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The first step in yoga ecology is to connect and communicate to Prakriti. Prakriti is the Sanskrit word for nature, and through the tree we start to communicate to Prakriti. Swami Niranjanananda says that trees represent prithvi, the earth. Every quality of the tree is that of the prithvi quality. If we think about the trees and what they do, they are probably one of the most generous species on the earth.
Trees purify water and play a vital role in the hydrological cycle of the planet. They provide the oxygen for life, stability, aeration and the nutrient cycle of soil. They provide homes, shelter and shade. They provide food, in the form of fruits, flowers, nuts, and they provide wood, paper and medicines and much more.
The connection between trees and human beings goes right back in time. As the young earth was evolving, it was the plants and trees that provided the atmosphere and environment required for animals including human beings to evolve, so we are indebted to trees for the source and breath of life.
Human beings are such a selfish, self-centred and quite stupid species. We have been chopping down trees faster than they can grow, we are destroying the one thing that actually gives us life – trees and forests.
Through the practices of yoga ecology, we reconnect to the source that has given us life, and that is through the practice of Ashwattha Aradhana. Ashwattha is the name of the peepal tree, and ashwattha means non-dying, continuous. The asthwattha tree is perhaps the oldest tree on earth, that has been worshipped for over 5,000 years. They are a species of the ficus. The peepal tree has the ability to grow in any environment. I am sure if the human species disappeared tomorrow it would be the ashwattha tree that would start to grow everywhere and take over everything. They are also known as the world tree, and they are symbolized as upside-down, as the roots are reaching upwards, rather than down.
The world tree is known in many cultures as the symbol of life. Tree worship exists in many cultures around the world. It is not a new concept. There is one tree in India which you will find in nearly every house, it is a small plant called tulsi.
Our guru Swami Satyananda worshipped tulsi every day in the morning and evening during his panchagni sadhana. He said that she is the mother of all healing plants, and he didn't have to touch the plant or even eat the leaves for any healing effect, just the simple worship of the tree was enough to keep him healthy day in and day out for many years.
Swami Niranjan also worships tulsi throughout his panchagni sadhana and we notice that if either of them fell even slightly unwell the other would also, that is how close his connection to the tulsi plant is. In yoga ecology every tree has a deity, a spirit residing in it. As you perform the aradhana that spirit and energy awakens and you connect to it and thereby the communication and connection takes place between the person and the tree.
In 1996, Swami Niranjan started the practice of Ashwattha Aradhana in the ashram, and all the residents, students and guests were given a tree to care for during their time in the ashram. We also give the sick or weak trees and we found that after some time the trees would become strong and grow healthy through the daily aradhana, and we saw many people go through personal transformation through the aradhana.
Through the care of the tree and through the aradhana, the connection between you and the tree becomes strong, and you will protect that tree no matter what, just as you care for the people around you. The same relationship spreads into all of prakriti, nature, and it is a very big step for most people to take.
In Ashwattha Aradhana, or with any aradhana, the five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether — are always represented. The tree is the object we are offering the aradhana or worship to. The tree represents prithvi tattwa, the earth element. We begin by lighting the deepak, and this is the fire element or agni tattwa.
Then we light the incense. Incense represents vayu, the air element, and we wave the incense in front of the tree to clear away any negativity, particularly from our human mind. Now we offer one flower to the tree which also represents the element of prithvi and the beauty of nature.
We offer water, the water element or apas, to the roots of the tree. This is also a symbolic watering of our own spiritual nature. The tree that we see above ground is only one third of the tree, for the roots travel right down into the ground. They are the main mass of the tree, therefore we offer the water to our own spiritual growth and spiritual self.
At the end, we chant the mantras which represent the ether element, the shabda, sound and vibration. We finish the Ashwattha Aradhana with the Shanti Mantras, a prayer of thanks to the tree.
—29 July 2017, Raquira, Colombia
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Celebrating over 10 years of culturally-relevant programming!
TRACKS (TRent Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge and Science) is an educational program based on Michi Saagiig Anishnaabeg territory. We are hosted by Trent University within the Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences Program (IESS), and operates in partnership with founding partner organization Kawartha World Issues Centre and the First Peoples House of Learning. TRACKS consists of two distinct and connected programs: Education and Oshkwazin Indigenous Youth Leadership.
TRACKS Outreach & Education runs a wide variety of educational programs throughout the calendar year for Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth ages 6-12.
TRACKS Education is now offering Online Workshops. Teachers, community educators, parents and anyone else teaching kids during these times can request a workshop to be delivered live for your group!Learn More
TRACKS Oshkwazin provides workshops, events and leadership develpment opportunities for Indigenous youth ages 14-18
TRACKS Oshkwazin is now offering Online Workshops focused on building leadership in highschool aged Indigenous youth.Learn More
Include your name and email address, and identify which category best describes you so we can send you information that is the most relevant to you! If you'd like to receive all email updates from us, select "General".
TRACKS is hosted by Trent University within the Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences Program (IESS).Learn More
TRACKS is supported by the Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC). KWIC is a charitable Global Education and Resource Centre which promotes dialogue and understanding of world issues to enable people to engage in positive social and environmental change.Learn More
TRACKS operates in partnership with the First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University.Learn More
TRACKS is a proud member of Actua. Actua provides training, resources and support to its national network of members located at universities and colleges across Canada in the delivery of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education outreach programming.Learn More
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If you work on ladders frequently, you may already think that you know how to set them up properly. Perhaps you do, but a little refresher never hurts. Ladder falls are one of the main reasons for serious work site accidents, and they often happen because people rush through the setup and create an unsafe workplace.
Remember, that person may not be you. Often, one worker sets up the ladder and others use it. Knowing what to look for can help keep you safe, even if you didn’t set it up yourself.
First and foremost, you always want a level surface. You also want that surface to be firm — concrete, hard-packed dirt, etc — so that the ladder does not sink or shift and become unsafe even though you initially set it up properly.
If the ladder isn’t tall enough for the job, get a new ladder. Do not put it on top of something else. Do not stand on the top rungs. Do not reach so far that you unbalance yourself. Get the right ladder for the job, and you’ll be far safer.
Make sure that you use the proper angle. A ladder with a base that is too close to the building can tip over backward. If it’s too far away, the feet can slide out and send whoever is on the top sliding down the sheer face of the wall.
Finally, look for additional hazards. Do not set a ladder up in the path of vehicles, along a footpath, in front of a door or near a swinging window.
Doing all of this can keep you safe, but ladder falls still happen. Make sure you know what rights you have when you get injured on the job.
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BERKELEY, CA -- Exotic searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, as well as tests of known phenomena with unprecedented precision, could be carried out at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's 88-inch Cyclotron using a new technique for trapping rare types of radioactive isotopes. The technique, which was developed by researchers in LBL's Nuclear Science Division, enables these radioactive isotopes to be captured and collected 100 times more efficiently than ever before.
Working with beams of sodium ions produced at the 88-inch Cyclotron, the researchers, led by physicist Stuart Freedman, became the first group ever to capture radioactive isotopes in a laser trap. The key to their success was using laser light in combination with a magnetic field to cool down the atoms and slow their motion so that they could be actively loaded into the trap. A competing approach has been to try to snag radioactive atoms at random in an area of containment.
"Our technique is somewhat like pushing ping-pong balls with a bulldozer," says Freedman. "It has to be done very gently."
In their first experiments, Freedman and his group captured sodium-21, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 22.5 seconds. Their trapping technique should, however, be applicable to other radioactive isotopes as well.
"We selected sodium-21 because the laser technology and basic techniques for manipulating stable sodium are well established," says Freedman. "Furthermore, the beta decay of sodium-21 can be used to study the weak interaction and I have always been interested in doing high energy physics at low energies."
In their experiments to date, Freedman and his colleagues used a beam of high energy protons (25 MeV) to irradiate a heated atomic oven loaded with file shavings of magnesium. From this reaction emerges a beam of sodium-21 atoms. The sodium-21 beam is focused and sent down the length of a beamline through a decreasing magnetic field. At the same time, a beam of laser light is sent through the line in the opposite direction. The light is tuned so that its frequency is just below the excitation frequency of the sodium-21 atoms. This enables the laser beam's photons to act as a brake on the atoms. The decreasing magnetic field keeps the frequencies of the decelerating atoms and the laser photons in resonance.
"Each collision between a photon and an atom slows the velocity of the atom by about three centimeters per second," says Freedman. Atoms in the beamline start out at a speed of about 1,000 meters per second, which is comparable to the speed of a jet plane.
The slowed atoms are directed into a "magneto-optical" trap, a sphere inside a quadrupole magnetic field through which shoot six circularly polarized laser beams. Atoms are captured at the point in the center of the trap where the six beams meet. With this technique, Freedman and his group were able to capture 20-percent of the atoms that went through the trap. The old record for trapping atoms was less than one-percent.
Slowing the motion of the atoms also cools them. By the time the sodium-21 atoms were trapped, their effective temperature had been lowered by several orders of magnitude to a few milli-Kelvin. This not only helps boost trapping efficiency, it also makes possible the accumulation of the high atomic densities necessary for a number of important physics experiments.
"For high densities, the motion of ultracold atoms is affected by the force from re-radiated photons and there is evidence of interesting collective phenomena," says Freedman. "This is leading to a new picture of the behavior of atoms in intense laser fields. It will also help us probe the long-range components of the interatomic force."
Perhaps the most tantalizing of applications to be realized from this new trapping technique, Freedman says, is the possibility of using it to study the weak interaction.
"By comparing the lifetime of sodium-21 with a precise measurement of the beta-decay asymmetry," says Freedman, "we should be able to learn why parity is violated in the weak-interaction, or why only the left-handed component is involved. A decisive experiment could point to the existence of a new family of heavy intermediate vector bosons and a revolutionary discovery."
In addition to their work with sodium-21, Freedman and his group have also begun designing an experiment to produce and trap the first workable quantities of francium, a radioactive element with numerous isotopes.
Members of Freedman's research group at LBL include Christopher Bowers, Brian Fujikawa, Zhengtian Lu, Justin Mortara, Song-Quan Shang, and Eric Wasserman. Freedman has also been working with two collaborators from Argonne National Laboratory, Kevin Coulter and Linda Young.
LBL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.
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High-performance pipeline steels are frequently used for storage, transportation and energy development applications. Submerged arc welding finds its application to weld thick pipes. Design and development of appropriate welding fluxes provide good structural integrity properties in severe service environments. The present study aims to investigate the effect of laboratory-developed SAW fluxes on the electrochemical corrosion behavior of SAW weldments in different environments. Electrochemical corrosion behavior of weld specimens in different environments was performed using Linear Sweep Voltammetry. Different mediums such as seawater and sodium thiosulphate solution (10−2Mol/l, pH = 3, and 10−3Mol/l, pH = 5) were taken for the corrosion study. The microstructure of the weld specimen reveals the presence of acicular ferrite structure. F3RA and F19RA weld specimen shows a higher corrosion rate in seawater and sodium thiosulphate medium (pH = 3 or 5). © IMechE 2021.
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Restoring normal growth and development in children that have survived end-stage liver disease and liver transplantation is a complex challenge. Advancing growth failure prior to transplant may have a negative impact on posttransplant survival, growth potential, and cognitive development. Yet, with the current organ allocation scheme, most infants and children with chronic liver disease will experience advanced malnutrition and resulting growth failure before they have an opportunity to receive a liver graft. Although physical and developmental "catch-up" is observed for many children, some do not completely overcome pretransplant deficits. Approaches to posttransplant medical therapy, such as steroid minimization, may improve outcomes. The cognitive function of the majority of patients is within the normal range. Yet, a relatively high percentage are not functioning at the level that would be predicted by their IQ, and the specific causes of learning problems in this group must be more fully explored. HRQOL and functional outcomes are comparable to those of other pediatric groups with chronic disease but are lower than those of a normative population. Parents of pediatric liver transplant recipients report more stress and tend to report functional outcomes that are lower than those reported by the children themselves.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
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Facility Upgrades: Paid through Energy Savings
From energy.gov: The light-emitting diode (LED) is one of today's most energy-efficient and rapidly-developing lighting technologies. Quality LED light bulbs last longer, are more durable, and offer comparable or better light quality than other types of lighting.
LED lighting is very different from other lighting sources such as incandescent bulbs and CFLs. Key differences include the following:
- Light Source: LEDs are the size of a fleck of pepper, and a mix of red, green, and blue LEDs is typically used to make white light.
- Direction: LEDs emit light in a specific direction, reducing the need for reflectors and diffusers that can trap light. This feature makes LEDs more efficient for many uses such as recessed downlights and task lighting. With other types of lighting, the light must be reflected to the desired direction and more than half of the light may never leave the fixture.
- Heat: LEDs emit very little heat. In comparison, incandescent bulbs release 90% of their energy as heat and CFLs release about 80% of their energy as heat.
The high efficiency and directional nature of LEDs makes them ideal for many industrial uses.
LEDs are increasingly common in street lights, parking garage lighting, walkway and other outdoor area lighting, refrigerated case lighting, modular lighting, and task lighting.
LED lights are up to 80% more efficient than traditional lighting such as fluorescent and incandescent lights. 95% of the energy in LEDs is converted into light and only 5% is wasted as heat.
Check out the top 8 things you didn't know about LEDs to learn more: https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-8-things-you-didn-t-know-about-leds
To request a FREE study of the benefits of LED lighting in your facility, click the button below:
New LED fixtures vs. Retrofits
LEDs can be found both in new fixtures and in retrofit kits that can be installed in your existing fixtures. New fixtures may cost more initially, but these costs may be offset by larger rebates. Retrofit projects not only have lower material costs but also require less labor than installing new fixtures. For areas with lower KWH rates, and also areas with no or low rebates, Retrofits can be a cost-effective strategy.
Another way to maximize the savings from your lighting equipment is the use of Lighting Controls. This could be a control for each fixture or a group of fixtures on a circuit. With new addressable fixtures, you can even program each fixture independently from a handle wireless controller.
Fixtures can be controlled based on occupancy. If a sensor in an area detects no heat or motion from occupants, the controller can turn off the fixtures. In some areas, the building manager may not want the area completely off, so an occupancy sensor can turn the lights to low-mode. In some cases, new LED fixtures are brighter than needed, and in these cases, the HIGH default setting can be regulated downwards to create additional savings. The most extensive projects involve centralized Energy Management Systems where on-off and high-low settings can be controlled based on time-of-day and even change seasonally.
For areas with a lot of natural daylighting, controls can be programmed to maintain a certain light level, and if that level is being provided by daylight, the LED fixtures will be dimmed automatically to generate additional savings.
To see if LED lighting makes sense in your building, click the button below to request an Energy Audit:
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You've waited all year to brighten and scent your home with holiday plants and bushes. However, you may enjoy your Christmas greens even more once you know the surprising Christmas traditions and lore that surrounds each plant. From ancient to modern times, every Christmas plant has a story that makes them even more special to have in your home during the holidays.
01 of 07
The poinsettia is one of the most iconic houseplants to give and receive as a gift during the holidays. Sub-tropical plants native to Mexico, poinsettias arrived in America during the 1800s by Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Ambassador to Mexico, who spotted the flowering plants on plantations in Mexico. He sent a few plants back to South Carolina, where he began to grow them, give as gifts to friends, and donate them to botanical gardens.
Poinsettias have evolved into a symbol of Christmas because of their festive shape and meaningful colors. The shape of the poinsettia's flower is thought to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem. A red poinsettia symbolizes the blood of Christ, and a white poinsettia flower represents the purity of Christ.
02 of 07
The ancient Romans and Greeks were the first to deck their halls with boughs of holly. Holly bushes always stay green and need little to no maintenance, even during the harshest winters. It's holly's enduring characteristic which made the ancients believe the bush was sacred. In ancient times, holly was thought of as good luck because it never died, so Romans would send holly wreaths to friends, family, and especially newlyweds as a gift of goodwill and good wishes.
03 of 07
It's tradition to kiss under the mistletoe during the holidays, but this parasitic plant that attaches itself to host branches of other plants has a bittersweet story behind it. The legend of mistletoe started centuries ago in Norse mythology, when a goddess used the plant to bring back memories of her beloved son who was slain with a weapon crafted from the plant. However, the legend has evolved from grief into one indicating rebirth or regrowth.
Today, kissing under the mistletoe today indicates forthcoming happiness and fertility. Mistletoe is also said to be used in other unusual ways, such as placing it above a baby's bed for protection from evil spirits. A sprig placed under the pillow of a young girl is said to inspire the dreams of her future husband.
04 of 07
Yew shrubs, with their vivid red berries, are slow-growing, low-maintenance plants. The evergreen yew can also be used as an alternative Christmas tree, and its sprigs make lovely fresh holiday decorations. However there's a fascinating and long history behind the tree. The yew is said to be one of the oldest trees on Earth. The ancient Druids looked to the yew tree as a symbol of everlasting life, honoring it as a sacred plant. Throughout European history, yews were planted in churchyards to symbolize a long life. As a precaution, keep a yew tree outdoors because it's toxic to animals and humans.Continue to 5 of 7 below.
05 of 07
Ivy, with its festive star-like leaves, is another Christmas plant known to ward off evil spirits as bad luck, as well as symbolize new growth. Ivy is a popular way to decorate Christmas wreaths, and it keeps green throughout the year.
Holly and ivy tend to go together in song and in holiday celebrations. In ancient Christian symbolism, holly symbolized masculinity and ivy symbolized femininity. In modern times, ivy is used as an invasive landscaping plant. When pulled from the ground, it can be used to wind around holiday decor, but keep the fresh vines outdoors because some species may be too toxic to keep indoors.
06 of 07
It's not Christmas without a tree, but that wasn't always the case. Early European pagans would use evergreen branches to brighten up their homes during dreary winter month; however, Germany developed the Christmas tree tradition during the 16th century. It's said that a German theologian and religious reformer walking home on a winter night was inspired by the beauty of stars twinkling through evergreen tree branches. He recreated the optimism he felt by erecting a tree with candles in his family's living room. Though it took a while for Christian Americans to forget about how the tradition began with non-Christian pagans, the Christmas tree trend finally became widely accepted in this country by the early 20th century.
07 of 07
Why would a cactus be so popular during the Christmas season? There are many legends about the Christmas cactus, but one particular piece of lore from Brazil tugs at the heartstrings. Legend has it that a poor little boy out in the humid jungles prayed to the heavens for a sign of Christmas. He prayed for days without results, until Christmas morning when he woke to find beautiful bursts of colorful flowers on the tips of the cacti branches. This stunning display of beauty continues to be a symbol of answered prayer. The Christmas cactus is another perfect holiday gift to give to others. Tropical in its origin, it grows indoors as a houseplant until the summer when it can be planted outdoors.
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Across the globe more than two billion of us have access to the Internet with five billion owning or having access to a mobile phone. Children are growing up in a world where social media, mobile technology and online communities are fundamental to the way that they communicate, learn and develop. In recent years the speed, flexibility and affordability of the rapidly evolving digital technology has slowly helped to decrease the digital divide, enabling millions of young people in developing countries to join the digital world.
Increasingly, technology is being seen as a powerful tool for development and change, where it is currently supporting the battle to achieve youth-focused targets in global education, livelihoods and health.
In poorer countries the ‘digital divide’ is often more extreme as computer resources remain greatly overstretched. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), in Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Nepal and the Philippines, over 100 children share a single computer in primary schools. This is largely related to the lack of electricity in many schools; for instance, in Nicaragua, only a quarter of elementary schools have access to electricity and in Nepal, only 6% of primary schools and 24% of secondary schools have electricity.
Several high-profile tech companies have launched global initiatives to increase access to technology for children and young people in the world’s poorest countries, pouring millions of computers and educational materials into ICT training programmes. Computer giant Dell runs its own computer hardware and literacy programme called Youth Learning, which initially launched in India and is now operating in 15 countries across the world.
One way that ICT has been shown to reduce learning disparities is if it plays a complementary role, serving as an additional resource for teachers and students. In India, computers were used to teach mathematics both as a substitute for regular teaching and during after-school programmes. The results showed that the approach did not improve learning when used as a replacement teacher, but did in the after-school programmes, and particularly for low achievers and older students. Similar findings were also found in Israel, in the small-scale Time to Know programme.
The potential of mobile technology as an educational tool is also steadily growing, where mobile phone technology in developing countries now accounts for four out of every five connections worldwide. In a recent report by the GSMA into m-learning, more than half of all young people surveyed in Ghana, India, Uganda and Morocco who had accessed the internet, had done so on a mobile device.
The combination of education and technology has been considered the main key to human progress. Education feeds technology, which in turn forms the basis for education. Technology has the potential to be a huge force for good as it will undoubtedly play an increasingly important part in millions of young people’s lives across the world.
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ATM has the potential to displace all existing internetworking technologies
One single network handles all traffic types: Bursty data and Time-sensitive continuous traffic (voice/video).
All these claims are still true if you just replace »ATM« with »IP«. So what went wrong with ATM (and why did the underdog IP win)? I can see the following major issues:
- ATM is a layer-2 technology that wanted to replace all other layer-2 technologies. Sometimes it made sense (ADSL), sometimes not so much (LAN … not to mention LANE). IP is a layer-3 technology that embraced all layer-2 technologies and unified them into a single network.
- ATM is an end-to-end circuit-oriented technology, which made perfect sense in a world where a single session (voice call, terminal session to mainframes) lasted for minutes or hours and therefore the cost of session setup became negligible. In a Web 2.0 world where each host opens tens of sessions per minute to servers all across the globe, the session setup costs would be prohibitive.
- Because of its circuit-oriented nature, ATM causes per-session overhead in each node in the network. Core IP routers don’t have to keep the session state as they forward individual IP datagrams independently. IP is thus inherently more scalable than ATM.
The shift that really made ATM obsolete was the changing data networking landscape: voice and long-lived low-bandwidth data sessions which dominated the world at the time when ATM was designed were dwarfed by the short-lived bursty high-bandwidth web requests. ATM was (in the end) a perfect solution to the wrong problem.
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Good kidney health is something for which we should all strive. The kidneys regulate your water and electrolyte balance and help remove waste from your system. If they aren't working well, toxins build up in your bloodstream and make you sick.
Here are some things that can hurt your kidneys, so be sure to avoid them as much as possible.
Too Much Salt
Consuming too much salt can increase your blood pressure, which in turn can negatively affect the blood flow to your kidneys, causing damage over time. Go easy on the salt at home, and avoid restaurants and processed foods as much as you can to lower your salt intake.
Cigarette smoking can increase blood pressure, too, resulting in possible kidney damage. It also increases a person's risk of developing diabetes, which negatively affects kidney function.
Drinking too much can increase the workload on your kidneys, causing damage and decreased function. Ask your doctor how much alcohol is too much based on your age, sex, and other health factors. Avoid binge-drinking because even one episode can cause severe kidney damage.
Your kidneys need water to do their job. If you are chronically dehydrated, your kidneys will be overworked and more likely to decline in function, possibly eventually failing. Watch your urine to know whether you're staying hydrated enough: it should be light yellow.
Women who drink diet pop regularly have an increased rate of kidney disease as they get older. Regular soda doesn't seem to carry the same risk.
Some medications can have negative effects on the kidneys over time or even in the short term. Be sure to ask your doctor before starting any medications. Know the risks and benefits and ask for alternatives if you're concerned.
Some over-the-counter medications can have serious kidney effects, too. Some anti-heartburn drugs are risky for the kidneys. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.
Drugs like methamphetamine and cocaine can cause kidney damage. Please seek help if you are addicted to illegal drugs.
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(Medical Xpress)—A new type of molecular switch can boost common chemotherapy drugs to destroy bowel cancer cells, according to research presented today (Monday) at the NCRI Cancer Conference in Liverpool.
Scientists at the University of Dundee examined hundreds of molecules which may help to predict whether bowel cancer patients can be successfully treated with chemotherapy.
Many bowel cancer patients are treated with a drug called 5-fluorouracil, or 5-FU, but not all patients respond well. It is difficult to predict which patients will be successfully treated.
The team revealed in laboratory experiments that blocking a molecular switch called miR-224 'tricks' bowel cancer cells containing a healthy gene called K-RAS into behaving like cells with a damaged form of the gene.
K-RAS usually controls the normal growth of healthy bowel cells. But faulty versions of K-RAS are found in one third of bowel cancers, particularly in fast-growing cancers with poor survival.
The research showed that common drugs, 5-FU and oxaliplatin, were more effective in treating bowel cancer cells with damaged forms of K-RAS, and bowel cancer cells with healthy K-RAS in which the miR-224 switch had been blocked.
Lead author, Dr Gillian Smith, at the University of Dundee, said: "Our research reveals that changing the behaviour of K-RAS boosts the effect of certain drugs to kill bowel cancer cells.
"This research is at an early stage, but if we're able to prove these results in larger studies, the findings could provide new scope for bowel cancer treatments targeting the K-RAS gene. Our findings are particularly interesting because there is already a test available in the clinic that can identify which patients have a faulty version of K-RAS."
Bowel cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the UK with more than 41,000 people diagnosed with the disease in the UK each year.
Dr Jane Cope, director of the NCRI, said: "This is exciting research that adds to the dramatic progress made over the past thirty years in tackling bowel cancer.
"People diagnosed today are twice as likely to survive for at least ten years as those diagnosed in the 1970s and we hope that these findings will one day help scientists develop better ways to treat and monitor the disease in the future - ultimately increasing survival from cancer."
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The project aims to improve forest fire prevention under a changing climate in the Alpine Space, by creating a shared warning system based on weather conditions.
The fire regime at any given location is the result of complex interactions between fuels, social issues, topography, ignitions and weather conditions. The analysis of fires frequency and distribution will allow to model forest fire danger in the alpine region.
The definition of a univocal Alpine Forest Fire Danger Scale will support the interpretation of danger thresholds as enhancement of emergency plans and operational procedures. Due to the debate on climate change, forest fires as potential disturbance have become an issue in the Alpine region over the last decade. An Alpine network on forest fire impact mitigation will be assembled reflecting common policies in risk prevention management, by fostering mutual aid in prevention, prepardeness and suppression procedures.
The alpine forest fires
During the last decades the frequency of forest fires showed a large increase: nearly 20.000 ha of Alpine forests, in addition to grasslands and non forestry areas, are burned each year. Forest fires affect most of the alpine regions in Winter and early Spring, nevertheless frequency and burned area are increasing also in Summer, probably due to the global warming. At this stage forest fires are already threatening the forest heritage of the Alps. Forest fires influence the vegetation composition and structure of any given location; fire shapes the landscape and influences biogeochemical cycles such as the carbon cycle and soil processes. The impacts of forest fires affect the ecosystems severely by soil erosion as possible trigger for landslides and loss of soil fertility. The effects on biodiversity, human safety and mountain economy play an important role in rural development.
The social and economic expenditures of dealing with sprouted fires in the alpine regions are rapidly increasing and are not in accordance with a sustainabile development. In future the situation could get out of control caused by rising temperatures, more frequent and severe droughts and other weather extremes due to climate change. Furthermore the occurrence of forest fires will be intensified as a consequence of booming turism, overexploitation and mountain depopulation in the Southern Alps. Therefore actions must have to be substantially enhanced.
The ALP FFIRS objectives
The overall objective of the ALP FFIRS project is to control and reduce the forest fire hazard in the Alpine environment considerably, through prevention and mitigation actions. The project aims to develop a multi-referential innovative service that supports forest fire management, above all in prevention activities and in the mitigation of the negative impacts on the Alpine forests. The ambitious goal of ALP FFIRS is to set up a framework for a common warning system for forest fire danger rating in the whole Alpine region taking into account weather conditions and vegetation patterns. The decision support tool will consist of a daily fire danger level assessment and forecast in order to identify in advance critical conditions, favourable to forest fire triggering and spreading. The system will provide actors involved in forest fire prevention and suppression, as well as the general public, with enhanced and more accurate predictions of forest fire danger. Methodologically similar and standardised actions can thus be ensured, through cooperation between partners, such as preparedness plans.
The ALP FFIRS project is co-funded by the EU INTERREG Alpine Space 2007-2013 Programme under the priority 3 “Environment and risk prevention”.
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In this post Julie Kray, Agricultural Science Research Technician, USDA-ARS & Lauren Porensky, Ecologist, USDA-ARS discuss the recent paper ‘Thresholds and gradients in a semi-arid grassland: long-term grazing treatments induce slow, continuous and reversible vegetation change’
How do we strike a balance between an economically sustainable amount of grazing, and an ecologically sustainable amount? This is the central challenge in managing grazed landscapes around the world. Due in part to differences in vegetation, soil conditions, climate, and past grazing history, a grazing strategy that results in ecological damage in one place might underutilize the resources of another. In addition, the optimal balance between livestock production and resource conservation is a moving target, because each year brings different weather, and the effects of one year’s weather and management decisions often influence subsequent years.
To help producers and managers adapt to constantly changing conditions, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service developed state-and-transition models (STMs) for the US. These models describe, for a particular location, how vegetation changes in response to management and natural processes. But any model that simplifies real world complexity enough to be generally useful requires test runs and revisions. As STM predictions are compared to real world responses across a wide range of situations, we learn which pieces of each model do or don’t work, and this leads to improvements in both the model and the management it was built to guide.
Due to a lack of long-term data, many of the existing STMs have a similar set of shortcomings. For example, most STMs only hint at the rate of expected vegetation changes. Furthermore, it is often unclear whether changes are permanent or reversible, given a change in management. Long-term experiments are needed to build more detailed temporal dynamics into STMs, but few studies have measured grazing effects over multiple decades, or evaluated the potential for vegetation recovery with years of rest after decades of grazing.
We studied the effects of three grazing intensities imposed for 33 years on northern mixed-grass prairie near Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. We compared pastures with no cattle grazing to others with light, moderate, and heavy stocking rates. We also returned a subset of the heavily grazed pastures to light grazing or no grazing for 8 years, to see if the effects of 25 years of heavy grazing were reversible. Based on the current STM for our area, we expected long-term heavy grazing to cause an irreversible change from a mixed cool-season and warm-season perennial grass community to one without any cool-season grasses. The loss of the taller, more productive cool-season grasses from this plant community could reduce the number of livestock it supports and place economic stress on producers.
Just as the STM predicted, 33 years of heavy grazing caused the cover of dominant cool-season grasses, western wheatgrass and needle-and-thread, to decline while cover of the dominant warm-season grass, blue grama, increased. However, the cool-season grasses did not vanish after three decades of heavy grazing, and we were surprised to find that reversing management from heavy grazing to light or no grazing allowed dominant cool-season grasses to recover. This recovery took about as long as the initial change during the first 8 years of the experiment.
Our study suggests that northern mixed-grass prairie may be more resilient to grazing than the current STM predicts, which is good news. However, it still took more than a decade for the vegetation to revert to pre-grazing conditions, which is far from a speedy recovery. From a producer’s perspective, this is a long time to wait for higher economic returns from the land, suggesting that a lower stocking rate is optimal over the long term.
For the STM, our take-home message is that, in resilient rangelands, quantifying the rates of plant community change appears to be more important than identifying permanent transformations. Adding measured rates of change (when available) to STMs will greatly improve their usefulness, and enable land managers to add well-defined grazing rest periods into their long-term plans.
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Myofascial pain occurs when the nerve that is connected to the muscle becomes irritated and small nodules or contractures form, causing the muscle to bunch-up and become painful. These contractures are called trigger points. Trigger points will often refer pain in distant locations. For example it is very common for jaw muscles with myofascial pain to refer pain into the teeth or ears. In addition to pain, muscles with myofascial pain also fatigue more easily and have decreased strength and range of motion. Myofascial pain within the jaw muscles can also be associated with many other autonomic symptoms such as dizziness, ringing in the ears, eye twitching, sweating, nausea, and tearing. Tension headaches in the temples are usually the result of myofascial pain within the temporalis muscle, which is a jaw closing muscle. Myofascial pain may also trigger other headaches such as migraines. The cause of myofascial pain is over-stimulation of the nerve connected to the muscle. This can occur when the muscle is either, chronically strained such as in teeth clenching or poor posture, or through an acute trauma. Additionally, nerve or joint pain and dysfunction can be a cause of Myofascial pain. Treatments are aimed at decreasing any joint influences or repetitive strain (clenching or gum chewing) and through massage, stretching, heat, ultrasound, trigger point injections, IMS, medications and Botox.
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Math can be both a difficult subject to teach and a difficult subject to learn. It is easy for children to get frustrated, especially when it comes to word problems or advanced concepts. Being prepared is the key to building successful math skills. If you are confident in your math teaching skills, then your child can build confidence in his/her ability to learn. Above all, it is important that you do not lose patience. Math is a very important part of homeschool curriculum and there are resources available to help.
Before attempting to homeschool your children, be sure to check on both your national and state curriculum requirements. Choosing effective materials and textbooks is important. However, a good teacher is sensitive to the child’s needs and does not just legalistically follow any book. Also, being enthusiastic about math will encourage your children to be excited about learning. Be sure to incorporate games and playful study tactics to aid in advancement. Explaining concepts, drawing pictures about math concepts, and using concrete aids such as flash cards and object lessons, are all useful tools when teaching math principles. Also, there are many useful and free aids that can be found online, including interactive games that allow a child to practice their math skills.
Some of the more popular math curriculum programs include Saxton Math, which is widely used for homeschool lessons, and Singapore Math which emphasizes problem solving skills and mental math. Saxton Math uses a step by step systematic approach to teaching, while Singapore Math is more mastery-based. When choosing a program it is important to remember that children have different learning styles. If one way of teaching method does not work, you can always try a different approach. However, it is important that your student practices math skills consistently to retain information and be able to build on previously learned concepts.
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Closing the Achievement Gap: How to Reach Limited-Formal-Schooling and Long-Term English Learners
Authors: Yvonne S. Freeman, David E. Freeman & Sandra Mercuri
Call Number: PE1128.A2 F744 2002
Struggling older English learners pose a real challenge for educators. Some of these students are new arrivals with limited or interrupted schooling. Others have been in and out of ESL and bilingual programs in this country since kindergarten, but have never succeeded academically. How can teachers help older students who lack academic content knowledge and English language proficiency catch up with their classmates? Yvonne and David Freeman provide four research-based keys for closing the achievement gap. Three teachers have put this theory into practice to reach their older English learners. These teachers organize curriculum around themes, use predictable classroom routines, and scaffold instruction in a variety of ways. The clear examples from their classes will help other teachers implement effective practices for their older English learners. For teachers and teacher educators, program directors, resource personnel, and administrators, this book offers both the research and practice schools need to develop effective programs to educate struggling older English learners.
About the Authors:
Dr. Sandra Mercuri is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Brownsville. She has over 18 years of experience in teaching in Argentina and the United States in K-12 schools and at the college level. She teaches courses in bilingual education and biliteracy and is working on research on the development of academic language across the content areas, the role of language in the development of scientific literacy and the effect of long-term professional development for teachers of English learners. She provides training for teachers nationwide and presents at national and international conferences on issues of second language acquisition and bilingualism, dual language education, teacher training and ESL strategies.
Yvonne S. Freeman is a professor of bilingual education in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies of the College of Education at the University of Texas – Brownsville. Yvonne and David Freeman are Heinemann Professional Development Providers and Yvonne is the coauthor or coeditor (with David E. Freeman) of ten Heinemann books.
David E. Freeman is a professor of Reading and ESL in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies of the College of Education at the University of Texas – Brownsville. David and Yvonne Freeman are Heinemann Professional Development Providers.
On the Web:
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By William Pearce
In the early 1930s, Dutch pilot Dirk Asjes was disappointed with the slow development of Dutch airmail flights and Fokker aircraft. Asjes sketched out an aircraft design and asked the aircraft manufacturer Pander to build a special mailplane to compete with KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij or Royal Dutch Airlines) mail and passenger service. Officially, Pander was called the Nederlandse Fabriek van Vliegtuigen H. Pander & Zonen (H. Pander & Son Dutch Aircraft Company). Pander was a furniture company that had expanded to aircraft construction in 1924 when its owner, Harmen Pander, purchased the bankrupt VIH (Vliegtuig Industrie Holland or Holland Aircraft Industry).
Airmail service to the Dutch East Indies involved using the relatively slow Fokker F.XVIII, which had a top speed of 149 mph (240 km/h). To improve service, KLM ordered the Fokker F.XX Zilvermeeuw, which had a top speed of 190 mph (305 km/h). While the F.XX was being built, Pander took up the challenge to build a faster aircraft solely to transport mail. Pander’s new design was the S.4 Postjager, and financial support came from a few Dutch shipping companies who hoped to break KLM’s monopoly on air transport to the East Indies.
The Pander S.4 Postjager was designed by Theodorus (Theo) Slot, who was originally with VIH. The aircraft was a low-wing trimotor with retractable main gear. The S.4 was made almost entirely of wood. The aircraft was powered by three 420 hp (313 kW) Wright Whirlwind R-975 engines. The aircraft’s interior was divided into three compartments: cockpit, radio room, and mail cargo hold.
The S.4 used external ailerons that mounted above the wings’ trailing edge. Sometimes called “park bench” ailerons because of their appearance, they are often mistaken for Flettner tabs. A Flettner tab is a supplementary control surface that attaches to and assists the primary control surface. By contrast, a “park bench” aileron is the primary control surface, and there is no other control surface integral with the wing. External ailerons operated in the undisturbed airflow apart from the wing and were more responsive during minor control inputs or during slow flight. In addition, external ailerons allowed the use of full-span flaps to give the aircraft a low landing speed. However, external ailerons had a tendency to flutter at higher speeds, potentially causing catastrophic damage to the aircraft (but flutter was not well understood in the 1930s). On the S.4, the flaps extended from the engine nacelles to near the wingtips.
The S.4 had a wingspan of 54 ft 6 in (16.6 m) and was 41 ft (12.5 m) long. The aircraft had a maximum speed of 224 mph (360 km/h), a cruising speed of 186 mph (300 km/h), and a landing speed of 60 mph (97 km/h). The S.4 was designed to carry 1,102 lb (500 kg) of mail. It had an empty weight of around 6,669 lb (3,025 kg) and a loaded weight of around 12,125 lb (5,200 kg). Six fuel tanks, three in each wing, carried a total of 555 gallons (2,100 L). The aircraft had a range of 1,510 miles (2,430 km) and a ceiling of 17,717 ft (5,400 m).
Cleverly registered as PH-OST, the completed S.4 mailplane made its public debut on 23 September 1933. The Fokker F.XX also made its debut at the event, which was attended by Prince Henry of the Netherlands. The S.4 flew the following month, when Gerrit Geijsendorffer and Funker van Straaten made the maiden flight on 6 October 1933. Flight testing went well, and on 9 December 1933, the S.4 departed on an 8,700-mile (14,000-km) flight from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Flown by Geijsendorffer, Asjes, and van Straaten, this flight was a special run to demonstrate the aircraft’s speed and range and also to deliver 596 lb (270 kg) of Christmas mail (made up of some 51,000 letters and postcards) to the Dutch colony. At the time, the Fokker F.XX was being prepared for the same flight.
The S.4 had made a scheduled stopover in Rome, Italy and was proceeding to Athens, Greece when the right engine lost oil pressure. The aircraft made an emergency landing in Grottaglie, Italy, and inspection revealed that the right engine needed to be replaced. With no engines available anywhere in Europe, one was shipped from the United States and set to arrive on 22 December. This setback put the Christmas mail service in jeopardy. To make sure the mail was delivered, arrangements were made for the F.XX to pick up the S.4’s mail and continue to Batavia. But, the F.XX had its own engine issues before it even took off. This left the Fokker F.XVIII, the aircraft the S.4 and F.XX were meant to replace, as the only alternative. A F.XVIII picked up the mail and continued to Batavia with enough time for Christmas delivery. The failed Christmas flight was a huge embarrassment for both the S.4 and F.XX programs.
The repaired S.4 set out for Batavia on 27 December and arrived on 31 December. It made the return flight, leaving Batavia on 5 January 1934 and arriving in Amsterdam on 11 January. Although the S.4 averaged 181 mph (291 km/h) on the flight from Batavia, the aircraft’s mail flight failed to impress, and the S,4 was not put into service. Pander decided to prepare the aircraft for the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race flown from London to Melbourne, Australia.
The MacRobertson Race started on 20 October 1934 and covered some 11,300 miles (18,200 km). For the race, the S.4 was flown by Geijsendorffer, Asjes, and Pieter Pronk and carried race number 6. The aircraft had been renamed Panderjager, but some referred to it as the Pechjager (“pech” meaning “bad luck” and “breakdown”). After leaving Mildenhall airfield in England, the S.4 arrived in Bagdad, Iraq in third place at the end of the first day of the race. The next day, the aircraft proceeded to Allahabad, India, still in third place. Upon touchdown in Allahabad, the left gear collapsed, resulting in bent left and front propellers and a damaged left cowling and main gear.
Allahabad did not have the facilities to repair the S.4. Geijsendorffer took the propellers and traveled by train to the KLM depot in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India to make the needed repairs. This delay took the S.4 out of competition, but the decision was made to finish the race. Repairs were completed, and the S.4 was ready to fly on the evening of 26 October 1934. A service vehicle towing a light was positioned across the field from the S.4 to illuminate its path. The S.4’s crew found the light distracting and asked for it to be shut off, as the aircraft could provide its own lighting.
Once the service vehicle’s light was shut off, the S.4 prepared for takeoff. Unfortunately, the crew of the service vehicle misunderstood the instructions. They thought they were to proceed to the S.4 and illuminate the aircraft from behind. As they made their way toward the S.4 in darkness, the aircraft began its takeoff run. At about 99 mph (160 km/h), the S.4’s right wing struck the service vehicle. Fuel spilled from the ruptured wing and quickly ignited as the S.4 skidded 427 ft (130 m) to a stop. Pronk was uninjured, and Geijsendorffer and Asjes escaped with minor burns, but the S.4 was completely destroyed by the fire. The two operators of the service vehicle were severely injured.
Pander planned to convert the S.4 to a scout or bomber after the race and sell it to the military. With the loss of the S.4, there was no aircraft to sell, and Pander was not able to recover its expenses. The company went out of business a short time later.
Nederlandse Vliegtuigen Deel 2 by Theo Wesselink (2014)
Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1934 by G. G. Grey (1934)
Blue Wings Orange Skies by Ryan K. Noppen (2016)
“High-Speed Mail Machine” Flight (7 September 1933)
“The Aerial Phost” Flight (5 October 1933)
“Opening of Amsterdam Aero Club’s New Clubhouse” Flight (28 September 1933)
“The Pander Postjager Pauses” Flight (14 December 1933)
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Some people are afraid of computers and approach the machines with great wariness. These people are sure that their first mouse-click will destroy the computer and maybe the whole network along with it.
Part of the problem with some new users is that they figure they’ll never know it all. The mystery will never be revealed to them, so why try to learn anything in the first place? With students like these, trainers would be wise to let the newbies in on this secret: Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is guess.
Students will be shocked that you are not intimately familiar with every feature of Excel or Word or whatever the topic of the class. They don’t know yet that the best way to learn is by doing. Some of the best IT people in the business are self-taught. They weren’t given a magic book of incantations when they joined the IT business. They were handed a problem and told, “Fix it! And hurry!” Experience really is the best teacher.
Now where is that handout?
Encouraging this kind of approach will do much more for your students than any amount of documentation you will ever produce.
Once people get the hang of guessing, their confidence and skills will increase, and they’ll be able to do more on their own. Whether users go to the help file, try every menu command they can find, or click around for 30 minutes before solving the problem; they will never forget this bit of information. People like to figure things out on their own. They’re proud of the discovery and of the hard work it took to get there.
A good philosophy, not a silver bullet
Obviously, there are some basics that you have to teach—the desktop, folder structures, menus, navigating through a network—and with some of the more technical subjects, there really is only one right answer.
But, if you’re working with an intermediate class and a “how do you do this?” question comes up, toss the problem out to the entire group. “How do you think you do that?” Make it a game among the students, with a round of applause as the prize for the correct answer.
It could be an even better teaching tool if no one comes up with the right answer. Force them to click around until someone finds the right menu and the right command to accomplish the task.
Do you see this working in one of your classes? What’s the most satisfying solution you’ve found by guessing or clicking around? Send us a note or post a comment below.
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New species found
The hundreds of animals listed on the federal endangered list take center stage on this Earth Day. But scientists are also discovering new animal species every year. From a fanged frog to a carnivorous sea sponge, check out these new and recently discovered species from around the world.
T. rex’s cousin
Scientists made a huge discovery this year when they uncovered what could be the largest concentration of dinosaur bones belonging to a new species. It’s thought to be related to the Tyrannosaurus rex.
This fanged frog was among 163 new species discovered in 2008. It gobbles birds as well as insects.
Scientists unearthed this bizarre dinosaur whose head was decked out with 15 horns. It’s closely related to another horned cretaceous dinosaur.
Shocking pink dragon millipede
This spiny miilipede is named for its vibrant color. Their glands produce a toxin to ward off predators, but it keeps them smelling like a nut.
Prehistoric six-gilled sharks
Last year scientists uncovered a bizarre prehistoric six-gilled shark thousands of feet below sea level.
A new brightly colored robin was discovered in 2008 in the remote forests of Gabon
This slender species of shark was discovered in 2003 by an ichthyologist. It’s the first new shark to be discovered in the inlet in 34 years.
Giant huntsman spider
Discovered in the northern area of a Southeast Asian country in 2001, the giant huntsman spider is considered the largest spider in the world.
This carnivorous sea sponge made the “Top 10 New Species” of 2010 list and coined a new scientific term.
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Much of the smart grid’s strength lies in its use of wireless technology to improve monitoring, information flow and efficiency. As powerful as that combination may be, a couple of California utilities have taken it to a new low. That is to say they have taken it underground.
In August, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) announced successful trials of a new wireless technology that allowed the utilities to detect outages and monitor distribution transformers below ground. In field trials, the technology exceeded the Department of Energy’s (DOE) stated 2016 Smart Grid Performance Target to improve System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), by greater than 10 percent. The DOE funded the trials with a $2.1 million award.
San Diego-based wireless developer On-Ramp Wireless created the technology. On-Ramp specializes in energy automation. The goal of the project was to leverage wireless network automation and information technology to improve electric grid reliability. The demonstration product employs a cellular-like network that was designed specifically for utility automation. It can be service-powered and has battery-operated sensors in below-ground locations, and it can support multiple applications including grid reliability, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and critical infrastructure monitoring.
In layman’s terms, the technology can connect billions of hard-to-reach devices in large urban areas and in geographically challenging areas. It enables low-power monitoring and control in a variety of applications, including smart grid, oil and gas, water, and industrial. The technology operates in unlicensed spectrum and finds weak signals even in high noise environments.
Historically, opponents have argued that burying power lines is more expensive and that it is harder to find faults. This technology will help offset the expenses of burying, maintaining and monitoring underground power lines, which are typically more expensive than above-ground lines.
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Underneath the skin, multiple hairs grow from each hair follicle, usually 2 to 5 hairs per follicle, which are nourished by blood vessels. All hair goes through a cycle, beginning with hair growth, called the Anagen phase, into a resting period until it sheds two to seven years later. Each hair is at a different stage of the growth cycle.
Over time, the Anagen stage can be weakened through lack of proper blood flow or nutrition, clogging of the hair shaft, scalp scarring, medical complications, or other issues that either cause the hair to thin or not grow. Less hairs grow from the follicle, maybe only one or two, giving an overall appearance of thinning hair. A hair follicle may not possess hair during the shedding cycle, but still be alive. Thereby, treating the problem can stimulate new hair growth. However, once the hair follicle actually dies, there is no way to regrow hair.
The average person has over 100,000 hairs on their head with approximately 100 hairs shedding at any given time. Due to forces of nature, a person typically sheds more hair in the spring and fall.
The Science Of Trichology
Over the past decade there has been a tremendous amount of research in Trichology, the scientific study of the scalp and hair follicle. Researchers have found that a healthy scalp leads to healthy hair. Conditions of the scalp that clog or prevent blood flow to the hair follicles eventually lead to baldness. When the scalp is properly cleansed, the hair follicles unclogged, nutrients and blood flow restored, as long as the hair follicle is alive, new hair growth is possible.
Some of the issues Trichology addresses are:
- Dry scalp, dandruff and dull hair
- Oily hair and scalp
- Excessive hair loss, thinning hair or balding areas
- Eczema, psoriasis and itching
- Hair breakage or failure to grow length
- Over processing from perms, hair straighteners, hair coloring, etc
- Loss of hair from tension caused by braiding, ponytails, hair twirling or pulling
- Hair loss after pregnancy
- Hair loss during and after menopause
- Cranial radiation therapy or chemotherapy
- Hair loss after severe weight loss
Head First Certified
Trichology is of core importance to what we do at LaDonna Roye Hair Stylists and Hair Loss Solutions. Maintaining a healthy scalp is important regardless of any other services you select. As a leader in hair loss solutions, LaDonna Roye Hairstylist & Hair Loss Solutions is the first to offer Capilia's Head First program to Southwest Florida. As a Head First Certified Hair Renewal Center, our stylists have been formally trained and certified in providing Head First products and scalp treatment to our clients.
Take the first step to a healthier scalp by scheduling a private consultation with LaDonna Roye Hairstylist & Hair Loss Solutions certified hair loss renewal expert. Via use of a microscopic camera, your scalp and hair follicles can be magnified to evaluate conditions that might not be obvious. This initial evaluation is essential to determine a course of treatment, customized to your specific situation.
Head First program can help fight the six most common signs of unhealthy, aging hair:
- Thinning or balding areas
- Breakage or split ends
- Oily scalp and hair
- Unruly gray
Safe For You And The Environment
The wide array of trichology products from Head First are doctor endorsed and biodegradable. It's green for the environment and good for you. Our goal is to offer only products that are proven in their safety and reliability, designed to stabilize the biological causes of hair loss and restore strong, healthy hair.
Take The First Step
Take a proactive approach to solving your hair loss by scheduling a private consultation with LaDonna Roye Hairstylist & Hair Loss Solutions certified hair renewal specialist. It's painless! Learn about trichology and actually see photos of your scalp and hair follicles. It's the first step to positive action and will change your life forever.
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Most Of Madagascar’s Palms Near Extinction
By Marianne de Nazareth
17 October, 2012
As we walk into the UNEP COP 11 conference which is in progress in Hyderabad, we pass lines of beautiful palms decorating the garden up in front. We have 88 palm species in India and according to Jane Smart the Global Director of IUCN, 13 are on the IUCN red list.
On the little island of Madagascar which is 1/10th the size of India, there are 192 species of palms of which 83% are threatened and on the IUCN red list. released today by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The update brings the total number of species listed on The IUCN Red List to 65,518, of which 20,219 are threatened with extinction.
The assessment of Madagascar’s palms was carried out by the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Palm Specialist Group, as part of an ongoing assessment of all palms. The findings draw on research by experts at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - an IUCN Red List partner.
“The figures on Madagascar’s palms are truly terrifying, especially as the loss of palms impacts both the unique biodiversity of the island and its people,” says Dr Jane Smart, Global Director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group. “This situation cannot be ignored.”
Palms are an integral part of Madagascar’s biodiversity and all of the 192 species assessed are unique to the island. They provide essential resources to some of Madagascar’s poorest communities, such as materials for house construction and edible palm hearts. Habitat loss and palm heart harvesting are major threats putting these species at risk.
“The majority of Madagascar’s palms grow in the island’s eastern rain forests, which have already been reduced to less than one quarter of their original size and which continue to disappear,” says Dr William Baker, Chair of the IUCN SSC Palm Specialist Group and Head of Palm Research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “The high extinction risk faced by Madagascar’s palms reflects the decline in these forests, which threatens all of the remarkable wildlife that occurs there.”
Populations of many palm species are at risk as land is being cleared for agriculture and logging.
Ravenea delicatula (Critically Endangered), is known from just one site, but the site is not protected and it is being threatened by local people clearing the forest to cultivate hill rice, and by miners looking for minerals and gems such as rubies.
The recently discovered Tahina Palm (Tahina spectabilis), also known as the Suicide Palm, has been listed for the first time on The IUCN Red List. Large enough to be viewed on Google Earth, it grows up to 18m in height. A few months after flowering and producing seeds, the tree dies. With only 30 mature palms found in the wild, it is classified as Critically Endangered, and much of its habitat has been converted to agricultural lands.
Dypsis brittiana is known from one location only – the recently established Makira Natural Park. Although the site is protected, the species may have already been lost as a result of habitat degradation. No plants were found in a survey carried out in 2007 and for this reason it has been classified as Critically Endangered. Further survey work is needed to confirm its status.
Dypsis tokoravina (Critically Endangered) is targeted by seed collectors who cut the palm down. It is estimated that fewer than 30 of these palms exist in the wild. Another popular palm species in international horticulture is the Majestic Palm (Ravenea rivularis). Its status has changed from Vulnerable to Endangered due to a continued decrease in the number of mature palms, decline in the extent and quality of its habitat and ongoing harvest of seeds – despite strict trade regulations.
“The national system of protected areas, managed by Madagascar National Parks, offers protection to some, but by no means all, of Madagascar's palm species,” says Dr Russell Mittermeier, President of Conservation International and Chair of the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group. “The key to saving Madagascar's palms, and its biodiversity in general, is strongly dependent on the closest possible collaboration with local communities - especially in this period of severe political instability during which government agencies are working well below standard. Unfortunately this extremely high degree of threat in Madagascar is not unique to palms.”
This assessment of Madagascar’s palms provides conservationists with a firm basis to take direct action on the ground.Well managed seed harvesting and habitat protection can offer a solution to conserve some species. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has initiated several conservation projects to protect some of Madagascar’s most charismatic threatened species of palms. One project encourages local communities to protect the Vulnerable Manambe Palm (Dypsis decipiens) and the Critically Endangered Dypsis ambositrae in the Itremo proposed protected area. For the Tahina Palm, the power of the horticultural community is being harnessed to protect it. Assisted by Madagascar's national seed bank, sustainably-harvested seeds are sold through a commercial palm seed merchant. The money flows back to the local people who use it to renovate buildings and grow food more productively.
“While some species of palm may respond to focused species conservation action, securing the future for Madagascar’s palms requires wide-scale efforts,” says Jane Smart. “Madagascar has made great progress to preserve its unique wildlife by conserving 10% of the island in protected areas. But a game-changing conservation effort is needed to protect the remaining habitat and create more protected areas, in line with the Aichi targets to save the world’s biodiversity, which many governments committed to in 2010.”
“The most recent IUCN Red List update, focused on the palms of Madagascar, highlights the relevance of The IUCN Red List to country-level conservation efforts,” says Dr Thomas Lacher, Jr Professor, Texas A&M University. “This assessment will guide conservation efforts in Madagascar to target appropriate agency and community-level conservation actions that will both conserve the biodiversity of Madagascar and provide sustainable use options to the communities that depend upon these resources.”
“This announcement highlights why The IUCN Red List is so essential. It is through The IUCN Red List that the world becomes aware of pending ecological catastrophes – like the case of Madagascar’s Palms,” says Lucas Joppa, Conservation Scientist at Microsoft Research. “The vigilant work of IUCN, SSC, and their partners is essential to identify critical problems and enact effective interventions. As Madagascar’s plight so plainly shows, this isn’t just about biodiversity: it is about people’s livelihoods. Ignoring this finding is simply not an option.”
(The writer is a freelance journalist and adjunct faculty in St Joseph's PG College, Bangalore)
Comments are moderated
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The amounts individual students borrow to fund their education depend on their circumstances. The longer students stay in school, the more they are likely to borrow. So, 8 percent of 2011-12 associate degree recipients borrowed $30,000 or more. Among bachelor’s degree recipients, 29 percent borrowed this much. And more than three-quarters of graduate degree recipients borrowed this much.
Debt levels also vary across types of institutions. Students who enroll in for-profit institutions borrow more than similar students attending public and private nonprofit colleges and universities.
Family income also matters. Among 2011-12 bachelor’s degree recipients, about 40 percent of those from the top half of the family income distribution graduated without debt, compared with about 20 percent of those from the bottom half. Those from families in the top quarter of the income distribution were less likely than others to borrow $30,000 or more, but there was no significant difference across the rest of the income distribution in the share of graduates borrowing this much.
Because students borrow much more for graduate school than for their undergraduate studies, much of the outstanding student debt is owed by people with relatively high incomes. In 2013, 47 percent of the outstanding student debt was held by households in the top quarter of the income distribution and only 11 percent was held by those in the lowest income quartile. This is not about the family backgrounds of these borrowers, but about where they ended up after they completed their education.
Going to college iincreases earnings potential. So, it makes sense for students to borrow some of the money they need to pay tuition and living expenses and repay their loans out of the extra earnings they have because of their education. But the private loan market works well only for borrowers with collateral and/or strong credit histories. If you don’t make the required payments on your car loan, the lender will repossess the car. But the bank can’t take back your college education and many students have little history with credit markets.
The federal government can offer better terms to student borrowers, providing the liquidity they need to pay for college now, in anticipation of higher earnings in the future.
The core purpose of the federal student loan program is not to subsidize students. Other public funding—including state appropriations to public colleges and federal and state grant aid—are the main ways taxpayers help students pay for college.
The main purpose of federal student loans is to solve cash flow problems. Loans provide liquidity. The federal student loan programs now in effect allow all students to borrow—regardless of their financial circumstances. Since 2010, all these loans have been made directly by the federal government. And federal loans can be repaid through programs that limit monthly payments to affordable percentages of borrowers’ incomes.
Many discussions of college being “unaffordable” focus on high and rising tuition prices, without much attention to the resources available to students to pay those prices. Plus, too many times we talk about college expense without considering the return on investment.
There is no one indicator that can show whether college is affordable. Instead, measuring affordability requires a thoughtful approach that considers:
Sticker prices and net prices (after financial aid)
Students’ earnings while in school
Expected earnings premium—how much the education will pay off in future earnings
In general individuals with a college degree earn much more than those with just a high school education. Increased educational attainment has significant benefits both for society as a whole and for the students themselves.
The students who attend for-profit institutions are disproportionately older, black and Hispanic, from low-income backgrounds, and with weak academic preparation. Students borrow much more to attend these schools than they would if they enrolled in public colleges. And completion rates are very low for students seeking associate or bachelor’s degrees.
During the great recession, there was very rapid growth in the for-profit sector. Much of it came from big companies—like the University of Phoenix—who signed up all kinds of students who had no idea what they were getting into. In 2000, New York University held the title of “highest-debt institution” with its students and former students owing $2.2 billion. In 2014, the University of Phoenix topped that list; its students and former students owe over $35.5 billion. In fact, all seven of the institutions with the highest levels of student debt are in the for-profits sector.
Two large for-profit institutions have recently gone out of business because of financial problems, leaving many students in the lurch. And a number of lawsuits highlight the questionable practices that are too common in this sector.
The answer to this question depends on whether this issue is institutional grant aid or federal and state financial aid.
Institutional grant aid reduces the tuition prices facing students. It allows institutions to charge different prices to different students—frequently based on their financial circumstances but sometimes based on their high school grades, test scores, athletic ability.
When colleges raise their tuition, they frequently increase their aid budgets to help students pay the higher prices. But giving these discounts means the college gets less revenue relative to the published price. So, there is a close relationship between sticker prices and institutional grant aid.
Federal and state financial aid is different. Some people argue that the simple forces of supply and demand mean that when the government gives students more money, colleges will raise their prices. This idea is sometimes called the “Bennett Hypothesis” (after former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett, who popularized the idea in 1987).
The empirical evidence about this impact is weak—outside of the for-profit sector. But even if this aid does put upward pressure on sticker prices, it’s a small price to pay. The point of the federal student loan and grant programs is to increase demand for college. Without federal student aid, lots of low- and moderate- income students would not go to college—they simply would not be able to pay. So, if we can make higher education possible for more people, it’s a fair trade-off that there might be some upward pressure on sticker prices.
There is an active movement among states to make community colleges tuition free. Tennessee was the first state to implement such a policy and the Obama administration proposed a related idea at the national level. Several states have followed Tennessee’s lead and New York recently passed legislation that will eliminate tuition for students from households with incomes below $125,000 at both two-year and four-year public institutions.
There are a number of problems with these policies. The central issue is that students don’t just need lower prices to succeed in college. They have to attend institutions that have sufficient resources to offer the courses they need, provide academic and social support systems, and ensure quality. Promising zero tuition is likely to limit the resources available to provide these important services, even as state funding per student has declined dramatically over time.
Another issue is that the state programs tend to be “last dollar” programs. They fill in the gaps between federal and state need-based aid and tuition prices. Many low- and moderate-income students already have their tuition paid through these need-based programs. So the extra dollars will just go to those whose incomes are too high to qualify for other aid. Unlike need-based programs that attempt to level the playing field, free college programs tend to provide equal subsidies to rich and poor alike.
Borrowers can repay their federal student loans through an income-driven system that limits monthly payments to an affordable share of income and forgives unpaid debt after 10, 20, or 25 years of payments. But too many options and bureaucratic hurdles prevent many people from taking advantage of this policy. Other countries, including Australia, automatically enroll borrowers in such a program, making it very difficult for them to default. The United States could implement a similar policy, in addition to improving the details of the program so it works better for both borrowers and taxpayers.
The funds to cover the costs of college must come from somewhere. But many people don’t want either students and families or taxpayers to have to pay. From a practical perspective, borrowing for college makes sense: people have limited resources before they get an education, but an education can boost their income over time. It’s also practical that the government should help: society benefits as a whole by having an educated populace. Government-sponsored grant aid and student loans are an investment that generally pays off. State and federal policies should address the problems of students being unable to enroll in or complete college because of financial barriers, of students enrolling in and borrowing for institutions and programs that have little chance of paying off for them, and of students who struggle with loan repayment because of unforeseen circumstances—not eliminate opportunities by doing away with all loans.
Some students pay less because their finances make it difficult for them to pay. Others, who could pay full price, pay less because the institution wants to provide an incentive for them to enroll there instead of elsewhere.
This idea of “tuition discounting” is not a bad thing. Many highly selective institutions have long waiting lists of students willing and able to pay their sticker prices; however, these institutions want to enroll the best students they can and many of those students can’t afford to pay. Other institutions would have empty seats if they did not discount so generously; if they lowered the sticker price enough to fill the class, their total revenues would be too low to operate. By meeting as closely as possible each student’s willingness and ability to pay, institutions are able to attract a variety of students and stay operational.
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The noun rejection can refer to the actual act of rejecting something or to the feeling one has after being rejected. In other words, you might have feelings of rejection after experiencing the rejection of others.
The Latin noun rēicere, which means "to throw back," is the ancestor of the word rejection. Nobody likes to feel the rejection of being excluded. The word rejection became popular in psychology in 1931, when parental rejection was seen as a motivation of bad behavior in children. The word found a medical meaning by 1943, as the body's refusal to accept a transplant.
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Ground Design and Power Supply for a WiFi Transceiver
Without some knowledge of the fundamentals of grounding, board stack up and supply routing, you cannot hope to make a good RF layout.
If you want a really good RF layout and if you want to maximize the performance of an RF design, you should know additional details about supply bypassing, power supply routing and grounding.
Usually what happens is, when an embedded engineer is designing an RF circuit design, the high frequency signal path becomes the main consideration and the power supply layout and implementation becomes an afterthought.
This can cause the supply voltages going around the circuit to become noisy and corrupted, bringing down the performance of the RF circuitry.
You can prevent this by planning the PCB layer stack up properly, using a star topology to route the VCC and decoupling the VCC pins properly. Another way to make the circuit more efficient is by creating a sensible PCB layer.
Don’t impose a large power plane on the VCC signals because that would degrade the system performance. A better option is to use a custom power supply. This can be aided by employing a star topology for the supply voltage. This will prevent coupling between supply pins.
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Here’s a simple definition: a design system is a documentation of the exact guidelines that components of a product should comply with. This can be how they look, what they’re made up of and how they should be used.
These systems can be recorded within common design programmes such as Invision, Figma and Sketch, all depending on what you prefer. They can be interactive or stay static, but ultimately they should provide detailed visuals that help create a shared understanding between designers, developers and any other people working on the product.
Each company or brand should ideally have its own unique design system. This helps companies maintain their branding across platforms and creates a seamless experience for users.
Where a set of brand guidelines essentially act as instructions for people working on brand assets, a design system is actually a set of components that have been battle-tested and work responsively across various devices. With a design system, the point is that you solve a UX design problem once and then make sure that it's scalable and adaptable.
There are similarities of course. As with a set of brand guidelines, a design system means more work upfront to save on work in the longer term. Although where they differ is that guidelines create a uniform look and feel, whereas a design system creates consistency across all digital touchpoints, both in how they look and how they're used. So, even though the goals of both are similar, design systems are probably the more effective option if you're looking to improve efficiency in large teams who have to deal with multiple products, apps, or websites.
Generally, a designer will put the original components together and refine the designs until there is an agreed-upon set of guidelines.
Then, for any further projects with this project, if a different designer or a developer needed to get involved, they would have something to reference. They can view the system and would be able to cut and paste the components as opposed to the difficulty of redesigning or rebuilding from scratch.
This makes it easier for collaborations and creates a space to refer back to over time. Of course, the design system can be changed and updated if need be.
For big companies, design systems are an absolute necessity. Imagine having to keep a dozen mobile applications, websites and products all identical and on-brand with hundreds of different people working on them. Pretty difficult, right? A good design system would solve a lot of potential problems.
As we’ve already mentioned, design systems are vital for big companies keeping their branding in check, but they can be useful for a number of other environments.
Design systems are great whether you’re a one-person team, a big team working on separate parts, or if you’re working on a completely new project for an already established company.
For example, you might be part of a team working on a home page. With a design system in place, you can work on one section while someone else in your team works on a landing page, service page or checkout. With a design system, you can work independently yet still achieve a cohesive website with a seamless appearance.
Not only will this speed up the process as a whole, but it also prevents having to go back and redesign aspects that don’t match. Ultimately saving you time and money on projects big and small.
No more having to chase the right person to find out exactly what colour or dimension needs to be used, you can simply consult the design system to find your answers.
Traditionally design systems were made by designers for designers, but as the lines between design and development blur, it’s not unusual for us at Newicon to build a coded component design system as well.
This helps our designers and developers understand the end goal and allows them to work in tandem.
You can view an example of components our designers created, and also access the Invision files to use them yourself.
In previous projects, we’ve taken the idea of components and created a drag and drop design system builder. We wanted to create a CMS, (or more like an interactive library) where you can produce HTML elements that are responsive by nature and then go on to create future digital work using them.
The potential for saving time and money is already a huge benefit of a design system. After all, having something to refer to helps new and existing workers across your company.
It also encourages you to stick to a recognisable style which is an incredibly important aspect of building a digital brand.
So, in conclusion, if you want to help out your designers and reap the benefits of having a consistent product with a lot less hassle, you need a design system in place!
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Food Sources and Accessibility and Waste Disposal Patterns across an Urban Tropical Watershed: Implications for the Flow of Materials and Energy
Diana C. Garcia-Montiel, Institute For Tropical Ecosystem Studies
Julio C. Verdejo-Ortiz, Graduate School of Planning, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras
Raul Santiago-Bartolomei, Graduate School of Planning, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras
Cristina P. Vila-Ruiz, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras
Luis Santiago, Graduate School of Planning, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras
Elvia Melendez-Ackerman, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras; Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation, University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras
Full Text: HTML
Appraising the social-ecological processes influencing the inflow, transformation, and storage of materials and energy in urban ecosystems requires scientific attention. This appraisal can provide an important tool for assessing the sustainability of cities. Socioeconomic activities are mostly responsible for these fluxes, which are well manifested in the household unit. Human behavior associated with cultural traditions, belief systems, knowledge, and lifestyles are important drivers controlling the transfer of materials throughout the urban environment. Within this context, we explored three aspects of household consumption and waste disposal activities along the Río Piedras Watershed in the San Juan metropolitan area of Puerto Rico. These included: the source of food consumed by residents, recycling activities, and trends in connection to the municipality’s sewerage system. We randomly interviewed 440 households at 6 sites along the watershed. We also conducted analysis to estimate accessibility to commercial food services for residents in the study areas. Our surveys revealed that nearly all interviewed households (~97%) consumed products from supermarkets. In neighborhoods of the upper portion of the watershed, where residential density is low with large areas of vegetative cover, more than 60% of residents consumed food items cultivated in their yards. Less than 36% of residents in the in densely urbanized parts of the lower portion of the watershed consumed items from their yards. Accessibility to commercial stores for food consumption contrasted among study sites. Recycling activities were mostly carried out by residents in the lower portion of the watershed, with better access to recycling programs provided by the municipality. The surveys also revealed that only 4 to 17% of residences in the upper watershed are connected to the sewerage system whereas the large majority uses septic tanks for septic water disposal. For these residents wastewater from house maintenance is disposed of directly into the environment. In the lower portion of the watershed all residents were connected to the sewerage system. Our study suggests there is a need to understand human behavioral attitudes in the acquirement and processing of resources, as a tool to generate informed-based strategies promoting sustainable consumption and disposal patterns.
household; nutrient cycling; San Juan ULTRA; social-ecological systems; urban biogeochemistry; urban ecology; urban metabolism; watershed
Copyright © 2014 by the author(s). Published here under license by The Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.
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It might be time to reconsider how often you scroll through curated photos. Instagram is the worst social media app for young people's mental health, according to a new report by the Royal Society for Public Health in the United Kingdom.
Researchers assessed 1,479 people ages 14 to 24 on how Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat made them feel in both a positive and negative way. Participants answered 14 questions in total about each social media platform, including whether or not they experienced feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness while using the apps.
The assessment also addressed how the platforms impacted body image, quality of sleep and bullying. Additionally, there were questions designed to determine the level of FOMO the users experienced after they looked at each social media feed. This all was to measure each social media site's impact on the users' overall wellbeing.
Instagram made the participants feel the worst in terms of wellbeing, followed closely by Snapchat, Facebook and then Twitter, according to the study. Only YouTube made participants feel slightly better. All five social media platforms were reportedly associated with a cycle of poor sleep and tiredness.
Part of the reason Instagram scored the worst in wellbeing is because of the app's reported effect on body image.
"Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren't good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look 'perfect,'"one participant from Northern Ireland said in the study.
The practice of editing photos contributes to "a generation of young people with poor body image and body confidence," the authors explained.
In order to alleviate this effect, researchers recommend that social media platforms make it clear to users when a photo has been digitally manipulated. One idea is to provide a small icon or watermark at the bottom of a photoshopped or filtered photo.
The scientists also advise that social media platforms remind users when it's time to sign off. One suggestion is for app developers to track how much time users spend on social media, providing a pop up when he or she nears "heavy usage," the study authors wrote.
The research supports previous evidence that social media use can have a negative effect on mental wellbeing. A 2015 study found that more than two hours of social media use is linked with mental health issues, psychological distress and suicidal thoughts in teens.
But all of this isn't to say that you should delete your apps entirely. They can also be helpful in certain circumstances.
For example, the study found that Facebook provides the opportunity for young people to learn about the mental health experiences of others through posts their friends may share on their newsfeed. Social media can also be a positive platform for self-expression. "Liking" pages and groups helps users and marginalized individuals find emotional support and build community, according to the study.
Instagram has been working to focus on mental health, too. The app, which has nearly 700 million users, launched a campaign earlier this month aimed at starting a conversation about mental illness on its platform. Anecdotally, some users describe Instagram as a positive influence on their mental health because, like the study found with Facebook, it connects them to a community of other people dealing with the same issues.
The trick is to be mindful. Too much of anything ― even time spent online ― can be detrimental. Tap into your digital social networks when you need them, by all means. But it's important to keep in mind that they rarely paint the whole picture of someone's life.
And then lean on your in-person network for support, too.
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What happens during episodes of Sickling?
Rbcs become abnormally crescent shaped, causing occlusions of small blood vessels, ischemia, and damage to affected organs.
Because of RBCs are misshaped, what happens to the circulation?
Abnormally shaped red blood cells are unable to circulate freely through the blood vessels and become stuck in small vessels, particularly in capillaries forming occlusions with the end result of ischemia because the tissues cannot receive oxygen and nutrients they need.
repeated or prolonged ischemia resulting form sickle cell induced occlusions cause__________
damage to the tissues and organs throughout the body, eventually resulting in scarring and impaired function
What can occur with children with sickle cell anemia?
developmental delay, mental retardation, and other neurological outcomes.
What triggers sickling?
emotional or physical stress
Define Sickle Cell Crisis?
the term used to describe periods when the percentage of hgb S increases resulting in the appearance of symptoms, often marked by acute pain resulting from ischemia.
Precipitating factors for sickle cell crisis?
increased blood viscosity
low fluid intake/dehydration
low oxygen tension
How can sickled cells resume a normal shape?
re-hydration and re-oxygenation; however, membranes are more fragile and cell life is shortened to 10-20 days
Sickle Cell Trait
only one allele mutation
Client is a carrier (can only pass the trait)
Manifestations are mild even under severe triggers
1 in 100 Latinos
African American's have sickle cell trait; they remain asymptomatic unless stressed by severe hypoxia
Low environmental temperature
low body temperature
Extensive sickling can precipitate what?
a crisis as result of occluded circulation, impaired erythropoiesis, or sequestration or large amounts of blood in the liver or spleen.
obstruction of blood flow by sickled cells that cannot pass through the vessels triggers _________
vasospasm that halts all blood flow
Lack of blood flow leads to:
Large joints are affected
abdominal pain may signal infarction or abdominal organs and structures. infarction also may affect bone marrow or lead to aseptic necrosis of affected bones resulting in pain from avascular necrosis of the bone marrow
stroke may result from cerebral vessel occlusion
skin ulcers may develop as the result of occluded vessels supplying the dermis
Compare: pulses, temp, cap refill all extremities.
HR may be rapid
BP maybe low,
Decreased pulse pressure.
cyanosis (decr oxygenation)
Assessment: check lips, tongue, nail beds, conjunctivae, palms, soles of feet q 8 hr (gray blue tinge)
Jaundice r/t bilirubin from damaged RBC
OPEN ULCERS on lower legs, ankles, necrotic, infected
low grade fever
manifestations of stroke.
assess gait, hand grasps, coordination.
Newborns: testing cord blood using hemoglobin electrophoresis
Sickledex may be used for quick screening in children older than 6 months
Serum analysis of blood reveals teh degree of anemia, with hemoglobin of 6-10g/dl
TRAIT: 40% Hbs
DISEASE: 80-100% HbS
HCT: low (20%-30%)
RETICULOCYTE: high = anemia long duration
WBC: high d/t chronic inflammation, hypoxia, ischemia
parenteral analgesics are generally administered around the clock
pain medications should not be ordered prn
Complementary: (not alone, must use pain meds) warm temp, distraction, relaxation, positioning, aroma, therapeutic touch, warmsoaks and compresses
Oral and IV fluid replacement promotes pain relief, since dehydration is often a cause of crisis
Fluids reduce the viscosity of the blood, so adequate hydration is essential
Prevention and treatment of infection
children who are functionally asplenic or have had a splenectomy have a resultant decreased capability to fight infection
Transfusion of RBCs
improved blood and tissue oxygenation
reduction in sickling
temporary suppression of the production of RBCs containing hgbS
Complications of transfusion
iron is stored in tissues and organs because the body has no way to excrete it
HX of past crisis
weigh/height (failure to thrive is common) so compare with past
use pain scale and identify pain perception in each body part
assess pain management protocol
respiratory symptoms are emergency condition that necessitate prompt treatment
monitor for shock, hypotension, changes in LOC, dizziness, lightheadedness, increased capillary refill
risk forimpaired tissue perfusion (cerebral)
Caregiver role Strain
Interrupted family process
delayed growth and development
Impaired physical mobility
client will experience reducing complications
caregiver will provide support and assistance
client will meet growth and development needs
client will optimize physical mobility as tolerated
Preventino and treatment of infections
Stem cell Transplant
Hand-Foot Syndrome(Swollen hands and feet may be the first signs of sickle cell anemia)
Splenic Crisis ( spleen traps to much rbcs)
Infections (decreased immune function)
Acute Chest Syndrome: like pneumonia, sickle cells get trapped in lungs resulting in decreased O2 levels
Delayed Growth and puberty
priapism ( persistent and usually painful long-lasting erection)
Ulcers on the legs
Multiple organ failure
A newly admitted client has sickle cell crisis. The nurse is planning care based on assessment of the client. The client is complaining of severe pain in his feet and hands. The pulse oximetry is 89. Which of the following interventions would be implemented first? Assume that there are orders for each intervention.
a. Adjust the room temperature
b. Give a bolus of IV fluids
c. Start O2
d. Administer meperidine (Demerol) 75mg IV push
A 43-year-old African American male is admitted with sickle cell anemia. The nurse plans to assess circulation in the lower extremities every 2 hours. Which of the following outcome criteria would the nurse use?
a. Body temperature of 99°F or less
b. Toes moved in active range of motion
c. Sensation reported when soles of feet are touched d. Capillary refill of < 3 seconds
A 25-year-old male is admitted in sickle cell crisis. Which of the following interventions would be of highest priority for this client?
a. Taking hourly blood pressures with mechanical cuff b. Encouraging fluid intake of at least 200mL per hour c. Position in high Fowler's with knee gatch raised
d. Administering Tylenol as ordered
A 14 year old girl has been hospitalized with Sickle Cell Anemia in vasoocclusive crisis. Which of these Nursing diagnoses should receive priority in the Nursing plan of care? --
A. Impaired social interaction --
B. Alteration in body image --
C. Pain --
D. Alteration in tissue perfusion
Which of the following foods would the nurse encourage the client in sickle cell crisis to eat? --
A. Peaches --
B. Cottage cheese --
C. Popsicles --
D. Lima beans
The male client with sickle cell anemia comes to the emergency room with a temperature of 101.4 F and tells the nurse that he is having a sickle cell crisis. Which diagnostic test should the nurse anticipate the emergency room doctor ordering for the client? --
A. Spinal tap. --
B. Hemoglobin electrophoresis. --
C. Sickle-turbidity test (Sickledex). --
D. Blood cultures.
A Client in crisis should:
1. Management of Pain
2. Administration of oxygen
3. Promoting Hydration to decrease blood viscocity
4. Monitor for
The nurse is teaching a group of parents whose children have sickle cell anemia. When a parent asks the cause of the symptoms, the nurse responds with which of the following?
"Sickled cells clump in the smaller blood vessels and obstruct blood flow."
All the symptoms of sickle cell are a result of the clumping of the sickled cells in the microvasculature, causing obstruction of blood flow. The other statements are inaccurate.
A child with suspected sickle cell disease (SCD) is in the clinic for laboratory studies. The parents ask the nurse what results will tell the physician that their child has SCD. The nurse responds that which of the following is increased in this disease?
The reticulocyte count will be increased because the life span of sickled red blood cells is shortened. Hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet levels will be decreased.
A pregnant woman tells the nurse that there is a history of sickle cell disease in her family and she is afraid that the baby will have the disease. The nurse provides the client with which of the following information?
Both the mother and father must carry the gene for the baby to be affected.
Sickle cell is inherited as an autosomal recessive disorder. Both parents must carry the gene for the baby to be affected. The other statements are inaccurate.
The nurse is caring for a child who is in the hospital experiencing sickle cell crisis. The parents are asking the nurse which treatment will help cure the child. The nurse responds with which of the following?
Treatment is aimed at pain control, oxygen therapy, and hydration, but does not provide a cure.
Treatment for sickle cell crisis is pain control, oxygenation, and fluid resuscitation. There is no cure for sickle cell disease. The nurse teaches families how to prevent sickle cell crisis.
The nurse is admitting a 7-year-old client who is experiencing sickle cell crisis and plans care based on which of the following nursing diagnoses?
Delayed Growth and Development
The child with sickle cell disease is often developmentally delayed due to the effects of physical disability, pain, and inpatient hospital stays. The nurse would plan activities that help maintain developmental levels the child has reached. The child in sickle cell crisis does not experience ineffective airway clearance, bleeding, or constipation as a result of sickle cell disease. The child may have an illness that could cause one of these symptoms, but they are not common to children with sickle cell disease.
The 24-year old African American female client tells the nurse she has a brother with sickle cell disease. She is engage to be married and is concerned about giving this disease to her future children. which information is most important to provide too the client?
A. tell the client that she won't pass this on if she has never had symptoms
B. Encourage the client to discuss this concern with her fiance
C. Recommend that she and her fiance see a genetic counselor
D. Discuss the possibility of adopting children after she gets married.
The nurse is caring for a client in a sickle cell crisis. which is the pain regiment of choice to relieve the pain?
1. Frequent aspirin
the student nurse asks the nurse, "what is sickle cell anemia?" which statement by the nurse would be the best answer to the student's question?
1. There is some written material at the desk
2. it is a congenital disease of the blood
3. the client has decreased synovial fluid
4. the blood becomes thick when the client is deprived of oxygen
4. sickle cell anemia is a disorder of the client rbcs characterized by abnormally shaped red cells that sickle or clump together, leading to oxygen deprivation and resulting in crisis and severe pain.
the client's nephew has just been diagnosed with sickle cell anemia. the client asks the nurse, "how did my nephew get this disease? which statement would be the best response by the nurse?
1. sickle cell is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder
2. he was born with it and both his parents were carriers of the disease
3. at this time, the cause is unknown
4. your sister was exposed to a virus
2. explained in layman's terms
the client diagnosed with sickle cell anemia comes to the ED c/o joint pain throughout the body. Oral temp 102.4, SpO2 91%. Which action should the nurse implement first:
1. Request ABGs
2. Administer oxygen
3. Start IV
Client is experiencing vaso-occlusive sickle cell crisis secondary to infection. which medical tx should the nurse anticipate
1. administer demerol
2. admit the client to a private room
3. Infuse D5W
4. Insert a 22-french foley
Which s/s will the nurse expect to assess in teh client diagnosed with a vaso-occlusive sickle cell crisis
3. Vaso-occlusive crisis, the most frequent crisis, is characterized by organ infarction, which will result in bloody urine secondary to kidney infarction.
a symptom complex that includes fever, chest pain, increased WBC count and pulmonary infiltrates
Acute Chest Syndrome
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Unjust system keeps farmers trapped near poverty level
July 26, 2020
In the backyard of my house in Accra, Ghana, there are plantain, papaya and mango trees, each giving fruit at their particular times of the year. I’m excited as the dry season ends — the beginning of spring in the U.S. — when our avocados ripen and become ready to eat!
In addition to these trees, there is another fruit tree in West Africa that has had a huge impact on the people and economy for almost 150 years. It’s the cocoa tree. The fruit of the cocoa tree is processed to make chocolate, and almost two-thirds of the world’s production takes place in the countries of West Africa.
The fruit, rather than hanging from the branches of the tree, grows as a pod off the trunk. The seed of this fruit is fermented, dried and then ground into powder, which becomes the primary ingredient of chocolate.
The fruit of the cocoa tree is not eaten for sustenance. Instead, it’s a hugely important cash crop in countries like Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. On family farms across the forest belt of West Africa, families grow cocoa (in addition to crops for personal consumption), which is then sold for extra income. It’s not unusual for children to help on these family farms after school and on weekends.
Major industries in Ghana include drilling for oil, mining for gold and growing cocoa. Each brings in roughly the same amount of money to the country. (One local company, in fact, refers to cocoa as “brown gold.”) While we might not hear much about the economics of cocoa, it has a profound impact on the region. The market price of cocoa sometimes affects whether the government can provide education, health care and necessary infrastructure for the well-being of the people.
Most of the cocoa exported from Ghana is in the form of the unground beans or powder. While prices always fluctuate, cocoa powder is currently selling for about a dollar a pound. The U.S. and Europe charge little or no tariff to import beans or powder. But as soon as the cocoa is processed a little more, these same countries impose a tariff of up to 30% on the cocoa that Ghanaian cocoa distributors import into Europe and the U.S.
In the competitive market for chocolate products, companies try to avoid paying this tariff. They import unprocessed cocoa, which is then made into chocolate domestically. Even companies certified as fair trade, while they are able to transfer more income to farmers, are trapped in this competitive economic system that can be highly unjust. The tariff system has largely prevented West African countries from processing the cocoa they grow, thus keeping them trapped at the level of farming the cocoa. The value that is added to cocoa, therefore, ends up in the pockets of Western processors, while farmers in West Africa remain at levels near poverty.
One focus of PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 invitation is eradicating systemic poverty. This focus highlights the need to “change laws, policies, plans and structures in our society that perpetuate economic exploitation of people who are poor.” Looking at the economics of cocoa, you can see that trade and tariff policies are one area that must be addressed if we are to be in true solidarity with communities that are impoverished. This is something we can do only if we are together.
When we meet global partners, we often hear stories about their everyday lives. Our West African partners tell us about the way God has endowed them with the gifts and skills they are using to thrive in this world.
When we hear these stories, our own lives are enriched, and our faith strengthened. The Matthew 25 invitation reminds us that we also have to go deeper, because our own economic prosperity can sometimes be intricately tied up with perpetuating the poverty of others.
I wish I had solutions to all the problems we face, and answers to all the questions. Obviously, I don’t. But I trust that as we work together with our West African mission partners — listening and learning about one another’s lives — it will help us to work for the improved well-being of all God’s children.
Josh Heikkila, Presbyterian World Mission’s Regional Liaison for West Africa. Based in Ghana, he facilitates partner relationships, implements regional strategies and supports the work of mission personnel in the region. Subscribe to his letters. Consider supporting his ministry.
Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, July 26, 2020, the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Today’s Focus: West Africa Farmers
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Let us pray:
Gracious God, we give you thanks for your glorious creation and world mission ministry. Amen.
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PHOTO: Matt Barton, UK Ag. Communications
West Nile virus is on the rise nationwide with more than 1,100 human cases reported as of Aug. 22, the highest at this point in the season since the virus was first detected in the United States in 1999. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’sAnimal and Plant Health Inspection Service National Animal Health Surveillance System reportedfewer than 100 equine cases as of Aug. 18. In Kentucky, the virus has been diagnosed in four horses since Aug. 2. One human case has been documented in Henry County and one in Clermont County, Ohio, just across the river from Campbell County.
“We are still in the high risk part of the season for West Nile infection,” said Craig Carter, director of the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Lexington. “The first case was diagnosed at the Breathitt Veterinary Center back on Aug. 2.”
Carter said infected horses present with ataxia, which is a lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements. Other symptoms may include blindness, loss of motion in the hind limbs, circling, falling and anorexia.
“As a horse owner or veterinarian, good surveillance is the key,” he said. “Watch for a horse with neurological signs. Vaccination is not perfect, but it can often prevent and/or mitigate the illness. The good news is there is no evidence of person-to-person or animal-to-person infection. People are infected by the bite of a mosquito. Of course, you must always keep rabies in the back of your mind when dealing with animals that present neurological signs.”
Many states have experienced both horse and human fatalities with West Nile virus this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes West Nile as a potentially serious illness, established as a seasonal epidemic in the United States that flares up in the summer and into the fall.
“Effective vaccines are widely available to aid in the prevention of WNV infection,” said Robert Stout, Kentucky’s state veterinarian. “I strongly advise horse owners to consult their veterinarians for implementation of a vaccination program. Virtually all cases seen in Kentucky have been in either non-vaccinated or under-vaccinated horses.”
Carter said the UKVDL and the Breathitt Veterinary Center can assist with diagnosis of West Nile virus in horses, and they can also perform necropsies on deceased animals. Contact either lab for more information on what samples are needed for diagnosis in potentially affected animals. Contact the VDL at 859-257-8283 or the Breathitt Veterinary Center in Hopkinsville at 270-886-3959.
The best way to avoid the virus in humans is to prevent mosquito bites. The CDC website states that approximately 80 percent of people who are infected with the West Nile virus never exhibit any symptoms. More information about human infection is detailed on that website at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_factsheet.htm. Human case numbers were taken from http://diseasemaps.usgs.gov/wnv_ky_human.html.
Craig Carter, 859-257-8283
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Anxiety disorders: Facts about the most common types
Causes, signs and ways to cope with the seven most common anxiety disorders.
Social anxiety disorder
Social anxiety disorder makes you feel extremely uncomfortable around groups of people, like in a classroom or at a party. Social anxiety is a lot more extreme than shyness because it stops you from doing things you may enjoy. It can make you avoid places or settings where you may have to interact with others.
Social anxiety can come from a fear of being watched, judged or criticized by others. No one knows for sure why some people struggle with social anxiety and others don’t. It can be caused by:
- Genetics: people in your family may experience social anxiety, too.
- Past experience: social anxiety may develop after a stressful or embarrassing experience or over time.
Signs of social anxiety disorder include:
- racing heart or a “skipping” heartbeat
- sinking feeling
- twitching or tense muscles
- stomach ache
If you’re struggling at school, skipping classes, having trouble making/keeping friends or are worried that you’re using alcohol and/or drugs to cope with your feelings, consider talking to someone you trust. Kids Help Phone is available 24/7 at 1-800-668-6868.
How to cope
Here are some tips that may help with social anxiety disorder:
- Read up: get more information on social anxiety. Understanding it can help you find ways to manage it.
- Make a list: write down the “triggers” that affect your anxiety.
- Give yourself credit: if you do something that makes you nervous or anxious, congratulate yourself on trying. Making the effort to conquer your fears is very brave.
- Talk about it: talking gives you a chance to work on an issue with someone else, rather than taking it on by yourself.
Imagine this scenario
Let’s say you blushed when you asked a question in class. How bad would that be? What may happen as a result? How would you feel if you saw someone else make the same “mistake” as you? If they blushed, would you point and laugh? Would you think about it for the rest of the day or forget about it?
Remind yourself of this scenario when you’re feeling anxious. Chances are the embarrassment that feels like a huge deal to you will barely be noticed by others.
Remember, social anxiety disorder is treatable. You don’t have to face this forever. You can call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 if you need to talk.
Panic disorder is when you experience frequent panic attacks. Panic attacks can be triggered by stressful events, but sometimes they just happen.
Panic attacks are often related to specific phobias. They can also be caused by:
- Genetics: people in your family may experience panic attacks, too.
- Past experience: panic attacks may start after a stressful or scary experience.
How to cope
Here are some tips that may help with panic disorder:
- Visit a doctor: a doctor can rule out any other conditions that could be affecting how you feel or refer you to a therapist who can help you. (If you have panic attacks, it’s important to tell your doctor about them.)
- Breathe: learning how to breathe through a panic attack can really help! Breathe in and out to the count of three. Try to count slowly. If you can, pause between breaths. It’ll go like this: breathe in (1, 2, 3), pause, breathe out (1, 2, 3), pause, breathe in (1, 2, 3) and so on.
- Relax your muscles: tension and release exercises can help you relax your entire body.
- Take your medication: your doctor may prescribe medication to help you stay calm. Medication isn’t right for everyone, but if it’s been prescribed to you, it’s important to take it.
Specific phobia disorder
Specific phobia disorder is an overwhelming fear of a particular situation or thing. The fear can make you avoid certain places or activities. When you’re faced with the thing you’re afraid of, it could trigger a panic attack.
Some common phobias include:
- fear of small, tight spaces or wide open spaces
- fear of bridges, tunnels or elevators
- fear of flying
- fear of needles
- fear of blood
- fear of certain types of animals or insects like spiders or bats
- fear of choking or vomiting
- fear of loud noises
It’s hard to say what causes specific phobia disorder. Research shows that there are many different factors including:
- Genetics: phobias can run in families.
- Environment: exposure to trauma or a frightening event can be a trigger. For example, almost drowning could create a phobia of water.
Some people may try not to think about their phobia or may avoid doing things that expose them to it. Someone who’s afraid of heights may avoid tall buildings or roller-coasters.
The fearful feelings are often accompanied by physical sensations, like:
- a fast heartbeat
- hot and cold sensations
- shaking or trembling
- panic attacks
How to cope
Here are some ways to cope with specific phobia disorder:
- Think positive: learning how to talk to yourself in a positive way can help you work through a phobia, especially if you experience panic attacks. Remind yourself that you won’t die from a panic attack or from any other symptom associated with your phobia.
- Breathe: breathe in and out to the count of three. Count as slowly as possible.
- Face your fears: making yourself experience what you’re afraid of can help you realize that it isn’t that scary after all. This is called “exposure.” It should be done in a safe environment with someone you trust. Don’t do this if you experience extreme symptoms or if your phobia triggers panic attacks.
- Visit a doctor: a doctor can help you figure out ways to cope with your phobia or refer you to a counsellor who can help.
- Take your medication: your doctor may prescribe medication to help you, depending on how much your phobia is holding you back. Medication isn’t right for everyone, but if it’s been prescribed to you, it’s important to take it.
Separation anxiety can happen when you’re separated from a parent, caregiver, other trusted adult or home. It’s most common in young children, although adolescents and adults may also experience separation anxiety. Try to be sensitive if someone you care about has separation anxiety disorder.
Young people who have separation anxiety disorder usually show their anxiety in different ways. Signs may include:
- difficulty sleeping, especially without parents/caregiver
- upset stomach or stomach aches
- refusing to go to school
How to cope
Here are some tips to help you cope with separation anxiety:
- Comfort: choose a stuffed animal, doll or something else that reminds you of your parent or caregiver and keep it with you when you feel anxious.
- Reassure yourself: tell yourself that your parent or caregiver will be back and that everything will be OK.
- Breathe: do some deep breathing exercises to help you relax.
- Distract yourself: try a board game, a sport, a movie or play with a pet.
- Talk about it: remind yourself that it’s OK to feel scared. Talking to someone you trust can help. Kids Help Phone counsellors are available 24/7 at 1-800-668-6868.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is when someone worries a lot about everyday situations like school, work, relationships or health. The worrying is uncontrollable and usually unrealistic. Other people experiencing similar situations won’t feel the same level of worry and fear.
There are different reasons why people experience GAD:
- Genetics: people in your family may experience it, too.
- Environment: stressful situations like divorce, a breakup, bullying or the death of a friend or family member can contribute to GAD.
Worrying is only part of GAD. People who have it experience at least three other symptoms, such as:
- feeling restless, tense or angry
- feeling tired easily
- having difficulty concentrating
- having trouble sleeping
- feeling like something bad is about to happen
- wanting to be perfect or being afraid to make a mistake
- wanting to be alone most of the time
- not wanting to hang out with people your own age
- physical signs like dry mouth, trembling, tense muscles, quickened heartbeat or sweating
If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, talk to your doctor about how you’re feeling. Doctors usually don’t diagnose a person with GAD until they’ve experienced these symptoms almost every day, most of the day, for at least six months.
How to cope
Try these tips to cope with GAD:
- Take care of yourself: get regular exercise, eat well and try to get enough sleep at night.
- Take deep breaths: count to five as you breathe in and count to seven as you breathe out. Try to pause between breaths. Repeat for a few minutes.
- Talk about it: share your worries with a friend or safe adult.
- Go for a walk: walk somewhere peaceful and quiet if you can. Bring a friend if you like to walk at night.
- Visit a doctor: a doctor can help you understand what you’re experiencing and offer support, like finding a counsellor or trying medication.
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder that makes you constantly think about or obsess over something. The obsessive thoughts make you behave in certain ways to cope — these behaviours are called compulsions. Compulsions are repetitive — so much so that they’re sometimes called “rituals.” OCD can seem worse when a person is stressed out or unhappy. OCD is treatable, but reducing your symptoms can take time.
It’s not clear what causes OCD. Psychologists believe it has something to do with:
- Biology: different “circuitry” in the brain or brain chemicals like serotonin may contribute to OCD.
- Genetics: people in your family may experience OCD, too.
OCD doesn’t appear the same in everyone. It depends on what kinds of obsessions an individual is living with.
Common obsessions related to OCD include:
- fear of contamination (dirt, germs, chemicals, getting sick)
- fear for your own safety
- fear of illness
- fear of forbidden thoughts
Common compulsions that people use to help them deal with their obsessions are:
- repetitive washing/cleaning
- touching or repeating actions the same number of times
- mental rituals
How to cope
There are different ways to treat OCD. Using a combination of the following can be the most effective:
- Therapy: a therapist can help you deal with your obsessions in ways other than your compulsions. If you’re not sure how to find a therapist, visit your doctor or call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868.
- Medication: doctors sometimes prescribe medication to help people deal with OCD.
- Support groups: you’re not alone. Talking to others who have OCD can be a good source of support. Your doctor or counsellor can put you in touch with support groups for people living with OCD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects people who have experienced extremely upsetting or traumatic events. People with PTSD may avoid situations where the memory of what happened may be triggered. It’s common for people with PTSD to be jumpy or easily startled.
- Past experience: exposure to trauma like death, serious injury or sexual violence may contribute to PTSD. Survivors of war, torture, sexual abuse, car accidents and natural disasters (like hurricanes, tsunamis) are at the highest risk of developing PTSD.
People living with PTSD can’t forget the traumatic thing that happened to them. For example, someone who witnesses people die in a tsunami may avoid going to the beach. Someone who survives a car crash may be afraid of getting into a car. People struggling with PTSD may also experience:
- reliving the event over and over
- difficulty concentrating
- freezing or blanking out
- trouble sleeping
- feeling angry or irritable with the world or themselves
How to cope
These tips can help you heal:
- Be patient: recovery from PTSD takes time and patience. You can get through this.
- Visit a doctor: talk to a doctor if you think you’re experiencing PTSD. Your doctor can treat some of your symptoms and refer you to a therapist who can also help.
- Take care of yourself: get enough sleep at night, exercise, eat healthy meals and spend time with friends and family.
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Chapter Four: The Assembly vision
The Assembly was established to give citizens a platform to say what matters to the people of Scotland, to identify what unites us, and to find common ground in what are often highly contested political discussions. Never before has such a broadly representative group been drawn together to work in such a way on behalf of all citizens of Scotland.
Earlier in this report are set out the 10 statements of vision agreed by the Assembly in response to the remit topic ‘what kind of country are we seeking to build’. The vision is a hugely important output of the Assembly, telling the story of the values, outcomes and ideas on how decision are taken for and about the country that are most important. These statements are entirely the words of Assembly members.
"We accepted that there will always be difference, but we have a common goal and we can draw on all the strands of our collective experience to add value to that. It was like a common woven thread through the whole weekend that bound all our hopes and ideals and disagreements because they were all relevant they were all enough, but they couldn’t all be included."
The vision was agreed by consensus by the Assembly, it includes only those statements that were supported in a vote by 90% or more of members. It genuinely captures the common ground in the Assembly. Of course the ten statements are not the whole story of the vision of Assembly members. Many ideas were discussed throughout the process. This chapter describes the journey which resulted in the vision, including the ideas members shared at the beginning of the process, the breadth and diversity of views along the way and how the vision evolved over the course of the Assembly.
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Some 4.5 billion years ago, a planet called Theia crashed into the Earth, with the resulting debris giving birth to the Moon. Not long after that, the first living creatures emerged on Earth, new research suggests.
If you think about it, the whole field of paleontology is pretty amazing. The fact that we’re able to tell so much about creatures that lived millions of years ago — from fossilized remains and similar clues — is mind-bending. But fossils, the cornerstone of paleontology, require very specific conditions to form, and the fossil record is anything but continuous; typically, it’s fragmented and incomplete.
As a result, fossils generally tell isolated episodes and it’s up to researchers to figure out the whole story. But the more and more you go down the path of time, the trickier things get — and that’s with macroscopic creatures. If you go beyond 1.5 billion years ago, multicellular life hadn’t even evolved. Finding telling fossils is difficult enough in the first place but finding microscopic fossils, that’s a whole new ball game.
The oldest compelling case for life on Earth is 3.7 billion years old, but there is some evidence for even earlier microorganisms, almost 4 billion years ago. But according to the new study, life emerged no less than 4.5 billion years agogeo, when the Earth’s surface had just cooled down.
The problem is that 4 billion years is so long ago that very few parts of the planet’s crust have remained intact. The Earth is an active place and, in geological time, things can change quite a lot, as the old crust is recycled and new crust is constantly created. Combine this with the inherent frailty of microscopic fossils and you start to understand why there’s a very good chance that we’ve missed some of the earliest fossils.
Holly Betts, lead author of the study, from the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, explains:
“There are few fossils from the Archaean and they generally cannot be unambiguously assigned to the lineages we are familiar with, like the blue-green algae or the salt-loving archaebacteria that colours salt-marshes pink all around the world.”
“The problem with the early fossil record of life is that it is so limited and difficult to interpret — careful reanalysis of the some of the very oldest fossils has shown them to be crystals, not fossils at all.”
So in order to look at the bigger picture, researchers also analyzed another important piece of evidence: DNA.
“Fossils do not represent the only line of evidence to understand the past. A second record of life exists, preserved in the genomes of all living creatures,” adds co-author Professor Philip Donoghue, also from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences.
So Betts, Donoghue, and colleagues, looked for the so-called Last Universal Common Ancestor (or LUCA, for short) using the so-called “molecular clock.” The molecular clock uses differences in the genomes of individual species to tell how much time has passed since the two shared a common ancestor.
With this, they derived a new timeline that challenges the date of the earliest known Earthly life, finding that LUCA appeared hundreds of millions before the earliest fossils we’ve found, dating to a time when our planet was still cooling down.
Co-author Professor Davide Pisani said:
“Using this approach we were able to show that the Last Universal Common Ancestor all cellular life forms, ‘LUCA’, existed very early in Earth’s history, almost 4.5 Billion years ago – not long after Earth was impacted by the planet Theia, the event which sterilised Earth and led to the formation of the Moon.”
“This is significantly earlier than the currently accepted oldest fossil evidence would suggest.
Intriguingly, they’ve also found that one billion years later, two different lineages of life emerged from LUCA: Archaebacteria (microbes with no cell nucleus with a number of unique properties) and Eubacteria (all the other bacteria). They also found that the Eukaryotes, the lineage which led to all macroscopic life and humans themselves, is not a primary lineage of life.
“It is rather humbling to think we belong to a lineage that is billions of years younger than life itself,” Pissani says.
This type of study, combining both fossils and genetic analysis, is becoming more and more common, as it enables scientists to tell a broader story — analyzing not only early species and their evolution, but also evolution itself. As if paleontology wasn’t awesome enough already.
The study has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
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Satellite imagery, as a type of remote sensing technology, can provide accurate and detailed information of a specific geographic region anywhere on Earth in a relatively short period of time. Traditional uses of satellite imagery include development planning and modeling, environmental conservation, oil and gas exploration, agriculture management, and meteorological modeling. For governments, the first entities who have had access to this asset, satellite imagery has traditionally been employed for intelligence gathering and military planning purposes.
Changes to US laws and policies in the 1990s allowed private companies to provide satellite imagery to a broader range of actors. This development enabled non-governmental actors (i.e. non-profit organizations, media, academia, etc.) to acquire previously classified geospatial imagery and task private satellites to collect new imagery. The humanitarian and human rights community soon began exploring the application of this technology to its unique advocacy and operational objectives. This trend has rapidly changed the longstanding paradigm for how satellite imagery has most often been employed. Once the sole province of militaries and intelligence services, this tool is now being used by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to support international justice mechanisms for holding perpetrators of crimes against humanity to account.
In order for satellite imagery analysis to become a more effective tool for these means, however, a currently absent framework of procedures and methodologies needs to be established to standardize and scale-up the efforts of non-governmental actors. This paper identifies operational feasibility, data reliability, and legal admissibility as the three key criteria that should be used to determine whether and how satellite imagery can be employed to document alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Three past landmark projects of remote sensing by NGOs are reviewed in context to the three criteria identified above.
History of Remote Sensing
Satellite imagery has already been admitted in cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC), International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague. In one instance, in Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui brought by the ICC, satellite imagery was analyzed to establish the ‘geographic configuration’ of an area in which war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui allegedly took place during violence that broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) beginning July 1, 2002 (ICC 2010). In another example, an ICJ case concerning the application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation) admitted a Human Rights Watch report into evidence; UNOSAT satellite imagery documenting villages destroyed by intentional burnings carried out by Russian forces could thus be considered by the court (ICC 2008). Aerial imagery released by United States military intelligence has now also been used at the ICTY in criminal trials of members of the Bosnian Serb Army including Radislav Krstic and, most recently, the ongoing case against Ratko Mladic. These images were used to corroborate witness accounts of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out in 1995 by identifying areas of disturbed earth indicating the presence of mass graves and by noting the presence of large groups of people and the vehicles witnesses described as those used to transport the victims. Satellite imagery has also been submitted to the PCA by both Eritrea and Ethiopia as evidence of human rights violations carried out by both sides between 1998 and 2000 during a war over their disputed border. These images corroborated the alleged intentional destruction of public structures carried out by Ethiopian forces (AAAS 2007).
b) The industry
Government commercialization of remote sensing technology began in the 1970s. At the time, the introduction of once exclusively military technology to civilian applications had begun in earnest, yielding several notable products. The most well-known of these products is what is now known as the internet, which began as a project called ARPANET. The US government also developed the initial Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1973 as a military navigation system. Since being made public, it has become a commonplace tool for individual and commercial navigation all over the world.
The US first attempted to privatize its ‘Landsat’ remote sensing program in 1972. Soon thereafter, the French government launched a rival program called ‘Satellite pour l’Observation de la Terre’ (SPOT) in 1978. Privatization of the Landsat program ultimately failed due to high prices creating a barrier to private sector use, and it was returned to the government in the 1990s (Williamson 2001: 37). SPOT took advantage of Landsat’s failure, marketing itself as a cheaper and more reliable alternative, eventually ‘making the United States the largest national market for SPOT products’ (Sourbès-Verger 2001: 195).
The watershed moments in the commercialization of remote sensing, however, did not come until the post-Cold War period of the 1990s. In 1992, Congress passed the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act and President Clinton issued a presidential directive to ‘permit US firms to sell high-resolution satellite imagery’ (Baker 2001: 5). The two US-based commercial remote sensing companies that dominate the industry today were founded in response to this policy change. GeoEye (formerly Space Imaging) launched IKONOS, ‘the world’s first high-resolution earth imaging satellite’ in 1999, quickly followed by the QuickBird satellite from DigitalGlobe in 2001 (Ward 2010). Over the next decade, GeoEye expanded its fleet to include the OrbView-2, OrbView-3, GeoEye-1, and GeoEye-2 satellites, while DigitalGlobe launched the WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites. Though most of their business has been conducted with the US government, these two firms have provided imagery for many humanitarian projects. In January 2013, DigitalGlobe purchased GeoEye and became the most prominent American company in the industry.
A ‘resolution gap’ exists between the resolution level of imagery available to civilians and that available to government intelligence agencies. The US federal government employs a policy of ‘shutter control’, regulating the resolution of imagery available to NGOs and private corporations. In particular, the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, in Sec. 1064 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (104th US Congress 1997), was introduced to prohibit non-federal entities from acquiring high-resolution imagery ‘more detailed or precise than satellite imagery of Israel that is available from commercial sources’. As more countries are launching commercial satellites each year, governments are likely to introduce similar policies that limit the maximum resolution in which civilians are allowed to view imagery of certain areas. As humanitarian aid professionals working in fields such as Darfur have noted, access to Very High Resolution (VHR) satellites with resolutions of 1 meter or higher, a level which makes single elements such as buildings and trees distinguishable, is crucially important as it allows for the individualized study of these components. Although the commercial satellite industry is calling for lower resolution restrictions, such policy changes are dependent on a major change in the shared consensus among governments supporting certain resolution restrictions.
c) The work flow
Remote sensing operations by non-governmental actors so far have established a ‘general approach [that] involves using publicly or commercially accessible high-resolution satellite imagery to document the scale and method of human rights abuses and the areas affected by such abuses’ (Kreps 2010: 179). In an April 2012 interview with CBC Radio, the co-author of this article and then-Director of Operations for the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) Nathaniel Raymond outlined three ‘postures’ in which satellite projects like SSP can monitor an international conflict. The ‘detection posture’ can occur before an alleged atrocity happens, with analysts working to predict whether and where threats to civilians exist by identifying signs indicating the build-up of forces and related infrastructure. During the early stage of alleged atrocities, analysts assume a ‘deterrence posture’, working to warn civilians of pending attacks and denying potential perpetrators the twin elements of surprise and impunity. Finally, after an atrocity has already occurred, analysts assume a ‘documentation posture’ by retrospectively recording evidence consistent with alleged crimes and gross violations of human rights, such as mass graves and intentionally burned structures (Raymond 2012). This paper focuses on what is required for projects in the third posture, ‘documentation’, to effectively gather evidence for international justice proceedings.
Table 1 provides a list of major humanitarian non-governmental efforts to use commercial satellite imagery to collect evidence of alleged human rights crimes. These humanitarian and human rights remote sensing initiatives have so far had a few common components:
|Project||Location||Active Date||Satellite Imagery Provider||Information Analysis||Information Distributor||Website/ Report link|
|Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project||Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Ossetia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Zimbabwe||2006-Present||DigitalGlobe/ GeoEye/ ImageSat International||American Association for the Advancement of Science||Amnesty International USA/ Eyes on Pakistan/ Human Rights Watch/ Physicians for Human Rights||URL|
|Eyes on Darfur||Darfur, Sudan||2007-2009||ImageSat International, GeoEye, DigitalGlobe, Orbimage||American Association for the Advancement of Science||Amnesty International USA||URL|
|URL (separate reports from AAAS)|
|Crisis in Darfur*||Darfur, Sudan||2007-2009||Google Earth||United States Holocaust Memorial Museum||Google Earth||URL|
|Satellite Sentinel Project*||South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Sudan||2010-Present||DigitalGlobe||Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (2010-2012)/ UNITAR-UNOSAT (2011)/ Enough Project with DigitalGlobe (2012-present)||Enough Project/Not On Our Watch||URL|
|Syria Satellite Crowdsourcing Project*||Syria||2011||DigitalGlobe||Standby Task Force crowd-sourced data||Amnesty International USA||URL|
|Somalia Satellite Crowdsourcing Project||Somalia||2011||DigitalGlobe||Standby Task Force crowd-sourced data||UNHCR||URL|
|Baba Amr report||Homs, Syria||2012||DigitalGlobe||Human Rights Watch||Human Rights Watch||URL|
|Human Rights in Burma||Burma||2012-2013||Astrium/ DigitalGlobe||Human Rights Watch||Human Rights Watch||URL|
- They tend to involve a coalition of actors, typically including an imagery provider (i.e. commercial satellite firms such as DigitalGlobe);
- They involve an imagery analysis expert or experts working in partnership with an advocacy organization;
- Lastly, they also often include the direct involvement of the initiative’s funder.
Criterion A: Practical Applicability
When commercial satellite imagery proves useful in practice for non-governmental actors, it must yield a sufficient volume of actionable intelligence at a sustainable cost. The often extremely high cost of imagery and sometimes limited availability due to competing priorities for commercial providers and cloud cover are some of the barriers to entry human rights and humanitarian actors face when employing remote sensing analysis.
The major obstacle preventing widespread use of satellite imagery by civilian organizations is the high cost of proactively acquiring near real-time imagery. This means, simply, submitting a request (or tasking) to the satellite imagery provider to collect a current image of your preferred area of observation. The retail price for priority tasking DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird, WorldView-1, or WorldView-2 satellite can average as much as US$40 per square kilometer. The SSP operated by regularly ordering multiple shots averaging130 x 80 kilometers, which was donated by DigitalGlobe. If consumers were to purchase such tasking at retail prices, its cost would be in excess of US$400,000 per shot.
Cost is particularly problematic for non-governmental and relief organizations, which generally do not have funding for testing technology. In 2001, Bjorgo wrote that prices could be further hiked when tasked to operate over complex and volatile environments, ‘because the satellites must be programmed to acquire previously unplanned images’ (2001: 423). While since then technological advancements in satellite programming procedures have made this process more manageable, in a crisis situation analysts would need multiple shots to be taken over a single location in a short period of time to detect change in the area’s baseline data as events evolve. This would still put strains over the project’s cost-management, and requires the satellite company to prioritize those immediate shots over other prior commitments. Non-governmental actors must therefore find sufficient funding, receive donations, or identify other ways to overcome the cost barrier to capture evidence of an alleged atrocity in near real-time.
b) Cloud cover
Another major limitation to documenting a crisis situation in near real-time is weather conditions. The geographic location of the crisis plays a crucial role. Since satellite shots cannot penetrate cloud-cover, ‘the area of interest must be cloud free, [which] severely limits the ability to use such images in humanitarian relief operations’ (Bjorgo 2001: 423). In equatorial regions or regions with persistent rainy seasons, satellite collection operations are often very difficult. Cloud cover limited the use of satellite technology in Kosovo (Bjorgo 2001: 418), and allowed Indian nuclear testing to occur during the rainy season despite persistent satellite coverage by US spy satellites. On the other hand, in certain areas such as Sudan, vast open areas are optimal for extracting the maximum amount of information.
‘Dense ground cover’, such as jungles and thick vegetation, can have a similarly obscuring effect (Kreps 2010: 185). In certain cases, significant observations were extracted despite both cloud cover and heavy forestation. Regardless, the successful tasking of satellites involves identifying specific time windows for the vehicle to attempt a collection of imagery, especially during a region’s rainy season.
c) Timelines of case processing
In March 2012, the ICC issued its first verdict since the signing of the Rome Statute on July 1, 2002, convicting Congolese warlord Lubanga Dyilo of conscripting child soldiers (UN News Center 2012). The timeline of a court proceeding is the exact opposite of the extremely time-sensitive and time-dependent tempo of satellite surveillance. As analysts have pointed out, ‘the main problem with assessing court cases…from a geospatial perspective is they can drag on for years’ (Bromley 2012). Because of the aforementioned cost restraints of satellite imagery, projects often cannot afford to take timely images that could later be used as evidence when alleged crimes are occurring, continue those operations for the full length of a protracted conflict, or even purchase archived images retrospectively. Because the satellite imagery providers either did not have the actionable intelligence to know to collect certain images and/or financial incentive to do so, imagery that could have captured evidence of alleged mass atrocities is often not collected in time to catch a potential criminal act in progress.
Thus, by the time court investigators begin to look for evidence, the monitoring efforts of NGOs are likely to have expended their limited budgets and concluded their operations. This significant limitation also highlights the necessity for establishing crosscutting strategies for prospective planning of satellite imagery tasking and methodical record keeping of the resulting shots. Ideally, monitoring operations should proactively coordinate with satellite imagery providers to consider collecting imagery that may contain potential legal evidence, even if the NGOs conducting the operations cannot afford them at the moment. Additionally, monitoring operations must have an extensive archive of the shots they take throughout the conflict and the potential evidence they contain to allow court investigators the ability to access those archival shots in the future. Until these procedures and operational infrastructure are developed between NGOs, court investigators, and the satellite imagery providers themselves, unique, potentially crucial evidence is being routinely lost on a regular basis because it is never collected.
Criterion B: Data Reliability
In an international humanitarian conflict, satellite imagery is primarily able to offer two types of potential evidence: the identification of observable objects and changes in the position, behavior, and condition of those observable objects over a period of time.
a) Identifying observables
An observable is a term for anything contained in the imagery with a distinctive shape and size which may be of interest to the analyst. Examples of these points of interest may include aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery, camps for displaced persons or armed actors, and shelling craters or other evidence of damage. After detecting an observable in the imagery, analysts consider its attributes in order to identify it as a specific point of interest. These attributes include: tone or hue, shape, size, texture, pattern, shadow, site, scale, its association with other observables, and overall context (Baker et al 2001: 536–37). In a humanitarian crisis situation, identification of these observables can provide significant, timely, and unique forms of information. For example, satellite imagery can be used to detect ‘tire tracks that might indicate troop movements or convoys of displaced people; burned or burning villages…; possible refugee camps…; and recently overturned soil, which could indicate the location of mass graves’ (Litfin 2001: 477).
There are limitations to the information satellite imagery can yield. As Litfin points out, satellite imagery can only be used to detect ‘a relatively small portion of possible human rights violations’, typically including ‘the large-scale violation of human rights that accompanies campaigns of genocide’ (2001: 476). Unlike military and government agencies, who have had decades to train their analysts and construct detailed processes for pattern identification, trade craft of humanitarian remote sensing analysts is still in its earliest infancy, currently lacking the type of agreed pedagogy and technical standards necessary for reliably categorizing observables and identifying repeating patterns. Moreover, ground collaboration is essential for satellite analysis, as eyewitnesses can tell analysts where to look and where to direct satellite tasking, as well as confirm and identify the observables that analysts find. Even if analysts can independently make confident claims on certain observables, they cannot often be used to explain causality or directly point fingers on the agents culpable. Support from eyewitnesses thus also plays the crucial role of placing the investigation in proper context. However, while ground reporting has been used by several groups to corroborate satellite imagery collection, the procedure lacks commonly accepted ethical and operational standards to protect potential witnesses, ensure chain of custody of evidence, and improve the accuracy and usability of field-derived data from relatively non-permissive environments.
In addition to identifying points of interest, satellite imagery is capable of providing a timeline narrative of the situation. Even though context and causality cannot be confidently established without information from the ground, repeated shots of troop movements and maneuvers in an area over a long period of time can reveal some clues about intent. Through repeatedly tasking the satellite to take pictures of the same location and then comparing new and archived images to one another, analysts are able to produce before-and-after comparisons of specific points of interest. The ability to describe a location before and after a certain event creates a narrative of change, a record of the changing conditions of a location that can be used to explain how an event may have transpired. For example, a study at Yale used MODIS and SPOT satellites as well as the remote sensing application ‘normalized difference vegetation index’ (NDVI) to document the ‘return of natural vegetation coverage...in formerly agrarian and livestock grazing ranges’ in the Darfur region of Sudan between 2003 and 2007 (Schimmer 2008). The authors concluded through before-and-after comparisons that this phenomenon corresponded to, and is a result of, the human displacements caused by systematic violence perpetrated in the region.
Long-term, persistent monitoring of a situation can also lead to an inevitable interaction between the monitor and the perpetrator. As Litfin cautions, there exists ‘the possibility that perpetrators, knowing the sun-synchronous orbit of imaging satellites, could camouflage their actions’ (2001: 479). Kreps also underlines ‘the predictable timing of [satellite]…revisit rates’ as a key challenge, as ‘perpetrators could easily time particular atrocities for a time when a satellite is not overhead’ (2010: 185). Therefore, a successful analysis project will have to adapt to the actions of the perpetrator in real-time by adopting a dynamic strategy to surmount any counter-monitoring strategies used by those being surveyed.
c) Expert opinion
Analyses by NGOs have often also been prone to human and mechanical error, which leads to misidentifying and under-identifying observables. In 2001, Baker observed that NGO analysts ‘generally lack the training, experience, and resources required to make consistently accurate interpretations of overhead images, particularly when compared with more-experienced imagery analysts found at government agencies, commercial remote sensing firms, and some university departments’ (Baker et al 2001: 534). Imagery analysts, or even the image data provider themselves, could be motivated to deliberately distort image data in order to produce findings consistent with their conjectures. Moreover, errors of judgment and time constraints in a crisis situation could lead inexperienced analysts to make inadvertent errors.1 Since then, steps have been taken to mitigate this credibility issue. For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has employed university-trained analysts who produce separate reports that are then provided to advocacy and human rights organizations, while the SSP’s analysis team is operated out of Harvard University. Nevertheless, the numbers of trained NGO analysts who have actually acquired experience working on humanitarian crises are still limited. Moreover, the changing terrains and characteristics in different locations require a larger pool of experienced analysts to be adequately prepared for all contingencies. To avoid deliberate errors, non-governmental actors should operate under a strict code of ethics and acquire imagery from reputable commercial satellite providers with expert analytic support and training. There are a limited number of providers currently on the market and the few reliable partners are easy to identify. To mitigate inadvertent errors, analysts employed by non-governmental actors should closely engage with experienced remote sensing experts. Ideally, they should work together to revise findings before they are released to the media. Finally, there is a third type of error: contextual over-extrapolation. There exists a high potential for organizations motivated by achieving public policy advocacy objectives to over-extrapolate what can be shown through analysis of satellite-derived data. Because analysts are trying to find as many observables as possible, with the belief that their efforts may prevent atrocities and save lives, they are predisposed to discover more data than may actually be present in an image. This unique problem for mass atrocity-focused imagery analysts can be mitigated by separating the analysis and advocacy of a monitoring operation, and through using independent third-party analysts to check public facing products for accuracy and objectivity. The independent work of AAAS represents a positive shift towards addressing this concern, but it remains a problem that the industry should remain keenly aware of and continue to try to avoid.
Criterion C: Legal Admissibility
Currently, there is no international body with a mandate to regulate the use and exploration of space, nor are there binding and unambiguous standards for the admissibility of remote sensing data in international courts and tribunals.
While satellite imagery has been admitted as evidence at the ICC to corroborate witness testimony of human rights abuses, it has not yet been admitted as dispositive evidence of mass atrocities. Recognizing the complex nature of various crimes and conflicts, international criminal law tends to be more lenient towards evidence admission. Both the ICC and international criminal tribunals allow for ‘the admission of all relevant and necessary evidence’, bypassing the ‘complex and technical rules of evidence’ of the common law system (Schabas 2007: 294).
Rather than specific and unambiguous procedural rules, admissibility requirements for evidence in international criminal courts and tribunals are guided by more general principles. The Rome Statute, which governs procedures at the ICC, includes Article 69 concerning rules of evidence: ‘The parties may submit evidence relevant to the case....The Court shall have the authority to request the submission of all evidence that it considers necessary for the determination of the truth’ (Rome Statute 1998). Therefore, two relevant questions regarding the admissibility of remote sensing data are (a) whether there is a legal basis for denying admission of this evidence, and (b) whether this type of evidence could be treated as dispositive of human rights abuses.
a) Legal basis for denying admission of evidence
Remote sensing data must pass the standard for inadmissibility under Article 69(7) of the Rome Statute which precludes the admission of evidence obtained ‘in violation of [the Rome] Statute or internationally recognized human rights’ if ‘the violation casts substantial doubt on the reliability of the evidence’ or if admission ‘would be antithetical to and would seriously damage the integrity of the proceedings’ (Rome Statute 1998).
While there is no binding international law that speaks directly to whether or not collecting remote sensing data of a territory within another country would constitute a violation of internationally recognized human rights, there are principles contained in three UN General Assembly resolutions and one treaty that bear some authority on this issue. Provisions of the UN Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of the States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies state that activities in space must be carried out ‘exclusively for peaceful purposes’. ‘Peaceful purposes’ is also generally accepted today to include non-aggressive military uses (Ito 2011: 24). Such activities must endeavor to foster international cooperation and to benefit all states ‘irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development’ (UN - Outer Space Treaty 1967: 207–210). Additionally, remote sensing data should be collected according to the licensing procedures and regulations of the member state authorizing the activity; that member state is responsible for enforcing regulations to comply with the treaty (Ito 2011: 27–28).
The UN Remote Sensing Principles (Sensing Principles) are not binding, but they are authoritative and are given influential weight because they were unanimously adopted in the General Assembly (Ito 2011: 55). The Sensing Principles articulate with greater specificity how states should cooperate with respect to sharing data and, while it is not stated so explicitly, Atsiyu Ito argues that the language suggests that collecting remote sensing data of another state’s territory is not subject to the consent or demands of the sensed state (2011: 63). In fact, more explicit terms regarding prior consent by sensed states were proposed but ultimately not included in the final document (Ito 2011: 53).
Furthermore, the history of regulating space law has its roots in preserving the free and non-appropriable nature of space itself, monitoring countries to avoid an impending attack, cooperating with developing states without space programs (Ito 2011), and evaluating land use and risks to the environment (UNGA 1986).
These interpretations of existing space law legislation suggest that remote sensing data collected to monitor mass human rights violations would fall within the admissibility requirement of Article 69(7) of the Rome Statute because this data was obtained with the peaceful purpose of protecting human rights and does not undermine any other goals of these pieces of legislation.
b) Remote sensing data as dispositive evidence
Remote sensing evidence then must also be ‘necessary for the determination of the truth’ (Rome Statute 1998: Article 69(3)) and relevant based on its ‘probative value’, taking into consideration ‘any prejudice that such evidence may cause to a fair trial or to a fair evaluation of the testimony of a witness’ (UNGA 1998: Article 69(4)). William Schabas presents standards for interpreting Article 69(4) that were used in Trial Chamber 1 in Lubanga and in the Pre-Trial Chamber in Katanga. There, the courts decided that evidence must be ‘prima facie relevant…in that it relates to the matters that are properly to be considered by the Chamber’, reliable in that it is ‘voluntary, truthful, and trustworthy’ (2010: 843), and have probative value in that it has ‘intrinsic coherence’ that is not ‘prima facie absent’ and therefore inadmissible. Schabas posits with respect to the prejudicial effect of evidence that courts use this standard mainly to prevent prejudicial information from being disclosed to a jury and is ‘of doubtful importance in the case of professional judges’ (2010: 844).
With respect to reliability, Hettling points out that ‘[a] judge is only able to verify the authenticity of a satellite image if a scientific expert analyzes and interprets the data for him’ (2008: 146). Therefore, the reliability of satellite imagery as evidence would be greatly enhanced when it is submitted with expert witness testimony. Hettling further argues that the expert should ideally be independent from the party submitting the evidence, either ‘chosen and appointed by the Court’ or agreed upon by ‘both parties’ (2008: 166). Art. 64(6)(d) of the Rome Statute, which allows the chambers to ‘[o]rder the production of evidence in addition to that already collected prior to the trial or presented during the trial by the parties’, legally enables the introduction of court-appointed witnesses at the ICC. The court then does not have to be concerned that their witness testimony may end up favoring one party at trial.
Regarding the relevance and probative value of satellite imagery, imagery has already been admitted in cases at the ICC, ICJ, ICTY, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In the ICC case Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, satellite imagery was analyzed to establish the ‘geographic configuration’ of an area in which war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the defendants allegedly took place during the violence in the DRC beginning July 1, 2002.
Another example comes from the ICJ in the case Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation) in which a Human Rights Watch report was admitted into evidence; as such, UNOSAT satellite imagery documenting villages destroyed by intentional burnings carried out by Russian forces could be considered by the court. Satellite aerial imagery released by US military intelligence has now also been used at the ICTY in criminal trials of members of the Bosnian Serb Army including Radislav Krstic and, most recently, the ongoing case against Ratko Mladic. These images were used to corroborate witness accounts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by showing areas of disturbed earth that indicated the presence of mass graves and by noting the presence of vehicles that witnesses described as those used to transport victims (ICTY ‘Rules of Procedure and Evidence’). Satellite imagery has also been submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration by both Eritrea and Ethiopia as evidence of human rights violations carried out between 1998 and 2000 during a war over a border dispute. These images indicated the intentional destruction of public structures that were bombed or razed by Ethiopian forces (AAAS 2007).
These examples suggest that the relevance and probative value of satellite imagery is generally recognized by these courts. Therefore, while the extent to which satellite evidence may be considered dispositive of human rights violations is yet to be determined more definitively, there is a solid basis for anticipating that satellite imagery will play a significant role in the future of holding perpetrators of gross violations of human rights accountable.
Case Study 1: Crisis in Darfur
On April 10, 2007, Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) announced a partnership to launch the Crisis in Darfur project, to be embedded in a new ‘Global Awareness’ layer in Google Earth. Dedicated to ‘draw attention to a serious crisis underway…[and] highlight the humanitarian potentials of new information technologies’, the project pursued an advocacy objective from the outset. The USHMM ‘approached Google after learning [that] Google Earth software had been downloaded by 200 million people worldwide’ (Parks 2009: 535–6). The insertion of Crisis in Darfur images into standard Google Earth downloads, shown in figure 1, proved an effective means of introducing the issue to a much wider audience. However, because the partnership was oriented towards raising public awareness, it failed to actually provide intelligence to actors on the ground and help prevent the progression of violence. As such, the advocacy perspective of Crisis in Darfur damages its legal reliability.
Parks points out that Crisis in Darfur ‘satellite images are traversed in favor of closer views and representations of humans, many of which feature injured bodies and/or displaced women and children’ (2009: 538). While such presentation may be useful in an advocacy setting, it undermines the scientific legitimacy of the project when attempting to use these materials as evidence. In court, this methodology would likely encounter questioning regarding its neutrality and reliability. The dilemma that some projects face, as showcased here, is that they must rely upon an advocacy organization to garner media attention and funds to run the program. However, the political agenda of these organizations have the potential to influence and undermine the credibility of the analysis produced.
In addition, Crisis in Darfur cannot take on a ‘detection posture’. Its inability to conduct the forward analysis of predicting where the next attack may happen is a major limit to its utility on the ground. Parks laments the retrospective nature of Crisis in Darfur as ‘an archive of violent conflict that unfolded while being observed but without intervention’ (2009: 540). Moreover, without conducting analysis through before-and-after shots and monitoring the conflict over the period of time when it was actually happening, Crisis in Darfur loses its documentation value in court. The dataset the project provides records factual information such as which villages were attacked and where those villages are located. However, it does not support forensic sense-making in the sense of helping investigators determine the intent of the perpetrators, which would be crucial for a court conviction.
Crisis in Darfur is a crucial project in that it was, along with the Eyes on Darfur project, one of the first projects that garnered significant media attention and showcased the potential of satellite imagery in a humanitarian setting. However, the analysis it provides is more suited for a media campaign rather than as evidence in a court of law.
Case Study 2: Satellite Sentinel Project
In 2010, actor George Clooney and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast conceived the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), a collaboration of Clooney’s Not On Our Watch organization (funding), the Enough Project (advocacy), DigitalGlobe (imagery provider/analysis), and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (analysis). Initially, SSP was established as a warning system for possible conflicts along the border of Sudan and soon-to-be independent South Sudan. When South Sudan gained independence in the summer of 2011 and conflicts erupted, SSP began to identify IDP camps and burned villages in near real-time and documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.2
The work of SSP is notable because it overcomes the shortcoming cited in criteria B(b) that satellite imagery cannot be used to establish intent. Instead of simply identifying observables for documentation, SSP’s reports provide a narrative of intent. The project claims to have uncovered evidence that demonstrates the systematic and indiscriminate targeting of civilians by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). In Report 20, as shown in figure 2, SSP published before-and-after imagery showing a compound allegedly belonging to the Sudanese Central Reserve Police (CRP), claiming that they ‘significantly built up the fortifications and reinforced the vehicles and personnel present at that facility during the time period that CRP forces were allegedly abducting, detaining, torturing, and killing internally displaced persons seeking refuge there.’ Having received eyewitness accounts suggesting the killing of civilian SPLM-N supporters, SSP analysts offered a map depicting satellite imagery of the area prior to the reinforcement to the witness who then ‘independently identified the CRP training center’ on the map (SSP 2011c). Once the map was returned with the witness identification, SSP was then able to positively confirm the build-up of the identified location by analyzing both archival and then-current imagery of the area.
This method of analyzing before-and-after imagery was also instrumental in identifying a likely intent to conceal reported mass graves. Rather than the traditional method of identifying observables, SSP continually monitored the area by repeatedly collecting up-to-date satellite imagery of the same location, which allowed for the construction of a thorough narrative. This documentation of intent will likely be much more convincing in court (SSP 2011b).
In figure 3, SSP identified ‘six [military] checkpoints’ on DigitalGlobe imagery, which was consistent with information from a report released from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) suggesting that the ‘SAF blocked all major roads in and around Kadugli’, the capital of Sudan’s South Kordofan (SSP 2011a).
In this case, observables from several different shots were combined and collaborated with contextual information obtained from field reports of a third organization. As a result, SSP again established a dynamic narrative establishing intent to cut off outside assistance and ‘prevent…ambulances from reaching wounded civilians in need of medical care’ (Special Report 2011). Analysis which combined information derived from different observables therefore enhanced the documentation power of the satellite imagery.
Case Study 3: Standby Task Force Satellite Imagery Project
The Standby Task Force (SBTF) was founded in 2010 as a network of volunteers available ‘to provide dedicated live mapping support to…organizations in the humanitarian, human rights, election monitoring, and media space’ (The Standby Task Force 2012). In September 2011, the SBTF Satellite Imagery Team launched an ‘experimental pilot project’, which analyzed imagery on Syria made available by DigitalGlobe as a part of a report produced by Amnesty International-USA (AI-USA).
While the SBTF project is much smaller in size and scope than the other case studies in this paper, it has pioneered the integration of crisis mapping and crowd-sourced data into satellite imagery analysis. The concept of crowdsourcing, according to a definition proposed by Estellés and González, is ‘a type of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit organization, or a company proposes to a group of individuals…the voluntary undertaking of a task...[that] entails mutual benefit’ (2012: 197). According to Patrick Meier, co-founder of the SBTF, the intelligence contained in massive amounts of satellite data produced everyday lacks the corresponding analytical human capital, as ‘professional satellite imagery experts who have plenty of time to volunteer their skills are far and few between’. SBTF addresses this issue by applying the concept of crowdsourcing, slicing up imagery into small sections and micro-tasking them to its network of volunteers who divide up the work usually tackled by single analysts and collectively ‘scan and tag vast volumes of satellite imagery data’ (Meier 2011). Figure 4 shows a cloud of yellow triangles, representing sliced images given to individual volunteers at SBTF.
The SBTF crowd-sourcing system is useful in greatly increasing the speed of analysis. However, this model also faces a series of challenges regarding reliability. One potential issue is the lack of expertise of the volunteers. Untrained volunteers are much more likely to make inadvertent errors, as outlined in criterion B(c), and could seriously undermine the reliability of the analysis. SBTF attempts to mitigate this disadvantage by asking experienced analysts to filter their work. The inexperienced volunteers are ‘provided with documentation that explains how to spot military vehicles, troop movements, checkpoints, and aircraft’, and are responsible for simply identifying observables. Then, a team from AI-USA will ‘analyze images that have been tagged by at least three volunteers’ (Ungerleider 2011). While this procedure certainly lowers the likelihood of false identifications, it cannot prevent volunteers from omitting certain observables that may only be obvious to more experienced analysts. SBTF volunteers will also be unable to perform analyses that require more advanced GIS skills and software technology, such as infrared and multispectral analysis. Moreover, micro-tasking and slicing imagery may prevent analysts from being able to ‘connect the dots’ between various observables and forming a greater contextual understanding of the situation. Since the volunteer looking at each slice of imagery is different each time, they could also miss out important changes in before-and-after shots which would help construct the timeline narrative in criterion B(b).
The commercialization of satellite imagery is leading humanitarianism toward a historic and momentous occasion: the application of satellite imagery to international criminal justice, as a tool of evidence collection, could permanently transform how the international community allocates accountability to perpetrators of mass atrocities. This paper established three criteria for the construction of useful, reliable, and admissible evidence for international criminal courts. By following these criteria, humanitarian satellite imagery projects could take a great step towards producing quality output, but the industry still faces some significant challenges. As such, some significant improvements will be necessary for the above criteria to be met and create useful intelligence for the courts.
a) Building a system
The techniques of analysis and compilation of satellite data for documentation of humanitarian crises should be developed into a structured discipline. The establishment of a procedure or guideline for sense-making, which all similar projects could follow, would maximize efficiency and increase reliability. The procedures should include elements of technical analysis often used by professional government-employed analysts, such as the use of GIS software for infrared analysis. This would help mitigate the issue of inadvertent errors in criterion B(c). Moreover, these procedures should also concentrate on the specific application of satellite imagery analysis for crisis monitoring and documentation. This includes addressing methods of ground confirmation and communication with eyewitnesses as mentioned in criterion B(a). It would also include establishing research capacities and considering context and establishing long-term monitoring, as mentioned in criterion B(b). Ideally, organizations that have gained experience from successful projects would then set up training and certification programs for new analysts and other organizations interested in starting their own projects. In this manner, humanitarian applications of satellite imagery can be transformed from independent projects attached to a wide variety of academic, governmental, and non-governmental institutions of varying credibility into a coherent, reputable, scientific discipline.
Thus far, non-profit human rights groups have been the instigators of commercial satellite projects. Their participation is often necessary to secure funding, raise awareness, or obtain human capital. However, these groups sometimes already carry an agenda regarding the policy issue before the project is assembled, or feel pressured to overstate data or produce information in certain manners and time intervals in order to maintain media attention. As such, the evidence produced in this process could lose credibility in court if the defense attorney can prove that the scientific process of analysis had been influenced or undermined. As mentioned in criterion C(a), it would then be necessary for the court to call on an outside expert witness to re-analyze the evidence. Therefore, if such projects were to be employed in greater numbers and their work submitted to international criminal courts, the establishment of a third-party verifying organization would be necessary. This organization should be composed of analysts with experience in humanitarian applications of satellite imagery, but at the same time remain non-partisan and unaffiliated with any organization with an explicit issue-agenda. The establishment of such a credible organization from which the court could call expert witnesses would greatly enhance the credibility of satellite imagery evidence produced by non-government projects.
c) Establishing legal precedence
Although satellite imagery has been submitted and considered by the ICC and ICTY, none have so far been formally admitted as evidence. The industry came close in 2011 when, according to TIME Magazine, the ICC reviewed and based ‘a significant portion’ of their new investigation against Sudanese Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein for possible war crimes on data collected by the SSP (Benjamin 2011). Being used by the prosecution does not create legal precedence for the evidence since it was never officially submitted in court. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the validity and usefulness of such products for international criminal justice. A first ICC case where satellite imagery, created for the type of projects described in this article, is accepted as evidence would establish crucial legal precedence. As a result, not only would the admittance of satellite imagery in the future be much more feasible and streamlined in the legal sense, it would also encourage current chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and her successors to add satellite imagery to their investigation toolkit and look toward satellite projects for useful evidence. In turn, this would encourage the formation of more projects that are better funded and greater in scope. Existing projects and analysts will also likely devote more time toward documenting evidence of war crimes and violations.
The advent of civilian-analyzed satellite imagery changes the way in which non-military actors and bystanders can actively participate to help prevent atrocities and help convict those responsible for them. The current conflict in Syria, for example, comes to mind as an area where effective satellite technology could be immediately deployed to aid humanitarian efforts, as well as to increase accountability of the massive human rights violations that are taking place there. Eventually, the development and wide-range employment of this new form of war photography in international criminal justice may be a game-changer in setting up a system of accountability in an increasingly unstable modern world.
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What is Osteoarthritis (OA)?
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that affects the cartilage of joints. Cartilage is a firm, flexible connective tissue that lines the surface of many joints and provides shock absorption and cushioning for the bony surfaces of those joints as they move. During the process of OA, cartilage gradually begins to break down and is worn away. This means that the bony surfaces below the cartilage start to rub together, creating increased stress and friction. The body reacts to this increased stress by creating small bony deposits around the joint, as more of these are created the joint becomes increasingly painful and difficult to move.
The hip is one the joints most commonly affected by osteoarthritis. While OA is generally considered to be a disease associated with aging, younger people can be affected, particularly following trauma to the hip. As a general rule, however, the cartilage in our bodies loses elasticity as we age, making it more susceptible to damage. Other risk factors for the development of OA are a family history of OA, previous traumatic injury of the hip, obesity, improper formation of the hip at birth (developmental dysplasia), genetic defects of the cartilage, impingement of the hip (femoroacetabular impingement) and a history of intense weight bearing activities.
The most common symptoms of hip OA are pain and stiffness with reduced movement of the hip, particularly in the direction of internal rotation. These symptoms in a person over the age of 50, in the absence of a trauma that may have caused a fracture, indicate possible OA. Pain originating from the hip joint can be felt as a deep ache that can be noticed in the groin, buttocks, thigh or even knee. It is also typical for sufferers of OA to experience stiffness in the morning upon waking that lasts less than 30-60 minutes. Grating or cracking sensations with hip movements are also common complaints, along with mild to moderate joint swelling.
In the early stages, mild pain may be felt with activities such as walking or running. As the disease progresses these activities will become more painful with the muscles that provide additional support to the joint becoming weaker, exacerbating the disease process. For many people, a total hip replacement may be necessary to reduce pain and restore function.
How can physiotherapy help?
For mild to moderate cases of OA, physiotherapy can help to reduce pain and maintain function for as long as possible. Keep the musculature around the hip as Strong and healthy as possible can have a significant impact on your quality of life and your physiotherapist work with you to help you to set and reach your goals for treatment
Treatment will also include stretching, trigger point therapy, joint mobilization to increase the joint’s mobility, and a personalised exercise program, including hydrotherapy and isometric exercises that work to increase muscle strength while putting less pressure on the joint.
For those whose best course of treatment is surgical joint replacement, physiotherapy can help to achieve great outcomes by helping with effective preparation and rehabilitation, getting you on your way to recovery as quickly as possible.
[box type=”info”] None of the information in this article is a replacement for proper medical advice. Always see a medical professional for advice on your individual condition.[/box]
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100 FREE Papers on Compare and contrast essay. Sample topics, paragraph introduction help, research& more. Class 112, high school& college. Examples of compare and contrast essays on two stories; Good compare and contrast essay; A comparison essay notes either similarities, or similarities and differences. Writing an Expository Essay; Writing a Persuasive Essay; Writing a Narrative Essay; Homepage Writing Samples Academic Writing Samples Essay Samples Compare and Contrast Compare and Contrast Essay Samples.
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What's your ideal environment? Sunny, 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) and a light breeze? How about living in nearly boiling water that's so acidic it eats through metal? Or residing in a muddy, oxygenless soup far saltier than any ocean? If you're an extremophile, that might sound perfect.
Extremophiles are organisms that live in "extreme" environments. The name, first used in 1974 in a paper by a scientist named R.D. MacElroy, literally means extreme-loving [source: Townsend]. These hardy creatures are remarkable not only because of the environments in which they live, but also because many of them couldn't survive in supposedly normal, moderate environments. For example, the microorganism Ferroplasma acidiphilum needs a large amount of iron to survive, quantities that would kill most other life forms. Like other extremophiles, F. acidiphilum may recall an ancient time on Earth when most organisms lived in harsh conditions similar to those now favored by some extremophiles, whether in deep-sea vents, geysers or nuclear waste.
Extremophiles aren't just bacteria [source: Science Resource Education Center]. They come from all three branches of the three domain classification system: Archaea, Eubacteria and Eukaroyta. (We'll explore taxonomy more next.) So extremophiles are a diverse group, and some surprising candidates -- yeast, for example -- qualify for membership. They're also not always referred to strictly as extremophiles. For example, a halophile is so named because it thrives in a very salty environment.
The discovery of extremophiles, beginning in the 1960s, has caused scientists to reassess how life began on Earth. Numerous types of bacteria have been found deep underground, an area previously considered a dead zone (because of lack of sunlight) but now seen as a clue to life's origins. In fact, the majority of the planet's bacteria live underground [source: BBC News].
These specialized, rock-dwelling extremophiles are called endoliths (all underground bacteria are endoliths, but some endoliths are nonbacterial organisms). Scientists speculate that endoliths may absorb nutrients moving through rock veins or subsist on inorganic rock matter. Some endoliths may be genetically similar to the earliest forms of life that developed around 3.8 billion years ago. For comparison, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and multicellular organisms developed relatively recently compared to unicellular, microbial life [source: Dreifus].
In this article, we'll look at how extremophiles aid in the search for the origins of life; why extremophiles are useful in industrial science and why extremophiles may lead us to life on other planets. First, let's look at how extremophiles are classified.
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Beets are fairly easy to grow in all but the hottest weather. They prefer cool temperatures and tolerate an occasional light frost. Beets can be started indoors 5-6 weeks before the last of the heavy frosts, or direct sown in succession when the soil has warmed to extend the harvest. Can be grown as a 'double' crop for Spring and Fall. Sow about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep in rows 1 foot apart. Although beets do well in cool weather, best germination is at soil temperatures of 55-75 F. SPECIAL CAUTION: Untreated beet seed is particularly susceptible to failure if planted in soil that is too cool or wet. Beets will do well in most any soil, but best performance is in loose, loamy soil that is not too acidic (ph of 6 or more is best). Wide weather fluctuations can cause 'banding' in the root.
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S Madhusudhan , January 23, 2017 14:20 IST
Celery is an excellent source of antioxidants and healthy enzymes. It is loaded with compounds that can help a great deal in preventing the risk of cancer.
Press Trust Of India , January 17, 2017 14:22 IST
Sunbeds which are used in indoor tanning sessions, may increase put people at a higher risk of melanoma. A new study warns that melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer. ...
Indo-Asian News Service , December 07, 2016 14:53 IST
There has been a 33 per cent increase in the global cases of cancers between 2005 and 2015, the countries with the lowest development status saw a 50 per cent rise.
Press Trust Of India , November 22, 2016 13:48 IST
Children account for 15 per cent of 1400 new cases of cancer turning up annually at JIPMER here, the centrally sponsored health institute said.
Indo-Asian News Service , November 14, 2016 16:08 IST
The number of Americans who smoke has dropped to a record low, but 40 per cent of cancer cases in the country are still linked to tobacco use.
Indo-Asian News Service , November 14, 2016 16:02 IST
Thiruvananthapuram has been termed as the country's breast cancer capital, with cases at a record high of 40 per lakh of population.
Associate Press , November 11, 2016 16:30 IST
Hundreds of veterans who have been diagnosed with a rare bile duct cancer that may be linked to their time in the service and an unexpected source: parasites in raw or poorly ...
Press Trust Of India , November 10, 2016 15:04 IST
A weight loss condition that affects cancer patients may make immunotherapy ineffective, according to a new study which explains why the approach boosting a patient's immune system to treat the disease fails ...
Thomson Reuters , November 08, 2016 16:52 IST
Despite advances that have made treatments safer and more effective, childhood cancer survivors don't appear to have experienced gains in long-term health outcomes, a new study suggests.
NDTV Food , October 24, 2016 16:22 IST
According to a new study, the most common type of ovarian cancer can be treated by a natural compound found in onions.
Indo-Asian News Service , October 20, 2016 17:42 IST
Preventable risk factors like smoking and alcohol are closely associated with 11 of the 15 cancers in the US, finds a study.
Agence France-Presse , October 14, 2016 16:46 IST
The facade of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, was lit up in pink on thursday to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
Indo-Asian News Service , October 14, 2016 16:11 IST
Head and neck cancers account for more than 5.5 lakh of the total cancer cases reported in India every year, putting India in the sixth place worldwide, said health experts.
Indo-Asian News Service , September 26, 2016 14:04 IST
Bolstering the know how behind targeted cancer treatment, Indian scientists have offered a new rationale for combination drug therapy for ovarian and breast cancer, which they say can counter drug resistance and ...
Reuters , September 13, 2016 17:12 IST
Cancer has become Australia's biggest killer, overtaking heart disease for the first time to take more lives than any other ailment.
Indo-Asian News Service , August 27, 2016 13:23 IST
Apart from wasting your time, long traffic jams may cause exposure to toxic fumes, and potentially increase various health risks, including cancer, say researchers, one of them of Indian origin.
IANS , August 16, 2016 13:30 IST
In Denmark and Israel more women die from cancer than heart diseases.
IANS , August 10, 2016 19:10 IST
According to a study, obesity was more prevalent in patients who were diagnosed with cancer, particularly among survivors of colorectal and breast cancers.
NDTV Food , August 10, 2016 17:37 IST
One out of eight men and one out of nine women have the possibility of developing cancer in their lifetime, the government has revealed.
Reuters , August 09, 2016 12:45 IST
Exposure to air pollution has long been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, and a new study suggests it might also be tied to a faster death from the disease.
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New exhibit showcases reconstruction of ancient Greek temple
Observer Scene | Thursday, March 2, 2006
A majority of people envision ancient Greek temples as massive structures, like the Parthenon in Athens, surrounded by stone columns with many decorations carved into the stone on all sides of the building. What most people do not realize is that monumental structures like the Parthenon have their roots in a much older temple without stone columns and carvings, the temple of Zeus and Hera at Corinth, Greece. This temple, which was the first monumental temple in ancient Greece, is the subject of the exhibition “The Genesis of Monumental Architecture in Greece: The Corinth Project” at the Snite Museum of Art.
This exhibition, headed by Notre Dame professor Robin Rhodes, presents the architecture of the 670 B.C. temple and the means of reconstructing it. He and a team of Notre Dame architecture students began studying the remains of this ancient temple in Greece in 1995. After many years of measuring, examining and piecing together the remnants, Rhodes and his team developed a means to reconstruct how the temple might have looked. The culmination of this is set out in the “Corinth Project” exhibit.
Rhodes’ aim in the exhibit was to “create an architecture exhibit that was architecture.” He did not want his exhibit to merely display ancient Greek architecture, but he intended it to show visitors how to perform the tasks of recreating the architecture.
As visitors enter, they see simple fragments of stone blocks piled in a seemingly random order. These stones are literally the “building blocks” of the temple and were used to construct the wall. Directly next to these is a massive, nearly to scale partial recreation of what the temple wall would have looked like. A video shows how new blocks are formed in a process called “vacuum forming.” This process creates plastic replicas that look exactly like real blocks but weigh much less. This reconstruction allows visitors to see and appreciate the effort that goes into monumental architecture.
The other monumental aspect of the Corinth temple on display at the “Corinth Project” is the intricate system of interlocking roof tiles. After viewing several displays illustrating the nature and design of the tiles, visitors get to experience firsthand how Rhodes and his team were able to recreate the terra cotta tiles using modern methods. A video shows the process in real time, as actual tiles the team made are put together to show what a real roof would have looked like.
After examining the various aspects of the architecture, an interactive computer station allows one to visualize how the elements of the roof and the walls come together to form the entire temple. Finally, the entire temple is on display in the form of a 1:25 scale model.
This amazing model is accurate down to the smallest detail and is surrounded by three screens that continually depict landscapes of Greece filmed by Rhodes. Rhodes says that this is one of the most important aspects of the exhibit because visitors come to understand the “placement of this temple in the landscape for which it was constructed.”
The panorama, enhanced by the sounds of bird songs, depicts beautiful scenes of the Greek countryside and affords visitors with a sense of appreciation for the total environment of the temple at Corinth.
“The Corinth Project” is one of those rare museum exhibits that allows visitors to learn more about a topic in a hands on, instructive manner that is fun at the same time. A trip to the Snite Museum to learn more about monumental architecture at the ancient temple at Corinth is well worth it.
“The Genesis of Monumental Architecture in Greece: The Corinth Project” continues through March 21 at the Snite Museum of Art. Admission is free.
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Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine, with a population of 67,067 as of 2017. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, more than one-third of Maine's total population. Portland's economy is heavily dependent on tourism and the Old Port district is a popular destination. The Port of Portland is the largest tonnage seaport in New England. The city seal depicts a phoenix rising from ashes, which is a reference to the recoveries from four devastating fires. Portland was named after the English Isle of Portland, Dorset. The city of Portland, Oregon was named after Portland, Maine.
Native Americans originally called the Portland peninsula Machigonne ("Great Neck"). Portland, Maine, was named for the English Isle of Portland, and the city of Portland, Oregon, was in turn named for Portland, Maine. The first European settler was Capt. Christopher Levett, an English naval captain granted 6,000 acres (2,400ha) in 1623 to found a settlement in Casco Bay. A member of the Council for New England and agent for Ferdinando Gorges, Levett built a stone house where he left a company of ten men, then returned to England and wrote a book about his voyage to drum up support for the settlement. The settlement failed, and the fate of Levett's colonists is unknown. The explorer sailed from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to meet John Winthrop in 1630, but never returned to Maine. Fort Levett in the harbor is named for him.
The peninsula was first permanently settled in 1632 as a fishing and trading village named Casco. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony took over Casco Bay in 1658, the town's name changed again to Falmouth. In 1676, the village was destroyed by the Abenaki during King Philip's War. It was rebuilt. During King William's War, a raiding party of French and Native allies attacked and largely destroyed it again in the Battle of Fort Loyal (1690).
On October 18, 1775, Falmouth was burned in the Revolution by the Royal Navy under command of Captain Henry Mowat.
Learn more about Portland, ME
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Does the World Need the Jews?: Rethinking Chosenness and American Jewish Identity
Rabbi Gordis makes a vigorous attempt to reconnect U.S. Jews to their religious heritage. He argues that as they became assimilated into the mainstream, Jews gradually lost their central Jewish identity. For example, they stopped learning Hebrew and drifted away from the Torah’s teachings. They also left behind the fundamental belief in being a chosen people, because, Gordis contends, they didn’t want to be seen as different by U.S. society. He calls for Jews to no longer shy away from their chosenness and to embrace it as the only way to reclaim their “authentic voice.” It’s only in being different, he stresses, that Jews can offer something to the larger world. And this difference will be found with a return to Jewish teachings, laws, and culture. Provocative, forceful, and exquisitely reasoned, the book should spark much debate in the Jewish community.
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How did East India Company purchase goods?
Before 1865 CE, the British East India Company purchased goods in India by importing gold and silver from the Britain. The revenue collected in Bengal could finance the purchase of goods for export.
How did East India Company take over India?
Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.
What did the East India Company import from India?
Following its establishment in 1600, the East India Company’s initial trading in Asia was in spices. … Each season, the Company’s ships set out and returned to London with goods such as spices, cotton and indigo from India. The Company maintained its monopoly over the lucrative trade in tea and silk until 1833.
How did the East India company make money?
The East India Company made money by trading spices. But it expanded the range of its commodities into other things like textiles, tea, and coffee.
How did the East India Company purchase goods before 1865?
Revenue for the Company
The Company, before 1865, purchased goods in India by importing gold and silver from Britain. Now it was financed by the revenue collected in Bengal.
How did company purchase goods in India before 1863?
The British East India Company purchased goods in India before 1865 by importing gold and silver from the Britain. The British East India Company before 1865 used to saw itself as a trader and thus used to import gold and silver from Britain to purchase Indian goods.
Why was the East India Company so successful?
The main reason for the involvement and influence of the EIC in the Indian Subcontinent is trade. They first entered the region as a charted joint-stock company to conduct trade. The trade of spices had proved highly profitable and the British wanted to have a share in this market.
What did happen to Indian industries on the East India Company’s loot?
As more land came under the Company’s control it increased taxes, forcing many local people to stop growing food to support themselves, and instead grow ‘cash crops’, which could be sold to raise cash for taxes. This was often opium, which the East India Company traded for Chinese tea.
How was trade with India profitable for the East India Company?
Answer: Explanation: Trade with India was profitable for the EIC(East India Company” as India was special for them because they got lots of fresh spicefrom our country and also the got many fresh articles from here . That is what made our country special for them.
What were the major expenses of the East India Company?
Roughly it has been estimated as one trillion dollar money that was looted by the British rulers in that 200 years ruling, apart from some other wealth like gold, diamonds and raw materials which got transported. India remains as a Developing Country“.
Why was EIC interested in India?
The British East India Company came to India as traders in spices, a very important commodity in Europe back then as it was used to preserve meat. Apart from that, they primarily traded in silk, cotton, indigo dye, tea and opium. They landed in the Indian subcontinent on August 24, 1608, at the port of Surat.
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An other-worldly volcanic island at the juncture of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans in Northern Europe, Iceland is packed with poetic legends, cinematic landscapes and geothermal lagoons, the home of the awe-inspiring Northern Lights and fascinating creatures such as the Arctic Fox where an industrious and warmhearted people are passionately committed to their country and sustainable tourism within it.
Perhaps because of such interest and beauty, Iceland has become an enormously popular place to visit in a short space of time, and while this has been brilliant for many local businesses, it has also put strain on infrastructure, nature and society. This is most visible in the southwestern part of the country, largely because of the location of Keflavik Airport, the only international airport in Iceland.
Far from being phased by the situation, however, Icelanders are rising to the challenge and looking intensively at ways to manage the pressures associated with the number of people arriving. In the name of sustainable travel, they are starting to disperse visitors away from hot spots, and trying hard to better manage their scenic areas to protect them from trampling and future visitors and generations.
Karen Möller Sívertsen, manager of Visit Iceland, told itmustbeNOW Magazine: ‘We want to better inform visitors before and during their stay about Iceland’s fragile nature, how to behave responsibly as a traveller, local culture and Icelandic peculiarities’. Visitors can now use Iceland Academy, an online education tool with video classes that address everything from safe driving to local hot tub etiquette, while The Icelandic Pledge is an online agreement devised by global tourism initiative Inspired By Iceland that invites travellers to sign up to be a responsible tourist when visiting the country. The eight point pledge encourages tourists to experience Iceland the way that Icelanders do by agreeing to a set of guidelines such as, ‘when exploring new places, leave them as they are’, take photos ‘without dying for them’, to ‘never venture’ off-road (a direct call response to the total ban on off-road driving in Iceland) and to adhere to allocated campsites when ‘sleeping under the stars’.
300 Icelandic tourism companies have also agreed on a country-wide declaration on responsible tourism with some clear and simple sustainable measures to help tourism thrive in harmony with society and the environment, while a Route Development Fund has been established to encourage direct international flights to airports in North and East Iceland and take the strain off the major hub. Other initiatives have succeeded in encouraging tourists to travel off-season – mainly in the Winter months – and so reduce pressure on seasonal hot spots, particularly in and around the capital of Reykjavik and South Iceland.
EarthCheck has been working closely with 14 municipalities within Iceland to help address all these issues under its Sustainable Destinations programme. Vice President of Sales at EarthCheck André Russ, who has just returned from a field trip to the country, told itmustbeNOW Magazine: ‘We are enormously proud of the work both destinations have undertaken to achieve EarthCheck Certification. The Snæfellsnes Peninsula and Westfjords in particular are true pioneers when it comes to a community approach to the environment and are filled with passionate locals who are welcoming and really want to make a difference.’
Snaefellsnes is a 90 km long Peninsula in West Iceland that’s home to just under 4000 residents and it’s a wondrous place to visit, with a long mountain range that ends in the glacier which served as a main focus in Jules Verne’s novel ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’. About 80% of the businesses in the area are related to tourism, and the area has seen the largest year-on-year increase in the number of foreign travellers on record. To protect its future, the Snæfellsnes community took part in a massively successful ‘Reusable Snæfellsnes’ initiative in 2017 to stop using plastic and disposable containers and bags and make a conscious effort to choose reusable options instead, while a Nordic Beach Cleanup Day saw locals, schools, NGOs and other organisations get together for a beach clean-up all over the coastline which is now set to become an annual event.
Westfjords contains a third of Iceland’s coastline and is home to millions of seabirds which use its high cliffs to nest. Places like Vigur island are the base for alarmingly rare stocks of breeding puffins, while the Hornstrandir nature reserve protects the Artic Fox from hunting so it’s a great place to spot this cute, shy animal and the whole region is full of gyrfalcons, sea eagles, snowy owls and other gorgeous breeds too. To help safeguard this natural wonderland, nine municipalities of Westfjords are now working on a Green Step programme to green their workspaces and organise their daily practices in a more environmentally friendly way. The criteria becomes more challenging with every step, and the community intend to bring the initiatives into local households too.
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Renewable powerFriday, June 12, 2009
Even as India has a renewable power generation capacity of 13,878.58 MW, which is not even 10% of the total power generation capacity in the country, Sven Teske, director, renewable energy, Green Peace International says that 35% of the country’s electricity demands can be met from renewable energy by 2030.
Recently in India to release the second version of the Energy [R]evolution: A sustainable India Energy Outlook, Sven is critical of the Shell and BP plans of backtracking from previous renewable energy commitments. He remains confident that despite the downturn in the global economy, renewable energy is still the way forward.
An engineer by training, his report also makes a case for 50% of the projected energy requirement to be met from smart and efficient generation, distribution and use of energy. While India has bet big on nuclear power by signing the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Teske argues that nuclear option is unsafe and involves time and cost over-run. He also rejects the option of CO2-free coal power plants that involves carbon capture and storage on account of “unknown” consequences.
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How quickly can you multiply a matrix by an matrix, using Strassen’s algorithm as a subroutine? Answer the same question with the order of the input matrices reversed.
Let us assume and are two matrices such that: and
Hence, is a matrix equal to , where each product is a matrix.
We can calculate each product using Strassens’s algorithm in time and there are such matrices. Hence, we can compute in time.
If we reverse the order of the input matrices, we are basically calculating , which is a matrix equal to .
In this case we need to perform matrix multiplication of matrices using Straseen’s algorithm and additions to add those products. Hence, we can compute in time.
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Nearly two years after the onset of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, over 220,000 metric tons of contaminated water have been collected and stored on site, still another 75,000 tons remains in the reactor buildings. Every day at least another 40 tons of contaminated water are created, requiring additional storage tanks to be constructed.
Currently the concentrated saltwater receiving tanks are 95% filled to capacity. Currently 220,761 m3 of contaminated water is being stored, but the total capacity is only 232,000 m3.
The utility has been so far unable to prevent the contaminated water injected into the damaged reactors from flowing out of the buildings into the environment and even escaping directly into the ocean. Accumulated water levels in the Turbine Buildings are assumed to increase daily, some of the accumulation due to the interaction between the groundwater on-site and the water inside of the buildings.
Workers at Fukushima Daiichi use a water treatment system called SARRY to remove cesium prior to storing water in tanks. TEPCO is still working to complete construction of multi-nuclide removal equipment, but it is 4 months behind schedule.
The levels of radioactivity measured near the Unit 2 Sub-Drain have been on the rise since November, and while much focus has been justly applied to the continuous aerial release of radionuclides from the reactors themselves, with storage space running out it is critical to control the seeping of contamination through the local groundwater.
Source: The Denki Shimbun
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Three hundred million years ago there was a period of global warming. Two hundred million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the land, wreaking havok and spreading terror. Scientists think the two events were intimately linked.
Around three hundred million years ago, the world was a very different place. North America and Europe had a firm grip on the equator, and hadn't yet slipped upwards toward the north pole. Their equatorial placement gave the two land masses a steamy, tropical climate and lush rainforests. Sadly, trouble was brewing in paradise. The world was becoming a hotter place. Rain stopped falling, and the rainforests dried up. The long, continuous rainforests split into small patches of forest, cut off from each other by dry, impassable countryside.
This countryside isolated forests as completely as an ocean separates islands. Just as islands isolation from each other cause divergent species to evolve on them, the forests isolation caused divergent evolution of certain species. The most successful species were reptiles. Cut off from each other, facing adverse conditions, they evolved in disparate and fascinating ways . . .
And 100 million years they made the earth tremble with their footsteps. That's right, the diversity bred in that first environmental collapse appears to have started a chain that led to some of the most terrifying and fearsome predators in the planet's history. Although many links in that ancient chain are not present in the modern world, the lesson is still clear: don't mess with the earth's climate or a T-Rex might eat you.
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Occupational Health Safety
Occupational Health Safety
At the end of 1970, Congress in an effort to combat the high instances of workplace injury, sickness and death enacted legislation called the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to assure safe and healthy working conditions for all employees. Congress wrote this act as a vehicle for enforcement of the Occupational Health Safety standards outlined in the Act. The Act also had provisions providing for information, research, training and education. Congress created a 2 new Federal Agencies, one, within the U.S. Department of Labor called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to enforce and oversee provisions contained in the Act and the other the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the CDC, within the Department of Health and Human Services to provide the research, education and informational portions of the Act. President Nixon signed it into law and became Law April 1, 1971.
In our ever changing world and workplaces OSHA"s focus on traditional work sites such as factories, warehouses and construction sites has expanded. From the World trade Center"s bombings toxic air, to anthrax scares at the USPS, numerous hurricanes and natural disasters have prompted OSHA to add disaster/ emergency preparedness to its Occupational Health Safety role in the workplace.
Between 2003 and 2008 OSHA"s diligence with its enforcement, educational programs and guidance has reduced overall workplace incidences from 5 per 100 full time workers in 2003 to 3.9 incidences per 100 workers in 2009.
In 2009 the top ten OSHA violations were:
- 1. Scaffolding 9,093 violations
- 2. Fall Protection 6,771 violations
- 3. Hazard Communication including signage, MSDS and labeling 6,378 violations
- 4. Respiratory Protection 3,803 violations
- 5. Lockout/Tagout 3,321 violations
- 6. Electrical (Wiring) 3,079 violations
- 7. Ladders 3,072 violations
- 8. Powered Industrial Trucks 2,993 violations
- 9. Electrical (General) 2,556 violations
- 10. Machine Guarding 2,364 violations
Employers are more aware now more than ever of OSHA"s position on enforcing standards and continue to focus on compliance. Between 2001 and 2008, OSHA levied or suggested almost a billion dollars in penalties and made more than 60 recommendations for criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice (DOJ). New technologies like nanotechnologies present new challenges to OSHA and NOISH as workplace toxicity and possible hazards to the employee"s involved in the development and manufacture of these new never been seen before products are developed and introduced. These new technologies present a different level of research and enforcement and are a far cry from hardhats and non-slip shoe"s.
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Botany of the Pacific Northwest Online
Whether your goal is to sustainably harvest edible plants, build pollinator friendly gardens, or simply explore your local ecology, learning basic plant identification is just the place to start!
There are over 3,000 native plant species in Washington State yet many people can’t tell a fir from a hemlock or a calyx from a corolla. This societal condition of plant blindness has led to the wasteful destruction of much of our native flora but by putting names to these plants we can begin to understand the important role each one plays in keeping our planet healthy and well fed.
This presentation will cover different strategies for beginner plant ID, common plant families of the PNW, and the growing need for citizen scientists like you to monitor changing plant populations.
- Saturday, Dec 11 2021
- 11:00am - 12:00pm
- Time Zone:
- Pacific Time - US & Canada (change)
- This is an online event. Event URL will be sent via registration email.
- Whatcom READS
Time Zone: Pacific Time - US & Canada (change)
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Henry Clay Work’s “Kingdom Coming“ (also known as “Year of Jubilo”) was popular in both the North and the South, perhaps because of his ambiguously comical treatment of the plight of “contraband” liberated slaves during the War and the song’s straight-up Minstrel Show stylings:
Say, darkeys, hab you seen de massa,
Wid de muffstash on his face,
Go long de road some time dis morning’,
Like he gwine to leab de place?
He seen a smoke way up de ribber,
Whar de Linkum gunboats lay;
He took his hat, an’ let’ berry sudden,
An’ I spec’ he’s run away!
De massa run? ha, ha!
De darkey stay? ho, ho!
It mus, be now de kingdom comin’
An’ de year Jubilo!
He six foot one way’ two foot tudder,
An, he weigh t’ree hundred pound,
His coat so big, he couldn’t pay de tailor,
An’ it won’t go half way round.
He drill so much, dey call him Cap’an,
An’ he get so drefful tanned,
I spec’ he try an’fool dem Yankees,
For to tink he’s contraband.
De darkeys feel so berry lonesom,
Libing in de log-House on de lawn,
Dey move dar tings to massa’s parlor,
For to keep it while he’s gone,
Dars wine an’ cider in de kitchen,
An’ de darkeys dey’ll hab some;
I spose dey’ll all be cornfiscated,
When de Linkum sojers come.
De oberseer he make us trouble,
An’ he dribe us round a spell,
We lock him up in the smoke-House cellar,
Wid de key trown in de well.
De whip is lost, de han-cuff broken,
But de massa’ll hab his pay,
He’s ole enuff, big enuff, ought to know better
Dan to went, an’ run away.
Regarding the “contraband” situation, it is instructive to read Gen. Butler‘s letter to Secretary of War Cameron on this subject, as printed in the New York Times (6 August, 1861):
… I have therefore now within the Peninsula, this side of Hampton Creek, 900 negroes, 300 of whom are able-bodied men, 30 of whom are men substantially past hard labor, 175 women, 225 children under the age of 10 years, and 170 between 10 and 18 years, and many more coming in. The questions which this state of facts present are very embarrassing.
First — What shall be done with them? and, Second, What is their state and condition?
Upon these questions I desire the instructions of the Department. …
(Note the appearance of NH’s own “Major-Gen. DIX” in the opening paragraph of said letter.)
The following songsheet includes a bonus lyric, “That’s What’s the Matter” (sung to the tune “Wait for the Wagon”), which recounts several topical news items of the day with humor and patriotic spirit:
Work later composed a sequel to this song, entitled “Babylon is Fallen”…
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Life Expectancy of Piston-Type Pumps and Motors
FLUID POWER - Design Data Sheet 29
Information in this issue applies only to piston-type hydraulic
pumps and motors. Additional information on gear and vane-type
pumps and motors will be presented in a later issue. Most of the
information applies to both pumps and hydraulic motors, but for the
sake of convenience, the term "pump" will be used throughout.
When selecting a hydraulic pump for a specific application, a
designer should arrive at a good balance between cost of the pump
and its expected life. Every pump has a certain number of
"operating hours" built into it, and when these hours are "used
up", the pump can be expected to fail, and must be replaced. The
number of operating hours built into a pump is directly related to
its cost, and the user gets pretty much just what he pays for.
"Cheap'' pumps are designed for applications where the
anticipated pump life will equal or surpass the operating life of
the machine on which the pump is used. It would be unwise to
purchase an expensive pump for these applications. But on machines
designed to operate reliably for many years, or in situations where
a pump breakdown would be very costly in terms of lost time or
production output, it would be foolish to purchase a "cheap" pump.
On these applications, a better quality pump should be selected,
and while such a pump would cost more, it would save a great deal
of money during the life of the machine.
It is the purpose of this sheet to consider the factors which
influence pump life, to aid the designer to make a good balance
between pump cost and life expectancy.
Life Rating of a Pump
To use the information in this data sheet, the pump manufacturer
should be required to furnish a life rating for the pump under
consideration. This will be a statement of expected operating hours
at a pressure of (so many) PSI, and a speed of (so many) RPM. This
information is based on shaft bearing life expectancy, and is as
far as the manufacturer can go. The rest is up to the designer, and
it is his responsibility to see that circuit conditions which
prolong pump life are observed. These are enumerated on the back
side of this sheet.
These two factors have the greatest influence on shaft bearing
- Speed. Bearing life is in approximate inverse
proportion to shaft RPM. For example, by reducing shaft speed to
one-half, pump life expectancy is doubled.
- Pressure. Pump life varies inversely as the
cube of side load on the shaft bearing, and this is directly
related to hydraulic pressure, PSI, on the pump outlet port.
- For example: If
system pressure is reduced to one-half, bearing life will be
increased by the cube of 2, or 8 times.
- Another example: If
system pressure were to be raised from 4,000 to 5,000 PSI, a factor
of 1.25 times original pressure, bearing life would be reduced by
the cube of 1.25, or by 51%.
- Therefore, to increase life
expectancy, both speed and
pressure must be kept to moderate values.
Life Expenditure of a Pump
Life of a pump, based on bearing life expectancy, is figured on
the actual time during which the pump is running at the pressure
and speed on which the rating is based. The time during which the
pump is running unloaded or at, say less than half rated pressure,
as when advancing or retracting a cylinder, is not counted as life
expenditure. For example, if pump life rating is 3000 hours, this
means 3000 hours running under manufacturer's specified
Estimating Pump Life Expenditure
Example: Calculate the number of hours expended
in the life of a pump over a year's operation consisting of 8 hours
a day, 252 days per year, if the pump is operating on a duty cycle
of 5 seconds under full pressure, followed by 25 seconds running
unloaded or at low pressure advance and retract of a cylinder.
Solution: Each cycle is 5 + 25 = 30 seconds.
Life expenditure each cycle is 5 ÷ 20 = 0.167 or 16.7% of total
Running time in a year is 8 × 252 = 2,016 hours, of which 16.7%
is life expenditure. Pump life used up in a year's operation is
2,016 × 0.167 = 336.67 hours.
Manufacturer's Life Rating
As previously stated, the life rating of any pump can be obtained
from the Engineering Department of its manufacturer. This will be
stated as (so many) hours operation at a stated pressure and speed.
This rating can then be adjusted for other speeds and pressures
following the rules already given which pertain to speed and
Example: A certain piston pump is rated for
operation at speeds to 3,000 RPM and pressures to 5,000 PSI. These
are catalog maximums. But its rated life is 10,000 hours at 2,000
RPM and 3,000 PSI. Find its life expectancy at other speeds and
The chart below has been calculated for this particular pump
using the rules previously stated:
The chart shows that pump life will be reduced to 1,440 hours if
operated simultaneously at maximum pressure and maximum speed. But
if run at reduced conditions of 2,000 PSI and 1,000 RPM, it would
have the fantastic life rating of 67,500 hours. Similar charts can
be prepared for any pump.
Factors Which Affect Pump Life
The factors affecting pump life listed on this page will serve as
a checklist. Most of them are well known to designers and do not
need lengthy comment.
If circuit conditions are otherwise ideal, most piston pump (and
motor) failures are because the shaft bearings have reached the end
of their natural life. The pump manufacturer has stated the
expected bearing life under specified conditions of speed and
pressure. Beyond this, he has no control of operating conditions in
the system. It is then up to the system designer to provide
favorable operating conditions. If he does not, then it is not the
fault of the pump if it prematurely and unexpectedly fails. For
maximum pump life the following factors should be considered:
- Oil cleanliness. Oil filtration should not be
limited to a 150 uM pump suction strainer, but should also include
a pressure or return line filter of 10 uM rating or better. Recent
tests have shown that by using a filter of 3 uM absolute rating
rather than 10 uM, pump life is significantly increased. Whether to
go to the expense of extra fine filtration depends on how much it
will cost to replace the pump, and how much a production shut-down
may cost while the pump is being replaced.
- Side Load on the Pump Shaft. No matter whether
or not the pump is catalog-rated for shaft load, any appreciable
side or end load will always reduce pump bearing life to some
extent. No general rules can be given for the effect of these shaft
loads; this information must be obtained from the pump
manufacturer. On some applications the natural life of the bearings
is so long that additional side or end loading can be tolerated and
a satisfactory pump life still obtained.
- To minimize side load against the
shaft, observe these rules when installing pumps with side
- Mount the gear or sheave on the pump
shaft as close as possible to the front face of the pump case, and
install with hub facing AWAY from pump case, to
reduce the amount of flexing or bending of the shaft.
- The gears or sheaves on the pump shaft should be of as large
diameter as practical. The larger the diameter, the less the side
load at the same torque.
- 3. Oil Temperature.
The harmful effects of excessive oil temperature are pretty well
known. Heat produces contamination, premature wear or degeneration
of rubber seals, excessive mechanical wear in the pump, etc. Where
possible, oil temperature should be controlled with a heat
exchanger if necessary.
- 4. Cavitation.The
harmful effects of pump inlet cavitation are also pretty well known
- pump wear due to wire drawing, mechanical wear, heat, etc. The
next chart shows the maximum inlet vacuum which is permitted by
most pump manufacturers:
||3 to 5
||2 to 3
|Vacuum, In. Hg.
||6 to 10
||4 to 6
- 5. Misalignment of Pump
Shaft. When direct-driving a pump from an engine or
electric motor shaft, even a small amount of uncorrected
misalignment can very quickly ruin the pump bearings. The obvious
remedy here is to very carefully align the two shafts.
- 6. Pump Relief
Valve.The relief valve, especially in systems using a
series-connected flow control valve, should be set to the lowest
relieving pressure which will serve the circuit. Excessive
pressure, during the feed cycle, reduces pump life. When using
pressure compensated pumps, unload them to near zero pressure in
valve neutral rather than deadheading them to zero flow at maximum
pressure. Operation at maximum pressure, even though not pumping a
flow of oil, counts as running time when estimating pump life. With
fixed displacement pumps, they should be unloaded to low pressure
when the system is not actively working.
Download a PDF of Fluid
Power Design Data Sheet 29 - Life Expectancy of Piston-Type
Hydraulic Pumps and Motors.
© 1990 by Womack Machine Supply Co. This
company assumes no liability for errors in data nor in safe and/or
satisfactory operation of equipment designed from this
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Origin of soldiering
- a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped female ants or termites specialized, as with powerful jaws, to defend the colony from invaders.
- a similar member of a caste of worker bees, specialized to protect the hive.
verb (used without object)
Origin of soldier
Examples from the Web for soldiering
Contemporary Examples of soldiering
Reprinted with permission from WWII: A Chronicle of Soldiering by James Jones, published by the University of Chicago Press.Blood in the Sand: When James Jones Wrote a Grunt’s View of D-Day
November 15, 2014
But the confusion points to more serious problems with how our society thinks about both sex and soldiering.Why These Marines Love ‘Frozen’—and Why It Matters
Aaron B. O’Connell
June 27, 2014
But there are two other candidates as well who are soldiering along without any national attention.Nebraska’s GOP Cage Match
March 21, 2014
As a teenager he developed a passion for soldiering, or, rather, the idea of it.Proof of Life: America’s last POW
January 16, 2014
ABC is soldiering on with the series, even though, with the loss of Oh, it will be on creative life support.Pull the Plug on 'Grey's Anatomy'
August 16, 2013
Historical Examples of soldiering
Those months passed pleasantly, and will ever be remembered as the best part of our three years' soldiering.Campaign of the Fourteenth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers
J. Newton Terrill
He loves the noise of soldiering—he do; and if he thought you was going away without him, he'd break his heart, Mr. Cecil, sir.Under Two Flags
Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
General Sterling Price was a civilian who by natural inclination turned to soldiering.The Civil War Through the Camera
Henry W. (Henry William) Elson
He had studied his trade of soldiering since he was old enough to talk.A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines
Or, to a friend of soldiering days: "Four blackguard boys and only a brace of the Plentiful Sex!"Mount Music
E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
- a person who serves or has served in an army
- Also called: common soldiera noncommissioned member of an army as opposed to a commissioned officer
- an individual in a colony of social insects, esp ants, that has powerful jaws adapted for defending the colony, crushing large food particles, etc
- (as modifier)soldier ant
Word Origin for soldier
c.1300, souder, from Old French soudier, soldier "one who serves in the army for pay," from Medieval Latin soldarius "a soldier" (cf. Spanish soldado, Italian soldato and French soldat "soldier," which is borrowed from Italian), literally "one having pay," from Late Latin soldum, extended sense of accusative of Latin solidus, name of a Roman gold coin (see solidus). The -l- has been regular in English since mid-14c., in imitation of Latin. Willie and Joe always say sojer in the Bill Mauldin cartoons, and this seems to mirror 16c.-17c. spellings sojar, soger, sojour.
"to serve as a soldier," 1640s, from soldier (n.). Related: Soldiered; soldiering. To soldier on "persist doggedly" is attested from 1954.
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Jaisalmer nicknamed “The Golden city”, is a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located 575 kilometres (357 mi) west of the state capital Jaipur. It is a World Heritage Site. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain temples. Many of the houses and temples are finely sculptured. It lies in the heart of the Thar Desert (Great Indian Desert) and has a population of about 78,000. Jaisalmer is named after Maharawal Jaisal Singh, a Rajput king who founded the city in 1156 AD. Jaisalmer” means “the Hill Fort of Jaisal”. Jaisalmer is sometimes called the “Golden City of India” because the yellow sand and the yellow sandstone used in every architecture of the city gives a yellowish-golden tinge to the city and its surrounding area. It is the largest district of Rajasthan and one of the largest in the country. on the west & south-west by the Pakistani border,. The length of international border attached to Jaisalmer District is 471 km (293 mi).
The maximum summer temperature is around 41.6 °C (106.9 °F) while the minimum is 25 °C (77 °F). The maximum winter temperature is usually around 23.6 °C (74.5 °F) and the minimum is 7.9 °C (46.2 °F). The average rainfall is 209.5 millimetres (8.25 in). Water is scarce, and generally Brackish, which means water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. the average depth of the wells is said to be about 250 feet (76 m). There are no perennial streams, and only one small river, the Kakni, which, after flowing a distance of 48 kilometres (30 mi), spreads over a large surface of flat ground, and forms Lake Orjhil (“The Bhuj-Jhil”). The climate is dry. Throughout Jaisalmer only raincrops, such as bajra, jawar, motif, til, etc., are grown; spring crops of wheat, barley, etc., are very rare. Musicians and dancers are a major cultural export from Jaisalmer to the rest of the world. Merasi (formerly manganiyar, a derogatory term meaning “beggar”) musicians have played the world over, and Queen Harish, the dancing desert drag queen, is touring the world and has featured in international movies. Jaisalmer district is blessed with art, architecture, culture and traditions which are colourful. The folk music of this desert area is an amazing combination of traditions and classical music which gives you a taste of the desert life. In spite of the life being very difficult, it is interesting to see that the people are satisfied and happy. The language, culture and traditions of the people of the district are influenced by the culture of the neighbouring Sindh area. Go for a camel safari through the sand dunes. Visit the Gadsisar Lake which is a popular hangout for birds and water-lovers alike. Do visit the Desert National Park, which is one of a kind. Other places to visit are the Jaisalmer fort and a number of Havelis to experience the old-world charm. Jaisalmer also has a number of handicrafts and antique shops. Jaisalmer Fort is one of the largest fortifications in the world. It is situated in the city of Jaisalmer. It is a World Heritage Site. It was built in 1156 AD by the Rajput ruler Rawal Jaisal, from whom it derives its name. The fort stands amidst the sandy expanse of the great Thar Desert, on Trikuta Hill, and has been the scene of many battles. Its massive yellow sandstone walls are a tawny lion colour during the day, fading to honey-gold as the sun sets, thereby camouflaging the fort in the yellow desert. For this reason, it is also known as the Sonar Quila or Golden Fort. Ghadsisar (Lake): is a rainwater lake which supplies water to the city. Sar means a lake. King Ghadsi of Jaisalmer got it made 650 years ago with the help of the people. It is surrounded by temples and tombs of saints.
Jain Temple: There are seven beautifully carved temples built inside the fort walls. These temples were built between the 12th century to 15th century. All the temples are connected by walkways and corridors. It is compulsory to remove your shoes and all other leather articles (belts, wallets, purses, etc.) before entering any Jain temple. The very first temple which a tourist can visit is dedicated to Chandraprabhu, who is the eighth tirthankar (Jain God). The symbol of the God Chandraprabhu is the moon. This temple was built in 1509. It is built with fine stones.
Havelis: Patwon-ki-Haveli is a ten-minute walk from the main gates of the fort and quite magnificent. It’s a collection of five houses, each one for the son of a wealthy trader who made money lending to the government. One of the havelis (closest to the street) has been restored and turned into a government museum. Expect to spend two hours there.
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The Uses Of Accounting Information For Decision Making In Public Sector
1.1 Background to the Study
Accounting information is the language of business as it is the basic tool for recording, reporting and evaluating economic events and transactions that affect business enterprises. It processes all documents of a business financial performance from payroll, cost, capital expenditure and other obligations to sale revenue and owners’ equity. It provides financial information about ones business to the internal and external users, such as managers, investors and others. It is sometimes referred to as a means to an end, with the ending being the decision that is helped by the availability of accounting information (Arneld & Hope, 2009). The making of decision, as everyone knows from personal experience is a burdensome task (Wada, 2006). In most cases indecision is as disastrous as making a wrong one, therefore a plan of action is indispensable. Management is constantly confronted with the problem of alternative decision making especially knowing that resources are alternatively scarce and limited. It is therefore pertinent that good accounting information be made available for proper and accurate decision making, maximization of profitability and optimal utilization of scarce resources. Accounting information is not only necessary for evaluation of the past and keeping the present on course; it is useful in planning the future of the enterprise. According to Mbanefo (1997), planning may conventionally be call budget/budgeting targets, which give meaning and direction to operations of the organization within a defined period. At the end of the budget period the external results are compared with budgeted performance and discrepancies (variance) are analyzed for purposes of exposing the causes so as to prevent re-occurrence. Budgeting uncovers potential bottlenecks before they occur, coordinates the activities of the entire organization by integrating the plans and objectives of various parts. The budget ensures that the plans and objectives of the parts are in consistency with the broad goals of the organization. It compels managers to think ahead before formalizing their planning efforts and finally provides defined goals and objectives which serve as benchmarks for evaluation of subsequent performance.
Management uses both financial and non-financial information to make effective decisions that would help achieve the goals and objectives of the organization (Melisssa Bushman, 2007). Financial information used by management accountants include sale growth, profits, return on capital employed and market shares, non-market shares, non-financial information include customer satisfaction level, production quality, performance of competing products and customer loyalty. Decision making is however, the choosing of alternative courses of action using cognitive processes. Making decision is necessary when there is no one clear course of action to follow. Accounting systems can aid decision making by providing information relevant to the decision and to the decision makers. Accounting systems provides a check for the validity through the process of auditing and accountability (Gray et al., 2006). Effective and efficient accounting information plays a central role in management decision making.
- Statement of Research Problem
Generally, the use of accounting information is indispensable for decision making in any business organization. The problem however lies in the quality and validity of the information, that is, if it’s timely, adequate and clear. According to the report of the Joint Auditor’s First Bank Annual Report and Account (2000/2001 page 30) falsified accounting information was the reason for many failed banks in Nigeria. The major purpose of the use of accounting information is to maximize risk, failure and uncertainties and also stay ahead of competitors. Notwithstanding the immense benefit of use of accounting information, it is generally acknowledged that most unqualified accountants generate inaccurate information and so result in failure of organizations to achieve desired goal. There are cases of managers refusing the use of accounting information because of their inability to interpret such data, thereby making the organization to remain at ‘status quo ante’. These problems largely contribute to the failure of the use of accounting information in business with the result that inaccurate decisions are made to the detriment of the organization. It is against these backdrops that this study is being conducted.
- Research Questions
The study is poised towards providing answers to the following research questions
- Does accounting information have any effect on management decisions?
- Is there any relationship between the perception of the employees and accounting information of the firm?
- Does accounting information affect the performance of the company positively or negatively?
- Objective of the studies
The main objective of this research study is to examine the Use of Accounting Information as a management tool for decision making in the context of Dangote Group Plc. However, the specific objectives of the study are to:
- Assess if accounting information have any effect on management decision.
- Examine if there is any relationship between the perception of the employees and accounting information of the firm.
- Evaluate whether accounting information affect the company performance positively or negatively.
- Research Hypotheses
The following Null hypotheses are advanced and shall be tested in the course of the study
Ho: Accounting information does not have any effect on management decision making
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the perception of employees and accounting information
Ho: Accounting information does not have any effect on the company’s performance.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This research work will be useful to the people in the academic field, readers, and knowledge seekers and will also be of great relevance to the oil and gas industry in the area of managerial decisions and performance appraisal.
This research work will also contribute to the knowledge of Accountants and other financial managers as it will assist them on effective planning and control in areas of accounting information in making effective management decisions and how to devise strategic moves in meeting with the stated goals and objectives of the organization and the environment at large.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The study area of this research work is concerned with the use of accounting information as a management tool for decision making within the context of Dangote Group Nigeria Plc as case study.
Brief Historical Background of Dangote Group Nigeria Plc.
The company was established in May 1981 as a trading business with an initial focus on cement, the Group diversified over time into conglomerate trading cement, sugar, flour, salt and fish. By early 1990s, the Group had grown into one of the largest trading conglomerate operating in the country. In 1999, following the transition to civilian rule and after an inspirational visit to Brazil to study the emerging manufacturing sector, the Group made a strategic decision to transit from a trading based business into a fully-fledged manufacturing operation. In a country where imports constitute the vast majority of consumed goods, a clear gap existed for a manufacturing operation that could meet the ‘basic needs’ of a vast and fast growing population.
The Group embarked on an ambitious construction programme, initially focused on the construction of flour mills, a sugar refinery and a pasta factory. In year 2000 the Group acquired the Benue cement company Plc from the Nigerian government and in year 2003 commissioned the obajana cement plant; the largest cement plant in sub-Sahara Africa. The Group is now one of the largest manufacturing conglomerates in sub-Sahara Africa and is pursuing further backward integration alongside an expansion programme in existing and new sectors.
1.8 Plan of the Study
This research work is divided into five Chapters one elucidate the background to the study, research objectives, hypothesis testing, research question etc.
Chapter Two concentrate on review of relevant literature, conceptual review, empirical studies review and theoretical framework.
Chapter three Concentrate on introduction of research methodology, research methods, sources of data collection (questionnaire), data analysis, population of study etc.
Chapter Four looks at data presentation, analysis and interpretation while
Chapter 5, contains introduction, summary, findings, recommendation based findings and conclusion.
1.9 Operational Definition of Terms
- Accounting: Accounting can be defined as an art of recording, summarizing, reporting, and analyzing financial transactions (Stan Snyder, 1997).
- Information: This can be defined as a stimuli that has meaning in some context for its receiver (Adeolu, 2001)
- Management: This is the art of working particularly through people, for the achievement of the broad goals of an organization (Ejiofor, 1987).
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We produce about 20 percent of our electricity from 104 nuclear reactors. This constitutes about 30 percent of all nuclear generated electricity in the world. There are some 30 different power companies operating several different reactor designs. There have been essentially no new reactors since the core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
With increasing concern over global warming, even some in the environmental community have been rethinking nuclear power as a source of “green” energy. There are several impediments to increased reliance on nuclear power. The inherent risks associated with possible catastrophic failure, safe waste disposal and diversion of nuclear material to terrorists are just three. This demands a very high level of governmental control and backing of the industry.
Even if the risk of catastrophic failure is slight, the cost if it occurs is far beyond the capacity of an individual power company to handle. Even the cost of insurance to insure against such risk prices nuclear power off the market. The reason nuclear power came to be in the United States is due to socialism. Taxpayers funded the research that developed the industry and taxpayers insure the industry to the tune of billions of dollars a year, through the Price Anderson Act and subsequent amendments .
The cost and risk of nuclear power could be reduced through even more heavy-handed regulation by the government. Many other countries have standardized reactor design. Not so here. Arkansas Nuclear One Russellville Arkansas operated by Entergy , for example, has two reactors designed by different companies, requiring two different control rooms, operational staffs, procedures, cooling methods, etc.
Even with better standardized reactor design and tighter federal control, risks still exist. A couple of examples are instructive. Most are aware of the Three Mile Island and Fukishima disasters, but near disasters are less well known.
A near failure occurred at a Brown’s Ferry reactor near Athens, Ala., due to the use of a candle to detect an air leak. Electricians were attempting to find air leaks in an area adjacent to the control room. This was a room where all the wiring from the control room was routed out to the reactor elements. Although there are safer methods to detect air leaks, they chose to use a candle, which set insulation on fire, causing a short in the control room wiring between the control room and the reactors. For several hours, the reactors ran at full power, completely out of control of the operators.
Another accident occurred at a Salem reactor in New Jersey. A major circuit in the control room failed, cutting off power to a reactor coolant feed pump and the control room. The lights in the control room went out briefly until emergency power kicked in. An operator realized that the reactor should be turned off — and here is where it gets bizarre: He reached for the main reactor trip switch, but the handle came off in his hand. In his defense, he was new on the job and unfamiliar with the control board. Feel safer now?
Regardless of how well-designed the safety systems are, human error can contravene the best plans. Use of a candle and a broken handle could have cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Nuclear power may have a future, but only with a massive federal bureaucracy to control it and massive taxpayer subsidization to sustain it.This is definitely not a prescription for limited government and low taxes: this is European Style Socialism.
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The angle between True North and the projection of the magnetic field vector to the horizontal plane, it varies from location to location and through time. It is measured positive east and negative west. Along with magnetic declination this defines the orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field at any given location. This is required to correct any data with an assigned magnetic orientation (e.g. magnetic single or multishot surveys) and allows the correct presentation of such data in relation to true north.
Borehole image and dipmeter tools need to be oriented in space. Orientation is completed by measuring the Earth’s magnetic field (of known orientation) using three mutually perpendicular magnetometers to record the Earth’s magnetic field relative to the tool axis. Tool orientation is then calculated.
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11 Ways to Improve Your Home’s Air Quality
Indoor allergens and pollutants hit their peak in the winter when homes are sealed against the cold. Follow these steps for healthier air.
Mold and mildew thrive in humid areas. Try to keep the humidity level in your home below 50% (you may want to purchase a dehumidifier), and always ensure proper ventilation in damp areas, such as bathrooms. This helps prevent mold, dust mites, and -- worst of all -- cockroaches.
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As our children continue to suffer detrimental effects from the baseless restrictions set upon them by the CDC, BESE, local, state, and federal governments, we must formulate our own exit strategies. We must use the extensive volumes of publicly available data to come to understand our own risk, even if the CDC consistently and intentionally obfuscates that. With that information, we must do our best to provide temporary accommodations to those who are at higher risk, as well as those whom the CDC has scared into believing that they are. Doing this will set us on a clear path to return our children to a world that will allow them the freedom to develop healthfully.
To that end, the following is a phased plan for schools to un-mask. This plan allows people to opt-in or out, depending on their real or perceived risk.
- Provide individual choice: All students and staff should be given the choice to wear a mask or not.
- Easing in period for students with lower risk tolerance: Parents who are uncomfortable with their children going to school un-masked should be allowed to continue remote instruction for 8-12 weeks during this transition period. Available data on child risk should be communicated, as should be the limited transmission from children to adults, and the health benefits older adults enjoy from their exposure to children. The other side of the mask argument ought also be presented honestly (i.e. that a large body of research shows no decrease in viral transmission, and potentially increased transmission).
- Easing-in period for faculty with lower risk tolerance: For faculty and staff who are uncomfortable teaching with un-masked children, they should be provided with accommodations for 8-12 weeks where they teach remotely to students who are in-person. Parent volunteers, or aides with higher risk tolerance should be present to facilitate this type of learning, and maintain an orderly environment conducive to learning.
- Easing-in period for staff with lower risk tolerance: Staff whose jobs cannot be done remotely but are, or consider themselves, higher risk ought first to be offered staggered shifts (i.e. at times when children and teachers are not in class). If this is not feasible (e.g. cafeteria staff, school nurse, etc.), they should be offered temporary paid leave (8-12 weeks). Because transmission is much higher in the community than in schools, such leave ought to be predicated on signing sworn affidavits that they would adhere to the CDC’s recommendations, (which are, sadly, tantamount to house arrest) leaving the house only for outdoor exercise, medical and grocery store visits. Violation of those precepts would nullify the contract. These accommodations should only be offered, so long as the person is unable to get the vaccine. They ought also to be nullified in the event that even with such precautions, the person contracts COVID-19, as subsequently, they would enjoy natural immunity. These arrangements should not be expected to extend beyond a fixed period of time, which is intended more as an observation period to allow such people to gain confidence in the level of transmission within the school in an un-masked, un-distanced period.
- Encourage those who wish to wear masks to wear fit-tested N-95s. pointing out the serious concerns of many researchers that even these may offer only limited protection for COVID-19. People who are at serious risk, should consider remote options.
- Offer other reasonable precautions to faculty or staff, as requested, so long as these do not involve the imposition of unreasonable restrictions on others, (including but not limited to, masks, teaching outside on cold or rainy days, open windows when the temperature is below 40 degrees). These might include things like plexi-glass enclosures for teachers, moving children’s desk closer together so that teachers can be at a greater distance from them, fans directing airflow away from teachers and towards students, etc. Schools ought to be open to teacher suggestions. But such accommodations ought also to be coupled with the caveat that we remain unsure of the utility of such measures, and that if the person is truly at-risk, then the temporary remote option would be by far the safer option for them.
- During this 8-12 week period, people who are symptomatic should be tested, and if positive, the community notified. Contact with the infected person should not result in quarantine, unless the contact also becomes symptomatic. The WHO’s shorter 1 week guidelines (or until no longer symptomatic–whichever is longer) for quarantine ought also to be adopted. Community notification would serve the purpose not of forcing all contacts into quarantine, but of warning those at higher risk (or lower risk tolerance). This would then allow them to temporarily opt-in to remote options.
- After this 8-12 week period, all staff and students should return to normal operations. If, in some future period, cases of COVID or flu were once again to start spiking due to seasonal or other factors, these temporary measures might be re-introduced for those at higher risk or with lower risk tolerances.
- A return to normal should not be predicated on children receiving the vaccine, or some percent of teachers having gotten it. Because the vaccine is under emergency use authorization, it will likely be more than a year before it is approved for use in children. Further, their low risk profile makes the cost-benefit analysis very different for them. Additionally, the extremely high efficacy of the vaccines (95%), means that those people who are concerned will be protected by the vaccine. These people are further protected by the 100 million+ Americans who have gotten and recovered from COVID-19 as of March (CDC data is only through 12/31/21), and by the nearly 100 million people who have received the vaccine (60% of the population).
American Public Health has failed the American Public for over a year, refusing to inhabit reality, and not considering the American Public in any aspect of their response. Thus, it is incumbent on the public to come up with our own solutions . Compounding the problem, the medical and public health community has silenced those within its ranks who disagree with their utopian totalitarianism. We know this, because we receive daily messages from MDs, PhDs, MD/PhDs, and MPHs who are furious at the total destruction of their disciplines from within. These recommendations have been submitted for their review and have received enthusiastic endorsement. Those who have not been silenced, are only able to speak because they placate and repeat the CDC’s data-free dictates, which will result in children being masked the longest, despite data that children, personally, are not at risk, a large body of evidence that they are not major drivers of transmission, and overwhelming evidence that masks–particularly the way children wear them–do not work to limit viral transmission. This blind obstinance will result in children being masked and distanced into perpetuity (or until it becomes painfully clear that masks don’t work to stop the flu–which children do spread, and which does kill their grandparents).
As John Ioannidis has said, “medicine has now become the enemy of health.” In order to remedy this, public health officials must resume their rightful position as public servants who provide information and guidance, rather than dictates, threats, restrictions, and punishments. Restoring this balance will restore trust in public health, and improve health outcomes. In the current modality, where un-elected public health officials have been given god-like power and prestige, there is no incentive for them to provide accurate information. They do not guide, they rule. Rulers don’t give information, they give commands. To the extent they give information, it is to justify their commands. This is exactly how the CDC has behaved since March. In the absence of the ability to compel, you must inform. Thus, in order to get the CDC and other public health organizations to begin accurately informing us, we must strip them of their power to command us. The moment this is done, we will all have better information, and a public health apparatus that serves us—not the other way around.
So join us in this fight to save our children and their health. Because #SmilesAreEssential
For more information, please visit The Smile Project website:
Part 2: Understanding Relative Risk
An ENORMOUS thanks to Emily Burns, founder of The Smile Project for letting us use her action plan!
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Johanne Sebastian Bach was active in composition during the 18th century and during this time he specialised in two different genres of keyboard music. One was his organ music, the best known of which includes the six Schubler Chorales. The other was his music for keyboard.
There were in Bach's day a number of different keyboard instruments. One of course was the organ, which was usually only available in churches, just as it is today. Other instruments which could more commonly be found in homes included the spinet, the clavicord and the harpsichord. In the early part of the 19th century the fortepiano (as opposed to the pianoforte of today) was in its very early stages of development from the Cristofori workshop. Bach is known to have heard one in about 1736 and not to have cared for the sound, but later in the 1750s he is known to have approved of the instrument. Until about the 1760s when Zumpe's cheaper and more portable fortepianos became available, the fortepiano was only to have been found in royal houses with a known interest in music, such as that of Portugal where the composer Domenico Scarlatti wrote his keyboard sonatas for one of the princesses.
As for the quieter and smaller clavicord, this would have been common. Mozart is known to have taken one on his travels for practise and composition during journeys. Spinets and harpsichords would also have been relatively widely available.
It is for this reason that Bach's keyboard music is just that and is not marked for any specific instrument. We do not know whether he would have approved his music being played on a piano and certainly most "authentic" performances of Bach's keyboard works today are on the harpsichord. Even the continuo part in a Bach period orchestra is almost always taken by the harpsichord. However to my mind performances on the piano are equally valid provided care is taken with the edition used. The Henle Verlag edition of Bach's 48 preludes and fugues is an excellent one to start with if you wish to learn his music on the piano as it is as near to urtext as you can get.
Bach's music is wonderful for students as there is such a lot to learn from one of his pieces in terms of interpretation and technique. There is no such thing as an easy Bach piece, all require diligence and practice. However, today most students wishing to learn his works will only have access to a piano and it would be a pity indeed to deny them the opportunity of such study simply because they don't have harpsichords on which to play the music.
There are a number of good interpretations of Bach's music available today but by far my favourite is Wanda Landowska's performance of the 48 preludes and fugues, plus her recording of the Italian Concerto and of some of the Little Preludes and two and three part inventions. She was playing in the 1940s onwards and some of her interpretation would be considered odd today - her use of ritardando and accellerando for example would be questioned and she was using a strange edition of the music with the occasional rhythm and note not quite right - but the musicality of her playing cannot be questioned, nor her wonderful technique. Not everyone likes the growly harpsichord she plays but I think it has beautiful clear tone though I do question her use of different "stops" to change the sound style from piece to piece.
For the French and English Suites you can't go wrong with Andras Schiff. His playing is wonderfully fresh and light and again he is technically superb. If you can get hold of the recording of him playing the Two and Three Part Inventions, you should grab it.
In other words, there is room in the interpretation of Bach's music for performances on both modern and authentic instruments, and what is most important is the musicality of the performance. This should remain as true to Bach's music as is possible, given a good musical, preferably Urtext, edition of the scoring and an intelligent, skilled practitioner.
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When Robots Become Too Real: Our Uncanny Perception of Robots in Light of Autistic Traits
Year of study:
In the ever-growing world of technology, the prospect of engineering and designing ultra-realistic artificial agents is compelling - but comes as a double-edged sword. The uncanny valley effect (UVE) proposes that although affinity towards anthropomorphic agents grows proportionally to their human-likeness, this affinity tends to suddenly 'dip' into eeriness as that agent reaches close, but imperfect human realism. This phenomenon has gauged interest from both pop-culture and scientific fields including human-robots interaction, and even the field of autism. Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder marked by atypical social, stereotyped and sensi-motor behaviours, affecting their integration in society. Treatments under investigation demonstrate the potential of therapeutic robots; yielding significantly higher performance in developing autistic children's social skills, compared to human interventions. Remarkably, children with autism do not experience the characteristic uncanny valley 'dip' and show increased interest in robots relative to humans.
Could this difference in the UVE be extended to autism traits in a non-clinical adult population? Exploring the social cognitive and social motivational reasons why this might be the case, this exploratory research investigates the interacting effect of autistic traits in the general population on the UVE. The benefits of this approach are twofold. First, it expands our understanding of autism, its lesser variants, and genetic underpinnings, with practical applications for robot therapy in autism. Then, exploring the role of individual differences on the UVE, it informs the social, cognitive and biological roots of the UVE, while guiding the design of social robots and expanding our understanding of human nature.
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A Harvard program to retrofit a campus building and create a living laboratory for energy-efficient architecture officially opens today, aiming to develop techniques and technologies to make the built world more sustainable.
The goal of the HouseZero project, to create a building that produces more energy over its lifetime than it uses, is potentially transformative. To accomplish this, the renovated building was designed by the school’s Center for Green Building and Cities (CGBC) with strict performance targets in mind: nearly zero energy for heating and cooling, zero electric lighting during the day, operating with 100 percent natural ventilation, and producing zero carbon emissions.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Low-carbohydrate diet has a good effect not only on blood glucose, but also on physical functions, bodily pain and general health, according to a diet study including patients with type 2 diabetes.
The results of a two-year clinical trial in patients with type 2 diabetes, led by Dr Hans Guldbrand, general practitioner, and Fredrik Nystrom, professor of internal medicine at Linköping University, has previously been published in the journal Diabetologia. The trial studied the effects on blood glucose and blood lipids of a low-carbohydrate diet compared to a low-fat diet.
The 61 enrolled patients were randomly divided into two groups - one for each diet type and were expected to adhere to the respective diet throughout the study period. It was found that both diet-groups reduced weight equally but the effect on blood glucose was better in the low-carbohydrate group.
The effects of a low-carbohydrate diet and a low-fat diet on wellbeing have now been analysed in a study led by Associate Professor Margareta Bachrach-Lindström. A standardised analysis based on the SF-36 questionnaire was performed. After 12 months in the trial, the low-carbohydrate group improved in regard to the physical component, which includes physical function, bodily pain and general health. No improvements were seen in the low-fat group, despite weight loss. Mental health was similar for both groups and remained unchanged during the study period and did not differ between the groups.
"The result is interesting; it provides an additional argument that a low-carbohydrate diet is beneficial in diabetes," says Hans Guldbrand. "We also found no adverse effects on mental health with the low-carbohydrate diet, which an earlier study had indicated," he adds.
The interview with the study patients revealed that for both groups there were difficulties adhering to the diet when they ate elsewhere than at home. It could also be problems if not all family members followed the same diet. Both groups expected health gains by adhering to given dietary advice. The low-carbohydrate diet group expressed that it could be difficult to refrain from potatoes and pasta. The diet for the low-fat group was described as relatively inexpensive and tasty. Benefits of the low-carbohydrate diet were that the patients felt less hungry and that their appetite for sweets disappeared.
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There are so many techniques that are applied by the artists to make a work look attractive and unique. An artist wants to express his or her thoughts in different ways and techniques. Color washing is also such a kind of technique that has been in vogue for a long time. Color washing techniques have a rustic look, but can be used in any setting using appropriate colors. The effect works best with earthy or natural colors. Color washing works best if it is done in layers. This creates depth and warmth. Most color washed surfaces have 2-3 layers of color. Color washing can be done using either oil based or water based paints. However it is easier and quicker to use latex based paints
For color washing a base color is applied to the surface and allowed to dry completely. After the base color dries, the top coat is applied using random strokes. Each successive layer should show through the previous layer in color washing. The purpose is to let one color show through the next layer and create depth. Once the final layer dries a clear varnish can be applied for additional protection. Varnished surfaces are suitable for humid areas. The amount of color which shows in the successive layers of the color washed surface can be controlled. While color washing, care should be taken so that none of the layers are completely covered. Only the base coat can be applied using sponges, all other layers should be painted using brushes only. Color Washing is very easy and can be done without professional expertise. Color washed surfaces have a cross hatch pattern on them and create an effect of casual elegance.
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Duke University has long run a campus program to support students in moral reflection and in developing personal integrity. But this type of education - so essential later in the workplace - remains notably absent in most schools of higher learning.
Academics, of course, are the core reason for college or university. Duke, for one, doesn't neglect that side of learning. And yet, according to a new survey, more than half of all faculty in higher ed say it's important that undergraduates develop moral character and enhance their self- understanding.
The survey, conducted among 421 institutions by an ongoing project at the University of California at Los Angeles, reveals a big disconnect between teachers and students that may explain why so few schools of higher education spend much effort on character education.
Connecting moral reasoning to spiritual values is often essential in character education. And students don't shy away from telling pollsters that they want spiritual help and growth in higher ed. But their professors remain shy about giving them that. Less than a third of professors say colleges should facilitate a student's spiritual development, while a similar survey of students found nearly half say it is important that colleges encourage their personal expression of spirituality.
Discussing religion or spirituality in the classroom is indeed difficult for teachers. And yet they also know that preparing students to act morally in their chosen profession is especially critical to their career success, not to mention society at large.
The survey did find that a majority of faculty believe their own spirituality does have a role to play on campus, and 3 in 5 do consider themselves to be religious people.
But a big majority of students say their professors never encourage discussions of spirituality or religion or provide opportunities to discuss the meaning or purpose of life.
"It would appear that there is much more that colleges can do to facilitate students' spiritual development," says Alexander Astin at UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which conducted the survey.
Colleges need not resort to proselytizing, but schools such as Duke have found they can have more than honor codes or elective courses in ethics. A student's spiritual growth can be supported by such activities as writing self- reflective essays or in community service related to their studies. Many colleges are introducing "service learning," or community work that allows students to experience the ethical or moral dilemmas that they will face in their careers.
An influential education think tank, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in Stanford, Calif., has a project to look at how professional schools, from medicine to law, teach practical, moral reasoning. It found undergraduates are inspired by moral ideals but need help in working toward them. Only a few institutions integrate such learning in campus life, such as finding "teachable moments" that expand a student's heart for qualities such as compassion and integrity.
Higher ed needs to break this barrier between professors and students that keeps them from talking about an essential in real education.
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Content of arsenic and lead and 10 other potentially toxic elements (Ba, Ce, Cr, Cu, Fe,Mg,Mn, Se, Sr and Zn) was determined in tilapia and pangas from aquaculture ponds in southern Bangladesh. Tilapia had 1.6- to 4.3-fold higher content of Mn, As, Sr, and Ba than pangas, possibly caused by different feeding habits of the two fish. The other elements had similar concentrations in both species. Content of As in tilapia and pangas was 0.37 and 0.11 μg g−1, respectively, while Pb made up 0.056 and 0.051 μg g−1, respectively. Water treatment during the farming period (sand filtration and probiotic bacteria) and final depuration in groundwater for up to 48 h had no effect on content of the elements. For As, consumption of 100 g fresh fish per day contained 1.3% (pangas) and 5% (tilapia) of the maximum tolerable daily intake according to FAO recommendations. Relative to whole tilapia froma lake near Dhaka (Begumet al., 2005),muscle tissue in tilapia fromthe ponds had 3–50× lower content for Zn, Cu,Mn and Pb,while the remaining elements were similar. Thus, our results suggest that pond-raised fish in Bangladesh may be a healthier choice thanwild fish, especially if the fish originate fromfreshwater receiving untreated wastewater.
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Climate Reality Smacks, But What Change Ahead?
Iconic city grapples with new vulnerabilities as climate change exposes weaknesses ignored
Climate change is here. It has teeth. And now—with millions still out of power and a region reeling four days after Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast—the nation is realizing that nature is not going to wait as elected officials get permission or find the courage to begin speaking out about how they plan to deal with the impact of a climate in dangerous flux.
As The New York Times reported Wednesday, the warnings about rising sea levels, storm surges and the city's vulnerable infrastructure came again and again:
For nearly a decade, scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extreme weather patterns. The alarm bells grew louder after Tropical Storm Irene last year, when the city shut down its subway system and water rushed into the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan.
Despite the warnings, little or nothing was done. Now, as half the city remains crippled by power outages and a hobbled public transportation system, talk is getting serious about how one of the world's iconic cities—a major financial, cultural, and transportation hub—can transform itself for what climate scientists are calling the "new normal" of global warming and its destruction siblings, climate change and extreme weather.
As Ben Orlove, director of the master's program in Climate and Society at Columbia University, told United Press International: "Storms and tides are natural, but sea level rise is not. As it continues, New York grows more vulnerable."
"The time has come. The city is finally going to have to face this," oceanography professor Malcolm J. Bowman at Long Island's Stony Brook University told the Associated Press. Bowman has warned for years of the potential for a catastrophic storm surge in New York and has advocated for a barrier.
Politicians and elected officials—often the last to get on board with transformative thinking—are now coming to realize that their history of ignoring the warnings of climate scientists and the reality of climate change may be over.
In the last two days, as the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy grew in its aftermath, both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg—despite their immediate focus on managing the immediate disaster—have taken time to address how the state and its major metropolis might respond to the threat of ever bigger storms.
"Part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is a reality. Extreme weather is a reality. It is a reality that we are vulnerable," Cuomo said Wednesday during a news briefing after viewing storm damage in New York via helicopter. "There's only so long you can say, 'This is once in a lifetime, and it's not going to happen again.' "
The Democratic governor said the storm should be a "wake-up call" for those who argue global warming is just a political issue.
"The frequency (of extreme weather events) is way up," he said. "It is not prudent to sit here ... and say it's not going to happen again. ... It's a conversation I think is overdue."
Bloomberg was more equivocal in his comments, but also said that New York City will need to confront the new realities.
Bloomberg said: "What is clear is that the storms we've experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the world are much more severe than before."
"Whether that's global warming or what, I don't know, but we'll have to address those issues," he said.
Democrat Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, also weighed in:
“There will be some in Washington who say we shouldn’t do this,” said Schumer. “We expect everybody – Democrats, Republicans, people from everywhere around the country — to rally by our side … We cannot cut corners. We cannot count nickels and dimes. This is not just a New York disaster, a New Jersey disaster, a Connecticut disaster — this is a national disaster and it needs to be treated that way.”
On the subject of climate change, Schumer said there was “a group of people in Washington who just deny the truth.”
“We’re going to pay a price for the change in climate in one of two ways. We’ll either have to totally re-adapt our city…or we can take the bull by the horns and deal with the issue,” he said.
Looking beyond New York City, the PBS Newshour looked at how other US cities and regions are (or are not) planning to deal with the growing threat of climate change:
# # #
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Keeping your voice healthy will ensure you are able to communicate properly, and for some people who rely on it to earn a living – singers, teachers and lawyers, for instance – good voice health is essential. These same individuals tend to put more strain on their vocal cords.
Even those whose professions don’t require constant speaking still suffer when experiencing voice-related health issues. It is estimated that 7.5 million people experience voice disorders.
Understanding How the Voice Works
The vocal folds, groups of muscle tissue in the larynx, are normally open to allow breathing. When you speak they close, while air from the lungs makes them vibrate. This produces sound. The size and shape of the vocal folds and surrounding cavities (throat, mouth and nose) help determine the pitch, volume and tone of your voice. This is what makes it unique. When illness or disease affects your voice, it can change the pitch, volume and quality of sound.
Symptoms of a voice disorder include a hoarse, raspy or weak voice; decreased range in pitch, volume and projection; vocal fatigue; shortness of breath; coughing; sore throat; chronic throat clearing; and voice loss. If these symptoms last longer than two weeks, seek the attention of a doctor. An otolaryngologist is the most qualified medical professional for diagnosing voice problems.
Common Voice Problems
The majority of voice disorders are related to conditions that can be treated. They rarely indicate a serious health problem, and are usually curable.
One of the most common voice problems is vocal cord abuse. This occurs when you use your voice improperly; shouting, whispering, and frequent throat clearing cause strain and fatigue of the vocal cords. Continued abuse can lead to permanent voice damage and a number of serious medical issues such as laryngitis, polyps, cysts and vocal fold swelling.
Other conditions that can affect the voice include upper respiratory infections, acid reflux, tobacco smoke, hormones, vocal nodules, neurological diseases, and tumors.
Keeping Your Voice Healthy
The key to good voice health is prevention. Make sure to use your voice properly; avoid straining the vocal folds through improper pitch and volume, and keep them moist by drinking lots of water, especially when speaking. Limit your caffeine and alcohol intake, as these can dry out the throat. A humidifier is a great way to prevent dry air. If you are experiencing vocal strain, it’s crucial to rest your voice in order to avoid permanent damage.
Voice disorders caused by conditions such as acid reflux or upper respiratory infections can be treated with drugs, while surgery will likely be needed for vocal cord lesions.
When you swallow, you are chewing food and moving it to the esophagus, a tube that connects to the stomach. Dysphagia, the medical term for difficulty swallowing, is characterized by the sensation of food or liquid getting stuck in the throat or chest. There are numerous factors that can cause swallowing difficulty, most of them fairly benign.
The Swallowing Process
Few of us give much thought to the act of swallowing, but it’s actually a complex process that involves around 50 pairs of muscles and nerves.
There are four stages that make up the swallowing process:
- Stage 1: Oral preparation stage.Food is chewed to prepare for swallowing.
- Stage 2: Oral stage. The tongue pushes food or liquid to the back of the mouth.
- Stage 3: Pharyngeal stage.Food or liquid passes through the pharynx into the esophagus.
- Stage 4: Esophageal stage.Food or liquid passes through the esophagus and enters the stomach.
Symptoms & Causes of Swallowing Disorders
Swallowing disorders indicate persistent problems with chewing and swallowing. The main symptoms are discomfort when swallowing, chest pain and the feeling that food or liquid is getting stuck in the throat or chest. Additionally, you may experience drooling, heartburn, nausea, wheezing, coughing, regurgitation, sore throat and a sour taste in the mouth.
Causes of dysphagia are diverse. They may originate in the esophagus and include diffuse spasm, an improperly relaxed sphincter, weak esophageal muscles, a narrow esophagus or esophageal ring, the presence of foreign bodies, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a hardening of the tissues called scleroderma and tumors.
In addition, the muscles and nerves responsible for swallowing can weaken as a result of neurological disorders, pharyngeal diverticula or cancer. Children may have difficulty swallowing if they suffer from certain nervous system disorders or a cleft palate.
Treatment for Swallowing Disorders
Treatment for swallowing disorders depends on the underlying cause and where the problem originates. Medication, surgery and swallowing therapy are the most common types of treatments administered. Medications include antacids, muscle relaxants and drugs to limit the amount of stomach acid produced.
A surgical procedure to stretch or dilate the esophagus when it is too narrow often helps resolve the issue. Swallowing therapy involving chewing and swallowing techniques can help stimulate the muscles and nerves responsible for swallowing. The most severe cases of dysphagia may require a liquid diet or feeding tube.
Call Sound Health Services for more information or to schedule an appointment.
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Help Your Students Learn About Their
School & Develop Self Esteem
For Grades K-1
( $14.95 /95 pp / 8.5x11
/ Reusable plastic package )
A new school year is an exciting time for both teachers and
students. Young children entering a school atmosphere for the first time
can feel excited, timid and apprehensive. This theme unit is designed to
introduce children to their school surroundings and develop self esteem
by providing fun, hands-on activities that promote learning and a sense
- An "I Can Read Book" and "Me"
Booklet for students to make.
- Pocket Chart cards and Sentence Frames
- Easy to follow activities that provide skill practise
in computers, language arts, reading, creative writing,
math, science and arts & crafts.
- Simple Science experiments that may be
performed by individual students, in small groups or as whole class instruction.
- Fun activities consisting of connect
the dots, mazes, cut and paste, colouring and matching
- Songs sung to familiar tunes.
- Fun, rhythmic poems to read aloud.
- A play to perform.
- Name tags
Debbie By Email Here
Forget To Sign Debbie's Guestbook!
© 1996-2003 Debbie's Unit Factory All Rights
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What is it and how is it treated?
What Causes Neck Pain?
The most common cause of neck pain is muscle strain or tension due to poor posture or body mechanics. The good news is that most neck pain will subside on its own after rest and temporary activity modification.
When neck pain does not subside for weeks and interferes with daily activities, it is then known as chronic neck pain. This is when you should seek the expertise of one of the Board Certified Spine Specialists at OrthoNeuro to determine the underlying cause of chronic neck pain. Also, it is important to make an appointment if you begin to experience pain, numbness or tingling in the shoulders, arms or fingers as this may be a sign of a more serious condition.
Chronic neck pain can be the result of damage to the spinal discs or vertebrae. Proper examination and testing from an OrthoNeuro Spine Specialist is the most effective way to determine what is causing pain.
Common causes of chronic neck pain can be the result of underlying conditions, including:
- Herniated, bulging or slipped spinal discs
- Cervical Spinal Stenosis
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Spinal bone spurs
- Spinal arthritis
- A pinched nerve in the cervical spine
- Ankylosing Spondylitis
- Facet Joint Disease
- Spinal fractures
The Spine Team at OrthoNeuro has helped thousands of patients with chronic neck pain return to an active and healthy lifestyle using a variety of treatment options.
How is Neck Pain Treated at OrthoNeuro?
At OrthoNeuro, our multidisciplinary Spine Team consists of Board Certified Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Specialists, Spine Surgeons, Neurosurgeons, and Physical Therapists – each of whom collaborate to decide the best treatment plan for you based on your unique condition and lifestyle.
At OrthoNeuro, we offer the latest in non-surgical as well as Minimally Invasive treatment options for chronic neck pain, including:
- Physical Therapy
- Interventional Pain Management
- Injection Therapy
- Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery
- Complex Spinal Surgery
In most cases, we begin with the most conservative treatment options and only recommend surgery if neck pain does not respond to these conservative treatments.
Related Services and Procedures
- Back Pain
- Neck Pain
- Herniated Disc
- Cervical Radiculopathy
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Facet Joint Syndrome
- Sacroiliac Joint Fusion
- Vertebroplasty & Kyphoplasty
- Spinal Cord Stimulation
- Revision Spine Surgery
- Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
- Minimally Invasive Discectomy
- Minimally Invasive Spinal Fusion
- Minimally Invasive Laminectomy
- Minimally Invasive Cervical Spinal Fusion
Make an Appointment with an OrthoNeuro Spine Surgeon Today!
- If you have been experiencing chronic neck pain, schedule an appointment with one of our Board Certified Spine Specialists at one of our 7 convenient locations throughout Greater Columbus.
- We will evaluate your unique lifestyle and goals to determine which type of treatment is best for you.
Request A Callback:
Meet Our Spine Team
Back Pain Stops Here.
Get started today with a comprehensive treatment plan.
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Also found in: Dictionary, Wikipedia.
Zanesville,city (1990 pop. 26,778), seat of Muskingum co., central Ohio, on the Muskingum River at its junction with the Licking River; inc. 1815. It is a trade and industrial center that manufactures metal products, machinery, glassware, and electrical equipment. The area has deposits of clay, oil, natural gas, sand, limestone, and iron ore. The rivers there, which are spanned by a notable "Y" bridge, are connected to the Ohio by 10 hand-operated locks and a 1-mi-long (1.6-km) canal.
The site was selected by Ebenezer ZaneZane, Ebenezer,
1747–1811, American pioneer and land speculator, b. near what is now Moorefield, W.Va. (then Virginia). With his brothers Silas and Jonathan, he went west in 1769 and established the settlement at Wheeling, of which he became the leader.
..... Click the link for more information. , surveyor of Zane's Trace, the gateway to the Northwest TerritoryNorthwest Territory,
first possession of the United States, comprising the region known as the Old Northwest, S and W of the Great Lakes, NW of the Ohio River, and E of the Mississippi River, including the present states of Ohio, Ind., Ill., Mich., Wis., and part of Minn.
..... Click the link for more information. . A two-year interval as state capital (1810–12) and the city's location on waterways and the National RoadNational Road,
U.S. highway built in the early 19th cent. At the time of its construction, the National Road was the most ambitious road-building project ever undertaken in the United States. It finally extended from Cumberland, Md., to St.
..... Click the link for more information. spurred its growth. An art institute and a campus of Ohio Univ. are in the city. Of interest are the National Road–Zane Grey museum, several early homes of Federal design, and the nearby Ohio Ceramic Center. A state park is at Dillon Reservoir to the northwest.
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Prayer ropes/beads in Greek are called "kombioskini", while in Slavic countries they are called "chotki". Tradition says that monks used to gather and move small pebbles to count their prayers.
Prayer ropes come in different bead or knot numbers. Many of the numbers are associated with an event in the church, for example, 33 for the years of Christ's life. Fifty is associated with the number of days between Pascha and Pentecost. One Hundred days from the beginning of the Great Fast until Pentecost. Sometimes the knots are referred to as "Tears of the Mother of God
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Unlike the smooth wings of common insects or birds, micro-scale insects such as the fairyfly have a distinctive wing geometry, comprised of a frame with several bristles. Motivated by this peculiar wing geometry, we experimentally investigated the flow structure of a translating comb-like wing for a wide range of gap size, angle of attack and Reynolds number, Re = O(10) - O($10^3$), and the correlation of these parameters with aerodynamic performance. The flow structures of a smooth plate without a gap and a comb-like plate are significantly different at high Reynolds number, while little difference was observed at the low Reynolds number of $O(10)$. At low Reynolds number, shear layers that were generated at the edges of the tooth of the comb-like plate strongly diffuse and eventually block a gap. This gap blockage increases the effective surface area of the plate and alters the formation of leading-edge and trailing-edge vortices. As a result, the comb-like plate generates larger aerodynamic force per unit area than the smooth plate. In addition to a quasi-steady phase after the comb-like plate travels several chords, we also studied a starting phase of the shear layer development when the comb-like plate begins to translate from rest. While a plate with small gap size can generate aerodynamic force at the starting phase as effectively as at the quasi-steady phase, the aerodynamic force drops noticeably for a plate with a large gap, because the diffusion of the developing shear layers is not enough to block the gap.
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In SNL's competency-based undergraduate curriculum, students strive to achieve learning outcomes that meet the criteria of competency statements that describe broad areas of knowledge and skill sets. At the heart of teaching to competency are effective means of assessing student learning in ways that promote students' development toward the course learning outcomes and competency criteria. Effective assessment will incorporate SNL's principles of assessment as well as implement rubrics for differentiating between levels of quality in student work.
SNL's principles rest on a variety of beliefs regarding adult learning. Among the most salient of these are:
- Learning is iterative and deepened when directed toward goals.
- Assessment is conceptually separable from instruction—it focuses on outcome rather than input.
- Learning occurs from interaction with and among a wide variety of knowledge sources, the experience of others and one’s self.
- The evidence of learning may be captured in a variety of ways.
- Self-assessment is a significant link between external assessment, learning, and development.
Additionally, the application of the assessment principles should embody four qualities:
Clarity communicating expectations, articulating criteria for the demonstration of competency and how the quality of level of learning is measured; providing accessible feedback.
Integrity applying the criteria for demonstrating learning and indicators of quality; applying the expectations and standards of the college and the university in an honest and constructive manner; providing feedback that informs subsequent learning agenda.
Flexibility recognizing learning through multiple forms of evidence; using multiple forms of assessment appropriate to measure learning outcomes; drawing on alternate sources of expertise when appropriate.
Empathy providing feedback in sufficient detail to honor students’ efforts; communicating commentary in a constructive manner and tone; establishing a cooperative and trusting relationship between instructor and learner to promote assessment.
Following are a set of nine principles to guide assessment of learning at SNL:
- Assessment should feed information back to the learner to guide future learning.
- Assessment should be based on multiple forms of evidence of learning.
- Assessment strategies and activities should draw upon the affective, cognitive and conative domains of learning.
- Assessment should be referenced to specified learning outcomes.
- Assessment practices should support the overall development of students as well as measure progress toward specific learning outcomes.
- Self-assessment should be included with the documentation of learning.
- Assessment decisions should include the judgments of relevant experts.
- Assessment processes should be designed to insure the assimilation of multiple sources of assessment data.
- Assessment processes should informally recognize and affirm learning outside of competency areas specified by the curriculum.
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Student resilience and wellbeing are essential for both academic and social development, and are optimised by safe, supportive and respectful learning environments. Schools share this responsibility with the whole community.
Not only do confident and resilient children with a capacity for emotional intelligence perform better academically, these skills can also contribute to their ability to create strong social bonds and supportive communities, and to maintain healthy relationships and responsible lifestyles.
Want to know more?
Information and resources to support student resilience and wellbeing can be found at:
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Do you know that raw honey and the honey you buy at the store are completely different? Of course the main difference is that the honey purchased on the store shelf has been pasteurized. You may be asking, “Well what’s wrong with that? Milk is pasteurized too.”
Unfortunately for honey and your health pasteurization is a very bad thing. The pasteurization process destroys vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants and other nutrients through the high heating process. At this point the honey becomes just as pad as refined sugar.
So what makes raw honey so great?
Raw Honey has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
Blood Sugar Even though honey is a simple sugar, it actually has the right amount of fructose and glucose that helps regulate sugar levels.
Probiotic Some honey have large amounts of friendly bacteria including several species of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria.
Cancer Prevention It’s possible with the flavonoids and anti-oxidants that honey contains it can help reduce the risk of some cancers and heart disease.
Today we are happy to be participating in the 2015 A to Z Challenge. Today we are celebrating the letter “H”!
Photo Credit: Flicker – Thien Gretchen (honey jar)
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- Word Explorer
|part of speech:
||the striking of one hard object against another with force so that sound is produced.
The percussion of steel against steel hurt my ears.
||drums, cymbals, and the other musical instruments that produce sound when struck.
||impact, instrument, trap
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1. (Science: physics) The process of working clay, loam, pulverized ore, etc, with water, to render it compact, or impervious to liquids; also, the process of rendering anything impervious to liquids by means of puddled material. Puddle.
2. (Science: chemistry) The art or process of converting cast iron into wrought iron or steel by subjecting it to intense heat and frequent stirring in a reverberatory furnace in the presence of oxidizing substances, by which it is freed from a portion of its carbon and other impurities. Puddling furnace, a reverberatory furnace in which cast iron is converted into wrought iron or into steel by puddling.
Results from our forum
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According to a new study, toxic PFAS may have contaminated approximately 57,412 locations in the U.S.
These locations include certain industrial facilities, as well as waste processing facilities. They also include places where firefighting foam containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been used, such a military base or airport.
The study was published in the journal today. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Found probable PFAS contamination spots in all 50 states. It is the first time that existing scientific data on PFAS contamination has been used to create a model capable of predicting locations where contamination is likely.
“PFAS contamination at these sites is not just possible, but probable,” Alissa Cordner, senior author on the paper and co-director of the PFAS Project LabEHN was told by, “Testing for PFAS is extremely expensive and requires a lot of time and technical capacity… One of our big goals is to help decision makers prioritize testing and remediation at these locations based on this high likelihood of contamination.”
PFAS don’t break down naturally, so they linger in the environment and human bodies. Exposure to these chemicals can lead to various health problems such as kidney and testicular cancers, liver and thyroid problems and reproductive problems. There is also a decreased effectiveness of vaccines for children and an increased risk of birth defects.
The chemicals were found in drinking waters systems across the U.S., in the body of humans and animals all over the globe, in plants, crops, and even in the soil. in rainwater At levels that are too high to be considered safe for consumption.
Although research on chemicals has increased in recent times, there are no federal testing requirements that provide critical data about the extent, severity, and consequences of PFAS contamination and releases in the U.S.
The new study fills that gap and also provides a means to get a better understanding of the health of these patients. map Presumptive contamination sites. The researchers reviewed 11 existing studies and regulatory records that clearly linked levels PFAS contamination to certain types of facilities. They then referenced national databases to map similar sites across the country.
The researchers compared their model’s results with their existing map to ensure accuracy. known contamination sites Based on published PFAS testing data, the model captured approximately 70% of known contamination sites. The remaining 30% of sites were locations where PFAS have been found by testing at locations where they wouldn’t be expected by the model.
“This model is likely an underestimation of contaminated sites,” Cordner said. “For example, we know that locations where sludge has been applied to farmland, and locations where firefighting foam has been used in training exercises are likely to be contaminated, but there are no federal databases of those sites, so they aren’t included here.”
Mangel of regulations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA), established a 2021 plan. road map PFAS regulations will be updated, including the regulation of the chemicals in drinking waters. However, many health advocates and scientists who study these chemicals think the agency is moving too slowly.
In the meantime, some states While regulations have been made for chemicals, this has only resulted in a patchwork.
“There certainly is a need for a federal [drinking water limit] on PFAS that’s protective of public health,” Cordner said. “In the meantime, we would love to see this research used broadly by local, municipal, and state decision makers to prioritize sites for testing and public health interventions.”
PFAS in Pennsylvania
Cordner reported that Pennsylvania had approximately 2,100 suspected PFAS contaminations. This makes Pennsylvania 10th in the country for presumed contaminated locations. Cordner said that California had approximately 7,200 sites.
In contrast, only 10 locations in Pennsylvania show up on the report’s map of known contamination sites.
From 2019-2021, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), carried out statewide PFAS samples that revealed one out of three drinking systems exceed the EPA’s recommended health thresholds for PFAS.
The DEP has been working Since at least 2017, the state has been setting drinking water limits for PFAS. This process is expected to be completed in 2023.
In the meantime, the EPA’s recommended health thresholds for the two most common and dangerous PFAS, PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid), were lowered substantially earlier this year, putting Pennsylvania’s proposed limits on these chemicals hundreds of times above recommended health thresholds.
“The EPA’s interim health advisory limits are so low, they’re essentially saying almost any amount of exposure to these chemicals is likely to be hazardous to human health,” Cordner said.
She also pointed out that PFOA/PFOS are just two of a group of over 12,000 similar chemicals. She called on regulators not to regulate them individually but instead to regulate them all as a whole.
“We need to stop all non-essential use of these chemicals in industrial processes, commercial products, and firefighting foam to prevent these harmful exposures.”
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None of us likes enforced transitions, which is especially true of many kids who feel like they’re comfortable with elementary school’s setup of a single teacher, room, and a static group classmates in elementary school. Suddenly they’re contemplating forgetting their locker combinations, being on time to individual classes, and of course the new culture of middle school.
How can you help your children with this unsettled time? One of the best things you can do is assure them that everyone else who is starting middle school is a little scared and doesn't know what to expect. Encourage your kids to ask questions when they don't know what to do and to be kind to other kids who are struggling as they start middle school.
For some kids, beginning middle school is a welcome do-over and fresh start. But for one type of kid, those called “socially anxious,” it can be especially challenging. Florida State University developmental psychologist Heidi Gazelle says one way to identify socially anxious kids as those who on the playground typically watch others instead of being involved in play activities. In the past, they may have been labeled “shy.”
In a recent online interview, Dr. Gazelle offered a practical strategies for parents of such kids. She advises helping your child become as familiar as possible with the new middle school ahead of time. One way to do that is through seeking out connections with new classmates, possibly through summer camps for incoming sixth graders. I think another way might be through summer sports or other activity programs for middle school kids in your area.
Gazelle says the fresh start can be good even for the socially anxious, especially if they find ways to be included in groups and learn to defend themselves.
One way a Christian can do that is to be the one who includes others, and the one who defends others. It’s a good conversation starter to brainstorm with your kids about how they can seek out the excluded or stand up for kids who are being bullied.
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KEMP’s DNS based Global Site Load Balancer (GSLB) enables customers to provide availability, scaling and resilience for applications that are geographically distributed across multiple locations. This includes multi-data center environments used to host private clouds, multi-public cloud environments with services spanning platforms such as Azure and AWS as well as hybrid environments where applications are deployed across both public and private cloud. Customers leverage GSLB to keep services online and available while ensuring that they perform efficiently and deliver optimal user experience. The capabilities provided by GEO LoadMaster are like those made possible with hosted services such as Dyn DNS.
GSLB Use Cases
Whenever applications span multiple locations, logic is required to control how traffic gets distributed across all possible targets. While there are several use cases for GSLB in these type of application environments, the most common are driven by the following deployment models:
In these type of deployments, endpoints in an application operate across multiple sites simultaneously. This type of architecture involves an application where all frontends always have access to needed back end data to successfully serve incoming requests. GSLB is used to measure client load at each participating site and ensure that requests are distributed for optimal performance. Additional logic may also be implemented to steer clients to their closest possible target for shortest round trip communication times.
One of the most common deployment models, using an alternate data center or cloud infrastructure as a backup to the primary production environment is a tried and true method for traditional enterprise application environments. This is often referred to as a Failover or DR-as-a-Service (DRaaS) model. In these cases, the secondary or tertiary target may be in a hot or warm standby state where the environment is operational but there may be a few steps required to bring application services online in the event of disaster. In this case, GSLB is used to determine when the primary site has failed as well as when services in the failover location has become operational to minimize downtime and ensure a smooth transition of services.
While similar in ways both to both the Active/Active and Failover (DRaaS), hybrid deployment models are most often used when introducing public cloud services to an already existing private cloud environment. In this scenario, GSLB is leveraged to control when traffic should be steered to the public cloud component of the application infrastructure (e.g. when unexpected load occurs and services should be bursted) as well as what traffic should be steered there (e.g. traffic from specific regions or data centers.
By using KEMP’s GEO LoadMaster for GSLB services, customers can efficiently address these use cases with an intuitive and cost-effective solution.
Efficiency and Security
Application resources are of little value if they are not efficiently used. By deploying GSLB services, resources across a multi-site are better leveraged by monitoring connections and performance of each location and steering traffic across the environment based on real time load as well as prediction of which site will deliver the best user experience based on location. Optional DNS Firewall Services such as IP Reputation rules subscription and the ability to scale near linearly with allocated memory allows GEO LoadMaster to help protect your applications from DDoS attacks and ensure optimal user experience
Get the Most Out of Your Existing Investment
GEO LoadMaster is available as a standalone virtual appliance as well as an add-on service to LoadMaster across all form factors. Regardless of how you choose to deploy, you can be assured that KEMP’s integrated local application delivery traffic management and global site load balancing solution will help to optimize and protect your application infrastructure. An intuitive API means that GEO LoadMaster can be easily integrated with existing IPAM and DNS management solutions.
Deploy The Way That’s Best for You
Ensure global availability and efficient traffic distribution for VMware, Hyper-V and Openstack powered private clouds.
All of KEMP’s purpose-built LoadMaster and LoadMaster-MT come equipped with possible resource to scale with a growing environment.
Protect workloads deployed in Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and vCloud Air public cloud infrastructure.
Get the most out of your existing x86 server infrastructure by deploying GSLB using KEMP’s LoadMaster OS for Bare Metal on HP, Dell, Oracle, Fujitsu or Cisco hardware.
Easy-to-configure system clustering and GEO pairing enables near linear scaling
IP Reputation Protection
Protect your applications with KEMP’s commercial IP Reputation rules subscription to keep the bad guy’s out
Support for common public cloud environments enables diverse deployment models
Mitigate risks such as cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks with DNSSEC signing and validation
An intuitive API as well as API wrappers for frameworks such as PowerShell and Java simplify 3rd party integration
Intelligent Traffic Steering
Maintain ultimate control of your environment with the ability to steer traffic based on location, site busyness and application health
Get started with KEMP’s Global Site
DNS Load Balancing Solution
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November is Diabetes Awareness month, and what an important month it is! If you have this disease you need to understand how it works and how it can affect your feet. One very dangerous complication that can result is Charcot foot.
With this condition the bones in your feet weaken to the point of fracturing. You may also have nerve damage and be unable to feel pain in your feet, so you continue walking on these fractured bones. This can lead to collapse of your arch, disability, extreme deformity, and possibly even amputation. It’s important to look out for the warning signs that Charcot foot may present. Although you may be unable to feel pain there are other clues, including:
- Warmness to the touch – a sign that infection is occurring
- Redness – another sign of infection
- Swelling – fluids are collecting to fight off infection or help heal damage
- Pain – If you still have some feeling in your feet you will experience discomfort.
If you notice any of these symptoms, please contact us as quickly as possible so that treatment can begin. The earlier you can get treatment the less likely that any severe complications will arise.
People with diabetes need to take serious care of their feet. You can usually prevent Charcot foot—and other diabetic foot complications—from occurring by being diligent in your daily foot care. The most important thing to do is to check your feet every day for signs that anything might be wrong. You should also wear supportive footwear to keep excessive pressure off of your feet. Lastly, remember to keep your disease under control. Keep your blood sugar levels in a safe range and follow any guidelines given by your doctor for managing the disease.
For more information about taking care of diabetic feet and protecting them against Charcot foot call Dr. Mitchell Wachtel at (978) 794-8406 to make your appointment in one of our three easily accessible offices in North Andover, Lowell, or Haverhill.
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Weaver Wednesday - Discovery : Bates's Weaver2016-09-14 (741)
Weaver Wednesday (species text)
Bates's Weaver Ploceus batesi
IntroductionBates's Weaver was formally described by Richard Bowdler Sharpe, an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history.
Bates's Weaver was collected by George Latimer Bates, an American naturalist.
Bates visited West Africa in 1895, making a living by farming. In 1905 he settled on the Ja River, Cameroon, calling his farm Bitye (after the Bulu pronunciation of his name). He collected many natural history specimens, especially birds, in his travels and sent many of these to the Natural History Museum in London.
Bates obtained the type specimen of Bates's Weaver, a female in subadult plumage near the Dja River on 29 January 1906, presumably near Bitye farm (as stated by Bannerman 1949a). On 17 Nov 1908 a second specimen, the first adult male, was collected at nearby Kumangola. In the following year four more birds were collected at Bitye and sent to the British Museum. Bates did not observe these rare weavers alive; they were all collected by local boys with bows and arrows (Bates 1930a).
Bates obtained the first Bates's Weaver specimen in January 1906, nearly a month before obtaining the Red-crowned Malimbe type, but Sharpe described the latter first.
Bates's Weaver was first illustrated by Ogilvie-Grant (1910), showing the female type and first male specimen. The next illustration to be published was a line drawing in Bannerman (1949), showing the male and female.
Scientific citationOthyphantes batesi Sharpe 1908a, Ibis p.348, Dja River, Cameroon.
Meaning of namesbatesi, Named after George Latimer Bates (1863-1940), a naturalist in tropical West Africa, 1895-1931.
First English nameBates's Weaver-Finch (Sharpe 1910a).
Alternate namesBates's Weaver-Finch.
CollectorGeorge Latimer Bates.
Date collected29 January 1906.
Locality collectedRiver Ja, Cameroon.
Type specimensThe type is in the Brisitsh Museum (BM 1908.5.25.104).
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Ergonomics of the thermal environment - Methods for the assessment of human responses to contact with surfaces - Part 1: Hot surfaces (ISO 13732-1:2006)
This part of ISO 13732 provides temperature threshold values for burns that occur when human skin is in contact with a hot solid surface.
It also describes methods for the assessment of the risks of burning, when humans could or might touch hot surfaces with their unprotected skin.
This part of ISO 13732 also gives guidance for cases where it is necessary to specify temperature limit values for hot surfaces; it does not set surface temperature limit values.
NOTE 1 Such temperature limit values can be specified in specific product standards or in regulations in order to prevent human beings sustaining burns when in contact with the hot surface of a product.
This part of ISO 13732 deals with contact periods of 0,5 s and longer.
It is applicable to contact when the surface temperature is essentially maintained during the contact (see 4.1).
It is not applicable if a large area of the skin (approximately 10 % or more of the skin of the whole body) can be in contact with the hot surface. Neither does it apply to skin contact of more than 10 % of the head or contact which could result in burns of vital areas of the face.
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A confined space is any space that is large enough for an employee to enter, has a restricted means of entry or exit and is not designed for continuous employee occupancy.
A “Permit-required confined space (permit space)” means a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics:
- Contains, or has potential to contain, a hazardous atmosphere
- Contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant
- Has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section
- Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard
All of these criteria must be met for a space to be classified as confined space or permit-required confined space. Examples of confined spaces include tanks, pits, certain tunnels, utility vaults and boilers. The physical and atmospheric hazards often associated with confined spaces can cause serious injury or death to workers. The major factors that lead to injuries in confined spaces include failure to recognize and control these hazards, and inadequate or incorrect emergency response.
Scope and Application
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements apply to most activities that require entry into a confined space.
Examples of specific activities include:
- maintenance, and cleaning of boilers.
- cutting or welding in confined spaces.
- telecommunications and electrical utility work performed in manholes and unvented vaults.
- work in excavations or trenches that could develop hazardous atmospheres.
- work in sewers, manholes, pits and traps.
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You’re not just down in the dumps. You’re not simply singin’ the blues. Depression is no laughing matter (although laughing might make you feel better). A disorder of the brain, depression is similar to other chronic diseases: If left untreated, it can last a long time, making it hard to enjoy – or simply do – your day-to-day activities.
Somewhere around 20 million Americans suffer from depression. It can begin at any age. If you or a loved one is depressed, these signs and symptoms may sound familiar:
No single culprit has a corner on depression. Depression can run in families, for example. And, people with pessimistic or dependent personalities may be more vulnerable. Trauma or a major illness, loss of a loved one, a poor relationship, or major stress can also trigger it. Some medications may contribute, especially if you’ve taken them for a long time. If you suspect one of your medications, you can discuss this with our pharmacy staff.
Women and men tend to experience depression differently. Twice as many women as men are diagnosed. But this number could be skewed because women are more likely to seek treatment. Life cycles and hormones can contribute to depression in women. For example, women may experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Or they may have depression following pregnancy or heading into menopause. Women tend to talk more openly about their feelings of despair, for instance, while men may simply report changes in energy or interests. Men may display risky behaviors or workaholism. Men are more likely to turn to alcohol and drugs, becoming irritable and angry, sometimes even abusive. Although more women attempt suicide than men, men are successful more often.
Are you or a loved one experiencing depression? Know that treatment can be very effective. Often the best approach is a combination of medication and talk therapy. This can leave you feeling much better soon. But know that it can take up to 12 weeks to experience the full benefits of antidepressants. The most commonly prescribed ones are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These include Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and Celexa. If they are ineffective, your doctor may prescribe others. Our pharmacy staff can explain their pros and cons.
Researchers are continually uncovering other promising approaches for treating depression. Though not thoroughly studied just yet, brain stimulation and complementary treatments such as St. John’s wort, SAM-e, and Omega-3 fatty acids help some people. Consult your doctor before starting any treatment.
Help is available. Speak with a counselor today .
MedlinePlus website. “Depression.” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/depression.html
National Institute of Mental Health website. “Depression.” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/complete-index.shtml
Mayo Clinic website. “Depression (major depression)” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression/DS00175
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The Largest E-Learning Experiment in Human History
The world is quickly heading towards the largest experiment in online education in human history and perhaps a seismic shift in the ways people learn. As universities, schools, and training companies around the world close their campuses amid fears of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), they are hastily migrating programs online, engaging EdTech vendors, and embracing alternate assessments aside from in-person standardized tests. As EdTech companies around the world assess how to adapt and respond, global EdTech would do well to examine the story as it played out in China, where the first major coronavirus outbreak took place.
Without a doubt, coronavirus is a tragedy for the thousands of families who have lost loved ones and the millions facing economic hardship. Yet EdTech companies can play a unique role in preserving access to education for millions of students. They also stand to grow their revenues and user bases.
EdTech in Chna During the Coronavirus Outbreak
Before the outbreak, observers noted that China’s online education market was struggling. Customer acquisition costs were prohibitively high. Tightening regulations on the use of apps by students and the delivery of online classes created uncertainty. A “capital winter” threw into question the sustainability of many large online tutoring companies like VIPKid which involved maximizing market share at the expense of profitability.
The coronavirus outbreak has radically altered the landscape of education in China, giving many companies a new lifeline. On February 9, nearly 200 million primary and secondary students started school online in what has been called the “largest simultaneous online learning exercise in human history.” Such a massive transition will have long-lasting consequences on global education.
Following the need to socially distance students and teach remotely, many universities in Mainland China and schools in Hong Kong transitioned online quickly. China’s Ministry of Education launched a national cloud learning platform to provide learning materials for students. China roped in telecoms giants China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom and technology giants Baidu, Huawei, and Alibaba to support the e-learning platform by providing 90 terabytes of bandwidth and 7,000 servers. Services like Alibab’s DingTalk, Tencent Classroom, Huawei Cloud Classroom, ClassIn, and Zoom copycat Zhumu have stepped in to fill the void. Chinese universities have been able to create or modify online courses in record time, with Zhejiang University rolling out 5,000 courses in just two weeks. Opportunities for public-private partnerships in EdTech have never been greater.
What can we infer from China’s experience with deploying EdTech amid the coronavirus outbreak? Does China’s experience suggest major opportunities and challenges for global EdTech companies in serving their home markets as the disruption of coronavirus goes global?
1. Agile Companies and Institutions Will Fair Best
The outbreak of COVID-19 has radically reshaped the conversation around ed-tech from a question of “whether online education works to asking how fast” firms can launch products. Many offline training companies must choose to either suspend operations, sustain massive losses, or hastily transition online. Online education incumbents in China have benefitted: Koolearn stock is up 83% and TAL picked up $3.2 billion in value. Blue Lotus Research Group expects a 29% increase this year in the number of Chinese K-12 students taking part in online courses. Global EdTech should take note: while incumbent online education providers are well-positioned to get more B2C customers and sign big deals with schools and universities innovative and agile companies can prosper if they can solve problems for large public education bureaus, serve unmet needs in the online training space (such as in music, physical education, or experiential learning), or provide much-needed support for at-risk students who ordinarily struggle in school and need additional support online.
Yet the upside isn’t limited to large incumbents already in the space. China’s AI giant SenseTime is now offering classes on AI and machine learning to schools around the country. Teachers are figuring out how to teach music and gym classes with custom-built Wechat mini-programs. Companies like that run offline activities like debate tournaments have figured out how to run tournaments online, and traditional summer camp companies will need to offer online alternatives for many students whose parents will feel uncomfortable with large gatherings in the summer. And online-only summer or year round programs will likely see unprecedented interest from new clients seeking online alternatives. Horizon Academic, an online program for high school students to work with professors on research projects, has seen applications for summer nearly triple since last year.
With so many newcomers to online education and such massive scale, there will be a tremendous amount of user feedback and data about use patterns. Companies seeking to serve students and schools affected by coronavirus must adapt and improve in light of feedback. Alibaba’s DingTalk has a massive school user base, but it’s unpopular with students and has been criticised for being overly intrusive, prompting so many students to give the app one star reviews that it was taken off the Apple App Store temporarily.
2. Possibility for Reinvigorating the EdTech Industry
The COVID outbreak has given many EdTech providers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to demo their products and prove to skeptical administrators, teachers, parents, and students that their products are useful and worth keeping after the outbreak is contained or a vaccine is developed. While it’s too early to tell for certain if such growth is sustainable for the long-run, it is clear the conversation around EdTech has shifted dramatically, the opportunity for sustained long-term growth is there, and that the pandemic is giving online higher education new life. Much has been written about whether EdTech is a “bubble” and challenges tech companies have in delivering good user experiences when the hype around their products peaks before their products are mature and optimized. Capital markets and hype cycles aren’t always congruent with UX optimization. The pandemic is forcing nearly every teacher and trainer to learn and adapt to new digital tools, which gives EdTech companies the chance to make good or bad impressions that will remain long after the virus is contained.
Beyond this possibility for reshaping attitudes, the virus has also likely introduced some changes to learning and school that will likely outlast the outbreak. Virtual alternatives often save money, and unused budgets from one year have a tendency to get cut in the years following. Companies, school districts, and institutions may discover that some expensive field trips can be replaced with VR experiences. Debate and Model UN clubs might not need to spend thousands on travel and hotel if there are plausible online alternatives. If international schools around the world run good online courses, we may see more blended learning models that save money and improve the quality of teaching, particularly in regions of the world that struggle to recruit qualified expatriate teachers.
There’s also the perennial question of adoption and buy-in: stories abound of schools buying expensive hardware that teachers don’t use, or issues where teachers and students feel that they don’t have the time or inclination to use all the tools in an LMS or software tool, undermining its usefulness and the quality of data and measurement. As much as 67% of educational software product licenses go unused, for example. The crisis affords schools a new chance to get students, parents, and teachers to actually use the expensive tech that schools buy. Publisher Pearson reported that global use of its online platforms increased by 400% since the outbreak.
Online education in particular has always suffered from a legitimacy gap: the perception among many academics is that a course done online is less rigorous and educational than the same course done in person. Few of the world’s top-ranked universities offer purely online degrees, and online classes are widespread at universities with mixed reputations like Liberty University. COVID changed this entirely, with Tsinghua University (often likened to the MIT of China) offering more than 4,000 classes online and universities like Stanford and Harvard migrating classes online as well.
Crucially, the crisis offers EdTech companies a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rapidly build scale because of the sheer number of public and private sector schools in the market for technological solutions for LMS upgrades, virtual classrooms, storing files, tracking student progress, promoting student wellness, managing user reviews and experiences, and digitizing traditionally offline activities.
3. New Appetites for VR/AR in Education
COVID has given many XR companies a renewed sense of relevance and attention. In March, HTC migrated one of its conferences online to a VR ecosystem, using a platform developed by Immersive VR Education. While teleconferencing platforms have seen a boom in users and interest recently, companies and schools are struggling to replicate experiences that are more social in nature or require some level of sensory immersion. And even when an experience can be delivered easily through traditional teleconferencing, VR advocates claim that running meetings in virtually immersive environments improves attentiveness by 25%. Agile XR EdTech companies have an exciting opportunity to capture some of this appetite for proven, user-friendly XR solutions to the limitations of traditional teleconferencing.
For many, a major barrier is internet speeds. VR videos are massive files. While Zoom can simply cut down video feed resolutions to accommodate lower bandwidths, grainy VR experiences are disorienting and unpleasant. The worldwide rollout of 5G is incomplete, and home wifi often isn’t up to the task of loading huge VR files quickly enough. In China, the lack of VR cameras in public schools and concerns about equality of access (both to fast internet and VR enabled devices) have limited the adoption of XR platforms as a solution to today’s challenges, but we’ve seen a limited number of XR applications in education take off as the world responds to COVID.
Many students prefer to visit campuses before they commit to attending, and many universities created virtual campus tours about a decade ago to accomodate students without the time and resources to visit campuses. These began as simple slideshows or glitchy google street view-like walkthroughs. Now, nearly every student considering the next step in their academic journey must use virtual tours due to travel limitations and campus closures. The raw tech and subjective storytelling in virtual campus tours has improved in recent years. Web-based VR means that virtual visitors don’t need pricey VR headsets. Innovative companies like Campus360, with its head office in China, use web-based VR and allow universities to share their campus tours on a central platform and offer filming services for universities that need extra help. Universities around the world have experienced renewed calls to update and modernize their campus tours as they shift from being “nice to have” to being absolutely essential.
Long before COVID, many universities had begun using XR to teach in physical classes, simulating everything from field trips to high stakes surgical procedures. In 2015, Penn State developed a VR system for its distance learning programs, and universities with these capabilities are well positioned to weather the possibility of classes in the fall of 2020 needing to be conducted remotely if there is a second wave of the virus or if containment measures are unsuccessful.
4. Shake Ups in the Teacher Recruitment Industry Could Propel Blended Learning
COVID will doubtlessly make it harder to recruit foreigners to come to China to teach. The stigma of being the first place that the virus emerged and of the sometimes draconian measures adopted to stop the spread of the virus are likely to complicate efforts to recruit teachers from abroad to come teach in China. Starting on March 28, China barred entry for nearly all foreign nationals, meaning that any foreign teacher not already in China will be unable to enter without special permission. Even before COVID, recruiting foreign teachers, particularly from the Anglophone world, was extremely competitive, prompting many headhunters to waive requirements like teaching licenses, work experience, or even a university diploma. As it becomes increasingly more challenging to recruit foriegn teachers in China over the next year, many schools and academies that insist on having international instructors will need to adopt a blended learning model, with the instructor in a different location from the students and teaching assistants.
While China is likely to experience this most acutely because of its sheer size and the challenges in recruiting teachers to come to tier 2 and 3 cities in China, we expect schools in other places with high demand for expat English teachers in East Asia and the Middle East may seriously consider adopting blended learning models to continue serving students. EdTech platforms and service providers that can source high-quality distance learning experiences are likely to benefit.
5. "Learning Anywhere, Anytime"
As the world embraces remote learning and mobile internet speeds improve with the rollout of 5G, it’s possible that COVID will accelerate a broader shift in perspective, from learning taking place in formal classroom contexts (and primarily for children and young adult) to learning being viewed as a lifelong, constant process that takes place anywhere and any time. Schools and gyms in China have begun broadcasting classes on Tiktok cousin Douyin. Apps like Duolingo that encourage users to learn for short intervals of time every day, often on the go, might proliferate. The “work day” for adults has transformed as they no longer can clock in and out of an office and the end of commuting means more free time. Perhaps the massive experiment of “work from home” triggered by COVID will give rise to “learn from home or on the go” for years to come. And as online exams are difficult to proctor, assessments in schools and universities around the world have begun to focus more on completing daily or weekly assignments. The world of English examinations was shaken up when universities like Yale and Duke announced that they would accept the Duolingo English Test as an alternative to the TOEFL and IELTS. As more institutions adopt low-stakes, high-frequency quizzes and assignments instead of one or two big exams for each class, COVID may change the way that assessment and evaluation are conducted in the future.
6. Quality Issues in Online Education
Despite the many opportunities, China’s digital educational transformation also offers cautionary tales of poor quality and lack of consensus-building with parents. In China, the transition to online learning has been met with much backlash from parents. Parents are also grappling with e-learning with concerns about the quality of the education, worrying that the learning experience in an online environment simply can’t compare with ones found in physical classrooms. Parents worry their children aren’t focusing on school work and are not engaged in their coursework.
China’s move to online learning may lead to a decline in education quality, at least in the short-term. It’s been well known that online learning environments have trouble retaining the attention of students who become bored and that university students taught via in person lectures are less likely to drop out than if they attend online courses. It’s particularly challenging for less motivated students and students who are likely to be distracted by the online environment. There are other problems too – loneliness, time zone problems for international students, and even reports of students paying firms $1.40 to attend their online classes for them. Teachers complain that they can’t give feedback or engage students in the same way that they can in physical classroom settings. There are also worries that Chinese censorship of certain educational materials may hinder online learning environments as Chinese censors have kicked teachers out of online classrooms for politics, profanity, and smoking.
7. Equity and Access
While online courses have been posed as a potential solution to widening inequality in China, they’re not a panacea. While online courses would likely overall reduce educational inequality in China by converging resources for students, there are still socioeconomic barriers to quality education that are important to recognize, namely lack of quality internet connections, equipment, and even the cost of electricity. Many parents cannot afford multiple smartphones or other internet connected devices. And some students may not even know how to use the learning software.
Some places like Guangdong are combatting this by giving poor families data packages for online learning. This is a laudable effort and an excellent resource, especially to students living in rural parts of China where educational resources have been so low that it prompted Jack Ma to award 20 million RMB to rural teachers. This has implications globally, as schools around the world now have to deal with internet inequality. As online education continues to expand, policymakers should be cognizant of how underlying inequality can negatively impact the quality of education.
8. Boundaries, Teacher Interaction, and Regulatory Concerns
In China, without the ability to do office hours or come to a teacher’s room for extra help, students often communicate with teachers over messaging and social media app Wechat. While some students appreciate the ability to get to know their teachers better, issues about appropriate student-teacher boundaries persist. Privacy issues abound: students and teachers may not want to share their photos and personal lives, and in many countries it’s illegal for teachers to communicate with students over social media since these conversations are not auditable and may veer into inappropriate topics. There are also issues relating to child protection from predatory adults and peer bullying: more online learning may mean more cyberbullying and diminishes the avenues for peers reporting inappropriate or predatory behavior by teachers. Few teachers and students have multiple phones and computers, so school-life balance becomes more challenging. Many useful messaging and file-sharing tools are not compliant with important local laws like FERPA or GDPR. Few websites are optimized and fully accessible for deaf or vision-impaired people using assistive devices to access web content. Universities often have extremely complex IT procurement processes that examine mechanisms of student data storage which are intimidating at best for many start ups.
Online education was a necessary step taken by the Chinese government as part of a series sweeping epidemic controls designed to combat the outbreak. It was born out of necessity. Yet, it is often said that “necessity is the mother of invention” and China’s mass experiment with online learning may be the start of a global revolution in online learning. China’s trial with online learning has exposed some potential equity and quality concerns, but it has also demonstrated the power of EdTech to contribute to the continued education of hundreds of millions of students. EdTech companies have never had a better opportunity to demonstrate growth, advance a social mission, and, for companies nimble enough to deliver excellent experiences, boost profits in the long term.
By David Weeks and Lawrence Zhou
Sunrise Cross Border
No copying, adaptation, or distribution without attribuition.
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Thalassemias are inherited blood disorders that cause the body to make fewer healthy red blood cells and less hemoglobin than normal. Mild or severe anemia can also be present in people with thalassemias.
The two major types of thalassemia are alpha and beta, named after defects in the hemoglobin protein chains. The most severe form of alpha thalassemia is known as alpha thalassemia major or hydrops fetalis. Babies with this disorder usually die before or shortly after birth. Two genes (one from each parent) are needed to make enough beta globin protein chains. Beta thalassemia occurs when one or both genes are altered. The severity of beta thalassemia depends on how badly one or both genes are affected. If both genes are affected, the result is moderate to severe anemia. The severe form of beta thalassemia also is known as thalassemia major or Cooley's anemia.
Thalassemias occur most often among people of Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African descent. Severe forms usually are diagnosed in early childhood and are lifelong conditions.
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What was Africa like in the 1800s?
The nineteenth century saw immense changes in Africa. Inland the trade in slaves and commodities was handled by African and Arab merchants. With the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the British navy took to patrolling the coasts, intercepting other nations’s slave ships.
What happened in Africa during 17th century?
The expansion of the Dutch colony at the Cape is one of the two most significant developments in Africa during the 17th and 18th centuries. The other is a vast increase in the long-established African slave trade. In both these undertakings the Europeans make contact only with the coastal regions of Africa.
What was West Africa like in the 18th century?
Millions of African families were destroyed because of the Atlantic slave trade; Several European countries were involved in the African slave trade; Although taken captive, Africans brought to the English colonies sought in many ways to keep their cultural heritage.
What was Africa’s main export during the 17th and 18th centuries?
By the mid-18th century, slaves were Africa’s main export. In Western Africa the slave trade represented as much as 95 per cent of the value of their exports.
How many slaves died on the journey across the Atlantic Ocean?
Between 1500 and 1866, Europeans transported to the Americas nearly 12.5 million enslaved Africans, about 1.8 million of whom died on the Middle Passage, their bodies thrown into the Atlantic.
Do camel caravans still cross the desert today?
Today most cross-desert transport is through an extensive tarmac road network in addition to transport by air and sea. Tuareg camel caravans still travel on the traditional Saharan routes, carrying salt from the desert interior to communities on the desert edges.
What was life like in West Africa in the 18th century?
Using the map above with a current map of West Africa, compare and contrast the country of Guinea during the 18th century with that country today. Research African cultures during the 1700s. What type of organizational structures, government, labor, society and laws were in place?
What was the history of South Africa in the 1700s?
General South African History Timeline: 1700s 1700 The first “placaat” (ordinance or statute) restricting the importation of Asian slaves is promulgated. Dlamini chiefdoms move south from Delagoa Bay and settle on land north of the Phongolo River; thereby forming the core of the future Swazi nation.
What was life like for people in the 1800s?
Dig your own well, do your own blacksmithing and starve in the winter when you’ve had a bad crop year. If you truly want to try life in the 1800s, be expected to have 18-20 children, all born at home, and have half of them die before the age of five because of dysentery, typhoid, scarlet fever or measles.
Who was in control of West Africa in the 18th century?
Many of the ports are identified as being controlled by the English (A for Anglorum), Dutch (H for Holland), Danish (D for Danorum), or French (F). Using the map above with a current map of West Africa, compare and contrast the country of Guinea during the 18th century with that country today.
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Safe and Green Spring Cleaning
Some of the worst culprits contributing to environmental pollution are found right under our noses. Petroleum-based household cleaners can contribute to air and water pollution during manufacturing and disposal as well as in our homes. Consumers are sometimes concerned about potential environmental and health problems stemming from their use. There are alternatives to petroleum-based cleaners that are safer, cheaper and just as effective.
Vegetable-based detergents containing acetic or citric acids have been used successfully for centuries, and are based on renewable resources, can biodegrade quickly, and are gentle on the environment.
In addition, consider using safe concentrated cleaning products (using a fraction of the amount you would with other products) and seek out bulk packaging that is environmentally sound and cost-effective.
The label reader’s guide to toxic cleaning product ingredients
Ammonia is toxic when inhaled in concentrated vapors and is considered a hazardous waste. Ammonia is found in all purpose cleaners, glass cleaners, laundry detergents and metal polishers.
Chlorinated cleaners can be especially toxic. Some cleaners contain dioxin, a known carcinogen that can build up in the food chain, is stored in fat, and is believed to affect the endocrine system. Chlorinated materials are used in bleach, dishwasher detergent, and toilet bowl cleaners.
Glycol ether is a central nervous system depressant and can poison the kidney or liver. It is often found in all-purpose cleaners and some laundry detergents.
Oxalic acid is caustic and corrosive to skin and mucous membranes. It is commonly added to cleanser, toilet bowl cleaners and metal polishes.
Petroleum-based detergents contain neurotoxins and central nervous system depressants. Exotic-sounding chemicals like nonyl phenol and alkyl phenol ethoxylates (APEs) are found in detergents, furniture polish, cosmetics and household cleaners, and contain environmental impurities that contribute to pollution.
Phosphates are added to dishwashing and laundry detergents because it acts as a water softener. Phosphates are released into the environment through waste water, and are not removed by sewage treatment systems. Phosphates can cause algae overgrowth and suffocation of aquatic life.
Sodium Hydroxide or Lye is in most oven cleaners. It is a corrosive poison and hazardous waste.
There are alternatives to toxic cleaning products
With a minimum of effort, you can easily make your own cleaning products from inexpensive and common household ingredients. Essential oils are an optional addition to homemade cleaning products, and many of them, like lavender and tea tree oil, have antifungal, antibiotic and antibacterial qualities. Essential oils also help you make a naturally-scented cleaning product if you prefer to add their aroma to your household environment.
Alice’s Wonder Spray™
Use this recipe for sink, tub, toilet, tile and floors.
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons borax
32 ounces hot water
1/4 cup liquid dish soap (added last)
20 drops essential oil (optional)
Dissolve borax in hot water (otherwise the spray will be grainy). Add vinegar, borax and water to a 32-ounce spray bottle. Add the liquid dish soap and essential oil if desired. Shake ingredients to mix.
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup borax
drops of essential oil of your choice (optional)
Mix baking soda and borax together in a bowl or plastic tub with optional essential oil. You can also put the powder in a shaker and shake onto the surface to be cleaned.
For slow drains, pour one cup each of baking soda, salt and vinegar down the drain. Wait 15 minutes and flush drain with boiling water. Pour boiling water down the drain every two weeks to prevent build up.
Add 1/4 cup of vinegar to one quart warm water in a spray bottle. Spray windows, rub with a clean rag and dry with newspapers.
VFC carries the following pre-made, quality cleaning products. They are made with nontoxic and biodegradable ingredients, and not tested on animals. Some brands offer a wide range of cleaners for the laundry, kitchen and bath.
Clean House, Clean Planet, Karen Logan, Pocket Books, 1997.
The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, Valerie Ann Worwood, New World Library, 1991.
Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living, Annie Berthold-Bond, Clarkson Potter, 1999
The Naturally Clean Home: 150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning Karen Siegel Maier, Storey Publishing, 2008
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today I want to share some stuff about Microbiology as I'm sitting for it in this bloody semester.
some fact that I try to conclude by myself after I read the doctor slides.
1. microbiology is a study of living and non-living things in a micro way.
2. Not all microbes harm human body. Some do benefit our body.
3. Virus is not a living thing.
4. Eurokaryotic cells do have nucleoplasm, chromosome, and nuclear membrane while prokaryotics don't.
5. Bacteria is an prokaryote.
6. Prokaryote's Flagella is not the same as Eukaryote's Flagella.
7. Cell wall of bacteria help to withstand the high osmotic pressure of bacteria's cytoplasm that may burst.
8. main constituent of most bacterial cell wall is peptidoglycan.
9. you should take note about glycocalyx.
10. Some prokaryotes have 'Pilus sex' for conjugation among themselves in a way of reproduction.
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New Tool Better Predicts Pediatric Asthma Development
JANUARY 02, 2019
Carisa D. Brewster
Gurjit Khurana-Hershey, MD, PhDIn an effort to improve asthma prevention and care, investigators have developed a new quantitative tool, the Pediatric Asthma Risk Score (PARS), to help predict pediatric asthma better than current standard test Asthma Predictive Index (API).
The API was developed in 2000 and is the most widely used guide for predicting asthma early in life. But while the index successfully identifies children that would not get asthma (96%), it had a lower rate of predicting who would get asthma (28%).
Since then, there have been some improvements to the API to make it more rigorous. These include sensitization to aeroallergens and food allergies, and taking into account environmental exposures.
“If we can predict who will develop asthma, we might be able to prevent the disease or intervene early and help alleviate worsening of the disease and reduce exacerbations,” said study co-author Gurjit Khurana-Hershey, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics and Director of the Division of Asthma Research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Subjects came from the Cincinnati Childhood Allergy and Air Pollution Study (CCAAPS) birth cohort and consisted of 762 infants born to atopic parents between 2001 and 2003. Eligibility was determined by having at least 1 allergy symptom and a positive skin prick test (SPT) to at least 1 aeroallergen. The number of children included in the final analysis was 589.
Children were examined annually from ages 1-7, with parents reporting frequency of wheeze, wheezing apart from colds, and skin and allergy symptoms. At age 7, asthma was diagnosed based on reported symptoms and measurement of lung function with spirometric tests according to American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society guidelines.
Both PARS and API predicted asthma in high-risk children, but PARS was able to predict mild to moderate levels of the disease. Variables that predicted asthma with PARS included wheezing (OR: 2.88; 95% CI: 1.52-5.37), sensitization to 2 or more food allergens and/or aeroallergens (OR: 2.44; 95% CI: 1.49-4.05), and African-American race (OR: 2.04; 95% CI: 1.19-3.47).
In addition, researchers reproduced PARS results in the Isle of Wight birth cohort in the United Kingdom, whose subjects were recruited 10 years previously and does not included African-Americans.
Khurana-Hershey says that these results are most important for young children who have experienced wheezing between the ages of 1-2, a time when respiratory infections can be frequent. Parents often wonder if their child is at risk for developing asthma and PARS helps answer that question with more accuracy. Being able to predict mild to moderate asthma is also a potential game-changer.
“This is highly relevant as these children may be the most amenable to preventative strategies,” she said. “Future studies may incorporate genetics and other biomarkers into the risk assessment. It will also be helpful to see if the tool is predictive in other racial and ethnic groups of children.”
The study, “A Pediatric Asthma Risk Score to better predict asthma development in young children,” was published online in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
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she used it to make pickles. And they were darned good. Maybe
she also used it to make butter
and tortillas. So why didn’t she tell you that you
could use it in your reef aquarium? Probably because you never
asked. I’ll bet she knew you could, but just wanted
you to discover it for yourself!
This article describes everything you need to know about
using limewater (aka kalkwasser) to maintain calcium,
alkalinity, and pH in reef aquaria. Topics include what it
is, how it supplies calcium and alkalinity, where to get it,
how to use it, and what impurities it may contain. Much of
the information has been collected from other articles and
online sources, and links to these references are scattered
throughout the article. They can be useful for those interested
in further detail on a particular topic, or who want to see
more of the reasoning behind a particular claim.
Since some aquarists may be interested only in particular
attributes of limewater, the table of contents below shows
how the article is laid out:
What Is Lime?
According to the National
Lime Association, “lime” is defined as either
quicklime or hydrated lime. These materials are made by heating
calcium carbonate until the carbon dioxide is driven off,
forming quicklime (calcium oxide):
CaO + CO2
Water can then be added to form hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide;
referred to subsequently in this article as just lime):
2. CaO +
Both lime and quicklime are suitable for making limewater
(kalkwasser) and otherwise supplementing calcium and
alkalinity in reef aquaria. There are some important differences
between the use of lime and quicklime that will be discussed
in subsequent sections. These differences relate to the fact
that quicklime is slightly more potent and gets hot when water
is added to it (equation 2).
A couple of other definitions are worth noting. Limewater
is the solution that forms when lime (or quicklime) dissolves
in fresh water. The solution is exactly the same using lime
or quicklime, as long as the same amount of calcium is added.
Kalkwasser is simply the German word for limewater.
Neither term is ever correctly applied to a solid, so any
solid material sold as “kalkwasser” is
either lime or quicklime.
Pickling lime is, in most cases, food grade calcium hydroxide.
Mrs. Wages website
(a place to buy pickling lime online) refers to it as calcium
oxide in some places, but my understanding is that this
product is calcium hydroxide. [As an aside, some of Mrs. Wages
other information about pickling lime makes no sense at all,
such as saying the reason that it contains lime is proprietary,
but in the line above, showing how it works.]
Where To Get Lime
can buy lime from a variety of different aquarium supply companies.
Most often, these companies sell calcium hydroxide and call
it kalkwasser or kalkwasser mix. Some of these
companies claim that their lime meets a particular standard
for purity (Warner, ESV, and Seachem, for example), and these
standards are detailed in later sections of this article.
Others (Kent, Coralife and Two Little Fishies, for example)
do not appear to make specific claims other than claiming
that their products are pure.
Pickling lime can often be found at large grocery stores,
especially in the Fall. Apparently, some folks still do use
it for canning, although one company (Ball) has apparently
stopped selling it. However, you may still find their product
occasionally. Another major brand is Mrs.
Wages, which can also be obtained online for $1.85 per
pound or less. Any brand of pickling lime is likely fine to
use as a base for limewater solutions, as it has to be food
grade to be sold commercially (the implications of which are
Many aquarists have recently turned to
buying bulk brands of food grade lime or quicklime. Some primary
manufacturers such as the Mississippi Lime Company sell a
variety of different grades of lime and quicklime, including
food grades of each. Unfortunately, they do not sell directly
to the public, and even their distributors will sell only
large amounts (many hundreds of pounds). Still, many reef
clubs or local reef stores have organized purchases for their
members or customers. There is no beating bulk lime for cost
when compared to other balanced methods of supplying calcium
and alkalinity to aquaria. I bought 100 pounds of quicklime
this way several years ago for less than $0.50 per pound,
and expect it to last a considerable time into the future.
One should be careful using agricultural lime, such as the
products sold by Home Depot or other home improvement stores.
In many cases this material, despite being called lime, is
actually calcium carbonate. If so, the term lime is simply
short for limestone. Even when the bag gives concentrations
of CaO and/or MgO, that statement is a unit of measure of
calcium or magnesium, not an indication that there is really
CaO in the bag. Limestone is not suitable for making limewater
since it is insoluble. Further, in agricultural grades of
calcium hydroxide or oxide, the purity may not be adequate
for a reef aquarium.
Purity Of Commercial Lime
Lime is graded in
a variety of ways. One way has to do with the amount of magnesium
it contains. High calcium quicklime (and lime) is derived
from limestone (calcium carbonate) containing 0-5% magnesium
carbonate. Magnesian quicklime (and lime) is derived from
limestone containing 5% -35% magnesium. Dolomitic quicklime
(and lime) is derived from limestone containing 35% - 46%
magnesium carbonate. Most reef aquarists use high calcium
limes since the magnesium is not generally soluble in limewater
(a fact discussed in detail below).
Another way of grading lime has to do with impurities present
in the lime. Manufacturers may refer to grades in a wide variety
of ways, and some of those that are worth knowing are detailed
below, along with four brands that claim to meet these specifications
(Warner, ESV, Seachem, and Mrs. Wages). Other companies that
sell to aquarists (Kent, Coralife, and Two Little Fishies,
for example) do not specify the grades used (at least that
I can determine). If you use those brands, then you are relying
on the manufacturer’s claims to ensure suitable purity.
The most common and widely recognized grades of lime are:
1. . FCC, which stands for Food Commercial Codex.
It states that the lime or quicklime is food grade, and meets
minimum standards to be a food product. In that sense, FCC
has purity assurances that other industrial and agricultural
grades may not have. The impurities regulated and the actual
impurity levels in typical batches from the Mississippi
Lime Company are shown in Tables 1A, 1B, and 1C. The requirements
for Ca(OH)2 are slightly more stringent
than for CaO, but Ca(OH)2 is slightly
less potent so an aquarist would need to use more. Any food
grade lime, or pickling lime (such as Mrs. Wages or Ball’s)
should meet the specifications in Tables 1A and 1B. As seen
in Table 2, the actual impurity levels in commercial FCC products
can be much lower than the FCC limits. Seachem
also claims to meet this specification.
and Alkali Salts
than 150 ppm
than 5 ppm
than 3 ppm
than 30 ppm
and Alkali Salts
than 50 ppm
than 10 ppm
than 3 ppm
than 30 ppm
& Alkali Salts
2. USP stands for United States Pharmacopoeia and
NF stands for National Formulary. USP/NF calcium hydroxide
can have the impurities shown in Table 2. This rating is similar
to, but requires slightly fewer tests than does the food grade
claims to meet this specification.
2. USP Grade Calcium Hydroxide
and Alkali Salts
than 3 ppm
than 40 ppm
3. AR (ACS) stands for Analytical Reagent grade,
as described by the American Chemical Society. Reagent grade
calcium hydroxide can have the impurities shown in Table 3.
The Reagent grading is focused on attributes that are important
to chemists, but that may not matter much to reef aquarists,
such as low magnesium, sodium, and potassium. It also does
not focus on toxic impurities (no testing for arsenic or lead,
for example). The total amount of heavy metals allowed is
similar to food and pharmaceutical grades. Warner
claims to meet this specification.
3. AR (ACS) Grade Calcium Hydroxide Specifications
compounds (as sulfate)
than 30 ppm
4. Water Chemicals Codex is a grade that is described
by the Committee on Water Treatment Chemicals of the National
Research Council. The grade is specifically listed as suitable
for treating potable (drinking) water. Consequently, it focuses
on toxic impurities, as shown in Table 4. The specification
is the same for calcium oxide and calcium hydroxide. ESV
claims to meet this specification.
What Is Limewater?
have used limewater
very successfully for a number of years, and it is the system
that I use in my aquarium. It is comprised of an aqueous solution
of calcium and hydroxide ions that can be made by dissolving
either quicklime or lime in fresh water. Note that the water
must be freshwater. Combining lime with seawater will result
in a mess of precipitated magnesium and calcium carbonates
The only inherent difference between calcium oxide and calcium
hydroxide is that adding a molecule of water to quicklime
produces lime, and that a great quantity of heat can be generated
when that happens.
3. CaO +
Consequently, dissolving quicklime can make water quite warm,
especially if an excess of solids is added. Some aquarists
have damaged equipment by adding a large amount of quicklime
to a small amount of water in a plastic reactor. The heat
released can easily boil the water, and some plastic devices
may not be able to withstand that hot, corrosive mixture.
The calcium ions in the solution obviously supply calcium
to the aquarium, and the hydroxide ions supply alkalinity.
Hydroxide itself provides alkalinity (both by
definition and as measured with an alkalinity test), but
alkalinity as bicarbonate, not hydroxide. Fortunately,
when limewater is used in a reef aquarium, it quickly combines
with atmospheric and dissolved carbon dioxide and bicarbonate
to form bicarbonate and carbonate:
+ CO2 à
OH- + HCO3-
CO3-- + H2O
In an aquarium with an acceptable
pH, there is no concern that the alkalinity provided by
limewater is any different from any other carbonate alkalinity
supplement. The hydroxide immediately disappears into the
bicarbonate/carbonate system. In other words, the amount of
hydroxide present in aquarium water is really a function of
only pH (regardless of what has been added), and at any pH
below 9, it is an insignificant factor in alkalinity tests
(much less than 0.1 meq/L). Consequently, the fact that alkalinity
is initially supplied as hydroxide is not to be viewed as
problematic, except as it impacts pH (see below).
Limewater that is saturated with calcium hydroxide has a
pH of 12.54 at 25ºC. It is actually recognized as a secondary
pH standard. The pH is substantially higher at lower temperature
(12.627 at 20ºC and 13.00 at 10ºC), and lower at
higher temperature (12.289 at 30ºC; 11.984 at 40ºC).
Saturated limewater has a conductivity of about 10.3 mS/cm
at 25ºC, and contains about 808 ppm of calcium and 40.8
meq/l of alkalinity. Slightly more calcium and alkalinity
dissolve at lower temperatures, and less at higher temperatures.
Of interest to chemists, a large fraction of the calcium in
saturated limewater is present as the ion CaOH+,
with the remainder being Ca++.
The CaOH+ will instantly
dissociate into Ca++ and
OH- upon its addition to
How To Dose Limewater
The fact that limewater
is very basic (the pH is typically above 12) demands that
the limewater be added slowly to an aquarium unless very small
additions are made. The reason for this is two-fold: to prevent
the local pH in the area of the addition from rising too high
(slow addition permits more rapid mixing with tank water to
reduce the pH), and to prevent the overall tank pH from rising
too high (slow addition allows the tank to pull in CO2
from the atmosphere during the slow addition, mitigating the
pH rise). Some aquarists advocate
rapid addition, and that is fine for small additions that
would add less than 0.2 meq/L of alkalinity to the aquarium,
but larger additions will drive the pH too high, as detailed
Consequently, limewater is most often added slowly, by dripping
or slow pumping. Often it is added as the top off water, replacing
most or all of the evaporated water. Such pumps add cost and
complexity to the system, especially if combined with a float
valve or switch (I use the latter and a Reef Filler pump that
I bought from Champion Lighting).
The suitable delivery methods for lime and limewater are:
1. Slow dosing clear, settled limewater to replace evaporated
water. This can be attained with drippers (homemade
or commercial) or slow pumps (including diaphragm pumps like
the Reef Filler or peristaltic pumps like the Litermeter).
The delivery can be controlled by float switches or valves,
or matched to the evaporation rate by controlling pump speeds.
Using pumps and float switches raises the costs considerably,
but also reduces the time spent dealing with limewater. I
spend only five minutes once every three weeks to replenish
my limewater delivery system. Sophisticated float switches
and slow pumps also lessen the likelihood of overdosing that
can come with other methods.
Some aquarists have tried to use powerheads as part of such
a limewater delivery system. Frequently, these add too much
limewater at once before a float switch turns them back off.
Aquarists designing such systems should keep in mind the dosage
limitations described below.
Drippers often hold only a gallon or two of limewater, and
so need to be refilled frequently. Delivery with pumps, however,
can be from as large a container as space permits. I also
use a 44-gallon Rubbermaid Brute trash can that I bought at
Home Depot to store limewater (I use them to store RO/DI water
and artificial salt water, and have two connected to form
my sump). Some aquarists even use 55-gallon plastic drums.
Obviously, such large limewater reservoirs need to be placed
in basements, garages, or “fish rooms.”
2. Dosing milky limewater, to get more lime into the aquarium
than is available in clear, settled limewater. A drawback
is the delivery of impurities in or on the solid particles,
and the possibility that some solids may interact with organisms
before they dissolve.
3. Dosing limewater mixed with vinegar. The vinegar allows
more solid lime to dissolve into the limewater, and limits
the maximum pH that the aquarium will attain. Drawbacks include
the possibility that bacterial growth will be driven by the
acetate in the vinegar; the fact that some of the measured
alkalinity may be acetate, which is not used by corals and
coralline algae to calcify as far as I know; and that some
impurities in the lime may dissolve in the presence of vinegar
when they might settle out in its absence. Details behind
the use of vinegar are given below. Limewater containing typical
amounts of vinegar is still very high in pH and must be dosed
slowly. Much of the vinegar’s pH reduction comes after
it is metabolized by bacteria, as is shown later in this article.
4. Delivering a small amount of limewater all at once. Adding
1.25% of the aquarium’s volume (1.25 gallons of limewater
per 100 gallons of aquarium water) as saturated limewater
all at once raises the pH
by 0.6 to 0.7 pH units. Such an increase is clearly too
large. Adding a smaller portion all at once can, however,
be acceptable. Adding, for example, 0.25% of the aquarium
volume (0.25 gallons or 1 L of limewater per 100 gallons of
aquarium water) will raise the pH by only 0.1 to 0.2 pH units.
Unless the pH is high (>8.4) before the addition, that
amount is likely acceptable. The other concern with all-at-once
dosing is that the local pH in the area of the addition will
rise considerably higher than the values above. So dosing
must be done far from living organisms, and in high flow areas
that will facilitate fast mixture. In some aquaria, such restrictions
make all-at-once dosing of limewater prohibitively risky to
5. Delivering a small amount of solid lime slurried (dispersed)
in a small amount of water. Adding one level teaspoon of solid
lime (Ca(OH)2) slurried in a cup of water to 40 gallons of
aquarium water all at once raises the
pH by 0.6 to 0.7 pH units. That is clearly too much. Adding
a smaller portion all at once can, however, be acceptable.
Adding, for example, 1/4 teaspoon to 40 gallons will raise
the pH by only 0.1 to 0.2 pH units. Unless the pH is high
(>8.4) before the addition, that amount is likely acceptable.
The other concern with all at once dosing is that the local
pH in the area of the addition will rise considerably higher
than the values above. Moreover, dosing a slurry raises the
added concern that the solids must dissolve before encountering
organisms that may take them up and be harmed. So it is best
to dose such materials to a sump, and watch that they completely
dissolve before reaching the main aquarium or a refugium.
In many aquaria, such restrictions make all–at-once
dosing of a slurry prohibitively risky to living organisms.
6. Delivering limewater via a reactor, sometimes called a
Nilsen reactor (picture right). In this setup, fresh
water is added to a small chamber containing solid calcium
hydroxide. After mixing with the lime and becoming “limewater,”
the fluid portion then continues on to the aquarium. The mixing
is often performed by a magnetic stirrer, with a magnet inside
the chamber driven by a rotating magnet outside. These systems
normally mix the lime and fresh water several times per day,
but not continually. It can be difficult to get such systems
to continually deliver saturated limewater, and it is technically
challenging to use vinegar with them. They are, however, well
suited to use under aquaria or otherwise where space is limiting.
Vinegar And Limewater To Reduce
The reason that limewater
raises the pH of aquarium water so considerably is because
of the hydroxide that it adds. As described above, the hydroxide
can combine with carbon dioxide to form bicarbonate and bring
the pH back down. In many aquaria, however, the aeration is
not great enough to bring in carbon dioxide fast enough to
meet all this demand, and the pH rises. There are several
ways to add additional carbon dioxide to meet this demand,
including delivery from a carbon dioxide cylinder. Many aquarists,
however, choose to add
carbon dioxide in the form of vinegar. Many of them choose
to add the vinegar directly to the limewater, although if
pH reduction is the goal, it can also be added directly to
a high flow area of the aquarium.
When vinegar is added directly to aquarium water, the active
ingredient is acetic acid. The first thing it does is ionize
into acetate and H+:
CH3COO- + H+
Bacteria can then metabolize the acetate to gain energy in
the reaction shown below:
+ 2O2 à
2CO2 + H2O +
On balance, the H+ released
in (6) and the OH- released
in (7) offset each other, and the net addition is simply carbon
+ OH- à
+ 2O2 à
2CO2 + 2 H2O
One of the potential side effects of this metabolism is
that the bacteria performing the transformation may grow faster
because of it. This growth may have positive or negative outcomes.
One potentially positive outcome is that as they grow, they
will necessarily consume nitrogen and phosphorus, possibly
lowering nitrate and phosphate levels in the aquarium. Another
is that the bacteria may be a suitable food source for other
Potential drawbacks can include reduced oxygen as the bacteria
use it to consume the acetate, and the appearance of unattractive
bacterial mats in the aquarium (reported by some, but not
by the majority of vinegar users).
Vinegar And Limewater To Boost
useful attribute of vinegar is that it can be used to help
dissolve additional solid lime into limewater. It does this
by reducing the hydroxide concentration in the limewater:
CH3COO- + H+
The H+ combines with OH-
in the limewater:
H+ + OH- à
The actual dissolution of Ca(OH)2
is limited by the multiplication product of the calcium and
hydroxide concentrations in the limewater as shown below:
Ca++ + 2OH-
x [OH-] x [OH-] £
5.5 x 10-6
where [Ca++] is the concentration
of calcium (in moles/L) and [OH-]
is the concentration of hydroxide (in moles/L). Consequently,
if you reduce the concentration of OH-
via equations (10) and (11), then more Ca(OH)2
can dissolve into solution and still meet the equation (13)
This would seem like a concern, however, since losing OH-
might reduce the amount of alkalinity delivered by the limewater.
Luckily, this is not the case. While the OH-
is temporarily reduced by the acetic acid in the vinegar,
when bacteria metabolize the acetate, they release it back
to the water:
+ 2O2 à
2CO2 + H2O +
Consequently, additional solid lime can be dissolved into
limewater using vinegar.
How much can be used? The more vinegar that is used, the
lower the pH of both the limewater and the aquarium will be.
One reasonable point to shoot for is to add about the same
amount of total CO2 via the vinegar
as is needed by the lime to form HCO3-.
balance is roughly matched by using three level teaspoons
of solid lime per gallon of limewater, and 45 ml of vinegar
per gallon of limewater. For those aquarists choosing to use
vinegar in limewater, these values are a suitable starting
point. Note that the pH of the limewater is still quite high,
so slow dosing is usually required.
What kind of vinegar should be used? Luckily, cheap distilled
white vinegar is likely the best. More expensive flavored
and colored vinegars, such as red wine vinegar, will deliver
other unnecessary organic molecules to the aquarium, and are
What Else Is In Limewater Besides
Calcium And Alkalinity? Metallic Impurities
One interesting aspect
of limewater is its ability to self purify before being added
to the aquarium. This happens in several ways, but all relate
to the fact that most aquarists dissolve it and then let any
undissolved solids settle out. Few, if any, of these solids
are then dosed to the aquarium. It turns out that these solids
can contain many of the impurities that came to the limewater,
either in the solid lime, or in the water itself. In a recent
article I showed experimentally and theoretically how
this process works for a variety of metals, including copper,
nickel, and cadmium.
Figures 1 and 2 show experimentally what happens when solid
lime is added to water that contains a significant amount
of copper. In the high pH of limewater, copper precipitates
from solution as copper hydroxide. It also turns out that
excess lime solids themselves can help remove additional metals
from solution, as those metals bind to the surfaces of the
undissolved lime. Besides metals, other impurities can also
be precipitated from limewater as calcium salts, including
Figure 1. Fresh water containing copper, giving it
a slight blue color (left).
Immediately after addition of calcium hydroxide (right),
the solution is
cloudy and darker blue.
Figure 2. Fresh water containing copper, giving it
a slight blue color (left).
After addition of calcium hydroxide and allowing time to settle
of the visible blue color has settled out of solution.
This purification is also seen in practice by many aquarists
who have noticed the solids on the bottom of their limewater
containers discolor, often to a bluish/green color suggesting
copper. For these reasons, I recommend that lime solids not
be dosed to aquaria when it is possible to avoid it. Letting
the limewater settle for a few hours to overnight will permit
most of the large particles to settle out, and whether it
looks clear at that point or not, it is likely fine to use.
In general, it is a good practice to leave residual solids
on the bottom of limewater reservoirs rather than cleaning
them out every time, as they may actually help purify the
water by these precipitation mechanisms. Once the solids discolor,
or have been collecting for 6-12 months, however, they should
What Else Is In Limewater Besides
Calcium And Hydroxide? Mg++
As discussed above,
solid lime can contain considerable material in addition to
calcium and hydroxide. In particular, most grades allow a
significant amount of magnesium and alkali salts (which include
sodium, potassium, and lithium). Of these, many aquarists
would be most concerned with magnesium. In order to better
assess how much strontium and magnesium would be delivered
by the use of lime, I determined how much calcium, magnesium,
and strontium were present in the solid quicklime that I use.
Details of the testing method were presented in a previous
article. The results are shown in Table 5.
5. Alkaline earth metals in quicklime.
Concentration in solid (weight %)
Concentration (by weight)
= Mg/Ca ratio
= Sr/Ca ratio
As expected, the primary ingredient is calcium. Magnesium
is fairly low, and strontium is quite low. This material has
a Mg/Ca ratio of 0.0038. That is at the low end of the Mg/Ca
ratio found in corals, and well below that found in coralline
algae. It has a Sr/Ca ratio of 0.00037. That Sr/Ca value is
far below the 0.02 ratio of Sr/Ca found in typical corals.
I dose my aquarium with limewater made from this quicklime.
I typically use limewater at less than saturation because
my reef aquarium does not need full strength limewater. In
order to test for magnesium and strontium in the limewater
that I dose, I made 44 gallons of limewater, and dosed it
for about three weeks. I then took a sample of the clear limewater
that remained. It had a conductivity of 7 mS/cm, indicating
that it is not saturated (saturated limewater usually has
of about 10.3 mS/cm). This limewater sample was analyzed
(the details of which were presented in a previous article)
and the results are shown in Table 6.
6. Alkaline earth metals in limewater.
Concentration (by weight)
Relative to Solid Lime
It is interesting to note that relative
to calcium, magnesium is greatly underrepresented compared
to that in the starting quicklime. The reason for this result
is the well-known insolubility of magnesium hydroxide at high
pH. Any magnesium ions released into the solution rapidly
combine with hydroxide to form insoluble magnesium hydroxide
In a previous article on the solubility
of metals in limewater, I showed a graph
of the theoretical solubility of magnesium as a function of
pH. At the pH of limewater (low 12’s) the solubility
is between 0.01 and 0.001 ppm. The experimental solubility
here is a tad higher (0.017 ppm), presumably for one of two
reasons: some particulates of magnesium hydroxide may have
been present in the solution which were detected as soluble
magnesium when in fact, they were not. A second possibility
is that the solution simply had not reached thermodynamic
equilibrium, and the theoretical limit of solubility had not
yet been reached. Nevertheless, the point is that it is expected
that magnesium hydroxide will precipitate from such a solution,
and this did, in fact, happen. The magnesium in solution was
depleted by a factor of more than a hundred compared to what
would have been in solution had it all been soluble.
Relative to calcium, strontium was nearly unchanged in the
limewater compared to the solid quicklime. The reason for
the slight elevation is that strontium is even less likely
than calcium to precipitate onto the bottom of the limewater
reservoir, and so stays more in solution than calcium.
What Gets Left Behind On The
Bottom Of The Limewater Container?
solids on the bottom of a limewater reservoir contain everything
that did not dissolve, or that dissolved and later precipitated
from solution. Such solids could contain magnesium hydroxide
and carbonate, calcium hydroxide and carbonate (though calcium
hydroxide is fairly unlikely in unsaturated limewater) and
a variety of other impurities, such as alumina, silica, etc.
In order to determine what was in it, I tested a sample of
the white solid material that had been collecting for months
on the bottom of my limewater reservoir, and detailed the
results in a previous
article. The white sludge was removed along with some
limewater. The mixture of solid and liquid was acidified to
dissolve it, and it was tested for calcium, magnesium, and
strontium. The results are shown in Table 7. Only relative
concentrations are shown as no effort was made to dry the
sample prior to analysis, making absolute concentrations meaningless.
7. Alkaline earth metals in limewater sludge.
Concentration (by weight)
Relative to Solid Lime
As anticipated, relative to calcium, magnesium is enriched
by a factor of 13 in the sludge compared to the solid starting
quicklime. This magnesium may be present as both magnesium
hydroxide and magnesium carbonate, but because magnesium carbonate
is fairly soluble compared to calcium carbonate, it is most
likely that the primary magnesium salt is magnesium hydroxide.
It may also be mixed calcium and magnesium carbonates.
Interestingly, strontium is actually depleted by a factor
of two relative to solid starting quicklime, indicating that
it is less likely than calcium to end up on the bottom of
the reservoir. While strontium carbonate is somewhat less
soluble than calcium carbonate, the strontium concentration
in the limewater is so low that SrCO3 may not actually be
saturated, so it precipitates less. The strontium that is
there may simply be copreciptiated with calcium carbonate.
Does Limewater Degrade Over Time?
The Degradation Reaction
When carbon dioxide
is dissolved in water, it hydrates to form carbonic acid:
CO2 + H2O
Then, if the pH is above 11, as it is in limewater, the carbonic
acid equilibrates to form mostly carbonate:
H2CO3 + 2OH-
2H2O + CO3--
It is the carbonate that we are concerned with in the degradation
of limewater. It can combine with the calcium in limewater
to form insoluble calcium carbonate:
Ca++ + CO3--
The result of this reaction is visually obvious. The calcium
carbonate can be seen as a solid crust on the surface of limewater
that has been exposed to the air for a day or two (do not
bother to remove this crust, it may actually be protecting
the underlying limewater from further penetration by carbon
dioxide). The formed solids also settle to the bottom of the
container (as described above). Since solid calcium carbonate
not an especially useful supplement of calcium or alkalinity,
this reaction has the effect of reducing the limewater’s
potency. With sufficient exposure to air, such as by aeration
or vigorous agitation, this reaction can be driven to near
completion, with little calcium or hydroxide remaining in
This reaction is the basis of the claims by many aquarists
that limewater must be protected from the air. It is also
the basis of the claim that Nilsen reactors are to be preferred
over delivery from still reservoirs of limewater. Neither
of these claims, however, stands up to experimental scrutiny,
as I showed in a previous
Conductivity is perhaps the easiest way to monitor the potency
of limewater, with a conductivity of about 10.3 mS/cm detected
in saturated solutions at 25ºC. Figure 3 shows the potency
over time of limewater in an aerated 1-gallon container. Clearly,
the potency drops rapidly due to the formation of nonconductive
calcium carbonate precipitate.
Figure 3. Conductivity as a function of time over two
days in my standard
44-gallon limewater reservoir with its lid on (red) and in
an open 1-gallon
container with an airstone (black).
In a still reservoir that is not aerated, however, the potency
is stable for a period adequate to permit dosing. Figures
3 and 4 show the conductivity of the limewater in my 44-gallon
limewater reservoir over a three-week period. It was simply
covered with a loose fitting plastic lid. It is apparent from
the conductivity that the potency does not decrease significantly
Figure 4. Conductivity as a function of time over three
weeks in my
standard44-gallon limewater reservoir with its lid on.
For those interested in dosing saturated limewater, Figure
5 shows the potency of limewater in a still but uncovered
1-gallon container with excess solid lime on the bottom. In
that configuration, any calcium and hydroxide that is taken
away via precipitation to form calcium carbonate is apparently
replaced by dissolution of more solid lime from the bottom.
Consequently, even a simple unstirred one-gallon container
can be used without fear of loss of potency, if there is solid
lime on the bottom.
Figure 5. Conductivity as a function of time over 10
days in an open 1-gallon
container of limewater with excess solid lime on the bottom.
To summarize the degradation issues:
Limewater can lose potency by reacting with carbon dioxide
in the air, forming insoluble calcium carbonate. Since calcium
carbonate is not an effective supplement of calcium and alkalinity
in reef aquaria, the limewater can become less useful through
this process. The rate at which this happens in large containers,
such as plastic trash cans with loose fitting lids, however,
is much less than many aquarists expect. There is, in fact,
little degradation under typical use conditions. Consequently,
the dosing of limewater from such large, still reservoirs
can be just as effective as, or more so than, dosing using
any other scheme.
What Else Does Limewater Do In
An Aquarium? Raise pH Whether You Want It To Or Not
limewater has a pH above 12 (even when a reasonable amount
of vinegar is added), it causes a substantial rise in pH when
added to a reef aquarium. This attribute has both positive
and negative aspects. It limits the speed at which limewater
can be added without raising the tank’s pH too much
(discussed above). It also can be a serious problem in accidental
overdosing, where the pH can rise very high. Often, this overdosing
can lead to the aquarium turning white like milk as calcium
carbonate precipitates throughout the water column.
In such cases of acute overdose, here is my advice:
1. If the pH is 8.5 or lower (as it often is since a precipitation
event itself reduces pH even if it was much higher to start
with), there is little that can or needs to be done. Just
wait a few days for the white calcium carbonate to slowly
disappear. A water change is not necessary, although once
the water is clear, testing calcium and especially alkalinity
is in order (don’t bother to test the cloudy water as
it will give false high readings as these tests detect solids
even though they are not truly in solution). Few aquarists
suffer the loss of organisms from such events. I’ve
had several such events without any apparent losses.
2. If the pH is above 8.5, some action to reduce the pH is
warranted. The higher it is, the faster and greater the needed
action. Since such events may happen when few tools are available
to solve them (e.g., New Year's morning when few stores are
open), I’ll provide a number of options, although some
are better than others. In all cases, reduce the pH only to
8.5 to avoid overshooting.
The best option is to add carbon dioxide, either by bubbling
the gas directly, or by adding soda water/seltzer (or blowing
into a skimmer inlet if it is your only option). At least
in the normal aquarium pH range, a teaspoon of soda water
per gallon of tank water will lower pH by a couple of tenths
of a pH unit. Overshooting with carbon dioxide, while undesirable,
is less of a concern than is overshooting with any other option.
A second option is to add vinegar. Be especially careful
to not overshoot pH 8.5 or so, because when bacteria begin
to metabolize the acetate, the resulting CO2 will further
lower the pH, and oxygen will be consumed (equation (14)).
For this reason, it is especially important to maintain aeration
when using vinegar in such a fashion. I’ve added vinegar
to my aquarium in similar situations without difficulty, although
the pH was only marginally high and I did not need to add
A third rung of options involves adding a mineral acid such
as muriatic acid (HCl or hydrochloric acid) or sulfuric acid.
I’ve added HCl to my aquarium in similar situations
without difficulty. When performing such a mineral acid treatment,
be very careful not to overshoot, and to monitor the pH during
any acid additions. I would intervene in this fashion only
if I could monitor the pH in real time, and could add the
acid to a high flow area far from any organism. Diluting the
acid in water (say, 20:1 or 100:1) prior to adding it to the
tank is highly recommended for the safety of both the aquarist
and the tank’s inhabitants (diluting vinegar, which
is already dilute, isn’t necessary). One other drawback
to adding a mineral acid is that it reduces the alkalinity.
In such a case, the result may be elevated calcium and reduced
alkalinity that will require
What Else Does Limewater Do In
An Aquarium? Raise pH When You Need It
In a great many cases,
reef aquaria have pH values lower than aquarists might prefer.
This low pH comes about from excess carbon dioxide in the
water, often either from a CaCO3/CO2
reactor, or from excess carbon dioxide in the home air.
In both of these cases, limewater is arguably the best way
to raise pH, and I have recommended it for this purpose in
articles. Figure 6 shows how adding limewater can raise
the pH by taking up excess carbon dioxide and adding alkalinity,
all without raising alkalinity relative to calcium (since
it also adds calcium).
Figure 6. The relationship between alkalinity and pH,
showing the effect of limewater on pH by
both reducing the excess carbon dioxide (the hydroxide combines
with it to form bicarbonate
and carbonate) and increasing the alkalinity.
What Else Does Limewater Do In
An Aquarium? Reduce Magnesium
Despite old beliefs
that using of limewater depletes magnesium, the truth is somewhat
more complicated. As was shown above, magnesium is not dosed
in typical settled limewater because it is insoluble; nor
is it present in very high concentration even in undissolved
Bingman showed that precipitation of magnesium carbonate
and hydroxide in aquaria using limewater was unlikely to be
significant. More likely, such depletion is simply the result
of not delivering as much magnesium to the aquarium as is
being “exported” during calcification.
In a previous article I used the data presented earlier in
this article to develop models of how magnesium might be depleted
from reef aquaria over the course of a year using limewater
based on magnesium incorporation rates typical of corals and
coralline algae. Table 8 shows some of the data generated.
8. Magnesium depletion with dosing of settled limewater.
of limewater added daily
Added over 1 year (ppm)
Removed over 1 year (ppm)
of tank volume
of tank volume
of tank volume
As expected, the magnesium depletion is significant. While
this depletion may be mitigated in a number of ways (including
water changes), it shows that aquarists using limewater should
consider monitoring magnesium over long periods of time. The
previous article also compared magnesium depletion via limewater
to magnesium depletion using a variety of different calcium
carbonate materials in CaCO3/CO2
Using limewater can also deplete strontium, not because it
is insoluble in limewater, but because there isn’t much
in at least some brands of lime. Since strontium may or may
not be beneficial, this may or may not be a concern.
What Else Does Limewater Do In
An Aquarium? Reduce Phosphate
reefkeepers accept the concept that adding limewater reduces
phosphate levels. This may be true, but the mechanism remains
to be demonstrated. Craig Bingman has done a variety of experiments
related to this hypothesis, and has published them in the
old Aquarium Frontiers. While many aquarists may not care
what the mechanism is, knowing it would help to understand
the limits of this method, and how it might best be employed.
Habib Sekha (Salifert) has pointed out that limewater additions
may lead to substantial precipitation of calcium carbonate
in reef aquaria. This idea makes perfect sense. After all,
it is certainly not the case that large numbers of reef aquaria
will exactly balance calcification needs by replacing all
evaporated water with saturated limewater. And yet, many find
that calcium and alkalinity levels are stable over long time
periods with just that scenario. One way that can be true
is if the excess calcium and alkalinity that such additions
typically dump into the aquarium are subsequently removed
by precipitation of calcium carbonate (such as on heaters,
pumps, sand, live rock, etc.).
It is this ongoing precipitation of calcium carbonate, then,
that may reduce the phosphate levels: phosphate binds to these
growing surfaces, and becomes part of the solid precipitate.
absorption of phosphate from seawater onto aragonite is
pH dependent, with the binding maximized at around pH 8.4
and with less binding at lower and higher pH values. If the
calcium carbonate crystal is static (not growing), then this
process is reversible, and the aragonite can act as a reservoir
for phosphate. This reservoir can inhibit the complete removal
of excess phosphate from a reef aquarium that has experienced
very high phosphate levels, and may permit algae to continue
to thrive despite having cut off all external phosphate sources.
In such extreme cases, removal of the substrate may even be
If the calcium carbonate deposits are growing, then phosphate
may get buried in the growing crystal, which can act as a
sink for phosphate, at least until that CaCO3 somehow dissolves.
Additionally, if these crystals are in the water column (e.g.,
if they form at the local area where limewater hits the tank
water), then they may become coated with organics and be skimmed
out of the aquarium.
An alternative mechanism for phosphate
reduction via limewater may simply be the precipitation of
calcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2.
The water in many reef aquaria will be supersaturated with
this material, as the equilibrium saturation concentration
in normal seawater is only 0.002 ppm phosphate. The supersaturation
of calcium phosphate will be even higher in the high pH/high
calcium fluid present where limewater enters reef aquaria.
The locally high pH converts much of the HPO4--
to PO4---, and it is the
concentration of PO4---
that ultimately determines supersaturation. That high supersaturation
may tip the balance to precipitation of calcium phosphate,
just as too much limewater all at once can tip the balance
to precipitation of calcium carbonate. As with CaCO3,
the precipitation of Ca3(PO4)2
in seawater may be limited more by kinetic factors than by
equilibrium factors, so it is impossible to say how much might
precipitate under reef tank conditions (without, of course,
somehow determining it experimentally).
As with the precipitation of CaCO3
containing some phosphate, if these calcium phosphate crystals
are in the water column (e.g., if they form at the local area
where limewater hits the tank water), then they may become
coated with organics and be skimmed out of the aquarium.
Limitations To Limewater: Limits
To The Addition Of Calcium And Alkalinity
important consideration for limewater is the upper limit of
the amount that can be added to an aquarium. This limitation
exists simply because both the amount of water that can be
added to an aquarium each day (to replace evaporation), and
the amount of solid lime that can be dissolved in that water,
are finite. Using lime slurries eliminates this concern, but
brings its own issues that were discussed above.
If an aquarium’s calcium and alkalinity demands are
near the high end, then replacing all of the evaporated water
with saturated limewater may not be adequate. In the case
of my reef aquarium system, however, it is more than adequate.
I do not even use saturated limewater (typically, I aim for
a conductivity of about 7 mS/cm), and I still meet my aquarium’s
demand. However, many aquaria have higher, maybe even much
higher, demands for calcium and alkalinity than mine does.
One way to enlarge the limewater’s impact is to add
fans to the aquarium to increase evaporation. A second involves
vinegar as described above. Many aquarists have successfully
employed both of these methods. Additionally, aquarists often
use a small amount of one of the other balanced additive systems
(especially the two-part additive systems) to give a little
boost to aquaria that need a small amount of extra calcium
and alkalinity beyond what limewater can supply, without incurring
significant capital costs. Likewise, these two-part additive
systems can be successfully combined with limewater during
periods of low evaporation when limewater may be temporarily
limited and not meet demand (as during rainy cool weather).
Dosing Other Additives In Limewater
frequently ask if they can mix other additives into their
limewater. For some additives, the answer is clearly no. These
(which precipitates as magnesium hydroxide), calcium (which
limits the dissolution of calcium hydroxide), and alkalinity
supplements (which will precipitate as calcium carbonate).
supplements can be combined with limewater, although there
may be no real need for it. Silicate
also can likely be dosed in this manner. Even though I use
limewater and silicate
supplements, I do not combine them.
Other additives fall into a grey area, where they may or
may not be damaged by combination with limewater. These include
iodine and iron supplements, some forms of which may not permit
mixing without causing problems, and I would not recommend
the negative side, limewater does have some safety concerns
that don’t apply to most other calcium and alkalinity
additive systems. The high pH of the liquid and the dust hazard
of the solid are not to be treated lightly. Inhalation of
the dust is to be avoided. Splashing limewater onto skin is
also to be avoided, and should be followed by extensive rinsing
with tap water if it happens. Splashing limewater into the
eyes is especially to be avoided, and the use of safety goggles
is prudent when using large amounts or in situations where
exposure is likely. Extensive and immediate rinsing with tap
water, followed by professional help, would be advised in
the case of eye exposure. Keep in mind that the slippery feeling
that a high pH liquid such as limewater causes on your hands
is due to the breakdown of the fats in the skin into fatty
acids (which are soaps).
Quicklime has some special hazards beyond normal lime and
limewater. Specifically, these relate to the heat produced
when calcium oxide hydrates to form calcium hydroxide. A small
amount of water added to a significant amount of quicklime
will get very hot. It can even boil. Some aquarists have melted
Nilsen reactors this way, and some have had such reactors
“explode,” presumably through rapid heating and
pressure buildup. So when using calcium oxide, be sure to
add a small amount of lime to a significantly larger amount
Limewater is one of
the most useful solutions for aquarists looking to maintain
calcium and alkalinity in reef aquaria. I have used it for
many years to supply my reef aquarium system. It can be inexpensive,
is not too difficult to use, and can maintain the pH of reef
aquaria even when it is otherwise reduced by calcium carbonate/carbon
dioxide reactors or excess carbon dioxide in home air. Limewater
does, however, have a number of eccentricities that aquarists
need to be aware of when using it. These include high pH,
limitations on how much can be added based on evaporation
rates, and considerations of what else is or is not dosed
along with it (such as magnesium). Hopefully, this article
will provide aquarists with the information they need to effectively
use limewater for their aquaria.
Oh, and the next time you see your grandmother, you might
mention what a cool use you have found for pickling lime!
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Green homes are apartment buildings, bungalows, or any other residential buildings that are constructed to have the minimum possible negative impact on the environment. In case you decide to buy a green home, you will enjoy several benefits in addition to minimizing environmental harm. Let’s look at the major five benefits of owning such a home.
1. Encourages Eco-Friendly Living
The construction of a green home is accomplished by adopting green principles like energy efficient systems, water and waste management, and so on. The construction and functioning of these homes depend a lot on recycling and reusing waste materials. In addition to this, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from these homes are much lower. The overall carbon footprints left by green homes are lesser in comparison with other regular homes.
2. Improves Indoor Air Quality
The paints used in green homes have low or zero levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOC paints emit toxic solvents, which when inhaled by people, may cause dizziness or headaches.
Green homes use raw materials that are less harmful to the overall well-being of the residents. They have better ventilation facilities. As a result, the indoor air quality is much better. Naturally, people living in such homes are less prone to respiratory or immune diseases.
3. Provides Numerous Tax and Loan Benefits
Some banks like the National Housing Bank (NHB) and State Bank of India (SBI) have tie-ups with the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). They offer concessions on processing fees and interest rates for home loans on green homes certified by the IGBC.
The state of Maharashtra offers up to 5-10% rebate on property tax for certified homes. This rebate is on the verge of being introduced in other states as well, and will soon be a major source of tax return.
4. Lowers Maintenance and Operating Costs
Green homes help you save on your monthly electricity and water bills. Several new innovative ideas like rainwater harvesting and home insulation, which are characteristics of these homes, help you achieve energy efficiency. For example, these homes can be naturally kept cool during summer months by using reflective paints on the roof. This reduces the need for air conditioners or coolers.
The technology used for the construction of green homes is simple and basic. The materials and equipment used are long lasting and don’t need regular maintenance. In this way, home owners save quite a lot on their maintenance bills as well.
5. High Resale Value
Green homes are the future of real estate. They’ll be sold at a high market value, as more and more homebuyers in India turn towards a green lifestyle. Future homebuyers will want to invest in property that is healthy for the occupants and the environment, as well as low on maintenance costs. Therefore, investing in such a home will bring you good value for your money in the future.
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“On the 8th of January ’42, I left Capt. S’s, in his employ for the Russian settlement. I descended the Sacramento in a launch of 30 tons, into the Bay of St. Francisco. I landed at Sousalita [Sausalito] pronounced Sow sa le ta, on the N. side of the Bay, in full view of the vessels lying at anchor at port St. Francisco. I here took it by land and in 3 days arrived at this place which is about 6 miles from Bodaga [sic], the Russian port, and 60 miles north of Port St. Francisco.” (A Journey to California, 1841: The Journal Account)
After about five weeks at Sutter’s Fort, eating ducks and learning Spanish, John Bidwell set out to take up his new assignment: dismantle Fort Ross. John Sutter had bought Fort Ross from the Russian-American Company the previous summer. John Bidwell would spend the next 14 months there, supervising the transfer of cattle and horses overland, and the shipment of weapons and equipment by boat to Sutter.
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A trip to the museum might remind you of grade school field trips or family vacations, but museums have played a much larger role in our society than you might think. Humans have been preserving and collecting hallmarks of civilizations for over a million years, and buildings dedicated to this conservation have always been equally important.
Though they were not always recognized as museums, there is evidence of museum-like structures and collections on nearly every continent, dating back as early as the second millennium in Mesopotamia.
Nowadays, museums have come to encompass all facets of human existence, from the history of war to advancements in science and technology. There is an experience for everyone at a museum, and virtually no niche is unserved!
A Country of Museums
From the beginning days of civilization, museums have served as meeting places for public exploration and learning. Find out how these hallmarks of culture have impacted the United States and why Americans love them so.
Making Their Mark
Museums are some of the most popular tourist destinations throughout the country and bring millions of visitors to cities far and wide each year. But there are so many amazing institutions that you may have never even heard of!
A Night at the Museum
Are you an art buff? Does space excite you? Or is natural history more your speed? Take this quiz to find out what popular US museum you should visit next!
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ECOVIEWS: Profiling, identity theft work well in some cases
Published: Sunday, November 17, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 16, 2013 at 10:14 p.m.
We often hear of someone being criticized for “profiling” someone else. In that context, profiling (aka stereotyping) means failing to recognize an individual for his or her personal qualities and instead indiscriminately projecting general traits ascribed to a group onto an individual. Among human beings, such behavior can have significant consequences for both the profiler and the person being profiled.
Interestingly, some other species also use a kind of profiling. And as with people, the consequences can be significant. Early scientific evidence of profiling in nature was presented in the 1800s by Henry Bates, a British naturalist. In the spirit of adventure, Bates set out to explore the jungles of the Amazon River. After spending more than a decade in South American forests collecting birds, insects and other creatures, Bates made a highly significant scientific discovery — the phenomenon of animal mimicry.
He reported the idea to science in a publication in 1862. He noted that insect predators, especially birds, readily ate butterflies. Nonetheless, he observed that a few species of butterflies flitted openly and languidly through the Amazonian forests without being eaten or even attacked by anything. He surmised that they must be unpalatable. Caterpillars feeding on plants that produce poisonous chemicals that do not harm the caterpillar develop into butterflies that are poisonous to predators. Bates noted that these free-flying butterflies all had conspicuously colored wings that made them readily recognizable. It was easy for a predator to make a quick judgment call and avoid the poisonous insect. In other words, a butterfly with a striking and identifiable color pattern was one not to be eaten. The birds used profiling to keep from consuming the wrong prey.
However, Bates also determined that some species of a typically plain-colored group of palatable butterfly species unrelated to the inedible group could also fly around the forest with impunity. Why? Because some of the edible species had evolved wing colors that mimicked the inedible species. Even he was unable to differentiate between some of the species when they were in flight, although they belonged to different families of butterflies.
For more than a century and a half, scientific debate has continued over Bates’ interpretations about mimicry, with many scientists dancing on the head of a pin about one aspect or another. But it is beyond debate that some butterflies can fly around protected from bird predation because their appearance is similar to other butterflies that are noxious.
Another classic example of profiling is seen in predators that prey on snakes. The harmless scarlet kingsnake of the Southeast, with its colorful red, yellow and black body rings, mimics the deadly eastern coral snake, which has rings of the same colors. The arrangement of the rings is different in the two species, but how many snake-eating birds are going to make that determination on the fly?
A field research project conducted in areas where both scarlet kingsnakes and coral snakes occur suggested that most predators will not take the risk. The researchers concluded that predators were significantly more likely to avoid snakes with red, yellow and black rings compared to snakes that were plain brown or longitudinally striped. In other words, most predators would consider it more prudent to forfeit a meal of a scarlet kingsnake than risk trying to eat a coral snake and ending up dead instead. Having a mental profile that red, yellow and black rings can mean trouble is a survival mechanism, although the particular tricolored individual may be harmless.
Although these examples may simplify the behavior, animals indisputably use profiling as a survival mechanism. So, since profiling is a natural phenomenon, perhaps we should not criticize the conduct in humans. Perhaps. On the other hand, among the other natural behaviors documented in various animals are siblicide (birds), suicide missions (honeybees) and slavery (ants) — not universally admired traits in humans. So perhaps we should not apply Mother Nature’s rules of behavior to people, but should instead judge human behavior by human standards.
Whit Gibbons, professor emeritus of ecology, University of Georgia, and head of the Environmental Outreach Program at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, grew up in Tuscaloosa. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Send environmental questions to email@example.com.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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A multidisciplinary group at Einstein and Montefiore has proved that the Learning Health System model can help medical advances reach patients faster—and save lives. Respiratory failure causes severe breathing problems and is a leading cause of death for hospitalized patients. “Knowing that a patient has a high risk of developing acute respiratory failure allows doctors to take steps to address it,” says Michelle Ng Gong, M.D., chief of the divisions of pulmonary medicine and of critical care medicine at Einstein and Montefiore.
In 2014, Dr. Gong and her LHS colleagues received a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to develop and test a program that would (1) provide an early warning regarding which hospitalized patients were at high risk for respiratory failure and (2) prompt providers to administer proven therapies to those patients.
To create their early-warning system, the researchers worked with artificial-intelligence experts to comb through data collected from more than 68,000 patient encounters at Montefiore and the Mayo Clinic. The researchers determined which signs, symptoms, and other factors could predict risk and then looked for patterns of data indicating that respiratory failure or death was likely.
The result: an algorithm called the Accurate Prediction of Prolonged Ventilation (APPROVE) score. APPROVE continuously monitors the records of hospitalized patients and can alert doctors, raising red flags up to 48 hours before symptoms become life threatening. In validating APPROVE, the researchers found that 20% of patients with high APPROVE scores at any time during their hospital stays either will develop respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation or will die in the hospital, compared with only 1% of patients with low scores.
A 2018 study, conducted at multiple medical centers, compared existing early-warning measures with APPROVE. Results showed that APPROVE was the most accurate, with fewer false alarms, in identifying hospitalized patients at risk of death or in need of breathing machines.
“One of the most exciting outcomes of this study is that we were able to demonstrate that APPROVE works in a variety of complex hospital settings,” Dr. Gong says. “That means that patients elsewhere, as well as those at Montefiore, can benefit from it.”
APPROVE scores should help even more if doctors are notified about the best-possible treatments for their patients. That’s where the second fruit of Dr. Gong’s NHLBI-funded research comes in: a patient-specific checklist, called PROOFCheck (Prevention of Organ Failure Checklist), of interventions considered appropriate for that patient. Physicians also have the option to call on critical-care specialists for assistance. APPROVE and PROOFCheck are now both in use at Montefiore.
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