George B. Wisner.
By examining the combined written, ethnographic and physical evidence of a surviving steam-powered sawmill in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest, this monograph seeks to supply new insights into the operation and adaptability of antiquated machinery during a period of rapid social and technological change and to develop a descriptive model for the sawmill industry. Steam-powered sawmills, those mills using steam power to operate primary and secondary lumber-cutting saws, are now dinosaurs in the sawmill industry. They are a vanishing example of a mechanical process once common throughout America. This monograph describes a last-of-its-kind commercially-operating medium-sized steam-powered sawmill, the Hull-Oakes Lumber Co., Inc., sawmill in south Benton County, Oregon. It also explores how this sawmill survived through specialization rather than through wholesale adoption of emerging technologies. By examining a surviving sawmill that uses antiquated machinery, this monograph captures, in part, the way of life of the builders and practicers of the arts the industry represents; it also offers new insights for future researchers seeking to understand and explain industrial adaptability and cultural remains from similar sites. It does this by describing through words, photographs, diagrams and maps how such mills worked, what the machinery and its parts looked like, and what physical traces such mills might be expected to leave after they are gone.
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Economics Model Answers Two
Introductory: 1. In a free market, the price and quantity at which goods are sold are where __________ equals ___________.
supply equals demand
2. Suppose the price demand curve is P = $20 - Q, where P is price and Q is quantity. Also suppose the price supply curve is P = $4 + Q. At what price and quantity will the good be sold?
The good is sold where supply equals demand. That means the supply P must equal the demand P, and the supply Q must equal the demand Q. This can be found by graphing the above two equations and seeing where they intersect, or by solving them by setting P to the same value in both:
- P = $20 − Q
- P = $4 + Q
- 20 − Q = 4 + Q
- 20 = 4 + 2Q
- 4 + 2Q = 20
- 2Q = 16
- Q = 8
Plugging this back into the first equation gives P:
- P = $20 − Q = $20 − 8 = $12
Checking our work, we plug this P and Q into the second equation:
- 12 = 4 + 8 = 12
Answer: Q = 8, P = $12
Intermediate: 3. Draw the supply and demand for air. In addition, draw the supply and demand for a good that costs $10000000000000000000000000 trillion dollars.
The demand curve for air must be at a zero price, which is the x-axis (P=0 everywhere, although note that if the quantity of air ever approached zero then the demand price would sharply increase as people would pay to survive). The supply curve for air must be at fixed quantity, and hence a vertical line. They must intersect at P=0, Q=amount of air in the atmosphere:
Note, however, that air is not a scarce good, and that is why its supply and demand curves are so unusual and nonsensical.
The point where supply equals demand for an extremely expensive good must be at low quantity Q. From there the supply curve would slope upwards, and the demand curve would slope downwards:
(thanks to Kevin for both graphs above)
4. Suppose 1000 persons in a town each have the following weekly demands for gas, and the gas stations have the following weekly supplies:
Gallons Demand Price/gallon Supply Price/gallon
10 $2.50 $.50
20 $2 $.75
30 $1 $1
40 $.75 $1.50
(A) What is the price and overall quantity of gas sold each week?
The price and quantity at which the good (gas) is sold is where supply equals demand. That means that the P for supply equals the P for demand, and the Q for supply equals the Q for demand. Looking at the above table, where do both the P and Q for supply equal the corresponding P and Q for demand? That occurs on the third line above: Q equals 30 for both supply and demand, and P equals $1 for both supply and demand. The answer is there: P=$1, Q=30.
(B) Suppose Congress declares war and imposes a price control of $.75 per gallon. At what price and overall quantity will gas sell each week?
When price P is fixed by the government at $.75, then what is the corresponding Q supply and demand? Looking at the table, the corresponding Q in the supply column is 20 gallons, and the corresponding Q in the demand column is 40 gallons. The lower number is what matters, because nothing can be bought unless it is both supplied and demanded. So the supply is 20 gallons and that is what is sold at $.75 per gallon. That is 20 times 0.75 = $15 per person, or $15,000 for the whole town. Some may try to buy and sell gas illegally at a higher price, as illegal markets often develop when there are price controls.
5. Suppose the government limits the supply of Toyota cars that can be imported in 2008 to a certain quota. What effect does this have on the supply curve, and on the equilibrium price? Who is helped by this import quota, and who is hurt? Be as specific as possible.
Import quotas cause the supply curve to shift upward, and for the equilibrium where supply meets demand to shift to less quantity at a greater price. the consumers are hurt by import quotas, and everyone pays more for the cars and some people who wanted the car at its lower, free market price, cannot buy it at the higher price. Sellers of Toyota cars are helped because they make bigger profits per car sold, although they cannot sell as many as before.
6. Suppose you went to see the opening of your favorite new movie, but it is sold out. However, there are four independent scalpers are (illegally) reselling their tickets outside. Four strangers are each willing to pay the scalpers at most $15, $10, $9 and $8 for a ticket. The scalpers are initially willing to sell each of their tickets for at least $7, $8, $9, and $12. The eight of you get together and bargain, and then tickets are sold at a common price. What is the price and how many tickets sell at that price? Should scalping be illegal in New Jersey?
One customer (C1) is willing to pay $15. Another customer (C2) is willing to pay $10. Likewise, customers C3 will pay $9 and C4 will pay $8.
One scalper (S1) scalper willing to sell for $7, scalper S2 will sell at $8, S3 will sell at $9, and S4 at $12.
C1, C2, and C3 will all be willing to buy tickets from S1, S2, and S3 at $9. S4 is not willing to sell at the price, and C4 is not willing to buy at the that price, so both choose not to deal. Three tickets are thus sold at the "common price" or market price of $9 each.
Scalping is a form of free market activity. If there are willing buyers and sellers for the tickets, then why interfere with these sales? Scalping is illegal in New Jersey, but still happens illegally.
Honors: Write an essay of about 300 words total on one or more of the following topics: 7. Should government regulations require and monitor honest and full disclosure of information by sellers to buyers?
For the buyer to make informed decisions, he must have information. Even "buyer beware" (caveat emptor) assumes a buyer who can find information. The seller has the information, and regulations requiring it to tell the buyer seem helpful to free enterprise.
8. Should price discrimination be illegal?
For banning price discrimination: a common price encourages more economic activity.
For allowing price discrimination: if buyers and sellers are willing to exchange at different prices, doesn't this maximize overall benefit?
9. What is an economic incentive for excluding homeschooled athletes from high school sports? Should that be legal?
By banning homeschoolers from sports, public and private schools are encouraging students to enroll in their schools. That brings them more money.
10. Describe your view of if or how government should regulate medical prices.
It shouldn't. Price controls, as illustrated by the gasoline problem above, results in shortages.
11. “Economic theory of law and the public domain - When is Piracy Economically Desirable?” See http://lexnet.bravepages.com/media1.html
Piracy of information can increase market activity. Napster caused much additional traffic on the internet in the late 1990s, and this helped the dot-com boom. But copyright violations are illegal in order to encourage the creation of new works. It is a delicate policy balance between promoting market activity now and promoting creative works for future benefit.
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B2: A mixture of 2% biodiesel and 98% petroleum diesel based on volume.
B20: A mixture of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel based on volume.
B100: 100% biodiesel, also known as “neat” biodiesel.
BIODIESEL: A biodegradable transportation fuel for use in diesel engines that is produced through the transesterfication of organically-derived oils or fats. It may be used either as a replacement for or as a component of diesel fuel.
CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2): A colorless, odorless gas produced by respiration and combustion of carbon-containing fuels. Plants use it as a food.
E10: A mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline based on volume.
E85: A mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline based on volume.
ETHANOL (CH3CH2OH): A colorless, flammable liquid produced by fermentation of sugars. Used as a fuel oxygenate and found in alcoholic beverages.
FERMENTATION: A biochemical reaction that breaks down complex organic molecules (such as carbohydrates) into simpler materials (such as ethanol, carbon dioxide and water). Bacteria or yeasts can ferment sugars to ethanol.
GLYCERIN (C3H8O3): A liquid by-product of biodiesel production. Glycerin is used in the manufacture of dynamite, cosmetics, liquid soaps, inks and lubricants.
HYDROCARBON (HC): An organic compound that contains only hydrogen and carbon. In vehicle emissions, these are usually vapors created from incomplete combustion or from vaporization of liquid gasoline. Emissions of hydrocarbons contribute to ground level ozone.
METHYL-TERTIARY BUTYL ESTER (MTBE): A fuel oxygenate made from petroleum. It does not biodegrade and can contaminate groundwater.
NITROGEN OXIDES (NOx): A product of photochemical reactions of nitric oxide in ambient air, and the major component of photochemical smog.
OXYGENATE: A compound which contains oxygen in its molecular structure. Ethanol and biodiesel act as oxygenates when they are blended with conventional fuels. Oxygenated fuel improves combustion efficiency and reduces tailpipe emissions of CO.
OZONE: A compound that is formed when oxygen and other compounds react in sunlight. In the upper atmosphere, ozone protects the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays. Though beneficial in the upper atmosphere, at ground level, ozone is called photochemical smog, and is a respiratory irritant and considered a pollutant.
PARTICULATES: A fine liquid or solid particle such as dust, smoke, fumes, or smog, found in air or emissions.
PETROLEUM: Any petroleum-based substance comprising a complex blend of hydrocarbons derived from crude oil through the process of separation, conversion, upgrading, and finishing, including motor fuel, jet oil, lubricants, petroleum solvents, and used oil.
SULFUR: A natural part of petroleum diesel fuel that is reduced during refining due to an EPA mandate. Sulfur increases petroleum diesel's lubricity and therefore engine life. Sulfur oxides and sulfides in exhaust emissions are major components of acid rain.
TRANSESTERFICATION: A chemical process which reacts an alcohol with the triglycerides contained in vegetable oils and animal fats to produce biodiesel and glycerin.
Source: Department of Energy, National Biodiesel Board and Renewable Fuels Association.
Information At Your Fingertips
Industry association Web sites are primed with information on biodiesel and ethanol. Visit the following sites to learn more on both topics, including locations on where to purchase biodiesel in your area:
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Weeds that survive an initial herbicide application are often re-sprayed later in the season. However, according to University of Illinois Associate Professor of Weed Science Aaron Hager, the likelihood of controlling larger, moisture-stressed weeds continues to decline.
Moreover, herbicides applied late in the season are more likely to persist long enough to injure sensitive rotational crops. Nearly all herbicide labels (soil-applied or post-emergence) specify the interval between herbicide application and planting a rotational crop. Some of these restrictions are based solely on time, while others take into account factors such as soil pH and the amount of precipitation received after herbicide application when determining interval length.
“Soil moisture is often the most critical factor governing the efficacy and persistence of soil-residual herbicides,” Hager says. “Many herbicides are degraded in soil by the activity of soil microorganisms, and populations of these microorganisms can be greatly depressed when soil moisture is limited.”
Dry soils can also enhance herbicide adsorption to soil colloids, thus rendering the herbicide unavailable for plant uptake and degradation by soil microbial populations. Some herbicide rotational intervals are increased if a specified amount of precipitation is not received by a certain calendar date.
The intervals are established to prevent herbicide residues from reaching levels that will adversely affect the rotational crop. Respecting these intervals becomes particularly important with late-season herbicide applications and when soil moisture is limited.
“Please keep in mind that the labels of almost all post-emergence soybean herbicides indicate a pre-harvest interval or a soybean developmental stage beyond which applications cannot be made,” says Hager.
Labels of some products may indicate both a developmental stage (before soybean bloom, for example) and a pre-harvest interval. Preharvest intervals indicate the amount of time that must elapse between the herbicide application and crop harvest.
Failure to observe the preharvest interval may result in herbicide residue levels in the harvested portion of the crop in excess of established limits. Moreover, labels on many postemergence soybean herbicides specify that foraging of, or grazing livestock on, treated soybean is not allowed.
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As D.W. notes, the distinction made between "bit-based" and "word-based" stream ciphers in the source you cite is irrelevant to the end-user. For both kinds of stream ciphers (as well as for block ciphers in streaming modes like CTR or OFB), the manner in which the keystream is combined with the plaintext is always the same: bitwise XOR, which operates at the bit level but is easily parallelized both in hardware and in software.
In any case, the actual distinction they seem to be making is between LFSR-based stream ciphers, which sequentially output one bit per iteration, and ciphers such as RC4 (and, presumably, block ciphers in streaming modes) which generate their output bitstream in larger chunks.
LFSR-based stream ciphers have generally been designed for direct hardware implementation, where they have the advantage of simplicity, but they've traditionally suffered from poor performance in software; whereas in hardware it's easy to shuffle single bits around and combine them using simple logic gates, typical CPUs are designed for carrying out higher-level operations on chunks of 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 bits in parallel. Running a cipher that operates on single bits in software thus wastes most of the CPU's power, unless the algorithm can be reformulated to operate on many bits in parallel, something that many older LFSR-based cipher designs haven't been very well suited for.
On the other hand, ciphers like RC4 were designed for software implementation from the beginning, and do very well there. (Although RC4 itself operates on 8-bit bytes, which is arguably suboptimal for modern high-end CPUs, its simplicity still keeps is competitive there. Besides, there are still plenty of 8-bit processors around in embedded devices and such.) However, they often make use of features that are difficult and costly to implement in hardware, such as access to relatively large amounts of RAM (e.g. 258 bytes for RC4, accessed in an essentially random order).
In recent years, though, the trend in stream cipher design has been towards ciphers that blur these lines, being efficient to implement in both hardware and software. Good examples can be found e.g. in the eSTREAM portfolio: the Trivium cipher, for example, is fundamentally a "bit-based" shift register design, and can indeed be implemented as such if desired; however, it is designed such that up to 64 bits of the output can be computed in parallel, which allows very efficient software implementations using any word length of up to 64 bits. (Conveniently, the same parallelizability also allows Trivium to be made very fast in hardware, by essentially duplicating the circuitry up to 64 times, as long as available space permits this.)
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Forest Ecosystems: Current Research
Regional Fire/Climate Relationships in the Pacific Northwest and Beyond
Fire exerts a strong influence on the structure and function of many terrestrial ecosystems. In forested ecosystems, the factors controlling the frequency, intensity, and size of fires are complex and operate at different spatial and temporal scales. Since climate strongly influences most of these factors (such as vegetation structure and fuel moisture), understanding the past and present relationships between climate and fire is essential to developing strategies for managing fire-prone ecosystems in an era of rapid climate change. The influence of climate change and climate variability on fire regimes and large fire events in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and beyond is the focus of this project.
There is mounting evidence that a detectable relationship exists between extreme fire years in the West and Pacific Ocean circulation anomalies. The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences fire in the Southwest (SW) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) appears to be related to fire in the PNW and Northern Rockies (NR). However, there are reasons to expect that processes driving fire in PNW, SW, and NR are not constant in their relative influence on fire through time or across space and that their differentiation is not stationary through time or across space.
- How regionally specific is the relationship between large fire events and precipitation/atmospheric anomalies associated with ENSO and PDO during the modern record?
- What do tree-ring and other paleo-records tell us about the temporal variability of the patterns of fire/climate relationships?
- How is climate change likely to influence climate/fire relationships given the demonstrated influences of climate variability?
Figure 1 A simple model of climate–fire-vegetation linkages. This project emphasizes the mechanisms and variability indicated by (1).
For publications on climate impacts on PNW forest ecosystems, please see CIG Publications.
Gedalof, Z. 2002. Links between Pacific basin climatic variability and natural systems of the Pacific Northwest. PhD dissertation, School of Forestry, University of Washington, Seattle.
Littell, J.S. 2002. Determinants of fire regime variability in lower elevation forests of the northern greater Yellowstone ecosystem. M.S. Thesis, Big Sky Institute/Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman.
Mote, P.W., W.S. Keeton, and J.F. Franklin. 1999. Decadal variations in forest fire activity in the Pacific Northwest. In Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Applied Climatology, pp. 155-156, Boston, Massachusetts: American Meteorological Society.
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Linear Regression Using Numpy
A linear regression line is of the form w1x+w2=y and it is the line that minimizes the sum of the squares of the distance from each data point to the line. So, given n pairs of data (xi, yi), the parameters that we are looking for are w1 and w2 which minimize the error
and we can compute the parameter vector w = (w1 , w2)T as the least-squares solution of the following over-determined system
Let's use numpy to compute the regression line:
from numpy import arange,array,ones,random,linalg from pylab import plot,show xi = arange(0,9) A = array([ xi, ones(9)]) # linearly generated sequence y = [19, 20, 20.5, 21.5, 22, 23, 23, 25.5, 24] w = linalg.lstsq(A.T,y) # obtaining the parameters # plotting the line line = w*xi+w # regression line plot(xi,line,'r-',xi,y,'o') show()We can see the result in the plot below.
You can find more about data fitting using numpy in the following posts:
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)
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The sermon below was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, California, at the 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. services. The sermon text below is a reading text; the actual sermon contained improvisation and extemporaneous remarks. Sermon copyright (c) 2012 Daniel Harper.
I’d like to begin this morning by talking with you a little bit about the origins of Memorial Day: where and when it started, and for what purpose. And after we talk about the origins of Memorial Day, then I’d like to talk with you about how the situation we find ourselves in today is quite different from time of the origin of Memorial Day, and given the changed situation I’ll speak about how we might adequately memorialize the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Historian David Blight tells us that the first recorded instance of Memorial Day took placed in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. The city of Charleston had been evacuated, and most of the non-combatants remaining in the city were African Americans who could not get out. Also present were the Union troops who had defeated the Confederate Army, and a few white abolitionists.
During the war, the Confederate Army had established a prison camp on the site of a race course in Charleston. 257 Union soldiers had died in that prison camp, and were dumped unceremoniously into a mass grave. In April, 1865, the African American community of Charleston decided to create a proper gravesite for the Union dead buried in that mass grave. They disinterred the bodies from the mass graves, and reinterred them in individual graves; then African American carpenters built a fence around the new grave yard.
To officially open this new grave yard for Civil War dead, the African American community organized a parade of some ten thousand people, including African American schoolchildren and ordinary African American citizens. White Americans were represented by some nearby Union regiments, and some white abolitionists. All these people gathered in the new graveyard. They listened to preachers. They sang songs like “America the Beautiful” and “John Brown’s Body” and old spirituals. And at last they settled down to picnics, and while they ate they could watch the Union regiments march in formation.
That, according to David Blight, was the first recorded celebration of Memorial Day. But times were different then, and that was a very different war from today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On his Web site, Blight writes: “At the end of the Civil War the dead were everywhere, some in half buried coffins and some visible only as unidentified bones strewn on the killing fields of Virginia or Georgia.” Today, we don’t see the war dead. The most we might see is a photograph or video of a coffin neatly draped with an American flag, accompanied by soldiers in full dress uniform, being taken off an airplane that has just arrived from overseas. Today, we are not confronted with the physical reality of the bodies of war dead.
When it came to memorializing the war dead, the African American community of Charleston had a straightforward task in 1865: after the fighting was over, create an adequate graveyard, and respectfully reinter the Union war dead into that new graveyard. But we have no such well-defined, concrete tasks. Because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so far away and such a small percentage of the population have actually fought in those wars, memorializing them is not going to be straightforward; and to complicate matters further, the fighting isn’t even over in Afghanistan.
The 2005 poem “Ashbah” by Brian Turner, a talented poet who served in the infantry in Iraq in 2003-2004, captures something of the problem we face.
In the poem, the ghosts of American soldiers are alone and cannot find their way home. Even though they are exhausted, they keep trying to find their way home, unsure which way to go. The Iraqi dead are, of course, already home, and they can watch the American soldiers from a safe perch on the rooftops; but as I imagine the scene, the Iraqi dead would just as soon the American dead would figure out how to get home so that they, the Iraqi dead, could have their streets back.
Now obviously this poem is not literally true. The poet did not see the ghosts of dead Americans literally wandering the streets of Balad, and the Iraqi dead were not literally sitting on the rooftops watching them. But there is symbolic truth in this poem.
For me, part of the symbolic truth in the poem lies in the fact that the war dead of Iraq and Afghanistan remain ghostlike and insubstantial to most Americans. The vast majority of us have not seen the body of someone who died in Iraq or Afghanistan. Indeed, I would be willing to bet that the majority of Americans don’t even know someone who died in Iraq or Afghanistan. Although something on the order of six thousand five hundred soldiers have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan [link], this number is tiny compared to the three hundred million people who live in the United States today.
Because so few soldiers have died relative to the total population of the United States, it’s easy for us to spend very little time thinking about the war dead. I don’t want to say that we ignore the war dead; certainly we don’t do that; but we concentrate on other things. Those of us who are politically active might concentrate on advocating for policy changes that will keep us out of another long-term military engagement like Iraq and Afghanistan. Or — and I think this is more likely among us here — those of us who are politically active have turned our attention to problems that seem more pressing, like global climate change or election reform or homelessness in Palo Alto or food security or one of the many ethical and political challenges facing us today. This is not a bad thing: Lord knows, we are faced with a great many pressing problems; and we do the best we can to address those problems, but one person can only do so much. If, for example, you’re going to tackle global climate change, a problem that can be morally and psychologically draining, you may not have much energy left over for other ethical challenges.
We’re doing the best we can to make this world a better place. But most of us have turned out attention away from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as a result, those ghosts of American soldiers that Brian Turner writes about in his poem still wander the streets of Balad by night, still unsure of their way home, still exhausted.
I’m not trying to make you feel guilty about the war dead. I’m not asking you — many of whom work 70 hours a week at your job, take care of your family, volunteer in the community, and work on social justice projects besides — I’m not asking you to do one more thing to make the world a better place. You do enough as it is. But because this is Memorial Day, I would like to remind you of three things we already do that can help memorialize the war dead, and thus help those ghosts of American soldiers find their way home, find rest.
First, as religious people we are not afraid to talk about death and about those who have died. In this, we are quite different from mainstream American society, which prefers to ignore the fact of death. At the beginning of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration carefully enforced a long-standing Pentagon ban on media coverage of the arrival of coffins containing dead soldiers from overseas. This Pentagon ban had been in effect since the First Gulf War, and while some critics accused the Bush administration of using the ban for propaganda purposes, it always seemed to me that the Pentagon and the government were also motivated by a typical American squeamishness when it comes to death, a typical American denial of the reality of death.
But as religious people, we are less likely to deny the reality of death. A central part of what we do as religious people is we celebrate rites of passage, including memorial services for those who have died. Many of us here this morning have been in this room for a memorial service; and when we come here on Sunday mornings, we will always be aware of the dual use of this room. The very nature of our religious community helps us be free of the unhealthy American denial of death. Because we don’t deny the reality of death, we are better able to understand that our actions as a nation have resulted in very real deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By confronting the reality of the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are taking a step towards allowing the ghosts in the poem to find their way home, metaphorically speaking. And when those ghosts of American soldiers leave the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan, then the Iraqi war dead, and the Afghani war dead, can come down from their roof tops.
Second, as religious people we engage in critical patriotism. Let me explain what I mean by “critical patriotism.”
As religious people, we have a strong allegiance to certain moral and ethical principles, and our allegiance to those moral and ethical principles can be stronger than our allegiance to our nation. For example, as Unitarian Universalists we say that one of our ethical principles is that we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all persons. We adopted that particular principle in 1985, but it has roots going back much further than that. That particular ethical principle can trace its roots back to the Golden Rule, a far older ethical principle that states that we shall do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Unitarians and Universalists got the Golden Rule from the ethical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who was reported to have told his followers a form of the Golden Rule some two thousand years ago.
But Jesus did not make up the Golden Rule; he was restating an even older ethical precept that he got from his Jewish upbringing. In the Torah, those Jewish books traditionally supposed to have been written by Moses, in the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18, it states: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The book of Leviticus is at least two thousand five hundred years old, in its present form, though it is made up of even older material; and surely the Golden Rule is among the older material in the book. Suffice it to say that we are the inheritors of a religious tradition that has affirmed the ideal of this ethical precept for thousands of years.
Obviously, then, our ethical tradition can trace its roots back to well before the founding of the United States. In fact, some of us would say that our ethical principles transcend any one people or nation or moment in history. The Golden Rule has been worded differently at different times, and we further know that there are examples of ethical principles in other cultures that sound a good deal like our Golden Rule. All these are specific manifestations of a general transcendent principle; as a religious people, we owe our allegiance to this transcendent, eternally true ethical principle; and as a religious people, we owe a greater allegiance to this transcendent ethical principle than we do to the relatively short-lived American nation.
Our adherence to such transcendent ethical principles leads us to what I’m calling “critical patriotism.” We do owe patriotic feelings towards the United States; but our patriotic feelings will never overpower our allegiance to our higher ethical precepts. Indeed, the opposite is the case: we must critically examine our country’s actions and policies in light of our higher ethical precepts.
Such critical patriotism allows us to look with open eyes on the reasons and motivations behind our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we as Americans are not honest about our motivations for going into Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s going to be difficult for those ghosts of American soldiers in the streets of Balad to be able to come home. Critical patriotism allows us to see that some of the reasons for starting these wars could be ethically justified, and other reasons could not be ethically justified; critical patriotism allows us to decide which reasons for war pass muster with our own transcendent ethical principles, and which reasons for war do not pass muster.
This kind of careful ethical examination of the war, and an attendant acceptance of responsibility as American citizens, is one of the things that we as a religious people do as a matter of course. We take the time to reflect upon, and to sort through the enormously complex ethical arguments surrounding the war. And this kind of ethical reflection, this kind of critical patriotism, is another step we take towards allowing the ghosts in the poem to find rest, to find their way home.
Third — and this is a corollary to the last point — we can affirm that religion is an important moral and ethical counterweight to politics. Political decisions are often made from expediency, and made in a hurry, without time for adequate ethical reflection. At its best, organized religion can serve as a metaphorical place where we can take the time to reflect seriously on the ethical implications of political decisions.
One of the reasons that the ghosts of the American soldiers roam the streets of Balad in the poem is that they have not been memorialized by American society, except in the most superficial way. Of course they have been memorialized by their Army buddies, and of course they have been mourned by their families. But wider American society has done little more than assert “We support our troops.” That last statement does not constitute adequate ethical reflection on the death of American soldiers. But by carefully reflecting on the death of American soldiers — and on the death of Iraqi and Afghani civilians, and on the death of other soldiers, for that matter — by such careful reflection, we can lay the metaphorical ghosts to rest.
We can engage in this ethical reflection through our ongoing participation in the democratic process. Most obviously, you and I can engage in ethical reflection through carefully exercising our right to vote. We have a primary election coming up very soon here in California, and the national election is only a few months away. It is our duty as religious people to carefully study the issues in the election, and then to reflect on the moral and ethical implications of those issues, to consider how our vote can be a moral and ethical response to American policy. Of course any vote is going to be something of a compromise — reality never seems to match our transcendent ethical ideals — but with careful reflection, our participation in the democratic process can have a worthwhile moral and ethical outcome.
Back in May of 1865, the African American community of Charleston, South Carolina, had a fairly straightforward task: to memorialize the Civil War dead by disinterring their bodies from a mass grave into a graveyard that was more in keeping with the respect that was due to them. Our task today, memorializing the dead from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not quite so physical and concrete.
But there are some straightforward things we can do to memorialize our war dead. We can be honest about death, and not try to deny the reality of the war dead. We can affirm our transcendent moral and ethical ideals, and in so doing we can engage in a kind of critical patriotism. And finally we can understand our religious ideals as a moral counterweight to politics, so that when we participate in democracy we will have a moral impact on the country.
These are the things we can do to memorialize the war dead. And so, at last, may the ghosts of American soldiers wandering the streets of Balad at night find their way home once again.
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Keith Griffin begins with a macroeconomic overview. The statistics can only hint at the trauma inflicted on Mongolia by the economic "shock therapy" that started in 1990 and was exacerbated by the dzuds (winter storms) that struck in 1999/2000 and 2000/2001. GDP dropped by over 20% in the first four years before returning almost to where it had been by 2000; per-capita income fared much worse. The decade also saw increases in insecurity and inequality and a decrease in human capital.
Mark D. Brenner considers different measures of poverty. Officially around 30% of the population were poor in 2000, but the figure rises to 50% using more standard metrics and as high as 70% with a basic capabilities analysis. He also looks at inequality, structural changes, and adaptive responses by the poor. He argues for more poverty assistance targeted at lower levels of government, at aimag, soum, and even bag levels.
A second chapter by Keith Griffin describes how shock therapy induced urban-to-rural migration and increased the relative importance of the livestock sector, though at the same time decreasing its productivity in a kind of "pastoral involution". The removal of the negdel cooperatives that had managed pastures, combined with a mandated "free-for-all" commons, has created a range of problems; Griffin suggests leasing fees and pasture rights as a solution.
Takayoshi Kusago surveys employment and productivity in different sectors, covering demographic and geographic variation and the informal sector. He recommends encouragement of small and medium sized industries in agriculture and manufacturing, improving credit for small businesses, public works schemes, decentralised incubation centres for micro-enterprises, and the rehabilitation of schools — backed by a social safety net and some kind of micro-insurance against accidents or illness.
On environmental issues, Amy Ickowitz looks at the distribution of overgrazing and expands on Griffin's analysis of problems with mandated "open access" to pasture. She suggests group land tenure rather than individual titles and fees for access to pasture, water and winter shelters, with the proceeds used to maintain and extend basic infrastructure. She also touches on deforestation, mining and urban pollution.
Two chapters by Terry McKinley address governance issues. The first describes the outcomes and lessons of the six year National Poverty Alleviation Programme started in 1994, which had some successes in building infrastructure in rural areas, but also had problems with positioning within the government. The second looks at the National Development Strategy and problems of coordination between aid donors and the government.
Poverty Reduction in Mongolia is a work of advocacy as well as analysis, which has constrained the authors. Most obviously, there's a reluctance to say anything too harsh about the Mongolian government, the primary target of the policy recommendations. For the general reader, a bigger drawback is the narrow focus on economics, with no attempt at conveying what it's like to be poor in Mongolia. This is a particular problem because of the paucity of information about the country.
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Explore August 28, 1963 with Online Newspapers
Published on Friday, August 26, 2011 - 9:50pm
Hurricane Irene may delay the opening ceremonies of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall, but you can still explore the history of the 1963 march on Washington and the famous "I have a dream" speech in the comfort of your own home using the library's subscription to historic black newspapers.
You'll have to type in your library bar code number to access the content. You will then have access to newspaper accounts from the time, including an early version of Dr. King's speech that was printed in the Chicago Defender on August 31 instead of the speech that was ultimately delivered by Dr. King.
Why is this earlier version significant? The earlier version did not include the words "I have a dream" at all. You can explore this and other news articles by going to our Black Studies Online Research page and clicking on Historic Black Newspapers.
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(This article first appeared in Multinational Monitor and is part of Chapter 3: Chiapas via Alaska: The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries)
A century of mining and decades of clear-cutting have taken their toll on Western Montana’s formerly pristine Blackfoot River. Once a world-class trout stream and the subject of Norman McLean’s classic novel A River Runs Through It, the river has been transformed into a muddy concoction of heavy metals and silt flowing west from the Continental Divide into the Clark Fork River just east of Missoula, Montana.
There are virtually no fish in the river now. The Blackfoot drainage has been so badly denuded by Wall Street robber barons that when Robert Redford came to Montana to produce the recent movie based on McLean’s novel, he chose to film on the Gallatin River instead. In April 1992 American Rivers listed the Blackfoot among the ten most endangered rivers in the United States, noting that the river may not be able to withstand another industry onslaught. It now appears this day of reckoning is just around the bend.
In 1989, while Champion International was busy clear-cutting the lower Blackfoot to feed its newly retooled mill at Bonner, Montana, mining firms began exploring for gold east of Lincoln, Montana – near the headwaters of the river. The two companies, Phelps Dodge and Canyon Resources, formed the Seven-Up Pete Venture, later renamed the McDonald Gold Project. By 1992 it had become apparent that the project site contained 8.2 million ounces of gold. If given the go-ahead, it will be the largest gold mine in North America, and one with potentially dire ecological consequences.
“A century of mining, grazing and logging have all but destroyed [the Blackfoot] river,” says Dan Funsch, outreach director for the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “Now, for a few lousy wedding rings, the McDonald Gold Project wants to finish it off.”
Enter Echo Bay
With gold prices on the rise and mounting opposition from environmentalists and sports enthusiasts, Phelps Dodge Mining Company announced in June 1994 that it will sell its 72% majority share in the McDonald Gold Project for $150 million. Under the proposed deal, Canyon Resources Corporation would increase its share of the mine from 28% to 45% percent. Echo Bay Mining – a notorious Canadian gold mining company – would become majority owner and operator of the McDonald Gold Project.
The McDonald Gold Project will employ cyanide heap leaching to recover the gold. In this process a cyanide solution is sprayed over heaps of extracted ore. Gold settles at the bottom of the solution onto a heap leach pad and the toxic ore is hauled to a waste site. The process became popular in the mid-1970s and has resulted in a gold mining boom in Montana and elsewhere, since it is much cheaper and faster than other methods of gold mining. The environmental consequences are also much more nefarious.
The project plans call for creating an open pit a square mile wide and 1,400 feet deep that would not be reclaimed. As a result, the pit will eventually fill with runoff containing thirty-three different elements, many of which will be highly toxic metals. Since the water table in the area is as high as 300 feet below the surface of the ground, many fear this toxic soup could easily contaminate the area’s drinking water. The mine is located where Landers Fork – an important bull trout spawning stream – and the Blackfoot meet. Any leaks under the leaching pad could dump cyanide into the groundwater supply or into the river itself.
Company representatives deny the cyanide heap leaching process is environmentally harmful. Cheryl Martin – director of investor relations at Canyon Resources Corporation – claims, “We feel that we can build a permittable mine that will not impact the [Blackfoot] river in any way.” Rick Lambert, McDonald Gold Project chief engineer for Phelps Dodge says, “You have to understand the geological situation. Here we have an oxide deposit since there is primarily gold. In Butte where there have been problems with acid water, the deposit is sulfide since it’s mostly copper. Spraying cyanide over gold is like pouring salt into water. The only problems that could occur are if cyanide reacts with other gases.” An Echo Bay Mining representative declined to comment on the mine, stating, “I cannot speak for a mine that we do not own.”
Environmentalists fear other detrimental consequences of the mine. They note with concern that the mining project, which is expected to last 12 years, will produce 400 million tons of cyanide-laden ore waste, which will be piled near Landers Fork close to Highway 200.
Some environmentalists believe the project is actually the first stage of a grand plan by the mining industry. The mining companies will apparently be designing their facilities to accommodate more ore than they intend to extract at the McDonald Gold Project. Geological evidence points to incredible mineral wealth in the entire Upper Blackfoot Valley.
Independent filmmaker and mining industry critic Gene Bernofsky of Missoula thinks Montana may be entering another round of mineral colonization. Bernofsky recently won acclaim for A River Cries, a film that chronicles the Blackfoot’s demise and the proposed mine. He says Montana may be heading toward a heyday for global mining firms comparable to the early 1900s – when the Rockefeller-controlled and viciously anti-union Anaconda Company created what is now the biggest Superfund site in the nation near Missoula, Montana. “Echo Bay aspires to go down in history next to the Anaconda Company. We aspire to keep them out of Montana,” he says.
The Baucus Connection
The McDonald Gold Project covers forty-four square miles of state and private lands. The private land is owned by Sieben Ranch Corporation – the largest sheep ranch in Montana owned since 1896 by the Baucus family. Montana’s Democratic Senator Max Baucus holds between $250,000 and $500,000 in stock in Sieben Ranch. Whether Baucus has a financial interest in the success of the McDonald Gold Project is unclear. Curt Rich – Baucus administrative aide who specializes in natural resources policy – says he knows of no royalties or lease agreements. “Siebens is run by Max’s brother. Max does not get involved in management decisions of the corporation,” says Rich, who failed to follow up on a promise to research the financial agreement between Siebens and the McDonald Gold Project and then contact Multinational Monitor.
Dean Henderson is the author of four books: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries, Das Kartell der Federal Reserve & Stickin’ it to the Matrix. You can subscribe free to his weekly Left Hook column @ www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com
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a combining form meaning “ten,” used in the names of metric units which are ten times the size of the unit denoted by the base word: dekaliter. Also, esp. before a vowel, dek-. Cf. deci-.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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n. The set of things a person has to do in the future. One speaks of the next project to be attacked as having risen to the top of the stack. "I'm afraid I've got real work to do, so this'll have to be pushed way down on my stack." "I haven't done it yet because every time I pop my stack something new gets pushed." If you are interrupted several times in the middle of a conversation, "My stack overflowed" means "I forget what we were talking about." The implication is that more items were pushed onto the stack than could be remembered, so the least recent items were lost. The usual physical example of a stack is to be found in a cafeteria: a pile of plates or trays sitting on a spring in a well, so that when you put one on the top they all sink down, and when you take one off the top the rest spring up a bit. See also push
At MIT, PDL
used to be a more common synonym for stack
in all these contexts, and this may still be true. Everywhere else stack
seems to be the preferred term. Knuth
("The Art of Computer Programming", second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says:
Many people who realized the importance of stacks and queues independently have given other names to these structures: stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages, cellars, nesting stores, piles, last-in-first-out ("LIFO") lists, and even yo-yo lists!
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(noun) Middle English
< Old French
< Latin sententia
‘opinion, decision’, equivalent to sent-
(base of sentīre
‘to feel’) + -entia -ence
; (v.) Middle English:
‘to pass judgment, decide judicially’ < Old French sentencier,
derivative of sentence
A sentence is the largest grammatical unit in language. It communicates a complete thought—an assertion, question, command, or exclamation. In general, assertions and questions—the overwhelming majority of sentences—require a subject and a verb, put together in a way that can stand alone, resulting in what is called an independent clause (see main clause
): He kicked the ball
is a sentence. After he kicked the ball
is not a sentence; instead it is a dependent clause (see subordinate clause
). Even though it has a subject and a verb, it needs to be connected to something in order to complete the assertion: After he kicked the ball, he fell down;
or He fell down after he kicked the ball.
In the case of commands, the subject need not be written because “you” is understood: Go home!
means You go home!
And exclamations clearly express excitement, alarm, anger, or the like with no need for either a subject or a verb: Wow! Gadzooks! Ouch!
In everyday speech we routinely use phrases or clauses that would not make a complete sentence—so-called sentence fragments
—because the conversation or the circumstances make the meaning clear. For example, we might answer a question like “Where did you go?” with “To the store,” or “Why can’t I stay out till midnight?” with “Because I say so,” or “What are you doing?” with “Trying to fix this toaster,” instead of “I went to the store,” “You can't stay out that late because I say so,” or “I am trying to fix this toaster.” In written dialogue sentence fragments are perfectly acceptable. They would generally be regarded as sentences simply because they begin with a capital letter and end with a suitable punctuation mark. But they are not sentences in a strict grammatical sense. And as a rule, sentence fragments are frowned upon in formal or expository writing. They can be useful—indeed, powerful—but in such writing they are effective only if used sparingly, in order to achieve a deliberate special effect: We will not give up fighting for this cause. Not now. Not ever.
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Central Asians are therefore today a variable mix of Caucasoids and Mongoloids, formed over the last few millennia, although the constituent elements are still present and recognizable. The Turkicization of the region was, to a large extent, the result of language shift among Iranian populations (Sakas-Scythians), but not without some genetic contribution from the original Turks who were a Mongoloid people akin to their linguistic Altaic cousins, the Mongols. This Mongoloid component is attenuated westward, reaching its minimum among Anatolian and Balkan Turkish speakers.
With respect to the admixture proportions (figure top left) presented in the paper, I have a couple of quick comments:
- Using modern south Asians as representatives of a source population of Central Asia is problematic, as modern south Asians are admixed, comprised of Caucasoids and indigenous South Asians. While South Asia may have been a population source during remote periods of the Paleolithic, in the more recent post-Neolithic times when Central Asian populations were formed, South Asia was a population sink.
- The use of only a few autosomal markers does give a broad overview of the east-west components in these populations, but it should be noted that the use of few markers tends to overestimate minority ancestral components.
Even with such a small number of markers, it is evident that the separation of groups at the population level is possible, as the correspondence analysis indicates: green/European, red/East Asian, blue/Indo-Iranian from Central Asia, orange/Turkic from Central Asia.
The paper includes STRUCTURE results for K=2 to K=6. Below is the STRUCTURE run for K=6:
While less distinct than what we would get with more markers, the emergence of several clusters of individuals is apparent (from left to right: East Asian, Turkic, Central Asian Iranian, South Asian, West Eurasian, Sub-Saharan). Notice how Hazaras and Uyghurs are islands of the Turkic component in the Central/South Asian cluster, and how some Uzbeks are Iranian-like while others are Turkic-like. I am reminded of an older study which found how mythology was used among some Uzbek groups to create a common ancestry for groups of unrelated origin.
European Journal of Human Genetics , (8 September 2010) | doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.153
In the heartland of Eurasia: the multilocus genetic landscape of Central Asian populations
Located in the Eurasian heartland, Central Asia has played a major role in both the early spread of modern humans out of Africa and the more recent settlements of differentiated populations across Eurasia. A detailed knowledge of the peopling in this vast region would therefore greatly improve our understanding of range expansions, colonizations and recurrent migrations, including the impact of the historical expansion of eastern nomadic groups that occurred in Central Asia. However, despite its presumable importance, little is known about the level and the distribution of genetic variation in this region. We genotyped 26 Indo-Iranian- and Turkic-speaking populations, belonging to six different ethnic groups, at 27 autosomal microsatellite loci. The analysis of genetic variation reveals that Central Asian diversity is mainly shaped by linguistic affiliation, with Turkic-speaking populations forming a cluster more closely related to East-Asian populations and Indo-Iranian speakers forming a cluster closer to Western Eurasians. The scattered position of Uzbeks across Turkic- and Indo-Iranian-speaking populations may reflect their origins from the union of different tribes. We propose that the complex genetic landscape of Central Asian populations results from the movements of eastern, Turkic-speaking groups during historical times, into a long-lasting group of settled populations, which may be represented nowadays by Tajiks and Turkmen. Contrary to what is generally thought, our results suggest that the recurrent expansions of eastern nomadic groups did not result in the complete replacement of local populations, but rather into partial admixture.
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Hanukkah begins this year on December 1st, at sundown. Be honest. When I say “Hanukkah,” the first thing you think of is the Adam Sandler song, talking about “eight crazy nights.” If you are a little more connected to Jewish culture, you may also think about a dreidel or potato latkes (pancakes). While it’s commonly called the “Festival of Lights,” a better translation is “Dedication.” Being Jewish (circumcised at 8 days, Bar Mitzvah at age 13) and a Christ-follower (for over 15 years), I’d like to give a brief explanation of this holiday, and why it’s a meaningful opportunity to help me worship the Lord.
Here’s the story of Hanukkah: In the 2nd century BC, Antiochus Epiphanes gained control over parts of the Middle East, including Judea (Israel). He erected an altar to Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem, and sacrificed pigs there, which are unclean to Jews. The Maccabee family led a revolt, finally liberating Jerusalem and the Temple in 165 BC. Before God could be properly worshiped in the Temple, it had to be cleaned and dedicated. The menorah (lamp) had to burn continuously for 8 days for the purification process. Despite there only being enough olive oil for one day, the oil miraculously lasted for 8 days and nights. That is why Hanukkah is celebrated for 8 nights.
Most people consider this miracle to be the end in itself, and I think the bigger meaning is missed. The point isn’t just that God did a miracle, but that the miracle was the means to allow Him to be properly worshiped. The Temple needed to be purified in order for Yahweh to be worshiped, but it couldn’t be purified unless He worked a miracle. God worked a miracle so that His people could be near Him in worship.
Let us not miss that meaning, as we celebrate the Advent of Jesus Christ, the Light of the world (John 8:12). I don’t think we need merely to reflect on the birth of Jesus, but we need to consider why the Father sent His Son. God performed a miracle (the Incarnation) not as an end to itself, but as a means to allow us to be near Him in worship (through Christ’s redemptive sacrifice for our sins). Jesus did not come only to be marveled at as a baby, but to pour out His life and blood, to open the way for a new covenant with Him.
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Date: September 14, 1942
Creator: [United States.] Army Orientation Course
Description: Front: Text describes action on various war fronts: Russia, Madagascar, New Guinea, North Africa, China, Solomon Islands, Shipping, Galapagos Islands, Western Europe, Iceland. Large world map is keyed to text and illustrates time zones around the world. Inset maps show The push on Port Moresby; The Russian front. Includes photographs: The flag goes up, Marine bombers take off, Badly damged hangar, Inspecting a Flying Fortress at Malta, Memorial services for those killed during the Battle of Midway, Business end of Pom-Pom, Catafighter, U.S. Marines toughen up each other. Back: Maps Are Not True For All Purposes. 15 illustrations are accompanied by text describing some of the methods used to represent the world on a two-dimensional surface.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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|Oracle® Fusion Middleware Concepts Guide
11g Release 1 (11.1.1)
Part Number E10103-07
This chapter describes Oracle Fusion Middleware. It includes the following sections:
Middleware is the software that connects software components or enterprise applications. Middleware is the software layer that lies between the operating system and the applications on each side of a distributed computer network (Figure 1-1). Typically, it supports complex, distributed business software applications.
Middleware is the infrastructure which facilitates creation of business applications, and provides core services like concurrency, transactions, threading, messaging, and the SCA framework for service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications. It also provides security and enables high availability functionality to your enterprise.
Middleware includes Web servers, application servers, content management systems, and similar tools that support application development and delivery. It is especially integral to information technology based on Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web services, SOA, Web 2.0 infrastructure, and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)m etc.
Figure 1-1 Middleware Architecture
Due to continued growth and use of network-based applications by businesses, middleware technologies are increasingly important. Companies and organizations are now building enterprisewide information systems by integrating previously independent applications with new software developments. The integration process may involve legacy applications which may be used only with, or through a nonmodifiable interface. In some cases, rewriting the code for a legacy application may be cost-prohibitive.
Increasingly, information systems are composed of a collection of various specialized hardware devices interconnected by a network. Each device performs a function that involves receipt of real time data and remote interaction with other devices of the system. Some examples include computer networks, telecommunication systems, uninterrupted power supply units, and decentralized manufacturing units.
Interaction with the information system may span a wide range of performance. You can interact with Internet applications through a variety of devices, whose characteristics and performance figures span an increasingly wide range. Between a high performance personal computer, a smart telephone, and a personal digital assistant, the variations in bandwidth, local processing power, screen capacity, and the ability to display color pictures, are extremely large.
Hide the distributed nature of the application.An application represents a collection of interconnected parts that are operational and running in distributed locations, out of view.
Hide the heterogeneity of the enterprise. This includes the hardware components used, computer operating systems, and communication protocols.
Provide uniform, standard, high-level interfaces to the application developers and integrators, so that applications can be easily composed, reused, ported, and made to interoperate.
Supply a set of common services to perform various general purpose functions to avoid duplicating efforts, and to facilitate collaboration between applications.
Middleware makes application development easier, by providing common programming abstractions, by masking application heterogeneity and the distribution of the underlying hardware and operating systems, and by hiding low-level programming details.
The function of middleware is to mediate interaction between the parts of an application, or between applications. Therefore, considerations for architectural structure play a central role in middleware design. The architectural design encompasses the organization, overall structure, and communication patterns, both for applications and for the middleware itself.
Besides architectural aspects, the main problems of middleware design pertain to various aspects of distributed systems. Any middleware system relies on a communication layer that allows its different pieces to interoperate. In addition, communication is a function provided by middleware itself to applications, in which the communicating entities may take on different roles such as client server or peer-to- peer. Middleware allows different interaction modes (synchronous invocations, asynchronous message passing, coordination through shared objects) embodied in different patterns.
Therefore, middleware system design faces several challenges:
Middleware systems rely on interception and indirection mechanisms, which induce performance penalties. Adaptable middleware introduces additional indirections, which make the situation even worse.
As applications become more and more interconnected and interdependent, the number of objects, users, and devices tends to increase. This poses the problem of the scalability of the communication and object management algorithms, and increases the complexity of administration. The availability, reliability, concurrency, security, and performance of applications may also be an issue.
Widespread computing is a vision of the near future, in which an increasing number of devices embedded in various physical objects participate in a global information network. Mobility and dynamic reconfiguration will be dominant features, requiring permanent adaptation of the applications.
Managing large applications that are heterogeneous, widely distributed, and in permanent evolution raises many questions, such as consistent observation, security, trade-offs between autonomy and interdependence for the different subsystems, and definition and implementation of resource management policies.
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among diverse interacting software applications, enabling organizations to take advantage of existing investments in applications and systems. SOA facilitates the development of modular business services that can be easily integrated and reused, thus creating a flexible and adaptable infrastructure. Using a SOA approach, an organization can focus more resources and budget on innovation and on delivering new business services. Systems that can successfully use SOA can minimize the disruption of planned or unplanned outages in an enterprise.
Some of the advantages of using SOA are:
Reduction in development time and cost: SOA services are easily reused and can be rapidly assembled into new, composite applications.
Lower maintenance cost: Reusable services reduce the number and internal complexity of enterprise services.
High-quality services: Increased service reuse creates high-quality services through multiple testing cycles from different service consumers.
Lower integration costs: Standardized services know how to work together, enabling disparate applications to quickly and easily connect.
Reduce risk: Fewer, reusable services provide greater control over corporate and IT governance policies, and reduce the overall compliance risk to an enterprise.
How does SOA achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents? It does so by employing two architectural constraints:
A small set of simple and widespread interfaces to all participating software agents. Only generic semantics are encoded at the interfaces. The interfaces are universally available for all providers and consumers.
Descriptive messages constrained by an extensible schema delivered through the interfaces. No, or only minimal, system activity is prescribed by messages. A schema limits the vocabulary and structure of messages. An extensible schema allows new versions of services to be introduced without breaking existing services.
Oracle Fusion Middleware offers solutions to and support for complex, distributed business software applications. It includes Web servers, application servers, content management systems, and similar tools that support application development and delivery.
Oracle Fusion Middleware is a collection of standards-based software products that includes a range of tools and services: from a Java Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE) compliant environment, and developer tools, to integration services, business intelligence, collaboration, and content management. Oracle Fusion Middleware offers complete support for development, deployment, and management.
Figure 1-2 provides an overview of the Oracle Fusion Middleware solution.
Figure 1-2 Oracle Fusion Middleware Solution Overview
Oracle Fusion Middleware offers the following solutions through its middleware design:
Development Tools: A unified SOA development tool and framework. An integrated, but modular, set of development tools to build complete applications, rather than using lots of specialized tools. The design tool includes a single design environment for user interface, business logic, service composition, business process or workflow, business rules, and business intelligence. The design tool enables simplified design and debugging, and to improve productivity. Includes Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle TopLink, Oracle Application Development Framework, and Oracle Eclipse.
User Interaction: A single, end-user environment that enable access to enterprise applications, business processes, business intelligence and to share information with each other. This end user environment is multi-channel allowing it to be accessed from a variety of different clients (mobile clients, desktop clients, Voice-over IP (VOIP) clients). Includes Oracle WebCenter Framework and Oracle Portal.
Business Intelligence: A suite of business intelligence tools from extract, transform, and load to integrate data into warehouses; query, analysis, and reporting tools for decision support; scorecards to compare how the business is doing against key performance indicators; and alerting to drive notifications to users about problems in the business software. Includes Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer, Oracle Reports, Oracle Forms Services, and Oracle Portal.
Content Management: A repository within which to manage documents, digital assets, scanned images and other forms of content; to integrate this content with a company's enterprise applications, Web sites, and business processes.
SOA: A means of using existing investments in applications and systems most efficiently to be able to focus more resources and budget on innovation and on delivering new business services. Includes Oracle Service Bus, Oracle Complex Event Processing, Oracle Business Rules, Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, Oracle B2B, Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle Service Registry, Oracle User Messaging Service, Human Workflow, Oracle Mediator.
Application Server: A standards-based Java EE application server to run the enterprise applications and provide the Web services infrastructure for interoperability.
Integration and Business Process Management (BPM): A standards-based service bus to connect applications with each other and with legacy systems using messaging; a BPM or workflow engine to connect the application into a business process or workflow; and business activity monitoring and optimize business processes in real time.
Security and Identity Management: Lower cost of security administration across multiple applications and systems in an enterprise, by centralizing how users are created and provisioned, their identities, and roles and by enabling them to have single sign-on access. Includes Oracle Internet Directory, Oracle Virtual Directory, Oracle Directory Integration Platform, Oracle Identity Federation.
Enterprise Management: Lower cost of operations and administration by running on a grid architecture with grouping, backup, and other high availability technologies, and integrating with Oracle Enterprise Manager for systems management. Includes Fusion Middleware Control, Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool, Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server, Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control.
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Surgery is the initial procedure in the treatment of many cancers. Surgery and other invasive procedures work by removing cancerous tissues.
Surgical removal of the kidney offers the best option for a cure for patients able to physically tolerate the procedure. Surgery also may be used to remove cancerous lesions that have spread to other organs. This is usually done to control symptoms and not to cure the disease.
Nephrectomy is the removal of the whole kidney. Doctors may be able to remove part of the affected kidney (partial nephrectomy) in certain cases, such as:
- The tumor is small.
- The cancer is in both kidneys.
- You have only one functioning kidney.
Nephrectomy is recommended for Stage I and II kidney cancer. Nephrectomy plus removal of regional lymph nodes is common for Stage III. If the cancer has spread to the renal vein, the doctor may remove the tumor and repair the vein.
The doctor may recommend an arterial embolization prior to surgery to decrease blood flow to the affected kidney. For this procedure, a catheter is inserted through the groin and threaded up to the renal artery. The doctor injects a substance into the artery to block blood flow.
The surgeon makes an incision under the ribs or in the back just behind the kidney. Then the surgeon removes the whole malignant kidney (radical nephrectomy) or a portion of the cancerous kidney (partial nephrectomy). He or she may also remove the adrenal gland; one adrenal gland sits above each kidney. Nearby lymph nodes may also be taken out. The incision is closed with stitches or staples, and bandaged to prevent infection.
Generally, this has been an open procedure. But the laparoscopic approach has become the preferred method to treat kidney cancer if suitable. With this method, small incisions are made in the skin through which a camera, light source, and surgical instruments are inserted. The surgeon performs the surgery using these tools, without cutting open the abdomen or back. With the laparoscopic approach you should have a faster recovery and spend only a couple of days in the hospital. Open surgery is still performed, usually for larger tumors that require more extensive surgery. You will stay in the hospital for four to seven days.
Nephrectomy is very successful. It has a five-year survival rate of 94% for patients with Stage I disease. For Stage II, it offers a five-year survival rate of 79%. The survival rate varies for Stage III, depending on where and how extensively the cancer has spread.
- Damage to other internal organs or blood vessels during the procedure
- Reaction to anesthesia
- Collection of air or gases in the lung cavity (pneumothorax)
- Kidney failure, if the remaining kidney does not function well
After surgery, you may need certain interventions:
- Urinary catheter—A tube is passed through the urethra into the bladder to measure urine output and avoid the need to urinate in the bathroom.
- Medications—You may be given antibiotics, pain medication, or antinausea drugs after surgery.
- Coughing and deep breathing exercises—Your nurse or respiratory therapist will show you how to do these exercises, which are usually done 3-4 times daily to help keep your lungs clear.
In the hospital and after you leave:
- Get out of bed often and sit in a chair. Increase your activity as much as tolerated.
- Stay well hydrated.
- Avoid environments and people that expose you to germs, smoke, or chemical irritants.
- Difficulty breathing
- Stitches or staples come apart
- Bandage becomes soaked with blood
- Coughing up mucus that is yellow, green, or bloody
- Signs of infection, including fever and chills
- Redness, swelling, increasing pain, excessive bleeding, or discharge at the incision site
- Cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, or severe nausea or vomiting
- Reviewer: Mohei Abouzied, MD
- Review Date: 09/2012 -
- Update Date: 00/93/2012 -
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A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance. Though meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems.
Patch management is the process of using a strategy and plan of what patches should be applied to which systems at a specified time.
Programmers publish and apply patches in various forms. Because proprietary software authors withhold their source code, their patches are distributed as binary executables instead of source. This type of patch modifies the program executable. The program the user actually runs, either by modifying the binary file to include the fixes or by completely replacing it.
Patches can also circulate in the form of source code modifications. In these cases, the patches consist of textual differences between two source code files. These types of patches commonly come out of open source projects. In these cases, developers expect users to compile the new or changed files themselves.link to this page:
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The Right Diet Can Be More Enjoyable By Using These Strategies
There is certainly significantly more to nutrition than eating your fruits and vegetables or acquiring the right level of servings of dairy. It is extremely essential and can boost your high quality of life. Finding the proper strategy for you is important for your success. It only takes a little research to produce a distinction inside your wellness. Are you currently able to do what it takes? These tips will help you find out in the event you do.
Fish is often championed by nutritionalists as a wholesome option to other meats. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are excellent for your heart. There are hundreds of distinct types of fish that will be eaten, so choose several of which you prefer the taste in the most and have them for dinner each so usually.
Cutting several items out of your diet plan will do wonders for your nutrition. Stay away from sugar as it could be damaging for your wellness. Second, “white” foods, such as bread and rice supply less nutritional value than their brown counterparts. Saturated fats and trans fats usually are not good for your cardiovascular program, wholesome fats are a significantly much better option.
Garlic can be a helpful food for stopping illnesses. It’s 1 of nature’s greatest antibiotics. You’ll be able to use it for a seasoning a meal also. It could also be roasted within the oven and eaten on its personal with some toast.
The greatest mistake you are able to make is assuming that you are eating wholesome. For example, seven-grain bread sounds wholesome on the package, however the label will reveal that this bread just isn’t produced from whole-grain. Rather than picking your food based on a slogan on the package, you ought to base your option on the ingredients listed on the label.
There are several affordable products that you could use to help keep in shape while at home. With these tools your body can advantage, as it is easier that will help you help your self get into shape.
To eat much better without having even knowing it, add wholesome ingredients to traditionally unhealthy foods. This is particularly helpful in the event you have children or picky eaters, but sneaking nutritious ingredients into your personal foods functions beautifully, also. Examples of this method contain adding a 1/2 cup of white beans for your subsequent loaf of bread or batch of cookies. You may have everybody eating much better without having them knowing.
Try going a brief time frame without having consuming grains. Humans advantage greatly from other food types such as vegetables and meat. Grains were not introduced into peoples diets till later, because they have not been about provided that other foods we normally consume. Cutting grains from your diet plan may help you to really feel healthier.
Look more closely if a food is “low fat” or “trans fat-free.” Some low-fat foods compensate for their lower fat content with high levels of added sugar. Check the food labels meticulously on these items.
The initial step in increasing your nutrition level is understanding about proper nutrition. If you don’t, you might eat improperly, and waste your time. You need to understand at the very least the fundamentals in the science of nutrition to be able to boost your diet plan.
This tip will preserve you away from losing your motivation, and it’ll be less most likely which you will go for some thing unhealthy. Getting many different meal choices is necessary, so you don’t turn out to be bored with your diet plan and give up altogether.
Eating many different meat-based protein and plant-based protein is important to be able to have a balanced diet plan. You can find protein from several other sources. You’ll be able to consume nuts, soy, tofu, or beans. These food items are excellent simply because you are able to use them as primary dishes or as an additive to others. Preserve your diet plan intriguing by switching up the types of proteins which you use.
Now you understand why you have to adjust and how essential it really is. You may begin seeing changes now in the event you make good use of these tips.
A majority of these health tips could be very helpful with several health problems, which includes kidney stones. If you among those folks who are afflicted by kidney stones and you’re searching for a natural solution to eliminate kidney stones safely then take a look at the following webpage on Kidney Stone Removal Report and read about a very popular guide to dissolve kidney stones the natural way.
You can also find more on treatments for kidney stones at this post.
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We form little groups of kids of approximately the same age. They gather up in different homes each day (the days and hours are agreed before they start). The objective is to play and learn at the same time with the help of one or two teachers.
- Educational proposal
A group of kids gather up with a teacher and get to do activities like they would do in a kindergarten, but at home by learning through the act of playing. The idea is for them to get used to what they will be doing at the actual kindergarten, for them to have their first experiences with the materials and activities. We give a lot of importance on the forming of a social environment different from their family where they start to learn about sharing and other important activities.
- Ludic proposal
A group of kids who already attend kindergarten are reunited with the objective of playing and socializing with other kids. The intention is to perform activities that they are already doing in the kindergarten in order to strengthen skills. Learning is always the objective but without setting aside the act of playing.
We form little groups of kids of an average age and reunite them in different homes of each of them, during vacations (summer and winter) with the objective of playing. There is always a teacher or two around. We count with special activities for indoors or outdoors, including games with water and without the necessity of a pool.
We gather up kids of an average age and reunite them in different homes of each of them that rotate each day with the help of one or two teachers, weekly with the objective of playing or learning about a specific activity.
- Mobile Circus and Music
The proposal is a fun world with colors, music, laughter and games; a space for playing clown, acrobats or forming bands of music. They can dance, jump, sing, shout, and do acrobatics, juggling, play instruments and much other stuff.
- Mobile Little Chefs
This is a fun way to learn about the kitchen, it includes: apron, ingredients, utensils, and didactic material for each participant. The kids take with them everything they prepared on material provided by us.
- Theater and Music Comedy Workshop
Theater classes with a little bit of singing lessons for them to have fun acting among friends.
- Art Workshop
With an art teacher in charge they can express their artistic skills by drawing and painting.
- Mobile Language Workshop
We organize little groups of kids of an average age and offer them the opportunity of stimulating their language skills in English and Italian throughout the different games.
- Playing workshop – Mother Stimulation – Babies
We invite mothers and their babies to share their first social experience with other pairs. The idea is to stimulate their kids through the act of playing. We work with mother/baby bond encouraging their interaction and sharing the experience with other moms that are at the same place.
It is the English program of music and movement most respected in the world for more than 25 years. More than 5,000 authorized educators use these workouts with babies and children of up to 7 years old in more than 50 countries. In Dulces Nanas we offer you to form a little Kindermusik group in your house for you and your kid. It is a space for you to share special and magic moments that occur through music, movement, petting, stories, sounds, etc. By this you will help your child to discover the world in different ways. In these classes you will be able to stimulate your child’s learning skills throughout songs, vocal games, object exploration and musical instruments, creative movement, stories, and English in a warm and familiar environment. Classes are one hour a week. Each can come with a companion (mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, nanny, etc.)
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The Yi archives refer to books and documents written in Yi language, the native language of an ethnic group located in Southwest China and parts of Southeast Asia. As a writing tradition in the peripheral area, Yi archives have been historically ignored and annihilated by the mainstream Han culture. Social revolutions in the past half century brought large-scale deconstruction of both the archives and the Yi language. The tiny survival collections in Yunnan, either public or private, are now facing further serious preservation conditions due to lack of necessary fund and effective means. Preservation of the Yi archives in Yunnan before they disappear forever is the focus of this project.
The unsurpassable significance of the Yi archives for the study of Yi people and Yi culture exists in that they are the only available written resource in the native Yi language, in addition to their extraordinary richness in contents. The Yi language, first appearing in the 14th century, had been actively spoken and written among aboriginal people until the sharply social changes in the middle 20th century. All of the Yi archives are written, kept and disseminated by bimo, the ritual priests, scribes and intellectuals in the traditional Yi society. The Yi archives are therefore also referred to as the Bimo Sutra. Since they cover epic, chronology, philosophy, politics, history, ritual, geography, calendar, divination, literature, music and more, the archives are regarded as the encyclopaedia of Yi people.
The Yi archives gradually became endangered in the 20th century and the deconstruction process has even accelerated in past decades. First of all, the Yi language itself has become an endangered or extinct language since the mid 20th century, resulted from increasingly contacts with Chinese during the modernization process. Most of Yi people have adopted Chinese as their first or the only language. The native Yi language is preserved only in distant or isolated locations. Secondly, as the writer, keeper and educator, bimo were deprived of the rights of writing and teaching due to ideological conflicts, and the native knowledge tradition of Yi people was terminated in the 1960s and 1970s. The Yi archives developed over six centuries was brought to an end. Although bimo have been partly allowed to restore their religious activities since the 1980s, the writing tradition has never been restored. Third, the physical characteristics of books and documents as woodblock printing or handwriting on rice paper determines that their life cycle is very short, especially when the preservation condition is far from ideal.
Due to neglect, poverty and incapability in archival preservation of the native Yi people, and ignorance and annihilation by zealous revolutionists, the size of the Yi archives shrank dramatically in the middle and late 20th century. A recent preliminary investigation shows that only about 4,000 volumes survive in the world.
Of the surviving Yi archives, the largest public collection and most of private collections are preserved in Yunnan, especially in the Chuxiong Autonomous Prefecture of Yi People. Besides 1,400 volumes in public collections formed since the 1980s, another 900 volumes are estimated to be held by private parties, especially by descendants of bimo families. However, in regards to both preservation and readiness for academic purpose, the Yi archives in Yunnan need the most urgent attention. There hasn't been any positive treatment applied to prevent the aging and mildew process, nor has any image conversion work been done, nor has any material been published before. Our pilot investigation shows that only around 40 volumes in the public collection are mounted, and most books are even unaffordable to be stored in desirable spaces. Written on perishable rice paper in fading mineral pigment, Yi documents will be illegible in several years' time if no preservative action is taken immediately. Neglect resulting from poverty will lead to fatal disaster to the archives.
In the proposed project, the two major tasks are: (1) a thorough registration of Yi archival collections before they disappear silently, and (2) the digitisation and indexing of all available public and private archives. In the former, since the private collections are not as stable as the public, the project will pay extra attentions to the private collections, in order to keep an updated and complete record of the available Yi archives. The Institute of Studies on Yi Culture, the owner of the largest Yi archives in the world, has eagerly expressed the willingness to join the project. The Bureau of Cultural Affairs is also providing access to small public collections of Yi archives in Wuding, Shuangbai and other counties. Relocation is not included in this stage, but will be pursued later by searching matching funds from the local government.
This project has fully achieved its stated objectives:
A thorough investigation of endangered Yi archives in Chuxiong, Dali, Kunming, Yuxi and Honghe was undertaken and a detailed field report and preliminary research completed. An interdisciplinary and multimedia Yi archives was produced and the field reports and research monographs are planned to be published in a series on endangered archives supported by Sun Yat-sen University.
The Yi archives include:
The records copied by this project have been catalogued as:
The catalogue is available here.
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by Piter Kehoma Boll
Let’s expand the universe of Friday Fellow by presenting a plant for the first time! And what could be a better choice to start than the famous Grandidier’s Baobab? Belonging to the species Adansonia grandidieri, this tree is one of the trademarks of Madagascar, being the biggest species of this genus found in the island.
Reaching up to 30 m in height and having a massive trunk only branched at the very top, it has a unique look and is found only at southwestern Madagascar. However, despite being so attractive and famous, it is classified as an endangered species by IUCN Red List, with a declining population threatened by agriculture expansion.
This tree is also heavily exploited, having vitamin C-rich fruits which can be consumed fresh and seeds used to extract oil. Its bark can also be used to make ropes and many trees are found with scars due to the extraction of part of the bark.
Having a fibrous trunk, baoabs are able to deal with drought by apparently storaging water inside them. There are no seed dispersors, which can be due to the extiction of the original dispersor by human activities.
Originally occuring close to temporary water bodies in the dry deciduous forest, today many large trees are found in always dry terrains. This probably is due to human impact that changed the local ecosystem, letting it to become drier than it was. Those areas have no or very poor ability to regenerate and probably will never go back to what they were and, once the old trees die, there will be no more baobabs there.
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Baum, D. A. (1995). A Systematic Revision of Adansonia (Bombacaceae) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 82, 440-470 DOI: 10.2307/2399893
Wikipedia. Adamsonia grandidieri. Available online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_grandidieri>. Access on October 02, 2012.
World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. Adansonia grandidieri. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Access on October 02, 2012.
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History of Scotlandville High SchoolJanuary 3, 2013
By Peggy Carter.
This past school year, the students from a class at Scotlandville Magnet High School were assigned the task of writing the history of their school. They soon discovered that there was very little written information about their school. So Pamela Donaldson, a Library Technician who works with the Black Heritage Room at the East Baton Rouge Parish Scotlandville Branch Library, and Elva Jewel Carter (Peggy), the Reference Librarian at Scotlandville Branch Library, decided to research the subject so that we would have some written history about the school. We decided to create an InfoGuide on a useful topic.
We gathered information from a variety of sources: newspapers, newspaper archives, books, and people. It took a long time to get all the information and check for accuracy since the school began in 1952 and changed many times to fit the needs of the community. Scotlandville Magnet High School started as a junior high school, evolving into a junior/senior school, a senior high school, a magnet high school and finally a three-tier school with educational programs for magnet and community students as well as an engineering curriculum.
The final result of our research can be accessed through this The History of Scotlandville High School InfoGuide.
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Current models of global climate change predict warmer temperatures will increase the rate that bacteria and other microbes decompose soil organic matter, a scenario that pumps even more heat-trapping carbon into the atmosphere. But a new study led by a University of Georgia researcher shows that while the rate of decomposition increases for a brief period in response to warmer temperatures, elevated levels of decomposition don’t persist.
“There is about two and a half times more carbon in the soil than there is in the atmosphere, and the concern right now is that a lot of that carbon is going to end up in the atmosphere,” said lead author Mark Bradford, assistant professor in the UGA Odum School of Ecology. “What our finding suggests is that a positive feedback between warming and a loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere is likely to occur but will be less than currently predicted.”
Bradford, whose results appear in the early online edition of the journal Ecology Letters, said the finding helps resolve a long-standing debate about how unseen soil microbes respond to and influence global climate change. Other scientists have noted that the respiration of soil microbes returns to normal after a number of years under heated conditions, but offered competing explanations. Some argued that the microbes consumed so much of the available food under heated conditions that future levels of decomposition were reduced because of food scarcity. Others argued that soil microbes adapted to the changed environment and reduced their respiration accordingly.
Bradford and his team, which included researchers from the University of New Hampshire, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Duke University and Colorado State University, found evidence to support both hypotheses and revealed a third, previously unaccounted for explanation: The abundance of soil microbes decreased under warm conditions.
“It is often said that in a handful of dirt, there are somewhere around 10,000 species and millions of individual bacteria and fungi,” said study co-author Matthew Wallenstein, a research scientist at Colorado State University. “Our findings add to the understanding of how complex these systems are and the role they play in feedbacks associated with climate change.”
The researchers studied soil microbes at Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, the site of a soil warming experiment that began in 1991. Scientists took soil samples from two plots, one in which buried cables heat the soil to five degrees Celsius above the ambient soil temperature (a condition that is expected to occur around 2100) and a control condition in which cables are buried but not producing heat.
In the first set of experiments, the scientists compared microbial respiration in the two groups and found lower rates of decomposition in the heated plots. This finding supported the idea that respiration decreases after a few years of warming, but didn’t explain whether the cause was substrate depletion in the warmer soils or adaptation by the microbes.
In the next set of experiments, they added the simple sugar sucrose to both sets of soils to alleviate any food limitation for the microbes. They found that microbes from both conditions increased their respiration, but that the increase was greater in the unheated control soils than in the heated soils. “That finding told us that substrate depletion played a role,” Bradford said, “but it also told us that there were other factors involved.”
The researchers then measured microbial biomass and found that there were fewer microbes in the heated soils. To test whether thermal adaptation occurred, they measured respiration while keeping temperature constant. They found that respiration rates were indeed lower in the heated versus the control soils, even when adjusting for microbial biomass.
Wallenstein pointed out that the study is among the first to demonstrate that microbes, like many plants and animals, can adapt relatively quickly to changes in climate. “This research presents a new challenge to scientists trying to predict effects of climate change on forest ecosystems because it shows that these soil microbial communities are very dynamic,” Wallenstein said. “We cannot simply extrapolate from the short-term responses of soil microbes to climate change, since they may adapt over the longer-term.”
Bradford notes that there is still much to be learned about how soil microbes respond to global warming. His team is currently working to understand whether the reduced microbial respiration in heated soils is caused by the adaptation of individual microbes, by shifts in species composition or a combination of the two factors. He warns against minimizing the role of soil microbes in global warming, even though his findings suggest that current models overstate their contribution.
“Although our results suggest that the impact of soil microbes on global warming will be less than is currently predicted,” Bradford said, “even a small change in atmospheric carbon is going to alter the way our world works and how our ecosystems function.”
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Watch the miraculous journey of infant sea turtles as these tiny animals run the gauntlet of predators and harsh conditions. Then, in numbers, see how human behavior has made their tough lives even more challenging.
Discover what makes a sea turtle so wonderfully adapted for the marine environment, gain a greater appreciation for the challenges they face, follow efforts to rescue and protect sea turtles both domestically and internationally, and uncover what you can do to help celebrate and preserve these amazing marine animals as you explore Saving a Species: Sea Turtles. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL084C71BC9EC2EA8F
Looking for a rich source of sea turtle information? Look no further than SeaWorld’s Sea Turtle InfoBook! Covering topics such as adaptations for a marine environment, habitat and distribution, diet and feeding habits, conservation issues, and more, this resource will prove a useful and interesting tool. (And if you’re looking for even more, there are a variety of topic-related classroom resources also available on the site.) http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/sea-turtle/index.htm
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Office of Protected Resources is responsible for sea turtle management in U.S. waters. They maintain a useful online resource with species, conservation, and management references. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/
Offering stunning images of sea turtles and accompanying natural history briefs, National Geographic offers a beautiful and intriguing species resource. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/sea-turtles/
Have a question about sea turtles? So do scientists! See what mysteries are of foremost interest to researchers as they are trying to better understand these ancient and imperiled species. http://iucn-mtsg.org/about-turtles/key-unsolved-mysteries/
Scientists, policy makers, industry leaders, and citizens are actively seeking ways for humankind to move into a dramatically more balanced relationship with the ocean. Sylvia Earle – renowned ocean explorer – is one of the most important voices in this endeavor. Personally dedicated to globally growing meaningful commitments to ocean stewardship, she seeks to inspire and engage others to come together now so that we might make a difference for our planet’s blue heart.
David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a color-shifting cuttlefish, a perfectly camouflaged octopus, and a Times Square's worth of neon light displays from fish that live in the blackest depths of the ocean. http://www.ted.com/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html
Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mind-bending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, and even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone? http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/robert_ballard_on_exploring_the_oceans.html
SeaWorld is a powerful and dynamic force working to connect and inspire on behalf of marine life and marine environments. In addition to its own direct efforts, SeaWorld partners with and supports organizations around the world that are actively exploring, protecting, caring for, and inspiring on behalf of our One Ocean and the countless precious forms of life which depend on it. Find out more about what SeaWorld and its partners are doing on behalf of marine life (sea turtles included!) and how you might join in the effort. http://www.seaworldcares.com/
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(CookingLight.com) -- Some nutrition myths bounce around on crazy e-mail chain letters and pop up on goofy evening news reports. Others fuel the sale of rip-off diet books. Some are so accepted they seem hardwired into our brains. Take deep-fried foods, for example. They're universally bad for you, right? Well, no.
When we challenged ourselves to explore whether fried foods could be made healthy, we discovered that, when done properly, fried foods don't have to be forever banished from a healthy diet.
The exercise inspired us to take on some other ingrained nutrition misconceptions. We talked with leading nutrition researchers, chefs, and food scientists and did some sleuthing of our own to debunk 10 myths so you can enjoy many once-forbidden foods without that old familiar twinge of guilt.
Myth 1. Added sugar is always bad for you.
Truth: Use the sweet stuff to ensure that sugar calories are far from "empty" calories.
Sugar is essential in the kitchen. Consider all that it does for baking, creating a tender cake crumb and ensuring crisp cookies. Then there's its role in creating airy meringue or soft-textured ice cream.
Keep in mind that other sweeteners like "natural" honey are basically refined sugar anyway and they are all metabolized by your body the same way, as 4 calories per gram. Sugar also balances the flavors in healthy foods that might not taste so great on their own. Don't go overboard, of course. Most health experts suggest that added sugar supply no more than 10 percent of your total calories -- about 200 in a 2,000-calorie diet.
Good news: A little sugar can go a long way.
Adding a wee bit of sugar to balance a too-tart tomato sauce is a good thing; so is a teaspoon of honey on a tart grapefruit half or in plain yogurt. "Add a little bit of sugar to help boost your intake of nutrient-rich foods by making them tastier," says Jackie Newgent, author of the All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook.
In this refreshing palate cleansing sorbet, sugar tames the tartness of grapefruit juice. And with just two ingredients, it could not be simpler to prepare. A serving delivers about two-thirds of your RDA for vitamin C, and only 145 calories.
Myth 2. Eating eggs raises your cholesterol levels.
Truth: Dietary cholesterol found in eggs has little to do with the amount of cholesterol in your body.
The confusion can be boiled down to semantics: The same word, "cholesterol," is used to describe two different things. Dietary cholesterol the fat-like molecules in animal-based foods like eggs doesn't greatly affect the amount of cholesterol circulating in your bloodstream. Your body makes its own cholesterol, so it doesn't need much of the kind you eat. Instead, what fuels your body's cholesterol-making machine is certain saturated and trans fats. Eggs contain relatively small amounts of saturated fat. One large egg contains about 1.5 grams saturated fat, a fraction of the amount in the tablespoon of butter many cooks use to cook that egg in. So, cutting eggs out of your diet is a bad idea; they're a rich source of 13 vitamins and minerals.
Good news: Eggs of all kinds are fine.
The kind of cholesterol found in eggs doesn't affect the cholesterol in your blood, so go ahead and enjoy eggs for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, guilt-free. In healthy people, "the research with eggs has never shown any link of egg consumption with blood lipids or with risk of heart disease," says Don Layman, professor emeritus in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Make this Mexican scrambled egg dish for dinner, brunch, or for a hearty breakfast. Leave all the seeds in the jalapeño if you want a spicier kick, adjust the hot pepper sauce to taste, and throw in your favorite add-ins to create a satisfying meal for four.
Myth 3: All saturated fats raise blood cholesterol.
Truth: New research shows that some saturated fats don't.
Just when we'd all gotten comfortable with the idea that there are good-for-you mono- and polyunsaturated fats (like those found in olive oil and walnuts), along comes new research calling into question the one principle most health professionals thought was sacrosanct: All saturated fat is bad.
Researchers have long known that there are many kinds of saturated fats, and they are handled differently by the body when consumed. Stearic acid, a type of saturated fat found naturally in cocoa, dairy products, meats, and poultry, as well as palm and coconut oils, does not raise harmful LDL cholesterol but boosts beneficial HDL cholesterol levels.
Good news: Saturated fat may be better than once thought.
Eating foods like coconut and chocolate that contain stearic acid, an HDL-cholesterol booster that may eventually be called the "good" saturated fat, is healthier than once thought. This is not a license to eat freely of anything containing stearic acid, though, because foods rich in any type of fat tend to be dense in calories, as well.
Given that both chocolate and coconut are not as "bad" as once thought, and given that they taste mighty good together, we baked up a batch of toasty, chocolaty treats to celebrate. Like all sweets with few other nutrients, though, they are treats perfectly healthy every once in a while.
Myth 4: The only heart-friendly alcohol is red wine.
Truth: Beer, wine, and liquors all confer the same health benefits.
The so-called French Paradox elevated red wine to health-food status when researchers thought it was the antioxidants in the drink that protected the foie gras- and cheese-loving French from heart disease.
More recent research, however, has shown that antioxidants aren't the answer after all. Alcohol, the ethanol itself, raises levels of protective HDL, or good cholesterol, which help protect against plaque buildup in the arteries and reduce clotting factors that contribute to heart attack and stroke, according to Eric Rimm, associate professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health at Harvard University. Any kind of beverage that contains alcohol, when consumed in moderation (and that means one to two drinks a day), helps reduce heart disease risk.
Myth 5: Adding salt to the pot adds sodium to the food.
Truth: Salt added to boiling water may actually make vegetables more nutritious.
Public health messages encouraging us to shake our salt-in-everything habits are, in general, good; sodium is a potential problem even for non-hypertensive people. But it's easy to overlook how sodium can actually help in recipes.
"Salt in the cooking water reduces the leaching of nutrients from vegetables into the water," says Harold McGee, author of On Food & Cooking. That means your blanched broccoli, green beans, or asparagus likely retains more nutrients. "It also speeds up the cooking process so you don't lose as many nutrients from overcooking." McGee recommends using about 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of water. The amount of sodium absorbed by the food is minuscule.
Myth 6: Fried foods are always too fatty.
Truth: Healthy deep-fried food is not an oxymoron.
Here's how frying works: When food is exposed to hot oil, the moisture inside boils and pushes to the surface and then out into the oil. As moisture leaves, it creates a barrier, minimizing oil absorption when the frying is done right. Meanwhile, the little oil that does penetrate the food's surface forms a crisp, tasty crust.
To keep foods from soaking up oil, fry according to recipe instructions. For most foods, 375°F is optimal. Oil temperatures that are too low will increase fat absorption. When we added tempura-coated vegetables to cooler-than-optimal oil, the result was greasy and inedible -- they absorbed more than 1 cup of oil instead of 1/3 cup. So, watch the oil temperature like a hawk using a candy/fry thermometer, and drain cooked foods on a paper towel for a minute or two before diving in.
Good news: You can have fried catfish and hush puppies, too.
Keep in mind that we're not giving fast-food fried chicken dinners with French fries a passing grade. Such a meal contains an entire day's worth of calories and sodium, thanks to large portion sizes, excessive breading, and globs of sauces.
But as an occasional treat, home-fried foods have a place in a healthy diet. Use in moderation by pairing with a sensible side or salad. Always choose a healthy oil that's low in saturated fat -- such as peanut, soybean, and canola oils -- and follow our step-by-step techniques to frying basics to keep calories and fat as low as possible. In the hands of a careful home cook, a delicately breaded and fried catfish fillet with a few hush puppies can be a perfectly reasonable and delicious dinner.
Myth 7: The more fiber you eat, the better.
Truth: Not all fibers are equally beneficial. Consider the source.
Yogurt doesn't naturally come with fiber, yet the grocery aisles now boast fiber-supplemented yogurt, along with cereals, energy bars, even water. What's the deal?
Fiber is a fad-food component right now, and manufacturers are isolating specific types of fiber and adding them to packaged foods to take advantage. But the science isn't entirely clear yet: Just as we're learning more about different types of fat, research is showing how complex fiber is as well.
We now know that different fibers have different functions (wheat bran helps move foods along; oat bran lowers cholesterol; inulin supports healthy gut bacteria). Some experts are skeptical that the so-called faux-fiber foods offer the same beneficial effect as naturally fiber-rich ones like whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes.
Good news: Fiber-rich whole foods satisfy hunger.
While it's true that only half of us eat the fiber we need for good health, eating processed foods with added fiber doesn't get us off the hook. Fact is, most processed foods lack a bevy of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Eating fiber-rich whole foods is the best way to gain this essential component of you diet.
In this recipe, whole-grain wheat berries are chewy, mild, and packed with fiber. Dressing the hot wheat berries in a homemade spicy-sweet vinaigrette and letting stand for 20 minutes infuses them with intense flavor. And more good news: This fiber- and protein-rich salad will curb hunger pains, something packaged foods can't always deliver on.
Myth 8: You should always remove chicken skin before eating.
Truth: You can enjoy a skin-on chicken breast without blowing your sat-fat budget.
Half the pleasure of eating roast chicken comes from the gloriously crisp, brown skin that seems to melt in your mouth. Yet the skinless, boneless chicken breast -- one of the more boring protein sources on Earth -- became the health-conscious cook's gold standard somewhere along the way. Fortunately, the long-standing command to strip poultry of its skin before eating doesn't hold up under a nutritional microscope. A 12-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken breast half contains just 2.5 grams of saturated fat and 50 calories more than its similarly portioned skinless counterpart.
Good news: You can splurge with skin-on chicken from time to time.
A chicken breast will always be lean -- skinned or not. What's more, 55 percent of the fat in the chicken skin is monounsaturated -- the heart-healthy kind you want more of, says Amy Myrdal Miller, program director for Strategic Initiatives at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.
So if you and your family are tired of plain skinless, boneless chicken breasts, splurge on a skin-on option like this oregano- and lime-scented dish. A quick pan sauce made from some of the delectable pan drippings will make your regular chicken dinner a lot more interesting and appetizing.
Myth 9: Organic foods are more nutritious than conventional.
If you buy organic because you believe that sustainable farming supports the health of the soil, the work of small farmers, or the well-being of livestock, that's all good. And you may find it more tasty. However, it's not accurate to also promote organic as inherently more nutritious. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine provided the most comprehensive review of organic foods to date.
Their conclusion: No significant nutritional difference exists between conventional and organic crops and livestock. A good radish by any other name is still a radish. There is, of course, still the issue of trace amounts of pesticides or herbicides -- wash conventional produce carefully.
Myth 10: Cooking olive oil destroys its health benefits.
Truth: Even delicate extra-virgin oils can take the heat without sacrificing nutrition.
This one has been kicking around ever since olive oil became a "good" fat: Cook with premium versions and you heat away the healthful properties. It simply isn't true.
First of all, heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fats aren't unfavorably altered by heat. They survive a sauté intact. Now, research is showing that other plant-based compounds -- the elements that likely give olive oils their complex flavor profiles as well as other healthful properties -- can also stand up to standard cooking procedures. They're surprisingly stable, as long as the oil isn't heated past its smoking point, which for extra-virgin olive oil is pretty high, about 405°F.
Good news: Olive oil can take the heat
As long as oil is kept below its smoking point, flavor and nutrition are intact. More important is how you store the oil. Fats and phytonutrients stay stable for up to two years in unopened opaque bottles stored at room temperature and away from light. Heat, light, and air drastically affect stability. Store oil in a room-temp cupboard, and use within six months.
In this simple side dish, extra-virgin olive oil adds great fruity flavor, and sautéing over high heat doesn't burn away the oil's healthful antioxidants.
Enter for a chance to win in our $5,000 Grocery Giveaway
Copyright 2011 Cooking Light magazine. All rights reserved.
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Description from Flora of China
Dissochaeta sect. Diplectria Blume, Flora 14: 501. 1831.
Climbers or scandent shrubs. Stems squamose, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves shortly petiolate; secondary veins 1 or 2 on each side of midvein, margin entire. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, cymose paniculate, sometimes bracteate. Flowers small, 4-merous. Hypanthium tubular-campanulate to campanulate, squamose, glabrous or pubescent, apex truncate or inconspicuous. Petals white, ovate to oblong, glabrous. Stamens 8, whorls unequal in shape and length. Longer stamens with anthers oblong to linear-oblong, base abaxially 2-tuberculate and abaxially spurred or not, apex usually beaked. Shorter stamens abortive; anthers rhomboid-ovate, usually papery, abaxially long caudate-spurred, adaxially 2-setose at base. Ovary inferior, ovate, apex truncate. Style filiform; stigma apiculate. Fruit a berry, subglobular to ovate, apex often with persistent calyx lobes. Seeds numerous, cuneate, small, angular.
Diplectria is often considered as a synonym of Dissochaeta Blume (see Renner et al., Fl. Thailand 7(3): 419-420. 2001). Dissochaeta when including Diplectria has ca. 40 species and a similar geographic distribution.
Between eight and eleven species: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Vietnam; one species in China.
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[Ronald Hutton, History of Pagan Witchcraft, in
Witchcraft and magic in Europe: The twentieth century
ed. Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, p. 54]
1."Witchcraft doesn’t pay for broken windows."
Indeed, Gardner's witches did multiply, and soon Doreen Valiente had formed a new, sister Coven, in 1957. A number of factors contributed to this growth, among them being the publication in 1954 of Gardner's book Witchcraft Today, combined with Gardner's eagerness and talent for courting of public attention.
However, a great deal of the resulting attention paid to Gardner and his Witches was decidedly negative. According to Hutton (continuing on in his essay on The History of Pagan Witchcraft already quoted above), starting in 1955 the popular press began to "run features attacking witchcraft as Satanism .... In 1957 and 1959 the original London coven was denounced sensationally and unscrupulously, putting a considerable strain on its members and fracturing relations between Valiente's group and Gerald Gardner." In response, Gardner came out with (in 1959) The Meaning of Witchcraft: "answering the press attacks and attempting to establish the historical credentials of his religion more firmly by relating it to a string of ancient religious texts and images, and later magical groups." [p. 55]
(It should be noted, at least parenthetically, that, Hutton's crude misdirection notwithstanding, the connections drawn by Gardner, in The Meaning of Witchcraft, between 20th century Wicca and "ancient religious texts and images, and later magical groups," constitutes a seamless continuation of the way Gardner had presented the history and roots of Wicca previously in Witchcraft Today. In fact, Gardner had included in the Foward of that earlier book a prominent reference to the Mystery cult of Isis and the writings of Platonic philosopher Apuleius, who was an initiate in the cults of Isis, Asclepius, and Hermes, and possibly that of other deities as well. Gardner also devoted an entire chapter of Witchcraft Today to "The Witches and the Mysteries", as well as another chapter titled "Out of the Land of Egypt", which is also primarily focused on the Mystery Religions of the ancient world. And there are in addition significant references to the Mysteries in the chapters on "Witch Beliefs" and "Witch Practices".)
The following two passages from the first chapter of The Meaning of Witchcraft give some indication of the kind of hostility that Gardner and "his Witches" were up against:
"I am a member of the Society for Psychical Research, and on the Committee of the Folklore Society; so I wanted to tell of my discovery. But I was met with a determined refusal. 'The Age of Persecution is not over,' they told me; 'give anyone half a chance and the fires will blaze up again.' When I said to one of them, 'Why do you keep all these things so secret still? There’s no persecution nowadays!' I was told, 'Oh, isn’t there? If people knew what I was, every time a child in the village was ill, or somebody’s chickens died, I should get the blame for it. Witchcraft doesn’t pay for broken windows.'
"I can remember as a boy reading in the papers of a woman being burned alive in Southern Ireland as a witch; but I could not believe that there could be any persecution nowadays in England. So, against their better judgment, they agreed to let me write a little about the cult in the form of fictions, an historical novel where a witch says a little of what they believe and of how they were persecuted. This was published in 1949 under the title of High Magic’s Aid.
"In 1951 a very important event occurred. The Government of the day passed the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which repealed and replaced the last remaining Witchcraft Act, under which spiritualists used to be prosecuted in modern times. This Act is, I believe, unique in legally recognising the existence of genuine mediumship and psychic powers.
"I thought that at last common sense and religious freedom had prevailed; but even so, the passage of this Act was highly obnoxious to certain religious bodies which had been preaching against Spiritualism for years and trying to outlaw it as 'the work of Satan,' together with any other societies to which they objected, including Freemasonry and, of course, witchcraft.
"About a year previously, this Museum had been opened, and I had flattered myself that showing what witchcraft really is, an ancient religion, would arouse no hostility in any quarter. I was to find out in due course how wrong I was!
"Any attempt to show witchcraft in anything even remotely resembling a favourable light, or to challenge the old representation of it as something uniformly evil and devilish, or even to present it as a legitimate object of study, can still arouse the most surprising reactions. The virtues of humanism, which Charles Saltman defined as 'sensitivity, intelligence and erudition, together with integrity, curiosity and tolerance,' have still quite a long way to go in their struggle against the mentality which produced the Malleus Maleficarum."
[The Meaning of Witchcraft, pp. 11-12]
"The Old Horned God of the witches is not the Satan of Christianity, and no amount of theological argument will make him so. He is, in fact, the oldest deity known to man, and is depicted in the oldest representation of a divinity which has yet been found, namely the Stone Age painting in the innermost recess of the Caverne des Trois Freres at Ariege. He is the old phallic god of fertility who has come forth from the morning of the world, and who was already of immeasurable antiquity before Egypt and Babylon, let alone before the Christian era. Nor did he perish at the cry that Great Pan was dead. Secretly through the centuries, hidden deeper and deeper as time went on, his worship and that of the naked Moon Goddess, his bride, the Lady of Mystery and Magic and the forbidden joys, continued sometimes among the great ones of the land, sometimes in humble cottages, or on lonely heaths and in the depths of darkling woods, on summer nights when the moon rode high. It does so still.
"From time to time the public have been treated to various highly-coloured and highly unconvincing 'revelations' in the popular Press and elsewhere upon the subject of 'Black Magic', 'Satanism', and similar matters, and occasionally these have been linked with witchcraft. Let me state right away that I personally maintain an attitude of thorough-going scepticism towards these things, and that even if they do exist I do not consider them to have any relation to the survival of the witch cult. Alleged 'confessions', especially where witchcraft is mentioned, bear ample internal evidence of their own meretriciousness, in that they are obviously modelled upon sensational thrillers and reveal no knowledge whatever of genuine witch practices."
[The Meaning of Witchcraft, pp. 21-22]
"That there is no positive evil."
Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique is an Oxford educated anthropologist who is chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at l'Université d'Etat d'Haïti. She is also a highly respected Priestess (Mambo) in the Haitian Vodou religion. In September of 2009 (fully 55 years after Gerald Gardner wrote Witchcraft Today), Beauvoir-Dominique was interviewed in conjunction with an exhibit on Vodou at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden (too see the interview, go here).
The first question asked of Professor Beauvoir-Dominique was "what is Vodou?" A perfectly reasonable question, to which the Mambo gives a very informative answer. However, it does not take long for the other shoe to drop. The second question was "Are there any evil forces in Vodou?" To which Professor Beauvoir-Dominique again gives a very educational answer, part of which is:
"Vodou ... is part of Haitian culture, and in this culture we don't see that there is Evil. We think that the word Evil is constructed, it comes from other places, and is really not ours. The "good" and the "bad" are very Christian notions, very Manichean. We think more in terms of grays, of black becoming white, of white becoming black. Of Yin and Yang. As in the figure of Yin and Yang -- there is a perpetual movement of things. And for us there is no Evil. Things become evil when they are seen through evil eyes."
This chapter on "The Black Mass" is, in fact, the section of The Meaning of Witchcraft in which Gardner introduces Sallustius' Peri Theon kai Kosmou and pronounces it to be "a general statement" of the beliefs of Wiccans (as discussed in Part One of this series). The first portion of Sallustius' Pagan Manifesto that Gardner quotes is the entirety of Section XII: "The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil."
"The Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the world? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but only comes about by absence of light.
"If evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies. It does not exist in any God, for all god is good. If anyone speaks of a 'bad mind' he means a mind without mind. If of a bad soul, he will make the soul inferior to body, for no body in itself is evil. If he says that evil is made up of soul and body together, it is absurd that separately they should not be evil, but joined should create evil.
"Suppose it is said that there are evil spirits: - if they have their power from the Gods, they cannot be evil; if from elsewhere, the Gods do not make all things. If they do not make all things, then either they wish to or cannot, or they can and do not wish; neither of which is consistent with the idea of god. We may see, therefore, from these arguments, that there is no positive evil in the world.
"It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of all men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil, nature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery bad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but the money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy thinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the soul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the sake of goodness. (In the same way, because in a given place light does not exist, there comes darkness, which has no positive existence.) The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins."
[On the Gods and the Cosmsos, Sallustius, Section XII: "The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil."]
"The inner meaning of religious rituals."
The section of Sallustius that Gardner turned to first requires little or no explanation. It is, in fact, one of the clearest explications of a Pagan answer to the so-called "Problem of Evil". Less clear, perhaps, are Gardner's reasons for his next selection from Sallustius, which deals with, as Gardner styles it, "the inner meaning of religious rituals."
"It is impious to suppose that the divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our likeness; when bad, we are separated from them by our unlikeness. And when we live according to virture we cling to the Gods, and when we become evil we make the Gods our enemies -- not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the Gods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of sins, we do not appease or change the Gods, but by what we do and by our turning toward the Divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the Gods. To say that the Gods turn away from evil is like saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.
"This solves the question about sacrifices and other rites performed to the Gods. The divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.
"From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them."
[On the Gods and the Cosmsos, Sallustius, Section XIV (partial): "In what sense, though the Gods never change, they are said to be made angry and appeased." And also Section XV: "Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing."]
The issue here is not merely the accusation that Pagans do evil things, but rather that we worship Evil Things. This accusation goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. Among its clearest expressions is that found in the writings of Augustine, and his City of God, Against the Pagans in particular. Somewhat ironically, Augustine wrote that work largely as a defense of Christianity against the accusation, from Pagans, that the Christian prohibitions against the worship of the old Gods had led to the downfall of Rome (some of the historical background to this is discussed in Reflections on Vergil and Augustine.)
In Book VIII of his Against the Pagans, Augustine asserts that the traditional Gods worshipped at Pagan festivals and in the urban Pagan temples are "rather malign demons than gods." Furthermore, Augustine employs a favorite Christian trope that is still popular today with Ronald Hutton and his fanbase, in which it is claimed that the religion of ancient philosophers is somehow different from and unrelated to that of the Pagan masses generally. (By this logic the "philosophy" of Augustine is equally unrelated the lowbrow Christianity of the ignorant, unwashed masses who make up the vast bulk of the Army of Christ, thus making Augustine no Christian at all. But any such appeal to consistency is lost on the likes of Hutton.)
And so Augustine now focuses not on "the fabulous, that is, the theatrical" theology of the plebs, nor on the more staid "civil, that is, the urban" theology of the aristocratic priests and priestesses serving the deities of the polis. Instead, Augustine explains that he wishes to address himself "not to ordinary men, but to philosophers ... concerning the theology which they call natural." In particular, Augustine, and here he shows that he knows what he is about, directly attacks the magical and erotic theology set forth by Socrates in Plato's dialogues.
In his famous speech in the Symposium, Socrates had revealed what the Witch (for surely she fits Gardner's profile for ancient Witches) Diotima had revealed to him as a young man concerning the nature of Eros. She had instructed Socrates that Eros is not really a God, per se, but rather a Daemon: "A great Daemon, Socrates; for the whole realm of the Daemons is intermediary between the Gods and mortals." At this point Socrates had inquired about the "powers" possessed by these Daemons. And here is Diotima's answer:
"Interpreting and conveying things from men to Gods, and things from Gods to men, prayers and sacrifices from one, commands and requitals in exchange for sacrifices from the other, since, being in between both, the Daemons fill the region between both so that the All is bound together with itself.
"Through this Daemonic realm moves all prophetic art and the art of priests having to do with sacrifices and rituals and spells, and all powers of prophecy and enchantment. The Gods do not mingle with mortals, but all intercourse and conversation of the Gods with humans, waking and sleeping, are through this intermediary realm. Those who are wise about such things are truly divine, but those who are wise about any other arts or crafts are mere technicians and mechanics. The Daemons, then, are many and manifold, and one of them is Eros."
[202d-203a, taken from R.E. Allen's translation, with some liberties]
Almost two thousand years later, Marsilio Ficino wondered why Diotima, in addition to describing the great Daemon Eros as clever, philosophical and a sophist, had also imputed magical powers to Eros:
"But why do we think that Eros is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in Eros. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature. But the parts of this world, like the parts of a single animal, all deriving from a single author, are joined to each other by the communion of a single nature. Therefore just as the brain, lungs, heart, liver and the rest of the parts draw something from each other, and help each other, and sympathize with any one of them when it suffers, so the parts of this great animal [the cosmos as a single living being], that is, the bodies of the world, similarly joined together, borrow and lend natures to and from each other. From this common relationship is born a common love; from love, a common attraction. And this is true magic .... [T]he works of magic are works of nature, but art is its handmaiden .... The ancients attributed this art to Daemons, because the Daemons understand what is the inter-relation of natural things, what is appropriate to each, and how the harmony of things, if lacking anywhere, can be restored .... They [the ancients, such as Socrates, Zoroaster, Apollonius of Tyana, and Porphyry] seem to have become magicians through friendship of the Daemons, just as the Daemons are magicians through understanding the friendship of things themselves. And all nature, because of mutual love, is called a magician."
[De Amore, Marsilio Ficino. This is specificaly from Speech VI, using the translation by Sears Jane, p. 127 of the 1985 Spring Publications edition]
The take home message from Augustine's polemics against Plato, Apuleius, and Hermes is that the whole Daemonic realm is, in reality, Demonic in the sense of being purely Evil. In other words, what Plato portrayed as the liminal realm of the Cosmos, situated above the human realm, whose purpose is to connect us with the Gods, and which is responsible for the efficacy of both religious practices and magic arts; that this is in fact an infernal realm populated with demons that are "arrogant" and "deceiving" who prey on those who seek "divine refuge" by "feigning divinity". These demons are everywhere "lying in wait for the deception of man!"
The Christian view, then, is that (1) Pagan religiosity is generally evil, (2) more specifically, the spiritual Powers upon which Pagans call are evil beings, and (3) the whole spiritual realm (outside of the Holy Ghost and "angels") is filled with and characterized by malignant Evil. It is in order to counter these dark (and as perversely self-serving as they are self-revealing) Christian fantasies, which they sometimes try to hide behind the philosophical niceties of the so-called "Problem of Evil", that Gardner invokes the words of Sallustius on the subject of the "the inner meaning of religious ritual." In essence, Gardner wishes to categorically disprove any idea that the magical/religious practices of Wiccans amount to calling upon evil forces. However, Gardner chooses not to explicitly defend the liminal/Daemonic aspects of Platonic theology but to explicate Pagan rituals in such terms as (1) being "joined to the Gods", (2) having "the light of the Gods ... shining upon us", and (3) "by turning toward the Gods we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the Gods." All this and more comes about because "The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception."
The fact is that Sallustius provides no opportunity to more directly defend the intermediary spiritual realm, for, true to the title of the work, he sticks to "the Gods" and "the Cosmos". And it is unlikely, anyway, that Gardner would have thought there could be anything to be gained by trying to convince the general public that Wicca relies on daemons, but not on demons. And then there was also Gardner's choice to (dishonestly, as is now generally accepted) deny the very real connections between his Wicca and Ceremonial Magic (where explicit references to Daemons are easy to find).
But (even though he avoids direct references to Daemons) it is quite clear that Gerald Gardner in 1959, just like practitioners of Vodou today, had to defend himself against the mindset that all spiritual powers outside Christianity are by definition infernal, evil and Satanic. And Gardner turns to the Platonic Paganism of Sallustius to assert both that (1) in terms of belief, "Wicca positively denies the existence of a Power of Evil" (using Gardner's words), and (2) in terms of practice, the Gods of Wicca "are always good and always do good and never harm" and "worship [of the Gods] is paid for our own benefit," with the end in mind that by such worship we might "live according to virture" and be "joined to the Gods by our likeness to them" (using Sallustius' words as cited by Gardner).
Modern Paganism and the Ancient Mysteries:
- Part One: Sallustius, Gardner & Wicca: "A general statement of their creed."
- Part Two: Gerald Gardner, Sallustius, and the Problem of Evil
- Part Three: Gerald Gardner, Sallustius, and Reincarnation
- Part Four: "Divested of their garments"
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Report: 100 Million People Will Die By 2030 If World Fails To Tackle Climate Change
It is estimated that over 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments has claimed.
As global average temperatures continue to rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organization DARA.
DARA calculated that five million deaths occur each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies.
That toll is sure to increase, with estimates pinning at up to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue.
More than 90 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries, said the report that calculated the human and economic impact of climate change on 184 countries in 2010 and 2030.
It was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20 developing countries threatened by climate change.
“A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade,” the report said.
It said the effects of climate change had lowered global output by 1.6 percent of world GDP, or by about $1.2 trillion a year, and losses could double to 3.2 percent of global GDP by 2030 if global temperatures are allowed to rise, surpassing 10 percent before 2100.
It estimated the cost of moving the world to a low-carbon economy at about 0.5 percent of GDP this decade.
British economist Nicholas Stern told Reuters earlier this year investment equivalent to 2 percent of global GDP was needed to limit, prevent and adapt to climate change.
His report on the economics of climate change in 2006 said an average global temperature rise of 2-3 degrees Celsius in the next 50 years could reduce global consumption per head by up to 20 percent.
Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius above those from pre-industrial times.
Almost 200 nations agreed in 2010 to limit the global average temperature rise to below 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) to avoid dangerous impacts from climate change.
But climate scientists have warned that the chance of limiting the rise to below 2C is getting smaller as global greenhouse gas emissions rise due to burning fossil fuels.
The world’s poorest nations are the most vulnerable as they face increased risk of drought, water shortages, crop failure, poverty and disease.
On average, they could see an 11 percent loss in GDP by 2030 due to climate change, DARA said.
“One degree Celsius rise in temperature is associated with 10 percent productivity loss in farming.
“For us, it means losing about 4 million metric tonnes of food grain, amounting to about $2.5 billion.
“That is about 2 percent of our GDP,’ Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in response to the report.
“Adding up the damages to property and other losses, we are faced with a total loss of about 3-4 percent of GDP.”
The United States and China could see a 2.1 percent reduction in their respective GDPs by 2030, while India could experience a more than 5 percent loss.
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The Blink Of An Eye
The Facts About Eyelid Cancer
Symptoms and Types of Cancer
Sun exposure is cumulative — the older we get, the more likely we are to develop eyelid cancer. People with fair skin, and blonde or red hair and light eyes are particularly at risk.
The lower lid is affected most often by eyelid cancer. The corner of the eyelid closest to the nose is the second most common area, followed by the upper eyelid.
Like other skin cancers, basal cell carcinoma is the most common cancer to affect the eyelid. “You may see a little nodule or lesion that gets larger. It will usually be pearly with visible blood vessels in the center,” says Dr. Hui. “It may have crusting or bleeding at the site. You may also notice a loss of eyelashes in that area.”
A squamous cell carcinoma will progress more rapidly with a non-healing area in the center. More rarely, a melanoma will occur which most often appears as a dark spot. “Ideally, people should be aware of any lump or bump anywhere on their eyelid, especially on the margin in between the lashes,” notes Dr. Hui.
The standard of care for eyelid cancer is Mohs microscopic surgery by a dermatologist to remove the lesion, followed by repair of the area by an ocuplastic surgeon.
“During the Mohs procedure, a Mohs-trained dermatologist takes the cancer off and immediately looks at the lesion under a microscope to make sure they removed all of the cancer, checking to see if they need to go back and remove more,” explains Dr. Hui. “This tissue-sparing approach is preferable because there is so little redundant tissue in the eyelids. Once the lesion is removed, the area can be repaired within hours or on the following day.”
Radiation and topical treatments are available but not optimal. “Topical treatments can be very irritating and I don’t feel there is a role for radiation because of the damage it can cause to surrounding tissue,” says Hui. “Excision is by far the treatment of choice.”
Preventing eyelid cancer is relatively easy but does require self-discipline. Sunscreen is a must. An SPF of 30 is recommended in desert areas like the Coachella Valley. “Find a sunscreen you will wear and reapply it regularly,” says Dr. Hui. “You always want the sunscreen to be directly in contact with your skin for best protection. When you apply sunscreen, you should see it coating your skin as you massage it in. Also, don’t forget to reapply.”
Sunglasses are also helpful in preventing eyelid cancer. Dr. Hui recommends sunglasses that wrap around the eye and block the sun completely.
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The rich culture of Vietnam was represented through fairy tales at a two-day festival that opened in Long Island Children’s Museum (LICM) in New York on Nov. 5.
The event was co-organised by the New York Humanitarian Science Council and the Vietnamese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
The festival brought visitors back in time to early days in the history of the Vietnamese nation when Au Co, a mountain fairy got married to a dragon, Lac Long Quan, and gave birth to a sac containing 100 eggs. The eggs hatched 100 children who were the ancestors of the Vietnamese. They then travelled through tales about the uprising led by the Trung sisters against northern aggressors and legendary hero Thanh Giong’s victory against An aggressors and learnt about the nation’s traditions and customs, also through stories that have been passed down many Vietnamese generations.
Dr. Ngo Thanh Nhan, a researcher at the New York-based Centre for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society, performed the traditional “dan tranh” (16-string zither) at the event.
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Ancient Greek marriage law
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Marriage as a public interest
The ancient Greek legislators considered the relation of marriage a matter not merely of private, but also of public or general interest. This was particularly the case at Sparta, where the subordination of private interests and happiness to the public was strongly exemplified in the regulations. For instance, by the laws of Lycurgus, criminal proceedings might be taken against those who married too late (graphe opsigamiou) or unsuitably (graphe kakogamiou), as well as against those who did not marry at all (graphe agamiou). These regulations were founded on the generally recognised principle that it was the duty of every citizen to raise up a strong and healthy progeny of legitimate children to the state.
So entirely, in fact, did the Spartans consider the teknopoioia (childbearing) as the main object of marriage, which the state was bound to promote, that whenever a woman had no children by her own husband, she was not only allowed, but even required by the laws, to cohabit with another man. On the same principle, and for the purpose of preventing the extinction of his family, the Spartan king Anaxandridas II was allowed to cohabit with two wives, for whom he kept two separate establishments: a case of bigamy, which, as Herodotus observes, was not at all consistent with Spartan nor indeed with Hellenic customs. Thus the heroes of Homer appear never to have had more than one kouridie alochos: lawfully wedded wife; though they are frequently represented as living in concubinage with one or more.
Solon also seems to have viewed marriage as a matter in which the state had a right to interfere, for we are told that his laws allowed agamiou graphe, though the regulation seems to have grown obsolete in later times; at any rate there is no instance on record of its application. Plato too may be quoted to prove how general was this feeling, for according to his laws, any one who did not marry before he was thirty-five was punishable not only with atimia (loss of civil rights), but also with pecuniary penalties, and he expressly states that in choosing a wife everyone ought to consult the interests of the state, and not his own pleasure.
Selecting a spouse
But independent of any public considerations there were also private or personal reasons (peculiar to the ancients) which made marriage an obligation. Plato mentions one of these the duty incumbent upon every individual to provide for a continuance of representatives to succeed himself as ministers of the Divinity (toi Theoi hyperetas an' hautou paradidonai). Another was the desire felt by almost every one, not merely to perpetuate his own name, but also to prevent his heritage being desolate, and his name being cut off, and to leave someone who might make the customary offerings at his grave. With this view, childless persons would sometimes adopt children that had been left to die or were simply unwanted.
By the Athenian law a citizen was not allowed to marry with a foreign woman, nor conversely, under very severe penalties. However, proximity by blood (anchisteia), or consanguinity (syngeneia), was not, with some few exceptions, a bar to marriage in any part of Greece; direct lineal descent was. Thus brothers were permitted to marry with sisters even, if not homometrioi or born from the same mother, as Cimon did with Elpinice, though a connection of this sort appears to have been looked on with abhorrence. In the earlier periods of society, indeed, we can easily conceive that a spirit of caste or family pride, and other causes such as the difficulties in the way of social intercourse would tend to make marriages frequent amongst near relations and connections. (Compare Book of Numbers^ c. xxxvi.)
At Athens, however, in the case of a father dying intestate, and without male children, his heiress had no choice in marriage; she was compelled by law to marry her nearest kinsman not in the ascending line; and if the heiress were poor (thessa) the nearest unmarried kinsman either married her or portioned her suitably to her rank. When there were several coheiresses, they were respectively married to their kinsmen, the nearest having the first choice (See Epikleros). The heiress in fact, together with her inheritance, seems to have belonged to the kinsmen of the family, so that in early times a father could not give his daughter (if an heiress) in marriage without their consent. But this was not the case according to the later Athenian law, by which a father was empowered to dispose of his daughter by will or otherwise; just as widows also were disposed of in marriage, by the will of their husbands, who were considered their rightful guardians (Kyrioi).
The same practice of marrying in the family (oikos), especially in the case of heiresses, prevailed at Sparta; thus Leonidas married the heiress of Cleomenes[disambiguation needed], as of anchisteia, or next of kin, and Anaxandrides, his own sister's daughter. Moreover, if a father had not determined himself concerning his daughter, it was decided by the king's court who among the privileged persons or members of the same family should marry the heiress. A resemblance to the Athenian law respecting heiresses is also found in the Jewish code, as detailed in Numbers (c. xxvii. 1 — 11), and exemplified in Ruth (c. iv.).
But match-making among the ancients was not, in default of any legal regulations, entirely left to the care and forethought of parents, for we read of women who made a profession of it, and who were therefore called promnestriai or promnestrides. The profession, however, does not seem to have been thought very honourable nor to have been held in repute, as being too nearly connected with a panderer (proagogos).
Dates for marriage
Particular days and seasons of the year were thought auspicious and favourable for marriage amongst the Greeks. Aristotle speaks of the winter generally as being so considered, and at Athens the month Gamelion, partly corresponding to our January, received its name from marriages being frequently celebrated in it. Hesiod recommends marrying on the fourth day of the month and Euripides speaks as if the time of the full moon were thought favourable.
In Athens the engyesis, or betrothal, was in fact indispensable to the complete validity of a marriage contract. It was made by the natural or legal guardian (kyrios) of the bride elect, and attended by the relatives of both parties as witnesses. The law of Athens ordained that all children born from a marriage legally contracted in this respect should be legal gnesioi, and consequently, if sons, isomoiroi, are entitled to inherit equally or in gavel-kind. It would seem, therefore, that the issue of a marriage without espousals would lose their heritable rights, which depended on their being born ex astes kai engyetes gynaikos: i.e. from a citizen and a legally betrothed wife. The wife's dowry was also settled at the espousals.
At Sparta, the betrothal of the bride by her father or guardian (kyrios) was requisite as a preliminary of marriage, as well as at Athens. Another custom peculiar to the Spartans, and a relic of ancient times, was the seizure of the bride by her intended husband (see Herod, vi. 65), but of course with the sanction of her parents or guardians. She was not, however, immediately domiciled in her husband's house, but cohabited with him for some time clandestinely, till he brought her, and frequently her mother also, to his home. A similar custom appears to have prevailed in Crete, where, as we are told, the young men when dismissed from the agela of their fellows, were immediately married, but did not take their wives home till some time afterwards. Muller suggests that the children of this furtive kind of intercourse were called Parthenioi.
In cases of adultery by the wife, the Athenian law subjected the husband to Atimia, if he continued to cohabit with her, so that she was ipso facto divorced. But a separation might be effected in two different ways: by the wife leaving the husband, or the husband dismissing the wife. If the latter supposed her husband to have acted without sufficient justification in such a course, it was competent for her after dismissal, or rather for her guardians, to bring an action for dismissal (dike apopompes): the corresponding action if brought by the husband was a dike apoleipseos. If, however, a wife were ill-used in any way by her husband, he was liable to an action called dike kakoseos so that the wife was not entirely unprotected by the laws, a conclusion justified by a fragment in Athenaeus in which married women are spoken of as relying on its protection. But a separation, whether it originated from the husband or wife, was considered to reflect discredit on the latter independent of the difficulties and inconveniences to which she was subjected by it. At Sparta, barrenness on the part of a wife seems to have been a ground for dismissal by the husband; and from a passage in Dio Chrysostom, it has been inferred that women were in the habit of imposing suppositious children with a view of keeping (kataschein) their husbands: not but that the word admits of, if indeed it does not (from the tense) require, a different interpretation. The duties of an Athenian wife are stated somewhat in detail Oeconomicus (Xenophon).
See Also
- Pollux, viii. 4 0
- Lycurg. 15.
- Mulller, Dorians., iv. 4. § 3.
- Xenophon. de Rep. Lac. i. 8.
- Herodotus. vi. 39, 40
- Buttmann, Lexilogus, 73
- Platner, Process, &c. vol. ii. p. 248.
- Leg. iv. p. 721
- Leg. vi. p. 773.
- Isaeus de Apoll. Hered. p. 66. Bek.
- Demosth. c.Neaer. p. 1350
- Isaeus, de Oiron. her. p. 72.
- Becker, Charikles, vol. ii. p. 448.
- Muller, Dorians, ii. 10. § 4.
- Demosth. c. Steph. p. 1134
- Demosth. c. Aphob. p. 814.
- Herod, vi. 57 ; Muller, /. c.
- Pollux, iii. 31.
- Plato, Theaet. 2. p. 150.
- Polit.'vu. 15
- Oper. 800
- Iphig. in Aulis. 707
- Demosth. c. Steph. p. 1134
- Meicr and Schoeman, p. 415.
- Muller, Dorians, ii. 4. § 2.
- Xen. de Rep. Lac. i. 5.
- Strabo, x. p. 482
- Demosth. c.Neaer. p. 1374.
- Athenaeus. xiii. p. 559
- Herod, vi. 61
- Orat. xv. p. 447
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Baths of Agrippa
The Baths of Agrippa (Thermae Agrippae) were a structure of ancient Rome, built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the first of the great thermae constructed in the city. In their first form, constructed at the same time as the Pantheon and on axis with it, as a balaneion (βαλανεῖον), they were apparently a hot-air bath with a cold plunge, not unlike a sauna. With the completion of the Aqua Virgo, the aqueduct completed by Agrippa in 19 BC, the baths were supplied with water and became regular thermae, with a large ornamental pool (Stagnum Agrippae) attached. Agrippa furnished his baths with decorations that may have been executed in glazed tiles and with works of art: the Apoxyomenos of Lysippus stood outside. He left the baths to the citizens of Rome at his death, 12 BC.
The Baths of Agrippa were damaged by fire in AD 80 (Cassius Dio, lxvi.24), but were restored and enlarged; they were thronged in the times of Martial, and enlarged under Hadrian and later emperors. Sidonius Apollonaris mentions that the Baths of Agrippa were still being used in the fifth century.
In the seventh century the structure (no longer in use) was being mined for its building materials, but much of the Baths were still standing in the sixteenth century, when the ruins were drawn by Baldassare Peruzzi and Andrea Palladio, among others.
See also
- (LacusCurtius website) Samuel Ball Platner, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London: Oxford University Press) 1929. See also note by William Thayer.
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Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
|Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design|
|בצלאל, אקדמיה לאמנות ועיצוב|
Bezalel's emblem, with the Ark of the Covenant
|Established||1906, by Boris Schatz|
|Religious affiliation||International Association of Universities|
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri (Hebrew: בְּצַלְאֵל בֶּן־אוּרִי), who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 35:30).
The Bezalel School was founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. Theodor Herzl and the early Zionists believed in the creation of a national style of art blending classical Jewish/Middle Eastern and European traditions. The teachers of Bezalel developed a distinctive school of art, known as the Bezalel school, which portrayed Biblical and Zionist subjects in a style influenced by the European jugendstil (art nouveau) and traditional Persian and Syrian art. The artists blended "varied strands of surroundings, tradition and innovation," in paintings and craft objects that invokes "biblical themes, Islamic design and European traditions," in their effort to "carve out a distinctive style of Jewish art" for the new nation they intended to build in the ancient Jewish homeland.
The Bezalel School produced decorative art objects in a wide range of media: silver, leather, wood, brass and fabric. While the artists and designers were Western-trained, the craftsmen were often members of the Yemenite Jewish community, which has a long tradition of working in precious metals. Silver and goldsmithing had been traditional Jewish occupations in Yemen. Yemenite immigrants were also frequent subjects of Bezalel school artists.
Leading artists of the school include Meir Gur Aryeh, Ze'ev Raban, Shmuel Ben David, Ya'ackov Ben-Dov, Ze'ev Ben-Tzvi, Jacob Eisenberg, Jacob Pins, Jacob Steinhardt, and Hermann Struck. In 1912, the school had only one female student, Marousia (Miriam) Nissenholtz, who used the pseudonym Chad Gadya. The school closed down in 1929 in the wake of economic difficulties, but reopened in 1935, attracting many teachers and students from Germany, many of them from the Bauhaus school shut down by the Nazis.
In 1969, Bezalel became a state-supported institution. In 1975 it was recognized by the Council for Higher Education in Israel as an institute of higher education. It completed its relocation to Mount Scopus in 1990.
Bezalel Pavilion
Bezalel pavilion was a tin-plated wooden structure with a crenelated roof and tower built outside Jaffa Gate in 1912. It was a shop and showroom for Bezalel souvenirs. The pavilion was demolished six years later.
In 2006, the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design celebrated its 100th anniversary. Today, it is located on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem and has 1,500 students. Faculties include Fine Arts, Architecture, Ceramic Design, Industrial Design, Jewelry, Photography, Visual Communication, Animation, Film, and Art History & Theory. The architecture campus is in downtown Jerusalem, in the historic Bezalel building. Bezalel offers Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.), Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) degrees, a Master of Fine Arts in conjunction with Hebrew University, and two different Master of Design (M.des) degrees.
The academy has plans to move back to the city center.
Notable alumni
- Baruch Agadati (1895–1976), Russian-Palestinian-Israeli classical ballet dancer, choreographer, painter, film producer and director
- Yaacov Agam (born 1928), sculptor and experimental artist
- Ron Arad (born 1951), industrial designer
- Netiva Ben-Yehuda (1928–2011), author, editor, Palmach commander
- Moti Bodek (born 1961), Architect, Lecturer
- Yitzhak Danziger (1916–1977), sculptor
- Nachum Gutman (1898–1980), painter, sculptor, author
- Yaron London (born 1940), media personality, journalist, actor, songwriter
- Avigdor Stematsky (1908–1989), painter
- Yehezkel Streichman (1906–1993), painter
- Gideon Amichay (born 1963), Communication Artist, Cartoonist, Writer and Ad Man
- Elisha Ben Yitzhak (born 1943), painter, songwriter
- Zvi Raphaeli (1924-2005), painter and Rabbi
Notable faculty
- Siona Shimshi (born 1939), Israeli painter, sculptor, ceramist, textile designer
See also
- List of universities and colleges in Israel
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- List of Israeli visual artists
- Jewish ceremonial art
- MUSEUM REVIEW | DERFNER JUDAICA MUSEUM, Jewish Art, the Hudson and Bingo in the Bronx, Edward Rothstein, New York Times, June 10, 2009 ,
- Ze'ev Raban, A Hebrew Symbolist, by Batsheva Goldman Ida, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2001
- I lived life to the fullest, Haaretz
- "Israel Prize recipients in 1958 (in Hebrew)". Israel Prize Official Site. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010 by WebCite.
- "המועצה להשכלה גבוהה - מאגר מוסדות" [Council for Higher Education Registry of Institutes]. che.org.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved August 4, 2010.
- Zohar, Gil (November 2, 2006). "Artful move". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
- Milan's Furniture Whirlwind
Further reading
- Gil Goldfine, “Zeev Raban and the Bezalel style,” Jerusalem Post, 12-14-2001
- Dalia Manor, “Biblical Zionism in Bezalel Art,” Israel Studies 6.1 (2001) 55-75
- The "Hebrew Style" of Bezalel, 1906–1929, Nurit Shilo Cohen, The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 20. (1994), pp. 140–163
- Manor, Dalia, Art in Zion: The Genesis of National Art in Jewish Palestine, published by Routledge Curzon (2005)
- "Crafting a Jewish Style: The Art of the Bezalel Academy, 1906–1996", 2000-08-26 until 2000-10-22, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
External sources
- Bezalel Academy web site
- Bezalel Catalogue of Student Works
- Timeline of Bezalel Academy history
- Zionism and Art: Bezalel Narkiss Speaks in 'Israel at 50' Series
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CoCom is an acronym for Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. CoCom was established by Western bloc powers in the first five years after the end of World War II, during the Cold War, to put an arms embargo on COMECON countries.
CoCom ceased to function on March 31, 1994, and the then-current control list of embargoed goods was retained by the member nations until the successor, the Wassenaar Arrangement, was established.
CoCom had 17 member states: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Laws and regulations
In the United States, CoCom compliance was implemented in the 1960s via the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the State Department's regulatory supervision on AECA via International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are still in effect.
Toshiba Machine Company of Japan and Kongsberg Group of Norway supplied eight computer-guided propeller milling machines to the Soviet Union between 1982 and 1984, an action that violated the CoCom regulations. The United States's position is that this greatly improved the ability of Soviet submarines to evade detection. Congress moved to sanction Toshiba, and bar imports of its products into the United States.
In GPS technology, the phrasing "COCOM Limits" is also used to refer to a limit placed to GPS tracking devices that should disable tracking when the device realizes itself to be moving faster than 1,000 knots (1,900 km/h; 1,200 mph) at an altitude higher than 60,000 feet (18,000 m). This was intended to avoid the use of GPS in intercontinental ballistic missile-like applications.
Some manufacturers apply this limit literally (disable when both limits are reached), other manufacturers disable tracking when a single limit is reached.
This limit is a frequent obstacle encountered, if not discussed, among hobbyists seeking to make high altitude balloons.
See also
- International Traffic in Arms Regulations
- Arms Export Control Act
- Defense Security Cooperation Agency
- Export Control Classification Number
- Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal
- Yasuhara, Y. "The myth of free trade: the origins of COCOM 1945–1950". The Japanese Journal of American Studies 4. Retrieved 2009-12-03.
- js (October 6, 2010). "COCOM GPS Tracking Limits". RAVTrack.com. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
- Graham-Cumming, John. "GAGA-1: CoCom limit for GPS". jgc.org. Retrieved July 26, 2011.
- Mastanduno, M. (1992). Economic containment: CoCom and the politics of East-West trade. Cornell paperbacks. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.
- Noehrenberg, E. H. (1995). Multilateral export controls and international regime theory: the effectiveness of COCOM. Pro Universitate.
- Yasuhara, Y. (1991). The myth of free trade: the origins of COCOM 1945-1950. The Japanese Journal of American Studies, 4.
- CoCom control lists, as published by the British Government
- CFAO 36-56 -- Export Controls Over Strategic and Military Goods
- Establishment of New General License for Shipments to Country Groups QWY and the People's Republic of China
- The reincarnation of CoCom: Explaining post-war export controls
- Export Control Blog
|This history article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
|This international trade related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
|This article about politics is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
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Malignant pleural effusion
Malignant pleural effusion is a condition in which cancer causes an abnormal amount of fluid to collect between the thin layers of tissue (pleura) lining the outside of the lung and the wall of the chest cavity. Lung cancer and breast cancer account for about 50-65% of malignant pleural effusions. Other common causes include pleural mesothelioma and lymphoma.
|Malignant Pleural Effusion|
|Classification and external resources|
Investigating a malignant pleural effusion
Clinical evaluation
Clinical factors predicting the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusions are symptoms lasting more than 1 month and the absence of fever.
This is needed to confirm the presence of a pleural effusion. Chest radiograph is usually performed first and may demonstrate an underlying lung cancer as well as the pleural effusion. Ultrasound has a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 100% at distinguishing malignant pleural effusions from other causes of pleural effusion, based on the presence of visible pleural metastases, pleural thickening greater than 1 cm, pleural nodularity, diaphragmatic thickening measuring greater than 7mm and an echogenic swirling pattern visible in the pleural fluid.
Biochemical analysis
Pleural fluid cytology is positive in 60% of cases. However, in the remaining cases, pleural biopsy is required. Image guided biopsy and thoracoscopy have largely replaced blind biopsy due to their greater sensitivity and safety profile. CT guided biopsy has a sensitivity of 87% compared to Abrams' needle biopsy, which has a sensitivity of 47%.
Identification of pleural fluid biomarkers to distinguish malignant pleural effusions from other causes of exudative effusions would help diagnosis. Biomarkers that have been shown to be raised in malignant pleural effusions compared to benign disease include vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), endostatin, matrix metalloproteinases and tumour markers such as carcinoembryonic antigen. Pleural fluid mesothelin has a sensitivity of 71%, greater than that of cytology, and a specificity of 89% for the diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma.
Treatment of malignant pleural effusions
The goal of treatment of malignant pleural effusions is relief of breathlessness. Occasionally, treatment of the underlying cancer can cause resolution of the effusion. This may be the case with types of cancer that respond well to chemotherapy, such as small cell carcinoma or lymphoma. Simple aspiration of pleural fluid can relieve breathlessness rapidly but fluid and symptoms will usually recur within a couple of weeks. For this reason, more permanent treatments are usually used to prevent fluid recurrence. Standard treatment involves chest tube insertion and pleurodesis. However, this treatment requires an inpatient stay of approximately 2–7 days, can be painful and has a significant failure rate. This has led to the development of tunneled pleural catheters (e.g., Pleurx Catheters), which allow outpatient treatment of effusions.
- Malignant pleural effusion entry in the public domain NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms
- Antony VB, Loddenkemper R, Astoul P, et al. (August 2001). "Management of malignant pleural effusions". Eur. Respir. J. 18 (2): 402–19. PMID 11529302.
- Ferrer J, Roldán J, Teixidor J, Pallisa E, Gich I, Morell F (March 2005). "Predictors of pleural malignancy in patients with pleural effusion undergoing thoracoscopy". Chest 127 (3): 1017–22. doi:10.1378/chest.127.3.1017. PMID 15764788.
- Qureshi NR, Rahman NM, Gleeson FV (February 2009). "Thoracic ultrasound in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion". Thorax 64 (2): 139–43. doi:10.1136/thx.2008.100545. PMID 18852159.
- Chian CF, Su WL, Soh LH, Yan HC, Perng WC, Wu CP (July 2004). "Echogenic swirling pattern as a predictor of malignant pleural effusions in patients with malignancies". Chest 126 (1): 129–34. doi:10.1378/chest.126.1.129. PMID 15249453.
- Sahn SA, Good JT (March 1988). "Pleural fluid pH in malignant effusions. Diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications". Ann. Intern. Med. 108 (3): 345–9. PMID 3341671.
- Rodríguez-Panadero F, López Mejías J (March 1989). "Low glucose and pH levels in malignant pleural effusions. Diagnostic significance and prognostic value in respect to pleurodesis". Am. Rev. Respir. Dis. 139 (3): 663–7. PMID 2923367.
- Maskell NA, Gleeson FV, Davies RJ (April 2003). "Standard pleural biopsy versus CT-guided cutting-needle biopsy for diagnosis of malignant disease in pleural effusions: a randomised controlled trial". Lancet 361 (9366): 1326–30. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13079-6. PMID 12711467.
- Sack U, Hoffmann M, Zhao XJ, et al. (April 2005). "Vascular endothelial growth factor in pleural effusions of different origin". Eur. Respir. J. 25 (4): 600–4. doi:10.1183/09031936.05.00037004. PMID 15802331.
- Sumi M, Kagohashi K, Satoh H, Ishikawa H, Funayama Y, Sekizawa K (2003). "Endostatin levels in exudative pleural effusions". Lung 181 (6): 329–34. doi:10.1007/s00408-003-1035-9. PMID 14749937.
- Gaspar MJ, De Miguel J, García Díaz JD, Díez M (2008). "Clinical utility of a combination of tumour markers in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusions". Anticancer Res. 28 (5B): 2947–52. PMID 19031938.
- Vatansever S, Gelisgen R, Uzun H, Yurt S, Kosar F (2009). "Potential role of matrix metalloproteinase-2,-9 and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase-1,-2 in exudative pleural effusions". Clin Invest Med 32 (4): E293–300. PMID 19640333.
- Davies HE, Sadler RS, Bielsa S, et al. (September 2009). "Clinical impact and reliability of pleural fluid mesothelin in undiagnosed pleural effusions". Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 180 (5): 437–44. doi:10.1164/rccm.200811-1729OC. PMID 19299498.
- Roberts ME, Neville E, Berrisford RG, Antunes G, Ali NJ (August 2010). "Management of a malignant pleural effusion: British Thoracic Society Pleural Disease Guideline 2010". Thorax 65 (Suppl 2): ii32–40. doi:10.1136/thx.2010.136994. PMID 20696691.
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|Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev (Haluza, Mamshit, Avdat and Shivta)|
|Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List|
|UNESCO region||Europe and North America|
|Inscription||2005 (29th Session)|
Mamshit (Hebrew: ממשית) is the Nabataean city of Mampsis or Memphis. In the Nabataean period, Mamshit was an important station on Incense Road, running from the Idumean Mountains, through the Arabah and Ma'ale Akrabim, and on to Beer-Sheva or to Hebron and Jerusalem. The city covers 10 acres (40,000 m2) and is the smallest but best restored city in the Negev Desert. The once-luxurious houses feature unusual architecture not found in any other Nabataean city.
The reconstructed city gives the visitor a sense of how Mamshit once looked. Entire streets have survived intact, and there are also large groups of Nabataean buildings with open rooms, courtyards, and terraces. The stones are carefully chiseled and the arches that support the ceiling are remarkably well constructed.
Mamshit was built in 1st century BC as trade post on the way from Petra to Gaza. with time the city was developed and based also on agriculture. When trade in Mamshit waned with the Roman occupation, the occupants found another way to make a living: raising horses. The residents of Mamshit bred the renowned Arabian horse, which brought great wealth to their city. During the Byzantine period Mamshit also received support from the authorities for being a frontier city. When this funding dried up, at the time of Justinian, the city died a natural death. Before the founding of the State of Israel, Prime Minister to-be David Ben-Gurion saw Mamshit as the capital of the future country, which dovetailed with his dream of settling the Negev Desert.
Two churches were discovered in Mamshit. The western Nile Church has a mosaic floor with colorful geometric patterns, birds, a fruit basket, and five dedications in Greek (the mosaic is not open to the public). The eastern church has a lectern on small marble pillars, the remnants of which can be seen at the site.
The biggest hoard ever found in Israel was uncovered in Mamshit - 10500 silver coins, a lead ingot weighing 158 pounds with foundry signs, a papyrus cluster with ancient Greek texts, and other objects indicative of wealthy people.
- Incense Route - Desert Cities in the Negev, UNESCO
- Natural Parks Authority
- Pictures of Mamshit archeological findings
- Mamshit Detailed track and hiking info from Tourism,trip and travel to Israel
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mamshit|
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The shortgrass prairie ecosystem of the North American Great Plains is a prairie that includes lands from the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains east to Nebraska and north into Saskatchewan, including rangelands in Alberta, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas, and extending to the south through the high plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.
These rangelands were formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, the keystone species; the dominant grasses are blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides). The semi-arid climate receives on average less precipitation than that which supports the tallgrass prairie formerly to the east.
See also
- Hill, R.T. 1901. Geography and Geology of the Black and Grand Prairies, Texas. In: Walcott, C.D. (ed), Twenty-First Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior (1899-1900), Part VII - Texas, 666 pp. (See Plate III)
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|This ecoregion article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
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||The neutrality of this article is disputed. (January 2013)|
||This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013)|
Sprouting is the practice of germinating seeds to be eaten raw or cooked. Sprouted foods are a convenient way to have fresh vegetables for salads, or otherwise, in any season and can be germinated at home or produced industrially. They are a prominent ingredient of the raw food diet and common in Eastern Asian cuisine. Sprouting is also applied on a large scale to barley as a part of the malting process. A potential downside to consuming raw sprouts is that the process of germinating seeds can also be conducive to harmful bacterial growth.
Seeds suitable for sprouting
All viable seeds can be sprouted, but some sprouts should not be eaten raw. The most common food sprouts include:
- Pulses (legumes; pea family):
- Brassica (cabbage family)
- Other vegetables and herbs:
Although whole oats can be sprouted, oat groats sold in food stores, which are dehulled and require steaming or roasting to prevent rancidity, will not sprout. Whole oats may have an indigestible hull which makes them difficult or even unfit for human consumption.
All the sprouts of the solanaceae (tomato, potato, paprika, aubergine or eggplant) and rhubarb cannot be eaten as sprouts, either cooked or raw, as they can be poisonous. Some sprouts can be cooked to remove the toxin, while others cannot.
With all seeds, care should be taken that they are intended for sprouting or human consumption rather than sowing. Seeds intended for sowing may be treated with chemical dressings. Several countries, such as New Zealand, also require that some varieties of imported edible seed be heat-treated, thus making them impossible to sprout. Quinoa in its natural state is very easy to sprout but when polished, or pre-cleaned of its saponin coating (becoming whiter), loses its power to germinate.
The germination process
The germination process takes a few days and can be done at home manually, as a semi-automated process, or industrially on a large scale for commercial use.
Typically the seeds are first rinsed to remove soil and dirt and the mucilaginous substances produced by some seeds when they come in contact with water. Then they are soaked for 20 minutes to 12 hours, depending on the type and size of seed. The soaking increases the water content in the seeds and brings them out of quiescence. After draining and then rinsing seeds at regular intervals they germinate, or sprout.
For home sprouting, the seeds are soaked (big seeds) or moistened (small), then left at room temperature (13 to 21 °C or 55 to 70 °F) in a sprouting vessel. Many different types of vessels can be used. One type is a simple glass jar with a piece of cloth or nylon window screen secured over its rim. "Tiered" clear plastic sprouters are commercially available, allowing a number of "crops" to be grown simultaneously. By staggering sowings, a constant supply of young sprouts can be ensured. Any vessel used for sprouting must allow water to drain from it, because sprouts that sit in water will rot quickly. The seeds swell, may stick to the sides of the jar, and begin germinating within a day or two.
Sprouts are rinsed two to four times a day, depending on the climate and the type of seed, to provide them with moisture and prevent them from souring. Each seed has its own ideal sprouting time. After three to five days the sprouts will have grown to 5 to 8 centimetres (2–3 in) in length and will be suitable for consumption. If left longer they will begin to develop leaves, and are then known as baby greens. A popular baby green is sunflower after 7–10 days. Refrigeration can be used as needed to slow or halt the growth process of any sprout.
Common causes for sprouts to become inedible:
- Seeds are not rinsed well enough before soaking
- Seeds are left in standing water after the initial soaking
- Seeds are allowed to dry out
- Temperature is too high or too low
- Insufficient rinsing
- Dirty equipment
- Insufficient air flow
- Contaminated water source
- Poor germination rate
Mung beans can be sprouted either in light or dark conditions. Those sprouted in the dark will be crisper in texture and whiter, as in the case of commercially available Chinese Bean Sprouts, but these have less nutritional content than those grown in partial sunlight. Growing in full sunlight is not recommended, because it can cause the beans to overheat or dry out. Subjecting the sprouts to pressure, for example, by placing a weight on top of them in their sprouting container, will result in larger, crunchier sprouts similar to those sold in Polish grocery stores.
A very effective way to sprout beans like lentils or azuki is in colanders. Soak the beans in water for about 8 hours then place in the colander. Wash twice a day. The sprouted beans can be eaten raw or cooked.
Sprouting is also applied on a large scale to barley as a part of the malting process. Malted barley is an important ingredient in beer and is used in huge quantities. Most malted barley is distributed among wide retail sellers in North American regions.
Many varieties of nuts, such as almonds and peanuts, can also be started in their growth cycle by soaking and sprouting, although because the sprouts are generally still very small when eaten, they are usually called "soaks".
Nutritional information
Sprouts are said to be rich in digestible energy, bioavailable vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, and phytochemicals, as these are necessary for a germinating plant to grow. These nutrients are essential for human health. The nutritional changes upon germination & sprouting are summarised below.
Chavan and Kadam (1989) concluded that - “The desirable nutritional changes that occur during sprouting are mainly due to the breakdown of complex compounds into a more simple form, transformation into essential constituents and breakdown of nutritionally undesirable constituents.”
“The metabolic activity of resting seeds increases as soon as they are hydrated during soaking. Complex biochemical changes occur during hydration and subsequent sprouting. The reserve chemical constituents, such as protein, starch and lipids, are broken down by enzymes into simple compounds that are used to make new compounds.”
“Sprouting grains causes increased activities of hydrolytic enzymes, improvements in the contents of total proteins, fat, certain essential amino acids, total sugars, B-group vitamins, and a decrease in dry matter, starch and anti-nutrients. The increased contents of protein, fat, fibre and total ash are only apparent and attributable to the disappearance of starch. However, improvements in amino acid composition, B-group vitamins, sugars, protein and starch digestibilities, and decrease in phytates and protease inhibitors[disambiguation needed] are the metabolic effects of the sprouting process.”
Increases in Protein Quality Chavan and Kadam (1989) stated - “Very complex qualitative changes are reported to occur during soaking and sprouting of seeds. The conversion of storage proteins of cereal grains into albumins and globulins during sprouting may improve the quality of cereal proteins. Many studies have shown an increase in the content of the amino acid Lysine with sprouting.”
“An increase in proteolytic activity during sprouting is desirable for nutritional improvement of cereals because it leads to hydrolysis of prolamins and the liberated amino acids such as glutamic and proline are converted to limiting amino acids such as lysine.”
Increases in Crude Fibre content Cuddeford (1989), based on data obtained by Peer and Leeson (1985), stated - “In sprouted barley, crude fibre, a major constituent of cell walls, increases both in percentage and real terms, with the synthesis of structural carbohydrates, such as cellulose and hemicellulose”. Chung et al. (1989) found that the fibre content increased from 3.75% in unsprouted barley seed to 6% in 5-day sprouts.”
Crude Protein and Crude Fibre changes in Barley Sprouted over a 7-day period
|Crude Protein (% of DM)||Crude Fibre (% of DM)|
Source: Cuddeford (1989), based on data obtained by Peer and Leeson (1985).
Increase of protein is not due to new protein being manufactured by the germination process but by the washing out of starch and conversion to fiber -- increasing the relative proportion of protein.
Increases in Essential Fatty Acids
An increase in lipase activity has been reported in barley by MacLeod and White (1962), as cited by Chavan and Kadam (1989) . Increased lipolytic activity during germination and sprouting causes hydrolysis of triacylglycerols to glycerol and constituent fatty acids.
Increases in Vitamin content According to Chavan and Kadam (1989), most reports agree that sprouting treatment of cereal grains generally improves their vitamin value, especially the B-group vitamins. Certain vitamins such as α-tocopherol (Vitamin-E) and β-carotene (Vitamin-A precursor) are produced during the growth process (Cuddeford, 1989) .
According to Shipard (2005) - “Sprouts provide a good supply of Vitamins A, E & C plus B complex. Like enzymes, vitamins serve as bioactive catalysts to assist in the digestion and metabolism of feeds and the release of energy. They are also essential for the healing and repair of cells. However, vitamins are very perishable, and in general, the fresher the feeds eaten, the higher the vitamin content. The vitamin content of some seeds can increase by up to 20 times their original value within several days of sprouting. Mung Bean sprouts have B vitamin increases, compared to the dry seeds, of - B1 up 285%, B2 up 515%, B3 up 256%. Even soaking seeds overnight in water yields greatly increased amounts of B vitamins, as well as Vitamin C. Compared with mature plants, sprouts can yield vitamin contents 30 times higher.”
Chelation of Minerals Shipard (2005) claims that - “When seeds are sprouted, minerals chelate or merge with protein, in a way that increases their function.”
It is important to note that while these changes may sound impressive, the comparisons are between dormant non-sprouted seed to sprouted seed rather than comparisons of sprouts to mature vegetables. Compared to dry seeds there are very large increases in nutrients whereas compared with mature vegetables the increase is less. However, a sprout, just starting out in life, is likely to need and thus have more nutrients (percentage wise) than a mature vegetable.
Health concerns
Bacterial infection
Commercially grown sprouts have been associated with multiple outbreaks of harmful bacteria, including salmonella and toxic forms of Escherichia coli. Such infections, which are so frequent in the United States that investigators call them "sproutbreaks", may be a result of contaminated seeds or of unhygienic production with high microbial counts. Sprout seeds can become contaminated in the fields where they are grown, and sanitizing steps may be unable to kill bacteria hidden in damaged seeds. A single surviving bacterium in a kilogram of seed can be enough to contaminate a whole batch of sprouts, according to the FDA.
To minimize the impact of the incidents and maintain public health, both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada issued industry guidance on the safe manufacturing of edible sprouts and public education on their safe consumption. There are also publications for hobby farmers on safely growing and consuming sprouts at home. The recommendations include development and implementation of good agricultural practices and good manufacturing practices in the production and handling of seeds and sprouts, seed disinfection treatments, and microbial testing before the product enters the food supply.
In June 2011, contaminated bean sprouts in Germany were identified as the source of the 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak. In addition to Germany, where 3,785 cases and 45 deaths had been reported by the end of the outbreak, a handful of cases were reported in several countries including Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Canada and the USA. Virtually all affected people had been in Germany shortly before becoming ill.
Antinutritional factors
Some legumes, including sprouts, can contain toxins or antinutritional factors, which can be reduced by soaking, sprouting and cooking (e.g., stir frying). Joy Larkcom advises that to be on the safe side “one shouldn’t eat large quantities of raw legume sprouts on a regular basis, no more than about 550g (20oz) daily”.
Phytic acid, an antinutritional factor, occurs primarily in the seed coats and germ tissue of plant seeds. It forms insoluble or nearly insoluble compounds with many metal ions, including those of calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc, reducing their dietary availability. Diets high in phytic acid content and poor in these minerals produce mineral deficiency in experimental animals (Gontzea and Sutzescu, 1958, as cited in Chavan and Kadam, 1989). The latter authors state that the sprouting of cereals has been reported to decrease levels of phytic acid. Similarly, Shipard (2005) states that enzymes of germination and sprouting can help eliminate detrimental substances such as phytic acid. However, the amount of phytic acid reduction from soaking is only marginal, and not enough to counteract its antinutrient effects
See also
- Donald G. Barceloux MD. "Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Solanine Toxicity (Solanum tuberosum L., Solanum lycopersicum L.)". Retrieved 7 August 2011. Paid subscription required to access article.
- "The Vegetarian Society - Information Sheet - pulses". Vegetarian Society. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
- "Plant-based nutrition". Spring 2002. Retrieved 2007-11-14.
- Neuman, William (10 June 2011). "The Poster Plant of Health Food Can Pack Disease Risks". New York Times. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
- Breuer, Thomas et al.. "A Multistate Outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Infections Linked to Alfalfa Sprouts Grown from Contaminated Seeds". Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- Gabriel, Alonzo A. et al.; Berja, M; Estrada, A; Lopez, M; Nery, J; Villaflor, E (2007). "Microbiology of retail mung bean sprouts vended in public markets of National Capital Region, Philippines". Food Control 18 (10): 1307–1313. doi:10.1016/j.foodcont.2006.09.004.
- Food and Drug Administration (May 17, 2005). "Transcript of Proceedings of Public Meeting on Sprout Safety". Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- Health Canada. "Sprouted Beans and Seeds". Retrieved 19 November 2007.
- Harrison, H. C. "Growing Edible Sprouts at Home" (PDF). Retrieved 23 November 2007.
- Suslow, Trevor V.; Linda J. Harris. "Growing Seed Sprouts at Home" (PDF). Retrieved 23 November 2007.
- Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC): Update on outbreak in the EU, 27 July 2011
- "Outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli in Germany (22 June 2011, 11:00)". ECDC. 22 June 2011. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
- "E. coli cucumber scare: Russia announces import ban". BBC News Online. 30 May 2011. Archived from the original on 30 May 2011. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
- "E. Two in U.S. infected in German E. coli outbreak". MSNBC Online. 31 May 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
- Larkcom, Joy ‘Salads For Small Gardens’, p.98 Hamlyn 1995 ISBN 0-600-58509-3
- "The Influence of Soaking and Germination on the Phytase Activity and Phytic Acid Content of Grains and Seeds Potentially Useful for Complementary Feedin". Food Science.
- The Raw Truth by Jeremy A Safron, (Celestial Arts, Toronto, 2003) ISBN 1-58761-172-4 (pbk.)
- "The Complete Guide to Successful Sprouting for Parrots" by Leslie Moran, (Critter Connection, US, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4196-8479-1 (110 pgs, pbk.)
- Title: Hydroponic grass. Source: In Practice. (Cuddeford, D., 1989). (Relates to Animal Nutrition)
- Title: NUTRITIONAL IMPROVEMENT OF CEREALS BY FERMENTATION. Source: CRITICAL REVIEWS IN FOOD SCIENCE AND NUTRITION (CHAVAN, JK; KADAM, SS, 1989)
- Title: How can I grow and use Sprouts as living food. (Shipard 2008) ISBN 978-0-9758252-0-4
1992.Kavas,A.: EL,S.N.Changes in nutritive value of lentils and mung beans during germination.Chem.Mikrobiol.,Technol.,Lebens.,14:3-9.
- Sprout Recipes Sprout recipes for every lifestyle and palate
- Sprout links
- Sprout People
- Guidelines on Safe Production of Ready-to-Eat Sprouted Seeds (Sprouts) - Food Safety Authority of Ireland General Fact-sheet Series
- Annex I - Proposed Draft Annex for Sprout Production - in Appendix II - Proposed Draft Code of Hygienic Practice for the Primary Production, Harvesting and Packing of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (at Step 5 of the Procedure) of Report of the Thirty Third Session of the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene
- Growing Seed Sprouts at Home - University of California Davis Agricultural and Natural Resources Catalog
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A stored procedure is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database system. A stored procedure (sometimes called a proc, sproc, StoPro, StoredProc, sp or SP) is actually stored in the database data dictionary.
Typical use for stored procedures include data validation (integrated into the database) or access control mechanisms. Furthermore, stored procedures can consolidate and centralize logic that was originally implemented in applications. Extensive or complex processing that requires execution of several SQL statements is moved into stored procedures, and all applications call the procedures. One can use nested stored procedures by executing one stored procedure from within another.
Stored procedures are similar to user-defined functions (UDFs). The major difference is that UDFs can be used like any other expression within SQL statements, whereas stored procedures must be invoked using the
Stored procedures may return result sets, i.e. the results of a
SELECT statement. Such result sets can be processed using cursors, by other stored procedures, by associating a result set locator, or by applications. Stored procedures may also contain declared variables for processing data and cursors that allow it to loop through multiple rows in a table. Stored procedure flow control statements typically include
CASE statements, and more. Stored procedures can receive variables, return results or modify variables and return them, depending on how and where the variable is declared.
The exact and correct implementation of stored procedures varies from one database system to another. Most major database vendors support them in some form. Depending on the database system, stored procedures can be implemented in a variety of programming languages, for example SQL, Java, C, or C++. Stored procedures written in non-SQL programming languages may or may not execute SQL statements themselves.
The increasing adoption of stored procedures led to the introduction of procedural elements to the SQL language in the SQL:1999 and SQL:2003 standards in the part SQL/PSM. That made SQL an imperative programming language. Most database systems offer proprietary and vendor-specific extensions, exceeding SQL/PSM. A standard specification for Java stored procedures exists as well as SQL/JRT.
|Database system||Implementation language|
|DB2||SQL PL (close to the SQL/PSM standard) or Java|
|Firebird||PSQL (Fyracle also supports portions of Oracle's PL/SQL)|
|Informix||SPL or Java|
|Microsoft SQL Server||Transact-SQL and various .NET Framework languages|
|MySQL||own stored procedures, closely adhering to SQL/PSM standard.|
|Oracle||PL/SQL or Java|
|PostgreSQL||PL/pgSQL, can also use own function languages such as pl/perl or pl/php|
Other uses
In some systems, stored procedures can be used to control transaction management; in others, stored procedures run inside a transaction such that transactions are effectively transparent to them. Stored procedures can also be invoked from a database trigger or a condition handler. For example, a stored procedure may be triggered by an insert on a specific table, or update of a specific field in a table, and the code inside the stored procedure would be executed. Writing stored procedures as condition handlers also allows database administrators to track errors in the system with greater detail by using stored procedures to catch the errors and record some audit information in the database or an external resource like a file.
Comparison with dynamic SQL
Overhead: Because stored procedure statements are stored directly in the database, they may remove all or part of the compilation overhead that is typically required in situations where software applications send inline (dynamic) SQL queries to a database. (However, most database systems implement "statement caches" and other mechanisms to avoid repetitive compilation of dynamic SQL statements.) In addition, while they avoid some overhead, pre-compiled SQL statements add to the complexity of creating an optimal execution plan because not all arguments of the SQL statement are supplied at compile time. Depending on the specific database implementation and configuration, mixed performance results will be seen from stored procedures versus generic queries or user defined functions.
Avoidance of network traffic: A major advantage with stored procedures is that they can run directly within the database engine. In a production system, this typically means that the procedures run entirely on a specialized database server, which has direct access to the data being accessed. The benefit here is that network communication costs can be avoided completely. This becomes particularly important for complex series of SQL statements.
Encapsulation of business logic: Stored procedures allow programmers to embed business logic as an API in the database, which can simplify data management and reduce the need to encode the logic elsewhere in client programs. This can result in a lesser likelihood of data corruption by faulty client programs. The database system can ensure data integrity and consistency with the help of stored procedures.
Delegation of access-rights: In many systems, stored procedures can be granted access rights to the database that users who execute those procedures do not directly have.
Some protection from SQL injection attacks: Stored procedures can be used to protect against injection attacks. Stored procedure parameters will be treated as data even if an attacker inserts SQL commands. Also, some DBMSs will check the parameter's type. A stored procedure that in turn generates dynamic SQL using the input is however still vulnerable to SQL injections unless proper precautions are taken.
Comparison with functions
- A function is a subprogram written to perform certain computations
- A scalar function returns only a single value (or NULL), whereas a table function returns a (relational) table comprising zero or more rows, each row with one or more columns.
- Functions must return a value (using the
RETURNkeyword), but for stored procedures this is not compulsory.
- Stored procedures can use
RETURNkeyword but without any value being passed.
- Functions could be used in
SELECTstatements, provided they don’t do any data manipulation. However, procedures cannot be included in
- A stored procedure can return multiple values using the
OUTparameter or return no value at all.
- A stored procedure can save the query compilation time.
Comparison with prepared statements
Prepared statements take an ordinary statement or query and parameterize it so that different literal values can be used at a later time. Like stored procedures, they are stored on the server for efficiency and provide some protection from SQL injection attacks. Although simpler and more declarative, prepared statements are not ordinarily written to use procedural logic and cannot operate on variables. Because of their simple interface and client-side implementations, prepared statements are more widely reusable between DBMSs.
- Stored procedure languages are quite often vendor-specific. Switching to another vendor's database most likely requires rewriting any existing stored procedures.
- Stored procedure languages from different vendors have different levels of sophistication.
- For example, Oracle's PL/SQL has more language features and built-in features (via packages such as DBMS_ and UTL_ and others) than Microsoft's T-SQL.
- Tool support for writing and debugging stored procedures is often not as good as for other programming languages, but this differs between vendors and languages.
- For example, both PL/SQL and T-SQL have dedicated IDEs and debuggers. PL/PgSQL can be debugged from various IDEs.
- Stored Procedures in MySQL FAQ
- An overview of PostgreSQL Procedural Language support
- Using a stored procedure in Sybase ASE
- PL/SQL Procedures
- Oracle Database PL/SQL Language Reference
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Rather than mounting each filesystem at a different place in the directory hierarchy, a union mount overlays the filesystems, creating a unified hierarchy. Thus, any given directory (or "folder") in the resulting filesystem may contain files and subdirectories from any or all of the underlying filesystems.
Generally one of the filesystems will be mounted read-write, while other filesystems are mounted read-only. Union mounts are implemented by union filesystems such as UnionFS and AUFS, frequently used by Live CDs. They originated with Plan 9 and its concept of union directories.
- Pendry, Jan-Simon; Marshall Kirk McKusick (December 1995). "Union Mounts in 4.4BSD-Lite". Proceedings of the USENIX Technical Conference on UNIX and Advanced Computing Systems: 25–33. Retrieved 25 November 2007.
- Wright, Charles P.; Jay Dave, Puja Gupta, Harikesavan Krishnan, Erez Zadok, and Mohammad Nayyer Zubair. "Versatility and Unix Semantics in a Fan-Out Unification File System". Stony Brook University Technical Report FSL-04-01b. Retrieved 25 November 2007.
- Aurora, Valerie; Henson (March 2009). "Unioning file systems: Architecture, features, and design choices". lwn.net. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
- Aurora, Valerie; Henson (March 2009). "Union file systems: Implementations, part I". lwn.net. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
- Aurora, Valerie; Henson (April 2009). "Unioning file systems: Implementations, part 2". lwn.net. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
- Blunck, Jan (May 2009). "VFS based Union Mount (V3)". lwn.net. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
- About GlusterFS. November 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
|This computer storage–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
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Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/School of Iona
Iona is the modern name derived by change of letter from Adamnan's Ioua; in Bede it is Hii; the Gaelic form is always I or Y, which becomes Hy by prefixing the euphonic h. This rugged, storm-swept island, three miles long and one in average breadth, and about a mile distant from the Ross of Mull, was next to Armagh the greatest centre of Gaelic Christianity — the latter was Patrick's city and primatial see; the former Columba's monastic city, a "primatial island", and the light of all the North. Yet closely connected with Ireland for at least 600 years it may be described as an Irish island in the Scottish seas. Columba, born in 521 landed with twelve of his monks at the southern extremity of the island — ever since called Porta Churraich, or the Bay of the Island — on Whitsun Eve 12 May, 563. Whether he came to do penance for his share in the battle of Cuildreinhne two years before, or, as the Irish "Life" says, "to preach the Gospel to the men of Alba and to the Britons and to the Saxons" — which in any case was his primary purpose — we cannot now determine. It appears that he got a grant of the island from his relative Conall King of Dalriada. which was afterwards confirmed by Brude, King of the Picts, when the latter was converted by the preaching of Columba, who immediately set to work to build his monastery, more Scottorum of earth, timber, and wicker-work. Hence not a trace now remains of those perishable buildings — all the existing ruins are medieval. A Celtic monastery consisted of a group of beehive cells around a central church or oratory, the other principal buildings being the common refectory or kitchen, the library or scriptorium, the abbot's house, and the guest-house. Adamnan, after Columba himself the brightest ornament of the School of Iona, in his "Life" of the founder, makes explicit references to the tabulae, waxen tablets for writing; to the pens and styles, graphia and calami, and to the ink-horn, cornicula atramenti, to be found in the scriptorium. Columba was certainly a most accomplished scribe if the "Book of Kells" be his own work, and he was engaged in copying one of the psalms when, overtaken by mortal illness, he directed his nephew Baithen to write the rest. And we are told, too, that Baithen during his brief abbacy of three years in succession to Columba was, like his master engaged in "writing, praying and teaching up to the hour of his happy death". When asked about the learning of Baithen, Fintan one of his monks replied: "Be assured that he had no equal on this side of the Alps in his knowledge of Sacred Scripture, and in the profundity of his science" — and he was at once a pupil and a professor of the School of Iona. Language like this might be considered exaggerated if we did not possess the writings of Adamnan, the ninth abbot and the most illustrious scholar of Iona.
Adamnan, otherwise Eunan, a native of Drumhome, in County Donegal, and a tribal relative of Columba, was educated from his youth in Iona, and it may be said that all his learning was the learning of Iona. His "Life of Columba", written at the request of the brotherhood, in Latin, not in Gaelic, is on the whole one of the most valuable works of the Western Church of the seventh century that have come down to us. He gives us more accurate and authentic information of the Gaelic Churches in Ireland and Scotland than any other writer, not excepting even Venerable Bede, who described him as "a good and wise man, and most nobly instructed in the knowledge of the Scriptures". But he was much more. We know from his writings that he was an accomplished Latin scholar, a Gaelic scholar too-Gaelic was his mother tongue-while he had a considerable acquaintance with Greek and some even with Hebrew. He was, moreover, painstaking, judicious, and careful in citing his authorities. He has also left us an admirable treatise "On the Holy Places" in Palestine which he compiled from the narrative of a shipwrecked French bishop named Arculfus, who returning from the Holy Land was cast on the shores of Iona. This is an invaluable treatise from which Bede has extracted long passages for his history, showing that its authority was as great in his own day as it has ever since continued to be in the estimation of scholars. This learned man was a true monk, and like Columba himself took a share in the manual labour of the monastery. With his own strong arms he helped to cut down as many oak trees in one of the neighbouring islands — perhaps Erraid — as sufficed to load twelve boats, and no doubt he had a share in building the boats and framing the monastic cells, like the cell of Columba, which was, he tells us, tabulis suffulta, framed of planks, and harundine tecta, thatched with reeds.
During the century that closed with the death of Adamnan, Iona was in its glory, Columba and his monks had converted to the faith the whole of Pictland with its rulers. It sent three famous prelates to found and rule over Lindisfarne, second only to Iona itself as a centre of religious learning and influence in the North of Saxonland. Aidan, Finan, and Colman are men whose well-deserved eulogy has been recorded by Venerable Bede. The unhappy disputes about the frontal tonsure and the true time for celebrating Easter, caused much disturbance during the seventh century both in Iona itself and in its daughter houses. Even when Ireland and England had given up the strife and adopted the Roman Easter, the monks of Iona, true to the traditions of their sainted founder, still clung tenaciously to the old Easter. And so late as 716, when Iona itself conformed to the Roman usage, some of the daughter houses in Pictland stubbornly held to the ancient discipline. This stubbornness brought about a few years later the expulsion of the Columban monks from Pictland by Nectan, King of the Picts, who had accepted the Roman discipline.
The ninth century brought woe and disaster to both Iona and Lindisfarne from the pagan Danes who ravaged all the British coasts. In 793 they destroyed the church of Lindisfarne with great rapine and slaughter. In 795 they made their first attack on Iona, but the monks on that occasion appear to have escaped with their lives. But in 806 sixty-eight of the community were slain at Port na Mairtir on the eastern shore of the island, and the white sands somewhat north were the scene of the massacre of another band of martyrs. A few years later again, in 814, Abbot Cellach found it necessary to transfer the primacy of the Columban Order from Iona-which Adamnan calls "this our primatial island"-to the monastery of Kells in Ireland, bringing with him the shrine containing Columba's relics which was however brought back later on. In 825 there was a further massacre of Iona monks, namely of St. Blaithmac who refused to give up the shrine, and his holy companions. Blaithmac's heroic death was celebrated in Latin verse by Walafridus Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, South Germany. In 908 St. Andrews was formally recognized as the primatial see of Scotland, from which year we may date the disappearance of Iona's insular primacy. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, 1204, the ancient Celtic monastery finally disappeared, and a new Benedictine one was established by authority of the pope; but the original graveyard — the Reilig Odhrain — was still regarded as the holiest ground in Scotland, and is now crowded with the inscribed tombstones of the kings, chieftains and prelates who rest beneath.
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availed ourselves of the information dispersed throughout a variety of publications, both ancient and modern, with such additions of our own, as have been acquired by the observation of Bees for a period of thirty years. Our prescribed limits have restricted us, in a great degree, to mere matters of fact, and prevented us often from illustrating our subject, as we might have done with advantage, by reference to the habits and instincts of other of the insect tribes. The same cause has operated as a bar to our indulging so frequently as our inclination would have led us, in those reflections which the wonders in animal economy are so well fitted to excite, and which lead so irresistibly to the conclusion that there is a Wise and Designing Cause. We trust, however, that the facts detailed, will, of themselves, lead the mind of the intelligent reader to such reflections, and thus become the source of a purer gratification than would have been derived from the suggestions of others.
- Some of our readers may be inclined to question the propriety of having placed the Queen-bee upon flowers, on which she is never seen, but it has, throughout our plates, been our endeavour to make them pictorial as Avell as scientifically correct, the more necessary in a volume such as the present, where our materials are rather scanty, a loss, however,
fully compensated by the extraordinary interest in the subject itself.
- We have to acknowledge our special obligations to the Treatises of M. Feburier of Paris, and of Dr. Bevan of South Wales, Author of "The Honey-Bee."
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The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N./Chapter 1
BIRTH AND ORIGINS
Matthew Flinders was the third of the triad of great English sailors by whom the principal part of Australia was revealed. A poet of our own time, in a line of singular felicity, has described it as the "last sea-thing dredged by sailor Time from Space;" and the piecemeal, partly mysterious, largely accidental dragging from the depths of the unknown of a land so immense and bountiful makes a romantic chapter in geographical history. All the great seafaring peoples contributed something towards the result. The Dutch especially evinced their enterprise in the pursuit of precise information about the southern Terra Incognita, and the nineteenth century was well within its second quarter before the name New Holland, which for over a hundred years had borne testimony to their adventurous pioneering, gave place in general and geographical literature to the more convenient and euphonious designation suggested by Flinders himself, Australia.
But, important as was the work of the Dutch, and though the contributions made by French navigators (possibly also by Spanish) are of much consequence, it remains true that the broad outlines of the continent were laid down by Dampier, Cook and Flinders. These are the principal names in the story. A map of Australia which left out the parts discovered by other sailors would be seriously defective in particular features; but a map which left out the parts discovered by these three Englishmen would gape out of all resemblance to the reality.
Dampier died about the year 1712; nobody knows precisely when. Matthew Flinders came into the world in time to hear, as he may well have done as a boy, of the murder of his illustrious predecessor in 1779. The news of Cook's fate did not reach England till 1781. The lad was then seven years of age, having been born on March 16th, 1774.
His father, also named Matthew, was a surgeon practising his profession at Donington, Lincolnshire, where the boy was born. The Flinders family had been settled in the same town for several generations. Three in succession had been surgeons. The patronymic indicates a Flemish origin, and the work on English surnames that bids the reader looking for information under "Flinders" to "see Flanders," sends him on a reasonable quest, if to no great resulting advantage.The English middle-eastern counties received frequent large migrations of Flemings during several centuries. Sometimes calamities due to the harshness of nature, sometimes persecutions and wars, sometimes adverse economic conditions, impelled companies of people from the Low Countries to cross the North Sea and try to make homes for themselves in a land which, despite intervals of distraction, offered greater security and a better reward than did the place whence they came. England derived much advantage from the infusion of this industrious, solid and dependable Flemish stock; though the temporary difficulty of absorption gave rise to local protests on more than one occasion.
As early as 1108, a great part of Flanders "being drowned by an exudation or breaking in of the sea, a great number of Flemings came into the country, beseeching the King to have some void place assigned them, wherein they might inhabit." Again in the reign of Edward I we find Flemish merchants carrying on a very large and important trade in Boston, and representatives of houses from Ypres and Ostend acquired property in the town. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when Flanders was boiling on the fire of the Reformation, Lincolnshire and Norfolk provided an asylum for crowds of harassed refugees. In 1569 two persons were deputed to ride from Boston to Norwich to ascertain what means that city adopted to find employment for them; and in the same year Mr. William Derby was directed to move Mr. Secretary Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's great minister, to "know his pleasure whether certain strangers may be allowed to dwell within the borough without damage of the Queen's laws."
During one of these peaceful and useful Flemish invasions the ancestors of Matthew Flinders entered Lincolnshire. In the later years of his life he devoted some attention to the history of his family, and found record of a Flinders as early as the tenth century. He believed, also, that his people had some connection with two men named Flinders or Flanders, who fled from Holland during the religious persecutions, and settled, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, in Nottinghamshire as silk stocking weavers. It would be very interesting if it were clear that there was a link between the family and the origins of the great Nottingham hosiery trade. A Flinders may in that case have woven silk stockings for the Royal termagant, and Lord Coke's pair, which were darned so often that none of the original fabric remained, may have come from their loom.
Matthew Flinders himself wrote the note: "Ruddington near Nottingham (it is four miles south of the town) is the place whence the Flinders came;" and he ascertained that an ancestor was Robert Flinders, a Nottingham stocking-weaver.
A family tradition relates that the Lincolnshire Flinders were amongst the people taken over to England by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer of celebrity in his day, who undertook in 1621 to drain 360,000 acres of fen in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. He was financed by English and Dutch capitalists, and took his reward in large grants of land which he made fit for habitation and cultivation. Vermuyden and his Flemings were not allowed to accomplish their work of reclamation without incurring the enmity of the natives. In a petition to the King in 1637 he stated that he had spent 150,000 pounds, but that 60,000 pounds of damage had been done "by reason of the opposition of the commoners," who cut the banks of his channels in the night and during floods. The peasantry, indeed, resisted the improvements that have proved so beneficent to that part of England, because the draining and cultivation of so many miles of swamp would deprive them of fishing and fowling privileges enjoyed from time immemorial. Hardly any reform or improvement can be effected without some disruption of existing interests; and a people deeply sunk in poverty and toil could hardly be expected to contemplate with philosophical calm projects which, however advantageous to individuals and to posterity, were calculated to diminish their own means of living and their pleasant diversions. The dislike of the "commoners" to the work of the "participants" led to frequent riots, and many of Vermuyden's Flemings were maltreated. He endeavoured to allay discontent by employing local labour at high wages; and was courageous enough to pursue his task despite loss of money, wanton destruction, and many other discouragements. Ebullitions of discontent on the part of fractious Fenlanders did not cease till the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A very simple calculation shows that the great-grandfather of the first Matthew Flinders would probably have been contemporary with Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's reclamation works. He may have been one of the "participants" who benefited from them. The fact is significant as bearing upon this conjecture, that no person named Flinders made a will in Lincolnshire before 1600.
It is, too, an interesting circumstance that there was a Flinders among the early settlers in New England, Richard Flinders of Salem, born 1637. He may have been of the same family as the navigator, for the Lincolnshire element among the fathers of New England was pronounced.
The name Flinders survived at Donington certainly for thirty years after the death of the sailor who gave lustre to it; for in a directory published in 1842 occur the names of "Flinders, Mrs. Eliz., Market Place," and "Flinders, Mrs. Mary, Church Street."
The Flinders papers, mentioned in the preface, contain material which enables the family and connections of the navigator to be traced with certainty for seven generations. The genealogy is shown by the following table:—
There is also an interesting connection between Flinders and the Tennysons, through the Franklin family. The present Lord Tennyson, when Governor of South Australia, in the course of his official duties, in March, 1902, unveiled a memorial to his kinsman on Mount Lofty, and in April of the same year a second one in Encounter Bay. The following table illustrates the relationship between him who wrote of "the long wash of Australasian seas" and him who knew them as discoverer:
The Flinders papers also contain a note suggesting a distant connection between Matthew Flinders and the man who above all others was his choice friend, George Bass, the companion of his earliest explorations. Positive proof is lacking, but Flinders' daughter, Mrs. Petrie, wrote "we have reason to think that Bass was a connection of the family," and the point is too interesting to be left unstated. The following table shows the possible kinship:
John Flinders of Donington, born 1682, died 1741 (great-grandfather of the navigator) had:
Mary Flinders, third and youngest daughter, born 1734, married as her third husband, Bass, and had:It is clear from the particulars stated above that the tree of which Matthew Flinders was the fruit had its roots deep down in the soil of the little Lincolnshire market town where he was born; and Matthew himself would have continued the family tradition, inheriting the practice built up by his father and grandfather (as it was hoped he would do), had there not been within him an irresistible longing for the sea, and a bent of scientific curiosity directed to maritime exploration, which led him on a path of discovery to achievements that won him honourable rank in the noble roll of British naval pioneers.
His father earned an excellent reputation, both professional and personal. The career of a country practitioner rarely affords an opportunity for distinction. It was even less so then than today, when at all events careful records of interesting cases are printed in a score or more of professional publications. But once we find the elder Matthew Flinders in print. The Memoirs of the Medical Society of London contain a paper read before that body on October 30th, 1797: "Case of a child born with variolar pustules, by Matthew Flinders, surgeon, Donington, Lincolnshire." The essay occupies three pages, and is a clear, succinct record of symptoms, treatment and results, for medical readers. The child died; whereupon the surgeon expresses his regret, not on account of infant or parents, but, with true scientific zest, because it deprived him of the opportunity of watching the development of an uncommon case.
Donington is a small town in the heart of the fen country, lying ten miles south-west of Boston, and about the same distance, as the crow flies, from the black, muddy, western fringe of the Wash. It is a very old town. Formerly it was an important Lincolnshire centre, enjoying its weekly Saturday market, and its four annual fairs for the sale of horses, cattle, flax and hemp. During Flinders' youth and early manhood the district grew large quantities of hemp, principally for the Royal Navy. In the days of its prosperity Donington drew to itself the business of an agricultural neighbourhood which was so far cultivable as it rose above the level of desolate and foggy swamps. But the drainage of the fens and the making of good roads over what had once been an area of amphibious uncertainty, neither wholly land nor wholly water, had the effect of largely diverting business to Boston. Trade that came to Donington when it stood over its own tract of fen, like the elderly and respectable capital of some small island, now went to the thriving and historic port on the Witham. Donington stopped growing, stagnated, declined. On the map of Lincolnshire included in Camden's Britannia (1637) it is marked "Dunington," in letters as large as those given to Boston, Spalding and Lincoln. On modern maps the name is printed in small letters; on some in the smallest, or not at all. That fact is fairly indicative of its change of fortunes. Figures tell the tale with precision. In 1801 it contained 1321 inhabitants; in 1821, 1638; in 1841 it reached its maximum, 2026; by 1891 it had gone down to 1547; in 1901 to 1484; at the census of 1911 it had struggled up to 1564.
The fame conferred by a distinguished son is hardly a recompense for faded prosperity, but certain it is that Donington commands a wider interest as the birthplace of Flinders than it ever did in any other respect during its long, uneventful history. The parish church, a fine Gothic building with a lofty, graceful spire, contains a monument to the memory of the navigator, with an inscription in praise of his character and life, and recording that he "twice circumnavigated the globe." Many men have encircled the earth, but few have been so distinguished as discoverers of important portions of it. Apart from this monument, the church contains marble ovals to the memory of Matthew Flinders' father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. They were provided from a sum of £100 pounds left by the navigator, in his will, for the purpose.It is interesting to notice that three of the early Australian explorers came from Lincolnshire, and were all born at places visible in clear weather from the tower of St. Botolph's Church at Boston. While Flinders sprang from Donington, George Bass, who co-operated with him in his first discoveries, was born at Aswarby, near Sleaford, and Sir John Franklin, who sailed with him in the Investigator, and was subsequently to become an Australian Governor and to achieve a pathetic immortality in another field of exploration, entered the world at Spilsby. Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist of Cook's first voyage, Flinders' steadfast friend, and the earliest potent advocate of Australian colonisation, though not actually born in Lincolnshire, was the son of a squire who at the time of his birth owned Revesby Abbey, which is within a short ride of each of the places just named.
- Bernard O'Dowd, Dawnward, (1903).
- Not universally, however, even in official documents. In the Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, dated May 1, 1849, "New Holland" is used to designate the continent, but "Australia" is employed as including both the continent and Tasmania. See Grey's Colonial Policy I., 424 and 439.)
- Barker, Family Surnames (1903) page 143.
- Holinshed's Chronicle (edition of 1807), II 58.)
- Pishey Thompson Collections for a Topographical and Historical Account of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck (1820) p. 31.
- Boston Corporation manuscripts quoted in Thompson, History and Antiquities of Boston (1856).
- See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, for 1619, 1623, 1625, 1638, 1639 et seq; and White's Lincolnshire page 542.
- See C. W. Foster, Calendar of Lincoln Wills 1320-1600`, (1902).
- Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, (Boston, U.S.A. 1860).
- William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of the City and Diocese of Lincoln, (1842), p. 193.
- Vol. IV., p. 330 (1779).
- Allen, History of Lincolnshire, (1833), 1., 342; Victoria History of Lincolnshire Volume II. 359; Census Returns for 1911.
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One of the things that you have to do at university is read. A lot. Probably you take a look at your reading list which you are given and your heart sinks. How will you ever read everything that you are meant to read? Well, the first things to understand that you don’t have to read everything on your reading list! You need to pick and choose the best from the list. But the other thing to do is to read efficiently and that means quickly. Many people read slowly in the belief that they will understand more that way. However, research shows that reading faster doesn’t interfere with comprehension – in fact it may even increase it. In order to speed up your reading you need to know that fast readers read in blocks, like this:
your eyes see this block then they jump to this block and then this block and you understand the whole block together
If you can read quickly in blocks your reading speed can increase a lot. If you want, use a pen to jump across the page as you read, and move the pen quickly to make sure you read at a good speed. Like other habits, it will get easier with time.
Here’s what Tony Buzan has to say about reading quickly:
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Mars on September 21
October 18, 2005
The above photo of enigmatic Mars was captured in Dayton and John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs, Ohio on September 21 (from 2:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m Eastern Standard Time). We used several telescopes this evening including a 3” F6 Achromat Refractor, 6” F8 Newtonian Reflector, 10” F10 Meade SCT, and a Celestron 11” F10 SCT. With a variety of different size scopes, considerable surface detail can be detected on Mars -- even with Mars at only 16.5 Arc seconds. Note, the South Polar Cap is at bottom. The bluish "haze" at the top of Mars is likely clouds forming near the North Polar Cap. It's now the end of Martian summer for the Northern Hemisphere on Mars -- the North Polar Cap is in the process of forming.
Photo details: Toucam Pro 2 Webcam, IR Blocking Filter, 5x Televue Barlow, 500 to 1000 AVI frames captured and stacked in Registax 3, seeing was 8/10.Related Links:
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MADYANTIE, SEPTIRINA (2007) POLA KELEKATAN IBU DAN ANAK PADA KELUARGA BANJAR. Other thesis, University of Muhammadiyah Malang.
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Pastoral care from parent to child will lead attachment between children and parents. Attachment is the emotional bond special is happening on a reciprocal basis between children with mothers who can memeberikan sense of security to the children so that children gain compliance need for closeness, warmth, security and comfort of the mother. In each area must have characteristics that differ in terms of parenting and bonding behavior patterns among children with parents. In Banjar community family has a uniqueness in terms of child care. Holding of this study aims to determine the form of viscosity (Attachment) between mother and child in the family community Banjar. The study was a descriptive qualitative research. Subjects in This research is a child - children ages 1 to 3 years nurtured alone by her parents. She took the child with us he is 1 to 3 years at this age occurred separately anxiety (separation anxiety) between children with parents as objects lekatnya. Researchers using non random "Purposive sampling" to determine the study sample. Collection methods data used were observation and interviews. Observations made with participant observation, while the interviews were conducted in the mother or person parents and close relatives of the subject. Results obtained from research is that the child has a secure attachment to the object that is the main bonding mother. It can be seen kelekatannya pattern that is now close to his mother, the child always kissing, hugging, holding and spoiled at his mother. Children feel lost sense of security when left out the mother and child will get back a sense of security when the mother comes back near the child or any other attached object which can give a sense of security in children, like his father, uncle, aunt, grandmother, or grandfather. Similarly, when children meet new people knew, the child will feel insecure so that children will find a sense of safe return, found only on the object lekatnya. Characteristic Banjar society that tends to closed does not affect the pattern of attachment between object and child bonding. Stickiness ama n is influenced by the object adhesiveness is responsive and consistent on the needs and signals - signals given child.
|Item Type:||Thesis (Other)|
|Subjects:||B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology|
|Divisions:||Faculty of Psychology > Department of Psychology|
|Depositing User:||Zainul Afandi|
|Date Deposited:||20 Jun 2012 06:37|
|Last Modified:||20 Jun 2012 06:37|
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|ETCSLtranslation : t.5.3.2|
1-11. When, upon the hill of heaven and earth, An spawned the Anuna gods, since he neither spawned nor created grain with them, and since in the Land he neither fashioned the yarn of Uttu (the goddess of weaving) nor pegged out the loom for Uttu -- with no sheep appearing, there were no numerous lambs, and with no goats, there were no numerous kids, the sheep did not give birth to her twin lambs, and the goat did not give birth to her triplet kids --, the Anuna, the great gods, did not even know the names Ezina-Kusu (Grain) or Sheep.
12-25. There was no muc grain of thirty days; there was no muc grain of forty days; there was no muc grain of fifty days; there was no small grain, grain from the mountains or grain from the holy habitations. There was no cloth to wear; Uttu had not been born -- no royal turban was worn; Lord Nijir-si, the precious lord, had not been born; Cakkan (the god of wild animals) had not gone out into the barren lands. The people of those days did not know about eating bread. They did not know about wearing clothes; they went about with naked limbs in the Land. Like sheep they ate grass with their mouths and drank water from the ditches.
26-36. At that time, at the place of the gods' formation, in their own home, on the Holy Mound, they created Sheep and Grain. Having gathered them in the divine banqueting chamber, the Anuna gods of the Holy Mound partook of the bounty of Sheep and Grain but were not sated; the Anuna gods of the Holy Mound partook of the sweet milk of their holy sheepfold but were not sated. For their own well-being in the holy sheepfold, they gave them to mankind as sustenance.
37-42. At that time Enki spoke to Enlil: "Father Enlil, now Sheep and Grain have been created on the Holy Mound, let us send them down from the Holy Mound." Enki and Enlil, having spoken their holy word, sent Sheep and Grain down from the Holy Mound.
43-53. Sheep being fenced in by her sheepfold, they gave her green plants generously. For Grain they made her field and gave her the plough, yoke and team. Sheep standing in her sheepfold was a shepherd of the sheepfolds brimming with charm. Grain standing in her furrow was a beautiful girl radiating charm; lifting her raised head up from the field she was suffused with the bounty of heaven. Sheep and Grain had a radiant appearance.
54-64. They brought wealth to the assembly. They brought sustenance to the Land. They fulfilled the ordinances of the gods. They filled the storerooms of the Land with stock. The barns of the Land were heavy with them. When they entered the homes of the poor who crouch in the dust they brought wealth. Both of them, wherever they directed their steps, added to the riches of the household with their weight. Where they stood, they were satisfying; where they settled, they were seemly. They gladdened the heart of An and the heart of Enlil.
65-70. They drank sweet wine, they enjoyed sweet beer. When they had drunk sweet wine and enjoyed sweet beer, they started a quarrel concerning the arable fields, they began a debate in the dining hall.
71-82. Grain called out to Sheep: "Sister, I am your better; I take precedence over you. I am the glory of the lights of the Land. I grant my power to the sajursaj (a member of the cultic personnel of Inana) -- he fills the palace with awe and people spread his fame to the borders of the Land. I am the gift of the Anuna gods. I am central to all princes. After I have conferred my power on the warrior, when he goes to war he knows no fear, he knows no faltering (?) -- I make him leave ...... as if to the playing field."
83-91. "I foster neighbourliness and friendliness. I sort out quarrels started between neighbours. When I come upon a captive youth and give him his destiny, he forgets his despondent heart and I release his fetters and shackles. I am Ezina-Kusu (Grain) ; I am Enlil's daughter. In sheep shacks and milking pens scattered on the high plain, what can you put against me? Answer me what you can reply!"
92-101. Thereupon Sheep answered Grain: "My sister, whatever are you saying? An, king of the gods, made me descend from the holy place, my most precious place. All the yarns of Uttu, the splendour of kingship, belong to me. Cakkan, king of the mountain, embosses the king's emblems and puts his implements in order. He twists a giant rope against the great peaks of the rebel land. He ...... the sling, the quiver and the longbows."
102-106. "The watch over the élite troops is mine. Sustenance of the workers in the field is mine: the waterskin of cool water and the sandals are mine. Sweet oil, the fragrance of the gods, mixed (?) oil, pressed oil, aromatic oil, cedar oil for offerings are mine."
107-115. "In the gown, my cloth of white wool, the king rejoices on his throne. My body glistens on the flesh of the great gods. After the purification priests, the pacec priests and the bathed priests have dressed themselves in me for my holy lustration, I walk with them to my holy meal. But your harrow, ploughshare, binding and strap are tools that can be utterly destroyed. What can you put against me? Answer me what you can reply!"
116-122. Again Grain addressed Sheep: "When the beer dough has been carefully prepared in the oven, and the mash tended in the oven, Ninkasi (the goddess of beer) mixes them for me while your big billy-goats and rams are despatched for my banquets. On their thick legs they are made to stand separate from my produce."
123-129. "Your shepherd on the high plain eyes my produce enviously; when I am standing in stalks in the field, my farmer chases away your herdsman with his cudgel. Even when they look out for you, from the open country to the hidden places, your fears are not removed from you: fanged (?) snakes and bandits, the creatures of the desert, want your life on the high plain."
130-142. "Every night your count is made and your tally-stick put into the ground, so your herdsman can tell people how many ewes there are and how many young lambs, and how many goats and how many young kids. When gentle winds blow through the city and strong winds scatter, they build a milking pen for you; but when gentle winds blow through the city and strong winds scatter, I stand up as an equal to Ickur (the god of storms) . I am Grain, I am born for the warrior -- I do not give up. The churn, the vat on legs (?), the adornments of shepherding, make up your properties. What can you put against me? Answer me what you can reply!"
143-155. Again Sheep answered Grain: "You, like holy Inana of heaven, love horses. When a banished enemy, a slave from the mountains or a labourer with a poor wife and small children comes, bound with his rope of one cubit, to the threshing-floor or is taken away from (?) the threshing-floor, when his cudgel pounds your face, pounds your mouth, like crushed ...... your ears (?) ......, and you are ...... around by the south wind and the north wind. The mortar ....... As if it were pumice (?) it makes your body into flour."
156-168. "When you fill the trough the baker's assistant mixes you and throws you on the floor, and the baker's girl flattens you out broadly. You are put into the oven and you are taken out of the oven. When you are put on the table I am before you -- you are behind me. Grain, heed yourself! You too, just like me, are meant to be eaten. At the inspection of your essence, why should it be I who come second? Is the miller not evil? What can you put against me? Answer me what you can reply!"
169-179. Then Grain was hurt in her pride, and hastened for the verdict. Grain answered Sheep: "As for you, Ickur is your master, Cakkan your herdsman, and the dry land your bed. Like fire beaten down (?) in houses and in fields, like small flying birds chased from the door of a house, you are turned into the lame and the weak of the Land. Should I really bow my neck before you? You are distributed into various measuring-containers. When your innards are taken away by the people in the market-place, and when your neck is wrapped with your very own loincloth, one man says to another: "Fill the measuring-container with Grain for my ewe!.""
180-191. Then Enki spoke to Enlil: "Father Enlil, Sheep and Grain should be sisters! They should stand together! Of their threefold metal ...... shall not cease. But of the two, Grain shall be the greater. Let Sheep fall on her knees before Grain. Let her kiss the feet of ....... From sunrise till sunset, may the name of Grain be praised. People should submit to the yoke of Grain. Whoever has silver, whoever has jewels, whoever has cattle, whoever has sheep shall take a seat at the gate of whoever has grain, and pass his time there."
192-193. Dispute spoken between Sheep and Grain: Sheep is left behind and Grain comes forward -- praise be to Father Enki!
© Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 The ETCSL project, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
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Science: Balls and Ramps
These resources explore basic concepts of science related to balls and ramps. Learn about the characteristics and properties of balls and ramps, relationship between the physical properties of balls and their motion, and some of the factors that affect the way balls behave. Includes lesson plans, experiments, and simulations. There are also links to eThemes Resources on force and motion, and gravity.
TEACHEngineering: How High Can a Super Ball Bounce?
Students learn about elasticity for super balls; includes: prerequisite knowledge, learning objectives, materials list, introduction, vocabulary, procedures, safety issues, troubleshooting tips, investigating questions, assessment, activity extensions,and activity scaling advice.
PBS Kids: Balls and Ramp
This lesson introduces students to the concept of gravity; includes materials needed and activity instructions.
NOTE: This site includes a discussion board (message board, forum, etc).
In this experiment, students learn about factors such as temperature and construction that affect the height of a ball bouncing.
Basketball: A Physicist Party Trick
Through these activities, students learn the relationship between energy of a basketball and how high it bounces.
BBC: Force and Movement
Play an interactive game and observe the relationship between force, size of a car, and steepness of a ramp. NOTE: The "Talk" link leads to a discussion forum.
BBC: Forces in Action
Observe how far the truck travels with changing the gradient. Note: The "Talk" link is a link to discussion forum.
Ramps 1: Let it Roll
In this lesson, students will explore and measure the rate of spherical objects rolling down a ramp.
This experiment aims to help students understand things that affect the distance and speed of objects rolling from ramps.
eThemes Resource: Physics: Force and Motion
These sites cover the basic concepts of physics. Learn about force, motion, and friction using interactive simulations where you can manipulate the variables. Includes links to an eThemes on Simple Machines, Magnets, and Gravity.
eThemes Resource: Physics: Gravity
These sites explain how the earth's gravity works. Includes photographs, simulations, videos, hands-on activities, and online quizzes. Included are eThemes resources on mass versus weight and force.
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Pen"guin (?), n. [Perh. orig. the name of another bird, and fr. W. pen head + gwyn white; or perh. from a native South American name.]
Any bird of the order Impennes, or Ptilopteri. They are covered with short, thick feathers, almost scalelike on the wings, which are without true quills. They are unable to fly, but use their wings to aid in diving, in which they are very expert. See King penguin, under Jackass.
Penguins are found in the south temperate and antarctic regions. The king penguins (Aptenodytes Patachonica, and A. longirostris) are the largest; the jackass penguins (Spheniscus) and the rock hoppers (Catarractes) congregate in large numbers at their breeding grounds.
The egg-shaped fleshy fruit of a West Indian plant (Bromelia Pinguin) of the Pineapple family; also, the plant itself, which has rigid, pointed, and spiny-toothed leaves, and is used for hedges.
[Written also pinguin
Arctic penguin Zool., the great auk. See Auk.
© Webster 1913.
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Finding aid prepared by Amanda M. Reeve
Willard Rouse Jillson
Geology of the Mintonville Dome
University of Kentucky Special Collections
Arranged by material type.
Collection is open to researchers by appointment.
62M78 : [identification of item], Willard Rouse Jillson Geology of the Mintonville Dome, 1962, University of Kentucky Special Collections.
0.23 Cubic feet
The Willard Rouse Jillson Geology of the Mintonville Dome collection contains the proofs and rough draft typescript of this book.
Willard Rouse Jillson (May 28, 1890 – October 4, 1975) was a Kentucky historian academic, and geologist who authored numerous books on Kentucky politicians and geology matters pertaining to the State. Jillson taught geology in Lexington at the University of Kentucky in 1918 and later at Transylvania University in 1947. He served in various government positions, notably as Kentucky State Geologist and director of the Sixth Kentucky Geological Survey. He died in 1975 and was buried in the Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky.
"Willard Rouse Jillson." Wikiepdiea: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 18 January 2011. Web 5 April 2011.
The Willard Rouse Jillson Geology of the Mintonville Dome collection contains the proofs and rough draft typescript of this book. The proofs and typescript are annotated by the author. The book was printed by the Roberts Printing Company in Frankfort Kentucky, 1962. This book discusses the location of the Dome, the field work done while at the Dome, and other geological surveying done of the Dome.
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Botanical Name : Smilax lanceolata
Family : Smilacaceae
Gender : Smilax
Species : S. laurifolia
Division : Magnoliophyta
Class : Liliopsida
Order : Liliales
*Parillax laurifolia (L.) Raf.
*Smilax alba Pursh
*Smilax hastata var. lanceolata (L.) Pursh
*Smilax lanceolata L.
*Smilax laurifolia var. bupleurifolia A.DC.
*Smilax reticulata Std.
Common Name :Red China Root
Habitat : Smilax lanceolata is native to South-eastern N. America – New Jersey to Florida and Texas.It grows on swamps and low ground. Moist woods and thickets. Bays, bogs, pocosins, swamp margins, marshy banks.
Smilax laurifolia is an evergreen Climber growing to 6 m (19ft 8in). It is a vine that forms extensive colonies woody, with rhizomes irregularly branched, tuberous. Stems perennial cylindrical reaching 5 + m in length and 15 mm in diameter, dark spines, flat 12 mm rigid. The leaves are evergreen, ± evenly arranged, with petiole 0.5-1.5 cm, green undersides, dried light brown to brownish green, oblong-elliptic, lance-elliptic, or sometimes linear or broadly ovate , leathery. The inflorescence in umbels numerous, axillary to leaves, branches usually short, 5-12 (-25) flowers. The perianth yellow, cream or white, petals 4-5 mm. The fruits as berries ovoid, 5-8 mm, shiny black, glaucous. The stems of Smilax laurifolia are brutally armed with thorns.
It is hardy to zone 8. It is in leaf 12-Jan It is in flower from Jul to August. The flowers are dioecious (individual flowers are either male or female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant so both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required)The plant is not self-fertile.
Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It prefers moist soil.
Succeeds in most soils in sun or semi-shade. This species is not very hardy in Britain. It succeeds outdoors in S.W. England, but even there it is best when grown against a wall. The fruit takes two growing seasons to ripen. The stems have viscious thorns. Dioecious. Male and female plants must be grown if seed is required
Seed – sow March in a warm greenhouse. This note probably refers to the tropical members of the genus, seeds of plants from cooler areas seem to require a period of cold stratification, some species taking 2 or more years to germinate. We sow the seed of temperate species in a cold frame as soon as we receive it, and would sow the seed as soon as it is ripe if we could obtain it then. When the seedlings eventually germinate, prick them out into individual pots when they are large enough to handle and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first year, though we normally grow them on in pots for 2 years. Plant them out into their permanent positions in early summer. Division in early spring as new growth begins. Larger divisions can be planted out direct into their permanent positions. We have found it best to pot up the smaller divisions and grow them on in a lightly shaded position in a cold frame, planting them out once they are well established in the summer. Cuttings of half-ripe shoots, July in a frame
Edible Uses :
Edible Parts: Leaves; Root.
Root – cooked. Rich in starch , it can be dried and ground into a powder to be used as a flavouring in soups etc or for making bread. The root can be up to 15cm thick. Young shoots – cooked. Used as an asparagus substitute.
Astringent; Birthing aid; Poultice; Rubefacient; Tonic.
The stem prickles have been rubbed on the skin as a counter-irritant to relieve localised pains, muscle cramps and twitching. A tea made from the leaves and stems has been used in the treatment of rheumatism and stomach problems. The wilted leaves are applied as a poultice to boils. A tea made from the roots is used to help the expelling of afterbirth. Reports that the roots contain the hormone testosterone have not been confirmed, they might contain steroid precursors, however . The root bark is astringent and slightly tonic. An infusion of the root bark has been used as a wash in treating burns, sores and pox.
Chop and boil a small handful of roots in 3 cups of water to use as a pleasant tasting blood tonic and for fatigue, anemia, acidity, toxicity, rheumatism, and skin conditions. Drink with milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg to strengthen and proliferate red blood cells.
Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplement, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider
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Both my multimeters will only measure current up to 10A. What kit would you recommend to measure higher currents, up to about 40A?
Build yourself a shunt. Take a piece of #14 or #12 bare copper wire about 6 inches long and connect it to robust terminals (enough to handle your max current). If the shunt gets warm at the currents you work with, it won't be accurate and you will need to use heavier wire.
Then use small wire and tap off the shunt near each end, but not touching the big terminals (like this):
The "#" denotes the large connectors, the "|" denotes the small wire. The "---" denotes the bare copper wire shunt.
Now, connect the small wires to your voltmeter on the millivolts scale and apply 2 different known currents to the shunt and see what millivolts you get for each. Then do a first order (linear) calibration and you have your current meter.
Alternatively, you may want to check out a local college or technical school and see if they have any high current shunts left over from the "good old days". They may have dusty boxes of old lab parts they don't use anymore and they may be able to give you a laboratory shunt (which will already be calibrated for you).
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Teachers and Educators of Art, Math and Special
challenges, but does not frustrate.
too easy, not too hard - the versatile and elegant
geometry of Fractiles-7 allows almost anyone to
create endless varieties of imaginative and beautiful
designs, ranging from simple to complex. With
192 magnetic tiles and a 12"x12" steel board,
Fractiles-7 is perfect for focus groups. And unlike
pattern blocks, these magnetic tiles stay put,
an especially helpful feature for students with
fine motor skill problems.
Video Introduction to Fractiles-7 on YouTube
Click here to view video
facilitates an intuitive grasp of spatial relationships
and invites deeper exploration.
use of Fractiles-7 increases visual perceptual
skills and visual analysis skills.
Dr. Jerome Rosner's guide for parents and teachers
"Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties",
Walker Publishing Company, 1993:
perceptual skills and visual analysis skills are
critical to mastering Arithmetic and Mathematics.
The child who does not appreciate spatial relationships
(whose visual analysis skills are deficient) or
who lacks the ability to use spatial analysis
strategies will have to resort to keeping the
(math) problem in memory in its entirety, then
organizing it into a solvable problem - a very
difficult task indeed."
stated, satisfactory progress in arithmetic depends
upon the adequate development of visual perceptual
skills. If a child's visual analysis skills are
not properly developed, learning difficulties
are inevitable. Arithmetic cannot be mastered
a youngster begins to acquire better visual perceptual
and analysis skills, she begins to exercise these
skills in different situations. Signs of progress
scores on T.V.A.S. (Test of Visual Analysis
and writing improvement.
of a more orderly approach to day-to-day situations
- such as better organizing of time and efforts,
noticing of things that facilitate learning,
and so on.
Rosner states that visual perceptual skills are
strongly linked to learning to read and write.
Improving visual analysis skills enables students
to respond better to instructional programs.
course, Fractiles-7 does not take the place of
lessons, but your students may become more teachable
by playing regularly with Fractiles-7.
AND LESSON PLANS
and Lesson Plans are available in the Adobe
Portable Document Format (PDF;
size:130 KB), a printer-friendly format. You must
have Adobe Reader installed on your computer to
see and print the games and lesson plans. You
can download the free Adobe Reader software here.
Included in the Games and Lesson Plans are:
Your Friend Game
Plus Stars Game
IN YOUR IDEAS AND STORIES
you successfully use Fractiles in the classroom,
if you have a story about how Fractiles has fostered
learning, if you have a reference to a book or
magazine article that discusses subjects related
to Fractiles such as tessellations or seven-fold
symmetry, please send us an email with your ideas
or your story to: email@example.com,
and we'll post it as part of what this site offers.
use Fractiles in my classroom as an outlet for
creativity. It is among the choices awaiting students
who have earned 'free time.' The responses have
been very positive! The students are at ease with
the format and welcome the chance to match the
designs on the folder and/or stake out their own
artistic territories. I have been delighted to
observe two or more students working together
in a cooperative manner!
Some of them would have loved to see their creations
preserved for eternity in a museum! Eventually
they conceded the need to yield the board and
the pieces to another student knowing that they'll
have another go at it when they earn the time!"
-Gene Silver, Teacher, Kellogg
Middle School, Portland, OR
first graders are learning about shapes in our
math class and using Fractiles-7 is a complimentary
activity which they thoroughly enjoy. It's so
popular that we have a sign up for equal turns!"
-Marilyn Bowker, First Grade
Teacher Willett Elementary School, Davis, CA
find my students are captivated by Fractiles-7.
Their sense of pride and accomplishment is immense
when they show me what they have created. It makes
them feel extra special about math. What a motivator!
Fractiles is a terrific training aide that disguises
learning as fun. It is reasonable to predict that
Fractiles will remain a staple in my curriculum."
-Bob Curry, Elementary School
Teacher The Learning Adventure School, San Diego,
8th grade students are fascinated with Fractiles
and enjoy making designs with them. Fractiles
is especially applicable because we are studying
geometric shapes and their relationships. I know
they will be useful for a long time."
-Juanita Smith-Nakao, 8th Grade
Math Teacher James Curran Middle School, Bakersfield,
students love Fractiles!"
-Patricia Hardwick, 4th Grade
Teacher Zilker Elementary School, Austin, TX
7th and 8th graders live for free time so that
they can play with Fractiles."
-Sandra Bullard, Teacher, The
Prentice School "Where children with dyslexia
learn to learn"
is a tremendous addition to my grade 2 Math and
Design Program - plus the students love them!"
-Sydney Tyler-Parker, Cabrillo
Elementary School, Pacifica, CA
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Weather is what is happening in the atmosphere now, at any place on Earth’s surface. It includes the temperature and whether it is wet and windy, or dry and calm.
The Sun provides the energy that drives Earth’s weather. The Sun heats the air in various parts of Earth’s atmosphere by different amounts. Masses of warm and cold air then move from place to place, creating winds. Winds bring sunny, wet, or stormy conditions. People find out the type of weather to expect in a FORECAST.
A weather forecast is a prediction of weather conditions over a particular area, either for a few days (called a short-range forecast), or for several weeks (called a long-range forecast). The people who study the weather and make weather forecasts are called meteorologists.
Weather forecasts help people to plan—what to wear, when to travel, or which products to stock in supermarkets. Forecasts are especially important for farmers, builders, sailors, and anyone else who works outdoors. Sometimes an accurate forecast may mean the difference between life and death.
Meteorologists receive information about air temperature, wind speeds, clouds, and rainfall from over 50,000 weather stations worldwide—on land and on ships and buoys at sea. The data is fed into huge computers that produce charts and forecasts. These are used, with satellite images, to predict the weather.
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Euan Macleod Essay
Published Wednesday, 2 January 2002The history of Australian painting places a significance on the artist's
depiction of the figures place in the landscape. Since the colonial period
artists have battlembol for historical and contemporary contexts.
Image: Ladder, 180 x 137cm; oil on canvas; 1998.
to the Colonial period it highlighted the pastoral and the romantic, which
evolved with the Heidelberg school where the figure and the landscape captured
the unique, impressionist painting techniques and captured dual populist
sentiments of the heroic figure in the bush (Tom Roberts) as well as the threat
one faced of living or settling in the bush (Frederick McCubbin).
The perception of identity is amplified in the depiction of the figure in the
landscape; and it offers a real and idealised account of Australia. This
treatment of such an archetypal representation of Australia has been explored
by a number of artists in an attempt to temper a particular perspective that
captures the Australian spirit. The artists associated with the Angry Penguins
movement (including Nolan, Tucker, Perceval and Boyd) attempted to forge a
modern identity that was uniquely Australian. Once more the relationship
between the landscape and figure and the images it produced became an integral
component of this art movement. Similarly contemporary Australian artists are
examining Australian identity in physical, cultural, spiritual, conceptual and
Euan Macleod confirms the historic temperament towards identity and a
reflection of living in Australia. Macleod examines the metaphor of the figure
in the landscape.
Macleod discusses how his work can be read on many levels and that he hesitates
to give a specific explanation to any work. He identifies the symbolic
properties of his work referring to the landscape as a psychological state of
existence; the figure articulates this personal investigation citing the figure
as both personal and symbolic. His work offers a development of the depiction
of the figure in the landscape; and his reference to Jungian psychology offers
a separate critical alternative to the orthodoxy within this genre.
Macleod explains that through the plasticity of the paint he can come to a
point to where there is a particular unity of feeling and aesthetic
" when it translates to, well either flesh or water or a surface, so that
when you're looking at it you're not looking at beautiful paint, you're looking
at matter - physicality."
The handling of the paint is as important to the artist as the subject matter,
and it is the competency and intuitive handling of the paint that give his work
its very strength. Getting convincing tonal variations in a composition,
according to Macleod is the most engaging quality in the process of painting,
highlighting the process of pushing the paint to reveal form and manifest
colour. His process is evolutionary in terms of how images evolve from the
canvas with the artist being assisted by producing preliminary studies to guide
his technique. His work is a constant dialogue between the technical
proficiency of his paint handling and the ideas that dwell within the theme of
the figure in the landscape.
Macleod received public recognition for his work by winning the Archibald Prize
for portraiture in 1998 with his portrait titled Head like a Hole. This
work typifies his approach to both the landscape and the figure; where both
take on a symbiotic relationship and where visually both features interact. The
dense tonal compositions leave unresolved ambiguous features leaving the viewer
to determine whether his work is an allegory of the psychological self, a
rhetorical image that harnesses the momentum of Australian landscape painting
or fictional glimpses.
Macleod understands the importance of developing a competency in the use of the
medium but also understands the conceptual potency that is generated in
depicting the figure in the landscape. He is an artist who locates himself in a
traditional genre which is fascinated with history and identity, yet offers a
critical interpretation by means of creating autonomous landscapes that are
general and never specific to a place or time.
Questions on the artist
Euan Macleod demonstrates how the relationship of the figure in the landscape
can mean much more than how it appears. Discuss his work in terms of using the
Subjective and Postmodern frame.
Critically analyse his work in terms of the use of symbols, signs and
metaphors. Explain the importance of the figure in the landscape.
How does Macleod handle his paint and what process of application does he use?
Trace the historical significance of the figure in the landscape found in
Select one of Macleod's paintings and analyse the work in terms of its
psychological significance and use of personal symbols.
Find out when Macleod won the Archibald Portrait Prize and give a critical
account of the work that won it.
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Jogjakarta region was once the territory of the Kingdom of Mataram Classical (Hindu-Buddhist) that debuted in the 8th century AD and 9. The kingdom is leaving a trail that shows how high civilization in the land of Java at the time, in the form of temples that have been very popular in the world of tourism such as Borobudur, Pawon, Mendut, Prambanan, and Boko. In addition there are so many small temples heritage of this kingdom are not popular like the temples above. It is estimated that the temples around Yogyakarta has been around since the 1st century and rapidly expanding construction at 8-10 AD. Although in the year 928 AD Mataram Classical government center was moved to East Java, but the development of small temples still lasted until the 13th century (Sri Mulyaningsih, 2006). This fact suggests that Java man was very religious, thoughtful, fond of purification and worship to God. Here some small temples are often missed to be visited that are actually very nice to be your the next tourist objects reference :
SAMBI SARI TEMPLE (unique temple is located 6.5 meters below ground surface)
Sambisari temple is a Hindu temple (Shiva), built in the 9th century in the reign of Rakai Garung in 812-838 AD in the kingdom of Mataram Classical era. Located about 12 miles to the east of the Yogyakarta city or about 4 miles before the Prambanan temple complex in the Sambisari Village Purwomartani, Kalasan, Sleman.
Around the year 1966, this temple was discovered by a farmer, named Karyowinangun, who was hoeing his field. Inadvertently spade on carved stone. In 1987, restoration and reconstruction of the temple complex can be finished by the position of the temple at a depth of 6.5 meters from the ground so that the temple Sambisari often referred to as the underground temple. This is most likely due to buried under lava from Mount Merapi, which erupted on a large scale at the beginning of 9th century. This is proved from the many volcanic rock material around the temple. But some experts of archaeological predict the temple was above the soil surface like as other temples.
Sambisari temple complex surrounded by original walls of the temple with a size of 50 mx 48 m, and has a main temple accompanied by three Perwara temples (supporting temple). Inside the temple there are statues of Durga (the north), the statue of Ganesha (east), the statue of Shiva Agastya (south), and on the west there are two gods statues of gate guard: Mahakala and Nadisywara. Inside the main temple there are statues of Linga and Yoni in sizes large enough. Linga-Yoni represents God Shiva and Goddess Parvati who refers to the nature of men and women, so that meaningful fertility and the beginning of life. The main temple building is unique because it does not have a base like as other temples in Java. Foot of the temple also functions as a base so that parallel to the ground. The foot of the temple left plain, without reliefs or decorations. Various decorations are generally in the form of new simbar found on the body until the top of the temple exterior. At the time of excavation was found also other historical objects such as some pottery, jewelry, metal mirror and a gold plate inscription.
The temple is very unique ecause not visible from a distance! Please visit to the temple to see the uniqueness!
SARI TEMPLE (a place to teach prospective monks and religious book store)
Candi Sari is a Buddhist temple located in Bendan Village, Tirtomartani, Kalasan, Sleman. Built in the 8-9th during the reign of Rakai Panangkaran. Construction of this temple is mentioned in the inscription Kalasan (700 Saka / 778 AD), explained that the religious advisers of Syailendra dynasty have suggested the King Maharaja Tejapurnama Panangkarana (Rakai Panangkaran), founded a shrine to worship the goddess Tara, and a monastery for Buddhist monks. To worship the goddess Tara was built Kalasan, while for the dormitory was built Buddhist temple priest Sari. Function as a dormitory or residence visible from the overall shape and parts of the building and from the inside. The temple is a Busdhist building visible from the Buddhist stupa located on the top. The shape of the temple is very beautiful that consists of legs, body and roof, with a height of 17 meters, 17.3 meters long and 10 meters wide.The temple foot is only visible in part, because many stones are missing, a part of the body temple is terraced, has shape of rectangle, entrance is located in the middle facing east, and at the bottom, there are sculptures of people who are riding an elephant. On each side are evenly split window which surrounds the upper and lower levels.
The Sari temple was originally a two-story building. The upper floor was used to store goods for the religious interests, while the lower floor is used for religious activities, such as teaching and learning, discussion, etc. On the top of this temple there are 9 stupas as seen on the stupa at Borobudur and arranged in three parallel rows, the temple walls decorated with Dhyani-Bodhisattva. Candi Sari-rise buildings, each has three interconnected rooms, are used a ladder to climb. In the outer parts of the body temple carved statues are placed in two rows of windows. This statue is God Bodisatwa and Goddess Tara amount 36 statues, ie, 8 on the east side, 8 on the north side, 8 on the south side and 12 on the west side. In general, this statue holds a red or a blue lotus, and all statues are described in a graceful manner, namely by Tribangga attitude, as well as his features are illustrated much more calm, smooth and not too fancy ornaments adapted with the Buddhist shrine. More over, on the left-right window is a sculpture Kinara Kinari or heavenly beings in the form of half-man half-bird. On the outside of the temple is coated with Vajralepa intended to soften the stone walls and preservatives that do not quickly wear out.
Inside the temple there are three rooms lined each measuring 3.48 m x 5.80 m. The middle room and the two other rooms connected by doors and windows. Cubicles was originally built as a multilevel booths. High walls were divided in two with a wooden floor supported by fourteen wooden cross beams, so in the temple is contained six rooms. Wall of the plain room with no decoration. On the back wall of each room there is a kind of rack was located high, formerly used as a place of religious ceremony and put the statue. Downstairs there are several placemat of statues and niches to put statues. On the north wall and south rooms there are niches to put lighting. Based on these data, there is no doubt that the temple is a monastery, which is a place of meditation for the Buddhist monks, monk dormitory for monks to teach their students, in which there are a temple and also to keep religious books.
In this beautiful Sari Temple, you can slightly to imagine the daily lives of the monks who studied religious sciences. Do not miss to visit this temple!
KALASAN TEMPLE (the oldest Buddhist relics and the worship of a mother figure)
Kalasan Temple or famous also with Kalibening Temple is the oldest Buddhist relics in the area of Yogyakarta and Central Java, located in the Kalasan village on the edge of the roadway Yogya-Solo at km 13 bit into about 50 meters. Construction of this temple is mentioned in the inscription Kalasan (700 Saka / 778 AD), explained that religious advisers of Syailendra dynasty have suggested Maharaja Tejapurnama Panangkarana (Panangkaran Rakai, the second king of the Kingdom Matarm Classical), founded a shrine to worship the Goddess Tara and a monastery for Buddhist monks. To worship the goddess Tara was built the Kalasan temple, beside dedicated to Goddes Tara is also representation of the sacred figure of Java Maharaja's mother, in-law of King Tejahpurnapana Panangkaran.
Tara itself is a figure of Buddha's holy woman (Bodhisattvas) who are still practiced and preserved until now as Tantra Buddhas in Tibet Buddhism. Tara Or goddess Tara is the symbol of freedom or independence of spirit. It also claimed success, and achievement of real life and is sacred. Tara is also a symbol of compassion and emptiness (sunyata, lack of worldly existence and non eternity) is taught in Buddhism.
Kalasan temple built in honor of Mother-in-law Rakai Panangkaran, in Syailendra dynasty. Because of that, the building is very luxurious, beautiful and has a unique ornaments. Around the temple there is Balekambang. The body temple is decorated by 52 stupas and has four rooms. There are the Goddess Tara statue in the largest space of the middle room as high as 3-6 meters. The top body of the temple there is a statue of Dhyani-Buddha on the four corners of the wind that is Aksobhya, Amogasidhi, Amitabha and Ratnasambhawa. Kala Makara arch with heaven ornaments on it engraved above the entrance so beautifully.
In addition Kalasan temples and other supporting buildings there are also three small temples outside of the main temple building, shaped stupa. In the southern part of the temple there are two reliefs of bodhisattvas, while the roof consists of three sections. There are 8 rooms in the top roof, second roof is in octagonal, while the lower roof of the temple is similar with a square 20 which is equipped rooms on each side. Ornaments of the temple are carved with smooth and coated with "vajralepa", a yellowish material made from the sap of certain trees. The function of Vajralepa is as a protector of moss and mold, smooth the carving to be good.
Kalasan built to honor the death of the king's mother-in-law. This illustrates how the moral heights of the Javanese Kings at that time. You should see the splendor of the Kalasan that was built by the king with great strength, which is dedicated to the figure of a mother!
IJO TEMPLE (the most high temple that is located in Jogjakarta)
Ijo Temple is a Hindu temple. Situated on a hill named Gumuk Ijo (Gumuk = Hill, Ijo = green) in the Groyokan Village, Sambirejo, Prambanan, Sleman. Ijo Temple Complex was built around 9th-10th century was found by HE Doorpaal, administrators of Sorogedug sugar factory in 1886. In the same year, C.A.Rosemeier found three areas of stone. In 1887 archaeological research and excavations the main temple by DR. J. Groneman found gold pieces lettered, gold rings, and several types of seeds.Ijo Temple is a temple that located on highest place compared other temples in Yogyakarta area. This temple is at 375 m above sea level. So that the temple is also known as "the Highest Temple in Jogjakarta ".
Highest temple not because the high of the temple building but because it is at a high place. This temple consists of 11 terraces are increasingly rising backward. Rearmost part is as the center of the temple. This pattern is very different from the pattern of enshrinement area of Prambanan temple is mostly patterned concentrated in the middle. On the eleventh terrace to which is the center of the temple found a main temple and three supporting temples that are in front of the main temple(west). Inside the main temple there are lingga-yoni statue with a large enough size. Linga-Yoni in Ijo temple is one of the Linga-Yoni of the largest in Indonesia. In the middle of supporting temple (Candi Perwara), there are cow statue named Nandini and Padmasana statue. In Hindu mythology Nandini regarded as the god Shiva's vehicle. In the supporting temple on the south side there is a Yoni with the shape almost similar to the smaller main temple. Temple building on a lower terrace, (terrace number 1 until 10) the building has crumbled, just a stone temple can be seen here, may have many missing , so it can not be united again.
The primary function of the Ijo temple is unknown until now but it is interesting to visit the temple because you will see the temple built on a hill combined with a very beautiful natural scenery around it. Try to imagine about how the construction of the temple on the hill without equipment as it is now!
BARONG TEMPLE (worship to the gods and goddesses of fertility)
Barong temple is one of the unique temples located in the south of Prambanan temple, precisely in theBatur Agung hills, Sari Temple, Sambirejo Village, Prambanan, Sleman. Named Candi Barong by locals because of the Kala decoration on each side of the temple. The decoration resembles a lion / barong.
Barong Temple is built around the 9th -10th century to. The temple was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century in collapse condition by a Dutch around 1913 when the expansion of sugar plantations to support the production of sugar mills. At that time, the condition of the temple still in ruins and difficult to identify its original form. Candi Barong restoration began in 1987 until 1992. Barong Temple is a ritual complex to worship the God Vishnu and his wife, Goddess Laksmi or known by the name of Dewi Sri (the goddess of fertility for agriculture). There are ornament of winged shells (Sankha) which is one of the symbols (laksana) the god Vishnu, and the top of the building (kemuncak) in the form of jewels (ratna). Worship to the God Vishnu and Goddess Sri is probably caused by soil conditions around the temple are barren and infertile. Thus, by worshiping God Vishnu and Goddess Sri expected it to be fertile soil conditions.
Page of the temple complex is three terraces that higher to the east, which is the back. On the highest terrace there is a hallway and two temples which have no windows and doors. The highest terrace is the most sacred pages. The difference between of them lies in the decoration and statue. Based on those two things, it is estimated the first temple built to worship for the god Vishnu, while the second temple for the Goddess Sri. On page two there is a building structure sized12.30 mx 7.80 m and some pile of stones sized the octagonal. Allegedly this structure is the foundation building the gazebo with a roof of wood. While on the first terrace page not found building structure.
Dewi Sri in Java is very popular and regarded as the Goddess of Rice. There is no loss if you take the time to visit the temple dedicated to worship of the farmer goddess in Java!
BANYUNIBO TEMPLE (temples with reliefs of fertility goddess and the god of wealth)
Banyunibo Temple (which in Javanese means falling water-dripping) is a Buddhist temple located south of Cepit, Bokoharjo, Prambanan, Sleman, about 14 km east of Yogyakarta. The location is shown alone in the agricultural area with the background hills of Gunung Kidul in the south. The temple is named Banyunibo because according to local residents when viewed from a distance resembles a moisture (water) that drips or tibo (Javanese), which means fall.This temple was built around the 9th century during the reign of King Balitung in Mataram Kingdom Classical era. This temple was built on a wide enough area and surrounded by hills on the north side, east, and south.
On these hills are also located many other temples such as Boko temple, Dawangsari temple or Saragedug temple, Site Gupala, and Ijo temple. There is stupa on the top of the temple is the hallmark of Buddhism. The condition of the temple still look strong and sturdy with kala-makara relief carvings and other forms of relief are still visible.
The temple was first discovered and repaired again in the 1940's to 1962 it consisted of one main temple, facing west, is surrounded by 6 (six) Candi Perwara (supporting temple) in the form of stupas are arranged in an array on the south and east of the Main Temple. Foot of the temple which has a height of 2.5 m was built on a stone floor. On the western side of the foot of the temple there are stairs inside. At each corner of the foot of the temple and in the middle of each side of the temple legs (except the west side), there is an ornament of "Jaladwara" that is placed on the floor above the foot of the temple and serve as channels for rainwater. On the front side of the temple there is a stall door of the temple. Because of the size of the temple with an area smaller than the foot of the temple then not all parts of the upper floor of the temple is covered by the foot of the temple. Body parts that are not closed is called the temple hall and serves as a corridor for the surrounding temples.
Banyunibo Temple including Buddhist shrine that is quite rich in ornamentation. Almost in every part of the temple is filled by a variety of ornaments and reliefs, although part of one another often found the same decorative motifs. On the walls, the south entrance of the temple, there are reliefs depicting a male figure. The Relief of his own figure has been damaged lived part of his left hand. To the left there is a follower (pariwara) in a sitting position "ardha paryangka". The right hand above the right thigh, the left hand acted as if protecting a large bag. The reliefs depict Gods Kauravas, who was considered the god of wealth, but in Indonesia the god is known by Buddhists. Above of the reliefs field there is ornament in the form of "recalcitrant" or "selur gelung". On the north wall there are reliefs of female figures in a sitting position. The left foot bent upwards, the right leg in a cross-legged position. The right hand ride on the thigh while his left hand carrying (cradle) child. Around it there are little children that many in number, gathered around the woman. Both reliefs depict Hariti, the goddess of fertility in Buddhism and her husband, Vaisaravana (the god of wealth).
In the Banyunibo temple reliefs you can enjoy the reliefs of the goddeses of wealth and fertility combined with the natural beauty surrounding such as the shooting rice field. Evidence of religious harmony can also be found here by looking at the position Banyunibo temple not far even mingle with the temples that are Hindu.
In this temple you can enjoy prosperity and fertility goddess relief combined with the natural beauty surrounding such as the rice field. Evidence of religious harmony can also be found here by looking at the Banyunibo position temple that is not far even mingle with the temples that are Hindu.
KEDULAN TEMPLE (inscription of village tax exemption for dam and irrigation)
Kedulan temple is a Hindu temple located not far from Temple Sambisari, namely Kedulan, Village Tirtomartani, Kalasan, Yogyakarta. This temple was built around the 8th century and 9th during the kingdom of Mataram Classic. Kedulan temple was found on November 24, 1993 in collapsed and buried in sand conditions. The discovery of the temple happened by accident, when a group of society was being mined the sand. If viewed from the sand material that was stockpiled Kedulan Temple, estimated material was come from the eruption of Mount Merapi, which occurred in several periods. Judging from the type of soil that covers temple, visible there are 13 layers of lava types, estimated that the lava that buried the temple is derived from 13 times the eruption of Mount Merapi. The base of the temple located at a depth of about seven meters.
Since found in 1993 until 2010 Kedulan temple restoration is still not over. On June 12, 2003, found two inscriptions, Pananggaran and Sumudul in Kedulan Temple area at the excavation site. Inscriptions written in Sanskrit Pallawa and is successfully read by two epigraf from the Department of Archaeology, University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, namely Dr. Riboet Darmoseotopo and Tjahjono Prasodjo MA.The inscription dates to the year 791 Saka (869 AD, or about 10 years after the Prambanan temple stands), the contents of the land tax exemption at the Pananggaran and Parhyangan village, making dams for irrigation, establishment of the sacred building called Tiwaharyyan and threats of condemnation for anyone who does not obey the rules. Some archaeologists suspect that the inscription relating to the establishment Kedulan Temple.The Tiwaharyyan sacred building is estimated Kedulan itself. Pananggaran village as told in the inscription believed to be in the area around the temple, as well as the dam. But until now have not found traces of an ancient dam in question. Perhaps the dam was built on the River Opak within ± 4 km from the location of the temple, or perhaps also in the river which is now no longer exists as it is covered by lava eruption of Mount Merapi, a thousand years ago. Kedulan temple facing the east and art decoration approached with Ijo and Barong temple ornament. In the Kedulan temple there are also stairs at Supporting Temple (Candi Perwara).The ornaments on the stairs is shaped a snack and at the mouth of the snake carved bird figure. There are distinctively at Kedulan Temple located at Kala reliefs. In Central Java, relief of Kala had no lower jaw as in East Java. But Kedulan Temple that is located in Central Java, the relief of Kala has the lower jaw. Because of that, it is estimated Kedulan temple built in the late period of the Hindu kingdoms of Central Java, which was shifted to East Java around the 8th century and 10th.
Kedulan temple is one more proof that the Javanese Kings at classical era not only religious but also pay attention to the prosperity of its people by build dams and irrigation which is very meaningful for irrigating rice fields at that era. So you should make time to see tangible evidence of how religious and wise of the Javanese Kings at that time!
GAMPINGAN TEMPLE (place of worship to the god of fortune)
Gampingan temple is a Buddhist temple, situated in the Gampingan, Sitimulyo, Piyungan, Bantul, the south of the Jogja City. Based on the art of building style and statue, this temple is built in the 9th century. The temple was discovered in 1995 by a brick maker, Sarjono who then reported to the Asylum and Archaeological Heritage DIY. Rescue excavations conducted by the SPSP DIY on August 3-10, 1995. Excavation found four of white stone structure. The fourth building consists of a main building, two of building stupas and buildings located in the southwest of the southern stupa. Others artifacts that were found in the form of a statue of Bodhisattva, three Buddha statues, nine plates of gold, pottery fragments, and fragments of pottery.
Although until now not been fully completed restoration, the ruins of this temple complex has seven buildings of the temple that is not intact, with the main building measuring approximately 5m x 5m and height of 1.2 meters. The main temple building facing to the west. This is indicated by the rest of the stairs as much as seven traps on the west side of the main building. This stairs has a makara decoration at the ends. Inside the main building there are three of Dhyani Buddha Wairocana statues made from bronze, two statues of Jambhala and Candralokesvara from andesite stone, the objects of gold, and some ceramic objects. Gampingan temple which is built between the years 730-850 AD is believed to be a place of worship Gods Jambhala (God of fortune, the son of the God Shiva). Jambhala is described as being in a meditation position, sitting cross-legged while his eyes is closed. The body is decorated by iconographic elements (asana) formed a lotus leaf amounted to eight pieces as a symbol of chakra in the human body.
Although its small size and incomplete, Gampingan temple is still rich in amazing relief. At the foot of the Gampingan Temple there are various kinds of animals reliefs such as frogs, roosters, and various species of birds. There are reliefs crows appear to have a large beak, sturdy body, the wing inflates upward and fan-shaped tail. There are also reliefs of woodpecker that has a crest on the head, beak rather long and pointy and wings that do not expand. In addition, there is also a rooster that has swollen chest and inflate the wing down. Making large quantities of bird reliefs in this temple as it related to public belief that the bird is the manifestation of the gods as well as natural messengers of the gods, or heaven. Birds are also associated with human absolute freedom that is achieved after successfully left the world, the symbol of the human soul is separated from the body.
Relief of many other animals are depicted is a frog. Javanese people at that time believed that frogs have supernatural powers that can bring rain, so the frog is also believed to increase productivity because the rain that is brought frogs could improve yields. Frogs are often emerge from the water also symbolizes the renewal of life and resurrection to a better direction . While the figure of Jambhala in this temple is different from other temples. Generally, Jambhala other temples is depicted with wide eyes that looked at the devotees along with a variety of ornament that symbolizes prosperity and luxury. Believed, different depictions is based on worship motivation, not to invoke prosperity but guidance in order to achieve true happiness.
Do not miss to visit this temple. Take a look at various kinds of animals that are considered have sepernatural power at that time in any reliefs of the temple , especially birds that brought message of paradise
MORANGAN TEMPLE (the temple that has many kind of animals relief)
Morangan temple is a Hindu temple located in Morangan, Sindumartani, Ngemplak, Sleman, Yogyakarta and occupies the most northerly position of the whole temple complex in the region of Jogjakarta. The temple is very close to the river Gendol (100 meters west) and the northernmost approached Mount Merapi. This temple was built in approximately the 9th - 10th century in the kingdom of Mataram Classical era, contemporaneous with the founding of Hindu temples, such as Prambanan and others. This temple damaged one of the causes of damage caused by flooding rivers Gendol that is located not more than 200 meters on the east side of the temple complex.
This temple was discovered since the Dutch colonial era. After the Dutch left Indonesia temple was re-covered with soil. Excavation in 1982, managed to show two of temple building that are the main temple and ancillary temple, previously buried 6.5 meters below ground. The main temple consists of legs, body and roof of the temple. This temple has many reliefs that is carved on the trunk legs and torso of the temple. Ancillary temples facing east, is currently building that can be found is part of the body and the foot of the temple of the temple. The north, west, and south side of the temple has a niche containing the statue, but the statue has been secured by the local archaeological government. One thing that distinguishes the Morangan temple with other temple is the presence of a relief panel that is expected is part of Tantri Kamandaka story about a tiger that were deceived by a goat, because during this time, Tantri Kamandaka relief is only found in a Buddhist temple.
In Morangan temple complex is also found Yoni statues, hermit sculptures and a number of other statues in the niches of the temple. The reliefs depict two men flanking the pile of flowers, the two women flanking a large jug with bring a small jugs, two women riding elephants, three hermits, head of sculture in the niche, and the rooster is propped Gana. In addition there are kind of birds such as sparrows, parrots and peacocks. Other animals reliefs are cows, deer, and mouse deer. Carvings of animals and lotus flowers dominate the walls of this temple reliefs. The number of animal reliefs show the closeness of human relationships with the environment. The majority of Hindu temples is richer with Kresnayana the Ramayana story. But Morangan temple look more unique in that it carries a lot of animal life. Relief of these animals spread over on two buildings that had assembled, either in the form of the main temple and ancillary temples. So this temple other than as a medium of meditation or prayer, it is also used as a learning media-friendly nature to safeguard the environment by not cutting trees. Temple for Hindu's people is like dwelling of gods that is very beautiful and comfortable, inhabited by various animals with the forest and the plants are still preserved.
Please come to the Morangan temple! You can see the harmony between human life and nature here.
GEBANG TEMPLE (small temple in the middle of village)
Gebang temple is located in Gebang, Wdomartani, Ngemplak, Sleman. The name of the temple is taken from the village name where people found the Ganescha Statue on November 1936. This temple is without relief or plain that indicates that the temple was derived from old period, between the years 730-800 AD, or about the 8th century AD when the Sanjaya dynasty which ruled the kingdom of Mataram Classical era (Hindu). The temple is restored by Prof. Dr. Ir. Van Romondt years 1937-1939, is a square with a single chamber, measuring about 5 x 5 meters with a height of about 8 meters.
Location Gebang temple is now in the middle of residential, west Maguwoharjo Stadium. To go to the temple Gebang have to enter residential areas and walkways are pretty quiet from the crowd. Gebang Temple is a Hindu temple. This is proven by the peak of the roof-shaped Lingga cylinder that is placed on the Seroja bearing, besides that it is also a statue of Ganesha, Nandhiswara and Yoni are respectively located on the west niche, niche of the east and to the left of the entrance and the chambers of the temple.
You have to visit to this small beautiful temple in the middle of the village. Small but describes the glory of the ancestor in the past!
The description of temples above are small temples in Yogyakarta that can still be identified although the overall not yet fully revealed. There are many other temples and sites in the Yogyakarta area that has not been identified even abandoned. The temples are a wealth of priceless relics of our ancestors and we have to take care of these heritage which shows just how high on the classical civilization on the island of Java. The heritage also show the identity of this nation are very religious and harmony in difference.
(compiled from various sources/Augus, 2011/Tour Department-wi2n)
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Federal Water Requirements:
Challenges to Estimating the Cost Impact on Local Communities
GAO-06-151R, Nov 30, 2005
- Accessible Text:
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has responsibility for protecting public health and welfare, as well as the integrity of our nation's waters. Federal water requirements under these acts affect facilities providing the most basic services at the local level, including drinking water treatment plants and distribution systems; wastewater treatment plants and collection systems; and storm sewer systems, which collect storm water, or the runoff created by rainfall and other types of wet weather. For example, depending on the circumstances, local communities may have to pay for installing new treatment technologies or taking other measures so that community-based or regional facilities can meet applicable water quality standards. Nationwide, there are roughly 53,000 community drinking water systems, 17,000 municipal wastewater treatment plants, and 7,000 communities served by municipal storm sewer collection systems that may be affected by federal water requirements. While recognizing the public health and environmental benefits of federal water requirements, communities are increasingly voicing concerns about the financial burden imposed by these requirements--in particular, the projected costs of more recent regulations and their cumulative costs over time. Over the years, EPA, water and community associations, and other parties have developed various estimates of some of the different costs related to ensuring clean water and safe drinking water. Additionally, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 requires EPA to prepare a written statement identifying the costs and benefits of federal mandates contained in certain regulations. However, the act does not require EPA to identify the cumulative costs and benefits of multiple regulations. As the Congress considers legislation to provide more resources to communities to address regulatory costs and aging water infrastructure, it is seeking a more complete understanding of the federal water requirements affecting local communities and the cumulative costs associated with implementing them. In this context, Congress asked us to determine the cumulative cost of federal water requirements. In conducting this work, we identified some major methodological challenges to developing complete and reliable cost information. This report summarizes the information provided Congress during our November 17, 2005, briefing and formally transmits the charts presented during that briefing. As requested, this report provides information on (1) key federal water requirements that local communities are subject to under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act, (2) the extent to which existing studies provide information on the cumulative cost of such requirements to communities, and (3) the methodological challenges to developing reliable cumulative cost estimates attributable to federal water requirements.
The key requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act that communities must meet focus on limiting the exposure of customers to contaminants in water supplied by community drinking water systems and ensuring that communities prevent pollutants from sewage and diffuse sources, such as streets and construction sites, from reaching surrounding water bodies. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA currently regulates over 90 contaminants, such as arsenic and lead, and is developing regulations on several more. Other regulations require water systems to notify the public when contaminant levels exceed established limits and provide annual reports summarizing the results of all water quality testing. The Clean Water Act requires wastewater treatment plants to meet minimum technology-based effluent limitations. Plants also may need to implement additional, more stringent limitations, including those necessary to meet water quality standards. In addition, EPA requires municipalities to develop and implement management programs that help prevent pollutants in runoff from reaching surrounding bodies of water. In developing these plans, communities must adopt certain minimum practices, such as controls to reduce or eliminate pollution that collects on streets. While many parties, including EPA, various water and community associations, and private consulting firms, have developed cost estimates for different aspects of maintaining safe, clean water, these estimates have not provided information on the cumulative costs of complying with federal water requirements, primarily because they were not intended to do so. Some studies focus on developing a broad estimate of the costs of providing safe drinking water or clean water, but do not attempt to separate the costs associated with meeting regulatory requirements from other costs. In addition, many studies have a narrower scope, focusing on estimating costs for a subset of regulatory requirements and particular time periods, or estimate costs to different entities (e.g., states, private sector). Several methodological challenges hinder new efforts to develop reliable cumulative cost estimates, including obtaining accurate and complete cost data, particularly for older requirements; accurately allocating costs (e.g., among jurisdictions that share costs); and establishing a causal link between community investments and federal water requirements. Information on the cumulative cost of federal water requirements is critical in determining the nature and extent of the financial burden on local communities. However, given the methodological challenges of obtaining accurate and complete cost data, accurately allocating costs, and establishing a causal link between community investments and federal water requirements, researchers face formidable obstacles in developing a reliable cumulative cost estimate.
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Smart phone of the future: A chip in your head?
CNN recently posted an amusing yet thought-provoking article envisioning the development of smart phones over the next 100 years. The story culminates with the collapse of civilization in less than a century (from climate change), and mobile communications being reduced to throwing message rocks at each other.
That scenario might’ve made Stanley Kubrick proud, but the idea that most interests me is the authors’ prediction that, in 75 years, a microchip could be inserted into our heads that will allow us to connect directly with others through our brains, as well as to the Internet. While the writers are concerned about potential abuses from commercial advertisers, I can think of a few ways this technology would affect the public sector workplace.
First, security identification badges would become obsolete. Authentication for location access could be done with the brain microchip, and everyone would instantly know if another person was supposed to be there instead because his or her own chip would tell them so. Of course, for this to take place, security would have to be top-notch to stop intruders from using chips made to mask identity. Wow, that sounds like the plot to a great science fiction espionage thriller. You are welcome, 007.
The behavior modification scenario the writers propose would be unlikely to occur, I think, because the chip probably would not be connected to that area of the brain. But if it were, network administrators could finally make sure their painstakingly crafted security protocols are actually followed by everyone!
Although the writers project that this development is 75 years away, I think it might come sooner. We already have the technology to make a chip small enough to perform all of the necessary functions. The areas we need to improve in are biological rejection suppression and our understanding of how the human brain works. I’m guessing that latter will probably be the problem that delays us having chips implanted in our heads.
It’s all just guesswork at this point, of course, but if the writers are correct about a brain microchip — and wrong about the end of civilization — there would be practical uses for the technology. If nothing else, we could be assured that motorists at last would make only hands-free calls.
Posted by Greg Crowe on Oct 12, 2012 at 1:25 PM
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|<< 1 Kings 18 >>|
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 1 Kings 18
In this chapter Elijah has an order from the Lord to show himself to Ahab, who, going first, and meeting with a servant of his, Obadiah, charges him to tell his master where he was, that he might meet him, 1 Kings 18:1, and, upon meeting him, desires that all Israel, and the prophets of Baal, might be convened, which was accordingly done, 1 Kings 18:17, when he expostulated with the people of Israel for their idolatry, mocked and confounded the prophets of Baal, and gave the strongest proofs, to the conviction of the people, that Jehovah is the true God, 1 Kings 18:21, on which all the prophets of Baal were slain, 1 Kings 18:40, and rain in great abundance was given at the prayer of the prophet, 1 Kings 18:41.
1And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
And it came to pass after many days,.... When two years and more were gone from the time the drought and famine began; or rather from the time of the prophets departure to the brook Cherith, which might be six months after the famine began:
that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year; of his absence from Ahab:
saying, go show thyself unto Ahab; whom he had not seen so long, and who had been seeking for him, but to no purpose:
and I will send rain upon the earth; the term of three years and six months being almost expired, see James 5:17.
2And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria.
And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab,.... Which showed his cheerful and ready obedience to the will of God, and his great courage and magnanimity, to face a king enraged against him, and that sought his life:
and there was a sore famine in Samaria; the metropolis of the kingdom, where Ahab kept his court, and therefore must be sensible of it, and bore the greater indignation against the prophet who had foretold it.
3And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly:
And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house,.... Perhaps his steward: the Jews (m) take him to be Obadiah the prophet, who wrote the small prophecy that goes by his name:
(now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly:) who, though he did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, which ceremonial service was dispensed with in him, yet he did not worship the calves, nor Baal, but served the Lord in a spiritual manner.
(m) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 39. 2.
4For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)
For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord,.... Or slew them, as the Targum; put them to death some way or another; such as were brought up in the schools of the prophets, trained up in religious exercises, and instructed others therein:
that Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave; fifty in one cave and fifty in another; for there were large caves in the land of Israel capable of holding such a number, and many more, see 1 Samuel 22:1 and fed them with bread and water; which in this time of famine were very acceptable; though these may be put for all the necessaries of life.
5And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts.
And Ahab said unto Obadiah, go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks,.... To observe in what condition they were, and the places adjoining to them, the meadows and valleys:
peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive; particularly those which belonged to the king's stables, to find provisions for which it was found difficult:
that we lose not all the beasts; many of them, doubtless, were lost through the drought already, and there was great danger of the rest, and so, in time, of there being none to procreate and preserve their species, and to prevent which Ahab proposed to take this method.
6So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.
So they divided the land between them, to pass through it,.... And one took one part, and the other the other part:
Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself; Ahab not caring to trust any but Obadiah, who he knew was a faithful man, lest they should be bribed by those that had grass not to discover it.
7And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah?
And as Obadiah was in the way,.... In his district, making his observations:
behold, Elijah met him: where is not said; but he was, no doubt, upon the road from Zarephath to Samaria:
and he knew him that is, Obadiah knew Elijah, having seen him at Ahab's court before he absconded:
and fell on his face, and said, art thou that my lord Elijah? thus doing him honour and reverence both by words and gesture, as being an extraordinary prophet of the Lord.
8And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here.
And he answered him, I am,.... He did not desire to be concealed, his orders were to show and make himself known to Ahab, and Obadiah was one of his domestic servants:
go tell thy lord, behold, Elijah is here; in such a place, ready to face him at any time. Elijah, by calling Ahab the lord of Obadiah, as he tacitly reproves him for calling him lord, shows reverence to Ahab as a king, and yet that he was fearless of him, as he was the prophet and ambassador of the Lord of hosts to him.
9And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me?
And he said, what have I sinned,.... Or in what have I offended God or his prophet, that revenge should be taken on me in this way:
that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab to slay me? for that he supposed would be the consequence of it, as he argues and more plainly expresses his sense in the following words.
10As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not.
As the Lord thy God liveth,.... Which is the form of an oath he thought fit to make, to ascertain the truth of what he was about to say:
there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee; which is either an hyperbolical expression, signifying he had sought for him in many places, and in every place he could think of; or it must be understood either of the ten tribes, which were as so many nations and kingdoms as they had been; or were more in the times of the Canaanites; or of the nations round about, that were in alliance with or tributary to the king of Israel:
and when they said, he is not there, he took an oath of the kingdom and nation that they found thee not; which he might exact of his own subjects, but could not of other nations, unless they were free to it of themselves; or he might take it of their ambassadors or merchants that came into his land, of whom he inquired, and adjured them to tell him the truth.
11And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here.
And now thou sayest, go tell thy lord, behold, Elijah is here. Which, if I should not be able to make good, would be of fatal consequence to me; and that it is plain he feared, by what he next says.
12And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the LORD shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the LORD from my youth.
And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not,.... This he supposed might possibly, and very probably, be the case, since small raptures might have been already, and known to Obadiah, as there were afterwards, see 2 Kings 2:16, and then he should not know where he was, nor be able to direct his master where to find him:
and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me; for telling him a lie, and deceiving and mocking him; or for not seizing on Elijah, and bringing him, when he knew he was so desirous of getting him into his hands:
but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth; and therefore did not deserve to be treated after this manner, having been an early and conscientious worshipper of the true God.
13Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the LORD, how I hid an hundred men of the LORD'S prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?
Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord? how I hid one hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? See Gill on 1 Kings 18:4, this he said not in a way of ostentation, but to show that it would be very ungenerous and ungrateful, as well as impolitic, to sacrifice such a friend at court to the Lord's prophets as he had been, and might still continue to be.
14And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me.
And now thou sayest, go tell my lord, behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me. That is, should he carry such a message to him, and Elijah should be removed elsewhere, and not to be found.
15And Elijah said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him to day.
And Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand,.... In whose presence he was, and whose prophet and minister he was; he takes this oath, to assure Obadiah that he would certainly be upon the spot, or to be found, and not expose him to any danger:
I will surely show myself unto him today; he was determined at all events to present himself to him that day.
16So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah.
So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him,.... That Elijah was in such a place, and had desired him to inform him of it, and was ready to appear before him that day wherever he pleased; for upon the prophet's oath Obadiah was entirely satisfied, and was in no fear of delivering the message:
and Ahab went to meet Elijah; though perhaps the bold message of the prophet might make him fear he had something to say to him not very agreeable.
17And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?
And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah,.... As soon as he came up to him, and knew who he was; Abarbinel thinks, because his hair was grown so long that Ahab did not know him certainly, and therefore put the following question:
that Ahab said unto him, art thou he that troubleth Israel? by opposing the religion of Baal, which prevailed among them; but chiefly rain being withheld from them according to his word, and at his prayer.
18And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.
And he answered,.... That is, Elijah, with great boldness and undaunted courage, not fearing the face of the king, being sent to show himself to him in the name of the King of kings:
I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house; they, by their sins, were the cause of all the troubles, those sore evil and sad calamities that were upon them:
in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord: to have no other gods before him, and not to make images, and worship them, which they had done:
and thou hast followed Baalim; the several Baals, the Sun, moon, and stars, the whole host of heaven, worshipped under this name; or, not content with the Phoenician Baal, or Baal of the Zidonians, followed others, see Judges 2:11.
19Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table.
Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel..... No doubt but more discourse passed between Ahab and Elijah, though not recorded, before he made this motion to him; it is very probable, that after some dispute between them, who was the true God, and about idolatry, as the cause of want of rain, Elijah proposed to the king what he afterwards did to the people, to which he could not object; and being desirous of gratifying his curiosity, and especially of having rain, which the prophet might promise him in the issue of this affair, he agreed unto it; and therefore Elijah desired that all Israel might be convened, that it might be openly and publicly done, and to the conviction and reformation of them, which was what was chiefly designed; and he chose Carmel, a mountain in the tribe of Issachar, well situated for the people that came from all parts; and the rather this than Samaria, that he might meet with no obstruction from Jezebel, and from whence: he might be able to see the rain when coming, as he did. Of this mountain; see Gill on Jeremiah 46:18, to which may be added, the description of it by Mr. Sandys (n).
"Mount Carmel stretcheth from east to west, and hath its uttermost basis washed with the sea; steepest towards the north, and of an indifferent altitude; rich in vines and olives when farmed, and abounding with several sorts of fruits and herbs, both medicinal and fragrant, though now much overgrown with woods and shrubs of sweet savour.''
From the following solemn transaction at it, it seems in later times, to have become sacred, and was very venerable with the Heathens; from this mountain, a deity with them had the name of Carmel, and was worshipped here, without an image or a temple, only had an altar erected for it, in imitation of the God of Israel, worshipped here in like manner; here Vespasian sacrificed to this deity, assisted by the priest of it, Basilides, as Tacitus (o) relates; Suetonius (p) also makes mention of this deity, and of Vespasian's consulting its oracle, which gave him hopes of obtaining the empire; and from hence, in Popish times, there were an order of friars called Carmelites, instituted in the year 1180, pretending to be the successors of the children of the prophets Elijah left there:
and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty; who are supposed to be dispersed in the various parts of the kingdom, to teach and practise the worship of Baal, and encourage and spread it in the nation:
and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table; for it seems there were now more groves than that one Ahab first made, 1 Kings 16:33, for which such numbers were appointed to attend, and which, perhaps, were near Samaria, since they ate at Jezebel's table, and were a sort of domestic chaplains of her's. "Asheroth", we render "groves", the learned Selden (q) takes to be Ashtoreth, or Ashtareth, or Astarte, the goddess of the Zidonians, for whom, and so for these prophets, Jezebel might have a peculiar respect, see 1 Kings 11:5.
(n) Travels, l. 3. p. 158. Ed. 5. (o) Hist. l. 2. c. 78. (p) Vit. Vespasian. c. 5. (q) De Dis Syris Syntagm. 2. c. 2. p. 232, &c.
20So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.
So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel,.... By messengers, requiring their attendance at Mount Carmel at such a time, at least their chief and principal men:
and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel; the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, but not the four hundred prophets of the groves; for of them we have no account afterwards, only of the former; it may be they were not at the command of Ahab, only of Jezebel, at whose table they ate, who would not suffer them to go.
21And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
And Elijah came unto all the people,.... Assembled at Mount Carmel:
and said, how long halt ye between two opinions? sometimes inclining to the one, and sometimes to the other: as a lame man in walking, his body moves sometimes to one side, and sometimes to another; or "leap ye upon two branches" (r), like a bird that leaps or hops from one branch to another, and never settles long; or rather it denotes the confusion of their thoughts, being like branches of trees twisted and implicated; thus upbraiding them with their inconstancy and fickleness; what their two opinions were, may be learnt from the next clause:
if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him; for there is but one God, one infinite, immense, and incomprehensible being; one that is omnipotent, all sufficient, good, and perfect; there cannot be more, and therefore but one to be followed, served, and worshipped:
and the people answered him not a word: through conviction and confusion, his reasoning being unanswerable; or not knowing which to choose at present; or fearing they should be drawn into a snare, should they name any; either incur the displeasure of the king, who was for Baal, or of the prophet, who was for the Lord, at whose word rain was withheld, and might be given, which they were desirous of.
(r) "transilietis super duos ramoe, Malvenda; vos transilientes super ambos ramos", Piscator.
22Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men.
Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only remain a prophet of the Lord,.... At least as he thought, all the rest being slain, as he supposed; however there were none present but himself:
but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men; which were very great odds he had to contend with.
23Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under:
Let them therefore give us two bullocks,.... Who, being so many, were better able to be at the expense of them, and having the king on their party too; though perhaps no more is meant than that two bullocks should be brought thither, and presented before them:
and let them choose one bullock for themselves; which of the two they would, if they thought one was any ways preferable to the other, it was at their option to take it:
and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood; as sacrifices usually were:
and put no fire under; which was wont to be done for burnt offerings, as this was designed to be:
and I will dress the other bullock; by slaying and cutting it in pieces;
and lay it on wood: as for a burnt offering:
and put no fire under; to consume it.
24And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
And call ye on the name of your gods,.... The Baalim, the many lords and gods they served:
and I will call on the name of the Lord; the one true Jehovah and God of Israel, whom I:serve:
and the God that answereth by fire; by causing fire to come down upon the sacrifice, and consume it:
let him be God; accounted, owned, and acknowledged as the true God, and so afterwards worshipped as such:
and all the people answered and said, it is well spoken; they thought it a very reasonable proposal, a very good method to determine the controversy, and come at the truth, and know who was the true God, and who not.
25And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal,.... Who agreed to this proposal, though not expressed; or they signified it by their silence. Ben Gersom thinks they agreed to it, because that, according to their belief, Baal was Mars, and in the sign of Aries, one of the fiery planets, and therefore fancied he could send down fire on their sacrifice; but Abarbinel is of opinion that it was the sun they worshipped, under the name of Baal, the great luminary which presides over the element of fire, and therefore had power to cause it to descend; and if not, they agreed to it, he thinks, for three reasons; one was necessity, they could not refuse, after the people had approved of it, lest they should rise upon them, and stone them; and another was, that Elijah proposed to offer without the temple, contrary to the law of his God, and therefore concluded he would not answer him by fire, and so they should be upon a par with him; and the third was, that they thought they should offer their bullocks together, so that, if fire descended, it would come upon them both, and then the dispute would be, whether his God, or their god, sent it; and so no proof could be made who was God, nor the matter in controversy decided:
choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; therefore in civility to them gave the choice of the bullock and the altar first, he being one and they many:
and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under; under the wood on which was the sacrifice cut in pieces; and when they had so done, then they were to call on their gods to cause fire to descend upon it.
26And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.
And they took the bullock which was given them,.... By such of them as made the choice:
and they dressed it; slew it, and cut it in pieces, and laid it on the wood, but put no fire under it:
and called on the name of Baal, from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us; and send fire down on the sacrifice; and if the sun was their Baal, they might hope, as the heat he gradually diffused was at its height at noon, that some flashes of fire would proceed from it to consume their sacrifice; but after, their hope was turned into despair, they became and acted like madmen:
but there was no voice, nor any that answered; by word, or by sending down fire as they desired:
and they leapt upon the altar which was made; not by Elijah, but by themselves, either now or heretofore, and where they had formerly sacrificed; and they danced about it, and leaped on it, either according to a custom used by them; such as the Salii, the priests of Mars, used, so called from their leaping, because they did their sacred things leaping, and went about their altars capering and leaping (s); or rather they were mad on it, as the Targum renders it, and acted like madmen, as if they were agitated by a prophetic fury and frenzy.
(s) Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 8. "tum Salii ad cantus", &c. Vid. Gutberleth. de Salii, c. 2. p. 9.
27And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
And it came to pass at noon,.... When they had been from the time of the morning sacrifice until now invoking their deity to no purpose:
that Elijah mocked them; he jeered and bantered them:
and said, cry aloud; your god does not hear you; perhaps, if you raise your voice higher, he may;
for he is a god; according to your esteem of him, and, if so, he surely may hear you: unless
either he is talking; with others about matters of moment and importance, who are waiting on him with their applications to him; or he is in meditation; in a deep study upon some things difficult to be resolved:
or he is pursuing; his studies, or his pleasures, or his enemies, to overtake them; or he is employed on business (t):
or he is in a journey; gone to visit his friends, or some parts of his dominions; so Homer (u) represents Jupiter gone to pay a visit to the Ethiopians, and as yesterday gone to a feast, and all the gods following him, from whence he would not return until twelve days; and in like manner Lucian (w) speaks of the gods, mocking at them:
or, peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked; with a loud crying to him: it being now noon, Abarbinel thinks this refers to a custom of sleeping after dinner; Homer (x) also speaks of the sleep of the gods, and which used to be at noon; and therefore the worshippers of Baal ceased then to call upon him; and it is said (y), the Heathens feared to go into the temples of their gods at noon, lest they should disturb them; but such is not the true God, the God of Israel, he neither slumbers nor sleeps, Psalm 121:4.
(t) David de Pomis Lexic. fol. 211. 1.((u) Iliad. ver. 1. 423. (w) Jupiter Tragoedus. (x) Ut supra, (Iliad. ver. 1. 423.) in fine, & Iliad. 2. ver. 1, 2.((y) Meurs. Auctuar. Philol. c. 6. apud Quistorp. in loc.
28And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
And they cried aloud,.... Trying to make him hear, if possible:
and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them; so the priests of Heathen deities used to slash themselves on their shoulders, arms, and thighs, in their devotions to them, as many writers observe (z), fancying their gods were delighted with human blood; particularly the priests of Bellona (a), and the worshippers of the Syrian goddess (b), and of the Egyptian Isis (c).
(z) Vid. Kipping. Antiqu. Roman. l. 1. c. 10. p. 202. (a) Tertul Apolog. c. 9. Lactant. Institut. l. 1. c. 21. (b) Apulei Metamorph. l. 8. (c) Herodot. Euterpe, c. 61. Manetho. Apotelesm. l. 1. ver. 243, 244. Seneca de vita beata, c. 27.
29And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
And it came to pass when midday was past,.... And nothing done, no fire descended:
and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; continued praying to Baal, and singing his praises, but all to no purpose; or they behaved like madmen, as the Targum; thus they went on until it was time to offer the evening sacrifice; so that they had no interruption in their service, and had all the time they could desire to have to importune their god to do the favour for them they requested:
that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded; no voice was heard that returned them any answer; nor was any answer made by fire, nor any regard shown to their mad gestures, and barbarous actions; and very likely the people also, by this time, paid no regard unto them, perceiving they were not able, by all their cries and methods they took, to obtain an answer.
30And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down.
And Elijah said unto all the people, come near unto me,.... And observe what I do, and what will be done at my request:
and all the people came near unto him; left the prophets of Baal to themselves, and took no more notice of them, but attended to what the prophet should say and do:
and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down; which had been set up when high places and altars were allowed of, while the tabernacle was unsettled, and the temple not built; this is supposed to have been erected in the times of the judges; though, according to a tradition of the Jews (d), it was built by Saul, see 1 Samuel 15:12 but had been thrown down by the idolatrous Israelites, who demolished such as were erected to the name of the Lord everywhere, and built new ones for their idols, 1 Kings 19:10. Benjamin of Tudela (e) says, that on the top of Mount Carmel is now to be seen the place of the altar Elijah repaired, which is four cubits round.
(d) Jarchi & Kimchi in loc. (e) ltinerar. p. 37.
31And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name:
And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,.... Which he might very easily come at from the mountain:
unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name, which signifies one that has power with God, as Jacob had, when the word came to him to make a change in his name at Penuel, Genesis 32:28, and as Elijah hoped and believed he should have at this time, being a prophet, and a worshipper of Israel's God.
32And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed.
And with the stones he built an altar in the same of the Lord,.... Whom the twelve tribes had formerly worshipped; and though now divided in their civil state, yet ought to be united in the worship of God:
and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed; or two seahs, one of which was the third part of an ephah, and two of them were more than half a bushel; and this trench or ditch round the altar was as broad as such a measure of seed would sow.
33And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood,.... Just in such manner as sacrifices usually were:
and said, fill four barrels with water; either from the brook Kishon, or, if that was dried up, from the sea; for both were near this mountain, and so to be had, though a time of drought:
and pour it on the burnt sacrifice; that which was intended to be one:
and upon the wood: wherewith it was to be burnt, and so made unfit for it; and which would make the miracle appear the greater, when fire came down and consumed it.
34And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.
And he said, do it the second time, and they did it the second time,.... That is, poured four barrels of water more upon the wood:
and he said, do it the third time, and they did it the third time; so that there were in all twelve barrels of water poured on the wood, agreeably to the number of the twelve stones the altar was built with, and may have respect to the same as they.
35And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.
And the water ran round about the altar,.... There being such a large effusion of it on it;
and he filled the trench also with water; which surrounded the altar, so that it seemed impracticable that any fire should kindle upon it; and this gave full proof and demonstration there could be no collusion in this matter.
36And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.
And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice,.... Which the people of God at Jerusalem were now attending to:
that Elijah the prophet came near; to the altar he had built, and on which he had laid the sacrifice:
and said; in prayer to God:
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the covenant God of the ancestors of his people, though they had now so fully departed from him:
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel; and that there is no other:
and that I am thy servant; a true worshipper of him, and his faithful prophet and minister:
and that I have done all these things at thy word; restrained rain from the earth for some years past, and now had convened Israel, and the false prophets, together, that by a visible sign from heaven it might be known who was the true God; all which he did not of himself, but by the impulse, direction, and, commandment of the Lord.
37Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.
Hear me, O Lord, hear me;.... Which repetition is made to express his importunity, and the vehement earnest desire of his soul to be heard in such a case, which so much concerned the glory of God; the Targum is,
"receive my prayer, O Lord, concerning the fire, receive my prayer concerning the rain;''
as if the one respected the sending down the fire on the sacrifice, and the other sending rain on the earth; and which sense is followed by other Jewish writers:
that this people may know that thou art the Lord God; and not Baal, or any other idol:
and that thou hast turned their heart back again; from idolatry, to the worship of the true God; though some understand this of God's giving them up to a spirit of error, and suffering them to fall into idolatry, and hardening their hearts, as he did Pharaoh's; but the former sense is best.
38Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
Then the fire of the Lord fell,.... An extraordinary fire from God out of heaven, as the effects of it show:
and consumed the burnt sacrifice; as it had done in former instances, Leviticus 9:24, and besides this, which is still more extraordinary,
and the wood, and the stones, and the dust; of the altar, thereby signifying that even such were not to be used any more:
and licked up the water that was in the trench; around the altar, see 1 Kings 18:32.
39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.
And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces,.... In reverence of God, astonished at the miracle wrought, ashamed of themselves and their sins, particularly their idolatry, that they should turn their backs on the true God, and follow idols:
and they said, the Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is the God; which acknowledgment of God, as the true God, in opposition to Baal, is repeated, to show their firm belief and strong assurance of it.
40And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.
And Elijah said unto them, take the prophets of Baal,.... The four hundred and fifty that were upon the spot; for the number of the people of Israel, now gathered together, were equal to it; nor was it in Ahab's power to hinder it, and he might himself be so far surprised and convicted as not in the least to object to it:
let not one of them escape: that there might be none of them left to seduce the people any more:
and they took them; laid hold on them, everyone of them:
and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon; which ran by the side, and at the bottom of Mount Carmel, into the sea; See Gill on Judges 4:7, Judges 5:21.
and slew them there; intimating, that it was owing to the idolatry they led the people into that rain had been withheld, and the brooks were dried up, as this might be; or, as Ben Gersom thinks, that the land might not be defiled with their blood, but be carried down the river after it: these he slew not with his own hand, but by others he gave orders to do it; and this not as a private person, but as an extraordinary minister of God, to execute justice according to his law, Deuteronomy 13:1 by which law such false prophets were to die; and the rather he was raised up and spirited for this service, as the supreme magistrate was addicted to idolatry himself.
41And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.
And Elijah said unto Ahab, get thee up,.... From the brook and valley where the execution of the prophets had been made; either up to his chariot, or to the tent or pavilion erected on the side of the mount, where the whole scene of things was transacted;
eat and drink; which he had no leisure for all the day, from the time of the morning sacrifice to the evening sacrifice, which was taken up in attending to the issue of the several sacrifices; but now he is bid to eat and refresh himself, and that in token of joy and gladness, as became him, both for the honour of the true God, which had been abundantly confirmed, and for the near approach of rain, of which he assures him:
for there is a sound of abundance of rain; the wind perhaps began to rise, and blow pretty briskly, which was a sign of it (f); besides, according to the Tyrian annals (g), there were loud claps of thunder at this time, at least when the heavens became very black, as in 1 Kings 18:45.
(f) "Fit fragor, hinc densi----nimbi", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 8. v. 269. (g) Apud Joseph, Antiqu. l. 8. c. 13. sect. 2.
42So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,
So Ahab went up to eat and to drink,.... Up to his chariot, as some think, or rather to some place higher than that in which he now was:
and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; higher still, where he both might be alone, and have the opportunity of observing the clouds gathering, and the rain coming:
and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees; expressive of his humility, and of his earnestness, and vehement desire, and continued importunity, that rain might fall; for this was a posture of prayer he put himself into, and continued in; and it is certain that it was through his prayer that rain came, James 5:18 and from hence came the fable of the Grecians concerning Aeacus praying for rain in a time of drought, when it came (h). So the Chinese writers (i) report that at the prayers of their emperor Tangus, after a seven years' drought, great rains fell.
(h) Pausan. Attica, sive, l. 1. prope finem. Isocrat. Evagoras, p. 373. (i) Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 3. p. 60.
43And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.
And said to his servant,.... Whom some take to be the son of the widow of Sarepta, but he must be too young to be employed in such service as this was:
go up now; still higher on Mount Carmel; than where he was, even to the highest point of it:
look towards the sea: or the west, as the Targum, the Mediterranean sea, which lay to the west of the land of Israel:
and he went up and looked, and he said, there is nothing; there was nothing in the sky, or arising out of the sea, that looked like or foreboded rain:
and he said, go again seven times; till he should see something.
44And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.
And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand,.... Either about the size or in the form of it; rain water comes out of the sea, and, being strained through the clouds and air, becomes fresh:
and he said, go up: the meaning seems to be, that he should first go down from the mount, and then go up to that part of it where Ahab was:
say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot; bind or fasten the horses to it, as the phrase seems to signify:
and get thee down; from the mountain where he was, to go to Jezreel, which lay low in a valley:
that the rain stop thee not; on the road, that might be made impassable by it, signifying that such abundance should fall as would make it so.
45And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.
And it came to pass in the mean while,.... That the servant was gone with the message to Ahab, and Ahab was getting ready his chariot:
that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain; which all sprung from the cloud like a man's hand; and so we are told (k), that sometimes a little cloud called the ox's eye is seen on a mount of the Cape of Good Hope, called Tafesbery, when the sky is most serene, and the sea quiet; which is at first scarce so big as a barley corn, and then as a walnut; and presently it extends itself over the whole surface of the mountain:
and Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel; as fast as he could.
(k) Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacra, vol. 3. p. 591.
46And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah,.... Giving him more than common strength of body, as well as courage and fortitude of mind; so the Targum, the spirit of strength from the Lord was with him:
and he girded up his loins; gathered up his long loose garment, and girt it about him, that he might be more fit for travelling:
and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel; reckoned about sixteen miles from Carmel (l); this showed his humility, that he was not elated with the wonderful things God had done by him, and that he bore no ill will to Ahab, but was ready to show him all honour and respect due to him as a king; and that it were his sins, and not his person, he had an aversion to; and that he was not afraid of Jezebel, and her prophets, but entered into the city where she was, to instruct the people, and warn them against her idolatries; though some think he went no further than the gate of the city, prudently avoiding falling into her hands.
(l) Bunting's Travels, &c. p. 204.
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Dominican Republic: History
The island of Hispaniola, of which the Dominican Republic forms the eastern two-thirds and Haiti the remainder, was originally occupied by Tainos, an Arawak-speaking people. The Tainos welcomed Columbus in his first voyage in 1492, but subsequent colonizers were brutal, reducing the Taino population from about 1 million to about 500 in 50 years. To ensure adequate labor for plantations, the Spanish brought African slaves to the island beginning in 1503.
In the next century, French settlers occupied the western end of the island, which Spain ceded to France in 1697, and which, in 1804, became the Republic of Haiti. The Haitians conquered the whole island in 1822 and held it until 1844, when forces led by Juan Pablo Duarte, the hero of Dominican independence, drove them out and established the Dominican Republic as an independent state. In 1861, the Dominicans voluntarily returned to the Spanish Empire; in 1865, independence was restored. Economic difficulties, the threat of European intervention, and ongoing internal disorders led to a U.S. occupation in 1916 and the establishment of a military government in the Dominican Republic. The occupation ended in 1924, with a democratically elected Dominican Government.
In 1930, Rafael L. Trujillo, a prominent army commander, established absolute political control. Trujillo promoted economic development--from which he and his supporters benefited--and severe repression of domestic human rights. Mismanagement and corruption resulted in major economic problems. In August 1960, the Organization of American States (OAS) imposed diplomatic sanctions against the Dominican Republic as a result of Trujillo's complicity in an attempt to assassinate President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela. These sanctions remained in force after Trujillo's death by assassination in May 1961. In November 1961, the Trujillo family was forced into exile.
In January 1962, a council of state that included moderate opposition elements with legislative and executive powers was formed. OAS sanctions were lifted January 4, and, after the resignation of President Joaquin Balaguer on January 16, the council under President Rafael E. Bonnelly headed the Dominican Government.
In 1963, Juan Bosch was inaugurated president. Bosch was overthrown in a military coup in September 1963. Another military coup, on April 24, 1965, led to violence between military elements favoring the return to government by Bosch and those who proposed a military junta committed to early general elections. On April 28, U.S. military forces landed to protect U.S. citizens and to evacuate U.S. and other foreign nationals.
Additional U.S. forces subsequently established order. In June 1966, President Balaguer, leader of the Reformist Party (now called the Social Christian Reformist Party--PRSC), was elected and then re-elected to office in May 1970 and May 1974, both times after the major opposition parties withdrew late in the campaign. In the May 1978 election, Balaguer was defeated in his bid for a fourth successive term by Antonio Guzman of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). Guzman's inauguration on August 16 marked the country's first peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected president to another.
The PRD's presidential candidate, Salvador Jorge Blanco, won the 1982 elections, and the PRD gained a majority in both houses of Congress. In an attempt to cure the ailing economy, the Jorge administration began to implement economic adjustment and recovery policies, including an austerity program in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In April 1984, rising prices of basic foodstuffs and uncertainty about austerity measures led to riots.
Balaguer was returned to the presidency with electoral victories in 1986 and 1990. Upon taking office in 1986, Balaguer tried to reactivate the economy through a public works construction program. Nonetheless, by 1988 the country had slid into a 2-year economic depression, characterized by high inflation and currency devaluation. Economic difficulties, coupled with problems in the delivery of basic services--e.g., electricity, water, transportation--generated popular discontent that resulted in frequent protests, occasionally violent, including a paralyzing nationwide strike in June 1989.
In 1990, Balaguer instituted a second set of economic reforms. After concluding an IMF agreement, balancing the budget, and curtailing inflation, the Dominican Republic experienced a period of economic growth marked by moderate inflation, a balance in external accounts, and a steadily increasing GDP that lasted through 2000.
The voting process in 1986 and 1990 was generally seen as fair, but allegations of electoral board fraud tainted both victories. The elections of 1994 were again marred by charges of fraud. Following a compromise calling for constitutional and electoral reform, President Balaguer assumed office for an abbreviated term and Congress amended the constitution to bar presidential succession.
Since 1996, the Dominican electoral process has been seen as generally free and fair. In June 1996, Leonel Fernandez Reyna of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) was elected to a 4-year term as president. Fernandez's political agenda was one of economic and judicial reform. He helped enhance Dominican participation in hemispheric affairs, such as the OAS and the followup to the Miami Summit. On May 16, 2000, Hipolito Mejia, the PRD candidate, was elected president in another free and fair election, defeating PLD candidate Danilo Medina and former president Balaguer. Mejia championed the cause of free trade and Central American and Caribbean economic integration. The Dominican Republic signed a free trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) with the United States and five Central American countries in August 2004, in the last weeks of the Mejia administration. During the Mejia administration, the government sponsored and obtained anti-trafficking and anti-money-laundering legislation, sent troops to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and ratified the Article 98 agreement it had signed in 2002. Mejia faced mounting domestic problems as a deteriorating economy--caused in large part by the government's measures to deal with massive bank fraud--and constant power shortages plagued the latter part of his administration.
During the Mejia administration, the constitution was amended to permit an incumbent president to seek a second successive term, and Mejia ran for re-election. On May 16, 2004, Leonel Fernandez was elected president, defeating Mejia 57.11% to 33.65%. Eduardo Estrella of the PRSC received 8.65% of the vote. Fernandez took office on August 16, 2004, promising in his inaugural speech to promote fiscal austerity, to fight corruption and to support social concerns. Fernandez said the Dominican Republic would support policies favoring international peace and security through multilateral mechanisms in conformity with the United Nations and the OAS. On May 16, 2008, President Fernandez was re-elected president with 53.8% of the vote. The Fernandez administration works closely with the United States on law enforcement, immigration, and counterterrorism matters.
Congressional and municipal elections were held in May 2010, with Fernandez’s PLD winning a slim majority of seats in the House of Representatives and 31 of 32 Senate seats, as well as a plurality of mayoral seats. President Fernandez’s role in the victorious congressional campaign led his supporters to promote his candidacy for re-election in 2012. The new constitution promulgated in January 2010 would seem to prohibit this, and ultimately Fernandez announced that he would not run in the 2012 elections. Following primary contests, the 2012 presidential race is divided between the ruling PLD's candidate, Danilo Medina, and the opposition PRD's candidate, former President Hipolito Mejia.
Sources:CIA World Factbook (March 2012)
U.S. Dept. of State Country Background Notes ( March 2012)
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Each year people from every walk of life, regardless of religion or political affiliation, gather for a National Day of Prayer that’s held on the first Thursday in May. Hoping to capitalize on the attention given to the National Day of Prayer, the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition of America “are joining forces to combat the National Day of Prayer by promoting the National Day of Reason.”
The history of prayer for our nation goes back to at least 1775 when the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a new nation. The day was officially recognized in 1952 when President Harry Truman signed into law a proclamation for an annual day of prayer.
Now the atheists want in on the action. They are claiming that we can solve our problems with reason alone. The reason-alone approach has been tried before with bloody results. The Enlightenment philosophers of the eighteenth century rejected the Christian religion and declared reason to be supreme. “Europe disintegrated because the goddess of Reason, whom the French revolutionaries placed, in the shape of a Parisian streetwalker, upon the altar of Notre Dame,” became France’s new authority. Outfitted in the attire of a Roman goddess, she was “carried shoulder‑high into the cathedral by men dressed in Roman costumes.”
To make the transition from the old religion of Christianity to the new religion of reason-worship the church of Notre Dame was reconsecrated to the “Cult of Reason.”
In the France of 1793, Reason was not only a god that failed, she was a goddess who cut her own throat. The fanaticism of reason that gripped the French revolutionaries convinced them that they could create a republic of reason out of thin air — or more correctly, out of hot air. The men who came up with the idea of celebrating the Festival of Reason were all quite intelligent men—rational actors in the most pronounced sense of this word. They were determined not only to think for themselves and control their own lives, but to build a society that would meet their ideals.
Belief in reason over religion is beginning to look like the modern materialist’s new savior. Sam Harris tries to make this point in his book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Al Gore argues in a similar way in The Assault on Reason. If people were only reasonable, they and others argue, all would be right with the world.
Harris and the other reason-alone advocates don’t not tell us whose version of reason we are to follow. Is it the reason of the French Revolutionaries who hadn’t met a head they didn’t want to lop off or the reason of the Stalinists who believed the Gulag was a good place for someone to “get his mind right”? Maybe we should follow the reasoning of Aristotle who believed in the reasonableness and “natural order” for the institution of slavery because there are some people who are “slaves by nature.”
One last thing. The reason-only crowd contend that the Constitution is a “secular document” that does not mention anything about religion. It should be pointed out that the word “reason” does not appear in the body of the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment does use the word “unreasonable searches and seizures.” While the word “reason” is not found, a reference to Jesus Christ is. Just above George Washington’s signature, the following is found:
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.
- Richard Hertz, Chance and Symbol (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), 100. [↩]
- Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (1976) in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, 5 vols. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1984), 5:122. [↩]
- Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 67. [↩]
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Dolly Sods Wilderness Description
Dolly Sods Wilderness is part of the Monongahela National Forest system. Much of the land in the higher elevations consists of eco-systems that are more commonly seen much further north in Canada.
The 17,000 acre wilderness has 47 miles of hiking trails, many of which follow old logging roads and railroad grades. The area is very popular with hikers, backpackers, cross-country skiiers, and campers.
Note: During World War II, the military used this wilderness area as a training ground. Many of the mortar and artillery shells used still exist, some of which could still be live.
The trails and campsites were surveyed in 1997, at which time 15 shells were discovered, some of which were live.
These were exploded on site. Please do not wander off of the designated trails as there could be live ordnances.
Note: For a printed map of the trails in the Canaan Valley, we highly recommend the 'Explorer Trail Map' by Voila Interactive Concepts.
This map was meticulously compiled by a local resident and is an excellent guide of the vast trail network in the Canaan Valley. You can find
it at local outdoor shops such as Blackwater Bikes in Davis and at the Timberline Resort store.
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A Day in the Life of a Governor
- Using the Pupil Voice
- Recruiting for success
- Extended Schools
- Improving Attendance
- Involving Parents
School Case Study – Using the Pupil Voice
Primary School E – Governors use pupil voice to conduct school evaluation and monitor school improvement.
When the governors at the School were asked to provide evidence for the pupil-outcome based Ofsted evaluations, they realised that it was relatively straightforward to present the actions the school had taken, but it was not quite as easy to show the difference they had made. So for example, when asked about how children in the school felt about bullying or staying healthy, evidence presented tended to be about what had been done to tackle the issues, rather than the impact of those actions.
So working together with link adviser, they followed a scheme that brought governors, senior management and pupils together to check whether the support strategies being delivered were making a difference.
So how did they do it?
- They focused on three or four children from each class and invited them to attend a session, asking them to take some of their books. Members of the senior leadership team and governing bodies were invited to the group (but not class teachers).
- During the group session, after being put at ease, the children were asked a series of 20 questions about enjoyment, safety, health, participation, standards and suggestions. Some examples of questions included:
- What subjects do you like at school?
- Which subjects are hardest for you?
- Why does your teacher mark your books?
- What gets in the way of your learning?
- Is your work too easy, too hard or just right?
- Do you feel safe in school? What have you learnt about being safe?
- How do you keep healthy?
The link adviser initially ran the pupil meeting; however, the governors soon got the hang of it and started to lead with the questioning. After the first group had finished, the governors split into two teams to conduct the sessions simultaneously with different year groups.
- Following the discussion, the outcomes were shared with teachers and any actions agreed.
The Chair of Governors, attended the sessions with two other governors and the head teacher. He said: “It was lovely to see the children react to the questions posed to them and it proved an interesting and worthwhile exercise. “With one group, we were particularly pleased about how well aware they were of safety – both in and out of the school – and with another group, how they valued the work of the school council.” A number of other primary schools in the North have also adopted this approach and each discovered areas where the schools could improve their performance.
In one school, it was found that despite achieving good outcomes, the children weren’t clear on their targets, therefore governors left knowing they would have to question the head about how they would communicate with the children about targets. In another, children said how much they liked the extracurricular homework club, so the school increased the time it was made available and also widened the criteria for attendance.
How have governors benefited from this approach?
- It provided an opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of learning and issues in the classroom
- It enabled them to participate in the school monitoring and self-evaluation processes
- It helped to inform the Ofsted process
- It gave them a better understanding of the self-evaluation framework (SEF) and the links to the school improvement process.
How has this supported school improvement?
- It has provided a great opportunity to collect evidence for the SEF, especially regarding personal development and wellbeing
- Schools can reflect on whether the support strategies they are delivering are appropriate and making an impact
- Governors and staff receive feedback directly from the children to help identify areas for school improvement
- Schools get a better understanding of how they can extend and accelerate the progress of underachieving children
- The school has an evidence trail of actions being taken to address underachievement and can monitor the impact of agreed strategies.
Recruiting for success
Governor D is the Chair of Governors at Primary School F, a special school catering for pupils aged 2–16 with complex medical conditions. In May 2007 it was judged as outstanding, and therefore when the headteacher announced she was retiring, it was crucial to find the right replacement. We spoke to Governor D about the school’s journey, which involved three recruitment campaigns before they finally got their headteacher.
How did you prepare for the recruitment process?
We convened a full governing body meeting, where we formed a five-person selection panel (helpful to avoid a split vote). It was important that we had different types of governors on the panel and that each understood the commitment required of them. We enlisted the support of experienced representatives from the local authority, who could guide us on areas such as safeguarding, equal opportunities, salaries and so on. We also prepared a contingency plan, in case we were not able to appoint first time round – worthwhile planning, as we ended up appointing the deputy after our first round failed to find the right person.
How did you define the type of person you were looking for?
We thought about the future development of the school and the specific leadership qualities needed. We are part of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and are bidding for specialist status in the Special Educational Needs (SEN) strand of communication and interaction, so we needed someone who could develop the school in this direction, while maintaining our ‘outstanding’ Ofsted judgement. We used the School Improvement Plan and Ofsted reports, looked at our self-evaluation data, and of course the criteria outlined in the National Standards for Headteachers. We changed the person specification second time round as we felt our first attempt was too narrow and that we were excluding some good candidates by being too specific about experience required.
How did you attract the right quality of candidate?
We were supported by management support advisers in putting together the job advert. I would strongly urge other governing bodies not to scrimp on advert placement – making it stand out will cost a little more up front, but will pay dividends if it gets the attention of the right candidates. We prepared a high-quality recruitment pack, which included job description, person specification, school information and the recruitment timetable (including interview dates). On our third attempt, we even invited people on a tour around the school before they applied – this helped candidates make a decision about whether it was the right school for them, and helped our short-listing process.
How did you select?
First time round, we didn’t even short-list. Second and third time round we got a much better response, probably due to the revised person specification, more prominent advert and better timed placement (by advertising earlier in the year we caught those looking for a new job for the new school year). As well as a match to the job description and person specification, we looked for two things in particular in the application letters: did they include how they could address the needs of our particular school, and did they include what impact their actions had in previous schools? We used a simple scoring matrix and short-listed up to three candidates to invite for interview. We used a variety of activities over two days to assess candidates, including teaching a class, undertaking a written task, a presentation and a formal interview. However, one of the most interesting and perceptive activities was the use of pupils from the school council, who fed back to the selection panel following time spent questioning each candidate.
How did you make sure you’d made the right choice?
We were confident that we had an outstanding candidate however, we took up references from his current school in as well as previous schools. We also advised the local authority, which did its own checks, before ratifying the decision with the full governing body.
What did your induction programme look like?
We kept in contact with the new head by email, and set up a number of meetings with the current acting head and the chair. He was invited to key events at the school (such as the SIP visit and BSF meetings) and spent a day with the senior leadership team. An assembly was held to introduce the new head to the school before the end of the summer term.
How would you summarise your recruitment campaign?
We had three attempts to recruit, but it was well worth the wait to get the right person. My advice to others would be to have the courage to keep going until you find the candidate you need. Getting the right headteacher is vital for the whole school community, but most importantly for the pupils.
Further guidance materials from the NCSL are available to help governors recruit headteachers and senior leaders. You can access them via http://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/ and Seven steps to successful recruitment
A research study by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) found that the process of recruiting and appointing staff can be broken down into seven stages:
Step 1: Preparation
Getting ready to run an effective recruitment campaign
Step 2: Definition
Understanding and describing your ideal candidate
Step 3: Attraction
Getting the right people to apply
Step 4: Selection
Choosing the best candidate
Step 5: Appointment
Securing your chosen candidate
Step 6: Induction
Giving you a strong head start
Step 7: Evaluation
Learning from the experience
Extended Schools Case Study
Barrie Chalmers, headteacher at St Mary’s C of E, Moss Side, tells us how his school has developed a wide range of extended services for pupils, parents and the community, and gives us his top tips:
At St Mary’s C of E we offer a wide range of extended provision, from breakfast and after-school clubs, to a weekend Arabic school used by the local Arabic speaking community. The school is open from 8am to 6pm on weekdays. Some pupils take T’ai Chi classes before lessons begin, and until recently we worked with the local karate centre to provide a karate club.
We provide the Webster-Stratton parenting course, and our first group of 16 parents have recently completed the ten-week programme. Four of our staff are now trained as family intervention workers, which has made a real difference. Instead of referring families to social workers, we can now intervene and offer support ourselves where appropriate. We run an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) course for parents in collaboration with the Windrush Centre, which is invaluable to our many parents who don’t speak English as their first language.
“Our governing body has been key. It has put in a lot of time and effort to achieve this success.” It has been key in allowing us to develop our range of extended provision. It put in a formal bid to become one of the city’s pilot extended schools and put in a lot of time and effort to achieve this. We realised some time ago that the key to improving outcomes for our children was not just teaching and learning, but in offering a wider range of opportunities for children and particularly their parents. The governors have always recognised the impact extended schooling can have and have offered their full support for this.
We have found that working with partners has been an important part of our extended provision. We work with Manchester Academy to provide vocational experience for our year 5 and 6 pupils in a range of industries, and we have also developed close links with Whalley Range and Trinity High Schools.
“The rewards for creating as wide a range of opportunities as possible for pupils, parents and the community are massive.”
Building a successful extended offer takes a lot of time and effort, but the opportunities are there in any school and do not require special facilities. Providing good teaching and learning will, of course, always be a hugely important part of any school, but the rewards for creating as wide a range of opportunities as possible for pupils, parents and the community are massive. One final thing to remember is that extended provision is not a ‘bolt-on’ to your school. It will completely change the way the school works but, if done effectively, the benefits will be reaped by everyone.
- Don’t try and do too much too soon. Building an effective extended offer will take time, so build slowly and consolidate.
- Involve parents in any plans to introduce new provision – either they or their children will almost certainly be using it.
- Remember that things will go wrong. If something does not work, learn from it, and do not be afraid to try new things.
- Governing bodies have a vital role to play. Discuss how advanced your school’s extended offer is. Ask the leadership team what plans they have to develop extended provision and what benefits they would expect these to bring.
- Be imaginative! There is no right or wrong type of extended provision. Build on the opportunities that exist in your school and respond to the needs of your pupils, parents and community
Improving Attendance: A Governor’s Perspective
Sue Murphy is chair of governors at Brookway High School. She tells us how governors have been involved in helping to reduce absence at the school.
What measures have been used by Brookway to try and improve attendance?
We have tried as a governing body to really focus on attendance over a sustained period. We make sure that attendance is always an item on the agenda for the governing body to discuss. As a governing body we acknowledged that attendance was an issue, and we hold a regular monitoring working group involving a small panel of governors and the school leadership team to look at the School Improvement Plan, making sure one of the things we focus on is attendance.
This allowed us to really look at the impacts of measures we were employing. In terms of specific measures, we have used incentive schemes, as well as attendance panels which have helped to bring home to parents/carers and pupils the importance of attending school. One of the most crucial factors we have found has been to get on top of any potential attendance issues early, ensuring that all staff at the school see it as part of their role – staff have worked really hard to improve attendance.
Can you say a bit about how improved attendance has impacted on the school generally?
There is a link between improving attendance and raising attainment within the school, and getting a grip on attendance issues allows more pupils to benefit from efforts made to improve teaching and learning. Attendance is also often linked to a range of wider issues, so by engaging with children that are often absent and their parents, I think as a school we have been able to help to deal with some of these associated issues.
How have governors been involved in tackling attendance issues?
We have tried as a governing body to get really involved in improving attendance. We appointed a lead governor to focus on attendance issues and report back to the governing body on this. We also make sure that the attendance policy is reviewed regularly and that staff, pupils and parents are aware of the policy.
What advice would you give to other governors looking to improve their school’s attendance?
Just keep going! Raising attendance levels can be a slow process but it is just a case of making sure that you keep trying. Be prepared to try new things and be imaginative when tackling absence issues, making sure you evaluate well and keep doing what works. With commitment from the whole governing body and everyone else in the school, attendance levels can be raised.
Ofsted – a governor’s experience
Angela O’Hagan, Chair of GB at Crumsall Lane Primary School
Leading up to the inspection, was the school and governing body optimistic about the outcome?
We were aware that we were due an Ofsted inspection and that governance had been an issue at the previous inspection. Therefore, we had been working for some time towards becoming more effective as a governing body and, by the time this inspection was due, we were quite confident that policies and procedures were up to date and working well. We have an excellent clerk who supports us well and the Local Authority also provided valuable support by way of documents and a presentation to governors about increasing their effectiveness.
How did you prepare?
In readiness for Ofsted, governors made sure that they were familiar with the latest version of the SEF and School Improvement Plan, both of which we monitor regularly. Once the school received ‘the phone call’, I met briefly with the headteacher and deputy to make sure that I was completely up to date with any developments since the last governing body meeting and that I had the latest pupil progress data. We also ensured that the latest sub-committee meeting minutes were on file. As I know a Chair of Governors at another school, we had a brief chat about their recent experience of Ofsted.
Did you, or any other governors, attend school during the inspection?
As Chair, I was interviewed by one of the three Ofsted inspectors. My interview lasted about half an hour, was much more relaxed than I had feared, and in fact was extremely positive. I felt that the purpose of this interview was for the inspector to allow me to demonstrate my knowledge and commitment to the school, rather than trying to ‘catch me out’ so I would say that as long as you know your school well and can back up what you say you know with evidence then there is nothing to fear from Ofsted from a governor’s point of view.
Involving Parents Spring 2010
Abdoulie Drameh, parent governor at Cheetwood Primary School, tells us about the work being done at his school to involve parents.
What is going on at Cheetwood?
Although the school was already committed to involving parents, the past year has seen an increase in this type of work. There has been lots going on recently, including two really successful family learning weeks, which involved the whole school as well as many local partners. During both events, parents were asked what they enjoyed and what they would like to see in future.
Parents said they wanted more sports and fitness events as well as computer training, and they also enjoyed being part of their children’s learning and wanted more support to be able to help their children. This was all taken on board, resulting in a Pilates class, football training for kids and parents together, as well as opportunities for parents to work alongside their children in school time. A six-week computer course has also been offered to parents through Manchester Adult Education Service. Eighty parents attended school during events held for Manchester Parents’ Week, which was a great turnout. Parents have also been invited to join focus groups about policies such as cyber-bullying, and the school has written parent-friendly versions of policies.
What have you been involved in as a parent?
I seem to be in school all the time! I always try to attend events that the school invites parents to. I also go to the district network meetings, and recently I attended the parents’ conference at the Town Hall, which gave me a few good ideas to pass on to school.
How does the governing body get involved?
The governing body is always interested in how the school is involving parents. The teacher with responsibility for Every Child Matters, Tina Bakin, feeds back to the headteacher, who then briefs governors about how the school is working with parents. I also feed back from any events I have attended, as well as any relevant issues I have been speaking to parents about. The school is also part of the pilot of the Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA), which the governing body is very interested in supporting.
How do you make contact with parents and encourage them to get involved?
I speak to other parents on an informal basis all the time, and make sure that I let them know what’s going on at school and how they can be involved. I will also support parents to get involved if possible; for example I accompanied one parent to a couple of events and also encouraged one interested parent to stand for parent governor at the next election. In addition, I listen to the concerns of parents, and guide them in the right direction to solve any problems.
What has been the impact of the work that has been carried out with parents?
The turnout at events is increasing every time, including among parents who did not attend school previously. There has also been an increase in the number of parents volunteering in school. The teachers say they have seen positive effects on the children, who say they like their parents being involved in their work.
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HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation
OpenVMS Debugger Manual
4.2.2 ASCII String Types
When displaying an ASCII string value, the debugger encloses it within quotation marks (") or apostrophes ('), depending on the language syntax. For example:
To deposit a string value (including a single character) into a string variable, you must enclose the value in quotation marks (") or apostrophes ('). For example:
If the string has more ASCII characters (1 byte each) than can fit into the location denoted by the address expression, the debugger truncates the extra characters from the right and issues the following message:
If the string has fewer characters, the debugger pads the remaining
characters to the right of the string by inserting ASCII space
You can examine an entire array aggregate, a single indexed element, or a slice (a range of elements). However, you can deposit into only one element at a time. The following examples show typical operations with arrays.
The following command displays the values of all the elements of the array variable ARRX, a one-dimensional array of integers:
The following command displays the value of element 4 of array ARRX (depending on the language, parentheses or brackets are used to denote indexed elements):
The following command displays the values of all the elements in a slice of ARRX. This slice consists of the range of elements from element 2 to element 5:
You can deposit a value to only a single array element at a time (you cannot deposit to an array slice or an entire array aggregate with a single DEPOSIT command). For example, the following command deposits the value 53 into element 2 of ARRX:
The following command displays the values of all the elements of array REAL_ARRAY, a two-dimensional array of real numbers (three per dimension):
The debugger issues a diagnostic message if you try to deposit to an index value that is out of bounds. For example:
In the previous example, the deposit operation was executed because the diagnostic message is of I level. This means that the value of some array element adjacent to (1,3), possibly (2,1) might have been affected by the out-of-bounds deposit operation.
To deposit the same value to several components of an array, you can use a looping command such as FOR or REPEAT. For example, assign the value RED to elements 1 to 4 of the array COLOR_ARRAY:
You can examine an entire record aggregate, a single record component, or several components. However, you can deposit into only one component at a time. The following examples show typical operations with records.
The following command displays the values of all the components of the record variable PART:
The following command displays the value of component IN_STOCK of record PART (general syntax):
The following command displays the value of the same record component using COBOL syntax (the language must be set to COBOL):
The following command displays the values of two components of record PART:
The following command deposits a value into record component IN_STOCK:
4.2.5 Pointer (Access) Types
You can examine the entity designated (pointed to) by a pointer variable and deposit a value into that entity. You can also examine a pointer variable.
For example, the following Pascal code declares a pointer variable A that designates a value of type real:
The following command displays the value of the entity designated by the pointer variable A:
In the following example, the value 3.9 is deposited into the entity designated by A:
When you specify the name of a pointer variable with the EXAMINE command, the debugger displays the memory address of the object it designates. For example:
The debugger recognizes address expressions that are associated with instructions. This enables you to examine and deposit instructions using the same basic techniques as with variables.
When debugging at the instruction level, you might find it convenient to first enter the following command. It sets the default step mode to stepping by instruction:
There are other step modes that enable you to execute the program to specific kinds of instructions. You can also set breakpoints to interrupt execution at these instructions.
If you specify an address expression that is associated with an instruction in an EXAMINE command (for example, a line number), the debugger displays the first instruction at that location. You can then use the period (.), Return key, and circumflex (^) to display the current, next, and previous instruction (logical entity), as described in Section 4.1.8.
For example, on Alpha processors:
Line numbers, routine names, and labels are symbolic address expressions that are associated with instructions. In addition, instructions might be stored in various other memory addresses and in certain registers during the execution of your program.
The program counter (PC) is the register that contains the address of the next instruction to be executed by your program. The command EXAMINE .%PC displays that instruction. The period (.), when used directly in front of an address expression, denotes the contents of operator---that is, the contents of the location designated by the address expression. Note the following distinction:
On VAX processors, you can use the /OPERANDS qualifier to control the amount of information displayed when you enter the EXAMINE .%PC command:
On VAX processors, use the /OPERANDS qualifier only when examining the current PC instruction. The information might not be reliable if you specify other locations. The command SET MODE [NO]OPERANDS enables you to control the default behavior of the EXAMINE .%PC command.
As shown in the previous examples, the debugger knows whether an address expression is associated with an instruction. If it is, the EXAMINE command displays that instruction (you do not need to use the /INSTRUCTION qualifier). You use the /INSTRUCTION qualifier to display the contents of an arbitrary program location as an instruction---that is, the command EXAMINE/INSTRUCTION causes the debugger to interpret and format the contents of any program location as an instruction (see Section 4.5.2).
When you examine consecutive instructions in a MACRO-32 program, the debugger might misinterpret data as instructions if storage for the data is allocated in the middle of a stream of instructions. The following example shows this problem. It shows some MACRO-32 code with two longwords of data storage allocated directly after the BRB instruction at line 7 (line numbers have been added to the example for clarity).
The following EXAMINE command displays the instruction at the start of line 6:
The following EXAMINE command correctly interprets and displays the logical successor entity as an instruction at line 7:
However, the following three EXAMINE commands incorrectly interpret the three logical successors as instructions:
4.3.2 Depositing Instructions (VAX Only)
On VAX processors, you can deposit instructions as well as examine them. Use the following DEPOSIT command syntax:
You must enclose language-expression (an assembly-language instruction) in either quotation marks or apostrophes. The /INSTRUCTION qualifier indicates that the delimited string is an instruction and not an ASCII string. Or, if you plan to deposit several instructions, you can first enter the SET TYPE/OVERRIDE INSTRUCTION command (see Section 4.5.2). You then do not need to use the /INSTRUCTION qualifier on the DEPOSIT command.
Instructions occupy different numbers of bytes depending on their operands. When depositing instructions of arbitrary lengths into successive memory locations, use the logical successor operator (Return key) to establish the next unoccupied location where an instruction can be deposited. The following example shows the technique:
When you replace an instruction, be sure that the new instruction, including operands, is the same length in bytes as the old instruction. If the new instruction is longer, you cannot deposit it without overwriting, which will destroy the next instruction. If the new instruction occupies fewer bytes of memory than the old one, you must deposit NOP instructions (instructions that cause no operation) in bytes of memory left unoccupied after the replacement. The debugger does not warn you if an instruction you are depositing will overwrite a subsequent instruction, nor does it remind you to fill in vacant bytes of memory with NOPs.
The following example shows how to replace an instruction with an instruction of equal length:
4.4 Examining and Depositing into Registers
The VAX architecture provides 16 general registers and 18 vector registers, some of which are used for temporary address and data storage. Table 4-1 identifies the debugger built-in symbols that refer to VAX registers.
On VAX processors:
On Alpha processors, the Alpha architecture provides 32 general (integer) registers and 32 floating-point registers, some of which are used for temporary address and data storage. Table 4-2 identifies the debugger built-in symbols that refer to Alpha registers.
On Alpha processors:
The following examples show how to examine and deposit into registers:
On VAX processors, the processor status longword (PSL) is a register whose value represents a number of processor state variables. The first 16 bits of the PSL (referred to separately as the processor status word, or PSW) contain unprivileged information about the current processor state. The values of these bits can be controlled by a user program. The latter 16 bits of the PSL, bits 16 to 31, contain privileged information and cannot be altered by a user-mode program.
The following example shows how to examine the contents of the PSL:
See the VAX Architecture Handbook for complete information about the PSL, including the values of the various bits.
You can also display the information in the PSL in other formats. For example:
The command EXAMINE/PSL displays the value at any location in PSL format. This is useful for examining saved PSLs on the call stack.
To disable all conditions in the PSL, clear bits 0 to 15 with the following DEPOSIT command:
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If you’re in to making your own PCBs at home, you know the trials of etching copper clad boards. It’s slow, even if you’re gently rocking your etch tank or even using an aquarium pump to agitate your etching solution. [cunning_fellow] over on Instructables has the solution to your etching problems, and can even produce printmaking plates, jewelry, photochemically machine small parts, and make small brass logos of your second favorite website.
The Etchinator is a spray etcher, so instead of submerging a copper clad board into a vat of ferric or cupric chloride, etching solution is sprayed onto the board. We’ve seen this technique before, but previous builds use pumps to spray the etching solution and cost a bundle. [cunning_fellow]‘s Etchinator doesn’t used pumps; it’s driven by two cordless drill motors sucking up etching solution through a hollow tube.
The basic idea behind the build is sticking a vertical PVC pipe in a box with etching solution. Mount an impeller in the bottom of the tube, drill many small holes in the side of the tube, and spin it with a motor up top. The solution is sucked up the tube, sprayed out the sides, and falls back down into the reservoir. Put a masked off copper board in the tank and Bob’s your uncle.
Not only did [cunning_fellow] come up with an awesome PCB etching solution, but the same machine can be used for etching brass plate for printmaking, and even photoetching brass sheets for model planes, trains, and automobiles. The quality is really amazing; the Instructables robot above was etched out of 0.7 mm thick brass, with an etch depth of 0.35 mm with only 0.05 mm of undercut. A very awesome build that is already on our ‘to build’ project list.
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“ is the most significant black democratic socialist of early twentieth-century America. Jeffrey B. Perry has brought his thought and practice to life in a powerful and persuasive manner.” — Cornel West, Princeton University
“Jeffrey Perry’s significant biography lives up to the promise of its title. Finally, the voice of this majorprogressive is to be heard again loud and clear.” — David Levering Lewis, New York University, and author of a two-volume biography of
This is just some of the praise that Jeffrey B. Perry’s extraordinary new biography Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 has already earned. Perry’s work recounts and recovers the legacy and life and times of Hubert Harrison, a thinker and activist who influenced Marcus Garvey, Du Bois, and other important political and cultural figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
Please let me know if you would like a review copy of the book, would like to interview the author or have Jeffrey Perry contribute to your site.
For more information, you can also read the book’s introduction or read Jeffrey Perry’s postings on the Columbia University Press blog, here and here. (Please feel free to link to or excerpt from these materials.)
More on Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918:
Hubert Harrison was an immensely skilled writer, orator, educator, critic, and political activist who, more than any other political leader of his era, combined class consciousness and anti-white-supremacist race consciousness into a coherent political radicalism. Harrison’s ideas profoundly influenced “New Negro” militants, including A. Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey, and his synthesis of class and race issues is a key unifying link between the two great trends of the Black Liberation Movement: the labor- and civil-rights-based work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist platform associated with Malcolm X.
The foremost Black organizer, agitator, and theoretician of the Socialist Party of New York, Harrison was also the founder of the “New Negro” movement, the editor of , and the principal radical influence on the Garvey movement. He was a highly praised journalist and critic (reportedly the first regular Black book reviewer), a freethinker and early proponent of birth control, a supporter of Black writers and artists, a leading public intellectual, and a bibliophile who helped transform the 135th Street Public Library into an international center for research in Black culture. His biography offers profound insights on race, class, religion, immigration, war, democracy, and social change in America.
Thank you for your time and I hope you and your readers will be interested in this major contribution to.
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Racism is Innate: The Human Brain Makes Unconscious Decisions Based on Ethnicity – “Racism is hardwired into the brain and operates unconsciously because areas that detect ethnicity and control emotion are closely connected, according to scientists.” – original research article. see also How the brain views race.
CSIC recovers part of the genome of 2 hunter-gatherer individuals from 7,000 years ago – “The DNA data, which represent the 1.34% and the 0.5% of both individuals total genome, show that they are not directly connected to current populations of the Iberian Peninsula. Iberians from the Mesolithic Period were closer to current populations of northern Europe, who could have assimilated part of the genetic legacy of these hunters-gatherers.”
Food and Porn as Supernormal Stimuli – from dennis mangan
Pottery 20,000 years old found in a Chinese cave – “Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world, archaeologists say…. The findings … [refute] conventional theories that the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers.” – original research article.
Steady studs, dysgenic dolls – “Jayman found that among black men, the trend is neutral, while a pronounced dysgenic trend exists among black women. The story is similar among whites, although the dysgenic tilt among white women is gentler than it is among black women.” – from mr. a. epigone, esq.
also this!: Your Color Red Really Could Be My Blue – “‘I would say recent experiments lead us down a road to the idea that we don’t all see the same colors,’ Neitz said. Another color vision scientist, Joseph Carroll of the Medical College of Wisconsin, took it one step further: ‘I think we can say for certain that people don’t see the same colors….’”
bonus: Phylogeny: Rewriting evolution – “Tiny molecules called microRNAs are tearing apart traditional ideas about the animal family tree.”
bonus bonus: Low-carb diet burns the most calories in small study
bonus bonus bonus: Mysterious Fairy Circles Are ‘Alive’ – whoa.
bonus bonus bonus bonus: How presidential elections are impacted by a 100 million year old coastline – cool!
bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Mumbai doctors remove 12.5cm-long worm from man’s eye – ewwww!
(note: comments do not require an email. what the…?)
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There are no Mass Graves in Belzec
Holocaust deniers say:
The excavations that located and mapped 33 mass graves at the Belzec death camp from 1977 to 2000 revealed only traces of whole human remains in them. These traces are the result of death by disease and hardship of a handful of Jews as they were being deported farther to the East-not a program of mass murder.
Carlo Mattogno, an Italian Holocaust denier, makes two major claims about the mass graves in Belzec:
- The 33 mass graves contain only a "handful" of unburned bodies.
- The amount of ashes and bone fragments in the 33 graves is very small.
- Mattogno claims that these few bodies represent only a "resettlement policy" that showed a "very severe German attitude toward the Jews." 1
What we know about the existence of mass graves in Belzec
The 1945 Polish investigation
In 1946, Czeslaw Godzieszewks, the Regional Investigative Judge of the district court of Zamosc, presented a report about their investigation of the grounds of Belzec. The Commission dug 9 trenches about 10 meters (33 feet) across and 8 meters (26 feet) deep. In them they found meters-thick layers of human ashes, as well as the charred remains of human bodies, body parts, women’s hair and unburned human bones. In one 26-foot-deep trench alone they found a layer of human ashes 3 meters thick (about 10 feet.) 2
The Kola investigation
Between 1997 and 2000, a team of experts including archeologists, historians and cartographers exhaustively and scientifically surveyed the entire site of the camp. The research was authorized by the Polish government and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The team, headed by Professor Andrzej Kola of the University of Torun in Poland, undertook the study because the memorial at Belzec needed to be replaced and they did not wish to disturb the mass graves when they designed and built the new memorial space.
Kola’s team drilled 2,001 soil cores 5 meters (16.5 feet) apart to a depth of 6 meters (20 feet) in a grid over the entire area of the camp. The soil samples that contained human remains were analyzed in a laboratory and were returned and replaced in the original drill holes out of respect for the dead.
The Kola investigation found that Belzec was "one large a patchwork of mass graves." 3 They located and measured 33 mass graves which had a total volume of approximately 21,300 cubic meters or approximately 752,202 cubic feet.
More information about these investigations is available at http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/belzec1/bel150.html.
The facts about Mattogno’s claims
Claim 1: The graves contain only a "handful" of unburned bodies.
Mattogno claims that of the 33 mass graves found by Kola that only Graves 3, 10 and 20 contain a shallow layer of unburned bodies at the very bottom. He concludes that the "only legitimate conclusion one can draw" is that there are "only rare corpses here and there" totaling "at most several hundred corpses." 4
What Mattogno does not tell the reader is:
- Grave 3 is 16 meters long by 15 meters wide by 5 meters deep (about 52 feet by 50 feet by 16 feet.)
- Grave 10 is 24 meters long by 18 meters wide by 5 meters deep (about 78 feet by 59 feet by 16 feet.)
- Grave 20 extends outside the current camp boundaries and so could not be completely measured. The part that could be measured is 26 meters long by 11 meters wide by 5 meters deep (85 feet by 36 feet by 16 feet).
It is absurd to believe that the Germans would have dug such large, deep graves (about the height of a two-story house) with heavy excavating equipment and then laid only one or two layers of bodies on the very bottom of each before covering them up.
- More dishonestly, Mattogno fails to mention at all that Graves 1, 4, 13, 25, 27, 28 and 32 also contain unburned remains.
Therefore, out of 10 graves that held whole human remains, Mattogno only acknowledges 3 of them.
However, even Kola’s careful examination does not reveal exactly how many bodies might be in the mass graves because he took great care not to drill through layers of whole bodies if he could avoid it. For instance, in Kola discontinued drilling in Grave 4 when he hit a layer of whole human bodies.5 Therefore, in that grave we do not know how thick that layer was. Recall that mapping the depth and volume of the graves was not Kola’s brief-he was to determine where the mass graves were so they could be respected in the final memorial design.
Why are there any whole human remains in the mass graves at all if they were all incinerated?
We cannot say for sure why they are there but it is reasonable to suppose that:
- After long months of exhuming and burning the bodies, the Germans wanted to finish the job and get out of that backward and miserable place as quickly as possible. Despite their desire to eliminate the evidence of mass murder, leaving some bodies 25 feet below the surface probably did not seem like a very big risk.
- The condition of the bodies at the bottom of the graves is so terrible that the Germans-even though their Jewish slaves did the work-might not have been able to face exhuming them.
Claim 2: The amount of ashes and bone fragments in the mass graves is very small.
It would also be best for the Holocaust deniers’ "transit camp" theory if there were not a substantial amount of human ashes or fragments of bone or teeth in the graves either-or at least very little. So it should not be surprising that Mattogno claims that the graves contain "only a very thin layer of sand and ash" which is " absolutely incompatible with the cremation of 600,000 corpses." 6
But Mattogno is wrong: the layers of ash and bone in the graves are not "very thin" at all. Here are some examples.
- Grave 5 contains "pieces of burnt human bones so densely packed together that the drill could not penetrate further." The grave is 32 meters long by 10 meters wide by 4.50 meters deep (about 105 feet by 33 feet by 15 feet).
- Grave 6 is 30 meters long by 10 meters wide by 4 meters deep (about 99 feet by 33 feet by 13 feet). It contains "carbonized wood and pieces of fragments of burnt human bones. At the east end of the grave, the ground is covered with gray sand containing a mixture of crushed pieces of burnt and unburned pieces of human bones."
- Graves 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33 all contain fragments of burnt human bones, human ashes and carbonized wood.
- Grave 14 is the largest in the camp. It contains "burnt pieces of human bones and fragments of carbonized wood mixed with grey sandy soil to a depth of 5 meters." That is about 16 feet deep. No matter how much Mattogno wants it to be, a 5 meter thick (16 feet) layer of ash is not a "thin layer" of ashes.
- The ashes and bone remnants are not just in the graves either. Kola’s team found them mixed with sand on the surface and scattered all around the mass graves. They can be seen by the human eye even today.
The above facts are devastating to Mattogno’s theory about Belzec being a transit camp and explains why he does not even mention them at all.
Kola’s report was written in Polish but you may read the English translation of portions of it and see the detailed map of the mass graves found on the site and the meticulous diagrams of the dimensions and contents of the mass graves at: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/05/carlo-mattogno-on-belzec.html.
Why were the remains not exhumed to be sure?
Mattogno complains that his questions about exactly how deep the graves were (when they exceeded the 20 foot core), how many whole bodies were in the graves and precisely how much human and wood ash and bone remnants were in them could have been solved by doing a thorough and proper exhumation in order to settle the matter. However, exhumation was not Kola’s brief. Even if it had been Kola’s charge, he would have been unable to complete the task because several of the largest mass graves extend outside the current boundaries of the camp onto private land and could not have been investigated.
In addition, some religious figures objected strenuously to any investigation being done at all, feeling that any disturbance of the graves was a violation of the dead.7 Digging up all the mass graves to count every body and quantify all the ashes and bone remnants would have been totally intrusive and would have raised a storm of controversy. Therefore, every effort was made to disturb the mass graves as little as possible.
The American Holocaust denier makes the same complaint about both Belzec and Treblinka. He contends that the "lack of searching for physical evidence is shocking" and states that Kola was handpicked because "they" knew he would not find anything that "didn’t support the story." He wants both camps to be entirely dug up to prove it is not all a "big lie." The same ethical considerations-as well as practical considerations of digging up every square foot of acres of land in both camps-applies.8
Mattogno’s attempt to diminish the number of unburned bodies to "at most several hundred" and the ashes and bones to a "thin layer" to fit his "transit camp" theory is both desperate and dishonest. In order to make it work Mattogno resorts to distortions, omissions and lies.
The facts show that two separate investigations 60 years apart show that the remains of the bodies of at some 450,000 Jewish men, women and children are buried in Belzec. Their deaths were part of a campaign of systematic mass murder by the Germans and not just the result of death by disease or hardship during the deportation process.
Mattogno did get one thing right: the Jewish men, women and children who were murdered at Belzec were the victims of a"very severe German attitude" towards them.
1. Carlo Mattogno, Belzec in Propaganda, Testimonies, Archeological Research, and History (Castle Hill Publishers, 2004), p. 99.
2. Ibid., p. 79-81.
3. "Archeological Investigation: Belzec: A Review by Historians," p. 5/9 at www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/modern/archreview.html.
4. Mattogno, Belzec in Propaganda, pp. 78, 79.
5. Robin O’Neil, Belzec: Prototype for the Final Solution: Hitler’s Answer to the Jewish Question at http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/belzec1/be1150.html.
6. Mattogno, Belzec in Propaganda, p. 87. (The emphasis is Mattogno’s in the text.)
7. See http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/05/carlo-mattogno-on-belzec.html, p. 4/6.
8. See www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com, Episode 18: Physical Evidence, Part 1.
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No doubts about his genius
How could Shakespeare wind up as a `runner up' in any poll to select the greatest Briton, asks V.S.RAVI.
AN overseas poll conducted by the BBC has concluded that Sir Issac Newton was the "Greatest Briton" of all time, followed by Churchill and Princess Diana.
Newton's enormous scientific achievements seem to have influenced the outcome; while in the case of Churchill, it was his leadership qualities during World War II.
Ranking Diana third has destroyed the credibility of the whole exercise. Her charm, kindness and involvement in charitable causes contributed greatly to make her an icon all over the world. But that is where the admiration for her has to stop. Including her in a list of 10 Greatest Britons of all time is carrying things a little too far.
However, I was shocked to find Shakespeare, the greatest genius of all time, had been relegated to the status of a `runner-up'. There is also no justification to deny Darwin his rightful place, in as much as his contribution to biology is as significant as Newton's is to physics. For all these reasons opinion polls of this kind are unreliable, misleading and invite ridicule.
Take a look at Shakespeare's enormous vocabulary. He employed 9,36,433 words in his writings, out of which 27,780 are different words. The average person uses less than 1,000 words in writing, a little more than that in speech and has a recognition vocabulary of about 5,000 words. Some of the greatest writers may have twice this capability.
Today, English has a total vocabulary of two million words followed by German as a pathetic second with 1,86,000 words, Russian with 1,36,000 words, and French with 1,26,000 words. Thus Shakespeare in the 16th Century used five times the number of words in modern German!
Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in history. His plays have been translated into 50 languages. In the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations containing about 20,000 quotations, Shakespeare alone monopolises a staggering 60 pages (10 per cent). He coined 1700 new words. Many of the phrases and terms created by him are in daily use. Some of them have been used as titles for books and movies.
The vastness of vocabulary and the ability to see the relationship between words is one of the major factors in measuring genius. Shakespeare excelled any other human being in this aspect. His encyclopaedic knowledge of science, history, mathematics, classical literature sociology, psychology, law, Latin, French politics, music and art acquired by studying books relating to almost every mental discipline and observing the habits and style of life of various sections of people all around him enabled him to draw ideas generously from all those sources for being used in his plays.
The lyrical grandeur of his language covers every known figure of speech from metaphor to simile, hyperbole to hendiadys. The alchemic process in the crucible of Shakespeare's brain transmuted emotions, like ambition, frustration, jealousy, greed, romantic love, joy, and sorrow he found all around him in people, into the rich gold of his everlasting plays. Hence there is no emotion or activity or situation in the human condition that is not found in his plays.
More people visit the place of Shakespeare's birth than that of any other human being. More books and articles have been written about him and his works than about any other individual or even any other single subject (at least till the age of computers!). Entire libraries and major sections of many famous libraries whether in Washington D.C or London are devoted to him.
Shakespeare has inspired more tributes than any other poet, scientist or painter; in fact some of the people who have showered praises on Shakespeare, like Coleridge, De Quincey and Dryden, are of such stature themselves that each would have got two Nobel Prizes for literature if they had lived in the 20th century.
Then what justification is there for any voter, whatever his profession, to place this extraordinary man who is " In judgment a Nestor/ In genius a Socrates/ In art a Virgil" in the position of a runner-up in a ranking of the greatest Briton ever.
Is it not ironical that a great poet like Coleridge had once equated Shakespeare to 500 Newtons but the voters who took part in the BBC poll have placed him far below Newton? Is it not even more ironical that Churchill, who once attributed his brilliant prose and eloquence to his having collected the quotations of Shakespeare early in life like "pennies in a slot", should be placed second in the list far above the very same man?
Any poll will only succeed in devaluing its own assessment, and lose its sanctity and credibility, if it denies this "mighty poet", to quote De Quincey, his rightful place as the greatest genius of all time.
As someone appropriately observed, "it is not only the crowning glory of England but also the crowning glory of all mankind that such a man as William Shakespeare should ever have been born".
More than all the triumphs of science and technology, and the glories of art and music, Shakespeare's poetry alone, with its great soliloquies packed with metaphors, similes, and every known figure of speech, (that reflects his flashes of genius and leaps of fantastic imagination), can be and should be regarded as the topmost achievement of man, on this planet, the fulfilment of long centuries of human civilisation and culture!
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Old State Capitol
Delve into the politics and everyday life of the tumultuous 19th-century by touring this National Historic Landmark that served as Kentucky's capitol from 1830 to 1910.
In the galleries of this stately building, witness the changing tastes of 19th-century Kentuckians in "Great Revivals: Kentucky Decorative Arts Treasures
," an exhibition that highlights five stylistic design eras and the commonwealth's treasures from those times. Estimated time: 1 hour.
Visit the re-created 1850s State Law Library
in its original site or debate legislative matters in the re-created 1850s House and Senate chambers
. Estimated time of historical building tour: 1 hour.
All Old State Capitol tours begin at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.
History of the Building
Gideon Shryock, an early Kentucky architect, designed the Old State Capitol when he was only 25 years old. Shryock used architectural symbolism to connect the vigorous frontier state of Kentucky with the ideals of classical Greek democracy. The building, which introduced Greek-Revival architecture to the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, is widely recognized as a beautiful masterpiece of 19th-century American architecture and boasts a self-supporting stone stairway, a light-flooded rotunda and dual legislative chambers.
This was the only pro-Union state capitol occupied by the Confederate army during the Civil War. Plans to swear in a Confederate governor and establish a Confederate state government were ruined by the approach of the Union army just days before the Battle of Perryville in 1862.
In the aftermath of the bitterly contested gubernatorial election in 1899, the state legislature met here in 1900 to decide the winner. An assassin, hiding in an office in the Old Capitol Annex next door, shot the Democratic claimant, William Goebel, as he approached the Capitol. Armed citizens and State Guard soldiers occupied the grounds, and here for a time Kentuckians threatened to fight their own miniature civil war. A plaque marks the site outside the building where Goebel, the only governor in United States history to be assassinated while in office, fell.
Replaced by the New Capitol in South Frankfort early in the 20th century, the building has served as the home of the Kentucky Historical Society since 1920. The subject of extensive restoration work since the early 1970s, the Old State Capitol looks today much as it did in the 1850s.
Old State Capitol
300 West Broadway
Frankfort, KY 40601
Tours of the Old State Capitol
Available March 9 - Dec. 14, 2013:
All tours begin at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.
Wednesdays: 3 p.m.
Thursdays: 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Fridays: 3 p.m.
Saturdays: 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Hours and Admission
Plan a Field Trip
Calendar of Events
Old State Capitol Packet - Fourth and Fifth Grades
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Ki Tisa (Mitzvot)
For more teachings on this portion, see the archives to this blog, below at March 2006.
This week’s parasha is best known for the dramatic and richly meaningful story of the Golden Calf and the Divine anger, of Moses’ pleading on behalf of Israel, and the eventual reconciliation in the mysterious meeting of Moses with God in the Cleft of the Rock—subjects about which I’ve written at length, from various aspects, in previous years. Yet the first third of the reading (Exod 30:11-31:17) is concerned with various practical mitzvot, mostly focused on the ritual worship conducted in the Temple, which tend to be skimmed over in light of the intense interest of the Calf story. As this year we are concerned specifically with the mitzvot in each parasha, I shall focus on this section.
These include: the giving by each Israelite [male] of a half-shekel to the Temple; the making of the laver, from which the priests wash their hands and feet before engaging in Divine service; the compounding of the incense and of the anointing oil; and the Shabbat. I shall focus here upon the washing of the hands.
Hand-washing is a familiar Jewish ritual: it is, in fact, the first act performed by pious Jews upon awakening in the morning (some people even keep a cup of water next to their beds, so that they may wash their hands before taking even a single step); one performs a ritual washing of the hands before eating bread; before each of the daily prayers; etc. The section here dealing with the laver in the Temple (Exod 30:17-21) is also one of the four portions from the Torah recited by many each morning, as part of the section of the liturgy known as korbanot, chapters of Written and Oral Torah reminiscent of the ancient sacrificial system, that precede Pesukei de-Zimra.
Sefer ha-Hinukh, at §106, explains the washing of hands as an offshoot of the honor due to the Temple and its service—one of many laws intended to honor, magnify, and glorify the Temple. Even if the priest was pure and clean, he must wash (literally, “sanctify”) his hands before engaging in avodah. This simple gesture of purification served as a kind of separation between the Divine service and everyday life. It added a feeling of solemnity, of seriousness, a sense that one was engaged in something higher, in some way separate from the mundane activities of regular life. (One hand-washing by kohanim, in the morning, was sufficient, unless they left the Temple grounds or otherwise lost the continuity of their sacred activity.) Our own netilat yadaim, whether before prayer or breaking bread, may be seen as a kind of halakhic carryover from the Temple service, albeit on the level of Rabbinic injunction.
What is the symbolism of purifying one’s hands? Water, as a flowing element, as a solvent that washes away many of the things with which it comes in contact, is at once a natural symbol of both purity, and of the renewal of life. Mayim Hayyim—living waters—is an age old association. Torah is compared to water; water, constantly flowing, is constantly returning to its source. At the End of Days, “the land will be filled with knowledge of the Lord, like waters going down to the sea.” A small part of this is hinted in this simple, everyday gesture.
“See that this nation is Your people”
But I cannot pass over Ki Tisa without some comment on the incident of the Golden Calf and its ramifications. This week, reading through the words of the parasha in preparation for a shiur (what Ruth Calderon, founder of Alma, a secularist-oriented center for the study of Judaism in Tel Aviv, called “barefoot reading”—that is, naïve, without preconceptions), I discovered something utterly simple that I had never noticed before in quite the same way.
At the beginning of the Calf incident, God tells Moses, who has been up on the mountain with Him, “Go down, for your people have spoiled” (32:7). A few verses later, when God asks leave of Moses (!) to destroy them, Moses begs for mercy on behalf of the people with the words “Why should Your anger burn so fiercely against Your people…” (v. 11). That is, God calls them Moses’ people, while Moses refers to them as God’s people. Subsequent to this exchange, each of them refers to them repeatedly in the third person, as “the people” or “this people” (העם; העם הזה). Neither of them refers to them, as God did in the initial revelation to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:7 and passim) as “my people,” or with the dignified title, “the children of Israel”—as if both felt a certain alienation, of distance from this tumultuous, capricious bunch. Only towards the end, after God agrees not to destroy them, but still states “I will not go up with them,” but instead promises to send an angel, does Moses says “See, that this nation is Your people” (וראה כי עמך הגוי הזה; 33:13).
What does all this signify? Reading the peshat carefully, there is one inevitable conclusion: that God wished to nullify His covenant with the people Israel. It is in this that there lies the true gravity, and uniqueness, of the Golden Calf incident. We are not speaking here, as we read elsewhere in the Bible—for example, in the two great Imprecations (tokhahot) in Lev 26 and Deut 28, or in the words of the prophets during the First Temple—merely of threats of punishment, however harsh, such as drought, famine, pestilence, enemy attacks, or even exile and slavery. There, the implicit message is that, after a period of punishment, a kind of moral purgation through suffering, things will be restored as they were. Here, the very covenant itself, the very existence of an intimate connection with God, hangs in the balance. God tells Moses, “I shall make of you a people,” i.e., instead of them.
This, it seems to me, is the point of the second phase of this story. Moses breaks the tablets; he and his fellow Levites go through the camp killing all those most directly implicated in worshipping the Calf; God recants and agrees not to destroy the people. However, “My angel will go before them” but “I will not go up in your midst” (33:2, 3). This should have been of some comfort; yet this tiding is called “this bad thing,” the people mourn, and remove the ornaments they had been wearing until then. Evidently, they understood the absence of God’s presence or “face” as a grave step; His being with them was everything. That is the true importance of the Sanctuary in the desert and the Tent of Meeting, where Moses speaks with God in the pillar of cloud (33:10). God was present with them there in a tangible way, in a certain way continuing the epiphany at Sinai. All that was threatened by this new declaration.
Moses second round of appeals to God, in Exod 33:12-23, focuses on bringing God, as it were, to a full reconciliation with the people. This is the significance of the Thirteen Qualities of Mercy, of what I have called the Covenant in the Cleft of the Rock, the “faith of Yom Kippur” as opposed to that of Shavuot (see HY I: Ki Tisa; and note Prof. Jacob Milgrom’s observation that this chapter stands in the exact center, in a literary sense, of the unit known as the Hextateuch—Torah plus the Book of Joshua).
But I would add two important points. One, that this is the first place in the Torah where we read about sin followed by reconciliation. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Garden, they were punished without hope of reprieve; indeed, their “punishment “ reads very much like a description of some basic aspects of the human condition itself. Cain, after murdering Abel, was banished, made to wander the face of the earth. The sin of the brothers in selling Joseph, and their own sense of guilt, is a central factor in their family dynamic from then on, but there is nary a word of God’s response or intervention. It would appear that God’s initial expectation in the covenant at Sinai was one of total loyalty and fidelity. The act of idolatry was an unforgivable breach of the covenant—much as adultery is generally perceived as a fundamental violation of the marital bond.
Moses, in persuading God to recant of His jealousy and anger, to give the faithless people another chance, is thus introducing a new concept: of a covenant that includes the possibility of even the most serious transgressions being forgiven; of the knowledge that human beings are fallible, and that teshuvah and forgiveness are essential components of any economy of men living before a demanding God.
The second, truly astonishing point is the role played by Moses in all this. Moshe Rabbenu, “the man of God,” is not only the great teacher of Israel, the channel through which they learn the Divine Torah, but also, as it were, one who teaches God Himself. It is God who “reveals His Qualities of Mercy” at the Cleft of the Rock; but without Moses cajoling, arguing, persuading (and note the numerous midrashim around this theme), “were it not for my servant Moses who stood in the breach,” all this would not have happened. It was Moses who elicited this response and who, so to speak, pushed God Himself to this new stage in his relation with Israel—to give up His expectations of perfection from His covenanted people, and to understand that living within a covenant means, not rigid adherence to a set of laws, but a living relationship with real people, taking the bad with the good. (Again, the parallel to human relationships is obvious)
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To save weight on the A380 superjumbo aircraft, resourceful software helped design an innovative decentralized hydraulic system with lightweight micropumps delivering power locally to emergency braking and landing gear steering systems.
Edited by Alan L. Hitchcox, editor
With an overall length of 73 m and a wing span of nearly 80 m, the Airbus A380 provides seating for 525 passengers and a range of 15,200 km (nearly 10,000 miles) — sufficient to fly nonstop from New York to Hong Kong. To gain maximum fuel efficiency and payload capacity, weight savings was a must when developing this massive plane. Composite and other lightweight materials account for more than 25% of its structure, and engineers scrutinized every aspect of the aircraft to further trim it down.
Of particular interest were hydraulic lines running the length of the aircraft from large centralized pumps to actuators for brakes, landing gear, and the nose wheel steering system. Ordinarily, large commercial jets have three sets of redundant hydraulics: two primary circuits and a third back-up for safety.
To reduce this bulk, the all-hydraulic backup circuit was replaced with a decentralized hydraulicpower generation system. Signals from electronic control units (ECU) activate multiple small electrically- driven micropumps, each located close to the actuators they control. The micropumps provide 350 bar (5000 psi) of local hydraulic pressure over short runs of small-diameter, lightweight tubing for braking and steering, so it’s always available in an emergency.
|AMESim predictions of A380 nosewheel steering system performance closely matched bench tests of actual system behavior. |
A tall order for engineers
A world’s first in a commercial airliner, this Local Electrical Hydraulic Generation System (LEHGS) was developed by Messier-Bugatti, a subsidiary of the SAFRAN Group and a world leader in aircraft landing and steering systems. An Airbus partner for over 30 years, the company’s customers include 250 airlines, 20 military air forces, and major global aircraft manufacturers.
In optimizing system performance, project engineers faced challenges of integrating and sizing the many different physical parts, assemblies, and subsystems for the mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems. Moreover, they needed to assess any risk factors, such as electrical overloading.
Compounding the difficulty, tight deadlines and budgetary constraints prohibited numerous time-consuming and costly physical tests of system mock-ups. Instead, work in designing and optimizing the performance of this first-ever system would have to be done early in the plane’s development — before any hardware was built and at the same time other aircraft system designs were underway.
The solution: advanced predictive software
Messier-Bugatti met these challenges with the Imagine. Lab Ground Loads software based on the AMESim simulation platform, which the company had implemented on previous projects for predicting the behavior of complex multi-domain intelligent systems. Engineers began by selecting and piecing together individual components and subsystems from among a library of pre-defined items:
- hydraulic pressure drop,
- hydraulic component design,
- electromechanical, motors, and drives,
- thermal resistance,
- thermal hydraulics, and
- thermal, hydraulics, and electrical basics.
|Local electrohydraulic generation system (LEHGS) consists of a reservoir, left, with accumulator and other accessories, and an electric motor-driven pump, right. In addition to emergency braking on all 20 wheels of the A380, the power units also provide backup hydraulic power for the all-important nose wheel steering system. |
Unlike conventional system modeling languages that require computer programmers to write software, the overall system model is created graphically, and engineers are prompted to enter parameters where necessary. In this way, AMESim software creates a multi-domain system model from the overall conceptual information of interconnected parts and subsystems. Importantly, it does not require a full 3-D geometry representation, so engineers can simulate and predict the behavior of intelligent systems long before detailed CAD geometry becomes available.
Throughout this process, Messier- Bugatti system engineers took advantage of convenient access to Imagine. Lab Ground Loads software. The system’s flexible licensing arrangement enabled them to optimize the use of specific modules and libraries while lowering overall system simulation expenses.
Simulating complex behavior
Ground Loads modeling and analysis capabilities allowed Messier-Bugatti to analyze behavior of hydraulic systems in terms of performance, stability, and robustness. Engineers also used the model to study the thermal characteristics of hydraulic circuits and evaluate the need for heat exchangers. These results were then used to establish the sizing, output, and other component specifications for the entire hydraulic power unit, including its reservoir, pump, and accumulator.
Using Ground Loads, engineers could also explore alternate sets of parameters and scenarios. When developing a steering system, for example, various combinations of components and systems (actuators, motors, valves, ECU, etc.) could be compared from specification to validation, thus significantly improving the steering system quality.
|Signals from electronic control units (ECU) activate multiple small electricallydriven micro-pumps, each located close to the actuators they control. The micropumps provide 5000 psi of local hydraulic pressure over short runs of small-diameter, lightweight tubing for braking and steering — always available in an emergency. |
With these predictive capabilities, Messier-Bugatti simulated the behavior of the electrohydraulic system for the A380, validated system power-generating performance, and engineers accurately sized components early in development. This significantly reduced dependency on numerous physical prototypes. “Messier-Bugatti can use Imagine. Lab AMESim to tune complex multiphysics systems without performing a large set of tests on bench,” commented Michael Benmoussa, senior design engineer on the project.
“Simulation enabled us to anticipate and reduce the inherent development risks of a new technology by incorporating an upstream validation regarding the technical choices,” continued Benmoussa. “Simulation results obtained in the early project stages using LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim were later confirmed on test benches with a very good accuracy.”
In this manner, Ground Loads can significantly reduce guesswork and free the engineering team to focus on innovation and R&D. “Messier-Bugatti was able to predict systems and equipment performances — including critical new technologies — on the entire flight domain,” commented Benmoussa. “The A380 enters into service with its nose wheel steering system control loop only tuned with LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim. Tests were performed to confirm the good system performance.”
For more information on AMESim and Imagine.Lab Ground Loads software from LMS Ltd., Troy, Mich., call (248) 952-5664, or visit www.lmsintl.com.
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Air Traffic Control and Radar
Air Traffic Control and Radar
Every day tens of thousands of people board airplanes to travel from one place to another. These flights, thousands of which take off and land daily, are among the safest forms of travel. Although airplane crashes are tragic and headline grabbing, the fact is the sky is a very safe place to be. But how, with so many airplanes in the air, does air travel maintain such a good safety record? The answer is, in large part, air traffic control, the complex system of directing planes and telling them how high or low to fly, and when and where to land safely.
Air traffic control systems rely heavily on radar. Radar first made a huge impact during World War II when it was largely developed for use by battling nations. After the war the civil (that is, non-military) aviation community began to apply radar techniques developed during the war to civil aviation guidance and surveillance. The first use of this technology involved using radar to aid landing.
In 1943 U.S Air Force air traffic controllers began routinely using Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) equipment to help military pilots land safely in poor visibility. GCA employed a pair of oscillating radar antennas with narrow “pencil beams,” one scanning side to side (azimuth), the other up and down (elevation). A controller observed the precise angle returns from these azimuth and elevation radars and radioed landing guidance to the pilot. GCA also included a 360-degree rotating radar for surveillance of the entire terminal area. This radar used a “fan” beam (narrow in azimuth and tall in elevation) that detected planes out to about 20 miles from the airport and up to altitudes of about 3000 meters (10,000 feet).
Civil controllers first used military GCA equipment at LaGuardia Airport in 1945, where it helped triple the landing rate to 15 planes per hour. GCA experienced occasional problems, but it worked well enough so that by 1952 it was being used at many airports. By the mid-1950s, however, GCA landing guidance components were being replaced by a new landing aid called the Instrument Landing System (ILS). ILS uses similar course guidance principles, but uses receivers in aircraft that display course deviation directly to the cockpit.
While it’s crucial that planes land safely, it is equally important that they be safe during flight. Thus, as ILS replaced the GCA scanning pencil beams, improved rotating radars with faster scan rates and larger coverage areas also replaced the GCA terminal area surveillance radars. As air traffic continued to grow it also became important to track planes in high-altitude airspace. Accordingly, the coverage of air traffic radar surveillance grew throughout the 1960s as long-range radars were deployed along important air routes. Initially, these aircraft surveillance radars had no automatic tracking capability. Controllers pushed plastic markers called “shrimp boats” around the screen to track the movement of an aircraft. By the 1960s radar surveillance of civil aircraft routinely included automatic aircraft tracking. Air traffic control radars now track both aircraft and hazardous weather. Modern air traffic control radars use the Doppler effect to discriminate moving aircraft from stationary targets and to measure storm velocities.
Another system developed during World War II, and which had great impact on civil aviation, was the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system. IFF depended on special radar receiver/transmitter units located in friendly aircraft. These radar “transponders” responded to coded radar “interrogations” with coded replies to indicate that they were not hostile aircraft.
In the late 1950s it was proposed that IFF technology be used for surveillance of civil aircraft. The use of transponders increases the detection range of the radar, eliminates clutter interference from other reflectors, and provides a means of aircraft identification and altitude reporting. In the early 1960s the U.S Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published a national standard for air traffic control interrogators and transponders. By the end of the decade over 200 ground-based interrogators were in use in the U. S and the FAA made it mandatory to equip aircraft with transponders before they could operate in positive controlled airspace at high altitudes and near major airports.
In the 1970s the FAA enlisted the aid of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory to upgrade the original air traffic control radar beacon system to improve its surveillance performance in dense airspace and to expand its coded transmissions to transmit air traffic control data between the ground and individual aircraft. This “discrete addressed” beacon system uses ground sensors and airborne transponders that are interoperable with the original beacon system, but which achieve surveillance accuracy, capacity, and reliability that is adequate to support automatic safety warning functions for controllers and pilots.
In the 1980s the FAA developed an airborne collision avoidance system based on air-to-air surveillance of the same air traffic control transponders used for surveillance from the ground. Today the use of this collision avoidance system is required on all air carrier aircraft operating in the United States and Europe.
The last part of the air traffic control system to benefit from radar surveillance was the airport runways and taxi-ways. Radar surveillance to assure safety of aircraft on the airport surface is difficult because of reflections from the ground and from airport structures and service vehicles. Although several generations of airport surface detection radars have been deployed since the 1990s, and surface surveillance performance has improved, reflections continue to cause unreliable tracking.
As with other radar environments, surveillance quality on the airport surface can be improved by the use of transponders. Unfortunately, the resolution of the beacon system used for airspace surveillance is inadequate to distinguish between closely spaced aircraft at airports. However, high-resolution surface surveillance can be achieved with multiple receivers on the airport surface that estimate transponder locations by comparing arrival times of replies from conventional transponders. Systems that combine this “multilateration” technique with primary radar surveillance can now achieve surveillance accuracies and reliabilities that are good enough to input to automatic safety warning devices on the airport surface.
Related recommended reading
The story of the invention of the Klystron.
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Architectural educators use the scientific term “critical mass” to justify the necessity for design students to be present in the studio in order to gain momentum, share ideas, and learn from each other, while enjoying their camaraderie. Further, it is believed that the physical presence may yield an esprit de corps, albeit in a pedagogy which values individualism. Any of these educational objectives, however, such as communication, idea sharing and momentum, are within reach in the virtual environment. Indeed, telecommunication technology oriented design environment actually enhances educator-student and student-student participation in getting to know each others’ values and cultures. Such cooperation across time and space, leads future designers to identify and solve problems in a truly global setting The computer savvy profile of today’s students suggests that cross-cultural and across-distance design education is an achievable aim and even may weaken the argument for the merits of physical presence in the studio. Even in practice, for example, the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach will likely to change how professionals cooperate through networking media in creatively linking, sharing, and integrating their design expertise with their other professional team members.
Recent developments in telecommunication technology virtually have eliminated the necessity for sharing the same physical space by the members of a studio or cooperating professionals on a project. Professionals and students alike can easily work, debate, and share ideas even if they are many time-zones apart. In this paper, we concentrate on the implications of this technology upon design education, particularly on the studio component through a major global studio urban design project case study. It focuses on the pros and cons of global studios based on experiences in architectural education which is coming to focus as a variant in the studio typology both in traditional and in nascent on-line programs.
|Keywords:||Global Studio, Distant Learning, Educational Cooperation, Virtual Design Studio, Architectural Education, Architectural Design|
Associate Professor, Architecture, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA
Associate Professor, College of Architecture, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA
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Governor of Indiana
December 5, 1822-February 12, 1825
Artist: Samuel Burtis Baker, American, 1882-1967
oil on canvas, 32 3/16 x 26 5/16 (81.7 x 66.8)
WILLIAM HENDRICKS, born in Pennsylvania, was educated in a common school, read law, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati. In 1812 he came to Madison, Indiana Territory, where he practiced law and established the Eagle, the second newspaper published in Indiana. After only a few years in Madison he was elected to the territorial house of representatives and was secretary of the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1816. A Democratic-Republican, Hendricks won election in August, 1816, as the first state representative to Congress from Indiana and was re-elected twice to this office.
Hendricks, running unopposed, was elected governor in 1822. It was during this term of office that the capital was moved from Corydon to Indianapolis. Hendricks resigned in 1825 upon election to the United States Senate. Re-elected to the Senate in 1830, Hendricks served until 1837, having been defeated for re-election by Oliver H. Smith in 1836. After twenty-one years in public office, he returned to Madison to practice law and manage his large estate.
Smith and Hendricks were friends, and Smith remembers him: "He had a smile on his face and a warm shake of the hand for all he met. He was not of the very first order of talents, but made all up by his plain, practical, good sense. He never attempted to speak upon subjects he did not understand." He was about six feet tall and had red hair and blue eyes. His nephew, Thomas A. Hendricks was elected governor of Indiana in 1873.
Source: Peat, Wilbur D. Portraits and Painters of the Governors of Indiana 1800-1978. Revised, edited and with new entries by Diane Gail Lazarus, Indianapolis Museum of Art. Biographies of the governors by Lana Ruegamer, Indiana Historical Society. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society and Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1978.
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Holidays & Observances
Holidays and Observances Individually
Cinco de Mayo
Account of the events that occurred during the Battle of Puebla, Mexico, on May 5, 1862, and a brief explanation of why this day is important. Includes a bibliography. From a community college class project.
Montes de Oca de Marshall, Assunta
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Youth Sports Training with Weights
At what age should a young person begin lifting weights or using Kettlebells?
The question I get asked more than any other.
Here’s my brief thought on the matter (taken right from the curriculum found in the IYCA’s Youth Fitness Specialist – Level 1 Certification material)
Simply stated, around the age of 9 or 10.
Within the ‘Guided Discovery’ phase of training (6 – 9 years) the goals are quite simple:
(1) Movement (in the form of multi-directional game play)
(2) Outcome-Based Coaching (not critiquing form, but rather supportive of effort)
(3) Experiential Learning
#3 is critical.
Kids need to learn-by-doing.
Experimenting with movement and implement dynamics.
In the absence of over-coaching or instruction, children in this age bracket will develop a vast and hearty warehouse of neural knowledge that can and will be translated into more specific, advanced forms of athletic ability in time.
The second phase of the IYCA’s long-term development model is called ‘Learning Exploration’.
In this section of our system (ages 10 – 13) we still maintain a very open, experiential-style of learning-through-doing, but add an element of complexity by beginning the process of dedicated instruction of both
Lifting and Movement.
It is within this phase that we must begin the process of external loading:
(1) Using Low Volume, Low Load
(2) Incorporating Both Free-Play as Well as Critical Instruction
(3) Involving Skill Sets or Other ‘Like’ Habitual Lessons
In terms of Kettlebells, Pamela MacElree and Jason C. Brown did a fantastic job of teaching the concept of how to incorporate this form of training into a young athletes life.
I’ve prepared a full 60-minute web-based presentation for you to enjoy on this topic.
Absolutely no charge whatsoever…
Just click on the link below and understand how best to incorporate Kettlebells into the youth sports training programs of young athletes:
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THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, Tanakh 1917 edition
ACCORDING TO THE MASORETIC TEXT (JPS 1917 Edition)
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In the early nineteenth century, most American Jews couldnt read the Bible because they were not literate in Hebrew and an adequate English translation didnt exist. Isaac Leesers The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures, published in 1854, attempted to fill this need. And it did, more or less, for many years. But Jewish interest in the Bible grew and a more discriminating audience found Leesers translation inadequate; it was antiquated and filled with many errors. At its second biennial convention in 1892, The Jewish Publication Society, just four years old, decided that its highest priority was to produce for American Jews a new and popular English rendition of the Bible.
The Society formed a Bible committee made up of representatives of the three major Jewish institutions of higher learning at the time: Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and Dropsie College in Philadelphia. The committee wanted its new Bible to be in the best English possible, and this, they felt, was to be found in the Protestant Revised Version, which was based on the King James Version. Its members agreed to use the Revised Version, and to remove all un-Jewish and anti-Jewish phrases, expressions, renderings, and usages and introduce traditional Jewish interpretation to reflect Jewish feeling, law, faith and tradition.
The committee had good intentions, but it floundered until Max Margolis, one of American Jewrys leading scholars of Bible and Semitics, was hired as editor-in-chief. Though he edited the translation (which had been prepared by 32 contributors) in just 12 months, a remarkable accomplishment, it had to be reviewed by a board of editors so diverse that its members argued for years over minor details. JPS Secretary Henrietta Szold then went over the manuscript 12 times. The project eventually cost about 10 times its original budget.
But it was worth it. The Holy Scriptures became the Societys best-selling volume, selling nearly 40,000 copies within its first year of publication. Most Jewish textbooks, as well as the leading Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform prayer books, turned to the Societys translation when quoting Scripture.
The back-to-the-Bible movement of the 1950s inspired JPS to make its Bible as widely available as possible. And so it published many editions: a quarto-sized pulpit Bible for Jewish chaplains, a two-volume Hebrew-English edition, and even a large-size illustrated version that was sold door-to-door.
This renewed interest in the Bible also inspired Harry Orlinsky, professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion in New York, to lobby for a brand new JPS translation, a clear departure from the King James Version, one that would truly be considered the authoritative Jewish view of what the words of the Bible meant.
The new Bible committee first published The Torah, Prophets, and Writings separately from the rest of the Bible, over a more than 20-year period. Orlinsky headed the committee that prepared The Torah, which was published in the mid-1960s. He was also part of the group that worked on the Prophets. The committee that prepared the Writings was made up of other scholars from North America and Israel. In 1985, all three parts were brought together in one volume, the JPS Tanakh. This translation came to be known as NJPS (New JPS) and the original 1917 translation as the OJPS (Old JPS). To date, the NJPS is the most widely read translation of the Hebrew (Jewish) Bible, and one of the worlds most accessible and readable English Bibles.
You will notice that the 1917 translation uses some archaic language, such as shalt, thee, and thou, because it borrowed heavily from the King James Version. Several passages in the 1917 version are much more poetic in tone than those in the 1985 translation (see Psalm 23). Also, the 1985 translation is more gender neutral than the 1917 version (see 2 Kings 25:9).
Sarna, JPS The Americanization of Jewish Culture 18881988, 97.
Sarna, JPS The Americanization of Jewish Culture 18881988, 104.
Greenspoon, A Short History of Bible Translations, JPS Guide The Jewish Bible, 48.
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Concord ExpressA Christian Science Study Resource
We know Principle only through Science. The Prin‐6ciple of Christ is divine Love, resistless Life and Truth. Then the Science of the Principle must be Christlike, or Christian Science. More than regal is the majesty 9of the meekness of the Christ-principle; and its might is the ever-flowing tides of truth that sweep the universe, create and govern it; and its radiant stores of knowl‐12edge are the mysteries of exhaustless being. Seek ye these till you make their treasures yours.
When a young man vainly boasted, “I am wise, for I 15have conversed with many wise men,” Epictetus made answer, “And I with many rich men, but I am not rich.” The richest blessings are obtained by labor. A vessel 18full must be emptied before it can be refilled. Lawyers may know too much of human law to have a clear per‐ception of divine justice, and divines be too deeply read 21in scholastic theology to appreciate or to demonstrate Christian charity. Losing the comprehensive in the technical, the Principle in its accessories, cause in effect, 24and faith in sight, we lose the Science of Christianity, — a predicament quite like that of the man who could not see London for its houses.
27 Clouds parsimonious of rain, that swing in the sky with dumb thunderbolts, are seen and forgotten in the same hour; while those with a mighty rush, which waken the 30stagnant waters and solicit every root and every leaf with the treasures of rain, ask no praising. Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, 150 150:1where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor 3murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance.
Pliny gives the following description of the character of 6true greatness: “Doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read; and rendering the world happier and better for having lived in it.” Strive thou 9for the joy and crown of such a pilgrimage — the service of such a mission.
A heart touched and hallowed by one chord of Christian 12Science, can accomplish the full scale; but this heart must be honest and in earnest and never weary of struggling to be perfect — to reflect the divine Life, Truth, and Love.
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Jython is distributed as a self-extracting .class file created by LiftOff. To install Jython, open the command line to the directory in which you have placed the jython-21.class file and then type:
You will probably type one of the following three lines, depending on your system. Be sure not to put ".class" at the end of the file name.
It can be necessay to set the CLASSPATH to include the current directory
Which command to use depends on your operating system and java version. If you have more than one java installed, you may have to supply an explicit path the java command. When installing the JDK 1.2 from javasoft, the default is it install both the JDK and a plugin JRE. The plugin JRE is added to your PATH, so running the java jython-21 command will make jython use the JRE. Specify the full path if you want to use JDK instead, ie: c:\Programs\JDK1.2\bin\java -cp . jython-21.
If you do not have a GUI, then add -o dir_to_install_to to the command above. Jython will install to the specified directory without bringing up the graphical installer. E.g. to install all modules to a Jython-2.1 subdirectory in the current directory do:
After completing installation, you should be able to run Jython by typing:
What Can Go Wrong
You should check out this section if your Jython installation doesn't quite work right. It will contain tips for solving the most common problems.
Can't Access Standard Python Modules
Not all the modules form CPython is available in Jython. Some modules require a C language dynamic link library that doesn't exists in java. Other modules are missing from Jython just because nobody have had a need for it before and no-one have tested the CPython module with Jython. If you discover that you are missing a module, try to copy the .py file from a CPython distribution to a directory on your Jython sys.path. If that works you are set. If it doesn't work, try asking on jython-users mailing list.
Any other problems with the installation should be reported to jython-dev.
As a workaround you can extract the jython-21.class manually. The class file is basicly a .zip file and most unzip programs can manage to extract the contents of the class into a directory. After doing that, you must
Platform Specific Notes
If all else fails, you might find that your problem is unique to your platform, and has a solution mentioned on the Platform Specific Information page.
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Does your child ever have difficulty speaking? Does he or she hesitate or repeat syllables, words, or phrases? While your first inclination may be to call the issue stuttering, it may be a normal part of language development.
So when should you be worried about a youngster struggling to get words out, how can you know if it's a true problem or just normal development, what causes stuttering, what can you do as a parent to help, and when should you seek professional help?
These are just a few of the important questions to consider if you suspect your child is suffering from stuttering.
As children learn to talk, many will stutter on occasion as part of normal language development. This interruption in speech is mistaken for stuttering, but it is actually known as dysfluency. Many toddlers and preschoolers stumble on or mispronounce words, repeat sounds, hesitate as they talk, or have difficulty making certain sounds. A dysfluent child may occasionally repeat words or syllables once or twice. For example, they may say, “I li-li-like that.”
Normal dysfluency comes and goes and is more common in boys. It may be especially noticeable when a child is tired, stressed, or excited. While this may be worrisome to parents, most children learn to have normal speech and leave the dysfluency behind.
As opposed to normal dysfluency, a child with a true stuttering problem will continue to stutter for longer than six months and will not improve during that time. A child with mild stuttering will repeat sounds more than twice. (“I li-li-li-li-like that.”) You may notice tension in the facial muscles, usually around the mouth. The child's voice may get higher in pitch with the repetitions and the child may get quiet and not breath for several seconds.
A child with severe stuttering will struggle with more than 10 percent of his or her words and show considerable tension and effort. This child may even change words to avoid stuttering.
A variety of factors contribute to the problem of stuttering. Experts say that genetics play a large role, as nearly 60 percent of people who stutter have a family member who also stuttered. Additionally, other developmental delays or language problems contribute to stuttering. For those who stutter, language is processed in a different area of the brain. There seems to be a communication problem between the brain and the body muscles responsible for speaking.
If your child has a stuttering problem, it is important for parents and other family members to model relaxed, slow, normal-sounding speech when talking with the affected child. Speaking in this manner is better than telling your child to slow down or to take a deep breath. Each day, parents should give their child a time of undivided attention so the child can talk freely about what is on his or her mind. Parents should never show annoyance or frustration at a child's stuttering, and you should avoid correcting or interrupting a stuttering child. Being patient and reassuring is immensely important if your child is to outgrow stuttering.
A large part of overcoming stuttering is often more a matter of overcoming the fear of stuttering. Therefore, drawing attention to or making fun of a stuttering child will only make it worse for the child. Also try to avoid putting your child in uncomfortable situations in which they must talk in front of people.
If your child's stuttering lasts more than six months, if the stuttering is frequent and doesn't seem to be improving, if it is accompanied by facial or body movement, or if it is making your child self-conscious or anxious, speech therapy should be pursued. With effective treatment, your child can overcome stuttering and gain complete control over his or her use of language.
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Cameron, L. and Rutland, A. and Turner, Rhiannon and Holman-Nicolas, Rosie and Powell, Claire (2011) Changing attitudes with a little imagination’: Imagined contact effects on young children’s intergroup bias. Anale de Psychologia, 27 (3). pp. 708-717. ISSN 0212-9728.
The current research tested a recent development in social psychology, namely ‘imagined contact’, among young children (n = 123, 5 to 10 years). Children imagined interacting with a physically disabled child, or did not take part in this activity (the control group). Compared with the control group, children who engaged in ‘imagined contact’ subsequently showed reduced inter-group bias in their general attitude and ratings of warmth and competence. Imagined contact also led to more positive intended friendship behavior towards the disabled, but only among 5 – 6 year olds. This provides partial support for our hypothesis that younger children, perhaps as a result of their lack of out-group experience, are more likely to benefit from imagined contact. Implications for the development of attitudes towards the disabled, imagined contact theory and the development of classroom-based prejudice-reduction techniques based on imagined contact are discussed.
|Subjects:||B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology|
|Divisions:||Faculties > Social Sciences > School of Psychology|
|Depositing User:||Lindsey Cameron|
|Date Deposited:||10 May 2011 11:03|
|Last Modified:||20 Apr 2012 14:46|
|Resource URI:||http://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/27770 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)|
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|Search results for: All About Kerala & Kerala History
Over 15,000 square miles of land live a population of some 24 million people with an overall density of 1,600 persons per square mile. About one-sixth is forest; of the rest, most of the land is cultivated often with maximum efficiency according to current Indian standards. Rice still dominates,being the staple food of the masses. Rice cultivation is becoming extremely expensive due to high wages and high price of fertilizers; often cheap rice can be purchased from neighboring AndhraPradesh and Tamil Nadu,Kuttanad, the rich alluvial coastland is no longer considered the granary of Kerala;
the soil is no longer fertile; and labor troubles and socialist land-reforms have driven hard-working farmers out of business. Farmers are paying increasing attention to cultivating tea, coffee, pepper, cardamom, and rubber in the High Ranges and the middle laterite hill region. After rice, coconut is the chief crop; the coconut acreage is nearly equal to that of rice. Next to rice as the essential food. coconut palm is the basis of economy for a very large number of people. The chief products of coconut are coir, copra, oil, and oil-cake. Coconut is used as a staple article of diet in meat curries, vegetable curries, and pastries. The coconut-leaves are frequently used as thatch, for the manufacture of brooms, baskets, umbrellas, tattis (screens kept soaked to cool rooms), fans, and firewood. A large number of cottage industrial workers are employed in the production of coir-yarns (rope) which will later be used to make coco-mats (coir-mats).
Tapioca or Cassava is the next important crop which like potato has saved millions of people from starvation during times of famine; people eat less tapioca these days. Spices like cardamom, pepper, gingelly, cloves, and ginger are important peasant-produced cash crops. Nearly every homestead still has its plantains (banana), areca-nut palms, and mango trees. In the past ten years the Gulf countries of the Middle East have become avid buyers of Kerala's agricultural products, so much so, greedy farmers ship the best of all their products including livestock abroad leaving the natives with only the second best produce. The cashew industry, once the monopoly of Kerala, is still going strong in spite of stiff competition from China and Africa.
Fishing- plays a big part in Kerala's cultural and commercial life. Motorization of boats, better storage, and more efficient marketing have been undertaken during the past twenty-five years. They all have helped the fishing industry. Because of the lack of minerals, coal, and iron ore, Kerala can never become an industrial state like Maharashtra,Gujarat, and Punjab. However, the abundance of forest products, availability of electric power, efficient supply of water, and the abundance of skilled workers have attracted many industries to Kerala, notwithstanding the businessman's fear of the ever-looming specter of Communism that Kerala flaunts.
Except for local clay and laterite, the only minerals of Kerala are ilmenite, monazite, and zircon sands on the beaches from Quilon to Kovalam. These contain 8-10% thorium oxide which is of strategic importance in relation to atomic power. Titanium from ilmenite and cerium from monazite are essential in some electrical and chemical industries -- for electrodes, tracer bullets, and benzine synthesis, among others. The Titanium Plant near Trivandrum is a profitable undertaking. The Keltron Plant that manufactures radios and television sets makes Kerala's name synonymous with T.V. The Space Research Center of Thumba is one of its kind in all of India. In short, like India, Kerala also has entered the world of high technology and the age of space exploration.
Human Potential Export
The major export of Kerala today is its skilled workers and college graduates who go to most parts of India and abroad to places like the Gulf countries. When immigration to Europe and America opened up in the fifties and sixties, a large number of educated Keralites went abroad seeking employment and fortune. Their financial success in foreign lands resulted in increasing inflation in Kerala due to higher wages and short supply of indigenous products and the rising cost of real estate. The Gulf emigres hope that they would some day build a mansion and retire in glory in Kerala, Though the rate of immigration to the Gulf countries has leveled off, immigration from Kerala to other parts of India continue. This immigration phenomenon and the spread of education and prosperity have succeeded in checking Kerala's population growth. Kerala has almost achieved zero population growth.
Flora and Fauna
Kerala's forests abound in a variety of rare animals and birds. The elephant, tiger, lion-tailed monkey, Indian gaur, python, striped mountain goat, and wild fowl are still found in Kerala's forests, though in reduced numbers because of man's encroachment on animal territory.. Mahogany, sandal-wood, teak-wood, and rose-wood are still the proud products of these forests. During the past thirty years, the forest department has been taking meticulous care to plant new teak-wood trees and eucalyptus trees to prevent deforestation. It is to be mentioned that teak-wood from Kerala had found its way before the Christian era for the construction of buildings in places like the Ur of Chaldea; Kerala's teak-wood went into the construction of British ships used by Admiral Nelson in the battle of Trafalgar against Napolean.
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