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Letter S Tracing This worksheet introduces kids to the letter S! After kids trace the letter, they look at a group of pictures. They write an S next to the pictures whose names start with the letter S. Kids completing this worksheet practice writing the letter S and identifying pictures that have names beginning with S. Washington Virtual Academies Tuition-free online school for Washington students.
Actually, there are a number of ways to do this, and one is right at your fingertips. The 2012 Complete Food and Nutrition Guide from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) includes a “Visual Guide to Amounts,” using an average-sized hand to help you estimate. It’s an important topic, as portion sizes have swelled (along with the average waist) over the years. You can use these tips to make sure you eat enough (or more) of: - Vegetables, fruit, cereal, or cooked beans, rice or pasta: A cup is about the size of your fist. - Nuts, seeds or dried fruit: An ounce fits in a small cupped handful. - Seafood: Three ounces of cooked seafood is about the size of your palm (no fingers). And use similar guides to limit these servings: - Meat and poultry: Three ounces is about the size of your palm. - Cheese: An ounce is about the size of your thumb, from the tip to the base. - Peanut butter: A tablespoon is about the size of the tip of your thumb, down to the first joint. - Butter, margarine, mayonnaise, oil or sugar: A teaspoon is about the size of a fingertip, from the tip to the first joint. Of course, your hand size may vary, so you might want to weigh or measure a few items after you do an initial estimate. That way you will know if you can choose a pork chop, for example, that’s slightly larger than the palm of your hand, or if you should take one that’s a bit smaller. The “plate method” is another way to estimate portion sizes. All you do is imagine your dinner plate is divided in half, and then one side is divided in halfagain. Use the first half for non-starchy vegetables — broccoli, zucchini or salad, for example. Use one-fourth of the plate for lean meat, fish, poultry or other lean protein. And use one-fourth for starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, corn or peas, or other starchy foods, including beans and such grains as rice or pasta. You can find another good visual guide on WebMD at http://bit.ly/WebMDvisual. It uses common household objects to help estimate appropriate portion sizes (for example, a small potato is about the size of a computer mouse; 1.5 ounces of hard cheese is about the size of three dice). Take a look and see if that’s even more helpful (if not as handy) as the other methods.
Contact: Diana Yates University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Caption: Understanding children's social goals may lead to better interventions to change the dynamic between a bully and his or her targets, said University of Illinois psychology professor Karen Rudolph, who led a study of children who are bullied. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer Usage Restrictions: Photo may be used only with stories about the research described in this news release. Please credit: L. Brian Stauffer Related news release: Study of childhood bullying shifts focus to victims
Orthobiologics: Bone Marrow Aspirate (MSCs referred to as “Stem Cell”) Treatment & Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Therapy Regenerative Medicine refers to the use of native and bioengineered cells, assistive devices, and engineering platforms to develop new treatments with the potential to fully heal the underlying causes of diseases, rather than only manage disease symptoms. In some forms such as organ and bone marrow transplant, orthobiologics has been available for quite some time. However, more recently the use of Orthobiologics including platelet-rich plasma(PRP), and bone marrow aspirate (frequently referred to as “stem cell”) have become more readily available for the treatment of common musculoskeletal conditions. Medical research has demonstrated benefits from these therapies in treating osteoarthritis, tennis elbow, ligament injuries and disc pain. The tissues generally used are your own (autologous) and therefore the risks of infection or adverse reactions are minimized. As a result, the treatment paradigm has changed. For instance, instead of repeated corticosteroid (steroid) injections which may provide quick pain relief, these orthobiologic therapies may slow or reverse the degenerative process causing the pain. However, the pain relief may be delayed for several months. Also, athletes are using these treatments to hasten their recovery from acute injuries, and in an attempt to avoid surgery. Please review our additional articles on some of these effective, cutting-edge medical technologies.
I would say that if it were true that the Bible does indeed say that creation took place in six literal 24-hour days, then the claim would have some merit, but the Bible does not say, literally, that this is the case. Most Bible interpreters believe that these “days” are a literary device–a kind of metaphor–that the author uses to make theological, not scientific claims about creation. In an age of science, the fact that these days are not literal is more obvious, but the fact is that even in the first few centuries Bible commentators such as Philo, Origen and Augustine proposed that these days are a literary device or a metaphor. If you want a more complete answer, you might want to consider getting a copy of my book “Is There a God?” available at www.ipibooks.com Also, if you do a search of my web site for the search term days of creation you will find nearly twenty articles, including ones written by Hugh Ross and others that can help to answer your question. Please do not be intimidated by opponents of Christianity who want to paint believers into a proverbial corner by implying that all Christians must interpret the Genesis story as fully literal. This is not how ancient Near Eastern peoples told their creation stories.
Most of us have seen a cockroach skittering around the counter or floor in search of the ultimate meal. But new research shows that this beleaguered bug is not only taking an inventory of the contents of our cabinets — it’s writing a restaurant rating for fellow bugs. ScienceDaily reports that researchers in the United Kingdom have found that cockroaches share their local knowledge about good food sources. In addition, they give out and follow "recommendations" from other roaches. This discovery may lead to improved methods of dealing with our nearest neighbor in the future. Dr. Mathieu Lihoreau from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences is the lead researcher on the new study. As he told ScienceDaily, "Cockroaches cost the U.K. economy millions of pounds in wasted food and perishable products. Better understanding of how they seek out our food would allow us to develop better pest control measures, which are frequently ineffective and involve the use of insecticides that can have health side effects." Yes, it is like cockroaches run their own ZAGAT guide of restaurant recommendations. This study further shows how cockroaches forage for food collectively — and why you might turn on the lights in your kitchen to find a convention of bugs. The study revealed that cockroaches feed en masse — sort of a snowball effect. Cockroaches were released in an area with two piles of food. The bugs fed as a group on one pile until the food was gone. The more cockroaches were drawn to one pile of food, the faster others would come. This meant that most of the bugs would simply pile on top of each other. Experts say this behavior is the result of a short-range pheromone released by the bugs, but the origins of these pheromones are still unknown. Scientists said the insects may be releasing chemicals from their saliva or from hydrocarbons that cover their bodies. Either way, researchers believe that this information may lead to how we control the insects. Who wouldn’t want a trail of cockroach pheromones leading directly out of the kitchen? Lihoreau said the study could also have an impact on human societies. According to Lihoreau, "We should definitively pay more attention to cockroaches and other simple 'societies' as they provide researchers with a good model for cooperation and emergent properties of social life, that we could extrapolate to more sophisticated societies, like ours." For further reading:
February 20th – American Minute. A Revolutionary War Colonel, he built the fortifications at Breed’s Hill and commanded the militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. He fought in the battles of Long Island in 1776 and Saratoga in 1777. His name was William Prescott, born FEBRUARY 20, 1726. After the Boston Tea Party, where colonists threw 342 chests of British East India tea overboard, Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, blockading the harbor and starving the inhabitants. The Committee of Correspondence sent word to the other Colonies, who called a Day of Fasting and Prayer, June 1, 1774, “to seek divine direction and aid.” In August 1774, William Prescott led the men of Pepperell, Massachusetts, to deliver many loads of rye, telling Boston’s inhabitants: “We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort and relief, knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider that we are all embarked in (the same boat) and must sink or swim together.” “Let us all be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. And may He, of His infinite mercy, grant us deliverance of all our troubles.” To learn more about the author please visit William Federer Featured image: Courtesy of the United States Architect of the Capitol
The debt and credit system is one that was an active and dare I say, important economic component of the Israelite community. There are, however, crucial differences between our debt system and theirs. In ancient Israel debt was a function of survival and a ministry to the poor . Those without any other survival options were forced to borrow. As a result, the lending systems was established as liberally as possible. You would not charge interest (Ex. 22:25), you would not remove items necessary for one’s livelihood (Deut. 24:10-14), and you would forgive all debts every seven years (Deut. 15:1). In our society debt is a function of convenience and a hindrance to the impatient. Those who want to accumulate more items often use debt as a tool to accumulate more things. This could be anything from credit card debt, to car loans, and even house loans. The biggest biblical concern with debt is one of servitude and obligation to debt creditors. Debts are little more than commitments and promises. Debts (monetary and otherwise) tie us down and dictate our future. Each debt we assume offers us less personal choice for our future actions. Eventually our false hope for the future will be sold away because of our discontentment with the present. When we are no longer free to follow God’s direction for our lives we know debt has reached a dangerous point. Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to categorize debt as a sin. Debt is a system for which God offers directions and structure. Still, I find it difficult to find passages that mention debt as a positive action. Yet, even a cursory reading of Proverbs makes it clear that debt is not a function of the wise. Instead, assuming debt is often more closely associated with folly. - He who puts up security for another will surely suffer, but whoever refuses to strike hands in pledge is safe. Proverbs 11:15 - Better to be a nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food. Proverbs 12:9 - One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth. Proverbs 13:7 - Of what use is money in the hand of a fool, since he has no desire to get wisdom? Proverbs 17:16 - A man lacking in judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor. Proverbs 17:18 - The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. Proverbs 22:7 - Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. Proverbs 22:26-27 Thus, we should view debt with a less is more mindset. Bible Debt Guidelines and Principles For Christians To Consider Larry Burkett (in Debt-Free Living) suggest four borrowing principals (the four points are Burkett’s and the comments are mine): - Debt is not normal (Deut. 28:1,12). God prefers us not to be in debt servitude to others. - Do not accumulate long term debt. Burkett points to the seven year limitation in the Bible (Deut. 15:1-2). Debt is a temporary event, not a way of life. - Avoid surety –When you borrow without a means of repayment you venture into dangerous ethical, spiritual, and moral waters. - The borrower has an absolute commitment to repay (Ecclesiastes 5:5). For my thoughts on bankruptcy, see Should Christians Declare Bankruptcy? Ron Blue (in Taming The Money Monster) suggests four helpful rules when it comes to deciding about borrowing (the four points are Blue’s and the comments are mine): - Common sense – There is a greater economic benefit than cost. This rules out any kind of credit card or car debt. - A guaranteed way to repay – Your income (if consistent) is conservatively adequate to make all payments or you have items that can be sold to make the payment. - Peace of heart and mind – How do you feel about borrowing? Does it cause internal strife? I’m allergic to debt so this knocks out a lot of my borrowing decisions. - Unity – Do both married partners agree? For more information on this topic you can read what does the bible say about money and debt?
\|Latin Columna vertebralis\| The vertebral column, also known as the backbone or spine, is part of the axial skeleton. The vertebral column is the defining characteristic of a vertebrate, in which the notochord (a flexible rod of uniform composition) found in all chordates has been replaced by a segmented series of bones—vertebrae separated by intervertebral discs. The vertebral column houses the spinal canal, a cavity that encloses and protects the spinal cord. - Spinal cord - Anatomical landmarks - Variations in vertebrae - Regional vertebrae - Fish and amphibians - Other vertebrates There are about 50,000 species of animals that have a vertebral column. The human vertebral column is one of the most-studied examples. In the human vertebral column there are normally thirty-three vertebrae; the upper twenty-four are articulating and separated from each other by intervertebral discs, and the lower nine are fused in adults, five in the sacrum and four in the coccyx or tailbone. The articulating vertebrae are named according to their region of the spine. There are seven cervical vertebrae, twelve thoracic vertebrae and five lumbar vertebrae. The number of vertebrae in a region can vary but overall the number remains the same. The number of those in the cervical region however is only rarely changed. There are ligaments extending the length of the column at the front and the back, and in between the vertebrae joining the spinous processes, the transverse processes and the vertebral laminae. The vertebrae in the human vertebral column are divided into different regions, which correspond to the curves of the spinal column. The articulating vertebrae are named according to their region of the spine. Vertebrae in these regions are essentially alike, with minor variation. These regions are called the cervical spine, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, sacrum and coccyx. There are seven cervical vertebrae, twelve thoracic vertebrae and five lumbar vertebrae. The number of vertebrae in a region can vary but overall the number remains the same. The number of those in the cervical region however is only rarely changed. The vertebrae of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spines are independent bones, and generally quite similar. The vertebrae of the sacrum and coccyx are usually fused and unable to move independently. Two special vertebrae are the atlas and axis, on which the head rests. A typical vertebra consists of two parts: the vertebral body and the vertebral arch. The vertebral arch is posterior, meaning it faces the back of a person. Together, these enclose the vertebral foramen, which contains the spinal cord. Because the spinal cord ends in the lumbar spine, and the sacrum and coccyx are fused, they do not contain a central foramen. The vertebral arch is formed by a pair of pedicles and a pair of laminae, and supports seven processes, four articular, two transverse, and one spinous, the latter also being known as the neural spine. Two transverse processes and one spinous process are posterior to (behind) the vertebral body. The spinous process comes out the back, one transverse process comes out the left, and one on the right. The spinous processes of the cervical and lumbar regions can be felt through the skin. Above and below each vertebra are joints called facet joints. These restrict the range of movement possible, and are joined by a thin portion of the neural arch called the pars interarticularis. In between each pair of vertebrae are two small holes called intervertebral foramina. The spinal nerves leave the spinal cord through these holes. Individual vertebrae are named according to their region and position. From top to bottom, the vertebrae are: The upper cervical spine has a curve, convex forward, that begins at the axis (second cervical vertebra) at the apex of the odontoid process or dens, and ends at the middle of the second thoracic vertebra; it is the least marked of all the curves. This inward curve is known as a lordotic curve. The thoracic curve, concave forward, begins at the middle of the second and ends at the middle of the twelfth thoracic vertebra. Its most prominent point behind corresponds to the spinous process of the seventh thoracic vertebra. This curve is known as a kyphotic curve. The lumbar curve is more marked in the female than in the male; it begins at the middle of the last thoracic vertebra, and ends at the sacrovertebral angle. It is convex anteriorly, the convexity of the lower three vertebrae being much greater than that of the upper two. This curve is described as a lordotic curve. The sacral curve begins at the sacrovertebral articulation, and ends at the point of the coccyx; its concavity is directed downward and forward as a kyphotic curve. The thoracic and sacral kyphotic curves are termed primary curves, because they are present in the fetus. The cervical and lumbar curves are compensatory or secondary, and are developed after birth. The cervical curve forms when the infant is able to hold up its head (at three or four months) and to sit upright (at nine months). The lumbar curve forms later from twelve to eighteen months, when the child begins to walk. When viewed from in front, the width of the bodies of the vertebrae is seen to increase from the second cervical to the first thoracic; there is then a slight diminution in the next three vertebrae; below this there is again a gradual and progressive increase in width as low as the sacrovertebral angle. From this point there is a rapid diminution, to the apex of the coccyx. From behind, the vertebral column presents in the median line the spinous processes. In the cervical region (with the exception of the second and seventh vertebrae) these are short, horizontal and bifid. In the upper part of the thoracic region they are directed obliquely downward; in the middle they are almost vertical, and in the lower part they are nearly horizontal. In the lumbar region they are nearly horizontal. The spinous processes are separated by considerable intervals in the lumbar region, by narrower intervals in the neck, and are closely approximated in the middle of the thoracic region. Occasionally one of these processes deviates a little from the median line — which can sometimes be indicative of a fracture or a displacement of the spine. On either side of the spinous processes is the vertebral groove formed by the laminae in the cervical and lumbar regions, where it is shallow, and by the laminae and transverse processes in the thoracic region, where it is deep and broad; these grooves lodge the deep muscles of the back. Lateral to the spinous processes are the articular processes, and still more laterally the transverse processes. In the thoracic region, the transverse processes stand backward, on a plane considerably behind that of the same processes in the cervical and lumbar regions. In the cervical region, the transverse processes are placed in front of the articular processes, lateral to the pedicles and between the intervertebral foramina. In the thoracic region they are posterior to the pedicles, intervertebral foramina, and articular processes. In the lumbar region they are in front of the articular processes, but behind the intervertebral foramina. The sides of the vertebral column are separated from the posterior surface by the articular processes in the cervical and thoracic regions, and by the transverse processes in the lumbar region. In the thoracic region, the sides of the bodies of the vertebrae are marked in the back by the facets for articulation with the heads of the ribs. More posteriorly are the intervertebral foramina, formed by the juxtaposition of the vertebral notches, oval in shape, smallest in the cervical and upper part of the thoracic regions, and gradually increasing in size to the last lumbar. They transmit the special spinal nerves and are situated between the transverse processes in the cervical region, and in front of them in the thoracic and lumbar regions. There are different ligaments involved in the holding together of the vertebrae in the column, and in the column's movement. The anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments extend the length of the vertebral column along the front and back of the vertebral bodies. The interspinous ligaments connect the adjoining spinous processes of the vertebrae. The supraspinous ligament extends the length of the spine running along the back of the spinous processes, from the sacrum to the seventh cervical vertebra. From there it is continuous with the nuchal ligament. The striking segmented pattern of the spine is established during embryogenesis when somites are rhythmically added to the posterior of the embryo. Somite formation begins around the third week when the embryo begins gastrulation and continues until around 52 somites are formed. The somites are spheres, formed from the paraxial mesoderm that lies at the sides of the neural tube and they contain the precursors of spinal bone, the vertebrae ribs and some of the skull, as well as muscle, ligaments and skin. Somitogenesis and the subsequent distribution of somites is controlled by a clock and wavefront model acting in cells of the paraxial mesoderm. Soon after their formation, sclerotomes, which give rise to some of the bone of the skull, the vertebrae and ribs, migrate, leaving the remainder of the somite now termed a dermamyotome behind. This then splits to give the myotomes which will form the muscles and dermatomes which will form the skin of the back. Sclerotomes become subdivided into an anterior and a posterior compartment. This subdivision plays a key role in the definitive patterning of vertebrae that form when the posterior part of one somite fuses to the anterior part of the consecutive somite during a process termed resegmentation. Disruption of the somitogenesis process in humans results in diseases such as congenital scoliosis. So far, the human homologues of three genes associated to the mouse segmentation clock, (MESP2, DLL3 and LFNG), have been shown to be mutated in cases of congenital scoliosis, suggesting that the mechanisms involved in vertebral segmentation are conserved across vertebrates. In humans the first four somites are incorporated in the base of the occipital bone of the skull and the next 33 somites will form the vertebrae, ribs, muscles, ligaments and skin. The remaining posterior somites degenerate. During the fourth week of embryogenesis, the sclerotomes shift their position to surround the spinal cord and the notochord. This column of tissue has a segmented appearance, with alternating areas of dense and less dense areas. As the sclerotome develops, it condenses further eventually developing into the vertebral body. Development of the appropriate shapes of the vertebral bodies is regulated by HOX genes. The less dense tissue that separates the sclerotome segments develop into the intervertebral discs. The notochord disappears in the sclerotome (vertebral body) segments, but persists in the region of the intervertebral discs as the nucleus pulposus. The nucleus pulposus and the fibers of the anulus fibrosus make up the intervertebral disc. The primary curves (thoracic and sacral curvatures) form during fetal development. The secondary curves develop after birth. The cervical curvature forms as a result of lifting the head and the lumbar curvature forms as a result of walking. The vertebral column surrounds the spinal cord which travels within the spinal canal, formed from a central hole within each vertebra. The spinal cord is part of the central nervous system that supplies nerves and receives information from the peripheral nervous system within the body. The spinal cord consists of grey and white matter and a central cavity, the central canal. Adjacent to each vertebra emerge spinal nerves. The spinal nerves provide sympathetic nervous supply to the body, with nerves emerging forming the sympathetic trunk and the splanchnic nerves. The spinal canal follows the different curves of the column; it is large and triangular in those parts of the column which enjoy the greatest freedom of movement, such as the cervical and lumbar regions; and is small and rounded in the thoracic region, where motion is more limited. The spinal cord terminates in the conus medullaris and cauda equina. Spina bifida is a congenital disorder in which there is a defective closure of the vertebral arch. Sometimes the spinal meninges and also the spinal cord can protrude through this, and this is called Spina bifida cystica. Where the condition does not involve this protrusion it is known as Spina bifida occulta. Sometimes all of the vertebral arches may remain incomplete. Another, though rare, congenital disease is Klippel-Feil syndrome which is the fusion of any two of the cervical vertebrae. Spondylolisthesis is the forward displacement of a vertebra and retrolisthesis is a posterior displacement of one vertebral body with respect to the adjacent vertebra to a degree less than a dislocation. Spinal disc herniation, more commonly called a "slipped disc", is the result of a tear in the outer ring (anulus fibrosus) of the intervertebral disc, which lets some of the soft gel-like material, the nucleus pulposus, bulge out in a hernia. Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal which can occur in any region of the spine though less commonly in the thoracic region. The stenosis can constrict the spinal canal giving rise to a neurological deficit. Pain at the coccyx (tailbone) is known as coccydynia. Spinal cord injury is damage to the spinal cord that causes changes in its function, either temporary or permanent. Excessive or abnormal spinal curvature is classed as a spinal disease or dorsopathy and includes the following abnormal curvatures: Individual vertebrae of the human vertebral column can be felt and used as surface anatomy, with reference points are taken from the middle of the vertebral body. This provides anatomical landmarks that can be used to guide procedures such as a lumbar puncture and also as vertical reference points to describe the locations of other parts of human anatomy, such as the positions of organs. Variations in vertebrae The general structure of vertebrae in other animals is largely the same as in humans. Individual vertebrae are composed of a centrum (body), arches protruding from the top and bottom of the centrum, and various processes projecting from the centrum and/or arches. An arch extending from the top of the centrum is called a neural arch, while the haemal arch or chevron is found underneath the centrum in the caudal (tail) vertebrae of fish, most reptiles, some birds, some dinosaurs and some mammals with long tails. The vertebral processes can either give the structure rigidity, help them articulate with ribs, or serve as muscle attachment points. Common types are transverse process, diapophyses, parapophyses, and zygapophyses (both the cranial zygapophyses and the caudal zygapophyses). The centrum of the vertebra can be classified based on the fusion of its elements. In temnospondyls, bones such as the spinous process, the pleurocentrum and the intercentrum are separate ossifications. Fused elements, however, classify a vertebra as having holospondyly. A vertebra can also be described in terms of the shape of the ends of the centrum. Centra with flat ends are acoelous, like those in mammals. These flat ends of the centra are especially good at supporting and distributing compressive forces. Amphicoelous vertebra have centra with both ends concave. This shape is common in fish, where most motion is limited. Amphicoelous centra often are integrated with a full notochord. Procoelous vertebrae are anteriorly concave and posteriorly convex. They are found in frogs and modern reptiles. Opisthocoelous vertebrae are the opposite, possessing anterior convexity and posterior concavity. They are found in salamanders, and in some non-avian dinosaurs. Heterocoelous vertebrae have saddle-shaped articular surfaces. This type of configuration is seen in turtles that retract their necks, and birds, because it permits extensive lateral and vertical flexion motion without stretching the nerve cord too extensively or wringing it about its long axis. In horses, the Arabian (breed) can have one less vertebrae and pair of ribs. This anomaly disappears in foals that are the product of an Arabian and another breed of horse. Vertebrae are defined by the regions of the vertebral column that they occur in, as in humans. Cervical vertebrae are those in the neck area. With the exception of the two sloth genera (Choloepus and Bradypus) and the manatee genus, (Trichechus), all mammals have seven cervical vertebrae. In other vertebrates, the number of cervical vertebrae can range from a single vertebra in amphibians, to as many as 25 in swans or 76 in the extinct plesiosaur Elasmosaurus. The dorsal vertebrae range from the bottom of the neck to the top of the pelvis. Dorsal vertebrae attached to the ribs are called thoracic vertebrae, while those without ribs are called lumbar vertebrae. The sacral vertebrae are those in the pelvic region, and range from one in amphibians, to two in most birds and modern reptiles, or up to three to five in mammals. When multiple sacral vertebrae are fused into a single structure, it is called the sacrum. The synsacrum is a similar fused structure found in birds that is composed of the sacral, lumbar, and some of the thoracic and caudal vertebra, as well as the pelvic girdle. Caudal vertebrae compose the tail, and the final few can be fused into the pygostyle in birds, or into the coccygeal or tail bone in chimpanzees (and humans). Fish and amphibians The vertebrae of lobe-finned fishes consist of three discrete bony elements. The vertebral arch surrounds the spinal cord, and is of broadly similar form to that found in most other vertebrates. Just beneath the arch lies a small plate-like pleurocentrum, which protects the upper surface of the notochord, and below that, a larger arch-shaped intercentrum to protect the lower border. Both of these structures are embedded within a single cylindrical mass of cartilage. A similar arrangement was found in the primitive Labyrinthodonts, but in the evolutionary line that led to reptiles (and hence, also to mammals and birds), the intercentrum became partially or wholly replaced by an enlarged pleurocentrum, which in turn became the bony vertebral body. In most ray-finned fishes, including all teleosts, these two structures are fused with, and embedded within, a solid piece of bone superficially resembling the vertebral body of mammals. In living amphibians, there is simply a cylindrical piece of bone below the vertebral arch, with no trace of the separate elements present in the early tetrapods. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the vertebrae consist of two cartilaginous tubes. The upper tube is formed from the vertebral arches, but also includes additional cartilaginous structures filling in the gaps between the vertebrae, and so enclosing the spinal cord in an essentially continuous sheath. The lower tube surrounds the notochord, and has a complex structure, often including multiple layers of calcification. Lampreys have vertebral arches, but nothing resembling the vertebral bodies found in all higher vertebrates. Even the arches are discontinuous, consisting of separate pieces of arch-shaped cartilage around the spinal cord in most parts of the body, changing to long strips of cartilage above and below in the tail region. Hagfishes lack a true vertebral column, and are therefore not properly considered vertebrates, but a few tiny neural arches are present in the tail. The general structure of human vertebrae is fairly typical of that found in mammals, reptiles, and birds. The shape of the vertebral body does, however, vary somewhat between different groups. In mammals, such as humans, it typically has flat upper and lower surfaces, while in reptiles the anterior surface commonly has a concave socket into which the expanded convex face of the next vertebral body fits. Even these patterns are only generalisations, however, and there may be variation in form of the vertebrae along the length of the spine even within a single species. Some unusual variations include the saddle-shaped sockets between the cervical vertebrae of birds and the presence of a narrow hollow canal running down the centre of the vertebral bodies of geckos and tuataras, containing a remnant of the notochord. Reptiles often retain the primitive intercentra, which are present as small crescent-shaped bony elements lying between the bodies of adjacent vertebrae; similar structures are often found in the caudal vertebrae of mammals. In the tail, these are attached to chevron-shaped bones called haemal arches, which attach below the base of the spine, and help to support the musculature. These latter bones are probably homologous with the ventral ribs of fish. The number of vertebrae in the spines of reptiles is highly variable, and may be several hundred in some species of snake. In birds, there is a variable number of cervical vertebrae, which often form the only truly flexible part of the spine. The thoracic vertebrae are partially fused, providing a solid brace for the wings during flight. The sacral vertebrae are fused with the lumbar vertebrae, and some thoracic and caudal vertebrae, to form a single structure, the synsacrum, which is thus of greater relative length than the sacrum of mammals. In living birds, the remaining caudal vertebrae are fused into a further bone, the pygostyle, for attachment of the tail feathers. Aside from the tail, the number of vertebrae in mammals is generally fairly constant. There are almost always seven cervical vertebrae (sloths and manatees are among the few exceptions), followed by around twenty or so further vertebrae, divided between the thoracic and lumbar forms, depending on the number of ribs. There are generally three to five vertebrae with the sacrum, and anything up to fifty caudal vertebrae. The vertebral column in dinosaurs consists of the cervical (neck), dorsal (back), sacral (hips), and caudal (tail) vertebrae. Dinosaur vertebrae possess features known as pleurocoels, which are hollow depressions on the lateral portions of the vertebrae, which served to decrease the weight of these bones without sacrificing strength. Many researchers think that these pleurocoels were filled with air sacs, which would have further decreased weight. In sauropod dinosaurs, the largest known land vertebrates, pleurocoels may have reduced the animal's weight by over a ton in some instances, a handy evolutionary adaption in animals that grew to over 30 metres in length. In many hadrosaur and theropod dinosaurs, the caudal vertebrae were reinforced by ossified tendons. The presence of three or more sacral vertebrae, in association with the hip bones, is one of the defining characteristics of dinosaurs. The occipital condyle is a structure on the posterior part of a dinosaur's skull which articulates with the first cervical vertebra.
Birth defects risk near incinerators The research also found an increased risk of stillbirths among women who lived close to a crematorium compared with those living further away. The authors stressed the study did not provide conclusive evidence that living near an incinerator or crematorium caused birth defects or stillbirths. But they said the issue should be investigated further, especially as incineration was becoming widely used method of waste disposal. The research, in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, analysed all births in Cumbria between 1956 and 1993. During this period there were almost 245,000 births, of which 3,234 were stillborn and 1,569 had congenital abnormalities. A further 2,663 babies died shortly after birth. The study found that for babies whose mothers lived near incinerators there was no increased risk of stillbirth or death shortly after birth. But they found the risk of neural tube defects, particularly spina bifida, was 17% higher, and heart defects 12% higher, among babies born to mothers who lived near an incinerator. When they concentrated on the period before the incinerators starting working, no increased risk of stillbirths or birth defects was found. For mothers who lived near a crematorium, the study found the risk of stillbirth was 4% higher. And the chances of the baby having a life-threatening brain abnormality known as anencephalus was 5% higher. Most watched News videos - Denise Williams found guilty over husband's murder 18 years ago - Nigel Farage says a second referendum could be on the cards - Manu Vatuvei knocks opponent out in professional boxing debut - Egyptian archaeologists unveil 4,400-year-old tomb of high priest - Terrifying floods and hail storms hit South African Sun City resort - Brazilian big wave surfer in terrifying wipeout in Portugal - Foul-mouthed woman drives the wrong way in supermarket car park - Aaron Whiteside shows his fascinating collection of vintage souvenirs - Office worker recounts moment her drink was spiked during a party - Britain's youngest 'influencer' prepares for a local Christmas - Bizarre moment a woman strips off naked on a busy bus - Trump predicts a 'really exciting year' at Congressional Ball
On March 3rd, 2014 the United States Navy Reserves will celebrate their 99th birthday. This day should be a time to reflect and thank all the Navy Reserve Sailors who are currently and have previously served the United States abroad and at home. The families, communities, and employers who have and continue to support these special mean and women should also be thanked and remembered. A great way to commemorate this special birthday is to purchase and proudly wear Navy pins. The Navy Reserves were established on March 3, 1925. At the end of the 19th century, naval militias were organized in a number of states throughout the country. These militias represented the Navy’s manpower reserve and throughout the Spanish-American War these units helped in coastal defense and also served aboard United States’ navy ships. The state naval militias were very successful during this war and as a result, were used again during World War I (WWI) and every consequent conflict that the United States has been involved in. Each conflict, including the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan, has relied on Navy Reservists. These hardworking men and women support the mission of the organization by providing and delivering operational capabilities to the Marine and Navy Corps teams. Furthermore, they support the Joint Forces throughout all military operations during times of peace and war. Members of the Navy Reserves have also worked alongside all branches of our country’s military and service men and women from other countries to perform and carry out missions. When men and women enlist in our armed forces they are choosing to put their life on the line for our country. This action takes a courageous amount of dedication, bravery, and perseverance. Our service men and women in the Navy Reserves deserve our respect, support and thanks throughout the year because they are a huge reason why as Americans we feel safe and protected. Navy Reservists continue to be an integral part of our United States’ military and each member should be honored on the organization’s 99th birthday. To show your support and gratitude for the Navy Reserve and their motto of: “Ready Now. Anytime, Anywhere,” display your Navy Pins on March 3rd, and every other day of the year.
Effective teachers develop and use sound knowledge as a basis for initiating learning and responding to mathematical needs of all their students. What teachers know and believe about mathematics and what they understand about mathematics teaching and learning impacts directly on the way they organize their mathematics instruction in the classroom and upon the learning experiences for their students. Teachers at all levels need to know their learners too, they need to be able to anticipate the difficulties that their students may encounter in their mathematics learning, to challenge and extend their students, and they should be able to describe learning trajectories and next learning steps. This demands a skillful response to teaching situations rather than simply an adherence to scripts or texts. In some of the stories below, the writers highlight particularly well their understanding of the need to have sound pedagogical content knowledge in order to recognise and act on moment by moment teaching opportunities, to understand students’ thinking, to recognise misconceptions and to work with these, and to represent mathematical ideas appropriately in multiple ways. I have done two postgraduate university papers in maths which provided me with in-depth pedagogical content knowledge. 2010 paper: Mathematical Literacy for Lower-Achieving Students.
There are several ways to make better use of the capabilities of your computer. Multiple threads allow your application to perform multiple things at the same time. With this power comes a lot of responsibility and you should also realize that it’s not the answer to everything. Here’s three common ways to speed up your application: - Get a faster computer. Computers have steadily increased in speed and power but we can’t count on this continuing. - Write better and more efficient code. Use better algorithms. The power of selecting the proper algorithm cannot be stressed enough. This is big. And for a large enough problem, will always win. - Do more things at the same time. This is multithreading. Multithreading is not just for speeding up your application though. This episode started getting too long to try explaining everything. Instead, this episode explains more about why you need to understand threads and what they are.
Three of the world’s most important tropical river basins – the Amazon, the Congo and the Mekong – are experiencing an unprecedented boom in the construction of hydropower dams. According to a paper by more than three dozen scientists from universities, research institutions and conservation organizations around the world, pubished in Science magazine, these projects pose a major threat to biodiversity, including to one-third of all the world’s freshwater fish species. The authors say long-term impacts of tropical hydropower projects are rarely assessed adequately and call for better – and more transparent – planning that more accurately evaluates the full costs of these dams. Without this, the authors write, these projects will lead to species extinctions, as well as significant declines in fisheries and other “ecosystem services” on the world’s “mega-diverse” tropical rivers. While most of the 838 existing dams on these river systems are relatively small, more than 450 new dams are currently planned for the Amazon, Congo and Mekong Rivers – about 75 percent of these in the Amazon. The paper’s authors contend that those planning the dams “have generally failed to assess the true benefits and costs of large hydropower projects,” leading both to financial cost overruns and underestimation of environmental and social costs. Those costs can be high – the dams take a toll on biodiversity, and damage to fish populations can threaten food security in local communities that depend on the fisheries. As the paper’s lead author, Kirk Winemiller, Regents Professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences & Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, explained via email, these three tropical river basins “contain a disproportionate amount of the world’s freshwater biodiversity, including about one third of all freshwater fish species.” Further, said Winemiller, many of these rivers’ “sub-basins and tributaries contain unique species found nowhere else.” For example, the Xingu River in Brazil, which is a major tributary of the Amazon, includes a complex of rapids that Winemiller says “provides habitat for about four dozen fish species found nowhere else on earth.” The paper notes that altogether, there are nearly 1,500 endemic species found in the Amazon Basin. According to the paper, Brazil’s massive Belo Monte dam, which is due to be completed this year, “may set a record for biodiversity loss” owing to its siting at a location with an exceptional number of endemic species. “This controversial project is nearing completion and will radically change the river, its ecology, and the lives of local people, especially indigenous communities that have depended on the river’s ecosystem services,” said Winemiller. At least 334 new Amazon dams have been proposed in addition to those already operating and under construction. In the Mekong River Basin, which is already heavily dammed with some 370 dams, there are plans for almost 100 more, including nearly a dozen dams on the river’s main stem. The Lower Mekong River currently supports important inland fisheries, recently estimated to be worth about $17 billion a year. The dam building planned for the Mekong will disrupt the movement of the river’s migratory fish – blocking their ability to move between their wet and dry season, and spawning and nursery, habitats. The dams will also disrupt livelihoods. More than 3 million people living in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are directly involved in these fisheries, said Winemiller. Many more of the 60 million people who live in the Mekong River Basin depend on the river in other ways as well. It is well known that dams block fish passage and disrupt river hydrology, which in turn upsets rivers’ ecological balance and the ability of fish and other aquatic species to access floodplain and nursery habitats. But the full measure of these impacts throughout a river basin are usually poorly accounted for by those building dams, say the paper’s authors. “We have a lot of evidence on specific projects but there have been few global assessments or large scale assessments like this article on three large river basins,” International Rivers interim executive director Peter Bosshard told Earth Island Journal. As Bosshard explained, “There isn’t a lot of money for scientific research on these issues,” and such research – including environmental assessments – needs to be done before full dam construction begins, but that often doesn’t happen. In many cases, he said, “millions, sometimes scores of millions of dollars have been spent” and a “river may already have been diverted,” before an assessment is completed. “By that time it’s almost impossible to stop a project.” He also pointed out that on many of these projects, assessments are not done by an independent third-party but by companies hired by those building the dams. The World Bank, which helps finance many dam building projects worldwide, was not able to comment on the paper but offered a summary of a 2014 World Bank report on hydropower. It says that “Hydropower production is the least-cost method of providing electricity in many developing countries” that in some places may alleviate local poverty and improve food security. However, it says, hydropower “can also carry significant risks” – challenges that have become more pressing in the last decade. The Science paper authors think that assessment of those risks is often lacking when it comes to project approval and financing. “Institutions that permit and finance hydropower development should require basin-scale analyses that account for cumulative impacts,” including climate change, they write. Such evaluations and subsequent changes to dam siting are “imperative,” they say. Without this, there will be significant species loss and, they note, “We are skeptical, that rural communities in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong basins will experience benefits of energy supply and job creation that exceed costs of lost fisheries, agriculture, and property.” Not everyone can pay for the news. But if you can, we need your support. Truthout is widely read among people with lower incomes and among young people who are mired in debt. Our site is read at public libraries, among people without internet access of their own. People print out our articles and send them to family members in prison — we receive letters from behind bars regularly thanking us for our coverage. Our stories are emailed and shared around communities, sparking grassroots mobilization. We’re committed to keeping all Truthout articles free and available to the public. But in order to do that, we need those who can afford to contribute to our work to do so — especially now, because we have just 5 days left to raise $40,000 in critical funds. We’ll never require you to give, but we can ask you from the bottom of our hearts: Will you donate what you can, so we can continue providing journalism in the service of justice and truth?
The new biomass plant will use locally sourced wood fuel to generate sustainable heat and power for Discovery Park, one of Europe’s leading Science and Technology parks, near Sandwich in Kent. This will significantly reduce its energy costs, carbon footprint and reliance on imported fuel, ensuring it stays at the forefront of technology now and in the future. Colin Dobson, General manager at the plant said, “This month’s steam blows are part of the commissioning process, where the power plant will be tested far beyond its normal operating parameters. This ensures it’s completely safe and reliable before it begins producing clean, green heat and power this summer. The steam blows are carried out to ensure all the debris, dust and any other small contaminants created during the construction of the boiler and all its pipe work have been cleaned out. Last month all the internal tubes were cleaned by flushing them through with warm acid, ready for the steam blowing to start”. Toby Hunter, Chief Executive, Discovery Park, said: “It’s been fantastic to see the new Combined Heat and Power Plant rise up and take shape over the last year, a real symbol of the investment that will drive the success of the next chapter of this iconic global centre for science and enterprise and create more jobs and opportunities for East Kent. “Sustainability is such an important part of what we’re about here at Discovery Park and having our own heat and power supply will take this to another level, providing green energy to power the next drug discovery by scientists working in our laboratories; light bulb moments of the entrepreneur with the next big idea; the manufacturing company delivering tomorrow’s tech. This final stage starts the countdown to exciting times ahead.” The steam blowing will take place over a month, with each blow happening at a specific time for just a short, test period of about 60 to 90 seconds. There will be about 30 to 40 steam blows during the month with between 3 and 5 happening in a day, all during the normal site opening hours. For each steam blow the boiler is started, building up steam pressure and temperature in the pipe system. Once the right level has been achieved to clear out the pipes, the pressure will be released via a temporary steam blow pipe and there will be a hissing sound and a visible plume of steam produced. These blows will also be louder than the normal operating noise from the plant when it begins generating heat and power. The final pressure tests will then take place before the process of filling the boiler with water starts. The project represents an inward investment of approximately £150 million to the area and will boost the local Kent economy by creating up to 27 new local jobs at the plant as well as numerous others in the supply chain, with as many as 400 jobs created during the construction period. It will also provide a significant and reliable local market for low-grade wood, making woodland management more economic, helping local wood producers diversify and supporting the production of high quality timber and coppice products in the region. Biomass plants like this one are good sources of low carbon energy, so their benefits extend well beyond the local area. They can help tackle climate change by reducing CO2 emissions and by using locally sourced and sustainable wood fuel, they reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels whilst at the same time creating a more secure energy supply.
Description of supportive bottom line, glossary, general bench and crosswords Encouraging summary as a form of student’s efforts Creating a sustaining synopsis is a kind of student’s separate help making your simple resources system that summarizes and demonstrates the fact about the lecture stuff, the ideas on the textbook. The primary looking after summing up is intended to accentuate main objects of evaluation, to supply them a quick information, utilizing representations, to reflect the connection together with other factors. The actual intent behind the reference message is always to improve memorization. In its bristling collection, all sorts of fundamental basics, terms, indications, (emblems), useful resource signs are being used. The looking after synopsis is the most effective way of planning for those address and along the way of answering. Drawing up an easy summarize for matters is quite beneficial for pupils whom are facing a substantial amount of information in preparation for courses and, without having the skills to focus on the most important thing, have problems recalling it. The helping summation might be displayed because of a unit of interrelated geometric data featuring blocks of concentrated check the site info by way of instructions of your rational step ladder; painting with a lot more things, . . .. It is usually developed in two hours. Guidelines for examination: - The information to the field; - Accurate structuring of information; - The inclusion of a realistic interconnection, the material currently offered; - Complying with prerequisites; - Dependability and literacy of event; - The tasks was mailed promptly. Glossary as type of composed succeed The collection to a glossary is a type of student’s impartial hard work, expressed inside of the range and systematization of terms, incomprehensive text and expressions stumbled upon in study regarding the subject. Grows the capability of individuals to identify the principal techniques associated with the area of interest and create them. Some time committed fixing a glossary of 20 keywords is 1 hour. Considerations for assessment: - the meaning around the relation to this issue; - multidimensionality of interpretation of words and phrases and concretization on their understanding in accordance with the details of study regarding the training; - concurrence with necessities; - the project was brought in a timely manner. Summation (generalized) desk within a area of interest Collection of your bottom line (generic) family table over a question is a type of student’s be employed by the systematization of voluminous information and facts, which happens to be lower (summarized) around the framework to the dinner table. The development of our composition in the family table demonstrates the student’s desire to systematize the material and establish his talents in constructing specifics. The brevity to the powerpoint presentation of knowledge characterizes the power to coagulate it. On the stand, the parts of a single field (single-sided subject matter) and sections of various kinds of themes or templates (multifaceted information) are creatively resembled. Like dining tables are prepared being a assistance in the research into a lot of insight, wanting to give it the ideal kind for memorization. Spending time is an hour. Specifications for analysis: - this content with the topic area; - reasonable format on the kitchen table; - best number of info; - the availability of a generalizing (systematizing, structuring, relative) type belonging to the business presentation of real information; - complying with needs; - the job was delivered in a timely manner. Crosswords on the subject and techniques to them Development of crosswords on the subject and solutions to them is a kind of show of knowledge in a graphical form and the kind of power over practical knowledge on there. Work with the roll-out of a crossword problem demands the individual to possess fabric, the capacity to completely focus his ideas also, the overall flexibility of his imagination. The managing of crossword puzzles is more usually utilized in class self-sufficient succeeds as a means of self-power and joint management of understanding. Crosswords will vary in the case of phrases and sort. The amount of time invested planning a crossword making use of volume of not less than 10 keywords is an hour. Requirements for review: - The material associated with the field; - Qualified wording of problems; - The crossword is executed with no flaws; - The repair is handed in by the due date.
Art Techniques Have Evolved Over The Years The evolution of art techniques was a slow process. From ancient times to the Renaissance, artists developed new ways to express themselves through the mediums of painting, sculpture, weaving, pottery, and other decorative arts. Before the development of Modernist abstract or figurative art, most modern art techniques were originally developed with only one purpose in mind – to aid artists in better mimicking the world around them in their works. Modern Art Techniques New techniques have been developed all over the world, so no complete list of modern art techniques could ever really be exhaustive. However, we can say that three primary areas of art evolved in response to new artistic opportunities. These three areas of development include the ability to make an object look like another object, the ability to create a visual or auditory experience of the subject matter, and the ability to create a theme or a mood in an artwork. Each of these three areas developed along parallel paths, as each evolved from the early period of art history up to the present. The earliest period of art history covered the two-thousand-year period called Pre-Classical. This period is known for its wealth of paintings and sculpture. During this period, art was much more focused on realism, on creating things from solid materials, rather than abstract forms. The artists of this period were quite different than those artists who came before them in art history, as their techniques and skill grew to encompass more realism. After the Renaissance, artists started creating more abstract types of art. This period also brought about the introduction of the techniques of the Impressionists and the Symbolists, but they both fell short of producing the same amount of impact in modern art history. The most recent period of modern art history covers the twenty-first century and includes the present day. At this time, the artists began working on methods that would create more of an abstract style, and also created new methods of realistic art. The techniques that they used during this period include painting techniques and brushwork that makes the objects seem much larger, such as using dark colours. and even using stencils to make certain objects seem to have “holes” in them. The next period of evolution of abstract forms of art that is most well-known today is the Futurist movement, which is centred on the use of highly stylized and abstract forms of art. Many people view the style as being the most extreme, but it was far less extreme. then many people realize. This style is sometimes considered “normal” normal” for modern art because it is still being widely used today. The last period of development is the contemporary era, which is now popularly known as the Post-Modern art movement, which is very popular in Western countries. Some of the techniques used during this time included the use of a variety of non-realistic techniques, including computer-generated images. Modern art is now much more abstract than it was during this earlier period since the artists did not have to be concerned with creating real results. However, it is still considered by some to be very unique and is usually considered to be a form of art that has more importance for the viewer and a larger audience. For those interested in the development of art over the years, there are some excellent books available. One of the best books is “The Art of War by William Eggleston”, which explains how art progressed throughout the centuries and has evolved. It also describes how specific methods of expression have changed throughout history, such as the use of paint and other mediums that were used in the Renaissance period. If you have not yet purchased one of these books, I highly recommend purchasing one and giving it to your children to help them learn about the various forms of art.
How much do you know about Esther and why an Old Testament book bears her name? Who was she? When and where did she live? What did she achieve that is so memorable? What is the book of Esther about? Linda Ottewell looks at why Esther and her story are relevant and important today. To what extent can we identify with Esther and what can we learn from her? Esther has all the ingredients for a good story. It’s exciting, gripping, inspiring, full of drama and romance, intrigue and subterfuge, conflict, tension and danger. However, it is much more than simply a good story. Despite not being spoken of explicitly, God’s presence is felt throughout. The chapters clearly demonstrate God’s faithfulness, sovereignty, compassion, grace and mercy, and his loving care for his chosen people. This devotional contains 30 meditations – a daily reading for a month. A brief introduction for each section leads into a Bible reading, followed by a short reflection, with questions or a thought to ponder, and then a closing prayer.
Civitas Learning equips your institution with optimized student data to help you uncover insights about your unique students. Nudges are simple actions you can take now to help current students improve their outcomes as your institution evaluates and implements longer-term strategies in response to these insights. Think of a nudge as a type of outreach that is intended to alter behavior. Nudges are small pushes in the right direction that do not require specific actions, but encourage certain behaviors. When students are presented with a nudge sent from a trusted person at your institution, they have the freedom to make their own choices with information about behaviors we know are more strongly associated with positive persistence and graduation outcomes. Illume Students and Inspire for Advisors can be used to identify students at risk of not persisting who could benefit from a nudge now. Begin nudge campaigns in Inspire for Advisors using the bulk email and log outreach functionality or download student lists from Illume Students to execute campaigns in other systems. Review this guide to understand how to create effective nudges that foster a positive mindset and direct students to available academic resources at your institution. The best nudges are: - Data-Inspired: Nudging students based on an opportunity identified in institution-specific data has the best chance of positively impacting student success. For example, sending a nudge to a specific group of students because they have a significantly lower than average likelihood to persist at your institution. Or, targeting students based on their individual persistence prediction. - Grounded in Mindset Principles: Students’ mindsets— how they perceive their abilities and their relationship with school— can play a key role in their motivation and achievement. In the research on mindset, students who believe their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperform those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). Researchers found that having students focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits. Emails that provide specific guidance along with statements of encouragement such as, “I know you can do this,” work well. Furthermore, Students who feel like they belong in college, and are an important part of the community, are more likely to be motivated and behave in ways that lead to successful outcomes. - Short: Keep it short... really short. Most students scan and read email selectively - if they read at all. However, the tendency is to send students multi-paragraph tomes that include numerous resources and tips on how to be a successful student. The intention is good, but the results are not. Don’t try to tell them everything they need to know in a single email. A few short sentences with one main idea is best. - Personal and Authentic: If an email looks, feels, and sounds like a template, it is unlikely to be read. The first part of an email that a students sees is the subject line. The subject line can determine whether or not the student even reads the email. Use nudging best practices in the subject line itself. Make it positive and encouraging and personal and authentic. Keep the language conversational and avoid phrases that seem like they came from a handbook. When appropriate, use the first person and include your “voice” or personality in the email. Emails that have the authentic voice of the sender tend to have the biggest impact on student engagement. Emails sent from a person that the student knows are most likely to be read. An email from a student’s professor or advisor is more likely to be read and and taken seriously than from a department or email list. - Positive and Encouraging: Positive nudges use a combination of urgency, empathy or concern, hope, and encouragement to promote behaviors in students that are likely to lead to success. Avoid language that sounds punitive or might make students feel ashamed. Acknowledging students’ effort with a few words of encouragement can make a big difference in how they feel about school and themselves, and in-turn, have a positive impact on their performance. - Timely and Relevant: Great nudges have the right information at the right time for the right students. Too early and a nudge will be forgotten, and too late there may not be time for the necessary action. Think about the result you want from your nudge and how to align timing with action. Also consider the timing of the nudge in regards to when students are most likely to receive it. For example, students are unlikely to check their email during spring break or just after finals, so these are not ideal times to send a nudge. - Action Oriented: Include one call to action in each email. Asking a student to do something specific makes it significantly more likely that they will do it and that it will have an impact. If possible, provide an opportunity or make a request for the student to respond. The best nudges look like: Incoming freshman, first week Subject line: You are at <College> Because We Believe in You I am so excited that you are here at <College>. My name is <name>, and I am your Advisor. I want you to know that you are here because we believe in you. I know you can do this! I’m going to help you map out a plan to achieve your academic goals. Make an appointment with me by clicking this link: (link to appointment scheduling tool) Incoming freshman, week three, low LMS activity, low persistence prediction Subject line: I’d Love to Hear About Your Goals How have your first two weeks been? I know that this can be a challenging time as you and our other new students learn to navigate the campus and your classes. You’re at <institution>for a reason. Take a moment to remind yourself of the goals you had prior to the start of school. If you are willing to share, I’d love to hear them - just respond to this email.
Top 5 ways to study smarter, not harder We’ve all done it before. Sat down with all of the right intentions to study but not known where to start. Or, you’ve gotten off to a good start but run out of motivation half way through. These occurrences are all too familiar to students. The good news is, there are lots of ways to get started and break your boredom to work smarter and more effectively. Below are 5 ways to assist you with healthy habits and finding motivation to begin studying smarter, not harder. 1. Planning ahead is key - avoid cramming the night before an exam It is essential that you leave enough time before your exams to get through all of the content that you have to revise. It is very difficult to effectively study the night before an exam, no matter what you tell yourself! If you space out your study and tackle it in smaller sections, your brain has more chance of remembering the information than if you are studying without breaks – or studying frantically the night before. Periodic review moves information from your short term memory to long term which gives you a better chance of reproducing the information in an exam in a more comprehensive manner. Effective planning is furthermore key to reducing stress and anxiety relating to exam pressure. Getting on top of you workload early allows you feel confident and relaxed as you will have sufficient time to cover all topics thoroughly and effectively. It will ensure that you're aware of your strengths and weaknesses and which topics require most revision. “Don’t say that you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr 2. Organise your study space Where you study is very important in setting yourself up for success. It is important that your study space is associated with learning and not other activities such as sleeping or recreation. The tidiness of your workspace also has an impact on the productivity of your study – a tidy work space improves your ability to focus. The study space must be comfortable, the chair and table that you sit at should allow you to have good posture, with your back straight and feet firmly planted on the floor. 3. Steer clear of distractions Eliminating distractions is important to study effectively and ensure that you are maximising your opportunities to absorb and recall information. There is nothing worse when you are studying than constantly being interrupted by the dinging of a phone, a television playing in the background or a friend chatting in your ear. A couple of ways to overcome these distractions are to put your phone on silent, or turn it off completely if possible, turn off your wifi when you can and ask people to give you some privacy. 4. Plan your study routine, including breaks It is important to plan out when you will study, when you will have breaks and what subjects you are going to attempt at what times. It has been proven to be more effective to study multiple subjects at different times each day, rather than one or two subjects for long periods. This is because, if you study the same subject in one day, you’re more likely to confuse similar information. Whereas, by spreading out your study time for each subject, you give your brain a chance to consolidate the information. Taking breaks enhances your productivity and improves concentration. Your physical and mental health are still important during exams and assessments – if not more so! Breaking up your study periods with a quick walk, some stretching, meditation or a game of sport with friends. Make sure you are eating healthy snacks and proper meals and keeping hydrated! 5. Think positively! Successful students are generally focused on learning the information, rather than attaining a particular mark or grade. Most importantly, successful students remain positive about learning and growing and they remember that education is about more than just getting good grades. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe Rohrer,D. 2012. Ariga & Lleras, 2011. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/ The information provided by Bright Spark Tutoring Australia Pty Ltd (“we,” “us” or “our”) on www.brightsparktutoringaustralia.com (the “Site”) is for general informational purposes only. 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We're happy to announce the arrival of Parallel Programming with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Step by Step (ISBN 9780735640603; 256 pages) by Donis Marshall. As chip speed flattens out and multi-core chips become ubiquitous, developers can no longer rely on clock rate advances to improve the speed of software. Instead, developers need to focus on how to identify the independent portions of their code, and program them to run simultaneously, in parallel, so they can take advantage of the new multi-core architecture. Not only does parallel programming require a change in code, it also requires a change in the way developers think about code. Fortunately, Visual Studio and the.NET Framework, with the Task Parallel Library make entering the world of parallel programming easier than it has ever been before. But Donis explains this far better. Here's the complete first chapter. After completing this chapter, you will be able to · Explain parallel programming goals, various hardware architectures, and basic concepts of concurrent and parallel programming. · Define the relationship between parallelism and performance. · Calculate speedup with Amdahl’s Law. · Calculate speedup with Gustafson’s Law. · Recognize and apply parallel development design patterns. Parallel programming will change the computing universe for personal computers. That is a grandiose statement! However, it reflects the potential impact as parallel computing moves from the halls of academia, science labs, and larger systems to your desktop. The goal of parallel programming is to improve performance by optimizing the use of the available processor cores with parallel execution of cores. This goal becomes increasingly important as the trend of constantly increasing processor speed slows. Moore’s Law predicted the doubling of transistor capacity per square inch of integrated circuit every two years. Gordon Moore made this proclamation in the mid-1960s and predicted that the trend would continue at least ten years, but Moore’s Law has actually held true for nearly fifty years. Moore’s prediction is often interpreted to mean that processor speed would double every couple of years. However, cracks were beginning to appear in the foundation of Moore’s Law. Developers now have to find other means of satisfying customer demands for quicker applications, additional features, and greater scope. Parallel programming is one solution. In this way, Moore’s Law will continue into the indefinite future. Microsoft recognizes the vital role of parallel programming for the future. That is the reason parallel programming was promoted from an extension to a core component of the common language runtime (CLR). New features have been added to the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 in support of parallel programming. This is in recognition of the fact that parallel programming is quickly becoming mainstream technology with the increased availability of multicore processors in personal computers. Parallel code is undoubtedly more complicated than the sequential version of the same application or new application development. New debugging windows were added to Visual Studio 2010 specifically to help maintain and debug parallel applications. Both the Parallel Tasks and Parallel Stacks windows help you interpret an application from the context of a parallel execution and tasks. For performance tuning, the Visual Studio Profiler and Concurrency Visualizer work together to analyze a parallel application and present graphs and reports to help developers isolate potential problems. Parallel programming is a broad technology domain. Some software engineers have spent their careers researching and implementing parallel code. Fortunately, the .NET Framework 4 abstracts much of this detail, allowing you to focus on writing a parallel application for a business or personal requirement while abstracting much of the internal details. However, it can be quite helpful to understand the goals, constraints, and underlying motivations of parallel programming. In the past, software developers benefitted from the continual performance gains of new hardware in single-core computers. If your application was slow, just wait—it would soon run faster because of advances in hardware performance. Your application simply rode the wave of better performance. However, you can no longer depend on consistent hardware advancements to assure better-performing applications! As performance improvement in new generations of processors cores has slowed, you now benefit from the availability of multicore architecture. This allows developers to continue to realize increases in performance and to harness that speed in their applications. However, it does require somewhat of a paradigm shift in programming, which is the purpose of this book. At the moment, dual-core and quad-core machines are the de facto standard. In North America and other regions, you probably cannot (and would not want to) purchase a single-core desktop computer at a local computer store today. Single-core computers have constraints that prevent the continuation of the performance gains that were possible in the past. The primary constraint is the correlation of processor speed and heat. As processor speed increases, heat increases disproportionally. This places a practical threshold on processor speed. Solutions have not been found to significantly increase computing power without the heat penalty. Multicore architecture is an alternative, where multiple processor cores share a chip die. The additional cores provide more computing power without the heat problem. In a parallel application, you can leverage the multicore architecture for potential performance gains without a corresponding heat penalty. Multicore personal computers have changed the computing landscape. Until recently, single-core computers have been the most prevalent architecture for personal computers. But that is changing rapidly and represents nothing short of the next evolutionary step in computer architecture for personal computers. The combination of multicore architecture and parallel programming will propagate Moore’s Law into the foreseeable future. With the advent of techniques such as Hyper-Threading Technology from Intel, each physical core becomes two or potentially more virtual cores. For example, a machine with four physical cores appears to have eight logical cores. The distinction between physical and logical cores is transparent to developers and users. In the next ten years, you can expect the number of both physical and virtual processor cores in a standard personal computer to increase significantly. In 1966, Michael Flynn proposed a taxonomy to describe the relationship between concurrent instruction and data streams for various hardware architectures. This taxonomy, which became known as Flynn’s taxonomy, has these categories: · SISD (Single Instruction Stream/Single Data Stream) This model has a single instruction stream and data stream and describes the architecture of computer with a single-core processor. · SIMD (Single Instruction Stream/Multiple Data Streams) This model has a single instruction stream and multiple data streams. The model applies the instruction stream to each of the data streams. Instances of the same instruction stream can run in parallel on multiple processors cores, servicing different data streams. For example, SIMD is helpful when applying the same algorithm to multiple input values. · MISD (Multiple Instruction Streams/Single Data Stream) This model has multiple instruction streams and a single data stream and can apply multiple parallel operations to a single data source. For example, this model could be used for running various decryption routines on a single data source. · MIMD (Multiple Instruction Streams/Multiple Data Streams) This model has both multiple instruction streams and multiple data streams. On a multicore computer, each instruction stream runs on a separate processor with independent data. This is the current model for multicore personal computers. The MIMD model can be refined further as either Multiple Program/Multiple Data (MPMD) or Single Program/Multiple Data (SPMD). Within the MPMD subcategory, a different process executes independently on each processor. For SPMD, the process is decomposed into separate tasks, each of which represents a different location in the program. The tasks execute on separate processor cores. This is the prevailing architecture for multicore personal computers today. The following table plots Flynn’s taxonomy. Single Data Stream Multiple Data Streams Single Instruction Stream Multiple Instruction Streams Additional information about Flynn’s taxonomy is available at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn's_taxonomy. Threads represent actions in your program. A process itself does nothing; instead, it hosts the resources consumed by the running application, such as the heap and the stack. A thread is one possible path of execution in the application. Threads can perform independent tasks or cooperate on an operation with related tasks. Parallel applications are also concurrent. However, not all concurrent applications are parallel. Concurrent applications can run on a single core, whereas parallel execution requires multiple cores. The reason behind this distinction is called interleaving. When multiple threads run concurrently on a single-processor computer, the Windows operating system interleaves the threads in a round-robin fashion, based on thread priority and other factors. In this manner, the processor is shared between several threads. You can consider this as logical parallelism. With physical parallelism, there are multiple cores where work is decomposed into tasks and executed in parallel on separate processor cores. Threads are preempted when interrupted for another thread. At that time, the running thread yields execution to the next thread. In this manner, threads are interleaved on a single processor. When a thread is preempted, the operating system preserves the state of the running thread and loads the state of the next thread, which is then able to execute. Exchanging running threads on a processor triggers a context switch and a transition between kernel and user mode. Context switches are expensive, so reducing the number of context switches is important to improving performance. Threads are preempted for several reasons: · A higher priority thread needs to run. · Execution time exceeds a quantum. · An input-output request is received. · The thread voluntarily yields the processor. · The thread is blocked on a synchronization object. Even on a single-processor machine, there are advantages to concurrent execution: · A responsive user interface · Asynchronous input-output · Improved graphics rendering Parallel execution requires multiple cores so that threads can execute in parallel without interleaving. Ideally, you want to have one thread for each available processor. However, that is not always possible. Oversubscription occurs when the number of threads exceeds the number of available processors. When this happens, interleaving occurs for the threads sharing a processor. Conversely, undersubscription occurs when there are fewer threads than available processors. When this happens, you have idle processors and less-than-optimum CPU utilization. Of course, the goal is maximum CPU utilization while balancing the potential performance degradation of oversubscription or undersubscription. As mentioned earlier, context switches adversely affect performance. However, some context switches are more expensive than others one of the more expensive ones is a cross-core context switch. A thread can run on a dedicated processor or across processors. Threads serviced by a single processor have processor affinity, which is more efficient. Preempting and scheduling a thread on another processor core causes cache misses, access to local memory as the result of cache misses, and excess context switches. In aggregate, this is called a cross-core context switch. Multithreading involves more than creating multiple threads. The steps required to start a thread are relatively simple. Managing those threads for a thread-safe application is more of a challenge. Synchronization is the most common tool used to create a thread-safe environment. Even single-threaded applications use synchronization on occasion. For example, a single-threaded application might synchronize on kernel-mode resources, which are shareable across processes. However, synchronization is more common in multithreaded applications where both kernel-mode and user-mode resources might experience contention. Shared data is a second reason for contention between multiple threads and the requirement for synchronization. Most synchronization is accomplished with synchronization objects. There are dedicated synchronization objects, such as mutexes, semaphores, and events. General-purpose objects that are also available for synchronization include processes, threads, and registry keys. For example, you can synchronize on whether a thread has finished executing. Most synchronization objects are kernel objects, and their use requires a context switch. Lightweight synchronization objects, such as critical sections, are user-mode objects that avoid expensive context switches. In the .NET Framework, the lock statement and the Monitor type are wrappers for native critical sections. Contention occurs when a thread cannot obtain a synchronization object or access shared data for some period of time. The thread typically blocks until the entity is available. When contention is short, the associated overhead for synchronization is relatively costly. If short contention is the pattern, such overhead can become nontrivial. In this scenario, an alternative to blocking is spinning. Applications have the option to spin in user mode, consuming CPU cycles but avoiding a kernel-mode switch. After a short while, the thread can reattempt to acquire the shared resource. If the contention is short, you can successfully acquire the resource on the second attempt to avoid blocking and a related context switch. Spinning for synchronization is considered lightweight synchronization, and Microsoft has added types such as the SpinWait structure to the .NET Framework for this purpose. For example, spinning constructs are used in many of the concurrent collections in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace to create thread-safe and lock-free collections. Most parallel applications rely on some degree of synchronization. Developers often consider synchronization a necessary evil. Overuse of synchronization is unfortunate, because most parallel programs perform best when running in parallel with no impediments. Serializing a parallel application through synchronization is contrary to the overall goal. In fact, the speed improvement potential of a parallel application is limited by the proportion of the application that runs sequentially. For example, when 40 percent of an application executes sequentially, the maximum possible speed improvement in theory is 60 percent. Most parallel applications start with minimal synchronization. However, synchronization is often the preferred resolution to any problem. In this way, synchronization spreads—like moss on a tree—quickly. In extreme circumstances, the result is a complex sequential application that for some reason has multiple threads. In your own programs, make an effort to keep parallel applications parallel. Speedup is the expected performance benefit from running an application on a multicore versus a single-core machine. When speedup is measured, single-core machine performance is the baseline. For example, assume that the duration of an application on a single-core machine is six hours. The duration is reduced to three hours when the application runs on a quad machine. The speedup is 2—(6/3)—in other words, the application is twice as fast. You might expect that an application running on a single-core machine would run twice as quickly on a dual-core machine, and that a quad-core machine would run the application four times as fast. But that’s not exactly correct. With some notable exceptions, such as super linear speedup, linear speedup is not possible even if the entire application ran in parallel. That’s because there is always some overhead from parallelizing an application, such as scheduling threads onto separate processors. Therefore, linear speedup is not obtainable. Here are some of the limitations to linear speedup of parallel code: · Serial code · Overhead from parallelization · Sequential input/output Predicting speedup is important in designing, benchmarking, and testing your parallel application. Fortunately, there are formulas for calculating speedup. One such formula is Amdahl’s Law. Gene Amdahl created Amdahl’s Law in 1967 to calculate maximum speedup for parallel applications. Amdahl’s Law calculates the speedup of parallel code based on three variables: · Duration of running the application on a single-core machine · The percentage of the application that is parallel · The number of processor cores Here is the formula, which returns the ratio of single-core versus multicore performance. 1 – P + (P/N) This formula uses the duration of the application on a single-core machine as the benchmark. The numerator of the equation represents that base duration, which is always one. The dynamic portion of the calculation is in the denominator. The variable P is the percent of the application that runs in parallel, and N is the number of processor cores. As an example scenario, suppose you have an application that is 75 percent parallel and runs on a machine with three processor cores. The first iteration to calculate Amdahl’s Law is shown below. In the formula, P is .75 (the parallel portion) and N is 3(the number of cores). (1 – .75) + (.75/3) You can reduce that as follows. .25 + .25 The final result is a speedup of two. Your application will run twice as fast on a three-processor-core machine. Speedup = 2 Visualizing speedup can help you interpret the meaning of Amdahl’s Law. In the following diagram, the evaluation of speedup is presented as a graph. Duration is represented as units of equal length. On a single-core machine, application duration is four units. One of those units contains code that must execute sequentially. This means that 75 percent of the application can run in parallel. Again, in this scenario, there are three available processor cores. Therefore, the three parallel units can be run in parallel and coalesced into a single unit of duration. As a result, both the sequential and parallel portions of the application require one unit of duration. So you have a total of two units of duration—down from the original four—which is a speedup of two. Therefore, your application runs twice as fast. This confirms the previous calculation that used Amdahl’s Law. Jeanne: In this graphic, please change "4 Units of Duration" to "Four units of duration", "Coalesce 3 Units of Duration" to "Coalesce three units of duration", and "2 Units of Duration" to "Two units of duration". You can find additional information on Amdahl’s Law at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_Law. John Gustafson and Edward Barsis introduced Gustafson’s Law in 1988 as a competing principle to Amdahl’s Law. As demonstrated, Amdahl’s Law predicts performance as processors are added to the computing environment. This is called the speedup, and it represents the performance dividend. In the real world, that performance dividend is sometimes repurposed. The need for money and computing power share a common attribute. Both tend to expand to consume the available resources. For example, an application completes a particular operation in a fixed duration. The performance dividend could be used to complete the work more quickly, but it is just as likely that the performance dividend is simply used to complete more work within the same fixed duration. When this occurs, the performance dividend is not passed along to the user. However, the application accomplishes more work or offers additional features. In this way, you still receive a significant benefit from a parallel application running in a multicore environment. Amdahl’s Law does not take these real-world considerations into account. Instead, it assumes a fixed relationship between the parallel and serial portions of the application. You may have an application that’s split consistently into a sequential and parallel portion. Amdahl’s Law maintains these proportions as additional processors are added. The serial and parallel portions each remain half of the program. But in the real world, as computing power increases, more work gets completed, so the relative duration of the sequential portion is reduced. In addition, Amdahl’s Law does not account for the overhead required to schedule, manage, and execute parallel tasks. Gustafson’s Law takes both of these additional factors into account. Here is the formula to calculate speedup by using Gustafson’s Law. In the above formula, S is the percentage of the serial code in the application. N is the number of processor cores, and On is the overhead from parallelization. Parallel programming is not a new concept; it has been around for some time, although mostly on large or distributed systems. Parallel computing has more recently been available on personal computers with Threading Building Blocks (TBB), OpenMP, and other parallel solutions. So although parallel computing might seem new, the concepts are actually mature. For example, design patterns have been developed to help programmers design, architect, and implement a robust, correct, and scalable parallel application. The book Patterns for Parallel Programming by Timothy G. Mattson, Beverly A. Sanders, and Berna L. Massingill (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2004) provides a comprehensive study on parallel patterns along with a detailed explanation of the available design patterns and best practices for parallel programming. Another book, Parallel Programming with Microsoft .NET: Design Patterns for Decomposition and Coordination on Multicore Architectures by Colin Campbell et al. (Microsoft Press, 2010) is an important resource for patterns and best practices that target the .NET Framework and TPL. Developers on average do not write much unique code. Most code concepts has been written somewhere before. Software pattern engineers research this universal code base to isolate standard patterns and solutions for common problems in a domain space. You can use these patterns as the building blocks that form the foundation of a stable application. Around these core components you add the unique code for your application, as illustrated in the following diagram. This approach not only results in a stable application but is also a highly efficient way to develop an application. Jeanne: AU didn't provide an updated file, but I did a quick screen snip of this updated graphic here and will send it to you in email. Design patterns should be an integral part of the software development life cycle of every application. These patterns require thorough knowledge of your problem domain. All object-oriented programs model a problem domain, and parallel applications are no exception. As applications become more complex, knowing the problem domain increases in importance. Patterns for Parallel Programming defines four phases of parallel development: · Finding Concurrency · Algorithm Structures · Support Structures · Implementation Mechanisms The first two phases are design and analysis, which include tasks such as finding exploitable concurrency. These phases are the precursors to actually writing code. Later, you map the analysis onto code by using the Support Structures and Implementation Mechanisms phases. The Implementation Mechanisms design phase is not reviewed in this chapter. You can consider the TPL as a generic implementation of this pattern; it maps parallel programming onto the .NET Framework. I urge you to explore parallel design patterns so you can benefit from the hard work of other parallel applications developers. The first phase is the most important. In this phase, you identify exploitable concurrency. The challenge involves more than identifying opportunities for concurrency, because not every potential concurrency is worth pursuing. The goal is to isolate opportunities of concurrency that are worth exploiting. The Finding Concurrency pattern begins with a review of the problem domain. Your goal is to isolate tasks that are good candidates for parallel programming—or conversely, exclude those that are not good candidates. You must weigh the benefit of exposing specific operations as parallel tasks versus the cost. For example, the performance gain for parallelizing a for loop with a short operation might not offset the scheduling overhead and the cost of running the task. When searching for potential parallel tasks, review extended blocks of compute-bound code first. This is where you will typically find the most intense processing, and therefore also the greatest potential benefit from parallel execution. Next, you decompose exploitable concurrency into parallel tasks. You can decompose operations on either the code or data axis (Task Decomposition and Data Decomposition, respectively). The typical approach is to decompose operations into several units. It’s easier to load balance a large number of discrete tasks than a handful of longer tasks. In addition, tasks of relatively equal length are easier to load balance than tasks of widely disparate length. In the Task Decomposition pattern, you decompose code into separate parallel tasks that run independently, with minimal or no dependencies. For example, functions are often excellent candidates for refactoring as parallel tasks. In object-oriented programming, functions should do one thing. However, this is not always the case. For longer functions, evaluate whether the function performs more than one task. If so, you might be able to decompose the function into multiple discrete tasks, improving the opportunities for parallelism. In the Data Decomposition pattern, you decompose data collections, such as lists, stacks, and queues, into partitions for parallel processing. Loops that iterate over data collections are the best locations for decomposing tasks by using the Data Decomposition pattern. Each task is identical but is assigned to a different portion of the data collection. If the tasks have short durations, you should consider grouping multiple tasks together so that they execute as a chunk on a thread, to improve overall efficiency. After completing the Task and Data Decomposition patterns, you will have a basket of tasks. The next two patterns identify relationships between these tasks. The Group Task pattern groups related tasks, whereas the Order Tasks pattern imposes an order to the execution of tasks. You should consider grouping tasks in the following circumstances: · Group tasks together that must start at the same time. The Order Task pattern can then refer to this group to set that constraint. · Group tasks that contribute to the same calculation (reduction). · Group tasks that share the same operation, such as loop operation. · Group tasks that share a common resource, where simultaneous access is not thread safe. The most important reason to create task groups is to place constraints on the entire group rather than on individual tasks. The Order Tasks pattern is the second pattern that sets dependencies based on task relationships. This pattern identifies dependencies that place constraints on the order (the sequence) of task execution. In this pattern, you often reference groups of tasks defined in the Group Task pattern. For example, you might reference a group of tasks that must start together. Do not overuse this pattern. Ordering implies synchronization at best, and sequential execution at worst. Some example of order dependencies are: · Start dependency This is when tasks must start at the same time. Here the constraint is the start time. · Predecessor dependency This occurs when one task must start prior to another task. · Successor dependency This happens when a task is a continuation of another task. · Data dependency This is when a task cannot start until certain information is available. Parallel tasks may access shared data, which can be a dependency between tasks. Proper management is essential for correctness and to avoid problems such as race conditions and data corruptions. The Data Sharing pattern describes various methods for managing shared data. The goals are to ensure that tasks adhering to this pattern are thread safe and that the application remains scalable. When possible, tasks should consume thread-local data. Thread-local data is private to the task and not accessible from other tasks. Because of this isolation, thread-local data is exempt from most data-sharing constraints. However, tasks that use thread-local data might require shared data for consolidation, accumulation, or other types of reduction. Reduction is the consolidation of partial results from separate parallel operations into a single value. When the reduction is performed, access to the shared data must be coordinated through some mechanism, such as thread synchronization. This is explained in more detail later in this book. Sharing data is expensive. Proposed solutions to safely access shared data typically involve some sort of synchronization. The best solution for sharing data is not to share data. This includes copying the shared data to a thread-local variable. You can then access the data privately during a parallel operation. After the operation is complete, you can perform a replacement or some type of merge with the original shared data to minimize synchronization. The type of data access can affect the level of synchronization. Common data access types are summarized here: · Read-only This is preferred and frequently requires no synchronization. · Write-only You must have a policy to handle contention on the write. Alternatively, you can protect the data with exclusive locks. However, this can be expensive. An example of write-only is initializing a data collection from independent values. · Read-write The key word here is the write. Copy the data to a thread-local variable. Perform the update operation. Write results to the shared data, which might require some level of synchronization. If more reads are expected than writes, you might want to implement a more optimistic data sharing model—for example, spinning instead of locking. · Reduction The shared data is an accumulator. Copy the shared data to a thread-local variable. You can then perform an operation to generate a partial result. A reduction task is responsible for applying partial results to some sort of accumulator. Synchronization is limited to the reduction method, which is more efficient. This approach is can be used to calculate summations, averages, counts, maximum value, minimal value, and more. The result of the Finding Concurrency phase is a list of tasks, dependencies, and constraints for a parallel application. The phase also involves grouping related tasks and setting criteria for ordering tasks. In the Algorithm Structure phase, you select the algorithms you will use to execute the tasks. These are the algorithms that you will eventually implement for the program domain. The algorithms included in the Algorithm Structure pattern adhere to four principles. These algorithms must: · Make effective use of processors. · Be transparent and maintainable by others. · Be agnostic to hardware, operating system, and environment. · Be efficient and scalable. As mentioned, algorithms are implementation-agnostic. You might have constructs and features in your environment that help with parallel development and performance. The Implementation Mechanisms phase describes how to implement parallel patterns in your specific environment. The Algorithm Structure pattern introduces several patterns based on algorithms: · Task Parallelism Pattern Arrange tasks to run efficiently as independent parallel operations. Actually, having slightly more tasks than processor cores is preferable—especially for input/output bound tasks. Input/output bound tasks might become blocked during input/output operations. When this occurs, extra tasks might be needed to keep additional processor cores busy. · Divide and Conquer Pattern Decompose a serial operation into parallel subtasks, each of which returns a partial solution. These partial solutions are then reintegrated to calculate a complete solution. Synchronization is required during the reintegration but not during the entire operation. · Geometric Decomposition Pattern Reduce a data collection into chunks that are assigned the same parallel operation. Larger chunks can be harder to load balance, whereas smaller chunks are better for load balancing but are less efficient relative to parallelization overhead. · Recursive Data Pattern Perform parallel operations on recursive data structures, such as trees and link lists. · Pipeline Pattern Apply a sequence of parallel operations to a shared collection or independent data. The operations are ordered to form a pipeline of tasks that are applied to a data source. Each task in the pipeline represents a phase. You should have enough phases to keep each processor busy. At the start and end of pipeline operations, the pipeline might not be full. Otherwise, the pipeline is full with tasks and maximizes processor utilization. The Supporting Structures pattern describes several ways to organize the implementation of parallel code. Fortunately, several of these patterns are already implemented in the TPL as part of the .NET Framework. For example, the .NET Framework 4 thread pool is one implementation of the Master/Worker pattern. There are four Supporting Structures patterns: · SPMD (Single Program/Multiple Data) A single parallel operation is applied to multiple data sequences. In a parallel program, the processor cores often execute the same task on a collection of data. · Master/Worker The process (master) sets up a pool of executable units (workers), such as threads, that execute concurrently. There is also a collection of tasks whose execution is pending. Tasks are scheduled to run in parallel on available workers. In this manner, the workload can be balanced across multiple processors. The .NET Framework 4 thread pool provides an implementation of this pattern. · Loop Parallelism Iterations of a sequential loop are converted into separate parallel operations. Resolving dependencies between loop iterations is one of the challenges. Such dependencies were perhaps inconsequential in sequential applications but are problematic in a parallel version. The .Net Framework 4 provides various solutions for loop parallelism, including Parallel.For, Parallel.ForEach, and PLINQ (Parallel Language Integration Query). · Fork/Join Work is decomposed into separate tasks that complete some portion of the work. A unit of execution, such as a thread, spawns the separate tasks and then waits for them to complete. This is the pattern for the Parallel.Invoke method in the TPL. The Supporting Structure phase also involves patterns for sharing data between multiple parallel tasks: the Shared Data, Shared Queue, and Distributed Array patterns, These are also already implemented in the .NET Framework, available as collections in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace. Parallel programming techniques allow software applications to benefit from the rapid shift from single-core to multicore computers. Multicore computers will continue the growth in computing power as promised in Moore’s Law; however, the price for that continued growth is that developers have to be prepared to benefit from the shift in hardware architecture by learning parallel programming patterns and techniques. In the .NET Framework 4, Microsoft has elevated parallel programming to a core technology with the introduction of the Task Parallel Library (TPL). Previously, parallel programming was an extension of the .NET Framework. Parallel programming has also been added to LINQ as Parallel LINQ (PLINQ). The goal of parallel programming is to load balance the workload across all the available processor cores for maximum CPU utilization. Applications should scale as the number of processors increases in a multicore environment. Scaling will be less than linear relative to the number of cores, however, because other factors can affect performance. Multiple threads can run concurrently on the same processor core. When this occurs, the threads alternately use the processor by interleaving. There are benefits to concurrent execution, such as more responsive user interfaces, but interleaving is not parallel execution. On a multicore machine, the threads can truly execute in parallel—with each thread running on a separate processor. This is both concurrent and parallel execution. When oversubscription occurs, interleaving can occur even in a multicore environment. You can coordinate the actions of multiple threads with thread synchronization—For example, to access shared data safely. Some synchronization objects are lighter than others, so when possible, use critical sections for lightweight synchronization instead of semaphores or mutexes. Critical sections are especially helpful when the duration of contention is expected to be short. Another alternative is spinning, in the hope of avoiding a synchronization lock. Speedup predicts the performance increase from running an application in a multicore environment. Amdahl’s Law calculates speedup based on the number of processors and percentage of the application that runs parallel. Gustafson’s Law calculates real-world speedup. This includes using the performance dividend for more work and parallel overhead. Parallel computing is a mature concept with best practices and design patterns. The most important phase is Finding Concurrency. In this phase, you identify exploitable concurrency—the code most likely to benefit from parallelization. You can decompose your application into parallel tasks by using Task Decomposition and Data Decomposition patterns. Associations and dependencies between tasks are isolated in the Group Tasks and Order Tasks patterns. You can map tasks onto generic algorithms for concurrent execution in the Algorithm Structure pattern. The last phase, Implementation Mechanisms, is implemented in the TPL. In the next chapter, you will begin your exploration of the TPL with task parallelism. Implement parallel programming in.NET Framework 4 Leverage the TPL found in the System.Threading.Tasks namespace Use LINQ with parallel programing Calculate basic speedup Apply Amdahl’s Law Find potential concurrency in a problem domain Apply the Finding Concurrency pattern Resolve dependencies between parallel tasks Use the Data Sharing pattern Unroll sequential loops into parallel tasks Use the Loop Parallelism pattern
Satellite-based real-time monitoring of Himalayan glacial catchments would improve understanding of flood risk in the region and help inform an early flood warning system that could help curb disaster and save human lives, says a recent study. This should be the future strategy to reduce loss of human lives during glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF), said a study carried out by scientists from IIT Kanpur. The study carried out by Dr. Tanuj Shukla and Prof. Indra Sekhar Sen, Associate Professor from IIT Kanpur, with support from the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, has been published in the international journal ‘Science’. Temperature and the numbers of extreme rainfall events are rising at an increased rate because of climate change. Suitably called Earth’s “Third Pole”, the Himalayan region is home to the largest ice mass outside of the planet’s Polar Regions. The glaciers in the Himalayas are melting at a faster rate creating new lakes and expanding the existing ones. Besides, the rising temperatures and extreme precipitation events make the region increasingly prone to a variety of natural hazards, including devastating glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). GLOFs occur when either a natural dam containing a glacial lake bursts or when the lake’s level suddenly increases and overflows its banks, leading to catastrophic downstream destruction. For example, in 2013, an avalanche caused the glacial moraine holding back Chorabari Lake in northern India to give way, releasing a sudden torrent of water, boulders, and debris that scoured the river valley below, resulting in the deaths of more than 5,000 people. With climate change, these events are likely to increase in frequency and magnitude throughout the Himalayas. However, the remote, challenging Himalayan terrain and the overall lack of cellular connectivity throughout the region have made the development of early flood warning systems virtually impossible. In their recent work, the Scientists also point out that the surge of meltwater in mountain streams is most commonly caused by cloud-burst events during the monsoon season (June–July–August) time frame. However, the recent (7 February 2021) sudden surge of meltwater in the river tributary of the Ganga, Dhauli Ganga, during the dry season suggests that this time frame needs to be expanded. The catastrophe in the upper Dhauli Ganga basin is linked to processes other than precipitation events, such as snow avalanches, rock landslides, or other unidentified drivers, and therefore determining all of the potential major and minor drivers behind sudden surges of meltwater into headwater streams is vital for understanding the hazard profile of the region. The IIT Kanpur team suggests that efforts to help mitigate GLOF events in the future should include the creation of a network of satellite-based monitoring stations that could provide in situ and real-time data on GLOF risk. “The integration of monitoring devices with satellite networks will not only provide telemetry support in remote locations that lack complete cellular connectivity but will also provide greater connectivity in coverage in the cellular dead zones in extreme topographies such as valleys, cliffs, and steep slopes,” the authors explained. Publication link: DOI: 10.1126/science.abh3558 For more details, Prof. Indra Shekhar Sen (email@example.com) can be contacted.
The Ligurian Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea positioned between the northwestern coast of Italy, the southeastern coast of France, and to the north of the islands of Corsica and Elba. The western boundaries of the sea are an estimate at best, as mapping accuracy depends on where the sea actually ends, and there are many opinions for same. The distance from Pisa to Nice is 251 km (156 mi), and from Genoa to Elba is 207 km (129 mi). The max depth is estimated at more than 2,850 m (9,300 ft). Called "Mar Ligure" in Italian and "Mer Ligurienne" in French, Genoa and Livorno are its chief ports and the sea is well served by regional ferries.
This is a great resource for teachers. There are links to lessons on many subjects. There are so many digitized primary source materials from museums, libraries, and personal collections found on the Web. Learn how to use these materials to support lessons across the curriculum. Here you will find suggestions for locating and using primary sources in your classroom. There are also discussion questions for the class. The site is searchable by grade and subject, which I really like! This is a worksheet that students can use to analyze the information in the document(s). It's always helpful to have a document or graphic organizer for your students that will help them evaluate the information they are looking at. This is another great resource you can use for finding primary source documents and lesson ideas on a number of American History topics. Each topic includes a few primary sources along with some background information and follow-up activities. The Reading Like a Historian curriculum has done the work for you. Here you can search for your current topic and use a pre-made lesson plan or develop your own lessons using the documents included. You can view the plans and documents, but if you want to download them, you will have to create an account. These are document collections designed by teachers on a number of history topics. Digital Docs in a Box was designed for teachers in order to have a collection of documents readily available for use in the classroom. It's nice to have a small but ready-made set of documents to work with.
Philippine governmentIn order to reduce the load of the lower courts, local committees of citizens called Pacification Committees (Lupon Tagapamayapa) have been organized to effect extrajudicial settlement of minor cases between barangay residents. In each lupon (committee) there is a Conciliation Body (Pangkat Tagapagkasundo), the main... Judicial commission, Philippines Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
This article needs additional citations for verification . (October 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) \|Look up ovipositor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.\| The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typically its form is adapted to functions such as preparing a place for the egg, transmitting the egg, and then placing it properly. For insects, the organ is used merely to attach the egg to some surface, but for many parasitic species (primarily in wasps and other Hymenoptera), it is a piercing organ as well. Some ovipositors only retract partly when not in use, and the basal part that sticks out is known as the scape, or more specifically oviscape, the word scape deriving from the Latin word scāpus , meaning "stalk" or "shaft". Grasshoppers use their ovipositors to force a burrow into the earth to receive the eggs. Cicadas pierce the wood of twigs with their ovipositors to insert the eggs. Sawflies slit the tissues of plants by means of the ovipositor and so do some species of long-horned grasshoppers. In the ichneumon wasp genus Megarhyssa , the females have a slender ovipositor (terebra) several inches long that is used to drill into the wood of tree trunks.These species are parasitic in the larval stage on the larvae of horntail wasps, hence the egg must be deposited directly into the host's body as it is feeding. The ovipositors of Megarhyssa are among the longest egg-laying organs (relative to body size) known. The stingers of the Aculeata (wasps, hornets, bees, and ants) are ovipositors, highly modified and with associated venom glands. They are used to paralyze prey, or as defensive weapons. The penetrating sting plus venom allows the wasp to lay eggs with less risk of injury from the host. In some cases the injection also introduces virus particles that suppress the host's immune system and prevent it from destroying the eggs.However, in virtually all stinging Hymenoptera, the ovipositor is no longer used for egg-laying. An exception is the family Chrysididae, members of the Hymenoptera, in which species such as Chrysis ignita have reduced stinging apparatus and a functional ovipositor. Fig wasp ovipositors have specialized serrated teeth to penetrate fruits, but gall wasps have either uniform teeth or no teeth on their ovipositors, meaning the morphology of the organ is related to the life history. Members of the Dipteran (fly) families Tephritidae and Pyrgotidae have well-developed ovipositors that are partly retracted when not in use, with the part that sticks out being the oviscape. Oestridae, another family within Diptera, often have short hairy ovipositors, the species Cuterebra fontinella has one of the shortest within the family. Ovipositors exist not only in winged insects, but also in Apterygota, where the ovipositor has an additional function in gathering the spermatophore during mating. Little is known about the egg-laying habits of these insects in the wild. Female bitterlings in the genus Rhodeus have an ovipositor in the form of a tubular extension of the genital orifice. During breeding season, they use it when depositing eggs in the mantle cavity of freshwater mussels, where their eggs develop in reasonable security. Seahorses have an ovipositor for introducing eggs into the brood pouch of the male, who carries them until it is time to release the fry into a suitable situation in the open water. Hornets are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to their close relatives yellowjackets. Some species can reach up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by the relatively large top margin of the head and by the rounded segment of the abdomen just behind the waist. Worldwide, 22 species of Vespa are recognized. Most species only occur in the tropics of Asia, though the European hornet, is widely distributed throughout Europe, Russia, North America, and Northeast Asia. Wasps native to North America in the genus Dolichovespula are commonly referred to as hornets, but are actually yellowjackets. The Mutillidae are a family of more than 7,000 species of wasps whose wingless females resemble large, hairy ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair, which most often is bright scarlet or orange, but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colors serve as aposematic signals. They are known for their extremely painful stings,, hence the common name cow killer or cow ant. However, mutillids are not aggressive and sting only in defense. In addition, the actual toxicity of their venom is much lower than that of honey bees or harvester ants. Unlike true ants, they are solitary, and lack complex social systems. The Apocrita are a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" (petiole) formed between the first two segments of the actual abdomen; the first abdominal segment is fused to the thorax, and is called the propodeum. Therefore, it is general practice, when discussing the body of an apocritan in a technical sense, to refer to the mesosoma and metasoma rather than the "thorax" and "abdomen", respectively. The evolution of a constricted waist was an important adaption for the parasitoid lifestyle of the ancestral apocritan, allowing more maneuverability of the female's ovipositor. The ovipositor either extends freely or is retracted, and may be developed into a stinger for both defense and paralyzing prey. Larvae are legless and blind, and either feed inside a host or in a nest cell provisioned by their mothers. The superfamily Ichneumonoidea contains one extinct and three extant families, including the two largest families within Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae and Braconidae. The group is thought to contain as many as 100,000 species, many of which have not yet been described. Like other parasitoid wasps, they were long placed in the "Parasitica", variously considered as an infraorder or an unranked clade, now known to be paraphyletic. The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps or ichneumonids, is a parasitoid wasp family within the insect order Hymenoptera. This insect family is among the most species-rich branches of the tree of life. At the same time, it is one of the groups for which our knowledge most severely lags behind their actual diversity. The roughly 25,000 species described today probably represent less than a quarter of their true richness, but reliable estimates are lacking, as is much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution and evolution. Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. They thus fulfill an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control. A stinger is a sharp organ found in various animals capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal. Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga is a Costa Rican parasitoid wasp whose host is the spider Plesiometa argyra. The wasp is unusual in modifying the spider's web building behavior to make a web made of very strong lines designed to support the wasp's cocoon without breaking in the rain. Horntail or wood wasp is the common name for any of the 150 non-social species of the family Siricidae, of the order Hymenoptera, a type of xylophagous sawfly. This family was formerly believed to be the sole living representative of the superfamily Siricoidea, a group well represented in Paleogene and Mesozoic times, but the family Anaxyelidae has been linked to this group as well. Siricidae has two sub families, Siricinae and Tremecinae. Siricinae infest needle-leaved trees and Tremecinae infest broad-leaved trees. There are ten living genera placed in the family, and an additional three genera described from fossils. The last tergite of the abdomen has a strong, projecting spike, thus giving the group its common name. A typical adult horntail is brown, blue, or black with yellow parts, and may often reach up to 4 cm (1.6 in) long. The pigeon horntail can grow up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long, among the longest of all Hymenoptera. The Braconidae are a family of parasitoid wasps. After the closely related Ichneumonidae, braconids make up the second-largest family in the order Hymenoptera, with about 17,000 recognized species and many thousands more undescribed. One analysis estimated a total between 30,000 and 50,000, and another provided a narrower estimate between 42,000 and 43,000 species. Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causing the death of these hosts. Different species specialise in hosts from different insect orders, most often Lepidoptera, though some select beetles, flies, or bugs; the spider wasps (Pompilidae) exclusively attack spiders. Polistes gallicus is a fairly common species of paper wasp found in various parts of Europe, excluding England, Denmark, and Scandinavia, from warmer climates to cooler regions north of the Alps. Nests of these social insects are created in these various conditions. The Polistes species use an oral secretion to construct their nests, which consist of a combination of saliva and chewed plant fibers. This structural mixture physically protects the nest from various harsh elements and from weathering over time. Megarhyssa is a genus of large ichneumon wasps, with some species known for having the longest ovipositors of any insects. They are idiobiont endoparasitoids of the larvae of wood-boring horntail wasps. The ovipositor can be mistaken for a large stinger. A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as their common ancestor is shared by bees and ants. Many wasps, those in the clade Aculeata, can sting their insect prey. Xanthocryptus novozealandicus, the lemon tree borer parasite, is a wasp in the family Ichneumonidae. It is a native insect of New Zealand. It is also found in Australia and New Guinea. Females hunt for larvae of wood-boring beetles around March, including the lemon tree borer, a native cerambycid that tunnels into citrus trees, grapes and many native species. When a suitable host is found, the female pushes her ovipositor through the wood and injects her eggs into the grub. This has the incidental benefit of helping to control some pests. X. novozealandicus prefers to prey on second year lemon tree borer larvae. This specific parasite prefers to prey on larger second year larvae due to its larger size. Rhyssa persuasoria, the giant ichneumon, is a species belonging to the family Ichneumonidae subfamily Rhyssinae. Chrysis ignita, also known as the ruby-tailed wasp, is a species of cuckoo wasps. Cuckoo wasps are kleptoparasites – they lay their eggs in the nests of other wasp species and their young consume the eggs or larva of the host wasp for sustenance. These wasps have a number of adaptions which have evolved to equip them for their life cycle. Chrysis ignita parasitize mason bees in particular. Ruby-tailed wasps have metallic, armored bodies, and can roll up into balls to protect themselves from harm when infiltrating the nests of host bees and wasps. Unlike most other Hymenopterans, cuckoo wasps cannot sting. Chrysis ignita is found across the European continent. Megarhyssa macrurus, is a species of large ichneumon wasp. Pepsis grossa is a very large species of pepsine spider wasp from the southern part of North America, south to northern South America. It preys on tarantula spiders, giving rise to the name tarantula hawk for the wasps in the genus Pepsis and the related Hemipepsis. Only the females hunt, so only they are capable of delivering a sting, which is considered the second most painful of any insect sting; scoring 4.0 on the Schmidt sting pain index compared to the bullet ant's 4.0+. It is the state insect of New Mexico. The colour morphs are the xanthic orange-winged form and the melanic black winged form. In northern South America, a third form, known as "lygamorphic", has a dark base to the wings which have dark amber median patches and a pale tip. Cuterebra fontinella, the mouse bot fly, is a species of New World skin bot fly in the family Oestridae. C. fontinella is typically around 1 mm long with a black and yellow color pattern. C. fontinella develops by parasitizing nutrients from its host, typically the white-footed mouse. C. fontinella has even been known to parasitize humans in rare cases. Individuals parasitized by C. fontinella will develop a large bump on the skin that is indicative of parasitization. Vespula infernalis is an obligate parasitic wasp, parasitizing the nests of other species in the genus Vespula. Its common host species is V. acadica in North America. It is sometimes called the cuckoo yellowjacket wasp due to its inquiline lifestyle. They differ from other parasitic wasps in their intensely aggressive behaviour during invasion and occupation of the host colony. Several morphological adaptations such as bigger body parts and more curved sting shafts are observed in these wasps to aid their aggressive parasitic behaviour. Once they occupy a host's nest, V. infernalis are known to engage in mauling and chasing of host workers and forced trophallaxis. Female wasps will also force host workers to feed and take care of their brood. \|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ovipositor .\|
This is part of our ongoing The Best Kept Secrets to Healthy Aging spotlight. Each day, we will be posting some of the great information that’s packed into our book, The Best Kept Secrets to Healthy Aging. Polyphenols as Antioxidants Several polyphenols have direct antioxidant effects. Others are metabolized by bacteria in our intestines. These metabolites are absorbed into the bloodstream and they influence cell-signaling processes that lead to immune-supporting effects and free radical-scavenging effects. Polyphenols are the most abundant antioxidants in the diet. Typically, the total dietary intake of polyphenols is about 10 times higher than the intake of vitamin C and 100 times higher that the intakes of vitamin E and carotenoids. By themselves, the anthocyanins often contribute more than half of the total antioxidant activity of the diet.21 The polyphenols not only directly detoxify potentially oxidizing substances within the body, they increase the body’s inherent antioxidant defenses. For example, an important mechanism by which polyphenols enhance antioxidant defenses in the body is through stimulating the synthesis of glutathione, the major antioxidant enzyme within human cells.22 As antioxidants, polyphenols display a dual nature – directly blocking oxidation themselves and recruiting more natural defense systems into the fray. A considerable body of scientific literature underlines the important role of combating oxidative stress in the maintenance of optimal cell, tissue, organ and body-wide healthy function. Although the complex relationships between antioxidant status and healthy aging are still poorly understood and are being studied intensively, it is clear that the polyphenolic phytonutrients protect cell constituents against oxidative damage by virtue of their powerful antioxidant potency. They also help prevent oxidation from occurring. New research findings published in Clinical Chemistry show that low-density lipoproteins (LDL) that have had resveratrol added to them by the liver are resistant to oxidation.23 Unoxidized LDL can be removed from the body safely without harm to the cardiovascular system.24 Our ability to increase our own antioxidant prowess was recently demonstrated by the results of a study published in the Journal of Nutrition.25 In this study, the greater the number of different fruits and vegetables in the diet, the more effective the mix was in improving the body’s antioxidant status. Women who ate on average 8 servings a day of a broad range of fruits and vegetables, providing an array of polyphenolic phytonutrients, increased their antioxidant status more than women who ate on average 9 servings a day of just a few fruits and vegetables. This finding reinforces the message that the more diverse and polyphenol-rich the diet, the healthier one is likely to be. It also speaks to the fact that one should consume a variety of brightly colored foods for health. After all, a variety of polyphenols are responsible for the range of beautiful, bright colors seen in fruits and vegetables. Polyphenols can be the champions of your antioxidant defense system – and the more polyphenols you consume, the stronger your defenses. Next Best Kept Secrets to Healthy Aging topic: Polyphenols – More Reasons to Love Fruits and Vegetables 21. Prior RL. Fruits and vegetables in the prevention of cellular oxidative damage. Am J Clin Nutr 2003;78:(Suppl.):570S-578S. 22. Moskaug JO, Carlsen H, Myhrstad MC, Blomhoff R. Polyphenols and glutathione synthesis regulation. Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81Suppl.):277S-283S. 23. Urpi-Sarda M, Zamora-Ros R, Lamuela-Raventos R, Cherubini A, Jauregui O, de la Torre R, Covas MI, Estruch R, Jaeger W, Andres- Lacueva C. HPLC-Tandem mass spectrometric method to characterize resveratrol metabolism in humans. Clin Chem 2007;53:292-299. 24. Carluccio MA, Siculella L, Ancora MA, Massaro M, Scoditti E, Storelli C, Visioli F, Distante A, De Caterina R. Olive oil and red wine antioxidant polyphenols inhibit endothelial activation: Antiatherogenic properties of Mediterranean diet phytochemicals. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2003;23:622-629. 25. Thompson HJ, Heimendinger J, Diker A, O’Neill C, Haegele A, Meinecke B, Wolfe P, Sedlacek S, Zhu Z, Jiang W. Dietary botanical diversity affects the reduction of oxidative biomarkers in women due to high vegetable and fruit intake. J Nutr 2006;136:2207-2212.
About Solar - 10 Solar Facts 1. Solar energy is a completely free source of energy and the beauty is that it is found in abundance. Although the sun is 90 million miles from the earth, it takes less than 10 minutes for light emitted from it to travel to the planet. 2. Renewable energy sources are the key to the future of the world. The oil crises of 1970 highlighted the unstable and fragile nature of relying fossil fuels for energy. Renewable energy sources are both ecologically and economically beneficial. 3. The use of solar energy has no negative effects on the environment, unlike fossil fuels, which deplete the earth’s ozone layer. 4. California's Mojave Dessert is home to the largest solar power plant in the world, spanning an incredible 1,000 acres. 5. Solar power is silent. No sound is emmitted from having solar panels on your house. 6. Battery back ups allow you to store your solar energy. Solar power can then be used at anytime and on-demand, even on cloudy days. 7. The cost to install solar panels for your home has decreased by about 14% since 2012 and they are about half the price they were back 2008. 8. A 2011 research study calculated the cost savings for the average Californian who switched to solar to be $34,260 over a 20-year period. 9. Solar energy is the only energy source currently in existence that requires no moving parts to operate. 10. Once installed, solar panels are virtually maintenance. Their batteries require no water or other regular service and will last for years. After installation, there are no recurring costs associated with solar panels. Talk about a time savings as well!
What is a Knowledge Summary? In the veterinary profession, as in human medicine, a great deal of time is spent making decisions in a complex and often uncertain environment. Family physicians may need answers for up to 333,000 questions per year. For veterinary practitioners dealing with more than just one animal species, the need for answers are bound to be as numerous. The challenge to keep up with the latest research is immense. The interface between practitioners and evidence-based resources can be strengthened by the use of Critically Appraised Topics (CATs). [2,3] These are short critical summaries of the best available information on a defined clinical question. They provide a concise conclusion which should be easily accessible by clinical staff. We have decided to call these CATs “Knowledge Summaries” (so as not to be confused with the cat species) in that they are summarised resources to address information needs. What if there is insufficient evidence to answer my clinical question? If no primary research literature is found following a search of the literature then that is an important finding. Particularly if it is an important and common question that can have a high impact on patient care. The value of finding a lack of evidence (little or no published literature) is often underestimated and overlooked - it is a key finding to drive further research and informs the current knowledge or lack of. We are of the stance that a Knowledge Summary with no evidence or not enough evidence is still a valuable outcome that should be shared with the community. How can I get started with writing a Knowledge Summary? The following resources have been created by RCVS Knowledge to help guide authors with writing a Knowledge Summary. For any queries or for more guidance and information please contact the editorial office. 6 steps to writing a Knowledge Summary Read our bite-size guide 6 steps to writing a Knowledge Summary for an overview of the Knowledge Summary writing process. This guide covers the main steps and provides links to more in-depth resources. Guidance for writing the clinical bottom line As part of your Knowledge Summary you will be asked to write a clinical bottom line. The following guidance will help you to write this section: Guidance for writing the Clinical Bottom Line Knowledge Summary handbook The Knowledge Summary handbook provides detailed instruction on every aspect of writing a Knowledge Summary: Knowledge Summary handbook PDF. EBVM learning tutorial This tutorial introduces the concepts of Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM), and aims to give you a foundation from which you can write a Knowledge Summary and start to apply EBVM to your own veterinary work: http://www.ebvmlearning.org The EBVM Toolkit is designed to help busy veterinary practitioners answer a clinical question with the best available evidence. We hope this Toolkit will be useful for daily evidence-based practice – and that practitioners will share the answers they’ve found with their colleagues, by writing a Knowledge Summary and submitting it to Veterinary Evidence.
Copy Editor’s Corner \| Blogpostapostrophe As copy editors, we work with words day in and day out, and we sometimes forget how confusing proofreading marks, punctuation, and style rules can be. Lately, a rash of people have been puzzled by a common mark, the apostrophe. Which direction does an apostrophe point? What do you mean by a “smart” apostrophe? How do I fix a backward apostrophe? Getting most of our information on the Internet means we sometimes run across characters copy editors would itch to mark up. Since an apostrophe doesn’t always properly paste into HTML from a Word document, it can show up online as a straight mark (more like an inch mark). But an apostrophe should have a curled look (a “smart” apostrophe), and point in only one direction: An apostrophe imposter is the single opening quote mark, which is also curly but faces the opposite direction. It can be tricky when two apostrophes appear in, say, “rock ’n’ roll.” To avoid being wrongly auto-corrected by your word processor and forced to use a single opening quotation mark where an apostrophe belongs, you can either insert it as a character or type two apostrophes in a row and delete the one you don’t need.
Healthy eating is an important part of looking after yourself after your cancer treatment ends. There’s a lot of information in the media about different foods and diets that are good for cancer and this can be overwhelming. It can be difficult to know what to eat and what to avoid. A healthy, balanced diet with a range of fresh food from the five major food groups is recommended to help you feel better, maintain a healthy weight and have more energy. You may not feel like eating or have problems with your mouth or teeth. Food may also not taste the same. Tips for healthy eating after cancer - Soups, smoothies and juices can be easy and simple ways of taking in good nutrition. - If you’re too tired to cook, ask a friend who wants to help to make you a healthy meal in portions to freeze for those times when you’re not up to it. - Have some healthy snacks on hand for in-between meals – some fruit, a tub of chopped raw vegetables in the fridge, a pack of nuts or a muesli bar. - Avoid processed or tinned foods as much as possible – fresh is best. - Spend some time in a health food shop or in the health food section of your local supermarket and have fun experimenting with new foods. - Take time to enjoy and savour your food – eating without the TV on can be helpful. - Food supplements can be helpful, but are generally a poor substitute for the food itself. - Make sure any changes you make to your diet are ones that you find enjoyable – it’s no good eating or drinking something if you don’t like it. Living with cancer has other tips to help with eating problems and help with side effects such as nausea, vomiting and mouth sores that can affect your eating. More information about healthy eating and cancer Several state and territory Cancer Councils produce booklets about diet and cancer (call the Cancer Council Helpline on 13•11•20. You can also get detailed advice on your particular needs from an accredited practising dietitian.
“Ultrasound is good for more than monitoring fetuses and identifying heart defects. According to engineers in Canada, it can help tell what people are thinking as well. This is an interesting new route to get closer to the information processing that is happening in our brain. So far most experiments focused on electrical brain activity measurements. And the results have been promising. But this new approach opens many more possibilities (and involves fewer cables). Who knows how long we will still be using keyboards and mice. We might be able to page through an article on the iPad with the mere touch of a thought. Listen carefully to the high-pitch noise from the person next to you. Maybe he is ordering a pizza online by just imagining the crunchy crust and the succulent toppings. - Ultrasound for Mind Reading (spectrum.ieee.org) - Mind Control Secrets – news - DARPA Wants to Install Transcranial Ultrasonic Mind Control Devices in Soldiers’ Helmets - Technology – NeuroVigil iBrain mind-reading tech is big business - Sound Waves For Brain Waves – IEEE Spectrum - A Brain-Computer Interface Based on Bilateral Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound
Dribbling helps children develop hand-eye coordination, body awareness, rhythm and timing, and agility. It may seem like a tedious activity at first glance, but once your child gets into a rhythm, he'll be absorbed by the game and won't want to stop! As he progresses in skill, he'll even start performing tricks with the ball that are sure to impress. What You Do: - Start by having your child dribble the ball in front of and a little to the side of his body. For good dribbling technique, advise your child to use his fingertips, rather than his palm, to control the ball. He should keep his wrist relatively stiff and his elbow flexible. - Have your child begin slowly, counting as he bounces to help him establish a steady rhythm. This technique is especially helpful for beginning dribblers. - As your child grows more confident in his dribbling ability, vary the count by counting up and down or even using the letters of the alphabet. - When your child has good control of the ball, have him walk forward while dribbling, pausing every so often. When he's ready, suggest more difficult tricks for him to try. Here are a few examples: - Switch: Alternate dribbling the ball with the right and left hand. - Bounce Low: Try to maintain a dribble below the knees. - Bounce Medium: Maintain a waist-high dribble. - Ziggy Zaggy: Move in a zigzag path while dribbling. Draw a path on the ground with sidewalk chalk for your child to follow (optional). - Left, Right, Forward, Backward, Stop, Go, Curve, Circle: Call out directions in any order and have your child follow them while he dribbles the ball. - Count Up: Maintain a dribble for as long as possible, counting each bounce as you go. - Word Spell: Spell out simple words while dribbling, calling out one letter per bounce. You can also write words on the ground with sidewalk chalk and have your child bounce the ball on each letter as he calls them out (optional). Once he's a dribbling master, encourage him to invent his own tricks to wow his friends and classmates.
There are various image editing tools available on Linux. Many of them are in fact pretty good but there is one that shines out of the rest. The tool that I am talking about is GIMP. It is a powerful image editing tool that can be used for editing professional quality images. GIMP image editor has lots and lots of option which may seem confusing to a beginner. So, In this article we will discuss and explain some basic editing tools of GIMP image editor. GIMP Image Editor GIMP is an open source and free-ware program for photo editing and image manipulation which can be used for viewing, editing and enhancing your pictures. This software is loaded with basic to complex image manipulation features which makes it a great program for beginners as well as professionals. Although it has intuitive user interface but it may take you some time to get fully accustomed to this program as it is bundled with features. User can open unlimited number of images at one time with its tile based memory management. With more than 150 standard filters and effects, GIMP can enhance your pictures like a professional image editor. GIMP is expandable with more than 100 extensions already available in plug-in browser and user can also customize this program according to the requirement. It has advanced capabilities like Perl, Python etc. and it can automate its operations with scripting languages. GIMP supports multiple file formats for loading, conversion, displaying and saving. GIMP is embedded with advanced features for image manipulation e.g. layers, full alpha channel support etc. but we will focus on its basic painting and image editing part for beginners. Here is how GIMP image editor looks (with an image opened for editing) : Basic editing tools GIMP contains a complete set of painting tools which are required for image editing. For editing, you need to drop an image in GIMP default box and start. You can select your editing tool from toolbox at the right. Toolbox has multiple tools for performing different functions which are described below. Selection tools are used for selecting a particular area in picture for editing. Selection tools include: - Rectangle select tool for selecting a rectangular region. - Ellipse select tool for selecting an elliptical region. - Free select tool for selecting a hand-drawn region with free and polygonal segments. - Fuzzy select tool for selecting a contiguous region on the basis of colour. - Select by Colour tool for selecting regions with similar colours, - Scissors select tool for selecting shapes using intelligent edge fitting. - Foreground select tool for selecting a region containing foreground objects. For selection tools, see the tool icons marked with RED in the image below. Paint tools are used for painting specific or selected areas. Paint tools include: - Bucket fill tool which is used to fill selected area with a colour or pattern. - Blend tool which fills selected area with a colour gradient. - Pencil tool for painting hard edges. - Paint brush for smooth strokes of paint. - Eraser tool for erasing. - Airbrush tool which is used for painting with variable pressure. - Ink tool for calligraphy. - Clone tool for cloning purposes. - Healing tool for healing image irregularities. - Blur/Sharpen tool for sharpening images. - Smudge tool to smudge colours on a selection. - Dodge/burn tool for lightening or darkening the selective area using a brush. For paint tools, see the tool icons marked with RED in the image below. Transform tools are used for transforming the picture or the selected area. Transform tools include : - Rotate tool for rotating the picture or selected area. - Move tool for moving the layer or selection. - Alignment tool for adjusting the alignment of image - Crop tool for removing edge areas. - Scale tool for scaling(setting height and width) layers, selections or path - Shear tool for shifting one part of the image to a direction and other part to opposite direction - Perspective tool for changing the perspective of layer, selection or path. - Flip tool for reversing the layer or path horizontally or vertically. For transform tools, see the tool icons marked with RED in the image below. These include : - Colour tools for colour balance, hue-saturation, colourization, posterization, bright-contrast etc. - Text tool for editing or creating text layer. - Zoom tool for adjusting zoom layer. - Paths tool for creating and editing paths. - Colour picker tool for setting colours from image pixels. - Measure tool for measuring distances and angles etc. For more tools, see the tool icons marked with RED in the image below. How to use these tools To edit an image, go to the selection tools and select an area that you want to edit. Once you have selected the area, you can select to paint it using paint tools or transform it using transform tools. You can change the colours, levels, zoom the picture, add text and even remove the objects from the picture. For saving the changes, you can select the save option in file or if you don’t want to save the change, go for revert option in file. In the next article of this series, we will cover advance features/tools of GIMP image editor
On a typical keyboard, why is the 0 in the number row next to the 9 instead of the 1? This seems like a question which should have a straight-forward answer, but the only one I could find is this yahoo question which has two instances of entirely unsourced speculation as answers. (0 as 10, and because 0 is rarely at the start of a number) To complicate things, the wikipedia article adds that 0 and 1 were omitted to simplify the design and reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the uppercase letter I (or lowercase letter L) for the digit one, and the uppercase O for the zero. One might speculate that the 0 is placed where it is because of it's proximity to the O, but since the 1 was added down at the other end (nowhere near the I), it would have made just as much sense to put 0 down there too. Almost every keyboard layout I've seen listed on wikipedia is this way, even the ones which don't use latin script at all. Only the Hungarian one (thanks, Gildas) puts 0 before the 1. This may be due to inheriting from latin-alphabet keyboards, though. Anyone have an explanation for this oddity? Or specific sources backing up the yahoo theories? Edit: Based on everyone's answers, I've done more research and come up with what I think is the logical explanation. I don't have specific sources to cite, though, so I'm still open to an "official" answer, if anyone has one.
The Despicable Cosmo Moralist of Civil Rights Lovefest The National Assembly is the foundation and center of power in the government of our glorious Republic. 256 legislators are elected to the Assembly for four-year terms by the people based on population levels in election districts. Each district elects at least two legislators. Every two years, an election for new legislators is held. Terms overlap so that half of the Assembly is subject to recycling every two years. The legislators are responsible for making and passing law or mandates to the Constitutional Court, and for electing most executive officers, including the Chairman of the government's major organizations. The only checks on the Assembly's power are the Constitutional Court and the People's Independent Militia. The first processes laws, checking for unconstitutional aspects. The second is a civilian organization that watches the government for oppressive behavior. The National Assembly in Independence
MinervaBMJ 2000; 320 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7235.658 (Published 04 March 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;320:658 Tuberculosis infects a third of the world's population, but for decades it has been neglected by drug companies reluctant to invest in the developing world. A new alliance of manufacturers, scientists, and donor agencies has pledged to end all that by developing at least one new anti-tuberculosis drug by 2007 (Nature2000;403:692). A second new drug is promised by 2012. Retracted papers should ideally disappear from the literature because their findings are unreliable and, in the worst cases, dangerous. Most, however, remain highly visible despite retraction declarations in the original journal and on Medline (Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1999;87:437-43). Citations continue—even increase—after retraction, according to one study, which also notes that many libraries make little effort to notify users of retractions. Electronic publication may make it easier: bad apples can simply be deleted from websites. Eye gouging sounds nasty, and it is. One unlucky rugby player ended up with a giant retinal tear after an opponent stuck a thumb in his eye during a dirty tackle and put pressure on his eyeball for several seconds (British Journal of Sports Medicine 2000;34: 65-6). Ophthalmologists repaired the tear, leaving the player with decent but not perfect vision. It could have been far worse, …
Every year, people set goals such as losing weight, decreasing their spending, increasing their earnings, or to just be an all-around better person. While over 40% of the population sets goals for the new year, only 8% of those who set goals actually achieve them. This is a fairly dismal percentage. Instead of setting lofty goals that are doomed for failure, why not set smaller goals that could make a real difference on your future investments? Asset allocation might sound like a complex term, but it’s not. Asset allocation simply describes what portion of your money is invested in various asset classes. If 70% of the funds are in stocks and 30% are in bonds, then your asset allocation is 70:30, stocks to bonds. By owning stock, one actually owns a portion of a company (which is why it is often referred to as an equity). By owning a bond, an individual is actually a lender to a company and typically receives interest on the principle. Between these two types of allocations, stocks are often considered to be higher risk than bonds because of the larger volatility in the market. Higher risk can lead to greater returns, which is why a common approach investors utilize is to consider a higher weighting in equities versus bonds early in your career, and increase the weighting in bonds as you approach retirement, depending on your personal risk tolerance. Within the past 10 years, growth in the stock market has surpassed the bond market as seen in the chart below. The bond market as a whole has shown stability during upswings in the stock market, and has shown relative growth during the down stock markets. In total, the stock market has certainly been more volatile in the past 10 years, but has also been more profitable. The Traditional Rule of Thumb There are many different asset allocation models you can consider to see which might be right for you. Once of the simplest is the old rule of thumb, which is calculated with simple subtraction. Individuals would subtract their age from 100, to quickly discover what percent of their portfolio should be comprised of stocks. The remaining percent would therefore be made up on bonds. As an example, a 30 year old investor could use this guide to invest 70% of his/her portfolio in stocks and 30% in bonds. This traditional rule of thumb is just a guide for the average investor that would like to decrease the risk of their investment portfolio losing value as they grow older. While it does make sense that one would like to be more protective of their money as they age, is this traditional rule of thumb still valid today? Some argue that it is outdated because of one simple factor: people are living longer. The Updated Rule of Thumb With an increased average lifespan, many retirees are realizing that their money might not last. Due to this realization, some have adjusted their rule of thumb model to subtract their age from 120 instead of 100 to shift their asset allocation from stocks into bonds more slowly. This adjustment keeps investors more heavily into stocks for 20 years longer than the traditional rule of thumb. This updated rule of thumb can increase the chance of a larger retirement fund but it can also increases risk. Create Your Own Rule of Thumb While both the old and new rule of thumb can be helpful in deciding your asset allocation goals by age, they do not apply to everyone. Some individuals may still be working at age 70 because they have a need to increase their retirement fund. Because of this need, they might also consider it in their best interest to allocate a greater portion of their investments to the stock market. Others, however, might have already accumulated a very large nest egg by age 40 and may wish to protect it from the volatility of the stock market. For them, a reduced allocation in the stock market might be better suited to their desire for lower risk. There are other factors that could influence asset allocation as well. Besides age and the size of your retirement portfolio, your ability to withstand risk plays a large role. There are some that simply can’t sleep at night if their investments are at risk. Due to their discomfort with market fluctuations, risk averse individuals may choose to invest heavily in bonds and other more secure investments, and might avoid stocks entirely. Remember to Maintain Your Allocation Having a goal to adjust the allocation of your investments as you age is often encouraged, and is one method that can help reduce surprises to your retirement account and help you prepare for the future. After deciding what allocation percent is best for you, maintaining that allocation by rebalancing is incredibly important. With constant market fluctuations, keep in mind that rebalancing is typically required to maintain your desired allocation ratio. Some asset allocation products require investors to choose from predefined models that are unchangeable, which often include overlapped asset classes. Motif Investing, however, offers customizable Horizon asset allocation models, which are aimed to provide an enhanced, low-cost, and diversified solution. There are currently nine Horizon models amongst 17 asset allocation motifs available. You can trade any of the nine professionally-built Horizon motifs commission-free or customize them to your needs and pay just $9.95 total commission. The Exchange Traded Funds prospectus contains its investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and other important information you should read and consider carefully prior to making an investment decision. Please review the current prospectus, available from the Prospectus link or by contacting Motif either by phone at 855-586-6843, email at email@example.com, or in writing at Motif Investing, Inc., P.O. Box 3548, Rancho Cordova, CA 95741. ETFs have unique features that you should be aware of, which can include distribution of any gains, risks related to securities within the portfolio, and tax consequences. The data quoted herein represents past performance and is not indicative of future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that your investment, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original value. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data provided. Please review the prospectus or other research tools provided on this site for more recent performance information. ETFs purchase through Motif incur management fees applied by the offering Fund managers. Please refer to the prospectus for information regarding the fees that apply, including the management fee. Contact Motif Investing at 1-855-586-6843 to obtain the most recent month-end performance data. Horizon motifs provide investors with a starting point to consider in allocating assets within their larger portfolio. However, Horizon motifs should not be considered a recommended strategy or comprehensive solution to your overall investing needs. There are many considerations when structuring your portfolio, such as cash needs, family-planning needs, tax and estate planning strategies. Motif does not provide any investment, tax, or legal advice and suggest you contact your own investment, tax, or legal advisor for further information your investment strategy. $0.00 commission for trades (buys, sells, following rebalances) for the benchmark versions of the nine Motif-created Asset Allocation Horizon motifs. Commissions for any Horizon motifs that are customized in any way – adjust weighting, add or remove securities, choose not to follow a rebalance event, will include a $9.95 total commission per motif transaction or pay $4.95 per stock for individual stock/ETF transactions.
We people fear predators, particularly big cats such as the lion, cheetah, and leopard. We are often taught to fear carnivores without being sympathetic to their unique behaviors, and special adaptations, and crucial roles in the maintenance of healthy ecosystems. Our attitude and misreading about these species have lead to their endangerment because a lot of peoples agreement with their fear by eliminates predators. Endangered species exist in low-population numbers and need intensive long-term management in order to continue to exist . Attitudes toward predators must be changed if we hope to save endanger species such as the cheetah. By learning the reasons why species are endangered, we can all learn how healthy ecosystem is crucial and what will occur if we continue to pollute the environment and demolish habitats. Through ecological education, we can all work together to change the attitude and behaviors that have led to the endangerment of predator species and help save them from destruction , Individuals can make a difference! BELOW ARE SOME LINKS TO PHOTO GALERIES OF BIG CATSIN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT
The global appetite for energy seems insatiable. Fuel consumption is set to increase almost 50% by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency, driven by economic growth and a rising population. Yet the unwanted side effects of energy use are becoming harder to ignore. Air pollution contributes to around three million premature deaths a year. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) fears the death toll may climb to nine million by 2060. And global warming threatens to weigh on crop yields, water quality, and ultimately global growth. Confronting these challenges, governments have started to incorporate efficiency targets into their energy strategies. The default option when countries need more power has been to produce more – often committing to a multi-billion-dollar power plant that would operate for many decades. But it can be far more cost-effective to squeeze out waste. Energy efficiency: The world’s "first" fuel All of the energy challenges that nations confront can be helped by improving efficiency. Only some nations have coal or oil, but every country has the potential to exploit efficiency. For that reason it can be considered the world’s first fuel. The EU, for example, has set itself the goal of becoming 20% more energy efficient by 2020 – which equates to turning off 400 power stations. The BRIC nations are also making a determined effort to reduce their CO2 emissions and improve energy efficiency. Russia, for example, announced a few years ago its goal of boosting energy intensity by 44% between 2005 and 2030. Brazil is targeting 10% efficiency gains in the electricity sector by 2030. And China aims to reduce CO2 intensity per unit of GDP by around 65% between 2005 to 2030. This is part of a global drive. Energy standards now cover 30% of fuel used worldwide, according to the IEA, up from 11% in 2000. The race to meet regulation Energy-saving products and services markets are forecast to grow as fast as 7–8% a year in the coming two decades, according to the IEA. That is a leap in annual spending from USD 130bn in 2013 to USD 550bn in 2035. A key focus will be upgrading buildings, which account for 40% of total global energy demand. "There can be incredible waste in commercial buildings, with heating and air-conditioning systems being run on the same day and lights or computers being left on through the night or over weekends," explains Jim Barrett, chief economist of the American Council on an Energy Efficient Economy. Smart buildings have centralized systems that control these environmental systems. As standards improve, firms that coordinate these processes – turning lights and computers off when the last worker leaves – can realize even greater efficiency. In the US, it costs just three cents on average to save a kilowatt-hour through energy-efficiency measures, versus around 10 cents on average for electricity generation, according to research by the ACEEE (The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy). Nations like Switzerland and Japan, which have limited domestic fuel resources, have been trailblazers here, achieving major efficiency gains that others can emulate. The road to clear skies Only about 25% of the energy contained in gasoline reaches the wheels of today’s average vehicle. Transport accounts for another 30% of global energy demand. The implementation of standards for car fuel economy have already saved the equivalent of 2.3 million barrels of oil a day – approximately the output of Brazil. Yet only about 25% of the energy contained in gasoline reaches the wheels of today’s average vehicle, according to US Department of Energy data. Electric cars, with a conversion ratio near 60%, have the potential to increase transport efficiency even more. Companies that offer cloud computing services could also benefit from the push for energy thrift. "Instead of maintaining energy-guzzling servers, which are often underutilized, companies can let cloud providers that efficiently pool resources run their IT infrastructure," says Sundeep Gantori, an analyst for the CIO. Various studies suggest this could more than halve businesses’ energy consumption. Another major challenge is trimming waste when transmitting electricity. ABB estimates that 80% of electricity is lost between resource extraction and final use. Such inefficiency is an even more pressing issue in Africa, where power outages are the bane of businesses Rich and poor countries alike are already cutting waste. The US economy has grown by 150% over the past 25 years, yet energy use rose just 26%. Global energy intensity – the amount of energy used per unit of GDP – improved by 1.8% in 2015, the IEA calculates. But far more needs to be done. Progress on energy intensity needs to be 50% faster than at present to meet the Paris Agreement goals on climate change, according to the IEA. As governments focus on climate, pollution, and energy-security goals, the appetite to invest in companies that help reduce energy waste looks set to increase. Energy efficiency report Click below to sign-up for more investment views. Waste management and recycling Low waste treatment rates in emerging markets offer big catch-up potential that could lead to extraordinary growth rates. Water scarcity is one of the biggest risks to mankind. If limited water resources can be better harnessed, the benefits could be enormous. Clean air and carbon reduction Rising populations and urbanization are fueling the need for clean-air technologies. Solution providers targeting emissions reductions stand to benefit.
A Turkish doctor warned Friday that an increase in screen time among children during the coronavirus pandemic is negatively affecting their sleep pattern and quality. “Digital habits cause serious problems in sleep duration and sleep latency, which are much more important especially in childhood,” Vural Fidan, head of the Sleep Society of Turkey (TUTDER), told Anadolu Agency. Fidan also said it causes problems in hormones that maintain the balance of the body, especially the growth hormone released during sleep. When parents increased their screen time, he said, children too began spending more time on mobile phones and tablets. This increased even in children under two years. In order to protect children from these harmful effects on their mental and physical growth, he advised parents to read books to their children. Children should be especially kept away from screens at night to promote quality sleep, he added. Since it originated in China in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 1.89 million lives in 191 countries and regions. More than 89.07 million cases have been reported worldwide, with more than 49.10 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University. To curb its spread, many countries have enforced lockdowns and curfews and closed schools leading to prolonged hours in the house.
PARIS – France’s role before and during the 1994 Rwandan genocide was a “monumental failure” that the country must acknowledge, the lead author of a report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron said, as the country is about to open its archives from this period to the public. The report, published in March, concluded that French authorities remained blind to the preparations for genocide as they supported the “racist” and “violent” government of then-Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and then reacted too slowly in appreciating the extent of the killings. But it cleared them of complicity in the slaughter that left over 800,000 people dead, mainly ethnic Tutsis and the Hutus who tried to protect them. Macron's decision to commission the report — and open the archives to the public — are part of his efforts to more fully confront the French role in the genocide and to improve relations with Rwanda, including making April 7, the day the massacre began, a day of commemoration. While long overdue, the moves may finally help the two countries reconcile. Historian Vincent Duclert, who led the commission that studied France's actions in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, told The Associated Press that “for 30 years, the debate on Rwanda was full of lies, violence, manipulations, threats of trials. That was a suffocating atmosphere.” Duclert said it was important to acknowledge France’s role for what it was: a “monumental failure.” “Now we must speak the truth,” he added. "And that truth will allow, we hope, (France) to get a dialogue and a reconciliation with Rwanda and Africa.” Macron said in a statement that the report marks “a major step forward” toward understanding France’s actions in Rwanda. About 8,000 archive documents that the commission examined for two years, including some that were previously classified, will be made accessible to the general public starting Wednesday, the 27th anniversary of the start of the killings. Duclert said documents — mostly from the French presidency and the prime minister’s office — show how then-President Francois Mitterrand and the small group of diplomats and military officials surrounding him shared views inherited from colonial times, including the desire to maintain influence on a French-speaking country, that led them to keep supporting Habyarimana despite warning signs, including through delivery of weapons and military training in the years prior to the genocide. “Instead of ultimately supporting the democratization and peace in Rwanda, the French authorities in Rwanda supported the ethnicization, the radicalization of (Habyarimana's) government," Duclert stressed. France was “not complicit in the criminal act of genocide,” he said, but “its action contributed to strengthening (the genocide’s) mechanisms.” “And that’s an enormous intellectual responsibility,” he said. The report also criticized France’s “passive policy” in April and May 1994, at the height of the genocide. That was a “terrible lost opportunity,” Duclert noted. “In 1994, there was a possibility to stop the genocide ... and it did not happen. France and the world bear a considerable guilt.” Eventually they did step in. Operation Turquoise, a French-led military intervention backed by the U.N., started on June 22. Duclert said that France's “blindness must be questioned and, maybe, brought to trial,” though he insisted it was not the commission’s role to suggest charges. The report was welcomed as an important step by activists who had long hoped France would officially acknowledge its responsibilities in the genocide. On a visit to Rwanda in 2010, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted that his country had made “errors of judgment” and “political errors" regarding the genocide — but the report may allow Macron to go further. Dafroza Gauthier, a Rwandan who lost more than 80 members of her family in the mass killing, welcomed it as a “a great document against genocide denial.” “For 27 years, or longer, we were in a kind of fog," said Gauthier, who with her husband, Alain, founded the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda, a French-based group that seeks the prosecution of alleged perpetrators of the genocide. “The report is clearly stating things.” There also may be a shift in the attitude of Rwandan authorities, who welcomed the report in a brief statement but have given no detailed response. They said the conclusions of their own report, to be released soon, “will complement and enrich” it. That’s different from Rwanda’s firm assertions of French complicity as recently as 2017. Relations between the two countries, strained for years since the genocide, have improved under Macron’s presidency. Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan long wanted for his alleged role in supplying machetes to the killers, was arrested outside Paris last May. And in July an appeals court in Paris upheld a decision to end a years-long investigation into the plane crash that killed Habyarimana and set off the genocide. That probe aggravated Rwanda’s government because it targeted several people close to President Paul Kagame for their alleged role, charges they denied. It now appears Rwandan authorities will accept “the olive branch” from Paris, said Dismas Nkunda, head of the watchdog group Atrocities Watch Africa who covered the genocide as a journalist. “Maybe they’re saying, ‘The past is the past. Let’s move on,’” he said of Rwandan authorities. The Gauthiers said the report and access to the archives may also help activists in their efforts to bring people involved in the genocide to justice — including potentially French officials who served at the time. There have been three Rwandan nationals convicted of genocide so far in France, they stressed. Four others are expected to go on trial. That's out of about 30 complaints against Rwandan nationals living in France that their group has filed with authorities. That's still “very few” compared to the more than 100 alleged perpetrators who are believed to live on French territory, they said. Associated Press journalists Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris and Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report.
White ware dish with lotus decorationOn display Contact us about this object White ware dish with lotus decoration Date11th century (1001 - 1100) Song Dynasty (AD 960 - 1279) Material and technique stoneware, with incised decoration under a white glaze; glazed base; glazed rim Dimensions6 cm (height) 21.5 cm (diameter) at foot 6.9 cm (diameter) No. of items Bequeathed by E. H. North, 1980. Museum locationSecond floor \| Gallery 38 \| China from AD 800 Glossary of terms Vitreous coating applied to the surface of a ceramic to make it impermeable or for decorative effect. Ceramic material made of clay which is fired to a temperature of c.1200-1300⁰c and is often buff or grey in colour.
When it comes to casting your ballot at the voting booth, we hear this phrase a lot: “Make your vote count.” But in an age where cyberattacks seem to be happening every day around the globe, maybe we should head to the ballot box with another phrase in mind: “Make your vote safe.” Dallas County officials reported this week that Russian hackers targeted the county’s web servers in the run-up to last November’s election, in a possible attempt to access voter registration databases. The county was able to prevent the attacks after the Department of Homeland Security alerted local officials to hundreds of suspicious Internet Protocol addresses. “There’s been an increasing array of sharing across federal, state and local, and even in the private sector, because if we can communicate potential threats to those that are trying to protect and defend systems, they’re going to be more likely to keep the data on those systems secures,” says Daniel Ragsdale, the director of Texas A&M University’s Cyber Security Initiative. Ragsdale says that whether or not a hacker is successful largely depends on the level of expertise and resources of an agency or organization’s IT staff. “The amount of effort and resources and level of interest that’s put to securing things is going to have some systems that are more secure and some that are less secure,” he says. While that could be bad news for Texas counties that have less money than Dallas County, Ragsdale says that expertise is as important if not more than resources. He points to Texas A&M’s emphasis on training students in cybersecurity as an effort to increase Americans’ cybersecurity knowledge and skills so they can help protect and defend systems at both the local and federal level. Ragsdale also says that the U.S. as a whole needs to develop national standard procedures and protocols given the decentralization of systems, such as its elections systems. “As these systems continue to evolve, we are evolving a set of standards, practices and procedures – both at a national and international level – that will move us from what is currently somewhat of a wild west… of protecting and defending systems, to one where there is standard practices in place,” he says. “[It’s about] hitting that sweet spot between centralization and decentralization, where we have empowered individuals at the lower level and both federal and state guidelines and standards.” Written by Molly Smith.
A view over the main rift of Thingvellir, extending to the lake Thingvallavatn. The location of Thingvellir is quite special and makes us combine geology and history in a very special way. But why are the walls of the rift so prominent in the area of Almannagjá and its surroundings? It can be seen on geology maps, and by analyzing the convection cells underneath. Whereas the lake is at the western edge of the Western Volcanic Zone of Iceland (with direction α), the volcanic system of Hengill (with the direction (3/4)α, a large scale rift valley (with the direction (1/2)α, and the NS axis of the relevant polygon of mantle convection cell division lines. Thingvellir can therefore be explained by referring to the basic formula of convection cells and the derived main tectonic alignments: Can you find Thingvellir there? And the relevant tectonic alignments? Please check a detailed geologic map of Iceland and trace the relevant tectonic settings. Then you see why Almannagjá and Hrafnagjá are located where they are 🙂
Reducing power consumption of a raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi relies on a linear regulator for its 3V3 rail. This dissipates a third of the energy as heat, which is a bit of a waste, if you want to power your Pi from an battery. Our solution: Replace the linear regulator with a switching regulator from our shop. We also used another regulator for the 5V power, to test powering a Pi from a car battery. We tuned our benchtop power supply to 12V DC, and set the current-limit to approximately 400mA. Then we adjusted one of the switching regulators to 5V, and labelled it. We gave our Pi an SD card, and ethernet connection. We then hooked up the power to the Pi, on its GPIO header (GND on pin6, 5V on pin2). After booting, the current consumption from the benchtop supply stabilized between 190 and 200mA, which translates to a power consumption of about 2,4W. Slicing the Pi To make sure the linear regulator stopped wasting power, we completely removed it from our Pi, with a hot air rework station. To do this, we grip the regulator with some metal tweezers, lift the Pi about a centimetre, and then blast the regulator with air at about 400 degrees Celsius. After a few seconds, the Pi drops to the table, and the regulator was removed: Decorating the Pi We adjusted a second switcher to 3,3V and connected both the 5V and 3V3 switchers to the GPIO header of the Pi (with the benchtop power supply still turned off); 3V3 on pin1, 5V on pin2, GND on pin6. The Pi also got the same SD card and ethernet connection as with the initial measurements. We double/triple checked everything, crossed our fingers, and turned on the benchtop supply. After booting, the power consumption settled on 150mA at 12V, a 25% improvement! A further power reduction can be achieved by tying the 5V and 3V3 lines both to the 3.3V DCDC converter (and obviously removing the 5V one). Everything that depends on the 5V will stop working, but most of the 'pi will work. What won't work are devices depending on the 5V powersupply on the GPIO, HDMI and the USB connectors. If you're not afraid of modifying your Raspberry Pi, and want to power it from a limited power source, such as a battery or solar panel, it's well worth the trouble and cost of replacing the linear regulator by a switching one. The only downside is that the extra regulator takes up a little extra room.
Originated from Asia then multiplied across Europe, Africa and all corners of the world. We are talking about bees. Bees exist since million years ago and they are one of the backbones of our ecosystem. With approximately 20,000 known types of bee species, bees are not only for providing honey; but they are largely responsible in the natural production of fruits and vegetables. They equally help in beautifying the environment with mesmerizing, colourful flowers. Basic Type of Bees OR Members of the Colony - The Queen: - 1 per colony (She is about 25mm in length) - The Workers - 10,000 - 50,000 per colony (female bee about 20mm in length) - The Drones - 1000 per colony (male bee) “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” – Albert Einstein A large proportion of agricultural yield in crop farming, gardening and fruit production depends on pollination by bees. The crop yield is significantly higher with pollination by bees. The life span of a honey bee depends on many variables. The three categories, of honey bees have different life spans. Queens can live for three to five years; workers for a few weeks; and drones, which are the only males, live only until they mate with the queen, after which they die. The stages of life for bees are larva, pupa and adult. The seed production of fodder crops and vegetables also benefits from bee pollination. Without bees following of the foods do not exist or may be in inadequate form. Availability of flowers in abundance is like a dream. Below is a list of fruits and vegetables that would be very scarce or not available as the amount of bees decrease. Bees are the gift from the Nature This applies to all kinds of fruit such as apples, strawberries and cherries, almost all oil seeds such as rapeseed, linseed and safflower, and all kinds of vegetables such as beans, peas and cucumbers. The situation today Fact sheet From 2014, The number of managed honey bee colonies in the United States has declined steadily over the past 60 years, from 6 million colonies (beehives) in 1947 to 4 million in 1970, 3 million in 1990, and just 2.5 million today. Given the heavy dependence of certain crops on commercial pollination, reduced honey bee populations pose a real threat to domestic agriculture. Am I involved in the destruction of bees? "While browsing the Internet, users are hidden from its inner workings. Users can neither see the movement of data between their computer and a network nor the energy required to facilitate that communication. Although this abstraction yields a simpler experience for users, it hides a harmful byproduct of their web activity, the polluting effect it has on the environment." Source Lately an article on Datacenters was also discussed in relation to carbon emission. Do check it out! Facts about Bees Different Type Of honey Bees About Honey Bee Formation & Much More
"Kick the bucket" is an idiom which means "die". For example: After Bob kicked the bucket his children all fought over his money. Kick the bucket can also be used when someone kicks an actual bucket. For example: Tom accidentally kicked the bucket and hurt his toe. In the joke, at first it seems like the boy is using this phrase in this idiomatic sense. The girl thinks he is going to tell a touching story about the last thing his grandfather said before he died. However, it turns out the boy meant "kick the bucket" in the literal sense. He says the thing his grandfather said before he kicked an actual bucket, not before he died.
Why is Tupac Shakur famous? Tupac Shakur was one of the most influential American rappers of all time, and an iconic symbol of African American inner city culture. When did Tupac Shakur live? Lesane Parish Crooks was born on June 16, 1971 in Harlem, New York. When he was a year old, his mother changed his name to Tupac Amaru Shakur, after an Inca rebel leader, as part of the Black Panther tradition of politicized names. As a rapper, he often used the spelling “2Pac” as his stage name, and sometimes went by Makaveli as well. On September 7, 1996, while riding in a car through Las Vegas he was shot four times and died of his injuries in hospital six days later, on September 13. His murder was never solved. What did Tupac Shakur do? Tupac was the son of Afeni Shakur (1947-2016), a high-profile member of the radical Black Panther Party who spent part of her pregnancy in prison. Despite growing up poor and often homeless, young Tupac briefly attended the prestigious Baltimore School of the Arts, where he excelled as a musician, actor, and poet. Eager to flee the grim social conditions of Baltimore, he moved to California in his senior year, but dropped out of school to pursue dreams of stardom. Impressing the Bay Area rap scene with his talents, he started doing backup work with local artists, and at age 20, released his first solo album, 2Pacalypse Now (1991), which went gold. It was followed by three more, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (1993), Me Against the World (1995), and All Eyez on Me (1996), all of which went platinum. Tupac was one of the early pioneers of gangsta rap, a musical genre whose songs dealt with dark themes relating to life in America’s black ghettos, including drugs, crime, racism, poverty, and violence — topics familiar to Tupac’s own upbringing. Specifically, he sought to honor what he called the “Thug Life” mentality of inner city blacks; young men who maintained their dignity in the face of dangerous neighborhoods and deep social marginalization. Articulated in powerful singles like Keep Ya Head Up (1994), Dear Mama (1995), and Life Goes On (1996) his music described ghetto life with lyrics that could be crude and offensive, but often introspective, political, and self-critical as well. Overlapping with his rap stardom was a small but significant acting career in several well-received Hollywood films, including Poetic Justice (1993) and Above the Rim (1994). Despite ever-growing fame and wealth, Tupac’s personal life remained chaotic and dangerous, and his final years were filled with crime and violence. In 1996 he was murdered in a drive-by shooting, and the abrupt, mysterious nature of his death elevated him to the near-saintly status of similarly tragic American celebrities like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. New albums released long after his death continued to go platinum, solidifying his status as one of the major American musicians of the 20th century. What was Tupac Shakur like? Tupac Shakur had a charismatic, intense personality and impressed many with his fierce intellect and sensitive nature, defying traditional rapper stereotypes. Despite never graduating high school, he had a deep love of learning, particularly reading and quoting great works of poetry and philosophy, and he took seriously the idea that his songs were substantial critiques of American society. Never a particularly happy person, he loved to argue, and was deeply defensive about himself and the inner city blacks he claimed to speak for, seeing injustice everywhere. Tupac was one of the most controversial American celebrities of the 1990s, with critics accusing him of promoting and glamorizing a deadly and nihilistic lifestyle. The fact that his own life was bound up in crime and violence exposed him to charges of reinforcing negative stereotypes of African Americans, and serving as a poor role model for those he claimed to champion. He often got into fights and was repeatedly arrested, and in 1995 served eight months in prison after being convicted in connection to the gang rape of a 20-year-old fan. For picking fights with New York rappers Notorious B.I.G. (1972-1997) and Sean “Diddy” Combs (b. 1969), Tupac is considered a leading instigator of the frequently violent “West Coast vs. East Coast” rap feud of the 1990s, and through his last manager, the infamous Suge Knight (b. 1965), he was linked to the Compton gang Mob Piru. His murder, which many saw coming (including himself), was almost certainly a byproduct of this swirl of dangerous relationships. His compassion for the suffering of others was real, however, and despite his often misogynistic rap lyrics, Tupac had tender relationships with women, particularly his mother. He drank prodigiously — his favorite liquor being Hennessy — and was a heavy user of marijuana.
The 10 principles for Fair Trade can be described as the Fair Trade movement's "backbone". They have been formed during many years of activism, they connect Fair Trade organizations globally. The Fair Trade movement has a history of more than 60 years – and is still growing. More about its history and actors here below. The 10 principles for Fair Trade are: 1) Creating Opportunities for Economically Disadvantaged Producers 2) Transparency and Accountability 3) Fair Trading Practices 4) Payment of a Fair Price 5) Ensuring no Child Labour and Forced Labour 6) Commitment to non-Discrimination, Gender Equity and Freedom of Association 7) Ensuring good Working Conditions 8) Providing Capacity Building 9) Promoting Fair Trade 10) Respect for the Environment. The 10 principles (full text) are found at the bottom of the page. Fair Trade History and movement Early examples of Fair Trade organizations are Ten Thousand Villages (U.S.) buying needlework from Puerto Rico in 1946, Oxfam (U.K.) from Chinese refugees during the 1950's. The 1960's and 70's: NGO's and individuals in both the South and the North advocated a fair, responsible trade in order to achieve development. Also within political forums is this pointed out, for example during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Delhi 1968, where the Southern countries requested "Trade not Aid". Fair Trade was during this period focused on development. The Northern organization where mainly larger development and sometimes religious agencies. Alongside this there where organization that for political reasons wanted to support, why also the term solidarity trade was used. Production and sales of crafts gives opportunities and empowerment to what is often the most marginalized. This was an important reason for Fair Trade to focus on crafts. For global cooperation, definitions and standards, the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) was founded 1989. The organization was formed in Europe, but has now (2017) 385 members dispersed over more than 70 countries. The majority of the member organizations are based in the South. Following decision at IFAT AGM Oct 2008, the name has been changed to the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). Regional WFTO organizations have been formed in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Pacific. La Maison Afrique FAIR TRADE is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (since the time of "IFAT") and is one of the founders of WFTO-Europe. To inform and raise awareness is important for the Fair Trade movement: The products should be delivered with a message. The shops have here an important task. The first Fair Trade shops emerged in the 1950's. In 1984, the first conference for European Worldshops where organized. In 1994 the Network of European World Shops (NEWS) was created. In 2009 NEWS was dissolved, its tasks became integrated in WFTO-Europe. World Fair Trade Day is a worldwide event celebrated the 2nd Saturday in May. World Fair Trade Day was initiated by NEWS in 1996 (as"Europeans Worldshops Day"). World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) is now the main organizer of the event. Fairtrade product label: With the initiative to label products (Fairtrade Labelling), food sales has rapidly increased in absolute terms as well as proportion of Fair Trade. The introduction took place in 1988 with"Max Havelaar"-labelled coffee in the Netherlands. Similar labelling organizations where set up in more Northern countries. In 1997, the Fair Trade Labelling Organization (FLO) was created in order to internationally coordinate the product labelling. Fair Trade Labelling Organization Fair Trade Organization mark: The World Fair Trade Organization (former IFAT) defined the Fair Trade standards in 2001. The year after, it introduced a monitoring system for Fair Trade Organizations. In 2004, the Fair Trade Organization Mark was launched. The Fair Trade Organization mark can be used by Fair Trade organizations which have passed the monitoring system and been approved by WFTO. The Fair Trade Organization mark can be used on information materials; websites, catalogues, posters (but not on products.) WFTO is working on the introduction of a product labelling system for Fair Trade organizations. A Fair Trade Town is a community that makes a collective commitment to Fair Trade. It engages local government, schools, businesses, community organisations and activists to work together. Since April 2000 when Garstang, U.K. declared itself Fair Trade town, there is now more than 1800 Fair Trade Towns spread over more than 28 countries. The commitment is generally formulated in five goals; Local council passes a resolution supporting Fair Trade. A range of Fair Trade products are available locally. Community organizations support FT and use FT products. Media coverage and events raising awareness about FT. A FT steering group representing different sectors is formed to co-ordinate. In Sweden, FT Towns are called "Fairtrade cities". Since the first was declared in 2006, there are now (July 2016) 70 Fairtrade cities in Sweden. Fairtrade Sweden is coordinating etc Religious communities in many countries of the world (eg Swedish Church) has a long standing and active involvement in Fair Trade. In recent years this has been formalized under the term Church for Fairtrade; "Kyrka för Fairtrade". Since start in 2009, there are now (Dec 2016) more than 150 certified congregations in Sweden. The global Fair Trade movement has achieved much and is still growing. However, in comparison to the gigantic needs and growing environmental problem, yet more efforts are needed. Extensive collaboration is needed. Examples of general such that the above-mentioned international fair trade networks together established an office in Brussels lobbying and information activities; the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, FTAO. The 10 principles of Fair Trade The 10 principles of Fair Trade is the basis for approval as a Fair Trade organization by WFTO and the right to use the mark. 1) Creating Opportunities for Economically Disadvantaged Producers Poverty reduction through trade forms a key part of the organization's aims. The organization supports marginalized small producers, whether these are independent family businesses, or grouped in associations or co-operatives. It seeks to enable them to move from income insecurity and poverty to economic self-sufficiency and ownership. The organization has a plan of action to carry this out. 2) Transparency and Accountability The organization is transparent in its management and commercial relations. It is accountable to all its stakeholders and respects the sensitivity and confidentiality of commercial information supplied. The organization finds appropriate, participatory ways to involve employees, members and producers in its decision-making processes. It ensures that relevant information is provided to all its trading partners. The communication channels are good and open at all levels of the supply chain. 3) Fair Trading Practices The organization trades with concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized small producers and does not maximize profit at their expense. It is responsible and professional in meeting its commitments in a timely manner. Suppliers respect contracts and deliver products on time and to the desired quality and specifications. Fair Trade buyers, recognizing the financial disadvantages producers and suppliers face, ensure orders are paid on receipt of documents and according to the attached guidelines. For Handicraft FT products, an interest free pre-payment of at least 50 % is made on request. For Food FT products, pre-payment of at least 50% at a reasonable interest is made if requested. Interest rates that the suppliers pay must not be higher than the buyers' cost of borrowing from third parties. Charging interest is not required. Where southern Fair Trade suppliers receive a pre payment from buyers, they ensure that this payment is passed on to the producers or farmers who make or grow their Fair Trade products. Buyers consult with suppliers before canceling or rejecting orders. Where orders are cancelled through no fault of producers or suppliers, adequate compensation is guaranteed for work already done. Suppliers and producers consult with buyers if there is a problem with delivery, and ensure compensation is provided when delivered quantities and qualities do not match those invoiced. The organization maintains long term relationships based on solidarity, trust and mutual respect that contribute to the promotion and growth of Fair Trade. It maintains effective communication with its trading partners. Parties involved in a trading relationship seek to increase the volume of the trade between them and the value and diversity of their product offer as a means of growing Fair Trade for the producers in order to increase their incomes. The organization works cooperatively with the other Fair Trade Organizations in country and avoids unfair competition. It avoids duplicating the designs of patterns of other organizations without permission. Fair Trade recognizes, promotes and protects the cultural identity and traditional skills of small producers as reflected in their craft designs, food products and other related services. 4) Payment of a Fair Price A fair price is one that has been mutually agreed by all through dialogue and participation, which provides fair pay to the producers and can also be sustained by the market. Where Fair Trade pricing structures exist, these are used as a minimum. Fair pay means provision of socially acceptable remuneration (in the local context) considered by producers themselves to be fair and which takes into account the principle of equal pay for equal work by women and men. Fair Trade marketing and importing organizations support capacity building as required to producers, to enable them to set a fair price. 5) Ensuring no Child Labour and Forced Labour The organization adheres to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and national / local law on the employment of children. The organization ensures that there is no forced labor in its workforce and / or members or homeworkers. Organizations who buy Fair Trade products from producer groups either directly or through intermediaries ensure that no forced labor is used in production and the producer complies with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and national / local law on the employment of children. Any involvement of children in the production of Fair Trade products (including learning a traditional art or craft) is always disclosed and monitored and does not adversely affect the children's well-being, security, educational requirements and need for play. 6) Commitment to Non Discrimination, Gender Equity and Women's Economic Empowerment and Freedom of Association The organization does not discriminate in hiring, remuneration, access to training, promotion, termination or retirement based on race, caste, national origin, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, union membership, political affiliation, HIV/Aids status or age. The organization has a clear policy and plan to promote gender equality that ensures that women as well as men have the ability to gain access to the resources that they need to be productive and also the ability to influence the wider policy, regulatory, and institutional environment that shapes their livelihoods and lives. Organizational constitutions and by-laws allow for and enable women to become active members of the organization in their own right (where it is a membership based organization), and to take up leadership positions in the governance structure regardless of women's status in relation to ownership of assets such as land and property. Where women are employed within the organization, even where it is an informal employment situation, they receive equal pay for equal work. The organization recognizes women's full employment rights and is committed to ensuring that women receive their full statutory employment benefits. The organization takes into account the special health and safety needs of pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers. The organization respects the right of all employees to form and join trade unions of their choice and to bargain collectively. Where the right to join trade unions and bargain collectively are restricted by law and/or political environment, the organization will enable means of independent and free association and bargaining for employees. The organization ensures that representatives of employees are not subject to discrimination in the workplace. 7) Ensuring Good Working Conditions The organization provides a safe and healthy working environment for employees and / or members. It complies, at a minimum, with national and local laws and ILO conventions on health and safety. Working hours and conditions for employees and / or members (and any homeworkers) comply with conditions established by national and local laws and ILO conventions. Fair Trade Organizations are aware of the health and safety conditions in the producer groups they buy from. They seek, on an ongoing basis, to raise awareness of health and safety issues and improve health and safety practices in producer groups. 8) Providing Capacity Building The organization seeks to increase positive developmental impacts for small, marginalized producers through Fair Trade. The organization develops the skills and capabilities of its own employees or members. Organizations working directly with small producers develop specific activities to help these producers improve their management skills, production capabilities and access to markets - local / regional / international / Fair Trade and mainstream as appropriate. Organizations which buy Fair Trade products through Fair Trade intermediaries in the South assist these organizations to develop their capacity to support the marginalized producer groups that they work with. 9) Promoting Fair Trade The organization raises awareness of the aim of Fair Trade and of the need for greater justice in world trade through Fair Trade. It advocates for the objectives and activities of Fair Trade according to the scope of the organization. The organization provides its customers with information about itself, the products it markets, and the producer organizations or members that make or harvest the products. Honest advertising and marketing techniques are always used. 10) Respect for the Environment Organizations which produce Fair Trade products maximize the use of raw materials from sustainably managed sources in their ranges, buying locally when possible. They use production technologies that seek to reduce energy consumption and where possible use renewable energy technologies that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. They seek to minimize the impact of their waste stream on the environment. Fair Trade agricultural commodity producers minimize their environmental impacts, by using organic or low pesticide use production methods wherever possible. Buyers and importers of Fair Trade products give priority to buying products made from raw materials that originate from sustainably managed sources, and have the least overall impact on the environment. All organizations use recycled or easily biodegradable materials for packing to the extent possible, and goods are dispatched by sea wherever possible. World Fair Trade Organization, version October 2013
Have you ever wondered why professors insist on students not learning the materials word for word? This may be confusing since after all, students are required to learn what is given to them. However, a professor expects you to evaluate and understand the information, not place them in your short-term memory and forget everything after the exam passes. The same rule applies to our everyday lives – critical thinking is essential for analyzing ideas and reaching our potential. The only difference lies in the fact that, when we are done learning for exams, we need these skills to solve difficult matters where the word-for-word principle cannot help. At this point, you can no longer rely on your short-term memory. Knowing this, what can you do to boost your critical thinking and develop these skills further? Here are the nine steps necessary to achieve this: 1. Start Simple More often than not, we are experiencing troubles with our decisions because we assume everything is more complex than it is. To avoid this from happening, start simple. What is the most obvious solution to your problem or answer to your question? Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself when first faced with the challenge of thinking critically: - What information do I have at this point? - How did I get this information? - What am I trying to achieve? What are my goals? - What am I overlooking or forgetting? If you find the simple solution to be a bad or insufficient for the situation, you can continue with the further step. 2. Question All Your Assumptions One of the most common reasons for error in every person’s life is focusing on our assumptions. This is normal, since the brain processes every bit of information by making some picture and assumption about it. Knowing this, assumptions are the basis of critical thinking. So, why do we say these lead to most mistakes? Our initial assumption may be wrong, either fully or partially. Without questioning it, we are letting our critical thinking roam in the wrong direction. The other situation is when our assumptions are correct, but a completely different answer or solution is better. This means that you can never be certain unless you question everything. Starting from the case of Einstein who questioned the Newtonian laws, to Yitang Zhang who benefited from his assumption questioning, you have many examples to base your critical thinking on. If you do not test these, you are much more likely to fail. 3. Evaluate the Evidence You Have To get some guidance in your problem-solving adventures, it is always helpful to check other work done in the same area you are researching. In most cases, someone has already laid the groundwork for your problem, so why not use this in your advantage? Let’s assume you already have others’ work and information about your problem. At this point, it is highly important to be critical in evaluating such information, so that you avoid taking the wrong conclusion from the right source. Make sure you have all the information about the research on hand. Who did that and when? Why did they decide to take the steps they took? 4. Be More Aware Our mental process is amazing, but the speed of making decisions can be detrimental to our critical thinking. And while this system is perfect for emergencies and activities like fighting off a raging animal or running away from fire, it can be really bad for the serious problems that require critical thinking. If you want to be a good critical thinker, you need to become more aware of your cognitive biases. 5. Think for Yourself When you rely on others’ opinions and research too much, you are getting bogged down and forgetting to think for yourself. In most cases in your life, this is the key to good decisions. This does not mean that you should be overconfident. Critical thinking requires different perspectives, which is why we said you should reevaluate your assumptions in the first place. However, if you want to make a decision that is good for you, you need to start thinking for yourself. 6. Think Ahead Don’t just think about tomorrow or the day after. Your life should be focused on the present, but you should definitely not forget about the future. Therefore, make sure you have both long- and short-term plans. Moreover, the short-term plans should match with the long-term plan as your final goal. By doing this, you are able to imagine the majority of problems you can encounter along the way. Of course, this does not guarantee that you will succeed or make the best decision there is, but it gets you prepared for what is about to come. Take for example, Jeff Bezos. The CEO of Amazon did exactly this – thought several steps ahead and made a seven-year plan instead of a three-year plan. Back in 2011, he said: ‘: “If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that”. 7. Read Helpful Books Many people say they transformed by reading a single book. Which one will do this for you? Read a lot, and then read some more. Learning from people who have been through what you are going through can give you an insight and idea for the best solution. 8. Work on Improving Your Brain Function The brain is like your body muscles – it craves some exercise. The more you work on its improvement, the better it will function. Thirty minutes per day can turn your brain into a more powerful tool for critical thinking. If you are wondering how to make this happen, consider the following ideas: - Solve a theoretical problem every day. Practice on math games to improve your critical thinking. - Eat healthy and drink a lot of water - Exercise every day 9. Don’t Fear Failure We all fail, but this is not a reason to give up. If you did everything right and still failed, look for a better way to achieve your goals. There is always a better solution to a question you didn’t find the answer to. Failure is what makes successful people what they are. If you do not fail, you cannot learn. If you are struggling with choosing the right answer or making a final decision, these are the top 9 tips you should follow.
A label is a sheet of paper or plastic which contains the information about the product being sold by a company. There are different kinds of labels which are created for various items and materials that are available for public consumption. Just like a company brochure, a label design can say a lot not only to the offerings of the business but to the nature and branding of the company as well. Since there are a lot of labels that you may select from and incorporate to the overall design of the product that you will offer to your consumers, we have collected samples and templates of label designs that you may refer to if you need help in formatting and designing your own label. Product Label Designs Food Product Label Design Product Packaging Label Design Beauty Product Label Design Cosmetic Product Label Design Bottle Label Examples Wine Bottle Label Water Bottle Label Perfume Bottle Label Food Label Designs Canned Food Label Design Food Packaging Label Design Organic Food Label Clothing Label Designs Clothing Brand Label Clothing Tag Label Woven Clothing Label How to Make a Product Label The process of creating a product label is very important since it is one of the most visible parts of the items that you will sell. The steps that you may follow in making a product label are as follows: - It is very important to first be familiar with the product where the product label will be placed. - Identify the size of the product and the size of the product label that it needs. No matter how beautiful your product label is, it will still not look flattering if it does not fit on the product packaging appropriately. - Design a product label based on the following items: - The brand of the business - The product ingredients / raw materials - The purpose of the product usage - The image that you would like the product to exude - Decide on the medium where you will print the product label. - Place the product label on individual product packaging. The Importance of a Label Design There are a lot of ways that creating a label design can be very helpful in the undertakings of a business to get the sales target that they will set for the product to be released to the market. Here are some of the reasons why having a label design is important: - Having a label design that is unique and appealing can help your product stand out from your competitors. A memory recall may exist only if all the proper and original elements like icons, texts, illustration design and /or images are put together in creating an outstanding label design. - The design of your label can set your product apart from those that are already existing in the market and the products that are soon to come. Your label design can make your own branding statement which can get the attention of the market that you would like to penetrate. - A label design can represent your business accordingly. From the color selection, the fonts that you will use, and other items that can be seen in the label packaging design; all of these can contribute on how your product and business can be perceived by your current and target market. Wedding Label Examples Wedding Card Label Vintage Wedding Label Free Wedding Label CD Label Designs Wedding CD Label Design Music CD Label Design Vintage Label Designs Vintage Typography Label Design Photorealistic Vintage Label Vintage Beer Label Design Shipping Label Designs Marketing Address Label Packaging Shipping Label Items that Contribute to an Attractive and Effective Label Design Just like when making a banner design, it is very important for you to assure that the content of your label design is precise, straight to the point and attention-grabbing. Creating an attractive label design is not just about your product’s quality but on how you will present it as well. Since a product label is an essential part in product branding and presentation, you need to make sure that you will be keen throughout the processes of its creation. Here are some of the items that can contribute to a label design that is both attractive and effective: - The material where you will print the label design. Choosing the right material for your label gives your product a chance to provide a good impression to the consumers. More so, it can help you to properly market the product and maximize the effects of its exposure within different market locations. Keep in mind that there are some consumers that base their purchasing decision on the quality of the product’s appearance. - The shape of the label design. The shape of the label must also be considered. It will be truly awkward if the label design is bigger than the product or if the shape of the label is not appropriate to the size, shape, and material of the product packaging. - The content of the label design. Your label design must not only be beautiful, it should also be information. An effective label design must be able to present the name of the product, the name and modern logo of the company who made the product, and the materials that make the entirety of the product. There are still other information that can be placed in a label. However, what is important is for this simple tool to give a glimpse of the product and why it should be bought by the consumers. Cosmetic Label Designs Cosmetic Bottle Label Cosmetic Product Label Design Cosmetic Packaging Label Fashion Label Designs Fashion Art Label Design Fashion Vector Label Design Fashion Collection Label Design Packaging Label Designs Food Packaging Label Wine Packaging Label Vintage Packaging Label Where Can You Use a Product Label? There are many reasons why a product label is needed to be placed in a product. Listed below are some samples that can provide information on why product labels are truly necessary to be created. - Food product labels. This type of product labels can be placed either on fresh items or processed foods. This kind of product label is specifically created to provide information about the ingredients of the food in the container, the allergens that can possibly trigger allergic reactions, and the nutritional facts about the food item. - Beauty product labels. It is essential for beauty products to have labels as it can showcase the usage of the products, the materials that are used to create the product, and other information like the skin tones where the beauty products will work the best. - Bottle labels. There are different products that can be placed in bottles. May it be wines, condiments, water, and other beverages; having bottle labels can provide an impression about the bottle content and the particular flavor of the liquid/fluid placed in the bottle. - Clothing tag labels. Fashion and ready to wear clothing houses use clothing tag labels to state the price of the clothes, the materials that are included in the composition of the clothes, and other information that can promote the brand. - Invitation labels. Product labels are not only used on items that can be sold. For example, invitation labels are created to initially showcase the reason why a particular program, event or gathering has to occur. Invitation labels can be used for wedding invitations, conferences, and other kinds of celebrations and social group interactions. No matter where product labels are used, a label design must always be based on the purpose of the product where it will be placed and the kind of aesthetic that the producer or manufacturer of the product has. Being able to come up with an effective product label design can do wonders to the product not only in terms of imaging, but also on how it can play to the market.
There is it seems an essential element or step we need to take to effectively use feedback and change behaviour. New research has found that to effectively change behaviour based on feedback the receiver of the feedback must be able to imagine how they will act differently and see themselves doing the role or task in the new way. Feedback works when the person can hold in mind how they behave now and how they would behave in the future. In effect this means people can feed forward and to create a mental picture of the new behaviour. Scientist call this mental contrasting. The critical reason this is important is that the person can see all the elements that differ in the new behaviour compared to the old. Scientists believe this mental contrasting helps generate both the insight that change would be beneficial, the motivation to undertake the change and the details of the different behaviours required. When people are undertaking mental contrasting scientist see they are thinking in a complex way, it engages the prefrontal cortex as well as the temporal lobe which is essential for accessing the memory of the past (current behaviour) with a vision of the new behaviour in the future. The researchers also see activation in the visual areas of the brain. This amount of processing is very energy draining for the brain. It requires a lot of mental resources so is hard when people are under threat, are very stressed or are focused on defending their reputation. This research gives us some insight into why feed forward seems to work. A feed forward system which allows the employee to work out how they will behave in the future is likely to also be activating mental contrasting, and creating insight rather than telling the employee what to do in the future. Introducing this kind of feedback approach requires a shift in the power structure between managers and employees and training for both. Of course this is not just relevant to feedback. Any behavioural change needs mental contrasting to help direct the subtle shifts which are needed. This short video talks about the research in relation to goals covers some more of the science
Study: Impact of violent video games lasts for years Iowa State University researchers released a new study Monday showing that violent video games that children repeatedly played as kids continued to influence their behavior as they grow older. The effect was the same regardless of age, gender or culture, researchers said. Associate Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile said the influence is "really no different than learning math or to play the piano." "Playing a lot of violent video games leads to an increase in these aggressive thought patterns and that in turn leads to increased aggression," said Craig Anderson, professor of f psychology, director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State and co-author of the report. "It occurs slowly and over time so that you don't really notice it." "If you practice over and over, you have that knowledge in your head. The fact that you haven't played the piano in years doesn't mean you can't still sit down and play something," Gentile said in a news release. "It's the same with violent games -- you practice being vigilant for enemies, practice thinking that it's acceptable to respond aggressively to provocation, and practice becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence." ISU researchers said they found that over time children start to think more aggressively and when provoked at home or school react much like they do when playing a violent video game. "You get better at thinking about aggressive solutions. You also get a little paranoid almost in the sense of you start to think about anything bad happening must have been caused by an intentional harm," said Anderson. The study followed more than 3,000 boys and girls in third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades for three years. "Parents really do need to take control of their children's media diet," said Anderson. "It becomes a teaching moment, or can be for parents, in terms of, 'What are you family values on these issues?'"
We now have a study online in JEB that examines how differences between lake and stream stickleback ecotypes in foraging-related traits (gill raker number and aspects of body shape) are inherited quantitative genetically. The study is a line cross analysis of different lab-reared pure and hybrid lines derived from the well-known ecotype pair residing in Misty Lake and its inlet stream on Vancouver Island. We find that gill raker number is inherited additively (e.g., F1 hybrids are intermediate between the pure ecotypes), whereas there is strong dominance in body depth. That is, F1s and other hybrids between the lake and stream types display the body depth typical of the lake ecotype. We argue that this difference in inheritance has implications for the speciation process between the ecotypes: given divergent selection on gill raker number, hybrids should be at a disadvantage relative to pure types in both the lake and the stream. By contrast, asymmetric introgression from the stream to the lake (but not vice versa) should be easier for body depth because hybrids resemble the lake resident and should therefore not be selected against. It would now be great to have direct information on the strength of selection acting on these phenotypes, and to look into the molecular basis of their divergence. In addition to these biological findings, the paper has some methodological relevance because we found that a geometric morphometric (relative warp) approach to shape analysis yielded results qualitatively different from an approach based on traditional distance traits. Given that relative warps are principal components extracted from shape variables and that principal component analysis creates artifacts (see Berner 2011, Oecologia), we hypothesize in the paper that the patterns identified through relative warp analysis are artificial to some extent. We have now confirmed this with simulated data; a formal analysis should come soon. ...And who does not agree relative warps indeed look artiFISHal: If interested, check out "Quantitative genetic inheritance of morphological divergence in a lake-stream stickleback ecotype pair: implications for reproductive isolation". Daniel and Joost Saturday, July 23, 2011 Quantitative genetics in stickleback: implications for reproductive isolation Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Cuentos-Contos Week 3 For the final week of Cuentos/Contos , I present Dr. Bryan Juarez, Dr. Stepfanie Aguillon, Dr. Raul Diaz, Kiersten Formoso and a special int... As an editor, reviewer, supervisor, committee member, and colleague, I have read countless papers and proposals and have seen similarly co... By Dan Bolnick This past month, The American Naturalist published what I hope is the final step in the Editorial Board's evaluation of w... Becoming a new professor is exciting. You are at last the captain of your own research. You pick who you want to work with, what you want t... Post a Comment
Art allows you to process and appreciate the world around you. Whether you are the artist themselves or the viewer appreciating the art, you are essential to the back and forth of visual communication. Especially in this day and age, we are surrounded by images -- it seems one of the quickest ways to communicate. We want our students to be able to digest these images, to be able to interact with them intelligently. We also want students to be able to create this art themselves, to expand the ways they can “speak” to others. There are unique ways of thinking in art, ways to think outside of the box, ways to invent something new, or to slow down and process this quick-paced world. Art can also act as historical reflection -- art is not created in a vacuum, but is relevant to the artist’s experience at that time. This unique way of thinking helps problem solve in other core courses. Art encourages students to develop an understanding of their real and imagined worlds. Because making art is so personal, a student has to take charge of their own message. They have to reflect and decide about what is important to them and what they want to say. Through art education students learn to create, to interpret, to critique or judge as well as become exposed to art created in different times and places. Students learn a few tricks and techniques to practice, and through discipline and hard work, they experience success. That success helps develop confidence. Visual Arts Department Faculty: CLICK HERE for course description
Could plants help to slow the march of global warming? It's possible, suggests a new study, which finds that as climates warm around the world, plants may respond by releasing more aerosol particles into the atmosphere. The research, published online April 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience, finds that these natural aerosols can fuel cloud formation, which may help cool a warming climate. [The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted] Aerosols are fine particles of solid or liquid matter, suspended in air. Most of the aerosol particles in Earth's atmosphere come from human activities such as vehicle exhaust, according to the environmental blog The Carbon Brief. Volcanic eruptions also contribute some aerosols to the atmosphere. But a small percentage of atmospheric aerosols come from living plants, according to a news release from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), which co-sponsored the study. Plants release gases such as water vapor and oxygen; these combine with the aerosols released from plants to form larger airborne particles that reflect sunlight and form cloud droplets. "Everyone knows the scent of the forest," Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "That scent is made up of these gases." To measure the cooling effect, researchers collected data from 11 sites around the world, measuring aerosol particle concentrations, plant gases and temperatures. In warmer temperatures, it was revealed, plants emit more of the gases that stick to aerosol particles. These can lead to cloud formation and, as a result of cloud cover, cooler temperatures. Other natural phenomenon may help to cool the planet: Some researchers believe that phytoplankton — microscopic plants that drift on ocean currents — may reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and lower the atmosphere's temperature. Other research finds that tropical rainforests, which also absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide and release water vapor that forms clouds, are critical to stabilizing atmospheric temperatures. It's unclear how much cooling might actually occur as a result of so-called "biogenic" aerosols. "This does not save us from climate warming," Pauli Paasonen, lead author of the study, said in the release. Though in some areas, such as the forests of Finland and Canada, the cooling effect can be as large as 30 percent, the overall global effect is very small, offsetting only about 1 percent of global warming, according to the study. Nonetheless, the impact of plant-based aerosol formation is an important element in fine-tuning climate forecast models, the researchers believe. "Aerosol effects on climate are one of the main uncertainties in climate models," Paasonen said in the release. "Understanding this mechanism could help us reduce those uncertainties and make the models better." - Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places on Earth - Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming - 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
4.2.1 Assessing team efficiency Broadly there are two types of analysis that a coach may use to evaluate performance: - “Tracking” performance; and - Measuring statistical effectiveness. Tracking performance records what the team has done and the outcome that occurred. For example, a coach may record the number of instances where a certain offensive play was used and whether or not the team scored. With junior teams, a measure of whether or not a “good shot” was the result may be more appropriate than whether a score was made. Any particular coach may have particular things that they wish to “track”, some commonly tracked occurrences are: - Use of a particular play or the particular options within a play (both offensively and defensively); - Whether or not the team “reversed” the ball (moved the ball from one side to another) in offence prior to shooting; - When in the shot clock shots were taken (e.g. first 6 seconds, last 6 seconds or within 7-18 seconds); - The number of times an opponent “reversed” the ball prior to shooting; - Whether the ball was passed or dribbled across half way; - “Post touches” – whether or not a player in a post position handled the ball prior to the team shooting (regardless of whether the post or another player took the shot); - The number of times that a team (either offensively or defensively) commenced offence from a particular part of the court (e.g. left side, right side or top). From these types of indicators the coach can identify trends in how a team plays (either their own team or an opponent). For example, it may identify that the team starts offence on the right hand side of the court most of the time. These indicators can also identify what is more effective. For example, most teams will score more often when they have reversed the ball than when the ball stays on one side. Typically, these types of measures are not recorded in the standard basketball statistics (standard statistics will, for example, record where a shot was taken and whether or not it went in, but not the “action” that led to it being taken). Accordingly, an assistant coach or parent will need to record these measures if the coach wants them. If the coach is doing a video review, they may also wish to “tag” the same statistics so that the video can be easily obtained. Using the measures the coach can also determine indicators of success. For example, if a team scores more often after they have reversed the ball in offence, the coach can set targets for ball reversals, knowing that increases the likelihood of scoring. In this way, the measures often allow the coach to set “process” rather than purely outcome goals. The process goals are based upon the impact that “process” has been measured to have on outcomes. Measuring Statistical Effectiveness Depending upon the level of competition, statistics may be taken and these may also be available during the game. These allow the coach to see individual and team performance in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and turnovers. The coach can quickly conduct other comparisons: - How well a team is rebounding defensively using the following equation, which identifies how many of the total rebounds at the defensive end they have taken:Team Def Rebs / (Team Def Rebs + Opponents Off Rebs) - “Ball Control” using the following equation, which gives an indication of how often the team has turned over the ball.Turnovers / (Field Goals Attempted + Turnovers) - “Shooting Efficiency” can be calculated with the following equation, which adjusts for the impact of a 3 point shot:(Field Goals Made + (0.5 x 3Points Made)) / Field Goals Attempted - “Tempo” of the game can be estimated by the following equation and coaches should know the tempo they wish to play at. For example, in a 40 minute game if one shot was taken every 24 seconds (and there were no turnovers), there would be 100 possessions:Total Possessions = Total Field Goals Attempted + Total Turnovers - Free Throw Conversion is calculated simply as Free Throws Made / Free Throws Attempted. - Compare direct player “match-ups”. For example, the coach may have assigned a defender to particularly restrict the number of shots taken by an opponent and this can be assessed. Basketball is a game of alternating possession, which is only distorted by offensive rebounds (where a team gets two possessions in a row, without their opponent having a possession). It is often more meaningful to assess performance “per possession”, rather than just as an absolute number. For example, the points scored from one game to another may vary widely (depending upon the tempo at which the games were played), however the “points per possession” is a good measure of effectiveness. In most competitions, scoring 1 or more “points per possession” is a good performance. Equally “points conceded per possession” is also important. “Points per possession” is often provided in computerised statistics, however it can also be estimated by: Points per possession = Total Points / (Field Goals Attempted + Turnovers) Points conceded per possession = Opponent’s Total Points / (Opponent’s FGA + Opponent’s Turnovers) Similarly, when comparing the performance of players adjusting statistics to give a “per minute played” analysis may be useful. The efficiency of players is sometimes evaluated by using a Points Adjusted Win Score (PAWS), which is: ((Points + Steals + (0.5 x Assists) + (0.5 x Blocks) – Field Goals Attempted – Turnovers – (0.5 x Free Throws Attempted) – (0.5 x Personal Fouls)) / minutes played) * 4819 In the NBA, the league average player has a PAWS score of 0. Anything above zero is an above average performance and equally below zero is a below average performer. Whilst statistics can be meaningful they can equally be misleading. What is most important is that the coach develops some method for evaluating performance.
By Derek King C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces is a brilliant piece of fiction but also a mediation on an old problem called the problem of divine hiddenness. The problem of divine hiddenness refers to a lack in our knowledge of God but can take different forms. For instance, the Psalmist’s cry to the Lord, “how long will you hide your face from me?” is an example of an experienced hiddenness. J. L. Schellenberg’s philosophical argument from divine hiddenness is an example of an intellectual hiddenness. According to Schellenberg, the existence of a perfectly loving God and nonbelievers who do not resist God is incompatible. Since, he argues, there are nonbelievers who do not resist God, then a perfectly loving God does not exist. In either form, divine hiddenness occasions an objection against God. Interwoven into some of his best fiction, Lewis’s Till We Have Faces (TWHF) reflects on this problem at length. Despite predating Schellenberg by almost fifty years, TWHF anticipates Schellenberg’s problem and a few responses to it. TWHF is, as the subtitle says, a myth retold. The original is Apuleius’s tale of Cupid and Psyche, whose love is characterized by Cupid’s visiting Psyche in the bedroom but forbidding her to look upon his face. Like the original, TWHF is set in the pre-Christian, pagan (albeit fictional) world of Glome. It is the story of Orual as told by herself. Unlike her half-sister Psyche, Orual has a conflicted relationship with the gods, mostly characterized by disdain, and the first book of TWHF is Orual’s accusation against them. Her accusation is a version of the problem of divine hiddenness. Her complaint is surely echoed in many seekers of God: ‘if they had an honest intention to guide us, why is their guidance not plain?’ (TWHF 133-134) Orual’s makes her complaint plain, I say the gods deal very unrightly with us. For they will neither (which would be best of all) go away and leave us to live our own short days to ourselves, nor will they show themselves openly and tell us what they would have us do. For that too would be endurable. But to hint and hover, to draw near us in dreams and oracles, or in a waking vision that vanishes as soon as seen, to be dead silent when we question them and then glide back and whisper (words we cannot understand) in our ears when we most wish to be free of them, and to show to one what they hide from another; what is all this but cat-and-mouse play, blindman’s bluff, and mere jugglery?(TWHF 249) This version of the problem of divine hiddenness is relatable to many. Yet, Lewis is not content with forceful expressions of the problem. He also hints at solutions. One example is the account Lewis gives us of Orual’s transformation, which we read about in the latter part of the story. She looks back on her frustrations with the gods as an act of grace. She sees reflected in herself the very picture she has of the gods—selfish, wicked, and veiled. She concludes, I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?(TWHF 294) The appeal to moral formation within hiddenness is echoed in Paul Moser’s response to Schellenberg. The knowledge of God is ‘morally challenging…and morally transforming.’ Instead of seeking God on our terms, we must instead seek God on God’s terms. Still, in our search for solutions to this problem, Lewis reminds us that intellectual responses accomplish very little. A debate over the hiddenness of God is, after all, only a debate. Orual describes coming face to face with the god like this: ‘He made it to be as if…all my doubtings, fears, guesses, debatings, questionings…had been trumped up foolery, dust blown in my own eyes by myself’ (TWHF 173). Before the face of God, says Orual, questions about God’s hiddenness die away. The rest is ‘Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words’ (TWHF 308). Derek S. King is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of St Andrews. His research is on the problem of divine hiddenness, patristic theology, and Gregory of Nyssa. References to Till We Have Faces will be in-text and abbreviated with ‘TWHF.’ I use the following version: C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (New York, N.Y.: Harvest Books, 1984). Moser, 96. The Journal of Inklings Studies is dedicated to the work and legacies of the Oxford Inklings, the literary circle centred on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. Established in 2005, the journal has been publishing some of the best scholarship in the field, as well as unpublished texts by its subject authors.
Running with Paper on their Chest Pieces of Paper Give each child an ordinary piece of paper. shows the children how to run with the paper, first by holding it on your chest, then, after picking up speed, letting go so the air pressure holds it in place. It is relatively easy to keep it in place running in a straight line. The challenge is to run in circles or as a team relay.
Probiotics! Nowadays you trip across this word a lot – on television adverts, in the newspapers, in the health food shop and with health practitioners. Go looking for them and you will find an enormous range, all of which are quite costly. There is now an enormous amount of literature, and research studies on the subject of probiotics – page after page, connecting them to almost any condition you can think of. So what’s so important about them? Probiotic bacteria basically inhabit our gastro-intestinal system. In fact they form part of an extremely complex eco-system in your gut harbouring more than 100 trillion micro-organisms, thought to be made up of somewhere between 30 – 40 different types of bacteria, some beneficial, some less than beneficial. A healthy adult has somewhere in the region of 2 kg residing inside us, and we basically have a symbiotic relationship with them. In exchange for food and shelter they make a vital contribution to not just digestive health, but also to immune function. In fact, so important is their role, that if you were to sterilize your gut of them, you would die. So what exactly do they do? Well, they help to ensure a proper balance between ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ bacteria in the gut. Too many of the unfriendly ones and you have a condition called dysbiosis which impacts negatively both on digestion and health generally. So lots of friendly bacteria keep the bad guys at bay. In addition to this they aid with digestion, producing some of the important digestive enzymes, and secreting substances to ensure good absorption of nutrients. It is also important to note that they are capable of producing some of the B vitamins we require, as well as Vitamin K. B vitamins in particular as important for a healthy nervous system, and as they are water soluble the body does not hold reserves, so we need to intake good levels of these every day, particularly if facing stress. Having the ability to produce some of the vital B vitamins that help us cope with stress is very beneficial. Probiotic bacteria can also prove very useful in breaking down lactose, a milk sugar which many people have digestive difficulties with. They also aid with gut motility, and secretion of mucus as well as promoting good intestinal wall integrity. And if this weren’t enough, they help to chelate heavy metals from our system – this is important as heavy metal toxicity is an issue in our polluted world, and our body has very few mechanisms to excrete them. In fact, a gut well populated with friendly bacteria will act as a barrier to the absorption of these metals into the body. When levels of probiotics are compromised this function is lost and heavy metals are absorbed. All of that is very important, but equally as vital is that a healthy gut well-populated with a wide variety of strains of probiotic bacteria forms, it is estimated, a huge 83% of our immune system!! If we are honest, we still only partially understand the role these micro flora play, but it is clear from what we do know that not only do they form a vital part of the immune system, but that they also are essential for prevention of allergies, controlling inflammation, hormonal balance and general gastro-intestinal health. Studies are now also showing that they have an big influence on our weight also. There are different strains of probiotic bacteria, which inhabit different parts of the GI tract – some are in the oral cavity, some in the small intestine, some in the large intestine. Micro flora are also found in the genito-urinary tract, the skin and the respiratory system. The key types in the digestive system are the lactobacillus genus and the bifidobacterium genus, and both have a number of subspecies such as l. acidophilus, l. casei, B. bifidum and B. longum to name but a few. Many of the bacteria found in the gut we are unable to culture but these two genii are two of the effective bacteria that we have been able to replicate and therefore most probiotic supplements contain one or other, or maybe both of these types, as they have been shown to be completely safe. Any reasonable supplement will deliver many billions of bacteria per serving and it is helpful to take them daily in order to maintain good levels within the gut on an ongoing basis. Many things can impact on probiotic levels including use of drugs, particularly antibiotics, poor diet, pollution, alcohol, having dental work done, stress, exposure to toxic chemicals and even age. They require a constant top up for optimal health. Probiotic strains of bacteria are available to us in our diet through eating fermented and pickled foods such as ‘live’ yoghurt, sauerkraut or kefir. Use of these has dwindled considerably though due to the introduction of refrigeration many years ago, so this preserving method has fallen largely out of favour, although it is interesting to note that the health-promoting benefits of these foods has been known about for many years. Another major factor is the introduction of bottle feeding babies. Much of the colonization of an infant’s gut comes first from the birth canal, followed by breast feeding. Studies have shown that both the levels and strains of bacteria differ quite markedly between bottle fed and breast fed infants. Bottle fed infants are more likely to go on to have food intolerances and digestive issues if this is not addressed, and low levels of bacteria even contribute to infant eczema. There are several major areas where research has shown probiotic supplementation to be of therapeutic benefit, but more is constantly being added to the list as our understanding of the part they play in health and disease expands. They are a vital part of treating any kind of gut disorder or inflammatory bowel disease, as well as helping with vaginal thrush and urinary tract infections. A direct link with obesity and a lack of gut flora is now recognised, as is the role they play in helping with detoxification of certain substances, and in boosting immune function. They are also very useful for foreign travel, helping to prevent, or reduce incidence of, travelers tummy. Another consideration is prebiotics. Prebiotics are dietary substances which act as a ‘food’ source for probiotic bacteria. They stimulate the growth of friendly bacteria, helping to ensure large colonies within the gut, and many good formulas include some prebiotic within them. There is a lot to learn to learn about probiotics, and this is a developing field of study, but from what we know already they play a fundamental role in health.
- Half a minute!’ cried Frodo, running out of the room to the door. - A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. - I give you one minute before I call all my dogs. - A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. - but wait a minute! I was going to say: after a bit of supper, I’ll gel out a small waggon, and I’ll drive you all to the Ferry. - Must bathe feet a minute. - ’Wait a minute!’ cried Sam, struck by an idea suggested by firewood. - If Frodo had really wanted to write a book, and had had many ears, he would have learned enough for several chapters in a few minutes. - We shall be packed in a few minutes. - For many minutes he stood looking down at them with a smile. Show more again - ’Half a minute, if you please!’ shouted the man over his shoulder, and vanished into a babel of voices and a cloud of smoke. - Now be quiet! ’ Nothing more was heard for several minutes; but then there came out of the depths faint knocks: tom-tap, tap-tom. - Minutes or hours passed slowly, and nothing happened. - Off you go, all of you, down the stairs! Wait a few minutes for me at the bottom, but if I do not come soon, go on! Go quickly and choose paths leading right and downwards. There are no more uses of "minuteness" in the book. To see samples from other sources, click a word sense below: as in: a minute amount very, very small as in: keep the minutes a written record of what happened at a meeting
Window On Nature By Lowell & Kaye Christie, F47246 The World Series of Birding isn’t just a boast; it’s the name of an event. The New Jersey Audubon Society sponsors the competition, calling it “The country’s premier conservation event!” Now that’s a boast, but it’s hard to dispute. Birders from all over the United States and several other countries converge on New Jersey armed with binoculars and plenty of enthusiasm, ready to compete in the 24-hour bird find. The first World Series began at midnight, May 19, 1984, when 13 teams of top birders spread out across New Jersey, each determined to identify the largest possible number of bird species, by sight or sound, during a 24-hour period. The winning team that year included someone with great name recognition “” famed naturalist Roger Tory Peterson. The 21st World Series will take place on Saturday, May 15. The teams (there were 50 last year) will raise their field glasses to begin the 24-hour treasure hunt. In addition to trophies and glory, participants raise money for the conservation cause of their choice and focus the public’s attention upon migrating birds. All birders will have secured a sponsor and obtained as many pledges as possible from individuals. Thanks to their efforts during the past 20 years, the event has raised millions of dollars for bird conservation. So, how does the World Series work? There are four levels of competition. The most competent birders sign up for Level I. This isn’t just a sign-up, show-up, and hope for the best event. Level I teams of three or more members spend considerable preparation time birding in New Jersey, checking out the best habitats in order to plot a route and a time schedule. Level II is open to individuals and non-competitive birding teams who don’t care to compete at the top level. Level III is designed for youth teams. They are split into two groups: Division A (grades 5 through 8) and Division B (grades 9 through 12). The kids get special treatment that day. New Jersey Audubon Society education staff members work to ensure that their event is an educational experience as well as a fund-raiser for youth group conservation projects. That leaves Level IV for the senior teams, aged 55 and older. This group has a certain advantage “” most have been birders all their lives. A new category, the “Big Sit,” requires the team to designate a 17-foot-diameter circle and to stay within it for the entire 24-hour count. (Fortunately, the rules do not prohibit having a portable potty handy.) Only birds seen or heard while team members are in the circle may be counted. Some wag added, “If you sit in one place long enough, eventually every species of bird will pass by.” Really? All groups must submit their official bird checklist by 12:00 a.m. Sunday. It can be turned in at the finish line, faxed in, or sent via e-mail to the World Series of Birding Web site. And there is a penalty to ensure compliance. Teams that fail to meet the midnight deadline will forfeit one bird from their official total for every five minutes their list is late. So why does the The New Jersey Audubon Society have a World Series of Birding? There are many reasons. First, it draws attention to the habitat needs of migrating birds. Second, it gives birders a chance to put their birding skills on the line for a good cause. In addition, the event brings together birders, conservation groups, and businesses that care about the environment and it generates hundreds of thousands of dollars for conservation causes. The World Series also focuses national media attention upon the challenge and adventure of birding. Finally, it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Organizers stress the fact that even top competition birders are willing to share their expertise with other entrants. We aren’t surprised, since during our many years of birding, we’ve rarely come home without having heard something useful from another guy or gal with binoculars. Just how many birds are seen by a given team will vary according to weather conditions, the experience and skill of the team, the complexity of the route, the amount of prior scouting time allocated, and plain luck. During the last 20 years, World Series birders have spotted or heard a total of 314 bird species. New Jersey residents do have the home state advantage, of course, but that doesn’t keep others away. In this birding event, out-of-region teams actually fare better than in-state teams. Perhaps they spend more time scouting for the best and most varied sites and are more willing to accept help from veteran teams. They also check the official World Series Web site “” www.worldseriesofbirding.org “” frequently and read the entries posted by the online discussion group. A team from New York’s Cornell Lab of Ornithology has won the out-of-state award more than once. “For the lab, the Big Day is not only about winning; it’s about raising awareness and financial support for birds and their habitats,” said John Fitzpatrick, team co-captain and director of the Lab of Ornithology. The team also includes Ken Rosenberg, the lab’s bird conservation director. Check out their Web site at www.birds.cornell/edu. As with any competitive event, there are rules the birders must follow. Most involve counting; areas where birds can be counted; and participation. But other rules we found amusing. For example, the World Series of Birding is open to any birders of good character. All vehicles except aircraft may be used. Team members must remain at distances that permit direct, unamplified voice contact at all times (voice contact is defined as shouting distance, but no bullhorns). Of course, all teams must comply with New Jersey highway laws; failure to do so will result in disqualification. Finally, here are a few tips from Pete Dunne, one of the sport’s top birders and the organizer of the World Series. First, your teammates should include those who are as serious (or as frivolous) about birding as you are. They should be people who don’t mind sitting ham to ham in the backseat of a car for hours on end and don’t get upset by having bags of potato chips upended in their laps. In other words, what you want is a cadre of cheerful, enthusiastic, Teflon-coated Ghandis. Second, the shortest distance between points is a straight line. The shorter the line, the more time you can spend birding and the less time driving. If George Orwell were to summarize, he might say, “Bird time, good. Travel time, bad.” Finally, a “Big Day” is not for finding birds. A “Big Day” is for spotting birds that are already found during scouting. So in the days (even weeks) leading up to the event, go out to prospective birding sites and check out the little pockets along your route. On the World Series Web site, Pete Dunne recommends his own preferred birding sites in New Jersey. Remember what we said about birders loving to help others succeed? As Pete says, “The real purpose to a ‘Big Day’ is having fun. Keep this in mind, and success is assured.” And yes, Pete will be competing this year. The World Series Of Birding Window On Nature
- Extracurricular activities are those activities which are not the components of academic curriculum but an integral part of educational environment. - Nuclear Farewell comprises of playing, painting, singing, debate, dance, acting & drama, music, social services, cultural activities etc. - Students suffer from lots of stress & strain. Cultural programs are useful to relieve stress & strain. In other words, Cultural programs develop positive attitude towards life. - These activities helps to develop creativity and artistic talents among students. - It Strengthens their Self Confidence and helps them to enhance the all-round personality to strongly face the turbulent road of the future
The wind work package of the Natural Hazards Partnership's Hazard Impact Modelling project is led by the Met Office. There are currently three wind hazard impact models for a range of assets. These are the Vehicle OverTurning (VOT) model, the Bridge Model and the Camping and Caravanning model. The models aim to aid decision making, by providing impact information, in the issuing of the National Severe Weather Warning Service wind warnings to the public. The wind hazard impact models have heavily influenced development of the Hazard Impact Framework, which in turn has guided development of later models. The Vehicle OverTurning (VOT) model The VOT model forecasts the Risk of Disruption on the UK road network during a high wind event. This risk value highlights the potential disruption or impact caused should a vehicle overturning event occur on a particular road. The VOT model is used by meteorologists at the Met Office to improve the understanding of risk on the road network during wind storms. The VOT model uses probabilistic wind gust and direction data from the high resolution Met Office Global and Regional Ensemble Prediction System (MOGREPS-UK). This hazard probability is combined with vulnerability and exposure values to give an overall Risk of Disruption on the UK road network due to a vehicle overturning value. This risk algorithm uses a number of datasets to produce values for the vulnerability and exposure elements (below left). The VOT model output from Storm Gertrude on 28th and 29th January 2016 (below right) show the Risk of Disruption changing over time as the storm moves across the UK. The VOT model aiding decision making On the 8th January 2015 the VOT model was used as evidence to update and issue National Severe Weather Warning Service wind warnings. The original warning (below left) had been issued by the Met Office on the morning of the 8th January. At 02:00 on 9th January the forecast from the VOT showed medium to high risk around the Central Belt of Scotland (below middle). The warnings were amended and a new amber warning issued for the Central Belt of Scotland based on the VOT model Risk of Disruption forecast (below right). During the wind storm 18 vehicle overturning and travel disruption events were recorded by news outlets, social media, Highways England and the Met Office's Weather Observation Website. One of the events recorded occurred in the amber warning area in the Central Belt of Scotland and others were reported in the extended yellow warning area. The VOT model showed to be a very good forecast and helped decision making during this event. The Bridge Model forecasts the probability of bridge restrictions and closures for 20 bridges in Great Britain. Below is an example of the Bridge Model output from 29th January 2016 at 10:00. Storm Gertrude hit the UK on the 28th and 29th January 2016 and caused numerous impacts including bridge closures. Camping and Caravanning Model The Camping and Caravanning Model is an innovative and unique model which forecasts risk of camping and caravanning disruption during high winds. It is best used to highlight risk during the summer months when people are more likely to be camping. Relatively low wind gust values (30 mph) can cause impacts to camping in tents. The model uses the same risk algorithm at the VOT model but with different, more relevant, datasets for vulnerability and exposure. A camping and caravan site location database, created by the Health and Safety Laboratory, identifies 9806 site across Great Britain which are input into the model. The model has two additional features: closure of site during winter whereby location points are removed when the site is closed and the inclusion of large music festivals (shown by triangle symbols). Music festivals are more at risk to be disrupted by wind due to the number of people attending and camping. On the 10th and 11th August 2014 ex-hurricane Bertha swept across the UK. The example below shows output from the Camping and Caravanning model. The animation includes: music festivals (shown by the triangles), impact observations from the Met Office Weather Observation Website (green circles), the National Severe Weather Warning Service warnings and their validity time (bottom right) and wind forecasts from the high resolution UKV model (top right). It's difficult to determine if the Camping and Caravanning model verified well due to the nature of impacts reported at campsites. The few reported impacts are in the area where increased risk of forecast by the model.
These sediments deposited in one depositional sequence of III category according to the test composition of foraminifera and facies. This depositional sequence likely represents a period where materials were being deposited on the floor of a lake or running river. Oligocene-Miocene ramp system (Asmari Formation) in the NW of the Zagros basin, Iran: Microfacies, paleoenvironment and depositional sequence The depositional sequence in each subbasin typically consists of (i) a thick basal coarse-grained alluvial succession that rests unconformably on older basement rock, overlain by (ii) a dark-grey, fine-grained lacustrine succession, which is overlain conformably to unconformably by (iii) an upper coarse- to fine-grained alluvial succession. The North China plate merged with the Siberian-Mongolian Continent in the later Paleozoic, which led to the formation of the Tianshan-Yingshan Mountain zone along the northern margin and a regressive depositional sequence consisting of alluvial, fluvial, coastal and shallow marine clastic and coal deposits in the center and southern margin. Analyses of foraminiferal assemblages contained in eight core samples reveal the paleoenvironmental history of the Paleocene Gulf of Mexico as recorded by the TLM depositional sequence Geesaman and Scott (1989) and Garfield and Longman (1989) divided the Fusselman into two informal units in the subsurface of the central Midland Basin, a lower Fusselman and an upper Fusselman, each of which represents a separate depositional sequence According to New Concept's geologist, holes drilled adjacent to those of the discovery fan, and the fan itself, with offsets of 15 feet between holes, indicate the two gold zones may be of the same depositional sequence in time, but occupy separate fault structural zones, the latter truncating the former and possibly representing a mineralized cauldera-related ring fracture complex. This form offers an alternative way of packaging strata into sequences, to avoid the pitfalls of both the depositional sequence and the genetic stratigraphic sequence (Fig. This sequential arrangement corresponds to a third--order depositional sequence similar to the one described by Aigner and Bachmann (1992) for Muschelkalk facies in Germany and by Perez-Valera et al. To meet the prerequisites of a geological structure, the model framework is based on a clear well-organized depositional sequence dividing sedimentary strata by adherence to tectonic sequences. The author also suggested the potash minerals "are of the same composition and depositional sequence and depth as the potash at Unity and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan", currently the location of a number of potash mines.
We call Mendelian inheritance the transmission of heredity traits that occurs in essential accord with the laws stated by the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) on the basis of his crossbreeding of several varieties of pea plants. It is to be noted that Mendel, besides having an outstanding scientific curiosity and being extremely patient and hardworking, was lucky enough to have chosen for his experiments plants and characteristics which, by mere chance, happened to obey especially well the laws conceived by him. In fact, few cases exist where transmission of specific hereditary traits occurs without being interdependent with the transmission of other traits, that is, where a gene determines its trait without the collaboration of other genes, as stated by Mendel's fourth law. Mendel was able to establish with his research several surprising correlations. For instance, when crossing a tall plant with a short plant, the hybrids obtained would be similar to the tall or to the short parent, instead of being average-height plants. Furthermore, in a certain number of cases, a trait disappeared in the immediate generation but reappeared in a subsequent one. Strictly speaking, Mendel did not work with plant heights but rather with a more accurate magnitude: stem length. In order to explain such interesting phenomena, Mendel did not restrict himself to writing relational tables connecting facts observed, as a less gifted mind would have done. He undertook, in addition, a superb theoretical exploit on whose foundation, half a century later, the new science of genetics began to be built. Let us examine this feat in some detail. In the solitude of his garden or cell, Mendel tackled rationally with the problem posed by his findings. Through an act of great abstraction and deprived of the means for observation and manipulation which biologists of our age take for granted, he concluded by mere reasoning that there had to be some elements in organisms functioning as the discreet units of heredity. Such elements, what we today call 'genes,' would not be discovered as material entities until one century later, when their identity with segments of the molecular structure of a DNA strand got established. It was on virtue of this daring theoretical concept that the brilliant monk was able to formulate his four lucid laws of heredity.347 Based upon his theoretical concept and having as background the data of his experiments, clamoring for explanation, Mendel formulated his impressive four laws of heredity:348 Law of parity: Inheritance is based on pairs of units, each one determinant of a specific trait. Mendel called them “elements” or "factors"; we call them “genes.” Of each pair, offspring receives one from each parent. Law of antagonism: Of each pair of factors received by the offspring, one is dominant and the other recessive. Mendel called them “antagonistic factors”; we call them “alleles.” When both parents contribute a dominant element or when both parents contribute a recessive one (AA or aa), the individual will be called pure for such a trait. If the parents contribute one dominant and one recessive elements (Aa or aA), the individual will be a hybrid, but have the same appearance as the dominant. Law of conservation: Heredity elements remain uncontaminated and equal to themselves throughout generations. Existing in pairs in the organism, they are separated when seminal female and male substances are formed, mixing back into new pairs at the conjoining of sperm and ovum by fertilization. The mechanisms of meiosis and the concepts of diploidy and haploidy were here anticipated. Law of independent segregation: If two or more pairs are hybrids in the same organism, they are assorted independently to form eggs or sperm, the segregation of one of the hybrid pairs not being influenced by the segregation of the other. The implication is that the laws of heredity apply to each trait separately. These laws, which anticipated in broad strokes the essentials of the contemporary scientific heredity doctrine, were presented by Mendel to the Society for the Study of Natural Science, in Brünn (today's Czech Republic), on February 8 and March 8, 1865. The members of the scientific society heard him politely but did not accept his ideas, which were totally at odds with the official doctrine of the time. The new doctrine, published in the Proceedings of the Society, fell into oblivion. It was rediscovered, concurrently, in the year 1900, by Carl Correns, Erich von Tschermak, and Hugo de Vries. It became immediately the cornerstone of a new revolutionary science. A note from the Beadles' book for the benefit of students: Note 347: Notice that the proposition expressed by this sentence is susceptible of a logical inversion: The only reason for assuming the existence of genes at the time was the need to formulate the heredity laws. No empirical support was available, that is the meaning of the phrase “theoretical concept.” Based upon his theoretical concept and having as background the data of his experiments, clamoring for explanation, Mendel formulated his impressive four laws of heredity Note 348: The statements of the four laws presented here are a slight elaboration of those presented in George and Muriel Beadle's classical book The language of life (1966). George W. Beadle received the 1958 Nobel Prize on Medicine for his work on genetic regulation. The author of this book had the honor of taking his doctoral diploma from his hands when he was President of The University of Chicago, the same year of the publication of his book.
How dangerous can a prophecy be? And what happens to a prophet who turns out to be wrong? The story of Nongqawuse and the prophecy that led to the deaths of thousands of her fellow Xhosa in the mid-19th century is an important morality despite being so little known outside of South Africa. Even in the early days of British colonialism in southern Africa, the various tribes that made up the Xhosa nation were one of the largest ethnic groups in what would eventually become the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. Though apartheid policies still lay in the future, the Xhosa were largely shut out of most businesses and depended on their cattle herds and crops for food and trade. Despite a major outbreak of cattle lung sickness that had struck the Xhosa cattle herds between 1855 and 1856, the economic disaster that would devastate Xhosa society came from another direction entirely. According to historical records, the Xhosa girl at the centre of the crisis that would follow is believed to have been born in 1840. After losing both of her parents at an early age, Nongqawuse was raised by her uncle, Mhlakaza, a prominent spiritualist. There is very little information about Nongqawuse except that her childhood appeared otherwise normal. Everything changed in the spring of 1856 when Nongqawuse and her friend Nombada went to fetch water from a nearby river. After returning, the fifteen-year old girl Nongqawuse told her uncle that she had met the spirits of two of her ancestors who were using her to relay an important prophecy to her people. The prophecy instructed them to destroy their crops and kill their cattle as a sacrifice to the ancestors who would rise up and drive all the white settlers into the sea. After the settlers were gone, the sun would turn red and a new golden age would come for the Xhosa. There was already racial tension brewing among the Xhosa, who blamed the British for the lung infections that kept decimating their herds. At the same time, their crops had been hit by a new infection that killed the corn before it ripened. Believing the infections were caused by witchcraft, the Xhosa turned to traditional remedies. Prophets and healers offering miraculous cures became commonplace although none of them would have the impact of Nongqawuse and her prophecies. Whatever her reason for making the prophecy (and who might have influenced her), Nongqawuse prophecy likely would not have gone much further without her uncle’s endorsement. While the two girls were ridiculed at first, they went back a few days later and claimed to have received the same message. When Mhlakaza went with them, he saw nothing though his niece relayed the message from the spirits to him. Convinced that his niece’s message was genuine, Mhlakaza dedicated himself to the prophecy and even began killing his own cattle. Eventually he managed to persuade the local chief, Sarili ka Hintsa, about the coming golden age. The prospect of eliminating the white settlers who were already taking all the best land was definitely appealing and Mhlakaza’s reputation helped as well. There was also considerable anger about the recent defeat that the Xhosa had experienced during a frontier war that had ended just three years earlier. Along with that humiliating defeat, the growing culture clash between the European settlers and the Xhosa contributed to a tense situation. Sarili decided to set an example for his people by killing his own cattle and destroying his crops. Though likely horrified at the potential for disaster, his subjects had little choice but to follow that example. And so began the Great Cattle Killing that began in 1856. During the thirteen months that followed, hundreds of thousands of cattle were killed and all the crops were burnt. Though approximately 15% of the 70,000 Xhosa living in the Eastern Cape at the time refused to take part, they were largely condemned by the ones who did. A common nickname attached to them was amagogotoya (stingy ones). Nongqawuse continued hearing the “voices” of the ancestors telling her that all of the cattle needed to be destroyed since they were tainted by the Europeans. As for the British settlers themselves, they were helpless in watching the cattle killing (and some historians suggest that they quietly encouraged it). Though one prominent missionary, Charles Brownlee, tried to counter Nongqawuse’s prophecy, he was largely ignored. Acting as his niece’s spokesman, Mhlakaza took the bold step of providing a specific date for when the prophecy would be fulfilled (Nongqawuse had been carefully vague up to that time). According to Mhlakaza, the ancestors’ promise would be fulfilled on the first day of the full moon. He assured them that the sun would turn red and the believers would be rewarded for their faith. Not only would all the cattle be replaced by new cattle, more beautiful than ever, but new fields of crops ready to harvest would appear as well. The dead warriors would all come back to life and a new era of youth and beauty would begin. When the full moon came and went with the sun being the same colour as ever, Mhlakaza managed to provide a new date for the prophecy, this time on the first day of the new moon. To ensure that people believed in the prophecy, Mhlakaza even organized demonstrations where he would point out to the sea and show them the heads of the New People bobbing out of the water (he was the only one who could hear their message). Some believers even claimed to hear the invisible cattle and goats. As each date failed, he and Nongqawuse tried to place the blame on the nonbelievers who had refused to destroy their cattle and crops. Finally, after repeated failures, Mhlakaza set a final date of February 18, 1857 when the ancestors would definitely appear. After that date came and went, Sarili and his subjects had completely run out of patience. Still, the Xhosa who had destroyed their cattle and crops had much bigger problems. With the loss of their main source of food, they had no way of avoiding mass starvation. For all that Sarili and Mhlakaza shared most of the blame for the coming catastrophe, Sarili insisted on laying all the blame on Nongqawuse. Knowing that she would likely be killed if she remained, Nongqawuse fled to the British for safety and they placed her in protective custody on Robben Island. She would stay there for years before being quietly released. In the meantime, mass starvation set in among the Xhosa with over 40,000 deaths and thousands more being forced to leave their ancestral lands to find work in the nearby Cape Colony. According to some accounts, thousands of vultures could be seen overhead as they were drawn to the countless human and animal corpses. There were also documented cases of some Xhosa turning to cannibalism. The British colony governor, Sir George Grey, took full advantage of the mass starvation. Though he had warned Sarili against the cattle killing and also provided food to the starving Xhosa afterward, it was hardly enough to avoid the mass starvation that would last for years. As the refugees began flooding into the Colony, Grey ordered the colonists not to offer any help to the starving Xhosa unless they agreed to sign binding labour contracts. He also imprisoned many of the Xhosa chiefs on the pretext that they were planning war against the colonists. The total population of Xhosa living in the Eastern Cape dropped and the Governor eventually seized much of their land to be used by European settlers. More than 600,000 acres of land fell into British hands as a result of Grey’s actions. While Nongqawuse survived, her uncle was one of the casualties and much of the blame for what happened fell on her. No reliable details of her later life are available but she was believed to have changed her name after her release from custody and moved far away from the village where she had lived to avoid being killed. She is believed to have died in 1898 though details about her later life are scarce. The Xhosa prophecy and the resulting famine is one of the best examples of mass hysteria in the past two centuries. It is also a graphic example of the devastating power of belief when it is allowed to override common sense. Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice in Toronto, Canada. He is an active blogger and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Check out his blog, Providentia.
Not long ago, we featured a pretty cool looking chart illustrating the many minimum wages that have applied at the federal and for various states in the U.S. since 1994. Today, we're streamlining things a bit to determine the national average minimum wage for the United States! To do that, we've calculated the percentage share of each state's population with respect to the combined population of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and multiplied each state's share of the U.S. population by the greater of either the federal minimum wage or the state's minimum wage. We then summed up the results for each year from 1994 through 2012 to find the population-weighted national average minimum wage for the United States. Those basic results are presented below: And here are the results for each year again, this time adjusted for inflation to be in terms of 2012 U.S. dollars! In these charts, the biggest deviations from the federal minimum wage in any given year can be mainly attributed to large population states that have set their minimum wages well above the level set by the federal government. The largest deviation occurred at the beginning of 2007, when states like California ($7.50), Florida ($6.67), Illinois ($6.50), Massachusetts ($7.50), New York ($7.15) and Washington ($7.93) had set their minimum wages significantly above the U.S. minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. Together, these six states accounted for almost one-third of the U.S. population in 2007, which was enough, when combined with the higher-than-federal minimum wages of smaller population states to boost the population-weighted national average minimum wage to $6.35 per hour, 23% higher than the federal minimum wage on 1 January 2007. The timing of when these large population states increased their minimum wages over the years also explains an apparent anomaly for those analyzing U.S. national employment data. Namely, why increases in the federal minimum wage would not appear to generate the large reductions in the number of the employed that might be expected in economic theory. Here, by increasing their minimum wages in advance of when increases in the federal minimum wage have taken place, many states would bear the brunt of reduced employment earlier as a result of this action. By the time the federal minimum wage was increased with respect to the earlier actions of these states, a good portion of the job loss that might reasonably be expected if it were the only minimum wage in the U.S. would have already taken place. We think that factor goes a long way to explaining why the Age 15-24 population of the U.S. with incomes saw a net decline during the years from 2004 through 2006, which were otherwise characterized by solid economic growth in the U.S. It would seem that all it took to make that decline happen during these years was for the large population states of Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin to rashly boost their minimum wages above the federal minimum wage level of $5.15 per hour, as those five states together account for over one-fifth of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, virtually all of the net decline in the number of Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 with incomes during these years occurred at the levels of annual income that would be most directly affected by the minimum wage increases that occurred in each of these states. (Note: The data for the Age 15-24 segment of the U.S. population is the most likely to show the real effects of minimum wage increases, because American teens and young adults make up approximately half of all individuals earning wages at or near the federal minimum wage level.) By the time the federal minimum wage was increased to $5.85 per hour nearly two-thirds of the way through 2007, the impact that might otherwise have occurred was muted, which we see in the number of American 15-24 year olds with incomes declining much less than might otherwise have been expected from the 13.5% increase in the federal minimum wage that took effect on 24 July 2007. And that's what separates our minimum wage impact analysis from other efforts that only look at the federal minimum wage - we've accounted for the different minimum wages that most affect the population of the United States! Read more posts on Political Calculations »
Kaempfer, Thunberg, Siebold and Blakiston: names in Japanese natural history that live on By Mark Brazil \| May 30, 2018 Wander through the pages of any natural history volume on the plants, birds, mammals or insects of Japan and you will notice that the majority of names, whether English, Japanese or scientific, refer to a species’ unique distinguishing characteristics, perhaps referencing its colour, its morphology, its habitat, or behaviour, or something else about it that is visually striking. In short, we are delving into the realms of taxonomic etymology! In some cases, seemingly random names appear to have been used; names that appear at first sight to be those of people, and that is what they are. Such species are uniquely eponymous. Some such names are given to honour individuals, eponymously, perhaps referencing a sponsor, a mentor, or a famous figure, such as the gecko Homonota darwinii named after the great British naturalist Charles Darwin, the rare butterfly Euptychia attenboroughi, named in 2017 after Sir David Attenborough, or the particularly golden-haired horsefly recently named after Beyonce, Scaptia beyonceae. The likes of Bob Marley, J. R. R. Tolkien, President Obama, and Frank Zappa (and many more public figures) have all been recognised in this way by taxonomic biologists. Being commemorated in name conveys a kind of inescapable immortality. Taxonomists are human, and some of the names they have chosen are not so much in honour as in insult of someone with whom they have crossed scientific swords. The father of modern taxonomy, the Swede, Carolus Linnaeus, even stooped to damning unfortunate colleagues with negative names. For example, Linnaeus named a small, unattractive and unpleasantly sticky plant with tiny flowers Siegesbeckia orientalis after Prussian botanist Johann Siegesbeck, because Siegesbeck had criticized Linnaeus’s revolutionary binomial naming system. Our human lives are so brief, like candles flickering and guttering in the dark, yet the names of some individuals linger on through their eponyms. Echoes of their lives resonate through the centuries as cultural memes that pass from generation to generation perhaps never to be forgotten. The natural history of Japan is replete with examples, but four names are, for me, outstanding: Kaempfer, Thunberg, Siebold and Blakiston. These four names and their histories span four centuries, but in natural history they are forever, immortal. Japan’s centuries of Sakoku, during which the Tokugawa Shogunate, in a strictly isolationist manner, controlled and regulated relations and trade between Japan and other countries meant that, amongst other things, foreigners were barred from entering Japan. This restrictive period, which lasted from the early 1600s to the mid 1850s, meant that opportunities for the exchange of knowledge between Japan and the world were extremely limited. Like a chink in a solid door, the tiny island of Dejima, in Nagasaki, acted as the narrowest of conduits through which knowledge and trade with the west could pass. The permitted, but highly restricted Dutch trading enclave there was confined on a tiny fan-shaped island just 120 m by 75 m. Those who worked there and their overseers nevertheless required their own physician, and the physicians of Dejima proved to be enterprising men who imparted a vast store of knowledge about Japan to the western world and conversely introduced many aspects of western life to Japan – not least amongst them elements of western medicine. The first who garnered international attention was Engelbert Kaempfer (born 16 September 1651 – died 2 November 1716) a German who had trained as a physician. Like so many physicians and clergymen of past centuries he was also an ardent naturalist and his travels as a physician allowed him to collect specimens of previously undescribed species from poorly known parts of the world, including Japan. In September 1690, when Kaempfer arrived at Dejima, it was the only Japanese trading port open to westerners. Kaempfer was to remain in Japan for little more than two years, but was permitted on occasions to leave the tiny island of Dejima. It was during one of those brief excursions that he noted and described the, then poorly known and now widely planted, living fossil tree Ginkgo biloba. Among the many species named after him one in particular the Japanese Larch or Karamatsushould be familiar to anyone who has travelled in central or northern Honshu, or to Hokkaido, where it was introduced. This delightfully colourful and deciduous conifer bears the scientific name Larix kaempferiin honour of the first German physician-naturalist of Dejima. A half century later Dejima was once more home to a foreign naturalist who has left a significant mark. Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg (born 11 November 1743 – died 8 August 1828) has been honoured as the “Japanese Linnaeus”, so great was his contribution here. A student under Linnaeus at Uppsala University, Thunberg studied medicine and natural philosophy and was then invited to collect botanical specimens from Dutch colonies including the tiny Dutch enclave in Dejima. First, as a ship’s surgeon, Thunberg devoted himself to learning the Dutch language so that he could pass as a Dutch merchant (as they were the only westerners allowed into Japan at that time). He arrived at Dejima in August 1775 and became its chief surgeon remaining there like Kaempfer for just two years. Trading his knowledge of western medicine for local botanical specimens he began his exploration of Japan’s flora. Thunberg was extraordinarily fortunate to have been allowed to travel from Nagasaki to Edo (Tokyo) in 1776, and that journey overland allowed him to collect and preserve numerous plant specimens. His studies and his collections allowed him to undertake the first description of the Japanese flora, which was ultimately published in 1784, after his return to Sweden, as “Flora Japonica”. His meandering return journey from Japan, from where he set out in November 1776, took him three years. On his way back to Sweden he visited London and met with contemporary botanist Sir Joseph Banks, himself commemorated in innumerable plant names, in particular in the generic name Banksiafor the many species commonly known as Australian Honeysuckles. In London, Thunberg was able to examine the collection of his predecessor at Dejima, Engelbert Kaempfer, and we may only imagine how thrilling an experience that must have been for him. In the measured footsteps of Kaempfer and Thunberg came Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (born 17 February 1796 – died 18 October 1866), another German physician, who was destined to leave behind an astonishing legacy. Building on the works of his predecessors, Siebold’s contributions to our knowledge of the Japanese flora and fauna were enormous. As with Thunberg, Siebold became a ship’s doctor, learned Dutch and like both Kaempfer and Thunberg before him he was posted to Dejima, arriving there in June 1823. Trading his scientific and medical knowledge for information on Japan’s customs, culture and natural history, at a time when it seems Japanese were increasingly hungry for such knowledge, Siebold was eventually granted more extended access beyond the close confines of internment on Dejima. Siebold’s life in Dejima included ‘marrying’ and fathering a daughter. He honoured his ‘wife’ by naming a Hydrangea Hydrangea otaksaafter his pet name for her, and honoured his daughter with sufficient training and skills for her to become a highly regarded physician in her own right. Siebold’s own collections rapidly expanded as his grateful patients ‘paid’ him in kind with objects ranging from ethnographic artefacts and artworks to natural history specimens, and as he sent Japanese specimen collectors into the countryside. As was typical in that period, the specimens he collected, including the first specimen of the huge Japanese Giant Salamander (Andrias japonicus), were sent in shipments to various European museums. Siebold’s enquiring mind and acquisitive collecting eventually landed him in trouble, as during a journey to Edo he was caught with several maps in his possession (a treasonous act at that time). He was first arrested and placed under house arrest; then ultimately in October 1829 his six-year sojourn in Japan came to an end when he was expelled having been accused of spying on behalf of Russia. Settling in Leiden he established a small private museum and wrote a number of books himself on Japanese ethnography, geography and natural history as well as collections of literature and a dictionary. I first came across Siebold’s illustrious name in the context of the famous, multi-volume Fauna Japonica published from 1833-1850, which relied heavily on his specimen collection. It is renowned as having made the Japanese fauna the best-described non-European fauna of the times. Further serving to establish Siebold’s name as one to live forever was his workFlora Japonicaco-authored with German botanist Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, much of which was actually published posthumously. Siebold’s legacy lives on not only in his published works and the species named after him, but also in the species that he introduced to Europe and which have subsequently spread around the world, which included a range of species from Azaleas and butterburs to the larch tree named after his predecessor Kaempfer. His knowledge of then closed and isolated Japan made him an invaluable expert and adviser, and unsurprisingly even the American Commodore Matthew Perry, renowned for ‘opening’ Japan, is said to have consulted Siebold. Perhaps little known in Europe or North America today, outside the limited spheres of botany and horticulture, Siebold (Shiborudo) is well known in Japan and amongst naturalists, both as an important historical figure and as someone amply commemorated in species names, from a bird, the White-bellied Green Pigeon Treron sieboldii, to various trees and shrubs including Siebold’s Magnolia Magnolia sieboldii,Siebold’s Viburnum, Southern Japanese Hemlock Tsuga sieboldii, and even a fern, Siebold’s Wood FernDryopteris sieboldii. Whereas in earlier centuries the fragment of Nagasaki known as Dejima was the only conduit for knowledge between Japan and the west, during the mid and late 19thcentury, especially with the Meiji restoration, came the relaxation of certain restrictions. A number of other ports were opened to overseas trade, including Kobe, Yokohama and especially Hakodate. It was to Hakodate, which had opened first in 1854, that the British merchant and naturalist Captain Thomas Wright Blakiston (born 27 December 1832 – died 15 October 1891) moved to establish initially a wood milling business. With far fewer restrictions placed on the movements of foreigners in Japan at that time, Blakiston was able, during his twenty-three year residence in Hakodate from 1861 to 1884, to collect natural history specimens himself and send out collectors to bring back specimens to him. In communication with entomologist Henry Pryer (1850-1888) who lived in Yokohama, Blakiston with Pryer’s help published a Catalogue of the Birds of Japan. That ground breaking ornithological work provided the basis for a later compendious volume Birds of the Japanese Empireby Henry Seebohm. Blakiston was the first to recognize the fundamental difference between the fauna of Hokkaido, which was more closely related with that of northern Asia, from that of Honshu, which was more closely related to that of southern Asia. The Tsugaru Strait that separates Hokkaido from Honshu has, since Blakiston’s time been recognized as a significant zoogeographical boundary otherwise known now as Blakiston’s Line. One of the specimens collected by Blakiston and shipped to Britain was of an enormous owl, which now also bears Blakiston’s name. Known as Blakiston’s Fish Owl, Bubo blakistoniit is both rare and endangered, but I have had the good fortune of watching it in the wild in Hokkaido and in visiting the collection of specimens housed in Tring, UK, to see that original specimen taken by Blakiston. The collection at Tring, in the English countryside, began as the private collection of Lord Lionel Walter, Baron Rothschild (1868-1937). Today, the Tring-based collection houses almost 750,000 specimens of more than 95 per cent of the world’s bird species, among them are 8,000 type specimens (the first and representative specimen collected of a species). The enormous diversity of priceless material there was certainly overwhelming, but in the company of fish owl researcher Mr Yamamoto Sumio, only once specimen captured and held our attention – the very specimen of the owl sent by Blakiston. Having stood together on cold winter nights beside frozen rivers in east Hokkaido watching and listening to this bird, seeing that rare specimen in Tring was as if we had been transported back in time and we could imagine what it must have been like to have been an ornithologist in Japan in the late 1800s. Numerous Japanese naturalists have each left their mark on the natural history of this country, but few have achieved the great significance and fame accruing to Kaempfer, Thunberg, Siebold and Blakiston, whose pioneering work allowed the west to learn so much about this fascinating country. In June 2018, Mark’s latest book, A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan, will be published. If you would like to read more about Japan’s natural (and un-natural) history, then you may enjoy Mark’s collection of essays entitled The Nature of Japan: From Dancing Cranes to Flying Fish. Author, naturalist, lecturer and expedition leader, Dr Mark Brazil has written his Wild Watchcolumn continuously since April 1982, first in The Japan Timesfor 33 years, and since 2015 here on this website. All Wild Watch articles dating back to 1999 are archived here for your reading pleasure. Two handy pocket guides The Common and Iconic Birds of Japanand The Common and Iconic Mammals of Japanhave also been published and along with The Nature of Japanare available from www.japannatureguides.com
On Feb. 11, NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) thundered into space aboard an Atlas V rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The LDCM, the eighth satellite in a series dating back to 1972, brings two sensors-the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS)-into low orbit over the Earth to image our planet's land surface. Jim Irons, a former agronomist serving as NASA project scientist for LDCM at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., says that the new satellite and imaging instruments will deliver data-rich images for growers and other agricultural decision makers, telling a deeper tale of how the land changes over time. "Landsat data are applied broadly in agriculture," explains Irons. "The USDA Foreign Ag Service uses Landsat data to help develop their global commodity forecasts, the USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) uses Landsat data in the development of its now annual Crop Data Layer (CropScape) digital map of U.S. crops, and the USDA Risk Management Agency uses Landsat data to spot check crop insurance claims, validate cause of loss and assess flood risk and compliance. "Additionally, our western states' water resource agencies use Landsat data to monitor water consumption in irrigated fields, to manage water rights and adjudicate conflicting claims," he adds. According to NASA, LDCM will go through what's known as a "check-out phase" for the next three months. Afterward, operational control will be transferred to NASA's mission partner, the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the satellite will be renamed Landsat 8. Data will be archived and distributed free over the Internet from the Earth Resources and Science (EROS) center in Sioux Falls, SD. Distribution of Landsat 8 data from the USGS archive is expected to begin within 100 days of launch. To demonstrate the benefits of the launch to agriculture, NASA recently profiled grower Gary Wagner, who uses free data obtained from LDCM satellites to make variable-rate fertilizer decisions on his 5,000 acre sugarbeet farm in northern Minnesota. From NASA's "Landsat Satellites Find the 'Sweet Spot' for Crops"; To find where he needs to adjust his fertilizer use-apply it here or withhold it there-Wagner uses a map of his 5,000 acres that span 35 miles created using free data from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat satellites. When he plants a different crop species the following year, Wagner's map will tell him which areas of the fields are depleted in nitrogen so he can apply fertilizer judiciously instead of all over. Wagner's map-a special kind of map known as a zone map-shows the difference between healthy and stressed plants by representing the amount of light they're reflecting in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. To display this information on his map, the visible colors of light-red, green, and blue-are each assigned to a different band. Red, for example, is assigned to the near-infrared band that isn't visible to humans. Healthy leaves strongly reflect the invisible, near-infrared energy. Therefore green, lush sugar beets pop out in bright red on Wagner's map, while the yellow-leaved stressed plants appear as a duller red. Wagner can use this map to track and document changes in his crop's condition throughout the season and between seasons. As a tool, this map supports and enhances his on-the-ground crop analyses with independent and scientific observations from space. A farmer needs to monitor his fields for potential yield and for variability of yield, Wagner says. Knowing how well the plants are growing by direct measurement has an obvious advantage over statistically calculating what should be there based on spot checks as he walks his field. That's where remote sensing comes in, and NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat satellites step into the spotlight.
Encourage Students to Express Their Feelings, Experts Suggest Experts on children’s mental health last week urged adults to encourage students to talk about the space-shuttle deaths and to be receptive listeners. And they cautioned that over the next few weeks, children may become fearful, misbehave, or develop such somatic symptoms as headaches and stomachaches. Students may daydream, have problems sleeping, express feelings of futility, or show a decline in the quantity and quality of their schoolwork, they said. Being actual witnesses to the fiery tragedy on television, experts agreed, may have a powerful effect on some children. ‘Going With Her’ “Christa humanized it, personalized it, and created an intimate mutual identity,” said Dr. Kent Ravenscroft, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University Medical School, “as if it were their teacher going up into space. And in effect, they were going up with her by proxy.” “I had one boy who said that he was riding right up in the rocket with her and then he felt himself explode,” he continued. “It was so intolerable that he finally denied it.” Other experts agreed that because a teacher was aboard the shuttle, and because schools had purposefully stirred children’s enthusiasm in the weeks preceding the launch, the disaster could have a great impact on some students. But they noted that the extent to which children reacted would depend on their age, their intellectual and emotional development, any personal experiences they had had with death or loss, and their personality. Students who had personal contact with the astronauts or their families or who were in schools that had primed them to be deeply involved with the flight could be expected to react more strongly, they said. Other particularly vulnerable children are those whose mothers have died recently or whose parents are going through a divorce, students who are the same age as Ms. McAuliffe’s children, students who are feeling inadequately cared for, and those who are angry with their teachers or their parents. Although most older children are able to tell the difference between a news event and fantasy, and will have some understanding of death, young children will not be reacting to the event itself as much as to the groundswell of feeling among adults and peers, they said. “Younger kids will almost pick up the vibrations,” said Dr. Ravenscroft. Opportunity for Teachers More important than the content of teachers’ activities will be their willingness to “take leadership,” said Dr. Gilbert W. Kliman, co-author of Children and the Death of a President, a book about the effect on children of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. As part of the study for the book, Dr. Kliman sent a questionnaire to the teachers of 800 youngsters in a small Northeastern city. His study found that teachers who took the initiative and immediately organized classroom discussions and activities for their students had a positive effect. Those who refrained from communicating with children or sharing their feelings actually hindered students’ ability to cope with trauma. “While young children frequently wished to be President before this assassination,” said Dr. Kliman, “that same generation of children had an immediate chill and a long-range freeze on their ambitions politically, and particularly for leadership and for the office of President.” His current concern, he said, is that the explosion of Challenger will have a similar negative effect on children’s attitudes toward space exploration and other adventurous, scientific activities, particularly among girls. Teachers should be honest in any dealings with children, said Frank Burtnett, assistant executive director of the American Association of Counseling and Development. He cautioned counselors and teachers not to make the event end at 11:39 A.M. Jan. 28. “This is a time when honesty and facts should really come through,” he said. “We need to give answers as best we know them to kids, and not give them more mysteries.” Experts also cautioned that children’s reactions to death are different than those of adults--and may be what a teacher least expects. “Grieving children may look bad rather than sad,” said Dr. Lillian H. Robinson, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Tulane School of Medicine. “If they raise hell, if they misbehave, or if they do things to keep themselves busy and preoccupied, it’s so they don’t have time to feel sad or anxious. What we see in a child who is grieving is often the defense against sadness and anger rather than the feelings themselves.” In addition, young children have a tendency to act out their emotions. “I would anticipate children all over the nation to be playing at shuttles blowing up and things like that,” she said. “Sometimes they might be making jokes about it. But it’s not necessarily disrespectful or bad for them to do that.” Other students may try to distance themselves from the event by handling it intellectually, said Sandra S. Fox, director of the Good Grief Program in Boston, which helps children cope with death. Such children may ask endless questions, trying to gather as much information as they can about the event, she said. For the majority of children, the immediate response should be over in a few days, added Dr. Kliman. But long-term, subtle effects on character and motivation should be of concern to educators, he stated, noting that he is still seeing the effects of the Kennedy assassination on people. Dr. Albert Clark, director of student-health services for the Los Angeles Public Schools said he did not expect the shuttle explosion to have an “untoward” effect on most students. Experts agreed that teachers should emphasize the known the risks that were involved in the space flight, the bravery of the astronauts, and the importance of such people’s risk-taking to society. They also said that teachers should share their feelings with students, in effect giving children “permission to grieve.” But they cautioned adults not to “overwhelm” children. The risk, said Dr. Ravenscroft, is that teachers will project their own feelings onto students rather than listening to what children really think. A gentle, “backdoor approach” to discussing the disaster, he said, is to get children talking about how other children reacted, “to come at it through somebody else at some other place at some other time.” Any immediate, concrete actions--such as writing letters of condolence, holding a memorial service, or playing the national anthem--would also help, experts said. Equally important, teachers should gather to discuss their own feelings and to overcome their anxieties and fears about saying the wrong thing to students, said Ms. Fox. Although experts could not give a ready answer about whether schools should proceed with some form of Ms. McAuliffe’s in-flight lessons, they cautioned that it may be too soon for the experience to be productive. The most important factor in the decision, they added, may be how ready teachers feel to cope with it. Vol. 5, Issue 21, Page 7
The period of the Renaissance in France closed with two works (one for the most part in prose and due to various authors, the other wholly in verse and the work of one only) which exhibit the highest excellence. The Satyre Ménippée and the satires of Regnier are separated in point of date of publication by some fifteen years, and the contributors to the first-named work belong for the most part to an earlier generation, and represent a less accomplished state of the language than the great satirist who, after fifteen centuries, took up the traditions of his Roman masters. But both are satirical in substance, though the Ménippée is almost wholly political, and Regnier busies himself with social and moral subjects only. Both possess in a high degree the characteristics of the period which they close. Both exhibit a remarkable power of treating ephemeral subjects in a manner calculated to make their interest something more than ephemeral. Both have met with the just reward of continuing to be popular even at times when the most unjust unpopularity rested on work scarcely less excellent but less calculated to please the taste of those who, however much they may sympathise with the fashions of their own day, are unable to sympathise with those of a day which is not theirs. The Satyre Ménippée222 was a remarkable, and, for those who take an interest both in literature and in politics, a most encouraging instance of the power of literary treatment at certain crises of political matters. It appeared in 1594, at the crucial period of the League. For years there had existed the party known for the most part uncomplimentarily as Les Politiques. These persons professed themselves unable to find, in the simple difference of Catholic v. Protestant, a casus belli for Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Their influence, however, though it occasionally rose to the surface in the days of Charles IX. and Henri III., had never been lasting, and they laboured under the charge of being Laodiceans, trimmers, men who cared for nothing but hollow peace and material prosperity. The assassination of Henri III., and the open confederation between the Leaguers and the Spanish party, at last gave them their opportunity, and it was seized with an adroitness which would have been remarkable in a single man, but which is still more remarkable in a group of men of very different antecedents, professions, ages, and beliefs. The Satyre Ménippée is, in fact, the first and most admirable example of the theory of the modern newspaper — the theory that the combined ability of many men is likely, on the whole, to treat complicated and ephemeral affairs better than the limited, though perhaps individually greater, ability of any one man. The Ménippée, prose and verse, was due to the working of a new Pléiade — Leroy, Gillot, Passerat, Rapin, Chrestien, Pithou, and Durant. Most of them were lawyers, a few were more or less connected with the Church. Pierre Leroy, a canon of Rouen, of whom nothing is known, but whose character De Thou praises, is said to have planned the book, and to have acted in some way as editor. Jacques Gillot, clerk-advocate of the Parliament, received the literary conspirators in his house. Passerat and Rapin represented the mixed classical and French culture of the immediate companions of Ronsard. Florent Chrestien was a converted Huguenot, much given to translation of ancient authors. Pithou (the writer of the harangue of Claude d'Aubray, the most important piece of the whole and containing the moral and idea of the book) was, like Chrestien, a convert. He ranks as one of the most distinguished members of the French bar, and had a deserved reputation for every kind of learning in his time. Lastly, Durant, who contributed rather to the appendix of the book than to the book itself, was an Auvergnat gentleman, who preferred poetry to law, and justified his preference by some capital work, partly of a satirical kind, partly of an elegant and tender gallantry, anticipating, as has been justly said, the eighteenth century in elegance, and excelling it in tenderness. The plan of the Ménippée (the title of which, it is hardly necessary to say, is borrowed from the name of the cynic philosopher celebrated by Lucian) is for the time singularly original and bold; but the spirit in which the subject is treated is more original still. Generally speaking, the piece has the form of a compte-rendu of the assembly of the states at Paris. The full title is De la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la Tenue des États de Paris. The preface contains a sarcastic harangue in orthodox charlatan style on the merits of the new Catholicon or Panacea. Then comes a description (in which, as throughout the work, actual facts are blended inextricably with satirical comment) of the opening procession. To this succeeds a sketch of the tapestries with which the hall of meeting was hung, all of which are, of course, allegorical, and deal with murders of princes, betrayal of native countries to foreigners, etc. Next comes L'Ordre tenu pour les Séances, in which the chief personages on the side of the League are enumerated in a long catalogue, every item of which contains some bitter allusion to the private or public conduct of the person named. Seven solemn speeches are then delivered by the Duke de Mayenne as lieutenant, by the legate, by the Cardinal de Pelvé, by the bishop of Lyons, by Rose, the fanatical rector of the University, by the Sieur de Rieux, as representative of the nobility; and, lastly, by a certain Monsieur d'Aubray, for the Tiers-État. A burlesque coda concludes the volume, the joints of which are, first, a short verse satire on Pelvé; secondly, a collection of epigrams due to Passerat; and, thirdly, Durant's Regret Funèbre à Mademoiselle ma Commère sur le Trépas de son Âne, a delightful satire on the Leaguers, which did not appear in the first edition, but which yields to few things in the book. It has been said that the plan of the Ménippée has of itself not a little originality. Satirical comment and travesty devoted to political affairs had been common enough almost for centuries in France, but no satire of the kind had hitherto flown so high, or with so well-organised a flight. The seven speeches, which form the bulk of the book, display moreover a remarkable variety and a still more remarkable combination of excellences. The first six — those of Mayenne, the legate, Pelvé, the bishop of Lyons, Rose, and Rieux, none of which is long — are, without exception, caricatures, and of that peculiar order of caricature in which the victim is made, without a glaring violation of probability, to render himself vile and ridiculous, and to give utterance to the satire and invective which the author desires to pour upon him. Butler (who beyond all doubt had the Satyre Ménippée in his mind when he projected his own immortal travesty of the Puritan party) is the only writer who has ever come near to its authors in this particular department of satire. Treated as they were by different hands, there is a curiously pleasing variety of style in the portraits. Mayenne uses a mixture of aristocratic and somewhat haughty frankness with garrulous digression. The two cardinals indulge in an astounding macaronic jargon, the one of Italian mingled with Latin, the other of Latin mingled with French. The bishop of Lyons, and Rose the rector, preach sermons, after the fashion of the time, thickly larded with quotations, stories, and so forth. Rieux (he was a noted bandit) expresses with soldierly frankness his extreme surprise that he should have become a gentleman and the representative of the nobility, and mildly reproaches Mayenne and the League for not having given carte-blanche to himself and his likes to finish off the Politiques bag-and-baggage. But in the last harangue, that of the representative of the Tiers-État, Claude d'Aubray, which is, as has been said, the work of Pithou, and which occupies something like half the book, the tone is entirely altered. In this remarkable discourse the whole political situation is treated seriously, and with a mixture of practical vigour and literary skill of which there had hardly been any precedent instance. D'Aubray denounces the condition of Paris first, and the condition of the kingdom afterwards. The foreign garrisons, the sufferings of private persons by the war, the deprivation or suspension of privileges, are all commented upon. A remarkable historical sketch of the religious wars follows, and then turn by turn the speaker attacks those who have spoken before him, and exposes their conduct. A vigorous sketch of 'Le Roy que nous voulons et que nous aurons,' leads up to the announcement that this king is no other than 'Notre vray Roy légitime, naturel et souverain, Seigneur Henry de Bourbon, cy-devant Roy de Navarre.' After this discomposing harangue the assembly breaks up in some confusion. The Satyre Ménippée had an immense effect, and may, perhaps, be justly described as the first example, in modern politics, of a literary work the effect of which was really great and lasting. It is not surprising that such should have been its fortune. For it is a remarkably happy mixture of the older style of gaulois jocularity (in which exaggeration, personal attack, insinuations of a more or less scandalous character and the like, furnished the attraction) and the newer style of chastened and comparatively polished prose. The greater part of the first six speeches are of a more antique cast than Montaigne; and though the speech of D'Aubray exhibits a more elaborate and less familiar style, it too is definitely plain and popular in manner. Although there are the allusions usual at the time to classical subjects, the Pléiade pedantry, with which at least two of the contributors, Passerat and Rapin, were sufficiently imbued, is conspicuously absent. Rabelais is frequently alluded to; and when the style of the book and the obvious intention of appealing to the general, which it exhibits, are considered, no better testimony to the popularity of Gargantua and Pantagruel could be produced. The descriptions, too, have a Rabelaisian minuteness and richness about them; and in the burlesque parts the influence of that master is equally perceptible. But the strictly practical point of view is always maintained; and the temptation, always a strong one with French writers of the middle age and Renaissance, to lose sight of this in endless developments of mere amusing buffoonery, is constantly resisted. There is certainly less exaggeration in the Ménippée than in Hudibras, though the personal weaknesses of the innumerable individual persons satirised contribute more to the general effect than they do in Butler's great satire. The distinguishing trait of the Satyre Ménippée, next to those already mentioned, is the constant rain of slight ironical touches contributing to the general effect. Thus the arms of the processioning Leaguers are, 'le tout rouillé par Humilité Catholique;' the League scholastics and preachers 'forment tous leurs arguments in ferio.' The deputies' benches are covered with cloth, 'parsemées de croisettes de Lorraine et de larmes miparties de vair et de faux argent.' These sure and rapid touches distinguish the book strongly from nearly all mediaeval satire, in which the satirists are wont, whenever they make a point, to dwell on it, and expound it, and illustrate it, and make the most of it, until it loses almost all its piquancy. Very different from this over-elaboration is the confident irony of the Ménippée, which trusts to the intelligence of the reader for understanding and emphasis. 'Vous prévoyez bien,' says Mayenne, 'les dangers et inconvéniens de la paix qui met ordre à tout, et rend le droit à qui il appartient.' Hardly even Antoine de la Salle, and certainly no other among the authors of the preceding centuries, would have ventured to leave this, obvious as it seems now-a-days, to reach the reader by itself. A similar but a still more remarkable, because an individually complete, example of the combination of Gallican tradition with classical study was soon afterwards shown by Mathurin Regnier223. Regnier was born at Chartres on the 21st of December, 1573, his father being Jacques Regnier, a citizen of position; his mother was Simonne Desportes, sister of the poet. Jacques Regnier desired for his son the ecclesiastical, but not the poetical, eminence of his brother-in-law, and Mathurin was tonsured at nine years old. The boy, however, wished to follow his uncle's steps in the other direction, and early began to write. It is said that he wrote lampoons on the inhabitants of his native town, and, repeating them to the frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had built, got himself thus into trouble. His father's threats and punishments, however, had no more effect than is usual in such cases, and Regnier soon, but at a date not exactly known, betook himself to his uncle at Paris. By Desportes, who was in favour with many high personages, he was recommended to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, and took part in that prelate's embassy to Rome in 1593. Joyeuse, however, did nothing for him, and in 1601 he again went to Rome in the suite of Philippe de Bethune. He returned before long, and, in 1604, a canonry, to the reversion of which he had been presented long before, fell in. His first collection of satires appeared in 1608. Five years afterwards, in 1613, on the 22nd of October, he died at Rouen, having not quite completed his fortieth year. His way of life had unfortunately been by no means regular, and his early death is said to have been directly caused by his excesses. In this short sketch almost everything that is known of Regnier, except a few anecdotes, has been included, and the total is, it will be seen, exceedingly meagre. Nor is his work abundant even for a man who died comparatively young. Sixteen satires, three epistles, five elegies, and a few miscellaneous pieces, make it up, and probably the total does not exceed seven or eight thousand lines. The relative excellence of this work is however exceedingly high. Regnier is almost the only French poet before the so-called classical period who has continuously maintained his reputation, and who has only been decried by a few eccentric or incompetent critics. He was an ardent defender of the Ronsardising tradition, yet Malherbe, whom he did not hesitate to attack, thought and spoke highly of him. In the next age Boileau allotted to him a mixture of praise and blame which is not too apposite, but in which the praise far exceeds the blame, and elsewhere declared him to be the French writer, before Molière, who best knew human nature. The approval of Boileau secured that of the eighteenth century, while Regnier's defence of the Pléiade propitiated the first Romantics. Thus buttressed on either side, he has had nothing to fear from literary revolutions. Nor will any judgment which looks rather at merit than authority arrive at an unfavourable conclusion respecting him. His satires are not indeed absolutely the first of their kind in French. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean de la Taille, and above all, D'Aubigné, had preceded him. But in breadth as well as, except in the case of D'Aubigné, in force, and above all in even excellence and technical merit, he far surpassed those who in a manner had shown him the way. His satire is exclusively social, and thus it escapes one of the chief drawbacks of political satire, that of dealing with matters of more or less ephemeral existence and interest. He has indeed borrowed considerably from the ancients, but he has almost always made his borrowings his own, and he has in some cases improved on his originals. He has softened the exaggerated air of moral indignation which his English contemporaries, Hall and Marston, borrowed from Juvenal, and which sits so awkwardly on them and on many other satirists. He has avoided such still more awkward followings as that which made Pope upset all English literary history in order to echo Horace's remarks about Rome and Greece. Sometimes he has fallen into the besetting sin of his countrymen, the tendency to represent mere types or even abstractions instead of lifelike individuals embodying the type, but he has more often avoided it. His descriptive passages are of extraordinary vigour and accuracy of touch, and his occasional strokes are worthy of almost any satiric or didactic poet. He is perhaps weakest, like all poets with the signal exception of Dryden, when he is panegyrical. Yet his first satire — in the order of arrangement not of writing — addressed to the King, Henri IV., has much merit. The second, on poets, has more, and abounds in vigorous strokes, such as that of the courtier bard who Méditant un sonnet, médite un évêché; and as the couplet which concludes a lively sketch of his diplomatic experiences — Mais instruit par le temps à la fin j'ai connu Que la fidélité n'est pas grand revenu. This poem, which contains some humorous descriptions of the poverty of poets, ends with an eloquent panegyric on Ronsard. The next, on 'La Vie de la Cour,' attacks a very favourite subject of the age, and winds up with an extremely well-told version of the fable of the beast of prey and the mule whose name is written on its hoof. The fourth returns to the subject of the poverty of poets. The fifth argues at some length, and in a spirit not very far removed from that of Montaigne, the thesis that 'Le goût particulier décide de tout.' It contains some of Regnier's finest passages. A subject somewhat similar in kind, 'L'honneur ennemi de la vie,' gives further occasion, in the sixth, for the display of the moralising spirit of the age, which, in Regnier, takes the form of a kind of epicurean pococurantism mingled with occasional bursts of noble sentiment. The seventh is one of the most personal of all; it is entitled 'L'amour qu'on ne peut dompter,' and is a comment on the text Video meliora proboque. The eighth is one of the innumerable imitations of the famous ninth satire of the first book of Horace, Ibam forte via sacra, and perhaps the happiest of all such, though it is difficult not to regret that Regnier should have devoted his too rare moments of work to mere imitation. The ninth, however, is open to no such charge. It is entitled Le Critique outré, and is an extraordinarily vigorous and happy remonstrance against the intolerant pedantry with which Malherbe was criticising the Pléiade. This satire is addressed to Rapin, the veteran contributor to the Ménippée. It is impossible to describe the weak side of the reforms which Malherbe, and after him Boileau, introduced into French poetry, better than in these lines, which deserve citation for their literary importance:— Cependant leur scavoir ne s'estend seulement Qu'à regratter un mot douteux au jugement, Prendre garde qu'un qui ne heurte une diphtongue; Espier si des vers la rime est brève ou longue; Ou bien si la voyelle, à l'autre s'unissant, Ne rend point à l'oreille un vers trop languissant. Ils rampent bassement, foibles d'inventions, Et n'osent, peu hardis, tenter les fictions, Froids à l'imaginer; ear s'ils font quelque chose C'est proser de la rime, et rimer de la prose, Que l'art lime et relime, et polit de façon, Qu'elle rend à l'oreille un agréable son. The tenth satire, with its title 'Le souper ridicule,' seems to return to Horace, but in reality the scene described has little in common with the Coena of Nasidienus. It affords Regnier an excellent opportunity for displaying his talent for Dutch painting, but is in this respect inferior to the sequel 'Le mauvais gîte.' The subject of this is sufficiently unsavoury, and the satire is almost the only one which in the least deserves Boileau's strictures on the author's 'rimes cyniques,' but the vigour and skill of the treatment are most remarkable. The twelfth is short, and once more apologetically personal. But the thirteenth is the longest, one of the most famous, and unquestionably on the whole the best work of the author. It is entitled 'Macette,' and describes an old woman who hides vice under a hypocritical mask and corrupts youth with her evil philosophy of the world and its ways. Indebted in some measure to the Roman de la Rose for the idea of his central character, Regnier is entirely original in his method of treatment. Nowhere are his verses more vigorous — Son œil tout pénitent ne pleure qu'eau béniste. L'honneur est un vieux saint que l'on ne chomme plus. La sage se sait vendre où la sotte se donne. Nowhere is Regnier so uniformly free from technical defects and from colloquialisms in which he sometimes indulges. The fourteenth returns to general and somewhat vague satire, dealing with the vanity of human reason and conduct, while the fifteenth is once more personal, 'Le Poète malgré soi.' Lastly, the sixteenth sums up the author's theoretical philosophy in the opening line, 'N'avoir crainte de rien et ne rien espérer.' The satires are in bulk and in importance so much the larger part of the work of Regnier, and represent such an important innovation in French literature, that it has seemed well to describe them with some minuteness. The miscellaneous poems may be reviewed more rapidly, though the best of them add very considerably to the poet's reputation, because they show him in an entirely different light. Not a few of the elegies are imitated from Ovid, and some of them might perhaps have been left unwritten with advantage. Indeed, Regnier is here much more open to Boileau's censure than in his more famous verse. But some lyrical pieces exhibit his command of other measures besides the Alexandrine, and afford occasion for the expression of a melancholy and genuine sensibility which is not common in French poetry. The poem called 'Plainte' is very beautiful, and is written in a lyric stanza of much more elaboration than any which was to be used in France for two centuries. One of its peculiarities is a hemistich replacing the expected fourth line of the stanza, which is of eight verses, with singularly musical effect. A so-called 'Ode' is almost better, and ends thus:— Un regret pensif et confus D'avoir esté, et n'estre plus, Rend mon âme aux douleurs ouverte; A mes despens, las! je vois bien Qu'un bonheur comme estoit le mien Ne se cognoist que par la perte. Regnier was in many ways a fitting representative for the close of the great poetical school of the sixteenth century. In manner he represented the fusion of the purely Gallic school of Marot and Rabelais, with the classical tradition of the Pléiade in its best form. His Alexandrines, if not quite so vigorous as D'Aubigné's, have all the polish that could be expected before the administration of Malherbe's rules. His lyric measures have the boldness and harmony which those rules banished from French poetry for full seven generations. In matter he displays a singular mixture of acute observation and philosophic criticism with ardent sensibility both to pleasure and pain. This, as has been repeatedly pointed out, is the dominant temper of the French Renaissance, and though in Regnier it shows something of the melancholy of the decadence as compared with the springing hope of Rabelais and the calm maturity of Montaigne, it is scarcely less characteristic. 222 Ed. Labitte. Paris, 1869. 223 Ed. Courbet. Paris, 1875. In this edition some of the dates and statements in the text, which have been generally accepted, are contested. Last updated Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 14:13
Whether sperm fly at high speed or laze their way towards an egg might depend on how much competition they face, suggests a new analysis of sperm samples. The study reveals that promiscuous primate species have faster sperm than their more monogamous counterparts. Jaclyn Nascimento at the University of California in San Diego, US, and her colleagues received sperm samples from humans, gorillas, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys for analysis. Researchers had collected sperm samples from the latter two species using artificial vaginas, while the gorillas were trained to give up sperm (with the helping hand of a researcher) in exchange for candy. Nascimento, an electrical engineer, and her collaborators focused in on specific sperm within the diluted samples, and recorded the activity of these individual sperm on film. Next, they used a sophisticated computer algorithm specifically created to determine the speed of a given sperm by tracking its head. After examining numerous sperm from the two men who provided sperm samples, the team calculated that human sperm travel at about 0.2 metres per hour, a finding within the same range as some previous studies. By comparison, the sperm from chimpanzees and macaques - which are much more sexually promiscuous than humans - appears to travel at a rate of 0.7 m/h. Sperm from gorillas - a relatively monogamous species in which females tend to mate with just one male - is "ridiculously slow" and clocks in at just 0.1 m/h, according to Nascimento. Then, scientists assessed the force with which the sperm move. This step involved using used a laser technology known as "optical tweezers" to try to hold sperm in place using light. If the sperm moved with enough force, they could break past this resistance field and go forward - otherwise, they continued to push against it without luck. The experiment showed that not only do the sperm from chimps and macaques move faster, they also move with greater force, at about 50 piconewtons. By comparison, human sperm swim with a force of about 5 piconewtons, and gorillas with a measly 2 piconewtons. (Watch movies of the sperm caught in the optical tweezers.) Nascimento says the findings suggest that sperm from promiscuous species such as chimps, where a female might mate with multiple males within an hour, have evolved to move faster as a result of competition. "The first ones to make it to the egg" succeed, she says. Gorilla mating, on the other hand, follows a harem-like pattern: females are more likely to mate with only the dominant male. "You are the best by default," Nascimento says of the leisurely sperm in the less promiscuous primates. The speed at which sperm travel is partly determined by a motor structure inside the cell that powers the movement of their tails. In humans, certain compounds such as caffeine and anti-impotence drugs can alter how fast sperm move. Journal reference: Journal of the Royal Society Interface (DOI:10.1098/rsif.2007.1118) If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Author: Angie Falcsik, CNWI Most people know that dogs have an amazing sense of smell, but have you ever wondered not only why but just how powerful your pooch’s nose really is? The dog’s nose consists of a sensory organ, sensory receptors, an olfactory bulb and an incredible nostril, all working together to create an amazing mechanism for detecting a myriad of things. Their capability ranges from food for basic survival, determining danger, deciphering friend or foe of a human or animal, to detecting multiple types of drugs, money, bomb, accelerants, bed bugs, cancer, change in sugar level in diabetics, seizures, lost humans or pets, and of course, target odors, in the great sport of K9 Nose Work®. Dogs evaluate their environment through its nose first. Even before a dog can see something, he can smell it. That scent is information to a dog, an encyclopedia if you will, which must then be processed. So, you ask, how exactly does a dog’s nose work? Dogs inhale through their nostrils and air is exhaled through the sides of its nose. This amazing process keeps air (scent) that is inhaled from becoming weakened. When a dog breathes in, air is separated and takes two paths. “ We found that when airflow enters the nose it splits into two different flow paths, one for olfaction and one for respiration,” says Brent Craven, a bioengineer at Pennsylvania State University. Craven states that 12 percent of air inhaled flows to an area in the back of the nose that is dedicated to olfaction known as the Olfactory Bulb where 250-300 million sensory receptors are housed. A dog’s Olfactory Bulb is about 4 times larger than that of a human! Olfactory receptors recognize molecules by their shape and send electrical signals to the brain for analysis. The remaining inhaled air flows down through the pharynx to the lungs to be used for respiration. When dogs breathe out, the exhaled air flows through the slits on the sides of their noses. As the air is exhaled out, it creates a swirl which aides in ushering in new odors into a dog’s nose. Figure 1: When a dog breathes in, the air separates into distinct paths, one (red) flowing into the olfactory area and the other (blue) passing through the pharynx (black) to the lungs. Enlarge Photo credit: © Courtesy of Brent Craven Recent research has shown dogs can detect odors in parts per trillion! An analogy which illustrates this is described by Alexandra Horowitz, in her book, Inside of a Dog. Alexandra Horowitz, a dog-cognition researcher at Barnard College, writes that while we might notice if our coffee has had a teaspoon of sugar added to it, a dog could detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water, or two Olympic-sized pools worth. There are of course multiple scenarios where a dog uses its nose, whether it is for survival or for fun (and yes, even the working dogs are having fun), one of which is the new and incredible activity and sport of K9 Nose Work®! K9 Nose Work® is an activity whereby dogs use their incredible tool, their nose, and their natural ability to hunt, to search, and find food or their favorite toy. They first search for food/toys in boxes and then, once their skills have increased, in various other environments. Dogs build confidence, burn energy, learn focus and problem solving skills and most importantly, have fun doing it! Any dog can do nose work regardless of breed, age, disability (blind, deaf, tripod), personality (shy, fearful, reactive, etc.) because it taps into and builds on the dog’s natural ability to use its nose! K9 Nose Work® takes a dog at whatever level they are at and starts out by building on the dog’s natural hunting ability by learning to search boxes, “the hide”, one of which has treats/toys (the hide) in it. After building the foundation of the game and increasing the drive, the game moves to adding obstacles, going outside and learning to use and trust its nose with their human in tow only to watch and learn how the dogs searches and to be right there to reward when the hide is found! Bonus – treats/toys in the hide box and more rewards by that two-legged person who tags along! Double bonus – no obedience required or allowed! Each time the dog finds the hide box, the dog learns to trust it’s nose, which in turn, builds a lot of confidence as well as builds a new and stronger bond with it’s human as they are a team in this great activity/game! The game continues with dogs transitioning to searching for target odors (Birch, Anise and then Clove) doing container/box searches, interior searches, exterior searches and vehicle; some of whom may pursue their ultimate goal of competition, the sport side of K9 Nose Work®. You may be saying to yourself, my dog is too old for this activity. Two of my dogs, who had no search or tracking experience, started this amazing activity when they were 8 and 9 years old! They now both compete and are 12 and 12 ½! They both have earned their NW1 titles and Indy, my oldest, is working on his NW2. Another question people ask is whether their dog’s nose works as well when they it gets older. A dog’s sense of smell is the last sense to go. Using the information above, let me share how Indy, my 12 ½ year old Collie/Shepherd/Golden takes in, processes and sources odor. Following about a year working primary foundation with food, Indy moved to the first odor, Birch and now works both Birch and Anise. When Indy is approaching a search area, you can see his nose working before he even takes a step into the search area. His nose flares open, twitches, and he inhales the various smells around him collecting “data”. The odor molecules flow through his olfactory system and the receptors in his Olfactory Bulb recall the Birch and/or Anise scent. His head lifts and he is off due to repeated receipt of rewards at source for birth and/or Anise. Depending on the search area, the wind and the hide placement, many dogs will be what we call “in odor” before they even start to search. Indy is a very honest dog and searches until he hits what we call a scent cone. This is a cone shaped area filled with odor wherein the dog works in various ways until he is at the source. Once Indy has hit the cone of odor, his breathing changes, he sniffs a little louder and his pace slows down. The odor molecules are filling his olfactory system and he is able to discriminate between Birch/Anise and other scents/odors such as plants, flowers, animal smells, environmental scents in the air, etc. He continues to work the odor cone, bracketing the odor molecules and, once he is at source, he communicates to me, “This is it!” K9 Nose Work® was founded by three people (Ron Gaunt, Amy Herot and Jill Marie O’Brien) with detection dog handling experience (among other training) who realized that not all dogs can be working dogs, but all dogs can use their nose and have fun! Therefore they created an activity and sport for companion dogs to give them an outlet and a job using their natural scenting ability. In 2009, the NACSW™ (National Association of Canine Scent Work) held its first nose work trials in California; by 2011, the word had spread and 43 trials where held in 9 different states throughout the U.S. In 2012, there were 80 trials throughout the United States and in 2013 that number will be significantly more! As Michigan’s First Certified K9 Nose Work® Instructor, I have been honored to host two Odor Recognition Tests (ORT’s) and, just recently, Michigan’s First K9 Nose Work® Trial in Charlotte, MI. K9 Nose Work® is not only an amazing activity and sport, but a true testament to a dog’s most incredible mechanism, its nose! To find out more about K9 Nose Work® go to www.k9nosework.com or visit my website at www.pawsitivek9obedience.com. About the Author, Angie Falcsik, CNWI For over 10 years, Angie has been professionally dedicated to the training, rehabilitation, and rescue of dogs. This has been a lifetime love and passion and one of the goals of her professional career is to educate people regarding responsible dog ownership and the realities involved in being a responsible dog owner. Angie has worked with rescue groups, animal control agencies and shelters for many years and have offered expert advice and testimony in animal abuse and neglect cases. Angie has been professionally training dogs and have been a Certified Obedience Trainer since 2002, is a Certified Nose Work Instructor through the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW), and is an AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator. Angie teaches group classes at AnnaBelle’s Pet Station in Downtown Lansing, Michigan. Check out her current class schedule and sign up online today to reserve your spot or call 517.599.0995.
Belize has a stable and democratic government. The country’s motto is “Land of the Free." The country is multiethnic and multicultural, with 50 percent being Hispanic Mestizos, 30 percent African Creoles, 10 percent Garifuna, and 10 percent Maya. The Maya, and 900 ancient Mayan ruins in Belize, are what is left of the Mayan civilization in Belize. With 325,000 in total population, Belize abounds in natural beauty and wonder — the turquoise Caribbean, vast rainforests, the largest coral reef in the hemisphere, the Maya Mountains, 100,000 acres of jungle, and behind-the-scenes jaguars, pumas, howler monkeys, toucans and parrots. Belize is a developing country. Many of its people are struggling financially. And of its six districts, comparable to counties in the USA, the Toledo District in Southern Belize is the poorest. Many children can’t come close to ever having the money they need to attend high school. Education is the hope for all of them. It is the purpose of this Foundation.
Few hospitals offered both the expertise and the necessary facilities. Location of the donor and the recipient also impacted availability. Human organs cool and degenerate quickly when removed from the donor. Transportation in the 50s, 60s, and 70s was in the early stages of rapid jet aircraft travel and was too slow for the transportation of organs. The donor needed to be in close proximity to the recipient which was possible with living family members and donors. Research during this time focused on immunosuppressant drugs and on methods to maintain a viable organ outside the host. In his discussion of justice in respect to the allocation of scarce goods, Jon Elster (1992) identified three levels of scarcity: natural, quasi-natural and artificial. The availability of twins with one needing a kidney transplant and one willing to donate a kidney generates a natural scarcity similar to the availability of natural black pearls. The issue of donor organ availability began to move towards a quasi-natural scarcity in the 70s and 80s as medical advances resulted in the willingness of more hospitals and doctors to deliver transplantation services. In the 1960s, Dr. Thomas Starzl performed the first human liver transplant and Dr. Christiaan N. Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant (www.wikipedia.org) from non-living donors. The survival rate was so low it was measured in days. A major problem continued to be recipient rejection by the body's immune system. Two major advances in medical research and technology occurred in the 1970s. Cyclosporine was developed in the 1970s and approved for distribution in 1983 (Kaserman and Barnett, 2002). Cyclosporine inhibits the recipient's rejection response which increases long-term survival rates. The second medical advance solved the problem of maintaining organs in a viable state for a longer period or time once removed from the body. In the 1980s Dr. Starzl introduced a procedure for 'core cooling' that extended the viability of donor organs to allow time to excise and then transport donor organs to the host location (www.wikipedia.org). These two advances, cyclosporine and cooling technology for organ transportation, moved organ transplantation into the second level of scarcity, quasi-natural, as organs could now be transplanted based on organ matching criteria with non-living donors rather than on family relationship and living donors. In 2002, 76% to 94% of heart, liver, pancreas and kidney transplant recipients survived one year or more. (Kaserman and Barnett, 1998, Consumer's Research Magazine, p. 10; OPTN/SRTR 2002 Annual Report) With the identification of solutions for transportation and rejection, attention turned to non-living donors. Organ transplantation centers arose in a number of hospitals. An informal distribution system emerged that relied on personal relations, professional contacts, and the general proximity of a hospital with the prerequisite team and facilities to perform an organ transplant (Fentiman, 1998). The informal system, though, lacked structure, supervision and professional associations -- all of the elements that were required to ensure equity in distribution. According to Fentiman, "The crisis in U.S. organ transplantation is moral and political, not technological. It will not be resolved until Congress and the states move beyond localism to develop a uniform nationwide approach to increase organ donation; identify medically appropriate criteria for transplant recipients; and remove racial, gender, and class barriers to equitable organ allocation" (p. 31). Persons living near a major transport center had a better chance to receive an organ transplant than persons in rural areas or areas without a transplant center. Persons with comprehensive private health insurance could afford an organ transplant, a procedure not yet covered either by private health insurance or by government health programs. Persons with sufficient independent financial resources to pay the cost of the operation and the long-term care and medication were more likely to receive a transplant. The majority of persons in the United States did not have sufficient independent financial resources necessary for an organ transplant. With little likelihood to receive an organ transplant, the majority were not inclined to donate organs. A scarcity existed in donors as well as recipients (Blumstein & Sloan, 1989). History of End-State Renal Failure and Dialysis The history of organ transplantation followed to some extent the history of efforts to end deaths resulting from end-stage renal failure. The invention of dialysis in the 1960s provided a non-surgical solution to what had been an inevitably terminal disease (Rothblatt, 204). According to Barnett, Beard and Kaserman (1993), "Patients must remain connected to a dialysis machine for approximately two to five hours generally three times per week. This machine performs two essential functions normally provided by the kidneys -- it filters impurities from the blood and removes excess fluid" (p. 393). At that time of its introduction, dialysis offered a lifesaving solution to thousands who did not have a twin or compatible near relative willing to donate a kidney. Dialysis was expensive and hospitals with the requisite medical team and facilities were scarce. Dialysis met the conditions of quasi-natural scarcity. Demand exceeded supply. Unlike organ transplantations, dialysis was not dependent on immune conditions or any other condition other than the presence of the disease and available medical facilities and equipment. Consequently, anyone with end-stage renal disease who could pay for the treatment could benefit from dialysis. Similar to the history of organ transplantation, medical facilities with the requisite medical team and dialysis equipment were scarce and expensive in the 1960s. The number of available facilities could not meet the number of persons who needed dialysis. This scarcity resulted in a very controversial issue (Barnett et al., 1993). This scarcity of resources begs the question, "Who would decide which patients should be accepted for dialysis and who should be allowed to die?" The issue received national attention when Life magazine published an article in November 1962, "They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies," about the patients selected for treatment by a Seattle, Washington dialysis committee. The decision-making criteria included social standing, financial resources as well as issues of medical status. Seattle's "God Committee" served a valuable purpose: identifying nationally the problem of distributive justice when medical solutions were scarce (Alexander 1962, p. 125). These occurrences also highlighted the inability of the American Market economy to solve the problem. As long as the equipment and the lack of medical resources meant access would be limited to the rich and famous, no market solution was available. No equitable solution existed for the scarcity of dialysis availability. End-stage renal disease, however, was much more common and more publicized than the shortage of organ donation. By the 1970s the history of organ transplantation and end-stage renal disease diverged dramatically. In 1972, national debate and media attention resulted in a vote to fund dialysis centers for all citizens with end-stage renal disease regardless of their financial standing or social position. In this regard, Ford and Kaserman (1993) report that the growth in the dialysis industry and the provision of dialysis to a wider spectrum of American citizens is attributable to a 1972 amendment to the Social Security Act which ". . . authorizes the federal government to pay 80% of the cost of treatment (by either dialysis or kidney transplantation) of all citizens suffering from renal failure. The End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) program, which is operated under Medicare, grew from $229 million in its initial year (serving 11,000 patients) to $3.7 billion in 1988 (serving 110,000 patients)" (p. 783). During the period from 1988 to 2003, the number of Americans who received dialysis almost doubled, to 325,000 with another 100,000 beginning dialysis treatment every year since meaning that today, approximately 825,000 Americans receive dialysis treatments (McCarthy, 2005). The cost associated with the provision of dialysis for patients today is approximately $66,000 per patient each year, and by 2010, the total costs associated with delivering dialysis will exceed $1 trillion annually (Lysaght, 2002). Moreover, the increasing costs associated with its delivery are not the only drawback to an equitable provision of dialysis for everyone in the country who needs it to stay alive. Dialysis provides a chronic treatment for kidney disease but not without an adverse impact on the person's quality of life. The treatment restricts the recipient's freedom of movement and requires adherence to a strict treatment routine. Kidneys have been and still are the organs with the largest number of candidates on the organ transplant waiting lists (www.unos.org). Although the treatment extends a person's life, dialysis is not the solution of choice (Rothblatt, 2004). History of Blood, Semen and Other Fluids and Tissue Donations Besides organs, a number of fluids and tissues have been transferred successfully from one body to another for purposes ranging from life support to personal preference. For instance, a surgical team from France succeeded in a partial facial transplant procedure in 2005 by replacing damage areas (nose, lips, and chin) of a woman's face with skin and underlying tissues from a dead donor (Medical transplantation, 2007). Further, as recently as November 2008, a face was transferred from a living donor to a recipient with severe facial disfiguration…
Teenage is very important period as it is a growth and development stage. The development of various organs, tissues, hormones, muscles takes place during this period. Therefore, nutrition plays vital role in teen’s life in order to get healthy, fit body. Owing to this development of all vital organs, teens tend to have more appetite and that’s why they go for fast foods more. Healthy snacks for kids and teenagers Sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits are the main reasons for obesity. And in order to become healthy, teens should embrace healthy lifestyle. It is therefore responsibility for parents to provide healthy snacks for teenagers. Most teenagers are very conscious about their appearance and so they will be more open to healthy food options. Eating healthy snacks before lunch or dinner makes the stomach stay full and consequently, calorie intake will be decreased. Healthy snacks for teenagers include cup of fruits, well boiled egg. These healthy snacks fill the stomach as well as help to reduce the cravings that are caused by high fat foods. What are some healthy snacks for kids and teenagers Healthy snacks for teenagers includes: Dry fruits like raisins, non fat cottage cheese, unsalted nuts, whole grain crackers, fruits and yogurt, microwave popcorn, Oreo cheesecake, low sugar high fiber cereal, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, light salted cucumber slices, cauliflower, broccoli, smoothies of fresh fruits, veggies etc. Regular exercise routine is also a necessary element for kids and teenagers to burn their excess calories which they take up while consuming fad diets. Eating healthy along with working out regularly is the key to get fit body. Making little changes in daily routine can result in healthy lifestyle, so start to live healthy and stay happy. Follow these tips as well Also following are some teenager health and diet tips that make them fit. Following these will also help them in getting active at work and play. - In between three big meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, it is wise to have two or three servings of salads, nuts, and fruits. - Eating slowly is another great way to lower your intake calorie amount. - Avoid keep sitting on the dining table. It tempts you to eat more. Finish off the foods and get up to clean the dish instantly. - Drinking more water and fresh juices help to fill the stomach and hydrate the body as well. Hope all these snacking tips and ideas helps you a lot. Follow them from now and see the difference. Incoming search terms: - healthy lifestyle - healthy food - healthy teens - healthy snacks
MLA Handbook, 8th Edition uses the author page number style for in-text citations in this format: (AuthorLastName 43). Example: (Hemingway 13) When there is no author, the author is unknown, or the author is not the first element listed in the corresponding Works Cited citation, use the first element listed in the citation in the in-text citation instead. In most causes this will be the title. After this include the page reference. If the title is long, use a shortened version of the title. Example: ("A New Deal" 121) or (The Open Box 23) Type of Citation In-Text Parenthetical Format 1 work by 1 author 1 work by 2 authors (Harris and Ramirez 23) 1 work by 3 or more authors (Peet et al.198) (American Dental Association 42) Unknown author (use the title) ("A New Deal" 121) Give the author's name and the page number or page range in parentheses. If the author's name is stated in the sentence, always place the page number in parentheses at the next natural pause in the text, usually at the end of the sentence. Alexander notes that race was a critical topic in the 1968 presidential race (22-29). Give both names separated by the word and when including the names in the text of a sentence or in parentheses. Wilson and Schlosser state the results...(47). (Wilson and Schlosser 47). Three or more authors When mentioning the authors in the text, give all of the authors' names or list the first author and write "and others". For the parenthetical citation and Works Cited citation, give the first author's name followed by et al. James and others claim that social customs prevalent in the southern United States have...(157-65). Social customs in the southern United States have become...(James et al. 157-65). Multiple works by the same author Include the author's name, then a comma, then a shortened version of the title, followed by the page reference. (Dickens, David Copperfield 347). Authors with the same surname When authors of two separate works in your Works Cited list have the same surname, include the first initial of the author you are referencing in the in-text citation. (H. Smith 34). Multiple works by different authors in the same citation Include the last name and page reference for the first author, then a semi-colon, followed by the last name and page reference for the next author. (Smith 93; Fayett 131-32). Organizations as authors/Corporate author List the corporate author followed by the page reference. Abbreviate words like Department. (American Library Association 17). Organizations as authors/Corporate author that is also the Publisher When the author is an organization or corporation that is also the publisher, the Works Cited citation will begin with the title, instead of the author. Corresponding in-text citations should use an abbreviated version of the title and the page reference. If the author is a government or government body, include the administrative layers listed in the Works Cited entry separated by commas. Use abbreviations for common words like Department (as "Dept."). (United States, Congress, House, Committee on the Judiciary 7). Works without authors If the Works Cited entry begins with a title because there is no author, use the title followed by the page reference in the in-text citation. Use an abbreviated version for long titles. To abbreviate a title, use as few words as possible, dropping articles and prepositions, but keeping the first word of the title as alphabetized in your Works Cited. The abbreviated title should be a noun phrase, so likely the first noun in the title along with any adjectives that come before it. Titles of an article, chapter, or web page should be placed in double quotation marks. Titles of a periodical, book, entire website, report, or brochure should be italicized. ARTICLE title ("New Deal" 121). BOOK title (Open Box 18). LONG book title (Handbook of Geriatric Therapy 26). Works with Anonymous listed as author Only list Anonymous as the author when Anonymous is given as the author's name. Follow that with the page reference. When the author's name is just unknown, skip the author element and move to the next element. Do not use the term Anonymous for works without authors listed. Works without pagination When citing a website or webpage (without page numbers), include the author's name only in the in-text citation. (United States, Congress, House, Committee on the Judiciary) If you are referring to an entire work, you may identify the work in your text using the author or title name from your Works Cited list rather than a parenthetical citation. To Kill a Mockingbird was published over fifty years ago and is still read by many students today. Multivolume works (one volume consulted) If your Works Cited entry indicates only one volume of a multivolume set, include the page reference in the parenthetical citation. The volume is already specified in the Works Cited entry. Norat, Gisela. "Isabel Allende: Chilean and American Novelist." Notable Latino Writers, vol. 1, Salem Press, 2006, pp. 27-34. Multivolume works (more than one volume consulted) If your Works Cited entry indicates more than one volume of a multivolume set, include both the volume and the page reference in the parenthetical citation to distinguish which volume is being referenced. (Notable, 1: 27). Notable Latino Writers, vol. 1, Salem Press, 2006, 3 vols.
Unions are advocates for workers and their health and safety. That includes their physical and mental health and safety. Sexual violence is a union issue. Whether as witnesses, participants or as survivors, sexual violence is a serious matter and affects all members of the union, workplace and community. We must ensure that there are processes in place that we can use to hold ourselves to account. We want to change the systems that allow inequality for those who identify as women and nonbinary folks and allow violence against them to occur in our homes, streets, workplaces, and even in our union spaces. What is sexual violence? Sexual violence includes any sexual act that targets a person’s sexuality, gender expression or gender identity, whether physical or psychological in nature, that is committed, threatened, or attempted against a person without the person’s consent. Sexual violence can result in serious and negative impacts on the survivor’s mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health and well being. People who witness it and do not intervene are also negatively affected. Even the perpetrator does not remain unaffected by their actions and others’ reactions to them. Who is affected by sexual violence? Sexual violence can affect any worker regardless of sexuality, gender identity or gender expression. However, most perpetrators of sexual violence are men and most victims are women. Women who are discriminated against because of race, Indigeneity, disability, class, immigration status and other marginalized identities may also experience higher rates of violence in general and sexual violence in particular. People who do not conform to male-female gender binary or who are not in heterosexual relationships are also at greater risk. Sexual violence and harassment are illegal. Canadian, provincial and territorial human rights laws prohibit discrimination based on sex, gender and sexual orientation. What to do if you have experienced sexual harassment or violence? Remember that it is not your fault! It takes courage to even speak about your experience, much less want to proceed with any form of justice. We Believe You: Sexual Violence and Harassment in Union Spaces The CUPE Ontario Women’s Committee wanted to create this guide and let you know that we believe you and to make sure that you are aware of your rights. If you have experienced sexual harassment or violence, the guide includes a list of resources. You can also reach out to a CUPE 3907 representative or department steward.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has published the Annual Report 2008 on Guatemala. And hardly could have been worse. Last year murder rate was of 48 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants, almost a world record for a country at peace. Extra-judicial executions were reported. The number of people who died in custody increased. Irregular militas were responsible for episodes of the so-called “social cleaning” where victims were tortured and finally executed. Over the year 722 women where killed. 56 people were lynched. According to the High Commissioner the Government should refine the legislative framework for the protection of human rights (…); improve criminal investigations carried out by the National Civilian Police, on the basis of an appropriate organizational structure, trained personnel, an adequate territorial deployment, and the availability of technical and scientific resources (…); strengthen areas of civil jurisdiction, in order to prevent civil conflicts becoming criminal matters (…); adopt special measures to combat discrimination in all areas, and in particular to overcome the conditions of inequality which impede indigenous peoples’ access to economic, social andcultural rights (…); strengthen measures to increase the understanding and application of the new Law on Femicide and Other Forms of Violence against Women (…); promote a comprehensive tax reform, enabling an expansion of fiscal resources and an increase in tax collection. Friday, 27 March 2009
The Archives, a division of the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, is the repository for Massachusetts records generated by state government. Archives holdings date from the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 and document the settlement of lands in Maine and Massachusetts, the arrival of immigrants, and the development of state government. Public records are not in the holdings of the Archives because of inherent genealogical value. However, these documents can be an important resource for people engaged in the study of family history. In addition to the archival records created by Massachusetts state agencies, the Archives has a limited selection of books and microforms to aid genealogists and other researchers. Access to these materials is provided through the Reading Room of the Massachusetts Archives at Columbia Point. It is open weekdays, 9 to 5, except on legal holidays. Massachusetts officials started recording the names of immigrants who arrived by ship to the Port of Boston in 1848, a procedure that continued until 1891, when federal record-keeping programs superseded those of the state. These records are arranged chronologically according to the date when the ship arrived in port. Facilitating the use of the passenger lists is an alphabetical name index. Information available from the lists includes the name, age, sex and occupation of the immigrant; the country of birth; and previous residence. Also included are the name of the ship, and the date of its arrival in Boston. It is important to note that the passenger lists do not generally provide information about the county or town where the immigrant originally lived. Over one million immigrants came through the Port of Boston between 1848 and 1891. With the invaluable assistance of our volunteers, the Massachusetts Archives is engaged in a multi-year project to convert this voluminous amount of information into a database, which is available on the Archives website: Passenger Manifest (1848-1891) Contents As new surnames are entered into the database, the website is updated periodically to reflect these additions. Passenger lists for other years and ports can be found at the National Archives Northeast Regional Branch (380 Trapelo Road, Waltham, MA 02452), as the federal government was recording incoming passenger lists from the 1820's onward. Researchers may contact the National Archives at 781-663-0130, or through their website: www.archives.gov/northeast/boston Passenger manifest for the Missouri, arriving February 15, 1882 City and town clerks in Massachusetts are the custodians of pre-1841 vital records for their respective towns. A list of all the city and town clerks in Massachusetts can be found at: Massachusetts City and Town Directory Although the Massachusetts Archives does not have original pre-1841 vital records, we do hold two collections that can be utilized by researchers. An incomplete collection of the printed volumes of Vital Records Prior to 1850, which are organized by town, are available in our Reading Room and in many research libraries, including the Massachusetts State Library. The Archives also holds a miscellaneous collection of microfilm that has been deposited with the Archives by the Genealogical Society of Utah. We will not be receiving additional microfilm in this collection. While the types of records vary for each municipality, this film includes records normally found in the municipal clerks' offices. Among these are vital records, records of town meetings, as well as church and cemetery records. The Archives hold births, marriages, and deaths for all Massachusetts cities and towns, 1841 through 1920. Municipal clerks submitted these registration pages to the state annually covering the vital records generated by their offices. While there is some variation in this information, generally the books provide names, dates, residences, occupations, and parental information. From 1903 forward, death records also include the place of burial. The Archives also holds added entries and corrections to vital records for the same period. Certain amended volumes are available on microfilm in the Reading Room. Later records in this collection will be transferred to the Archives at five-year intervals. Access to the information contained in the vital records registration volumes is gained by consulting index books. The index books are organized in five-year intervals; within each index, the names are listed alphabetically. Reference staff in the Archives will assist researchers in the use of these materials. Vital records after 1920 are located at the municipal clerks' offices and the Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics (150 Mount Vernon Street, Dorchester, MA 02125). Researchers may contact the Registry of Vital Records at 617-740-2600, or through the DPH website: http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/programs/vital-records.html Indices of the DPH vital records volumes through 1971 are available at the Archives, although there are no copies of the actual records at the Archives. These indices can be used by visitors to the Reading Room. The Massachusetts Archives holds state census schedules from 1855 and 1865. Although the state conducted a census up to 1975, the 1855 and 1865 censuses are the only two surviving schedules. The information contained in the state census is similar to that of contemporary federal returns and is arranged in a similar manner. A name index for these schedules exists for many of the small towns in Essex, Middlesex, and Norfolk counties, as well as the City of Charlestown. Federal census schedules date back to 1790. Recorded on a decennial basis, they constitute a major resource for genealogy. Originally a fairly simple list of the heads of households, the population schedules became more detailed and new schedules were added as the nineteenth century progressed. By 1850, the general population schedules list all individuals residing in a house and provide data on their age, occupation, place of birth, and value of real estate. Additional schedules providing social and mortuary statistics and the products of industry and agriculture were also present by 1850. All of the schedules are broken down by counties and municipalities. Large cities are further subdivided into wards and enumeration districts. The Archives holds microfilm of federal census population schedules dated 1790 through 1880, and 1900 through 1920. The 1890 population schedules were destroyed during a fire in Washington, D.C., in 1921. A special 1890 census of Union war veterans and widows of veterans is available at the Archives on microfilm. Printed indices for census schedules dating 1790 through 1850, and the 1890 war veterans census, are at the Archives. The various regional facilities of the National Archives, including the Northeast Regional Branch (380 Trapelo Road, Waltham, MA 02452) are able to provide access to all Federal census schedules currently released. The Northeast regional branch can be contacted at 781-663-0130, or through their website: www.archives.gov/northeast/boston Register of the 1865 Massachusetts state census, listing the Emerson family in Concord Military records in the Archives cover conflicts dating from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries; those most useful to genealogists date from 1643 to 1865. The records can be used to identify the service of particular individuals but provide little background on the person's family or life. Information concerning military service in the colonial wars (circa 1643-1774) can be gleaned from legislative records and a variety of military rolls and accounts. Similar rolls from the Revolutionary period document the service of soldiers in the state militia; there are also a limited number of Continental Army rolls. Additionally the Archives holds records of state pensions, bounties, and Maine land grants for Revolutionary War veterans, or their heirs, who were not eligible to receive federal pensions. Family relationships may be included in the pension records, as heirs tried to document their status. Military records from the colonial wars and the Revolution are indexed by name and are available on microfilm at the Archives. Revolutionary service is also referenced through the seventeen-volume set, Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, created from documents held by the Massachusetts Archives. Payrolls and other military records at the Archives may also be used to document the garrison on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Following the Revolution, soldiers continued to be stationed at the Castle as a defense for the harbor. These soldiers guarded the state prison that existed there between 1785 and 1798. Included in the Massachusetts Archives Collection (see following section) are records from Shays' Rebellion, a period of internal turbulence dated 1786-87, as well as records of the state treasurer and the commissary general. Letters, orders, warrants, petitions, special reports, military payrolls, service certificates, financial records, and oaths of allegiance provide extensive documentation of Shays' Rebellion. Partial indices exist with names of soldiers and individuals who supplied or housed the army. Military records relating to the War of 1812 (1812-1815) are found in the records of the Governor and Executive Council; these are concerned primarily with the formation of militia units and commissions for officers. Records of the Massachusetts Militia in the War of 1812-1814 provides information on the militia regiments called out in 1814 in anticipation of a British attack on Massachusetts. The most complete list of Massachusetts men who served in the Civil War is found in the multi-volume set, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the Civil War. Civil War records held by the Archives include a variety of muster, clothing and descriptive rolls, lists of assignments of recruits to particular town quotas, materials documenting the use of substitutes for draftees, and records of Massachusetts bounty payments to southern African-Americans who were recruited into the U.S. Army. Additional archival materials from this period include the records of the State Military Agent and the letterbooks of Governor John Andrew, an early and strong supporter of the war effort. Records relating to the Spanish-American War (1898) include a small collection of letters and petitions for bonuses from veterans or their families to the state treasurer. Additional State Military Records The Massachusetts Adjutant General's Office oversees a large collection of military records. Those records relating to the Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War I are maintained in Worcester at the Massachusetts National Guard Museum, 44 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609. The Museum can be contacted at 508-797-0334. Military records dating after 1940 are available through the Military War Records Office of the Adjutant General's Office, 50 Maple Street, Milford, MA 01757, or by calling 508-233-7780. Pay roll for Capt. Agrippa Wells' Company in Col. Samuel Brewster's Regiment, 1776 The Massachusetts Archives Collection (or Felt Collection) is an important source of records for early Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire families. Documenting the development of the Massachusetts Bay government and settlement of its lands between 1630 and 1800, the collection includes original records of the Governor, Council, the General Court, the state secretary, and the treasurer. These cover a wide range of topics of interest to genealogists: land grants; early records of divorces and contested estates; legislative papers relating to towns, including petitions and remonstrances; military records from 1643 through 1775; records of mercantile affairs; and tax valuation lists. The records were originally bound into 328 volumes, generally arranged by topic. Most of the volumes have a table of contents and many have been indexed. Access to the collection includes a card catalogue for approximately one quarter of the collection, a calendar index, and a database that provides name, location, and subject access for eighteen volumes. The database can be accessed through the Archives website at:Massachusetts Archives Collection It is updated and expanded as additional Massachusetts Archives volumes are catalogued. Agreement signed by Nahnaacomoc and Passaconaway, June 12, 1644, taken from Massachusetts Archives collection, volume 30 Maine was part of Massachusetts from the early colonial period through 1820, and there are many records in the Archives pertaining to the settlement and settlers of Maine. The Massachusetts Archives Collection contains a variety of Maine records dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Maine records are not grouped separately within this collection. There are numerous records relating to eighteenth-century forts and Indian truckhouses (trading posts), especially for the one located at Machias. In addition, both passed and unpassed legislation contain petitions, remonstrances, reports, and correspondence relating to Maine from 1780 to 1820. The Eastern Lands papers focus on the settlement of public lands in the District of Maine and its separation from Massachusetts as a state in 1820. Legal, survey, and financial records of the General Court, and records of legislative commissions and the Land Office are included in the Eastern Lands papers. Researchers will also find copies of deeds for land conveyed by the Committee for the Sale of Eastern Lands and the Land Agent, records establishing land titles in disputed areas, and extensive correspondence regarding road construction, land settlement, and the development of Maine's natural resources. The Archives holds indices to several volumes of the deeds, and to the correspondence dating 1783 through 1867. Maine vital records are not part of the Massachusetts Archives holdings. Researchers should contact the Maine State Archives or the appropriate city or town clerk regarding Maine vital records. Plymouth Colony, also known as the Old Colony, existed as a separate entity throughout most of the seventeenth century; it was officially merged into the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in 1692. Plymouth Colony consisted of towns currently located in Plymouth, Barnstable, and Bristol Counties. The original colony records for Plymouth, including wills and deeds, are maintained at the Plymouth County Commissioners Office in Plymouth. The Massachusetts Archives holds manuscript transcriptions of these records, with accompanying name indices. Some of the Plymouth Colony records, along with the records from the Commissioners of the United Colonies, were published in a twelve-volume set, Records of Plymouth Colony, available at the Massachusetts Archives and the Massachusetts State Library. It is very important to note that per Massachusetts state laws, access to the records of state institutions may be restricted to preserve the privacy of individuals at the institution. Medical (Massachusetts General Law4§7(26)c, MGL111§70E, MGL123§36), mental health (MGL123§36), personal (MGL4§7(26)c, o, p, MGL6A§1), evaluative (MGL66A§1), and criminal (MGL4§7(26)c, MGL6§167) information is restricted according to state laws. Criminal offender information is open upon the death of the individual, but medical and mental health records remain restricted. Researchers MUST contact the Archives before planning a visit to use these records in order to determine what restrictions will apply. The Massachusetts Archives holds the records of a variety of state institutions, including prisons, almshouses, mental health facilities, public hospitals and sanatoriums, and reform schools. These records were created by a number of state agencies, including corrections, youth services, public health, public welfare, and mental health. The records vary from institution to institution, but can include records such as case files and histories, records of admissions and discharges, and other records that provide information on the lives and families of people at these institutions. Please contact the Archives to determine whether records are held for a specific institution and time frame. Criminal offender record information (CORI) is open upon the death of the individual, but medical and mental health information remains restricted. Researchers MUST contact the Archives before planning a visit to use the records in order to determine applicable restrictions and how you might access the information. Monson Primary School, Boarding Out Register, 1889 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives is a separate and distinct repository, collecting records from state, county, and local courts. Reference requests for judicial records should be addressed to the Judicial Archivist for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives, Elizabeth Bouvier. She can be reached at 617-557-1082 or by email at: email@example.com Judicial records are an invaluable resource for genealogical researchers, and a small percentage of their holdings have been made available in the Massachusetts Archives Reading Room. These holdings include microfilm of select probate, naturalization, and divorce records, and some colonial era court records. Please contact Massachusetts Archives staff for additional information about this microfilm. The Massachusetts Archives does not hold the originals of these records, and all questions about judicial records and the Massachusetts judicial system should be directed to the Judicial Archivist. The Suffolk Files contain the earliest file papers of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and its predecessors, the Court of Assistants and the Superior Court of Judicature (1620-1800). There are also some records of the county courts and the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace. The records contain cases not just from Suffolk County, but from Massachusetts and parts of Maine and New Hampshire. This was the result of the circuit nature of several of the courts and the fact that most of the action brought before the upper courts had been appealed from lower courts throughout the region. Extensive indices of every person, place, and subject, as well as date and calendar indices were prepared. Microfilm of the Suffolk Files and indices is available in the Massachusetts Archives Reading Room. The Judicial Archives holds naturalization records, which document the process of becoming a citizen, for those persons who were naturalized in the state Superior Courts and local District Courts. The records usually include the declaration of intent and petition for naturalization. Declarations filed after January 1930 generally contain a photograph of the applicant. Information found in the declaration of intent and the petition for naturalization may include the name, address, occupation, and date and place of birth of the applicant and information regarding arrival in the United States; marital status and the names of children, along with their dates and places of birth. Prior to 1922, married women are included on their husband's petition. Minor children derived citizenship from their parents. Declaration of Intent, Hampshire County There is no statewide index to the naturalization records at the Judicial Archives, since each court was responsible for indexing its own records. In order to locate the proper court and date of naturalization for records between 1790 and 1906, researchers should consult the Soundex index to New England naturalizations, available at the Northeast regional branch of the National Archives in Waltham. Indices of naturalization records for specific Massachusetts courts, especially post-1905 Superior Courts, may be accessible on microfilm or by contacting the Judicial Archives. The Massachusetts Archives holds abstracts of naturalizations from state and local courts, 1885-1931, filed with the Secretary of the Commonwealth pursuant to Chapter 345 of the Acts of 1885. These records have been microfilmed; they are arranged chronologically by year, and each volume is indexed separately, making them awkward to use. The abstracts provide the following information about the naturalized person: name, age, occupation and residence; also the name of the court and the date of naturalization. Although they do not provide much genealogical information, the abstracts are useful in directing the researcher to the location of the original records. Additional information on Massachusetts naturalizations is available from the Northeast regional branch of the National Archives in Waltham. Its holdings include photostatic copies of state and local court records (1790-1906), which are indexed through Soundex index cards; U.S. District Court naturalization records (1790-1991); and U.S. Circuit Court naturalization records (1845-1911). Divorce cases have been heard in Massachusetts courts starting as early as 1639. In the colonial period (1629-1692), divorce petitions could filed in a variety of courts, including the Court of Assistants, the General Court, and the county courts. Records of the General Court and the Court of Assistants have been published. Original records are located in the Suffolk Files, the Massachusetts Archives Collection, and the records of the county courts. During the provincial period (1692-1775), primary jurisdiction for divorces rested with the Governor and Council, although six petitions dating 1755 to 1757 were heard by the General Court. Again, the original records will be found in the Massachusetts Archives Collection, the Suffolk Files, Council records, and county courts. From 1775-1785 the Council had jurisdiction; records are located in the Massachusetts Archives Collection and the Council records. In 1786, the Supreme Judicial Court was given jurisdiction over divorce cases. Records dating 1786-1796 are located in the Suffolk Files collection and recorded in the SJC record books. After 1796, summary information regarding divorces is included in the SJC record books, which are indexed and arranged by county. Case papers are also generally available. Jurisdiction over divorce cases changed in 1887, when the Superior Courts were authorized to handle divorces. Records from this period are indexed in separate divorce docket books for the Superior Courts in the various counties. In 1922, the county probate courts were granted concurrent jurisdiction with the Superior Courts, but since that date most divorces have been heard in county probate and family courts. Records since 1922 are maintained in the counties; an index for cases since 1952 is available at the Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics (150 Mount Vernon Street, Dorchester, MA 02125). Researchers may contact the Registry of Vital Records at 617-740-2600, or through the DPH website:www.mass.gov/dph/rvrs Petition of Abigail Emmery requesting a divorce, 1710 Probate records, including the administration of estates, probate of wills, and the appointment of guardians, have been under the jurisdiction of the courts since the 1630s. County courts and later, county judges of probate, were responsible for these functions until 1783, when the probate courts were established. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, probate and family courts were given jurisdiction over adoptions, divorces, name changes, and domestic relations. These records are indexed by county; there is no statewide index available. Indices will provide docket numbers, and the docket books will provide access to the record books, which are contemporary copies of the file papers. Not all of the counties have both file papers and record books available through the Judicial Archives; Massachusetts Archives Reference staff has information on the specific records available for research on microfilm. Researchers looking for seventeenth-century probate records should also consult the Massachusetts Archives Collection, the Suffolk County probate index (for Essex County), the Suffolk Files, the Essex County Quarterly Court records, and the Middlesex Folio Collection. Middlesex County Probate file, inventory of Timothy Minot, 1838 Prior to 1852, name changes were administered by the General Court. Anyone interested in a legal change of name submitted a petition to the legislature requesting the change. The petition and resulting legislation are held by the Massachusetts Archives. Petitions that did not receive legislative approval for name changes are also maintained by the Archives. Chapter 256, Acts of 1851, transferred jurisdiction over name changes to the county probate courts. Annual returns of name changes were sent by the probate courts to the state secretary's office until 1900. The returns were also published annually in the printed volumes of Acts and Resolves, 1852-1913. Name changes dating between 1780 and 1892, including both those enacted by the legislature and those decreed by the probate judges, were published in the volume List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts. The book, which is thoroughly indexed, provides the following information: original name; new name; date of change; and the chapter number of the legislative statute or location of probate court. It is important to note that the information provided above concerns only those name changes that were authorized by the General Court or probate courts. Many people changed their names informally, and did not record the change with the state government. The names of immigrants may have been anglicized upon arrival in the United States, or the spelling altered significantly, but these changes are not usually documented. Petition requesting a name change due to an adoption, 1851 Genealogists should remember that many adoptions were never recorded legally. Children were frequently sent out of their families to live with other people, including relatives. Other children went to live with neighbors, but were never adopted as part of the family. As with name changes, some adoptions prior to 1852 were enacted through the General Court. The petition requesting the adoption and any accompanying legislative papers are available through the Massachusetts Archives. Chapter 324, Acts of 1851, transferred responsibility for adoptions to the probate courts. Records after 1851 are either held by the Judicial Archives, or are maintained in the courts. The returns of name changes, and the List of Persons Whose Names Have Been Changed in Massachusetts note when names were changed as a result of adoptions. Access to adoption records may be restricted, so researchers will need to contact the Judicial Archives guidance to obtain such access. Deeds for property in Suffolk County (1629-1800) are held by the Archives. Typically the records include the grantor and grantee, and the location and description of the property being transferred. The deeds are arranged in volumes chronologically, according to the date and time they were filed. The Massachusetts Archives holds the grantor and grantee indices for these deeds (1629-1800 only). Suffolk County deeds dating 1801-Feb. 1924 are housed at the Massachusetts Archives facility, overseen by the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds. Indices for these deeds (1801- Feb. 1924), which are vital for use of the collection, are located at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, located at 24 New Chardon Street, Boston, MA 02114. Suffolk County deeds from 1924 to the present are held by the Registry at their New Chardon Street location. Deeds for all other counties can be accessed through the individual county registries of deeds. Many collections in the Massachusetts Archives are appropriate for genealogical research, regardless of the ethnic background of the family being researched. It is important to note that terms of ethnicity and color were recorded inconsistently in federal and state records. In addition to the collections noted in this booklet, there are additional archival records that would be particularly useful to people researching African-American and Native American families. These include the 1754 slave census, early nineteenth-century applications and registers of state-issued passports, and applications for southern travel (1842-1845, 1862). The records of the Guardians of Indian Plantations provide detailed financial records of land sales and poor relief for Native Americans living in Massachusetts. A census of the Mashpee Indians, taken in 1832, is also included in the records of the Guardians. Additional census information is located in the 1861 Report Concerning the Indians of the Commonwealth, written by J.M. Earle. The report on the 1870 census of Mashpee, written by Richard L. Pease, is not held at the Archives, but can be accessed at the Massachusetts State Library. A truce agreed upon the 21st day of July 1693 at Pimaquid between the English and the Indians, taken from the Massachusetts Archives Collection, volume 30 Other collections held by the Archives, not usually associated with genealogical research, may also provide information on families or individuals. These include collections such as maps and plans, legislative papers, and photographs relating to the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir. Many maps, especially those of towns in Maine, include settlers' names with their residences or lots. These maps are often associated with legislative action or material in the Eastern Lands papers. Legislative records, available for passed and unpassed bills, may include petitions, remonstrances, and copies of local records, in addition to the proposed bill. This documentation may provide information about specific individuals, especially if the legislation concerned a land grant, or the incorporation of a town, religious society, social organization, or business. Records of the Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission include photographs of real estate in the "drowned towns"of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott that were taken during the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir. The collection also includes photographs of gravestones in the town cemeteries that were moved away from the reservoir site. Prince Hall's petition, resulting in an act abolishing the slave trade in Massachusetts, Acts of 1787 ch.48
PAPA-SAN: Japanese head of a household. PAST-IN-PRESENT DISCRIMINATION: "Those fair-in-form or neutral practices in an institutional area which inevitably reflect or perpetuate the effects of intentionally discriminatory practices in the past in that same institutional area." PERCEPTION: The process of obtaining information about the world through the senses. PERFORMING GROUP FUNCTIONS: Serving as a role model for task and maintenance functions within the group. PERSONAL DISCRIMINATION: The action taken by an individual to deprive a person or group of a right because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or age. (AFR 30-2) PERSUASION: One means of influence (does not include coercion, force, or threats, but only the consideration of the sender and message at face value). A process designed to produce desired reactions in the intended receivers. PIG TRADE: The commerce in Chinese laborers bound for America in which the workers often faced conditions similar to those found by the black slaves in the middle passage of the slave trade. PINCH POINT: An internal signal that something in a relationship has changed or is about to change should current behaviors continue unchecked; a "sense" of something to come. POGROM: An organized massacre of helpless people with the active or passive assistance of governmental authority. The term specifically refers to massacres of Jews. (Handlin) POWER: The potential ability a person in a relationship has to influence the other member of that relationship psychologically and/or behaviorally. (French and Raven) PREJUDICE: An antipathy (i.e., a negative feeling) based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he (or she) is a member of that group. (All port) PROCESSING: Processing is that activity which aids the participants in a structured experience to extract learning from their experience. An important point is that the focus of "PROCESSING" is on those behaviors of significance to the student - not those important to the instructor.
Rembrandt bought a house on Jodenbreestraat in Amsterdam in 1639 and lived there until he went bankrupt in 1656 and lost everything. There is a debate over whether Rembrandt’s lavish taste caused his financial problems or whether he was a victim of a shift in the art market. Rembrandt made his fortune as a portrait painter (and-this was a surprise to me-an art dealer!) Prior to Rembrandt’s time, only the nobility could afford to sit for portraits. But social, technological and economic changes changed that. By the early the 17th century, the social fabric that had carried Europe through the last 1000 years was starting to fray at the edges. Holland was a Protestant country where to profit by one’s hard work was considered a virtue. Amsterdam was a commercial town with a wealthy merchant class. Then as now, the existence of a group of people with disposable income was good for business and a boon for artists. Rembrandt did so well that he was able to buy his grand house on Jodenbreestraatin. The house is still there and it’s open to the public Rembrandt Huis was a must-see for me because I have always loved his work. Rembrandt’s paintings make an impression on the viewer because they do more than reproduce people and scenes in pictures: the tell stories. When you look at one of his Biblical paintings, or example, you think about the people in it and what they must be doing and thinking. They look like they are engaged in something rather assuming poses for a painting. Their engagement, in turn, engages us because on a fundamental level, we humans are story telling beings. Rembrandt is also known as the master of light and his skills were unmatched. He could make the paint look like lace, gold, sunlight, or gossamer layered fabric. He did not use gold paint, but he could paint gold so convincingly that it is hard to believe he did not use gold in his paint. Rembrandt was an art dealer as well as an artist, and sold the work of other artists that he displayed in a showroom in the main room of his house. He also ran an art school on the top floor of his house and taught several students at a time. Rembrandt had a well-stocked room full of costumes and props that he used in his paintings. Some say that he was more of a shopaholic, buying anything that caught his fancy. His profligate collecting did not do his pocketbook any good and when he was forced to declare bankruptcy, all his belongings and his house were sold at auction to cover his debts. I learned about how Rembrandt’s paints were mixed when I went to the Rembrandt Huis this past summer. I made a short film in which a docent explains how it was done. I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to visit Rembrandt Huis if you are ever in Amsterdam.
The breeding aggregation of giant Australian cuttlefish (Sepia apama) that occurs in the upper Spencer Gulf of South Australia every winter is the largest of its kind on the planet. It has become a mecca for scientists and eco-tourists, but recently the number gathering to spawn has declined from around 180,000 to as few as 19,000 between 1999 and 2012. As a result, catching cuttlefish has been banned in this region until at least 2014 or until the reason for the decline in numbers has been determined. But what’s the big deal? Surely this unique spawning event will recover by a simple process of migration of more giant Australian cuttlefish into the region, from the many other waters where they are found in Southern Australia. Research conducted by Professor Steve Donnellan, Head of the Museum’s Evolutionary Biology Unit (EBU), and colleagues suggests this might not actually be the case. The team has found evidence that the giant Australian cuttlefish in the upper Spencer Gulf are a separate population from those found in other waters in South Australia, including the lower Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent. Analysis of DNA shows there are clear gene differences between the different cuttlefish populations. Studies of the mineral composition of ear structures (known as statoliths) showed that upper Spencer Gulf S. apama have a restricted environmental range compared to other giant Australian cuttlefish. Also, S. apama in the upper Spencer Gulf have beaks that are consistently and clearly different in shape to more southern populations. S. apama may also be better equipped to survive in the saltier, higher-temperature waters of the upper Spencer Gulf. They are the only giant Australian cuttlefish population to aggregate and perform the elaborate spawning rituals observed in past years. The upper Spencer Gulf S. apama are acting as a separate population in terms of their behaviour and perhaps their environmental preferences. This first stage of the research was conducted as part of a joint project with Professor Bronwyn Gillanders from the University of Adelaide as well as the Department of Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA), the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR) and the Nature Foundation. Steve now has funding for further research to investigate whether these cuttlefish are actually a different species or if they are seeing a population in the early stages of speciation. The next phase of the research will involve more careful analysis of S. apama genes. The team will also examine the diets of the different populations to see if the differences in beak shape translate to differences in feeding preferences between the populations. The first stage of the research was funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the South Australian Research and Development Institute, PIRSA, DEWNR, the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum. A paper released in 2013 by the Department of Primary Industries and Resources of South Australia and South Australian Fisheries.
Neck Pain in Children Children are rambunctious little people who sustain plenty of bumps and bruises during playtime. They are likely to complain of neck pain at some point and it is important to know how to differentiate a strain incurred through normal activity from something more serious. Causes of Neck Pain in Children Neck pain in children is usually due to them sleeping awkwardly, playing on the computer for too long, reading in bed, sports, or carrying heavy school bags. However, one type of neck pain found in children, a stiff neck, (if the child cannot bend their neck forward to touch their chin to their chest) can be an early sign of meningitis. Medical attention should be sought immediately if this is the case, particularly as the child is likely to also have a fever. Contact the emergency services if the child is experiencing numbness or tingling in the upper back or arms and if the pain continues to be severe two hours after taking pain medication. Accidents such as falling off a trampoline or driving collisions can cause spinal injuries in children and the child should not be moved until a neck brace of spinal board is put in place by an emergency physician. Treatments for Children with Neck Pain If a child’s neck pain persists for more than one or two weeks then it is possible that it is not a simple strain; medical attention should also be sought in these cases. Usually pain-relief medications, including alternative remedies that work as antispasmodics, heat and ice packs (hot water bottles are good for this, as are warmed scarves or towels), changes in sleeping position, and gentle exercises can be helpful in alleviating their pain. Ensuring that they are carrying school bags correctly can help; make sure straps are not too loose and try to get a bag with a chest strap so as to alleviate some of the strain on the shoulders. There are many things that children do that can overtax the muscles and growing bones in the neck. It is important to identify what might be causing the problem so as to avoid that activity or change the child’s habit. If they repeatedly carry heavy objects with one hand rather than both hands, play a lot of rough contact sports, sit awkwardly at a computer or desk, or even do head stands often then this can lead to repeated bouts of neck pain. Children can also suffer from rheumatoid arthritis as it is an autoimmune disease rather than a disease of age, wear and tear. If the child has joint pain, swelling, fever, and fatigue then a trip to the doctor is in order to rule this out as a possible cause of their neck pain. Other possible, but unlikely, causes of neck pain in children include thyroiditis, myelopathy, vertebral damage and the aforementioned meningitis. Viral infections, pharyngitis and laryngitis can also cause inflamed lymph nodes and lead to neck pain in children. If the cause of the strain and pain is in doubt then it is best to seek a medical professional’s advice immediately so as to rule out any serious conditions and obtain good advice over how to proceed with treatment and prevention of future pain.
December starts the mild Mediterranean winter. The weather can be changeable, although it is most likely to be bright and either sunny or cloudy with sunny spells. However, meteorological statistics show that December is the rainiest month of all in Cyprus. It usually rains up to seven days per month. Periods of disturbed weather can last from one to three days in a row. December, however, is the warmest among the three winter months. Average maximum temperature for December is 19°C on the coast and 17°C inland, about two degrees higher than in January and February. The mild temperatures of the daytime should not trick you, though, since evenings and nights are cold with average temperatures of 9°C-10°C on the coast and 7°C inland. On the mountains air warms up to 8°C at the daytime and cools down till 3°C at night. Except rain, there is also a possibility of hail. Frosts are frequent inland but rarely severe. December weather that is sunny but not hot makes this month ideal to see the cultural and historic sites. Outdoor activities, excursions and day trips to explore the island are very enjoyable. There are several cultural events throughout December as well. Recommended clothes are winter clothes, warm jackets but not heavy coats, of course. December is the wettest month in Cyprus so remember to take an umbrella with you whenever you go out.
Removing the obsolete Matilija Dam and modernizing associated downstream infrastructure will improve water and climate resilience in the Ventura River watershed. The Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project will help restore and sustain the native wildlife and ecosystems of the Ventura River from headwaters to estuary, and it will benefit communities, residents and visitors who depend on the associated infrastructure for flood protection, water supplies, safe river crossings and recreational opportunities. Significant economic benefits will also flow from Project-related investments. A 2020 analysis conducted by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute (BACEI) concluded that investing a total of $182 million on the Project over the next 10-20 years – or $165 million in 2020 present value – will catalyze job creation and stimulate the local, regional, and statewide economies. The analysis assumes that all downstream infrastructure improvements and dam removal will be designed, funded, and implemented by 2030, and that monitoring, habitat restoration, recreation enhancements and adaptive management will continue for up to 10 years thereafter. Key results include the following: - The Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project will support nearly 2,000 full-time equivalent job-years within Ventura County, and more than 2,300 full-time equivalent job-years statewide. - The Project will also generate nearly $350 million in total economic output statewide, or approximately $2.1 million of impact for every $1.0 million invested (all on a 2020 present-value basis). The chart below summarizes job-related benefits for each major component over the assumed life of the Project, with most benefits occurring before 2030 due to the focus on infrastructure improvements and dam removal during that period. A summary of statewide economic impacts for each Project component (and for the Project as a whole) follows immediately after the chart.
This study adds the case of a Belgian colony to a literature that has mainly focused on differences in school enrolment between French and British African territories. While most studies emphasize the supply-side, especially the constraints on missionary activity, we highlight the role of demand from the colonial mining industry. We use various primary sources to assess quantitatively and qualitatively the development of school enrolment in the Congo since 1920. We show that the regional inequality in education that crystallized in colonial times persisted decades after independence. The provincial disparities are used as a point of departure to explain how the mining industry worked as a catalyst for the expansion of primary school enrolment. The paternalistic policy of “stabilization”, i.e. of permanent settlement of workers and their families near the work sites, introduced by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga as well as by most concessionary companies in the Belgian Congo in the mid-1920s, went hand in hand with high investments in primary schooling. The aim of the industry was to save expenses on recruitment and European labour, and to make investments in miners’ and their children’s education profitable.
Compare all the wasted food in the world to the world’s nations, and that pile of food would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world. It would also be roughly the size of China: That’s how much land is required to produce the amount of food we discard each year. For Dave Lewis, the CEO of international grocery-store chain Tesco and the chairman of Champions 12.3–a group of 40 leaders across the public and private sectors committed to reducing food waste by advancing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 12.3–those facts are reason enough for curbing the amount of food we discard without thinking. There’s also the fact that more than a billion tons of food goes unconsumed each year, while one in nine people across the world are malnourished. “But to speak candidly,” Lewis said in a press call hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI), “there are still too many inside business and government who are unaware or unsure of the impact they can have by reducing waste, and who are not doing enough to help tackle it.” Lewis attributes this inaction to a lack of clear data and published economic analysis that CEOs can use to demonstrate what, exactly, their companies stand to gain by curbing waste. It makes intuitive sense–“anyone who runs a business knows that waste is drain of money and resources,” Lewis said–but Champions 12.3 recognized that to effect change in corporations, they would need to provide the data. A new report prepared by WRI and the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) for Champions 12.3 sets out “the clear investment case for reducing food waste to help urge more businesses to take action to tackle it,” Lewis said. The existence of a solid business case for curbing waste, the report found, is something few CEOs are aware of. “The associated costs of food loss and waste may be buried in operational budgets, accepted as ‘the cost of doing business,’ or considered not worth the investment needed to achieve reductions,” the authors write. But the report found that, on average, for every $1 a company invested in food loss and waste reduction–through training programs, providing equipment like scales to quantify food, and improving storage and packaging–they received a $14 return on investment. The WRI and WRAP researchers analyzed more than 1,200 business sites across 17 countries and more than 700 companies representing a whole range of sectors, from food manufacturing, retail (grocery stores), hospitality (hotels), and food service (cafes and restaurants). Around 99% of the business sites saw a positive return on investment; those that received the greatest benefits were mostly restaurants. Some of the noted benefits to companies were reducing the need to buy food, increasing the share of purchased food that’s then sold to customers, and reducing food-waste management costs. The authors write that in addition to the compelling finances, government and business leaders expressed that there were a number of strategic reasons for reducing food loss and waste, ranging from environmental sustainability, stakeholder relationships, and ethical responsibility. “Although these benefits may be hard to quantify in monetary terms, our interviews indicate that these nonfinancial reasons are an important part of the business case for action,” the authors write. The report found similar benefits to countries and cities that ramp up food-waste reduction efforts: A U.K.-wide initiative to reduce household food waste that launched in 2007 resulted in a benefit-to-cost ratio of 250:1; an initiative in six West London boroughs saw a 92:1 ratio, from factors like savings in waste management from cities and household savings on food While food-waste-reduction efforts are taking off in cities like Chicago, Denver, and Nashville, getting the private sector on board, Lewis said, is essential for meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3: To halve food waste per capita by 2030 and reduce food waste worldwide. In additional to the societal benefits, Lewis said, reducing waste “presents a real business opportunity for manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and the hospitality business.”
Text and photos Aare Lindt, www.loodusmuuseum.ee Silver Y Lina-tähtöölane Autographa gamma The silver Y is a common species arriving as a migrant in Estonia. It manages to fly even to Lapland. The moths arrive in Estonia with warm winds from southern Europe, from the second half of May to October. In summers a local population may also develop in Estonia. The moths can be seen in meadows, fields, forests, gardens etc. The silver Y is active at night and flies readily to artificial lights. But it manages to be active in daytime too – sometimes there are tens of moths feeding on flowers. They are quite cautious and shy by nature, and always flee from one’s feet, rising in flight and landing again after about 15 metres. The caterpillars feed on a large number of plant species and can also cause damage to crop plants. They cannot survive the cold winters in Estonia
By Dr George Venturini Australia has no official language, but its version of English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. Incidentally, having destroyed some two million Indigenous People since 1788, Australians have been destroying 600 out of 750 distinct native groups and with them associated languages and dialects. Of the remaining 150 all but 20 are endangered. This qualitatively represents the worst genocide in human history. (‘Australian Aboriginal Genocide’ – Google, as at 2015; G. Polya, ‘Ongoing Aboriginal genocide and Aboriginal ethnocide by politically correct racist apartheid Australia’, Countercurrents, 16 February 2014). According to the 2016 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 72.7 per cent of the non-Indigenous population. There was a considerable drop if compared to 76.8 per cent in 2011. Otherwise, the next most common languages spoken at home are: Mandarin – by 2.5 per cent, Arabic – by 1.4 per cent, Cantonese – by 1.2 per cent, Vietnamese by 1.2 per cent, and Italian – by 1.2 per cent. English is still the main language for three quarters of Australians, but there are 301 other different languages spoken in homes across the country. A considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants is bilingual. At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous People, representing 12 per cent of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. When one comes to literacy and numeracy, it is difficult to speak about a truly open, informed, participatory society, in the presence of figures provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics which show that 44 per cent of Australian adults do not have the literacy, numeracy and dexterity for problem solving in technology-rich environment, and even less skills they need to cope with the demand of everyday life and work. At Census 2011, approximately 7.3 million (44 per cent) non-Indigenous persons in Australia aged 15 to 74 years had literacy skills at Levels 1 or 2, a further 6.4 million (39 per cent) at Level 3, and 2.7 million (17 per cent) at Level 4/5. For the numeracy scale, approximately 8.9 million (55 per cent) Australians were assessed at Level 1 or 2, 5.3 million (32 per cent) at Level 3 and 2.1 million (13 per cent) at Level 4/5. The statistics are much worse for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders. Census data show just how badly Australia fares at ‘closing inequality gaps’. (‘Census data shows just how bad we’ve been at closing inequality gaps, N. Biddle and F. Markham, 25 October 2017, theconversation.com). Multiculturalism, as presented in Australia, can only be viewed as a farce – a display of flags, foods and folklore – and all under the grand umbrella of ‘fair go’. To be precise, it is a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterisation and ludicrously improbable situations. It is something near a vaudeville, a travesty, a buffoonery, or a pasquinade, from the name Pasquino, used by the Romans of fifteenth century to describe a mutilated Hellenistic statue dating back to the third century b.c.e. which was traditionally used as the place to which attach anonymous criticisms of public persons. It befits present day Australia. On 20 March 2017 then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull released the Australian Government’s new multicultural statement Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful. The statement ‘reaffirms the Government’s commitment to a culturally diverse and harmonious society’. Australia’s previous multicultural policy, The People of Australia – Australia’s Multicultural Policy, was launched in 2011 by the Gillard Government. It reaffirmed the importance of Australians’ shared values and cultural traditions and recognised that Australia’s multicultural character gives the country a comprehensive edge in an increased globalised world. The new statement outlines the strategic direction and priorities for multicultural policy in Australia. It sets out the Australian Government’s vision for embracing diversity while emphasising the country’s “unique national identity and the importance of being an integrated and united people.” The statement acknowledges that “the mix of different cultures makes Australia more interesting and stronger.” Sharing a country’s cultural heritage “is part of celebrating what it means to be Australian, and helps everyone feel included.” The statement upholds the centrality of Australia’s “democratic institutions and the rule of law, it highlights the importance of citizenship in [the country’s] national identity, and it makes clear the responsibility … all have to respect [their] fellow Australians.” This is in a nutshell the presentation by the Australian Government. The statement opens with a foreword by the Prime Minister: “Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world. We are as old as our First Australians, the oldest continuing human culture on earth, who have cared for this country for more than 50,000 years. And we are as young as the baby in the arms of her migrant mother who could have come from any nation, any faith, any race in the world. Australia is an immigration nation. Almost half of our current population was either born overseas or has at least one parent born overseas. And we come from every culture, every race, every faith, every nation. We are defined not by race, religion or culture, but by shared values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and equality of opportunity – a “fair go”. The glue that holds us together is mutual respect – a deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity, the same opportunities. And national security – a resolute determination to defend our nation, our people and our values – is the foundation on which our freedoms have been built and maintained. At a time of growing global tensions and rising uncertainty, Australia remains a steadfast example of a harmonious, egalitarian and enterprising nation, embracing its diversity. Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful renews and reaffirms the Government’s commitment to a multicultural Australia, in which racism and discrimination have no place.” Some comments seem appropriate. That very first sentence is incorrect. Once the definition of multiculturalism is reached, and by whatever conventional measure, Australia is not “the most successful multicultural society in the world.” Canada understands by multiculturalism the sense of an equal celebration of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds. The multiculturalism policy was officially adopted by Pierre Trudeau’s government during the 1970s and further developed in the 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The 1960s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origin of modern political awareness of multiculturalism. Canadians have used the term “multiculturalism” both descriptively (as a sociological fact) and prescriptively (as a political ideology). In the first sense “multiculturalism” is a description of the many different religious traditions and cultural influences which in their unity and coexistence in Canada make up Canadian culture. The nation consists of people from a multitude of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds and is open to cultural pluralism. By the early twenty-first century, people from outside British and French heritage composed the majority of the population, with an increasing percentage of individuals who identify themselves as “visible minorities”. Multiculturalism is reflected in the law through the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 and section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage. Incidentally, no similar Act or Charter appears on Australian statute books. By the shysterish lucubrations of some prime ministers and their ‘first law officers’ Australia remains the sole Anglospheric country immune from such contagion. Putting it at the very favourable to the Prime Ministerial statement, Australia was estimated in a serious study of 2010, admittedly seven years ago, to be the ‘second most multicultural country.’ (A.B.C., AM – ‘Australia nearly most multicultural nation in world,’ by Dr. R. Miranti, Canberra University, abc.net.au. 17 November 2010). The second sentence of the Prime Ministerial foreword: “We are as old as our First Australians, the oldest continuing human culture on earth, who have cared for this country for more than 50,000 years.” glosses over the past and present condition of the First Australians, certainly a gratuitous identification of the peoples the British invaders of 1778 very early, abused and continued to do so until that questionable activity was taken up by derivative Australians. This is not the place to retrace the history of that abuse, superbly documented by Professor Henry Reynolds, the eminent Australian historian whose primary work has focused on the frontier conflict between the invaders and the subsequent Australians, on one side, and the Indigenous Australians, on the other. That second Prime Ministerial sentence is no more than a rhetorical and self-glorifying camouflage of the continuous indifference to the condition of the Indigenous Peoples. Most of the substantial recommendations contained in the ‘Indigenous Deaths in Custody, 1989 to 1996’, a Report prepared by the Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and published in 1997, remain un-implemented to date. Four words sum up the most recent tragedy: the Don Dale children. The multicultural statement abounds with words such as ‘establishment of British institutions’, ‘democratic institutions’, ‘rule of law’, ‘citizenship’, and’ national identity’ (statement, p. 4). Those words/concepts reappear with some variations further on: ‘nations’, ‘British and Irish settlement’, ‘establishment of our parliamentary democracy’, ‘shared values, rights and responsibilities’ (statement, p. 7), ‘rule of law and allegiance to Australia’, ‘parliamentary democracy’, ‘liberal-democratic tradition’, ‘fundamental rights of very individual’, ‘democratic process’(statement, p. 9). It is extraordinarily presumptuous, nay arrogant of Australian governments and their prime or ordinary ministers to assume that all migrants do not know the difference between ‘parliamentary democracy’ Canberra style and ‘representative democracy’. The latter means very simply one head, one vote and one weight, regardless of the personal qualifications of the elector, whether s/he is barely able to write her/his name and read her/his ballot or s/he is an astrophysics scientist. And it is the duty of the governments to provide the elevation of those less fortunate, and to set up conditions whereby who counts is not the occasional Ph.D. (P in Head Dressing – or similar profanity as conferred by the ‘new schools’ which “spark innovation, creativity and vitality”) – as the statement proclaims at p.13. The last words seem to have come from the pen of Mr. Turnbull. Waffle one would say, while others could have a choice of: rattle, chatter, babble, ramble, jabber, gibber. So here is a suggestion: why not send the competent ministers to find out how such countries as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland manage their elections? Better still, ample information could be obtained from the relative embassies in Canberra. None of those countries enjoys the high privilege of British birth, but they seem to be getting along fairly well, and no one would question their democratic practice. They are eight of the some forty countries governed with proportional representation. Their citizens would be horrified at the result of the most recent Australian elections, where the anti-Labor Coalition of Liberal, Liberal National and Nationals received 5,661,209 votes, Labor gained 4,702,314 and the Greens: 1,153,736. After the chien-en-lit which is compulsory preference distribution, the Coalition obtained 76 seats, Labor 69, while the Greens could occupy only one seat – having obtained roughly one/fifth of the Coalition and one/fourth of Labor votes. Four other seats made up to the 150 Representatives. That could be ‘parliamentary democracy Southern-Westminster-Style’; representative democracy it is not. Disregarding for some un-reason both the experience of Dublin and Reykjavík, why not look at Helsinki? There they had the most recent election of 2015. Here are the results of representative democracy – not Westminster blessing, but one head, one vote and one weight, distributed by party, percentage of votes and number of seats. Centre Party, 21.10 per cent, 49 seats; Finns Party 17.65 per cent, 38 seats; National Coalition Party, 18.20 per cent, 37 seats; Social Democratic Party, 16.51 per cent, 34 seats; Green League, 8.53 per cent, 15 seats; Left Alliance, 7.13 per cent, 12 seats; Swedish People’s Party of Finland, 4.88 per cent, 9 seats; Christian Democrats, 3.54 per cent, 5 seats; and Åland Coalition, 0.37 per cent, 1 seat. (from a letter by Outsider, Multicultural Australia: Malcolm Turnbull’s camouflage, theaimn.com, 30 March 2017). One final comment about ‘loose language’: on ‘naturalisation’ a new Australian becomes a ‘subject’. ‘Citizens’ belong to a republic – and vice versa. Particularly in Trumpian times one should not look to the United States of America for identification and comparisons. But one could try: Iceland (established, @ 800 b.c.e., a republic since 1944), Finland (a republic since 1917), the Czech Republic (a republic since 1993), why – even Ireland (established between 1919 and 1949). There is more: “Citizenship is a privilege and, as part of the Australian Citizenship Ceremony, new citizens pledge and affirm ‘loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.’ ” ‘Shared values’ reappear thrice, along with ‘democratic institutions’ and a ‘shared vision for the future’ on p.11. In the statement, “the Government continues promoting the principle of mutual respect and denouncing racial hatred and discrimination as incompatible with Australian society.” (For good measure, the point is made again at p. 15 of the statement). “The Government places the highest priority on the safety and security of all Australians. Recent terrorist attacks around the world have justifiably caused concern in the Australian community. The Government respond to these threats by continuing to invest in counter-terrorism, strong borders and strong national security. This helps to ensure that Australia remains an open, inclusive, free and safe society.” (p. 11). [Emphasis added] Assumptions made in the previous Prime Ministerial paragraph, and repeated by the ministers, should be carefully examined – and challenged. There is no question that, according to English law, the first soldier to land on Australia in 1788 was carrying ‘British law’ and ‘establishing British institutions’ in his rucksack. The two ministers might be forgiven for a wobbly knowledge of the law, in which they both graduated, and for branching together ‘British and Irish settlement’. The Irish arrived as convicts – some of them for minor offences and quite a few of them for seditious activities – no better than scum in the view of the ‘better’ British society. This could be forgiven if coming from mediocre students of history, but would certainly not have been tolerated from Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, of Sydney Grammar School, B.A., B. of Laws from the University of Sydney, Rhodes Scholar at, and Bachelor of Civil Law from, Brasenose College, Oxford, rendered famous by his defence at the Spycatcher trial, author and once a well-known republican reformer. “Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse et tout se remplace.” If anything Ireland should be thanked for by old residents as well as newcomers it should be for its republican traditions, grown stronger in time despite and against British domination and Catholic oppression. One is entitled to assume that such a scholar as Mr. Turnbull would have a more precise notion of that variable-with-time statement of ‘allegiance to Australia’ that every person who wishes to become a subject of the law in Australia is asked to swear/affirm. Of course, Mr. Turnbull knows better; and he was the Prime Minister. Proceeding in order: the Governor-Generalate of Australia is headed by a person nominate by the Prime Minister, appointed by Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Oops! And if the swearer/affirmer happens to be atheist, or perhaps not Anglican – which is the faith Queen Elizabeth is called to defend? Problem? What problem? Second step in the investiture: the appointed Governor-General swear – maybe even affirms? – allegiance to the Queen. And then, and only then, s/he swears/affirms allegiance to the people of Australia and its constitution. Now, a would-be-subject would have more of a little problem with the omissions and commissions of that act of the British Imperial Parliament. Much about this has been said before by many, and very learned in the field. Let us be satisfied for the moment that the Constitution of Australia was inspired by the principle laid down by Lord Palmerston (1784-1865): “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” The descriptor for a colony, residual though it may be, fits perfectly the present status of Australia as far as the law is concerned – not to mention ‘who really owns the joint’. Moving on to the notion of ‘parliamentary democracy’, that is very far from ‘representative democracy’. Some definitions would help. It is accepted that by parliamentary democracy one means that the resulting political system is based on the principle that Parliament is supreme, or sovereign. In such a system the people choose representatives at regular elections. These representatives are responsible for a number of functions: 1) the formation of the government. This is achieved by majority vote in the lower house, in Australia’s case, the House of Representatives; 2) the passage of legislation – the laws of the nation – by majority vote of the Parliament. In Australia’s bicameral Parliament, this requires the support of both the House of Representatives and the Senate; 3) the scrutiny and monitoring of the executive government, the public service and other authorities and institutions set up by Parliament. Most importantly, this scrutiny extends to monitoring the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. Australia’s status as a parliamentary democracy does not preclude the use of other terms which also define the political system. Continued Saturday – Comedy without art (part 4) Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 2) Dr. Venturino Giorgio Venturini devoted some seventy years to study, practice, teach, write and administer law at different places in four continents. He may be reached at George.email@example.com. Like what we do at The AIMN? You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight. Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
We recently received the Albert J. Harris Award from the International Reading Association. The award is given for the published paper that most significantly advances the profession’s understanding of reading/learning disabilities. Our paper, “Addressing summer reading setback among economically disadvantaged elementary students,” was published in Reading Psychology in 2010. We review our study here, and in doing so assert that summer reading holds implications for mitigating the rich/poor reading achievement gap. The rich/poor achievement gap is huge: The reading level of twelfth grade students from low-income families stands a full four years behind the levels of middle class students. Four years! The gap can be clearly observed in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading achievement at fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades. Children from low-income families begin school already behind their more economically advantaged peers, but the gap just continues to widen with every additional year of schooling. Various federal programs have provided schools with funding for programs that have tried to eliminate the rich/poor reading achievement gap. That is, in fact, the legislative intent of all of Title I programs in high-poverty schools. The most recent federal initiative under this Act was Reading First—an initiative that failed to have any effect on closing the rich/poor reading gap. Perhaps because of this failure, Congress has eliminated funding for the Reading First program. In actuality, the federal funding made available to high-poverty schools is spent on so many different initiatives that asking whether the funds produce the intended outcomes seems largely forgotten today. But the truth is that the size of the rich/poor reading gap has remained the same since the 1980s. Whatever schools are using Title I dollars for—school-wide reform, commercial interventions, paraprofessional aides—that usage is not closing the rich/poor reading gap. There is, though, one area that is central in creating the rich/poor reading achievement gap that almost no federal dollars address. Summer reading setback creates much of the rich/poor achievement gap. That is, children from low-income families reliably lose reading skills every summer while middle-class children actually gain a bit between June and September! The most recent research on this issue has been done by Karl Alexander and Doris Entwisle at Johns Hopkins University. By following a cohort of children who were tested twice each year from first through ninth grade they offer three major conclusions: - Reading growth did not differ between the two groups (rich and poor children) during the school year. - By ninth grade, however, the reading achievement gap was about three years wide (ninth vs. sixth grade). - Most of the reading achievement gap at ninth grade was due to the differential effects of summer vacation on children from families with different levels of wealth. A meta-analysis conducted by Harris Cooper and his colleagues further demonstrate that children from low-income families lost reading achievement during the summer while middle-class children increased their reading achievement. Overall, combining the summer reading loss of poor children and reading growth of middle-class children meant that the rich/poor reading achievement gap grew about three months wider every year. By sixth grade, poor children were two years behind—even though their learning during the school year had matched the achievement of middle-class children. Some argue this suggests that schools serving children from low-income families should be open year round. Perhaps, but summer vacation is a longstanding tradition. Even were the funding available to support year-round schooling for all poor children (and not just the lowest-achieving poor children), one might expect that some (perhaps many or most) poor children would not attend school during the summers. Given the current state of the American economy it also seems unlikely that schools serving poor children will have the funds available to support year-round schooling. Summer Books Study Our study was stimulated by two factors: 1) Evidence that poor children have restricted access to books in their homes, schools, and communities and 2) because of that limited access poor children are less likely to read voluntarily out of school (during the summer months). Thus, we organized book fairs in each of 17 high-poverty schools during the spring. At the book fairs poor children could select up to 15 books for summer reading. Each book fair offered approximately 500 different books selected by us based on the children’s reading levels and interests. We randomly selected almost 1,000 children enrolled in first or second grade to participate in the summer book fairs and also selected another group of students to serve as the control group (they did not attend the book fairs and did not receive books for summer reading). Our study, then, was premised on the research showing the power of individual choice of the book on the likelihood the child would read the book. It was also premised on the assumption that providing access to a number of self-selected books would lead to children actually reading the books during the summer and that summer voluntary reading would in turn impact summer reading setback. Our study did not provide any instructional support. We simply distributed books to children from low-income families. Nonetheless, when we examined the outcomes after three consecutive summers we found that the children who had received summer books scored significantly higher on state reading achievement tests than the control children. The size of the effect on reading achievement equals that reported for attending summer school and exceeds the effect of adopting a national school-wide reform model! This at a cost of between $50 and $75 per child per year, a cost far below that of providing summer school or adopting school-wide reform model. Since we completed the study we have heard from a number of folks who have adapted and extended our summer books program. In each case, though, improving the access of low-income children to books for summer reading has been the target. The long-term goal, of course, is narrowing the rich/poor reading achievement gap. The good news from these schools is that just improving access improves reading proficiency. We are not surprised that improving access to books that kids want to read results in improved reading achievement. Development of every human proficiency requires practice, lots of practice. Children with no access to books are similar to hockey players with no access to ice. Without access to ice it is impossible to develop hockey players. Without access to books it is impossible to develop reading proficiency. Just improving poor children’s access to books they can read and want to read may seem too simple an idea for improving reading achievement. But the evidence is clear. When children from low-income families are given the opportunity to select books for summer reading they will read those books during the summer months. Reading during the summer stems summer reading loss and effectively closes the rich/poor reading achievement gap that has lingered far too long. Further Reading Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., & Olson, L. S. (2007). Lasting consequences of the summer learning gap. American Sociological Review , 72(2), 167-180. Allington, R. L., & McGill-Franzen, A. (2013). Summer reading: Closing the rich/poor reading achievement gap . New York: Teachers College Press. Allington, R. L., McGill-Franzen, A. M., Camilli, G., Williams, L., Graff, J., Zeig, J., Zmach, C. & Nowak, R. (2010). Addressing summer reading setback among economically disadvantaged elementary students. Reading Psychology , 31(5), 411-427. Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of Educational Research , 66(3), 227-268. Guthrie, J. T., & Humenick, N. M. (2004). Motivating students to read: Evidence for classroom practices that increase motivation and achievement. In P. McCardle & V. Chhabra (Eds.), The voice of evidence in reading research . (pp. 329-354). Baltimore: Paul Brookes Publishing. Neuman, S. B., & Celano, D. C. (2012). Giving our children a fighting chance: Poverty, illitracy, and the development of information capital. New York: Teachers College Press. White, T. G., & Kim, J. S. (2008). Teacher and parent scaffolding of voluntary summer reading. Reading Teacher , 62(2), 116-125. Come see Richard L. Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen at IRA 2013, where they’ll be presenting “Summers and the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap.” Richard will also be appearing as part of the Teaching Edge series with “What the Research Says About Teaching So That All Children Are Reading on Grade Level.” You can see what other sessions with which he and Anne are involved by searching the iPlanner. Richard L. Allington is a professor of literacy studies at the University of Tennessee and past president of the National Reading Conference and the International Reading Association. His books include NO QUICK FIX: THE RTI EDITION. Anne McGill-Franzen is professor and director of the Reading Center at the University of Tennessee. Both authors are recipients of the International Reading Association Albert J. Harris Award for research on reading and learning disabilities. © 2013 Richard L. Allington & Anne McGill-Franzen. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise. Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap Teaching Tips: What Should Be Common in the Common Core State Standards?
July 30, 2012 Images from Cassini seem to indicate deltas and river channels. Could electricity have formed these features on Titan? Cassini-Solstice has been analyzing information about Saturn and its family of moons for more then 10 years, with Titan, the largest moon in the Solar System and the only one with an atmosphere, as its primary target. Several previous Pictures of the Day discuss Titan and its bizarre topography, as well as the electrical connection that it shares with its giant parent’s plasmasphere. Radar images centered at 70 degrees north latitude reveal a “…coastline and numerous island groups of a portion of a large sea.” A comparison of surface features between 2005 and 2007, scientists found that several of them have moved from their previous positions by as much as 30 kilometers. Since Cassini’s radar is able to penetrate the cloud cover obscuring Titan from optical instruments, landmarks can be mapped and then compared to earlier scans of the surface. The unexpected movement is thought to be from “disconnection”, when Titan’s crust separates from its core, allowing the 50 different grid markers to “slide” around more easily than if they were connected by solid buttresses. The grid-plotted formations included “river valleys”, mountains, canyons and other terrain that would normally be slow to change in just two years of observation. NASA researcher Bryan Stiles, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote: “We believe that about 100 kilometers (62 miles) beneath the ice and organic-rich surface is an internal ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia.” In a previously mentioned Picture of the Day, it was noted that flowing methane (or ethane) has never been found on Titan. The so-called “river valleys” on Titan do not look like they were carved-out by flowing liquids. Wal Thornhill predicted that a close examination of the images would demonstrate that the channels go uphill and downhill – not like the action of a moving stream that would always be downhill. In reality what we see on Titan are examples of “sinuous rilles” and are the result of electric discharges. Another recent anomaly discovered on Titan is the rotating vortex of clouds at its south pole. The most striking aspect to Titan’s south polar vortex is that it is reminiscent of a similar formation on Venus. It has been argued in the past that Venus and Titan might be new members of the Solar System whose dense atmospheres have not yet been dissipated by this high radiative environment. They appear to share many characteristics because of that atmospheric density. One of the principle tenets of Electric Universe theory is that the Solar System has been the scene of catastrophic encounters between charged planetary bodies at sometime in the recent past. Electric fields interacting with gigantic clouds of plasma caused major disruptions both in orbital arrangements and geological stability among the planets and moons. Indeed, many new objects may have been added to the mix in the form of cometary bodies scaling down in size from something as big as Venus to particles small enough to make up Saturn’s rings. If it can be suggested, based on the presupposition that Electric Universe proposals are correct, that Venus is a new member of the Solar System, then why not apply the same theory to Titan? If Titan is a relatively new addition to Saturn’s system of some 60 moons, then the fact of its methane atmosphere does not indicate replenishment, but youth. There simply hasn’t been enough time for Titan to lose its atmosphere—its atmosphere has only recently been created. If, like Venus, Titan is not an ancient member of an even more ancient system of planets, but is a new member of an entirely remodeled system that has come about recently, then new ways of describing its structure and behavior must be considered. Titan is an electrically charged body that is constantly bombarded by an intense ionic storm from Saturn. It shares many characteristics with its cousin moons, Io and Europa, that orbit the planet Jupiter: a particle fountain from its poles, a toroid of charged particles in a sheath and exchanges of massive electric charge. Electric Universe theorist Wal Thornhill wrote: “How could this electric discharge model affect Titan’s atmosphere? To begin, there is sorting of chemical elements in the discharge according to their critical ionization velocity. Also, isotopes will separate in the combined electric and magnetic fields of the cosmic plasma discharge. Lastly, the plasma gun effect (seen now ejecting material from Io into space) is known from laboratory tests to be a copious source of neutrons. The neutrons may be captured to form heavy isotopes and short-lived radioactive species.”
Planting Islamic monuments atop holy sites of other religions, cultures or nationalities has been a long-standing Moslem modus operandi to impress its ascendancy and permanence over a given area. In Turkey, for example, the St. Sophia Mosque in Istanbul was, before Islamic hegemony, a magnificent Christian church. The landscape of the entire Middle East is littered with Moslem religious buildings erected directly atop earlier Christian churches and monuments. We would be remiss thinking that these are arbitrary and local events when, in fact, it has been a well-documented, centuries-long political strategy. In Israel during the past decade, Moslem clerics administering Islamic sites on Jerusalem's Temple Mount have deliberately destroyed historic Jewish artifacts unearthed around Solomon's Temple in a campaign to extinguish the ties of the Jewish people to their historic Temple. These imams wish to rewrite history. The debate already has started to further supplant history by planting something into the Temple Mount earth never before there: Yasser Arafat. Reports abound that after Yasser Arafat's death, though hailing from Egypt, he wishes to be buried in Jerusalem where the ancient Jewish Temple stood, only yards from the ridge of Mt. Zion, King David's burial spot. Israel cannot let this happen, no matter the world's outcry in behalf of Arafat. What greater credence would undergird Moslem claims to that spot and thus to ancient Jerusalem and the Old City than the permanence symbolized by such a monument/tomb. Talk about "facts on the ground." Decades from now, the Mount will achieve a Mecca-like Moslem status, codified by a shrine to a latter-day political Mohammed. In life, what we see and can touch affirms more than what we simply hear or read. As hard as it is for us to conceive today, a century from now the visual of millions of Arabs making a pilgrimage to what will be termed "Islam's Second holiest site" will reify in the mind of humanity an Islamic connection to the Temple Mount dwarfing that of the Jewish connection remembered simply in scattered history books. Who today remembers that Mecca itself was once primarily a Jewish town? The reality of the Haj, pilgrimage, and stone obscures and deadens history. Not even the United States would place its embassy in an East Jerusalem officially hallowed a northern Mecca. It would be the world's biggest political coup, without the Arabs having fired a shot to achieve it. A Jubilee from now, the emotional attachment even of Jews to the historic site can be undermined, since reality always trumps what remains only theory. A theoretical Jewish holy site is no match against a countervailing living Muslim reality. It becomes simply nostalgia. Against the backdrop of an area teeming with zealous Moslem multitudes, Jews will feel alienated, pushed out. Would the Israelis cave in? If history is a guide, the Israelis may first balk but later acquiesce under the prevailing attitude that land and holy sites are not as important as peace. The threat used successfully by the European Union to cut off all trade with a non-compliant Israel, as well as United Nations calls for boycotts, may well, again, exert over Israeli decision-making. Aside from economic pressure, Israel will be portrayed as a "heartless" country if it denies Arafat his "last dying wish." Its refusal will be characterized as a unilateral decision over Jerusalem and, thus, an obstruction to the peace process. During his life, Arafat claimed that the reason for the latest intifada was when then Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon walked on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, calling it an "intrusion." Israelis may fear that denying Arafat burial there would unleash a wave of anti-Jewish slaughter. The much heralded concept of "land for peace" has in Israel repeatedly degenerated into "holy sites for peace," as demonstrated by Israeli forfeiture of three historic sites: 1) the burial place of the Biblical Joseph; 2) the second most holy and oldest Jewish city, Hebron; 3) the prohibition by the Israeli government itself of regular Jewish visitation on the Temple site in Jerusalem's Old City. In each instance Israel relinquished Jewish administration of these sites out of fear of Arab rioting and out of a mindset that sublimates Jewish sovereignty to the aspiration of a concept, "peace." The Israeli/Arab conflict is a demonstration of the tactile vs. the conceptual. The Arabs hardly speak of peace as much as they demand the tangibles of land and holy sites. Thus, every few years, like clockwork, they garner from the Israelis more and more of the above. The Israelis speak of and yearn only for the ideal of peace. The upshot: every few years, peace eludes them ever more. Evidently, the Arab strategy of a bird in the hand land and holy sites is exceedingly more successful than the ephemeral one peace the Israelis pursue, an ever-elusive aspiration. After the 1967 War, the Israelis decided not to establish a concrete Jewish presence on its own Temple Mount so as to be "peaceful," "unprovocative." But territory is not an ideal but physical. Where a vacuum exists, it eventually must be filled. Yasser Arafat and Arabs intend to fill it. Where a Jewish presence should have been will come, instead, an Arab presence that should not be. It will be the ultimate "in-your-face." Secular Jews have believed that a confrontation over the Temple site has not been worth the trouble. Religious Jews have felt that the sheer sacredness of the place rendered it off-limits to all people, the impure. Jews were not even to walk within 100 yards of it. Incongruously, their other-worldly reverence for it has made it unusable for Jews and thus, in practical terms, irrelevant. Either way, Jewish political or religious timidity has resulted in a de facto forfeiture. What has been needed has been to build World Jewry's most glorious and most inspirational Central Synagogue there. To be a landed people means knowing the importance of one's land and historic/holy places. Call it pride. Call it the glue that unites a people, binds it. While ideas certainly inspire, a nation tied to a land must first recognize the primacy of its land and its historic sites. It should be obvious that Yasser Arafat, the child killer and monster dedicated to the destruction of a people and nation, cannot be enshrined forever on that very people's most holy site, its heart. If it were to happen, it would be an obscenity. It would be akin to carving the face of Osama bin Laden into the granite of Mount Rushmore. Imagine the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus walked towards his death, being used as a procession route for Arafat, a self-avowed enemy of Christianity. If allowed to happen, it would constitute utter, irredeemable capitulation.
What is Slate? Slate is a fine-grained homogeneous sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed (foliated) in layers (bedded deposits). Slate can be made into roofing shingles because it has two lines of breakability: cleavage and grain. This makes it possible to split slate into thin sheets. When choosing roofing materials, one must take into consideration the longevity of the roofing material, as well as the installation cost. Slate roofs have been known to last hundreds of years in comparison to the synthetic roof which typically lasts 10-20 years. 30X30 CM &UP, AND PROJECT SIZE 2-4 CM & PROJECT SIZE AS REQUIRED NATURAL, POLISHED, AND BRUSHED
Do You Know the Most Common Rosacea Trigger? Posted April 10, 2017 Emotional stress, hot or cold weather, wind, alcohol, spicy foods, heated beverages, and heavy exercise can all trigger symptoms of rosacea, but do you know the most common trigger? Sun exposure! Just by protecting your red, sensitive skin, you can help to alleviate your symptoms. April is National Rosacea Awareness Month, which means now is the time to educate your loved ones who may be experiencing this misunderstood skin condition, without even knowing it. In a survey done by the National Rosacea Society, they found that 95 percent of rosacea patients had little or no knowledge of rosacea’s signs or symptoms before their diagnosis, and 90% said it had lowered their self-esteem. Do You Have Rosacea? Common signs of rosacea are facial burning, stinging and itching. Some may also experience swelling of the face from fluid buildup, which can cause the cheeks to appear “baggy.” There also is no particular skin type affected by rosacea. You can experience excessively dry, flaky skin, oily skin or everything in between. Rosacea can present itself in different ways for different people, so it’s best to consult your physician if you’re experiencing any of these symptoms. You can search our professional partners here. What’s the Difference Between Acne and Rosacea? It is very common for rosacea sufferers to confuse their symptoms with acne. Aggressive acne treatments can exacerbate rosacea symptoms, so it’s vital to distinguish between the two skin conditions. "Acne Vulgaris is associated with plugging of the ducts of the oil glands, resulting in blackheads and pimples on the face and sometimes the back, shoulders or chest. Rosacea seems to be linked to the vascular network of the central facial skin and causes redness, bumps, pimples and other symptoms that rarely go beyond the face." – Rosacea.org How Can You Protect Your Skin? Wear sunscreen year-round and always reapply every two hours! “You’ve got to be sure that sunscreen becomes your best friend. And in fact, if you are someone that has rosacea, we don’t want you leaving your house at all without sunscreen. Keep it next to your toothpaste,” says Board Certified Dermatologist, Dr. Loretta Ciraldo, MD. The National Rosacea Society recommends a non-chemical sunscreen, such as a convenient mineral formulation, that contains zinc or titanium dioxide and offers UVA/UVB protection. Colorescience® Sunforgettable Brush-on Sunscreen SPF 50 is the ideal solution for all Rosacea sufferers. It fits the requirements of The National Rosacea Society and is portable, meaning you can take it with you anywhere to reapply during the day. The gentle mineral formula won’t cause redness and irritation to the skin. “It doesn’t irritate my skin like a lot of sunscreens out on the market,” says Marie, Colorescience® customer. How Can You Conceal Redness and Breakouts? The worst thing you can do for red, sensitive skin is to apply cosmetics with irritating ingredients. Fragrances, oils and harsh chemicals can inflame the skin only making the skin redder and more irritated. Luckily, Colorescience® formulates skin-loving ingredients that illuminate and brighten the skin. Our new Mineral Corrector Palette SPF 20 includes color correcting shades to help lighten and correct red tones, plus the addition of SPF 20 chemical-free, broad spectrum sun protection to further shield the skin. “Absolutely love the coverage of this product! It covers blemishes and imperfections without irritating my skin. It also blends so well it doesn’t look like you put a corrector on your face,” says Mary, Colorescience® customer. (Left photo - bare skin, right photo - with Calming Perfector + Pressed Foundation) Our Calming Perfector SPF 20 instantly neutralizes red tones with a universal golden-nude tint and rejuvenates the skin with Cucumber and Cactus Extracts. It also includes broad spectrum SPF 20 sunscreen for an additional layer of protection against flare ups and damage. “This primer is wonderful for my rosacea. It definitely helps with the appearance of redness. I sometimes wear it alone because of its calming effect,” says Marie, Colorescience® customer. Rosacea affects more than 16 million Americans, but no one should suffer in silence. Now that you know the symptoms and that sun protection is essential, make it a priority this month and every month to educate your loved ones on this common, yet very frustrating skin condition.
Did you know that the world doesn’t actually have a food shortage? Enough crops are produced every year to provide an adequate diet for every person on the planet today. The problem is that we do not have a system in place to get that food to hungry mouths. This means food gets wasted, even though people go hungry. 1 in 9 people are believed to be suffering from severe, chronic undernourishment in the world today. Almost all of the hungry people in the world today are living in the developing nations. Only 14 million people in the developed world are chronically undernourished. 1 in 5 kids in the United States might miss a meal per week, but from a world standpoint, more kids have just one meal per day than kids who miss one meal per week. - 67% of the world’s food shortages occur in the Asia-Pacific region. - In sub-Saharan Africa, 25% of the total population does not have enough food to eat on a regular basis and is undernourished. - Undernourishment from a lack of food causes 45% of the deaths in children under the age of 5 every year. - 100 million. That’s the number of children in developing countries who are chronically underweight. That means 1 in 6 children isn’t getting enough food to eat. - 25% of the world’s children are experiencing stunted growth because of food shortages in their area. - Just $3.2 billion per year is needed to reach the 66 million school-aged children with the food that they need. - Globally 161 million under-five year olds were estimated to be stunted in 2013. - Iodine deficiency is one of the main cause of impaired cognitive development in children. If the United States can spend over $600 billion per year on defensive purposes alone, then why cannot this economically prosperous nation spend 0.5% of that lone budgetary line on resolving a food shortage crisis? If Europe, the US, and other industrialized nations all worked together to solve this problem, it would cost households in those countries less than $1 per year to solve world hunger on a permanent basis. We already have the food. Instead of wasting it, let’s get it to the people who need to eat it. Are Food Shortages Only Going to Get Worse? - A 70% increase in food production is estimated to be necessary to feed the up to 10 billion people that are expected to be on the planet by 2050. - At the same time, global warming and climate change issues are expected to drop crop yields by at least 25%. - US, agricultural productivity has averaged less than 1.2% growth per year between 1990 and 2007. - 20,000 children currently die every day because of food shortages, which is more than the wars that have occurred in the last 50 years. - Since 2007, there have been more than 60 known food riots around the world. - When food shortages are present, less than 0.1% of available resources goes into new food production. A majority of the resources are used just to purchase food. If we aren’t willing to make changes, then the status quo is just going to continue. That means more people are going to be hungry every year because there are more people to feed. Programs have been implemented to help improve agricultural opportunities in developing nations, but only $22 billion over a multi-year period has been committed to the program. Imagine what would happen if we could distribute existing resources more efficiently then trying to spend more to grow less. Are You Ready to Stop Hunger Now? - The direct medical cost of hunger and malnutrition is estimated at $30 billion each year. - 1 in every 15 children in developing countries dies from hunger. - 17 million children are born undernourished already due to their mother’s lack of nutrition before and during pregnancy. - The number of women who die during a pregnancy simply because they don’t have enough food to eat: 315,000. - Food shortages kill more people each year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. - 80% of the world’s children who are stunted in growth because of food shortages live in just 14 countries. The average person needs to consume about 2,100 calories per day to have a proper weight and good health. The world produces 17% more food than it needs right now. Although we may need to produce more in the coming decades to provide for the increases in population that are expected, the time is now to fix our system of distribution. By working together, we can solve this problem to end the war on food shortages that are occurring.
Dry cell batteries create electrical energy by converting chemical energy into electricity. The exact means of doing so depends on the type of dry cell battery in question, but the materials that are used are generally zinc and carbon or zinc and manganese dioxide. These materials are placed within the electrolyte paste within the battery. … Read moreDMPQ- Explain the functioning of Dry cell. Fiber optics, or optical fibers, are long, thin strands of carefully drawn glass about the diameter of a human hair. These strands are arranged in bundles called optical cables. We rely on them to transmit light signals over long distances. At the transmitting source, the light signals are encoded with data… the same data you see … Read moreDMPQ- What is Optical fibre technology? How do optical fibre works? The circulatory system consists of three independent systems that work together: the heart (cardiovascular), lungs (pulmonary), and arteries, veins, coronary and portal vessels (systemic). The system is responsible for the flow of blood, nutrients, oxygen and other gases, and as well as hormones to and from cells. An average adult has 5 to 6 quarts … Read moreDMPQ- Write a short note on the circulatory system. The basis of ABO grouping is of two antigens- Antigen A and Antigen B. The ABO grouping system is classified into four types based on the presence or absence of antigens on red blood cells surface and plasma antibodies. Group A – contains antigen A and antibody B. Group B –contains antigen B and antibody A. Group … Read moreDMPQ- ABO Blood group system. Microwave ovens are so quick and efficient because they channel heat energy directly to the molecules (tiny particles) inside food. Microwaves heat food like the sun heats your face—by radiation. A microwave is much like the electromagnetic waves that zap through the air from TV and radio transmitters. It’s an invisible up-and-down pattern of electricity and magnetism that races through the air at the speed of light (300,000 … Read moreDMPQ- Explain the functioning of microwave. India’s latest communication satellite GSAT-30 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana. With a lift-off mass of 3357 kg, GSAT-30 will provide continuity to operational services on some of the in-orbit satellites. GSAT-30 derives its heritage from ISRO’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series and will replace INSAT-4A in orbit. GSAT-30 has a unique configuration … Read moreDMPQ- Comment on the utility of recently launched satellite GSAT-30. Chronic NCDs comprise diabetes, high and low blood pressure, cancer, chronic respiratory problems, mental disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Malnutrition and infection at early age prevalent in poor are important triggers for NCDs. Low literacy and inadequate information among people are the main cause for non- awareness about these chronic diseases. Status of burden of Non … Read moreDMPQ-. A recent UN report has highlighted that Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) can cost the Indian economy a whopping Rs. 6.2 trillion during the 2012-2030 period. Discuss the present status of burden of Non-communicable diseases in India. Also, suggest some measures to control the incidence of such diseases and highlight some government’s initiatives in this regard? Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, tend to be of long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behaviours factors. The main types of NCDs are cardiovascular diseases (like heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes. … Read moreDMPQ: India is becoming a hub for non communicable diseases? Suggest the way to deal with the menace of non communicable disease. With the increase in Urbanisation and modernisation there is an increase in pollution, unhealthy lifestyle, environmental toxins which in turn increases the risk of disease. The major health problems associated with modern lifestyle are as follows: Rise in pollution due to unplanned Pollution related problems like Asthama, Lung related disease etc. are on rise. Life … Read moreDMPQ- What are the health problems related to the modern lifestyle which is rendering the reduction in quality of life? Suggest Solution. Surrogacy as a practice where a woman gives birth to a child for an intending couple with the intention to hand over the child after the birth to intending couple. Currently, Surrogacy regulation bill was passed in Lok sabha where total ban on commercial surrogacy was made. Why the need to regulate surrogacy: There was … Read moreDMPQ-What do you understand by surrogacy? Why ban on commercial surrogacy was proposed in the recent bill tabled in Parliament?
Baker's cyst is a pronounced swelling on the back of the knee. The knee contains sacs of fluid (bursae) that help cushion the joint. Baker's cyst is an abnormal collection of fluid. Baker's cyst is also known as a popliteal cyst. Arthritis and knee injury can lead to Baker's cyst. A Baker’s cyst is a swelling on the back of the knee caused by the build-up of fluid inside sacs called bursae between the two heads of the gastrocnemius (calf muscle). The symptoms are mild unless the cyst bursts or extends down into the calf muscles. Common causes of Baker’s cyst include arthritis, infection, torn knee cartilage and other knee injuries. Baker’s cyst is also known as a popliteal cyst. The knee is a hinge joint, situated between the thigh bone and shin bones. The entire joint is enclosed inside a tough capsule lined with a membrane and filled with lubricating synovial fluid. Extra capsules or sacs of fluid, known as bursae, cushion the joint and help reduce the friction between tissues caused by movement. Symptoms of Baker’s cyst Baker’s cysts may have no symptoms. If symptoms occur, they can include: - a pronounced soft lump or swelling on the back of the knee that looks most obvious when the person is standing - a sensation of pressure in the back of the knee joint - persistent pain or aching - restricted mobility of the joint - a sensation of tightness at the back of the knee when the leg is straightened. Causes of Baker’s cyst Some of the causes of Baker’s cyst include: - injury – trauma or injury to the knee can cause a build-up of fluid (effusion), which triggers baker’s cyst - torn cartilage – usually affecting the cartilages (known as menisci) that bolster the knee joint on both sides - arthritis – particularly rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis of the knee joint - infection – local infection can cause fluid retention around the knee joint - unknown causes – baker’s cysts can sometimes develop in children for no apparent reason. Complications of Baker’s cyst A person may be less inclined to seek medical help for Baker’s cyst if the symptoms are mild, which they generally are. However, if left untreated, complications can include: - The cyst continues to grow, causing the symptoms to worsen. - The cyst may extend down into the calf muscles (dissection). - The cyst can burst and cause bruising on the ankle of the affected leg, due to leaked fluid. Diagnosis of Baker’s cyst Baker’s cyst is diagnosed using a number of tests, and may include: - physical examination - medical history - joint x-ray – this will not show the cyst, but can show the presence of arthritis in the knee joint that may be causing the problem - shining a light through the cyst (transillumination) – this can determine that the mass is filled with fluid - magnetic imaging resonance (MRI) Treatment for Baker’s cyst Baker’s cysts don’t always require active treatment and sometimes will only require observation over time by the treating doctor. Treatment options for Baker’s cyst can include: - treatment for the underlying cause, such as medication for arthritis or surgery for torn knee cartilage - temporarily avoiding activities that aggravate the knee joint - physiotherapy involving ice packs, the use of crutches and exercises to maintain mobility and strength - cortisone injections - inserting a needle into the cyst and draining off the fluid - in severe cases, surgery to remove the cyst entirely - a conservative approach of watching and waiting is recommended with children – the condition commonly subsides without active treatment (spontaneously). Prevention of Baker’s cyst Knee joints are prone to injury during sporting activities. Preventing knee trauma can reduce the risk of Baker’s cyst developing in the first place or recurring after treatment. Suggestions include: - Warm up the knee joints and soft tissue by gently going through the motions of your sport or activity and stretching the muscles. - Wear supportive footwear appropriate to your activity. - Try to turn on the balls of your feet, rather than through your knees. - Cool down after sport by performing gentle and sustained stretches. - If you injure your knee, stop your activity immediately, apply ice packs to treat the swelling and seek medical advice. Where to get help - Your doctor - Sports medicine professional - Australian Physiotherapy Association Tel. (03) 9092 0888 Things to remember - The knee contains sacs of fluid, called bursae, that help to cushion the joint and reduce friction between the structures around it. - Baker’s cyst is a pronounced swelling on the back of the knee, caused by the abnormal collection of fluid inside the bursae. - Treatment options include physiotherapy treatment, drawing off the fluid with a needle, cortisone injections, treating the underlying cause or surgery to remove the cyst. You might also be interested in: Want to know more? Go to More information for support groups, related links and references. This page has been produced in consultation with and approved by: (Logo links to further information) Last reviewed: September 2013 Content on this website is provided for education and information purposes only. Information about a therapy, service, product or treatment does not imply endorsement and is not intended to replace advice from your doctor or other registered health professional. 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