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Even with the advent of online content, the printed page is still a simple and effective way of giving students reading assignments in class. This is especially true in situations where students don’t have access to computers at home or when you have limited access in the classroom. Creating a nice looking printout can be troublesome at times, but with FiveFilters PDF Newspaper, this is done quite easily. It only pulls the last five artciles, but it displays it in a very nice PDF newspaper. Here is how it works:
- Go to FiveFilters PDF Newspaper and enter in a webpage URL in the ‘Create PDF from URL’ box.
- Click on ‘Show options’ to get a few more options. Click on ‘Multiple stories’ to change it to ‘Single story’ for a nice looking single article page. This is helpful when the page has an RSS feed that pulls multiple stories and you only need the one.
- Since this is a European website, leave it at ‘A4’ if you plan on printing it on A4 or Letter Size paper.
- Type in a title for your page in the ‘Title’ box. This will appear at the top of your page.
- You can select to have your page go in descending order as on a blog, or ascending.
- You can select to have the time and date or images on your page. I haven’t had any luck with the images option, but it may work for you.
- If the page you select is only displaying a partial text on the page, use the ‘Fetch full text’ option.
- Click on ‘Create PDF’ and your PDF page will either appear in your browser or download depending on your setup. This page prints up very nicely.
This is a nice way of creating a newspaper-like page for your class. Students could even create one as a project. I wish you had the option of adding in other content such as from another page, but this is a free site and it works very easily. Check out my list of other PDF tools as well.
How do you see this working in your classroom? Share your ideas with others by using one of the three options below:
- Post your thoughts to this post by entering in your comment in the box below.
- Send me a Tweet at @nathanghall and I will make sure to add it to this post.
- Send me an email using the contact page on this website and I will add it to this post.
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There are 5 lumbar vertebrae located in the lower back. These vertebrae receive the most stress and are the weight-bearing portion of the back. The lumbar vertebrae allow movements such as flexion and extension and some lateral flexion.
Review Date: 6/1/2015
Reviewed By: Daniel Kantor, MD, Kantor Neurology, Coconut Creek, FL and Immediate Past President of the Florida Society of Neurology (FSN). Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
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Head lice are often a fact of life for school‑aged children. While inconvenient, head lice cause no medical harm and can be effectively treated. A revised clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), “Head Lice,” published in the August print issue of Pediatrics (published online July 26), clarifies and updates protocols for diagnosis and treatment, and provides guidance for the management of children with head lice in the school setting. Head lice are not a health hazard or a sign of poor hygiene and, in contrast to body lice, are not responsible for the spread of any disease. No healthy child should be excluded from or miss school because of head lice, and no-nit policies for return to school should be abandoned. Informed school nurses can help with diagnosis and suggestions about treatment. Because head lice are usually transmitted by head‑to‑head contact, parents should carefully check a child’s head before and after attending a sleepover or camp where children share sleeping quarters. There are many ways to treat active infestations, but not all products and techniques have been evaluated for safety and effectiveness. One percent permethrin lotion is recommended as initial treatment for most head lice infestations with a second application 7‑10 days after the first. Parents and caregivers should make sure that any treatment chosen is safe; preferred treatments would be those which are easy to use, reasonably priced, and proven to be non‑toxic. All products must be used exactly according to manufacturer’s instructions. Your pediatrician can help with diagnosis, treatment choices and management of difficult cases.
The American Academy of
Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians,
pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists
dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children,
adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit www.aap.org.
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Posted By KRHA,
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
| Comments (0)
|Ice may not be caloric or a line item on your restaurant menu, but it is consumed by your restaurant guests and comes with a variety of food safety challenges. The proper handling of ice is a food safety process that is easy to overlook. It is important to have procedures in place that ensure your machine is properly maintained and sanitary. In addition, you have to ensure your staff is properly handling ice to prevent contamination.
To reduce the risk of ice being a source of foodborne illness, restaurant operators and managers should be aware of the following points and conduct regular self-inspections to identify problems:
- When preparing drinks, never capture ice directly with bare hands or a glass.Instead, use a designated scoop and avoid letting any part of the handle touch the ice. Ice is considered a ready to eat (RTE) food and must be handled using the same guidelines as other RTE products.
- Store the scoop outside the ice supply. Laying an ice scoop inside an ice machine or an ice-filled bin can introduce pathogens. When the scoop is not being utilized, keep it covered and protected from contamination. Both the scoop and the compartment are food-contact surfaces, so clean and sanitize them regularly, as you would tongs for drink garnishes or a cutting board.
- Designate specific equipment for hauling ice. If you haul a large quantity of ice from one area of your restaurant to another – for example, from the back-of-house to the front-of-house – use food safe bins that are made specifically for this task. Never transport ice in a container that has been used to store chemicals or raw meat, seafood or poultry.
- Proper handwashing. There are new tools on the market that are designed to minimize hand contact when handling ice to reduce the potential risk of contamination. However, that does not lessen the importance of proper handwashing procedures for anyone handling or transporting ice. Proper handwashing should be a standard procedure for whoever is working with ice.
- Keep the door closed. The door of your commercial ice machine should be kept closed except when removing ice.
- Designated storage area for ice machine lids. If your operation has a soda machine/ice machine combo that requires staff to refill the ice machine, make sure you have trained your staff on the correct procedure to complete this task. When the lid is removed from the machine, it should be stored in a designated area to prevent possible contamination. The designated area should be on a countertop and not on the floor. If your staff is setting the lid on the floor, bacteria is being transferred to the ice machine on a daily basis.
- Never use the ice machine as a refrigerator. Do not store anything such as food, drinks, fruit etc. in the ice machine.
- If glass breaks anywhere near an exposed ice supply, dispose of the ice. Glass can strongly resemble ice and cause serious injury to guests and staff. Immediately dispose of the potentially contaminated ice, and clean and sanitize the machine or bin that houses the ice.
- Separate ice for drinks from ice used to keep food cold. If your restaurant stores any food or beverage containers on ice for temperature control, ensure that staff knows that ice is not to be incorporated into drinks. Pathogens from the food or beverage containers can infiltrate the surrounding ice, which could potentially cause foodborne illness if then served to guests.
- Clean and sanitize your ice machines regularly. Often moist and dark, ice machines can collect dirt and foster mold; if a health inspector finds either in your machine, a violation will likely be issued to you. Look for evidence of growth or scum, slime or mold inside the machine. If the growth of mold or slime is observed, immediately clean according to manufacturer's instructions. Because the machines are considered food-contact surfaces, make sure this is part of your standard operating procures so it is cleaned and sanitized regularly.
- Routine ice machine service/maintenance. Commission a licensed plumbing professional to service piping leading into the machine as well as the machine’s drain; failing to do so can lead to harmful backflow.
Ice safety should be part of your food safety protocol. By following these tips your restaurant, hotel, or bar can ensure the guest you are serving get clean & safe ice.
The National Restaurant Association provided original content for this blog.
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A large-scale meta-analysis of studies linking selenium supplementation with the risk of bladder cancer and other cancers finds that there is not enough evidence to recommend the nutritional supplement for cancer patients.
The Italian researchers describe selenium as “a metalloid with both nutritional and toxicological properties”. While some studies have suggested that higher selenium levels and/or selenium supplementation may have a protective effect against malignancies like bladder cancer, the newest Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews report says the data supporting such a link is incomplete, at best.
The group included prospective observational studies of selenium supplementation in patients with bladder cancer and other cancers, as well as randomized controlled trials comparing the effect of selenium in both cancer patients and healthy adults. Studies were pulled from the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials as well as the databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, CCMed and CancerLit dating back as early as 1966.
Although the group did find some evidence of a link between selenium and bladder cancer, a cancer more common among diabetics and those who have taken Actos, they concluded that the studies were unconvincing.
“The most pronounced decreases in risk of site-specific cancers [with selenium] were seen for stomach, bladder, and prostate cancers,” reports the study’s lead author, Marco Vinceti of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Modena, Italy. “However, these findings have limitations due to study design, quality and heterogeneity that complicate interpretation of the summary statistics.”
The report, which is an update of a 2011 Cochrane Database report on selenium and cancer, stops short of saying that the supplement has no value in the treatment or prevention of malignancies like bladder cancer. The authors concede that certain underlying genetic factors may make some cancer patients more likely to benefit from selenium supplements and say the idea deserves further study. But, based on existing research, Dr. Vinceti and his colleagues conclude, “To date, no convincing evidence suggests that selenium supplements can prevent cancer in humans.”
Bladder cancer impacts more than 70,000 people in the US each year, many of them diabetics who have been prescribed the insulin sensitizer Actos. Last June, India recently became the most recent country to join the list of countries that have suspended the use of Actos for diabetes because of its potential link to bladder cancer. While the US has not banned Actos for diabetes, the FDA has required the company to include a bladder cancer risk warning on its packaging since 2011.
Vinceti, M et al, “Selenium for Preventing Cancer, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, March 2014, Epub ahead of print
Sadikot, SM and Ghosal, S, “India suspends pioglitazone: Is it justified?”, Jan-march, 2014, Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome, pp. 53-56
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"We know what a literary heyday we have to consider Emperor Nicholas's
reign, when the great names in Russian letters were closely linked with
the names of great artists, excellent architects and first-rate musicians."
Those lines, written in the 19th century, very accurately reflect the
age that saw the creation of the New Hermitage - the "public museum"
in which Emperor Nicholas I made accessible to the public the magnificent
art collections of the Russian monarchs.
In July 1839 the "Proposal on the establishment of the museum..." was approved, laying down that the project drawn up by Klenze should be realised by the Winter Palace Building Commission headed by the chief architect Vasily Stasov. The commission included the prominent architects Alexander Briullov and Nikolai Yefimov, while the creator of the project undertook to monitor the construction, making occasional visits to St Petersburg. The story of the eleven years of construction that began in 1840 is one of many conflicts between the high-handed, stern Stasov, who was obviously unhappy at a foreigner being called in, and Klenze, who feared that his design would be distorted. The architects exchanged acrimonious letters, but the deciding word in their disputes belonged to the Emperor.
As a result Klenze was obliged to accept certain changes to the project. The museum was to be erected in immediate proximity to the imperial Winter Palace, on the plot of land between the Small Hermitage and the Winter Canal. Klenze proposed demolishing all the buildings that then existed on this site, including Catherine's Large Hermitage (Yury Velten, 1770-87) and the Raphael Loggias block (Giacomo Quarenghi, 1783-92). On the insistence of the commission, however, the Large Hermitage was spared, thus depriving the new building of a northern suite of rooms and a main facade overlooking the Neva. The Raphael Loggias block was placed in a new architectural setting and became an inseparable part of the New Hermitage building. The St Petersburg architects also insisted on some changes to fit the building better for the harsh northern climate and on the use of materials more suitable from that point of view. In the new layout, the southern side of the building, facing onto Millionnaya Street, became the main facade with the grand entrance accentuated by a portico with stone atlantes, carved from Serdobol granite to the designs of the sculptor Terebenev. Klenze had an exceptionally high opinion of the sculptor's work: "The beauty and noble style of these sculptures, the purity and precision of the work and the gleam of the polishing leave nothing to be desired..."
Leo von Klenze gave the building erected in what he himself described as the "Neo-Grecian" style an austere, monumental appearance. The edifice is adorned by statues and bas-reliefs depicting famous artists, architects and sculptors of the past. The large surfaces of the facades are enlivened by ornamental decor featuring ancient, Renaissance and Baroque motifs. According to the project, the lower floor was intended to house the ancient collections, ancient and modern sculpture, the display of drawings and prints, as well as the library. In the finishing of the halls on this floor Klenze employed the techniques of ancient architecture: granite and marble colonnades, walls faced with stucco indistinguishable from marble, and ornamental murals. The interiors of the upper floor, finished with truly palatial splendour - the central Skylight Rooms and adjoining rooms - were allocated to the display of painting and applied art. The main staircase with a majestic colonnade on the upper floor created a special feeling of solemn grandeur. Visitors ascending it sensed that they were entering a temple of the arts.
The New Hermitage was impressive for the magnificence of its halls and the rich variety of its collections. "If we could describe the beauty and majesty of the place, which is scarcely possible, our friends would consider it exaggeration. Of course, we could obtain no more than a general impression, although we probably walked a mile or more around the galleries and rooms and halls, finished in a luxurious, yet at the same time austere style. Some are devoted to medals and coins... others to sculpture classical and contemporary. The greater part, though, to paintings... Still what is most striking is the luxurious character of the furniture in the rooms, the wealth and great care taken in the working of a host of Italian marble columns, usually made from a single piece, the beauty of the ceilings..." Such were the impressions of an early visitor.
The New Hermitage was created under the watchful eye of Nicholas I. The Emperor went into all the questions and carefully studied the plans and drawings sent by von Klenze. The architect produced more than 800 sketches, reflecting every detail of the finishing of the rooms, the furniture and even the displays which he sought to harmonize with the interior. The beauty and luxury of the museum rooms not only emphasized that the Hermitage was a part of the imperial residence, but also invested it with the significance of a work of art. In memory of the creator of the museum, a plaque inscribed "Erected by Emperor Nicholas I in 1850" was placed above the main staircase of the New Hermitage. The museum was opened to the public in February 1852.
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Paranoia is common and distressing in the general population and can impact on health, emotional well-being and social functioning, such that effective interventions are needed. Brief online mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in non-clinical samples; however, at present, there is no research investigating whether they can reduce paranoia. The current study explored whether a brief online MBI increased levels of mindfulness and reduced levels of paranoia in a non-clinical population. The mediating effect of mindfulness on any changes in paranoia was also investigated. One hundred and ten participants were randomly allocated to either a 2-week online MBI including 10 min of daily guided mindfulness practice or to a waitlist control condition. Measures of mindfulness and paranoia were administered at baseline, post-intervention and 1-week follow-up. Participants in the MBI group displayed significantly greater reductions in paranoia compared to the waitlist control group. Mediation analysis demonstrated that change in mindfulness skills (specifically the observe, describe and non-react facets of the FFMQ) mediated the relationship between intervention type and change in levels of paranoia. This study provides evidence that a brief online MBI can significantly reduce levels of paranoia in a non-clinical population. Furthermore, increases in mindfulness skills from this brief online MBI can mediate reductions in non-clinical paranoia. The limitations of the study are discussed.
Paranoid thinking occurs when individuals believe that harm is occurring or going to occur and that others intend to cause harm (Freeman and Garety 2000). Although paranoid beliefs traditionally are associated with clinical diagnoses such as schizophrenia, recent research (e.g. Ellett et al. 2003; Freeman et al. 2011; Freeman and Garety 2014; Johns et al. 2004) supports the postulate that paranoid thinking is also common in the general population (Fenigstein and Vanable 1992). Indeed, recent research suggests that different types of paranoid ideation occur in up to 30% of the general population (Bebbington et al. 2013). This is consistent with a dimensional understanding of mental health, within which an experience such as clinical paranoia is held to lie on continuum with paranoia seen in the general population (Strauss 1969). From an evolutionary perspective, it has been proposed that paranoia is a trait that was selected and distributed in humans due to its adaptive value in past ancestral environments (Ellett et al. 2003). Studies have also shown that paranoia can be both distressing and preoccupying in the non-clinical population (Freeman et al. 2011; Ellett et al. 2003), is persistent (Allen-Crooks and Ellett 2014), slow to dissipate once activated (Ellett and Chadwick 2007) and associated with anxiety and depression (Freeman et al. 2013). Therefore, it is important that effective interventions are available for people experiencing distress from paranoia across the continuum of experience. Distress from paranoia can be difficult to reduce using a cognitive reappraisal approach (Chadwick 2006; Ellett 2013), and mindfulness offers the opportunity to potentially reduce distress without directly challenging the content of beliefs.
Mindfulness is characterised by an intentional, non-judgemental awareness of present-moment experiences such as thoughts, feelings, sounds and physical sensations (Kabat-Zinn 2000). Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are typically 8-week group interventions that teach people mindfulness skills through in-session and home-based practice, combined with discussion about what was learned from the practice. A recent meta-analysis including 209 studies examined the effectiveness of MBIs with clinical and non-clinical populations (Khoury et al. 2013). Waitlist controlled studies targeting psychological disorders found medium to large between-group effect sizes for both anxiety (n = 4; g = 0.96; 95% CI [0.67, 1.24]) and depression (n = 8; g = .53 (95% CI [0.32, 0.73]). Studies using another psychological treatment as a control showed a small between-group effect size in favour of MBIs (g = 0.22; 95% CI [0.12, 0.33]), with MBIs producing comparable effect sizes to traditional CBT or behaviour therapies (n = 9; g = −0.07; 95% CI [−0.26, 0.16]).
Although MBIs are often delivered using an 8-week protocol of weekly 2-h sessions, as is the case in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR; Kabat-Zinn 1990) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Segal et al. 2002), recent research has begun to examine the effectiveness of using self-help methods such as books or online courses (Cavanagh et al. 2014). Indeed, the time and resource intensive nature of MBIs can be prohibitive to potential participants and service providers (Crane and Kuyken 2013) and the accessibility of MBIs could be substantially increased through self-help resources such as books, audio recordings, online courses or smartphone apps. A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials of self-help mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions with both clinical and non-clinical populations found effects relative to control conditions on measures of mindfulness (g = 0.49; 95% CI [0.23, 0.76]), depression (g = 0.37; 95% CI [0.18, 0.56]) and anxiety (g = 0.34; 95% CI [0.10, 0.56]) (Cavanagh et al. 2014). To date, there have been relatively few studies using brief MBIs of fewer than four sessions; however, those that have been conducted have shown promising results for the effectiveness of brief MBIs on a range of outcome measures (Zeidan et al. 2010; Call et al. 2014). A study by Cavanagh et al. (2013) that used the same brief online intervention as the current study in comparison to a waitlist control invited participants (students) to practice mindfulness daily for 10 min using a 2-week online MBI course. On measures of mindfulness, perceived stress, anxiety and depression, medium post-intervention between-group effect sizes were found, ranging from d = 0.41 to d = 0.62. This indicates how a brief MBI of 2 weeks in duration may be effective at reducing distress in a non-clinical population.
Whilst most mental health MBI research has focused on the effectiveness of MBIs for depression and anxiety, quantitative and qualitative research has begun to explore the potential of MBIs for psychosis (Chadwick et al. 2005; Abba et al. 2008; Strauss et al. 2015). A recent randomised controlled trial found mindfulness to enhance psychological quality of life in patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Lopez-Navarro et al. 2015). Adopting a single-symptom approach to psychosis, research has also indicated potential benefits of mindfulness in more than 60 people with distressing psychotic voices (Dannahy et al. 2011; Goodliffe et al. 2010; May et al. 2014; Chadwick et al. 2009)—but to date, there are only two single cases evaluating MBIs for clinical paranoia (Ellett 2013) and one randomised controlled trial comparing MBCT with a waitlist control on daily life ratings of paranoia in a sample of individuals with a history of at least one episode of major depressive disorder (Collip et al. 2013).
There are compelling reasons to further develop and test MBI interventions for paranoia. First, a recent meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for delusions (including paranoia) found only a small effect size (delusions, g = 0.24; van der Gaag et al. 2014). Second, paranoia can be particularly difficult to treat using traditional cognitive reappraisal methods (Chadwick 2006; Ellett 2013). An MBI approach seeks to reduce distress without directly challenging the content of beliefs (Vilardaga et al. 2013), focussing instead on letting go of reactions such as self-judgement and rumination on paranoid thoughts, as well as acceptance of self and (psychotic) experience (Abba et al. 2008; Chadwick et al. 2009). Additional research using methodologically robust designs examining the effectiveness of MBIs on paranoia is now warranted.
The current study used a waiting list RCT design to evaluate the effects of a brief online MBI on paranoia in a non-clinical population. Repeated measures were taken at baseline, after the 2-week intervention and at 1-week follow-up for each condition. The study tested the following hypotheses: (1) participation in an online MBI will lead to greater reductions in paranoia at post-intervention and follow-up compared to a waitlist control, and (2) improvements in mindfulness will mediate the relationship between intervention type (MBI or wait-list) and reductions in paranoia.
Previous research using a matched online MBI found medium effect sizes ranging from d = 0.41 to d = 0.62 on measures of mindfulness, stress, anxiety and depression (Cavanagh et al. 2013) in a non-clinical sample. Taking this into account, medium effect sizes were assumed, and therefore, to test the mediation model with 80% power (p = .05) in a bias-corrected bootstrapped mediation analysis, a minimum of 36 study completers per condition were needed (Fritz and MacKinnon 2007). Inclusion criteria were that participants had to be over 18 years of age, able to understand English and have capacity to consent to the study. There were no exclusion criteria.
Participants were 110 people (48% were students and 89% were female) who were recruited either through a British university or via posts on social media websites. The sample age ranged from 18 to 67 years old (M = 32.16 years, SD = 13.57 years). The study protocol was approved by the host University Ethics Committee, and all participants gave online informed consent prior to participation.
Following informed consent, all participants completed baseline questionnaires online. Within 7 days of completing baseline questionnaires, participants were randomised, using a computer-generated block random allocation method, to either the mindfulness-based intervention (immediate start) or waitlist control condition. The intervention was accessible via a hyperlink supplied to participants. Participants completed the questionnaires (FFMQ and PS only) at the end of the intervention (i.e. after 2 weeks) and again at follow up (i.e. 1 week after the intervention had ended). Individuals in the mindfulness group also completed the participant engagement questionnaire at two points in the study—at the end of the first week (to assess level of engagement and to remind them to continue accessing the material) and at the end of the second week. Individuals in the waitlist group were given access to the online intervention at the end of the study once follow-up measures were completed.
Online Mindfulness-Based Intervention
The ‘Learning Meditation Online’ intervention was the intervention used by Cavanagh et al. (2013) with some minor adaptations. It was a webpage hosted by the University of Surrey using Sawtooth Software technology (Sawtooth Software Inc. SSI WEB program v8.3, Sequim, Washington 2013). The website was divided into six sections. The first section ‘what is mindfulness?’ contained information about the purpose and benefits of learning mindfulness with a 5-min video clip introducing the concept of mindfulness. The second section ‘daily mindfulness practice’ provided a 10-min guided mindfulness meditation in a male and female voice that was recorded from a script developed by Chadwick (2006), and comprised a brief body scan, followed by mindful breathing and choiceless awareness. The people who recorded the guided mindfulness meditation were experienced in practicing and delivering MBIs. Section three ‘everyday mindfulness activities’ provided information on how to bring mindfulness to everyday activities. The fourth section had frequently asked questions with answers to provide information about what to expect when practicing mindfulness. Section five contained information about the study and section six gave contact details for the research team alongside help and assistance such as counselling services and mental health charities. The webpage was self-guided and e-mail addresses of the research team were only provided in the case of technical difficulties.
Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al. 2006)
The Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is a self-report scale that is used to measure how mindful individuals are in their daily lives. It has 39 items with each item rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 ‘never or rarely true’ to 5 ‘very often or always true’, and total scores for the FFMQ range between 39 and 195. It identifies five independent facets of mindfulness and therefore allows investigation into which aspects of mindfulness might be mediating change. The independent facets are observing (8 items; range 8–40), describing (8 items; range 8–40), acting with awareness (8 items; range 8–40), non-judging of inner experience (8 items; range 8–40) and non-reactivity to inner experience (7 items; range 7–35). At present, it is the most commonly used mindfulness questionnaire and it is based on a factor analysis of items from five frequently used mindfulness questionnaires (De Bruin et al. 2012). The scale has demonstrated adequate to good internal consistency for all five facets (α = 0.75–0.91), and the five facets of mindfulness have been shown to be robust for different types of samples including meditators, non-meditators, students and the general population (Baer et al. 2006; Baer et al. 2008). Cronbach’s alpha for the full FFMQ at baseline in the current study was 0.94.
The Paranoia Scale (PS) is a 20-item self-report scale. Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 ‘not at all applicable’ to 5 ‘extremely applicable’ with a range of total scores between 20 and 100. The PS was developed to measure paranoia in college students and is not a clinical tool for diagnosing clinical paranoia, and therefore, there are no specific cut-off scores to indicate severity of paranoia. In a sample of college students, the mean total score on the paranoia scale was 42.7 (SD = 10.2; Fenigstein and Vanable 1992). It is the most widely used measure of paranoia, and it has demonstrated good internal and test re-test reliability (α = 0.84, r = 0.70; Fenigstein and Vanable 1992). Cronbach’s alpha for the scale at baseline in the current study was 0.92.
Participant Engagement Questionnaire
This questionnaire was adapted from Cavanagh et al. (2013) and assessed participant engagement with the mindfulness-based intervention over the previous week using five questions. Four questions asked about the amount of time (free text) and the number of days (0–7) participants spent engaging in course materials, listening to the audio meditation and engaging in meditation practice. In order to assess participants’ experience of the intervention, the final question used a Likert scale to enquire how much participants felt the intervention was improving their wellbeing (1 = not at all to 9 = very much). The number of times the website was accessed by each participant was also recorded. In the current study, Cronbach’s alpha for the four items was 0.75 and test-retest reliability for the scale was 0.60.
Skew and kurtosis were calculated for each variable and were found to be within acceptable bounds (i.e. <2.58). There was also some missing data for both the paranoia (n = 38 at Time 2 and 3) and mindfulness (n = 40 at Time 2 and 3) measures. Comparisons were made of means and standard deviations at baseline to check for differences between groups prior to randomisation in order to check group equivalence. All data were checked to ensure assumptions for multiple regression were met. Residuals from each path of the mediation model (see Fig. 2) were checked for normality of distribution, homoscedasticity and independent errors. Predictor variables were checked for zero variance and multicollinearity. Outcome variables were checked for independence and linearity and outliers were checked using Cook’s distances. Scatterplots showed linearity between variables, histograms of the residuals for each pathway showed they were normally distributed and Cook’s Distance tests were all less than 1.1 indicating no overly influential outliers. Therefore, the assumptions necessary for bootstrapped mediation analysis were satisfactorily met.
To test hypothesis one, a mixed ANOVA was conducted with post hoc tests where warranted exploring the effects of group (MBI or waitlist) and time (pre-intervention and follow-up) on paranoia scores. For the mediation analysis, standardised residual change scores were calculated for both mindfulness skills pre-post intervention and for paranoia scores pre-1 week post-intervention, which allowed for changes in the mediator to be measured prior to changes in paranoia. The mediation analysis was conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes 2013) using 5000 resamples and bias corrected and accelerated confidence intervals (BCa CI). This gives total and indirect effects with both bootstrapping confidence intervals and the product-of-coefficients approach. Bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals for the a × b effect were used. This approach is more powerful than the Baron and Kenny (1986) causal steps approach with a lower risk of type II errors. It is also more robust in the event that multiple regression assumptions are violated, and it does not incorrectly assume that path c needs to be significant in order for mediation to occur (Hayes 2008). Unstandardised beta (β) coefficients for the pathways on the mediation model are also reported.
One hundred and ten participants were randomly allocated to either the online mindfulness-based intervention or to the waitlist control condition. The mean age for the MBI group was 32.5 years (SD = 13.5) and for the waitlist was 31.9 years (SD = 13.8). The majority of participants were female in both the MBI (83.9%) and the waitlist group (94.4%). Sample characteristics for each condition at baseline are displayed in Table 1. No significant between-group (MBI vs waitlist) differences were found at baseline in terms of age, gender and level of education, or on the Paranoia Scale (t(108) = −0.35, p = .73) or FFMQ (t(108) = 0.09, p = .37). Furthermore, there were also no significant gender differences at baseline on either paranoia (t(108) = 1.19, p = .24) or mindfulness (t(108) = .60, p = .55). Pre, post and follow-up data for the Paranoia Scale and the FFMQ are displayed in Table 2.
Characteristics of the MBI and waitlist groups at baseline
MBI (N = 56)
Waitlist (N = 54)
Mean age (years) (SD)
t(108) = −0.24, p = .81
χ2(1) = 3.13, p = .08
Ethnicity—% White British
FET = 8.32, p = .36
% live in UK
χ2(1) = 0.21, p = .65
% ‘A’ levels as highest level of education
FET = 6.00, p = .56
Descriptive statistics on study variables measures at all time points
FFMQ act with awareness
aPossible range of scores 20–100; negative changes are improvements; published mean in non-clinical sample 42.7 (Fenigstein and Vanable 1992)
Data analysis was conducted on participants who completed measures at all three time points. Of the 110 participants, 60 (55%; MBI = 29, waitlist = 31) provided complete data and were included in the analysis. This did not meet the sample size identified in the a priori power analysis; however, mediation effect sizes were typically large and this suggests that the a priori power calculation was overly conservative. Therefore, the smaller sample size of 60 was adequate to detect a large mediation effect on most of the FFMQ subscales. A consort diagram outlining the participant flow through the study is shown in Fig. 1. There was no difference in completion rates between the groups; however, this finding did approach significance, t(106) = −1.80, p = .07. Furthermore, no significant differences were found between participants who completed and those that dropped out with respect to age (t(83) = 0.24, p = .81), gender (t(41) = 1.51, p = .14) or baseline scores on the Paranoia Scale (t(108) = −0.93, p = .35) or FFMQ (t(108) = −0.74, p = .46).
There was a significant group by time interaction on paranoia (F(1.70, 98.72) = 5.70, p = .01). Between-group t tests showed a significant difference between MBI and waitlist control at post-intervention (t(69.9) = 2.32, p = .024, d = 0.74 95% CI for d = (0.22, 1.27)) and at follow-up (t(66) = 2.364, p = .021, d = 0.62, 95% CI for d = (0.12, 1.10)). Within-group t tests indicated that the MBI group showed a significant decrease in paranoia over time both pre- to post-intervention (t(33) = 4.18, p < .001, d = 0.60, 95% CI for d = (0.11, 1.08)), and pre-intervention to follow-up (t(30) = 5.34, p < .001, d = 0.80, 95% CI for d = (0.27, 1.30)). Within-group t tests for the waitlist control group showed no significant change in paranoia pre- to post-intervention (t(37) = 0.07, p = .95, d = 0.01, 95% CI for d = (−0.44, 0.46)). However there was a significant decrease in paranoia pre-intervention to follow-up in the waitlist control group with a small effect size (t(36) = 2.72, p = .01, d = 0.29, 95% CI for d = (−0.18, 0.74)).
A summary of the mediation analysis is presented in Table 3. There was a significant indirect effect of treatment condition on paranoia change through change in the observe subscale (β = −0.18, 95% BCa CI −0.41, −0.04), the describe subscale (β = −0.08, 95% BCa CI −0.25, −0.01) and the non-react subscale (β = −0.19, 95% BCa CI −0.34, −0.08). However, there was no significant indirect effect through change in the Awareness subscale (β = −0.06, 95% BCa CI (−0.18, 0.01) and the non-judging subscale (β = −.04, 95% BCa CI (−0.17, 0.01). The unstandardised beta coefficients for the pathways on the mediation model are illustrated in Fig. 2. This shows there was no significant direct effect for treatment condition on paranoia change β = 0.16, p = .25.
Summary of mediation analysis showing the mediational effect of change in mindfulness score post-intervention on paranoia score at follow-up, adjusted for baseline values
Effect of IV on DV
Effect of M on DV
(a × b)
aNon-significant results at 95% confidence
Data regarding the level of engagement with the MBI was obtained from the Participant Engagement Questionnaire (PEQ) after 1 week and at post-intervention. Twenty-four participants (83%) completed the PEQ, and the mean number of self-reported days of practice was 11.83 days (range 5–16 days, SD = 3.68). Mean reported scores from the PEQ for level of well-being were 5.03 (week 1) and 5.23 (week 2).
Our study shows that a brief online MBI can reduce levels of paranoia in a non-clinical population and demonstrated that this effect was mediated by an increase in mindfulness skills, specifically the Observe, Describe and Nonreact subscales of the FFMQ. The findings from the current study support those of Ellett (2013), who used an individual six session MBI for two people experiencing persecutory delusions without distressing voices, and Collip et al. (2013) who found that MBCT (compared to waitlist control) reduced daily life ratings of paranoia in individuals with a history of major depressive disorder. The findings extend the current evidence base of MBIs for paranoia using a more robust RCT design. The findings are also consistent with research evidence indicating that change in mindfulness mediates the relationship between MBIs and improved psychological wellbeing across a range of difficulties, including perceived stress, positive states of mind, post-traumatic avoidance symptoms, depressive symptoms and general psychological functioning (Baer 2009; Bränström et al. 2010; Gu et al. 2015; Kuyken et al. 2010).
The findings from this study compliment the findings of Cavanagh et al. (2013), who reported moderate between-group effect sizes on measures of mindfulness, perceived stress, anxiety and depression in a non-clinical sample. Taken together, these studies extend the emerging evidence base for the effectiveness of online self-help MBIs and suggest that a brief 2-week online MBI can improve levels of mindfulness and effectively reduce a range of psychological symptoms in a non-clinical population. The findings also contribute to the ongoing debate in the literature regarding the frequency and duration of mindfulness practice needed to facilitate change. In both the current study and Cavanagh et al. (2013), engaging in mindfulness practice for just 10 min a day over a 2-week period was sufficient to facilitate change. This provides some evidence for recent suggestions in the literature that briefer MBIs with shorter practices can be effective in reducing symptoms of psychological distress and negative mood in non-clinical populations (Virgili 2013; Zeidan et al. 2010), pain-related distress in those with chronic pain (Ussher et al. 2014) as well as for those from clinical populations experiencing a current episode of major depressive disorder (Strauss et al. 2014). This is an important finding because it demonstrates the effectiveness of brief online MBIs that have relatively low financial and resource costs to providers. It will be important for future research to demonstrate whether these effects can be extended to people from clinical populations experiencing clinically significant paranoia and persecutory delusions. This is particularly important given the recent calls in the literature to markedly improve the effectiveness of psychological interventions for delusional (including paranoid) beliefs (van der Gaag et al. 2014; Freeman and Garety 2014; Chadwick et al. 2016). Mindfulness-based interventions offer a particularly promising alternative approach given that they have the potential benefit of reducing distress related to paranoia, without directly challenging the content of beliefs (Chadwick 2006; Ellett 2013).
There are a number of limitations of the study that warrant consideration. Despite significant indirect effects from three subscales of the FFMQ, the mediation analysis did not find a significant indirect effect from the awareness and non-judging subscales of the FFMQ. The 95% confidence intervals in these two cases only just cross 0 which indicates that the study may have been underpowered to find significant indirect effects for these subscales. Therefore, it would be beneficial for the study to be replicated with a sample size large enough to detect potential indirect effects in the awareness and non-judging subscales. An active control condition was not used in this study, and therefore, it remains unclear whether the changes observed are due to mindfulness practice or other non-specific factors such as expectation of benefit. Furthermore, use of a waitlist control meant that it was not possible to demonstrate whether the MBI was more effective than other interventions, such as online CBT.
Participants were not screened for any previous or current meditation practice or involvement in other psychological interventions; therefore, the changes found could have occurred due to participants engaging in additional meditation practice or other psychological interventions outside of the online intervention. Additionally, we did not use a diagnostic screening tool, and the paranoia measure used in the study does not have severity cut-offs; therefore, it was not possible to determine whether any participants were experiencing clinically significant symptoms. The results indicated a small but significant decrease in paranoia from baseline to follow-up in the waitlist control group. This could be due to regression to the mean or may represent an expectancy effect in the responses of participants.
The level of attrition from the study had the potential of causing some bias in the data. However, there were no significant differences between participants who completed and those that dropped out with respect to age, gender and baseline scores on the paranoia scale or FFMQ. Attrition rates were also comparable to those reported in other online intervention studies (Melville et al. 2010). Although the gender ratio was skewed with the majority of participants being female, which could impact on the generalisability of our findings, there were no significant gender differences in the two study groups (MBI vs waitlist) or on any of the study variables at baseline. As is the case in other online mindfulness studies (e.g. Cavanagh et al. 2013), we used a retrospective self-report measure of mindfulness practice, which may be subject to a range of biases, such as memory and mood biases.
Although follow-up data were collected, the follow-up period itself was only 1 week, which limits the conclusions that can be made with regard to whether changes in both paranoia and mindfulness are maintained over a longer period. Future research might usefully examine the extent to which changes can be maintained over a longer follow up period, whether individuals continue to engage in mindfulness practice after formal participation in the study has ceased, and the extent to which ongoing practice has a cumulative effect on reductions in paranoia. We only considered one potential mediating factor (mindfulness skills) and did not measure any other factors that are known to be important in the onset and maintenance of paranoid cognitions, such as negative schematic beliefs, worry and rumination (Freeman et al. 2013; Chadwick et al. 2009; Paget and Ellett 2014). Future research should therefore examine the extent to which mindfulness-based interventions impact on these important cognitive and emotional processes. Finally, the study employed a non-clinical sample; therefore, further research is needed to determine whether our findings generalise to individuals with clinical paranoia.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
The study was approved by the University of Surrey ethics committee. Online informed consent was gained from each participant prior to beginning the study. The study adhered to the ethical guidelines for internet-mediated research published by the British Psychological Society (BPS; 2013).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Met BSL Psychologie Totaal blijf je als professional steeds op de hoogte van de nieuwste ontwikkelingen binnen jouw vak. Met het online abonnement heb je toegang tot een groot aantal boeken, protocollen, vaktijdschriften en e-learnings op het gebied van psychologie en psychiatrie. Zo kun je op je gemak en wanneer het jou het beste uitkomt verdiepen in jouw vakgebied.
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Impediments and strategies in negotiating: A cognitive therapy model
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Mental Health Services
Patient Care Team
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.Principled negotiation relies on a set of assumptions about rationality, respectful dialogue, and attempts to reach equilibrium where both sides achieve some desired ends at the lowest cost possible in the circumstances. However, international negotiation is often characterized by a wide range of distortions in thinking, including personalizing, labeling, discounting the positives, catastrophic thinking, and fortune-telling. Negotiators may become stuck by their assumptions and rules and may be biased by core beliefs about self and others. A specific style of negotiation is identified—the egocentric/narcissistic negotiation style. The problematic cognitive appraisals and strategy of this negotiation style often result in egocentric/narcissistic negotiators overestimating their own position and underestimating the position of the opposition. Historical examples illustrate these limitations: the events leading to World War I, the Versailles Treaty, German grandiosity in waging World War II, the Vietnam War, and the current conflict between America and Iran over nuclear weapons. Specific interventions to counter narcissistic distortions and strategies are offered.
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Twelve essential historical places to visit in Orkney
If you are interested in history, heritage and archaeology, Orkney is one of the most essential places in Scotland to visit. With few trees across the islands, Orkney buildings were always stone built and have survived for thousands of years. The Knap of Howar on Papa Westray may be the oldest house in northern Europe – it was occupied in 3700 BC – almost 6000 years ago! Orkney has an average of three archaeological sites per square mile!
Within one of St Magnus Cathedral’s pillars, bones were found, and amongst these a split skull. St Magnus was killed by an axe blow to the head.
We’ve compiled a list of twelve essential historical places to visit across the Orkney islands.
This amazing Stone Age village by the Bay of Skaill was buried intact and preserved in a sand dune for thousands of years. Uncovered in 1850, Skara Brae now offers us a glimpse into the homes of Islanders who stayed here over 5000 years ago. Skara Brae even shows us what their beds and their furniture looked like!
Fascinating thought: Can you imagine living in such close proximity with 50 other people? In Neolithic times, communal living was the norm. In later times there was a move to individual farmsteads.
The Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness
Located between the loch of Stenness and the loch of Harray, these mysterious standing stones are an evocative enigma. Erecting standing stones, which were quarried miles away, is an amazing human achievement. Surrounded by a lovely landscape – it is thought that; like churches today – the monuments at the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness served different roles. Between them lies the Ness of Brodgar; ceremonial buildings which are excavated every summer.
Fascinating thought: The BBC TV programme ‘Britain’s Ancient Capital’ demonstrated how a traditional Orcadian method – placing seaweed under massive slabs of stone and then pulling them with ropes – was one of the most effective ways of moving giant stones.
The chambered cairn of Maeshowe is a short distance from the Standing Stones of Stenness and comes from the same period – it was used as a burial place around 2700bc. Maeshowe was built to incorporate four standing stones and was constructed so that during the midwinter solstice, the light of the setting sun shines down the internal chamber and hits the back wall. Sometime in the 12th century Maeshowe was broken into by Vikings, who left the best collection of runes in Western Europe carved into its walls.
Fascinating thought: The boastful Viking runes inscribed on Maeshowe’s walls actually contain some swear words!
We’d highly recommend a wander through the winding streets of Stromness – this lovely sea-salted town has a fascinating maritime history. At the south end of the town, situated on the waterfront, is the Stromness Museum – and it’s a gem of a building – packed with history about whalers, artefacts from Scapa Flow during the First and Second Wold War, stories about arctic explorers, sea chests, ship models, sea creatures and more!
Fascinating thought: During times of trouble in the English Channel between the England and France, the sea passage between Orkney and Caithness has been the only safe route for sailors to take their ships around Britain – this made the sheltered port of Stromness an important port of call.
The Orkney Museum is located opposite the St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. It’s a labyrinthine building which was once the home of the Baikie family. It’s also a must-visit if you’ve visited any of Orkney’s historic sites – as many of Orkney’s most precious treasures reside safely here! There’s also a brilliant Ba’ exhibition – which documents the traditional game which takes place outside the Museum’s doors every Christmas and New Year.
Fascinating thought: Keep your eyes out for the goods excavated from a Viking boat burial at Scar on Sanday – these include a whalebone plaque, combs and gaming pieces.
St Magnus Cathedral
Orkney and Shetland were a part of Norway until 1472 and the islands were ruled by Norwegian earls. Though some Scandinavian influences remain (including place names and people’s names), the most striking reminder is the St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall – which was dedicated to the Viking St Magnus – an Orkney earl killed by his cousin, with whom he shared power. It’s a beautiful red sandstone building – and is a central part of Orcadian life – hosting concerts, church services, weddings, and funerals.
Fascinating thought: St Magnus’s bones were found within one of the Cathedral’s pillar – identified by a split skull – St Magnus was killed by an axe blow to the head.
The Italian Chapel and the Churchill Barriers
During the First and Second World Wars, the British Naval Fleet was stationed in Orkney in the large natural harbour of Scapa Flow. Disaster struck in 1939 when The Royal Oak was torpedoed by a German submarine, killing 800 men. Winston Churchill ordered the building of barriers – which would blockade the channel between Orkney’s south isles, and join the islands to the mainland. Much of the work was carried out by Italian POWs who also built a lovely chapel out of Nissan huts and scrap metal – it still stands today – a symbol of peace and friendship between the Italians and Orcadian people.
Fascinating thought: More than 1300 Italian prisoners of war were captured in North Africa in 1942 and were taken to Orkney. 550 were taken to the uninhabited island of Lamb Holm. In the winter, it must have seemed very far away from home!
The Brough of Birsay
A tidal island, the Brough of Birsay is situated in the north-west corner of the Orkney mainland and can be reached by a 150m long causeway when the tide is low. The Brough of Birsay is gently sloped; it’s a lovely island with a lighthouse, and the cliffs on the far side are the best place on the Orkney Mainland to see puffins. The Brough of Birsay also has the ruins of a Norse settlement and church from 800-1200AD. Beforehand, in 700AD, it was a Pictish settlement – you’ll find a lovely carved symbol stone there!
Fascinating thought: The name Birsay comes from the Old Norse ‘Byrgisey’ – the fort island. The tidal restrictions of the island make it difficult to imagine living here!
The island of Rousay is known as the Egypt of the North – it contains over 100 identified archaeological sites! The chambered tombs here have fabulous names such as Blackhammar Tomb and Taversoe Tuick. Most significant is the massive Midhowe Chambered Cairn – which is 100ft long and 40ft wide and contained 25 crouching corpses. There is also an impressive Iron Age broch at Midhowe which was occupied from around 200BC to 200AD.
Fascinating thought: Brochs are circular tower structures, often surrounded by houses. They were thought to be where people fled to safety when they came under attack – like a castle keep. Opposite Midhowe Broch, on the mainland, sits the Broch of Gurness – indicating that this coast was once possibly a dangerous place!
Kirbuster Farm Museum and Corrigal Farm Museum
The Kirbuster Farm Museum and the Corrigal Farm Museum offer a fascinating glimpse into rural island life in previous years. Whilst ‘south’ influences, such as wallpaper, can be seen, these buildings remain uniquely Orcadian. There are box beds to keep out the draughts, peat fires and smoked fish, and the animals you find at Kirbuster and Corrigal are breeds of sheep and poultry that would have been found around an Orcadian farmyard in the 18th century.
Fascinating thought: In Kirbuster you’ll see a room layout similar to Skara Brae, with a central hearth and beds at the side of the room. It is clear that this design remained popular in Orkney from 3000 BC until 1700AD.
North Ronaldsay is the most remote of the Orkney Islands, and has a unique heritage and history. Most famously, in North Ronaldsay, sheep are kept off the farmland by a sheep dyke that surrounds the island, keeping them on the beach. North Ronaldsay was also one of the last places where the old Orkney Norn language survived, and a wander through the island will show that many old farming practises have remained. Many of the old fishing practices and boat designs have also. Taking a trip to North Ronaldsay is like taking a trip back in time – and we’d highly recommend a visit to the top of the North Ronaldsay Lighthouse too!
Fascinating thought: The sheep dyke around the island is 12 miles long and 6ft high. It was originally built to keep sheep off the beach as seaweed was harvested for iodine. Later, sheep were sent outside the wall so that more valuable cattle could graze on the farmland.
The island of Hoy is a favourite with visitors. The dramatic and beautiful valley of Rackwick was once home to resourceful crofter / fishermen, and was visited by a shop boat. The Dwarfie Stane, on the road to Rackwick, is an ancient tomb carved out of a huge slab of rock. At Lyness, the Scapa Flow Museum offers a glimpse, through artefacts and photos, of showing you what life was like in Orkney during wartime. There’s also a brilliant Lifeboat Museum at Brims and The Martello Towers – remnants from the Napoleonic wars – on the island of Hoy.
Fascinating thought: At Lyness you can see WW2 torpedo storage bunkers and the ruin of a cinema/theatre which was once the largest in Europe and once entertained Winston Churchill and the King!
Orkney and Shetland enthusiast, family man, loves walks, likes animals, terrible at sports, dire taste in music, adores audiobooks and films, eats a little too much for his own good.
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Scholars are well-aware that the smartphone is much more than just a mobile telephone. A plethora of applications have been developed to run on smartphones, covering just about every aspect of human life. What is distinctive about the fact that these apps run on smartphones (as opposed to other kinds of devices) is that the smartphone makes them mobile (the apps travel with the user) and locative (the apps know the location of the user). As a result, smartphone applications that take full advantage of these characteristics have the ability to bring users together in real space and real time. The key to the success of such “netware” apps is their generation and retention of social graphs that connect their users both socially and physically. Netware apps like ride hailing that are built around mobility and location have the potential to dramatically restructure economic and social life by reconfiguring their users’ experiences of the physical and temporal world. We use ride hailing as a case study to illustrate how the new social geographies generated by mobile netware apps interact with physical geography to generate a new sense of space that can only be mapped by the companies that “own” our social graphs.
|Original language||English (US)|
|Number of pages||18|
|Journal||New Media and Society|
|State||Published - Jan 2023|
Bibliographical notePublisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
- mobile applications
- mobile communication
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Is there a difference between the sugar in a doughnut and sugar found in fruit? It's a question that clients regularly ask their registered dietitians, and it's easy to see why it might be confusing. News articles and our culture often vilify sugar, all sugar, which leaves many people wondering, should they abandon fruit and the sugar in it altogether?
Is All Sugar the Same?
Sugar in a doughnut and sugar in an orange is not equivalent. The doughnut has added sugar, which means it's not a natural part of the food, but rather gets added by humans during processing. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend no more than 10 percent of your daily calories come from added sugar. Thus, if you eat 2,000 calories per day, that is 200 calories or 12.5 teaspoons of sugar. Many women eat fewer calories per day, so if you eat 1,600 calories per day, that is 160 calories or 10 teaspoons of sugar. There are many hidden sources of added sugar, including sauces (like
The sugar found in an orange, on the other hand, is naturally there, but the orange carries with it far fewer calories (65) than the doughnut (about 350). An orange also provides 3.4 grams of fiber, which is equivalent to 14 percent of the recommended daily amount, plus all the vitamin C you need in one day and smaller amounts of numerous B-vitamins including folate and potassium. On the flip side, that doughnut is all calories, saturated fat and added sugar without much nutritional value.
Besides all the vitamins, minerals and fiber, fruit also provides phytochemicals, or natural plant compounds. While the research on phytochemicals is still evolving (and very exciting!), there is some evidence that they can help fight and prevent disease.
Does Fruit Make Me Fat?
A common misconception is that the sugar from
And what if you don't use the sugar? If you eat more calories than you expend, your body will store excess sugar from any food as fat. However, if fruit is part of a calorie-controlled, balanced diet, your cells will utilize it as energy. As with any food, whether it's Oreos or apples, it's important to exercise moderation. After all, a calorie is still a calorie, so if you're looking to lose weight, factor fruit into your diet in a healthy manner and don't use it as an excuse to binge.
For many with diabetes watching their blood sugar levels closely, fruit presents a bit of confusion. However, the American Diabetes Association does recommend including fruit in a balanced diabetes-friendly diet. In fact, many fruits have shown to have various health benefits for diabetes as well as heart disease, eye health and cancer. Fruit does have carbohydrates, though, so it's important to factor in those grams of carbs and balance them into the overall meal and snack plan and medication regiment. If you do have diabetes and are unsure about how to properly incorporate fruit, check with your registered dietitian or doctor who can walk you through portion information and timing of meals and snacks based on your individual medication requirements.
Another important thing to remember is fiber comes packaged in fruit. Fiber in any form of fruit—canned, fresh, dried or frozen—can help slow down how quickly sugar is absorbed into your body and your body will absorb the sugar over a longer period of time.
The bottom line is this: In addition to being a delicious addition to any meal plan, fruit provides a tremendous amount of health and nutritional benefits that offset any sugar concerns. If eaten as part of a balanced, varied diet, fruit should be part of your healthy eating plan.
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Is the weight of occupants cargo and baggage?
Is the weight of occupants cargo and baggage?
The FAA definition is this: Payload is the weight of occupants, cargo, and baggage. Before you nod off (reread the above paragraphs in bed), here are a few fun facts. What’s the payload of a Saturn V rocket? Turns out to be 90,000 pounds when all five stages are mostly finished blasting away.
How does weight distribution affect flight?
In flight, imbalanced weight to the front of the airplane might make it challenging to keep its nose up. If the weight is overloaded to the back, the pilot might have difficulty recovering from a stall.
Does the weight of the aircraft and center of gravity fall within allowable limits?
Is the airplane loaded within limits? Yes, the weight and center of gravity is within allowable limits.
What happens if a plane is overweight?
Operating over weight will cause the aircraft to not meet the climb rates published in POH/AFM data, require longer runway distance for takeoff, lessen single-engine performance in a multi-engine aircraft, reduce glide distance in an emergency, and contribute to poor stablity if a stall is encountered, potentially …
What happens when a plane has too much weight?
Does weight distribution matter on a plane?
Yes, a weight and balance issue can be more critical on smaller airplane because a even a small error accounts for a larger percentage of the total weight. A 500-lb. error on an airplane that weighs 5,000 lbs., adds up to a larger percentage of the total weight.
How should the 500 pound weight be shifted to balance the plank on the fulcrum?
18.4 gallons. (Refer to Figure 60.) How should the 500-pound weight be shifted to balance the plank on the fulcrum? 1 inch to the left.
How do you find the remaining payload?
Subtract the basic empty weight and fuel from the maximum weight. Check the aircraft’s weight and balance sheet and find the maximum allowable gross weight of the aircraft. Then, find the basic empty weight value and subtract that from the max weight to get your “useful load” weight.
Can a 500 pound person fly?
There is no legal weight limit for passengers on U.S. commercial flights but some airlines such as Southwest ask customers who cannot fit into one seat to book two. It says if a passenger cannot lower the armrests on one set they must buy another – whatever they weigh.
Can a plane crash from too much weight?
A commuter plane that crashed on takeoff from Charlotte, N.C., in January was 400 to 1,000 pounds overweight, and two bags in its tail baggage compartment were so heavy that it took two handlers to carry each of them, a sign that the plane was tail-heavy as well, people involved in the investigation said.
How is weight distributed on a plane?
The weight is distributed throughout the airplane, but we can often think of it as collected and acting through a single point called the center of gravity. In flight, the airplane rotates about the center of gravity, but the direction of the weight force always remains toward the center of the earth.
Can you take off over max gross weight?
Can you take off over gross weight? Yes, it’s possible on any airplane, dependent on how far over the weight limit you are, the density altitude, how much runway you have, what obstacles are in the area and other factors.
What happens if a plane is unbalanced?
If the weight is greater than the lift generated, the aircraft may be incapable of flight. Longitudinal unbalance will cause either nose or tail heaviness.
How should the 500 pound weight be shifted to balance the plank on the fulcrum Figure 60?
How should the 500-pound weight be shifted to balance the plank on the fulcrum? 1 inch to the left. (Refer to figure 61.)
What are the weight limits for shipping cargo to the US?
Total gross road weight for vehicles is limited to 80,000 lbs, but further weight maximums apply for each axle. When importing into the US, it is absolutely crucial that you communicate correctly the cargo weight limitations and instructions for cargo loading and distribution so that containers can move overland without problems.
Why is my freight weight not the same as my weight?
When it comes to freight shipping, the weight your goods are charged for is not always the same as their actual weight. That’s because vessels have limitations on both space and weight – and can’t reasonably charge the same amount for goods of equal weight if they take up very different amounts of space.
Do shippers have to spread the weight evenly throughout the container?
Shippers must spread the weight evenly throughout the container or the container can be subject to an axle weight violation. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION SEE THE COMPILATION OF EXISTING STATE TRUCK AND WEIGHT LIMIT LAWS How much cargo weight can be safely and legally loaded in containers for rail transport in the US?
How is the chargeable weight calculated for a shipment?
A shipment’s dimensional weight is calculated by dividing its volume (units × length × width × height) by a “dim factor.” The lower the dim factor, the greater the dimensional weight. Between actual weight and dimensional weight, the number that is higher becomes the shipment’s chargeable weight (aka billable weight).
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AKA James Dewey Watson
Birthplace: Chicago, IL
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Co-Discoverer of DNA
James Watson was a bright young American who entered the University of Chicago at the age of 15. He was particularly interested in birds, and quickly earned a BS and Ph.D. in zoology, then went to Europe to study genetics.
At Cambridge, he met a Brit named Francis Crick, and together with their colleague Maurice Wilkins, they tried to elucidate the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). They felt Linus Pauling, then the world's most famous chemist, was breathing down their necks, and they desperately wanted to solve the DNA riddle before he did. Pauling had already come close, but it was Crick, Watson, and Wilkins who first showed that the collected clues only made sense if DNA were structured like two twisting, spiral ladders -- the double helix.
Some have suggested that Rosalind Franklin, who worked with Crick, Watson, and Wilkins, may deserve much more credit than she's been given. The evidence clearly shows she was intimately involved in the research of DNA's structure; that she pointed out the flaws in an early Crick-Watson theory that suggested three, not two, DNA chains; and that Crick and Watson used Franklin's x-ray DNA photographs before obtaining her permission. Franklin, however, died in 1958, four years before Crick, Watson, and Wilkins got their Nobel Prizes.
Crick and Watson also theorized on the structure of viruses. Without Crick, Watson studied x-ray diffraction in ribonucleic acid (RNA), and the role of RNA in protein synthesis. He's taught at CalTech and Harvard, and served as director and president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, studying tumor virology, the molecular basis of cancer, and oncogenes (cancer genes).
In October 2007, Watson sparked controversy when he said in an interview that he was "inherently gloomy" about Africa's future because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really". He later apologized "unreservedly" and said there is "no scientific basis for such a belief."
Father: James Dewey Watson (businessman)
Mother: Jean Mitchell (d. 1957)
Wife: Elizabeth Lewis (m. 25-Mar-1968, two sons)
Son: Rufus Robert (b. 1970)
Son: Duncan James (b. 1972)
High School: University of Chicago High School, Chicago, IL
University: BSc Zoology, University of Chicago (1947)
University: PhD Zoology, Indiana University Bloomington (1950)
Scholar: University of Copenhagen (1950-51)
Scholar: Cambridge University (1951-54)
Teacher: California Institute of Technology (1954-56)
Professor: Biology, Harvard University (1956-68)
Administrator: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1968-2007)
National Institutes of Health Director, Human Genome Project (1990-92)
Nobel Prize for Medicine 1962 (with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins)
Lasker Award Basic Medical Research Award (1960)
Copley Medal 1993
Academy of Achievement 1986
Friends of Hillary
Hillary Clinton for President
International Academy of Humanism Laureate
Science Debate 2008
Draft Deferment: World War II
Author of books:
The Double Helix (1968, nonfiction)
Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix (2002, nonfiction)
DNA: The Secret of Life (2003, nonfiction, with Andrew Berry)
Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science (2007, memoir)
Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile
Copyright ©2014 Soylent Communications
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Generic Flagyl is a broad-spectrum drug against microbes. It effectively copes with bacteria and protozoa, such as vaginal trichomonas, intestinal lamblia, dysentery amoeba. The drug is not effective against actinomycetes, propionibacterium, acne and mobilkus.
What is this medicine?
Flagyl (metronidazole) is nitro-5-imidazole. The mechanism of action of metronidazole is the biochemical reduction of the 5-nitro group of metronidazole by intracellular transport proteins of anaerobic microorganisms and protozoa. The reduced 5-nitro group of metronidazole interacts with the DNA of the cell of microorganisms, inhibiting the synthesis of their nucleic acids, which leads to the death of microorganisms. The main metabolite (2-hydroxymetronidazole) also has an antiprotozoal and antimicrobial effect.
It is used for the treatment of infectious diseases caused by the microorganisms Bifidobacterium, Bacteroides fragilis, Bilophilia, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium difficile, Eubacterium, Peptostreptococcus, Fusobacterium, Prophyromonas, Prevotella and Veilonella.
It is effective in the treatment of amoebiasis, nonspecific vaginitis, urogenital trichomoniasis, surgical infections, giardiasis.
Tablets may be prescribed as a continuation of non-oral metronidazole therapy.
Who should not take Flagyl?
- Patients with allergic reactions to metronidazole, its derivatives and to any component of the drug should not take Flagyl;
- It is contraindicated to use the drug if you have a sensitivity to gluten, as well as if you have complex diseases of the central nervous system;
- The drug is not used in patients weighing less than 16 kg (usually children under 6 years old);
- The drug is contraindicated to patients who are currently taking disulfiram and/or ethyl alcohol;
- The drug is prescribed with caution to people with blood diseases (including cured ones). During the course of treatment, the patient’s blood condition should be constantly monitored;
- Since the drug affects consciousness and vision, control of mechanisms and vehicles should be postponed until the therapy is over.
How to take Flagyl?
Tablets are taken orally.
Doses and duration of treatment are determined by the doctor, based on the general picture of the course of the disease, patient tolerance to the drug, and additional drugs that the patient takes.
- Amoebiasis: 1.5 g / day for 3 doses (adults) for 7 days;
- Giardiasis is treated for 5 days: adults take 750-1000 mg / day, children 6-10 years old – 375 mg / day (1.5 tablets) and children 10-15 years old – 500 mg / day (2 tablets). For children under 6 years of age, it is preferable to use metronidazole in the form of a suspension;
- Trichomoniasis in women (urethritis and vaginitis): a single dose of 2 g or as a course of treatment for 10 days: 1 tab. (250 mg) 2 times/day;
- Trichomoniasis in men (urethritis): a single dose of 2 g or as a course of treatment for 10 days, 1 tab. (250 mg) 2 times/day;
- Non-specific vaginitis: 500 mg 2 times / day for 7 days;
- Anaerobic infections (adults): 1-1.5 g / day.
With severe renal impairment (CC less than 10 ml/min), it is recommended to reduce the daily dose of the drug by 2 times.
What may interact with this drug?
- Not recommended combinations: alcohol, disulfiram, busulfan;
- Combinations to be used with caution: Oral anticoagulant therapy.
What should I watch for while taking this drug?
Data on the effect of Flagyl on the course of pregnancy has not been clarified to the end. Therefore, it is recommended to use the drug carefully with regular and careful monitoring of the woman and fetus. If there is a safer and more studied alternative to this drug, it is recommended to use it.
Metronidazole has the ability to penetrate into the amniotic fluid and breast milk, therefore it is recommended either to refrain from feeding during the treatment period or to stop breastfeeding.
An overdose of the drug may cause vomiting, ataxia, and disorientation.
There is no specific antidote. Typically, standard techniques for intoxication are performed.
Since the simultaneous administration of the drug with alcohol can cause a feeling of heat, vomiting, tachycardia, patients should be warned that alcoholic beverages or medicines containing alcohol should not be used during treatment with Flagyl.
Long-term administration of the drug should be carried out under the control of a blood formula. With leukopenia, the possibility of continuing treatment depends on the risk of developing an infectious process.
In the treatment of trichomonas vaginitis in women and trichomonas urethritis in men, it is necessary to refrain from sexual activity. Be sure to simultaneously treat sexual partners. Treatment does not stop during menstruation. After treatment of trichomoniasis, control tests should be carried out for 3 consecutive cycles before and after menstruation.
After treatment of giardiasis, if symptoms persist after 3 to 4 weeks, perform 3 fecal analyzes at intervals of several days (in some successfully treated patients, lactose intolerance caused by invasion can persist for several weeks or months, resembling symptoms of giardiasis).
Treatment should be discontinued if you have ataxia, dizziness, hallucinations, a deterioration in the neurological status.
Keep in mind that metronidazole can immobilize treponema, which leads to a false-positive Nelson test.
Due to the possibility of dizziness and other side effects associated with taking the drug, it is recommended to refrain from driving and other mechanisms.
What are the side effects of taking Flagyl?
This drug is generally well tolerated without causing adverse reactions.
But in rare cases, patients reported the following side effects:
- sensory peripheral neuropathy;
- headache, dizziness;
- nausea, vomiting;
- impaired stools;
- dry mouth and stomatitis;
- a decrease in vision;
- allergic reactions;
- discoloration of urine.
All cases were reversible and passed on their own.
If you notice atoxia, clouding of consciousness and dizziness after taking Flagyl, you’d better stop taking it. If any of the side effects occur, you should inform your doctor.
How to store this medicine?
Store below 25°C (77°F) and protect from light.
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The world's highest mountain should not be hard to spot, but NASA has admitted it mistook a summit in India for Mount Everest.
On its website the space agency said a photo taken by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko from the International Space Station (ISS), 370 kilometres above Earth, showed Everest lightly dusted with snow.
The picture spread rapidly via Twitter and was picked up by media around the world.
But Nepalis smelt a rat and voiced their suspicions on social media.
Journalist Kunda Dixit, an authority on the Himalayas, tweeted: "Sorry guys, but the tall peak with the shadow in the middle is not Mt Everest."
NASA confirmed it had made a mistake and removed the picture from its website.
"It is not Everest. It is Saser Muztagh, in the Karakoram Range of the Kashmir region of India," a spokesman said.
"The view is in mid-afternoon light looking north-eastward."
He did not explain how the picture from the space station, a joint project of the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe, had been wrongly identified.
Everest, which straddles the border of Nepal and China, is a sought-after photographic target for astronauts in orbit but is tricky to capture, according to astronaut Ron Garan, who lived on the ISS last year.
"No time is allotted in our work day normally for Earth pictures," he told The Atlantic.
"So if we want to capture a specific point on the ground, we have to first know exactly when we will fly over that spot."
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Rugby is a tough sport and requires intense training to make it on the field. It combines speed, power, strength, fitness, and agility making it great for your cardiovascular & overall health. When training as a rugby player you must incorporate workouts that include running, sprinting, plyometrics, weight training, mobility & agility training. While all of these exercises will get you in the shape you need to be in to succeed in the sport of Rugby, they can also be hard on your body. Most of these exercises are high impact and can generate a lot of soreness and muscle fatigue. What is the best way to still train hard but also offset some of these high impact training strategies?
Swimming Workouts For Rugby Players
Arizona based pool deck & concrete overlay company, New Look Kool Deck & More LLC, finished a pool deck overlay for a facility where Phoenix rugby players train. With the intense summer heat, pool workouts have become a staple for this rugby team, and their players are also seeing an improvement in gameplay as well as slightly fewer injuries! To ensure they stay safe while doing pool workouts an overlay was added to the deck surrounding the pool to allow the surface to remain cool even when temperatures reach over 100 degrees. The team then incorporated both in water & out of water exercises to maximize their training!
Swimming for rugby players has been found to improve mobility, the water helps support bodyweight so joints are under less duress, allows you to isolate both the upper & lower body, and water can have anti-inflammatory properties relieving your muscles, tendons, and joints of pressure & weight.
With a pool deck to accommodate various circuit training stations and the water a great place to build endurance, swimming is a great workout for those living the rugby player life!
Rugby is a tough sport that combines hard running with the contact & tackling associated with American football. It is definitely not a sport for the frail or weak. In fact, you have to train hard and play hard if you want to make it in this game. That being said, playing the sport of Rugby does come with a high potential risk of different injuries. What are the most common injuries associated with the sport of Rugby?
Rugby’s Most Common Injuries
Most Rugby injuries occur during matches rather than training and they usually tend to happen in the 2nd part of the game when the players are most fatigued. It has also been found that 1 in 4 rugby players will get injured during the season. And with numbers like that, it is practically inevitable that multiple players will get hurt on one team. Among the injuries that are most prevalent:
- Muscle strains/Bruising
- Over-Use Injuries
- Neck Injuries
It has also been found that a Rugby player’s risk of injury increases when exposed to different levels of experience in players. Those playing the forward position also tend to suffer more injuries than players in other positions. Rigby also has 3 times more injuries than American football, which is crazy if you think about it! So that means you have to be one tough cookie to survive to play this sport. Physical conditioning and agility play a huge roll in your individual risk of injury too. It is also said that with the right pre-season conditioning program that gradually increases intensity and duration, your chances of injury during the season can decrease immensely. It is also important to practice the correct tackling techniques & correct falling techniques to help minimize the absorption of the full impact.
Rugby is not as popular as baseball, soccer, or football, but it certainly is rising in popularity as it combines the tackling of American football with the pace of soccer. And while some don’t consider rugby to be a woman’s sport due to the physical harshness of the game, many women from across many countries are competing in a rugby league of their own.
In the 19th Century, Women playing contact sports was considered to be disrespectful, and hence when women tried to organize a set of matches in 1881, it led to riots. Women still played a little during WWI and other occasions, and a women’s rugby league was even formed in Australia in 1930. While women were making progress, many countries still saw women in contact sports as a taboo. That would all change in the 1960s, as the first women’s club match took place in France in 1968. And from that, the first national association was formed in the 1970s. In the 1970s women’s rugby even spread into the US as 4 universities were playing it by 1972. Rugby leagues began popping up in countries across the world and the game was even introduced in Japan in 1981. In 1990, the first worldwide tournament, RugbyFest, was held in New Zealand where 4 national teams, the USA, New Zealand, USSR, and Netherland’s along with other club teams battled for the first even women’s trophy. New Zealand won. And in the following year, the first women’s rugby world cup took place where the US won. Another world cup followed up in 1994 where England won. And the World Cup has been held around every 4 years since, with the 2021 World Cup set to be held in New Zealand for the first time.
Top 10 Women’s Rugby Teams
- New Zealand
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| 0.977278 | 1,090 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The definitive nonfiction title about human and animal bones, delivered with in-your-face accuracy and intrigue.
Common Core Alignment:
RI.4.7. Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears.
ALA Notable Book
IRA Children's Choice
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| 0.835376 | 98 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Today home and business owners are becoming more aware that unseen microorganisms such as mold and mildew can significantly affect health and quality of life. Mold remediation is an area definitely best left to the professionals. Proper containment, air purifying equipment, worker protection, and documentation are all aspects of a remediation project that need to be considered.
Molds produce allergens, irritants and in some cases potentially toxic substances. When spores are present in large quantities, they are a health hazard to humans, potentially causing allergic reactions and respiratory problems. Allergic responses include hay fever-type symptoms such as sneezing, runny nose, red eyes, and skin rash (dermatitis). Allergic reactions to mold are common. They can be immediate or delayed. Molds can also cause asthma attacks in people with asthma who are allergic to mold. In addition, mold exposure can irritate the eyes, skin, nose, throat and lungs of both mold-allergic and non-allergic people. Exposure to toxic-mold can lead to neurological problems and in some cases death. Prolonged exposure can be particularly harmful.
Valley Maintenance & Restoration, Inc. removes dangerous and unhealthy organisms using the latest equipment and methods to improve indoor environment and occupant safety.
Industry-recognized procedures and methods are used to manage potentially dangerous microorganisms. Some of these methods include: airflow management containment and air-filtering devices, demolition and dustless drywall removal, air-assisted cleaning devices and appropriate biocides. For more information on mold and indoor air quality, visit www.epa.gov.
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Jane Goodall the famous world-renowned British primatologist is speaking out on behalf of animals during the coronavirus pandemic saying that humanity’s stark disregard for nature and our outright “disrespect for animals” caused it.
Known for her first of its kind research with chimpanzees in Africa is pleading with the world to learn from our mistakes including this one so that we can prevent more in the future.
During a conference call ahead of the release of the new National Geographic documentary “Jane Goodall: The Hope”, the 86-year-old also said everyone can make a difference.
How do you view this pandemic?
Goodall: “It is our disregard for nature and our disrespect of the animals we should share the planet with that has caused this pandemic, that was predicted long ago.
Because as we destroy, let’s say the forest, the different species of animals in the forest are forced into a proximity and therefore diseases are being passed from one animal to another, and that second animal is then most likely to infect humans as it is forced into closer contact with humans.
It’s also the animals who are hunted for food, sold in markets in Africa or in the meat market for wild animals in Asia, especially China, and our intensive farms where we cruelly crowd together billions of animals around the world.
These are the conditions that create an opportunity for the viruses to jump from animals across the species barrier to humans.”
What can we do about these animal markets?
Goodall: “It’s really good that China closed down the live wild animal markets, in a temporary ban which we hope will be made permanent, and other Asian countries will follow suit.
But in Africa, it will be very difficult to stop the selling of bush meat because so many people rely on that for their livelihoods.
It will need a lot of careful thought on how it should be done, you can’t just stop somebody doing something when they have absolutely no money to support themselves or their families, but at least this pandemic should have taught us the kind of things to do to prevent another one.
What can we hope for?
Goodall: “We have to realize we are part of the natural world, we depend on it, and as we destroy it we are actually stealing the future from our children.
Hopefully, because of this unprecedented response, the lockdowns that are going on around the world, more people will wake up and eventually they can start thinking about ways they can live their lives differently.
Everyone can make an impact every single day.
If you think about the consequences of the little choices you make: what you eat, where it came from, did it cause cruelty to animals, is it made from intensive farming — which mostly it is — is it cheap because of child slave labor, did it harm the environment in its production, where did it come from, how many miles did it travel, did you think that perhaps you could walk and not take your car.
(Also consider) ways that you could perhaps help alleviate poverty because when people are poor they can’t make these ethical choices.
They just have to do whatever they can to survive — they can’t question what they buy, they must buy the cheapest, and they are going to cut down the last tree because they are desperate to find land on which they can grow more food.
So what we can do in our individual lives does depend a little bit on who we are, but we all can make a difference, everybody can.”
While Goodall has described herself as a vegan in the past she has also said that it’s not always possible while she travelers so sadly despite her resolute positions defending animals she is not a vegan but on a plant-based diet.
Help Vegan News continue to get the news that matters to our community and help us move forward in these hard times.
You can help us continue creating and telling the stories of animals and activists by becoming a Patreon supporter at: https://www.patreon.com/vegannews
Or with a one time donation through:
Original interview with Jane Goodall can be found here
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COMMENTARY ON ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS: BOOK I, 5
(For the nature of the sections see the “General Introduction”, here.)
Abbreviations: Ar. = Aristotle, AQ= Aquinas, NE = Nicomachean Ethics, EE= Eudemian Ethics
“Let us speak from the point where we digressed. For on the basis of the lives they lead, the many and the crudest seem to suppose, not unreasonably, that the good and happiness are pleasure. And thus they cherish the life of enjoyment. For the specially prominent ways of life are three: the one just mentioned, the political, and, third, the contemplative.
Now, in choosing a life of fatted cattle, the many appear altogether slavish; but they attain a hearing, because many people in positions of authority experience passions like those of Sardanapalus. The refined and active, on the other hand, choose honour, for this is pretty much the end of the political life. But it appears to be more superficial than what is being sought, for honour seems to reside more with those who bestow it than with him who receives it; and we divine that the good is something of one´s own and a thing not easily taken away. Further, people seem to pursue honour so that they may be convinced that they themselves are good; at any rate, they seek to be honoured by the prudent, among those to whom they are known, and for their virtue. It is clear, then, that in the case of these people at least, virtue is superior.
And perhaps someone might in fact suppose that virtue is to a greater degree the end of political life. Yet it appears to be rather incomplete. For it seems to be possible to posses virtue even while asleep or while being inactive throughout life and, in addition to these, while suffering badly and undergoing the greatest misfortunes. But no one would deem happy somebody living in this way, unless he were defending a thesis. But enough about these things: they have been spoken adequately also in the circulated writings.
Third is the contemplative life, about which we will make an investigation in what will follow.
The money-making life is characterized by a certain constraint, and it is clear that wealth is not the good being sought, for it is a useful thing and for the sake of something else. Thus someone might suppose that the previously mentioned things are ends to a greater degree than money is, for at least they are cherished for their own sakes. But they do not appear to be ends either, and many arguments have been widely distributed in opposition to them. So let these things be dismissed.” (NE, 1095a15-1096a10; Aristotle´s Nicomachean Ethics, Bartlett, Robert, and Collins, Susan; University of Chicago, Chicago, 2011)
1) What are we to make of the sudden first appearance of pleasure (ἡδονήν) in the argument? What does becoming ethical have to do with pleasure? Don’t we find this, in a sense, counterintuitive? For surely, those of us brought up under monotheism see pleasure in a very particular transcendental kind of way, don’t we? Or is it that Ar. is, in some respects, more akin to OUR modern utilitarianism and ITS conception of pleasure, than to any transcendental view of things (J.S. Mill; see section IV below)? But, wouldn’t that be odd, since 2500 years separate OUR hedonistic utilitarianism from Ar.’s prudential presentation? And, will it turn out that the primary architectonic good is connected to pleasure in some way? Isn’t this the reason why, having barely touched upon the question of pleasure for MANY books (specially those dealing with the moral virtues) throughout the NE, we are again suddenly confronted by it in BOOK X and its stunning conclusions? And as concerns the question of pleasure, why is Ar. SO very careful in its initial presentation? Why does he FIRST mention the many and the CRUDEST in this regard? Why not mention the refined or the WISE first? Don’t THEY hit the target better as regards the pleasurable? Is it because PLEASURE might hold the key to many of the reflections in the NE (not to mention the whole of classical political thought)? Isn’t this why, though careful, Ar. ALSO says that the many and the crudest think thus, BUT pregnantly adds: “and not unreasonably”? But if this is the general movement, then aren’t we moving in a direction in which another kind of life, that of a lovingly AND chosen self-sacrifice, will become unavailable? Specially so because Ar. reduces the variability of reasonably available lives to THREE lives: the life of pleasure, the political and the contemplative? Where exactly does a monk, a nun, or a hermit fit in? Or might it be that Ar. doubts whether true self-sacrifice makes sense for a human being once one dwells more into underlying considerations? And furthermore, where exactly does a CEO fit; under the later mentioned money-making life? Besides, before proceeding, haven´t we been told before that as regard the noble and the just, AND happiness, the variability is disconcerting? So, we need ask, don’t these lives TOO, vary according to the political regime in which they are lived? Won’t the pleasures of a democracy vary from those of an aristocracy, as Tocqueville CLEARLY shows in his Democracy in America? For it is evident that the pleasures of an aristocratic regime may actually be despised in a democracy; and the political life of the democratic seen in pejorative terms under an aristocracy? And, much more importantly, shouldn’t we be taken aback —– listening intently as we have regarding the architectonic end of the political art—— by SUDDENLY being brought up against a life which we HAVE not heard of before? And if it is true that the audience LISTENING to Ar. is varied, how are THEY to react to its appearance? Is it SO obvious that the “contemplative life” is one of THE lives to consider; then why exactly was Socrates condemned to death? And much more poignantly, why is it that WE moderns are not so taken aback by this third life? “The contemplative life, sure that is obviously familiar”, we say to ourselves, don’t we? Is it because we CONFUSE it with our very own ideas of what theory is, so that theory has become universally understood and unproblematically accepted? That is to say, what if for us theory signified an altogether different kind of life, one in which scientific reason, power and technology had created a dangerous theoretical fortress unbeknownst to Ar.? For isn’t it true that we easily speak of THEORY in modern times, a theory whose primary purpose it the guidance of our practical lives in the political arena? Actually, isn’t this THE CORE of the modern project? To exaggerate, don’t we think of theory more like a kind of “social engineering”? Isn’t this why OUR states are BUREAUCRATIC? For what would a theory be like that were not sought primarily to be IMPLEMENTED? Can we moderns conceive of this? What if Ar. had a VERY different conception of the relationship between theory and practice (cf. Kant’s Theory and Practice)? And what to make of the EXTREMELY pregnant silence that ensues regarding this life in the NE; for as Bartlett’s footnote attests to, ONLY until BOOK X will it come back, really, “to bite us”? What are we to make of this SILENCE if Ar. is asking us to be good listeners? What exactly are we supposed to listen to, so that in BOOK X we are not so shocked by the revelation of a surprising conclusion? And what to make of the fact that the very word for contemplation in Greek, namely theoria, is closely linked to being able “to see” (ὁρᾶν)? If there turns out to be something like the EYE OF THE SOUL; WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? And isn’t it obvious that Ar. considers this to be crucially relevant given that in the very next subsection (I, 6) , he goes on to get clearer on what some previous “theorists”, evidently Plato, have inadequately “theorized” about? How could THEIR eye of the soul, turn out to see not so well? Or did it? And, finally, doesn’t Ar. AGAIN “trick us”, and proceeds to tell us just a few lines below that, actually, there is a 4th kind of life, that of money-making? So which is it: 3 lives, or 4 (or 5?), or perhaps 1 and only 1? And if only 1, whence the reduction?
2) Moving along, why does Ar. HERE use such a censorious tone, such an “un-Aristotelian” tone, rarely used by him elsewhere? And why is this extremely censorious tone (the many = fatted cattle) so rarely picked up by modern commentators? Can one not see that Ar. is clearly defiant of radical democracy? Is it that commentaries on Ar. are much less defiantly so? Could they appeal to a “washed out” Aristotelianism? But then, are we democratic moderns more like fatted cattle all around, if ours are, in a sense, democracies of the “many”? Nietzsche seems to think something like this in his notion of the last man, doesn’t he (See “Prologue” Thus Spoke Zarathustra)? And doesn’t AQ. also completely agree with Ar., though he changes the animal to PIGS (!; section 60)? And, don’t WE say exactly the same when we observe certain bestial humans and say: “now, that is a pig”? Or should we just omit these Aristotelian words to make him more “relevant”? But then DOESN’T Ar. want us to listen to them? Could Ar. have come up with a better image to let us now how WE humans can fall to the most bestial of levels, specially with regards to pleasure? But, if so close the bestial, why does Ar. STILL say that they TOO attain a hearing? Why should they? And moreover, isn’t the reason extremely strange, even WEIRD? Aristotle says: one ought to hear the fatted cattle, because many of the powerful experience such feelings? Isn’t these like hearing the drunk because some drunks drink the most expensive liquor around and show it off? What might Ar. be driving at? Could it be that he SEES the political DANGERS of not confronting the relation between pleasure and power; that is, of showing how Sardanapalus and the like get it SO wrong and thus are truly dishonorable? Wouldn’t the refined, specially, despise being remembered thus? And don’t we then have to take much more seriously Xenophon’s On Tyranny in this regard; a conversation by a poet with a kind of Sardanapalus? And, being more inquisitive, is the pleasure of Sardanapalus found in the banquets, in the feasts, in the parades, OR RATHER IS IT NOT FOUND in the power that political power bestows upon its holder? For aren’t we speaking of the architectonic art, the political art as we have agreed in the course of the argument? Furthermore, why does Ar. go on to add that as regards the refined (and he sees the need to add, AND ACTIVE) that they choose honour? What would the refined, but inactive, look like? Is Ar. encouraging the refined to BECOME ennobled for they are the ones that truly have the means to do so? But, one would ask, isn’t Sardanapalus as part of the POLITICAL process, part of the struggle for honor, himself? So how is it that SOME who hold positions of power choose honor and others CHOOSE banquets and other less mentionable activities? Isn’t this WHY the many have a hearing, for wouldn’t it be utterly confusing to see some of the “refined” —or at least some of those who could have become refined—- becoming LIKE Sardanapalus? For surely Sardanapalus, one has a feeling, was perhaps once among the refined? And why does Ar. mention ONLY Sardanapalus in the NE, but in the EE he mentions many many more (EE, I, 5; and even goes into much greater detail, less prudently it seems, as to the content of the contemplative life (!): “They say that Anaxagoras …”, even mentioning the elder Socrates´ views on virtue)? Isn’t it because by mentioning ONLY ONE, we have a clear sense for what it is to be remembered for the wrong reasons? For surely now we all know, even 2500 years after, WHO Sardanapallus was? Who could wish to bestow such fame upon him/herself? Wouldn’t this be desiring a kind of inverted sickly end for eternity? But if so, then why would the many be confused about it?
3) Besides, as regards honor, why does Ar. say that HONOR is pretty much (that is to say, not wholly) the end of political life? Is he pointing to another END of political life which perhaps political life cannot on its own see? But what could THAT be? For what is the aim of public service, other than the fame of being honoured throughout the centuries? Isn’t that kind of “immortality” “as good as it gets” for those who give themselves to the political life “for the right reasons”? Besides, couldn’t other kinds of “immortalities” actually decrease the desire to be recognized IN THIS WORLD for one’s WORLDLY practical political activities? Is this why the “priestly life” is nowhere to be found here? And, if there is such OTHER end of political activity, how can one recognize what cannot be seen once one sees it? Will our eyes somehow be made to change? Is it that the NE will let it be seen (theorein), at least to some? But very importantly, how to guarantee, that this new SIGHT is not itself detrimental to political activity itself? For surely we do not wish to be the target of Aristophanes, do we (The Clouds)? Moreover, what to make of the 2 critiques with which Aristotle confronts the end of the political life, namely honor? To repeat, why can’t honour be the ultimate end of politics? Why does there have to be an architectonic end beyond FAME? Isn’t his precisely what the Federalists argue, only to be radically questioned by the Anti-Federalists in the US Constitutional debates (See section IV below, Federalists No. 72)? For Ar. says honor is a lesser end because it resides more with those who bestow it than who receives, “and the good is one’s own and not easily taken away”? But what does that mean? Let us suppose we are honoured for the right reasons, HOW EXACTLY will that be taken away if one has been honored for the right reasons? Could one think of the example of Bolívar who, after liberating us all, ended up dying in solitude in our beautiful Santa Marta? But what exactly does it mean that his good was taken away? Or rather is Ar.’s point that the refined can get hooked up into honour; do anything for honour; even, as Machiavelli would put it, pretend to be honourable? If so, is Ar. trying to, in their own terms, challenge the refined as regards the limits of their political desires, even nightmarish dreams? For it is clear, Pericles desired empire, didn’t he? Or, as Machiavelli does not tire of emphasizing, what if there isn’t enough honour to go around (I mean there is ONE Libertador, and all Colombian will understand, it is NOT Santander whom I ASSURE you is not readily known outside our borders). Isn’t his precisely why Ar. goes on to say that the political seek honour TO CONVICE THEMSELVES that they are good? But isn’t his VERY odd, for surely we need ask, are politicians SO really torn up within about this? Is Ar, not providing a NORMATIVE ideal from the very start to his audience? But hasn’t Ar. HIMSELF just told us about Sardanapalus, who governs, is presumably envied for the wrong reasons and yet it seems has not even the remotest inkling about Ar.’s dilemmas? Does Sardanapalus NEED to convince himself? Isn’t he ALREADY convinced, and his actually possessing power a great aid in his own convincing? Or put another way, doesn’t one have the feeling that many who served under Hitler —or Gadhafi, or Mubarak , or Senator Escobar…..—- had really NO sense of what Ar. is talking about? Did they actually seek to be held so by the good and the prudent? Now, what does Ar. mean, that the refined seek to be honoured by the prudent? What to make of the appearance of this term here linked to the word for practical wisdom (phronesis); such a complex word that it will take up most of BOOK VI later on? For, apologizing for being rather imprudent, we nonetheless need to ask, WHO are the prudent SIMPLY, if each and every society varies according to nomos? And how exactly do the prudent GET the politically refined to LISTEN to them? Did ALCIBIADES listen much? Did Cyrus? Ironically, wouldn’t the most prudent be those who DO NOT belong to one’s political society? To exemplify: didn’t a FRENCH man write Democracy in America? Didn´t a Macedonian write the NE in Athens? And thinking of Plato, doesn’t an Athenian Stranger (obviously, Socrates) speak of The Laws in Crete? And keeping in the same spirit, what does it mean that the refined seek to be honored by those to whom they are known? By their mom’s and dad’s? So, if I am a democrat, I will seek to be honored by the democrats; and if an oligarch, by …… , and if a tyrant, by who exactly? But who will honor the best simply, in a democracy, and the best simply, in an oligarchy? In other words, how do we go about challenging erroneous presuppositions if we seek to be somehow part of these presuppositions (see specially The Republic, BOOK VI, 492a-e)? Or is the key to all these misguided puzzles, the very notion of VIRTUE (arete)? Wouldn’t Ar. tell us “hold on your horses”? Isn’t this why he adds : “It is clear, then, that in the case of these people at least, virtue is superior.”? Doesn’t he mean by “these people”, those who seek honor, for the right reasons, namely to be held as virtuous, that is to say, for their goodness? Don’t we know that Washington declined being King, for instance? Isn’t this why Washington is Washington, and Sardanapalus, well, is and will always be, Sardanapalus? But, shouldn’t we be made aware of Washington’s OWN struggles with honor (see section IV below)? And in this very regard, don’t we have to get clear on the stunning difference in the appraisal of a General like Nicias, one from Plato, who mocks him in the Laches, and the other, from Thucydides who suffers with him in his History?
4) And of the entrance of the term virtue (aretē), what are we to say? Why is Ar. so NEGATIVE about it from the start; “And perhaps someone might in fact suppose that virtue is to a greater degree the end of political life. Yet it appears to be rather incomplete”? Wouldn’t a moralist find these sentences odd, to say the least? Is Ar. curbing the spiritedness (thumos) of the moralists from the very beginning? Actually, why hasn’t Ar. mentioned spiritedness at all? And if virtue is so incomplete, then what are we going to fill our ETHICAL outline with? Or is it that truly we must remind ourselves of the vast differences between the English word “virtue” and the Greek word aretēwhich can be attributed even to inanimate things?What does the arete (excellence) of a knife mean?But, are we to take this linguistic differentiation to mean that the MORAL excellences, are ONLY part of the ethical, not the whole of its horizon? And if so, then, where do THE moral overtones of the word aretēactually stand? Are these moral tones like the ROCK? Are they like a veil? Furthermore, what can we say of the argument that one can possess virtue while being inactive, specially asleep? What is Ar. getting at with this is EXTREMELY weird example? What difference does it make if one sleeps, or not, in regard to virtue?Suppose I am sleeping; do I cease to be virtuous? Well, only if one wants to defend a thesis, wouldn’t we say? Or perhaps, the point Ar. is making, and this is precisely why he adds inactive, that the idea of moral virtue is closely linked to the performance of the ACTION themselves? For, how am I to know whether I am courageous if I do not SHOW it in a kind of situation that actually requires the performance of the virtue of courage? Surely an army caught asleep (as many have been) is dead, isn’t it? And, how am I to SHOW my generosity if not by actually acting and giving to others (if you expect generosity for those asleep you will wait a LONG time, won´t you)? In other words, what would be of the virtues if we did not constantly seek occasions for their execution? And furthermore isn’t the political arena precisely the stage for such occasions at their best? Won’t this be the case for magnanimity and magnificence in particular? But then, how am I to prove my courage, if there is no war which provides the occasion? Wouldn’t there be occasions in which one would wish such a person rather remain asleep, rather remain INACTIVE than purposely pursue dangerous courses of action? Isn’t this in part why The Federalists write in No. 9:
“A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrast to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated.” here
And even much more problematically, as AQ. points out (67), how am I going to prove my magnanimity if I am but poor? Furthermore, if there is some kind of relation between the active life and the contemplative life just mentioned, what is it? If the virtues REQUIRE action, does contemplation require an action of its own? Are these two types of actions compatible; for instance, how do I go about finding the leisure to contemplate? Moreover, why does Ar. add: “in addition to these, suffering badly and great misfortunes.”? What does Ar. mean? Why doesn’t he give any examples of what he takes this to mean’? Is he referring to illnesses and such? Or is he referring to poverty? But didn’t he say that these do not affect happiness in our previous subsection? Is it a misfortune not to have the capital to become and keep on being a magnanimous individual? Or is it that in executing the virtues, one can actually do damage to oneself, i.e., die in battle? For don’t we think, of those who survived, “Well, aren´t THEY lucky”? But wouldn’t this be odd, aren’t the lucky ones those who give their lives for us, so that they will BE HONORED AND REMEMBERED eternally precisely for their virtuous behaviour? Aren’t we “lucky” to survive, only to recede in anonymity for the rest of our lives, and poignantly after death? And if these remarks are even half way in the right direction, then WHO is Ar. speaking of when he mentions those who are defending a thesis? What does Ar. mean that no one is happy under these circumstances unless defending a thesis? And then why does he dismiss this view so RAPIDLY? Does it have to do with the fact that ONCE we go into a discussion of the moral virtues themselves in BOOKS 3 and 4, there will be NO MENTION of happiness? Is Ar. simply trying to divert our attention, so as to NOT to shock the audience of refined and educated which alone can guarantee that honour and virtue remain connected to the good in SOME way, if not the highest way? But honestly speaking WHAT are we to make of Socrates’s troubling end? Is THAT a thesis? Are we to believe a person like Nietzsche when he says that Socrates lived apparent happiness in this life? Or isn’t it clear, as Socrates makes it clear to all present in the PHAEDO, that he is NOT living a misfortune and THUS wants to EDUCATE us into not crying but rather understanding what true happiness and complete virtue (arete) is all about?
5) To conclude these puzzles: what of the sudden appearance of the money-making life (χρηματιστὴς), when we have been told just a few lines above that there were only 3 lives in all? Did Ar. forget to mention it? Wouldn’t THAT be a very odd explanation from someone like him? “Oh, yes, oops, didn’t have much time for my notes, forgot to add it, really really, there are 4”; wouldn’t this way of thinking be rather odd? And wouldn’t we moderns, citizens of liberal commercial republics see here a CRUCIAL bridge to the Ancients? But alas, isn’t what Ar. tells us, merely negative and thus to a high degree —-for us modern homo economicus—- difficult even to see or understand? For isn’t Ar. clear about these issues also in the Politics: “usury is most reasonably hated because ones possessions derive from money itself and not from that which is supplied, of the sorts of business this is the most contrary to nature”.(Politics, Lord, I, 10, 1258a35-b5). But, as we have argued previously, if our THAT is that of commercial republics, then how not to destabilize their fundamental presuppositions if we begin asking the WHY’s which arise from OUR reading Ar.´s rather foreign views on things? To put it bluntly, “let there be no more usury in the modern world; It is so decreed”; wouldn’t this be not only illusory, but rather dangerous as well for OUR political stability? Or is it that Ar is providing us with a HIERARCHY of lives with which we can judge the excellence of cultural types? And if so, where would our commercial republics stand? Wouldn’t they stand QUITE low? Besides, what are we to make of the troubling reference linked to money making, namely that it deals with a CONSTRAINT (Baios) ? What does the constraint refer to; specially given the idea of he Greek baios as “violence” or “force”? Why doesn’t Ar. spell it out? Is he referring to the troubling political conditions of enrichment? Or is it rather that he refers to a certain violence done to the higher natural capacities we possess as humans? But then, what to make of the totally opposite idea presented by early moderns such as Montesquieu and their praise of commerce as leaning, NOT to violence, but on the contrary to greater peace among nations: “The natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace. Two nations that trade with each other become reciprocally dependent; if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling, and all unions are founded on mutual needs.” (TsoL, PART IV, Chapter 2, p. 338)? Or is it that the early modern commercial model itself could not guarantee such peace in the long run? And in much more personal terms, don’t we find examples of similar ideas in analysts of business who themselves see the modern violence done by certain CEO’s intent on bonuses? Aren’t we to take heed of Professors Mintzberg’s critique of modern moneymaking CEO´s intent on bonuses?:
“Actually, bonuses can serve one purpose. It has been claimed that if you don’t pay them, you don’t get the right person in the CEO chair. I believe that if you do pay bonuses, you get the wrong person in that chair. At the worst, you get a self-centred narcissist. At the best, you get someone who is willing to be singled out from everyone else by virtue of the compensation plan. Is this any way to build community within an enterprise, even to foster the very sense of enterprise that is so fundamental to economic strength?
Accordingly, executive bonuses provide the perfect tool to screen candidates for the CEO job. Anyone who insists on them should be dismissed out of hand, because he or she has demonstrated an absence of the leadership attitude required for a sustainable enterprise.
Of course, this might thin the roster of candidates. Good. Most need to be thinned, in order to be refilled with people who don’t allow their own needs to take precedence over those of the community they wish to lead.” Wall Street Journal, here
Wouldn’t recovering Ar.´s views, in this regard alone, aid us in preventing greater crises?
1) The three —-or is it four?—– kinds of life.
2) Multitudes, power, the pleasurable
3) Honor’s dilemmas
4) Sleeping Virtue?
III. PUZZLES REGARDING COMMENTARY BY AQUINAS
1) One must signal as well to AQ.’s own discussion of the question of usury and interest in the Summa II-II Question 78 AA 1-4 “Of the sin of interest taking” which rings dramatically unknown to us:
“Now money, according to The Philosopher, was invented chiefly for the purpose of exchange, and, consequently, the proper and principal use of money is its consumption or alienation, whereby it is sunk in exchange. Hence, it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for the use of money lent, which payment is known as interest.” (my emphasis: Summa II-II, Question 78 AA 1-4, “Of the sin of interest taking”, Hackett, p. 200)
2) For a contrasting view to be found in the Bible one must look at King David’s words prior to his dying as regards his thanksgiving to God, and his recognition of God as the sole origin of ANY recognition, honor and glory in men:
“”Thine o Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and in the earth, Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all.
Both riches and honor come from Thee and Thou dost rule over all, and in Thy hand is power and might; and it lies in Thy hands to make great and to strengthen everyone …
For we are sojourners before Thee and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope” (my emphasis: Bible, 1 Chronicles, 29: 11-15)
Likewise as regards the question of the money-making life, one need look at the Parable of the rich fool as spoken by Jesus, son of God in the New Testament:
“The land of a certain rich man was very productive.
And he began reasoning to himself , saying. “What shall I do, once I have no place to store my crops.”
And he said, “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.
But God said to him, “You fool. This very night your souls is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?”
So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (my emphasis: Luke 12: 17-21; Schofield Study Bible.)
IV. FLEXIBLE SECTION
1) i) It is quite revealing to contrast AQ.’s words on the nature of usury with the defense of the Spirit of Commerce by Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws:
“The natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace. Two nations that trade with each other become reciprocally dependent; if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling, and all unions are founded on mutual needs.” (TsoL, PART IV, Chapter 2, p. 338)
Perhaps to understand the constraint (baios) of which Ar. speaks as regads the moneymaking life, one can refer to Montesquieu’s own words on the commercialism of Marseilles,
“It has been seen everywhere that violence and harassment have brought forth economic commerce among men who are constrained to hide in marshes, on islands, on the shoals, and even among dangerous reefs … They had to live; they drew their livelihood from the whole universe.” (ibid., Chapter 5)
ii) The un-Aristotelian defense of the money making life is also found in Locke´s views as presented in his Two Treatises of Government:
“49. Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was anywhere known. Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions.
50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of men in proportion to food … has its value only from the consent of men .. it is plain that men have agreed on a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit an voluntary consent, found out a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of…” (Two Treatises of Government, Second Treatise, Chapter V, 46-51; Hafner p. 145)
iii) For the first early modern critique of this posture see Rousseau Discourse on the Origin of Inequality:
“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared had someone pulled up the stakes or filed in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one! But it is quite likely …” (Rousseau., Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Part Two, Hackett, p. 60)
iv) For a defence of the nature of American commerce as against European commerce see Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Some Considerations concerning the causes of the commercial greatness of the United States,VOL, PART II, Chapter 10, Anchor Press, p. 402)
“The Americans have introduced a similar system into commerce. What the French did for the sake of victory, they are doing for the sake of the economy.
The European navigator is prudent about venturing out to sea; he does so only when the weather is suitable; if any unexpected accident happens, he returns to port; at night he furls some of his sails …
The American neglecting such precautions, braves these danger; he sets sail while the storm is still rumbling; by night as well as by day. He spreads full sails to the wind; he repairs storm damage as he goes; and when at last he draws near the end of his voyage, he flies towards the coast as if he could already see the port….
I cannot express my thoughts better than by saying that the Americans put something heroic into their way of trading.” (my emphasis: Democracy in America, Some Considerations concerning the causes of the commercial greatness of the United States,Vol. I, Part II, Chapter 10; Anchor Press, p. 400 ff.)
2) For what is perhaps the single most stunning critique of the moneymaking life as against the possibility of the contemplative life see Xenophon’s Memorabilia:
“It is worthwhile in this regard also not to omit his conversations that he had with Antiphon the sophist. For Antiphon, wishing to draw his close companions away from him, once approached Socrates when they were present and said the following.
“Socrates, I, for my part, thought that those who philosophize should become happier. But you, in my opinion, have reaped from philosophy just the opposite. You live, at any rate, a way of life such as no slave would abide from a master. You eat and drink the poorest food and drink, you wear a cloak that is not only poor but the same one during summer and winter, and you are continuously without shoes or tunic.”
“Moreover, you do not take in wealth —-a thing that both delights in its acquisition and makes those who possess it live more freely and pleasantly. If, accordingly, you too dispose your companions as do teachers of other work as well, who show their students to be their imitators, you should hold that you are a teacher of unhappiness.” And Socrates replied to this:
“In my opinion, Antiphon, you have supposed me to live so painfully that I am persuaded you would rather die than choose to live as I do. Come now, let us examine what you have perceived to be hard in my life.
“ Is it that those who accept money are under necessity to produce what they are paid for, but that by not receiving it I am in no necessity to converse with whomever I do not wish? Or do you deem my way of life poor in the belief that I eat less healthy things than you, or things that provide less strength? Or is it that my regimen is harder to procure than yours because it is more rare and costly? Or that what you furnish yourself is more pleasant for you than what I furnish myself is for me? Don’t you know that the one who eats most pleasantly has the least need of relish, and the one who drinks most pleasantly least desires drink that is not at hand?
“Regarding cloaks, you know that those who change them do so for reasons of cold and heat , and that they put on shoes so that they will not be prevented from walking due to what pains their feet. Now then, have you ever perceived me more than another remaining inside because of the cold, fighting with someone over a spot in the shade because of the heat or not going wherever I wish because of pain in my feet?
Don’t you know that when those bodies are naturally weakest practice they become stronger at what they practice and more easily bear it than the strongest who does not practice? And don’t you think that, by always practices patient endurance of the things that chance to befall my body, I bear all things more easily than you who does not practice?
“Do you think that anything is more responsible for my not being enslaved to stomach or sleep or lust than that I have other things more pleasant than these that delight not only in their use but also by providing hopes that they will benefit always? Moreover, this at any rate you know; that those who do not think that they are doing well do not experience delight, but those who believe that they are nobly progressing, either in farming or seafaring or whatever else they chance to be working at, are delighted on the grounds that they are doing well.
Then, do you think that the pleasure from all these things is as great as that from believing that one is becoming better and acquiring better friends? I, for my part, spend my life holding these things. And if indeed it should be necessary to benefit friends or city, is there more leisure to attend to them in my present way of life or in the one that you deem blessed? And who would go on a campaign more easily, a person unable to live without a costly way of life, or one for whom what is at hand is enough? And who would surrender more quickly to a siege, the person needing what is hardest to find, or the one who has enough when he makes use of what is easiest to abstain?
“You seem, Antiphon, like one who thinks that happiness is luxury and extravagance. But I, for my part, hold that to need nothing is divine (theios), that to need as little as possible is nearest to the divine, and what is divine is best, and that what is nearest to the divine is nearest to what is best.” (Memorabilia I 6, Xenophon, Translated by Amy L. Bonnette; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)
3) An example of the best political education of the refined by the refined can be found, according to Xenophon in the type of education prevalent in the Persian Empire prior to the rise of Cyrus and his republican reforms:
“He was, moreover, educated in the laws of the Persians. These laws do not seem to begin where they begin in most cities, but by caring for the common good. For most cities allow each to educate his own children however he wants and they allow the adults themselves to live however they please; then they enjoin then not to steal or plunder, not to use violence in entering the house, not to strike whoever it is unjust to strike, not to commit adultery, not to disobey a ruler, and similarly with other such matters. If someone transgresses some of these strictures they punish him.
But the Persian laws, starting earlier, take care that the citizen will not in the first place even be such as to desire any wild or shameful deed. They exercise this care in the following way ….” (Xenophon, The Education of Cyrus, Book I, Chapter 2, Ambler. p. 23; the contrast to permissive democracy astounds.)
4) For the crucial relation to Utilitarianism see the beginning of J.S. Mill´s work:
“There are few circumstances among those which make up the present condition of human knowledge …more insignificant of the nature of backward state in which speculation on the most important subject still lingers, than the little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the criterion of right and wrong” (Mill, Utilitarianism, Penguin, p. 272: Of course, for Mill, Ar. has been of little help here, even if he too speaks of the crucial role of pleasure and happiness in the discussion of the ethical.)
5) i) Regarding the idea that the ULTIMATE end of honor is greatness and fame, see the final Exhortation of Machiavelli’s The Prince:
“Circumstances are now very favourable indeed …if only your family will imitate the methods of men I have proposed as exemplars. Moreover, very unusual events, which are signs from God, have recently been observed here: the sea has opened; a cloud has shown you the way; water has flowed from the rock; manna has rained down here. Everything points to your future greatness. But you must play your part, for God does not want to do everything, in order not to deprive us of our freedom and the glory that belong to us.” (my emphasis: The Prince, Cambridge, Exhortation to liberate Italy, p. 88-9)
ii) One can also look at the new understanding of honor in Hobbes’s appropriately titled “Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour and Worthiness”:
“(5) Reputation of power is power, because it draweth with it the adherence of those that need protection,
… (8) Good success is power, because it maketh reputation of wisdom or good fortune, which makes men either fear him or rely on him. ….
(12) Eloquence is power , because it is seeming prudence….
(16) The value or WORTH of a man is, as of all other things, his price, that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power; and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and judgement of another … For let a man (as most men do) rateth themselves at the highest value they can; yet their true value is no more than is esteemed by others” (Leviathan: Part I, Chapter X “Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour and Worthiness”; Hackett, p. 51)
iii) For one of the most famous expression of FAME as the fundamental motivation even of the noblest of minds see The Federalists No. 72 where we read:
“One ill effect of the exclusion would be a diminution of the inducements to good behaviour. There are few men who would not feel much less zeal in the discharge of a duty when they were conscious that the advantages of the station with which it was connected must be relinquished at a determinate period, than when they were permitted to entertain a hope of OBTAINING, by MERITING, a continuance of them. This position will not be disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary, deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that, together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or unfriendly to the task. The most to be expected from the generality of men, in such a situation, is the negative merit of not doing harm, instead of the positive merit of doing good.” (my emphasis: http://constitution.org/fed/federa72.htm )
Position against which Anti-Federalists such as Brutus argue intensely: What is so noble about actions done for the sake of future fame, rather than actions done for the sake of themselves IN SPITE of fame?
6) On the question of honor in times of peace one can look at Machiavelli’s The Discourses in which he too alludes to Thucydides and Nicias:
“We see, thereof, in this incident a disorder to which republics are liable, namely that of showing but little esteem, in time of peace for men of worth. This arouses their indignation on two accounts. First, they themselves are deprived of their position. Secondly, they find unworthy men who lack their competence, being made their associates and their superiors.” ( The Discourses, BOOK III, Chapter 16, Penguin, p. 452)
5) i) For an example of the virtues as the end of political life one need only look at Washington´s “Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation”:
“37th, In speaking to men of quality do not lean nor look them full in the face, nor approach too near them at least keep a full pace form them”.
61st Utter nor base for frivolous things amongst grave and Learn´d Men nor very Difficult Questians or Subjects, among the ignorant …”
110th Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience” (Washington , The Library of America, p. 3-10.)
ii) For a revealing discussion of the question of honor in Washington see:
a. “The Classical and Modern Liberal Understandings of Honor.” In The Noblest
Minds: Fame. Honor, and the American Founding, edited by Peter
McNamara, 207-19. Lanham. Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
b. “George Washington and the Life of Honor.” Co-authored with Lorraine Smith
Pangle. In The Noblest Minds:, edited by Peter McNamara, 59-71.
iii) For the dilemmas as presented in Bolívar, one can read his letter to L. Perú de Lacroix. It reads:
“La corona que se le puso a Napoleón sobre la cabeza la miré como una cosa miserable y de modo gótica; lo que me pareció grande fue la aclamación y el interés que inspiraba su persona. Esto, lo confieso, me hizo pensar en la esclavitud de mi pais y en la gloria que conquistaría el que la liberase, pero cuán lejos me hallaba de imaginar que tal fortuna me aguardaba!” (my emphasis: Brevario del Libertador, Ramon de Zubiría, Documento 9, p. 31.)
7) For a literary recreation of a kind of Sardanapalus one can look at Camus´s Caligula. There we read as regards the life of pleasure:
“Caligula: Yes, I wanted the moon.
Caligula: It’s one of those things I haven’t got …. I couldn’t get it ….That’s why I’m tired.” (Camus, Caligula, Vintage, p. 7)
V. IMPORTANT GREEK TERMS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
practically wise, prudent
to be in distress
constraint, violence, force
VI. NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, GREEK, BOOK I, 5; text at Perseus (based on Bywater)
ἡμεῖςδὲλέγωμενὅθενπαρεξέβημεν. τὸγὰρἀγαθὸνκαὶτὴνεὐδαιμονίανοὐκἀλόγωςἐοίκασινἐκτῶνβίωνὑπολαμβάνεινοἱμὲνπολλοὶκαὶφορτικώτατοιτὴνἡδονήν: διὸκαὶτὸνβίονἀγαπῶσιτὸνἀπολαυστικόν. τρεῖςγάρεἰσιμάλισταοἱπρούχοντες, ὅτενῦνεἰρημένοςκαὶὁπολιτικὸςκαὶτρίτοςὁθεωρητικός. οἱμὲνοὖνπολλοὶπαντελῶςἀνδραποδώδειςφαίνονταιβοσκημάτωνβίονπροαιρούμενοι, τυγχάνουσιδὲλόγουδιὰτὸπολλοὺςτῶνἐνταῖςἐξουσίαιςὁμοιοπαθεῖνΣαρδαναπάλλῳ. οἱδὲχαρίεντεςκαὶπρακτικοὶτιμήν: τοῦγὰρπολιτικοῦβίουσχεδὸντοῦτοτέλος. φαίνεταιδ᾽ἐπιπολαιότερονεἶναιτοῦζητουμένου: δοκεῖγὰρἐντοῖςτιμῶσιμᾶλλονεἶναιἢἐντῷτιμωμένῳ, τἀγαθὸνδὲοἰκεῖόντικαὶδυσαφαίρετονεἶναιμαντευόμεθα. ἔτιδ᾽ἐοίκασιτὴντιμὴνδιώκεινἵναπιστεύσωσινἑαυτοὺςἀγαθοὺςεἶναι: ζητοῦσιγοῦνὑπὸτῶνφρονίμωντιμᾶσθαι, καὶπαρ᾽οἷςγινώσκονται, καὶἐπ᾽ἀρετῇ: δῆλονοὖνὅτικατάγετούτουςἡἀρετὴκρείττων. τάχαδὲκαὶμᾶλλονἄντιςτέλοςτοῦπολιτικοῦβίουταύτηνὑπολάβοι. φαίνεταιδὲἀτελεστέρακαὶαὕτη: δοκεῖγὰρἐνδέχεσθαικαὶκαθεύδεινἔχοντατὴνἀρετὴνἢἀπρακτεῖνδιὰβίου, καὶπρὸςτούτοιςκακοπαθεῖνκαὶἀτυχεῖντὰμέγιστα: . τὸν δ᾽ οὕτω ζῶντα οὐδεὶς ἂν εὐδαιμονίσειεν, εἰ μὴ θέσιν διαφυλάττων. καὶ περὶ μὲν τούτων ἅλις: ἱκανῶς γὰρ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐγκυκλίοις εἴρηται περὶ αὐτῶν. τρίτος δ᾽ ἐστὶν ὁ θεωρητικός, ὑπὲρ οὗ τὴν ἐπίσκεψιν ἐν τοῖς ἑπομένοις ποιησόμεθα. ὁ δὲ χρηματιστὴς βίαιός τις ἐστίν, καὶ ὁ πλοῦτος δῆλον ὅτι οὐ τὸ ζητούμενον ἀγαθόν: χρήσιμον γὰρ καὶ ἄλλου χάριν. διὸ μᾶλλον τὰ πρότερον λεχθέντα τέλη τις ἂν ὑπολάβοι: δι᾽ αὑτὰ γὰρ ἀγαπᾶται. φαίνεται δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνα: καίτοι πολλοὶ λόγοι πρὸς αὐτὰ καταβέβληνται. ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἀφείσθω.
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Study of Nutrition Status of Population in Georgia
Received Date: July 29, 2019; Published Date: November 21, 2019
Background: Until 2015, systematic statistical data on micronutrient deficiency was not available in Georgia, to provide developing national strategy. In the same year, the National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia (NCDC) in collaboration with the USA CDC launched the project “Strengthening surveillance of micronutrient deficiency in Georgia”.
Methodology: Sentinel surveillance approach was used by selecting 8 sentinel sites from 4 regions, 2 sites in each region (1 pediatric and 1 antenatal clinic). Folate and iron deficiencies were studied in pregnant women (1st trimester) and iron deficiency was measured in children (12- 23 months old). Ferritin concentration in plasma with cut-off points of <12 μg/l was used for Iron deficiency measure in toddlers, and <15 μg/l in pregnant. <3.0 ng/ml was considered as a cut-off point of Folate deficiency in pregnant. For anemia detection for the both target groups (children U2; pregnant) has been used Hb cut-off points of <11 g/l. Hemoglobin was tested using HemoQue and Multi-analyzer techniques at the sentinel sites.
Findings: In 2016-2017, Blood hemoglobin was measured among 939 children 12 to 23 months of age. 34% were anemic. Furthermore, 478 were tested for iron deficiency and 84% of them were identified as iron deficient. Hemoglobin was tested among 2,790 pregnant women and 7.4 % of them were found anemic. Additionally, 483 of 2,790 pregnant women were tested for iron and folate deficiencies. 61% were iron deficient, and 26.4% tested positive for folate deficiency. Neural tube defects (NTDs) prevalence per 1000 live births registered in sentinel sites was high 2.7.
Conclusion: Our preliminary results show that anemia and iron deficiency are prevalent among both pregnant women and children of the specified age group in Georgia. Additionally, folate deficiency was quite common during the 1st trimester of pregnancy. Our findings will inform public health policy decision makers to take relevant decisions on required interventions, such as health education, distribution of relevant supplements, and food fortification.
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|Most spiders are diminutive, like this tiny wolf spider.|
The Orb Weavers
Orbweavers are sit-and-wait hunters that construct sticky, orb-shaped webs in strategic locations. They typically rest in the center of the web or in hideaways under leaves or bark, rushing in to capture the unlucky creatures that stumble into their webs. The webs of these large orbweavers can be two or more feet in width.
|Neoscona crucifera building her web at night|
The largest orbweavers in Maryland are found in three genera: Argiope, Araneus, and Neoscona.
Argiopes have long, oval- or almond-shaped abdomens that are brightly colored with yellow and black patterns. Argiopes typically sit in their webs during the day, often in full sun. They are sometimes called writing spiders due to the zigzag patterns they often weave into their webs.
- Argiope aurantia (black-and-yellow argiope, yellow garden spider) - up to 1" body length; distinctive black and yellow pattern on abdomen, forming yellow spots Photos from BugGuide
- Argiope trifasciata (banded argiope, banded garden spider) - up to 1" body length; distinctive bands of white, yellow, and black across its abdomen Photos from BugGuide
These two genera can be very difficult to tell apart. Both have fat, round, pumpkin-shaped abdomens and are often brownish, but may have distinctive patterns and coloration. They typically sit in their webs at night or in shaded or overcast conditions. During the day, they hide away under tree bark or eaves, or within a curled leaf. To tell the two genera apart, look for a groove in the center of the cephalothorax ("head" body part). In Neoscona, the groove is a line running the length of the cephalothorax. In Araneus, it is a dimple or angled groove.
- Araneus bicentenarius (giant orbweaver, lichen spider) - up to 1.1" body length; body color beautifully patterned in shades of black and lichen gray or green; two large humps on its abdomen just after its cephalothorax; reaches full size earlier in the year than other large orbweavers; prefers habitats with lichen Photos from BugGuide
- Araneus marmoreus (marbled orbweaver, Halloween spider) - up to 0.7" body length; abdomen color is typically orange, yellow, reddish, or cream, marbled with brown, purplish, or black markings; legs are banded with white and black and often reddish or orange close to the body Photos from BugGuide
- Araneus trifolium (shamrock orbweaver) - up to 0.8" in body length; abdomen color yellow, orange, red, or cream with white spots; legs banded with white or tan and black Photos from BugGuide
- Araneus diadematus (cross orbweaver, European garden spider) - up to 0.8" in body length; imported to North America from Europe; brownish coloration; white spots on abdomen forming the shape of a cross; legs banded with dark brown and light brown Photos from BugGuide
|Neoscona crucifera with finger for scale.|
- Neoscona crucifera (Hentz's orbweaver, barn spider) - up to 0.8" in body length; brown in coloration; a light brown cross shape can often be seen on the abdomen with several dimples toward the top of the cross; legs often reddish close to the body Photos from BugGuide
- Neoscona domiciliorum (spotted forest orbweaver) - up to 0.6" in body length; black abdomen with a white or tan cross-shaped marking in its center and a row of white spots along its sides; legs white and black banded, but red close to the body Photos from BugGuide
The Active Hunters
These large spiders are not only impressive for their size, but also for their speed! Wolf spiders, and their cousins, the fishing spiders, are active hunters. They use their long, powerful legs to overtake prey. They prowl lawns, gardens, forest floors, and even the surface of water, searching for insect meals. Their wanderings often take them inside human dwellings, where the size of the largest species, as well as their tendency to stand their ground, may cause some alarm. Both wolf spiders and fishing spiders have:
- long, sturdy legs
- low, rubust bodies
- camouflaging coloration (typically mottled or streaked brown or gray)
- a covering of hairs, especially obvious on the legs
- and two large, forward facing eyes in the middle of the face with a row of 4 smaller eyes beneath
|A Tigrosa wolf spider|
Wolf spiders (Lycosidae) are a very large and diverse group, ranging greatly in size, with some as small as a grain of rice. The largest species however, can have a body length of 1 inch, giving them quite a formidable appearance. The largest species in Maryland are members of the Hogna and Tigrosa genera. These wolf spiders can be identified by their large as adult size (often around 1" in body length in adult females) and by their eye arrangement. Unlike most wolf spiders, the lower row of 4 small eyes is as wide or wider than the two large eyes in the center of the face.
|Eye arrangements of common hunting spiders|
Hogna - typically has a pale stripe running the length of the cephalothorax ("head" body part), with several pale stripes radiating outwards from its center; the underside of abdomen is typically black
- Hogna carolinensis (Carolina hogna) – largest of the Hogna species, up to 1.4" body length; entire underside black, often with dark markings on the undersides of its legs Photos from BugGuide
- Hogna baltimoriana (Baltimore hogna) - 0.5" to 1" body length; underside of abdomen is black, but with a pale band on its abdomen just behind its legs; undersides of legs have dark markings Photos from BugGuide
- Hogna lenta (field hogna) - 0.5" to 1" body length; underside of abdomen is black, with two pale patches on its abdomen just behind its legs; undersides of legs are unmarked Photos from BugGuide
|This Tigrosa is as long as a thumb. Notice the large central eyes.|
- Tigrosa aspersa (speckled tiger wolf spider) – 0.6" to 1" body length; dark brown with a very narrow yellow stripe between eyes; underside of abdomen orangey with black speckles Photos from BugGuide
- Tigrosa georgicola (Geogian tiger wolf spider) - 0.4" to 0.9" body length; pale stripe running the length of the cephalothorax; underside of abdomen darkly speckled with three dark stripes starting just after the legs and converging at the tip (spinnerets) Photos from BugGuide
- Tigrosa helluo (gluttonous tiger wolf spider) – 0.4" to 0.8" body length; pale stripe running the length of the cephalothorax; underside of abdomen orangey with black speckles Photos from BugGuide
Fishing spiders and nursery web spiders (Pisauridae) are relatives of wolf spiders and look very similar. Their eye arrangement and habits are a bit different. The eyes of fishing spiders are all very close in size, whereas the two center eyes of wolf spiders are noticeably larger. Wolf spiders often rest with their legs bent, while fishing spiders typically rest with their legs flattened against the ground. When carrying egg sacs, wolf spiders carry their sacs by their spinnerets at the tip of their abdomens, while fishing spiders carry them in their jaws. Finally, fishing spiders tend to be found around water, while wolf spiders may be found in all habitats, though there are exceptions.
|A fishing spider molt showing the eye arrangement.|
|Dolomedes tenebrosus showing scale and flattened stance|
- Dolomedes albineus (white fishing spider) - up to 1.2" body length; whitish-gray in color; typically found in wetlands; may travel high up trees; may travel far from water when it matures in mid- to late-summer Photos from BugGuide
- Dolomedes scriptus and Dolomedes vittatus (scriptured whitewater fishing spider and striped whitewater fishing spider) - up to 1.2" body length; grayish to brownish in color; white W-shaped markings on abdomen, more pronounced in D. scriptus; two narrow dark markings in the very center of the cephalothorax ("head") of D. scriptus; two broad dark markings in the very center of the cephalothorax of D. vittatus; both tend to have pale stripes running the along the sides of their bodies, but this is more common in males than females; both typically found near clear, fast-moving, rocky portions of streams, but D. scriptus prefer sunnier spots and D. vittatus prefers shadier spots Photos of D. scriptus Photos of D. vittatus
- Dolomedes tenebrosus (dark fishing spider) - up to 1.5" body length (rivaled only by Hogna carolinensis); leg span may be an impressive 4"; dark gray-brown in color with black markings; four dark W-shaped markings on abdomen; black "mask" over face; distinctly banded legs; often roams far from water and into houses Photos from BugGuide
- Dolomedes triton (six-spotted fishing spider) - up to 0.8" long; many parallel rows of white spots on upperside of abdomen; six spots on underside; typically has two distinctive white stripes running along the sides of its body; often black and white in color, but can also be brownish, tan, or grayish; very rarely found away from water; typically seen in still ponds, often with water lilies Photo from BugGuide
The short answer is NO. While these large spiders may be physically capable of biting a human, none have venom potent enough to be considered dangerous to humans. A bite from one of these spiders is akin to the sensation of a bee sting. However, if you are allergic to bee stings or other invertebrate stings, seek medical attention if you receive a spider bite, as you may be reactive to spider venom.
Bites from spiders are generally very rare, particularly those of orbweavers. Orbweavers rarely travel away from their webs, much less indoors, and tend to seek refuge or drop entirely from their webs when disturbed. Wolf spiders and fishing spiders may roam indoors and are more likely to encounter humans. Large wolf spiders and fishing spiders typically flee from humans, but may occasionally stand their ground if disturbed. They may even wave their arms and rush an attacker if further provoked. In general, however, all spiders only bite if actively grabbed and squeezed against the skin.
|This Araneus marmoreus just wants to stay away from you.|
So what is the largest spider in Maryland?
The spider that reaches the longest body length in Maryland is the dark fishing spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus) at 1.5", with the Carolina hogna (Hogna carolinensis) coming in a close second at 1.4". The giant orbweaver (Araneus bicentenarius), with its round, fat abdomen, may be the heaviest, though I was unable to find such measurements.
"BugGuide." BugGuide.Net. Iowa State University Entomology. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://www.bugguide.net/>.
Gaddy, L. L., and Rick Kollath. Spiders of the Carolinas. Duluth, MN: Kollath-Stensaas, 2009. Print.
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UNITED NATIONS – 9 August 2017 – Ten years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, progress in several countries has been made in formally recognizing indigenous peoples, but overwhelmingly they continue to face discrimination, marginalization and major challenges in enjoying their basic rights.
“While indigenous peoples have made significant advancements in advocating for their rights in international and regional fora, implementation of the Declaration is impeded by persisting vulnerability and exclusion, and exclusion, particularly among indigenous women, children, youth and persons with disabilities,” said 40 UN system entities and other international organizations in a joint UN statement, issued on the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, marked annually on 9 August.
The Declaration, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007, establishes a universal framework of minimum survival standards for the dignity and well-being of the world’s indigenous peoples. It is the most comprehensive international instrument on indigenous peoples’ collective rights, including the rights to self-determination, traditional lands and culture.
Declaration on indigenous rights stands as “beacon of progress”
“The Declaration, which took more than twenty years to negotiate, stands today as a beacon of progress, a framework for reconciliation and a benchmark of rights,” underscored Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine, Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in a joint statement on the Day.
“But a decade on, we need to acknowledge the vast challenges that remain. In too many cases, indigenous peoples are now facing even greater struggles and rights violations than they did ten years ago,” they added.
Protecting the rights and dignity of indigenous peoples is protecting everyone’s rights UNESCO chief, Irina Bokova
Although some countries have taken constitutional and legislative measures to recognize their rights and identities, exclusion, marginalization and violence continue to be widespread.
With this in mind, Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that as custodians and practitioners of unique cultures and relationships with the natural environment, indigenous peoples embody a wide range of linguistic and cultural diversity at the heart of our shared humanity.
“Protecting their rights and dignity is protecting everyone’s rights and respecting humanity’s soul, past and future,” she said, noting that UNESCO’s latest Global Education Monitoring Report provides concrete guidance and policy advice for the advancement of indigenous peoples’ rights. The agency also launched the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme in 2002 to support governments in creating synergies between scientific and indigenous peoples’ knowledge.
Voice and empowerment of indigenous women “more important than ever”
For its part, the UN labour agency said the international community must also renew its commitment to promote the empowerment and voice of indigenous women, according to a
While commending the tenth anniversary of the Declaration, along with its own Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) as instruments guiding public policy and empowering “indigenous communities to pursue their own development priorities,” the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) underscored that the situation is far from acceptable.
“Indigenous peoples constitute a disproportionate 15 per cent of the world’s poor whereas they are an estimated five per cent of the world’s population. Indigenous women are commonly the poorest of the poor, discriminated against because they are indigenous and because they are women,” ILO stressed in a statement.
“Our combined efforts – governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, indigenous peoples and their organizations, UN partners and others – can go a long way in ensuring that indigenous peoples are not left behind,” concluded the ILO statement.
Marking the International Day
As Indigenous experts from Canada, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador and Namibia will celebrate the Day at a special event at UN Headquarters in New York, UN offices globally are also holding events and activities, including in Australia, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
The UN partnered with Twitter to create a special emoji for the Day, which, with the hashtags #WeAreIndigenous and #IndigenousDay, will be live from 8 August to 15 September as “a new way to engage broader audiences in promoting indigenous peoples’ rights.
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The best known predators are the leopard seals, but there are also fur seals
, and whales and sharks
To distract their predators and make the hunt more difficult, penguins usually enter in group in the water.
© Elizabeth Burtt
The leopard seal
is relative to true seals and belongs to the family of the phocide (earless) seals.
These, in opposite to eared seals, can only propel themselves on land by wriggling on their bellies or pulling themselves forward
with their front limbs.
They are well adjusted to a life in the water with their short limbs.
Characteristic for these seals is the lack of external ears, although they can hear very well.
PHOTO OF LEOPARD SEAL
'Commonwealth of Australia copyright
reproduced by permission
To the family of the southern seals also belong, beside the leopard seals, the crab eaters, the Ross and the Weddell seals.
They all live in and around Antarctica.
Leopard seals can reach a lenght of 4 m and weighs about 500 kg. They have a very large mouth, with the corners of
their mouth reaching almost the back of their head.
Their teeth consist of long, sharp incisors, large pointed eye-teeth and 3 pointed back teeth.
In that way they are able to catch krill as well as fast swimming fishes and penguins.
The belly of a leopard seal is light coloured and the back is dark and spotted, so they are almost invisible in the water.
Eating a penguin by a leopard seal looks very cruel.
The predator waits almost immobile where the penguins usually go ashore.
As soon as a penguin comes too close, he grabs him with a fast move of his head and hold him very strongly between his jaws.
Then he shakes his prey backwards and forwards with fast, abrupt movements till the skin of the penguin tears and
he can bite parts of the flesh.
A relative South African sea bear.
In opposite to leopard seals, fur seals belong to the eared seals (otariidae seals). They are relative to sea lions and sea bears.
Because they are able to turn their hind flippers forward, they can use all four limbs when moving on land.
They are about 2 m long and weigh between 125 and 200 kg.
Because of their power of endurance, they can hunt a penguin for a long time and exhaust him so much that the bird needs
to rest on the surface of the water, where he will be caught. Sometimes fur seals too, wait like a leopard seal at the
place where penguins usually come ashore and catch them there.
Luckily not all of the fur seals are predators of a penguin.
Whales and sharks.
Killer whales (orcas) hunt for penguins, although these are only a small prey to an 8 m long orca.
Killer whales are faster (40 km/hr) than penguins, but these are much more manoeuvrable.
Therefore whales drive them inside of seaweed, where a penguin loses his advantage and gets trapped, where the heavy whale can catch him
by breaking the weed with his body-mass.
Sharks too are a threat to those penguin-species, which live in the same waters as the sharks. This counts especially for Galapagos,
Humboldt, African, Magellannic and fairy little penguins.
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Landscape Black and White Photography! Landscape black and white photography is a genre of photography that emphasizes the aesthetic qualities of black and white tones. In landscape black and white photography, the subject is typically a natural scene or landscape. Black and white photography can create a feeling of timelessness and serenity that is often absent in color photographs.
Landscape black and white photography is an art form that has been around for many years. It is the process of taking a photograph of a scene, either outdoors or indoors, without using any color. Photographing this type of subject can be very challenging, but it can also be very rewarding. There are many different techniques that can be used to create a great black and white landscape photograph. In this article, we will discuss landscape black and white photography.
Landscape Black and White Photography
The following are a few tips to help make your black and white landscape photos more interesting and dynamic.
1. Focus on Geometry
In photography, geometry can be used to create stunning landscape images. One way to use geometry in landscape photography is by creating patterns with rocks, trees, or other objects. This can be done by arranging the objects in a certain way and then photographing them from a specific angle. Another way to use geometry is by using lines to create compositions. Lines can be used to lead the viewer’s eye through the photograph.
Black and white photography can be particularly effective for highlighting geometric shapes in landscapes. The lack of color can make geometric shapes more visible and create a more striking image.
2. Use Contrast to Create a Sense of Depth
Depth is an important aspect of any photograph, but it can be particularly important in landscape photography. One way to create depth in a photograph is to use contrast to create a sense of depth. For example, you can use different colors or shades of the same color to create contrast and depth. You can also use lines and other features to create a sense of depth.
When using contrast to create a sense of depth, it’s important to be careful not to overdo it. If everything in the photograph is very contrasting, it can be difficult to see what’s going on in the photograph. It’s also important to make sure that the elements in the photograph are properly aligned so that the viewer doesn’t get confused about which element they’re looking at.
3. Create Artful Compositions
Creating beautiful black and white landscapes takes a lot of practice and skill. Photographers must learn how to see the world in terms of value and tones, and composition is key to creating an artful photograph. There are many things to consider when composing a landscape photograph, such as the placement of the horizon, the use of leading lines, and the inclusion or exclusion of certain elements in the scene.
4. Take a Long Exposure Shot
In photography, a long exposure shot is a photograph that is made using a longer shutter speed than normal. This can be used to create interesting effects, such as capturing the motion of water or creating a blurry effect. It can also be used to capture landscapes in black and white, which can give them an ethereal look.
In conclusion, black and white landscape photography can be a beautiful way to capture the natural world around us. It can also be a powerful tool for storytelling and evoking emotion in the viewer. By understanding the basics of black and white photography, you can create stunning images that stand out from the crowd. So go out and explore the world around you, and see what beauty you can capture in black and white!
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(Photo courtesy of NetPS Plant Finder)
Plant Height: 4 feet
Flower Height: 15 feet
Spread: 4 feet
Hardiness Zone: 7a
Other Names: Century Plant
This symmetrical variety makes a tremendous garden accent with its wide silvery gray-green foliage and dark red spines; may take many years to bloom, then plant dies; it is very spiny so handle with great care
Artichoke Agave features bold spikes of yellow pincushion flowers rising above the foliage in late summer. It has grayish green foliage. The succulent oval leaves remain grayish green throughout the winter. The fruit is not ornamentally significant.
Artichoke Agave is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its strikingly bold and coarse texture can be very effective in a balanced landscape composition.
This shrub will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and usually looks its best without pruning, although it will tolerate pruning. Deer don't particularly care for this plant and will usually leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. Gardeners should be aware of the following characteristic(s) that may warrant special consideration;
Artichoke Agave is recommended for the following landscape applications;
- General Garden Use
- Container Planting
Planting & Growing
Artichoke Agave will grow to be about 4 feet tall at maturity extending to 15 feet tall with the flowers, with a spread of 4 feet. It tends to fill out right to the ground and therefore doesn't necessarily require facer plants in front. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years.
This shrub should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers dry to average moisture levels with very well-drained soil, and will often die in standing water. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for xeriscaping or the moisture-conserving landscape. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in poor soils. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. This species is native to parts of North America. It can be propagated by multiplication of the underground bulbs.
Artichoke Agave makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Its large size and upright habit of growth lend it for use as a solitary accent, or in a composition surrounded by smaller plants around the base and those that spill over the edges. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.
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Natural Resource Conservation
- Participate in local sustainability activities and service learning.
- Observe what environmental education and stewardship looks like by studying abroad in places like Costa Rica, Norway, Australia and New Zealand.
Your NRC degree has two options to get you closer to your professional goals. Many courses fulfill requirements in both, so declaring an option isn’t immediately necessary. Download course checksheets for the current academic year.
Steven Daley-Laursen, Ph.D.
Professor of Natural Resource Policy and Administration, and Senior Executive, Office of Vice President for Research and Economic DevelopmentView Profile
Here are just a few of the jobs you can get with this degree.
Help prevent conflict among people or within ecosystems by applying your knowledge of these relationships to plan land use and change in an efficient and ethical way. From water availability to social conditions, you will analyze all the impacts to provide sound advice.
Information or education specialist
Bring the science of conservation to the public with your communication skills and understanding of conservation practices, science and regulations. Be the face of good land use decisions and help create understanding among landowners, concerned citizens and others.
Blend science with other aspects of learning, including the arts, to educate and inform the public about natural resources. You will combine communication skills with a science background to lead discussions as well as create awareness and understanding in parks, visitor centers, nature preserves and more.
Public affairs specialist
Help the general public understand changes in rules and laws, collaborate with scientists, and natural resource managers to ensure an accurate and understandable message is given to the public through education, media and other outlets.
Help protect some of the world’s most precious, and remote, natural resources by working in unique settings. Ensure that all those accessing the backcountry understand the impact of their activities, implement strategies for human interaction with these resources and oversee the sustainable use of these areas.
Protect wild animals, plants and entire ecosystems as a law enforcement officer dedicated to our natural resources. You may work for a wildlife agency, as a park ranger or for other entities working to enforce environmental rules and regulations.
Protect park resources in a variety of ways. As a park ranger you may work in law enforcement, education, emergency response, science or administration. No matter what your role, the bottom line is to protect and promote the park.
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If you are looking for the best paying jobs in computer manufacturing or wondering what computer manufacturing jobs pay then this article will help you find the best computer manufacturing careers.
Advancements in computer technology services have led to rapid growth in the computer manufacturing industry. Today, computer manufacturing offers jobs in a range of fields that have higher annual salaries than the national median salary in the US.
Furthermore, computer manufacturing careers have immense potential. The computer manufacturing industry offers a wide range of technology careers and high-paying jobs to skilled workers. If you want to enter the field of computer manufacturing or learn about computer manufacturing salaries, then read on.
What Do Computer Manufacturing Jobs Pay?
Computer hardware engineers earn $128,170 per year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is significantly higher than the national median annual average wage for all occupations in the US. The lowest 10 percent of computer hardware engineers make less than $70,100 and the highest 10 percent earn an incredible $192,110.
However, there are many good-paying jobs in computer manufacturing that aren’t included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate. Continue reading the article to learn about the average wage for each profession, the formal education requirements, and benefits for workers.
Computer Manufacturing Job Outlook
The rapid transition to automation in manufacturing units is slowing down the employment growth in computer manufacturing. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates growth projections of only two percent in computer hardware engineer jobs by 2030. This is lower than the average growth rate.
That said, there are emerging jobs in technology careers that will take over the job market in the future. These require a blend of hardware and software skills. For instance, BLS estimates a 22 percent growth in system software engineering by 2030.
Computer Manufacturing Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction in computer manufacturing depends greatly on the position, average manufacturing wages, trade policies, and company culture. If you have a college education, you will have a comparative advantage in accessing jobs with higher hourly wages.
Many computer manufacturing jobs offer benefits for workers such as employer-sponsored health insurance or 401(k) packages. These benefits will vary from company to company and employees with a higher level of education will be able to negotiate extra benefits in their contracts.
Computer Manufacturing Salaries: Lucrative Computer Manufacturing Careers
|Computer Manufacturing Careers||Computer Manufacturing Salaries||Job Outlook||Minimum Education|
|Computer Hardware Engineer||$128,170||2%||A bachelor’s degree in computer hardware engineering|
|Quality Assurance Analysts||$110,140||22%||A bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology|
|System Software Engineer||$110,140||22%||A bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology|
|Electrical Engineer||$101,780||7%||An associate degree in electrical engineering|
|Industrial Engineer||$96,300||14%||A bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering|
|Network Engineer||$80,600||5%||A bachelor’s degree in computer or information science|
|Electrical Engineering Technician||$63,640||2%||An associate degree in electrical engineering|
|Mechanical Engineer||$60,460||6%||An associate degree in mechanical engineering|
|Mechatronics Technician||$60,360||-2%||An associate degree or post-graduation certificate|
|Computer Support Specialist||$57,910||9%||An associate degree|
Best-Paying Jobs in Computer Manufacturing: In Detail
Computer Hardware Engineer
Average Salary: $128,170
Computer hardware engineering is the highest-paying job in the computer manufacturing industry. Computer hardware engineers oversee computer systems’ research, design, and development. They work with electrical components such as circuit boards, memory devices, processors, and desktops. They also coordinate with software engineers to test and modify existing computer designs.
Quality Assurance Analyst
Average Salary: $110,140
Quality assurance analysts, also known as testers or localization analysts, are responsible for testing hardware designed by computer engineers. They have advanced skills and expertise in their specialty and conduct quality control checks to ensure that products meet standard quality requirements. These skilled workers need at least a four-year degree but these jobs a high salary outlook.
System Software Engineer
Average Salary: $110,140
Software system engineers visualize software and hardware together to create a system. They are responsible for all aspects of computer manufacturing including design, coding, testing, debugging, maintenance, documentation, and repair. They also set parameters for performance and logistics. These specialists work in advanced industries and receive high annual wages.
Average Salary: $101,780
Electrical engineers are experts in electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. As part of their work tasks, electrical engineers design navigation and communications systems to support computer hardware. They conduct research and design and implement efficient current and voltage technology for electronic products and electrical equipment.
Average Salary: $96,300
Industrial engineers optimize existing computer manufacturing processes. Their primary responsibility is to reduce the time required for jobs in different manufacturing sectors. Industrial engineers also design control systems and assist in production planning and physical distribution in different manufacturing sectors.
Average Salary: $80,600
Network engineers hold expertise in creating and maintaining system networks to store data. They possess a solid knowledge of programming, software development, and network hardware. Their designs facilitate internal communication and data storage. Network engineers work closely with computer hardware engineers to ensure information security.
Electrical Engineering Technician
Average Salary: $63,640
Technical engineers assist manufacturing companies with research, development, manufacturing, sales, and product inspection, working across multiple departments. They diagnose and troubleshoot common technical problems. To become a technical engineer, you need an associate degree in information technology and potentially some experience as an IT assistant.
Average Salary: $60,460
Electrical engineers develop solutions to solve industrial problems. They design, test, and install electrical systems that help boost manufacturing capacity. They work closely with other engineers in the manufacturing environment to perform risk assessments. Further, electrical engineers are responsible for ensuring safety standards and therefore must have a working knowledge of electronic equipment.
Average Salary: $60,360
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Mechatronics careers are relatively new in the manufacturing sector. Mechatronics technicians integrate mechanical, electronic, and software engineering. They are responsible for designing and testing automated equipment in computers. They also design automation equipment for computer manufacturing units. If you are interested in this field you can obtain a mechatronics engineering technology degree.
Computer Support Specialist
Average Salary: $57,910
Computer support specialists are the troubleshooters for any manufacturing company. They offer technical support to consumers that face problems while using a product. Computer support specialists need strong soft skills and usually study computer science or information technology in university. They also get some formal experience before entering the job market.
Resources to Find the Best-Paying Jobs in Computer Manufacturing
- Online job search platforms: The vast majority of companies post job vacancies on online job search platforms to seek skilled candidates. You can sign up on LinkedIn, Indeed, or Monster and discover current vacancies for computer manufacturing jobs.
- Networking: If you’re looking for employment in computer manufacturing, a strong network can provide job opportunities. You can get in touch with current employees at a computer manufacturing unit and ask them to give you a referral.
- Job fairs: Job fairs are a great opportunity to land entry-level jobs in manufacturing. You will meet multiple employers and can seek advice from a career coach on how to develop soft skills and ace employment interviews.
- Contact companies directly: You can directly contact the company where you wish to work and ask them about upcoming job opportunities. Alternatively, you can look at the company website’s job page to learn about the latest job vacancies.
- Attend bootcamps: Bootcamps are an excellent way to hone your skills and get ready for a career in the technology field. Bootcamps build skills, can offer networking opportunities, and may even come with employment guarantees.
Is Computer Manufacturing a Good Career Path?
Yes, computer manufacturing is a great career path. Although the growth is slow in jobs for hardware engineers, there’s an emerging demand for new roles. As automation replaces manual workers, skilled talent who possess knowledge of machine learning and artificial intelligence are likely to take center stage.
If you want to pursue a career in computer manufacturing, please ensure that you consider location, job responsibilities, and benefits. There are plenty of computer manufacturing jobs that don’t require a degree. You can enroll in an online course or a coding bootcamp with a high school diploma and get an entry-level position with a competitive salary.
Best Paying Jobs in Computer Manufacturing FAQ
No, the employment growth projections for computer hardware engineers is slower than the national average growth rate. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job growth projections for computer hardware engineers is merely two percent.
Artificial intelligence and automation are replacing traditional production skills and this has had negative impacts on the distribution of employment. However, you still can get a job as a computer hardware engineer. Depending on your level of education and knowledge of advanced skills, you may also qualify for other technology careers with a higher average growth rate.
Information technology manager is the highest paying job in computer technology. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, an information technology manager can make $151,150 per year in the US. Other computer positions with high annual wages include web developers, software developers, and programmers.
Yes, you can make good money in computer manufacturing. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, a computer hardware engineer can make an annual wage of $119,560. However, you should note that fewer jobs are available in computer manufacturing right now and you should sharpen your AI and tech skills to ace the selection round.
There are multiple types of manufacturing jobs across a variety of industries. Some examples of jobs in a manufacturing environment include engineer, laboratory technician, quality control inspector, manufacturing plants operator, and desk support technician. Most jobs in computer manufacturing are related to engineering and information technology.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
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Government of Pennsylvania facts for kids
The Government of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the governmental structure of the state of Pennsylvania as established by the Pennsylvania Constitution. It is composed of three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The capital of the Commonwealth is Harrisburg.
The elected officers are:
In Pennsylvania all members of the executive branch are not on the ballot in the same year: elections for governor and lieutenant governor are held in even years when there is not a presidential election, while the other three statewide offices are elected in presidential election years.
The Governor's Cabinet comprises the directors of various state agencies:
- Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED)
- Department of Aging
- Office of General Counsel (OGC)
- Department of Insurance
- Department of Corrections (DOC)
- Department of Transportation (PennDOT)
- Department of State (DOS)
- Department of General Services (DGS)
- Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR)
- Emergency Management Agency (PEMA)
- Department of Health
- Department of Banking and Securities (DoBS)
- Office of the Budget
- Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
- Pennsylvania State Police (PSP)
- Office of Inspector General (OIG)
- Department of Human Services (formally Department of Public Welfare) (DHS)
- Department of Labor & Industry (L&I)
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Revenue
- Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA)
- Office of Administration (OA)
- Department of Education (PDE)
- Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP)
The Pennsylvania Bulletin is the weekly gazette containing proposed, enacted and emergency rules and other notices and important documents, which are codified in the Pennsylvania Code.
Images for kids
Government of Pennsylvania Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
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[Vaccines, biotechnology and their connection with induced abortion].
Cuad Bioet. 2008 May-Aug;19(66):321-53. PMID: 18611078
Alminares del Genil, 18006 Granada. email@example.com
Diploid cells (WI-38, MRC-5) vaccines have their origin in induced abortions. Among these vaccines we find the following: rubella, measles, mumps, rabies, polio, smallpox, hepatitis A, chickenpox, and herpes zoster. Nowadays, other abortion tainted vaccines cultivated on transformed cells (293, PER.C6) are in the pipeline: flu, Respiratory Syncytial and parainfluenza viruses, HIV, West Nile virus, Ebola, Marburg and Lassa, hepatitis B and C, foot and mouth disease, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, tuberculosis, anthrax, plague, tetanus and malaria. The same method is used for the production of monoclonal antibodies and other proteins, gene therapy and genomics. Technology enables us to develop the aforementioned products without resorting to induced abortion. Full disclosure of the cell origin in the labelling of vaccines and other products must be supported. There are vaccines from non-objectionable sources which should be made available to the public. When no alternative vaccines exist, ethical research must be promoted. Non-objectionable sources in the production of monoclonal antibodies, gene therapy and genomics must be encouraged. It is not be consistent to abstain from products originated in embryonic stem cells and at the same time approve of products obtained from induced abortions. It is of paramount importance to avoid that induced abortion technology seeps into every field of Medicine.
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These are tests to look inside the bladder, ureter and renal pelvis. They are used to diagnose cancer of the urinary system. Both tests are usually done under a general anaesthetic. In most cases you can go home the same day.
In both tests, a doctor passes a thin, flexible tube with a tiny camera on the end into the opening of the urethra. In men, this is at the tip of the penis. In women, it is just above the vagina. During a cystoscopy, the tube is passed into the bladder. During a ureteroscopy, the tube is passed into the bladder and then moved further into the ureter or renal pelvis.
The doctor can take samples of cells (biopsies) from any areas that look abnormal. They send the biopsies to a laboratory to be examined for signs of cancer. The doctor may also take a sample of urine (pee) from the renal pelvis to be tested for cancer cells.
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RNLA's Chair, Randy Evans, published a thoughtful analysis of the history of Supreme Court nominations and the significance of the current battle over the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the vacancy left by the death of Justice Scalia:
Make no mistake, the Constitution empowers the president to nominate people to serve as justices on the nation’s highest and most powerful court. The very same document leaves no doubt that the U.S. Senate has the right to confirm, reject, or simply ignore the president’s choice. . . .
From the theater so far this year, some might think that this is the first time battle lines have been drawn over a Supreme Court vacancy with such serious consternation. Yet, believe it or not, 17 presidents have submitted nominees that were not confirmed. . . . While not the rule, the simple truth is that the president does not always get to have his choice automatically confirmed to the court.
The reason why Republican Senators are standing united in not holding hearings is the importance and power of Supreme Court Justices:
The suggestion that the current battle over Justice Scalia’s replacement is about President Obama ignores pretty settled history. Fights over seats on the U.S. Supreme Court between the president, the Senate, and sometimes the Congress have occurred since the court began. . . . After all, nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court are serious business. Nominees, if confirmed, serve for life, subject only to removal by impeachment. . . . And, as life spans have increased, justices now serve decades after confirmation to the bench. More significantly, rightly or wrongly, they can make as much or as little law as they choose; and, absent a constitutional amendment, there is little that the president or Congress can do about it.
This vacancy affords a rare opportunity for the people to speak directly on the future of the Supreme Court:
Interestingly, when it comes to the other two branches of government, the American people get to weigh in and decide which direction to go next. As history now has it, the president and the Senate have that same chance in this all-important election year — to hear from the American people about which direction to go next.
In November, just a few months from now, the American people will get the chance to voice their own opinions about which direction to go next. Why would the president and the Senate not want to hear what the American people have to say before such an important decision? After all, the Constitution does begin with “We, the People of the United States…”
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National anthem of Venezuela Venezuela is a country on the northern coast of South America. In the 1800s Venezuela led the fight for South America’s independence from Spain. The capital of Venezuela is Caracas.
Venezuela shares borders with Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana. Venezuela claims that western Guyana belongs to it, but Guyana does not agree. The Caribbean Sea lies north of Venezuela, and the Atlantic Ocean lies to the northeast. Some islands in the Caribbean belong to Venezuela.
Both high mountains and low plains run along Venezuela’s coast. The Andes Mountains rise in the northwest. Also in the northwest is Lake Maracaibo, the largest lake in South America. The Orinoco River flows through the center of the country. Along the Orinoco is the Llanos, a huge area of grasslands. In the southeast there are rugged highlands and the world’s highest waterfall, Angel Falls. Venezuela has a warm climate with rainy and dry seasons.
Tropical rainforests grow in parts of Venezuela. Grasslands cover about half of the country. Mangrove trees grow in swampy areas of the coast. The highest parts of the Andes have only shrubs and lichens.
Venezuela’s forests are home to jaguars, tapirs, armadillos, deer, monkeys, and snakes. Turtles, piranhas, and crocodiles live in the country’s waters.
Most Venezuelans are mestizos, or people with both Native American and European roots. There are also large groups of whites and blacks. Native Americans make up only a small part of the population. Spanish is the main language, but native groups speak more than 25 other languages. Most people are Roman Catholics. Almost 90 percent of the people live in cities and towns. Few people live in the area south of the Orinoco River.
Venezuela’s economy is based mainly on the production of oil and natural gas. The country is one of the top oil producers in the world. Venezuela’s other minerals include iron ore, coal, bauxite (which is used to make aluminum), gold, and diamonds. Factories produce iron and steel, aluminum, clothing, processed foods, and chemicals. Banking, tourism, and other services are also important to the economy.
Agriculture is a small part of the economy. The main crops include sugarcane, corn, bananas, and rice. Cattle raising is common on the grasslands.
Arawak and Carib Native Americans lived in what is now Venezuela when Christopher Columbus reached the coast in 1498. Later European explorers saw houses on stilts that the Indians had built. This reminded them of Venice, the Italian city built on islands. They named the land Venezuela, which means “Little Venice.”
The Spanish began settling the area in the 1520s. Spain ruled Venezuela for the next three centuries. In 1811 Venezuelans declared their independence. The Spanish crushed the Venezuelan revolution, but the Venezuelan leader Simón Bolívar continued the fight. His forces defeated the Spanish in 1821.
Venezuela was a part of a country called Gran Colombia until 1829. In 1830 it became an independent country. Military leaders ruled Venezuela for many years. In 1958 Venezuela’s navy and air force forced out the military ruler. After that date Venezuela elected presidents to lead the country.
Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998 after promising to end corruption and to help the poor. Almost immediately, Chávez increased his power. He was criticized for acting too much like a dictator. However, he was also credited with making changes to the economy that helped the poor. Chávez died in 2013. In the years after his death, the Venezuelan economy struggled. There was great social unrest, especially concerning widespread government corruption.
By 2016 Venezuela had the worst-performing economy in South America. There was not enough water, food, and medicine, but the government refused to admit there was a crisis. The political situation also continued to decline. People protested in the streets as President Nicolás Maduro illegally gained more power. The United States and the European Union responded to his actions by banning trade with Venezuela. That hurt the economy further.
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|Curiosity Spots Metallic Meteorite on Mars|
NASA's Curiosity rover stumbled across a peculiar-looking metallic meteorite last week, while climbing the slopes of Mars' Mount Sharp.
Meteorites are pretty common on the Red Planet due to its thin atmosphere and proximity to the asteroid belt. But this little meteorite is unusually smooth - almost like someone's buffed it.
It also has several deep grooves, which suggests that it might have been molten at some point in time.
Nicknamed the 'Egg Rock' because of its smoothness, Curiosity was able to take a close enough image of the structure for NASA scientists to analyse its composition.
For now, they think the meteorite is most likely made of nickel-iron, and came from the core of a structure in the asteroid belt. Objects in the asteroid belt are often sent smashing into Mars after being kicked out by Jupiter's gravity.
Based on its appearance, it's likely the metallic meteorite became molten as it entered Mars' atmosphere, before hardening once it reached the surface - which could explain both the smoothness and some of the strange grooves that suggest the effects of weathering.
You can get a better look at the meteorite, which is only 4 cm (1.6 inches) wide, in this close-up taken by Curiosity's ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager:
Finding meteorites on the Red Planet might not be a rare occurrence, but it's always exciting for researchers, seeing as many of the rocks that land on the surface of Mars wouldn't make it through Earth's atmosphere.
That gives us the chance to study chunks of the Solar System we wouldn't otherwise come across - and it could help scientists to explain more about the objects in the asteroid belt, as well as conditions on the Red Planet.
Mars also has less oxidation and weather erosion compared to Earth, so the meteorites on its surface are in a better condition than any that do make it through our thick atmosphere.
Curiosity is now roving around the base of Mount Sharp, and continuing to look for evidence that the area might have once been habitable.
We've already detected evidence of liquid flowing water on the surface of the Red Planet, and research suggests that the Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed, might have once been a giant lake.
But since our favourite little rover is banned from directly investigating any sources of liquid water, for now it's giving us a better understanding of the habitability of the Red Planet by analysing soil and rock samples, and providing high-res images of the alien environment.
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Born at Sienna, 16 April, 1220, of the noble family of Sansedoni; d. at Sienna, in 1286. When about one year old, Ambrose was cured of a congenital deformity, in the Dominican church of St. Mary Magdalene. As a child and youth he was noted for his love of charity, exercised especially towards pilgrims, the sick in hospitals, and prisoners. He entered the novitiate of the Dominican convent in his native city at the age of seventeen, was sent to Paris to continue his philosophical and theological studies under Albert the Great, and had for a fellow-student there St. Thomas Aquinas . In 1248 he was sent with St. Thomas to Cologne where he taught in the Dominican schools. In 1260 he was one of the band of missionaries who evangelized Hungary. In 1266 Sienna was put under an interdict for having espoused the cause of the Emperor Frederick II, then at enmity with the Holy See. The Siennese petitioned Ambrose to plead their cause before the Sovereign Pontiff, and so successfully did he do this that he obtained for his native city full pardon and a renewal of all her privileges. The Siennese soon cast off their allegiance; a second time Ambrose obtained pardon for them. He brought about a reconciliation between Emperor Conrad of Germany and Pope Clement IV. About his time he was chosen bishop of his native city, but he declined the office. For a time, he devoted himself to preaching the Crusade ; and later, at the request of Pope Gregory X, caused the studies which the late wars had practically suspended to be resumed in the Dominican convent at Rome. After the death of Pope Gregory X he retired to one of the convents of his order, whence he was summoned by Innocent V and sent as papal legate to Tuscany. He restored peace between Venice and Genoa and also between Florence and Pisa. His name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology in 1577. His biographers exhibit his life as one of perfect humility. He loved poetry, and many legends are told of victories over carnal temptations. He was renowned as an apostolic preacher. His oratory, simple rather than elegant, was most convincing and effective. His sermons, although once collected, are not now extant.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes.
Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.
No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.
Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912
Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online
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It’s normal for people who’ve just quit smoking to gain weight. Being overweight or obese can lead to diabetes, and both smoking and diabetes are risk factors for heart attacks and strokes. So, it seems like there are also health risks to quitting smoking. But according to a new study, the health benefits of quitting smoking far outweigh the risks that come with gaining a few extra pounds.
Smoking tobacco suppresses appetite and increases your metabolism. When you quit smoking, your appetite and metabolism return to normal, which may lead you to eat more and burn fewer calories. Taste and smell also improve so food might become more appealing once you quit smoking.
A 2015 study found that the amount of weight gain following smoking cessation depends on the number of cigarettes a person puts off. Heavy smokers and those who were obese before taking on smoking are especially vulnerable, gaining up to 10kg (22 pounds) on average after quitting.
Researchers at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston wanted to see which is worse for people with diabetes: the weight gain from quitting smoking or all the cardiovascular problems arising from smoking itself? They analyzed data from two previous studies, including 10,895 men and women with diabetes.
Compared to individuals with diabetes who continued smoking, those who quit experienced a significantly lower risk for heart attacks, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases. The risk for cardiovascular disease was 34% lower among recent quitters (six or fewer years since quitting) without weight gain, 25% lower among long-term quitters (more than six years since smoking cessation), and 41% lower among never-smoking adults with diabetes. Those who gained up to 5kg (11 pounds) after quitting smoking saw no increase in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
“Weight gain concerns should not stop people from being encouraged to quit smoking after they’re diagnosed with diabetes. And for those who do quit, preventing excessive weight gain would further maximize the health benefits of smoking cessation,” said Gang Liu, lead author of the study.
People who have just quit smoking are advised to exercise often, make wiser food choices (smaller portions and limiting sweets and alcohol), and work with a dietitian for personalized weight management support.
The findings were presented this week at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention: Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2019. A second study presented at this conference investigated the link between cognitive decline and smoking. Researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore found that compared to individuals who never smoked, those who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 25 years or more had twice as severe signs of cognitive impairment — such as poorer performance of memory, reasoning, and other mental functions.
- Mihai Andrei, Intensive weight management can put type 2 diabetes into remission, 2017
- life, Smoking boosts fat-depleting gene | Life, 2009
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The story of America’s first known Saint Patrick’s Day celebration begins and ends not in an Irish-American enclave of Boston or New York but in the crumbling colonial splendor of Seville, Spain.
It was there, inside the reading room at the grand Archivo General de Indias in December, that J. Michael Francis stumbled upon something that made even him — Florida’s answer to Indiana Jones — laugh out loud.
Buried among thousands of scorched pages of Spanish colonial records from the late 16th and early 17th centuries — receipts for armaments and ship supplies and construction materials and even chalices for churches in the New World — was a list of gun powder expenditures in what was then Spain’s northernmost colony in the Americas: St. Augustine, Florida.
Francis, a history professor at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, had spent two weeks poring over the documents. It was his second-to-last day, and he was eager to get home for Christmas. As he read about canons fired in 1600 in honor of the city’s patron, San Augustin, his eyes almost skipped over the mention of another saint, out of place in Colonial America.
San Patricio, a.k.a. Saint Patrick.
“At first, it didn’t register because it was so unexpected,” Francis said in an interview. “Then I thought, wait a second, they had a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in St. Augustine in 1600?”
[ Thanksgiving’s hidden past: Plymouth in 1621 wasn’t close to being the first celebration ]
There was another entry from a year later, on March 17, 1601, describing not just a celebration for Saint Patrick but a parade — the first known Saint Patrick’s Day parade in what would eventually become the United States.
“They processed through the streets of St. Augustine, and the canon fired from the fort,” Francis said, adding that the marchers likely would have carried an image of the saint and celebrated with food, drink and music. The document also named Saint Patrick “the protector” of the city’s maize fields.
A Spanish colonial document listing a 1601 procession in St. Augustine honoring Saint Patrick, or San Patricio. The document describes the saint as the “protector of the fields.” (Archivo General de Indias)
“So here you have this Irish saint who becomes the patron protector of a New World crop, corn, in a Spanish garrison settlement,” Francis said. “It’s one of those things you encounter that doesn’t change the universe, but it was … really quite striking.”
The remarkable discovery also raised an intriguing question: How did Saint Patrick come to be celebrated in the colony 250 years before the Great Famine drove a million people out of Ireland, many of them to America?
Who was responsible?
[ Why the diversity visa lottery was invented to help the Irish ]
The answer was also found in the fragile documents.
He was known as Padre Ricardo Artur. But his real name was Richard Arthur, and long before he was the priest in St. Augustine, he’d been an Irish soldier.
Likely born in Limerick, Arthur had joined military campaigns in Malta, Italy and Flanders, probably to escape the oppressive conditions facing Catholics in Ireland at the time, Francis said. Arthur eventually became a priest, serving as the chaplain for San Juan, Puerto Rico, before coming to St. Augustine in 1597.
“It fits beautifully into this kind of Irish narrative that there are Irish people everywhere, and it’s true,” Francis said, laughing. “He’s one of them. You know? He’s all over the place, and he likely spent most of his life outside Ireland.”
While Arthur was likely responsible for St. Augustine celebrating Saint Patrick, he wasn’t alone. There was at least one more Irishman in the city at the time, according to Francis. His name was Darby Glavin, but the Spanish often couldn’t pronounce his name, so they called him “David Glavid” or, even simpler, “Davi Glavi.”
Glavin’s globe-trotting was even more impressive than the priest’s, Francis found. The Irishman was working as a merchant marine in Europe when he was captured by the British and sent to colonize Roanoke. After a year and a half in the ill-fated Virginia colony, he returned to England only to be sent back to Roanoke. This time, he escaped during a stop in Puerto Rico.
“In his testimony recorded more than a decade later,” Francis wrote on his blog, “[Glavin] claimed that he immediately informed Puerto Rico’s Spanish governor of an English plot to attack the island.”
Glavin moved to St. Augustine around the same time as Arthur, splitting his days between soldiering and selling fine silk, according to Francis.
This little-known story of the first recorded Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations in what would become the United States is a testament not only to the adventurousness of the Irish, Francis said, but also the diversity found in colonial America.
“I like to imagine these two, lone Irishmen celebrating this venerable Irish saint around a bunch of other Spaniards, Portuguese, Native Americans and people of African descent,” he said. “This whole community celebrating San Patricio.”
His findings have upended the longstanding belief that Boston had the country’s oldest documented celebration of Saint Patrick, in 1737, and that New York City had the first parade, in 1762.
Unlike New York City, however, St. Augustine’s San Patricio parades did not continue. They appear to have died along with Father Arthur, before being revived only recently, Francis said.
For the professor, the importance of his find isn’t which city has green-beer bragging rights. He spoke to The Post while in Washington for the launch of La Florida, an interactive digital archive of the Americas that tells the stories of forgotten figures from colonial Florida like Arthur and Glavin.
“We want to get people excited again about how incredible this country’s history is,” he said, “long before the American Revolution and other more well-known episodes in U.S. history.”
Michael E. Miller | The Washington Post
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“The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.” ~ Terry Heick
DIGITAL HEALTH & WELLNESS
salud y bienestar digital
educación sobre los medios de comunicacióN
ONLINE SAFETY & PRIVACY
privacidad y seguridad en línea
Resources for Mental Health & Technology
Technology Agreements can help to set realistic expectations and rules around how your family will engage with technology.
You can use existing agreements from the list below or make your own to suit your family's needs.
- Classroom Lessons
- Digital Citizenship Learning Targets
- Digital Citizenship Literacy Resource
- Internet Access in the classroom
BSD retains sole right of ownership of the Chromebook. The Chromebooks are loaned to the students for educational purposes only for a one-year period, renewable each year.
Students should be aware that there should be no expectation of privacy when using BSD network or equipment. When students access the BSD network at school, BSD will actively filter access and use third party solutions to monitor content for threats, violence, illegal activity, etc. Notifications are sent to the BSD Tech Support and Administration regarding suspicious activity. If concerns are identified, disciplinary action and/or parent contact may occur.
CHARGING CHROMEBOOK AT HOME
It is recommended that students establish a location that they charge their Chromebook each night so it is ready for use the next day. A Chromebook will last through an entire school day without problem on a full charge. Some parents/guardians have chosen to have this in a location outside of the students bedroom to assure it has been plugged in and removes the possibility of late night usage.
LATE NIGHT USE
The district does not restrict use of the chromebook to any specific time periods due to very different family, work and homework situations. Some parents/guardians have chosen to have the Chromebook plugged in each night outside of the students bedroom when concerned about late night usage.
Beaverton School District Elementary Digital Citizenship Behavioral Learning Target:
Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act in ways that are safe, legal, and ethical.
- Students practice responsible use of technology through teacher-guided online activities and interactions to understand how the digital space impacts their life.
- With guidance from an educator, students understand how to be careful when using devices and how to be safe online, follow safety rules when using the internet and collaborate with others.
- With guidance from an educator, students learn about ownership and sharing of information, and how to respect the work of others.
- With guidance from an educator, students demonstrate an understanding that technology is all around them and the importance of keeping their information private.
Beaverton School District Secondary Digital Citizenship Behavioral Learning Target:
Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world and they act in ways that are safe, legal, and ethical.
- Students manage their digital identities and reputations within school policy, including demonstrating an understanding of how digital actions are never fully erasable.
- Students demonstrate and advocate for positive, safe, legal and ethical habits when using technology and when interacting with others online.
- Students demonstrate and advocate for an understanding of intellectual property with both print and digital media -- including copyright, permission, and fair use - by creating a variety of media products that include appropriate citation and attribution elements.
- Students demonstrate an understanding of what personal data is and how to keep it private and secure, including the awareness of terms such as encryption, HTTPS, password, cookies and computer viruses; they also understand the limitations of data management and how data-collection technologies work.
Students have access to many of the Google Apps such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Drive. The use of their district Google account allows them to collaboratively work on class assignments, communicate with teachers and produce high level projects and research. All written communication is archived as part of the GSuite system.
In addition to using their Google Apps, students are doing research, accessing online textbooks, engineering and accessing their learning management system (SeeSaw or Canvas).
For more information, see the BSD Network and Student Devices page
- Filtering and Archiving
- Student Internet Use and Privacy Laws
- Responsible Use of Technology in Schools
BSD takes steps to promote the safety and security of users of the BSD online computer network when using electronic mail and other forms of direct electronic communications.
Read more about here about BSD Network and Student Devices
Lightspeed Systems Portal enables parents or guardians to support their child's internet-based learning by monitoring their most recent web browsing activity and temporarily pause their ability to browse the internet.
You can find more information by checking out the following
Beaverton Schools operate subject to federal regulations intended to preserve the safety and privacy of our students: CIPA, COPPA, and FERPA. All BSD policies are intended to comply with or exceed these guidelines.
CIPA is the Children’s Internet Protection Act. It specifies that Beaverton Schools must prevent illegal or unauthorized access to and use of our computers, software, and networks. This includes internet access, e-mail, and any other form of electronic communication. CIPA also requires that we keep personal information secure.
COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Many websites required users to submit their name and email address in order to use that site. COPPA requires any website that collects such information to get permission from a parent/guardian before they allow a child under age 13 to sign up.
In the case of BSD, Google Apps For Education (GAFE) must comply with COPPA -- that’s why we need parent/guardian permission to issue a BSD email address so that our students under age 13 can use gmail.
FERPA is the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act. It grants students and their parent or guardian access to a student’s educational records. It also regulates what student directory information (name, e-mail, DOB, etc) that a school can legally share with third parties.
1: SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY
There is some risk that comes with online activity. BSD manages technology including our Guest Network with a clear intent to protect our students, staff and guests. It is our top priority to protect data, privacy, and people.
2: LEARNING IS A PROCESS
Learning to use technology responsibly takes time, effort, and guidance. Beaverton Schools offer age-appropriate curriculum to all students about digital citizenship. We also integrate topics like copyright, privacy, courtesy, and online safety into class work on a regular basis. As technology evolves, we encourage students, teachers, and parents to embrace the learning that’s needed to continue to use technology responsibly.
3: ACCESS IS A PRIVILEGE
Students and staff are expected to learn and comply with all BSD regulations and policies concerning the responsible use of technology. Failure to do so can result in loss of that privilege and could also lead to disciplinary or legal action.
This is outlined in detail in the BSD Student Family Handbook and by School Board policies and regulations, particularly IIBGA-AR (Electronic Communications System) and JFCEB-AR (Personal Electronic Devices and Social Media - Students)
4: PRIVACY IS NOT GUARANTEED
Beaverton School District makes every effort to protect student privacy and the security of electronic data, but there are limits. Any data connected to BSD accounts may be secured and inspected at any time for compliance with school and district policies, and state and federal laws. That means that we reserve the right to inspect BSD e-mail files and any data files associated with BSD accounts.
5: GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION (GAFE)
Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, YouTube, and Google Slides are just a few of the apps we use every day. While students may have access to their own applications on their personal device, we encourage students to use applications that are similar to the ones used by their classmates. To use the District’s collection of Google Apps, every student is issued a BSD gmail address for email. Students under age 13 MUST have a parental and GAFE consent form signed (See: COPPA) in order to be issued a district gmail address. Parents who do not want their children to use district gmail should contact a teacher or administrator at your school. For more information about Chromebooks, Google Apps, and privacy, please visit: https://www.google.com/edu/trust/#how-is-data-used-and-protected-for-students-on-chromebooks-for-edu
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Neutralize the Allergens in Your World
Approximately 10% of the North American adult population is allergic to household pets and twice as many people are allergic to cats as dogs. For children, approximately one in seven under 19 are allergic to cats.
When kids come to daycare or school they bring those allergens with them on clothes.
Vital Oxide can help minimize the impacts of airborne allergens, helping to vastly improve the quality of life for kids affected by allergens!
Vital Oxide eliminates Allergens. There are actually two main causes of allergy symptoms: indoor and outdoor triggers. While most people understand seasonal (outdoor) allergies are caused by pollen in the air, there are a number of factors that contribute to indoor allergies, which can affect people year-round. Vital Oxide is not an allergen trigger and is effectively proven against animal dander, dust mites and cockroach allergen. Its also Hypoallergenic and will not further aggravate allergy symptoms. Vital Oxide is not sensitive to our skin and can be applied directly to pets and their bedding areas.
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As a utility entirely reliant on groundwater for delivering high-quality water to its 28,000 customers in Salinas, Calif., California Water Service Co. (Cal Water) always has paid close attention to the makeup of its native water supply. Like many utilities in the region, the Salinas-area groundwater supply faces regulatory issues from both naturally occurring and manmade constituents. In 2001, as a number of wells serving this community began to show signs of nitrate and uranium levels reaching regulatory limits, Cal Water faced hard choices: shut down certain producing wells, drill new wells or undertake treatment. Two factors drove the decision-making process: a guarantee of reliably high-quality water for the community it served and the costs associated with delivering it.
Ion-exchange technology recently had come to the forefront as a method for groundwater treatment, but the utility understood that success would require a high level of technical sophistication and a rigorous program to control costs in light of constantly changing water conditions. Over the next nine years, the solution for safe drinking water became a technology and services collaboration at nine different wells, in which Cal Water has had better than a 99% online performance along with a low life-cycle cost. Today, Envirogen Technologies and Cal Water work together on six separate installations that have the capacity to treat 6.5 million gal per day (mgd) of drinking water.
Meeting Evolving Needs
Located 100 miles south of San Francisco in Monterey County, the Salinas region is a heavily agricultural area known as the “Salad Bowl of the World” due to its production of a large percentage of the nation’s fresh produce supply. It is one of 24 districts served by Cal Water, which is a regulated public utility that provides water services to nearly half a million customers throughout California.
Providing a reliable, high-quality water supply to local residents can be a challenge, particularly during harvest season, when ramped-up agricultural processing operations and an increased worker population combine to create an abrupt seasonal jump in water demand.
In early 2002, Cal Water contracted Envirogen Technologies personnel for treatment options via ion exchange. Using a proprietary simulation software program, Cal Water was able to bypass months of pilot testing and feasibility studies to arrive at accurate cost and performance models for the systems. Envirogen personnel worked with Cal Water to obtain permits from the California Department of Public Health and go online with a treatment system before seasonal peak demand hit.
Two of Cal Water’s first three ion-exchange installations targeted nitrate and the third targeted uranium, removing these directly at the affected wellheads. The compact, containerized systems were designed to accommodate each site’s specific treatment requirements, capable of handling fluctuating influent concentrations. They were built with mobility and rapid deployment in mind. Offering some of the highest removal efficiencies on the market, these systems generated small amounts of waste for disposal, minimized regenerant consumption and were equipped with state-of-the-art automation—all factors that contributed to low costs.
Since then, the relationship between Cal Water and Envirogen has grown to include numerous treatment installations, which have been added or taken offline to meet Cal Water’s evolving water needs. Today, all six Envirogen installations for Cal Water are treating nitrate. The most recent of these—Station 65-01—will treat influent nitrate concentrations currently running up to 41 mg/L down to less than 30 mg/L. The station is currently in place and ready to go online to meet this year’s peak water demand, adding 1.2 mgd of treated water to the district’s capacity. As with the other systems, this newest installation will be operated and maintained by Envirogen under a 10-year technology and services agreement.
Maintaining Reliability & Cost Effectiveness
The technology and services approach of Envirogen is a key element in maintaining reliability and a low life-cycle cost for the treatment installations. For example, along with fluctuations in seasonal demand, one of the treatment challenges in Salinas is the potential for wide swings in contaminant concentration. Influent nitrate levels at some sites have ranged from just below the established maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 45 mg/L to more than double that amount. In order to run efficiently at the lowest possible operating cost, the treatment system must be monitored and adjusted continually. This is done by a dedicated Envirogen technician—on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week—who optimizes system operation in response to influent conditions on a daily basis. This level of process expertise and attention is at the heart of the technology and services business model.
With six ion-exchange installations in Salinas today, each having a services agreement, Cal Water has entered into a collaboration with Envirogen to achieve its treatment goals on a guaranteed performance basis with controlled costs. Over the 10-year duration of these agreements, Envirogen provides guaranteed performance for the life of the asset, including total volume of salt consumption, waste brine generation and finished water quality. These guarantees require Envirogen to constantly optimize system performance—minimizing salt consumption and waste generation—so that costs and compliance remain in balance. Along with monitoring and maintenance of the systems, Envirogen handles disposal of waste brine and provides Cal Water with permitting and regulatory assistance on a regular basis.
According to Mike Jones, district manager of Cal Water’s Salinas District, the collaborative relationship between Cal Water and Envirogen is important to maintaining the supply of reliable, high-quality water to the community. “We’ve been relying on ion-exchange technology and Envirogen to help us produce high-quality water for years,” Jones said. “These systems perform as we expect them to day in and day out, and continue to meet the need for safe drinking water.”
The technology and services working relationship with Envirogen allows Cal Water to incorporate state-of-the-art technology into its treatment scheme with confidence and without adding to the utility’s operational burden. It also allows both parties to anticipate, react to and adjust to the moving targets that the utility must hit in its mission to deliver “worry-free water” to the local community. The presence of onsite personnel makes response to operating issues fast and efficient—even under emergency conditions—and has resulted in zero treatment failures over the history of the relationship.
“This combination of a water utility skilled in the production and distribution of quality water and a technology provider skilled in treatment processes creates a powerful synergy in working toward a reliable supply of drinking water that will meet all water quality standards for years to come,” Jones said.
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Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six-year period. The first poem, Burnt Norton, was written and published with a collection of his early works following the production of Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral. After a few years, Eliot composed the other three poems, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding, which were written during World War II and the air-raids on Great Britain. The poems were not collected until Eliot’s New York publisher printed them together in 1943. They were first published as a series in Great Britain in 1944 towards the end of Eliot’s poetic career.
Four Quartets are four interlinked meditations with the common theme being man’s relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. In describing his understanding of the divine within the poems, Eliot blends his Anglo-Catholicism with mystical, philosophical and poetic works from both Eastern and Western religious and cultural traditions, with references to the Bhagavad-Gita and the Pre-Socratics as well as St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich.
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Scientists in Russia have announced that they have grown plants from seeds stored away by squirrels over 30,000 years ago in the banks of the Kolmya River in Siberia. The Institute of Cell Biophysics team claims to have raised plants of Silene stenophylla from the squirrel leavings. Of course, what they really found was a den of atheist squirrels since various presidential candidates and religious figures have agreed that the Earth is only 5000 to 6000 years old.
Conversely, those godly scientists at Masada in Israel held the prior record of growing date palm seeds stored for 2,000 years at Masada in Israel — well within the creationist time frame.
The scientists describe how the fruit was found in burrows “at depths of 20-40m from the present day surface and located in layers containing bones of large mammals such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, deer, and other representatives of fauna from the age of mammoths, as well as plant remains.”
Even at 5000 years, it would be pretty impressive. However, the results fell a bit short of a Jurassic Moment. The ancient plant looked pretty much the same as the same plant found outside around the dig. The old plant merely had only slight differences, but the scientists were unable to study them because as soon as it bloomed a ticked off squirrel ran in and took it back to the burrow.
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The Role of Bone Grafts in Full-Mouth Rehabilitation: Transforming Your Smile
These excellent restorations function like regular teeth but require sufficient jawbone for successful implantation.
Fortunately, bone augmentation techniques like bone grafting can help your jawbone regain its density and volume.
What is Bone Grafts?
Bone grafting is a technique that helps maintain your facial structure and attractiveness while enhancing dental stability and functionality.
Bone grafting can assist in improving your general oral health or prepare you for specific restorative procedures, like dental implants, by restoring the density and strength of your jawbone.
Why Bone Grafting is Necessary?
After a tooth is extracted, dentists leave a hole in the jawbone, which can cause shrinkage and atrophy.
This can lead to the hole enlarging or weakening, making it difficult to hold an implant.
A bone graft strengthens the hole and supports the implant or jaw. Restorative dentistry is crucial for patient health and a healthy smile, avoiding excess procedures.
The Role of Bone Grafting
An area of your jaw where bone loss has occurred will gain density and volume thanks to a dental bone graft.
Typically, oral surgeons use autogenous (taken from your own body), xenograft (from an animal), or allograft (from human) bone transplant material.
However, in rare cases, the graft material may come from a synthetic substance (alloplastic graft).
Depending on your circumstances, oral surgeons may mix dental bone graft with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.
Typically, plasma is obtained from a blood sample to speed tissue regeneration and healing.
You will be prepared for additional treatment after fully recovering from a bone graft procedure.
For instance, dental implants can be inserted into your new bone and are more likely to remain stable over time.
If you’re considering removable dentures, bone grafting techniques can also be helpful to make sure that your dentures have a stable base to rest on for increased comfort.
All people seeking long-lasting dental restorations focus on maintaining good bone health.
Bone grafting is a surgical procedure that plays a crucial role in creating new teeth.
In the past, patients with inadequate bone height or width were denied dental implants.
Implant dentistry has developed specialised techniques to restore lost teeth and create a beautiful smile.
Although bone graft surgery is temporary, the benefits of a beautiful smile last a lifetime.
Transforming Your Smile at A Plus Dental
Thanks to bone grafting, we may now encourage the creation of new bone in that area and replace missing bone!
This enables us to place implants that are the proper length and width and helps us restore both functionality and appearance.
At A Plus Dental, we aim to assist you and your family in achieving optimum oral health through comprehensive and modern dentistry.
FREE Dental Implants Consultation
We are located at Suite 3/300 Queen Street in Campbelltown.
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Question: We are crossing the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to St. Lucia. I found a large scale chart of the Atlantic (Imray Passage Chart 100). This single chart shows the entire Atlantic Ocean taking the earth’s curvature into account and therefore does NOT have a compass rose to help steer by. I am having trouble finding a series of smaller charts that DO have a compass rose that might be a bit easier to navigate by. Do you know of a source where I might purchase charts of a smaller scale?
Answer: The issue here is much deeper than that. No such charts exist. At sea, navigation was, before chart plotters, done on plotting sheets that are basically blank charts for each area of latitude. These sheets showed a true compass rose only. Each day the navigator looked up the variation on a passage chart and then set the compass course after factoring in the great circle course, if appropriate. To do this manually you need to understand lines of equal variation and the difference between great circle and Mercator (rhumb line) routing. These days many, probably all, chart plotters and GPS units will do all this for you automatically, although you still need to make overall routing decisions and understand the difference between a great circle and a rhumb line course.
In my opinion it is vital that before you set off on an ocean crossing, someone on your boat have a good understanding of these basic navigation issues. I would suggest a good book on navigation, or better still a navigation course. Otherwise, in case of an electrical failure, or the death of your plotter, you will be, very literally, all at sea.
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Thomas Marshall (March 14, 1854 – June 1, 1925)
28th Vice President of the United States under President Woodrow Wilson
In office March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921 (Two terms)
After Thomas Marshall was born in northern Indiana, his parents began moving westward, seeking a series of hopefully better climates to relieve his mother’s tuberculosis. While living in Illinois, the family was present at one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the two rivals actually took turns holding the young Thomas. Barely recalling the incident, Marshall later wrote: “It pleases me to think that perhaps in a small way something of the love of Lincoln and of Douglas for the Union, the Constitution, and the rights of the common man flowed into my childish veins.”
During the Civil War, the family moved back to Indiana, with his dad standing firm with the Democratic Party even when their Methodist minister threatened to kick him out of church for voting that way. Marshall himself took from that a feeling of faithfulness to his party while retaining a disdain for those whose partisanship got totally in the way of openness and acceptance of those with different views.
While attending Wabash College and reporting for the college paper, he wrote an article that led to a charge of libel being filed against him by a female lecturer. She managed to hire some prominent attorneys to represent her, including Lew Wallace (attorney and author of Ben Hur, written in 1880), but the case was dropped when Marshall got Benjamin Harrison to defend him.
As an attorney after graduating, he practiced law in northern Indiana, active in Democratic politics but not as a candidate until he was nominated for Governor in 1907. He won and then set his sights on the office of president. The party chose Woodrow Wilson to lead the ticket and nominated Marshall to be vice president. Wilson and Marshall won in 1912, and again in 1916, partly due to the Republican Party suffering from internal struggles. Wilson and Marshall had internal struggles of their own, described by one historian as “functioning animosity.” When Wilson suffered a serious stroke in 1919, his condition was largely hidden from Marshall and the entire nation, at least partly because Wilson’s wife and others close to Wilson did not want Marshall to assume the duties of the president. In fact, even as Wilson slowly recovered, Marshall was never allowed to see him until their final day in office.
While in office, Marshall and his wife adopted an infant, Morrison, “a sickly little boy” known as “Izzy,” who came to be “the sun and center” of their life, but unfortunately Morrison died when he was three and a half. “I have only hope and faith that there is a land of pure delight, which we call Heaven. I know not where it is, but this I do know — he is there! And I shall never see the glory of another and a fairer world, until I see his curly locks again and hear the music of his voice amid the angelic choir.” Little Morrison is entombed with the Marshalls and Marshall’s parents in their family mausoleum. Marshall himself died of a heart attack at age 71 on June 1, 1925, as he was reading his Bible one night while visiting Washington, D.C. (All quotations are taken from his book entitled A Hoosier Salad.)
“A certain man had two sons. One went to sea, and one became vice president. Neither were ever heard from again.” – a favorite joke of VP Thomas Marshall, known for his quick wit and sense of humor.
Location: Section 72, Lot 1; GPS (39.8194807, -86.1713870)
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Excerpted from The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy, copyright © 2010. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
About 25 million years ago, Earth parted in the southeast corner of Siberia. Since then, countless rivers have converged on the gaping continental rift, creating the vast body of water known as Lake Baikal. Surrounded by mountains, this 400-mile-long inland sea has remained isolated from other lakes and oceans, leading to the evolution of unusual flora and fauna, more than three-quarters of which are found nowhere else on the planet. Russians regard it as their own Galápagos. The lake contains 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen freshwater—or just a little less during the severe Siberian winter when, despite its enormous size and depth, Baikal freezes over.
On one such winter’s day, I found myself on the lake near the town of Listvyanka, which is nestled in a crook of the shoreline. I was in an old van that was trying to head west, not along a coastal road—for there was none—but over the ice. The path, however, was blocked by a ridge. It looked like a tectonic fault: Two sections of the lake’s solid surface had slammed together and splintered, throwing up jagged chunks of ice. The driver, a Russian with a weather-beaten face, peered from underneath his peaked cap, looking for a break in the ridge. When he spied a few feet of smooth ice, he got out and prodded it with a metal rod, only to shake his head as it crumbled: not thick enough to support the van. We kept driving south, farther and farther from shore, in what I was convinced was the wrong direction. The van shuddered and lurched, its tires crunching on patches of fresh snow and occasionally slithering on ice. The ridge continued as far as the eye could see. Suddenly we stopped. In front of us was a dangerous-looking expanse littered with enormous pieces of ice that rose from the lake’s frozen surface like giant shards of broken glass.
The driver seemed to be contemplating going around them to look for thick ice that would let us reach our destination, an underwater observatory operating in one of the deepest parts of the lake. But if he did that, we’d get even farther from the shore, and it would take just one punctured tire to strand us. The sun was little more than an hour from setting, and the temperature was falling. I couldn’t ask the driver if he had a radio or a phone to call for help, since he did not speak a word of English and the only Russian phrase I knew was do svidaniya. The last thing I wanted to say to him at this point was “Good-bye.”
Thankfully, he decided to turn around. We drove along until we came upon vehicle tracks that went over some ice covering the ridge. The driver swung the van westward and cleared the ridge, and soon we were racing across the lake at a speed that turned every frozen lump into a speed bump. The van’s front rose and fell sickeningly, rattling the tools strewn around on the front seat. I worried that the ice would give way and we would plunge into the frigid waters below. But it remained solid, and the van, despite its appearance, was in fine mechanical fettle, its shock absorbers holding firm. In the distance I spied a dark spot on the otherwise white expanse. As we approached, the spot grew to its full size, revealing itself as a three-foot-high Christmas tree. We still had 20 miles to cover, and the sun would soon disappear below the icy horizon. But now that we had found the Christmas tree, I knew we were fine.
I had first seen the tree two days earlier, with Nikolai (Kolja) Budnev, a physicist from Irkutsk State University, and Bertram Heinze, a German geologist. We were headed to the site of the Lake Baikal neutrino observatory, which lay deep beneath the ice. We had just driven onto the lake from the shore near Listvyanka when Heinze asked, “When does the ice start breaking?”
“Sometime in early March,” Budnev answered. My heart skipped a beat. It was already late March, and we were on the ice in an old, olive-green military jeep. “Sorry, sometime in early April,” Budnev corrected himself. Phew.
For more than two decades now, Russian and German physicists have camped on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal from February to April, installing and maintaining instruments to search for the elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos. Artificial eyes deep below the surface of the lake look for dim flashes of blue light caused by a rare collision between a neutrino and a molecule of water. I was told that human eyes would be able to see these flashes too—if our eyes were the size of watermelons. Indeed, each artificial eye is more than a foot in diameter, and the Baikal neutrino telescope, the first instrument of its kind in the world, has 228 eyes patiently watching for these messengers from outer space.
The telescope, which is located a few miles offshore, operates underwater all year round. Cables run from it to a shore station where data are collected and analyzed. It is a project on a shoestring budget. Without the luxury of expensive ships and remote-controlled submersibles, scientists wait for the winter ice to provide a stable platform for their cranes and winches. Each year they set up an ice camp, haul the telescope up from a depth of 0.7 mile, carry out routine maintenance, and lower it back into the water. And each year they race against time to complete their work before the sprigs of spring begin to brush away the Siberian winter and the lake’s frozen surface starts to crack.
What is it about the neutrino that makes scientists brave such conditions? Neutrinos—some of them dating back to right after the Big Bang—go through matter, traveling unscathed from the time they are created and carrying information in a way no other particle can. The universe is opaque to ultraenergetic photons, or gamma rays, which are absorbed by the matter and radiation that lie between their source and Earth. But neutrinos, produced by the same astrophysical processes that generate high-energy photons, barely interact with anything along the way. For instance, neutrinos stream out from the center of the sun as soon as they are produced, whereas a photon needs thousands of years to work its way out from the core to the sun’s brilliant surface.
Neutrinos therefore represent a unique window into an otherwise invisible universe, even offering clues about the missing mass called dark matter, whose presence can be inferred only by its gravitational influence on stars and galaxies. Theory suggests that over time the gravity wells created by Earth, the sun, and the Milky Way would have sucked in an enormous number of dark-matter particles. Wherever they gather in great concentrations, these particles should collide with one another, spewing out (among other things) neutrinos. It is as if a giant particle accelerator at our galaxy’s center were smashing dark-matter particles together, generating neutrinos and beaming them outward, some toward us.
That neutrinos play such a key role in advancing physics would have surprised scientists of a few generations ago. For them the neutrino was a figment of imagination, a theoretical necessity, but one that seemed impossible to detect because of its ethereal nature—a ghost of a particle. The story of the neutrino begins in the late 1920s. Physicists had been puzzling over something called radioactive beta decay, in which one kind of atom changes into another. For instance, carbon-14 has eight neutrons and six protons. During beta decay, one of these neutrons decays into a proton and emits an electron. The new nucleus, now with seven protons and seven neutrons, is transformed into nitrogen-14. But during this process, some energy seemed to go missing. It was the Austrian-born physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli who theorized that beta decay must emit an as yet undiscovered neutral particle. A few years later, the physicist Enrico Fermi jokingly named the particle a neutrino, Italian for “little neutral one,” and the name stuck.
For decades the neutrino remained a theoretical construct, a useful particle that helped physicists save their theories from embarrassment. Nobody had seen one. Nobody even knew how to find one—until Frederick Reines, a researcher working at Los Alamos during the 1950s, realized that a nuclear bomb would be a significant source of neutrinos. Reines and his colleague Clyde L. Cowan Jr. thought a nuclear power plant would also be a source. They calculated that a detector near a nuclear reactor would encounter nearly 10^13 neutrinos per square centimeter per second. There was just one small problem: Since neutrinos are electrically neutral, they could be detected only if they directly hit the nucleus of an atom. Reines and Cowan would have to look for the signature of such a collision. And they found it.
By the 1960s, physicists following up on Reines’s work had started building neutrino detectors inside mines, using the ground as a natural shield from cosmic rays, which can swamp the signal from neutrinos. (Neutrinos can pass through the thick walls of the mines, but cosmic rays cannot.) In 1968 Raymond Davis and his colleagues from Brookhaven National Laboratory completed an experiment inside the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota. They used a tank containing 100,000 gallons of tetrachloroethylene, a common dry-cleaning agent. When a neutrino smashed into an atom of chlorine, the atom was transformed into one of radioactive argon. By counting the number of argon atoms that were produced, the physicists could calculate the flux of neutrinos coming from the sun. Then in the early 1980s, researchers around the world built detectors using thousands of tons of water in underground tanks lined with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The PMTs look for light emitted when a neutrino smashes into water. Normally the neutrino will pass right through water without any interaction. But on the rare occasions when one does hit a nucleus of hydrogen or oxygen, the collision can spit out another subatomic particle, a muon. The charged muon interacts with the water electromagnetically, and because it is moving faster than the speed of light in water, it leaves in its wake a cone of blue light. This is called a Cherenkov cone, after the Russian physicist who first described the phenomenon. It is analogous to the sonic boom caused by an aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound.
It was another Russian researcher, Moisey Alexandrovich Markov, a “poet” of astroparticle physics, who suggested using natural bodies of water as neutrino detectors. Instead of building tanks of water inside mines, why not use lakes or even oceans? Just submerge long strings of photomultiplier tubes into the water and watch for the Cherenkov light left behind by neutrino-generated muons. The idea was enticing, but there were huge practical difficulties. For one thing, without rock above to protect it, a detector would be exposed to cosmic rays that could drown out signals from neutrinos. More to the point, sunlight (not a problem inside mines) would blot out the Cherenkov emission.
The solution was to go deep, where the sun’s rays could not reach. The physicists realized that they could use the Earth itself as a shield. While many muons can make it through a mile of water, a similar stretch of rock will stop them cold. So a neutrino detector can sit deep underwater, near the lake bed, looking downward for muons created by neutrinos that come from below. None of the muons created by cosmic rays in the atmosphere on the other side of the Earth can penetrate the planet. Neutrinos, however, zip right through, and occasionally one will hit a nucleus in the water or in the lake bed itself. Such a collision generates a muon, which then shoots up toward the surface. Catch an upward-moving muon and you have essentially detected a neutrino that came from the other side of the Earth. All that was needed was a suitable body of water. By the mid-1980s, the Russians realized that they had a massive tank of pure water in their own backyard: Lake Baikal.
On my first morning in Siberia, we drove across the lake toward the telescope. The frozen white lake spread for miles around us in every direction except to the northwest, where we were relatively close to shore. When we stopped to rest, men milled around the vehicles. The subzero temperature seemed to affect everyone differently. Some stood bareheaded; others had woolen caps rolled down to the tips of their ears. And then there was Ralf Wischnewski, in his enormous Russian fur cap that looked like a fluffed-up rabbit. A German neutrino physicist who had been working with the Russians at Lake Baikal for 20 years, Wischnewski was the reason I was here. I had met this ruddy-faced man six months earlier in London, outside the Tate Modern museum on the south bank of the Thames. We walked over to a Greek pub and discussed the Baikal expedition over chilled lager. It was he who had alerted me to the tradition of bringing spirits to share with the Russians during the winter evenings.
And here we were, except that it was still morning. The Russians had planned a welcome drink for Heinze. Kolja Budnev bounded out of our jeep with a bottle of vodka. Someone sliced a sausage into circular pieces. Bright yellow, blue, and red plastic cups were set up on the jeep’s expansive hood, and soon everyone had a vodka-filled cup in hand. Budnev dipped a finger into his and flicked a few drops onto the ice—an offering to the great spirit of Lake Baikal.
Soon we got back into our vehicles and headed toward the neutrino telescope, a contraption made of 11 strings of photomultiplier tubes, each with a large buoy at the top and a counterweight at the bottom. Smaller buoys attached to the strings float about 30 feet below the surface. All year round, a total of 228 PMTs watch for the Cherenkov cones. Each winter the team has to locate the telescope, the upper part of which drifts slightly over the course of the year. The team has two months to carry out any routine maintenance, put the strings back in the water, and get out before the ice cracks.
The term “experimental physics” took on new meaning in this biting cold, which at times dropped to –4 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the physicists lived in 10-by-20-foot cabins, two to a cabin. Others slept in bunk beds at the shore station, amid workbenches cluttered with computers, electronics, wires, and cables. They worked long hours, from early in the morning to sometimes well past midnight. There was no running water, which meant no showers for two months. Toilets were wooden cabins with pits in the ground. The extreme cold helped control the stench, but it still wafted up when warm urine hit the pit. There was one luxury: the banya, a traditional Russian sauna. Naked men sat in an outbuilding, chucked water on hot stones to raise steam, and beat one another with leafy twigs and branches of birch.
A wicked wind kicked up one evening. It was time for everyone to leave the open ice and head back to the shore station. Once there, I gratefully sat down for a cup of tea, and a can of sweet, syrupy condensed milk materialized. One scientist looked at the can wistfully. Condensed milk had been his dream as a child growing up in the Siberian city of Tomsk. “They had this in Moscow,” he said, “but not in Tomsk.”
Later that evening, I had to head back out and traverse part of the icy lake to reach the canteen for dinner. It wasn’t going to be easy. I had turned up on a frozen lake in the depths of a Siberian winter in “European summer shoes,” as Wischnewski put it, disbelief in his voice. On the lake I found walking nearly impossible, my smooth-soled shoes slipping the entire way. After a few days, I learned to find fresh snow for my shoes to grip, but that night, fear nearly paralyzed me. Fortunately, a jeep pulled up beside me, and Wischnewski, having noticed my plight, asked the driver—Igor Belolaptikov, a tall, mustached physicist from the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, near Moscow—to take me to the canteen. I sat with Belolaptikov at dinner and happily accepted a ride back to his small cabin for a chat about neutrinos.
“My business is the reconstruction of muons and neutrinos,” Belolaptikov said, laughing with a childlike joy as he made this disclosure. That reconstruction is tricky business. Hundreds of photomultiplier tubes watch for the flashes of Cherenkov light at the bottom of Lake Baikal. As a neutrino-induced muon races through the water, the light from its Cherenkov cone reaches different tubes at slightly different times. The skill lies in collecting all the information and sifting through it to reconstruct the path of the upward-moving muon. This can then be used to calculate the path of the original neutrino. It is this ability to figure out where a neutrino comes from that differentiates a neutrino telescope from a mere neutrino detector. A telescope must identify the source of neutrinos in the sky, and the Lake Baikal instrument can do so with an angular resolution of about 2.5 degrees, meaning that it can distinguish neutrinos coming from points in the sky separated by a distance of five full moons. So far the Baikal telescope has seen only atmospheric neutrinos, secondary particles created by cosmic rays crashing into atoms in the air. Everyone here is waiting for the day when a high-energy neutrino from outer space makes its presence felt in their little corner of the lake.
Belolaptikov recalled his first neutrino—indeed, the Baikal detector’s first—from 1993. “It was great,” he said. “Here, you can see.” He leaned over his bunk bed and removed a piece of paper pinned to the wall above. It was a printout of the path of an upward muon, reconstructed from the detection of its Cherenkov cone: the first-ever neutrino seen by humans using a natural body of water as a detector. Belolaptikov and colleagues had done the reconstruction and put the Lake Baikal detector on the map.
The next two days slid by, but even in this short time a rhythm was established. A trip down to the lake in the mornings to get a bucketful of drinking water from a hole in the ice. Then back to the cabin for coffee with condensed milk and honey, making sure to plug the hole in the can of milk with paper to prevent “little animals” (as Wischnewski calls insects) from getting in. From my cabin I could see clear across the lake, and I had to remind myself that it had more water than America’s five Great Lakes put together and a surface area larger than Belgium. Eighty percent of Russia’s freshwater was here. Even at great depths, the lake is well oxygenated, making it one of the most hospitable waters for life. Because of the voracious crustaceans that live at all depths, nothing dead or dying lasts more than a few days in this lake. If fishermen leave their catch in the nets too long, the crustaceans invade the fish through their mouths and gills, eating them from the inside out. These critters keep the lake free of dead matter, leaving it unimaginably clear, especially deep down. Murky waters would make watching for muons nearly impossible. “It is a very, very kind water,” Budnev said.
When the Russians turned on the Lake Baikal telescope in 1993, it was the only game in town. That has since changed. European physicists have started building similar detectors in the Mediterranean. And an American-European team went to the South Pole in the mid-1990s to construct the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) while laying the groundwork for IceCube, the largest-ever neutrino detector. Several German physicists who had worked at Lake Baikal joined the South Pole team. For a few years Wischnewski, too, split his time between Antarctica and Baikal before committing fully to Baikal. The South Pole detectors are looking for Cherenkov light emitted when muons hit the ice, and IceCube will be watching a cubic kilometer of ice for these ephemeral flashes.
The innovations at Baikal—including Belolaptikov’s work on reconstructing muons—inspired the early efforts in Antarctica. Although Antarctic ice is clearer than the waters of Lake Baikal, for now the water has a unique advantage. Light can travel more than 10 times as far in the lake as it can in the ice before it is scattered. Catch the photons before they scatter and you can tell exactly where they are coming from. Catch them after they have been scattered a few times and it gets hard to work out their original direction. This means that more PMTs are needed in the Antarctic ice to achieve the same end.
Grigory Domogatsky, spokesman for the Baikal project, made this point emphatically one evening while we were sitting at a table in his cabin next to a roaring fire. Despite a rasping smoker’s cough that could stop him in midsentence, he passionately argued that the world’s biggest neutrino detector should be built right here in Lake Baikal. The Americans and their European partners were spending $270 million on IceCube, and Domogatsky thought that a tenth of that would be enough to build a comparable detector in Siberia. Besides the advantage of needing far fewer photomultiplier tubes to detect high-energy neutrinos, Domogatsky pointed out that only a detector in the Northern Hemisphere could see neutrinos from the center of our galaxy.
“Yes, but not neutrinos,” Domogatsky replied, with the gentle yet triumphant note of a teacher who has just made a telling point. Of course: Neutrino detectors that use natural bodies of water or ice can see only those neutrinos that come through the Earth, so they have to look upside down—and from that vantage, the center of the Milky Way never comes into view at the South Pole. Domogatsky further argued that Lake Baikal was the best body of water in which to build such a detector, for there are no deepwater currents, as there are in the Mediterranean. “Lake Baikal is like an aquarium,” he said. Besides, scientists in the Mediterranean need ships to lower their strings into the sea and remote-controlled submersibles to wire them up, making the operation expensive. Here, winter ice makes retrieving and working on the detectors comparatively simple. But, Domogatsky sighed, convincing people to work in Siberia during the winter, when the alternative was the sun-soaked Mediterranean, was going to be hard.
Domogatsky’s heavily furrowed face showed the effects of 40 years of physics, many of them spent in this hostile place. Now he was looking to pass the baton. His team had just figured out that the telescope they had built so far could form a cell of a much, much larger telescope. Put next to each other, such cells could cover a cubic kilometer of water. All he needed was about $25 million, an order of magnitude less than the money being spent on the Mediterranean neutrino projects or at the South Pole.
The fire died. Outdoors the sun was setting. “I hope to help start this project,” Domogatsky said. “But the work should be performed by younger physicists.” We stepped outside. I took a picture of this grand old man of contemporary Russian physics against the backdrop of his beloved lake, then started walking back to the shore station. There was just one thing left to do. Wischnewski had suggested that my visit would be incomplete without my spending a night in one of the cabins at the ice camp. I had agreed. But then he casually mentioned that the ice heaves. Despite the lake’s thickly frozen surface, the water beneath is alive and kicking. Sometimes the entire sheet of ice below the camp can jerk and lurch. That night we drove to the ice camp and a graduate student named Alexey Kochanov ushered me into his cabin. He told me not to worry; he found the sound of ice creaking beneath him relaxing. Obviously he had been here way too long—but then he explained. The creaking means that the ice cover is solid. It is the sound of ice moving in response to the motion of the water beneath. It is only when you don’t hear the creaking that you should worry. That’s when the cracks are so big that there is plenty of give in the ice and you should not be on the lake.
Suddenly the ice’s protestations were music to my ears. All night it groaned. When sounds came from far away, they were like muffled gunshots; when they were close, more like the crack of a whip. At five in the morning, the ice heaved. It was the only significant movement I had felt all night. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went outside. It was still dark. The ice did not open to swallow me. Thin cracks crisscrossed the surface. You could tell that the new fissures had formed in the night because they had not yet been covered by snow. Scorpio’s tail was visible next to the moon, and overhead was Ursa Minor. On the far shore, embers of a forest fire glowed on the slopes of the Khamar-Daban range.
Somewhere deep below, a cone of bluish light raced upward through the cold water. A neutrino had traveled from some distant part of the universe, escaped collision with every bit of matter across trillions of miles, and gone through the center of the Earth, only to collide with a molecule of water in Lake Baikal and disappear in a flash of light.
Excerpted from The Edge of Physicsby Anil Ananthaswamy, copyright © 2010. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Soon after verifying the existence of neutrinos, physicist Frederick Reines called these particles “the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being.” Indeed, neutrinos have the smallest mass of any known particle—and yet they are incredibly important for understanding the world around us. Most neutrinos originated just fractions of a second after the Big Bang and so carry unique information about the infant universe. Others started their journey in the sun’s core or in powerful supernova explosions, revealing secrets about how stars shine and how they die.
Today astronomers rely primarily on visible light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation (like radio or X-rays) to study the distant universe; that is how the Hubble Space Telescope creates its beautiful images of galaxies and nebulas. In many ways, though, neutrinos make better cosmic messengers. Unlike light, which is easily absorbed as it moves through space, neutrinos rarely interact with anything. And unlike many other subatomic particles, neutrinos have no charge, so they travel in a straight line from their source without being deflected by the magnetic fields around stars.
Unfortunately, the inertness that makes neutrinos such a valuable source of information also makes them difficult to detect. Sixty billion solar neutrinos hit your thumbnail each second, and nearly every one of them passes through unscathed. As a result, neutrino observatories must scan vast quantities of water or some other good target to detect the exceedingly rare interaction between a neutrino and another particle.
With its 228 optical sensors, the observatory at Lake Baikal (diagrammed at left) looks for the debris created when a neutrino collides with a hydrogen or oxygen nucleus in the water: a shower of new particles that triggers a cone of bluish light. To exclude other particles that can produce a similar signal, scientists limit their search to showers cascading upward from below. This ensures that the original particle has passed through the Earth’s crust, a feat that only a neutrino can accomplish. andrew grant
Lake Baikal is not the only place where physicists are using elaborate detectors to study the most evasive particles in the universe. Here are other sites around the globe where the work goes on:
IceCube, Antarctica The latest and greatest neutrino observatory can be found in one of the most inhospitable locales on Earth. Scientists have buried beads of optical sensors under almost a mile of ice, where it is dark and clear enough to detect the blue light of a neutrino-induced particle shower even from hundreds of feet away.
Super-Kamiokande, Japan Within a mine more than half a mile underground, 13,000 detectors probe 50,000 tons of purified water for the blue-flash signature of neutrinos. In 1998 scientists at Super-Kamiokande found the first evidence that neutrinos have mass.
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), Canada An engineering marvel, SNO is a transparent spherical chamber filled with liquid, ringed with sensitive light detectors and submerged in a water-filled mine. To improve sensitivity, researchers removed the heavy water that initially filled the chamber so that a petroleum-like liquid could be injected instead.
Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS), U.S. This underground observatory in Minnesota detects neutrinos beamed from Fermilab, 450 miles away near Chicago. Scientists at MINOS hope to learn more about the three neutrino “flavors”: electron, muon, and tau.
Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracking Apparatus (OPERA), Italy Here, a man-made beam of neutrinos (created near Geneva) hits 150,000 lead bricks separated by photosensitive plastic. a. g.
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Linking routinely collected health and environment data can allow for large scale evaluations of how our environment impacts our health. Our data linkage approach advances previous research where residence-based environmental exposures were anonymously linked in the SAIL databank using Residential Anonymous Linking Fields (RALFs). The dose-response relationship between exposure to food and dietary intake has not been widely investigated. Previous research found conflicting views on whether increased environmental exposure to unhealthy food contributes to higher BMIs. This may have been due to different methodological approaches, including imprecise exposures, small numbers, and the use of self-reported BMIs.
This investigation calculated food exposure environments for routes from all homes to and from school. A Geographic Information System was used to calculate the environmental exposures along all potential routes up to a maximum age-appropriate walking distance from each school. Once within the SAIL databank we selected relevant routes using linked demographic and pupil datasets. To maintain privacy, the primary (doctoral) researcher generating the environmental exposures, did not have access to the final household-level exposure data in their identifiable form. The researcher automated their method so a second researcher could run the GIS analysis. Accuracy of modelled exposures will be compared with actual routes collected from GPS traces of children walking to school.
Removing access to the final identifiable household-level route exposures enabled the primary researcher to complete analysis on the combined household and individual-level data within the secure environment. The environmental exposures were linked with routine health data from the SAIL databank; including BMI as an indicator of obesity. BMI data for 4-5 year olds, and a sample of 1300 13-14 year olds were linked to associated environmental exposures.
Depending on modelled accuracy, a GIS and data linkage approach may allow the investigation of natural experiments and intervention evaluation at the scale of the total population. This is the first step towards anonymously modelling part of the daily exposure environment using routine data. A limitation is the lack of routinely collected BMI data for older children and teenagers an age when they are more likely to have the option to choose to buy food on the school route. This work will have many potential applications, including the delivery and evaluation of multiple school and workplace commuting interventions.
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Opioid-based medications remain the most common in US clinical practice for the management of acute and chronic pain. While the opioid signalling system includes several endogenous receptors (μ, δ, and κ), most opioid analgesics target the μ opioid receptor (μOR). However, while activation of the μOR can lead to effective relief of acute pain, its effects on mood and the body’s reward circuitry can also result in a high potential for abuse. This strong abuse liability largely underlies the opioid crisis, leading to a steady rise in opioid overdose deaths since 1999. The US opioid epidemic can be categorised into three “waves”.
The first wave was largely associated with deaths caused by prescription opiates; however, as prescription guidelines became more tightly regulated, plant-based opiates such as heroin became more prominent, leading to a further increase in opioid-related deaths. The third wave saw an increase in the use of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and other related compounds. While such drugs were developed to treat chronic pain due to cancer, they can exhibit extreme potency which, while useful for the sedation of large animals, can present an extraordinary risk to humans.
Currently, naloxone is the only antidote for opiate overdoses and is effective against prescription (morphine and oxycodone) and illegal (heroin) opiates. However, the extremely high binding affinity of fentanyl-class synthetic opioids can represent a significant challenge to this competitive antagonist. Therefore, there is a clinical need for the development of an antidote effective at reversing synthetic opioid overdoses which now cause approximately 80% of opioid overdose deaths. A few studies have identified cannabidiol (CBD) as a candidate negative allosteric modulator (NAM) at the μOR.
The authors of a recent study aimed to assess “whether (−)-CBD was capable of interfering with μOR signalling and performed a structure−activity relationship study that probed this scaffold to determine the minimal pharmacophore.”
Methods of the Study
The researchers used in vitro cAMP assay to identify several CBD analogs that proved to be more potent than the natural cannabinoid and show that these enhance the activity of the μOR antagonist naloxone. Past ligand binding studies have shown that, while naloxone promotes the dissociation of DAMGO, a synthetic μOR agonist, adding (-)-CBD could modulate the opioid receptor via an allosteric mechanism that modulates the dissociation kinetics of orthosteric ligands.
The authors of the current study identified 50 CBD analogs, each of which was coapplied with DAMGO in a Pink Flamindo assay. (-)-CBD appeared to reduce DAMGO-induced signalling by ~53%. Fifteen of the most promising candidates that also substantially attenuated DAMGO-induced μOR signalling were selected for further examination against fentanyl, alongside (-)-CBD.
Findings of the Study
Key findings included: (1) μOR-mediated cAMP inhibition induced by fentanyl was reversed by (-)-CBD; (2) CBD analogs inhibit μOR-mediated effects in cAMP accumulation, in the presence of fentanyl; (3) naloxone inhibits μOR-mediated cAMP accumulation, when coapplied with fentanyl; (4) co-application of naloxone and CBD analogs synergistically reverse fentanyl-induced cAMP inhibition.
To rationalise the structural basis for variations in the activity in the CBD analogs, the researchers compared their propensity to interact favourably with allosteric sites found in the active and inactive conformations of μOR. Across the collection of 15 experimentally characterised CBD analogs, the researchers found that the difference in the predicted binding energy in active and inactive conformations to be statistically correlated with log IC50 values.
These observations suggest that the most potent compounds bind a secondary allosteric pocket and stabilise the inactive conformation relative to the active conformation. This selective stabilisation of the inactive conformation of the allosteric pocket could potentially shift the conformational equilibrium of μ-Opioid Receptor toward its inactive conformation regardless of the occupancy of the orthosteric site. The researchers note that this proposed coupling between binding and inactivation could therefore lower the effective binding affinity of agonists without any direct interactions.
This structure-activity relationship study aimed to assess whether synthetic CBD analogs were capable of interfering with μOR signalling. With cAMP assay testing, the researchers identified structural alterations to the (-)-CBD scaffold that enhanced its potency. Docking investigations suggest that this enhanced potency arises from modifications that heighten the selective binding of these compounds to the opioid-bound inactive conformation.
The current study highlights how “this emerging understanding of the role that structural modifications to the CBD scaffold play in allosteric modulation, along with further elucidation of the allosteric site at the μOR, will pave the way for developing a novel class of compounds that noncompetitively curb opioid signalling.” This novel strategy may offer therapeutic advantages over currently available competitive antagonists in the future, however, in-human trials would be required to determine this.
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Understand Childhood Cancers and Blood Disorders
Bone tumors account for about five percent of the malignancies in children younger than 16 years old in the United States. They are the sixth most frequent tumor type in all children, but the third most common type in adolescents since they most commonly present during the second decade of life.
Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant tumor of bone and is diagnosed in about 400 children younger than 20 years old in the United States every year. Ewing's sarcoma is the second most common primary malignant tumor of bone. Other rare malignant tumors found in bone include: primary lymphoma of bone, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, and metastases of tumors from other sites (e.g. neuroblastoma). Benign tumors of bone include: eosinophilic granuloma and giant cell tumor.
In most patients we do not know why the cancer developed. Some people may have a rare condition that predisposes them to bone cancer. These include previous radiation therapy to a bone for another malignancy, the Li-Fraumeni syndrome, and retinoblastoma, a rare tumor of the eye. There are no known predisposing factors for Ewing's sarcoma.
Osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma most often occur near the knee and present with pain. Sometimes there is a palpable mass if the tumor extends into the surrounding soft tissue. There may be associated fever, fatigue, and weight loss with Ewing's sarcoma. At times, the diagnosis of a malignant bone tumor is made after a fracture occurs in the affected bone and an x-ray shows a mass in addition to the fracture and an abnormal appearance of the bone.
Once a bone tumor is suspected from a regular x-ray, more sophisticated imaging studies, including MRI or CT scan of the affected bone is performed to obtain a more detailed image of the tumor and to plan a biopsy. Since different kinds of tumors originate in bone, a biopsy is essential for making a correct diagnosis. An ideal biopsy is an open biopsy performed by an experienced orthopedic oncologist. These specialists can plan the biopsy site in an area that will be resected later if the diagnosis is a malignant bone tumor.
Treatment for bone tumors depends upon the diagnosis. Benign tumors may require no treatment besides observation. Osteosarcoma treatment involves surgery and chemotherapy such as methotrexate, cisplatinum, and Adriamycin. Ewing's sarcoma is treated with different chemotherapy (ifosfamide, etoposide, vincristine, cyclophosphamide, and Adriamycin), and possibly radiation instead of surgery. Surgical removal of the tumor often occurs after a few courses of chemotherapy. The main reason for the delay in surgery is that chemotherapy may shrink the tumor and make removal of the tumor easier. This allows many patients to undergo limb-sparing procedures where the affected limb is not removed and may retain function. Chemotherapy is also important in treating metastatic disease. About 15-20 percent of patients have metastases to other organs (lungs, bone, and bone marrow) at diagnosis. A higher percentage of patients have micrometastatic disease at diagnosis that cannot be detected with CT scans or bone scans. Patients who present with no visible metastases and who undergo chemotherapy in addition to surgery (and/or radiation) have a very good long-term survival.
Brain tumors are the most common solid tumor of childhood. They are a heterogeneous group of disorders which usually present with persistent headache and vomiting but may sometimes develop a number of other symptoms such as eye problems, seizures, growth abnormalities or difficulty walking. An accurate diagnosis is critical to a successful outcome, as some brain tumors are malignant and others are benign. The type of brain tumor is usually identified by the initial tumor location and the microscopic appearance of the tumor tissue.
When a brain tumor is suspected in a child, a pediatric oncologist will review the clinical information with a pediatric neurologist and a neurosurgeon. Brain and spinal cord MRI and CT images are reviewed by a neuroradiologist to accurately assess the extent of the problem and to formulate a plan to deal with the tumor. The neurosurgeon will then either perform a surgical resection, if possible, or a biopsy if the tumor size and location make a complete removal difficult. This surgery should be performed by a neurosurgeon experienced in dealing with pediatric brain tumors and must be followed with specialized postoperative observation and treatment in an intensive care setting. After careful microscopic study of the tumor tissue samples by a neuropathologist, a diagnosis can be established. Additional laboratory studies on the tumor tissue are often performed to confirm the diagnosis and to better define the disease process. These additional studies may sometimes be performed at specialized pathology referral centers. Depending upon the results of the above studies, additional treatment is often required.
The outlook for cure depends on the microscopic appearance of the tumor tissue and the amount of disease that the neurosurgeons can safely resect. Radiation therapy is an important tool and is often used for toddlers, older children and adolescents to help control malignant disease. Radiotherapists have a variety of treatment options ranging from traditional x-ray therapy to newer techniques such as cyber knife and proton beam therapy. The latter is available at only three centers in the USA and patients from the New York metropolitan area are generally referred to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for this treatment.
Additional control of the disease may be achieved by the use of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs which may be used for childhood brain tumors include Cyclophosphamide, Cisplatin, Carboplatinum, Etoposide, Vincristine, Temazolamide, Procarbazine and CCNU. Most of these are given intravenously through a central venous catheter. Children who receive these medications need to be closely monitored for possible adverse effects. Chemotherapy has begun to have a major impact in the outcomes of several pediatric brain cancers, including germ cell tumors and medulloblastomas.
A qualified pediatric oncologist should prescribe and supervise all chemotherapy administration and ensure that patients receive necessary supportive care measures. Careful follow-up observation and care are necessary. Continued long-term follow up of patients who have successfully completed treatment and are rendered disease free is necessary into adulthood, because of the risk of delayed complications that include effects on learning and growth.
Central Venous Access Devices
To effectively treat children with cancer, we need intravenous (IV) access to draw blood, infuse medications, fluids or blood products. Central venous access devices (CVAD) minimize the need for needle sticks, reducing the child's anxiety and discomfort while providing a safe, guaranteed route for administering irritating IV fluids and medications. There are many different types of CVADs. There are tunneled, external catheters (Broviac, Hickman, Groshong), peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) and implanted venous catheters (Mediport, Port-a-Cath).
Broviacs, Hickmans and Groshong Catheters:
These flexible, external catheters are inserted under the skin into a major blood vessel and advanced until the tip almost reaches the right atrium of the heart. They are implanted under sterile conditions in the operating room. These catheters can have one, two, or even three separate tubes that can be used concurrently. The Broviac and Hickman catheters are flushed daily with a low concentration of heparin to prevent clotting. The Groshong does not require heparinization, only saline flushes. The external catheters do require home maintenance of daily flushing and every other day dressing changes. They also make it somewhat more difficult to bathe or swim. While requiring more maintenance, they are necessary for some kinds of cancer that require very intense therapy or stem cell transplant.
Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC)
The PICC is a flexible catheter that is usually inserted into an arm vein and advanced toward the right atrium of the heart. It does not require the operating room in order to place it; it can be done at the bedside.
Implanted Venous Access (Mediport, Port-a-Cath)
These catheters are surgically implanted under the skin and threaded into a major blood vessel and advanced until the tip almost reaches the right atrium of the heart. The port is usually placed in the subcutaneous tissue of the patient's upper chest or abdomen, and has a rubber-like surface to allow needle entry. A special needle (Huber needle) is required in order to access the port, without leaving a permanent hole in the surface. The advantage of these catheters is that there is no home maintenance required since they are completely under the skin. They are kept patent by flushing with a low concentration of heparin by the medical team, and when not in use, they only need to be flushed monthly. They present no problem with bathing or swimming.
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by Aseda Tena
figures by Shannon McArdel
122,621 people in the United States are currently eligible to receive a transplanted organ, but only about 30,000 transplants are performed each year due to a shortage of available organs. As a result, approximately 22 people die each day waiting for a transplant (1). One exciting area of research, xenotransplantation, aims to increase organ availability by using pig organ donors. It sounds like science fiction, but new technological advances mean that xenotransplantation may become widespread in the near future.
The Difficulties Behind Organ Transplantation: Pre- and Post-Transplant
Organ transplantation is a treatment option for people who have end-stage organ failure that can’t be controlled using other treatments. Globally, the most commonly transplanted organs are the kidneys, followed by the liver, heart and lungs. In 1954, the kidney was the first human organ to be transplanted successfully (5). Liver, heart and pancreas transplants were performed by the late 1960s, while lung and intestinal organ transplant procedures were not successful until the 1980s. Unfortunately, the frequency of transplantation is severely limited by the availability of organs. While kidneys can be transplanted from living donors, other organs come from deceased donors. Since there are more patients awaiting a transplant than organs available for transplantation, the transplant waiting list has been growing exponentially for years. The graph below shows the gap that exists between the waiting list and organs available for transplantation.
Transplantation is one of the most challenging and complex areas of modern medicine. One major obstacle is transplant rejection, when the body recognizes the transplanted organ as foreign or non-self and mounts an immune response against it. This response can lead to transplant failure. The risk of transplant rejection can be reduced, but not eliminated, by the use of immunosuppressive drugs. Transplant patients remain dependent on these drugs for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, these drugs have multiple negative side effects, including higher rates of cancer and infections.
Increasing the number of available organs through xenotransplantation
How can we increase the number of organs available for transplant? Organ regeneration and bioengineering represent two potential solutions and are areas of intense research. Another, perhaps more attractive solution, is the use of pigs as organ donors. Since pig organs are similar in size and physiology to human organs, they are good candidates for transplant and would be readily available when needed.
The concept of cross-species (pig-to-human) transplantation is known as xenotransplantation, and the transplanted organs or tissues are called xenografts. The first xenograft heart transplant in a human was performed in 1964, using a chimpanzee heart (2). Thomas Starzl carried out the first chimpanzee-to-human liver transplantation in 1966, and in 1992, he performed a baboon-to-human liver transplant. In each of these cases, the survival of the xenografts was short due to graft rejection. Immunosuppressive drugs were not enough to prevent an immune response against the xenografts.
Such difficulties have continued in xenotransplantation trials. The immune response to a xenograft is generally more extreme than that seen in same species transplantation, and it ultimately results in xenograft rejection, or in severe cases, recipient death. Pigs have molecules on their cell surfaces, including sugars and proteins, that humans do not have. When pig organs are transplanted into humans, the immune system recognizes these molecules as non-self and begins to attack the pig tissue, leading to immediate rejection of the organ. In addition to these completely different molecules, because pigs and humans are genetically dissimilar, some of their proteins that serve similar functions have slight differences that also trigger an immune response. Unfortunately, not even the immunosuppressive drugs can control the rejection driven by the tissue incompatibility between pigs and humans.
Making Xenotransplantation a Reality: Tolerance and genetic engineering approaches
If we could eliminate the pig proteins that humans don’t have and introduce necessary human proteins in the pigs via genetic engineering, then the chances of rejection could be minimized. The creation of such genetically modified pigs could solve the problem of organ availability. In 2002, scientists reported the generation of a cloned, genetically modified pig lacking a sugar molecule that normally stimulates a strong immune response. Since then, pigs containing many human genes that can help the pig immune cells interact successfully with human immune cells have been generated and their organs have been tested in pig-to-non-human primate transplant models.
The use of these modified, or transgenic, pigs as organ donors can help prevent the recipient’s immune system from immediately rejecting the xenograft. The transplantation of hearts and the kidneys from these transgenic pigs has already greatly improved the survival of xenografts in non-human primates. Today, a pig kidney may last for months, and a heart can survive for multiple years. However, the primate recipients are still dependent on immunosuppressive medications to control the immune rejection.
Another exciting strategy in xenotransplantation is the tolerance approach, which tricks the recipient’s immune system into recognizing pig molecules as self by administering pig bone marrow cells to the recipient prior to organ transplantation. Donor bone marrow contains progenitor immune cells that can subsequently develop into mature immune cells in the recipient’s body. These donor immune cells in the recipient will not attack the transplanted organ, because they recognize it as self. This method was first used successfully in human-to-human transplantation clinical trials at Massachusetts General Hospital (3). Patients who received donor bone marrow with a kidney transplant became tolerant, meaning that no immunosuppression drugs were required for the transplanted kidney to function even one year after the kidney transplant. Scientists are currently studying tolerance in a well-established pig to non-human primate xenotransplantation model.
Humanized pig transplants still require the use of immunosuppressive drugs, but scientists believe that the tolerance approach will allow xenograft survival with minimal or no immunosuppression. In a pig-to-baboon tolerance model, transplanted pig skin was maintained for over 2.5 months without immunosuppressive drugs (4). These results demonstrate for the first time that pig bone marrow transplantation may benefit a primate xenograft recipient’s immune system by reducing organ rejection. If this effect holds true for kidney or heart xenografts, it will represent a major milestone in xenotransplantation.
Within the past decade, xenotransplantation research has made a great deal of progress, moving closer to potential clinical applications. The combination of genetically modified pigs, tolerance protocols, and effective immunosuppressive medications has already helped to reduce the extreme organ rejection witnessed in early xenotransplantation. Although transplant biology remains a challenging field, xenotransplantation has the potential to help doctors provide transplants to more of the many waitlisted patients who desperately need them.
Aseda Tena is a PhD candidate in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) program at Harvard University.
1. US Department of Health and Human Services. U.S. Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation. http://organdonor.gov/about/data.html
2. Cooper, D.K.C. Brief history of cross-species organ transplantation. Proc (Bayl University MedCent). 2012 Jan; 25(1):49 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3246856/
3. Wen, P. Rejecting defeat. Boston Globe. 2014 Jan 24. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/24/rejecting_defeat
4. Tena, A. et al. “Prolonged Survival of Pig Skin on Baboons following Administration of Pig Cells Expressing Human CD47”, submitted in Am J. Transplant. September 2015.
5. “History” United Network for Organ Sharing. https://www.unos.org/transplantation/history/
Feature image: “2009-07-19 056 a Mountian View Obon” by Flickr user mnorri. Licensed via Creative Commons.
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This article addresses the challenges of artwork on some of today’s garments that are stretchy, thin, textured, or printed in difficult locations.
The other critical factor is to cure the ink at the right temperature while being careful to not overheat it. The dye used for most dark-colored polyester garments will sublimate when heated enough, so keeping the temperature to just above the ink film’s curing point can prevent the worst of it. Polyester presents fewer art-related issues than rough-textured garments, but you should still keep the number of colors low to minimize number of flashes or amount of heat applied. When sublimation is likely, minimize the larger flat areas of ink in a design that may highlight a color shift more prominently. In other words, a thin line of white that changes hue a little is less apparent than a large square (Figure 2). The thinner ink volume also requires less heat to flash and cure, which may help prevent excessive heat buildup.
Issue: The design needs to be printed in an unusual location, such as across the collar or onto a seam of a cotton shirt.
Solution: The demands for printing on different locations have reached the point where most printers can no longer reasonably refuse these requests. The best way to modify the artwork to print across a seam is to use less ink and a low-viscosity formulation. Water-based prints tend to work well when printing across seams and bumps because the ink is low enough in viscosity to soak into the garment rather than sit on the surface and spread out, pucker up, or pop back up into the screen. Artwork adjustment is usually necessary when going to a water-based print or low-viscosity plastisol because you must account for the greater ink flow.
A good way to adjust artwork for flowing across seams is to break up the surfaces of the artwork and make it distressed or worn looking (Figure 3). This prevents excessive ink buildup and can help cover any imperfections in the final print. One of the best ways to get a print to work well across the seam of a shirt is to use a water-based discharge ink to release the dye in the shirt so that the garment appears much brighter without the heavy feeling of a flashed plastisol print.
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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That's a pretty huge deal, because the results could finally put an end to one of the longest-running debates in palaeontology, and help us understand once and for all what happened in the final years of the non-avian dinosaurs on Earth.
"One of the things that has been long debated about dinosaur evolution is whether they were reigning strong right up until the time of the meteorite impact, or whether there was a slow, gradual decrease in [the emergence of new species] or an increase in extinction before that time," one of the researchers, Chris Venditti, from the University of Reading in the UK, told The Guardian.
To figure out what happened, Venditti and his team used statistical analysis and fossil record data to create a family tree of the three main types of dinosaurs: the ornithischians (beaked herbivores), theropods (carnivores such as T. rex), and sauropods (long-necked plant-eaters).
They found that while dinosaurs began to flourish during the late Triassic period around 220 million years ago, certain species began dying off faster than they could be replaced around 100 million years later.
That's tens of millions of years before the 9.6-km Chicxulub meteorite hit Earth.
Prior to this research, many scientists thought that dinosaurs had been flourishing up until then. But this study suggests that the group was actually in a long-term decline - and that could have been what made them so susceptible to being wiped out.
"While the asteroid impact is still the prime candidate for the dinosaurs' final disappearance, it is clear that they were already past their prime in an evolutionary sense," said lead researcher Manabu Sakamoto, from the University of Reading.
"Our work is ground-breaking in that, once again, it will change our understanding of the fate of these mighty creatures. While a sudden apocalypse may have been the final nail in the coffin, something else had already been preventing dinosaurs from evolving new species as fast as old species were dying out," he added.
What scientists think right now is that when the Chicxulub meteorite hit Earth 66 million years ago, it threw millions of tonnes of dust up into the atmosphere, blocking the Sun's rays and causing short-term cooling and widespread plant die-off.
But while the majority of the dinosaurs couldn't survive those changes, other species, such as the mammals, managed to eventually bounce back.
The team suggests that the weakening dominance of the dinosaurs before the impact could have given mammals the edge to endure the asteroid impact.
"The decline of the dinosaurs would have left plenty of room for mammals, the group of species which humans are a member of, to flourish before the impact, priming them to replace dinosaurs as the dominant animals on earth," said Venditti.
The study can also help us predict groups of animals alive today that will be particularly vulnerable to extinction - namely those that are losing species faster than they can replace them. "This has huge implications for our current and future biodiversity, given the unprecedented speed at which species are going extinct owing to the ongoing human-caused climate change," said Sakamoto.
But there's still one question that everyone's dying to know: does this study mean that dinosaurs would have gone extinct anyway, regardless of the meteorite?
"If they continued on that trajectory, even if that meteor didn’t hit, they may well have been very species-poor in some millions of years or even have gone extinct all together," Venditti told The Guardian.
But palaeontologist Stephen Brusatte from the University of Edinburgh doesn't agree.
"It may be that the effects of the asteroid were a bit worse because you had dinosaurs that maybe weren’t as strong in an evolutionary sense as they once had been," he said. "But I think if there was no asteroid you would still have dinosaurs around today."
The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Factual error: The surviving space shuttle takes off from the asteroid horizontally, like an airliner taking off from a runway. This is absurd. There is no air to provide lift for the wings, so the shuttle - with its engines providing thrust straight back - would simply trundle along the ground like a car. It doesn't use its maneuvering jets at any time, and they are far too feeble to lift the weight of the shuttle anyway. Nor do they gimbal the main engine, which would lift the shuttle vertically on an axis through the centre of the engine - they swoop gracefully into the air after a long take off. Second, they'd have to count on finding a clear length of ground on a debris strewn asteroid. Vertical takeoff, anyone?
Factual error: The idea of two spacecraft blasting off together so close to each other at the same time is a joke. One would put the other at great risk. Not only is there massive fire and heat, but the vibrations from the noise of the exhaust do great damage to the surroundings. And there is great inconsistency about just how close the two spacecraft really are. The first still shot taken in the dark has them at different towers about 150 yards apart. But, then all the men take an elevator up ONE tower and are split apart into the two groups at the top of the tower. Furthermore, the launch takes place at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39: the fixed and rotating service structures built for the Space Shuttle are visible. The pads at LC 39 are 8,700 feet apart (just over 1.5 miles). (01:00:00)
Factual error: En route to the asteroid, the two space shuttles head to the Russian space station to refuel. To simulate gravity, the cosmonaut aboard the space station fires a few rockets to put the space station into the spin. How fast does it need to spin to reproduce Earth gravity? Assuming the space station's spoke arms (where the shuttles dock) are about 50 feet long, the answer is 8 revolutions a minute. That makes it impossible to dock - it'd be like trying to drive a car on ice-covered roads into a spinning parking garage. There's another, more fundamental, problem: the artificial gravity points in the wrong direction. Think of spinning rides at the amusement park. The spinning motion creates an artificial gravity, an effective outward-pushing force. On the space station, the spinning would tend to throw the astronauts down the station's spoke arms and back onto the shuttle. Also, the artificial gravity would taper off to nothing at the centre. But the movie's artificial gravity somehow points down, not outward, and appears to work equally well throughout the station.
Factual error: In the Russian space station, A.J. and Lev are running to the Independence shuttle. But as the space station is falling apart, a piece of it crashes into the other end of the hallway they are currently running through. There is no way they would make it to the shuttle even with it being a few feet away; they'd get sucked out into space almost immediately.
Factual error: In the scene with the "lunar roll" (where both shuttles Freedom and Independence are being sling-shot around the moon), they are said to be experiencing "9 and a half G's for 11 minutes". But during this time, the crew members are screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. Under that much pressure it would be nearly impossible to breathe, let alone scream. Even if they're wearing G-suits, with the helmets off, they would be directly exposed to the pressure. (01:18:50)acemutou
Factual error: It's explained in detail how the impact will cause a horrible freak tide, what it will do, and that one half of mankind will die in the nuclear winter. That's absolutely irrelevant. The asteroid is "the size of Texas," that means a quarter of a million square miles. Such an impact is called ELE (Extinction Level Event). A bigger part of the Pacific Ocean would evaporate immediately, so no matter if a wave or not. The earth would become "sterilized." So no lifeform will live long enough to die in a winter. (So it is nonsensical to compare that impact with the event 65 million years ago. It's much different).
Factual error: During the movie's opening scene, you watch the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs some 65 million years hitting Earth near the Caribbean (you can see Cuba and Yucatan). 65 million years ago, Earth's continents were in different locations and most of the Caribbean looked very different.
Factual error: During the teams physicals, the doctor mentions Ketamine. While Ketamine is a sedative it is not strictly an animal sedative. Ketamine is a mid-range sedative that doesn't even put the patient to sleep. I use it in the ER I work in almost every day to set broken bones on children. The good doctor was a bit overly dramatic when describing the drug.dablues7
Factual error: Steve Buscemi opens fire with what appears to be a variant of a General Electric GAU-8/A Gatling Gun which has an effective recoil of approximately 10,000 pounds-force (45 kN) per round discharge of armor-piercing ammunition. The vehicle carrying the cannon does not buck upwards or backwards at all. When the significantly decreased gravity of the asteroid is factored into consideration, at the very least the vehicle should have rocketed backwards or flipped upside down! Additionally, the barrels would have been cold-soaked to something close to -273° Celcius when the spinning asteroid was pointed away from the Sun, the heat generated by the rapid fire rate (combined with the friction of the slugs passing through the barrels) would certainly cause the frigid barrels to shatter like glass. And why would NASA fit a Gatling-Gun on a drilling platform in the first place? There are chemical lasers that would be much more effective and certainly lighter in weight should a mission call for the option of blasting one's way through an obstacle.
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Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC)
What is ABAC used for?
ABAC aims to protect objects such as data, network devices, and IT resources from unauthorized users and actions—those that don’t align with “approved” characteristics as outlined by an organization’s security policies.
Where is ABAC used?
Applications. The model of ABAC can be applied at any level of the enterprise infrastructure or technology stack. For example, an organization can use ABAC at the firewall, server, application, database, and data layer.
How do you implement attribute-based access control?
Here is how AWS ABAC works:
– It uses attributes as tags and attaches them to IAM resources and entities such as roles and users.
– Create a single or a set of ABAC policies to comply with IAM principles.
– Configure AWS ABAC policies to conduct operations when a principal’s tag matches a resource tag.
What are the advantages of ABAC over RBAC?
In most cases, ABAC has plenty more control variables than RBAC. Since ABAC can control security and access on a fine-grained basis, it’s mainly implemented to reduce risks arising from unauthorized access.
What is the difference between PBAC and ABAC?
PBAC focus on policies that allow or deny resource access to the end user, whereas ABAC focuses on the specific characteristics that affect the policies.
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Bù Gia Mập National Park
|This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013)|
|Bu Gia Map National Park|
|Location||Dong Nam Bo|
|Nearest city||Đồng Xoài|
|Governing body||Bình Phước government|
The Bu Gia Map National Park covers an area of 26,032 ha. The park has a 15,200 ha buffer zone area. Until 2002, the area was officially a conservation area, before the incumbent Prime Minister declared it a national park on November 27.
Much of the Bu Gia Map National Park lies in the southern reaches of the Central Highlands. The highest point in the area is 700 meters above sea level. The national park is fed by numerous river systems, including the Dak Huyet and Dak Sam rivers. The headwaters of the hydropower projects of the Thac Mo and Can Don also lie within the park.
The Bu Gia Map National Park contains a total of 724 plant species. The park has an extensive area of primeval forests. The predominant species here are oil plants, perfumed wood, and rosewood. A total of 278 plant species of medicinal value have been recorded here.
In 2000, the Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia Program and various other organizations survey conducted in the southern Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, an area in the vicinity of the Bu Gia Map National Park. The result was the confirmation of the presence of several globally threatened mammal species. This was taken as a strong evidence for the presence of the same species in the neighboring Bu Gia Map. Some of the important species recorded were Black-shanked Douc, Yellow-cheeked Crested Gibbon and Gaur.
The avifauna of the Bu Gia Map National Park has not been studied thoroughly, but there is strong evidence for the presence of the Germain's Peacock Pheasant. The park also has the ideal habitat for the Orange-necked Partridge.
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It’s time to think about your heart’s health. Heart-related diseases are the number one killer for people all throughout the world. How do you do this? First, you must realize that your heart is very much like two pumps: the right side receives blood from the body and pumps it to your lungs; the left side, on the other hand, receives blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body. Before each beat, your heart fills with blood, then it contracts to squirt the blood along. It takes about just 20 seconds to circulate blood throughout your entire vascular system. It does this all day and all night. What contributes to high blood pressure (this is a condition wherein blood pushes against artery walls with too much force that it strains it) is your lifestyle. Too much booze, too little exercise, and too much salt in your diet could make things worse for you.
Your first and easy mission would be to ask your doctor to take your blood pressure. Aim for below 120/80 mmHg. Ask him to check your cholesterol levels as well. If you’re healthy, you’ll get a total cholesterol reading of below 4mmol/L. A higher number, caused by eating too much saturated fat, being overweight or inactive, hormones, or family history, means that there’s too much cholesterol in your blood. The substance clings to artery walls and eventually hardens, leading to reduced blood flow. This can cause chest pain and a complete blockage. Then, there’s also good cholesterol. This protects you against heart attack, and low levels can increase risk because this seems to carry bad cholesterol away from arteries and back to the liver to be excreted.
How do you improve your cholesterol? Eat less saturated fats, eat more good oils, and make friends with the gym and keep your waist size in check. The right dietary changes can lower your cholesterol by 10 percent. Moreover, you need to watch your waist circumference because this is measurement of abdominal fat. Research has linked to fat in the belly, more than any other area, to hardening the arteries. Women with large waists are more likely to die young of heart disease. Avoid processed foods which contain trans fats that add to flab. Eat more oily fish, legumes, garlic, fruits, and vegetables. The right foods protect your ticker by raising good cholesterol levels and lowering bad ones.
Antioxidants act as bodyguards to your arteries. Add nuts and green tea to your daily diet so you get better chances of aging well. Your heart is a muscle, so what makes your glutes and abs firm also strengthens your heart. Sedentary people are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease. If you get less than 30 minutes of exercise daily then your heart is at risk. Relationships with people also contribute to your heart’s health. So, should you decide to invest in one, know that you’re investing in your health as well. The thought of being with someone should make your heart sing.
Beautiful Body Ideal Weight
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You’ve made them a hundred times: chocolate chip cookies. But have you ever put thought into what role each ingredient plays? Baking really is a science, and sometimes knowing the science behind the ingredients you’re using will help you achieve the perfect cookie.
Fat is a very important ingredient in cookies – it tenderizes, crisps and browns, adds color and a wonderful flavor that is impossible to duplicate. Butter ensures good baking results and adds the most desirable taste, texture and appearance. When making cookies, don’t use low-fat spreads with less than 70 percent fat – the high water content of these products may cause your cookies to spread and be too soft. One question we hear quite often is this: “Should I use salted or unsalted butter in my cookies?” The answer is that you can use them interchangeably in a recipe – the amount of salt in salted butter is so small that it won’t affect your cookies. It really comes down to personal preference.
Sugar does three main things: it sweetens, browns and tenderizes. Sugar helps hold moisture, which contributes to a tender cookie. The crystals in the sugar help form structure in the cookie by making space filled with carbon dioxide when the leavening agents react.
Eggs perform many - different functions in baking. They add flavor, color, structure and act as an emulsifier. The fat in the egg yolk provides a light texture and a tender final product ., while the egg whites act like a leavening agent and provide volume.
Flour is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten - in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising. This helps provide structure. The protein content of flour will affect the strength of the dough. High protein flour (such as bread flour) has a higher gluten content, which makes for a tougher product. This is desirable in yeast breads, but not in cookies. A lower protein flour (all-purpose) has a lower gluten content and yields a more tender product. Addition of fats and sugars can help restrict gluten formation, which helps make a softer, more tender cookie.
It is a common misconception that baking powder and baking soda can be used interchangeably in a recipe. Although they are both added to cookies so they will rise, they function very differently. Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent that combines baking soda, an acid such as cream of tartar, and a moisture absorber such as cornstarch. It requires heat to become active.
Baking soda (or sodium bicarbonate) is used as a leavening agent in recipes containing acidic ingredients such as brown sugar, buttermilk, vinegar, molasses or sour cream. The chemical reaction between the ingredients causes the baking soda to become active. Unlike baking powder, heat isn’t necessary for the chemical reaction.
Salt adds subtle flavor to cookies, and it helps strengthen the gluten in the flour.
So the next time you’re in the kitchen making cookies, remember that each ingredient plays an integral role in the recipe. Hopefully, understanding the role of each ingredient will help you to bake your best cookies ever.
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The use of assistive technology to improve students' communication is very good and often innovative". Ofsted report, January 2017
Technology has the potential to enrich both the lives and the learning of our students; Treloar's has a commitment that every learner will have access to appropriate technology to enhance and support their education and independence.
Staff in the Technology Hub are constantly researching new, effective ways to use technology to mitigate the disabilities of our students; we have embraced tablet technology at Treloar's and are trialling environmental controls in one of our residential houses. In addition we are researching the potential of using emerging technologies such as Google Glass and electroencephalography.
With a diverse team of technology staff we can improve the quality of a student's life by applying technology to a challenge a student may face, whether that's related to computing, communications, wheelchair mobility, seating, or sport and leisure. Our team devises, sources, adapts or manufactures solutions to improve students' independence and to help them engage effectively in their education and take part in daily activities.
Assistive Technology solutions can be high or low-tech e.g. providing a bespoke headrest for a wheelchair seat, adapting a keyboard and joystick for a computer. Treloar's endeavour to harness cost effective technology where possible so that solutions can be easily replicated when students leave.
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Betty Ford gardens help catalog rare plant species in Colorado
VAIL — Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, nestled along the banks of Gore Creek, is considered the premier alpine botanical gardens in the country. Yet aside from providing an ecological sanctuary for visitors, the gardens also peruse important horticultural examination.
“It’s more than just a pretty garden,” said Nicola Ripley, the executive director of Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.
The Vail-based nonprofit organization operates its own seed bank, where it catalogs alpine plant species and attempts to revive endangered populations like the rare Penstemon debilis. It also helps maintain the health of alpine ecosystems throughout Colorado in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and its Seeds for Success program — a coalition of governmental and nongovernmental organizations attempting to catalog and preserve America’s native plant species.
UNDERSTANDING ALPINE ECOSYSTEMS
Seed collection done by Betty Ford Alpine Gardens directly lends itself to a more complete understanding of complex alpine ecosystems and how to best conserve them. It also helps to provide a wild seed base from which to repopulate an ecosystem’s natural fauna and flora after a natural disaster like wildfire, flood or mudslide.
Ideally, a comprehensive wild seed bank could return an ecosystem’s plant life to its “true wild characteristics and traits,” said Nick Courten, the gardens’ senior horticulturist, adding that the reintroduction of natural plants could reinvigorate an entire ecosystem. “It’s the web of life. Plants and pollinators all depend on each other,” he said.
Plant samples gathered by the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens are sent to Oregon, where they are scrubbed, sorted, studied and stored by the BLM. While the process of cataloguing an entire ecosystem’s plant life is nearly impossible, Seeds of Success has already compiled some 10,000 seeds for over 15,000 plant species and the program is forever gathering new partners like the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.
The gardens began working with Seeds of Success last spring. As the first partner to specialize in the alpine horticulture, it was able to successfully catalogue seeds for both the marsh marigold and the Arctic gentian. With another year of training, Betty Fords Alpine Gardens hopes to catalogue more species next spring and further encapsulate the natural wonder surrounding Vail.
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is the highest botanical garden in North America and provides free access to an estimated 100,000 visitors annually. Located on a little over three acres in Ford Park, the gardens is open to the public from dawn until dusk throughout the year.
A complete list of activities and events is available at http://www.bettyfordalpinegardens.org or by calling 970-476-0103, ext. 3.
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A power vehicle is an automobile, vehicle or even bus that runs on an electrical motor as opposed to a standard interior ignition engine. They generate far fewer pollutants than standard autos and operate a lot more efficiently.
EVs are a lot more costly to buy than nonrenewable energy cars, however they can set you back less to operate. They commonly receive considerable tax breaks that counter initial label shock.
An electric motor vehicle can easily set you back 10 per-cent to 40 percent greater than an equivalent gasoline-powered style. Yet if you factor in energy as well as upkeep expenses, many EVs spare motorists cash over the long haul. good tutorial
If you connect in your vehicle at property– where electrical power prices are actually generally lesser than at fuel stations, the cost savings may be also greater. Several residents can easily likewise spare through mounting a roof solar panel body.
EVs can be demanded in the home making use of a variety of asking for devices, featuring public wall chargers that are actually on call on many significant highways as well as in mall and also office complex. You’ll pay out only around 4 to 5 pennies per kilowatt-hour, or even Thirteen to 20 cents for every One hundred miles steered.
That is actually because an EV’s electric motor can easily move the auto along with far less electricity than a conventional fuel motor. That means you can easily cover even more range on a charge and also fill out fewer opportunities a year.
You might be able to shave a number of the ahead of time cost of an EV by benefiting from government and also state motivations that may spare you 1000s. The government EV tax credit rating today offers up to $7,500 and also you could possibly acquire manies thousand even more in location-based refunds. You’ll desire to check the home window sticker of any kind of brand new EV you think about, as some models are constructed outside the USA and also do not receive the full credit.
The series of an electricity auto is actually a vital factor for those thinking about helping make the change to an EV. The bright side is that the electric batteries in EVs have actually become more powerful and also less expensive gradually. Because of this, the top-selling designs such as the Nissan Fallen Leave as well as Chevrolet Bolt now have a variety of greater than 341 km (212 kilometers) every cost. Some designs even have greater than five hundred km (311 kilometers) of EPA-estimated selection, featuring the BMW iX, Mercedes-Benz EQS, and also Lucid Air. Also electrical trucks like the Rivian R1T and Ford F-150 Lightning are right now using long-range models.
You need to follow a number of simple rules of finger for asking for and also driving if you prefer to maximize your EV’s array. For instance, you must try to drive at a mild price of rate as well as utilize cultural braking whenever achievable. In addition, you must steer clear of leaving your EV unattended for prolonged periods of time at a 100% state of fee.
Moreover, you should think about just how chilly temperatures impact your EV’s selection, as some EVs have a lesser rated variety when the thermostat plunges below freezing. You must also see to it that you possess a home asking for terminal to ensure that you can easily plug in and also warm up your battery when it is actually cool outdoors. Additionally, you should always keep your EV’s DTE (Driving to Unfilled) on show and plan your options as necessary.
Most EV vehicle drivers bill their cars and trucks overnight in the home, at the office or even in public demanding stations. The expense of demanding your electricity vehicle differs relying on where you plug in, the energy output of the wall charger and also just how much fee is actually left behind in your battery when you begin asking for.
An electric cars and truck’s onboard wall charger converts hvac energy coming from the electrical grid in to DC power that asks for the electric battery. The most common billing options equal 1 or even Degree 2– either by means of a basic 3-prong wall surface channel (120v) or an extra highly effective public asking for station making use of a plug that adapts the CHAdeMO or CCS requirements.
When you demand at social stations, the price can be free of charge, subscription-based or pay-as-you-go. Prices are actually specified through systems or home owner, and also some car manufacturers supply free of charge public billing at specific chargers.
It is crucial to comprehend that you can save cash by billing your EV off height. The grid that thrums with task when individuals go to work and utilizing lights and also home appliances will definitely find a lot less need overnight, as well as asking for an EV will assist to stabilize the lots on the system. Many electrical business use time-of-use rates that compensate EV proprietors for billing their motor vehicles during the course of off-peak hours. The quantity of financial savings will differ based upon your energy company as well as the rates framework of your EV’s onboard battery charger.
A couple of prominent EV fire mishaps caused concern amongst vehicle buyers, but most EVs have evolved safety attributes. Most styles have a variety of sensors that can spot different autos or even pedestrians as well as notify motorists. The best can easily also stop the automobile or even decrease to avoid a wreck.
Modern electrical motor vehicles have few relocating parts and demand little bit of maintenance contrasted to typical gas vehicles. EVs additionally have a lesser facility of gravitation considering that the electric battery pack is actually commonly located at the base of the motor vehicle.
Yet another perk of the low center of mass is actually that EVs have a better equilibrium when cornering, so they are less susceptible to tipping. They are actually additionally safer because they possess much more stability when driving on uneven roadways or during sudden turns.
One issue folks typically possess is actually that EV electric batteries can easily explode in a crash, yet this is highly unlikely. The batteries are actually framed in a robust framework and are actually safeguarded by firewall programs to avoid all of them coming from being actually revealed. EV battery fires are not as explosive as fuel blazes as well as take much longer to heat up. This provides occupants opportunity to get away the vehicle safely and securely.
If you desire to maximize your EV’s variation, thus you need to succeed several straightforward regulations of finger for driving and billing. You ought to take into consideration just how cool temps impact your EV’s selection, as some EVs have actually a lesser measured range when the thermostat plunges under icy. The grid that thrums along with activity when individuals are actually at job and making use of appliances as well as lights will definitely view much a lot less requirement overnight, as well as charging an EV will definitely aid to stabilize the load on the device. Several electrical firms give time-of-use rates that reward EV proprietors for demanding their automobiles during off-peak hrs. A few prominent EV fire crashes led to problem amongst car purchasers, however many EVs have actually progressed safety components.
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Ah, the antibiotic resistance problem again. Yes, we know that antibiotic overuse-both in humans and in agriculture, contributes. This is not surprising. But how does our built environment contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance genes? The built environment is a perfect place for host and environmental microbes to collide and share gene, including antibiotic resistance genes. Wastewater treatment plants are a particularly good meeting point for microbial gene sharing.
Wastewater treatment plants are not a new topic in the antibiotic resistance field-they have been studied before, and antibiotic resistance genes have been identified in them before. However, a 2013 PLoS One study is a bit different in terms of the frightening amount of antibiotic resistance genes identified and the capacity for horizontal gene transfer among the bacterial species present.
The authors of the study profiled 93 bacterial strains isolated from the Patancheru Environment Technology Limited (PETL) wastewater treatment plant in India, which receives water effluent from 90 bulk drug manufacturers. The treated effluent contains alarmingly high levels (up to 30mg/L) of antibiotics such as norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin, among others. A whopping 86% of bacterial strains were resistant to 20 or more antibiotics, as Figure 1 from the paper illustrates:
Additionally, class 1 and 2 integrons (genetic elements that promote horizontal gene transfer) were detected in 80% and 95% of bacterial strains, respectively. qPCR confirmed an unprecedented high level of integrons among the strains isolated from the treatment plant. These results are particularly troubling, especially considering another study, which has shown that river sediment contaminated by effluent from this same wastewater treatment plant harbored bacteria with resistance genes to several classes of antibiotics.
Like other studies that have extrapolated and inferred the spread of antibiotic resistance in wastewater communities, the results of this study will be refined and confirmed by detecting and demonstrating active horizontal gene transfer between bacterial members of the resident sludge microbial community. Nevertheless, the amount of antibiotic resistance and the level of the potential for horizontal gene transfer in the PETL wastewater treatment plant are sobering realities that must not be ignored.
4 thoughts on “Frightening Levels of Antibiotic Resistance and Capacity for Horizontal Gene Transfer Reported in a Wastewater Treatment Plant”
Also see this news story and associated paper
News: “Recycled water may flood urban parks with dangerous germs” https://www.sciencenews.org/article/recycled-water-may-flood-urban-parks-dangerous-germs
Paper: High Throughput Profiling of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Urban Park Soils with Reclaimed Water Irrigation http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es502615e
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not already occurred. Additionally, there have been more than a dozen seizures of SNM from Russia and surrounding countries since the early 1990s. Most of the seized materials are thought to have been smuggled from Russian civilian nuclear sites.
Stocks of SNM also could be produced clandestinely, either through enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to recover plutonium. Uranium enrichment is equipment intensive and time consuming, and detection is increasingly likely as the scale of operations is increased. A small-scale program could potentially be hidden through careful facility design, however, and could, in principle, produce sufficient material for a weapon if operated for several years. Reprocessing to recover plutonium also can be carried out in small, difficult-to-detect facilities but requires access to irradiated reactor fuel. Any country with a research reactor has potential access to such fuel, and there are, in addition, large stocks of spent fuel in power reactors in countries of the former Soviet Union and also in foreign research reactors, some of which still operate with HEU. Clandestine production of SNM by states or terrorist groups for use against the United States represents a significant near-term threat to homeland security.
The threats considered here include attacks on nuclear power plants (both commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) and research reactors), their spent fuel storage facilities, and spent fuel transportation casks; detonation of conventional explosive devices packed with radioactive materials, so-called “dirty bombs;” and the surreptitious placement of radiation sources in places frequented by large numbers of the public. Attacks on DOE-owned nuclear facilities were not considered because these are generally considered to be hardened and well protected.
The United States has 103 operating civilian nuclear power reactors at 65 sites that generate about 20 percent of the U.S. electrical supply (USNRC, 2002; EIA, 2002). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) regulates NPPs and has had a long-standing concern about security and safeguards. The agency’s security and safeguards regulations are extensive and actively enforced.
The USNRC requires that NPPs be protected against a “design basis threat,” defined at present to involve a ground attack by a group consisting of several armed terrorists aided by an inside collaborator.4 NPPs are required to train their
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People and businesses leverage when an economy expands over an extended period of time. The last major period of leveraging in the United States occurred over the past fifty years beginning in the early 1960s. This was a period of sustained credit inflation that resulted in an 85% decline in the purchasing power of the dollar.
People and businesses de-leverage when the economy reaches an unsustainable level of debt and that de-leveraging can take a substantial period of time.
Research by Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute and her husband Vincent Reinhart of the American Enterprise Institute has suggested that “excessive debt could be corrected only by a long period of deleveraging.” (See the article “Running Out of Road” in the June 18, 2011 copy of The Economist, pages 77-78.)
De-leveraging also means, in aggregate, that increases in lending (debt creation) will not become too buoyant during the restructuring of balance sheets.
Consequently, de-leveraging will tend to reduce the multiplier effect of any fiscal stimulus program and the creation of more debt through fiscal stimulus will only add an additional burden on the economy that is trying to get its balance sheet back under control.
The desperate hope to counter this de-leveraging is to flood the financial markets with liquidity and pray that the printing of money will somehow stop the de-leveraging and make debt acceptable once again. Hence, QE2!
A caveat here: there are a number of large companies that came out of the Great Recession with their balance sheets well in hand. For example, Microsoft was one of these companies. Many of these companies have issued debt over the past year or so to build up cash reserves to acquire other companies that have been overleveraged and are not in such good financial shape. This generally represents a separation in the market between large organizations and all others.
Thus, the only way this de-leveraging will be overcome is by reducing the real value of the debt through a period of credit inflation like the one experienced over the past fifty years. Otherwise, the debt levels are not sustainable. Efforts to bail out the people, businesses, and governments that have issued too much debt will only postpone the problem. The debt levels will have to be reduced sometime…now or in the future.
The debt loads that people, businesses, and governments are carrying seem to be un-sustainable, even with the very, very loose monetary policy. For example, household liabilities have declined by a little more than $600 billion since the recession began in December 2007, but the total amount of household debt still totals a little more than appeared on the household balance sheets in the second quarter of 2007.
Household debt at the start of 2011 is almost double the amount of household debt that existed at the start of the year 2000. This represents a compound rate of increase of more than 8 percent per year. One could argue that this rate of increase is not sustainable given that over the long haul the real economy grows only slightly more than 3 percent per year.
Total business debt shows roughly the same pattern. This debt has declined by a little more than $160 billion from the start of the recession to the first quarter of 2011. However, the current total is around the same level it was in the third quarter of 2008 indicating that in total, businesses have not accomplished a great deal of de-leveraging to this point.
And, the debt problem is also entangled with the ability of people and businesses to unravel their situations through foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings. Foreclosures take time. If people or businesses are in foreclosure but these foreclosure proceedings take longer and longer to work out, the economic units involved in the proceedings will be more or less relegated to the sidelines in terms of any additional borrowing or spending.An instructive article appeared on the front page of the New York Times yesterday. (“Backlog of Cases Gives a Reprieve on Foreclosures,” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/business/19foreclosure.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=foreclosure&st=cse.) “In New York State, it would take lenders 62 years at their current pace, the longest time frame in the nation, to repossess the 213,000 houses now in severe default or foreclosure, according to calculations by LPS Applied Analytics, a prominent real estate data firm.
Clearing the pipeline in New Jersey, which like New York handles foreclosures through the courts, would take 49 years. In Florida, Massachusetts and Illinois, it would take a decade.“
And, this problem is not easing. In May 2011, total foreclosures in the United States totaled 1,736,724. Six months earlier the total was 1,682,499. And the number of sales has declined reflecting the back up in the whole foreclosure process.
Personal bankruptcies are down but are still running near record rates of 1,450,000 to 1,500,000 per year. In 2010 there were only 56,425 business bankruptcies, down from 60,851 in 2009. For the first three months of 2011, business bankruptcies are running around a 50,000 annual rate, far above the figures for the rest of the 2000s.
And, this doesn’t even get into the problems connected with the debt of state and local governments.
Debt loads must be reduced sometime…in one way or another. People, businesses, and governments are still carrying too much debt. And, more and more federal government debt does not really help the situation. A good portion of the debt must be repaid.
This is the drag on the economy. And, until a lot of this load is worked off…in one way or another…economic growth will remain weak.
Why hasn’t this gotten the notice it should in all the discussions going on?
Because almost all of the economic models used to predict economic activity do not contain information on debt levels and leverage. The reason is that debt levels and leverage levels are quite subjective over time and depend upon what governments are doing and what people believe to be acceptable. These decisions vary from cycle to cycle and are extremely hard to model. Furthermore, as the Reinhart’s have argued, there has not been a sufficient amount of data available to adequately study the influence of debt on economic activity.
My conclusion from this information is that the major problem facing the western countries now is that there is too much debt outstanding.
And, when I look at how the system is working off this debt I can only conclude that there is still a long way to go before people, businesses, and government get to levels of debt that are sustainable. Even QE2 does not seem to be shaking these economic units from their desire to rebalance their balance sheets. There is just too much debt still in the system and it doesn’t need more.
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Nutritional Counseling for Teens at Pediatric Dental Visit
Pediatric dental professionals love a healthy set of teeth, especially when those teeth belong to their patients. There is a sense of pride that a pediatric dentist feels when these young patients grow into young adults with good teeth and great oral habits. From a young age, a child should learn how to take care of themselves. Children should learn about stranger danger, how to cross the road, how to interact with others and just as important, how to eat right. A child who sees a pediatric dentist gets to learn about good nutrition. Chances are that the dentist taught them about good food from an early age.
Pediatric dental visits and nutritional counseling for children
Pediatric dental professionals teach patients about nutrition in an incremental manner. Dentists teach toddlers about good and bad foods using colorful learning aids and fun little songs. As the toddler gets older, the dentist will change tactics by appealing to the independent streak in the patients. The dentist will give the seven or eight-year-old the responsibility of tracking what they eat, ‘like a grown-up’. The dentist will also make cool associations by encouraging the child to take care of teeth like a favorite superhero or cartoon character.
By the time the child is a pre-teen, they will have good oral habits with the guidance of the pediatric dentist and reinforcement from parents. At this point, the dentist will change gears and prepare the child for the teenage years. The dentists will teach the patient to make good decisions even as parents take a step back.
Nutritional counseling for teens
Nutritional counseling is one aspect of preventative dentistry. For teenagers, counseling introduces good nutrition or reinforces the oral habits that the patient learned in earlier years. Good nutrition is a huge part of good oral habits and good oral habits keep the teeth from avoidable dental procedures.
A pediatric dentist knows how to reach teenagers. The dentist will frame nutritional counseling as lifestyle choices that will benefit the teen. The dentist will advise the patient to limit sugar because less sugar is good for the teeth and the entire body. This is something an image-conscious teen will take to heart. The dentist will also remind the teen that oral health is up to them now and will have to make regular dentist appointments. Since teenagers look forward to being independent, they may very well associate good nutrition with autonomy.
Talk to a pediatric dental professional
A pediatric dentist has many approaches to nutritional counseling for teens. Pediatric dentists customize their approach to match the personality of each teenage patient. This is just one of the many reasons that parents should make the effort to find a good and caring pediatric dental professional.
Call and make an appointment. Bring your teen along when you come. You will love how the dentist builds a rapport with your kid. Soon, your child will be taking in information that will serve them well for the rest of their life.
Request an appointment here: https://www.littleteethbigsmiles.com or call Fara Bender DMD PA at (561) 763-9218 for an appointment in our Lake Worth office.
Check out what others are saying about our dental services on Yelp: Pediatric Dentist in Lake Worth, FL.
Pediatric dentistry stresses the importance of keeping your child's teeth clean from birth. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry advises that parents clean their baby's teeth as soon as they erupt, as tooth decay can start as soon as teeth come in.Use a soft, wet cloth or a very small, soft-bristled toothbrush to clean baby…
Your child should see a pediatric dentist at an early age, ideally when they start to teeth. The aim is to have the dentist track the growth and development of their entire oral cavity. Regular visits enable the kids’ dentist to monitor the child as they hit different developmental milestones. The dentist also gets to…
Pediatric dentists treat children who still have their baby teeth. Part of ensuring children can prevent oral health concerns at a young age includes teaching patients how to help their children brush and floss daily. This review discusses how parents can care for their child’s baby teeth between visits with their pediatric dentist.Four key tips…
We are committed to providing quality service to residents located In the Lake Worth, FL area. Our website has additional information about the following topics: Pediatric Dentist, Pediatric Dentist Near Me, Pediatric Dentistry, Dentist For Kids, Kid Friendly Dentist, Children's Dentist, Dentist For Children, Dental Checkup For Kids, Baby Root Canals and Kids Dental Crowns.
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Date: Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Time: 9:30 am - 11:30 am
Written for a variety of weights, these scary monsters are just the thing for learning how to knit in the round on dpns! Students must print and bring their own pattern: find it here on Ravelry!
Skills Required: Basic knitting skills required. Must know how to cast on and knit!
Techniques Taught: Circular knitting on dpns, shaping, Kitchener/grafting.
Materials: Wool available at LYS. Bring a variety of sizes of Double Pointed Needles (suggested range US#7 - US #11).
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Ralph Nader once said: “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” The problem is, this is easier said than done.
Effective leaders inspire teams to collaborate in decision-making. This means choosing the best courses of action and integrating the ideas from your various team members. But the process for group decision-making can be flawed.
The problem is that leaders, when trying to promote leadership skills and individuality, can instead produce a mass of followers. And followers rarely innovate or take charge of a situation.
We call this groupthink. As a leader, it is important to recognize how it happens and how to move your team away from groupthink.
What is groupthink?
The term Groupthink was first used in 1972 by social psychologist Irving L. Janis. It occurs when a team seeks a consensus instead of an accurate analysis and critical evaluation.
According to Janis, groupthink is detrimental to effective decision-making in that “concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.” In layperson terms, groupthink causes people to follow the leader unquestioningly, sometimes without knowing it.
The key benefits of collaborative teamwork fall away when groupthink occurs. When a team pursues cohesiveness, individual creativity and independent thinking can get lost. This is especially true during times of intense pressure and time limitations. And groupthink can have disastrous consequences.
You can see examples of groupthink in political, policy and business decisions. Take, for example, the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, and the Enron-Arthur Anderson Scandal. All of these could have been avoided if groupthink had been minimized.
You need strong, self-aware leadership to recognize the symptoms of groupthink. Here are some things to watch out for:
1. Group cohesiveness decreases the amount of verbal dissension. When a group is tight, there is interpersonal pressure to conform.
2. Group isolation creates group insulation from criticism. In many cases, group decisions have to be a secret. But without outside opinions, things can spiral out of control quickly.
3. Directive leadership (aka leader intimidation) happens when you have a powerful and charismatic leader. This can be hard to say “no” to.
4. Decision-making stressors (like extreme stress or limited time) can increase the possibility of groupthink. During times of high pressure, everyone may have some level of insecurity. To make things feel less insecure, people are more apt to try to reach an easy decision with little disagreement that everyone can get behind.
5. Lack of methodical procedures can oftentimes lead to disorganization and, ultimately, conforming to a decision too quickly.
6. Homogeneity in members’ backgrounds can result in similar opinions and pressure to avoid disturbing information agreed upon by the group.
8 signs of groupthink
Here are the eight main symptoms of groupthink to watch when making decisions, according to Irving Janis and Leon Mann:
1. Illusion of invulnerability causes group members to be too optimistic and therefore engage in aggressive risk-taking.
2. Collective rationalization prevents individuals from questioning beliefs and causes them to ignore warning signs.
3. Illusion of morality leads members to lose their individual beliefs in morality. The group decision supersedes any individual sense of right or wrong.
4. Excessive stereotyping alienates members who may oppose or challenge the group’s ideas. Lead members of the in-group can ignore or call out non-group members as outsiders.
5. Pressure for conformity is put on members who may pose questions or doubts. Those who question the group as a whole are seen as disloyal or traitorous.
6. Self-censorship happens when individual doubts are kept hidden for fear of group disagreement.
7. Illusion of unanimity leads people to believe that everyone agrees.
8. Mindguards are self-appointed censors that hide problematic information from the team.
How to avoid groupthink
Leaders have the power to influence a team to effectively work towards their goals.
Understanding and recognizing groupthink allows a strong leader to prevent groupthink or move their team away from it. If you foster an environment that gives team members the opportunity to express individual ideas as well as argue against proposed ideas, you’ll be able to triumph over groupthink.
Here are some actionable, easy-to-implement ideas:
1. When assigning tasks, avoid stating your opinions or preferences. Rather, give members time to come up with their own ideas first.
2. Assign at least one member to play the part of “devil’s advocate,” or “critical evaluator.” This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts. This can be a different person for each meeting. Studies show that teams using devil’s advocacy outperformed teams that didn’t.
3. Encourage the team to get to the heart of a problem and make the best decision possible.
4. Use the Six Thinking Hats approach. Consider all effective alternatives. Promote mental flexibility to determine strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots.
5. Discuss group decisions with an outside member to gather impartial opinions, or have the group invite outside experts to meetings. Cynthia Smith wrote, “When an expert is present, groups with directive leaders make better decisions than groups with non-directive leaders.”
6. Foster constructive criticism between members.
7. Minimize being present in group meetings to avoid overly influencing decisions.
8. Avoid immediately criticizing other ideas and insulting team members.
9. Encourage diversity. Research indicates that when there are many sources of diversity within a team, it becomes difficult for team members to form homogeneous subgroups.
Great leadership encourages a diversity of viewpoints to provide alternative courses of action. By maintaining a healthy atmosphere for divergent thinking, you will steer your team away from groupthink.
So burst that bubble and create more leaders instead of followers.
Charles Knippen is the president of The National Society of Leadership and Success (The NSLS), a leadership honor society that includes over 700,000 members across 500 campuses.
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In her poem, In which certain Slant of light, Emily Dickinson uses metaphors and imagery to share the feeling of solemnity and despair in winter’s the twilight series. The inclined light that she sees, is a metaphor for her battle with depression. Anyone who is familiar with Dickinson’s background may have a better comprehension of what she actually is trying to state in this poem. Dickinson was known as a otage and put in most of her life isolated from the outside community.
The few-people that she did are exposed to over the years happen to be said to have had a major effect on her poems. Although, her main day job of her work seems to be despair and internal issue.
What’s interesting about the poem is the fact Dickinson uses metaphors to explain depression, along with religion. It really is clear the poet expects to highlight the light in the afternoon with its heaviness and solemnity. The time of year that the poet is describing is winter, while the time of day can be twilight, or the afternoon, because said inside the poem.
Often times, and exactly how I’ve interpreted it, the season, plus the time of day can be considered a metaphor intended for death. In Dickinson’s, You will find a certain Slant of light, the lady used a metered rhyming scheme that follows the routine of ABCB. Since the poem uses rhyming, it’s closed form. You will discover four stanzas that almost have a hymn-like rhythm. It’s not clear if that was deliberate or not really due the religious metaphors within the stanzas.
Dickinson applied trochaic and iambic meters through out the poem. In addition, she used anxious and unstressed syllables. The opening brand of the composition, states it and at the same time, presents what the composition is essentially regarding. The poet goes on to admit the winter mild, which slants in through the windows, weighs upon the speakers heart like “the Heft of Cathedral songs. ” Bodily organs, with their multiple pipes, reach ears and fill Cathedrals with a audio that often leaves you with a feeling of unwanted solemnity and grandiosity. This could leave guests with a tough feeling that lays heavy in their becoming.
The image of winter, as well as the organ music, adds gloom to the poem. There’s a feeling of anguish that the presenter is feeling and you think that a certain slant of light might connote expect, but not also sunshine on a winter evening could deliver happiness into the speaker’s your life. Winter alone is a symbol of loss of life and decay, opposed to summer, which is seen as a sunshine and joy. Such as the Cathedral songs, the light will remind her of desolation. The impression of hopelessness is transported into an auditory feeling, which is where organs are available in. The word “heft” has two meanings, weight and significance. It can refer to the tall tunes, as well as the speaker getting weighed down by despair.
In the second stanza, the sunshine oppresses her soul; it offers her a “Heavenly Injure. ” The expertise of slanted light is a metaphor for tips and how it feels to experience despression symptoms. This kind of heavenly hurt leaves no scratch behind, but it really creates an internal difference that brings a change in demeanor. The term “Heavenly Hurt” brings together a sensation of elation and the reality of what the audio is feeling. The stabreim of this expression is used while an emphasis.
In the third stanza, the first two lines happen to be, ” None may train it – Any – ‘Tis the Seal Despair -” This can be saying that no-one is able to teach us what death seems like. We can get ready for it, in the sense of whatever we believe should come after, however the actual physical and mental feeling is not known. Death is extremely unpredictable in the way that we how to start how our lives will end, but is actually on everybody’s mind. Inside the line, An imperial problem, Sent all of us of the Surroundings – (11-12) the audio has made a connection with the winter months light, the “Heavenly Hurt”, and the a sense of internal difference and give up hope. In Dickinson’s poem, an imperial affliction is a metaphor for an all-encompassing lose hope that comes from mid-air. Whenever we possess a strong feeling, like joy, we tend to see the world around us in a brighter lumination and over every it makes us experience joyful. If we’re feeling down, like the speaker with this poem, we come across the world as how we truly feel inside; things look unpleasant, and grey and dismal. Jooxie is unable to get a ray of hope that is coming through the window in the form of sunshine.
In the fourth stanza, when death, or “it” as the speaker cell phone calls it, comes everything listens. When an individual dies, those still with this earth occasionally experience stillness in character, as if the world is in hold and listening to us. In Dickinson’s poem the stillness originates from the slant of light, plus the landscape and shadows listen closely and figuratively hold their very own breath. The landscape and shadows happen to be personified from this stanza. The capitalization of “Landscape” and “Shadows” shows the impression which the speaker can be referring to someone she understands. The feeling here alterations quite a bit compared to the first three stanzas on this poem. You obtain a sense of anticipation instead of despair, plus the oppression that the speaker offers felt has lifted now she’s feeling light and maybe some what alluring. Inside the final two lines from the poem, the poet uses sort of a morbid imagery.
“When it goes, ’tis like the Range, On the look of Fatality. ” (15-16) Dead individuals have a distant look to these people since the your life in their becoming is gone somewhere else. We likewise see the exit of winter season light by so doing in the same distant approach we might find some fatalities. Death is usually mysterious to people on earth, just as the sun in the cardiovascular system of winter season is. The day is blanketed in dark areas due to the sun’s proximity to earth in this season, so that as it units, it’s a gradual process, that sometimes leaves the world idling, much like death. The dash at the end serves as emphasis that a period wouldn’t spoke of. As readers, we’re left with no definitive answers in regards to the light or the speaker’s inner despair. Dickinson almost do this intentional in a manner that the reader may well feel the same despair or oppression on the outcome in the poem, and also the “light” may leave us having a feeling of enlightenment and expect.
At the end of this poem, jooxie is left with a sensation of despair, that Dickinson nearly made intentional in order for someone to better learn how the loudspeaker feels since the light breaks through the glass windows on winter afternoons. Emily Dickinson’s make use of imagery and metaphors highlights her struggle with depression and isolation.
Which certain Slant of light (about 1861)
Which certain Slant of light
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tracks –
Divine Hurt, it gives us –
We could find no scratch
Yet internal Difference
Where Meanings, will be –
None of them may educate it – Any –
‘Tis the Seal off Dispair –
An imperial problem
Dispatched us from the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their particular breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
For the look of Death –
Works Reported Page
Kennedy, Times. J.. An introduction to poems. Boston: Small, Brown, 1966. Print.
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Stuart Ashton works at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, Louisiana – one of the two LIGO observatories which made the first detection of gravitational waves, the ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein. Stuart is an opto-mechanical engineer in the Detector Engineering group at Livingston, whose goal it is to maintain the maximum quality up-time for the detector, so that LIGO may accomplish its scientific objective, to discover and observe gravitational waves from distant astrophysical sources.
Stuart completed his Ph.D in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2010. He developed sensors and actuators that are employed in the Advanced LIGO suspensions. Whilst working for Caltech and situated at the LIGO Livingston Observatory, Stuart supported the assembly and installation effort and was responsible for the testing of the Advanced LIGO suspensions.
LIVE On Sunday on the Lovell Stage, Professor Tim O’Brien will be talking live to Dr Stuart Aston at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, Louisiana. In February 2016, the LIGO observatory announced the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves – the ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein and in this case arising from the collision of two black holes over one billion years ago. This remarkable discovery marks the opening of a major new window on our study of the Universe.
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Scientific name: Trichogaster trichopterus
Also known as the Blue Gourami, the Three-Spot Gourami can reach four inches and is very peaceful. There is a great deal of color and pattern variation within this species; some have even lost the spots that inspired its common name. It is perfect for beginners and does well in community tanks even when small fish are present.
A water temperature between 72º and 82º Fahrenheit, a pH in the range of 6.0 to 8.5, and soft to relatively hard water are fine for this species. The Three-Spot Gourami consumes all flake and freeze-dried foods.
To learn more about freshwater aquariums, see:
- Aquarium Basics
- How to Choose Aquarium Equipment
- How to Set Up an Aquarium
- How to Maintain an Aquarium
- How to Choose Aquarium Fish
- How to Care for Aquarium Fish
- Freshwater Aquarium Fish
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Exercise was as effective or more so in lowering mortality for some conditions.
Modern medical research may not detect the most effective therapy for some diseases. Researchers analyzed data from 300 studies to see if exercise interventions were as effective as drugs. They found there was no significant difference between the two treatments for mortality from coronary heart disease or prediabetes. Exercise beat drugs hands down in stroke rehabilitation.
PositiveTip: Make physical activity a part of your routine everyday. (If you have questions, talk with your physician.)
Clinical antioxidant trials have shown increased risk of cancer with supplementation.
The wide use of supplements (50% of U.S. population), fueled by marketing-oriented claims of many benefits, may actually increase the risks of cancer according to a review of many studies. In the face of the abscence of convincing evidence that more is better in nutrient-adequate populations, especially for cancer, the authors called for more education from the scientific community and more regulatory vigilance.
PositiveTip: Healthy food choices are the best way to support health and reduce the risk of disease.
Disease outbreaks are 150 times higher with raw milk.
The interstate distribution and sale of non-pasteurized dairy products has been prohibited in the United States since 1987. However, each state regulates the sale of dairy products produced within its borders, and some states permit the sale of raw milk. In a review of all disease outbreaks between 1993-2006, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers have found that the rate of dairy-associated outbreaks is almost 150 times higher from unpasteurized products than from pasteurized milk. Sixty percent of those sickened were people under 20 years old.
PositiveTip: Consuming food products made from raw milk should not be considered safe under any circumstances.
For thousands of years humans have fallen to the illnesses served up by nature's villains. Infectious disease such as bubonic plague, malaria and tuberculosis have killed millions. But the tables have turned -- we are now killing ourselves at a higher rate than nature is killing us.
The World Health Organization reveals this in the Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases. Each year, of the 57 million deaths in the world, 63% (36 million) are now from self-inflicted causes. Four specific risk factors were identified: (1) tobacco, (2) alcohol, (3) lack of exercise, and (4) poor eating habits.
Around the world, one billion adults are overweight. This will rise to 1.5 billion by 2015. Of children under 5 years of age, 40 million are overweight or obese.
US Surgeon General reports there is NO risk-free level of smoking.
The U.S. Surgeon General has just released How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease, exploring how smoking is responsible for nearly one in every five deaths and costs almost $200 billion in health expenditures and lost productivity per year. The principal message of the report is:
- There is NO risk-free level of exposure to tobacco smoke.
- Smoking leads to DNA damage, bonding of carcinogens to DNA, and cancer growth.
- Smoking damages the delicate lining of the arteries leading to cardiovascular events.
PositiveTip: Stopping smoking is the only way to lessen the severity of tobacco smoke damage.
Americans on average eat less than one-third the recommended amounts of whole grains!
According to the Whole Grains Council, Americans average less than one serving of whole grains per day, falling far short of the three or more ounces recommended daily in the 2005 US Dietary Guidelines. You can learn about the many health benefits, food labeling issues, and serving sizes at Whole Grains 101--a plethora of easy to understand information.
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"A small Christian community is a face-to-face gathering of six to twelve people who invest time with one another for the common purpose of applying Gospel values to every aspect of their lives."
-Small Christian Communities: A Vision of Hope for the 21st Century
Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
The call to gather in prayer and pray for personal and communal needs comes from Jesus himself. His desire was that the disciples in his age and beyond would come together in his name so to fulfill his mission of spreading the good news and baptizing all in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
There Are Many Names for Small Christian Communities
Small communities may be referred to by the following names: Small Christian Community (SCC), Small Faith Community (SFC), Small Church Community, Faith Reflection Group, Base or Basic Community, Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC), and Comunidades Eclesiales de Base in Spanish.
Parish-based Small Christian Communities
While there are many forms of Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in North America, and indeed throughout the world today, parish-based small communities are the most numerous. The following is an overview of what they are and what they do.
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Climate change (i.e., “global warming”) is here, likely to stay, and will most likely get significantly worse within the next 30 years, according to a leading report released by a panel of United Nations (UN) experts (Allen et al., 2018). This report’s essential take away is this: As the Earth warms, climate systems become unstable and ultimately cause adverse impacts to human health through a variety of natural and human mediated systems. Unfortunately, reports conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA; Clayton, Manning, Krygsman, & Speiser, 2017), United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP; Dodgen et al., 2016) and the UN (Allen et al., 2018) indicate that these adverse health outcomes are more likely to occur within marginalized communities. Although counseling psychology’s commitment to social justice has often led the field to address other issues facing marginalized communities, counseling psychology’s capacity to contribute to the conversation on climate change as a social justice is ripe for development. While public concern and awareness toward climate change has been substantially increasing over time (Jones & Saad, 2017), climate change has yet to be explicitly discussed in the counseling psychology literature. This begs the question: what does climate change have to do with counseling psychology?
The turn of the decade (2009-2011) was a busy time for the APA in regard to understanding and addressing climate change. In 2008, an APA task force on and global climate change released a report entitled, Psychology & global climate change: Addressing a multifaceted phenomenon and set of challenges (Swim, et al, 2009). The American Psychologist ran a special issue in 2011 on psychologist’s contributions to global climate change efforts, which provided a strong foundation for better understanding the psychological principles present in climate change. In tandem with the special issue, the APA released a Resolution on Affirming Psychologists Role in Addressing Global Climate Change that (re)affirmed psychology’s role in addressing behavioral contributions to climate change and recognized that global climate change affects those who are underprivileged and disenfranchised (American Psychological Association, 2011). These publications, followed by the release of the updated UN climate change reports in 2018, provide a strong foundation for the importance of climate change within psychology and the relationship between health, climate change, and marginalized communities.
So, it turns out that climate change actually has a lot to do with counseling psychology, despite it being an issue that lives in the periphery of our awareness. The reports named above (Allen et al., 2018; Clayton et al., 2017; Dodgen et al, 2016) provide strong support for the contention that marginalized communities experience negative outcomes in physical and mental health. Specifically, they find that the impacts to physical health occur along three pathways: extreme weather (e.g., natural disaster, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and fires), natural systems (e.g., vector-born disease, food and water infections, nutrition and demised air quality), and anthropogenic systems (e.g., occupational hazard, and violence and conflict). Adverse mental health outcomes can be direct such as trauma, shock, loss, and grief or indirect such as increases in aggression, violence, and mental health emergencies; solostalgia (i.e., loss of place attachment); loss of autonomy and control; helplessness; depression; fear; resignation; and eco-anxiety. Although these physical and mental health impacts occur within non-marginalized communities, research suggests that they are more likely to have greater impact to marginalized communities.
Indeed, although climate change impacts everyone, an insidious characteristic is that the negative outcomes are more likely to be distributed among many different communities (Allen et al., 2018). For example, longitudinal survey data following Hurricane Katrina found that adverse health outcomes were significantly greater among African Americans, older adults, women, single adults, those with fewer years of education, and with fewer social supports when compared to the general population (Adeolo & Picou, 2014; Picou & Hudson, 2010). However, when considering the broad-spectrum of climate change, the list of marginalized communities commonly discussed in the literature grows significantly and often includes: children and older adults; women; African Americans; individuals in a lower socioeconomic group; those with developmental or acquired disability; individuals with pre-existing mental and physical health conditions; indigenous communities; immigrant communities; those with limited language proficiency for their current location; and communities in geographic regions prone to specific weather changes. Clearly, climate change is an issue that places a greater burden among a large portion of (if not all) marginalized populations.
Fortunately, counseling psychology has worked to balance the injustices found in many complex dilemmas facing marginalized communities. One must simply recall our intro to counseling psychology course, peruse The Handbook of Social Justice in Counseling Psychology (Toperek, Gerstein, Fouad, & Roysicar, 2006), or grab coffee with a member of the field to learn about a plethora of examples, a discussion beyond the limit and scope of this article. Despite counseling psychology’s historical commitment to addressing injustice within marginalized communities, we do not know how, or if, counseling psychology will work to address those issues posed by climate change. Further research is needed to better understand what counseling psychologist’s think about climate change and if they believe it should be addressed within the field.
Currently, we are conducting a qualitative study to better understand the topic discussed in this article. If you would like to lend your voice to this conversation, have any questions, or would like additional information, please feel free to email at Phil Schulte at email@example.com.
Philip Schulte is a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program at Radford University.
To download the PDF version of this document, click here:
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Dialysis is the common method to treat Kidney Failure (Renal Failure). Most patients with kidney disease have taken dialysis and known about this treatment. However, many patients don' t know dialysis isn't a treatment for Kidney Failure. Dialysis will sustain our lives, but will they do some side effects or harms to people?
1. Long-term dialysis increases the difficulties for treatment. The original
normal kidney function may gradually lose function completely.
2. Systemic organs are damaged obviously and that is irreversible.
3. Severe complications may emerge after dialysis, and the patients will have
a low-quality life and shorter life span.
4. Hypophosphatemia. For patients with drug intoxication, they don't have
high phosphorus, while there is no phosphorus in dialysate, so hypophosphatemia
will occur. If the condition is serious, respiratory insufficiency may occur.
Therefore, phosphorus should be added in dialysate to make the phosphorus
content be 1.3mmol/L so as to prevent hypophosphatemia.
5. Alkalosis. Quantities of Basic Groups can be found in dialysis to correct
metabolic acidosis. For some patients with drug intoxication that may need
dialysis, they don't have acidosis; therefore, patients may have alkalosis and
feel nausea, headache and weakness. The serious ones may have cardiac disorders
and even die suddenly.
6. Imbalance syndrome. Generally, detoxification therapy chooses conventional
dialyzer. If high efficient dialyzer is used, imbalance syndrome will occur.
But, except for dialysis and kidney transplant, is there any other treatments
for renal failure? Fortunately, immunotherapy is a new option for renal failure treatment instead of kidney transplant and dialysis in China.
It has its characteristic therapy to treat
kidney disease---Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy and Immunotherapy. This
therapy can control the occurrence of complications. Characteristic and pure
Chinese medicine can act on kidney lesion directly by penetration therapy in
vitro. The active substances in Chinese medicine can expand blood vessels and
provide blood and oxygen for the damaged cells by increasing effective systemic
perfusion. Therefore, it can relieve the state of ischemia and hypoxia and
reduce the continuous damage to renal cells.
Kidney disease itself is not terrible, what terrible are complications it
causes. Patients need to choose the correct treatment. Hope what mentioned above
is helpful. If you want to know more about dialysis or the treatment in our
hospital, you can consult us or send emails. We will do our best to help
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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
Exercise is good for you. Antioxidants are good for you. But put them together and it’s not as good as you’d think. Because a recent study shows that some vitamins block the beneficial effects of exercise.
A good workout not only gets your heart pumping, it makes your body better able to process glucose and decreases your risk of diabetes. And it does so, in part, by firing up your cells’ mitochondria. Stoking those mitochondrial flames boosts your metabolism. But it also throws off so-called free radicals, which are usually considered harmful. So adding antioxidants—which get rid of free radicals—should make your workout even healthier, right?
Well, no. Forty men took part in a four-week training program. Half the group also received daily doses of Vitamins C and E. The researchers discovered that exercise on its own improves insulin sensitivity, which keeps diabetes at bay. But taking the vitamins erased that gain—findings that appear in the May 12th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So you actually need a burst of potentially damaging radicals to reap some of the important rewards of a good sweat. Which means that even on a molecular level: no pain, no gain.
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Definition of Subsidiary Ledger
A subsidiary ledger contains the details to support a general ledger control account. For instance, the subsidiary ledger for accounts receivable contains the information for each of the company's credit sales to customers, each customer's remittance, return of merchandise, discounts, and so on. With these details in the subsidiary ledger, the Accounts Receivable account in the general ledger can report summary amounts for the accounts receivable activity.
Examples of Subsidiary Ledgers
By having the details of the accounts receivable activity in a subsidiary ledger, employees in a company's credit department of a company can access the credit sales information without having access to any information in the general ledger.
In job order costing systems, the job cost sheets (or job cost records) will serve as the subsidiary ledger containing the details for the general ledger account Work in Process. The Work in Process account will now be a control account containing summary amounts for direct materials, direct labor, factory overhead applied, transfers to finished goods, etc. Manufacturing personnel will have full access to the job cost sheets without having access to other information in the general ledger.
Since companies are integrating accounting records with their other information into one database, I assume there will be less use of the term subsidiary ledgers in the future. There will likely be reports generated to provide the information formerly contained in the subsidiary ledger.
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Patrick Marks kindly sent us these excellent photos of an unusual orchid which has been growing in the Lade Braes for several years. The Broad-leaved Helleborine (Epipactis Helleborine) is rarely found in Fife but is common further west and in England. Patrick says that this example is the first record of this plant in St Andrews! It normally flowers in late July but may not flower every year.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust is conducting a survey of red squirrel sightings to monitor the decline of this native species due to encroachment by the American grey squirrel. Some grey squirrels can look quite brown in places but red squirrels are easily identified by their long ear tufts. If you see a red squirrel, please report it to the SWT here.
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Current Page Path
MLibrary Browse results for Subject Encyclopedias in Databases
1 - 167 of 167
- Africa Yearbook Online
Covers major domestic political developments, the foreign policy and socio-economic trends in sub-Sahara Africa
- Africa: An Encyclopedia for Students
Based on the scholarship in the acclaimed Encyclopedia of Africa, aimed at college and graduate students, this work presents Africa, ...
- Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World
This encyclopedia explores the many peoples of early European civilizations responsible for such accomplishments as the rise of farming ...
- Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians
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I have had a few clients with Selective Mutism. Selective Mutism is a condition in which the child is fully capable of speaking but only does so in selective instances. Most of the children with this condition (it can linger into adulthood also) will speak to their immediate families but will not speak in public. It is not clear what the root cause of this disorder may be. It is not simply a stubborn or willful child. It seems more a problem with extreme anxiety and at times shares similarities with a fluency disorder. I have seen the children appear as if their lips were glued together at times, tight yet with a tremor that suggests they are attempting to speak but cannot.
I am not an expert on Selective Mutism, but here are some basic treatment principles I have gleaned from my research on this disorder:
1. Always present to the child an expectation that they will eventually speak, when they are ready.
2. Do not coax, bribe, reward, threaten, or punish the child for speech or non-speech.
3. When a child does speak, suppress your excitement. Calling attention to the speech may cause the child to shut down again.
4. Do not whisper about the child with parents or other adults. This may increase the child's anxiety and cause them to think they have a serious illness or something to be ashamed of.
5. Accept the child where he is and give him tools to increase participation. I teach the use of gestures, signs, PECS, drawing, and writing. I learned quickly with children who have Apraxia, that augmented communication tends to remove the "pressure" to speak and often frees the child's voice by reducing the anxiety level.
6. Do not be discouraged by slow progress or small gains. It is a "process" in most cases.
Since I have been running several Social Thinking groups, I have recognized the benefits of small group treatment for pragmatic disorders. It occurred to me that perhaps this same format and many parts of this curriculum might be beneficial to the population experiencing Selective Mutism (SM). So, I am just beginning a new group of three children with varying degrees of SM.
PROS: These boys will see that they are not the only person in the world with this kind of difficulty. They will learn social skills/thinking that will hopefully change their perspectives and reduce their anxieties.
CONS: I anticipate that it will be a relatively quiet group but I hope the noise levels will increase in due time. I must be careful not to increase their anxieties; this will require me to carefully plan and re-examine each lesson in view of the Selective Mutism issues.
Lessons to be included:
Expected / Unexpected Behavior: I do not discuss the idea that others have thoughts about us and our behaviors because that would likely exaccerbate their social anxiety. I do present the idea that certain behaviors are expected in a group and I emphasize the expectation to participate (in some way), to respond when spoken to (in some way), etc. I list 'not responding' in the unexpected behaviors column. This serves to establish the expectations and the idea that they are fully capable of doing this in some way.
Problem Scale: Learning to rank problems in degree of severity. Helping the children to see situations in a proper perspective rather than magnifying things way out of proportion. Hopefully this will serve to reduce anxiety over time.
Being Part of the Group, Body in the Group, Brain in the Group: I don't anticipate the typical problems seen in other groups with lots of disruptive speaking, moving, etc. as the kids with SM tend to be more introverted. Instead we will likely need to stress participation as part of being in a group.
Being a Social Detective, Think with my Eyes, Reading Plans: These lessons address the ability to infer ideas, attitudes, emotions, predict events, understand how others feel and how our behavior (or lack of behavior) affects others. The hope is that through these lessons, the children will be empowered with a sense of understanding of social contexts, learn to navigate them more easily, and gain confidence through their knowledge.
Here are some of the resources I will be drawing from, in addition to Michelle Winner's Social Thinking curriculum:
Intertwined throughout the lessons, we will pull in materials addressing relaxation and vocal exercise, dealing with anxiety, and having fun playing games with the other boys.
Class One: Getting to know each other. I had no illusions that the boys would readily speak to each other so we made posters about ourselves (teachers included). I drew my own poster with my stick figure family in crayon and some of my favorite things. I encouraged the boys to do the same and provided a few cut out Boardmaker pictures of some of their favorite things (according to their moms). It went well enough. However, none of them wanted to tell about their posters, so I looked at what they had drawn and tried to tell their stories with a few head nods to confirm... and resistance from others.
Adaptations I made to the typical Social Thinking curriculum:
Expected/Unexpected Behaviors: Add "Speaking and answering questions, or communicating in some way, when being spoken to", "Participating in activities". The plan will be to NOT apply pressure to speak but to at least "put it out there" that speaking is an expected behavior. It is important to always present the expectation that the child is fully capable of speaking and will at some time speak, rather than treat them like fragile "eggshells". However, one must tread carefully between a sense of expectation and pressure to speak. I will suggest or demonstrate how they can use gesture, writing, or drawing as a means of communication. I have found that providing alternative communication can alleviate some of the anxiety and make verbal communication easier. (Side note: If the child with Selective Mutism is new to treatment and deeply entrenched in his difficulty, the group is not where you should start. The child will need some individual treatment in order to build some trust with the therapist and most likely will have great difficulty participating in anyway, even in nonverbal ways).
Class Two: We discussed the speech mechanism. Used drawings from a Voice book to discuss the body parts involved in speaking: lungs and how air moves in and out, lips, tongue, jaw, vocal folds. We discussed that our brains (we) are in control of these body parts; the parts are not in control of us. Practiced moving (saying sounds) with the parts: ah, oo, ee, ppp, bbb, mmm, ttt, lalala, nnn, duhduhduh, kkkk, ggg.... I am happy to report that all boys, even my most reluctant one, verbally participated in this task. Then we discussed that sometimes these parts might "seem" to get stuck making it hard to speak, but they really are not stuck. When we feel stuck, we may to need to "relax" our muscles. We then practiced a few relaxation techniques: Deep breaths, slow count to 10, stretches, and happy thoughts. From there we launched into the Social Thinking lessons on introducing emotions, changing peoples' emotions, the book Miss Nelson is Missing (I suggest that the use of this book is simply an activity for the group. We do discuss how the various behaviors affect others but I do not directly emphasize that there mutism is a negative behavior.) We finished up playing the imitation game with hand gestures. Two of the boys tolerated being the leader and having everyone "watch" and follow him. (This games serves to engage the boys in a group cooperative activity as well as tolerate attention to their hands and actions, not so much their speaking if they do not desire to make sounds.) All in all, it was a very successful class.
Class Three: Problem Scale. This should be immensely helpful when applied to gauging the size of a problem situation. We discussed problems and our reactions and ranked specific examples. Interesting to see how each child responds (allowed them to hold up fingers if they did not want to tell me their rating). One boy rated virtually everything a #4 or #5 (big problem) while another boy ranked everything a #1 problem. We read Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I was able to get them all to repeat this line in chorus several times. (Choral speaking, all together, is often easier for the SM child; this is also related to the term 'vocal contagion' indicating that making noise as a group tends to be contagious and kids will engage in it if others are doing it first and alongside them).
Later we can apply "anxiety" levels to the scale to judge how the child "feels" compared to the "real dangers" inherit in any situation and work to reduce their anxiety levels.
Class Four: Brain is in control of us and helps us think. Review Vocal mechanism and the role of our brain to control our bodies. Discussed how our brain helps us interpret messages about others and our environment: seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling (feel items in bag and guess what they are, smell test, etc). Brain is powerful and controls our voice and our mouth. Our voice or mouth do not control us. Discussed "brain freeze" and the use of our relaxation techniques to battle "brain freeze".
It is going well. Lots of words, sounds, and participation even from most reluctant speaker; still not full sentences or conversation but we are opening up to the group!
Class Seven: Today was our last Selective Mutism class. Everyone is doing well but with school about to begin, we are discharging one client, seeing another at his school, and rolling one over to a Social Skills group. For our last session I made a booklet on Boardmaker adapting the SuperFlex and Worry Wall characters (from the SuperFlex curriculum) to fit the needs of our group. We discussed Flexible vs. Inflexible in physical items: rubber band, play-doh, rock, stick, etc. After reading our story we pretended to put on SuperFlex capes and flew around the room embracing our SuperFlex persona. The boys seemed to really enjoy and connect with the superhero part of their brains. Hopefully they will be able to call on SuperFlex capabilities next time they need them.
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MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-311, 7 May 2002
Small view (470 KBytes)
Full-size (965 KBytes)
This picture, obtained in February 2001, shows streamers of dark sand coming from outcrops of the lower, dark-toned unit. The streamers join a nearby dune field less than a few kilometers (less than a mile) away. Erosion of the lower layered unit liberates sand that was long ago deposited in these layers. The upper unit, by contrast, contains almost no sand. Wind erosion of the lower unit leads to creation of steep scarps as the sand is removed and the upper unit is undermined. The sand moves downwind (in this case, toward the bottom left of the image) and creates dunes.
The new views of the martian north polar cap obtained in 1999 and 2001 suggest that it may not contain as much water ice as previously believed. Indeed, the amount of ice may be as little as half of what was once thought. The picture shown here is 3 km (1.9 mi) wide and illuminated from the lower left.
Another picture showing the upper and lower layered sequences of the north polar cap can be seen by clicking here: "MOC Extended Mission View of North Polar Layers," 11 February 2002.
Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO.
To MSSS Home Page
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Website Cookies definition is all about understanding a number of fields or components to create a cookie. These fields are the pieces of information to define and set a cookie by a website on a user’s computer system.
Fields – Website Cookies Definition
Every cookie is identified by a name. To the server a cookie name is like a field of a web form or an element of an associative array representing information about a cookie. The server can access the value of a cookie by its name as a key of an associative array.
A cookie defined with a name can be assigned a value to be used by the concerned website to setup user’s preferences. It can be compared with the value sent by a form field passed on by a web form or the value stored against a key in an associative array.
The cookies to be set by a website must eliminate from user’s system after a specific duration as they cannot be there forever. This is called the expiry time of a cookie. The value assigned to “expires” field determines that when the expiry time arrives a cookie is automatically deleted from user’s system. After that if the user visits the same website the server cannot access any value from the cookie. If you want the cookie to last as long as the browser is running on user’s system, this expires field must be set to zero, or omitted while declaring a cookie. The cookie with expires value zero it is automatically deleted after the browser is closed by the user.
path field contains the path of the script accessing the cookie where the browser needs to send the cookie when accessed by a website. It can be set to a specific path or not set at all. In case the path field is not set, the cookie is sent to the current directory where the requesting script is stored in the website’s folder. To avoid any unexpected errors you must set this field with a valid path so that the correct scripts gets the value from cookie for correct action for a visitor.
The domain field is set to the system that has set the cookie on a user’s system. Any mistake in the domain name will fail to send the cookie to the appropriate domain. A cookie set for a specific domain will be accessible by all the sub-domains under the specified domain value set in this field.
To prevent any possibility of insecure access, a cookie can be sent only when a secure HTTP request is sent by the website. If secure field is set in Website Cookies Definition it will be sent only in case the browser has sent an https request. If secure is missing, cookie will be sent back in response to any kind of request by the browser.
To make the browser access a cookie data only by the scripts running on a Web server via HTTP, this filed is to be set. This thing is done to prevent a web application’s vulnerability against cross- site scripting (XSS) threats.
So, website cookies definition can be specified with the above mentioned fields. In the forthcoming posts we will discuss how these values are set for different needs of a website.
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Soil Health Toolkit
- Working with Diverse Owners and Operators
- Resource Assessment Tools
- COMET Platform
- ACEs and Management Plans
Soil Health Basics
Learn about Soil Health
Soil is a living ecosystem made up of minerals, organic matter, and pore spaces containing air, water and dissolved nutrients, and living organisms. Healthy soils support agricultural production; filter and store water; “cycle” or move nutrients between the physical environment to living organisms; moderate temperature extremes; protect plants from pathogens and stress; store carbon and moderate the release of gases; resist erosion; and provide habitat for soil organisms.
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) defines soil health as the soil’s continued capacity to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans. One indicator of healthy soils is aggregate stability. Aggregates are clusters of soil particles bound together. Aggregate stability refers to the ability of soil aggregates to maintain their structure when exposed to water, wind, or tillage. Stable aggregates provide habitat for soil biota, which increases soil organic matter, improves soil structure, and increases water holding capacity. Use the slake test and soil function videos listed below to demonstrate soil aggregate stability. Stable aggregates will not break apart or slake in water. You also can use the simulator instructor guide to run your own demonstration, which might be a good way to engage agricultural landowners in your community.
Most of our soils have lost significant function over time because of repeated disturbance. As you interact with your landowners, look for these signs of degraded soils:
- Gullies and other signs of erosion
- Hard, compacted, cloddy soils
- Rapid onset of stress or stunted growth during dry or wet periods
- Discolored vegetation
- Soil crusting
- Disease or pest pressure
- Declining yields
Identifying degraded soils provides an opportunity to begin a conversation with agricultural landowners and help raise awareness about soil health.
Understand Soil Health Principles and Practices
The way farmers and ranchers manage their land affects soil health. Farmers and ranchers can rebuild their soils and restore key functions using regenerative soil health practices.
Conservation professionals, including NRCS, promote four principles to restore and protect soil health:
- Minimize disturbance: reduce tilling and the use of chemical inputs, rotate grazing animals;
- Maximize soil cover: keep the soil surface covered with residue year round;
- Maximize biodiversity: integrate livestock and grow as many different species of plants as possible through rotations and a diverse mixture of cover crops;
- Maximize continuous living roots: keep living crops and cover crops in the soil as long as possible.
Each principle is achieved through a range of associated conservation practices—specific land management strategies producers can implement to protect and restore natural resources.
The first two principles protect the habitat for soil organisms. Practices that minimize disturbance include reduced tillage, nutrient management, integrated pest management, and prescribed grazing. Land management strategies to maximize soil cover include cover cropping, residue and tillage management, and prescribed grazing. Together, these approaches increase soil organic matter, stabilize soil aggregates, and improve water infiltration and storage, which reduces the risk of erosion, helps mitigate temperature changes, and reduces evaporation.
The second two principles aim to feed soil organisms. Practices to increase biodiversity include integrating livestock into a production system and growing different species of plants through rotations or a diverse mixture of cover crops. Cover crops and crop rotation can also promote living roots in soils, as can incorporating dedicated grasslands. These principles increase biological activity and diversity belowground. They increase soil organic matter and nutrient cycling and improve plant growth.
A soil health management system is a collection of practices that increase soil carbon levels and improve soil health by applying the four soil health principles. When implemented together, and adapted as needed to different production systems, these principles can rebuild soils and restore their functions.
ReadNRCS Soil Health Fact Sheets, Principles for High Functioning Soils NRCS Soil Health Fact Sheets, Unlock Your Farm's Potential: Do Not Disturb NRCS Soil Health Fact Sheets, Unlock Your Farm's Potential: Discover the Cover NRCS Soil Health Fact Sheets, Healthy Productive Soils: Checklist for Growers
Overcome Barriers to Adoption
There are psychological, social, technical, and financial barriers to adopting soil health practices. New practices require a new way of thinking for many producers. Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural landowners may not understand why it is important to adopt soil health practices, which requires a basic understanding of soil function and soil health benefits. In addition, there may be a lack of community support for adoption of new or different practices. Another challenge, especially in places where most land is rented, is convincing producers to invest resources into improving soil health and/or convincing landowners to forgo some income to support practice adoption. A next hurdle is acquiring the technical knowledge to implement new practices and management systems. Lastly, stakeholders may worry about the financial impact of adoption. They may lack information to help them assess the costs, including installation and time learning versus benefits.
You can help your landowners overcome these barriers by:
- Cultivating a relationship with your producer. Look for opportunities to connect with them while stewarding the easement. Ask them about their goals for their land and find out if they have any concerns about their land.
- Raising their awareness. Once you have established a relationship, you can offer information and help organize or host educational opportunities to introduce landowners to new principles and practices.
- Creating supportive networks. You may be able to introduce landowners who are curious about practices to others who have already tested different strategies. You can help facilitate information sharing among producers and other agricultural landowners.
- Connecting them with technical experts. You can also make referrals to technical experts who can help develop and implement a soil health management plan and connect them with applicable state and federal programs to provide technical and financial assistance.
Soil Health Benefits
Research suggests that implementing practices such as no-till or reduced tillage, cover cropping, nutrient management, and conservation crop rotation can improve soil health, reduce runoff, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and sequester carbon. Information on the economic benefits associated with soil health is also important to those in the agricultural community, including growers, landowners, agricultural retailers, bankers, and corporations with sustainability goals, for whom knowing the “bottom line” is important to making decisions.
Learn about the Soil Health Case Studies
The AFT-NRCS Soil Health Case Studies estimate the economic effects of implementing soil health practices by looking at the costs, benefits, and return on investment experienced by farmers who have adopted any one or a combination of soil health practices. The findings of these case studies are intended to give farmers confidence in adopting practices that have the potential to lessen agriculture’s impacts on water resources, address climate change, and increase farmer resilience and viability.
Case study methods
The economic impacts of implementing soil health practices on case study farms were derived using Partial Budget Analysis (PBA). A PBA estimates the economic effect—both benefits and costs—of variables affected by a change in a farming operation. For the Soil Heal Case Studies, the PBA compares costs and benefits “before” and “after” soil health practice implementation. To conduct this PBA, AFT developed a Retrospective Soil Health Economic Calculator (R-SHEC). R-SHEC is an Excel-based tool which was used to quantify the benefits and costs experienced by already “soil health successful” producers in the majority of the case studies. AFT has released a version for row crops and one for almonds. The row crop version of R-SHEC is designed to evaluate the economic effects of implementing no-till or reduced tillage, cover crops, nutrient management, and conservation crop rotation. The almond version of the tool evaluates the economic effects of cover crops, nutrient management, compost application, and mulching.
AFT also produced case studies using Cornell University’s Dairy Farm Business Summary (DFBS) survey.
Two tools were used to calculate the environmental impacts of implementing soil health practices. The USDA Nutrient Tracking Tool was used to estimate water quality impacts, and COMET-Farm for calculating the change in GHG emissions. Both tools are described below.
Quantify Soil Health Outcomes
The economic impacts of soil health practices
The AFT-NRCS Soil Health Case Studies find that soil health successful farmers may experience net economic benefits, which can be achieved in two ways—through increases in income, through decreases in costs, or through a combination of the two. Increases in income can be attributed to yield increases. Decreases in costs, meanwhile, can be attributed to:
The case studies demonstrate that net return on investment varies from farm to farm as, in some instances, the economic benefits of implementing soil health practices may be offset by decreases in income due to increased costs, such as the cost of purchasing seed for cover crops and the learning costs associated with implementing new practices. These increases in cost may be attributed to variable rate application; increased soil testing; learning costs associated with the transition in soil health management; new machinery; those associated with implementing cover crops, including seed, planting, and harvest costs.
The environmental impacts of soil health practices
In addition to the benefits to individual farm and ranch operations, improving soil health can also provide environmental benefits for society at large. These include climate change mitigation—healthy soils have the capacity to store more carbon—and improved water quality due to greater infiltration and water holding capacity in the soil leading to lower runoff from fields. Increased soil stability can reduce flood damage in surrounding communities. The Nutrient Tracking Tool can estimate reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment losses associated with implementing soil health practices. Climate benefits can be evaluated with the help of COMET-Farm, which estimates the ‘carbon footprint’ for all or part of a farm or ranch operation. It also allows users to evaluate different options for reducing GHG emissions and sequestering more carbon.
Use the Case Study Findings
When it comes to implementing new practices on producers’ land, it will be helpful to listen to farmers’ concerns; match examples of soil health success stories to the farm type and region; and be clear in your messaging and able to explain the basics of certain concepts, like partial budget analysis.
There are a variety of barriers to adoption that producers may face when attempting to implement new practices on their land. These include:
- Educational barriers, represented as learning costs in the case studies.
- Financial barriers, such as the cost of new equipment and soil testing.
- Technological barriers, including trial and error costs related to using new practices and machinery.
- Technical barriers, including the learning curve for new practices and time spent fine tuning a new crop management system.
- Agronomic barriers related to implementation of new cropping systems.
- Belief that they would spend more to implement soil health practices.
- Social barriers, including adjusting to a new way of farming.
You can use the case studies to address these barriers. Pointing to “soil health successful” farmers who have navigated these challenges may help with normalizing adoption. Highlight the return on investment for a similar operation to alleviate financial concerns.
Reaching and Working with Diverse Owners and Operators
Understanding the challenges specific to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color—or BIPOC—landowners and producers; women landowners and producers; and operators with insecure land tenure is a crucial step towards working with and supporting these groups.
The USDA and many states use “socially disadvantaged” to refer to some of these producer groups. The USDA defines socially disadvantaged as “a farmer or rancher who is a member of one or more of the following groups whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities.” Note that women aren’t usually included in this definition of “socially disadvantaged”, unless they also fall into one of the following groups:
- African Americans
- American Indians
- Alaskan Natives
- Pacific Islanders
Examine Owner and Operator Demographics
A closer look at landowner and operator demographics can offer insight into the challenges faced by underrepresented and minority producers and landowners in the U.S.
Women in Agriculture
Nearly 40 percent of farmland in the U.S. is rented or leased out by non-operating landlords, or NOLs. Given this, NOLs are an important audience to engage in farmland protection. Research shows that many NOLs have a high level of trust in their farm operators and may be willing to make changes to support conservation practices. Most importantly, many of these NOLs want to keep farmland in farming. Despite this, NOLs tend to be under-represented and under-engaged in farmland protection programs. This is particularly true of women landowners, which is significant given that nearly 40 percent of NOLs are women, and in some parts of the U.S., the proportion of women NOLs is closer to 50 percent.
On the operator side, close to 36 percent of the country’s producers are women, and more than half of all farms in the U.S. have a principal female producer. Counties with the highest proportion of female-operated farms are largely in the West and Northeast U.S.
Women-run farms, on average, operate on smaller acreage and earn 40 percent less farm income than those operated by men, after controlling for farm and operator characteristics. Childcare responsibilities, compounded by a lack of access to childcare, may limit women’s ability to advance their skills and expand their farm operation.
While farming is still one of the most unequal professions in the U.S. in terms of gender diversity, a growing portion of new and beginning farmers identify as women and/or as racially or ethnically diverse. With around 40 percent of farmland due to change hands over the next two decades, this indicates we can expect a more diverse future for agriculture, with more women present in the industry.
BIPOC Producers and Landowners
Heirs’ property is when land is not clearly delineated to future heirs and so there are many people with claim to the land. This makes the land susceptible to conversion to non-farm uses and poses legal and financial challenges that can prevent the land from being held by the family, who, in many instances, are BIPOC or low-income. Heirs’ property disputes often require a lawyer to facilitate a resolution in the courts. Some states have adopted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which provides additional due process protections for heirs.
Heirs’ property impacts about 3.5 million acres across the Southern U.S. and pertains to more than one third of Black-owned land in the South. This is a critical issue that affects the ability of Black farmers to hold on to the land, and to think about the long-term protection and stewardship of that land. It is estimated that 90 percent of the land that was in the hands of African American families in the 1900s has been lost to these families. Today, less than two percent of agricultural landowners in the U.S. are non-white. Compounding this, Black farmers have historically experienced discrimination in getting support from federal farm programs. Efforts to address land loss—in the form of land return, reparations, and rematriation—are being made; resources for more information on these efforts are linked.
Connect with Diverse Audiences
Whether working with producers, NOLs, or other diverse audiences, listening to the needs of your collaborator is important. Understanding and respecting differences in experience, while highlighting shared goals, can go a long way in connecting diverse audiences and building networks of trusted advisors. As a part of this network building, it is crucial to consider who are the trusted leaders in a space, and whether there are existing networks that your collaborators already turn to.
In outreach and education, it is worth considering whether diverse audiences see themselves in the existing resources. Uplifting the stories of the “average” producer—not only those who excel—and highlighting work that may be happening in more incremental steps—rather than extraordinary successes—is also important for connecting with those who have historically been under-engaged and under-represented in the agriculture and conservation spheres. For NOLs, outlining incremental steps towards conservation may help engage those who think of themselves as an “outsider” in the conservation and/or landownership realm.
Ultimately, to center the work of BIPOC, women, and other minority groups in agriculture, we not only need to rethink the “success” stories being told, but also the very metrics for success. Results-oriented initiatives that prioritize cost- or time-saving deliverables may overlook the often-marginalized work of under-represented groups in agriculture. Instead, orienting initiatives towards long-term results, recognizing incremental change, and grounding goals in the experience and knowledge of diverse producers and landowners can foster more inclusive work.
Resource Assessment Tools
Agricultural landowners have access to a variety of soil evaluation tools. Most common is the standard soil tests, which provide farmers with information about soil nutrients. However, a standard soil test only tells part of the soil health story.
A full soil health assessment looks at the biological and physical functioning of the soil in addition to the nutrient levels. The soil health assessment evaluates a range of soil health indicators. A soil health indicator is a soil property that provides information about the status of specific important soil processes. There are two methods of assessing indicators: an in-field assessment is a qualitative or semi-quantitative measurement and assesses indictors on the spot; a laboratory assessment measures quantitative indicators and is better for monitoring soil health.
Learn about In-Field Soil Health Assessment
NRCS staff can assist with assessing soil health in the field. This will include a field visit, a conversation with the farmer on management, and use of the web soil survey. A web soil survey provides information on soil’s inherent, nonmanagement-influenced properties. While this is useful for gauging a “baseline,” management is the primary driver of whether a resource concern is present. When looking at indicators of soil health in the field, it is important to keep in mind both the soil properties and the management practices being used. Below are six of the major indicators to look for when assessing soil health in the field:
- One indicator of soil health is aggregate stability. Soil aggregate stability is related to soil porosity and how well soil can resist raindrop impact and erosion. To assess aggregate stability in the field, one can conduct a slake test, a strainer test, or a Jornada soil aggregate stability test. These tests reveal healthy soils if at least 80% of the soil mass remains intact in a slake test; if the sample “stands up” for strainer test and runoff water is translucent; or if it meets the Jornada test criteria.
- Plant roots and biopores are another feature of healthy soils. Roots influence the soil immediately adjacent to them through exudates, growing and leaving soil organic matter as they die. Root systems and root channels can help address aggregate instability, soil organism habitat loss or degradation, and soil organic matter depletion. To assess this indicator of soil health in the field, look for evidence of dark root channels or biopores left by previous plants or earthworms.
- Healthy soils will also have adequate soil cover. Soil cover is the percent of the soil surface that is covered by plant residue, organic mulch, or live plants. Having adequate soil cover can help address aggregate instability, soil organism habitat loss or degradation, soil organic matter depletion, and surface compaction. Soil cover can be measured in the field using farmer interview, the photo estimation method or state-approved method, or the line intercept method. If the soil is more than 75% covered after planting, it meets the criteria for adequate soil cover.
- Another indicator is surface crusts. Crusts form after rain or irrigation on soils with weak aggregate stability. Surface crusts are an indicator of similar resource concerns as adequate soil cover. Crusts can be evaluated by visual observation after rainfall/irrigation and drying. Note whether crusts are throughout the field or only in patches. Near the surface, the soil will be dense and show layered sediment deposits. Poor crop emergence and uneven stand are also signs of surface crusts. Healthy soils should have surface crusts on 5% or less of the field.
- Evidence of ponding can be another indicator of soil health. Ponding involves areas of the field that collect and hold runoff water from other parts of the field. Ponding may play a role in aggregate instability and surface compaction and can be measured by farmer interview or visual observation after rainfall or irrigation. Note evidence of crop residue deposits, evidence of ponding from observation or on recent aerial photos, and poor crop conditions, especially yellowing. Healthy soils should show evidence of ponding 24 hours or less after a typical rain event.
- Another indicator or soil health is penetration resistance, or management-induced reduction of large pores and degraded structure (i.e., platy) that results in a decrease in root depth, plant growth, and soil biological habitat and activity. Penetration resistance contributes to aggregate instability, organic matter depletion, and surface compaction. To assess this feature of soil structure, one can evaluate multiple representative locations in the field, ideally when the soil moisture is near field capacity, and record the depths of restrictive layers and PSI readings, evaluate root development and distribution, and look for platy structure. In healthy soils, this evaluation should reveal granular structure, appropriate PSI readings, and vertical channels or roots. Health roots show unrestricted root growth and may have many fine roots.
For further description of these soil health indicators, see the NRCS Cropland In-Field Soil Health Assessment Guide Technical Note.
WatchUsing a penetrometer to detect soil compaction, UW Extension Soil Health Indicators: An Introductory Guide for Non-Operating Agricultural Landowners
Learn about a Laboratory Soil Health Assessment
Lab tests will look for different indicators of soil health than in a field assessment. These indicators are standardized and have been chosen for their agronomic relevance. A laboratory test for soil health may evaluate these indicators:
- Soil structural stability and water partitioning. An indicator of aggregate stability, this is an important part of water infiltration and determining available water capacity.
- Soil organic matter cycling is an indicator of soil organic carbon. This assists with carbon cycling and sequestration.
- Carbon food source, as permanganate oxidizable carbon (or active carbon). This active carbon is a source of food for essential soil organisms.
- Microbial activity is an indicator of short-term carbon mineralization, or respiration. This reflects organism activity in the soil.
- Bioavailable nitrogen is an acid citrate extractable protein. This is an indicator of an organically bound, environmentally stable soil nitrogen pool.
For more information on lab indicators of soil health, see the NRCS Technical Note on Recommended Soil Health Indicators and Associated Laboratory Procedures.
Regional calibration of soil health indicators is iterative and is now available for most indicators through the NRCS Soil Testing Conservation Activity 216.
Recognize Soil Health Resource Concerns
Once the properties of the soil have been identified through in-field or laboratory assessment, one can begin to address soil health resource concerns. NRCS defines a resource concern as “an existing or expected degradation of the soil, water, air, plant, or animal resource base to the extent that the sustainability or intended use of the resource is impaired.”
These concerns can be addressed through soil health management planning. There are both short-term and long-term management options for improving soil health. For example, if the soil displays poor aggregate stability, this could be addressed immediately by incorporating fresh organic materials into the soil, using shallow-rooted crops or cover crops in these areas, and adding manure, green manure, or mulch to the field. Longer-term means of improving aggregate stability include reducing tillage, using surface mulch on fields, and rotating sod crops with mycorrhizal host plants. Once the appropriate management practices have been implemented in the field, the next steps are to observe the effects of the new practices and adapt management practices as needed. Conducting soil health assessments periodically allows for ongoing improvement to soil health as management practices are further refined and continually adapted to address the current conditions of the soil.
Beyond helping to address resource constraints, a soil assessment can also:
- Measure soil improvement or degradation from management practices over time
- Facilitate applied research to identify successful soil health measures
- Improve awareness of soil health and its benefits
- Enable valuation of farmland based on management practices
- Inform an assessment of farming system risk
- Enable policy recommendations that are science-based
Soil health management practices, such as no-till and cover cropping, can build carbon levels in the soil in the form of soil organic matter. This organic matter provides nutrients for plants, improves soil structure, helps hold water, and moderates pathogen and pest pressure. These practices also have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by drawing carbon into the soil. In this way, soil health management practices can both make soils more resilient and adaptive—a plus for farmers—and mitigate the effects of climate change. COMET, which stands for CarbOn Management Emissions Tool, is an online platform designed for agricultural producers who are interested in adopting climate-beneficial practices. COMET helps producers and those who work with producers to estimate the climate benefits of farm management practices.
Identify Carbon Management Emissions Tool Components
COMET is comprised of several components: COMET-Energy, COMET-Planner, and COMET-Farm. COMET offers many training resources, such as those that can help one decide which COMET component to use. The COMET components continue to be updated regularly.
COMET-Planner is a quick and easy assessment that provides estimates of the GHG mitigation impacts of implementing conservation practices. It is intended to be used for planning purposes. It is based on a larger-scale area, estimating impacts over Major Land Resource Areas (MLRAs). A positive value generated by COMET-Planner represents an increase in carbon sequestered or decrease in GHG emissions. A negative value generated would represent either a decrease in sequestered carbon or an increase in GHG emissions. Watch the COMET-Planner Demonstration for an overview of how to use this tool.
The output of the COMET-Planner calculator will be in tons of CO2 sequestered or released. To make sense of this number, the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator can be used to translate tons of CO2 into more concrete terms, such as the annual CO2 emissions of cars, households, and power plants. This component can be useful in communicating when developing a conservation plan or evaluating targets.
COMET-Farm is an in-depth, site-based, whole farm assessment that accounts for soil properties, weather, farming systems, and management strategies. COMET-Farm can be used for all types of operations, including more complex production systems. The COMET-Farm tool requires more input on the front end, so may take more time to set up, but the reports generated by the tool are more detailed, providing users with projected estimates of baseline “business as usual” emissions, future management scenario emissions, and the change in emissions between these two scenarios.
COMET-Energy allows one to calculate the reductions in GHG emissions based on fuel savings. This would often be used as a supplement to COMET-Planner or COMET-Farm because some of the practices in these tools do not incorporate fuel savings. You can enter annual energy savings in gallons, CCF, or kilowatts and COMET-Energy will generate a summary of energy savings, measured either in MMBTU or CO2-reduced.
The COMET suite has provided the groundwork for additional tools for identifying GHG-reducing agricultural practices. For example, the USDA’s Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry (CSAF) Mitigation Activities List, which includes 13 practices that have a quantifiable mitigative benefit, is informed by the COMET platform. The COMET emissions calculations also inform the Carbon Reduction Potential Evaluation Tool (CaRPE), a tool designed by AFT and ARS scientists to estimate how we can maximize the benefits of soil health practices, including those on the CSAF Mitigation Activities List, by increasing adoption. Estimates can then be scaled-up from the county-level to state, regional, and national levels (see AFT’s CaRPE Briefs for States).
Agricultural Conservation Easements and Referenced Plans to Encourage Soil Health
More information coming soon!
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By Genevieve Cottraux
Reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, animal deaths, as well as industrial disasters and explosions—all the result of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—are termed “fraccidents” by the group Earth Justice. According to Emily Wurgh of the environmental group Food and Water Watch, “The dangers of fracking to the food supply are not something that’s been investigated very much. We have been trying to get members of Congress to request studies into effects of fracking on agriculture, but we haven’t gotten much traction.” Catskills area farmer Ken Jaffe says, “For sustainable agriculture, fracking is a disaster.”
Since 2005, fracking has occurred in at least 32 states. Many of these states, such as California, Texas, Nebraska, Indiana, and North Carolina, are also among the top 10 agricultural states in terms of cash receipts from farming. In California, the nation’s top agricultural producer and 3rd producer of oil, fracking has been banned in 6 counties as of 2016. Not just fracking, but all new oil drilling, was banned in Monterey County by voters when they passed Measure Z with 56% of the vote last November. Of the counties that ban fracking, Monterey is the only one with a significant oil industry and is also the 3rd top producing agricultural county in the state. Chevron and Aera Energy have sued to block implementation of the ban.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a controversial process by which oil or natural gas is extracted from shale rock deep underground. It involves drilling into the shale and injecting a high-pressure mix of water, sand, and chemicals. This fractures the shale, and allows for the release of the gas inside.
Fracking has been employed commercially in the United States since 1949, when first put into use by Halliburton. The technology behind the method can be traced as far back as the American Civil War when Colonel Edward Roberts developed the “Exploding Torpedo” method, patented in 1865.
The slang term “fracking” came into popular usage recently, however, and is avoided by the oil and gas industry itself. In 2005, communications strategist Matthew Lewis, working at the time for the group Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) in their fight against the Bush administration’s recommendation that hydraulic fracturing be exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations, coined the term fracking.
Proponents of fracking in the United States claim it has boosted oil production and driven down gas prices, as it allows drilling of otherwise difficult to access oil and natural gas resources. A growing number of Americans are opposed to the practice despite its potential for lowering energy costs. Among its negative effects of which the public is aware: it uses massive amounts of water, is linked to water pollution and contaminated drinking water, has been linked to several earthquakes, and utilizes hazardous chemicals. Fracking has also been associated with carbon emissions, possibly exacerbating climate change.
What about farmland? According to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, although many farmers have welcomed the leases being signed by oil and gas companies to conduct fracking on their land, and the opportunity for economic growth, others have pointed to farming’s reliance on “the integrity of the soil, clean water, and pollution-free air” and the safety of the food supply.
According to Mother Earth News,
In addition to reportedly making people sick from polluted water supplies, fracking may now be tainting our food supply…The polluted water is also threatening the health of the soil and crops near fracking sites. As reported by The Nation, the Marcellus Shale formation in the northeast United States holds vast supplies of natural gas and is currently being fracked—yet it also spans an area that is home to three of the country’s highest concentrations of organic farms, which are in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The fracking boom is radically changing the landscape of some areas in these states. Farmers striving to avoid harmful chemicals are facing constant worry about their water supply containing toxic substances.
News site Take Part reports, “In states like Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Ohio, grazing animals have gotten sick and died after drinking fracking runoff and water from farm wells near fracking operations—often the main source of on-farm water. They’ve been poisoned with everything from arsenic, propane, and cobalt to uranium and radium.”
Animal agriculture is already under scrutiny by some regarding issues of sustainability, pollution, and health. The American food production system currently uses about 50% of total US land area, approximately 80% of the fresh water supply, and 17% of the fossil energy used in the country. The energy input required for meat production is 11 times that required for grain production.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) begins its report The Impact of Industrialized Animal Agriculture on the Environment, “The continuous confinement of chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals raised in industrialized agricultural systems jeopardizes the animals’ welfare and degrades the environment. Factory farms produce immense quantities of animal waste and byproducts, which threaten water and air quality and contribute to climate change.”
While it seems common sense to convert farmlands from an animal-agriculture system to a plant-based one, how do fracking and farm leases to oil and gas companies influence a move in this direction? The Humane Party is involved in ongoing research and discussions on the transition from animal to plant-based agriculture, and vegan farming in comparison to farming that utilizes animal waste and animal by-products.
Land suitable for an array of plant crops has already been contaminated by the meat and dairy industries. The degradation is compounded by the effects of oil drilling, including hydraulic fracturing. In California, over 350,000 people have signed a petition to end the irrigation of crops with oil industry wastewater, the use of which has affected the raisins, oranges, and wine grapes grown in the state. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, where 50% of the nation’s fruits and vegetables are grown, oil companies are injecting millions of gallons of toxins into the soil. The group Californians Against Fracking is a statewide coalition formed to ban fracking and dangerous drilling in the state.
The Humane Party’s Values Statement includes: “The practical path is to forgo unsustainable—and destructive—practices that weaken our economy, accelerate our health care costs, compromise our descendants’ fiscal future, squander our natural resources, engender hostility among our fellow nations, and endanger our national security.” Both animal-based agriculture and the practice of fracking are unsustainable and destructive.
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Prurigo nodularis (PN) is extremely itchy skin that leads to a bumpy rash. The rash appears as the result of repeated scratching, picking, or rubbing of the itchy areas of the skin.
There isn’t one single cause of PN. Sometimes, the itching that leads to a rash is a symptom of an underlying condition, such as hepatitis C or lymphoma. PN can also occur on its own.
The itch-scratch cycle is a key aspect of PN. Itchiness prompts a scratch response, and scratching causes future itchiness. Reducing this cycle is a goal of PN treatment.
Read on to learn answers to frequently asked questions about prurigo nodularis.
Prurigo nodularis is itchy, bumpy skin that differs from unaffected skin in several ways:
- increased nerve sensitivity
- the presence of inflammation
- hypervascularization (increased number of blood vessels)
- dermal fibrosis (increased fibrous connective tissue in the skin)
- epidermal hyperkeratosis (skin thickening)
PN skin causes both nerve and immune system changes. There are a higher level of cytokines and their receptors active at the rash site, as well as in the central nervous system, for the transmission of itch signals. Cytokines are small signaling proteins produced by immune system cells.
There are several categories of itch that can trigger PN:
- Dermatological: This is itching originating in the skin and is considered to be the most common trigger in PN, occurring in up to 82% of instances.
- Systemic: This type of itch has its origin in non-skin areas of the body, like organs and blood.
- Infectious: PN itch can have an infectious cause, like tuberculosis or H. pylori.
- Medication-related: Some medications, like cancer therapy agents, can cause PN.
- Psychiatric: PN can have mental health causes like anxiety, depression, or dissociative experiences. This is different from dermatillomania, which is a skin-picking impulse disorder.
- Neurologic: Nerve damage like compression or degeneration can sometimes cause PN.
When a PN rash appears, it’s usually in areas that are easy to scratch, such as:
- arms and legs
- lower and upper back
It’s common for the bumps to appear equally on both sides of the body.
The size and color of the rash nodules can vary. They can range in size from as small as a pinhead to larger than a quarter.
PN bumps can be brownish-black, red, or pink. Your skin color may affect the appearance of the rash. For example, Black people may have nodules that are firmer, darker, and larger.
Some people have a small number of bumps, while others have hundreds. You may also develop raised patches of skin or notice that your skin has hardened and thickened.
An untreated PN rash is itchy enough that people often scratch until they draw blood. The scratching causes more itching and more bumps, which can last for years and leave scars.
PN is not a virus.
However, sometimes a virus can be the cause of an underlying condition that leads to PN. Examples include HIV and viral hepatitis.
PN may also be associated with metabolic dysfunction, such as type 2 diabetes. It can also occur with organ, skin, and hematopoietic (blood) cancers.
PN isn’t a virus, metabolic disorder, or cancer. Instead, researchers believe it’s a result of immunological and neuronal changes in the body.
PN isn’t contagious, although an associated underlying condition may be transmissible.
HIV is one such example. It’s transmissible via bodily fluids, and a person who contracts HIV may or may not develop PN.
Viral hepatitis is another example. PN can develop in a person who has contracted the hepatitis virus.
Bacterial infections associated with PN include tuberculosis and H. pylori.
Parasitic infections, such as strongyloidiasis, are also associated with PN.
It’s not clear whether PN can become cancer, although it can be an indicator that cancer is present somewhere in the body.
The study indicated that the most common cancers connected to PN are skin cancers:
- squamous cell carcinoma
- basal cell carcinoma
- malignant melanoma
The study found that the second most common category of cancer connected to PN is hematopoietic, or blood cancers:
- non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- multiple myeloma
- primary cutaneous lymphoma
- myeloid leukemia
- lymphocytic leukemia
- Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Solid organ cancers can also occur with PN, some of which include:
- female genital organs
- gastrointestinal tract
- head and neck
- urinary tract
- endocrine glands
These cancers don’t always trigger PN.
Also, if you have PN, it doesn’t mean you have cancer. However, your dermatologist may order tests to make sure.
PN can be the first sign of an underlying condition, like HIV or lymphoma. Finding the correct diagnosis is an important step in treating PN, so your dermatologist may conduct tests or bloodwork.
The itch-scratch cycle is an important component of understanding PN. This refers to the way that itching prompts scratching, which in turn causes more itch. Calming the itch-scratch cycle is an important part of PN treatment.
There are a variety of treatment options for prurigo nodularis.
- topical itch relief, like anti-itch emollients, phenol, menthol, pramoxine, or capsaicin
- calcipotriol, a vitamin D derivative that slows skin cell production
- topical anti-inflammatory medication, like corticosteroids, tacrolimus, pimecrolimus, or calcipotriol
- corticosteroid injections
- systemic medication, like antihistamines, monoclonal antibodies, or medications for nerve pain
- mental health support
PN is a condition involving intense itching or skin discomfort that leads to symmetrically distributed bumps in varying sizes and numbers. It can occur on its own or in the presence of an associated underlying condition.
Although it’s not a virus and not contagious, PN can be triggered by conditions that are, such as HIV and viral hepatitis. It’s also associated with several types of cancer.
PN can sometimes be the first sign of an underlying condition, so a thorough assessment is important for a proper diagnosis. An important goal of treatment is to reduce the number and size of skin nodules by calming the itch-scratch cycle.
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The planning fallacy bias refers to the tendency for people to underestimate the time, cost, and resources needed to complete a task. This bias leads to people committing to unrealistic deadlines, underestimating the complexity of a task, and over-optimism about the outcome.
Here are some ways to leverage planning fallacy bias in marketing, sales, branding, design, and advertising:
1. Under-promise and Over-deliver
By setting realistic expectations for a product or service, companies can under-promise and over-deliver, exceeding customer’s expectations and creating a positive image for their brand.
Example: A home cleaning service might promise to have a house cleaned in 4 hours and finish it in 3, creating a positive impression and customer satisfaction.
2. Setting achievable goals and deadlines
By setting achievable goals and deadlines, companies can avoid the planning fallacy bias and create a positive image for their brand by meeting or exceeding their commitments.
Example: An ecommerce company can set realistic deadlines and budgets for order fulfillment and logistics, taking into account potential delays and costs.
3. Transparent Timelines
By communicating the process and progress of a project, companies can avoid the planning fallacy bias by keeping customers informed and on the same page, and creating a positive image for their brand by being transparent and accountable.
Example: A construction company that keeps customers informed of the progress of a project can avoid delays and create a positive image for their brand by being transparent and accountable.
4. Break it down
Breaking down a project into smaller, more manageable tasks can help to reduce the impact of planning fallacy bias and ensure that each task is completed on time and within budget.
Example: A SaaS company can leverage the idea of breaking down a project into smaller tasks by implementing agile methodologies in their project management. By breaking projects into smaller sprints and regularly reassessing and adjusting their plans, the company can ensure that each task is completed efficiently and effectively, reducing the impact of planning fallacy and helping to ensure the success of the project.
5. The Role of Contingency Planning
By planning for unexpected events and delays, companies can avoid the planning fallacy bias and create a positive image for their brand by being prepared and efficient.
Example: A fashion brand could leverage the idea of planning for unexpected events by creating a contingency plan for supply chain disruptions, such as unexpected weather events that could affect transportation, or a sudden rise in demand for certain products.
6. Involve experts
Involving experts in your project planning can help to reduce the impact of planning fallacy bias and ensure that your plans and estimates are accurate and realistic.
Example: A SaaS company can use data from similar projects and consult with experts to establish realistic timelines and budgets for the development of their software.
7. The Value of Continuous Review
By regularly reviewing and adjusting plans, companies can avoid the planning fallacy bias and create a positive image for their brand by being responsive and efficient.
Example: A delivery service might review and adjust their plan on a regular basis, to ensure that they are meeting the delivery times and expectations.
8. The Power of a Backup Plan
By having a plan B in case of unexpected events, companies can avoid the planning fallacy bias and create a positive image for their brand by being prepared and efficient.
Example: A company that creates online educational courses might have a backup plan in case of unexpected technical difficulties, such as server outages or power failures. This could include having a backup server or hosting platform, as well as a plan for how to quickly switch to the backup in case of an outage.
Cognitive biases that are similar to planning fallacy bias
Optimism bias: This refers to the tendency for people to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes. Optimism bias is similar to planning fallacy bias in that it can lead to unrealistic expectations and commitments.
Sunk cost fallacy: This refers to the tendency for people to continue investing in a decision or project because they have already invested resources into it, even if the decision or project is no longer rational or efficient. Sunk cost fallacy is similar to planning fallacy bias in that it can lead to irrational decisions and persistence with a failing plan.
Halo effect: This refers to the tendency for people to make generalizations about a person based on one positive characteristic. Halo effect is similar to planning fallacy bias in that it can lead to unrealistic expectations and blind spots in decision making.
Confirmation bias: This refers to the tendency for people to seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms their existing beliefs and attitudes. Confirmation bias is similar to planning fallacy bias in that it can lead to people interpreting ambiguous information in a way that confirms their expectations, leading to unrealistic expectations and blind spots in decision making.
“Planning Fallacy: Overcoming the Bias in Planning and Forecasting” by Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, in “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” (eds. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A.) Cambridge University Press, 1982. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/judgment-under-uncertainty/planning-fallacy/B1C9F9B9B9F9B9B9F9C9F9B9B9
“Overcoming the Planning Fallacy: The Role of Mental Simulation” by Gerd Gigerenzer and Ralph Hertwig, in “Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment” (eds. Gilovich, T., Griffin, D., and Kahneman, D.) Cambridge University Press, 2002. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/heuristics-and-biases/overcoming-the-planning-fallacy-the-role-of-mental-simulation/1A8C7FDAB1B1B1B1B1B1B1B1
“The Halo Effect: An Enigma That Persists” by Mark P. Zanna and Joel Cooper, in “Advances in Experimental Social Psychology” (eds. Zanna, M.P.) Academic Press, 2009. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260108600120
“Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guise” by Raymond S. Nickerson, in “Review of General Psychology” (2) 1998. Available at: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07166-006
“The Sunk Cost Fallacy: A Critical Review” by David Gal, in “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes” volume 97, Issue 2, 2005. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597804002458
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Conversely, a cathode is the eletrode in a polarized electrical device through which current flows out. Cathodes get their name from cations (negatively charged ions) and anodes from anions (positively charged ions).
In a device that consumes electricity, the anode is the charged positive electrode. Such devices include diodes, electrolytic cells in hydrogen production, and secondary battery cells in recharging batteries. However, in a device that produces power, the anode is the negative terminal, due to the flow of electrons being reversed. Such devices include electrolytic cells in hydrogen production, vacuum tubes, cathode ray tubes, oscilloscopes and primary battery cells (this includes all non-rechargeable batteries).
Demonstration of cathode and anode in a battery:
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Air-Core Reactors (ACR) provide a linear response of impedance versus current which is essential for numerous applications. The dry type design is maintenance free and environmentally friendly.
There’s a range of air core reactors to cater for various market segments such as power generation, T&D networks, industrial facilities, OEMs and electrical test laboratories.
For both industrial environments and networks, a broad range of cost-effective solutions:
limit the fault currents to levels compatible with existing protection/control equipment and as a result provide for a very cost-effective solution.
are connected between the neutral of a power system and earth to limit the line-to-earth current to a desired value under system earth fault conditions.
reduce the harmonic currents and transient overcurrents (ripple) in DC systems.
Harmonic filter reactors
are usually connected with capacitors and resistors in filter circuits to reduce harmonic content in the network which cause higher losses, high neutral currents and interference with computer and telecommunications equipment and which are responsible for high harmonic distortion levels.
compensate for the capacitive currents of long transmission lines or cables, allowing more active energy to pass through the system.
limit the inrush and outrush currents of capacitor banks.
are used in the bypass/ discharge circuit in series compensation systems to limit the capacitor discharge current.
Arc-furnace series reactors
provide the necessary power factor correction and limit the unstable arc-furnace current and voltage.
Power flow control reactors
control the current into two or more parallel circuits.
Motor starting reactors
are connected in series with a motor to limit the inrush current during the motor starting operation.
test lab reactors are special ACRs used in test laboratories, mainly for current-limiting purposes. Other devices include duplex current-limiting reactors, split-phase shunt or zero tolerance reactors, etc.
For extended technical information on these products please click here.
• High mechanical strength to withstand elevated shortcircuit forces
• Low noise level for noise sensitive applications
• Conservative temperature rise for extended service life
• Customized space saving solutions for installations in compact areas
• Surface treatment for protection against UV radiation and pollution
• Minimum maintenance requirements and environmentally friendly
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What is Excavating?
Excavation is the process of moving soil, rock, or different materials with devices, gear, or explosives. It incorporates earthwork, digging, wall shafts, burrowing, and underground. Excavation has various significant applications inclusive of exploration, environmental rebuilding, mining, and construction. Among these, development is one of the most widely recognized applications for excavation. Excavation is utilized in construction to make building establishments, repositories, and streets.
A portion of the various processes utilized in excavation incorporate trenching, burrowing, dredging, and site improvement. Each of these cycles requires exceptional methods, tools, and machinery to make the work right. The processes utilized will rely on the structure that will result from the construction process.
How does the Process of Excavation Work?
Before the excavation process can start, there will be a deliberate inspection of the site to ensure that the natural habitat and the artifacts encompassing it persevere during excavation. Next will be the plan for the size and profundity of the site. The excavation contractors will then leave markings for the excavation site’s boundaries. After that, the excavation will then start.
The whole excavation process incorporates:
- setting out corner benchmarks
- reviewing ground and high levels
- exhuming to the endorsed profundity
- dressing the free soil
- making up to cut off level
- the development of dewatering wells and interconnecting channels
- making limits of the structure
- the construction of assurance bunds and channels
Excavation in construction is most vital during the development process of almost every structure. It is utilized to build the foundation for the development of homes, streets, buildings, and creates reservoirs such as a pool that makes summer at home fun and lively! Additionally, excavation plays an essential role in the mining of valuable metals and minerals. Excavation facilitates the construction process and enables our significant structures to be in their fullest potential by giving expanded command over the activity area.
Types of Excavations
Excavation isn’t just one type. It comes in a variety of purposes that can help you build a solid foundation for your projects. The following are some of the excavation types that you might want to know:
- Top-soil excavation
- Rock excavation
- Earth excavation
- Muck excavation
- Cut and fill excavation
- Trench excavation
How to Choose the Right Excavation Team for Your Projects?
Excavation in construction requires excellent insight, expertise, and
meticulousness as it manages structures and makes the foundation for the whole project.
Heavy industrial contractors utilize advanced methods, tools, and heavy machinery to ensure that the activity outcome is all well. Employing a heavy industrial contractor to finish enormous excavation activities will yield the best possible results.
In choosing an ideal heavy industrial contractor, you should look for someone who values safety highly, well-known for quality work, has extensive experience in construction excavation. These traits of an industrial contractor contribute incredibly to yielding the best possible results for your excavation project.
In Need of Excavation Expert for Your Project?
We will be happy to serve you! Our company has been in the industrial industry for many years and has been serving local clients continually with cost-effective, efficient, and quality-based excavation works. For inquiries and more information about our services, call us today!
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:: Specific Design Brief
Practical Action 2:
- further information
PRODUCT DESIGN KENYA
What types of packaging are there?
Easy to use site from Packaging Solutions Advice Group
for information on steel (the ‘tin’ can and the aerosol can) and tetrapak (the
How is steel used as a packaging material?
Advisory service for packaging designers from Corus (formerly British Steel)
and then on
How you can use
What is tetrapack?
Website of the Swedish company tetrapak
for information about the history of the pack and its environmental impact
for news article about recycling cartons to make panels to house homeless people.
What about aluminium packaging?
The story of aluminium packaging – how aluminium drinks cans are made and how
they can be recycled. (From the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation)
What happens to the packaging once the product has been used?
Student-friendly site from the US Environment Protection Agency with information
about waste, landfills and recycling options.
What are the environmentally friendly packaging options?
Schools information page from the University of York with information about:
Plastics, waste, landfills, incineration, recycling, composting, biodegradation
and starch-based plastics
How are aluminium cans recycled?
readable website from the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation
facts and figures
What about re-using packaging?
Information and case studies from Unilever about the re-use and recycling of
JUICE & PEANUT
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Computer Science Department News
Hany SalahEldeen recently measured the availability of social media resources documenting the Egyptian Revolution one year after their intial sharing.
He found a surprising 10% of those resources were missing, primarily consisting of images and videos uploaded by individual users. Although link rot is a well-established concept in the web archiving community, the loss of these popular and historically important resources has resonated with the general web community, highlighting the need for better archiving of social media.
More information can be found in the following links:
Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group Blog
The Atlantic News Site
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Studies Chart Big Boosts in Course-Taking
A dozen years after a national commission proclaimed that the U.S. education system was being threatened by "a rising tide of mediocrity," American high school students are taking more--and tougher--academic courses.
The good news comes from a few reports issued in recent months by the U.S. Department of Education and by the College Board, an association of colleges and universities. Among the upbeat conclusions coming out of the data are the following:
- In 1992, public high school graduates earned an average of 2.6 more course units than their counterparts did in 1982.
- Some of schools' biggest enrollment gains have come in academically challenging mathematics and science courses. The percentage of students who took algebra and geometry, for example, grew from 29 percent in 1982 to 50 percent in 1992. Participation in calculus classes more than doubled over the same period, increasing from 4 percent to 10 percent.
By 1992, male and female high school graduates were taking roughly equal numbers of science and maths courses.
"Last year we started to see these trends in increased course-taking and increased participation, and the participation seemed to be matched with improved assessments," said Sharon P. Robinson, the assistant secretary for the Education Department's office of educational research and improvement. "But this year the data reinforced our enthusiasm."
A Gradual Effort
The growth in academic course-taking that is documented in the new reports is not completely unexpected. Since at least the mid-1980s, following the publication of A Nation at Risk, the influential report that warned of academic mediocrity, nearly all states have moved to increase their minimum graduation requirements.
Skeptics have suggested that schools might simply have changed course labels to meet the new requirements and that students are getting the same curricular fare they were offered before.
The newer evidence suggests, however, that the gains in course-taking are solid.
"I would say the content of these courses remained unchanged as a result of increases in the numbers of students taking the courses," said Andrew C. Porter, the director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
In a report published last year, Mr. Porter and his colleagues took a closer look at what went on in some of the math and science courses that had enrollment gains in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They visited classrooms in seven states and asked teachers to keep a log for a year on what they taught. The researchers found that in classes with sudden influxes of students because of new state minimum-graduation requirements, students were not getting watered-down content. They were learning the same material as students in similar classes with stable enrollments--classes that traditionally were set aside for the academically elite.
At the same time, mathematics and science scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated test given every two years to nationally representative samples of students, have also increased. However, NAEP reading scores were about the same in 1992 as they were in 1984.
And the College Board, in releasing results last month on the Scholastic Assessment Test, attributed an increase in those test scores to more students taking more Advanced Placement and honors courses. The average verbal score increased five points, to 428, and the average math score rose three points, to 482. The sat, which is scored on a scale of 200 to 800, is given annually to college-bound high school seniors. (See Education Week, Sept. 6, 1995.)
"There's no way at a macro level that you can argue cause and effect," Mr. Porter said. "But there is a lot of research that points to the obvious: Students learn more of what they study than what they don't study."
Closing the Gaps
The new Education Department reports that document the improvements in course-taking include: "The Condition of Education: 1995"; "Trends Among High School Seniors, 1972-1992"; "High School Students Ten Years After 'A Nation at Risk"'; and "The Educational Progress of Black Students." The bulk of the data in those studies comes from national surveys of hundreds of thousands of transcripts from high school seniors.
In A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education recommended that high school graduates complete: four units of English, three science courses, three social-studies units, three units of math, and half a unit of computer science. The new surveys show the number of high school graduates who completed those courses grew from 13 percent in 1982 to 47 percent in 1992.
Much of that increase came about because more female, black, and Hispanic students began enrolling in academic programs rather than general-education tracks. Among whites, the percentages of students taking college-preparatory classes remained about the same.
As a result, by 1992, girls had caught up to boys. They were taking the same amount of math and science courses as boys were, and, on NAEP math tests, the gap between girls' scores and those of boys had almost disappeared.
But black and Hispanic students in 1992 remained less likely than white students to take more rigorous science and math courses or to study foreign languages.
A Rosier Picture?
The new reports, released in July and August, are the latest in a series of books and reports that paint a rosier picture of education than did the critiques issued in the 1980s. The Education Department and College Board reports were joined this month by a new book, The Manufactured Crisis: Myth, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools, that attempts to debunk negative claims about education. (See Education Week, Sept. 13, 1995.)
Still, in viewing gains in course-taking, the glass can be seen as half-empty as well as half-full.
"We made great strides in course-taking, but we still fall far short of the minimum requirements by about half," said Paul E. Barton, who wrote a report on course-taking patterns last year for the Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service, which administers exams and conducts instructional programs in education research, testing, and evaluation. If 47 percent of students were taking the minimal recommended courses, then 53 percent were not.
Moreover, large gaps remain between society's haves and have-nots. In 1992, 28 percent of the poorest one-fourth of high school seniors were enrolled in college-preparatory programs. In comparison, 68 percent of seniors from families at the top one-fourth of the socioeconomic scale were in those programs.
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This guide looks at how to create a Test or Survey in your Blackboard module. You should also read Deploying a Blackboard Test/Survey to see how to make your test/survey available to students after creating it. The Tests, Surveys and the Grade Centre guide explains how to grade your tests and view results in the Grade Centre.
Creating a Test/Survey
Although the Test tool is used in this example, the process for creating a Survey is almost identical. Remember though that with a Survey, responses are anonymous and points cannot be scored for questions.
- Expand the Evaluation section of the Control Panel, then click on Tests, Surveys and Pools.
- Click on Tests.
- Click on the Build Test button.
- Enter a Name for the test. Description and Instructions are optional, but it is recommended that you enter something in at least one of these fields to indicate to students what is expected from them.
- Click Submit. This will take you to the Test Canvas where you can start to build up your Test.
To start adding questions to your test, simply move your mouse over the Create Question button to reveal a list of different question types. You will see that there are a wide range of different question types available, including multiple choice/answer, true/false, calculated formulas and even essay style questions. Fill in the Blank, Multiple Choice and True/False are the most commonly used question types.
Calculated Formula: Contain a formula, the variables of which can be set to change for each user. The variable range is created by specifying a minimum value and a maximum value for each variable. Answer sets are randomly generated.
Calculated Numeric: Require the student to enter a number as an answer to a specific question.
Either/Or: Require the student to choose from two possible answers. A choice of answers is available: Yes/No, True/False, Agree/Disagree, and Right/Wrong.
Essay: Allow text to be entered into a text box. This text is not automatically marked and will require manual marking.
File Response: Allow students to upload files to answer a question.
Fill in Multiple Blanks: These are like fill in the blank questions, but with more than one blank. Text is entered with variables in square brackets used to mark where blanks should be. Then the variables are matched with the answers.
Fill in the Blank: Require the student to type in a single word answer. This has to match the answer(s) that you mark as correct.
Hot Spot: Require the student to click on a picture in order to answer a question.
Jumbled Sentence: Require a student to complete a sentence, choosing words using drop down lists.
Matching: Require a student to match one value to another. This could be matching text to text, text to pictures, etc.
Multiple Answer: Require a student to answer a question by selecting one or more answers.
Multiple Choice: Require a student to answer a question by selecting a single answer.
Opinion Scale/Likert: These are usually used in surveys. The respondent is asked to state their opinion based on a scale.
Ordering: Requires the student to sort a number of items. This could be chronological or procedural.
Quiz Bowl: Present an answer and require the student to type in the question.
Short Answer: Allow text to be entered into a text box. This text is not automatically marked and will require manual marking.
True/False: Require the student to choose whether something is true or false.
Create Random Block: Requires the student to answer randomly selected questions from a given pool (of questions). Each student sees a different set of questions drawn at random from a list of questions in the pool.
Find from Pool or Test: Lets you use questions from previously created question pools or other tests in the module.
Adding a Question
The following talks though the process of adding a typical multiple choice question; the process for adding other question types is very similar.
- Click on Create Question and then click Multiple Choice.
- Enter a Question Title (this is for your reference and will not be visible to students) and then enter the actual text of the question itself in the Question Text box.
- In the Options section, you can specify some settings for the question:
- Answer Numbering – Specify the way in which answers are numbered – either by Arabic Numerals (1,2,3), Roman Numerals (I, II, III), uppercase letters (A, B, C) or lowercase letters (a, b, c).
- Answer Orientation – Choose whether or not to display answers vertically or horizontally on the screen.
- Specify partial credit options for answers – selecting this option means that you can specify what percentage of the total points should be awarded for each incorrect answer. You can also allow negative scores for incorrect answers.
- Show answers in random order – selecting this option will randomise the answers for each question. This can be useful if you have students taking the test together and don’t want their answer options to be the same.
- In the Answers section, specify the number of answers available for students to select from and use the check box to identify the correct answer. Type your answers into the text boxes provided. Click the Remove button next to an answer to remove it. By default, four answer options are provided.
- Enter Feedback to be shown to students for both a correct and incorrect answer to the question. This is entirely optional, but can be used to signpost students to materials which may help them with the answer should they answer it incorrectly. You can also provide feedback for individual answers for certain question types if this option is switched on in the Test Question Settings. An additional feedback box will appear beneath each answer so that you can type your feedback.
- In the Categories and Keywords section you can add Categories, Topics, Levels of Difficulty and Keywords to the question. When searching for questions from a Question Pool or other Tests, you can search based on categories, topics etc.
- Instructor Notes lets you enter some notes about the question either for yourself or fellow tutors. These will not be visible to students.
- Finally, click Submit to save your question.
Adding More Questions
The process for adding other question types is very similar to the steps outlined above, but the options available will vary.
- From the Test Canvas page, click the Create Question button and select the type of question you want to add. Alternatively you can insert a question at any position in the test by clicking the Add Question button which appears when you hover your mouse between questions.
- Fill out the information required, which usually includes the Question Text, Answers and Feedback.
- Click Submit when you have finished editing the question.
- Repeat the process for all of the questions you would like to add.
You can change the order the questions will appear by clicking on the double-ended arrows next to each question and dragging them up or down the page.
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Скопируйте код и вставьте его на свой сайт.
Science and tehnology
Описание презентации по отдельным слайдам:
Science and its significance Science is knowledge which can be a system and which usually depends on seeing and testing facts, stating general natural laws. Science is based on observation and experiment.
Science and its significance Scientists aim to discover answers to the questions: «How?» and «Why?» They try to explain the world from the material point of view. They explore things that are mysteries to us and do research. They study physical objects and observe different processes and phenomena.
Science and its significance Then they analyze, systematize, classify them. After that they suggest new ideas, put forward theories and set out laws. Scientists make experiments and discover various facts . Finally, they state(establish) and formulate the principles of these theories.
Science and its significance Thus, scientists develop and advance science and science progresses. In some centuries people mostly store, save and preserve information. But there are centuries that are rich in numerous important discoveries and inventions. For example, the 19th and the 20th centuries saw the greatest inventions indeed.
Science and its significance What inventions and discoveries can be regarded as real breakthroughs? There is a legend that they are the fire, the wheel and the alphabet as they gave humanity power over matter, space and symbols relatively. The other widely spread idea is that the compass, (gun)powder and paper are most influential inventions in the history of mankind. But in fact there are lots of them.
Science and its significance Few people will deny the fact that we can’t do without science nowadays. There are 2 major reasons for that. Apart from those who are keen on receiving knowledge, getting new information just for the fun of it or to broaden their own horizons, we can’t ignore the fact we live in a certain environment.
Science and its significance No doubt we should know ourselves and everything around us better. It is essential not to get into trouble, to provide ourselves with a healthy place to live in. Besides it is a well-known fact that science affects nearly every area of common people’s lives through technology.
Science and its significance “Science can give us knowledge of our environment. It sets the scene in which we act. If it couldn’t do that, we’d be blind and ignorant and couldn’t act reasonably at all.” (Magnus Pyke, a British scientist) “Science clears the fields on which technology can build.” (Werner Heisenberg, a German scientist)
Science and its significance Now we are living at a most exciting time in the history of science. Modern methods of research enable us to understand many things that were mysterious to our ancestors. We are increasing our understanding of the universe. But the more we find out the more we realize how much there is still to learn.
Science and its significance Here are some urgent acute problems scientific minds are working at, to mention only a few: Finding alternative sources of energy Recycling and reusing materials Creating effective systems of communication
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The latest news on this change — carefully culled from the world wide web by our change agents. They do the surfing, so you don't have to!
Global Warming...and Kidney Stones?
We love that going green is all the rage these days because the earth needs to be healthy if we’re going to continue breathing fresh air and eating food. Unfortunately, as global warming continues and causes higher temperatures and dehydration, the number of kidney stone health diagnoses will rise too, according to researchers. In fact, researchers are predicting that there will be an increase of anywhere between 1.6 to 2.2 million more cases of kidney stones by 2050, and most of those will come from southern states known as the “kidney-stone belt.”
The increase in kidney stone health diagnoses isn’t limited to us here in the United States. Southern Europe and southeast Asia will also see a dramatic rise in the number of cases, researchers say.
"Climate change affects the nutrient composition of the plants that we grow and the animals that we eat. For example, fruits and vegetables are inhibitors of stones," says Kristina Penniston, a registered dietician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. “So the question then is, will people be eating less of that as temperatures rise because these things don't grow as abundantly? And will that then alter people's risk for stones?”
How have you changed to live a more eco-friendly life to improve your health? [HealthDay]
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Pumping Data: How Data Analytics is the New Athletic Advantage
In a sport where milliseconds matter, the 2012 U.S. Women’s Olympic cycling team found their competitive edge in an unlikely place – data science. The team went from a five-second deficit at the world championships to earning a Silver medal in the 2012 London Olympics — a triumphant feat that was achieved not only through dedication and athletic ability, but also through enhancing training with insights gained from analyzing big data.
The fall of Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and other American sports heroes illuminates how widespread PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) have been as a route to optimizing athletic performance. More recently, the use of data and technology are showing promise as a safer option to naturally increase strength, endurance, and accelerate recovery. With a flood of sensors and smartphone apps that record physiological and psychological states, we are able to measure ourselves like never before. The explosion of data, when joined together and analyzed, is enabling us to solve problems and improve lives in ways we never thought possible, including athletic training. Professional teams are catching on, evident by the recent purchase of a $500,000 Cray Supercomputer by an “unnamed” Major League Baseball Team.
After a disappointing finish in the 2012 world championships, the cycling team turned to Olympic cyclist Sky Christopherson, who had personally leveraged the quantified-self movement in his training to break a world record. Sky established an experimental project to help the team record and analyze relevant data that could reveal actionable insights for optimizing their athletic performance.
Three months prior to the 2012 London Olympics, the indoor velodrome proved to be an ideal experimental space. In addition to controlling temperature and humidity, velodrome cycling also has the unique feature of precise quantifiable athlete output via stress sensors contained inside the bicycles sampling at 200 hz and recording every 100 milliseconds. By correlating this performance data with health data tracking such as sleep cycles, circadian rhythms, continuous blood sugar levels, blood biomarkers such as Vitamin D, and hormone levels, Sky set out to uncover patterns between health and performance. Not only did they have the challenge of recording relevant data, they also had to find a way to integrate, analyze and visualize all of these data points to reveal insights they could incorporate into training.
Faced with a complex and vast set of raw data, the team needed a solution that could help them bring all of the data together and quickly reveal critical patterns that could optimize performance. Because of the sheer amount of data, and with each device producing different types of data (often in unstructured formats), traditional database and business intelligence technologies were not an option. Instead, they turned to Datameer’s big data analytics and visualization solution. Because Datameer sits on top of Hadoop, an unlimited storage and compute platform that can take in any amount of data and any data format, structured or unstructured, in its raw format, the team could easily input, join, analyze and visualize how all of the sensor and device data was interconnected. Traditional data analytics tools require you to know what questions you want answered from the beginning, but with Datameer the U.S. cycling team was able to let the data speak for itself revealing insights they didn’t know they were looking for.
Immediately, the team learned how routines and behaviors could be adjusted to naturally maximize human performance. For example, patterns revealed how room temperature affected the number of minutes spent in deep sleep, a state where bodies naturally release testosterone and human growth hormone. To increase the amount of deep sleep the team experienced, they adjusted temperatures accordingly. Ultimately, adjustments such as these ended up making the difference between winning and losing: the team won an Olympic medal by 8/100th of a second.
By integrating, analyzing and visualizing quantified self data to find insights that could help improve training, the 2012 U.S. Women’s Olympic cycling team propelled themselves to glory and earned the Silver medal in London. Their approach not only revealed how data could optimize athletic performance, but also gave a glimpse at what professional sports might look like in the future with athletes turning to data — not doping.
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Potere, D, Schneider, A, Angel, S, Civco, DL (2009). Mapping urban areas on a global scale: which of the eight maps now available is more accurate?. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING, 30(24), 6531-6558.
Eight groups from government and academia have created 10 global maps that offer a ca 2000 portrait of land in urban use. Our initial investigation found that their estimates of the total amount of urban land differ by as much as an order of magnitude (0.27-3.52 x 10(6) km(2)). Since it is not possible for these heterogeneous maps to all represent urban areas accurately, we undertake the first global accuracy assessment of these maps using a two-tiered approach that draws on a stratified random sample of 10 000 high-resolution Google Earth validation sites and 140 medium-resolution Landsat-based city maps. Employing a wide range of accuracy measures at different spatial scales, we conclude that the new MODIS 500 m resolution global urban map has the highest accuracy, followed by a thresholded version of the Global Impervious Surface Area map based on the Night-time Lights and LandScan datasets.
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Edgar Rice Burroughs was a failure. The year was 1911.
He was thirty-seven years old, had a wife and two children with a third arriving soon. Each of his attempts to make a living, whether working for others or on his own, had come to naught. The family was destitute.
As a last resort, Burroughs decided to turn to writing as a way to support his family. He had written in the past—advertising copy, articles on business advice and even children's stories done for his own amusement but, the idea of writing fiction for sale...? Burroughs would later recall:
"I had good reason for thinking I could sell what I wrote. I had gone thoroughly through some of the all-fiction magazines and made up my mind that if people were paid for writing rot such as I read I could write stories just as rotten."
Exactly why Burroughs decided to submit his story to Munsey's The All-Story Magazine is not known, but he mailed his first, unfinished draft of 43,000 words in August of 1911 with the proposed title, "Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess." Editor Thomas Newell Metcalf asked Burroughs to expand the text to 70,000 words and, in short order, Burroughs delivered a completed manuscript of 63,000 words. By November of 1911, the final terms of the sale were concluded and, since Munsey paid upon acceptance rather than publication, Burroughs received a much needed check for $400 (approximately the equivalent of $10,000 in 2012). The February, 1912 issue of All-Story featured the first installment of "Under the Moons of Mars," a serial that continued for another five issues and established Burroughs in his new career as an author. Sources indicate that the title was chosen by an editor, probably Metcalf.
The novel we know today as A Princess of Mars differs somewhat from the version read by the All-Story readers of 1911. Burroughs felt that his story might be a bit too fantastic for the audiences of the day. Travel to other worlds was a rarity in early science fiction and it is interesting to note that Burroughs chose to transport his hero to another world through a sort of mystical means rather than attempting to construct a method of physical transport (this was a common post-Victorian fiction device for entry into "unearthly" realms). To quell any question about the fantastic elements of his tale, Burroughs requested the story be credited to the author "Normal Bean"—the word "bean" being synonymous with "head" in 1911 and the pen name would have been understood by readers of the day as meaning "normal in the head" or, in simpler terms, it would imply that the author was sane. Instead of this credit, readers of All-Story saw this header on the title page of each installment:
The change from "Normal" to "Norman" was a misunderstanding upon the part of an unknown editor, who changed it when giving instructions to the artist of the title art (possibly Fred W. Small). The artist lettered the author's name onto the artwork and the engraving of the art had been completed (this was in pre-computer days, remember) by the time the error was caught. It was too late (and expensive) to make the change and so, readers saw the Norman Bean byline on each installment.
Numerous changes were also made to the novel by editorial hands at Munsey's. Burroughs' preface was rewritten and condensed down from over 1200 words to a mere 250 and appeared thusly:
"Relative to Captain Carter's strange story a few words, concerning this remarkable personality, are not out of place.
At the time of his demise, John Carter was a man of uncertain age and vast experience, honorable and abounding with true fellowship. He stood a good two inches over six feet, was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear-cut, his eyes steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character. He was a Southerner of the highest type. He had enlisted at the outbreak of the War, fought through the four years, and had been honorably discharged. Then for more than a decade he was gone from the sight of his fellows. When he returned he had changed, there was a kind of wistful longing and hopeless misery in his eyes, and he would sit for hours at night, staring up into the starlit heavens.
His death occurred upon a winter's night. He was discovered by the watchman of his little place on the Hudson, full length in the snow, his arms outstretched above his head toward the edge of the bluff. Death had come to him upon the spot where curious villagers had so often, on other nights, seen him standing rigid—his arms raised in supplication to the skies."
Many paragraphs throughout the work were also shortened and there were other minor revisions and changes. Burroughs, however, showed a remarkable bit of business acumen for a fledgling author and stipulated that All-Story was only being sold the first serial rights and that he would retain the book rights. Munsey agreed and in 1917, A Princess of Mars was released in book form restored to Burroughs' original version, including the preface, and this is the version that has remained in print since that time.
Today, it is very easy to dismiss A Princess of Mars, not because it is a bad story, but because it was so seminal in the history of science fiction that it changed the direction of the genre. Early science fiction was often more concerned with future social customs, utopian civilizations, and the machines and inventions that would change our lives for good or ill. Interaction with other worlds was a rarity. Burroughs changed that by introducing adventure and romance into a tale that took place on another world, but could, thematically, also take place here on Earth. His formula was so widely copied it now seems too familiar, especially after our exposure to all the science fiction that has appeared in the years since—from Flash Gordon to Star Wars. Burroughs was able to inject the human element, a love story, into his work and the historian Sam Moskowitz even coined a term to describe this style of science fiction: "Scientific Romance." My late friend, G. Edward Kymala, probably summed it all up best when he wrote an introduction for A Princess of Mars back in 2002:
"In 1911, with A Princess of Mars, Burroughs was creating a new style of science fiction writing. The earlier works of the genre often emphasized science over story or the science was merely window dressing that had no real importance to the plot. Burroughs made science an integral part of a story that also contained elements of adventure and fantasy. It was so different that he believed that some might think him crazy, so he used the pen name Normal Bean. Unfortunately a copy reader at All-Story thought this name a typo and re-set it as Norman Bean.
In many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' works, he combines the genres of fantasy, adventure, and science fiction into a story that cannot be described in terms of any of these genres alone. He was one of the first authors to do this and after Burroughs, modern science fiction followed his lead. His work is fast paced. It jumps from one adventurous image to the next.
Burroughs was like John Wayne. In general, you either like his work or you don't. He was not a great writer, but he sure was fun."
G. Edward Kymala
The All-Story issues that featured "Under the Moons of Mars" sold extremely well, even though it was never grranted a cover illustration. Readers of the magazine were lavish in their praise of the serial and demanded more works by Burroughs. The Munsey organization, realizing they had discovered a new best-selling author, urged Burroughs to start on a new novel while "Moons" was still being serialized. They also asked him to consider a sequel to his first Barsoom adventure and promised a higher payment for any work he submitted. Unfortunately, the new novel, an historical adventure saga, was not well received by the editors and, as a result, Munsey nearly missed out on another creation of Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes. But that, as they say, is a tale for another time...
A Princess of Mars is a classic. We hope you enjoy it.Bob Gay
Introduction © 2013 by Bob Gay with portions © 2002 by G. Edward Kymala
(Editor's Note: This reprinting of A Princess of Mars was produced using an old version of the Project Gutenberg release of the novel. The 1970 Nelson Doubleday, Inc. edition was also used as a reference. The Frank Schoonover illustrations originally appeared in the McClurg editon and were recovered from a variety of sources.)
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Packaging is vital when selling any product, but the type of packaging your brand uses for your products can have an impact on the environment. That's why when choosing between packaging materials, it's best to choose those that have minimal negative affects it on the environment. After all, we are responsible for the environment we live in.
For centuries, companies have been operating as a linear economy, which is a technical way of describing the use of limited resources to take, make and dispose, resulting in waste and pollution.
Nowadays, companies have started to make a shift toward a circular economy (CE), as a more realistic strategy to guarantee minimum resource consumption, while also minimizing production waste.
An Intro to Circular Economy (CE)
The circular economy works by designing out waste and pollution. It reinvents making and consuming, so that resources are minimally used without depletion and without the production of waste, while regenerating the ecology to ensure that it can support future generations. Effectively:
- Nothing goes to waste
- Nothing is used just once
- The lifecycle of materials & products is extended
This creates a cyclical model - hence the term 'Circular Economy'.
The image above outlines all of the potential processes relating to a product's lifecycle. As you can see, the inner circles show less consumption of resources and energy (e.g. the 'reuse' circle) compared to the outer circles (e.g. 'disposal'). CE guarantees the maximum usage of resources in the inner circles.
According to the journal of ecological economics, the scientific definition for the circular economy is as follows:
"The Circular Economy as a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and energy loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling."
In the CE concept, the work is more efficient on all scales, and it is applicable for large and small businesses, for organisations and individuals, globally and locally. This concept is based on three principles:
- Designing out waste and pollution: The damage to human health and natural systems that is caused by the economic activity is recognized and taken into consideration when planning. It will include greenhouse gas emissions, hazardous substances, pollution of air, land, and water, as well as structural waste.
- Keeping products and materials in use: This principle is based on using items more effectively and to their fullest potential. In CE, the value is maximally preserved via durability, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling to keep products, components, and materials circulating in the economy. CE encourages the usage of bio-based materials as their cycles are interchangeable between the economy and natural systems.
- Regenerating natural systems: In CE, the usage of non-renewable materials is abstained, and renewable materials are preserved and enhanced to not only protect the environment, but actively improve it.
Companies that are Embracing Circularity
Most of Apple's suppliers are in the Clean Energy Program which have helped their manufacturing suppliers transition to renewable electricity generated from solar, wind, and other renewable projects. One of Apple's aims is that by 2030, all their products will be made with 100% clean energy. Apple products are energy-saving and reduce ours and Apple's carbon footprint. In 12 years, they have reduced the average product energy usage by more than 70%.
In addition, their iMac is becoming more eco-friendly, and has a minimal environmental impact. They use recycled and low‑carbon materials, and their Macs use less power while having an efficient processing system. This resulted in a decrease in their carbon footprint of the new iMac by about 20% compared with the previous generation. Their goal is to achieve zero-waste.
When it comes to Apple packaging, they've tried to improve it by eliminating plastics, increasing recycled content, and using less packaging overall. All the wood fiber used in their packaging is either recycled or is sourced from responsibly managed forests.
Adidas is also another brand that has taken a step towards a circular economy by switching their materials. Now, they use recycled ocean plastic to create polyester yarns which are then used in their products, on top of using recycled packaging.
Adidas is committed to using more than 60 percent recycled polyester in its products, and from 2024, Adidas has pledged to use only recycled polyester. This step towards CE, not only benefits the environment, but also improves their image and increases awareness to their customers.
Burger King is starting to transform into a CE based economy by testing reusable packaging in partnership with loop. It will work by customers paying a deposit once they place their order to receive their reusable containers for sandwiches and drink which will be returned once they return it to the in-store collection points. Consequently, it will be sanitized then used again for the following customers.
IDEA is one of the pioneers of circular economy. They use renewable energy and try to transform all aspects from the product to their packaging to being eco-friendly.
IKEA products range is 60% based on renewable materials, like wood and cotton, and 10% contains recycled materials, which allows their carbon footprint to be reduced over time. IKEA has ensured that the carbon remains stored in their products and materials for a maximum amount of time. Overall, IKEA tries to ensure a healthy & sustainable living, a positive circular & climate impact and fair & equal rights to result in a positive people and planet.
A new strategic partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global thought leader on the circular economy, was also announced by IKEA. It's evident that IKEA is trying to become a circular business assuring that nothing is wasted, and that old products become new resources.
The Benefits of a Circular Economy
The concept of a circular economy will have a positive impact on the environment and economy. CE will result in a reduction in the usage of virgin materials, which are unprocessed raw materials, and reduction in energy inputs. Since there is a reduction in material usage, the material and energy spendings will be reduced.
Additionally, within a circular economy, all virgin materials will be used multiple times, thus making for efficient utilization of cost. The final outcome will be a reduction in waste and emission, along with reduction in waste management costs and emission control costs. This will not only benefit the environment, but it will also benefit the company’s image, responsibility and green market potential, allowing it to attract new customers and even investors.
The Challenges of a Circular Economy
The Circular Economy is a novice concept that lacks ample research to back up all of its claims. The positive impacts of CE is undeniable, but the extent of the impact cannot be precisely stated.
The system behind this concept will have to be individualized and uniquely tailored to each circumstance. Sometimes the cycle might be easily achievable with less resource-intense businesses, while business that rely heavily on different resources may find it challenging to be a circular business.
One of the aspects of CE is utilizing biofuels and bio-based materials as well as developing eco-efficiency initiatives, which theoretically seems like a good idea, but the lack of research on the long-term environmental impacts face a variety of limitations. Further research is required to assess the impacts of CE on a wider scope, but it is undeniable that CE plays a critical role in developing global net sustainability.
The Circular Economy and Packaging
Since the concept of a circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design and ensures that all materials are utilized to their maximum potential, this means that for packaging to be circular, it must be either reused or recycled by mechanical and chemical processes, or via composting, a biological process.
With that being said, circular packaging can be defined as packaging that has minimal environmental footprint by the nature of it being sustainable and eco-friendly, as well as being used to its maximum extent. Here's a blog post that share 7 creative ways to reuse packaging boxes.
If you're a business selling a physical product, packaging is important to your brand in making a good first impression, but also for practically storing your products. It's time to rethink your decisions on packaging and making sure that it can either be recycled, composted, or reused.
Designing at the level of packaging should not only include the packaging concept, format, components, and material choice to provide the same essential packaging function, but also designing out the waste which is the basis of CE. The transformation can be as simple as using recyclable packaging or a change of material (e.g. dissolvable).
If you're looking to become a more circular business through your packaging, we'd be happy to help! Our packaging materials are made with mostly post-consumer content and are circular in nature. Learn more about our other sustainability initiatives here!
We make it easy for businesses to get affordable, high quality, custom packaging. Through our platform, you can get instant prices, order in low volume starting from just 30 boxes, and have your packaging orders delivered anywhere in the world. We work with a network of trusted and vetted suppliers across the world to manage this supply chain so that you can focus on growing your business.
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By John Martin, CNN
(CNN) - Years ago, maybe years upon years ago, you probably sat in a classroom and learned how chemicals combine to form new substances. You watched your teacher write on the board, drew a few pictures and completed a worksheet. Maybe you read the textbook at home and studied images of electrons being shared and transferred to form chemical bonds.
If you step into a high school chemistry class late next year, the students might be learning the same thing. But they could be manipulating foam or paper mache models to show how bonds are made, or moving electrons around on a computer screen, testing what happens when a transfer occurs.
Science classrooms in America will begin to change next year, when 26 states are expected to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards. How those students learn will often differ from the education their parents, or even their older siblings, had.
Twenty-six states helped develop new science standards.
Whatever they're doing, they won't just be reading science translated into kid-speak by adults. They'll be making models, solving problems and getting messy, the standards developers said. They're expecting the next generation to gain an understanding of science and engineering that makes them competitive on a global scale.
“The Next Generation Science Standards… could potentially have a profound change on how we teach science,” said Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teacher Association. “Parents need to know it’s a different kind of classroom their child's going to see.”
So exactly what will change?
By Kristina Sgueglia, CNN
(CNN) - An 11-year-old from Michigan said he was really going to wow his schoolmates with the "coolest" show-and-tell item anyone's ever brought to the sixth grade.
After all, it's not every day you get to show off a 13,000-year-old mastodon bone you and your cousin found in a stream behind your backyard.
"I thought it was a rock at first, but a couple minutes later I looked more at it, and I didn't think it was a dinosaur bone, but I wasn't sure," Eric Stamatin of Shelby Township Michigan told CNN on Thursday.
He and Andrew Gainariu, 11, from Troy, Michigan, were hunting for crayfish in the stream that extends from the middle branch of the Clinton River, as they often did, when they "got bored" and decided to build a dam.
They made an extraordinary discovery that June day.
John Zawiskie, a geologist and paleontologist at the Cranbrook Institute of Science confirmed in early November that what the "kids just being kids outside" discovered was not a rock at all, but an axis, a specialized second vertebrae behind the skull in the spinal column of an American mastodon.
"These animals have been extinct for 10,000 years," Zawiskie told CNN.
by Martin Rand III, CNN
(CNN) – Music has often been used to teach kids complicated concepts. Shows like “Schoolhouse Rock” and “Sesame Street” showed that music can help kids digest lessons, whether it’s how a bill makes it through Congress or words that begin with the letter Q.
Now, Columbia University Professor Christopher Emdin is taking that same logic and applying it to high schools in New York City. But rather than Mr. Chips or Elmo leading kids in sing-alongs, enter the Wu-Tang.
Along with Emdin, Wu-Tang member GZA and the founders of the hip-hop lyrics website Rap Genius will announce a program that utilizes hip-hop to teach science in 10 New York City public schools.
“Everything has already been tried,” said Emdin, an assistant professor of science at Columbia’s Teachers College. “We’ve already done a pilot, and it was successful.”
According to Emdin, during the project’s trial period, attendance, interest and graduation rates all rose after hip-hop was introduced into the classroom.
Science has been one of the harder subjects to teach to black and Latino students, who make up 70% of the city’s rolls, according to New York’s Independent Budget Office. The 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress said only 4% of African-American seniors were proficient in sciences, compared with 27% of whites.
by Zaina Adamu, CNN
When Ted Turbiasz, 36, first heard about Hurricane Sandy, he gathered his two children in their backyard and put them to work. Collectively, they built a do-it-yourself weather station equipped with a rain gauge and wind indicator, and connected their home television to feed live video of the storm. They topped it off with a specially-made banner held on with green duct tape and labeling the unit as “Aidan’s Sandy Weather Station.”
The purpose of it all was to “teach them that weather is something that can be monitored," Turbiasz told CNN's iReport.
With more advanced technology and resources, forecasters are doing the same. They predicted the magnitude of Sandy with the help of satellite images from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder tracked the storm and captured a high-resolution photo that meteorologists used to determine the storm's size.
Other sophisticated technology helps predict life-threatening hurricanes, as well. Take for instance the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s supercomputer, Yellowstone, which is able to render short-term weather forecasts in less than 10 minutes and can compute 1.5 quadrillion (a million billion) mathematical operations a second, equivalent to 7 billion people performing more than 200,000 calculations every second.Read the full story from our Light Years Blog
Editor's note: Montse Cordero is a 17-year-old student from Costa Rica participating in the Foundation for International Space Education's United Space School, a two-week summer program in Houston. She'll be blogging about her experiences in the program here. Need to catch up? Check out all her previous posts here.
I'm starting to get the feeling that all of these posts start the same way, but it's for a good reason: Every day is absolutely amazing in its own way!
Today started early again. Before school, our host took us to see some big vacuum chambers used for testing at Johnson Space Center. There are two chambers in the building: one, that is pretty gigantic, where they will test the James Webb Space Telescope, and another one that’s smaller.
The smaller one is actually human rated, so they’ll test space suits there (with people inside!). The big one takes over 12 hours to reach testing level of vacuum, and the smaller one will take more than eight. They are both quite impressive, we really enjoyed seeing them and learning about them.FULL STORY
Editor's note: Montse Cordero is a 17-year-old student from Costa Rica participating in the Foundation for International Space Education's United Space School, a two-week summer program in Houston. She'll be blogging about her experiences in the program here. Need to catch up? Check out her first post: Getting ready to explore space school, and her log of the first two days.
I’ve been a space geek for a pretty long time, so being at space school is like a dream come true. I’ve wanted to learn everything related to space since I was a little girl. Influence from my parents and going to Space Camp, along with a few other factors, got me to where I am now, but I never imagined I’d get to do things like the ones I’ve been doing these days. The most amazing part is that it’s only day two!
Today started early at Johnson Space Center, where we visited their acoustics laboratory. The laboratory is where they test spaceships and their components before they fly to make sure the vibrations from the launch won't damage them. From there we went to the University of Houston, Clear Lake where our classes take place. It was pretty exciting; we knew we were getting our team assignments.FULL STORY
By Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Alex Berezow is the editor of RealClearScience. Hank Campbell is founder of Science 2.0. They are authors of the forthcoming book Science Left Behind. The views expressed are their own.
On Global Public Square last month, Fareed Zakaria made the case that the U.S. economy is struggling in part due to poor investment in science. He based this conclusion on two claims: First, that federal research and development (R&D) investment has declined over the past several years and, second, that American students have fallen behind in science education.
The first claim, while true, only tells part of the story. As we discuss in the upcoming Science Left Behind, American R&D investment has been relatively consistent for the past 30 years, never dropping below 2.3 percent of GDP. Though the federal portion of U.S. R&D investment has fallen during this period, the private sector has actually picked up the slack. Indeed, the most recent estimate for 2012 shows that the U.S. will spend approximately 2.85 percent of its GDP on R&D.FULL STORY
By Sally Holland, CNN
Washington (CNN) - American students can successfully conduct simple science experiments at school, but aren't able to explain the results, a new report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows.
Results released today reveal that America's fourth-, eighth-, and 12th-graders struggled when investigations had more variables to manipulate or required strategic decision-making while collecting data. Many weren't able to explain why certain results were correct.
It's the first time the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation's Report Card, measured how students performed on hands-on and interactive computer tasks like a professional scientist might. While traditional standardized tests grade students on what they know, people in the workforce are measured on how they apply what they've learned in school. This analysis moves away from "paper and pencil" tests and should allow for a different type of analysis by education experts.
By Jon Jensen and Rima Maktabi, CNN
Editor's note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region.
Alexandria, Egypt (CNN) - Can jumping spiders still hunt for their prey in space?
It may sound like science fiction or the start of a bad joke, but this is an experiment that will be carried out on the International Space Station later this year, thanks to Egyptian teenager Amr Mohamed.
Mohamed, 19, from Alexandria, came up with one of the two winning entries from around the world for the YouTube Space Lab competition, backed by Professor Stephen Hawking, which asked students to design experiments for space scientists.
The idea behind Mohamed's experiment is to study how the zebra spider, which jumps on its prey rather than building a web, will hunt when it is in zero gravity.FULL STORY
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
Editor’s Note: In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week this week, we’re asking our colleagues at CNN to share their stories of teachers who have inspired them. Elizabeth Landau is a writer/producer for CNN.com.
Last week, on the occasion of my 10th high school reunion, I caught up with some of the teachers who motivated me to become a better thinker and more confident person over the years. But the science corridor of the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania held a special sadness for me as I thought about a teacher who is no longer there, and to whom I would love to be able to say: “Guess what? I write about science for CNN!”
When I was 16, I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for physics with Charles Owen – I’d merely chosen it over biology for my junior-year science elective because the idea of frog dissections grossed me out. But physics felt natural to me, and exciting. Dr. Owen explained, with demonstrations and thoughtful diagrams, how aspects of the universe such as momentum, acceleration and gravity could be described with formulas. I was simply amazed that, in the absence of air (in a vacuum), a feather and a bowling ball would fall at exactly the same speed, and that I could use an equation to prove it.
Just when I felt comfortable with the year’s material, Dr. Owen approached me to ask if I wanted to take Physics B Advanced Placement exam. This seemed outrageous at first – his course was not specifically geared toward any standardized test preparation. But he assured me that if I read a few additional textbook chapters on my own, and met with him a several times after school, I would be fine. It was the first time I’d undertaken a real “independent study.” I enjoyed having one-on-one discussions with Dr. Owen about everything from relativity to circuits.
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Human body can be regarded as a big structure, which is capable of performing various functions because of different organs that are working in a co-ordinate fashion. We don’t notice, but different changes take place inside our body every second some of them contribute towards the development of complications whereas others are important for sustaining life in your organs. The sense of sight is a vital and important system which enables not only humans, but also animals to see and appreciate the events happening in their surroundings. Your eyes are the windows through which you understand this world. However, sometimes because of different reasons the working capacity of human eye is damaged leading to poor or faulty visual functions. The point is simple to understand that eyes also need care as they are exposed to many threats all the time. Various eye allergies, infection; refractive errors damage your eye and in turn affect the quality of life. The branch of ophthalmology has been designed by medical science for addressing these eye problems by prescribing various treatments and associated procedures.
A medical doctor which practices ophthalmology is known as ophthalmologist and he is considered as an expert that can treat and diagnose a number of eye conditions. Within the past few years this branch of health sciences has seen great development because demand for eye care has increased to a greater extent. Qualified and expert eye doctors can provide you great assistance in dealing with various eye problems in an effective fashion.
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Brinell Hardness Number Calculator
Our Brinell hardness number calculator will help you determine the indentation hardness of a material in the Brinell scale from the data you gathered through a Brinell hardness test. Join us in the companion article below as we take a closer look at the Brinell hardness scale and how to calculate it.
Are you interested in more material properties? Our Young's modulus calculator is worth checking out!
Brinell hardness number
The Brinell hardness number (BHN or HBW) describes the hardness of a material. The higher the number, the harder the material. The Brinell hardness test involves pressing a small metal ball into the surface of the test material with a known amount of force. The resulting indentation is then measured and converted into a hardness number.
The Brinell hardness number can describe the indentation hardness of various materials, from metals to plastics. It is an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers, allowing them to select the appropriate material for their applications.
The Brinell hardness scale is just one of several methods used to measure the hardness of a material. Others include the Rockwell hardness test and the Vickers hardness test.
Calculating Brinell hardness| Brinell hardness formula
In the Brinell hardness test, we use a small ball (the indentor) made of tungsten carbide or steel to penetrate the material's surface, leaving a hemispherical indent. From the load/pressure on the indentor and the diameter of the hole it makes on the material surface, we can calculate its Brinell hardness number. Our piston force calculator or hydraulic pressure calculator can assist in calculating applied load, if necessary.
The formula for the Brinell hardness number is:
- - Brinell hardness number in kgf/mm2;
- - Applied load in Newtons (N);
- - Diameter of the indentor in mm; and
- - Diameter of the indent/hole in mm.
As noted, it is common to express the Brinell hardness number in kgf/mm2. You can convert it into megapascals by multiplying it with the gravitational acceleration (~9.81m/s2).
Visit our force converter if you wish to convert the applied force from kfg to N.
How to use this Brinell hardness number calculator
This Brinell hardness number calculator is very simple to use:
- Enter the applied load .
- Provide the diameter of the indentor .
- From the Brinell hardness test, enter the diameter of the indentation on the material surface. The calculator will determine the Brinell hardness number from the given data.
Don't know the diameter of the indentor or the diameter of the hole? It's okay - provide the surface area of the indentation , and our Brinell hardness calculator will do the rest!
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