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On November 11,
we will celebrate Veteran's Day to honor those Americans, both living
and dead, who have served with the United States armed forces during
wartime. The contributions of such people cannot be truly appreciated
until one realizes that the ranks of those who have served and died
are as diverse as this country is. Of the various ethnic groups, the
African Americans are no exception and, from the opening salvos of the
Revolutionary War to Operation Desert Storm, they have contributed
their fair share, frequently against a backdrop of segregation,
discrimination, and racism.
In the Revolutionary
War (1776-1783), 10,000 African Americans -- some of them slaves
-- served in the continental armies, participating in the defeat of
the British at several famous battles. In one case, a female African
American disguised herself as a man and served in the Fourth
Massachusetts Regiment. She was later cited for bravery. Black
Americans also helped defend American sovereignty in the War of 1812
and made up between ten and twenty percent of the fighting navy. On
January 8, 1815, as General Andrew Jackson met the British army
outside of New Orleans, six hundred Black soldiers in his ranks held
their end of the line under massive British attack, then surged
forward to help inflict a mortal blow on the enemy.
In the American Civil
War (1861-1865), the Confederacy declared that captured Black Union
soldiers would be hanged or pressed back into slavery. In spite of
that declaration, 186,000 soldiers of African descent served in 150
regiments of the Union army, making up about almost 13% of the Union
army's combat manpower. Another 30,000 were in the Navy. In four years
of fighting, it is believed that 37,000 African Americans died in
battle or from disease. Twenty Black soldiers were awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor for their services in the Civil War.
In the Indian Campaigns
(1866-1890), African-American soldiers took part in many of the
hostilities and twenty of them were awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor for service above and beyond the call of duty. Several years
later, the Buffalo soldiers of the 9th U.S. Cavalry Regiment fought
side by side with Teddy Roosevelt's celebrated Rough Riders in Cuba
during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Eight Black soldiers were
awarded the Medal of Honor for their role in that war.
participation in World War I (1914-1918), 367,000 Black Americans
served their country both at home and overseas. Eventually they would
comprise 11% of the troops that went overseas. The two thousand
African-American soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment served in
France along the Western Front. The 369th won the respect and
admiration of their French comrades for their tenacity in fighting off
incessant German attacks. The men of the 369th called themselves the
Black Rattlers, but their German adversaries, in recognition of their
ferocity, called them the Hellfighters. Suffering heavy casualties
after 191 days in combat -- more than any other American unit -- the
369th was awarded 170 medals by the French for their courage and
In the years preceding
World War II, Black labor battalions in the Army were assigned to
loading ships and general maintenance. When war finally came in
December 1941, most African-American volunteers were initially placed
into segregated Army units and denied overseas combat duty. According
to Ulysses Lee of Howard University, author of "The Employment of
Negro Troops," Black Americans "asked with increasing frequency for
the opportunity that they believed to be rightfully theirs in the
first place: the opportunity to participate in the defense of their
country in the same manner ... as other Americans." Under pressure
from African-American leaders and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the
military was persuaded to change its policy and, by the end of the
war, 500,000 African-American soldiers had been sent to overseas duty.
In all, 1,154,720 Black soldiers served in the armed forces, 909,000
of them in the Army.
At the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama, a group of highly-talented, college-educated
Black soldiers attended a special flying school. In April 1943, the
graduates of this school, later known as the Tuskegee Airmen, crossed
the Atlantic into the war zone. Flying escort for heavy bombers over
European skies, the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group flew 15,533
sorties in the course of 1,578 combat missions. The Tuskegee Airman
destroyed 261 enemy aircraft and caused great damage to the enemy on
the ground. After gaining widespread recognition for their exploits,
they received a total of 900 medals, including a Presidential Citation
for the group.
In the Battle of the
Bulge (December 1944), Nazi forces launched a fierce winter
counterattack and broke through the Allied defenses in the area of
Belgium and Luxembourg. In desperation, the American military
recruited and sent 2,500 black soldiers into the First Army's
counterattack to replace lost soldiers. According to Colonel John R.
Ackor, these hastily-assembled platoons of African-American soldiers
"performed in an excellent manner at all times while in combat. These
men were courageous fighters and never once did they fail to
accomplish their assigned mission."
The all-Black 761st
Tank Battalion fought 183 consecutive days with General George S.
Patton's army in Europe and was credited with killing 6,266 enemy
soldiers and capturing another 15,818. During the Battle of the Bulge,
the 761st "entered combat with... conspicuous courage and success." In
April 1945, the 761st Battalion liberated the Nazi death camps at
Buchenwald and Dachau, where they were greeted as heroes by the
According to the noted
author William Loren Katz, 71% of African-American troops in World War
II were confined to quartermaster, engineer, or transportation duties
and denied combat experience. However, many of these troops also
performed their duties admirably and conscientiously. Ten thousand
Black troops constructed the 1,044-mile Ledo Road, which connected
China with India and proved vital to the American war effort.
Operating in hostile territory, where they came under constant fire by
Japanese snipers and had to contend with pounding rains, disease and
attack by wild animals, the soldiers completed the road in 25 months.
There was literally a fallen soldier's grave for each mile of road.
In World War II, 3,902
African-American women answered the call of their country and enrolled
in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WACS); another 68 joined the Navy
Auxiliary (WAVES). During the Cold War years, sixteen African-American
soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor for duties
performed in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The exact number of
African-American troops who have served their country cannot be
determined with any degree of certainty. However, their record of
courage under fire was irrefutable proof of their loyalty to America.
|1. Chappell, Kevin.
Blacks in World War II. Ebony, Vol. 50, No. 11 (September 1995),
|2. Katz, William
Loren. A History of Multicultural America: World War II to the New
Frontier, 1940-1963. Austin, Texas: Raintree Steck-Vaughn
|3. Ploski, Harry A.
and Williams, James. The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the
Afro-American. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1983 (4th ed.).
|4. Time-Life Books.
African Americans Voices of Triumph: Perseverance. Alexandria,
Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1993.
|5. Wright, David K. A
Multicultural Portrait of World War II. New York: Marshall
Mr. Schmal is a senior editor
at a publishing company in Chatsworth, California. His hobby, and
passion, is that of a genealogist who specializes in
African-American Southern lineages as well as Puerto Rican and
Mexican lineages. He has written several articles about ethnic
contributions to American life, usually military contributions or
Copyright ©1999 by
John P. Schmal. Reprints require approval by the
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CICLing 2012, www.cicling.org/2012, will be held in New Delhi, India, on March 11–17, 2012. Submission deadline: October 31. Keynote speakers: Srinivas Bangalore, John Carroll, Salim Roukos, Bonnie Webber.
What is computational linguistics?
Computational linguistics is the scientific study of language from a computational perspective. Computational linguists are interested in providing computational models of various kinds of linguistic phenomena. These models may be "knowledge-based" ("hand-crafted") or "data-driven" ("statistical" or "empirical"). Work in computational linguistics is in some cases motivated from a scientific perspective in that one is trying to provide a computational explanation for a particular linguistic or psycholinguistic phenomenon; and in other cases the motivation may be more purely technological in that one wants to provide a working component of a speech or natural language system. Indeed, the work of computational linguists is incorporated into many working systems today, including speech recognition systems, text-to-speech synthesizers, automated voice response systems, web search engines, text editors, language instruction materials, to name just a few.
Popular computational linguistics textbooks include:
- Christopher Manning and Hinrich Schütze (1999) Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT Press.
Also see the book's supplemental materials website at Stanford.
- Daniel Jurafsky and James Martin (2008) An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition, Second Edition. Prentice Hall.
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| 0.833837
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Republic Day: February 23
Republic Day is a public holiday in Guyana.
Guyana celebrates Republic Day or Mashramani (abbreviated as ‘Mash) on February usually on the 23rd. Guyanese citizens enjoy festive and colourful parades much like that of a carnival, music, and games. Guyanese cook on this special day to mark the birth of a new country.
Mashramani should not be confused with the country’s Independence Day on May 26. After it gained independence from the British in 1966, the Guyanese people established itself as an independent nation or a democratic sovereign country as stated in the British Commonwealth of 1970.
The word Mashramani is an Amerindian word which means to celebrate/celebrating a job well done. It is the most celebrated holiday in Guyana as floats, parades and masquerade party and dancing flood the street a scenery which reflects the country’s proud African heritage.
History of Guyana’s Republic Day
For most foreigners, the idea of celebrating Guyanese Republic Day might be construed with celebrating Independence Day. While the country’s Independence Day marks the act of the British in relegating the sovereignty Guyana have long been wanting for, it is the Republic Day where the Guyanese commemorates the establishment of a sovereign republic after being granted independence from the British rule.
Carnival-like celebration in Guyana has long been practiced in Mackenzie by local members of Junior Chamber International (JCI) or Jaycees. The celebration of Guyana’s Republic Day coincided with the establishment of Jaycees Republic Celebrations Committee headed by Basil Butcher but it was Jim Blackman was appointed to do the job because Butcher had to join the West Indies Cricket Team during that time. Blackman, along with other personnel, organized the first formal government-sponsored carnival activity to happen in Guyana.
Butcher was the one to initially suggest that the name of the festival be based on Amerindian word. Amerindian is a language spoken by indigenous people of the Americas who are sometimes called upon as Native Americans or American Indian. One of Butcher’s personnels, Mr. Allan Fietdkow, a native Amerindian, helped Butcher in coming up with a name for the festival through his consultation with his grandfather. Ultimately, the word Mashramani was suggested.
The first Mashramani in February 23, 1970 was a huge success and well-accepted by the locals; because of that, a government official named David Singh suggested that the festival be brought to the country’s capital – Georgetown. It later was given approval by the president of Guyana back then (President Forbes Burnham).
The celebration of Mashramani is done in various regions in Guyana including Berbice, Linden, and Georgetown but due the largest concentration of events usually happen in Georgetown due in part to sponsorship both from private and public institutions and individuals..
Guyana’s Republic Day: Traditions, Customs and Activities
Guyana’s constitutional milestone is celebrated with float parade, dancing and singing, and other fun activities. It aims to mobilize professionals, private individuals, and the youth in participating in the country’s celebration of the country’s political success. The three-day festival is joined by people from all walks of life coming from different regions in Guyana. The Mardi-Gras like celebration encourages both men and women to participate in street dancing and parade wearing colourful costumes. There is no other holiday to look forward to in Guyana other than the fun-filled carnival-like celebration of Republic Day.
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In the Case of Wholesale Food Distributors, It’s All About Location
Posted: December 11, 2013
“Our model addresses the problem of how to move food from producers to consumers efficiently,” said Hamideh Etamadnia, a member of the Distribution Team and lead author of the study. “In the case of farmers’ markets, producers bring their products directly to consumers themselves. But most products are trucked from processing facilities to wholesale distributors, and then on to retail stores. Our model will help identify the optimal locations of these intermediary distributors so as to minimize transportation costs and to maximize the number of producers and retailers that they serve.”
Etamadnia and her colleagues developed the mathematical model to consider transportation and distributor-construction costs, as well as several possible constraints that will allow them to look at various “what if” scenarios.
“The constraints that we built into our model allow us to understand how certain changes might affect the optimal locations of wholesale hubs,” she explained. “For example, officials who want to promote regional agriculture could place constraints on the distance food travels, to see how their region’s existing distribution structure would need to change for such a policy to succeed.”
To test their model, the researchers applied it to the meat supply chain in the Northeastern U.S., which comprises 433 counties. Using County Business Patterns data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, they identified which counties contain slaughtering or meat-processing facilities, and which counties contain retail meat markets. Inserting these data into their mathematical model, they conducted several simulations to determine the optimal locations for wholesale distributors connecting these slaughter and processing facilities with retail markets. Their results show how optimal distributor locations change based on a number of variables, including distributor size and capacity, road conditions, and gas prices.
“Our team can use this model to conduct simulations with other supply chains, such as those for fresh fruits and vegetables,” said Distribution Team Leader, Miguel Gomez. “These simulations will help us to identify the kinds of changes that would be required of the Northeastern U.S. food supply chain in order to support increased regionalization, and what kinds of economic effects such changes would have.”
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The mimicry of the Black-cowled Orioles (Icterus prosthemelas (AKA I.dominicensis prosthemelas)) is similar to the mimicry of the Hooded Oriole in North America.
Douglas Von Gausig (recordist; copyright holder), Naturesongs.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Help us improve the site by taking our survey.
To cite this page: Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2016. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed at http://animaldiversity.org.
Disclaimer: The Animal Diversity Web is an educational resource written largely by and for college students. ADW doesn't cover all species in the world, nor does it include all the latest scientific information about organisms we describe. Though we edit our accounts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee all information in those accounts. While ADW staff and contributors provide references to books and websites that we believe are reputable, we cannot necessarily endorse the contents of references beyond our control.
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by James R Booth and Tali Bitan, Science Direct
Research shows conclusively for the first time that there is a biological basis for gender differences in learning, particularly in language acquisition.
“Reconcilable Differences: What Social Sciences Show About the Complementarity of the Sexes & Parenting“
by W. Bradford Wilcox
Wilcox claims that social science shows that each sex has different strong points when it comes to parenting, and each should be allowed to fulfill the role in which they excel. Mothers are more adept at breast-feeding, understanding, and nurturing/comforting their children. Fathers are better at disciplining and playing with their children, as well as equipping them to face life’s challenges and opportunities. Research has shown that the structure of families and the roles played by parents do produce measurable results in children’s lives.
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ANSTO Publications Online >
Conference Publications >
Conference Publications >
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
|Title: ||Size of the West Antarctic ice sheet at the last glacial maximum: new constraints from the Darwin-Hatherton glacial system in the Transantarctic Mountains.|
|Authors: ||Storey, B|
|Issue Date: ||1-Jul-2009|
|Citation: ||Storey, B., Hood, D., Fink, D., Shulmeister, J., & Riger-Kusk, M. (2009). Size of the West Antarctic ice sheet at the last glacial maximum: new constraints from the Darwin-Hatherton glacial system in the Transantarctic Mountains. Annual Antarctic Conference 2009 - "Sustaining the Gains of the International Polar Year", 1st – 3rd July 2009. In Proceedings of the Annual Antarctic Conference 2009 (p. 14). Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland.|
|Abstract: ||An understanding of how the Antarctic ice sheet has reacted to natural global warming since the last glacial maximum (LGM) 18 to 22 thousand years ago (kya) is essential to accurately predict the response of the ice
sheets to current and future climate change. Although global sea level rose by approximately 120 metres since the LGM, the contribution from and rate of change of the Antarctic ice sheets is by no means certain. Mackintosh et al (2007) have suggested that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) made
an insignificant contribution to global sea-level rise between 13 and 7 kya raising interesting questions about the initial extent and response of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) during that time frame. Terrestrial evidence of these changes is restricted to a few ice-free areas where glacial landforms, such as moraines, show the extent of former ice advances. One such area is the Darwin-Hatherton glacial system where spectacular moraines preserve
the advance and retreat of the glacial system during previous glacial cycles.
Previous researchers have suggested that the WAIS was more than 1000 metres thicker than it is today at this location at the LGM.
As part of the Latitudinal Gradient Project, we mapped the moraines of the Lake Wellman area bordering the Hatherton Glacier and collected samples for cosmogenic nuclide dating, a technique that is widely used to calculate the exposure history of the glacial landscape and the amount of time that
the glacial debris has been exposed to cosmic rays and not covered by ice or
other glacial debris. While the technique is very successful in mid latitudes, it is more challenging in Polar Regions. Our mapping has shown that ice in the past was at least 800 metres thicker than current ice levels in this area. Our cosmogenic data suggest that this was at least 2 million years ago but for the most part our data record, as
expected, a complex history of exposure and re exposure of the ice free regions in this area in accordance with advance and retreat of the ice sheets. However, a cluster of ages of 35 to 40 thousand years record a single exposure event and indicate that the ice in this area was not as thick as
previous estimates for the extent of ice at the LGM. These ages are recorded from moraine boulders that are located below a prominent moraine feature mapped as representing the LGM. These results raise further questions about the size of the Antarctic ice sheets at the LGM, their contribution to global sea level change and how the Antarctic ice sheets respond to global warming.|
|Appears in Collections:||Conference Publications|
Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.
Items in APO are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
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QUESTION: I want to build a super-energy-efficient house using building products that are made from recycled materials or are made by energy-efficient methods. What specific types of building products should I use?
ANSWER: If you shop carefully, you should be able to find recycled or low-energy-intensive building products to meet most your material needs. Many of these energy-efficient products use more than 50% recycled materials and require little additional energy for processing.
These new "earth-friendly" building products include structural framing, foundations, walls, roofs, sheathing, insulation, interior wall and floor coverings.
For exterior wall or roof framing, chose products that use as little lumber from old-growth trees as possible.
Instead of using 2x10 floor joists, you can use "I-joists," which require less wood for the same strength. Also glue-laminated lumber and laminated veneer lumber use smaller pieces from second-growth trees to make large defect-free lumber.
To even further reduce the amount of lumber, use super-insulated stress skin wall panels. These use only 5% wood as compared to 20% wood in a conventional studded wall.
Another new wall panel uses a super-strong and efficient honeycomb structure made from recycled resin-impregnated paper.
Producing cement for foundations and slabs is very energy intensive. ACC (autoclaved cellular concrete) uses small amounts of aluminum in the concrete. This creates small bubbles causing the concrete to expand and become less dense as it cures. It is still very strong, but requires less cement. Waste fly ash from power plants can replace about 20% of the cement.
Many organic asphalt shingles contain recycled mixed waste paper. Some of the residential aluminum "shake-looking" roofing is made from 100% recycled beverage cans. Metal roofing also can cut your cooling costs. If you like the look of wood shakes, select ones made from remanufactured wood fibers.
Many types of insulation are made from recycled and fireproof treated newsprint or waste mineral slag. One type of blowing wool fiber insulation is made from 100% recycled telephone books. Rigid insulating foam wall sheathing is now made from recycled foam containers.
You can use gypsum-like wallboard made from waste ryegrass straw. Another type is made from waste paper and rice hulls or peanut shells. Some resilient tile flooring is made from recycled car tires. One company makes solar ceramic tiles from recycled waste glass from a light bulb factory. Some attractive carpeting is made from recycled plastic bottles.
You can write for Utility Bills Update No. 355 listing addresses and telephone numbers of 70 manufacturers of "earth-friendly" building and home improvement products and descriptions of their products. Please include $1.50 and a self-addressed business-size envelope. Send to James Dulley, Los Angeles Times, 6906 Royalgreen Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45244.
Using Heat Escaping From Clothes Dryer
Q: During the winter, I moved my electric clothes dryer far from the window vent. This should have allowed some heat to transfer to the utility room before it blows outdoors. Was this a good idea?
A: In theory your idea is a good one. However, there are some potential problems. First check with your dryer manufacturer about the maximum duct length. A very long duct can cause excessive back pressure.
Another potential problem is a fire from accumulated lint. For a long duct, over 20 feet, always use an aluminum duct, not plastic.
Letters and questions to Dulley, a Cincinnati-based engineering consultant, may be sent to James Dulley, Los Angeles Times, 6906 Royalgreen Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45244.
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Self-Propelled Underwater Neutrino Cherenkov Radiation Observation Platform
Expansion of Observation Facilities: SPUNCROP
Total Capital Expenditures = $67,285.00 Total
Budget Request = $67,655.50
Currently one of the most controversial topics in solar astronomy is the so-called "solar neutrino problem." Experiments around the world set up to measure the flux of high energy neutrinos (a weakly interacting uncharged subatomic particle) have detected a flux of neutrinos lower than that which is predicted by the standard solar model. More data is required before an explanation of this discovery can be formulated. We believe that the proper position of the Ryerson Astronomical Society is at the forefront of this exciting new field. The Self Propelled Underwater Neutrino Cherenkov Radiation Observation Platform or SPUNCROP will not only make the Ryerson Astronomical Society the only amateur astronomy group actively engaged in the measurement of solar neutrino flux, but it will also make SG the first student government in the world to fund such an ambitious undertaking, a fitting honor for the University of Chicago. We propose to outfit a diesel submarine with photomultiplier tubes and lurk about the bottom of Lake Michigan late at night in an effort to detect the faint flashes (known as Cherenkov Radiation) that result from the collision of solar neutrinos with water molecules. By using Lake Michigan as a detector we will not only be effectively shielded from cosmic rays, but we will also avoid the expense of containing millions of gallons of fluid; a problem in several less innovative e xperiments currently being carried out by other research institutions A further advantage of our experiment is that we will be able to detect the direction of interacting neutrinos through the use of timing data from photomultiplier tubes, providing a crude imaging capability. We propose to purchase a used diesel-electric submarine from the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. Because of the end of the Cold War combined with the poor Soviet economy, the U.S.S.R. is selling these submarines a t give-away prices. Not only is this an excellent opportunity to get a good buy on a submarine, but our support will also help the faltering economic reforms in the Soviet Union. The cost of a suitable submarine is $50,000. We will need anther $5,000 f or photomultiplier tubes and assorted electronics. $2,000 is needed to fly two members to Vladivostok to pick up the submarine and $10,000 worth of fuel will bring the submarine back to Chicago and support our first year of observations.
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Animal Species:Banded Pipefish, Doryrhamphus dactyliophorus (Bleeker, 1853)
The Ringed Pipefish can be recognised by its pattern of red to blackish bars. In Australia, it occurs in marine tropical waters of Australia.
Standard Common Name
The Ringed Pipefish has red to blackish bars, a distinct caudal fin, and a very long snout.
The species grows to a maximum length of 18 cm.
The map below shows the Australian distribution of the species based on public sightings and specimens in Australian Museums. Source: Atlas of Living Australia.
Distribution by collection data
The species lives in caves and crevices.
- Hoese, D.F., Bray, D.J., Paxton, J.R. & G.R. Allen. 2006. Fishes. In Beesley, P.L. & A. Wells. (eds) Zoological Catalogue of Australia. Volume 35. ABRS & CSIRO Publishing: Australia. parts 1-3, pages 1-2178.
Mark McGrouther , Collection Manager, Ichthyology
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Image: Black Marlin pectoral fin ray
The marginal (leading) ray of a billfish, probably a Black Marlin, found by Harry Rosenthal on Backwoods Beach, Cronulla (directly opposite Shark Island), New South Wales on 4 August 2012. The bone was found in its current 'clean' state. No other bones were found in the vicinity.
- Carl Bento
- © Australian Museum
Black Marlins have rigid pectoral fins that have a very limited range of movement. Part of this rigidity results from the flat basal surface of the leading pectoral fin ray which sits against the flat surface of the scapula. Other billfishes, such as the Blue Marlin, have a markedly convex pectoral fin base that allows the fin to be moved.
Wapenaar, M.-L. & F.H. Talbot. 1964. Note on the rigidity of the pectoral fin of Makaira indica (Cuvier). Annals of the South African Museum. 167-180.
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I have posted comments and pictures on this site of my son Conor waiting in anticipation for his ABA therapist to arrive. I have seen ABA help Conor learn skills, reduce problem behaviors and expand his ability to communicate. But as a mere parent my actual knowledge of ABA and its positive influence on my son's life is of no weight to the anti-cure, anti-treatment, anti-ABA ideologues who attack ABA despite their own lack of actual knowledge or experience with the intervention and despite the hundreds of studies and many credible professional reviews of those studies speaking to the effectiveness of ABA as an autism intervention.
Unlke some anti-ABA ideologues who accuse behaviourists of misbehaving and propogate unfounded, negative myths about ABA Mruzek and Mozing have actual experience with ABA. They have more than empty, heated rhetoric to offer - they have, as Board Certified Behavior Analysts talked the talk and walked the walk. Unlike most anti-ABA critics they actually know what they are talking about. They offer their comments on an article which perpetuated some of the ABA misconceptions:
Unfortunately, the essay perpetuated some all-too-common misconceptions about applied behavior analysis, particularly that it is "rooted in repetition" and focuses mainly on making "children with autism ... indistinguishable from their peers." In fact, the concept is a very flexible approach, with teaching methods and goals carefully tailored to the needs of each child.And they speak to ABA's effectiveness as a means of helping autistic children:
The first applied behavior analysis study specifically targeting autism was published in 1964. Since then, it has become the most-studied intervention for children with autism — the only one recommended by the New York State Department of Health. It includes a wide array of teaching methods grounded in scientifically derived principles of learning, especially those related to the powerful effect of positive reinforcement on behavior change.
Applied behavior analysis can help people with autism develop new skills (in academics, play, communication, social interaction) and support those who engage in challenging behaviors (severe tantrums, refusing food, injuring themselves).
Intensive, early intervention for young children with autism can be especially effective, although outcomes vary among individuals. A study under way at UR is investigating factors possibly implicated in these variable outcomes.
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A risk factor is something that increases your chance of getting a disease or condition.
It is possible to develop COPD with or without the risk factors listed below. However, the more risk factors you have, the greater your likelihood of developing COPD. If you have a number of risk factors, ask your healthcare provider what you can do to reduce your risk.
Risk factors include:
The most important risk factor for COPD is cigarette smoking. Almost all COPD cases are caused by cigarette smoking. However, not all smokers develop COPD. Factors in your environment or genetic make-up also contribute to the development of COPD.
Smoking more "exotic" forms of tobacco, such as Chinese waterpipes, are can be even more harmful. In some cases, these can increase your risk more than traditional cigarettes.
Research suggests that people who are chronically exposed to secondhand smoke (in any form) have an increased risk of developing COPD.
COPD usually develops in older persons with a long history of cigarette smoking. However, one form of emphysema has a genetic component. It runs in families. It is also more common in people of northern European descent. People with this form of COPD have a hereditary deficiency of a blood component. It is known as alpha-1-protease inhibitor (alpha-1-antitrypsin [AAT]). People with this defect can develop COPD at an earlier age. If you have close relatives who developed COPD in their 30s or 40s, your risk of this type of COPD may be elevated. A deficiency of AAT can be detected with blood tests.
You are more likely to develop COPD as you get older. This is partly related to the number of cigarettes smoked and the number of years as a smoker.
A history of frequent childhood lung infections increases your risk of developing COPD.
COPD is much more common in men than in women. But, this may be largely related to the higher rate of smoking among men. As the number of women who have significant smoking histories has increased, the number of COPD-related deaths in women has also risen.
Exposure to Environmental and Occupational Pollutants
Chronic exposure to dust, gases, chemicals, and biomass fuels increases your risk of developing COPD. These include smoke from burning wood, charcoal, and crop residue. Exposure to these can also worsen symptoms of the disease.
- Reviewer: Michael Woods, MD
- Review Date: 03/2016 -
- Update Date: 03/15/2015 -
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Two other studies found fish oil didn't work for an irregular heartbeat condition called atrial fibrillation, even though it is thought to help certain people with heart disease or high levels of fats called triglycerides in their blood.
The bottom line: Dietary supplements have varied effects and whether one is right for you may depend on your personal health profile, diet and lifestyle.
"Many people take vitamin supplements as a crutch," said study leader Dr. Howard Sesso of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "They're no substitute for a heart-healthy diet, exercising, not smoking, keeping your weight down," especially for lowering heart risks.
The studies were presented Monday at an American Heart Association conference in Los Angeles and the vitamin research and one fish oil study were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Multivitamins are America's favorite dietary supplement about one-third of adults take them. Yet no government agency recommends their routine use for preventing chronic diseases, and few studies have tested them to see if they can. A leading preventive medicine task force even recommends against beta-carotene supplements, alone or with other vitamins, to prevent cancer or heart disease because some studies have found them harmful. And vitamin K can affect bleeding and interfere with some commonly used heart drugs.
Sesso's study involved nearly 15,000 healthy male doctors given monthly packets of Centrum Silver or fake multivitamins. After about 11 years, there were no differences between the groups in heart attacks, strokes, chest pain, heart failure or heart-related deaths.
Side effects were fairly similar except for more rashes among vitamin users. The National Institutes of Health paid for most of the study. Pfizer Inc. supplied the pills and other companies supplied the packaging.
The same study a few weeks ago found that multivitamins cut the chance of developing cancer by 8 percent a modest amount and less than what can be achieved from a good diet, exercise and not smoking.
Multivitamins also may have different results in women or people less healthy than those in this study only 4 percent smoked, for example.
The fish oil studies tested prescription-strength omega-3 capsules from several companies in two different groups of people for preventing atrial fibrillation, a fluttering, irregular heartbeat.
One from South America aimed to prevent recurrent episodes in 600 participants who already had the condition. The other sought to prevent it from developing in 1,500 people from the U.S., Italy and Argentina having various types of heart surgery, such as valve replacement. About one third of heart surgery patients develop atrial fibrillation as a complication.
Both studies found fish oil ineffective.
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It’s hard to discipline children. You can’t hit them. Timeouts are not effective. Now, a study out of the University of Pittsburgh says yelling at teens and tweens — particularly when it involves cursing or insults — can be just as harmful as hitting. So what can you do?
Remember that the word “discipline” originally meant to teach, so look for opportunities to coach your child, not just punish him for a misstep.
“Discipline implies setting limits and boundaries,” said Vicki Hoefle, mother of six in Middlebury, Vt., and author of “Duct Tape Parenting.” “But the way we do it is, ‘I’m going to punish you when you do something I don’t like.’ It’s a completely wasted moment.”
No one wants to yell at their kids, and we usually feel bad when it happens. But most of us didn’t know it could be as damaging as the spankings we got when we were growing up.
The University of Pittsburgh study released in September looked at 967 middle school students over a two-year period. Those whose parents used “harsh verbal discipline” such as yelling, cursing and using insults were more likely to be depressed or have behavior problems. The study found it was also not effective in getting children to stop what they were doing, and that it was damaging even to children in homes that were generally warm and loving.
“If you yell at your child, you either create somebody who yells back at you or somebody who is shamed and retreats,” said Meghan Leahy, a mother of three and a parenting coach in Washington. “You’re either growing aggression or growing shame. Those are not characteristics that any parents want in their kids.”
There is a difference, of course, between being verbally abusive and using a sharply raised voice. Yelling alone is not always damaging, although the surprise of a sudden change in volume can cause a child to be fearful or anxious. It’s often what is said that is harmful, according to Deborah Sendek, program director for the Center for Effective Discipline (CED).
“When people raise their voices, the message typically isn’t, ‘Wow, I love you, you’re a great child,’ ” Sendek said. “You’re usually saying something negative, and ripping down their self-esteem.”
It’s nearly impossible to never yell at your child. It’s going to happen. Even if you’re not calling your child names or insulting him, though, there are more effective ways to deal with disciplinary problems than yelling, Leahy said.
“Teens and tweens, especially, find our sensitive underbellies, and when they are outright defiant and what they do flies in the face of expectations, we do yell,” said Leahy, whose oldest daughter, Sophia, will be 10 in January. “But it’s definitely not in the toolbox of what’s effective discipline.”
What can harried parents do to get through to that child who, despite being asked 10 times to brush his teeth, is still playing with the cat and about to be late for school? Here are suggestions from parenting experts on how to keep behavioral problems from turning you into a screaming lunatic, and how to recover from it on the (hopefully rare) occasions when you do yell.
Take a break
Sometimes you are better off pushing the pause button and revisiting the problem in 20 minutes or the next morning.
When Hoefle’s children, now ages 19 to 24, were younger and she felt herself losing her temper, she would put a hard candy in her mouth or look at a sweet picture of her child. That was often enough to make her consider her response more carefully.
She also took the unconventional approach of allowing her children to leave the room if she was yelling. Most parents might think seeing their child’s retreating back would escalate their anger, but Hoefle said it made her stop and think about what she was saying, and how it was making her child feel. It was enough of a pause, she said, for her to reconsider how she was handling her anger.
“If you find what I’m saying disrespectful, you have permission to leave, because nobody should be subjected to that,” said Hoefle, whose book advises parents to resist the urge to nag and control their kids. “It set up a dynamic where people could get up and walk away and the person yelling would stop and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ My kids would say, ‘I know we didn’t do what you asked, we got distracted, we’re sorry.’ Just the respect goes a long way in re-establishing order.”
Put a stop to recurring arguments
Figure out when, and why, you’re most often losing your temper, Hoefle said.
Do you yell at your son every morning because he’s dawdling in the shower when you are trying to get everyone out the door on time? Then talk to him about what you can do to make things go more smoothly.
Come up with a strategy that attacks the root of the problem, whether it’s using a timer to remind him when he needs to get out of the shower, or taking one the night before. If you involve your child in creating the plan, Hoefle said, he is more likely to participate in executing it.
“If you can anticipate that it’s going to happen, you can make a plan,” Hoefle said. “If it goes this way all the time, what are you going to do differently as the adult? You can say to your kids, ‘We have to create a morning routine that works for you. What can I do to be of assistance?’ “
Be clear and consistent with expectations
Kids want and crave limits and structure, so it’s important to set boundaries and stick to them, the CED’s Sendek said.
Don’t get into the habit of asking your child to do something multiple times. Instead, ask her to do something (say, brush her teeth), and tell her what will happen if she doesn’t. Be specific and follow through, even if she tries to bargain her way out of the consequence.
Leahy said she calmly refuses to be swayed by her daughter’s attempts to negotiate, recalling a time recently when she told Sophia she wouldn’t drive her to a choir concert at school because Sophia had been disrespectful.
“There was a lot of wailing, crying, deep breathing, and then she said, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Leahy said. “I said thanks, and she looked at me, and I said, ‘I’m still not taking you.’ We don’t want to make our kids feel bad, but at the same time I [held] my boundaries without yelling.”
Give your child a say
The best way to get your child to buy into consequences is to involve him in creating them, said Jennifer Powell-Lunder, creator of the Web forums It’s a Tween’s Life and Talking Teenage.
If you have been struggling to get your child to finish his homework in the evenings, tell him that it has to be done and ready to be checked by 7 p.m. each day, Leahy said. Make it clear to him that if it’s not complete on time, there will be a consequence. Ask him what he thinks would be an appropriate punishment.
You might think he won’t take it seriously, and will suggest something along the lines of no broccoli for a week. More often than not, though, children are harder on themselves than you would be, Powell-Lunder said. Work together to figure out the most appropriate consequences for different rule violations.
Monitor your tone
When you yell, Sendek said, your child will not remember what you said. He will only remember that you yelled, and how upsetting that was.
“It’s a physiological response,” Sendek said. “When someone yells, your system goes on hyper-alert.”
Instead of yelling, Sendek said, use a stern tone of voice to get your child’s attention and let him know that what you are saying is important. Get face to face with him and make eye contact.
Stop arguing and reconnect
Take time out from whatever is angering you and spend time reading or playing a game with your child to reconnect, Leahy said. Or if you are fighting about her choice in music, tell her why you dislike it, then ask her what she likes about it. You can always revisit the source of conflict later.
“You’re modeling wonderful behavior to your teens, and teaching them that when you have a conflict there are other ways to resolve it and be successful,” Powell-Lunder said of taking the time to count to three and resisting the urge to yell.
In Hoefle’s house they called this policy “Stop. Apologize. Eat ice cream.”
“I would go into the freezer and get little tubs of sherbet, give everyone a spoon, and we would all take a bite and regroup,” Hoefle said. “Whatever is happening is not as important as the fact that we are family. When we come home tonight we can talk about the problem. But in that moment I want to clean up the mess. It resets the clock.”
Let go of the small stuff
We all want children with perfect table manners, impeccable hygiene and strong moral character. Sometimes, though, you need to pick what is most important to you, or to your child’s safety, and let some of the irritating, but less dire, behaviors slide, Sendek said.
“Decide what are those things that are very critical to you: drugs, sex, alcohol,” she said. “Those should have dire consequences. With other things, say, ‘Okay, you didn’t pick up your shoes and that drives me crazy, but I can live with it.’ “
Model good behavior by apologizing for yelling
Even the most patient parents yell occasionally. Kids are hard-wired to push our buttons, and we lose our tempers. If you do yell, the best thing to do is acknowledge the mistake, Leahy said.
Leahy said that when she has lost her temper with Sophia, she will write her a note after her daughter has gone to bed. In the note she apologizes for yelling and suggests that they meet the next day to talk about what happened and why she yelled.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying you’re sorry, ever,” Leahy said. “It doesn’t mean she’ll get what she wants, but it opens the door to communication, which is all I want to do.”
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According to researchers at Columbia University, people with high levels of HDL cholesterol (the “good” form) are 60 percent less likely to develop AD. The researchers followed 1,130 seniors with no history of memory loss or dementia and measured their cholesterol levels every 18 months for four years. When the researchers compared the cholesterol levels of study participants with and without Alzheimer’s, they found that those with the highest HDL counts, greater than 55 mg/dL, had about a 60 percent reduced risk of developing the disease compared to those whose levels were less than 39 mg/dL.
Their findings support the theory that high levels of HDL cholesterol are correlated with lower incidence of AD. The study was published earlier this week in the Archives of Neurology and sheds more light on the interactions between cholesterol and AD.
Apolipoprotein E (apoE), as readers of this blog will recall, participates in the mobilization and distribution of cholesterol among various tissues of the body, including the brain. In humans, there are three common isoforms of apoE: apoE2, apoE3 and apoE4. ApoE4 differs from apoE3, the most common isoform of apoE. A single e4 allele is sufficient to increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis, and also Alzheimer’s disease. The e4 allele results in slightly elevated plasma LDL cholesterol levels and a small but significant decrease in plasma HDL levels. HDL is one of the major carriers of protein in and out of the brain, and also binds to beta-amyloid.
This finding further advances the idea that the interplay between cholesterol, cholesterol-carrying proteins such as apoE and HDL, and beta-amyloid may be critical in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. This study has important strengths. It is a prospective cohort study designed for the diagnosis of cognitive decline that has complete clinical and neuropsychological evaluation at each interval.
Guidelines recommend that men raise HDL levels that are less than 40 mg/dL and that women increase HDL numbers less 50 mg/dL. An HDL of 60 mg/dL or higher is optimal.
* Association of Higher Levels of High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Elderly Individuals and Lower Risk of Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease. Christiane Reitz et al., Arch Neurol. 2010;67(12):1491-1497.
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The Education Trust, a Washington-based organization, released a paper highlighting the role of school counselors in preparing high school students for postsecondary education and careers.
According to the paper, school counselors play a vital role in setting up students for success; however, they are often overwhelmed and sidetracked by assigned tasks that distract from the goal of preparing college- and career-ready students. Despite this, many school counselors are taking extra steps – such as poring over data to spot struggling students, or identifying students who need additional services – to increase students’ performance and their postsecondary opportunities.
The authors stated that all school counselors should be positioned to “assume leadership in the movement for college and career readiness,” and states, districts, and schools can take action by making these changes:
1) Rework school counselors’ job descriptions to focus more on tasks that will result in college and career readiness for all students.
2) Refocus counselor education programs so that school counselors are trained in educational equity and college and career readiness.
3) Add more school-specific training and coursework on data usage to university counseling programs.
4) Support current school counselors through additional professional development.
5) Align school counselors’ evaluations with student outcomes.
Secondary students, including the many enrolled in Career Technical Education (CTE), would benefit from changes that allow school and career counselors to increase focus on college and career readiness for students.
Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst
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NCLB called on public schools to close achievement gaps, and that focus is one thing that’s not likely to change whenever Congress gets around to reauthorizing ESEA. However, a new study by ACT shows how long the odds are for low-achieving 4th and 8th graders to eventually graduate college-ready, which should make us think about how to go about gap closing.
ACT has once again mined its considerable databases to track the progress of students as they moved from 4th to 12th grades in order to find out how many ended up “college ready.” ACT grouped students by three achievement levels: on track to college-readiness, off track, and far off track. Here’s what they found about 8th graders’ chances:
This table means that only 10 percent of students who were far off track in 8th grade were college ready in reading by 12th grade. The analysts further found that African American and Hispanic 8th graders were twice as likely to be “far off track” than their white classmates. Similar patterns were evident among 4th graders, too.
If there’s a silver lining in this news, it’s this: “Far off” students who attended the top 10 percent of schools were about three times as likely to become college-ready. In reading, for example, 28 percent of “far off” 8th graders in the top schools had become college-ready by the time they were seniors compared to the overall average of 10 percent.
This shows us that there are things schools can do to reverse the downward trajectory of low achievement. At the same time, though, it underscores how hard it is to break these trends after 4th grade. As if we still needed another argument for starting early with high-quality pre-k, ACT has surely given us one. But they also provide evidence for never giving up on kids and their capacity to learn to high levels, even in high school.
A note on methodology: ACT’s college-ready benchmark is the score at which students have a 75 percent chance of earning a C or better and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better in the relevant college freshman course. Their database has data for students in a half dozen states who take the ACT series of aligned tests at 4th, 8th and end of high school. You can find their report “Catching up to college and career readiness” — and I encourage you to do so — at www.act.org.
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Former Lieutenant Governor of Texas, university professor, and Chancellor of the University of Houston System.
The following is from a presentation by former Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library on January 19, 2012.
Let’s start with Sam Houston. Sam Houston is a pretty good place to start any talk about American history. Sam fought in the War of 1812 and his descendants span our history from then to my own lifetime.
At the suggestion of his mentor Andrew Jackson, Houston, on his way to Washington for his first session as a Tennessee congressman in 1823, stopped at Monticello to meet Thomas Jefferson. So a veteran of the War of 1812 and an acquaintance of the third President of the United States, of the Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander de Tocqueville, was the father of a United States Senator from Texas who served when I was a child.
LBJ and Sam Houston
LBJ’s great-grandfather George Washington Baines baptized Sam Houston in Rocky Creek near Independence in 1854. When Brother Baines told Sam that the immersion would wash away all his sins, Sam said “I hope so, but if they were all washed away, the Lord help the fish down below.”
Brother Baines was later President of Baylor University.
Senator Andrew Jackson Houston, who knelt with his father at Andrew Jackson’s deathbed, briefly held the same seat his father had been the first to hold.
When Senator A. J. Houston, 87, died on schedule after two months in office (4/21-6/26, 1941) LBJ made his first run for the Houston seat. LBJ lost to Governor W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits Pappy” O’Daniel. LBJ won on his second try (1949), becoming a successor to both the Senators Houston.
My own family’s connection with the Johnson family began three generations ago when LBJ’s father Sam Ealy Johnson and my grandfather I. W. Culp served together in the Texas House in the 36th (1919-21) and 38th (1923-25) Legislatures.
In the next generation LBJ and my parents were connected through the television business, as well as through government and politics. Mrs. Johnson owned several radio and TV stations. The first was KLBJ (nee KVET) in Austin.
Jess Kellam managed her stations and Jack Harris managed ours. Tom Johnson, who later managed the Johnson stations, will tell you that Jack Harris was his mentor.
In the current generation, Lynda and Luci and I more or less grew up together and the friendship continues today.
The afternoon before President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas he and LBJ came to Houston to dedicate the Albert Thomas Convention Center. Jack Valenti, then a Houston Post columnist, and I greeted LBJ at the airport.
LBJ shanghaied Jack into going on to Fort Worth and Dallas with him. After JFK was shot the Secret Service took LBJ to Air Force One at Love Field. While LBJ and Mrs. Kennedy, still in her blood-stained dress, waited for JFK’s body to arrive from Parkland Hospital LBJ told Jack to get Attorney General Robert Kennedy on the phone. RFK advised LBJ to take the oath immediately and put somebody on the phone to dictate the oath to Jack.
LBJ then sent for Judge Sarah Hughes whom we see holding the Bible and administering the oath in this historic photo. Jack Valenti is farthest to the left. Congressman Albert Thomas is next to Jack. Congressman Jack Brooks is behind Mrs. Kennedy.
LBJ’s Last Inauguration
Dolph Briscoe and I were sworn in as Governor and Lieutenant Governor thirty-seven years ago last Monday. I called President Johnson the day before to tell him how much it would mean to my mother and Diana and me if he and Mrs. Johnson would come to the inauguration.
“When is it?”, asked LBJ.
“Tomorrow, Mr. President.”
“I know it’s tomorrow. What time?”
“Noon, Mr. President”
“Noon? That’s when I take my nap. You’re just trying to kill a sick old man!”, LBJ barked.
Nonetheless, the Johnsons came to the inauguration, where he was mobbed by well-wishers. It was his last public appearance. He died a week later.
—————————–William “Bill” Hobby
Former Lieutenant Governor of Texas,
university professor, and
Chancellor of the University of Houston System.
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http://blog.chron.com/insidepolicy/2012/01/lbj-and-the-threads-of-history/
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There are a lot of misconceptions about this vitamin. Get the facts about B-12.
What is it?
Less commonly known as “cobalamin” this water-soluble vitamin is almost always found in multi-vitamins and B-complex supplements. Unlike most other water-soluble vitaminss, B-12 requires stomach acid for absorption. It’s also stored within the body for many years, unlike others like riboflavin and thiamin that are quickly passed in the urine.
Why is it good for you?
Your body needs B-12 to help form DNA, to build your nervous system and keep red blood cells healthy. Since the body likes to store B-12, large amounts of supplements are often not necessary – there’s just one catch. B-12 is mostly found in animal products, so folks that follow a long-term vegan diet might need to consider a daily supplement. Since you need stomach acid for absorption, your ability to break it down decreases with age. Folks who take a lots of antacids will also need to up their intake to make sure they’re getting enough.
Where can you find it?
The daily requirement for B-12 is 6 micrograms per day and it can be found in all kinds of foods including daily, meat, fish, eggs and fortified breakfast cereals.
3-ounces cooked clams = 84 micrograms (1400%)
3-ounces cooked salmon = 5 micrograms (83%)
1 cup fortified cereal (such as bran flakes ) = 1.5 milligrams (25%)
1 cup low fat (1%) milk = 1.2 micrograms (20%)
1 ounce Swiss cheese = 0.9 micrograms (15%)
1 large egg 0.6 micrograms (10%)
3-ounces cooked turkey breast = 0.3 micrograms (5%)
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<urn:uuid:a09d4f85-9ec4-42a7-baa9-9d73794353fb>
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http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2012/06/05/nutrient-to-know-vitamin-b12/comment-page-23/
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This ink-on-paper sketch of Einstein (courtesy: Sigrid Freundorfer Fine Art LLC; click to view large) will go on public display for the first time tomorrow as part of an art show in New York City. It is the handiwork of Josef Scharl, a German artist who produced the work in 1950 while visiting his close friend Albert Einstein at Princeton University in the US.
Born in Munich in 1896, Scharl gained recognition in his time after being part of the “New Munich Secession” artists in the 1920s. He won various awards including the Albrecht Dürer Award from the city of Nuremberg, and the Prix-de-Rome. But Scharl was a vocal critic of the Nazi Party and by 1935 he was considered a “degenerate artist” and banned from painting.
Einstein, who by this time was already working at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, had met Scharl in 1927 in Berlin at the house of photographer Lotte Jacobi. Upon learning of the fate of his friend, Einstein offered to sponsor Scharl’s immigration to the US, which the artist accepted. Once in the States, Scharl used to visit Einstein regularly and when the artist passed away in 1954 Einstein wrote the eulogy that was read at the funeral.
“Scharl was an outspoken man, not shy with his opinions, often rather witty. Einstein appreciated Scharl’s candor and views on this or that, and their conversations were lively and informative for both,” says Sigrid Freundorfer, the fine-art dealer based in New York who owns the drawing. “It must have been refreshing for Einstein to have had somebody like Scharl to talk to once in a while, in German at that.”
Freundorfer bought the painting last year from someone in the field of manuscripts and rare books “Being an art dealer, I bought it first as a magnificent drawing by Josef Scharl, depicting this great man Einstein, signed by both men,” she said. The image will go on sale at the Master Drawings New York exhibition, which runs 26 January – 2 February and has a preview show on 25 January.
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http://blog.physicsworld.com/2013/01/24/einstein-portrait-to-appear-in/
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The November 11 issue of Science reports the sequencing of the sea urchin genome.
Every wader in a tide pool knows this spiky creature. What most people don't know is that we are more closely related to sea urchins than we are to worms or flies. Vertebrates and urchins share a common ancestor, 500 million years ago.
Now we have a complete readout of the 814 million base pairs (compared to the human 3 billion bases) that are the four-letter code for making an urchin, encoding approximately 23,300 genes.
Sea urchins have been standard laboratory animals for over a hundred years, a sort of marine white rat. A century ago Theodor Boveri demonstrated in a famous experiment that a complete set of chromosomes must be present in every cell of a sea urchin for embryonic development to occur normally. The same, of course, applies to us.
Expect now to see even more rapid progress in understanding basics of embryonic development, immunology, speciation -- and a more complete understanding of our place among the myriad creatures of Earth.
Who would have guessed that a history of life over hundreds of millions of years is written in every cell of our bodies, linking us across the eons with creatures that begin their larval lives as tiny bells of transparent jelly afloat in the sea.
This is what the naturalist Donald Culross Peattie called the "most unutterable thing" in evolution, "the terrible continuity and fluidity of protoplasm, the inexpressible forces of reproduction -- not mystical human love, but the cold batrachian jelly by which we vertebrates are linked to things that creep and writhe and are blind yet breed and have being."
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http://blog.sciencemusings.com/2006/11/strongylocentrotus-purpuratus.html
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Our opinion: Getting natural gas out of the ground turns out to be pretty dirty business. Energy shouldn’t come at the price of drinkable water and clean air.
The natural gas industry likes to portray its product as abundant, domestic and clean. Perhaps it thinks two out of three isn’t bad.
We don’t. Nor should Congress and the government agencies entrusted with protecting our drinking water and environment.
Time and again lately, we’ve received fresh warnings that mining this source of energy is far from a clean process, despite the industry’s often artfully parsed claim that the method of choice — horizontal hydraulic fracturing — is safe.
The process involves drilling deep underground, down and horizontally, and pumping in millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to crack the rock and release trapped gas. The industry is using fracking to tap portions of the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation that lies under six states, including New York. The state has yet to issue permits while it drafts regulations.
Among the latest rebuttals to the industry’s claim of safety:
Thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water spewed into a stream last week from a well in Bradford County, Pa. Homeowners and farmers don’t know if their water is safe now for people and animals. This follows well contaminations elsewhere in the state, which embraced the rush to drill.
While the industry likes to note that chemicals are only a tiny fraction of the fracking mixture, a congressional investigation found that it added up to 866 million gallons, including hazardous and carcinogenic compounds, pumped into wells in at least 13 states from 2005 to 2009. And while underground, the water can become radioactive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has told Pennsylvania to test drinking water for radium.
Pennsylvania officials have halted the disposal of drilling wastewater through treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams that provide drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The plants, it turns out, aren’t equipped to remove the pollutants.
A Cornell University study concluded that fracking contributes to global warming even more than coal or oil burning by releasing methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The industry — which has sought to block release of methane emission data — dismissed the peer-reviewed study as lacking credibility.
New York has prudently held off issuing drilling permits at least until regulations are finished this summer. We urge the state, once again, to continue its moratorium until the EPA finishes a study into the safety of hydraulic fracturing, most likely next year. That study, focusing on water, should be expanded to air quality in light of the Cornell report.
Likewise, the interstate Delaware River Basin Commission, which controls a watershed that spans New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, and supplies water for millions including New York City residents, should wait for the EPA study, too, before issuing its own drilling regulations. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should follow through on his threat to sue the commission if it doesn’t take the time for a proper environmental study.
Finally, Congress needs to fix mistakes it made in 2005 to exempt hydrofracking from federal clean air and water standards. Lawmakers need to let the agency charged with protecting the environment do its job in regulating an industry that has proven to be anything but clean.
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http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/look-closer-at-this-clean-energy/10965/
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8 March 2012
Yesterday I posted a photo of the Tumbi Quarry site before the landslide. Today I thought I’d look at this image in a little more detail. The photograph was collected on 27th January 2010, i.e. almost two years before the landslide:
For reference, lets compare this with the post-landslide image:
So lets start with the quarry, and home in on the section of the new photo that shows the landslide source area (see image below). It is clear that the entirety of the workings in the pre-landslide photograph was destroyed in the landslide. The section of the quarry that survived (see the second photo) was upslope and across from the original workings – I have marked this as point a on the image below:
It is quite helpful to take a look at the Exxon-Mobil plans for the development of the project, as highlighted in an earlier post:
The dark grey area is the original quarry (as per the pre-landslide photo), the yellow is the new haul road up to the higher quarry section, and the light grey, light blue and green hatched areas are the new quarry, or lands to be cleared for quarrying. The plans appear to be more-or-less consistent with the configurations in the two photos. Note that the landslide appears to have destroyed most of the haul road, and it is somewhat unclear as to how much the new quarrying had expanded into the light grey area. A key question remains as to where the haul road was located, and where the quarry spoil was being dumped.
Going back to the new photo, in the older (weathered) section there is clearly a stream issuing from the quarry face (marked as b on the image) – this water course is also shown on the map above.
Let’s take a look at the land-use. The photo shows that most of the area that slipped was forested with mature trees, which agrees with the map above. There are some cultivated areas near to the main road, but these are for the most part not in the landslide area. The source area is densely forested, which suggests that it is unlikely that deforestation was the cause. I have previously noted that in such a deep-seated landslide, land-use change is unlikely to be a primary factor.
There are some features in the landscape that are almost certainly small (but certainly not trivial) landslides. Point c on the image above is almost certainly a slip, and point d is probably another. Note though that in both cases these appear to be slips in soil or regolith, not in bedrock as per the main landslide.
The most intriguing features remain these linear structures in the slope above the main quarry (point e). Superficially these look like either tension cracks or footpaths – from an image like this it is impossible to discriminate. I am erring slightly in favour of them being footpaths simply because it is hard to imagine a quarry being operated in an area with such tension cracks.
So what does this tell us? Well, we can in effect rule out land use change as being a major factor in this landslide unless there was catastrophic felling between the image being collected and the landslide (and even then I do not believe that it would be a major factor in such a deep landslide). The presence of the stream suggests that the limestone was well-drained, but of course blockage of the source might have serious implications for the slope. The landslide has removed most of the quarry plus the associated infrastructure. It is impossible to say that the landslide was caused by the quarry, but it is also clear that there is nothing in the image that would definitely indicate that the landslide was not associated with it.
The need for a proper independent inquiry
Of course all of this indicates that there is a need for a proper, independent assessment of this landslide. I know that there are now moves by some to either try to get a court order to undertake such an investigation, or to commission such a process independently. Clearly either route would be expensive, so those involved are trying to raise the funds to support these efforts. We must remember that at least 25 people died in this event, and maybe many more. Personally, I would have thought that it is in the interests of all parties, including the quarry operators, to understabd what has happened here. It could well be that those responsible for the quarry are completely exonerated by such an investigation.
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<urn:uuid:b3f0a77d-3f74-4fcd-b094-efde303b31e3>
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http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2012/03/08/analysing-the-pre-landslide-image-from-tumbi-quarry/
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Let's think together: Every week the World Bank team in Tanzania wants to stimulate your thinking by sharing data from recent official surveys in Tanzania and ask you a couple of questions. This post is also published in theTanzanian Newspaper The Citizen every Sunday.
About 70 per cent of the world’s 1.4 billion extreme poor rely on livestock to sustain their livelihood, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 2009). Not only does livestock provide meat and milk for consumption, it also helps increase agricultural productivity through manure which is an organic fertilizer and draft power.
Because it can be readily marketed to generate income, livestock also reduces the vulnerability of poor households to external shocks. But this crucial resource is also susceptible to many risks including drought, disease, and theft.
In Tanzania, as of October 2010, there were more than 17 million heads of large livestock (bulls, cows, heifers, steers), more than 21 million of medium-sized livestock (sheep and goats or shoats), close to 2 million pigs, and over 50 million heads of poultry. As a result, about 5 million Tanzanian households, or close to 58 per cent of them, reported owning at least one kind of livestock, with the larger proportion of them in rural areas (3 out of 4 households) than in urban areas (one out of 4). Approximately, 25 per cent of rural households owned a large livestock compared to less than 4 per cent of urban households.
Unfortunately, many Tanzanian households cannot fully benefit from their livestock because most of them are exposed to disease and theft. With less than 30 per cent of owners reporting having vaccinated their livestock over the previous 12 months, morbidity rates in 2010/11 were as high as 42, 29, 20 and 58 per cent for cattle, goats, pigs and poultry respectively.
In 2010/11, the toll on livestock from disease and theft was staggering:
- Diseases claimed more than 1.4 million cattle and 3.4 million shoats.
- More than 80,000 heads of cattle and half a million shoats were stolen.
- Poultry were even more exposed to diseases and theft with a loss of more than 30 million.
The total loss from disease and theft for all livestock was estimated at Sh649 billion of which Sh572 billion was just from disease. This amount is equivalent to about 2 per cent of GDP and 8.3 per cent of agricultural GDP. These two plagues hit poor rural households harder with more than 55 per cent of them having experienced loss compared to 37 per cent of households in the richest quintile. Livestock theft and disease cost more than 6 per cent of average total household consumption. In addition, 8.5 per cent of the poor in 2010/11 were pushed into poverty by the loss of livestock, adding more than 800,000 people into these ranks.
This raises a number of questions:
- What prevents farmers from investing more in the protection of their livestock, especially through vaccination programs? Should government invest more in veterinary services to tackle livestock disease?
- Should investment in new technologies, such as GPS, be considered to help track stolen livestock as experimented in Kenya? Or does this just require stronger law enforcement?
- What role can insurance products play in strengthening the livestock sub-sector?
- Should government subsidize livestock insurance or vaccination programs?
Note: These statistics are extracted from the 2009 FAO State of Food and Agriculture report and the Tanzania National Panel Survey 2010/11. Both are publicly available and can be readily replicated.
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<urn:uuid:99cec00c-9a69-4f6e-acbb-ba48c5d18d53>
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http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/where-is-my-cow-theft-and-disease-of-livestock-increase-poverty-in-rural-tanzania
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Environmental, biological and anthropogenic effects on grizzly bear body size: temporal and spatial considerations
© Nielsen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013
Received: 3 April 2013
Accepted: 6 September 2013
Published: 8 September 2013
Individual body growth is controlled in large part by the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of, and competition for, resources. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos L.) are an excellent species for studying the effects of resource heterogeneity and maternal effects (i.e. silver spoon) on life history traits such as body size because their habitats are highly variable in space and time. Here, we evaluated influences on body size of grizzly bears in Alberta, Canada by testing six factors that accounted for spatial and temporal heterogeneity in environments during maternal, natal and ‘capture’ (recent) environments. After accounting for intrinsic biological factors (age, sex), we examined how body size, measured in mass, length and body condition, was influenced by: (a) population density; (b) regional habitat productivity; (c) inter-annual variability in productivity (including silver spoon effects); (d) local habitat quality; (e) human footprint (disturbances); and (f) landscape change.
We found sex and age explained the most variance in body mass, condition and length (R2 from 0.48–0.64). Inter-annual variability in climate the year before and of birth (silver spoon effects) had detectable effects on the three-body size metrics (R2 from 0.04–0.07); both maternal (year before birth) and natal (year of birth) effects of precipitation and temperature were related with body size. Local heterogeneity in habitat quality also explained variance in body mass and condition (R2 from 0.01–0.08), while annual rate of landscape change explained additional variance in body length (R2 of 0.03). Human footprint and population density had no observed effect on body size.
These results illustrated that body size patterns of grizzly bears, while largely affected by basic biological characteristics (age and sex), were also influenced by regional environmental gradients the year before, and of, the individual’s birth thus illustrating silver spoon effects. The magnitude of the silver spoon effects was on par with the influence of contemporary regional habitat productivity, which showed that both temporal and spatial influences explain in part body size patterns in grizzly bears. Because smaller bears were found in colder and less-productive environments, we hypothesize that warming global temperatures may positively affect body mass of interior bears.
KeywordsBear Silver spoon Environmental effects GPS radiocollar Temporal and spatial heterogeneity
Understanding how spatial and temporal heterogeneity of environments affect life-history traits and the growth of individuals has been a central theme in ecology and population biology [1–3]. Among other measures of phenotype, body size for many species is highly variable across different spatial and temporal scales, which illustrates the importance of environmental heterogeneity on the growth of individuals and populations. Understanding how these spatial and temporal dynamics affect phenotypes is critical to helping identify and prioritize management actions for many species of special concern, especially in today’s rapidly changing world.
There is little argument that spatial heterogeneity of environments shape populations by affecting population density, fitness, dispersal and behaviour [4–6]. Indeed, such relationships are a cornerstone of landscape ecology [7, 8] and habitat selection theory [9, 10], and form the basis for natural-resource-management. Inter-annual variability in environments creates pulsed-resource dynamics that affect many animal populations [11–13] by affecting primary productivity [14–16] and the frequency and intensity of landscape disturbances [17, 18]. For example, climatic oscillations that impact plant productivity will in turn affect primary consumer populations [1, 19, 20] and thus other trophic levels dependent on primary consumers [21, 22]. For consumers that are specialized on fruit (frugivores), which often exhibit supra-annual variation in productivity [23, 24], climate conditions can have an important effect on population dynamics and the health of animals. For example, masting events or mast failures are often signalled by climatic conditions [25–28]. On Barro Colorado Island in Panama, warm ENSO events stimulate fruit masting in tropical trees resulting in population increases of frugivore species [14, 29]. Likewise, acorn production for many species of oaks in the USA and cones for spruce in Canada are known to mast synchronously across broad spatial scales [30–32] having profound effects on consumer populations [21, 33, 34].
Increasingly, it appears that such inter-annual variations have long-term effects on individuals, particularly for those experiencing boom or bust conditions during early life. In fact, conditions during in utero or natal periods can be as, or more, important than recent conditions on animal health and fitness [35–37]. This phenomenon is referred to as the “silver-spoon” effect as it emphasizes the importance of being born into “rich” environments . Since resource conditions vary among years for nearly all ecosystems, populations often exhibit cohort effects that structure population dynamics [1, 39]. For instance, cone production in white spruce during natal periods and temperature during in utero conditions had long-lasting effects on red squirrel reproductive success in the Yukon of Canada . Likewise, population growth of stoats in New Zealand beech forests is dependent on masting .
One species that inhabits highly variable environments with limited resources relative to their dietary needs and large body size are grizzly (brown) bears (Ursus arctos L.) . All the calories necessary to survive and reproduce are acquired in the approximately seven months that they are active prior to about five months of fasting in a den. The importance of limiting resources and phenotypic plasticity is further emphasized by nearly a 10-fold difference in adult body mass across the species’ range . Most often, grizzly bears rely on the seasonal or inter-annual pulsing of high-calorie resources, such as salmon in coastal ecosystems [42–44] or hard and soft mast in interior populations [45–47]. Not surprisingly, body size in bears varies accordingly [48, 49], having ramifications to both survival [43, 50, 51] and reproduction [48, 52, 53]. Given these resource demands and the existence of environmental uncertainty, grizzly bears have evolved a reproductive mechanism to compensate for these factors – the delayed facultative implantation of the fertilized egg dependent on autumn body condition [54–56]. Understanding body size-environment relations is therefore critical to understanding population processes in grizzly bears, particularly reproductive success and population growth.
Environmental variables used to measure hypothesized environmental drivers of body size patterns in grizzly bears within Alberta, Canada
Hypothesized environmental driver and measurement variable
A. Regional habitat productivity
Temperature (Winter, Spring, Summer)
Precipitation (Winter, Spring, Summer)
B. Inter-annual environments (deviations)
Temperature (Winter, Spring, Summer)
Bt-1, t 0, t+1 & Ct-1, t 0
Precipitation (Winter, Spring, Summer)
Bt-1, t 0, t+1 & Ct-1, t 0
C. Local habitat quality
Shrub habitat (quadratic)
Canopy cover (quadratic)
Variation in canopy cover
Deciduous canopy cover (quadratic)
Forest age (quadratic)
Forest age variation
Regenerating forest habitat (quadratic)
Variation in regen. forest age
Soil wetness (quadratic)
D. Human footprint & activity
Safe harbour habitat
Linear feature density
Distance to human feature
Distance to active energy well
E. Landscape change
Annual rate of habitat change
Grizzly bear observations
We used three measures of body size to represent short- to long-term measures of growth: mass; length; and body condition. Body condition was estimated using a body condition index where mass is measured relative to length . Although we had multiple capture events for some animals, we only used the most recent capture because it maximized the range of ages considered. All captures and handling were done on public lands with permits and the capture and handling procedures approved by the University of Saskatchewan’s Committee on Animal Care and Supply (Permit Number: 20010016) following guidelines provided by the American Society of Mammalogists’ Animal Care and Use Committee and the Canadian Council on Animal Care for the safe handling of wildlife.
Age, sex and reproductive status (with or without offspring) of each animal was recorded. Number of times captured and density were also considered as response variables for body size measures. The local-population density was indexed as the number of genetically identified individuals surrounding a radiocollared bear [48, 53]. Each bear was assigned a single geographic centroid based on their GPS telemetry locations and a buffer around this centroid based on the radius distance of the average daily movement rate of that animal’s sex-age class (4340 m to 10380 m radius). The number of detections of unique bears within each circular buffer was then estimated from DNA hair-snag information collected within 7x7km grids in 2004 to 2008. These counts were divided by the proportion of the buffer overlapping the DNA survey grid, and by the probability of capture (derived from data of the closest observed distance of GPS collared bears to known bait sites – see 67), which varied by the age, sex and reproductive status of the individual being detected, and the DNA survey stratum .
Regional environmental productivity was estimated for each bear at their home range centroid location based on monthly temperature and precipitation normal (or average) from 1971 – 2000 estimated with the software ClimateAB . ClimateAB measures of climate normals are downscaled ANUSPLIN-interpolated monthly normal data (2.5 x 2.5 arcmin) using local weather-station data and an elevation lapse-rate adjustment . Monthly climate normals for precipitation and temperature were considered for four seasonal periods (winter, spring, summer and growing season) and for the two individual months of March and July that represented late winter conditions affecting snowpack at high altitudes and peak primary productivity respectively (Table 1). We also considered ecosystem type (i.e., alpine, subalpine and foothills) as a surrogate of regional productivity based on habitat use (exposure at three possible zones of influence) measured from GPS radio-telemetry information. Zones of influence considered around each telemetry location included the local habitat-patch (HP) scale at the 30 m raster resolution, a flight-response (FR) scale of a 300 m radius representing exposure to direct human activity , and a landscape-encounter (LE) scale representing the average daily movement rate by sex group (scale or radius buffer).
We measured inter-annual variations in environments using ClimateAB by estimating temperature and precipitation by month at each animal’s home range centroid from the time (year) prior to birth (Bt-1) to the year of capture (Ct 0); due to missing data (i.e. locations prior to GPS collaring) and computational considerations, we are making the assumption that home range centroids have not changed over time or if changed that local variation in climates are small (see Discussion). The inter-annual variation (anomalies) was estimated as the absolute deviation in temperature and precipitation from 30 year (1971–2000) climate normals over the range of birth years observed in sampled bears for the same home range centroids again using ClimateAB . By using anomalies rather than actual climate observations, we separated effects associated with regional productivity (climate normal) from inter-annual fluctuations (anomalies). Inter-annual variability was measured for: (1) maternal conditions (one year prior to birth; B t-1 ); (2) in-utero and natal conditions (birth year and yearling; B 0 and B t+1 ); and (3) conditions during or prior to capture (Ct-1 and C0) (Table 1).
Local habitat quality was measured as habitat use (GPS telemetry) at the three scales of exposure (HP, FR and LE) for nine different measures of habitat quality reflecting the association of grizzly bears with disturbed and productive environments [72–74]: canopy cover, variation in canopy cover, deciduous canopy cover, amount of shrub habitat, forest age, forest age variation, amount of regenerating forest, variation in regenerating forest age and terrain soil wetness (Table 1). Non-linear effects were considered for canopy cover, deciduous canopy cover, forest age, amount of regenerating forest used and terrain soil wetness since intermediate amounts of these habitat conditions are normally preferred [72, 74, 75].
We used regional measures of human footprint and activity including the amount of habitat use associated with private lands (i.e., Alberta’s whitezone; see ), protected areas and high- or low-risk habitats based on a mortality risk and safe harbour habitat models , density of linear-access features, and distance to nearest human feature or recent energy wells (Table 1). Since we did not expect body size to be affected by human features and recent energy wells beyond local effects (distances), we developed exponential decay functions for each distance variable using parameters of 300 m, 1 km and 3 km. A cost-weighted distance to roads was also considered where cost was defined by terrain ruggedness (a continuous variables accounting for change in elevation) under the assumption that more rugged areas near roads would be less penetrable to humans and thus experience lower human activity. Annual rate of landscape change was measured as the annual change (%) in habitat composition using annual remote sensing of major habitat types and anthropogenic features including roads, clear-cuts and energy well-pads .
We used the HIREG module for the software STATA 11 to estimate hierarchical regressions of body size based on the six main hypothesized drivers of growth. This approach was taken in order to partition variances and test for differences among the main hypothesized factors, and account for multiple measurement variables within each hypothesized factor (block) using variable ‘blocking’ approaches. The order of hierarchical regression model considered was: (1) biology effects including density-dependence; (2) regional habitat productivity; (3) inter-annual variation in environments in the form of maternal [(year before birth), in utero (year of birth) and natal (year after birth)] and capture effects (year of and before capture); (4) local habitat quality; (5) human footprint; and (6) landscape change. This order reflects the need to first control for biology before examining residual variance due to environment. We chose more regional measures of environment before inclusion of local measures of environment in the hierarchical order of blocks. No interactions among blocks were considered. For each hierarchical category, we selected predictors (i.e. block of variables) based on a forward step-wise regression procedure of variable blocks using a p < 0.1 significance level . An F-test was used to determine whether changes to the coefficient of variation (R2) among the main hypothesized factors for each block were significant.
Standardized regression coefficients and significance ( p ) of model variables describing body mass (log scale), straight line length (log scale), and body condition measures of springtime grizzly bear captures in Alberta, Canada
Block (hypothesized) category and measurement variables
1) Biology and capture effects
Adult Females (AF)
Adult F w/ cubs (AFC)
Male x Age
Number of captures
2) Regional habitat productivity
Spring (May-Jun) temperature
Alpine habitat use (HP)
3) Inter-annual climate variability
Maternal effects (B t-1 ):
Summer (Jul-Aug) temperature
Natal effects (B t0 ):
Spring (May-Jun) temperature
Summer (May-Oct) temperature
Winter (Dec-Mar) precipitation
Capture effects (C t ):
4) Local habitat quality
Canopy variation (HP)
Regen. forest age variation (HP)
5) Human footprint
6) Landscape change
Biological and environmental factors explained 75.3% of the variation (R2, model F = 39.0, df = 7, 62, p < 0.001) in body length (Table 2, Figfure 3). Similar to body mass, age (as non-linear quadratic function) and sex explained a large amount (61.3%) of the variation in body length. Regional-habitat productivity explained an additional 6.6% of variation in body length (F = 13.3, df = 1, 65, p <0.001) based on average springtime (May-June) temperatures. Bears associated with warmer spring temperatures were more likely to be longer. Inter-annual climate variability – based on maternal and natal effects – explained an additional 4.2% of variance in body length (F = 4.7, df = 2, 63, p <0.001). Body length was positively related to warmer summer (July-August) temperatures during maternal periods and warmer spring temperatures during the year of birth (Table 2). Habitat quality and human footprint were not related to body length, but there was a positive association with landscape change (annual rate of change in habitats associated with human disturbances) adding an additional 3.2% of model variance explained (F = 8.1, df = 1, 62, p <0.001). Density, number of captures and human footprint did not influence body length.
Biological and environmental factors explained 60.0% of model variation (R2, F = 14.7, df = 7, 68, p < 0.001) in springtime body condition (Table 2, Figure 3). Although body condition represents a standardized mass by length of animal, a non-linear (quadratic) age relationship with body condition was still apparent. Adult females were more likely to have a lower body condition than subadult or adult male bears, and this relationship was more pronounced if a female had cubs. Bears captured multiple times were in lower body condition than bears captured only once. Overall, the biological (including capture effects) base model accounted for 47.7% of the variance in body condition. Unlike mass and length measures, regional productivity did not affect body condition. Effects of inter-annual climate variability were observed with higher-than-normal July precipitation during the year of birth inversely related to body condition (Table 2):, this accounted for an additional 4.5% of the remaining model variance (F = 6.5, df = 1, 69, p = 0.013). Local habitat quality, as measured by use of habitats containing greater variation in regenerating forest age, was positively related to observed body condition (Table 2) and explained an additional 7.8% of model variation (F = 13.3, df = 1, 68, p = 0.001). Density of bears, human footprint, and landscape-change were not related to body condition.
Biological factors and body size
Measurements of body mass and length of grizzly bears in Alberta were strongly dependent on intrinsic biological factors: age (positive, non-linear relationship) and sex (males > females). Age, sex and offspring dependence were important factors affecting body condition, which is a short-term measure of growth. Adult females, and especially adult females with cubs of the year, were likely to be in poorer condition than male bears. A negative effect of capture history (number of captures) was also observed for body condition measures which is consistent with previous observations . Although population density (density dependence) is known to inversely affect body-size patterns in animals [80–82], no density dependent effects on body size patterns of grizzly bears were observed in our study. Grizzly bear populations in Alberta are likely to be below carrying capacity given locally high rates of human-caused mortality [83, 84], and were recently classified by the province as ‘threatened’ given the low observed population densities . This is in contrast to brown bears in Sweden that are considered healthy , but where body sizes of adult female bears are inversely related to population density .
Temporal and spatial environmental heterogeneity
Environmental heterogeneity is an important mechanism by which animal populations are regulated . Here, we found that regional heterogeneity in habitat productivity was a moderate predictor of body size patterns of grizzly bears in Alberta. The smallest bears by mass and length occurred in the least-productive and coldest environments as measured by alpine habitat use and home ranges occupying both cool average spring temperatures and high average March precipitation (snowfall). In the Canadian Rocky Mountains, all three of these factors are associated with late timing of spring snowmelt and plant emergence, which are known to affect population dynamics of other alpine mammals . Since den emergence in grizzly bears in our area typically occurs in April to early May , the amount and timing of spring snowpack is likely a factor affecting the availability of early season food resources such as roots , and generally might restrict access to early spring food resources.
Inter-annual variations in climate during the years’ prior, during and/or just following birth (maternal, in-utero and natal environments, respectively) also affected adult body size. Such silver-spoon effects by which animals that are born into ‘rich’ conditions are favoured throughout life are consistent with observations in other mammals including polar bears , Soay sheep , red squirrels and caribou . Common among these studies is the importance of winter and spring climate during (natal environments) or just prior (maternal or in utero environments) to the year of birth, which we also observed in this study. Winter and spring climate is related to summer drought conditions in the Canadian Rocky Mountains , which suggests that the effect of winter and spring climate may not necessarily be directly associated with the denning period, but rather summer environments when water is limiting. We are unsure, however, how late summer precipitation affects cubs-of-the-year. It may be related to late summer food resources, such as fruit production, or affect food-resource abundance in the following year when bears are yearlings. Further, winter precipitation (December-March) anomalies during the natal birth year were positively related to body mass. We interpreted this as snow cover during winter denning providing energetic benefits (e.g. insulation) in the den for cubs of the year.
During the year prior to birth, late summer (July-August) temperature anomalies were negatively associated with body mass but positively associated with body length in grizzly bears. This late-summer environment may have affected maternal body condition prior to denning and thus subsequent condition of offspring [e.g. 53] or conversely, it may have affected the following years’ food supply during the cub-of-year period, since lag effects in fruit production are caused by weather conditions favourable to flower primordia in the mid-to-late summer period the year prior to fruiting . Although we cannot be certain which factor is more important, the fact that body mass is negatively associated with late-summer temperature anomalies, where as body length is positively associated with late-summer temperature anomalies suggests to us that maternal condition is less likely (as we would expect similar responses in body mass and length if it were solely a maternal effect). Further investigations of mid and late-summer weather on pulsing in food resource abundance the following year are needed, especially in regard to the apparent opposite effects on bear mass and length.
One important consideration to our purported silver spoon effect should be discussed: that is, we have no information on our study animals prior to their first capture. This has two important implications: 1) we cannot account for litter size effects, and 2) the centroid data used to determine natal climatic conditions may not be reflective of the actual natal location. In regards to the former, not accounting for litter size should inflate the variance around our estimates. For the centroid data, this would likely only influence dispersing males, as females are philopatric . For males, average dispersal distances in the province are under 50 kilometers , thus still largely reflective of the climate in the centroid of the current home range (differences in climates among bears are mainly regional in effect, not within populations). Further, for this limitation to bias our results, males would consistently have to disperse to poorer environments, again something we deem unlikely. Thus, we argue that the silver spoon pattern is unlikely to be altered by these factors in such away that the statistical pattern would disappear.
Human footprint did not directly relate to body size patterns of grizzly bears, but human activity indirectly affected body size by influencing habitats. The two most important measures of habitat quality were canopy closure and the age structure of forests. Bears that used habitats associated with higher canopy variability, such as forest/non-forest landscapes in the mountains or expanses of old growth forests with a recent, single-harvest sequence, had lower body masses. Conversely, bears that used forests with higher variability in regenerating forest age had higher body condition. Likewise, body length was positively related to annual landscape change. Taken together, these results suggest that human activities that fragment forests are positively associated with body size measures, although survival of bears in these environments is compromised due to high rates of human-caused mortalities [57, 84]. Early successional and highly variable forests are therefore important indicators of improved habitat quality for bears given the relationship to body size patterns reported here, habitat use studies and measures of food resource abundance [73, 74]. We hypothesize that positive associations between body size patterns and variability in regenerating forest age are due in part to local landscape patterns in protein availability. For instance, both ungulate and ant resource use in Alberta are associated with disturbed forests [46, 74].
While bear body size is largely dictated by age and sex, it only accounted for about 50% of the variation. More consideration of the spatial and temporal patterns of resource availability, including the conditions early in life, is needed to better understand individual performance of animals and population dynamics. For grizzly bears in Alberta, environmental effects on body size are most affected by regional environmental gradients (space) and the environmental conditions animals are born into (time). Local-habitat heterogeneity (particularly young, patchily disturbed forests), and landscape dynamics also had a small influence on body size. It is important to emphasize that while patchily disturbed forests positively affected body size, these areas also have high rates of mortality, which could negate any positive population-level effect.
Worldwide, relationships between carnivore body size and climate warming show ambiguous trends ; however, polar bears body sizes have recently declined, which has been attributed primarily to loss in habitat (i.e., sea ice as a platform for hunting; [96, 97]). Despite unequivocal global patterns , a 50 year examination of regional studies showed that carnivore body sizes have generally increased over the past half century . Given the short season associated with high-alpine environments, such as the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, we hypothesize that individuals with a limited growing season and temperature-limited ecosystems, such as interior grizzly bears, might actually benefit from increases in season length associated with climate change. This prediction is largely consistent with observed body size and seasonality patterns in grizzly bears across North America , but may be dependent on sufficient snow cover during the denning period. In conclusion, we have demonstrated a complex interplay of biological, spatial and temporal factors on body size that collectively explained between 60 and 84% of the variation seen in Alberta’s grizzly bears.
We thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Alberta Innovates – Bio Solutions, and partners from the Foothills Research Institute Grizzly Bear Program for financial support. This manuscript was greatly improved from the comments of three anonymous reviewers.
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- Mysterud A, Yoccoz NG, Stenseth NC, Langvatn R: Effects of age, sex and density on body weight of Norwegian red deer: evidence of density-dependent senescence. Proc Biol Sci. 2001, 268: 911-919. 10.1098/rspb.2001.1585.PubMed CentralView ArticlePubMed
- Benn B, Herrero S: Grizzly bear mortality and human access in Banff and Yoho National Parks, 1971–98. Ursus. 2002, 13: 213-221.
- Nielsen SE, Herrero S, Boyce MS, Mace RD, Benn B, Gibeau ML, Jevons S: Modelling the spatial distribution of human-caused grizzly bear mortalities in the Central Rockies ecosystem of Canada. Biol Conserv. 2004, 120: 101-113. 10.1016/j.biocon.2004.02.020.View Article
- Zedrosser A, Dahle B, Swenson JE, Gerstl N: Status and management of the brown bear in Europe. Ursus. 2001, 12: 9-20.
- Ozgul A, Childs DZ, Oli MK, Armitage KB, Blumstein DT, Olson LE, Tuljapurkar S, Coulson T: Coupled dynamics of body mass and population growth in response to environmental change. Nature. 2010, 466: 482-485. 10.1038/nature09210.View ArticlePubMed
- Morrison SF, Hik DS: Demographic analysis of a declining pika Ochotona collaris population: linking survival to broad-scale climate patterns via spring snowmelt patterns. J Anim Ecol. 2007, 76: 899-907. 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2007.01276.x.View ArticlePubMed
- Ciarniello LM, Boyce MS, Heard DC, Seip DR: Denning behavior and den site selection of grizzly bears along the Parsnip River, British Columbia, Canada. Ursus. 2005, 16: 47-58. 10.2192/1537-6176(2005)016[0047:DBADSS]2.0.CO;2.View Article
- Coogan S, Nielsen SE, Stenhouse GB: Spatial and temporal heterogeneity creates a “brown tide” in root phenology and nutrition. ISRN Ecology. 2012, 2012: 10-View Article
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- Hegel TM, Mysterud A, Ergon T, Loe LE, Huettmann F, Stenseth NC: Seasonal effects of Pacific-based climate on recruitment in a predator-limited large herbivore. J Anim Ecol. 2010, 79: 471-482. 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01647.x.View ArticlePubMed
- Meyn A, Taylor SW, Flannigan MD, Thonicke K, Cramer W: Relationship between fire, climate oscillations, and drought in British Columbia, Canada, 1920–2000. Glob Chang Biol. 2010, 16: 977-989. 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02061.x.View Article
- Krebs CJ, Boonstra R, Cowcill K, Kenney AJ: Climatic determinants of berry crops in the boreal forest of the southwestern Yukon. Botany. 2009, 87: 401-408. 10.1139/B09-013.View Article
- Proctor MF, Mclellan BN, Strobeck C, Barclay RMR: Gender-specific dispersal distances of grizzly bears estimated by genetic analysis. Can J Zool. 2004, 82: 1108-1118. 10.1139/z04-077.View Article
- Meiri S, Guy D, Dayan T, Simberloff D: Global change and carnivore body size: data are stasis. Global Ecol Biogeogr. 2009, 18: 240-247. 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2008.00437.x.View Article
- Derocher AE, Stirling I: Temporal variation in reproduction and body mass of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. Can J Zool. 1995, 73: 1657-1665. 10.1139/z95-197.View Article
- Rode KD, Amstrup SC, Regehr EV: Reduced body size and cub recruitment in polar bears associated with sea ice decline. Ecol Appl. 2010, 20: 768-782. 10.1890/08-1036.1.View ArticlePubMed
- Yom-Tov Y: Body sizes of carnivores commensal with humans have increased over the past 50 years. Func Ecol. 2003, 17: 323-327. 10.1046/j.1365-2435.2003.00735.x.View Article
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Statics Mechanics of Materials, third Edition in SI units
Shared By Guest
This is a concise and well-illustrated introduction to the theory and application of statics and mechanics of materials used in many engineering disciplines. The Author of this Book is Russell C Hibbeler The Author of this Book is Russell C Hibbeler. Array ISBN . It boasts unique pedagogical features such as visualisation tools that help accelerate understanding and develop problem-solving skills in students. Statics Mechanics of Materials, third Edition in SI units available in English. Array ISBN . This four-coloured text in SI units is a combined abridged version of two of Hibbeler’s best-selling titles, namely Engineering Mechanics Statics 12th edition in SI Units and Mechanics of Materials 8th edition in SI Units. Statics Mechanics of Materials, third Edition in SI units available in English. The book’s hallmark remains the same as the unabridged versions, that is having a strong emphasis on drawing a free-body diagram, as well as selecting an appropriate coordinate system and an associated sign convention when the equations of mechanics are applied. Many realistic analysis and design applications are presented, which involve mechanical elements and structural members often encountered in engineering practice.
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I noticed this morning that on this date in 1934, there had been one of the huge dust storms that characterized the Dust Bowl. While reading that article, I got distracted by a link to the Llano Estacado region of West Texas, an area of wall-to-wall f^%k-all. Except for Palo Duro Canyon, from which Col. Ranald Mackenzie evicted the Kiowa and Comanche in an eponymous battle in the 1870s. Col. Mackenzie had been a general during the War of Northern Agression, including being wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek, where he had commanded a unit under General Phil Sheridan.
Sheridan, of course, had a distinguished career, and the air-droppable M551 tank was named after him. The tank was deployed for both Operation Just Cause and Operation Desert Storm, but saw the most service in Vietnam, where it was used by the 11th ACR, the Black Horse, during the invasion of Cambodia. The 11th is now best known as the OPFOR at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, near Barstow in California. Barstow probably wouldn't be a blip on anyone's consciousness if it weren't for the fact that Route 66 passes through. Route 66 was part of the National Highway system, and in the 1930s, it was crowded with westbound Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl.
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Constitution: We the people own it
As we approach Sept. 17-23, 2013 Constitutional Week, let’s remember what has brought us, the state and the nation to where we are today. If at any time in history there is a need to remind ourselves what our forefathers sacrificed for all of us, it is now. In the past several years the Constitution has been challenged and disrespected by our news media, our state and federal governments, citizens and religious factions.
Let’s reflect on how our forefathers created such a document based upon Christian beliefs to preserve the country in their day and in the future in the mist of hostile forces, knowing if they failed, all would lose their families, fortunes and most of all, their lives.
Our forefathers (delegates from every colony) assembled in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, chose to replace then revise the Articles of Confederation. The delegates held their meeting in secret to evaluate representation, slavery, taxes and procedures in the election of a president. For four months, debates, arguments and compromise dominated the meetings. Several state delegates created their own plans on how a new government should work.
After months of debating the delegates opinions, suggestions, thoughts and insights the first draft of the Constitution was accepted Aug. 6, 1787. With the first draft in place, delegates continued to discuss, debate, fine tune the final draft and vote on the Constitution. After the final vote, the Constitution was sent to the states where nine states where needed for success. The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware and the ninth state was New Hampshire, nine months after the process began.
The U.S. Constitution was signed Sept. 17, 1787, laying out the structure of the American government we know today and is the oldest written Constitution. The framers of the Constitution worried immensely about the dangers of concentrated power from their experiences dealing with Britain’s king and parliament. When designing the Constitution, the framers were careful to create a system of government which no individual or institution could obtain tyrannical power. They designed the United States government with the power to check and balance the others into three coequal branches - Legislative, Executive and Judicial.
This system of government for 226 years has propelled our nation to the heights no other civilization has achieved in history of the world and reminds you of the quote, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” It is never so prevalent with the latest attempts by our federal and state governments in the past year, to infringe on the people’s rights that were given to us by the men that were determined against all odds, sacrificing life and limb and with their deep faith in God, give us the life they could only dream of.
As we embark using the Constitution as our guide like are ancestors before us, strive for excellence that propels patriotism, principles and prosperity along with our faith in God.
We, the People of the United States take an oath and have the responsibility as citizens of this country to protect, defend and preserve The Constitution for our children and grandchildren’s future, because We the People Own It.
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Pope St. Martin I.
Martin I lay too sick to fight on a couch in front of the altar when the soldiers burst into the Lateran basilica. He had come to the church when he heard the soldiers had landed. But the thought of kidnapping a sick pope from the house of God didn't stop the soldiers from grabbing him and hustling him down to their ship.
Elected pope in 649, Martin I had gotten in trouble for refusing to condone silence in the face of wrong. At that time there existed a popular heresy that held that Christ didn't have a human will, only a divine will. The emperor had issued an edict that didn't support Monothelism (as it was known) directly, but simply commanded that no one could discuss Jesus' will at all.
Monothelism was condemned at a council convened by Martin I. The council affirmed, once again, that since Jesus had two natures, human and divine, he had two wills, human and divine. The council then went further and condemned Constans edict to avoid discussion stating, "The Lord commanded us to shun evil and do good, but not to reject the good with the evil."
In his anger at this slap in the face, the emperor sent his soldiers to Rome to bring the pope to him. When Martin I arrived in Constantinople after a long voyage he was immediately put into prison. There he spent three months in a filthy, freezing cell while he suffered from dysentery. He was not allowed to wash and given the most disgusting food. After he was condemned for treason without being allowed to speak in his defense he was imprisoned for another three months.
From there he was exiled to the Crimea where he suffered from the famine of the land as well as the roughness of the land and its people. But hardest to take was the fact that the pope found himself friendless. His letters tell how his own church had deserted him and his friends had forgotten him. They wouldn't even send him oil or corn to live off of.
He died two years later in exile in the year 656, a martyr who stood up for the right of the Church to establish doctrine even in the face of imperial power.
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Addition of two hex numbers program :(
hi i'm a newbie to C programming and got a homework that I couldn't even start...
It's about making a program that gets to hex numbers, add them and show the results.
It should look like
Enter the first number:
Enter the second number:
the thing is the results should be aligned to the right
and the number of '-' in the results should equal to the largest number of digits...
first number: A444444
second number: B1234567
A444444and the results should only contain capital letters
(7 '-') => --------
Can anyone help me making a program like this?
Thanks a lot....
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crisis of the 3rd century, the empire was already terminal. It continued on, but it was no longer the entity that it once was. When Emperor Diocletian established the Tetrarchy, it was an effort to try and make the empire more manageable, essentially splitting them up into separate entities (Imagine the US being split up into seperate administrative districts of Pacifica, New England, Dominion, Midwest, and Texas). The Roman empire had ceased to exist as a single entity, it was now an organization of seperate but cooperative empires, nominally it was one empire, but in practice many. The Roman empire was dead, only the still breathing corpse remained; it simply took a final push from outsiders to do her in.
I say this because Rome throughout history had been beset, bested by, and occasionally sacked by barbaric tribes, such as the celts and gauls, and earlier in their history by the Etruscans and Samnites. Each time the eternal city came back from defeat and soldiered on, eventually reigning victorious and subjugating their attackers. However, what had changed in the millenia was that Rome was no longer a vibrant society; an age old scourge that had beset societies throughout the ages consumed it from within; much like a cancer attacking a persons immune system or termites eating away at a wooden pillar. This cancer was bureaucracy. The empire had always been large, had always had to deal with an occasional uprising, had always been beset by the very problems that appeared to eventually fell it, but the empires ability to deal with these problems effectively and quickly had changed, not the problems themselves.
Where once defense of a region was left to the proconsul/propraetor (governor) of the province and the legionaries (Roman citizen soldiers) and auxiliaries (Non-citizen residents of the empire looking to obtain citizenship) under his command, occasionally with some help from Rome herself in the event of a major crisis. Over the centuries a large bureaucratic organization had sprung up hamstringing the governors ability to govern, and stealing away resources from more productive endeavour.
This bureaucracy had been implemented by the first emperors themselves, to help them assist governance of the empire, and had gradually been expanded as emperors attempted to avoid any extremely popular governor or general from laying claim to the imperial seat. Over the centuries successive coups and civil wars lead the emperor to believe that he needed to exert more direct authority over the empire rather than less (though some Emperors such as Hadrian bucked that trend). Now this is all conjecture, as all hypothesises of what caused Rome to fall are, but I use this example to state my case.
In 212 AD the emperor Caracalla issued an edict that fundamentally changed the empire. The edict was the Constitutio Antoniniana, which declared every freeborn person residing in the empire a Roman citizen with all the rights and responsibilities that it contained. This was a momentous occasion that one, symbolizes how bureaucratic the empire had become, and two, fundamentally changed its social system, and three, laid the seeds for the crises that would beset the empire in the next two centuries.
The reason Caracalla passed the new law was simple, he wished to increase the taxable base of his empire. The Roman empire was very complex and its taxation system equally so, but to summarize it: outside of a census tax and polling tax, each administered by a puppet king or provincial governor, non-Roman citizens were exempt from direct taxation by the empire, i.e Roman tax collectors representing the city of Rome and not the provincial governors who then passed the tax on after collection some of the revenue for their administrations. Roman citizens were subject to direct taxes from the Empire, but were spared the census tax and polling tax.
By passing the law, and making every person in the empire a citizen, he further strengthened an already large bureaucracy. But more importantly, it was why he did so, it was because the tax was to feed the behemoth itself. The bureaucracy had grown so large that the empire was having difficulty funding it with the revenue sources it had at its disposal. The emperor issued this edict, hoping that this move would solve the frequent funding problems that beset the empire during this time; I should also note that currency debasement was going on cocurrently as well. However, this short term solution had dire long term ramifications.
Firstly, it grew the very bureaucracy that was slowly killing the empire. This bureaucracy had gradually, over the centuries, shifted power of action away from the governors of the provinces and more towards the emperor, making the empire as a whole much more vulnerable to incompetence or corruption of the emperor and his aids. Corruption gradually became a widespread problem that left the organization that ran the empire unable to do its very job.
Secondly the edict continued the empires economic stagnation. Adding addition tax burdens to an ever strained productive middle class straing them even further, and as the middle class goes so goes society. When the middle class thrives and is productive society grows. When the middle class is squeezed and disappears a society stagnates. This edict created an additional massive tax burden, which the emperor made even more burdensome by raising the tax rates on the populace, and coupled with an ever debasing currency, made them unable to pay their dues to the state. This began the process of fuedalization of society because as the ability of the common man to pay his debts decreased the likelihood of seeking a wealthy benefactor rose. By the end of the empire the poor plebians had pledge themselves to the wealthy land owners, who had the power and ability to persuade or outright ignore imperial tax edicts, becoming serfs on land that they once had owned and worked for themselves.
Thirdly the new universal citizenship that every person in the empire enjoyed had a major unforeseen consequence on Romes military ability. The legions of Rome had always been the elite force of the military, not the backbone that we imagine them to be simpy because of numbers. Open to citizens of the empire only, it was a lucrative prospect despite the lengthy mandatory service of 25 years. The average lifespan of a legionnaire was greater than that of an average citizen. The pay was very good, and to top it off, retiring legionaries received generous grants of lands in the outer territories. The empire created colonies where retired legionaries would settle, which helped maintain peace and stability in the region, and more importantly for the legionnaire, created an area where they were members of the wealthy landed class. But as I stated, the legion wasn't the backbone of the miliary. Though the legions were numerous there were far too few of them to patrol all of the empire alone. That was the purpose of the auxiliary, which also served a societal reason for existing along with a military purpose.
During the principate and up to the middle of the 3rd century the auxiliary made up 3/5 of the Roman military forces. The pack mules and specialized soldiers of the military; a good analogy would be to think of the legions as construction engineers and the auxiliaries as the field crews. But most importantly, the auxiliary was comprised of non-citizens of the empire, and the auxiliary units were often stationed away from homeland of the soldiers who had enlisted. This helped prevent rebellions, by removing the armed subjects from their native lands, and increased integration amongst the auxiliaries into Roman societs as the reward for 25 years of auxiliary service was citizenship in the empire.
It may be difficult to understand how lucrative a prospect this was, but citizens enjoyed special economic rights and privilages over other subjects. A person could become rich and successful merely as a subjuct, but it was far easier to become rich when one was a citizen. Citizenship could be awarded by the emperor to upstanding subjects or foreigners who greatly helped the empire, but the most common way to earn it was through military service. As I have mentioned before, the Romans were brutally effective in subjugating a population with an iron fist. On the flip side, they created many opportunities for the excellent or ambitious peregrini (foreigners under Roman control) to become standing members of society. Citizenship in the empire opened doors, it allowed for free travel throughout the empire, and the possibility to hold positions of power. The ability to travel freely was especially a big deal. This is still true today, as I know individuals that have acquired American citizenship simply because it offers greater ability to travel into other countries. However, the Constitutio Antoniniana removed a major incentive for members of the empire to enlist into the auxiliary and from it a major source of military manpower.
This immediately created a man shortage problem. The legions alone were not enough to patrol the boundaries of the frontier lands, maintain peace in the inner empire, and build and maintain the vast roadworks that facilitated trade. This self inflicted crisis forced later emperors to seek out barbarian auxiliaries, though a better word would be mercenaries. Essentially the empire had put itself in a position where it was unable to raise its own army, it had to pay for protection.
And this is where it all comes together. The edict removed any real reason for non-citizens to sacrifice for the empire, since everyone was a citizen now, why would they join the auxiliaries? Men still joined the legions, but the legions were expensive to maintain relative to the auxiliary units, further straining the empire that was already spending every coin it had on its massive bureaucracy.
And as the bureaucracy grew, so did the corruption that comes with large organizations that answer to few individuals. It siphoned resources from the middle class, and actively forced out those who showed great ability for fear of losing their little fiefdoms. In the end those with ability, or simply the resources, stuck to their own fortunes and ignored the empire, carving out little fiefdoms of their own. When the west finally fell in 476 AD, the empire had long been dead, the usurping Germanic leader simply decided he did not want to play along with the farce any more.
This is something we ourselves need to think about. Massive influx of migrants, economic troubles, even incompetent leaders are all survivable. Rome had its fair share over the millenia but survived them all. It was only when the bureaucracy became so large that it cannibalized everything productive and valuable that the empire finally succumbed. That is the threat that America faces today. We have dozens of agencies and and departments that need not exist each one vying for money and influence, and each one looking out for its own interest.
It will not be the migrants, nor economic troubles, nor even a foreign power that will lay us low. It will be the very departments and programs that we create to help us rule our nation because the day is coming when we cannot even pretend to pay for our government as it exists now. And when that day comes, if we haven't fundamentally altered how the nation thinks, then we will see our own Constitutio Antoninana moment.
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Ever since the term "crowdsourcing" was coined in 2006 by Wired writer Jeff Howe, group activities ranging from the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary to the choosing of new colors for M & Ms have been labeled with this most buzz-generating of media buzzwords. In this accessible but authoritative account, grounded in the empirical literature, Daren Brabham explains what crowdsourcing is, what it is not, and how it works. Crowdsourcing, Brabham tells us, is an online, distributed problem solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities for specific purposes set forth by a crowdsourcing organization -- corporate, government, or volunteer. Uniquely, it combines a bottom-up, open, creative process with top-down organizational goals. Crowdsourcing is not open source production, which lacks the top-down component; it is not a market research survey that offers participants a short list of choices; and it is qualitatively different from predigital open innovation and collaborative production processes, which lacked the speed, reach, rich capability, and lowered barriers to entry enabled by the Internet. Brabham describes the intellectual roots of the idea of crowdsourcing in such concepts as collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, and distributed computing. He surveys the major issues in crowdsourcing, including crowd motivation, the misconception of the amateur participant, crowdfunding, and the danger of "crowdsploitation" of volunteer labor, citing real-world examples from Threadless, InnoCentive, and other organizations. And he considers the future of crowdsourcing in both theory and practice, describing its possible roles in journalism, governance, national security, and science and health.
Retrieving notes about this item
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Daniel Maurer / AP
This 35,000-year-old bird-bone flute, held by the University of Tübingen's Nicholas Conard, is considered one of the world's oldest handcrafted musical instruments. But researchers say human musicmaking has much more ancient roots.
If you think about, there's no escape, really. Music holds humanity in a vise grip. Every culture you can think of has it, hears it and taps their feet to it. So how did music first take hold? A new analysis proposes that music hijacked our ancestors' ability to hear and interpret the movements of fellow human beings.
That claim is at the heart of “Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man,” a new book by neurobiologist Mark Changizi. Changizi analyzed the rises and falls in the rhythm and intonation of more than 10,000 samples of folk music from Finland and found that they bear a stamp — an auditory fossil of sorts — that can be traced back to the rises and falls and rhythms associated with the movement of people.
It’s the latest in a series of theories that have drawn upon evolutionary biology, developmental biology, psychology and neuroscience to explain how human beings came to cultivate music as a complex, expressive craft. Music has persisted in society, but it doesn't seem to come with any obvious survival benefit. If it wasn't essential to survival, why did it stick around?
"Harnessed," a new book by neurobiologist Mark Changizi, focuses on the origins of music - and how music helped shape humanity.
“Music really is the story about a person moving or doing something around you,” Changizi told me. “It’s just like listening to a story. We’re having an auditory story about people moving our midst.”
The appreciation for music grew and developed from this primal urge, monopolizing a natural faculty meant for human survival. Music essentially “harnessed” this urge, Changizi says, which also explains the title of the book.
“A lot of thinking is remote from the physical act of making music,” William Benson, a jazz musician and author of the book "Beethoven’s Anvil," told me. “And [Changizi] gets right to the physical aspect of making music.”
For one thing, it explains music's emotional appeal. In his book, Changizi described a study that looked at the foot patterns of people in different emotional states. When they were happy, sad or angry, their gaits betrayed their feelings.
“Music may not be marching orders from our commander, but it can sometimes cue our emotional system so precisely that we feel almost compelled to march in lockstep with music’s fictional mover,” Changizi writes. “And this is true whether we are adults or toddlers. When music is effective at getting us to mimic the movement it mimics, we call it dance music, be it a Strauss waltz or a Grateful Dead flail.”
The relationship between movement and music may come as a surprise for some, but not so much for others. In some African cultures, the word for "music" and "dance" are one and the same. In contrast, concert pianists or cellists sit still when they perform.
Why this difference? Blame the Gregorian chant, says Benson. Monasteries were the intellectual centers of Europe in the Middle Ages. Monks chanted tonal, arrhythmic verses daily, developed the Western musical notation, and set the pattern for the understanding and performance of Western music during the centuries that followed. “And if you think of that as the basis for music, then you’re not going to get the kind of music you get in Africa and India,” Benson told me.
Essentially, the Gregorian chant decoupled the ideas of movement and rhythm from music in the Western world. But Changizi's theory brings the ideas together once again, backed by a statistical approach that looks more deeply into the correlation between dance and movement and music.
Take a deeper look into the brain, and you may have an even more convincing case for music being an intrinsic characteristic of the human experience, says Edward Large, who studies how the brain processes sound and rhythm. While Changizi's musical analysis sounds reasonable, there may be an even deeper universality. "The paydirt is where you find the same patters in the brain that you find in the music," he told me.
So, the human brain was harnessed. A faculty that came into being for survival — recognizing the behavioral patterns in the movements of others — was tweaked, and music hitched a ride into the lives of modern humans.
We see such behavior all the time, Changizi explains. Just look at cats: “Although tuna is not what cat ancestors ate, tuna is sufficiently meat-ish in odor and taste that it fits right into a cat’s finicky diet disposition.” And music, it seems, is tuna for our finicky brains.
More about the science of music:
- Making music from weather data
- Music of spheres and the stars
- The geometry of music
- Music made for monkeys
- Music for cavemen
- The sounds of science
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Dawn Journal | November 26, 2008
The Dawn spacecraft is healthy and on course for its flyby of Mars early next year. The planet’s gravity will help boost the probe on its way to rendezvous with Vesta. While the spacecraft has its sights set on the asteroid belt (via Mars), its path is now bringing it closer to Earth. Meanwhile, from Earth’s perspective, Dawn appears to be approaching a blindingly close encounter with the Sun. With so much happening in the solar system, all readers, whether local or not, are invited to turn their attention here.
In the last log, we saw that Dawn was nearing the end of an extended period of thrusting with is ion propulsion system that began on December 17, 2007. When it left Earth on September 27, 2007, the Delta II rocket deposited the spacecraft into a carefully chosen orbit around the Sun. By October 31, 2008, the spacecraft had completed the thrusting it needed to change that orbit so it would encounter Mars at just the right time, location, and angle to sling it on its way to Vesta. During this interplanetary cruise phase, Dawn thrust for 270 days, or 85% of the time. Expending less than 72 kilograms (158 pounds) of xenon propellant, the spacecraft changed its speed by about 1.81 kilometers per second (4050 miles per hour).
Although controlling an interplanetary probe across hundreds of millions of kilometers (or miles) of deep space and guiding it accurately enough to reach its remote destination seems as if it should be a very simple task, readers may be surprised to know that it is not. Let’s consider just one aspect of the problem.
Suppose you want to shoot an arrow at a target. Unlike typical archers, you are so far from the target that you can only barely see it. In that case, aiming for the bull's-eye is essentially out of the question. Adding to the problem may be a variable breeze that could nudge the arrow off course. Shooting sufficiently accurately to get the arrow even to the vicinity of the target would be challenging enough; hitting the precise point you want on the target is just too difficult.
For readers who are principally interested in archery, this concludes our in-depth analysis of the sport.
Now let’s consider how to change the situation to make it more similar to an interplanetary mission. If the arrow had a tiny radio locator mounted on it, you would be able monitor its progress as it flew closer to the target. This would be like watching it on a radar screen. You might see your arrow miss the target entirely or, if you had made a particularly good shot, hit somewhere on it. Now if you could occasionally send a signal to the arrow, perhaps to change the angles of the feathers, you might not be able to alter its course drastically, but you could change it a little. So if your initial shot had been good enough, you could guide the arrow to the desired destination. (To buy your radio controlled archery set, visit the Dawn gift shop on your planet. The set may be found between the display case with xenon ion beam jewelry and the shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves of really cool new Dawn Journal reader action figures -- be sure to buy the one that looks just like you!)
Shooting the arrow is akin to launching a spacecraft, and its flight to the target represents the interplanetary journey, although operating a spacecraft involves far greater precision (and fun!). Our knowledge of where the spacecraft is and where it is heading is amazingly, fantastically, incredibly accurate, but it is not perfect. This point is essential. Keeping most spacecraft on course is a matter of frequently recalculating the position, speed, and direction of travel and then occasionally fine-tuning the trajectory through burns of the propulsion system.
Dawn’s near-constant use of its advanced ion propulsion system for most of 2008 changes the story, but only a little. The thrust plan was calculated before launch and then updated once our arrow was free of the bow. Throughout the interplanetary cruise phase, a new thrust plan was transmitted to the spacecraft about every 5 weeks, each time with slight updates to account for the latest calculations of Dawn’s orbit around the Sun. With this method, the small adjustments to the trajectory have been incorporated into the large, preplanned changes.
The mission control team requires about 5 weeks to design, develop, check, double-check, transmit, and activate a 5-week set of commands. By the time the spacecraft is executing the final part of those instructions, it is following a flight plan that is based on information from 10 weeks earlier. During most of the mission, when there are months or even years of thrusting ahead of it, subsequent opportunities to adjust the trajectory are plentiful. In contrast, for the last period of preplanned thrusting before Mars, controllers modified their normal process for formulating the commands, making a fast update for the final few days of thrusting. By including the latest navigational data in the computations for the direction and duration of the concluding segment of powered flight, the mission control team put Dawn on a more accurate course for Mars than it otherwise would have been.
Even with this strategy, navigators recognized long ago that subsequent adjustments would be required. The plan for approaching Mars has always included windows for trajectory correction maneuvers (which engineers are physiologically incapable of calling anything other than TCMs). Dawn’s first TCM occurred on November 20.
As navigators refined their trajectory calculations after thrusting finished on October 31, they determined that the spacecraft was quite close to the aim point they wanted, but still not exactly on target. In fact, rather than being on a course to sail a few hundred kilometers above Mars, the probe’s path would have taken it to the surface of the planet. Despite the power of the ion propulsion system, Dawn does not have the capability to bore through the rocky planet and continue on its way to Vesta.
Such a situation is not surprising. Suppose in the archery, the bull’s-eye were 30 centimeters (1 foot) in diameter, but we preferred to hit a point 2.2 centimeters (7/8 inch) outside the bull’s-eye, near the 11:00 position (corresponding to where we want Dawn to fly past Mars). As our arrow approached the target, it might turn out that it was going to miss the target entirely, it might be headed for some other point on the target, and it just might be that it was headed for the bull’s-eye itself. Dawn’s case was this last one, so TCM1 put it on track for the destination we desired.
Amazing sports analogies for the fantastic accuracy of interplanetary navigation usually fail to account for TCMs, as most arrows, balls, and other projectiles do not include active control after they are on their way. Your correspondent has presented his own simile for the astonishing accuracy with which a spacecraft can reach a faraway destination, but most such analogies neglect TCMs, without which deep-space missions could not be accomplished. (Note that the accuracy is impressive with or without TCMs. We shall extend our archery example in a future log, making it more quantitative. It will be important, however, to keep in mind that the ion propulsion system provides so much maneuvering flexibility that Dawn does not need to achieve the degree of accuracy in its gravity assist that a mission using conventional chemical propulsion might.)
For reasons we will not divulge, Dawn’s first TCM has been designated TCM1. On November 20, just as it had for all of its previous thrusting, the spacecraft pointed a thruster (TCM1 used thruster #1) in the required direction and resumed emitting the familiar blue-green beam of xenon ions to alter course. While typical thrusting during the mission has lasted for almost 7 days at a time (followed by a hiatus of 7 to 8 hours), in this case only a short burn was necessary. Propelling itself from about 4:31 pm to 6:42 pm PST was just enough to fine-tune its course and change its speed by a bit more than 60 centimeters per second (1.3 miles per hour). This adjustment was modest indeed, as at that time Dawn was traveling around the Sun at more than 22.5 kilometers per second (50,400 miles per hour). Dawn and Mars, following their separate orbits that will (almost!) intersect on February 17, 2009, were moving relative to each other at 3.17 kilometers per second (7100 miles per hour).
Dawn’s second TCM window (inexplicably named TCM2) is in January. Traveling two-thirds of the way from here to Mars, the navigational accuracy then will be still better, with smaller deviations from the planned target point being detectable, so another refinement in the trajectory then is likely. In the meantime, Dawn will follow its orbital path with its ion thrusters idle.
As Dawn travels through space on its own, its path has been essentially independent of Earth’s. We saw in a previous log that the weaker grasp exerted by the Sun at Dawn’s greater distance means that it travels more slowly around the solar system. While Earth has completed more than 1 full revolution (each revolution requiring 1 year) since launch, Dawn has not yet rounded the Sun once. After receding from the Sun until early August, the spacecraft began falling back, albeit only temporarily.
The probe attained its maximum distance from Earth on November 10. (For anyone who was on Earth on that date and plans to use this information in an alibi, it may be helpful to know that the greatest range was reached at about 3:07 am PST.) The spacecraft was more than 384 million kilometers (239 million miles) from its one-time home. Although it will make substantial progress on its journey in the meantime, Dawn’s distance to Earth will continue to decrease until January 2010, when it will be less than one-third of what it is today. In the summer of that year, however, as Earth maintains its repetitive annual orbital motion and the explorer climbs away from the Sun, it will surpass this month’s distance to Earth. (Readers are encouraged to memorize the contents of this log for reference in 2010 in case we fail to include a link to this paragraph.)
The complex choreography of the solar system’s grand orbital dance rarely calls for a circular orbit; rather, the dancers follow ellipses (ovals in which the ends are of equal size) around the Sun. Thanks to the details of the shapes of their orbits, the greatest separation between Earth and Dawn did not occur when they were precisely on opposite sides of the Sun, although the alignment was close to that.
On December 12, their dance steps will take them to points almost exactly on opposite sides of the Sun. For observers on Earth, this is known as solar conjunction, because the spacecraft and the Sun will appear to be in the same location. (Similarly, from Dawn’s point of view, Earth and the Sun will be almost coincident.) In reality, of course, Dawn will be much farther away than Earth’s star. It will be 147 million kilometers (91.5 million miles) from Earth to the Sun but 379 million kilometers (236 million miles) from the planet to its cosmic envoy.
Its apparent proximity to the Sun presents a helpful opportunity for terrestrial readers to locate Dawn in the sky. On December 9 - 15, the spacecraft will be less than 1 degree from the Sun, progressing from east to west and passing just 1/3 degree south of that brilliant celestial landmark on December 12. (As Dawn does not orbit in the same plane as Earth, it will not pass directly behind the Sun.) The Sun itself is 1/2 degree across, so this is close indeed; the spacecraft will sneak in to less than 1 solar diameter from the disk. To demonstrate how small the separation is, if you blocked the Sun with your thumb at arm’s length during this week around conjunction (and you are exhorted to do so), you also would cover Dawn.
For those interested observers who lack the requisite superhuman visual acuity to discern the remote spacecraft amidst the dazzling light of the Sun, conjunction still may provide a convenient occasion to reflect upon this most recent of humankind’s missions far into the solar system. This small probe is the product of creatures fortunate enough to be able to combine their powerful curiosity about the workings of the cosmos with their impressive abilities to explore, investigate, and ultimately understand. While its builders remain in the vicinity of the planet upon which they evolved, their robotic ambassador now is passing on the far side of the extraordinarily distant Sun. This is the same Sun that has been the unchallenged master of our solar system for 4.5 billion years. This is the same Sun that has shone down on Earth throughout that time and has been the ultimate source of so much of the heat, light, and other energy upon which the planet’s inhabitants have been so dependent. This is the same Sun that has so influenced human expression in art, literature, and religion for uncounted millennia. This is the same Sun that has motivated scientific studies for centuries. This is the same Sun that acts as our signpost in the Milky Way galaxy. This is the same Sun that is more than 100 times the diameter of Earth and a third of a million times the planet¹s mass. And humans have a spacecraft on the far side of it. We may be humbled by our own insignificance in the universe, yet we still undertake the most valiant adventures in our attempts to comprehend its majesty.
Solar conjunction means even more to Dawn mission controllers than the opportunity to meditate upon what magnificent feats our species can achieve. As Earth, the Sun, and the spacecraft come closer into alignment, radio signals that go back and forth must pass near the Sun. The solar environment is fierce indeed, and it causes interference in those radio waves. While some signals will get through, communications will be less reliable. Therefore, controllers plan to send no messages to the spacecraft from December 5 through December 18; all instructions needed during that time will be stored onboard beforehand. Deep Space Network antennas, pointing near the Sun, will listen through the roaring noise for the faint whisper of the spacecraft, but the team will consider any signals to be a bonus.
There is plenty of other work to do while waiting to resume communications after conjunction. In addition to preparing for the visit to Mars, engineers will continue to interpret the results of election day. On November 4, the Dawn team voted unanimously for more power. They commanded the spacecraft to execute a set of steps to yield data that will reveal the full potential of the enormous solar arrays to generate electrical power. The method was tested first on July 21, and then refined for a test on September 22. For this month’s measurement, the commands were identical to those used for the second test with one exception that had been planned from the beginning: the solar arrays were rotated to point 60 degrees away from the Sun instead of 45 degrees. The solar arrays are so powerful that when they are pointed directly at the Sun, the spacecraft could not draw enough power to measure their full capability.
The data collected show the electrical behavior of the arrays as the ion propulsion system was commanded through its start-up, drawing more and more power. Unlike the two tests, this calibration was designed so that with the arrays pointed so far from the Sun, they would not be able to provide as much power as was requested. Engineers wanted to find the point at which the arrays would no longer be able to satisfy the demands. They were not disappointed; power climbed up and up until no more was available. The prospect of having a spacecraft not be able to meet its own power demands may seem risky, but the procedure was carefully designed, analyzed, and simulated, and it executed perfectly. When the ion propulsion system asked for more power than the arrays could deliver, in the language of the trade, the solar arrays “collapsed.” Now to some (including even some engineers unfamiliar with the terminology), this suggests something not entirely desirable, such as 2 bent and twisted wings, each with 5 warped panels, and 11,480 shattered solar cells, the fragments sparkling in the sunlight as they tumbled and floated away from the powerless probe. In this case though, “collapse” is an electrical, not a mechanical, phenomenon and hence would be somewhat less visually spectacular and quite reversible -- a key attribute for a mission with well over 6 years of space exploration ahead of it. Once all the data are analyzed, controllers will have a better prediction for how much power the arrays will be able to generate for the rest of the voyage.
Dawn is 20 million kilometers (12 million miles) from Mars. It is 383 million kilometers (238 million miles) from Earth, or 950 times as far as the moon and 2.59 times as far as the Sun. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take 43 minutes to make the round trip.
Dr. Marc D. Rayman
7:00 am PST November 26, 2008
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As @SQLChicken states, a good data model is a very important start to have for stable, consistent, extensible and scalable databases.
After you have a logical model, the next step is implementation of the logical model in the target RDBMS. There are many important considerations and actions that are required to do this. For example, depending on the anticipated size of your database, you may decide that certain structures should be de-normalized for performance reasons but this decision should be made carefully, with the implications fully considered. Other considerations:
- If you haven't done so already, decide on a naming standard/convention. Name your objects in a consistent way. Take time to define each object such as tables and columns in the database by adding a comment to each.
- Define your table primary keys, foreign keys, data constraints, and indexes. Indexes can be added later, so don't worry about getting them all up front. The need for them tends to become apparent over time ;-)
- Define views of data that may be useful for reports, ad-hoc queries, etc.
- Minimize trigger use - these can be expedient, but have many pitfalls.
By no means is this list exhaustive. Become familiar with the (voluminous) Oracle documentation.
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The plots in this Demonstration show precision error. The formula is true for all real . To plot for various , Mathematica correctly finds numerical values very close to 0. In the plot, these infinitesimal deviations are magnified a quadrillion-fold.
Various types of machine error—round-off, precision, accumulated—have led to the loss of lives and fortunes. For example, the Patriot missile system relies on a .1 second internal clock. The binary machine considers this as a 209715/2097152 second clock. In a 1991 incident during Operation Desert Storm, after being on for 100 hours, the missile tracking timing had accumulated a .34 second error. This rendered it unable to track an incoming missile, which subsequently fell intact on a barracks and killed 28 people.
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Consider a distillation column separating a binary mixture of methanol and water at
. This column has 10 stages, a total condenser, and a partial reboiler. Feed stage location is stage nine counting from the top. The feed composition is equimolar. The feed vapor fraction is
is the feed quality. The feed flow rate is set to
. The values of both the reboil (
) and the reflux (
) ratios are to be selected by the user. This Demonstration uses a rigorous approach (solving MESH equations) and displays the composition versus stage for both components (methanol in orange, water in blue), the temperature profile inside the column, as well as the vapor and liquid flow rates (magenta and blue, respectively). Comparisons with the results obtained with Aspen HYSYS
are shown for
. Finally, the Ponchon–Savarit graphical construction is shown and several checks of external overall and partial mass balances and condenser and external energy balances are performed.
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November Community Game Changer
MSU Denver’s April Hill makes science accessible to blind students
By Greg Henry
April Hill has been a faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver for just three years, but she’s already made a lasting impact.
Hill, an assistant professor of chemistry and director of forensic science, brought to the University a passion to help visually impaired students gain hands-on knowledge of science and to improve access to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.
While doing post-doctoral work at Pennsylvania State University, she met Cary Supalo, a graduate student at the time, who was developing tools to give blind students a richer experience in the chemistry lab.
“Dr. Supalo was the first blind scientist I’d met, and I had honestly never had a reason to wonder how a blind person might complete a chemistry lab experiment,” says Hill, 33. “As someone who was planning to go into education, I realized that I could very well have a blind student in a course one day and it would be my responsibility to teach him or her science, including the important aspect of experimentation.”
A curriculum Hill helped create drew skepticism from sighted students.
“The immediate dismissal of a blind student’s ability — not to mention their right — to an education in science is frustrating for me,” Hill says. “And I can only imagine how hearing [skepticism] might affect a young person with a visual impairment who has an interest in science.”
She and Supalo ran several hands-on workshops and summer science camps, largely through collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind. Since joining MSU Denver in 2010, she has put on chemistry workshops for students who attend the Colorado Center for the Blind in Littleton.
The use of adaptive technology helps even the playing field for visually impaired students. Vernier Software and Technology has worked closely with Independence Science (based at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and founded by Supalo) to develop the Talking LabQuest. Through Talking LabQuest students access tools like text-to-speech software and probes for measuring pH, temperature, conductivity, etc.
“There are a lot of schools for the visually impaired that do a good job of providing hands-on science experiments for their students, but they are limited by a lack of technology,” Hill says. “There is also a perception that allowing a blind student to handle chemicals is unsafe. This has led to the common practice in public high schools of simply pairing a blind student with a sighted partner who does all of the actual experimentation and simply provides a running commentary for the blind student. This is not an effective way to teach chemistry, and it is certainly not a good way to inspire a blind student to pursue chemistry as a career.”
Thomas Vogt, an assistant professor of chemistry at MSU Denver, shares Hill’s passion and introduced her to the Colorado Center for the Blind and its science fairs in the spring and fall.
“Using plastic baggies, the students mix chemicals that we provide to produce simple polymers which they can touch and handle after the reaction is completed.” Vogt says. “We have shown that blind students can do wet chemistry. It is exciting to see the excitement of the students.”
Content provided By Metropolitan State University of Denver
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Soil is a natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics.
Uses of Soil:
1. Soil is used in agriculture, where it serves as the primary nutrient base for the plants. Soil resources are critical to the environment, as well as to food and fiber production. Soil provides minerals and water to plants. Soil is used to make plants grow healthy. The types of soil used in agriculture (among other things, such as the purported level of moisture in the soil) vary with respect to the species of plants that are cultivated.
2. Soil is used in constructions and arts. Soil material is a critical component in the mining and construction industries. Soil serves as a foundation for most construction projects. Massive volumes of soil can be involved in surface mining, road building, and dam construction. Earth sheltering is the architectural practice of using soil for external thermal mass against building walls. Soil is used to make pots.
3. Soil play an important role in filtrating and purifying water. After coming down as precipitation, much of the rain water is percolated through the many horizons of a soil profile and renamed as groundwater. As the water moves through different areas such as wetlands, forests, and riparian zones many pollutants are removed. Pollutants such as viruses, oils, metals, excess nutrients, and sediments are filtered out by the soil and surrounding organisms.
4. Waste management often has a soil component. Landfills use soil for daily cover. Septic drain fields treat septic tank effluent using aerobic soil processes.
5. Organic soils, especially peat, serve as a significant fuel resource.
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https://bhikkhucintita.wordpress.com/ho ... -buddhism/
that Ven Gavesako linked to recently are an interesting, though somewhat rambling, discussion of Folk vs Essential Buddhism, and how they are necessary for each other. In particular, the theme is how Folk Buddhism involves integration of local culture.
And, of course, the key question (not fully developed in the series yet) is:
Which aspects of Western Buddhist practice are Folk Buddhism?
Here are a few random snippets.
https://bhikkhucintita.wordpress.com/20 ... uddhism-7/
A common factor in the way the Refuges are practiced and understood in American Folk Buddhism is free-thinking, captured for instance in the following quote:
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” - “The Buddha”Free-thinking is related to the Protestant rejection of authority that we discussed last week, but more importantly to the post-(European-)Enlightenment regard for rational or critical thinking and the parallel disparagement of “faith,” and accounts for the popularity in the West of the quote above. This passage was however never spoken by the Buddha. I don’t know who made it up.
https://bhikkhucintita.wordpress.com/20 ... uddhism-9/
It is hardly surprising that individualism as a strong factor in American and Western culture should also be a strong factor in American and Western Folk Buddhism. Here, as with other aspects of Folk Buddhism, my interest will be in investigating to what extent its particular forms are friendly to, indifferent to or inimical to Essential Buddhism.
Our Authentic Self. A common Western Folk understanding is that Buddhism (or sometimes Zen) is about getting to know, trust and to free your authentic, inner or true self or nature, a self that has been suppressed by social conditioning and other inauthentic factors, but when unleashed is the source of creativity, spirituality, virtue and wisdom. Often the authentic self is identified with Buddha Nature, a pristine aspect of ourselves free from defilement, which is capable of awakening or even already awakened.
If these statements do not have a Buddhist origin, where did they come from? The answer is … European Romanticism and its later expressions.
As Bhante says, a characteristic of Folk Buddhism is drawing on local culture...
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12 - 15 Months
If you are in the habit or reading, talking and singing to
your baby, you will now see the rewards of your efforts. He
or she will be able to understand more and more. Remember,
the more you talk to your baby the smarter he or she will
A good time to talk to your baby is while he or she is getting
dressed. As you hand them each piece of clothing, name it:
sock, shoe, pants, diaper, sweater, shirt. After a few days
of this, put their clothes on the floor in front of them and
ask your baby to give the clothes to you as you say the item’s
name. While bathing, name the toys in the tub and ask them
to hand you a specific toy.
Try to avoid “NO’s” except when danger
is involved! If your baby does something that you do not like,
distract them by taking them to another area and giving them
something else to do. If baby is about to touch a hot store,
use the word “no.” For example: “No, the
stove is hot. That will hurt you.” Be consistent when
you use the word “no,” so that it means “Stop
Things Your Child May Do At This Age
- Pick up tiny objects using only thumb and forefinger
- Point and probe with forefinger
- Release objects awkwardly; throw objects to practice
how to release fingers
- Hold something out for you to take (Note: doesn’t
always let go.)
- Experiment with simple ways things fit together
- Walk with one or both hands held or actually walk alone
- Rock to rhythm while standing alone
- Stoop to pick up things on the floor
- Climb stairs while holding on to your hand or the banister:
(Be sure to supervise!)
- May push riding toys backwards instead of pulling them
- Introduce toilet training through consistent, positive
encouragement. There is no set time to start “potty
- Your child’s readiness should be the guide.
- When your baby is born, the nervous system, which sends
messages throughout the body, has not completely developed.
As your baby grows and his body develops, he gains more
control over his body’s actions and functions such
as: holding his head up, rolling over, picking up small
items with his fingers and walking. The same is true for
going to the bathroom. Potty training can only occur when
he is able to control his bladder and his bowel functions.
Babies’ bodies develop at different rates, so be patient!
Praise him when he is successful. Do not punish him when
accidents occur – they ARE “accidents.”
- Lock cabinets, doors and windows as your child begins
to move about.
- Use a gate to block entrances to stairs.
- Supervise stairs and/or use a gate to block entrances.
- Your child will love to play with water. Remember, it
only takes 4 minutes to drown in less than 2 inches of water.
- SUPERVISE at all times whenever your child is playing
- NEVER leave open buckets of waterun-attended.
- Place medicines, cleaning products, matches and firearms
on high shelves behind locked doors.Remove all hazardous
substances. Cover all electrical outlets and extension cords
that are exposed.
- Buckle your child into a front-facing child seat placed
in the back eat of the car when you take your child for
- Supervise play at the beach, in a sand box or with dirt.
She may want to eat the sand or dirt or throw it rather
than dig and pour.
- Well Baby Check-ups: 12 months (DO it Now!)
- Immunization at 12 months: If your baby has not had these
immunizations yet, now is the time for HIB, Hepatitis B,
and Chickenpox vaccine (optional).
- Continue cleaning teeth with a very small toothbrush moistened
- Water is as important as food.
- Offer small drinks of water two or three times each day
- Limit juice to 4 – 6 ounces (1/2 cup) a day.
Things You Can Do Every Day To Help Your Child Grow
- Read to your child every day. Story time is an excellent
way to wind-down before naptime or bedtime. It helps to
create a routine: such as “It’s bedtime, get
your favorite book so we can read.”
- Help your child learn how to hold books – turned
right-side up and starting at the front of the book. Teach
her that they are fun to look at but should be handled gently.
Patiently teach her that books are not for chewing or tearing.
(Accidents will happen. Have tape handy to repair torn pages.
Do not make a “big deal” out of a bent or torn
- Encourage him to express his feelings with words; for
example, “Oh, you bumped your head. I know that hurts.
Tell me where it hurts.”
- Give your child time outdoors. Let him run and play. Climbing
in and out of boxes is a favorite game. Remember to watch
him closely when outside – he can move pretty fast
when he wants to.
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American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi:10.1002/ajpa.21150
Spouse selection by health status and physical traits. Sardinia, 1856-1925
M. Manfredini et al.
Military medical information and data from civil registers of death and marriage have been used to study the role of physical characteristics and health conditions in explaining access to marriage for the male population of Alghero, a small city located in Sardinia Island (Italy), at the turn of 19th century. Literature data about contemporary populations have already demonstrated the influence of somatic traits in the mate choice. The results presented here show that men with low height and poor health status at the age of 20 were negatively selected for marriage. This holds true also in a society where families often arranged marriages for their children. This pattern of male selection on marriage was found to be particularly marked among the richest and wealthiest SES groups. Our hypothesis is that this social group carefully selected for marriage those individuals who were apparently healthier and therefore more likely to guarantee good health status and better life conditions to offspring. In evolutionary terms, the mate choice component of sexual selection suggests that the height of prospective partners could be claimed as one of the determinants, along with other environmental causes, of the observed higher stature of men belonging to the wealthiest social strata of the Alghero population.
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This article originally stated that the Taíno were extinct, which is incorrect. Nature apologizes for the offence caused, and has corrected the text to better explain the research project described.
This is, of course, nonsense. How timorous has the modern scientific culture become, that it is willing to acquiesce so easily, lest one be perceived as not having sufficient "sensitivity" in matters ethnic?
When we say that the Taíno are extinct, we are, in fact claiming that a population group is extinct. We do not say that pieces of DNA are extinct, or that words in a language are extinct. There are pieces of Taíno DNA in modern Puerto Ricans, and there are Taíno words in the Spanish spoken there. But the Taíno group is extinct.
For example, you will not found any aurochsen (Bos primigenius) in Europe today, even though they did pass on some of their genes to modern European cattle. The aurochsen are extinct, even though some of their genes persist. You can say that modern European cattle are just Bos taurus influenced by Bos primigenius in Europe, but you can't say that B. primigenius is in existence today.
Similarly, there are Etruscan words and genes floating around in Europe today, but there are no longer any Etruscans. The Etruscans are extinct. There were, there are not => they are extinct.
A group is defined by a set of common genetic (and, in some animals, cultural) features. The survival of a few of these features is not the same as the survival of the group. The fact that some modern humans have preserved bits of Neandertal immunogenetics does not reverse the fact of Neandertal extinction, because Neandertals were not reducible to bits of their immune systems.
It is well-known that Egyptian pyramids have been used for building materials since the demise of ancient Egyptian civilization. If the building blocks of the pyramids had all found themselves in Cairo buildings, we would be justified in saying that "the pyramids are gone", because the arrangement of parts called "pyramids" was no longer in existence, even though their parts remain.
It is somewhat ironic that the same crowd of "ethnically sensitive" people can simultaneously propose that differences between races and ethnic groups have no biological basis, and, at the same time, affirm the non-extinction of an ethnic group precisely on account of its having preserved a few bits of distinctive DNA.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that five hundred years into the future, there is a United Europe, with English as its common language. Further suppose, that in a province of that United Europe, say Finland, the population's gene pool is composed of 10% current Finnish DNA and 90% other European/non-European DNA. Would we be justified in saying that the Finns were extinct?
Bits of our DNA have reached us from the remotest depths of time, joined, more recently, by bits of our culture. They aggregate, for a time, into distinctive biocultural packages, such as the Taíno, they are transformed, and then they are dissolved: some dying out, some latching onto new units. The Taíno are extinct, but parts of them remain.
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Date: November 17, 2005
Creator: Hanrahan, Charles E.
Description: In May 2003, the United States, Canada, and Argentina initiated a formal challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO) of the European Union’s (EU’s) de facto moratorium on approving new agricultural biotechnology products, in place since 1998. Although the EU effectively lifted the moratorium in May 2004 by approving a genetically engineered (GE) corn variety, the three countries are pursuing the case, in part because a number of EU member states continue to block approved biotech products. Because of delays, the WTO is expected to decide the case by December 2005. The moratorium reportedly cost U.S. corn growers some $300 million in exports to the EU annually. The EU moratorium, U.S. officials contend, threatened other agricultural exports not only to the EU, but also to other parts of the world where the EU approach to regulating agricultural biotechnology is taking hold.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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- This article is about the movie "The Sword in the Stone". For the object of the same name, see Sword in the Stone (object).
The film begins in England with the death of the king, Uther Pendragon. No heir is named, and so England is threatened to be torn apart by war. Miraculously, the mystical "Sword in the Stone" appears in London, with an inscription proclaiming that whomever pulls it out is the rightful King of England. Many try to remove the sword,but none succeed and the sword is soon forgotten.
Some years later, Arthur (a.k.a. Wart), a 12-year-old orphan training to be a squire, accompanies his older foster brother Kay on a hunting trip. Wart accidentally prevents Kay from shooting a deer, and goes to retrieve the arrow to make up for his mistake. In the woods, Wart falls into the cottage of Merlin, a powerful wizard. Merlin announces he will be Wart's tutor, packs up and the two return to Wart's home, a castle run by Sir Ector, one of Uther's knights and Wart's foster father. Ector does not believe in magic, and refuses to allow Merlin to tutor Wart. Merlin creates a blizzard and disappears, which persuades Ector to let Merlin stay, albeit in a decrepit old tower with countless leaks. Ector's friend and fellow knight, Sir Pellinore, arrives with news about the annual jousting tournament to be held on New Year's Day in London, only this time whose winner would be crowned King of England. Ector proposes that Kay be knighted and compete for the title, despite Kay's obvious ineptitude in both jousting and sword fighting.
Merlin begins his tutoring by transforming Wart and himself into fish and going into the castle's moat. Wart is chased and attacked by a pike, and is saved by Archimedes, Merlin's owl. Wart is sent to the kitchen as punishment after he tried to tell his lesson to a disbelieving Ector. Merlin arrives and magics the dishes to wash themselves. He then takes Wart for another lesson, wherein he transforms Wart and himself into squirrels. Merlin teaches Wart about gravity, and about male-female relationships (as two female squirrels become infatuated with them). When they return to human form, Wart's female squirrel cries sadly when she sees he is really a boy. When they return to the castle, Ector accuses Merlin of using black magic on the dishes. Wart defends Merlin, and Ector punishes Wart by first setting him with a mountain of chores, then essentially told Wart he cooked his goose for "popping off" and choosing another boy as Kay's squire. Wart is devastated, but Merlin convinces him to continue with his education.
For his 3rd lesson, Merlin transforms Wart into a sparrow. Wart then accompanies Archimedes on a flying lesson. Wart is attacked by a hawk and flies down the chimney of Madam Mim, a witch who is a rival to Merlin. Mim's magic uses trickery, as opposed to Merlin's scientific skill. Mim turns into a cat and chases Wart around her cottage. Merlin arrives, having been summoned by Archimedes, and begins to rebuke Mim. Madam Mim challenges Merlin to a Wizard's Duel, a battle of wits where the players try to destroy one another by transforming into different animals. Mim sets several ground rules, including the rules that only real animals may be used (no imaginary ones like pink dragons), and no disappearing. During the battle, both wizards transform themselves into a variety of creatures, such as: a turtle, a rabbit, a caterpillar, a walrus, a mouse, a crab, a goat, a crocodile, a fox, a hen, an elephant, a tiger, a snake and a rhino. Finally, Mim transforms into a purple dragon which is supposed to be against the rules (though Mim notes that she never explicitly outlawed purple dragons). Merlin is able to think quickly, and transforms himself into a germ and infects her. Mim is put to bed, ill, though it is said she would recover in a few weeks.
At Christmas, Kay is knighted, but his squire comes down with the mumps, and so Ector reinstates Arthur as Kay's squire. Wart excitedly tells Merlin and Archimedes the news. But Merlin is disappointed that Wart still prefers war games to academics. Wart tries to explain that he cannot become a knight as he is an orphan, so a squire is the best position he can attain. This aggravates Merlin, who transforms himself into a rocket bound for Bermuda.
Ector, Kay, Pellinore, Wart and Archimedes travel to London for the tournament. Moments before Kay's match, Wart realizes that he has forgotten Kay's sword at their inn, which is now closed because of the tournament. Archimedes notices a sword in a stone in a nearby churchyard, and points it out to Wart. Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, unwittingly fulfilling the Sword in the Stone’s prophecy.
When Arthur returns with the sword, Ector and Sir Bart recognize it as the Sword in the Stone, and the tournament is stopped. Demanding that Arthur prove he pulled it, Ector replaces the sword in its anvil. Kay attempts to remove it himself, but he and none of the other men succeed in removing it. Wart manages to pull it out a second time with ease. The knights all proclaim, "Hail!! King Arthur!!", as the crowd, Sir Ector, and Kay all kneel to Arthur.
The film cuts to Arthur, now crowned king, sitting in the throne room with Archimedes, feeling completely unprepared to take the responsibility of royalty. Overwhelmed by the cheering crowd outside, Arthur calls out to Merlin for help, who arrives (in 20th century attire) and is elated to find that Arthur is the King that he had seen in the future. Merlin tells the boy that he will rise and lead the Knights of the Round Table, accomplishing many amazing feats and becoming one of the most famous figures in literature and even in motion pictures (such as this film and the 2004 film).
- Arthur/Wart: Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman and Robert Reitherman
- Merlin: Karl Swenson
- Archimedes: Junius Matthews
- Sir Ector: Sebastian Cabot
- Sir Kay: Norman Alden
- Madam Mim and Granny Squirrel: Martha Wentworth
- Sir Pellinore: Alan Napier
- Sir Bart: Thurl Ravenscroft
- Scullery Maid: Barbara Jo Allen
- Girl Squirrel: Ginny Tyler
- Wolf: James MacDonald
- Tiger and Talbot: Mel Blanc
There are several scenes with animation recycled from other Disney films, as well as original animation that itself would be recycled in later productions. The deer Kay tries shooting at with his arrow was copied from Bambi's mother from Bambi. When Sir Ector and Kay are in the kitchen fighting against the enchanted dishware, Sir Ector swings his sword backwards and hits Kay on the head, with Kay groaning. Jasper and Horace in One Hundred and One Dalmatians were animated in the same way during the fight scene with Pongo and Perdita, and archive audio of J. Pat O'Malley (who voiced Jasper) was used for Kay's groan. Also, the footage where Wart is affectionately licked by the two castle dogs is reused in The Jungle Book four years later. The scene where Arthur is a squirrel jumping from one tree to the next was reused in The Fox and the Hound in 1981. When Wart goes into the forest to retrieve Kay's arrow, he pushes aside a branch and weaves in and out of a few small trees. This animation was reused in The Black Cauldron.
- "The Sword in the Stone" (Sung by Fred Darian)
- "Higitus Figitus" (Sung by Merlin)
- "That's What Makes the World Go Round" (Sung by Merlin and Arthur)
- "A Most Befuddling Thing" (Sung by Merlin)
- "Mad Madame Mim" (Sung by Mim)
- "Blue Oak Tree" (Ending of the song, sung by the Sir Ector and Sir Pellinore)
- "The Magic Key" (Deleted Song, sung by Merlin)
The film was originally released to theaters on December 25, 1963. In the United States, it was re-issued to theaters on December 22, 1972 and released jointly with Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore on March 25, 1983.
- Main article: The Sword in the Stone (video)
The film was first released in VHS format in the UK in 1983 and in the US on March 1986, as well as another VHS release in July 1991. Both of these were in the Walt Disney Classics line. The film was released on VHS again on October 28, 1994 as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. The film was released on VHS again, along with a DVD release, of the film in March 2001 as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. A special DVD edition was released for the 45th Anniversary of the film in June 2008. The Deluxe Edition, which included lithographs, a book, a lenticular card, and a certificate of authenticity, was also released in June 2008. For its 50th Anniversary, the film was released on Blu-ray on August 6, 2013.
The film was a financial success at the box office and the sixth highest grossing film of 1963 in North America, earning estimated rentals of $4.75 million. It was better received by British critics than American critics, who thought it had too much humor and a "thin narrative." Rotten Tomatoes reports that 74% of critics gave positive reviews based on 23 reviews with an average score of 6.1/10. Its consensus states that "A decent take on the legend of King Arthur, The Sword in the Stone suffers from somewhat indifferent animation, but its characters are still memorable and appealing." Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "Delightful classic brings Arthur legend to life".
In his book The Best of Disney, Neil Sinyard states that, despite not being well known, the animation is excellent, a complex structure, and more philosophical than most other Disney features. Sinyard suggests that Walt Disney may have seen something of himself in Merlin, and that Mim, who "hates wholesome sunshine", may have represented critics.
The American Film Institute nominated The Sword in the Stone for its Top 10 Animated Films list.
Madam Mim was adapted into the Duck universe where she sometimes teams with Magica De Spell and/or the Beagle Boys. She also appeared in the Mickey Mouse universe where she teamed with Black Pete on occasion and with the Phantom Blot at one point. She was in love with Captain Hook in several stories; in others, with Phantom Blot. In many European Disney comics, she lost her truly evil streak, and appears morbid yet relatively polite.
Mim has appeared in numerous comics produced in the United States by Studio Program in the 1960s and 1970s, often as a sidekick of Magica. Most of the stories were published in Europe and South America. Among the artists are Jim Fletcher, Tony Strobl, Wolfgang Schäfer, and Katja Schäfer. Several new characters were introduced in these stories, including Samson Hex, an apprentice of Mim and Magica.
The Sword itself appears in all of the Disneyland-style parks, located in front of their respective Carousels, with Disneyland's being King Arthur Carrousel. A sword pulling ceremony hosted by Merlin where a lucky child who pulled the sword would be declared the temporary ruler of Fantasyland was a common show until the ceremony ended several years ago.
- This is the last animated feature released when Walt Disney was alive.
|This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The article or pieces of the original article was at The Sword in the Stone (film). The list of authors can be seen in the . As with Disney Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.|
|Kingdom Hearts Series|
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Review of A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming by Hume et al. (Harbour Publishing, 2004)
The creature that symbolizes the merger of oceanic and fresh waters is the anadromous Pacific salmon. The salmon have a long history in the Pacific; the fossil record for the salmon stretches back 1.6 million years to the Pleistocene Age, with an origin perhaps 100 million years ago. The Pacific salmon has since evolved into five species -- pink, chum, sockeye, coho, and chinook -- that inhabit a particular niche within the aqueous ecosystem. On the west coast of North America, the salmon range from northern California to Alaska.
The salmon's lives begin as eggs deposited in a gravel bed, fertilized by milt from the male salmon. Upon hatching, they are tiny creatures called alevins, with huge eyes attached to orange sacs that sustain them nutritionally. Later they emerge from the gravel as small fry and search for feed. If the young fish survive, they will migrate as fingerlings to the saline embrace of the ocean. In the open ocean the salmon feed voraciously and carnivorously. Eventually the adult salmon will answer the not-so-well-understood, instinctual call-of-nature and return to their birth waters to spawn again.
Although salmon spawn throughout the year, it is particularly in autumn when school groups, families, naturalists, and visitors flood to the leaf-strewn banks of flowing waters to observe the epic life-and-death struggle of the returning salmon. I often admired the fall spectacle and have donned wetsuit, mask, fins, and snorkel to drift with the unyielding flow while shoals of salmon powerfully darted up current around my mass.
Shoddy logging practices near streams, mine tailings entering the waters, and the human thirst for more-and-more energy leading to the damming of salmon-bearing waters have wiped out the salmon and imperiled them elsewhere. A more recent menace has invaded the Pacific coast: salmon farms.
Stephen Hume, Alexandra Morton, Betty C. Keller, Rosella M. Leslie, Otto Langer, and Don Staniford have synthesized the various threads of danger posed by salmon farming to the wild Pacific salmon in an informative book, A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming. Salmon farming involves the previously unheard-of mass cultivation of a carnivore species. To compound matters, on the Pacific coast, the farmed species is the introduced Atlantic salmon, a domesticated variant dubbed by some as Salmo domesticus.
A Stain Upon the Sea revolves around the cataclysmic collapse of the 2001-2002 pink salmon run in the Broughton archipelago off northeast Vancouver Island -- a collapse attributed to a lethal sea lice infestation originating from the salmon farms. Hume details a similar collapse near salmon-farming operations in Ireland.
Hume also examines the perspective of First Nations people, whose culture and existence are bound with the salmon. Salmon farming endangers this indigenous way-of-life. Kyuquot Nation member Leo Jack rails against the greed behind the drive to expand salmon-farming operations.
British Columbia salmon-farming operations have ramifications outside the province. In Alaska where salmon farming is prohibited, fisherman David Harsila exclaims, "Alaska is the next target. When I look at the salmon farming industry I sort of boil it down to the structure of the multinational conglomerates and how they can influence government."
Keller and Leslie chronicle the haphazard growth of salmon farms that are predominantly controlled by a few foreign multinational corporations.
Langer delineates how his former place of employment, the federal Department of Fisheries (DFO), functions contrary to its mandate, which includes the protection of the fisheries and the marine and freshwater environment. The DFO is described as politicized; many key personnel are considered unknowledgeable about fisheries, and some work in an incestuous relationship with the salmon-farming industry that the DFO must monitor.
The situation is so egregious that Langer muses, "Salmon farms seemed to have been given immunity from [the regulations of] the Fisheries Act."
Langer finds particularly disturbing DFO's recalcitrance to seriously investigate the alleged outbreak of sea lice in the Broughton archipelago.
Biologist Morton gives a firsthand account of the sea lice infestation traceable to salmon farms that precipitated a horrific 99 percent wipeout of the pink salmon run. She begins with the government chicanery that led to locating salmon farms in extremely sensitive areas of Broughton archipelago. She describes disease outbreaks from the salmon farms, and untenable practices such as employing "acoustic harassment devices" that frightened off the whales. The DFO was both uninterested and disinterested. After these experiences Morton writes, "I lost trust in the system; I felt it was working to hide the truth."
Any lingering doubts were dismissed by DFO's negligence in enforcing regulations in the aftermath of the pink crash. If only it were supreme political and industrial ineptitude, but clearly disinformation was at the core of the government-corporate maneuvering. The government even sought to cleanse a community of witnesses to the illicit and destructive salmon-farming practices. As Morton states, "This is a rigged game and no truths will come to light."
Morton speculates that the eradication of wild salmon might insidiously serve as a pretext to open up British Columbia to further exploitation by resource-extracting industries. Morton was moved to activism. Morton solidarized with others to form an action group and take on the corporate-government nexus that was imperiling the wild salmon and a community way of life.
Choose your poisson
Staniford's information-packed chapter details the toxic chemical brew in widespread use in the salmon-farming industry, focusing primarily on toxic delousing agents. Clearly, the salmon-farming industry had to deal with the terrible optics of the sea lice infestation. Occurrences of sea lice outbreaks and crashes of the wild salmon population confined to the neighborhood of salmon farms could not repeatedly be fobbed off as freak manifestations. The industry attempts to control sea lice with chemicals such as dichlorvos: a "carcinogenic, mutagenic and hormone-disrupting -- a so-called gender bender" organophosphate.
The anti-parasitics are unselectively effective in the short-term. The salmon are adversely affected, as are benthic creatures and shellfish. Resistance developing among sea lice forces a change in chemicals. But the anti-parasitics were developed for use on terrestrial animals and many are explicitly labeled as dangerous to fish and not to be used in water, where the toxicity may be magnified.
Staniford laments the insouciance to poor aquaculture practices: "I'm sick of the arrogant assumption by salmon farmers that their right to profit comes before the environment."
However, the raising of farmed salmon doesn't have to be conducted in such a destructive fashion. The book concludes with a seven-point action plan to resolve the hazards of salmon farming.
Currently, the corporate-government collusion prioritizes the profiteering of salmon-farming operations with minimal regard for the environment, wild creatures, and the health of workers and consumers while staunchly refusing cost-incurring alternatives. In western society, citizens caught stealing from corporations are severely punished, but when corporations steal the right of citizens to a clean environment and healthful food they are too often unpunished and seldom penalized harshly. As A Stain Upon the Sea illustrates, this is a scenario that must be changed -- the continued existence of wild Pacific salmon may depend on it.
Kim Petersen is a writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. He can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.org.
Other Recent Articles by Kim Petersen
* The Progressive Paradox: Defining Viability
* The Shame
* The Wrong Direction
* The Pornography of War
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A risk factor is something that increases your chances of getting a disease or condition.
Genital herpes (HSV-2) is more common in women than in men, and the infection is more easily transmitted from men to women. The risk is highest among adolescents and young adults who are more likely to take risks with their sexual behavior.
The most important risk factor for genital herpes infection is the number of sexual partners in a person’s lifetime. Other factors that may increase your chance of genital herpes include:
- Sexual contact with a person who is infected with genital herpes
- Multiple or frequent changes in sex partners
- Inconsistent or incorrect condom use—latex condom use helps prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
- History of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
- HIV infection or other conditions that weaken the immune system
- Sexual activity at an early age
For people with no or mild symptoms, genital herpes can't be seen, so you can't tell if someone has it. Since most people are unaware they are infected, genital herpes can get transmitted from person to person without their knowledge.
- Reviewer: Michael Woods, MD
- Review Date: 05/2015 -
- Update Date: 05/20/2015 -
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The purpose of screening is early diagnosis and treatment. Screening tests are administered to people without current symptoms, but who may be at high risk for certain diseases or conditions.
During regular check ups, your doctor will ask lifestyle questions, including those about alcohol use. Brief questionnaires may also be used to help identify unhealthy alcoholic habits. An honest conversation with the doctor is important for all aspects of health.
- Reviewer: Adrian Preda, MD
- Review Date: 03/2016 -
- Update Date: 04/10/2015 -
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Cigarette smoking is a preventable cause of death in the United States. If you have thought about quitting but haven’t been able to, here are some reasons why you should and some ways to do it.
Quitting smoking now can decrease your risk of getting smoking-related illnesses like:
- Heart disease
- Several types of cancer, including:
- Chronic lung diseases:
- Macular degeneration
- Thyroid conditions
- Hearing loss
- Erectile dysfunction
Quitting smoking also has health benefits for your whole family! Exposing family members to second-hand smoke can increase their risk of many conditions and even premature death. By being a smoker, you may also increase the chances that your children will become smokers.
Once you’ve decided to quit smoking, set your “target quit date” a few weeks away. In the time leading up to your quit day, try some of these ideas offered by the Tobacco Control Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute to help you successfully quit smoking.
For the best results, work with your doctor. Together, you can test your lung function and compare the results to those of a nonsmoking person. The results can be given to you as your “lung age.” Finding out your “lung age” right after having the test done may help you to stop smoking.
Your doctor can also discuss with you all of your options and refer you to smoking-cessation support groups. You may wish to use nicotine replacement (gum, patches, inhaler) or one of the prescription medications that have been shown to increase quit rates and prolong abstinence from smoking. But whatever you and your doctor decide on these matters, it will still be you who decides when an how to quit. Here are some techniques:
- Switch to a brand you find distasteful.
- Change to a brand that is low in tar and nicotine a couple of weeks before your target quit date. This will help change your smoking behavior. However, do not smoke more cigarettes, inhale them more often or more deeply, or place your fingertips over the holes in the filters. All of these actions will increase your nicotine intake, and the idea is to get your body used to functioning without nicotine.
- Smoke only half of each cigarette.
- Each day, postpone the lighting of your first cigarette by one hour.
- Decide you'll only smoke during odd or even hours of the day.
- Decide beforehand how many cigarettes you'll smoke during the day. For each additional cigarette, give a dollar to your favorite charity.
- Change your eating habits to help you cut down. For example, drink milk, which many people consider incompatible with smoking. End meals or snacks with something that won't lead to a cigarette.
- Reach for a glass of juice instead of a cigarette for a "pick-me-up."
- Remember: Cutting down can help you quit, but it's not a substitute for quitting. If you're down to about seven cigarettes a day, it's time to set your target quit date, and get ready to stick to it.
- Smoke only those cigarettes you really want. Catch yourself before you light up a cigarette out of pure habit.
- Don't empty your ashtrays. This will remind you of how many cigarettes you've smoked each day, and the sight and the smell of stale cigarettes butts will be very unpleasant.
- Make yourself aware of each cigarette by using the opposite hand or putting cigarettes in an unfamiliar location or a different pocket to break the automatic reach.
- If you light up many times during the day without even thinking about it, try to look in a mirror each time you put a match to your cigarette. You may decide you don't need it.
- Stop buying cigarettes by the carton. Wait until one pack is empty before you buy another.
- Stop carrying cigarettes with you at home or at work. Make them difficult to get to.
- Smoke only under circumstances that aren't especially pleasurable for you. If you like to smoke with others, smoke alone. Turn your chair to an empty corner and focus only on the cigarette you are smoking and all its many negative effects.
- Collect all your cigarette butts in one large glass container as a visual reminder of the filth made by smoking.
- Practice going without cigarettes.
- Don't think of never smoking again. Think of quitting in terms of one day at a time .
- Tell yourself you won't smoke today, and then don't.
- Clean your clothes to rid them of the cigarette smell, which can linger a long time.
- Throw away all your cigarettes and matches. Hide your lighters and ashtrays.
- Visit the dentist and have your teeth cleaned to get rid of tobacco stains. Notice how nice they look and resolve to keep them that way.
- Make a list of things you'd like to buy for yourself or someone else. Estimate the cost in terms of packs of cigarettes, and put the money aside to buy these presents.
- Keep very busy on the big day. Go to the movies, exercise, take long walks, or go bike riding.
- Remind your family and friends that this is your quit date, and ask them to help you over the rough spots of the first couple of days and weeks.
- Buy yourself a treat or do something special to celebrate.
Telephone, web-, and computer-based programs can offer you the support that you need to quit and to stay smoke-free. You can find many programs online, like the American Lung Association's Freedom from Smoking .
- Develop a clean, fresh, nonsmoking environment around yourself—at work and at home. Buy yourself flowers—you may be surprised how much you can enjoy their scent now.
- The first few days after you quit, spend as much free time as possible in places where smoking isn't allowed, such as libraries, museums, theaters, department stores, and churches.
- Drink large quantities of water and fruit juice (but avoid sodas that contain caffeine).
- Try to avoid alcohol, coffee, and other beverages that you associate with cigarette smoking.
- Strike up conversation instead of a match for a cigarette.
- If you miss the sensation of having a cigarette in your hand, play with something else—a pencil, a paper clip, a marble.
- If you miss having something in your mouth, try toothpicks or a fake cigarette.
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Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is a surgery for obesity . It changes the stomach and small intestine to cause weight loss by:
- Restricting food intake—creates a small pouch to serve as the stomach, so you cannot eat as much
- Making the body unable to absorb as many calories from the food—bypasses the first part of the small intestine, where many of the calories from food are usually absorbed
Reasons for Procedure
The surgery treats severe obesity. A calculation called body mass index ( BMI ) is used to determine how overweight or obese you are. A normal BMI is 18.5-25.
Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is a weight loss option for people with:
- BMI greater than 40
- BMI 35-39.9 and a life-threatening condition or severe physical limitations that affect employment, movement, and family life
The success of gastric bypass surgery depends on your commitment to lifelong health habits. If lifestyle changes are made and maintained, the benefits of bariatric surgery include:
- Long-term weight reduction
- Improvement in many obesity-related conditions
- Improved movement and stamina
- Enhanced mood, self-esteem, and quality of life
If you are planning to have Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, your doctor will review a list of possible complications, which may include:
- Blood clots
- Hernia formation
- Bowel obstruction
- Breakdown of the staples, allowing leakage of stomach juices into the abdomen
- Diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and vomiting
- Dumping syndrome—This occurs after eating sweets, when food moves too quickly through the small intestine causing sweating, fatigue, lightheadedness, cramping, and diarrhea
- Complications of general anesthesia
Before your procedure, talk to your doctor about ways to manage factors that may increase your risk of complications, such as:
What to Expect
Prior to Procedure
Before the procedure, you will likely have the following:
- Thorough physical exam and review of medical history
- Ongoing consultations with a registered dietitian
- Mental health evaluation and counseling
Leading up to your procedure:
- Talk to your doctor about your medications, herbs, and dietary supplements. You may be asked to stop taking some medications up to 1 week before the procedure.
- Do not start taking any new medications, herbs, or supplements without talking to your doctor.
- Arrange for a ride to and from the hospital.
- Arrange for help at home as you recover.
- You may be asked to take antibiotics before coming to the hospital.
- You may be asked to take laxatives and/or do an enema to clear your intestines.
- The night before your surgery, eat a light meal. Do not eat or drink anything after midnight unless told otherwise by your doctor.
- Shower or bathe the morning of your surgery.
General anesthesia will be used. You will be asleep.
Description of Procedure
To prepare you for surgery, an IV will be placed in your arm. You will receive fluids and medications through this line during the procedure. A breathing tube will be placed through your mouth and into your throat. This will help you breathe during surgery. You will also have a catheter placed in your bladder to drain urine.
An 8-10 inch incision will be made to open the abdomen. Surgical staples will be used to create a small pouch at the top of your stomach. This pouch, which can hold about 1 cup of food, will be your new, smaller stomach. A normal stomach can hold 4-6 cups of food.
Next, the small intestine will be cut and attached to the new pouch. With the intestinal bypass, food will now move from the new stomach pouch to the middle section of the small intestine. It will skip the lower stomach and the upper section of the small intestine.
Finally, the upper section of the small intestine will be attached to the middle section of the small intestine. This will allow fluid that the lower stomach makes to move down the upper section of the small intestine and into the middle section.
When the bypass is completed, the incisions will be closed with staples or stitches.
You will be taken to the recovery area for monitoring. You will also be given pain medication.
How Long Will It Take?
About 2 hours
How Much Will It Hurt?
Anesthesia will prevent pain during surgery. Pain and discomfort after the procedure can be managed with medications.
Average Hospital Stay
The usual length of stay is 2-5 days. Your doctor may choose to keep you longer if complications arise.
While you are recovering at the hospital, you may receive the following care:
- Pain medication will be given as needed.
- On the day of surgery—You will not be given food or drinks.
On the day after surgery—You will have an
to check for leaks from the stomach pouch. For this test, you will drink a special liquid while x-rays are taken.
- If the upper GI x-ray is normal, you will be given 30 milliliters (mL) of liquids every 20 minutes.
- If leaks are found, you will receive nutrition through an IV until the leaks are fixed.
- On the second day after surgery—You will take 1-2 tablespoons of pureed food or 1-2 ounces of liquids every 20 minutes.
While in the hospital, you may be asked to do the following:
- Use an incentive spirometer to help you take deep breaths. This helps prevent lung problems.
- Wear elastic surgical stockings or boots to promote blood flow in your legs.
- Get up and walk daily.
During your stay, the hospital staff will take steps to reduce your chance of infection, such as:
- Washing their hands
- Wearing gloves or masks
- Keeping your incisions covered
There are also steps you can take to reduce your chance of infection, such as:
- Washing your hands often and reminding visitors and healthcare providers to do the same
- Reminding your healthcare providers to wear gloves or masks
- Not allowing others to touch your incision
You will need to practice lifelong healthy eating and exercising habits. Keep in mind after your surgery:
- Do not lift anything heavy until your doctor tells you it is safe. This may be up 2 weeks or more.
- You may have emotional changes after this surgery. Your doctor may refer you to a therapist.
- Be sure to follow your doctor’s instructions.
Your new stomach is the size of a small egg. It is slow to empty, causing you to feel full quickly. Therefore, you need to eat very small amounts and eat very slowly:
- You will begin with 4-6 meals per day. A meal is two ounces of food.
- For the first 4-6 weeks after surgery, all food must be pureed.
- When you move to solid foods, they must be chewed well.
- When making food choices, you will need to consume enough protein.
- Avoid sweets and fatty foods.
- Eating too much or too quickly can cause vomiting or intense pain under your breastbone. Most people quickly learn how much food they can eat.
Call Your Doctor
Call your doctor if any of the these occur:
- Signs of infection, including fever and chills
- Redness, swelling, increasing pain, excessive bleeding, or discharge from the incision site
- Persistent cough , shortness of breath, or chest pain
- Worsening abdominal pain
- Blood in the stool
- Pain, burning, urgency or frequency of urination, or persistent bleeding in the urine
- Persistent nausea and/or vomiting
- Pain and/or swelling in your feet, calves, or legs; sudden shortness of breath or chest pain
- New or worsening symptoms
If you think you have an emergency, call for emergency medical services right away.
- Reviewer: Michael Woods, MD
- Review Date: 12/2014 -
- Update Date: 12/20/2014 -
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Dragons are creatures with nearly unlimited life spans. They can survive for long periods of time, and no one has found a dragon that has died of old age. Adolescence is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. Once they hit adolescence, hatchlings change quickly, maturing to their full forms in only 2 years.
Dragons don’t communicate with each other verbally, but they will growl to scare off predators and frighten prey. Young dragons will emit an extremely high-pitched squeal when they are frightened. To communicate, they use telepathy with each other and to speak to other creatures.
Copper Dragons are masters of stealth, slipping silently and swiftly through the forests and jungles where they live. Often hunting in groups, their prey rarely know they are being stalked until the dragon’s at their throat. In the air they are agile and skilled. Copper Dragons prize family groups, spending large amounts of time teaching their young skills. So great is their love of life and family that they will sometimes adopt orphaned dragons of other breeds to raise.
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This image of the northern portion of the Nile River was captured by the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer's (MISR's) nadir camera on January 30, 2001. The Nile is the longest river in the world, extending for about 6700 kilometers from its headwaters in the highlands of eastern Africa.
At the apex of the fertile Nile River Delta is the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. To the west are the Great Pyramids of Giza. North of here the Nile branches into two distributaries, the Rosetta to the west and the Damietta to the east.
Also visible in this image is the Suez Canal, a shipping waterway connecting Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Suez. The Gulf is an arm of the Red Sea, and is located on the righthand side of the picture.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team.
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If an enzyme name is shown in bold, there is experimental evidence for this enzymatic activity.
|Superclasses:||Biosynthesis → Secondary Metabolites Biosynthesis → Phenylpropanoid Derivatives Biosynthesis → Flavonoids Biosynthesis → Flavonols Biosynthesis|
Some taxa known to possess this pathway include : Arabidopsis thaliana col
Expected Taxonomic Range: Brassicaceae
Flavonole such as quercetin and its glycosidic derivatives (this pathway) and kaempferol/kaempferol glycoside (compare kaempferol glycoside biosynthesis (Arabidopsis)) are the major flavonoids found in Arabidopsis thaliana [Veit99] [Kerhoas06]. Metabolic mutants of Arabidopsis were found to express a different profile of flavonols emphasizing the value of metabolic profiling for the exploration of the underlying pathways [Graham98].
The occurrence of the two main flavonols kaempferol and quercetin is predominant in different tissues. Quercetin appears to be the main flavonoid in seeds and kaempferol is more prominent in flowers of Arabidopsis [Pelletier97, Shirley95]. Beside the glycosylated monomeric flavonols, dimers and oligomers of flavonols have been identified in Arabidopsis which again accumulate in a spatially and temporally controlled manner that is dependent of seed development and maturation of seeds [Routaboul06].
The biological function of flavonoids including flavonols such as UV-protection, defense and resistance against biological and non-biological agents and interacting with plant hormones [WinkelShirley02] has been investigated in depth. However, flavonols also have a significant impact on human health as that they are an important component of the daily diet. Flavonols are involved in the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular diseases that have attracted researchers to reveal the causal molecular principles [Graf05, Kanadaswami].
About This Pathway
Glycosylation is one of the most widespread modifications of plant secondary metabolites that can alter properties and functions of the modified compound. 120 putative UDP-glucose: glycosyltransferases alone have been predicted from the genome of Arabidopsis but for only a few their molecular function has been verified experimentally [Gachon05].
The metabolic steps that generate glycosides of quercetin are catalyzed by enzymes that express broader substrate specificity and usually accept kaempferol and/or isorhamnetin to a comparable degree. In general, flavonols are preferred over flavones and flavanones [Willits04] [Jones03] matching the flavonoid composition found in Arabidopsis.
The glycosyltransferases acting in Arabidopsis thaliana have been demonstrated to preferentially transport sugars to the 3-OH and 7-OH position of the C and the A-ring of the flavonol, respectively. The enzymes catalyzing the 3-O and 7-O--glucosylation have been purified from Arabidopsis [Kim06c] [Kim06b] [Willits04]. Quercetin and kaempferol-3-rhamnoside are the most abundant flavonols reported and the corresponding enzymes have been purified and characterized via a functional genomic approach just recently [Jones03]. The quercetin biosynthesis as displayed reflects the currently known enzymatic steps and the results of metabolic profiling [Kerhoas06, Routaboul06] but some of the enzymes catalyzing the formation of e.g. quercetin-3,5-diglucoside remain to be characterized.The identification of the flavonol 7-O-rhamnosyltransferase responsible for the formation of major kaempferol and quercetin glycosides in Arabidopsis has been achieved by utilizing transcriptome expression analysis. The molecular function of the flavonol 7-O-rhamnosyltransferase (UGT89C1) was confirmed through T-DNA mutants knocked out for the UGT89C1 in which rhamnosylated flavonols could not be found in the metabolic profile. In addition, the recombinant expressed GST-fusion protein demonstrated the very specific 7-rhamnosylation for flavonol mono- and diglucosides [YonekuraSakakib07]. The enzymes catalyzing the steps leading to the generation of the precursor compounds quercetin 3-O-sophoroside and quercetin-3-gentiobioside have not yet been identified and remain to be shown.
Superpathways: superpathway of flavones and derivatives biosynthesis
Unification Links: AraCyc:PWY-5321
Jones03: Jones P, Messner B, Nakajima J, Schaffner AR, Saito K (2003). "UGT73C6 and UGT78D1, glycosyltransferases involved in flavonol glycoside biosynthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana." J Biol Chem 278(45);43910-8. PMID: 12900416
Kerhoas06: Kerhoas L, Aouak D, Cingoz A, Routaboul JM, Lepiniec L, Einhorn J, Birlirakis N (2006). "Structural characterization of the major flavonoid glycosides from Arabidopsis thaliana seeds." J Agric Food Chem 54(18);6603-12. PMID: 16939316
Kim06b: Kim JH, Kim BG, Park Y, Ko JH, Lim CE, Lim J, Lim Y, Ahn JH (2006). "Characterization of flavonoid 7-O-glucosyltransferase from Arabidopsis thaliana." Biosci Biotechnol Biochem 70(6);1471-7. PMID: 16794327
Kim06c: Kim JH, Kim BG, Ko JH, Lee Y, Hur H-G, Lim Y, Ahn J-H (2006). "Molecular cloning, expression, and characterization of a flavonoid glycosyltransferase from Arabidopsis thaliana." Plant Science, 170(4), 897-903.
Pelletier97: Pelletier MK, Murrell JR, Shirley BW (1997). "Characterization of flavonol synthase and leucoanthocyanidin dioxygenase genes in Arabidopsis. Further evidence for differential regulation of "early" and "late" genes." Plant Physiol 1997;113(4);1437-45. PMID: 9112784
Routaboul06: Routaboul JM, Kerhoas L, Debeaujon I, Pourcel L, Caboche M, Einhorn J, Lepiniec L (2006). "Flavonoid diversity and biosynthesis in seed of Arabidopsis thaliana." Planta 224(1);96-107. PMID: 16395586
Shirley95: Shirley BW, Kubasek WL, Storz G, Bruggemann E, Koornneef M, Ausubel FM, Goodman HM (1995). "Analysis of Arabidopsis mutants deficient in flavonoid biosynthesis." Plant J 8(5);659-71. PMID: 8528278
Willits04: Willits MG, Giovanni M, Prata RT, Kramer CM, De Luca V, Steffens JC, Graser G (2004). "Bio-fermentation of modified flavonoids: an example of in vivo diversification of secondary metabolites." Phytochemistry 65(1);31-41. PMID: 14697269
YonekuraSakakib07: Yonekura-Sakakibara K, Tohge T, Niida R, Saito K (2007). "Identification of a flavonol 7-O-rhamnosyltransferase gene determining flavonoid pattern in Arabidopsis by transcriptome coexpression analysis and reverse genetics." J Biol Chem 282(20);14932-41. PMID: 17314094
FukuchiMitzutan11: Fukuchi-Mitzutani M, Akagi M, Ishiguro K, Katsmoto Y, Fukui Y, Togami J (2011). "Biochemical and molecular characterization of anthocyanidin/flavonol 3-glucosylation pathways in Rosa x hybrida." Plant Biotechnology 28: 239-244.
Jourdan82: Jourdan PS, Mansell RL (1982). "Isolation and partial characterization of three glucosyl transferases involved in the biosynthesis of flavonol triglucosides in Pisum sativum L." Arch Biochem Biophys 213(2);434-43. PMID: 6462109
Kramer03: Kramer CM, Prata RT, Willits MG, De Luca V, Steffens JC, Graser G (2003). "Cloning and regiospecificity studies of two flavonoid glucosyltransferases from Allium cepa." Phytochemistry 64(6);1069-76. PMID: 14568073
Lim02: Lim EK, Doucet CJ, Li Y, Elias L, Worrall D, Spencer SP, Ross J, Bowles DJ (2002). "The activity of Arabidopsis glycosyltransferases toward salicylic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, and other benzoates." J Biol Chem 277(1);586-92. PMID: 11641410
Lim04: Lim EK, Ashford DA, Hou B, Jackson RG, Bowles DJ (2004). "Arabidopsis glycosyltransferases as biocatalysts in fermentation for regioselective synthesis of diverse quercetin glucosides." Biotechnol Bioeng 87(5);623-31. PMID: 15352060
Lim05: Lim, E.-K., Doucet, C.J., Hou, B., Jackson, R.G., Abrams, S.R., Bowles, D.J. (2005). "Resolution of (+)-abscisic acid using an Arabidopsis glycosyltransferase." Tetrahedron: Asymmetry 16:143-147.
Masada09: Masada S, Terasaka K, Oguchi Y, Okazaki S, Mizushima T, Mizukami H (2009). "Functional and structural characterization of a flavonoid glucoside 1,6-glucosyltransferase from Catharanthus roseus." Plant Cell Physiol 50(8);1401-15. PMID: 19561332
Oguchi07: Oguchi Y, Masada S, Kondo T, Terasaka K, Mizukami H (2007). "Purification and characterization of UDP-glucose : curcumin glucoside 1,6-glucosyltransferase from Catharanthus roseus cell suspension cultures." Plant Cell Physiol 48(11);1635-43. PMID: 17940060
Owens: Owens DK, McIntosh CA "Identification, recombinant expression, and biochemical characterization of a flavonol 3-O-glucosyltransferase clone from Citrus paradisi." Phytochemistry 70(11-12);1382-91. PMID: 19733370
Schlangen09: Schlangen K, Miosic S, Castro A, Freudmann K, Luczkiewicz M, Vitzthum F, Schwab W, Gamsjager S, Musso M, Halbwirth H (2009). "Formation of UV-honey guides in Rudbeckia hirta." Phytochemistry 70(7);889-98. PMID: 19477473
Suzuki05: Suzuki T, Kim S-J, Yamauchi H, Takigawa A, Honda Y, Mukasa Y (2005). "Characterization of a flavonoid 3-O-glucosyltransferase and its activity during cotyledon growth in buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum)." Plant Science 169: 943-948.
Trapero12: Trapero A, Ahrazem O, Rubio-Moraga A, Jimeno ML, Gomez MD, Gomez-Gomez L (2012). "Characterization of a glucosyltransferase enzyme involved in the formation of kaempferol and quercetin sophorosides in Crocus sativus." Plant Physiol 159(4);1335-54. PMID: 22649274
Tsushida96: Tsushida, T., Suzuki M. (1996). "Content of flavonol glucosides and some properties of enzymes metabolizing the glucosides in onion. Flavonoid in fruits and vegetables, part II." Jpn Food Sci Technol 43:642-649.
©2016 SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025-3493
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- Power outages can pose safety challenges for medication and food
- Those using breathing machines should have a backup power source
- It's possible to make meals without power or refrigeration, experts say
Winter weather walloped much of the United States this week, dumping feet of snow in some areas as temperatures were forecast to plunge into negative numbers.
If you are among the 100 million estimated to be affected, it's a good idea to prepare for a power outage.
Here are some tips to stay healthy when the lights go out:
A condition called hypothermia happens when a person's core body temperature goes below 95 degrees F. A rapid loss of body heat, usually because of being in cold water, is called acute hypothermia.
Cold outdoor weather poses risks of subacute hypothermia, when the body can't cope with the cold. And chronic hypothermia happens from ongoing exposure to indoor temperatures below 50 degrees F, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If your home has no heat, you can prevent hypothermia by using blankets, wearing layers of clothing and a hat, and moving around, as body temperature goes up with physical activity. Everyone should also be getting adequate food and liquids.
A person with hypothermia may become less awake and aware as his or her body temperature drops. Give the person warm beverages, but not alcohol or cigarettes. Don't try to warm a person with severe hypothermia using direct heat or hot water, as they will need to be carefully rewarmed and monitored. The CDC also discourages rubbing or massaging the skin.
Drink safe water
Water purification systems may suffer malfunctions because of power outages. You should not brush your teeth, wash or prepare food, wash your hands or make ice or baby formula using contaminated water.
Keeping bottled water around is one solution, as long as you know that it came from a safe source.
The best way to make sure that your water is safe from bacteria and parasites is to boil it; one minute of boiling will kill most of these organisms, says the CDC.
You can also disinfect water yourself by filtering it through a clean cloth, paper towel, or coffee filter, or allowing it to settle. Then, draw off the clear water and disinfect using a household chemical aid such as these:
Unscented liquid household chlorine (5-6%) bleach can be used as follows: 1/8 of a teaspoon can be added for every gallon of clear water, or 1/4 teaspoon of bleach for each gallon of cloudy water. Stir well and let stand for at least 30 minutes before you use it. Disinfected water should be stored in clean containers that have tight covers.
Iodine and chlorine dioxide tablets can also be used as disinfectants -- just follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Managing your medications
The elderly and chronically ill need to take note of their medications when the power goes out.
Insulin and some liquid medications may require cooling, says Dr. David Seaburg, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. In warm weather, lunch bags containing a cool pack are a good option for those products.
For those facing evacuation, it's important to have a record -- either a piece of paper or a computer accessible file -- with the names and dosage information of your prescription drugs. Ideally, it should be prepared in advance.
For diabetics, a supply of snacks is essential, along with insulin and any other medications, says Dr. David Ross, a Colorado Springs, Colorado, emergency physician who assisted victims of a wildfire last summer.
Ross also suggests that people have an emergency one-month supply of prescription medications, so they will not be caught short-handed.
And Seaburg adds, "If you have a chronic illness or take prescription medications and you are evacuated or choose to go to a community center, make someone aware that you have a medical condition, so they will know what to check for if your behavior seems a little unusual."
Another consideration during a loss of power is for patients with chronic breathing problems.
People who require continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, devices for sleep apnea or other sleep issues will need an alternative source of power. There are options available for most machines, including CPAP battery packs, DC power options, marine battery adapters and travel-specific CPAP machines to provide power in the event of an electrical outage.
Keeping food at a healthy temperature may be a challenge during a power loss.
Refrigerators keep dairy products, meat, fish, poultry and eggs at a healthy temperature if they are 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If your power goes out, your refrigerator will stay at the proper temperature for about four hours if it's unopened. Placing ice bags or dry ice will help to maintain healthy cooling.
A full freezer will remain cool for about 48 hours, or for about 24 hours if half full. It's a good idea to have digital thermometers on hand to check the temperature.
Once the thermometer goes above the recommended temperature, avoid eating any dairy products, meat, fish, poultry or eggs. Throw away items that have been compromised.
The USDA suggests keeping a supply of canned and packaged foods that do not require refrigeration. Coolers are a good solution if your power will be on within 24 hours. And knowing where to purchase ice and dry ice is a good way to plan for an emergency.
The Mayo Clinic suggests stocking up on condiments, particularly those that are vinegar-based and have a long shelf life, such as ketchup, mustard and soy sauce.
Keep canned protein such as chicken, salmon, beans and peanut butter on hand, the clinic recommends, and keep boxes of powdered milk or shelf-stable milk cartons handy. Also, don't forget a manual can opener.
Eating out of a can doesn't have to be boring, says Ron Stone, assistant director of nutrition at the Mayo Clinic in Florida.
"There are many options to mix and match from your pantry, and with advance planning and a little creativity, you can provide healthy and delicious meals for your family," Stone says.
Clinic interns have created sample three-day meal plans (PDF) to feed a family of four without the use of power or refrigeration, including desserts and energy bars.
The American Red Cross recommends that you turn off or disconnect any electrical devices that were in use when you lost power. This includes stoves and other kitchen appliances. That's because surges or spikes in power can harm your equipment when the power comes back on.
You can leave one light plugged in, though, so that you know immediately when the electricity works again.
It's a good idea to keep candles around, as well as a flashlight on every floor of your home. A battery-operated radio is also handy.
Are you in the blizzard's path? Send your time-lapse videos and photographs to CNN iReport, but stay safe.
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Far away from the smog and crowds of China’s east coast cities is Yunnan Province. Though it has a few cities of its own, the southwestern province is geographically diverse, with the Tibetan plateau rising in the north and west, and subtropical lowlands steaming to the south.
* Related article: The best national parks of Europe
Edging towards the northwest of the province is Three Parallel Rivers National Park. Here, southern Asia, eastern Asia and the Tibetan Plateau smash together in a dramatic riot of deep, near-sunless gorges, mighty rivers and craggy snow-capped peaks. The spectacular terrain has historically meant tough travel, and the subsequent isolation experienced by its inhabitants has preserved its cultural diversity. The park is home to the Naxi people, as well as the Li, Nisu and a handful of others.
The park encompasses the near-meeting points of three of Asia’s – and the world’s — great rivers: the Jinsha, Lancang and Nu, which eventually become the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween respectively. Although the mouths and headwaters of these rivers are all quite distant, for a brief period they gravitate towards each other and then run parallel for roughly 100 miles before diverging into different seas. Their relatively short run alongside each other happens to be in one of the most biologically diverse and geographically varied temperate zones in the world, which earned it a Unesco World Heritage Site status in 2003.
Trekking The most well-known area of the park is Tiger Leaping Gorge, arguably the deepest gorge in the world and the site of one of China’s most popular treks. The trail snakes along vertical cliffs and through small villages, while the Jinsha rushes far below. Visitors usually take two days to hike the upper path, stopping to sleep in one of the villages along the way and using Lijiang or Shangri-la as a base.
When trekking through this region, you often feel as though time is standing still. A group of small goats clang by, herded by a man carrying a walking stick. Women carry woven baskets on their backs, peddling food to travellers or carrying goods home. As the sun rises, the light filters through the jagged teeth of the mountaintops, while pure streams rush down from glaciers.
It is easy to organize your own trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, as it is a well-travelled trail. Tour operators in Lijiang and Shangri-la can help organise more remote treks. Consider WildChina for upscale, customized trips or Yunnan Adventure for a more basic approach.
Getting there To visit Three Parallel Rivers National Park, start in Kunming, Yunnan’s capital city. From there you can fly, take a train or bus to Lijiang, another Unseco protected site. Buses and planes also run to Shangri-la, further west. From these two cities, buses and minivans depart regularly for Qiaotou, at one end of Tiger Leaping Gorge.
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People who are bicultural and speak two languages may actually shift their personalities when they switch from one language to another, according to new research. . . .
The authors studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification. They found significant levels of "frame-shifting" (changes in self perception) in bicultural participants--those who participate in both Latino and Anglo culture. . . .
In one of the studies, a group of bilingual U.S. Hispanic women viewed ads that featured women in different scenarios. The participants saw the ads in one language (English or Spanish) and then, six months later, they viewed the same ads in the other language. Their perceptions of themselves and the women in the ads shifted depending on the language. "One respondent, for example, saw an ad's main character as a risk-taking, independent woman in the Spanish version of the ad, but as a hopeless, lonely, confused woman in the English version," write the authors.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
This has been cross-posted at Smart and Good.
The most recent issue of Education Week included a piece highlighting Bill Damon’s new book, The Path to Purpose: Helping our Children Find Their Calling in Life. Damon is a Stanford psychologist and long-time moral development researcher whose earlier work, The Moral Child, sets out a worthwhile vision of what makes a child good.
Damon’s work is a hermeneutically-enriched form of survey research. He is asking large numbers of young people aged 12 through 26, through paper and pencil surveys and selected in-depth interviews, about their lack of direction in life. The work, still in progress, has a comparative dimension in that Damon and his colleagues are trying to determine whether the youth of today differ from past generations in their ability to frame meaning and purpose in their lives.
Damon’s preliminary answer is that more than a quarter of young people are “disengaged” and about a fifth have actually found something meaningful to which they wanted to dedicate their lives. The vast numbers in between have not given up on meaningfulness but haven’t found a way to make sense of their lives either. Damon calls on schools and communities to address this “malaise.”
Damon’s on target here in my estimation, and this may be one of the premier ways that “moral education” can – and must – be integrated with academic purposes in schooling. When a young person (in high school or college) learns biology, the purpose is not that he will know the difference between mitosis and meiosis. One purpose is that he will understand himself in the world as a form of life, as a walking miraculous process, as a complex system, as an atomic unit in a much larger complex system, and so forth. Another purpose is that she will possess the resources (knowledge, analytic skills, skills of appreciation/communication) to respond in a fitting way to the day’s practical issues re health, innovation, nourishment, etc. And if he finds himself fascinated with either the mechanisms of biology or the issues that biological understanding illuminates, he may find a pursuit (of employment or leisure) to which he can commit large amounts of time and energy. Each of these purposes is about life meaning, about one’s way of being in the world, and about the actions that turn meaning into meaningfulness. This is moral education (as Damon’s background and life purpose would portend) -- without the direct weight of moralizing or evangelization or indoctrination.
These are unquestionably educational issues though perhaps not narrowly academic ones. Are our school structures, schedules and curricula designed to make it likely that this work is being done? Are teachers willing and/or able to take up these issues even when time – and administrative fiat -- “permits”? I’d answer no.
Monday, June 16, 2008
As the Federal government has delayed reauthorization of the basic law affecting public schools, the Elementary And Secondary Education Act, the most recent version of which is (unfortunately and inaccurately) as No Child Left Behind, perhaps now might be a good time to explore alternative approaches to public education. Since public education is primarily the responsibility of the states, and since the Federal government provides less than 8% of the cost of public education, perhaps rather than Federally imposed mandates we can explore what states have done to address some of the needs of public education. And if we are willing to go down that path (as I certainly am), perhaps the first state at which we would look would be Minnesota.
Had I any doubts of the wisdom of such an examination, they would have been removed after reading a May 4 column in the Providence Journal by Julia Steiny entitled Columnist Julia Steiny looks at Minnesota’s plan to save money and improve schools. Let me begin by discussing what in that column caught my attention.
Steiny begins her column with an argument about reducing the number of school divisions in Rhode Island from its current 36. That holds little interest for me, but in the process of looking for different examples, she had a discussion with Joe Nathan, the director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute, about whom she notes that
Nathan had a hand in writing several of the Minnesota school-choice bills, including the nation’s first charter school legislation. He was also an author of the 1991 Open Enrollment legislation that offered public-school choice to all families.While I have never met nor spoken with Nathan, we have overlapped on various educational lists for more than a decade and I have been well aware of his work. He was gracious enough to help me in obtaining information I needed in order to write about the Minnesota approach.
Let me return to Steiny's column, in which she wrote of MN that
Its technique was to pass a series of laws allowing all children, K-12, to attend whatever school the family chooses, provided there is room. The money followed the students. The parents were thrilled, and the bureaucracies had no choice but to adjust.
Unappealing or incompetent districts lost students, so rather than run astronomically expensive programs for the remaining students, they merged with stronger districts. Good schools filled to capacity, which is the most cost-efficient way to run them. Bad ones closed, which also saves money. Kids generally got better, more efficient schools.
And there wasn’t so much to fight about. Consolidations took place. Tax money flowed more directly to good schools and away from bureaucratic waste.
Steiny quotes Nathan as saying that because the power was placed in the hands of parents, districts might have consolidated, but also might have found ways to cooperate to increase the options offered to parents for their children, options that might attract those parents. According to 2005 survey run by the Center, 80% of respondents said that parents should have some voice in selecting the schools their children attend. And while Nathan properly warned that no single approach is a panacea to solve the problems faced by our schools, he also noted that the approach in MN allowed teachers greater voice in designing the alternatives of schooling offered to parents. This has resulted in a great variety of options from which parents can choose.
Before I explore those options in more detail, allow me to quote what Nathan said about himself:
“I entered this issue in the 1970s for social justice reasons. All kids need options. Not crummy options, good options. Some kids flourish in core knowledge, Montessori, or two-way bilingual. Others need a multiple-intelligence school, international baccalaureate, or one that teaches how to repair computers. Every kid should have transportation and no admissions test. Families have options for daycare, nursery school, college, so why not public school?”Minnesota may not yet have fully implement the sweep of this kind of vision, but as a state it has probably gone further than any other, and certainly it has done enough to warrant anyone interested in public education policy taking a closer look.
An examination of the website of the state's Department of Education will take you to this page, which lists all the options of school choice (of which I will only examine those relating to public school choice). Allow me to quote the text with which the page begins:
Minnesota is a place where all parents have meaningful public school choices for their children. Minnesota is, after all, the state that brought the nation the charter school movement. It is also a state where students may “open enroll” into schools that are part of school districts where the families do not reside. It’s a place where Minneapolis students encounter a wealth of choices not only within their district, but also in nearby suburbs, with transportation provided free. And it’s a state where the borders of a classroom can be as broad as the global connections of the worldwide web. With this wide range of learning options, Minnesota families are often able to find a school that meets their child’s individual needs.
The website provides information on five different aspects of public school choice. These are
Charter schools, which have existed in MN since 1992, and of which there are currently 158 in operation. The Department notes of charter schools that they
employ licensed teachers, offer services to special needs students and require students to take state and national tests to assure academic accountability. They do not charge tuition, and there are no admission requirements to enroll students in charter schools. New charter schools with exciting programs open their doors to students every year in Minnesota. Parents may contact charter schools directly to find out about the type of programs and enrollment options.
Alternative Education provides more than 150 programs at over 600 sites for students under 21 at risk of not graduating who meet ANY of the following criteria:
(1) are performing substantially below grade level; (2) at least one year behind in credits for graduation; (3) are pregnant or parents; (4) have experienced physical or sexual abuse; (5) are chemically dependent; (6) have mental health problems; (7) have been homeless recently; (8) have withdrawn from school or been chronically truant; or (9) speak English as a second language or have limited English proficiency.
Online Learning gives students the ability to take such courses either as supplementals in place of a regular class during the school day, or as the sole means of obtaining a public education. The state maintains a clearinghouse of approved programs, and all those certified by the state
are taught by Minnesota licensed teachers, meet or exceed state academic standards, transfer to other public school districts and apply to high school graduation. The documents linked below contain information about online learning programs, student enrollment and certification of public providers.
The Choice is Yours is a special program for families receiving free or reduced lunch benefits in the city of Minneapolis, giving them priority in placement in the schools they choose, whether for magnet programs in the city or schools in the suburbs. For those going to suburban schools the state provides the cost of transportation. The city is split into Northern and Southern sections, with the choice of suburban districts being limited by proximity.
Finally, there is Open Enrollment which
allows all Minnesota’s public school students the opportunity to apply to attend school outside of the school district where they live. More than 30,000 Minnesota students did just that last year.While in this program parents do not have to pay tuition, they are responsible for providing the transportation for their children.
I contacted Joe Nathan to ask some specific questions, and he was kind enough to respond in detail, and to reach out to people in the State Department of Education to verify the figures. Let me note that his Center for School Change offers a great deal of information at their website, and for those interested in knowing more I encourage you to explore there as well as at the State website.
Let me offer some of Joe's concluding words from one of our earlier exchanges, because I believe this provides some appropriate context (and PSEO = Post Secondary Enrollment Options, which enables secondary students to take college courses on a part- or full-time basis while still enrolled in HS):
The broad coalition that supports the public school choice programs above (plus inclusion of private college and universities in PSEO) has NOT supported vouchers. Moreover, statewide polls show Minnesotans do not support vouchers unless private and parochial schools are open to all, with no admissions tests. Many private and parochial schools in Mn want the power to decide who is admitted. that has helped mean vouchers went no-where.
Public school choice has received strong bi-partisan support here. PSEO,
open enrollment and the charter movement all were first proposed by
Democrats who saw it as expansion of opportunity.
In other words, even though there are SOME aspects of the MN approach that do allow some limited enrollment in non-public schooling situations, the program has been implemented in a fashion that does not move in the direction of privatization of public schooling. As to vouchers, I will reiterate something I have noted on multiple previous occasions: in every case were vouchers have been placed on the ballot for the voters they have been defeated. Those voucher programs which exist have been imposed by legislative bodies without the direct voice of the voters included. MN clearly demonstrates that it is possible to offer a wide variety of options of public school education without resorting to vouchers.
In my examination, I became interested in seeing how widespread participation in the various programs of choice were in Minnesota. Joe Nathan was kind enough to contact a variety of people in the State, and he and I went back and forth several times with the data we were able to obtain. In fairness, since he understands the meaning of the numbers better than I do, I am going to present the numbers by quoting his suggested presentation:
* In 2007-2008 About 145,000 of Minnesota's 836,672 public school students used Minnesota's cross district, public school choice laws
(includes open enrollment, 2nd chance laws, charter law and Post-Secondary Enrollment Options) That's about 17%.
* In addition, Mpls and St. Paul (two different districts) do not assign students to a particular school, k-12. They have dozens of magnets, schools within schools, and other options. Those kids and families are actively selecting from within district options. So if you add the 38,000 from St .Paul and 34,000 from Mpls you are up to more than 210,000 kids. (Again, there is some double counting because of Post-Secondary Options - but that is only 7400 kids. Mpls and ST Paul also have a few thousand kids attending contract alternative schools so that is why I did not add 72,000 and 145,000 call it 217,000). 210/836 is 25%.
* Many other districts including Rochester and Duluth offer schools within schools, magnets and other options. At this point is not possible to figure out exactly how many kids involved.
Beyond the numbers, I raised several other issues about the program in order to understand it better. Joe was kind enough to offer detailed responses to these questions.
I live in Arlington VA which spends more than 19,000 per student. There are other districts nearby which spend substantially less. The district in which I teach, Prince George's County MD, spends significantly less than does the neighboring district of Montgomery County. The differentials come from local taxes. Joe's response on this was
In Minnesota, the state provides more than 2/3 of the funding for the students. So the issue you describe for Maryland and Virginia is less of an issue here. To be fair, in states such as yours, my sense is that all or a portion of local property taxes should follow students.That is one thing that could represent a stumbling block to expanding the MN approach to other states.
I asked about the chartering of schools, and how that affected their enrollment, given the state's open enrollment approach. Joe responded that
The original charter idea was that the state legislature would give at least one other group the power to authorize, or "charter" groups of educators, parents and others to create new public schools, open to all. Thus, a law such as you have in Virginia that limits this power only to local districts is not really a charter law. In Minnesota, the following groups are allowed to authorize a new chartered school: Local districts, regional groups of districts, higher education institutions, social service agencies or foundations that are registered with the Mn Attorney General and have a bank account of at least $2 million.
Students attending Mn charter schools may move across district lines, just
like students attending district public schools. However, charters may NOT
have any form of admissions tests for their students.
I also asked if receiving schools or districts had any ability to limit the number of students coming in by open enrollment. Joe responded as follows:
The legislation gives receiving districts the ability to limit cross district enrollment, but no specific % is included in the
legislation. So a receiving district has complete flexibility in terms of
numbers of students it can accept, and has complete flexibility at each
grade, and if it has more than one school, at each school. The receiving
district may NOT limit incoming enrollment to just students of one race,
and may not use an admissions test for the school (unless it already uses
an admission test for students in its own district).
I have often written that I believe the entire structure of American public schooling is flawed, and were it up to me I would blow it up and redesign it from the bottom up. Unfortunately that does not seem a viable option. Because of our ongoing responsibility to those currently enrolled in our schools, we have to see what salutary improvements are possible within the reality in which we currently find ourselves. Merely attempting to drive performance by analyzing test scores and graduation rates has not as yet demonstrated that its effects are positive, and in fact may be proving the contrary case.
Further, we know that not all children learn alike, and that parents have different aspirations for how they want their children instructed. Because we know that the education of any child is improved when the parents are involved and committed to that education, involving the parents in the process of selecting the environment in which their children are instructed seems to warrant giving those parents some say in how their children are educated. It is often difficult for one school or even one district to provide the full range of options that parents might seek or students might need. Allowing a wide range of options within a public school framework seems a reasonable method of attempting to meet such aspirations.
I encourage those with interest in educational policy to take the time to explore more completely than I can within this posting the approach that Minnesota is taking. It may not be completely transferable to other states, but there is much than can be learned from their experience, which now extends more than a decade and a half since their implementation of the nation's first charter school program.
I will be interested in your responses to what I have presented. So will Joe Nathan and those people in the Minnesota Department of Education who were kind enough to help me with information: Glory Kibbel, Bondo Nyembwe, Cindy Jackson, and Marceline Dubose. They are rightly proud of what they have accomplished in MN, even as they seek to find better ways to serve the people of their state.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I’ve spent my 20+ years as a teacher educator on campuses that serve large numbers of students from working class backgrounds, so I’ve always done a bit of a mental lurch when hearing frequent references in the literature and in casual conversation among colleagues to the teaching force being “white and middle class”.
I’ve nodded in agreement at the “white” part but have been puzzled by the casual but common references to most teachers being from middle-class backgrounds, in part because the students with whom I’ve worked have not fit this profile, in part because I’ve looked in vain for any actual data on the class background of people who go into teacher education (it doesn’t seem to actually exist), and in part because it’s rare for researchers to even collect data on the actual class backgrounds of teachers in critical studies of schooling, as if teacher identities were formed independently from backgrounds of relative deprivation or privilege.
But beyond frustration with casual uses of language about class, I’ve wondered if we aren’t missing the pedagogical possibilities of opening richer conversations about class with students who do occupy a distinctive social space -- students who, while in teacher education, may be poised at the very point of crossing formidable class borders because they have methodically, if not consciously, constructed new social identities through school to enable their social mobility.
So I’ve wondered if, rather than dismissing upwardly-mobile students as “tokens”, who have been “allowed” to succeed to placate gullible others into faith in fairness (or worse, just seeing classed identities of White working- class students as something that needs to be “fixed” as a condition of academic success) , there wouldn’t be potential in interrogating the “complex social trajectory” (Reay, 1997, p. 19) of class border crossing as they progress through teacher education.
I do want to be clear about what I mean when I speak of class. I draw on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, and I’m challenged by feminist scholars writing about class at the intersections of gender and race (e.g. Adair, 2002; Furman, Kelly and Nelson, 2005; Reay, 1997a; 1997b; 2004; Walkerdine, 2003; Lucey, Melody, and Walkerdine; 2003; Skeggs, 1997, 2005) who understand class boundaries to be constructed and maintained not only in occupational hierarchies but also in the dailiness of social life. Sayer (2005, p. 1) elaborates:
Class matters to us not only because of differences in material wealth and economic security, but also because it affects our access to things, relationships, experiences and practices which we have reason to value, and hence our chances of living a fulfilling life. … Condescension, deference, shame, guilt, envy, resentment, arrogance, contempt, fear and mistrust, or simply mutual incomprehension and avoidance typify relations between people of different classes.
Success in school has delivered first-generation teacher education students to the contested social spaces at the very borderlands of class, and they likely come with baggage that not even they can fully recognize. As Renny Christopher (2004) notes, class borders are essentially invisible to upwardly-mobile students until they stand ready to step across them. They’re likely encountering these (previously) invisible borders at the very time that they’re becoming teachers, yet the field seems to assume that most teachers have lived their entire lives on the privileged side of those class divides and have little to say about deprivation or exclusion.
So, my challenge in thinking about teaching these students is how to both honor the experiences of the White, working-class students but also “to encourage students from working-class families to form new political relationships with that experience” (Lindquist, 2004, p. 191).
My questions about this work, then, are about how we might attain two goals: a) to draw upon the distinctive perspectives of these class border-crossers to illuminate their “complex social positioning as a complicated amalgam of current privilege interlaced with historic disadvantage” (Reay, 1997, p. 25) and b) to complicate what Adair and Dahlberg (2001 p. 174) have termed a cultural “impulse to frame class mobility as a narrative of moral progress” .
Both goals, I think, could serve our work as teacher educators well, and perhaps could help to get us past the “resistance” that we sometimes see in teacher education when we try to teach critical perspectives on schooling.
Might there be potential in more explicit reflective/autobiographical work on class and social mobility in teacher education? Or at least in moving beyond our casual depictions of teachers as "white and middle class" when many may be facing formidable barriers to class mobility at the very time that they hear themselves described as middle class (and therefore ill-informed about social struggles) in our courses?
Do many of us actually know the class backgrounds of the teachers and teachers-to- be with whom we work, since identity is complicated upwardly-mobile students likely learned long ago that they have to "pass" as middle class to make it?
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
-- Advanced certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an effective way to identify highly skilled teachers, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Students taught by NBPTS-certified teachers make greater gains on achievement tests than students taught by teachers who are not board-certified, says the report. However, it is unclear whether the certification process itself leads to higher quality teaching. WASHINGTON
"Earning NBPTS certification is a useful 'signal' that a teacher is effective in the classroom," said Milton Hakel, Ohio Board of Regents' Eminent Scholar in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at
, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Bowling Green State University
"But we don't know whether the certification process itself makes teachers more effective -- as they become familiar with the standards and complete the assessment -- or if high-quality teachers are attracted to the certification process."
The report recommends further research to investigate that question, as well as to determine whether NBPTS certification is having broader effects on the educational system, beyond individual classrooms. Studies so far suggest that many school systems are not supporting or making the best use of their board-certified teachers.
Link to the press release and the full report.
Full disclosure: I am a National Board Certified Teacher and worked, for two years, as a Teacher in Residence at NBPTS. I am fully conversant with the range of research on National Board Certification--both positive and less than glowing--and have noticed a trend, lately, toward a shorthand, knee-jerk opinion that there is no "proof" that National Board Certification is a signal of anything except a willingness to put oneself through the assessment wringer for a year (which, in itself, represents a huge break from business as usual). It's gratifying to see a highly respected entity take a, well, scientifically based look and come out with some qualified positives.
And not just from a research/editorial/scholarly standpoint, either. Most National Board Certified Teachers (over 90%, in fact) will tell you that the process changes them and their teaching. They know, in their gut, that it's been good for their practice--especially being required to articulate what, precisely, their students have learned and how they know that learning is real. It's enormously frustrating for a teacher who's clear about the benefits to their own professional learning to be told the research on National Board Certification is murky or negative, negating their first-hand experience.
I'm sure they're celebrating at the National Board, but the real winners are National Board Certified Teachers.
Post-Fordism’s appetite for self-directed activity is bringing about a crisis in progressive education. No longer perceived as threatening, a work force trained to think for itself has become highly desirable. So what should an emancipatory education entail today?I tried to get at this question from the opposite side in "Rethinking Domination and Resistance, where I argued that the worries about the oppression of progressive forms of education are problems for people who don't really have problems. People who are more overtly oppressed don't have any doubts about whether it is happening or not.
As I've said, I think emancipatory education must involve teaching skills that actually generate collective power, which progressive education does not.
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This is a list of Danish monarchs, that is, the Kings and ruling Queens of Denmark, including Regents of the Kalmar Union, up until the present time. This includes:
- The Kingdom of Denmark (up to 1396)
- The Kingdom of Denmark (1536 to present)
The kingdom was elective until 1660.
Gorm the Old was the first trustworthy Danish monarch. All reigns before him are dubious. Denmark has one of the longest running unbroken lines of succession in the world, second only to that of the Japanese emperors.
Different branches of Oldenburg have held the Crown of Denmark since 1448, until 1864 in personal union[?] with the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.
Danish name forms are given in parenthesis.
- 794-803 : Sigfred (Sigurd) Snogoje of South Jutland
- a Harald before Godfred
- 798?-800 : Godfred (Godfrid?)
- 810-812 : Hemming, nephew of Godfred reigned 2 years after Godfred's death
- 813 : Sigfred, another nephew of Godfred
- 813 : Anulo, a nephew of the Harald before Godfred
- 812,813,814, 819-826 : Harald Klak, brother of Anulo and nephew of Godfred
- 813-814 : Reginfrid, another brother of Anulo
- 814-827, sole ruling 827-854, died 854 : Eric I the Old, 1 of 4 corulers and sons of Godfred
- 854- after 864 : boderson of Eric the Old, Eric II the Child, whose daughter married Harald I of Norway
- 803-850: Canute I (Knud I)
- died ca 863 : Harold I (Harald I)
- before 873-? : the 2 corulers, Halfdan and Sigfrid
- a Swedish "Olof Dynasty" from ca. 850 with Olof as its first king, he was boderson of Sigfrid.
- at least 934 : Chnuba
- after 934 - memtioned with Gorm the Old in 936 : Sigtryg, last king of the "Olof Dynasty"
Note: Above list of dubious kings affected the numbering of subsequent Danish monarchs:
- Harold Bluetooth is sometimes accounted as Harald II and hence Harald II Svendsen as III and Harald Hen as IV.
- Canute the Great as Knud II.
See also: List of Icelandic rulers, List of Norwegian monarchs, List of Swedish monarchs, lists of incumbents
All Wikipedia text
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The Energy Debate
With the increasingly evident reality of global climate change, there
is an imperative to change the ways in which we create and use energy,
in all its different forms and applications. Many human activities
have an impact on our planet's biosphere. The majority view
of scientists around the world is that greenhouse gas emissions have
to be brought under control. With atmospheric carbon dioxide at the highest
level ever, we need to take urgent action.
The former Howard Government proposed nuclear power as a solution
to global warming and proponents continue to advance that proposition.
The Briefing Papers available on this website discuss key issues in the
debate around the suitability of nuclear power for Australia's electricity
needs, and the problems that surround this technology.
Latest Briefing Papers
The Briefing Papers are designed for a quick
but accurate analysis of issues raised by nuclear energy and alternative
energy strategies and
are designed so they may easily be downloaded for printing on any computer
printer, or reading on a tablet or computer screen.
They are numbered with
the latest having the highest number. Currently they are in the
process of being reviewed for update. The most recent two deal with the
implications of exporting Australian uranium to India (an update of Briefing
Paper 18), the public health issues associated with nuclear power (Briefing
Paper 22), and a new paper on nuclear power and civil liberties (Briefing
energyscience.org.au is provided as a public service by
The EnergyScience Coalition, an independent
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engineers and policy experts to present information to people on the issue
of sustainable energy.
energyscience.org.au combines rigorous research from leading
academics and other experts to promote informed public debate and to foster
dialogue between policy makers and their critics
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In the APG III system, the genus is placed in the subfamily Agavoideae of the broadly circumscribed family Asparagaceae. Some authors prefer to place it in the segregate family Agavaceae. Traditionally, it was circumscribed to comprise about 166 species, but it is now usually understood to have about 208 species.
Chiefly Mexican, agaves occur also in the southern and western United States and in central and tropical South America. They are succulents with a large rosette of thick fleshy leaves, each ending generally in a sharp point and with a spiny margin; the stout stem is usually short, the leaves apparently springing from the root. Along with plants from the related genus Yucca, various Agave species are popular ornamental plants.
Each rosette is monocarpic and grows slowly to flower only once. During flowering, a tall stem or "mast" grows from the center of the leaf rosette and bears a large number of shortly tubular flowers. After development of fruit, the original plant dies, but suckers are frequently produced from the base of the stem, which become new plants.
In the Cronquist system and others, Agave was placed in the family Liliaceae, but phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences later showed that it did not belong there. In the APG II system, Agave was placed in the family Agavaceae. When this system was superseded by the APG III system in 2009, Agavaceae was subsumed into the expanded family Asparagaceae, and Agave was treated as one of 18 genera in the subfamily Agavoideae.
Agave had long been treated as a genus of about 166 species, but it is now known that this concept of Agave is paraphyletic over the genera Manfreda, Polianthes, and Prochnyanthes. These genera are now combined with Agave as Agave sensu lato, which contains about 208 species. In some of the older classifications, Agave was divided into two subgenera, Agave and Littaea, based on the form of the inflorescence. These two subgenera are probably not monophyletic.
Agaves have long presented special difficulties for taxonomy; variations within a species may be considerable, and a number of named species are of unknown origin and may just be variants of original wild species.
Spanish and Portuguese explorers probably brought agave plants back to Europe with them, but the plants became popular in Europe during the 19th century, when many types were imported by collectors. Some have been continuously propagated by offset since then, and do not consistently resemble any species known in the wild, although this may simply be due to the differences in growing conditions in Europe.
Commonly grown species
One of the most familiar species is Agave americana, a native of tropical America. Common names include century plant, maguey (in Mexico), or American aloe (it is not, however, closely related to the genus Aloe). The name "century plant" refers to the long time the plant takes to flower. The number of years before flowering occurs depends on the vigor of the individual plant, the richness of the soil and the climate; during these years the plant is storing in its fleshy leaves the nourishment required for the effort of flowering.
Agave americana, century plant, was introduced into Europe about the middle of the 16th century, and is now widely cultivated for its handsome appearance; in the variegated forms, the leaf has a white or yellow marginal or central stripe from base to apex. As the leaves unfold from the center of the rosette, the impression of the marginal spines is very conspicuous on the still erect younger leaves. The tequ plants are usually grown in tubs and put out in the summer months, but in the winter require protection from frost. They mature very slowly and die after flowering, but are easily propagated by the offsets from the base of the stem.
A. attenuata is a native of central Mexico and is uncommon in its natural habitat. Unlike most species of Agave, A. attenuata has a curved flower spike from which it derives one of its numerous common names - the foxtail agave. A. attenuata is also commonly grown as a garden plant. Unlike many agaves, A. attenuata has no teeth or terminal spines, making it an ideal plant for areas adjacent to footpaths. Like all agaves, A. attenuata is a succulent and requires little water or maintenance once established.
Agave azul (blue agave) is used in the production of tequila.
Four major parts of the agave are edible: the flowers, the leaves, the stalks or basal rosettes, and the sap (called aguamiel—honey water). (Davidson 1999)
Each agave plant will produce several pounds of edible flowers during its final season. The stalks, which are ready during the summer, before the blossom, weigh several pounds each. Roasted, they are sweet and can be chewed to extract the aguamiel, like sugarcane. When dried out, the stalks can be used to make didgeridoos. The leaves may be collected in winter and spring, when the plants are rich in sap, for eating. The leaves of several species also yield fiber: for instance, Agave rigida var. sisalana, sisal hemp, Agave decipiens, false sisal hemp. Agave americana is the source of pita fiber, and is used as a fiber plant in Mexico, the West Indies and southern Europe.
During the development of the inflorescence, there is a rush of sap to the base of the young flower stalk. Agave syrup (also called agave nectar) is used as an alternative to sugar in cooking and it can be added to breakfast cereals as a binding agent. In the case of A. americana and other species, this is used in Mexico and Mesoamerica in the production of the beverage pulque. The flower shoot is cut out and the sap collected and subsequently fermented. By distillation, a spirit called mezcal is prepared; one of the best-known forms of mezcal is tequila. In 2001, the Mexican Government and European Union agreed upon the classification of tequila and its categories. All 100% blue agave tequila must be made from the Weber blue agave plant, to rigorous specifications and only in certain Mexican states.
People have found a few other uses of the plant aside from its several uses as food. When dried and cut in slices, the flowering stem forms natural razor strops, and the expressed juice of the leaves will lather in water like soap. The natives of Mexico used the agave to make pens, nails and needles, as well as string to sew and make weavings. Leaf tea or tincture taken orally is used to treat constipation and excess gas. It is also used as a diuretic. Root tea or tincture is taken orally to treat arthritic joints. Several agave species are also considered to have potential as effective bioenergy crops.
The juice from many species of agave can cause acute contact dermatitis. It will produce reddening and blistering lasting one to two weeks. Episodes of itching may recur up to a year thereafter, even though there is no longer a visible rash. Irritation is, in part, caused by calcium oxalate raphides. Dried parts of the plants can be handled with bare hands with little or no effect. If the skin is pierced deeply enough by the needle-like ends of the leaf from a vigorously growing plant, this can also cause blood vessels in the surrounding area to erupt and an area some 6–7 cm across appear to be bruised. This may last up to two to three weeks.
Images of species and cultivars
Agave americana var. 'americana'
Agave americana var. 'marginata'
Agave americana cv. 'Medio-Picta Alba'
Agave angustifolia 'Marginata'
Agave bracteosa (Spider agave)
Agave inaequidens ssp. barrancensis
Agave potatorum cv. 'Kichiokan'
Agave schidigera cv. 'Durango Delight'
Agave sisalana (Sisal)
Agave tequilana (Tequila agave)
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Agave|
|Wikispecies has information related to: Agave|
- ^ An Anglo-Hispanic pronunciation. Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607.
- ^ An Anglo-Latin pronunciation. OED: "Agave".
- ^ Bailey, L.H.; Bailey, E.Z.; the staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium. 1976. Hortus third: A concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the United States and Canada. Macmillan, New York.
- ^ a b Mark W. Chase, James L. Reveal, and Michael F. Fay. 2009. "A subfamilial classification for the expanded asparagalean families Amaryllidaceae, Asparagaceae, and Xanthorrhoeaceae". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161(2):132-136.
- ^ Sara V. Good-Avila, Valeria Souza, Brandon S. Gaut, and Luis E. Eguiarte. 2006. "Timing and rate of speciation in Agave (Agavaceae)". PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA) 103(24):9124-9129. doi:10.1073/pnas.0603312103
- ^ a b David J. Bogler, J. Chris Pires, and Javier Francisco-Ortega. 2006. "Phylogeny of Agavaceae based on ndhF, rbcL, and ITS sequences: Implications of molecular data for classification". Aliso 22(Monocots: Comparative Biology and Evolution):313-328.
- ^ Chomka, Stefan (30 July 2007). "Dorset Cereals". The Grocer (Crawley, England: William Reed Business Media). http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/articles.aspx?page=independentarticle&ID=120966. Retrieved 16 January 2011.
- ^ Davis, S. C.; Griffiths, H.; Holtum, J.; Saavedra, A. L. �; Long, S. P. (2011). "The Evaluation of Feedstocks in GCBB Continues with a Special Issue on Agave for Bioenergy". GCB Bioenergy 3: 1. doi:10.1111/j.1757-1707.2010.01085.x. free summary: Wiley - Blackwell (2011, January 26). Agave fuels excitement as a bioenergy crop. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 26, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110126121102.htm
- Howard Scott Gentry, Agaves of Continental North America (University of Arizona Press, 1982), the standard work, with accounts of 136 species.
- Die Agaven.
- IPNI : The International Plant Name Index.
- Native Plant Information Network More information on species in the Agave genus.
- Xeric World An online community dedicated to the study of Xeric plant species with a focus on the family Agavaceae.
- Kolendo, Jan. The Agave Pages.
- Davidson, Alan (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University press. pp. xx + 892. ISBN 0-19-211579-0.
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Comprehensive DescriptionRead full entry
| Common names: wrasse (English), vieja (Espanol), arco iris (Espanol) |
Thalassoma lucasanum (Gill, 1862)
Cortez rainbow wrasse
Elongate, slender, compressed body; 1 pair canines at front of top jaw, 1 pair on bottom, none at rear of jaws; preopercle edge smooth; dorsal fin VIII, 13; anal rays III, 11; pectoral rays 15; tail fin concave; lateral line unbroken, but bends abruptly down near end of soft dorsal fin; scales large (26-27 on lateral line), smooth; head scaleless.
IP: with pair of bright yellow and red stripes bordering broad dark brown to greenish stripe from snout through eye along head and body; TP: body purplish, a broad yellow bar just behind head; tail bluish; head bluish with darker blue-green stripes below eye; pectoral yellow, with blue margin.
Maximum size to 15 cm.
Forms aggregations that feed on plankton around rocky and coral reefs, also feeds on benthic crustaceans, and fish eggs; the young sometimes "clean" parasites from other fishes.
Depth: 0-64 m.
Central Baja and the Central Gulf of California to central Peru, plus all the offshore islands except Clipperton.
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Howe, Mark L. (2011) The Adaptive Nature of Memory and Its Illusions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20 (5). pp. 312-315. ISSN 0963-7214Full text not available from this repository.
In this article I discuss how false memories do not always have to be associated with negative outcomes. Indeed, under some circumstances, memory illusions, like other illusions more generally, can have positive consequences. I discuss these consequences in the context of the adaptive function of memory, including how false memories can have fitness-relevant benefits for subsequent behavior and problem solving. My hope is that this article changes how illusions are conceptualized, especially those arising from memory. Rather than being a "demon" that vexes our theories of memory, illusions can be thought of as sometimes having positive consequences much in the same way as many of the other outputs of a very powerful, adaptive memory system.
|Journal or Publication Title:||Current Directions in Psychological Science|
|Uncontrolled Keywords:||adaptive memory ; memory illusions ; false beliefs ; EVOLUTION|
|Departments:||Faculty of Science and Technology > Psychology|
|Deposited On:||23 Feb 2012 09:54|
|Last Modified:||03 Mar 2016 01:18|
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Origins of HIV/AIDS
It is widely believed that HIV entered the human population as a result zoonosis, the process where a disease jumps the species barrier. In this case SIV, the monkey form of HIV is believed to have jumped the species barrier. The stronger strain of HIV, HIV-1, is almost identical to SIVcpz. SIVcpz is found in a species of chimpanzees known as Pan troglodytes troglodytes which can be found Central-Western Africa. Some researchers claim that this species of chimpanzee was responsible for HIV-1 and at some point SIVcpz jumped the species barrier. However, this theory is often questioned as SIVcpz is a rarer strand that does not often infect chimpanzees.
The other main theory of how SIV jumped the species barrier was published in 2003 by Professor Paul Sharp of Nottingham University and Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama. Their research idicated that a red-capped mangabey and a greater spot nosed monkey, both infected with their forms of SIV, had sex and the two strands of the virus combined to create a 3rd type of hybrid virus that was capable of infecting humans within them both. Chimpanzees became infected with this disease when they hunted and killed the smaller monkeys. When humans killed the chimpanzees and ate them, they became infected with the virus.
First Reported Cases
1959: A plasma sample taken from a man in the Democratic Republic of Congo
1969: A tissue sample from a recently deceased American teenager in St. Louis
1976: Tissue samples from a deceased Norwegian sailor.
However, it was not until 1989 that HIV erupted into an epidemic.
Why did it spread?
International Travel: The problem presented by international travel is highlighted in the case study of Patient Zero, or Gaeten Dugas - a flight attendant. Early cases of AIDS have been shown to have direct and indirect links to Gaeten Dugas. It also highlights how the disease could have travelled through a single agent.
Blood Transfusions: In many countries, such as the U.S., blood transfusions were/are paid for. Furthermore, some transfusions require blood from various sources to be pooled together, thus contaminating a larger amount of blood. This blood is also sent worldwide.
Drug Use: HIV can be transmitted through syringes. After the Vietnam War and various Middle East Conflicts, drug use boomed in the 70s and it was possible to borrow, lend or rent equipment.
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Born around 1867, Died 1922,
Nellie Bly was the pen name of American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. She began her career in newspapers around the age of 18 when she wrote a letter to The Pittsburgh Dispatch in support of Women's Rights. The editor of the paper liked it so much he hired her on as a reporter.
She was famous for her exploits and expose's. Some of her more memorable ones were pretending to be a thief in order to get captured. She then wrote about how the police treated women prisoners. She also pretended to be insane in order to get inside a New York City mental hospital. Her report on the conditions that patients were forced to endure and the cruelty they were exposed to eventually led to reforms being passed.
Probably her most famous exploit was her trip around the world. Her newspaper, The New York World, sent her out in order to out do Phileas Fogg, the hero of the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. She made the trip by ship, train, handcart and burro in a record time of 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes.
The name "Nellie Bly" comes from the song of the same name by composer Stephen Foster. There is also a small amusement park in Brooklyn N. Y. named after her.
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Laity, religious education, and catechetical leadership: A documentary analysis
Numerically, the laity comprise the largest group (98%) within the Roman Catholic Church. Yet up until the Second Vatican Council, the laity had no official status within the Church proper (ordained, male hierarchy) and remained on the periphery, at best. After some 400 years of exclusion, the Second Vatican Council opened the doors to the laity, welcoming them, including them, and calling for their active participation. This, in turn, inaugurated the laity's participation in Church ministry. The purpose of this work is to trace the development of the laity and their emergence in catechetical leadership through an analysis of selected documents of the Roman Catholic Church. ^ Situated against an historical backdrop, this work examines official Church documents where a theology of the laity is first recognized. Thus, the laity are messianic people and they, too, carry out the threefold mission of Christ, as priest, prophet, and king. One of the most definitive ways in which the laity exercise the messianic mission is found in the realm of education. The framework of parents/family, schools/teachers, and catechists/evangelizers is maintained in the examination of the documents, tracing the development of the laity and their emergence in catechetical leadership. A selection of pertinent Conciliar, postconciliar, and United States documents is employed for this analysis; each chapter concludes with a brief summary. ^ Chapter IV looks at the theory as found in the documents and the lived reality of that theory as experienced by both laity and clergy alike. Translating the rhetoric of the documents and transforming those principles and guidelines into practice has not been without its tensions and is still being realized. The latter part of the chapter looks at clergy/laity tensions; special attention is given to leaders/leadership. Hence, this chapter raises issues and concerns that the documents do not address or do not address fully. ^ Considering the complex, multifaceted nature of the catechetical ministry, this work examines only one facet, and that is the laity, the laity who emerge as catechetical leaders. The fullest expression of the laity exercising the threefold mission of Christ is undeniably found in the catechetical ministry. ^
Religion, General|Education, Administration|Education, Religious
Catherine Anne Bilquin,
"Laity, religious education, and catechetical leadership: A documentary analysis"
(January 1, 2002).
ETD Collection for Fordham University.
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Overview: Module 11
|Home > Table of Contents > Module 11> Next|
Behind the Scenes:
Image 1: Forest Researcher measuring the growth of a pine tree in the lab.
State Standard Correlations: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Download and print Module 11 Teacher Pages & Student Pages PDFs using Adobe Acrobat.
Day 2 activity: Make copies of Eloise Gerry, Carlos Bates, Bruce Zobel, Malcolm Furniss, Jerry Franklinand Kent Kirk biography pages for each student in the class. Make 6 copies of Worksheet 3 for each group or individual student (depending on how you would like to do the activity).
Assessment Prep : Make copies of the Assessment you have chosen to use.
Assign: Gerry, Bates, Zobel, Furniss, Franklin & Kirk Biographies & Worksheet 3. You may consider dividing the students into groups and assigning one or two of the biographies to each group; allowing time in class for students to read the biographies and complete this worksheet.
Team Teaching Possibilities
Technology: Create graphs from survey data collect in Assessment 3
English: Complete Worksheet 1. Or discuss what a biography is and teach students how to be a biographer. Discuss with the students what kinds of information are needed to have a complete biography: name or names, place and date of birth, family, places lived, hobbies, occupations, significant incidents in his/her life, and what made him/her famous. Use examples from Activity 2 to help in this discussion. Possibly have students use these questions to become a biographer (in groups or individually), by writing a biography on other teachers in the school or on a parent/grandparent at home.
Math: Have students go to or call a local Recycling Center and find information to answer the following questions. How many aluminum cans need to be recycled to power a TV for an hour? How many hours are there in a year? With these two figures determine the number of aluminum cans needed to be recycled in order to power a TV for a year. You could contact the local recycling center or electric company to find out enough facts to create a worksheet with numerous questions based on discovered facts. Determining the number of cans needed to run the lights in the school for day, the number of pieces of paper or pounds of paper needed to be recycled to create a new ream of recycled paper, etc.
Science: Look into research projects currently underway today at the Forest Products Laboratory - Research in Progress.
Aldrich, Mark. "From Forest Conservation to Market Preservation: Invention and Diffusion of Wood-Preserving Technology, 1880-1939." Technology and Culture 47, no. 2 (April 1, 2006): 311-340.
Zerbe, John & Green, Phyllis. "Extending the Forest Resource: 90 Years of Progress at the Forest Products Laboratory." Forest History Today, (Fall 1999):9-14.
Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1948). http://www.answers.com/topic/federal-water-pollution-control-act-1948 . (viewed 6/28, 2007) (House Report no. 1829, to accompany Senate Bill 418, 80th Congress, 2d session, April 28, 1948)
Ice, George G. and Stednick, John D. "Forest Watershed Research in the United States." Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2004.
Forest Products Laboratory, Environmental Technologies website. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research-highlights/init_env.html. (viewed 7/2/07).
Recycled Paper, Enzyme Treatment info: http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1996/sykes96b.pdf (viewed 7/6/07)
Bormett, David, Carl Houtman, Said Abubakr, and Joseph Peng, "Compatibility of Pressure Sensitive Adhesives With Recycling Unit Operations." AIChE Symposium Series No. 322, Vol. 95, 1999. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1999/borme99a.pdf (viewed 7/6/07)
Davis , Christopher, "UF - Developed Paper Recycling Method Could Benefit Forests, Industry," University of Florida News, July 28, 2000, http://news.ufl.edu/2000/07/28/ink/ - 7/11/07
West, Terry. "Research in the USDA Forest Service: A Historians' View." Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, History Unit, 1990.
Coleman, Donald G. "Eloise Gerry - Forest Products Laboratory (A Retirement Profile)" Wisconsin Academy Review, Vol. 2 (Spring 1955): 26-28. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.v2i2.p0030&isize=M - viewed 7/17/07
Miller, Regis B. Xylaria at the Forest Products Laboratory Past, Present, and Future, 1999. http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/WoodColl/MADw/xylaria%20at%20fpl.pdf – 7/17/07
Havlick, David, "Dr. Eloise Gerry, Scientist-Author-Teacher," Forest History Society, 2004. http://foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/people/Gerry/Gerry.html
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Re: Alternator spin direction? Does it really matter?
Originally posted by exoticcarsgonewild An alternator produces AC voltage. So, AC voltage is produced by spinning in any direction right? Does it matter which direction the alternator spins? I am assuming it doesn't matter.
Cars are DC voltage not AC voltage.
And yeah you need to spin the alt in the direction of the cooling fins.
--1988 Mustang LX 5.0--
--2006 Infiniti G35x--
The twin diode bridge use to make DC will still make a positive DC if the AC source is reversed. This is full wave (180 degree) rectification. A negative voltage could not be produced unless the source winding was center tapped and used as a "zero " reference.
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Herman Georg Simmons (1866-1943)
Simmons was born in Skåne, Sweden and participated as botanist on Otto Sverdrup’s 2nd Fram expedition to northwest Greenland and the islands of northeast Canada 1898-1902
Herman Georg Simmons had previously, in 1895, been on an expedition to the Faroe Islands. He published several scientific works from the Fram expedition.
The 2nd Fram expedition was different from the two others, with Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, in the number of qualified scientists that participated – 5 of the 16. The expedition therefore produced an impressive amount of scientific data, in addition to surveying c. 150 000 km2 of the previously uncharted islands of what today is the Canadian province of Nunavut.
Despite the amount of botanical material that Simmons managed to gather, he found the expedition at times to be frustrating. This was because the scientists were under the command of the mates of the Fram, Baumann and Raanes, and not directly under Captain Sverdrup. The professional sailors, including Sverdrup, did not quite understand all this botanising. In addition the expedition contract bound the participants to take any work onboard that they were ordered to. The situation gave Simmons a serious depression during the last two winters. He instructed the expedition cook, Adolf Henrik Lindstrøm, in plant collecting, which Lindstrøm did with great eagerness and success.
Simmons was able to collect enough data to publish widely on return. He became internationally known as an Arctic botanist and he held many lectures, including one in 1904 on the distribution and migrations of Eskimos. In 1906 he became lecturer at the University of Lund, and then was professor at the Ultuna Agricultural Institute near Uppsala 1918-32. From 1928-32 he was head of the Institute. After his retirement he continued to publish from his house at Lidingø by Stockholm.
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|2nd Year Pakistan Studies Notes Pakistan Studies Notes Of CLASS XII HSC-2 2nd Year Notes of Pak study|
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2nd year Pakistan Study Short Questions and Answers
Pakistan Study Short Questions and Answers
1.Who was the first president of Islamic Republic of Pakistan?
Ans.The first President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was Iskandar Mirza.
2.Of which organization is UNICEF the the abbreviated forms?
Ans.UNICEF is one of the specialized agencies of united nations and dis the abbreviated form of "United Nations International Children Emergency Fund."
3.Which Institution was inaugurated by Quaid-e-Azam in July 1948?
Ans.The State Bank of Pakistan was inaugurated by Quaid-e-Azam in July 1948.
4.Name the rivers on which the Mangla Dam and the Tarbela Dam are built.
Ans.Tarbela Dam is built on River Indus and Mangla Dam is built on River Jhelum.
5.Name two famous poets of Pushto language.
Ans.The famous and popular poets of Pushto language are:
(i) Kazim Khan Shaida
(ii) Rehman Baba
6.Who are the famous poets of Sindhi language.
Ans.The famous and popular poets of Sindhi language are:
(i) Syed Abdul Karim Mohammad Hashim
(ii) Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai
(iii) Sachal Sarmast
(iv) Pir Mohammad
(v) Makhdoom Noah
(vi) Makhdoom Ahmed Bhitai
7.Who are the famous poets of Punjabi language?
Ans.The names of famous poets of punjabi language are given below:
(i) Sultan Bahu
(ii) Bullah Shah
(iii) Shah Hussain
(iv) Waris Shah
(v) Madho Lal Hussain
(vi) Ghulam Farid
8.Was the constitution of 1962 of presidential or parlimentary type?
Ans.The constitution of 1962 introduced the presidential form of Government.
9.Name the natural regions of Pakistan.
Ans.Pakistan is divided into six natural regions.
(i) Northern Mountain Range
(ii) Mountains of Western Frontier
(iii) Plateau of Potowar and Salt Range
(iv) The Plateau of Baluchistan
(v) Upper Indus Plain
(vi) Lower Indus Plain
10.Write the objectives of U.N.O.
Ans. The main aims and objectives of United Nations (UNO) are:
(i) The first and foremost aim of U.N.O is to prevent war and mantain peace in the world through collective efforts.
(ii) To create good will among the nation of the world through economics,social,political dn humanitarism means.
(iii) To eraclicate the evils of caste,colour and creed by means of education.
(iv) Cultivation of friendly relations among the people on the basis of equality and the principle of self-determination.
(v) Preservation of human rights and fundamental freedom all over the world.
11.Of which organization is R.C.D the abbreviated from?What is it new name?
Ans.R.C.D is the abbreviated form of "Regional cooperation Developement".The new name is E.C.O (Economic Cooperation Organization).
12.Describe briefly the causes that led to the creation of All Muslim League?
Ans.Following are the causes of the formation of All India Muslim League:
(i) Congress-A Hindu Organisation:
Hume laid the foundation of Indian National Congress in 1885,But Congress by its policy and propaganda proved itself a Hindu Organisation.
(ii) UnHappy Events of partition of Bengal:
Hindu's attitude towards Muslim intrest and the partition of bengal had exposed Hindu feelings beyond any doubt.
(iii) Safeguard for Urdu:
Urdu-Hindi controversy was one of the causes of the creation of Muslim League.
(iv) Propaganda against Islam:
Some Hindu leaders had raised the slogan "India is for Hindus only".They started propaganda against Islam and Muslims.
13.Whwn,Where and with whom did the members of the Simla Delegation go to meet?
Ans.On 1st Oct.1906 ,a Muslim deputation consisting of 35 representative met the Viceroy Lord Minto at simla and presented some demands of Muslims.The viceroy gave a patient hearing to the demands of the Muslims presented by the Simla Delegation and he promised to give athetic consideration to the demands of Muslims and assured them that the intrests of the Muslims would be safeguard.
14.When and why was the Khilafat Movement started?Who were the leaders of the Movement?
Ans.After the first world war ,the fate of Ottoman Turkish Empire (Khalifa) was sealed.The Turkish Sultans had claimed to the Caliphs of the Muslim World.The general impression among the Muslims was that the Western Powers were waging a war against Islam to rob it of all its powers.Muslims of South India took up courage and started "Khilafat Movement in 1919,its aim was to:
(i) To save Khilafat
(ii) To protect Holy Cities from non-Muslim control
The leaders of Khilafat Movement were:
(i) Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar
(ii) Maulana Shaukat Ali
(iii) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
15.What do you know about the regional languages of Pakistan?
Ans.The general elections for the central lagisleture Assembly were held in India in December ,1945.The Muslim League won 86.6% of the total Muslim seats.Out of total 102 seats in the central Assaembly ,the Muslim league won 30 seats.
17.Write names of the member countries of the SAARC organization.
Ans.The following are the member countries of SAARC:
(iv) Sri Lanka
18.When and which treaty was signed between India and Pakistan with respect to canal water dispute?
Ans.The water dispute had its origin in the partiton of Punjab.It came to light on April 1,1948,when India cut off the flow of canal water to West Punjab in Pakistan,causing a great threat of famine and loss of corps in West Punjab.
With the Intervention of World Bank,On September 19,1960,an agreement was concluded between the countries which is known as "Indus Basin Treaty".The treaty was signed by President Ayub Khan from Pakistan side and by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru from India in 1961.According to this agreement the Chenab,Jhelum and the Indus rivers were allocated to Pakistan and three Eastern rivers Sutluj,Bias and Ravi were given to India.
19.When and where as the first session of the All India Muslim League held?
Ans.The first session of the All India Muslim League was held at Karachi on 29th and 30th December,1907.
20.When and Who dissolved the first constituent Assembly of Pakistan?
Ans.The first constituent Assembly of Pakistan was dismissed by then the Governor General Ghulam Mohammad on Oct. 24th,1954.
21.When and Where was Allama Iqbal born?
Ans.Allam Iqbal was born on 9th November 1877 in Sialkot.
22.Name any two cash crops of Pakistan?
Ans.Cash crops supply raw material to industries,Foriegn exchange is also earned through export of these corps.The cash-crops of Pakistan are:
23.How many administrative divisions are there in Sindh?
Ans.There are four administrative divisions in Sindh.
24.Name the main Industries of Pakistan?
Ans.The main Industries of Pakistan are:
(i) Textile Industries
(ii) Cement Industries
(iii) Paper Industries
(iv) Sugar Industries
(v) Steel Industries
(vi) Fertilizer's Factories
25.On what date was the day of deliverance observed as announced by the Quaid-e-Azam ?
Ans.When the Congress ministers,resigned in October,1939,the Quaid-e-Azam appealed to the Muslims of India to observe a "Deliverance Day" On Dec. 22,1939 and expressed their relief at the terminatio of Congress rule which had been too hostile during the last two years.He also appealed that the Day should be observed peacefully.The Deliverance Day was observed peacefully throughout the country.
26.When was the Zakat System introduced in Pakistan?
Ans..The Zakat System was introduced in the country through the Zakat and Ushr Ordinance on June 20,1980.According to this ordinance,zakat fund would be established to collect these sorts of gifts and it was compulsory for every sahib-e-nisab Muslim whetehr male or female to pay zakat by deducting it from his or her account in the bank.
27.Name the first casts of Hindu Society?
Ans.The Hindu Society was divided into the following four casts:
28.Which caste is respected the most in the Hindu Society?
Ans.The Brahman's are considered the most superior in the Hindu society.
29.What are the works given to the Khatris?
Ans.The occupation of Khatris was to fight and defend the country.
30.What is the occupation of Vaish?
Ans.The people of the Vaish caste are farmerstraders ,industrialist and artisans.
31.What was the occupation of Shooder?
Ans.The people of Shooder caste were considered the lowest of other casts.They had to serve the other castes,i.e they were slaved.
32.How did Urdu language came into being?
Ans.The Mughal army consisted of people belonging to different communities of India and speaking different languages .By intermingling of these people,a new language by the name of Urdu came into existance.
33.Name the Sufi's who worked for the spread of Islam in South Asia?
Ans.The Sufi's and Saints who worked for the spreading of Islam in South Asia are:
(i) Hazrat Data Ganj Baksh
(ii) Khuwaja Moeenuddin Chishti
(iii) Hazrat Mujaddid Alif Sani
(iv) Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalander
(v) Hazrat BahaUddin Zakaria
34.What do you mean by "Ideology of Pakistan".?
Ans.Pakistan came into existence of the basis of one ideology and this ideology refers that Islam is the religion of all the Muslims and this Islamic ideology is the idiology of Pakistan,
35.Which province did not have any constitution during the British rule?
Ans.The British had made North West Frontier Province as "Non-Constitutional Land".
36.When did Partition of Bengal take place and benefited from it?When and had did the annulment of partition took place?
Ans.The Partition of Bengal took place in 1905 and this was the first right step taken by the British towards the intrests of Muslims,but the narrow-minded Hindus could not bear this and due to thier opposition the annulment of partition took place in 1911.
37.Why did the Muslims not accept the Nehru Report?
Ans.In the Nehru Report,the Hindus did no respect the rights and intrests of Muslims and not fulfilled the promises made by them.Therefore,the Muslims did not accept the Nehru Report.
38.Why didQuaid-e-Azam presented his fourteen points?
Ans.Quaid-e-Azam presented his fourteen points in reply to the Nehru Report.
39.Why did the round table conference failed?
Ans.The Round Table Conference failed due to the narrow-mindedness and negative attitude of the Hindus.
40.Write down the points of the Indian Independence Act of 1947?
Ans.The important points of Indian Independence Act are:
(i) The legislative supremacy of the two dominions.
(ii) The legislatures of the two Dominions were given full powers to make laws having extra-territorial jurisdication.
(iii) The British Government was to have no control over the affairs of the Dominions.Provinces or any part of the Dominions after 15th August,1947.
41.What were the important points of third June Plan?
Ans.The important points of third June Plan was are as follows:
(i) India was to be divided into Hindustan And Pakistan.
(ii) Pakistan was to comprise the Muslim majority areas with a right to secede from the rest of India.
(iii) The Muslims majority areas would be demarcated by a Joint Boundary Commission.
(iv) Bengal would be partitioned into Muslim and Hindu majority areas.
42.Which party formed the Government of Britain when the sub-continent was partitioned?
Ans.The Labour Party ruled the Government of Britain when India was partitioned.
43.Write the name of some Muslim Leaders who worked during the Pakistan Movements?
Ans.(i) Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
(ii) Nawab Salim Ullah
(iii) Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk
(iv) Nawab Waqar-ul-Mulk
(v) Sir Agha Khan
(vi) Allama Iqbal
44.During the World War II,what promise did the British Government made towards the people of sub-continent?
Ans.The British Government promised the people of sub-continent that India will be partitioned after the end of the Second World War.
45.How many Resolutions did the U.N passed regarding Kashmir problem?
Ans.The Security Council of United Nations passed two Resolutins on 17th August,1948 and 5th January,1949.
46.What did Quaid-e-Azam said about Radcliff Commission?'
Ans.The Quaid-e-Azam remarked about Radcliff Commission or Radcliff award:
"The award was a parting Kick of the British Government."
47.What was the percentage of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir according to the census of 1941?
Ans.According to the census of 1941,the Muslim population in Kashmir was 96% and in Jammu,it was 70%.
48.What do you know about Mohammad Ali Bogra Formula?
Ans.In the period of third Prime Minister,Mr.Mohammad Ali Bogra,great efforts were made for the preparation of the constitution in the light of the recommendations of the committee he was able to prepare a draft bill of the constitution which is known as "Mohammad Ali Bogra's Formula".In this formula,it was suggested to give equal representation to East and West Pakistan.
49.When was the objective resolution passed?
Ans.The objective resolution was passed on 12th March,1949 in the Constituent Assembly.
50.Which event took place in the history of constitution making of Pakistan 1955?
Ans.It was hoped that after Mohammad Ali Bogra Formula,a constitution would be made in the country but in 1954,the Governer General dismissed the Constituent Assembly and in 1955,a new constituent Assembly was elected which started the work of constitution making.
51.How long did the 1956 constitution last?
Ans.The constitution of 1956 lasted for only two and a half years.On 7th October,1958,the army took over the Government.
52.According to the constitution of 1962,name the council that was established to point out the non-Islamic things.
Ans.The Council which was established to point out the non-Islamic things is known as "Islamic Ideology Council".
53.How long did the constitution of 1962 last?
Ans.This constituted lasted for 7 years.On 25th March,1969,Ayub Khan resigned and gave the power to the army.General Yahya Khan dismissed the 1962 constitution and enforceed Martial Law in the country.
54.When was the legal frame work Order issue?
Ans.The legal frame work Order was issued on March 30th,1970.The said order contained the fundamental principles of the constitution to be framed by the elected assembly as well as the number of seats in National and Provincial Assembly for the General Elections to be held.
55.When were the Shariat Courts formed and where is its head office?
Ans.Shariat Courts were established in 1979 and its head office is at Islamabad.
56.When was the intrest-free banking system introduced in the country?
Ans.On 1st January,1981,an intrest-free banking system was introduced in the country.According to this system ,the account holder was made a partner with the bak in its profit or loss by sharing it according to his investments in the bank.
57.Under what circumstances did General Zia-ul-Haq took control of power on 5th July 1977.
Ans. The elections held in the country were not fair.The people started the Nizam-e-Mustafa Movement.The Government held discussion but no results were obtained.As a result,the army on 5th July 1977 took control of the power.
58.Give the location of Pakistan.
Ans. Pakistan is geographically located between 23.45 to 36.45 North Latitude and about 61 to 75.5 East longitude in South Asia .The country is sorrounded by Bharat in East,Afghanistan in the North West,Iran in the West and the Arabian Sea in the South.
59.How much is the area of Pakistan?
Ans. The total area of Pakistan is 796096 square kilometers.
60.What does the word "Doab" mean?
Ans.The land or space between two rivers is known as "Doab".
61.Give a brief account of the seasons in Pakistan?
Ans.There are four seasons in Pakistan:
(i) Summer-From May till September
(ii) Winter-From November till February
(iii) Spring-The season of March and April
(iv) Autumn-September and October
62.Write down the names of some important departments of Government of Pakistan.
Ans.The important departments of Government of Pakistan are as follows:
(i) Foreign Office
(ii) Defence Department
(iii) Interior Ministry
(iv) Finance Department
(v) Education Department
(vi) Health Department
(vii) Communication Department
63.How does the Government controll the affairs of F.A.T.A (Federally Administered Tribal Areas)?
Ans.The Federal Government through its appointed agent keeps in touch with the leaders of Tribal Areas and Controls the system of these areas.The shol are comes under the control of jirgah.This is a council comprising of the religions and experienced people of these tribes.
64.What do you mean by Culture?
Ans.Culture is the history of the society and reflects its social past.Culture means behaviour peculiar to its human beings.Culture consists of languages,literature,ideas,beliefs,customs,habits, codes,dress,diet,art,moral,institution,laws,etc.
65.From which areas did civilized life begin?
Ans.Human civilization started from those areas where water,air and other geographics conditions were in much condition for life.Therefore,fertile valley of rivers include Dajla Dafrat(iraq) ,valley of Nite (Egypt) and Indus valley (Pakistan).The evolution of population started from these areas and civilised life began.
66.The land of Pakistan is famous of which civilizations?
Ans.The lanf of Pakistan is proud to have the birth of the historical civilization of the valley of Indus.This civilization was at its peak about four or five thousand years ago.
67.Which land do you mean by Indus Valley?
Ans.Indus Valley means those areas which are situated near the River Indus and its neighbouring Rivers.Its present name is Pakistan.
68.What do you mean by Gandhara Art?
Ans.The areas of Punjab and N.W.F.P which at present situated near Rawalpindi and Peshawar were in the old days given the name of Gandhara Civilization.About two and half thousand years ago,this civilization was at its peak whose art and culture especially art of painting and stone carving are famous.
69.Write down the names of certain important buildings of Muslim Era.
Ans.(i) The fort of Agra
(ii) Taj Mahal,Agra
(iii) Shahi Qila,Delhi
(iv) The tomb of Jehangir,Lahore
(v) Badshahi Masjid ,Lahore
(vi) Masjid Wazir Khan ,Lahore
(vii) Jamia Masjid,Thatta
70.What do you mean by imperialist system?
Ans.The Britishers brought an imperialist system.The Imperialist system means that local cultural and social agencies should be so bound by a political structure that they loose their identification.
71.When did the Muslims invade South Asia?
Ans.Muslims invaded South Asia in 712 A.D.When Mohammad bin Qasim defeated the army of Raja Dahir and established an Islamic Welfare State.
72.Which artist did Humayun brought back from Iran?
Ans.Humayun brought back to artist Mir Syed Ali Tabrezi and Khawaja Abdul Samad from Iran.
73.Which type of painting flourished during the era of Jehangir?
Ans.Jehangir had great intrest in the art of painting.He claimed that he can identify a painter by seeing his paintings in this era,this art was at its peak beautiful pictures of flowers ,paints,animals,birds and natural scenes were made.The pictures of war fighting are magnifitient examples of realistic art.
74.Who was the first musician of the Muslim era?
Ans. Amir Khusro was the first musician of the Muslim era.He invented many rags in music.
75.What did the extremist Hundu Movements wanted to do against the Muslims?
Ans.Hindu extremist Movement such as Shoodhi,Shungthan and Arya Samaj wanted to convert Muslims to Hindus and wanted diminish the separate identity and culture of the Muslims so that the Muslims could leave India.
76.What message did the Allama Iqbal gave to the Muslims of the sub-continent?
Ans.Allama Iqbal gave the message to the Muslims of India that they should develop the feeling of Islamic brotherhood and Jihad so that they could become independent.
77.What did Quiad-e-Azam said about the objective for the creation for Pakistan?
Ans.Quaid-e-Azam described the main objective of the creation of Pakistan in the following words:
"We have not demanded Pakistan only to get a piece of land,but our aim was to get a laboratory where we could practise the principles of Islam."
78.Pakistani culture is a mixed culture.Comment.
Ans.Pakistani culture is a mixed culture .There is still some impact of foreign traditions in our society.We have adopted Western music and their style of living.Although majority of the people are Muslims ther is a mixed culture of Hindus,Britishers and Muslims.
79.The basis of Pakistani culture is on Islam.Comment.
Ans.Pakistan was established so that the Muslims could lead their lives according to the teachings and principles of Islam.Pakistani culture is predominantly an Islamic culture.Pakistan inspite of the differences of religion,language and customs commonly follow the religion of Islam.
80.What are the Pakistani arts?
Ans.Pakistani arts include the following:
(i) Stone Carving
(ii) Carpet Making
81.How many languages are spoken in Pakistan?
Ans.In Pakistan,about 30 small and big languages are spoken.These include Urdu,Sindhi,Pushto,Punjabi,Baluchi,Kashmiri and Brahvi.
82.What were the different names of Urdu in its different periods?
Ans.In the beginning Urdu was given the name Hindavi,Hindi and Hindustani.Later on,it was given the name Urdu-e-Moalla and Rekhta.And now it is given the name Urdu.
83.When did Pushto language begin?
Ans.Pushto is a language of N.W.F.P .The people speaking these languages are called Pukhtoon or pushtoon.This language started about 5000 years in Afghanistan.Bakhtar or Bakht.Due to this it was given the name Bakhto which later became Pukhto or Pushto.
84.Whom began Sindhi language in Arabic script?
Ans.Abul-Hasan Sindhi began Sindhi language in Arabic script.
85.Which things are distinct in Punjabi literature?
Ans.Folk tales are very popular in Punjabi literature.The poets gave these tales into poetic forms.These tales incude romances like Hir Raanjha,Sassi Panhu and Sohni Mahiwal.
86.Write down the names of famous Baluchi tales?
Ans.The famous tales of Baluchi language are:
(i) Chakar Khan
(ii) Hamal Rando -Hanaz
(iv) Nazshah Hured Dahanni
87.Name three classical poets of Urdu.
Ans.The three classical poets of Urdu are:
(i) Mir Taqi Mir
(ii) Mirza Ghalib
(iii) Mir Dard
88.Who is considered as the first poet of Pushto?
Ans.Amir Karore is considered the first poet of Pushto.
89.Which languages influence Sindhi language?
Ans.Sindhi language is influenced by Darawdi,Sanskrit,Greek,Turkish,Pushto and other languages.
90.'Shah -jo-Risalo' is the poetic collection of which poet?
Ans.Shah -jo-Risalo is poetic collection of famous Sindhi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai.
91.Which Civilization does Punjabi language has a link?
Ans.Punjabi has its links with Hadmai or Draudi civilization.
92.Name the different styles of of speech of Punjabi?
Ans.The different style of speech of Punjabi language are Mulsani,Saraiki,Shahpure,Potohari etc.
93.Name three classical poets of Punjabi.
Ans.Three classical poets of Punjabi are:
(i) Shah Hussain
(ii) Bulleh Shah
(iii) Sultan Bahu
94.Who wrote Heer Ranjha?
Ans.Hir Ranjha was written by Waris Shah.
95.Which is the famous book of Hashim Shah?
Ans.The famous tale of Hashim Shah is Sassi Panhu.
96.Which language does Baluchi link to?
Ans.Baluchi languages has its link with Aryan Languages.
97.Write down the different style of speeches of Baluchi?
Ans.The two styles of speeches of Baluchi are:
98.Name the ascents of Kashmiri?
Ans.Kashmiri has many ascents.These are Sulemani,Hindki,Gandro and Gami but Gandro leads all the ascents.
99.Write down the salient features of the foreign policy of Pakistan.
Ans.The following are the fundamental principles of Pakistan's foreign policy.
(i) Protection of freedom and sovereignity.
(ii) Close relations with Muslim countries.
(iii) Keeping away from big power politics.
(iv) Support for self-determination.
(v) Implementation of United Nations Charter.
(vi) Promotion of Peace and Friendship.
100.Pakistan is the member of how many international organizations?
Ans.Pakistan is the active member of the following international organizations:
(i) United Nations Organisations.
(ii) Non-Aligned Movement(N.A.M)
(iii) Organization of Islamic Conference (O.I.C)
(iv) Economic Cooperation Organizatio(E.C.O)
101. When was the foundation of United Nations Laid?
Ans.The foundation of United Nations(U.N.O) was laid on 24th Oct.1945.
102.Name the organs of U.N.O?
Ans.The organs of U.N.O are:
(i) General Assembly
(ii) Security Council
(iii) Economic and Social Council
(iv) Trustee-Ship Council
(vi) International Court of Justice
103.Name the agencies of U.N.
Ans.Ther are several specialized bodies are:
(i) UNICEF-United Nations Internation Children Emergency Fund.
(ii) UNESCO-United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organisations
(iii) FAO-Food and Agricultural Organisation
(iv) WHO-World Health Organisation
(v) ILO-International Labour Organisation.
(vi) WB-World Bank.
104.What is the objective of Non-Aligned Movement?
Ans.The main objective of Non-Aligned Movement was not to join any of the big powers and to keep away from big power politics.
105.When was the foundation of R.C.D laid?
Ans.In July 1964,Iran,Pakistan and Turky with mutual understanding laid the foundation of R.C.D (Regional Cooperation of Development).Now,Its new name is Economic Cooperation Organization(E.C.O).
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Digitisation projects by various non-profit, government and commercial organisations have given family historians access to a plethora of records that were previously very difficult to access or obtain. We can now access rich and diverse materials from a range of institutions across the globe without leaving the confines of our homes.
The National Library of New Zealand's Introduction to Digitisation tells us:
Digitisation is the process of converting a physical object like a book, newspaper, photograph or sound recording into a computer file. Methods of digitising objects include scanning and digital photography.
The benefits of digitisation
Digitising physical objects has a number of benefits, including:
- Improving access. Digitised items which are available on the internet can be accessed anywhere at any time.
- Assisting research. For example, by making the text in magazines and newspapers searchable, researchers can quickly identify sections of interest without having to browse through every issue.
- Preserving items. Digitisation means that original material may not have to be used as often by researchers. It is also an effective means of preserving sound recordings.
Having access to a range of free and subscription digitised collections has greatly enhanced my knowledge of earlier generations, has enabled me to identify new ancestors and verify details for others. Without Trove I would not have known that my great-great-grandfather was the starter at the local race club, a member of the rifle club or the builder of a number of country buildings in New South Wales. From NSW State Records collections I have been able to view digitised passenger lists that include the names and details of my ancestors. Familysearch, a leader in records digitisation, provides access to digital records from many countries; these may just be digital images of card files from resource catalogues to images of original parish records.
Commercial entities like Ancestry and FindMyPast often enter into agreements to digitise records from repositories and make them available for a fee from their sites. I have found numerous Census Records, Shipping Reccords and Electoral Roll entries from sites like these.
As well as accessing images others have taken of ancestors headstones from sites like Australian Cemeteries Index I pay back by photographing images and posting them to BillionGraves to make them available to others.
Many genealogists share digital images of vital records they hold with researchers with shared interests. How many of these, I wonder, have embarked on personal digitisation projects. For the reasons outlined above everyone who holds valuable family documents and artefacts should embark on a program of digitising these assets. I have around 90,000 digitised photographs and documents that are all tagged with keywords so that they are easily accessed. As time permits I continue to add to this collection. Recently I have scanned a collection of letters written by my son and myself when he spent six months in his school's outdoor education campus, I photographed a clay sculpture before it crumbled) done by my daughter at school and several school projects that had seen better days.
You may already make use of resources digitised by large bodies but have you considered embarking on a personal digitisation project?
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14-18. The mechanical role of pore fluids in seismicity, earthquake source physics, and faulting.
Elevated pore fluid pressure is routinely used to explain local and crustal scale faulting on the basis of theoretical expectations, while definitive seismologic evidence of the role of pore pressure (earthquake rates, source properties, and spectra) is limited to induced earthquakes. For example, high pore fluid pressure is often invoked to explain faulting in low shear stress environments; in particular large and plate-boundary-scale faults that are not optimally oriented for frictional sliding in the regional stress field, including most of the earth’s subduction zones, plate boundary strike-slip faults such as the San Andreas and low-angle detachments. Despite a perceived mechanical need for elevated pore pressure, earthquakes in low shear stress environments are generally indistinguishable from those in high shear stress regions. Nor are there established differences in earthquake statistics (e.g., frequency magnitude relations, aftershock productivity, or occurrence of triggered seismicity) between regions of hypothesized elevated pore pressure and elsewhere.
A related issue is that regardless of the magnitude of the ambient pore pressure, slip during moderate and larger earthquakes is sufficiently sustained and rapid to produce enough shear heat to overpressurize pore fluid, producing complete earthquake stress drops, provided the fault is sufficiently localized and does not dilate significantly. Nonetheless, large earthquake stress drops and radiated energy efficiencies are small and generally identical to those of microearthquakes.
Outside of plate boundaries, the mechanical role of elevated pore fluid pressure in earthquake occurrence is also poorly understood. In intraplate regions the crust is thought to be stressed close to frictional failure and pore pressures are typically near hydrostatic. Under these circumstances raising pore fluid pressure artificially via fluid injection, a practice that is widespread and becoming more common in the United States, should produce widespread local high seismicity rates. However, the few well-documented cases of induced seismicity occur at a tiny fraction of the total number of injection sites, suggesting that either that stress is lower than assumed or additional factors beyond elevated pore fluid pressure are required to induce intraplate seismicity. As in plate boundary regions, the source properties of induced earthquakes are not easily distinguished from background seismicity. Similarly, in volcanic and hydrothermal areas in instances where earthquake swarms are likely driven by increasing pore fluid pressure, earthquake source properties are essentially identical to background events.
In addition to the relatively few documented instances of human-induced seismicity, there are regions where pore pressure appears to have a strong influence on earthquake occurrence and source properties. On the deep, predominately ductile extent of many plate boundary faults, seismic tremors can be triggered by remarkably small static (tidal) and elastodynamic stresses. These observations are thought to indicate faulting at very high pore pressures. Furthermore, the resulting seismicity is depleted in high frequency content relative to typical earthquakes. Reasons for this depletion are unknown but may be the result of pore fluid effects in the source region or from nearby attenuation. In some cases these regions also have anomalous elastic properties (Vp/Vs ratios), attributed to the presence of fluids. Similarly, in active volcanic environments, earthquake source properties can deviate from those of typical tectonic earthquakes. Observations include volcanic tremor as well as hybrid earthquakes (combining aspects of tremor and tectonic earthquakes) with significant depletion in high frequency content, both thought to result from pore fluid effects in the source or immediate vicinity.
This Opportunity is for new research in seismology, computational geophysics, field/borehole geophysics or rock mechanics involving the occurrence of earthquakes in the presence of pore fluid. The expected potential research products of this Mendenhall opportunity are (1) better physical understanding of the source properties, in-situ conditions and physics of earthquakes, (2) new or refined constitutive models associated with earthquake occurrence and fault slip, and (3) improved understanding of ground motion and hazard.
For this Research Opportunity we seek contributions in the following research areas:
Proposed Duty Station: Menlo Park, California.
Areas of Ph.D.: Geophysics, seismology, geology volcanology, rock mechanics or related fields (candidates holding a Ph.D. in other disciplines, but with extensive knowledge and skills relevant to the Research Opportunity may be considered).
Qualifications: Applicants must meet one of the following qualifications - Research Geologist, Research Geophysicist.
(This type of research is performed by those who have backgrounds for the occupations stated above. However, other titles may be applicable depending on the applicant's background, education, and research proposal. The final classification of the position will be made by the Human Resources specialist).
Research Advisors: Nick Beeler, (360) 993-8987, email@example.com.; Bill Ellsworth, (650) 329-5020, firstname.lastname@example.org.; David Lockner, (650) 329-4826, email@example.com.; David Shelly, (650) 329-4024, firstname.lastname@example.org.; Steve Hickman, (650) 329-4807, email@example.com.
Human Resources Office Contact: Lisa James, (916) 278-9405, firstname.lastname@example.org.
|Summary of Opportunities|
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Georgia Wildlife Resources Division
2070 U.S. Hwy. 278, SE, Social Circle, GA 30025
Arner, Dale H. and Gary R. Hepp. 1989. Beaver pond wetlands: a southern perspective. Pages 117- 128 in: Smith, L. M., R. L. Pederson, and R. M. Kaminski. Habitat management for migrating and wintering waterfowl in North America. Texas Tech University Press. 560 pp.
Bellrose, F. C. 1976. Ducks, geese, and swans of North America. Third Ed. Stackpole Books. Harrisburg, Pa. 540 pp.
Georgia Nongame and Natural Heritage Section. 1996. State of Georgia Landcover Statistics by County. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Natural Heritage Program. Project Report 26. 57 pp.
Huffstatler, H. and D. Stewart. 1993. Waterfowl habitat management handbook for the lower Mississippi River valley. Coop. Ext. Service, Miss. State Univ. Publication 1864. 19 pp.
Jackson, J. L. 1980. Bring ducks to your land: managing wetlands for waterfowl in the southeast. Coop. Ext. Service, Univ. of Georgia. 15pp.
Johnson, F. A. and F. Montalbano III. 1989. Southern reservoirs and lakes. Pages 93 - 116 in: Smith, L. M., R. L. Pederson, and R. M. Kaminski. Habitat management for migrating and wintering waterfowl in North America. Texas Tech University Press. 560 pp.
Neely, W. W. and V. E. Davison. 1966. Wild ducks on farmland in the south. U.S.D.A. Farmer''s Bulletin 2218. 14 pp.
Wharton, Charles H. 1978. The Natural Environments of Georgia. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division, Georgia Geologic Survey. Bulletin 114. 227 pp.
Williams, R. K., R. D. Perry, M. D. Prevost, and S. E. Adair, Ph.D. 1998. Management of south Atlantic coastal wetlands for waterfowl and other wildlife. Atlantic Coast Joint Venture of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and Ducks Unlimited. 29 pp.
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The inner disk can be irradiated by the Compton tail. This can substantially change the inner disk temperature structure from that expected from an unilluminated disk in the limit where the ratio of luminosity in the tail to that in the disk, Lc/Ld>>1. This is generally the case in the low/hard state of accreting black holes, and neglecting this effect leads to an underestimate of the inner disk radius (Gierlinski, Done & Page 2008a MNRAS, 388, 753).
The irradiated inner disk and Compton tail can illuminate the rest of the disk, and a fraction f_out of the bolometric flux is thermalized to the local blackbody temperature at each radius. This reprocessed flux generally dominates the optical and UV bandpass of LMXBs (Gierlinski, Done & Page 2008b MNRAS, submitted).
par1 = kT_disk, innermost temperature of the UNILLUMINATED disk
par2 = Gamma, asymptotic power-law photon index
par3 = kT_e, electon temperature (high energy rollover)
par4 = Lc/Ld, ratio of luminosity in the Compton tail to that of the UNILLUMINATED disk
par5 = fin, fraction of luminosity in the Compton tail which is thermalized in the inner disk (generally fix at 0.1 as appropriate for an albedo of 0.3 and solid angle of 0.3)
par6 = rirr, radius of the Compton illuminated disk in terms of the inner disk radius
par7 = fout, fraction of bolometric flux which is thermalized in the outer disk
par8 = logrout, log10 of the outer disk radius in terms of the inner disk radius
K = normalization, as in diskbb
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- Athlete's Foot: A
fungus infection on the skin of feet.
Green-colored pigments that plants use to help make their own food.
- Environment: A
surrounding that affects the development of a living organism.
- Kingdom: The highest
grouping of living things.
- Mold: A furry
growth on the surface of objects such as food products and other living
plants. Grows in the presence of dampness or decay.
- Nutrients: A
nourishing ingredient in food that causes growth, development or good
- Plant Kingdom: The
common grouping of the plant species.
- Ringworm: A
contagious skin disease caused by fungus. Causes itching and ring-shaped
patches covered with scales.
- Yeast: A
single-celled fungus used in making bread, beer and other products.
Return to Page
Last update: 30 Mar 99. Preparation of this page by Erika Quinn and Robert Fogel was supported in part by the University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
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Are there any records of WWI trench tactics involving shield formations similar to the example below of the ancient Testudo formation?
I imagine that it could have been successful if used to get within range to throw grenades.
Shields for soldiers were tried during the First World War. In order to stop high power rifle rounds, they had to be rather heavy weight steel plate. This made them difficult to move and carry.
One French design made a wheeled shield known as the Mobile Personnel Shield. This proved too heavy and cumbersome to use in combat. However, it may have played a role in inspiring the first tanks.
The Canadians also developed the MacAdam Shield Shovel which doubled both as a digging tool and as protection when firing. It was made of three-sixteenths of an inch thick steel. There was a hole in the blade for sighting when used as a shield and the handle was detachable. Some 25,000 were produced but soldiers found them to be poor for digging, being to heavy, and ineffective at stopping bullets.
An additional problem for shields was that protection was not only required to the front. Shells and shrapnel would come from all directions when out of the trench. Thus a shield would be of little use unless completely covering the whole body. If so done, it would be to heavy to move by one soldier. Mechanising the shield would lead directly to the tank.
Not all shields proved useless. During WWI, shields were mounted on machine guns to protect the operator, who is generally more exposed than other soldiers and less required to move at speed. Such shields continue to be used to this day. Look at USA troops in Iraq or Afghanistan who are manning machine gun positions or using the mobile machine guns on the back of a truck, and you will see they have a shield in front of them that can turn with the gun.
I strongly suspect that it is due to technical limitations: Rifle bullets travel at very, very high velocity, and thus even a steel shield would be unlikely to stop them. I recall hearing that the metal helmets they wore would not stop a direct hit, so I don't think a shield would either, at least not when limited by the amount a human can support. If you think about it, a tank or APC is really just a mechanical phalanx, providing armour on all sides. Also supporting this is an issue that the Canadian's had: A rather incompetent defence minister spent a ton of money on shovels with a hole in them, so you could peek up over the edge of a trench. The problem was bullets would go right through the shovel.
Even if you had a magic shield that stopped rifle and machine gun bullets you'd quickly lose formation as you walked over shell craters and whatnot: WWI battlefeilds were notorious for chopped up ground. Couple this with the fact that such a formation would quickly attract huge volumes of rife and machine gun fire, any hole in it would quickly be filled with bullets, and as soon as one person fell the whole formation would be chopped apart, as that would provide the machine guns with an opening. Mines could also be used to open up this type of hole.
Finally: Artillery and explosives: Even if you got around the first two issues, such a formation would have to move rather slowly, leaving it open to artillery fire. You'd also need a giant gap in barbed wire to move it through, so the enemy could just set up a large row of barbed wire, several layers deep, and aim their artillary at that. When you stop to cut through it, boom.
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http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/984/wwi-trench-tactics-using-shields?answertab=votes
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Throughout the country, people in five thousand election centers will place their ballots for president, congress, and municipal mayor in three separate ballot boxes.
What happens then? What ensures that the ballot cast is counted and reported accurately? How reliable should we expect the numbers to be? In part, what you think the answer is depends on how you assess the procedures set in place by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral.
Each individual ballot for president has a Mesa Electoral Receptora number, the name of the voting center, and the department printed on it. Each of these ballots also has a unique number, with the name of the municipio preprinted on it.
The Presidential Ballot looks like this:
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has a custodian. In previous elections the churches, through the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church Association, supplied the custodians. Most of the custodians this time around are students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH).
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has one representative, and an alternate, from each political party. Each has a president, secretary, watcher, and members, all appointed to office by the TSE. All procedural votes are by simple majority, with the president of the Mesa abstaining unless there is a tie.
The charge to the MER technical custodians is
- to make sure there is adequate access by voters from the starting hour to the ending hour of voting.
- to observe the rights of the citizens
- to maintain order in the voting centers
- to be yourself transparent and responsible, absent of any authoritarianism.
- to respect the popular will when counting the votes and inscribing the results on the tally sheet
- to return the voting boxes with the tally sheets to the TSE.
Those tally sheets are key to linking the count made at the Mesa and the outcome the TSE reports.
A separate manual for each department of Honduras has detailed instructions including how to count and record the votes from each of the ballot boxes. Observers, both national and international, may be present but must not reveal any results nor advocate for any candidate. The members of each Mesa fill out and sign an opening form that records how many ballots they have for each office (in numbers and written out in words).
To prevent voters selling their vote, cell phones and cameras are newly banned from voting booths. The voter is given a ballot for the presidential vote, congress, and municipal mayoral election, signed on the back by members of the Mesa. The voter folds each of the three ballots in half to obscure their vote, then brings them back to the Mesa where members verify they have the required signatures on the back.
Counting of the votes begins with checking the ballot for the required signatures and stamp, then the voter's markings are evaluated. Each ballot has a photo of the candidate, the party flag, and a space to mark the vote. But a mark anywhere on the candidate or the flag counts, as long as most of the mark is in the space of a single candidate.
Vote counting is done in public. Anyone can watch, but must remain silent.
First the President takes an inventory of the leftover supplies, stamps each as "left over" and records the counts on the Accounting form. The president then hands the sealed ballot box to the Examiner who opens it and extracts a vote.
The examiner qualifies the vote as valid, null, or blank and indicates to which party (if valid) it belongs. It is shown to the members of the Mesa, then passed to the President, who ratifies it. The secretary records it on the appropriate tally sheet with a tick mark for the party, null, or blank.
The president sorts ballots into piles by party, null, or blank, then gives each pile to the Secretary who seals them in plastic bags and puts them back in the voting place briefcase. Once all the votes are counted, the Secretary fills out the vote count section for each candidate as well as tallying the number of citizens, and Mesa members, who voted. This, along with the annotation of the number of blank ballots received, plus those left over, finalizes the form. The numbers are then transferred to the Closing Tally form which is signed by the Mesa members.
Getting the vote tallies to the TSE in Tegucigalpa has been a point of potential weakness in the whole process. In 2009, the tallies were read over cell phones, and entered into the computer in Tegucigalpa based on the phoned-in counts. The results were, to be charitable, incredibly inaccurate.
This year, the TSE is trying a new approach, used successfully in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Completed Closing Forms for president, congress, and the municipal election will be scanned, and sent to the TSE either through a wired internet connection or through a wireless modem across the cell phone network.
500 voting centers lack electricity or an internet connection, so those votes will not be counted until opened more than a week later in Tegucigalpa.
In addition to scanning and transmitting the Closing Form, each custodian will print out a copy for the representative of each political party, and for any member of the Mesa that desires a copy. Once sent, the original Closing Form will be stamped by the custodian with a stamp indicating it has been transmitted (all copies will be stamped).
The president of the Mesa will then aggregate all the oficial forms into an envelope to close out the polling place. All papers will be returned to the briefcase, sealed for return to the TSE.
In the past, the TSE then recounted every ballot box, and entered the data into a new computer file. The TSE has said it will not announce results the night of the election, only "trends". Meanwhile, Hagamos Democracía, an NGO that produced exit polling that was more accurate than the TSE in 2009, will be operating again this year.
A fairly fragile system for such a consequential election.
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While visiting an automobile assembly plant, I came to an area in which cars often were turned around. They were backed into a small space that had no apparent ventilation and then driven out again.
I asked my guide, who was in charge of plant safety, about the possible excess carbon monoxide (CO) in that area. He informed me he had taken readings for CO in the area numerous times and had never found a measurable quantity.
I was sure there was an excessive amount of CO at the location and requested he sample for CO while I was there. He assured me there was no CO, but got out his equipment to take another sample.
The equipment consisted of sealed glass tubes containing a chemical that would change color if any CO was in the air drawn through the tubes by a calibrated squeeze bulb. He put a tube in its bracket, connected the tube to the bulb, and squeezed the bulb the recommended number of times.
After disconnecting the tube from the bulb, he showed me the tube and explained that the chemical's color did not change. Therefore, as he had said, there could not be any CO in the area. I looked closely at the tube and then asked if he had broken off its ends before connecting it to the squeeze bulb. He seemed surprised at my question.
“Am I supposed to?” he asked.
The moral of this story: Be sure a person is trained and understands how to use an instrument before you accept his or her findings.
Kenneth E. Robinson, CIH
Send “war stories” of 400 or fewer words to the attention of Scott Arnold, executive editor, at email@example.com. Authors are paid $50 per published war story.
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A Brief History Of Women In Combat
Traditions break down fast during times of war, and history is full of examples where women assumed dramatic new roles that never would have been possible in times of peace.
As this photo gallery shows, the pressing demands of World War II led many countries to call on women to bolster their armed forces, in jobs ranging from nurse to front-line soldier.
Hundreds of thousands of American women served in the U.S. military during that war, and U.S. women were allowed to fly military aircraft for the first time. Some countries desperate for fighters, like the Soviet Union, put women in combat roles.
When wars end, old rules can often return. The U.S. Congress mandated in 1948 that women should be limited to 2 percent of the force. Women have managed to steadily expand their role in the military since then, and they now make up 15 percent of the military.
But they were barred from combat positions until Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Thursday that he was ending that policy.
The U.S. has plenty of examples to learn from. Many European countries, along with Canada and Israel, have permitted women in combat roles for years, citing gender equality. Some Communist countries have also turned to female soldiers for reasons of ideology or propaganda.
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Camus' Stance On Algeria Still Stokes Debate In France
A hundred years after his birth, French writer-philosopher Albert Camus is perhaps best-remembered for novels like The Stranger and The Plague, and for his philosophy of absurdism.
But it's another aspect of his intellectual body of work that's under scrutiny as France marks the Camus centennial: his views about his native Algeria.
Camus was born on Nov. 7, 1913, to a poor family that had settled generations earlier in French Algeria. His father died a year after his birth, and Camus' illiterate and deaf mother, who worked as a cleaning lady, raised him. His brilliance would deliver him from that world of poverty.
Camus is regarded as a giant of French literature. But according to Smithsonian contributor Joshua Hammer, it's Camus' North African birthplace that permeated his thoughts and shaped his writing.
"His two greatest novels, The Stranger and The Plague, were both set there, in Oran and Algiers. He wrote incredible lyrical essays about his life there," Hammer says. "So he's extraordinarily Algerian ... down to the core."
But Algeria has never reciprocated that love, says Hammer, who recently traced the writer's roots there. That's because Camus' French Algeria, much like apartheid South Africa, was divided into two worlds: an Arab world and the world of the pieds-noirs, or black feet, the name given to the million-plus Europeans who lived there.
"He represents an Algeria that essentially is banished from the map, an Algeria of the pieds-noirs. So this was the world that Camus knew. It was a very segregated society, he really didn't know the Arab world," Hammer says. "So that's what you saw reflected in his work."
During World War II, Camus joined the French Resistance against the Nazis and published an underground newspaper. It was his novel The Stranger, published in 1942, that brought him instant international acclaim. In 1947 came The Plague, a novel seen as a classic of existentialism.
In 1957, at the age of 43, Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature.
But it's Camus' politics, not his philosophy, that still makes waves in France. Though he hailed from the left, today he's embraced by conservatives. In the 1950s, Camus fell out with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and the Paris left bank literary scene after he denounced communism.
Camus' stance on the Algerian war infuriated both the left and right at the time. He supported Arab aspirations for political rights, but he couldn't imagine an independent Algeria.
The topic remains sensitive in France, where 1 million pieds-noirs fled after the war ended in 1962. One Camus exhibit was canceled and two historians fired, reportedly to appease the sensitivities of the local pieds-noirs community.
Biographer Elizabeth Hawes says Camus was always more simple, seen from the U.S.
"Americans in general don't know anything about Algeria and they know very little about French intellectual politics. And so Camus was always just sort of a hero," Hawes says. "There was a lot of the mythic to Camus. He was great looking, and he was heroic, and there was the resistance, he was the outsider."
Camus' life was cut tragically short at the height of his career in a car accident in 1960. He was only 46. France is still grappling with his legacy.
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When Rahm Emanuel assumed office as Mayor of Chicago, he inherited very tough challenges — heavier than the politics-as-usual passing of the baton from one administration to the next. He inherited a legacy of violence that had been generations in the making. That legacy can make the violence seem intractable, but it isn’t.
(MORE: Read this week’s TIME Magazine cover story “Chicago Bull,” available to subscribers here)
I grew up in Chicago, but I spent much of my professional career working to control epidemics in Africa and Asia for the World Health Organization and others. When I returned home in 1995, I saw violence in Chicago spreading in the exact same patterns as diseases like tuberculosis and HIV. At the time, people used the term “violence epidemic” as a metaphor, but I and others saw parallels that could be scientifically documented. Maps and graphs that chart the spread of violence look almost identical to those that chart infectious diseases with maps showing clusters and graphs showing waves upon wave. Properties of transmission, though just as invisible as microbial counterparts, can be witnessed spreading from one individual to another, one community to the next.
It has taken years of investigation to validate these observations. For example, brain research tells us that brain cortical patterns are involved in copying behavior, and that damage to the limbic system can occur by victimization. These are some of the ways in which the contagion occurs. Some of these effects can make someone lose their temper quickly and respond to a situation aggressively. They turn yesterday’s victim or witness into tomorrow’s aggressor.
The good news is once we recognize violence as a contagious process, we can treat it accordingly, using the same methods that successfully contain other epidemic processes – interrupting transmission, and behavior and normative change. Cure Violence and its partners have been putting this public health approach to violence into practice in Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and more than 15 cities and 8 countries by putting specially selected workers into communities to interrupt violence and encourage behavior change through outreach. Research conducted by the U.S. Justice Department, Centers for Disease Control, Johns Hopkins University and others have credited this approach with dramatically reducing shootings and killings in neighborhoods where violence had been epidemic. The Institutes of Medicine —the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences — and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have recognized the importance of using this public health model to prevent the spread of violence.
Mayor Emanuel comes from a family of doctors. He understands health very well and he values the role that the public health sector — working alongside law enforcement — can play in reducing shootings and killings, not just to help individuals but to reduce violence across an entire community. He also wants results. And we’re beginning to see them.
Woodlawn is one of the communities hit hardest by violence last year. It is also one of the communities where Mayor Emanuel invested in a comprehensive anti-violence strategy that includes law enforcement and public health. We have already seen a 100 percent reduction in homicides there this year. Based on data from the Chicago Police Department from January to April 2013, there has been a 40 percent reduction in shootings and killings across the 14 communities where both law enforcement and public health strategies are being used. Every shooting that does not happen helps to create a new legacy for Chicago and for every community that is plagued by violence. Perceptions are hard to change. But we can save lives. And because we can, we must.
Gary Slutkin is a physician and founder and executive director of Cure Violence. The views expressed are solely his own.
Click here to read editor-at-large David Von Drehle’s full magazine story on Chicago and Mayor Rahm Emanuel available exclusively for TIME subscribers.
Not a subscriber? Subscribe now or purchase a digital access pass.
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What is IIE’s Higher Education Readiness (HER) program?
The Institute of International Education’s Higher Education Readiness program (HER) provides young women in secondary school from underserved communities with a pathway to university. A new three-year pilot project in Ethiopia, HER will provide 100 girls entering the 11th grade with scholarship support combined with innovative leadership and life skills training to help them complete their secondary education and equip them with the tools needed to continue on to university.
Why are pathways to university in Ethiopia needed?
- 32.4% of girls in Ethiopia enroll in 9th grade (i.e. first cycle).
- Only 3.5% of these girls continue to 11th grade (i.e. second cycle) which is the pathway to advance to university.
- An even smaller percentage of those girls that graduate from secondary school go on to university. This has a profound impact for workforce development and for the economic advancement of the society as a whole.
How will HER make an impact?
Experts agree that educating girls and women is critical to economic development. According to a World Bank report on Girls Education in the 21st Century (2.1 MB, PDF), educating girls is one of the most cost-effective ways of spurring development, and it correlates positively with increased economic productivity, more robust labor markets, higher earnings, and improved family and societal health and well-being, a major component of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA) goals.
What is IIE’s commitment?
The Institute of International Education is committed to expanding access to higher education globally.
Learn more about the program goals
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Scientists have discovered an unexpected fact about bird flu: It might be a sexually-transmitted disease, at least in ducks. And, just as unexpectedly, the key to transmission may be all about penis size and vagina "complexity."
New Scientist reports on new research carried out by a team at Budapest's Eötvös Loránd University, which crossreferenced the love lives of ducks with outbreaks of bird flu, and found something surprising:
When the researchers compared data on the prevalence of low-pathogenic bird flu strains in different duck species with what is known about the anatomy of duck reproductive parts and mating behaviour, they found that ducks with the smallest penises and tamest sex lives had the highest flu levels.
"This is intriguing and a bit counter-intuitive because a long phallus prolongs copulation, and forced copulations characteristic to species with a large phallus should further promote virus transfer," says [head researcher Gergely] Hegyi.
The reason behind this may come from the evolutionary process of female ducks, according to Hegyi:
Long and elaborate vaginas may hinder unwanted fertilisation but may also make it difficult for viruses acquired during copulation to reach the site of egg formation.
With this new information known, two new questions arise: Will this help scientists track the progress of avian flu, and perhaps more immediately, how quickly will someone come up with a joke about birdfucking?
First evidence that bird flu is spread sexually [New Scientist]
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- Posted July 18, 2011 by
Alarming find: No sea life off FL panhandle seafloor
During scuba assessments on July 12th 2011, the Florida panhandle shallow seafloor sediment shows signs of widespread presence of dispersed oil.
A team of research divers scoured the Florida panhandle looking for signs of BP oil. What they did find was a desolate seafloor, with few signs of life. The sand should be tan or white and look like a desert floor with ripples and ridges of tan sand.
Marine life should be attracted to the disturbance of bottom sediments, with small fish darting into the cloud of silt and crabs scurrying away to bury themselves in hiding. Rays and starfish should be abundant. What they filmed was a scene of dark desolate bottom sediment where dark sediment ejected from the animal burrows sat in piles of contrasting colors caused by contamination from the BP oil spill.
The environmental consultant who has been researching the DWH disaster for the past year was alarmed by the lack of living things in the northwest Florida waters. Another was shocked by the absence of bait fish during the 6 dives. As the dives progressed from east to west, the sediment conditions deteriorated considerably.
The sediment samples have been sent to a certified lab for chemical analysis and results will be back within a month. That's when we will know definitely what is lurking off the shores of the Florida panhandle.
In the meantime, ask your local representatives why BP isn't doing this kind of research to assure that the children and animals along the Gulf of Mexico are safe.
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Submitted by Abby Nelson
There’s hardly a phrase more confusing in nanny lingo than that of “light housekeeping,” yet it’s a phrase that is widely and consistently used in job descriptions and work agreements all of the time.
In the nanny world, light housekeeping typically means leaving the home in the same condition it was in when the nanny arrived. If there were no dishes in the sink in the morning when the parents left for work, there should be no dishes in the sink when they return home. If a nanny arrived in the morning and the floors were sparkling clean, and then she and her charge tracked in mud after playing outside, it would be reasonable and expected for her to clean up the mess and restore the floor to its original morning condition prior to the end of her workday.
In addition to childcare, nannies are also generally responsible for undertaking all tasks related to providing care for the children. While each job will vary slightly, depending on the family’s needs and if a housekeeper is also employed, most nanny jobs require that the nanny do the same household tasks as they relate to providing childcare.
Nannies typically: do the children’s laundry, launder the children’s linens, keep the children’s areas neat and tidy, sanitize and disinfect toys, sterilize and clean bottles, prepare nutritious meals and snacks for the children, pick up after activities and arts and crafts, pick up after themselves and the children, keep the family provided vehicle clean, organize the children’s toys, and organize the children’s closets.
Some nannies may also take on additional household related tasks. They may do the children’s grocery and clothes shopping, as well as purchase the supplies needed to properly stock the nursery. In some cases, nannies may also be responsible for ordering age-appropriate supplies, toys, and arts and crafts, depending on the arrangement that was made.
Nannies typically do not: do the parent’s laundry, clean the bathrooms, mop the floors, dust the furniture, or prepare family meals regularly.
In each family and nanny work arrangement, light housekeeping should be clearly defined. It’s what is in the contract that will dictate what the family’s housekeeping expectations are and what the nanny’s housekeeping responsibilities are. Instead of, or in addition to, using the term “light housekeeping” an employer’s definition of what light housekeeping means should be defined.
Many nannies do agree to take on additional non-childcare related housekeeping tasks. They may do this because the children spend mornings in school or they simply enjoy cleaning and would gladly take on the housekeeping tasks in exchange for increased compensation. If your nanny agrees to take on additional housekeeping tasks, she should be provided additional compensation for them and allowed adequate time to complete them when childcare is not her responsibility. For these nannies/housekeepers, it should be stressed that when the children are in her care, childcare should be her main responsibility.
Often times a nanny will go above and beyond the call of duty simply out of practicality. If a nanny is doing the dishes from lunch and her employer left a knife and dish in the sink after breakfast, for example, she’s likely going to wash them too, rather than simply leave them sitting there in the sink. If a nanny is preparing one of her favorite homemade pasta recipes for the children’s dinner, she may make enough for the entire family, since it’s easier than tweaking the recipe for smaller portions.
When these random acts of kindness become expected by employers through, resentment and relationship problems in the nanny relationship can occur. Light housekeeping is going to mean different things to different people. Clearly articulating the duties and responsibilities that meet an employer’s definition of light housekeeping will help to prevent job creep and miscommunication over housekeeping related expectations.
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This year's shark week just ended, but why not dredge up another cool shark story? Marine biologists from Stanford University found an unlikely surfer to help them track the migration routes of Great White Sharks: the Wave Glider robot. What will those brainy Stanford Trees think of next?!
The Stanford team had been tracking Great Whites for 12 years, and had tagged a number of the big fish to map their migratory routes between Northern California, Hawaii, and Northern Mexico. They recently integrated the latest communication technology into their study to provide realtime data updates.
The Wave Gliders are like other shark tag receivers in that they pick up and record signals from the tags when they come within 1,500 feet. But that's where the similarities end. The sleek robot-mariner can also follow the sharks somewhat more stealthily than a boat full of babbling humans.
To reach out to the shark fearing non-academic population, Stanford's marine biologists have created an iPhone app that will tell users where Great Whites are most likely hanging out. This sounds great for swimmers and surfers, but hopefully this won't fan people's natural terror of the ocean's greatest predator into hysteria. Shark numbers are dropping off worldwide, mostly because of the increasingly illegal practice of finning.
Having been a beach guy all of my life (except for the current Colorado bit), I always figured they're out there, swimming around in their ocean. I'd rather not know where they are, but am glad scientists do.
Photo credit: Liquid Robotics
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Are dietary patterns in childhood associated with IQ at 8 years of age? A population-based cohort study
- 1School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
- 2Department of Oral and Dental Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
- 3Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
- 4Brain & Body Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
- 5Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- Correspondence to Dr Kate Northstone, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK:
- Accepted 21 December 2010
- Published Online First 7 February 2011
Background Little is known about the effects of overall diet in childhood and intelligence later in life.
Methods The current study, based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, uses data on children's diet reported by parents in food-frequency questionnaires at 3, 4, 7 and 8.5 years of age. Dietary patterns were identified using principal-components analysis and scores computed at each age. IQ was assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at 8.5 years. Data on a number of confounders were collected, and complete data were available for 3966 children.
Results After adjustment, the ‘processed’ (high fat and sugar content) pattern of diet at 3 years of age was negatively associated with IQ assessed at 8.5 years of age—a 1 SD increase in dietary pattern score was associated with a 1.67 point decrease in IQ (95% CI −2.34 to −1.00; p<0.0001). The ‘health-conscious’ (salad, rice, pasta, fish, fruit) pattern at 8.5 years was positively associated with IQ: a 1 SD increase in pattern score led to a 1.20 point increase in IQ (95% CI 0.52 to 1.88; p=0.001).
Conclusion There is evidence that a poor diet associated with high fat, sugar and processed food content in early childhood may be associated with small reductions in IQ in later childhood, while a healthy diet, associated with high intakes of nutrient rich foods described at about the time of IQ assessment may be associated with small increases in IQ.
Funding The UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the University of Bristol currently provide core support for ALSPAC.
Competing interests None
Ethics approval Ethics approval was provided by the ALSPAC Law and Ethics committee and the three local research-ethics committees.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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Thursday, October 11, 2012
Did Jesus Ever Mention The Rapture?
A. While Jesus gave us a few hints about the rapture, He never taught openly about it and I don’t think we would have seen His hints if we didn’t already know about the rapture from Paul’s teaching. In 1 Thes. 1:10 Paul made the first direct mention of the rapture, following up with more detail in 1 Thes. 4:16-17 and 1 Cor 15:51-52. These letters were written about 20 years after the cross.
One of the Lord’s hints was in the reference to the days of Noah and Lot in Luke 17:26-29. After speaking of of the days of Noah where the faithful were preserved through the judgment, He then brought up the days of Lot where the judgment could not come until Lot was first taken away from the time and place of its occurrence (Genesis 19:15-22). In these two examples He was saying that some (Israel) would be preserved through the end times judgments while others (the Church) would be removed from the time and place before they begin.
Another hint came in John 11:25-26. Speaking of the last days, Jesus told Martha that believers who die will live again and those who are alive will never die. In other words there would be one generation of believers who would not die but would go straight from this life into the next one. With hindsight we can tell He was speaking of the rapture because those who survive the end times judgments and go live into the Millennial Kingdom will still be in their natural states and will eventually die. Only those taken in the rapture will never die.
But as I said, if you didn’t already know about the rapture from Paul’s teaching you probably wouldn’t see these hints. After Paul revealed the rapture, Jesus confirmed it in His letter to the Church in Philadelphia, saying, “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth” (Rev. 3:10) The Greek word translated from in this verse means we’ll be kept out of the place, time, or cause of the hour of trial.
Joh 11: 23-27, KJV
23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: (*The first resurrection for the dead in Christ before the rapture)
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (*The rapture of the church)
27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
UNDERSTANDING IN MATT 24 :
THE ONE IN MATT 24: 26-31, IS ABOUT JESUS SECOND COMING/ HIS JUDGMENT AT SECOND COMING NOT ABOUT THE RAPTURE . IN THESE VERSES IN MATT 24 TALK ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS, END TIMES SIGNS, SECOND COMING/ GOD'S JUDGMENT AT SECOND COMING AND THE RAPTURE;
Matt 24:26-31, KJV
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. (*JESUS IS IN THE SECRET CHAMBERS (HEAVEN) WITH HIS BRIDE , THE RAPTURED CHURCH DURING 7 YRS TRIBULATION)
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. (*MANY THE DEAD BODIES BOTH MEN AND ANIMALS, DURING THE 7 YRS TRIBULATION AND BY THE END OF TRIBULATION AND WHERE THE EAGLES EAT OR TAKE IT)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: (*AFTER THE TRIBULATION FOR 7 YRS IS OVER)
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (JESUS WILL GATHER HIS ELECTS, THE ELECTS ARE THE SAVED PEOPLE WHO SURVIVE DURING 7 YRS TRIBULATION PERIOD, Surviving believers will be received into the Kingdom to help re-populate the EARTH while unbelievers will be sent away for judgment.)
Taken left in Matt 24 is about the Rapture.. although it does not tell the word rapture. Verses 37-42 is about THE RAPTURE, YOU SHOULD READ THE WORD OF GOD IN CONTEXT, DO NOT TAKE IT OUT OF THE CONTEXT, LET'S READ IN THE WHOLE CONTEXT ,
Matt 24:37-42, KJV
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (THE DAYS OF NOAH IS RIGHT NOW, NOT DURING THE TRIBULATION PERIOD WHEN PEOPLE DRINKING, EATING AND MARRYING)
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.(**THE FLOOD, GOD'S WRATH'S COMING, WHEN< THE TIME IS JUST LIKE THE DAYS OF NOAH)
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH)
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH)
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.(YOU CANNOT KNOW THE EXACTLY THE DAY AND THE HOUR DURING THIS PRESENT TIME, IF THE RAPTURE HAPPENS DURING THE TRIBULATION PERIOD OR AT THE END OF THE TRIBULATION, WE KNOW THE TIME ALREADY, 3 1/2 YRS AFTER THE TRIBULATION STARTS (MID TRIB) AND 7 YRS LATER AFTER THE TRIBULATION STARTS (POST TRIB)
When we looked at Matthew 24 and the subject was the rapture and Israel. Matthew 24 is the greatest prophetic word from Jesus himself in all the Bible. This is the greatest statement. The parallel gospel to this is Luke chapter 21. So both in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 Jesus gave us his lesson on Bible prophecy. Now, he went on in Matthew and gave us Matthew 25. He also has Matthew 25, additional things to say about prophecy. Matthew 24 is considered to be the greatest word Jesus said about prophecy. So I believe the best way to understand Matthew 24 is not chronologically because we get lost when we try to understand it chronologically. There are and it will be had many events happening and it doesn't seem that they fit chronologically. The best way to understand it is how these events affect different periods of time, different people groups on the earth. So if we look at it like that it seems like the first part of it is a general word speaking to the gentile nations. Part one we looked at Jesus= words to the gentile nations about the end of the world. For the second part we began last week looking at Jesus= words to Israel about the end of the world.
These Bible passages clearly talking about the rapture, before the tribulation period starts :
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; (**the rapture happens on normal , usual day, not during tribulation for 7 yrs)
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
32 Remember Lot's wife.
33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. (**rapture event,, people will be raptured and the others will be left behind)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (**rapture event,, people will be raptured and the others will be left behind)
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.(**rapture event,, people will be raptured and the others will be left behind)
Matt 24:37-44, KJV
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, (**the rapture happens on normal , usual day, not during tribulation for 7 yrs, many places in this world during the tribulation are already destroyed, majority people cannot afford to buy food, even partying, there will be famine and dead people and animals everywhere, if the rapture happens then, it does not make any sense with these verses)
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (**rapture event,, people will be raptured and the others will be left behind)
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (**rapture event,, people will be raptured and the others will be left behind)
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. (**The only one of the rapture that we cannot know the day and the hour is pre trib rapture, while the mid and post trib rapture, people can guess the time of the rapture, mid trib rapture , the rapture will happen 3 1/2 yrs later, post trib rapture the rapture will happen 7 yrs after the tribulation period starts)
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
THE DECISION YOU CAN MAKE RIGHT NOW, BE READY FOR THE RAPTURE OR FACING/ ENDURING GOD'S WRATH/ THE DAY OF THE LORD/ JACOB TROUBLE/ 7 YRS TRIBULATION IF YOU ARE LEFT BEHIND :
Isa 13: 6-13, KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand;
it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and
sorrows shall t
ake hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
Zeph 2:1-3, KJV
1Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired;
2 Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger come upon you.
3 Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.
Psalm 27:5, KJV
For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
Isa 26:17-21, KJV
17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord.
18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
Rev 3:10-11, KJV
10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
UNFORTUNATELY MANY CHRISTIANS (I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT NON CHRISTIANS) WHO HATE THE RAPTURE, THEY DON'T LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT THAT, EVEN ATTACKING, SCOFFING AND MOCKING THE RAPTURE (PRE TRIB RAPTURE ) , IN THE REALITY IT'S CRYSTAL CLEAR THE BIBLE MENTIONS ABOUT THE CHURCH (BORN AGAIN BELIEVERS/ THE HOLY SPIRIT FILLED CHRISTIANS) WON'T BE HERE ON EARTH DURING 7 YRS TRIBULATION !
2 Peter 3: 3-9, KJV
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
It is very clear in Rev 3:10
Rev 3:10 KJV
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
Stephens 1550 Textus Receptus
hoti eteresas ton logon tes upomones mou kago se tereso ek tes oras tou peirasmou tes mellouses ercesthai epi tes oikoumenes oles peirasai tous katoikountas epi tes ges
Rev 3:10 GNT
ὅτι ἐτήρησας τὸν λόγον τῆς ὑπομονῆς μου, κἀγώ σε τηρήσω ἐκ τῆς ὥρας τοῦ πειρασμοῦ τῆς μελλούσης ἔρχεσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης ὅλης, πειράσαι τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
Thayer's Greek Definition :
ἐκ / ἐξ
ek / ex
1) out of, from, by, away from
Part of Speech: preposition.
ἐκ as preposition had been use hundred of times as the meaning of out of.
Mat 2:15 KJV
And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.
Stephens 1550 Textus Receptus
kai en ekei eos tes teleutes erodou ina plerothe to rethen upo tou kuriou dia tou prophetou legontos ex aiguptou ekalesa ton uion mou
Mat 2:15 HNT
καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἕως τῆς τελευτῆς ῾Ηρῴδου, ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος· ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου.
Mat 7:5 KJV
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of [ἐκ] thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Mat 15:19 KJV
For out of [ἐξ] the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Mat 27:53 KJV
And came out of [ἐκ] the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Rev 3:16 KJV
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of [ἐκ] my mouth.
If Lord Jesus says Rev 3:10
Rev 3:10 KJV
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from [ἐκ] the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
It means the true Christians will be out of 7 years Tribulation.
We know some guys who are carrying Post Tribulation teaching or don't believe the rapture at all, and truly he does not understand what the word ἐκ means in Rev 3:10.
More info :
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Wash Your Hands Often
Hand washing is one of the most effective ways to reduce your risk of getting a cold or the flu. Wash your hands often, especially when you come in contact with someone who is sick. Even if someone in your house has the flu, you can reduce your risk of getting sick by washing your hands.
Effective ways to prevent respiratory infections include:
- Washing your hands thoroughly (15-20 seconds) with soap and water
- Avoiding hand-to-hand passage of germs and droplet sprays from sneezing and coughing
- Using alcohol-based hand gels when washing is not possible
Wear a Face Mask
If you have to be in close contact with a sick person, wear a face mask or a disposable respirator. Wearing a face mask and washing your hands can help to reduce your risk of getting the flu.
Do Not Share Items
Do not share drinks or personal items.
Keep Your Hands Away From Your Face
Do not bite your nails or put your hands near your eyes, mouth, or nose.
Avoid Crowds During Influenza Season
This may not be a very practical suggestion for everyone. However, if you are at high risk of catching a cold or influenza or are at risk for developing complications from these infections, try to avoid crowded areas or people who are obviously sick during the flu season.
Get a Flu Vaccine
Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) tries to determine which strains of the influenza virus will be most dangerous in the upcoming influenza season. Vaccines are developed for these strains. Flu vaccines are available and recommended for most people aged 6 months and older.
There is a vaccine against the avian flu , but it is not available to the general public.
The seasonal flu vaccine has been associated with fewer hospitalizations and deaths from influenza or pneumonia among the elderly living in a community. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that anyone aged 6 months and older should get a yearly flu vaccine. Children 6 months to 8 years of age will need 2 doses of the vaccine to help build immunity to the virus.
There are two types of seasonal flu vaccines:
- Flu shot—This is for people aged 6 months and older. The shot is made from an inactivated, killed virus. It is given by injection, usually into the arm.
- Nasal spray flu vaccine—This is approved for healthy people aged 2-49 years who are not pregnant. It is made from live, weakened flu viruses. It is the preferred vaccine for healthy children who are 2 to 8 years of age.
A possible side effect is a mild "flu-like" reaction, including fever, aches, and fatigue. Up to 5% of people experience these symptoms after getting the seasonal influenza vaccine.
Flu vaccines are available at doctors' offices, hospitals, local public health offices, and at some workplaces, stores, and shopping malls.
Most people do not need to take antiviral medicines. But, you may want to talk to your doctor about taking these medicines to lower your risk of getting the flu if you:
- Are exposed to the flu, and
- Are at high risk of having complications
If you have the flu and live with someone who is at risk for complications (for example, elderly, babies, someone with cancer), that person may need to take antiviral medicines to prevent getting the flu from you. Remember that these medicines are not a substitute for getting vaccinated. Vaccination is still the best way to prevent the flu.
There are a number of alternative treatments that have been studied as potential ways to prevent colds and the flu. Some that may have protective benefits include:
- Zinc —Taking a daily zinc supplement may reduce your risk of getting sick.
- Andrographis (also called "Indian echinacea")—This herb may increase your resistance to colds.
- Vitamin C —A daily dose of this vitamin may also help you to stay healthy.
While echinacea is often labeled as a "cold fighter," the overall evidence is not very strong to support this herb's preventive effects.
Remember to talk to your doctor before taking any herbs or supplements. They can interact with other medicines you are taking or worsen a condition that you have.
- Reviewer: David L. Horn, MD, FACP
- Review Date: 09/2014 -
- Update Date: 09/17/2014 -
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Dr. McCreery is an associate director of audiology and staff scientist at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, NE.
“How much does s/he wear the hearing aid each day?” This is the question I used to ask parents of their infants or young children who were deaf or hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid.
Table. Asking parent...Image Tools
“All the time.”
“Whenever s/he is awake.”
“From morning until bedtime.”
These were the most common replies. I was quite content with them, since full-time hearing aid use was our goal. Until recently, it was rare for me to probe further into the issue. Then several important developments changed my perspective and forced me to think about new ways to support parents and caregivers and to encourage consistent hearing aid use.
Figure. Ryan McCreer...Image Tools
The first major development was the widespread availability of data-logging systems in hearing aids. In addition to tracking other interesting pieces of information, many hearing aids calculate the average amount of time they're used each day, a metric that can be monitored through the manufacturer's programming software.
Oftentimes, parent or caregiver reports of hearing aid use in our clinic were consistent with the information collected by the hearing aid data logging. In other cases, however, there was a large disparity between the two, with parents or caregivers reporting full-time use and data logging suggesting only limited use. We know that hearing aids provide critical access to the acoustic cues needed to promote speech and language development, and we would repeatedly convey this fact to parents during counseling sessions and hearing aid appointments.
Two recent research studies have helped redefine our expectations for hearing aid use in children and shed light on the factors that can influence how much these young patients wear the devices.
Work by Jones and Launer, for example, suggested that approximately 40 percent of children used their hearing aids for four hours or less per day (paper presented at: A Sound Foundation Through Early Amplification; Nov. 8-10, 2010; Chicago). This figure is based on data from 5,000 children with hearing loss. The number of hours of hearing aid use increased with age, which is consistent with clinical experience; compared with older children, getting infants and toddlers to keep their hearing aids in their ears is more of a challenge. However, clinicians would likely raise concerns if their pediatric patients were using their hearing aids for four hours or less per day.
A study by Walker and colleagues found reasonable agreement between parent reports and data logging, with the former exceeding the latter by an average of two hours (Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch 2013;44:73-88). However, when parents reported 12 hours of daily use, the data-logging value ranged from two to 15 hours. This variability indicates that while many parents are reliable reporters of their children's hearing aid use, others may be reporting what they think the audiologist wants to hear. Both studies suggest that there may be a significant gap between clinician and parent expectations of hearing aid use in children.
FOCUS ON SPECIFIC SITUATIONS
How can audiologists more accurately estimate hearing aid use and encourage parents and caregivers to support consistent wear without becoming the data-logging police?
The first step is to build rapport and provide support for parents and caregivers by setting realistic expectations. While full-time use should always be our ultimate goal, we should start by acknowledging the difficulty of promoting hearing aid wear in children. This acknowledgement can spark conversations about these challenges and strategies to address them.
Data logging should be clearly presented to parents and families as a way to help monitor the function and effectiveness of hearing aids. Parents may express concerns about privacy; however, a demonstration of the type of information that is available from the system can assure them that the data is aggregated over many hours of use and that the information received by the hearing aid is not being recorded. The option to disable data logging should be provided if there are persistent concerns. Additionally, a discussion of the differences between parent report and data logging should be handled carefully, as the validity of specific data-logging systems has not been established.
Changing the questions we ask parents and caregivers about hearing aid use can help better reveal successes and challenges. Moeller and colleagues (Am J Audiol 2009;18:14-23) asked parents about hearing aid use in different listening situations, such as while the child is having a meal, riding in the car, or playing. Identifying situations where hearing aid use is successful and confirming situations that are more challenging is an alternative to simply asking about the amount of hearing aid use (see the table on page 16). This approach allows clinicians to highlight the importance of using hearing aids during highly communicative situations, such as when reading a book with the child, and to work with parents to develop strategies for facilitating hearing aid use in the difficult situations. Importantly, addressing specific situations gives the clinician an opportunity to emphasize the positive steps parents and caregivers have made toward achieving consistent hearing aid use.
The best-fit hearing aid is not beneficial if the child never uses it. Discussing the particular listening situations where hearing aid use is successful and most challenging can be much more informative than simply asking how much time the child is able to wear the device.
© 2013 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.
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Ethnomusicologymusic in its cultural context, cultural musicology. It can be considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd Titon has called it the study of "people making music". It is often thought of as a study of non-Western musics, but often includes the study of Western music from an anthropological perspective.
While musicology contends to be purely about music itself (almost always western classical music), ethnomusicologists are often interested in putting the music they study into a wider cultural context. Ethnomusicology as it emerged in the late 19th century and early 20th century, practiced by people such as Vinko Zganec, Franjo Ksaver, Carl Stumpf, Erich von Hornbostel, Curt Sachs and Alexander J. Ellis, tended to focus on non-European music of an oral tradition, but in more recent years the field has expanded to embrace all musical styles from all parts of the world.
Ethnomusicologists apply theory and methods from cultural anthropology as well as other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. People who have done well known ethnomusicological work have sometimes been previously trained as anthropologists studying many other aspects of a society as well as their music. A well known example of such a study is Colin Turnbull's study of the Mbuti pygmies. Another example is Jaime de Angulo, a linguist who ended up learning much about the music of the Indians of Northern California (see ). Yet another is Anthony Seeger, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studied the music and society of the Suya people in Mato Grosso, Brazil (see ).
Three important centers for ethnomusicological study are the Universities of California at Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Indiana University, Bloomington,Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research at University of Zagreb, Croatia.
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There is a crucial difference between the Obama administration’s phone call data-mining program, which is constitutional under current law, and the Bush administration’s NSA Surveillance Program, which was clearly unconstitutional. Unlike Obama program, which is limited to obtaining information about phone calls made and received from telephone companies, the Bush program authorized the government to wiretap private phone conversations. From a constitutional perspective, the difference is critical, and it is unfortunate that President Obama has not done a better job of explaining the distinction, and why his administration’s program does not violate the constitutional “right of privacy.”
The Fourth Amendment provides that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” The Supreme Court has held that, at least presumptively, a search is “unreasonable” unless it is based on probable cause and a judicial warrant.
It would therefore seem that it violates the Fourth Amendment for the government to collect phone call records from phone companies without first obtaining a judicial warrant based on a finding that there is probable cause to believe that the individual whose call records the government want to examine has committed a crime. This would be true, for example, if the government wanted to open that individual’s mail or search his home or wiretap his phone calls, so why isn’t it true in this situation as well?
The puzzle turns on the meaning of the word “search.” The Fourth Amendment does not protect a general right of privacy, but only a right not to have the government unreasonably search an individual’s person, house, papers, or effects. But what is a “search”?
The Supreme Court first confronted the meaning of “search” in its 1928 decision inOlmstead v. United States. In that case, the Court held that a wiretap of a phone call was not a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment because it did not involve a physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected place. The Court explained that that what the Framers meant by a “search” was a physical intrusion into an individual’s pocket, briefcase, home or envelope. A wiretap, which is effectedwithout entering the suspect’s home, is therefore not a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Thus, the government could constitutionally wiretap phone calls without either probable cause or a warrant as long as it did not physically enter the target’s home or business.
This remained the law until 1967, when the Supreme Court, in Katz v. United States, overruled Olmstead and held that the use of a bugging device by the police on theoutside of a public telephone booth to overhear a phone call within the booth was nonetheless a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
More articles from The Daily Beast:
- Supreme Court Decision on DOMA and New Portrait Have Barney Frank Smiling
- The Ageist Attack on Hillary
- Obama's Shift Toward Communitarianism
© 2013 Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
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From Australia to Spain, Ireland to America, and as recent as 1987, young mothers say they were “coerced”, “manipulated”, and “duped” into handing over their babies for adoption. These women say sometimes their parents forged consent documents, but more often they say these forced adoptions were coordinated by the people their families trusted most…priests, nuns, social workers, nurses or doctors.
Last month, a Dan Rather Reports producer and crew were in Canberra, Australia as Parliament released the findings of an 18-month-long investigation revealing illegal and unethical tactics used to convince young, unmarried mothers to surrender their babies to adoptive homes from the late 1940s to the 1980s.
In some cases, mothers in Australia were drugged and forced to sign papers relinquishing custody. In others, women were told their children had died. Single mothers also did not have access to the financial support given to widows or abandoned wives, and many were told by doctors, nurses, and social workers that they were unfit to raise a child.
Two weeks ago, a prominent Canadian law firm announced that it would file a class-action lawsuit against Quebec’s Catholic Church accusing the Church of kidnapping, fraud and coercion to force unwed mothers to give up their children for adoption.
Since October, Dan Rather Reports has contacted nearly 100 alleged victims, social workers, researchers, lawyers and authors from around the world to shine a bright light on the issue of forced adoptions. We have interviewed numerous women in the U.S. who told us that they were sent to maternity homes, denied contact with their families and friends, forced to endure labor with purposely painful procedures and return home without their babies. Single, American mothers were also denied financial support and told that their children would be better off without them.
Source: Yahoo News
Image: Bangkok Post
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Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder marked by chronic, exaggerated worrying and anxiety about everyday life. The worry is so severe that it interferes with a person's ability to live his or her life.
GAD may be caused by:
- An abnormal neurotransmitter system
- Environmental factors
- Developmental factors
- Psychological factors
GAD is nearly twice as common in women than in men. Other factors that may increase your chance of GAD include:
- Family members with an anxiety disorder
- Increase in stress
- Exposure to physical or emotional trauma
- Unemployment, poverty
- Drug abuse
- Medical condition or disability
- History of self-harm as a teenager, with or without suicidal intent
Symptoms of GAD usually develop slowly. People with GAD often have both psychological and physical symptoms of anxiety.
Psychological symptoms include:
- Excessive ongoing worrying and tension
- Feeling tense or edgy
- Irritability, overly stressed
- Difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness
Physical symptoms may include:
- Muscle tension
- Difficulty sleeping
- Shortness of breath
- Heart palpitations
- Chest pain
- Choking sensation
- Abdominal discomfort
- Numbness or tingling
People with GAD often have other anxiety disorders, depression, and/or substance use disorders.
You will be asked about your symptoms and medical history. A physical and psychiatric exam will be done. Conditions with similar symptoms will be evaluated. Blood and urine tests may be done.
You will be asked about any medications that you are taking, including over-the-counter products, herbs, and supplements. Some medications can cause side effects similar to the symptoms of GAD. You will also be asked about any other substances that you may be using such as nicotine, caffeine, illegal drugs, prescription medications, and alcohol.
To make a diagnosis of GAD, symptoms must:
- Be present more days than not
- Be present for at least 6 months
- Interfere with your life such as causing you to miss work or school
You may be referred to a psychotherapist for further evaluation.
If you have a mild form of GAD, your doctor will probably first have you try therapy to learn to manage anxious thoughts.
Lifestyle changes may include:
Relaxation techniques may be helpful in reducing anxiety. These may include:
- Have a strong support system of family and friends
- Consider family therapy to help with understanding and coping skills
- Join a support group
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
During cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), your therapist will work with you to change your patterns of thinking. This will allow you to notice how you react to situations that cause anxiety. You will then learn to change your thinking so you can react differently. This can decrease the symptoms of anxiety.
Behavioral and Relaxation Therapy
Your therapist will teach you relaxation techniques, including deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and visualization. Learning ways to relax can help you gain control over anxiety. Instead of reacting with worry and tension, you can learn to remain calm. Your therapist may also slowly expose you to the situations that cause worry and tension. This can allow you to reduce your anxiety in a safe environment.
Biofeedback works by attaching sensors to the body. A therapist helps you understand your body’s signals so you can use them to reduce your anxiety.
Medication can be prescribed for symptoms that are severe and make it difficult to function. Medications can help relieve symptoms so you can concentrate on getting better. It is important to note that many medications cannot be stopped quickly but need to be tapered off. Check with your doctor before discontinuing any medication.
Medications may include:
- Antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of these medications. Some types may cause dependence.
- Reviewer: Adrian Preda, MD
- Review Date: 12/2015 -
- Update Date: 01/26/2016 -
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It's such a simple operation, you'd think everyone already knows how to copy, cut, and paste. But my father has asked me how to do this several times, and chances are you probably get asked simple questions like this all the time.
To help you in your tech support role and new computer users young and old learn the basics, we'll be offering (easy-to-email) instructions each week on simple tech concepts. Today: how to copy, cut, and paste. (This one's for you, Dad!)
First, another FAQ: What's the difference between copying and cutting?
You can think of it like an actual piece of paper, for example a letter. When you photocopy the letter, it creates a duplicate and the original stays intact. Cutting a block of text out of the letter, on the other hand, removes that portion from the letter.
On your computer, when you copy a file, image, text or other item, it creates a duplicate of that item in your computer's temporary memory.
Cutting an item will remove it from the page or folder and hold it in memory, as above.
You can almost always copy (duplicate) something, like a phrase on a web page, but cutting is only possible if you have editing or administrative control of the item. For example, you can't cut phrases out of web pages you visit in your browser (imagine what the web would look like if everyone could!). There are exceptions, like editable websites like Wikipedia, but that's because you have editing control on that site.
Once you've copied or pasted something into memory, you can then paste it into another document, file, or folder. Here's how.
Highlight or Select What You Want to Copy or Cut
First, select the item you want to copy or cut:
- If it's a file in a folder that you want to copy (to duplicate) or cut (to move) into another folder, click on the file to select it. To select multiple files at once, hold down the Control (CTRL) key (on Windows) or the Command key (on older Macs, it's the Apple logo; on newer Macs, it's this curly-do: ⌘) while clicking the other files.
- For images, right-click on the image, then click on "Copy" or "Copy Image" depending on the application.
- If you want to copy some text, highlight it by clicking just before the first letter you want to copy, hold down the mouse button while dragging your mouse to the right, and then releasing after you have selected your text.
Tip: In some applications, like Thunderbird, you can select all the text and images by right-clicking and choosing "Select All".
Copying/Cutting and Pasting: The Point-and-Click Method
Next, in many applications, you'll see at the top of the application window, "Edit" right next to "File". Click Edit to reveal the drop down menu and select Copy or Cut, depending on what you want to do and if cutting is an option.
Note: Depending on your operating system and the application you might not have that Edit menu. It's there on Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac, for example, but not on Microsoft Word 2007 and up for Windows. Starting with Office 2003, the classic menu has been replaced with a ribbon bar, so in those programs, you'll see instead icons to click on for cutting (scissors), copying (two documents), and pasting (clipboard) instead. (You can get back the classic menu in Office 2007 with an add-in, if you like.)
Okay, now that we've selected the item and copied/cut it into memory, we can paste it somewhere else. In your new document or folder, go back to Edit and select Paste. Alternately, if you don't have that Edit menu (e.g., in Windows Explorer), right-click in the document or folder and select Paste.
A Faster Method: Keyboard Shortcuts
Copying, cutting and pasting with your mouse is pretty straightforward, but using keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of time.
Select your items to copy or cut as above. To select all items on a page or folder, you can use the CTRL+A or Command + A shortcut: hold down the CTRL button (on Windows) or Command key (on Mac) then hit the A key.
Then hit these keys together to copy, cut, and paste them:
Windows: Hold down the CTRL key then click
- C to copy
- X to cut
- V to paste
Mac: Hold down the Command key (⌘). Then, as with Windows, click:
- C to copy
- X to cut
- V to paste
The Drag-and-Drop Method
You can also use your mouse to quickly drag and drop your selected text, image or file from one application to another. For example, you can have two Windows Explorer windows open side by side and drag a file from one to the other to copy it over.
- Select the item as in the first step.
- Press and hold down your mouse button to "grab" it.
- Then move your mouse to the other window and release the button.
Note: Pay attention to the icon or prompt when you hover your mouse over the new window/location: it should tell you whether the item will be copied (duplicated) or cut (moved). When dragging and dropping text, from one Word document to another, for example, this will copy the text over. When dragging and dropping files in WIndows Explorer or Mac's Finder, this will move the file.
Once you get the hang of dragging and dropping or hitting CTRL + C, CTRL + X, and CTRL + V (or the Command counterparts), you'll be copying, cutting, and pasting like a pro.
Emailable Tech Support is a tri-weekly series of easy-to-share guides for the less tech savvy people in your life. Got a beginner tech support question you constantly answer? Let us know at firstname.lastname@example.org. Remember, when you're just starting out computing, there's very little that's too basic to learn.
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I am really sweet on strawberries this year. I’ve been tucking them in practically all of my pots and enjoying the tasty rewards for over a month now. Which has led to a problem of abundance. What do I do with the one or two plants left in a six pack that I have no room for in my larger pots?
I found this basket at the dollar store. By lining it with moss and filling the basket with potting soil (and fertilizer!), it has become a great strawberry pot for less than $5. I’ve snuck in several of these small pots around my larger pots to fulfill my need for more strawberries!
Strawberries prefer a well drained soil, high in organic matter. They need full sun (at least 6 hours per day) for the best results. Fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (like 5-5-5) once at the beginning of the season, and again after each crop is produced. Don’t over fertilize, as that will cause your plants to produce too many leaves and not enough fruit. Keep plants well watered
Some things to know about Strawberries
- There are three main kinds of strawberries: June-bearing, ever-bearing, and day-neutral. June-bearing produce one large crop in early summer, ever-bearing strawberries produce three crops (one in spring, one in summer, and one in fall), while day-neutral strawberries produce fruit throughout the growing season, with the biggest crops in mid to late summer.
- June bearing strawberries are usually better suited to the warmer climates, while ever-bearing and day-neautral strawberries do well in cooler climates.
- Alpine strawberries are the only sort that are worth trying to grow from seed. They’re day-neutral and produce tiny, sweet, delicious strawberries.
- You can treat strawberries as an annual and replace them every year, or as a short lived perennial (they usually will only produce reliable crops for about three years).
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Kathleen Florence Lynn was born in 1874 in Co. Mayo. She was a political activist, supporter of the women’s suffrage movement, and an accomplished doctor.
Dr. Lynn was one of the first women to graduate in medicine from the Royal University of Ireland and she was the first female resident at the Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin. Sill, these qualifications didn’t protect her from discrimination because “she was not a man.”
Dr. Lynn joined the ranks of the Citizen Army and was Chief Medical Officer during the 1916 Easter Rising. When her Commanding Officer was shot, she, as next highest-ranking officer, was promoted to Captain. She was imprisoned for her role in the uprising.
While working with Dublin’s inner city poor, she realized the need to provide adequate medical and educational care for mothers and infants. At that time 164 out of every 1000 babies born in Dublin died from preventable diseases. In 1919 Dr. Lynn helped establish Saint Ultan’s Hospital ‘for the medical treatment of infants under one year of age.’ She thumbed her nose at the hospitals who had turned her down in the past by insisting that St. Ultan’s be staffed and managed entirely by women. During her time there she pioneered use of the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis more than a decade before it went into general use in Ireland.
Dr. Lynn devoted her “spare” time to children, too. She served as Vice President of Save the German Children, an organization that found homes in Ireland for evacuated children during the Second World War. It’s impossible to say how many children’s lives she helped to save during her career. And of course, she had no children of her own.
Dr. Lynn was definitely her own woman. It is reported that she turned down the use of the hospital’s chauffeur and enormous car, preferring to make her own way through the world by bicycle.
In acknowledgement of the role she played in the 1916 Rising and the Irish War of Independence, Dr. Kathleen Lynn was buried in 1955 with full military honors
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|This document is available in: English Castellano Deutsch Francais Nederlands Russian Turkce|
by Guido Socher
About the author:
Guido is a long time Linux fan. He likes Linux not only because of it's good technical quality but also because of the people and the community behind Linux.
This article explains how you can configure a number of
different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under Linux and how to
easily change between them.
The concept that we use is not only valid for a configuration with one PC and one Internet connection but you can use it to give the whole family Internet access at the same time. To achieve this we configure a DNS proxy (DNS forwarding) and IP masquerading under Linux.
Internet access has recently become very easy. Most ISPs do not ask anymore for monthly fees and long term contracts. If an ISP has technical problems or provides bad service, then you just take the next one. In Germany we call this "Internet by Call" and it goes even one step further. You don't register or sign any paper. You just pay via your normal phone bill. Note, this is different from free Internet. Free Internet is usually the state of the ISP before going bankrupt and often linked to bad data throughput. In case of "Internet by Call" you do pay, sometimes quite high fees but can get good bandwidth. No matter how the details are in your country, this article will explain how to quickly change the ISP and use different dialup Internet connections at different times.
The type of Internet access we cover in this article is a dialup point-to-point (PPP) connection from your PC to your ISP. Under Linux a program called pppd is used to setup this connection. pppd is a very good software and very flexible but unfortunately the documentation that comes with pppd has only examples with rather ancient and very special cases for authentication and login to your ISP. Using those examples to set up a connection to most modern ISPs will generally fail. Most ISPs use these days
With Linux and IP
masquerading it is very easy to connect not just one computer but
a whole pool, a whole network of computers, via one PPP link to your
ISP. To do this you need at least one Linux machine and any number of
other computers. This looks then as follows:
If you use such an IP masquerading Linux gateway and you use different ISPs then you have generally 2 problems:
All of pppd's configuration files are normally in /etc/ppp and generally you need to start pppd as root. During the installation and first tests you should be logged in as user root. Later on I will show you how anybody can start and stop the pppd. It is not good if you are always logged in as root. The user root has very little restrictions and can easily destroy your configuration by mistake.
The important files for pppd are:
cd /etc mv ppp ppp_old tar zxvf ppp.tar.gzAfter unpacking you will see that there are more files included in ppp.tar.gz. Those are additional wrapper scripts to make the setup and configuration easier. Their purpose is explained further down. (Note: there are some prices mentioned in the configuration files for the example providers. They may be wrong. Check the home page of that ISP to get accurate information.)
Let's have a look at the configuration file for one ISP called arcor:
# This is /etc/ppp/peers/arcor
# Home page of the ISP arcor: http://www.arcor-online.de/
# serial device and modem speed (normally 38400 or 57600):
# modem dial-out script with phone number:
connect '/etc/ppp/scripts/ppp-on-dialer-pap 0192070'
# specific options, common options are
# read from /etc/ppp/options
# tell pppd to use this users name for PAP authentication:
# try dynamic dns:
cd /dev ln -s ttyS0 modem57600 is the modem speed and depends on your modem hardware. The line that starts with "connect" specifies a script (/etc/ppp/scripts/ppp-on-dialer-pap) to handle the communication with your modem via AT commands. Those AT commands are a ASCII based command language for modems. The parameter given to the script (0192070) is the phone number to dial.
So far we have defined the phone number (0192070, in this example) the
modem speed, the serial line to use and a few configuration options of
pppd. I will not discuss the common configuration options from
/etc/ppp/options here. You can take a look a the example file and
look them up in the man page of pppd.
Instead we will now dial into our ISP (arcor). To do this we need 2 more
things (this a working example for readers in Germany) :
login name: arcor
This information needs to be entered into the file /etc/ppp/pap-secrets and the login name goes as well into the /etc/ppp/peers/arcor file (see above). Add a line that looks as follows to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets:
# This is /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
# client server secret IP-addr
arcor * internet 0.0.0.0
That's it. Now we can test this. To dial out type:
pppd call arcorarcor is in this case the name of the configuration file in /etc/ppp/peers/
killall pppdI hope this example worked for you. It should definitely work as shown here for readers in Germany. People from other countries should of course adapt phone number, login and password to their ISP. If it did not work then have a look at the trouble shooting section at the end of this article.
Now you have 1 working ISP. To add others you need to do the following:
At this point you know roughly how the underlying mechanisms work. Next we will use a few scripts to make it easier to use. In particular we will introduce two Set-UID perl scripts which will make it possible to start and stop your Internet connection when you are logged in as any normal user (not user root).
Set-UID is a mechanism that allows a normal user to execute a specific
command and that command will act as if the owner of that command would
have executed it. Obviously this needs to be designed with care in order
to not create a security problem. The Set-UID perl scripts are already
included in the ppp.tar.gz that you have unpacked above. They should have
"s" in the file permissions and belong to user root:
> cd /etc/ppp/scripts
> ls -al ppp-on ppp-off
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 1258 Jan 7 13:24 ppp-off
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 2619 Jan 9 20:30 ppp-on
If they do not have those permissions then you can change them with the command
chmod 6755 ppp-off ppp-on.
The ppp-off ppp-on scripts are just wrapper scripts. All they do is run pppd call some-config-file or killall pppd. The advantage is that any user can now use them. The ppp-on script has as well some special handling for ISPs that do not use automatic DNS configuration. If you happen to have such an ISP then edit the file and search for "static". There are examples in there which you can modify. You use those ppp-on/ppp-off scripts as follows:
To go online: /etc/ppp/scripts/ppp-on arcor To terminate the Internet connection: /etc/ppp/scripts/ppp-offThis should now work for any user on your computer. arcor is again the name of a file in /etc/ppp/peers/. You may have given it a different name.
Finally we will use a graphical user interface to start and stop
our Internet connection. A cgi-program is a program that
generates interactive web-pages. A well designed cgi-program
works with any browser and any operating system. That's why we use
a cgi-program. It will look like this:
The pppcontrol cgi-script reads a configuration file called /etc/ppp/gpppwrap.conf this has the following syntax:
|ppponarg: <agument_to_pass_to_ppp_on> - some additional comment string|
# This is /etc/ppp/gpppwrap.conf ppponarg: arcor -- arcor.net 3pf/min ppponarg: talknet -- internet by call 3.5pf/minNote: the prices 3pf/min and 3.5pf/min may have changed and may be wrong by the time you read this.
This was perhaps a lot of new information to you but once you have it
up and running you will only need to add/delete from time to time an ISP
and that is really easy as you have seen above.
You can now conveniently select an ISP form the list on the web-page and dial out by just clicking on a button on that web-page.
To install dnrd from the sources you need to:
unapck it: tar zxvf dnrd-2.10.tar.gz cd dnrd-2.10/src/ compile it: make strip dnrd install it: cp dnrd /usr/local/sbin/ create the empty directory /etc/dnrd/ : mkdir /etc/dnrd/The DNS proxy dnrd is used as follows (18.104.22.168 and 22.214.171.124 are e.g the DNS servers of your ISP):
when the ppp-link becomes active: dnrd -s 126.96.36.199 -s 188.8.131.52 when you terminate the connection you run: dnrddnrd is started in our case from the /etc/ppp/ip-up and /etc/ppp/ip-down scripts and it is all automatic. The scripts you have downloaded above are already prepared for that and expect dnrd in the directory /usr/local/sbin/.
dnrd can do much more than that. It can even be a small DNS server
of it's own. Under Unix you can always write in the /etc/host.conf file
order hosts, bind
and then give all your machines in your small local network symbolic names in the file /etc/hosts . Unfortunately the stupid Windows machines in your network do not have that possibility. If dnrd finds a /etc/hosts file on your Linux PC then it will automatically act as a DNS server for the entries mentioned in that file. This solves the problem!
The syntax of the /etc/hosts file is as shown here:
# ip-addr hostname alias1 alias2 ...
192.168.0.1 linuxpc.mynet linuxpc
192.168.0.2 peppermint.mynet pepper mint
To use dnrd not only as a DNS proxy but also as a DNS server for the entries in /etc/hosts you should start it already at boot time. To do this you need to add the line
daemon /usr/local/sbin/dnrdat the end of the start section in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/network boot script (This syntax is for redhat, mandrake etc... your distribution may differ).
# This is /etc/resolv.conf when dnrd is running nameserver 127.0.0.1The advantage is that you are now using the internal cache of dnrd on all the hosts and not only on the ones inside your network.
>nslookup Default Server: localhost Address: 127.0.0.1 >pepper Server: localhost Address: 127.0.0.1 Non-authoritative answer: Name: peppermint.mynet Address: 192.168.0.2Terminate nslookup by typing crtl-d.
In this section I will explain how to activate debuging output for pppd. It will help you to figure out what is wrong if it does not work. Unfortunately I found out that it was not always a configuration fault on my side when it did not work.
The first thing that pppd does in our case is to open the serial port (/dev/modem, a link to e.g /dev/ttyS0) in order to run the script /etc/ppp/scripts/ppp-on-dialer-pap. This script will send AT commands to the modem. Those commands make the modem dial to your ISP. If anything goes wrong there then you can find errors in the file /etc/ppp/connect-errors. Most of the time the connect-errors file will give you enough hints to figure out what is wrong. Should this not be the case then you can type the AT commands manually. To do that you need a serial line communication program like minicom (part of most Linux distributions), or cu (usually part of a package called uucp) or kermit (get it from http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ck70.html). Use this serial line communication program to "talk" to your modem. When you type AT, then the modem should say "OK". If not, check the speed settings, the power cable etc... In case it said OK, then try the command ATDT1234 The modem should dial now 1234. If not, check the manual of your modem. The command could as well be ATD1234 (with out T) or some other setting is wrong.
After the modem has dialed to your ISP the next step is the ppp-negotiation phase. To watch what is going on there you must enable to syslog facility daemon.debug in /etc/syslog.conf. Edit the file /etc/syslog.conf and add ";daemon.debug" to the line that ends in /var/log/messages . E.g like this:
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;daemon.debug /var/log/messagesNext restart syslog with the command
tail -f /var/log/messagesand watch pppd debug output while connecting to your ISP.
A successful ppp connection setup would look like this:
Jan 14 17:18:11 bearix pppd: pppd 2.3.10 started by root, uid 0
Jan 14 17:18:34 bearix pppd: Serial connection established.
Jan 14 17:18:34 bearix pppd: Using interface ppp0
Jan 14 17:18:34 bearix pppd: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/modem
Jan 14 17:18:35 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:37 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x46
Jan 14 17:18:37 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfNak id=0x46
Jan 14 17:18:38 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x47
Jan 14 17:18:38 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x47
Jan 14 17:18:38 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:38 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:38 bearix pppd: sent [PAP AuthReq id=0x1 user="arcor" password="internet"]
Jan 14 17:18:40 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x49
Jan 14 17:18:40 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x2
Jan 14 17:18:40 bearix pppd: sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x49
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x2
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [CHAP Challenge id=0x5 <0c7672840494152025f937ac4f5e135e>, name = "klndiinternet"]
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [CHAP Response id=0x5
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [CHAP Success id=0x5 ""]
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [CCP ConfReq id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [IPCP ConfReq id=0x8e
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [IPCP ConfAck id=0x8e
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x1
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [LCP ProtRej id=0xfb 80 fd 01 01 00 0f 1a 04 78 00 18 04 78 00 15 03 2f]
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [IPCP ConfNak id=0x2
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x3
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: rcvd [IPCP ConfAck id=0x3
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: local IP address 184.108.40.206
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: remote IP address 220.127.116.11
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: primary DNS address 18.104.22.168
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: secondary DNS address 22.214.171.124
Jan 14 17:18:41 bearix pppd: Script /etc/ppp/ip-up started (pid 723)
Jan 14 17:18:42 bearix pppd: Script /etc/ppp/ip-up finished (pid 723), status = 0x0
It is impossible to describe every error case here first of all because I don't know your setup and second because there are simply too many things that could go wrong. With a little bit of creativity and the things in mind that you have learned in this article you should be able find most faults. If you really can not get it to work and it does not look like a fault on your side then just try a different ISP. It could very well be a problem at the ISP.
Webpages maintained by the LinuxFocus Editor team
© Guido Socher, FDL
Click here to report a fault or send a comment to LinuxFocus
2001-04-27, generated by lfparser version 2.13
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History class puts current events on the map
Teachers tap into student interest in news headlines, comparing the Iraqi standoff to prior instances of conflict
For seventh-graders in Michael Yell's world history class, Desert Storm might seem as ancient as the land of Mesopotamia.
They, after all, were born in the year of the conflict. But with a new confrontation brewing with Iraq, Mr. Yell says the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is drawing new interest from students at his Hudson, Wisc., middle school. So a lesson about ancient Mesopotamia begins with a discussion of modern-day Iraq.
It's just one way social-studies teachers are adjusting their classes to incorporate the Iraqi conflict. Whatever the grade level or geographic focus, current events are giving many routine history classes more relevance. As a result, just as after the Sept. 11 attacks, teachers are searching for ways to teach students without heightening their fears.
"They really want kids to understand both the immediacy of this and the long-term American interests, and how this fits in with actions other countries may take," says Merry Merryfield, a professor at The Ohio State University in Columbus, who instructs social-studies teachers.
In some courses, the conflict may be used to illustrate concepts already in the curriculum. US history classes, for example might compare President Bush's new foreign policy approach with the Monroe Doctrine. A civics-class discussion about Congress's power to declare war has a new urgency.
Students in Deborah Twyman's civics and government class in North Kansas City, Mo., compared the Iraqi standoff to prior instances of conflict, including the Cuban missile crisis and President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
The question that recurs, says Ms. Twyman, is whether the US has the right to take preemptive military action. "One student asked, 'Isn't it like punishing me for being late tomorrow when I haven't been late yet?' " Twyman says.
Other teachers are using the situation to organize entire courses that address international conflicts.
In Raytown, Mo., for example, Lorelei Hays's course on global conflicts will culminate in a Middle East summit in which students will assume the roles of envoys from countries including the US and Iraq.
Each team of four students is researching its country's demographics, religion, and military while studying different options for ending conflicts, such as third-party resolution and appeasement.
If conflict breaks out before the summit begins, that will be incorporated into the simulation, Ms. Hays says. She notes that her situation brings even more immediacy to wartime decisionmaking for students: Her husband was sent overseas with the military for 10 months after Sept. 11.
Similarly, Sandy Crawford's world crises course at the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts is focused on Iraq as well as the war on terror. Ms. Crawford plans to discuss Iraq's history back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Saddam Hussein's emergence, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Gulf War. Crawford also will address the challenges of nation-building how well it's worked so far in Afghanistan and what might happen in Iraq under a new regime.
"My interest is in helping kids understand the Iraqi situation in historical and geopolitical perspective," Crawford says. "They'll have the ability to weigh our policy options in a pretty complete way."
Even in courses focused on ancient history, teachers say they are setting aside more time for current events. "It's something that seems to be forgotten," says Carl Schwaber, a social-studies teacher at Derby Academy in Hingham, Mass. "When we talk about things going on in the news, a lot of them don't have the history and basic tenets of society right close at hand," Mr. Schwaber says. In between units on Assyria or Persia, his ninth-grade ancient- civilizations students spend a few days discussing current events.
Schwaber also connects the ancient and modern Middle East by having students identify the current countries associated with lands on an ancient map of the region.
"Kids figure out and retain where those borders are today," Schwaber says.
The demands of keeping up with state-mandated curriculums make it difficult to veer off the established course for too long. And some teachers are wary about possibly increasing fear in students already shaken by the Sept. 11 attacks and the first recession by devoting whole class periods to speculation about what might happen next.
"If we dwell on what could be, it becomes a very fearful thing for our kids," says Michelle Karofil, social-studies coordinator in Raytown. Instead, Ms. Karofil says they use current events to reinforce what's already being taught.
If military action begins, many teachers say they'll devote more class time to the conflict. During the 1991 Gulf War, for example, Twyman put a human face on the conflict by having students correspond with alumni involved in the military action.
That war, in fact, may have had a lasting impact on social-studies teachers. Over the past decade, Professor Merryfield has found that teachers are better informed about the Middle East and more interested in including non-American perspectives.
And the Internet and e-mail allow for faster access to a broad range of primary sources and viewpoints. Merryfield says students in Columbus, Ohio, social-studies classes exchange e-mails with students in the Middle East and read local newspapers from Egypt and Turkey.
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How to keep New York afloat
With sea levels rising, once-a-century floods may become once-in-20-years events. One solution: huge storm-surge barriers.
Like many New Yorkers, Radley Horton often frets about tomorrow's weather. Unlike many, it's his job. A scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and coauthor of a forthcoming study on the effects of climate change in New York City, he is particularly concerned about an often-overlooked aspect of global warming: bigger, stronger storms.
"It's not a linear relationship," he says on a subway ride to Manhattan's South Ferry station, which would be mostly underwater in a Category 2 hurricane. "A little bit warmer sea surface equals the potential for a lot stronger storm." And feeding off the greater ocean warmth, full-blown hurricanes may arrive at New York City with increasing regularity.
By 2050, stronger storms and rising sea levels may make the flood that previously hit once every 100 years a once-in-20-years event, according to GISS. With a possible three-foot sea level rise by 2100, flooding could occur every four years. "Our old ideas about climate may have to change," he says. "We need to be open to all possibilities."
Even as high-profile politicians like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Gov. George Pataki pledge to reduce their states' carbon "footprint," cities like New York and London – and entire countries like the Netherlands – are moving to adapt to long-term climate change.
With slogans like, "Why should you worry about a hurricane? It's not like you live on an island" and a tripling of storm shelters since Katrina, New York City's Office of Emergency Management has prepared for at least some of the short-term possibilities.
But even before Katrina, the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which manages the city's freshwater supply and wastewater – 13,000 miles of pipe, total – formed a task force with GISS to look at the long-term effects of climate change.
Among other things, the DEP was concerned by the damage storm surges might inflict on a city surrounded by water. Although city officials declined to discuss concrete solutions for this article saying they were still in the "assessment" phase, scientists foresee potential fixes ranging from raising key infrastructure and building dikes, to flood gates and temporary seals over tunnel entrances. One group proposes raisable flood barriers large enough to protect all of Manhattan Island.
Sea levels have risen almost a foot in the past century, partly because of ice melt and thermal expansion (warmer water has more volume), and partly because of naturally occurring land subsidence of the Northeast. In the same period, area temperatures have risen nearly 2 degrees F. About two-thirds of that increase occurred in the past 30 years and sea-level rise has accelerated in the past decade. "The core body of knowledge has solidified" on climate change, says Cynthia Rosenzweig, the lead GISS scientist on the climate-change task force. "We're moving into a solution phase."
But possible solutions – and how to pay for them – are still "big question marks," says Gary Heath, director of bureau operations and environmental analysis at the DEP. Although antiflooding technologies are basic and well established, implementing them in a city as old and crowded as New York is no simple task.
Elevating roads, for example, sends more runoff into subway grates. Water pumped out of subway tunnels – already some 14 million gallons daily – goes into sewer systems that might be overtaxed by rainwater. "You solve one problem and you create another," says Madan Naik, chief structural engineer of New York City Transit. "It's got to be a collaborative effort, whatever we do."
Much of this city of 8 million, the largest and most densely populated major city in the US, is only 10 feet above sea level. The potential 30-foot storm surge accompanying a Category 3 hurricane would flood large swaths of south Brooklyn, parts of Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan below Canal Street, including the World Trade Center site – 100 square miles total. As happened during a 1992 northeaster, floodwater might pour into the city's tunnels and subway system, many of whose entrances are but 10 feet above sea level, short-circuiting public transportation and stopping traffic. The city's wastewater treatment plants – all 14 of which lie at the water's edge and have outfalls at mean tide level – could back up, sending raw sewage into basements and bathrooms citywide.
Klaus Jacob, a special research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, estimates the cost of such an event up to $100 billion. That's one-tenth of the $1 trillion gross regional product of the New York metropolitan area, embracing three states and 22 million people. (Some estimate that Katrina will cost Louisiana and Mississippi up to $150 billion.)
Rather than individually shoring up the city's many vulnerabilities, the better solution is to use the region's topography, say engineer Douglas Hill and Malcolm Bowman, head of the Storm Surge Research Group at Stony Brook University. Three barriers placed at strategic "choke points" – the Verrazano Narrows, Throgs Neck, and the Arthur Kill – would protect all of Manhattan and half the entire flood-prone area, they say.
Similar smaller barriers already protect Providence, R.I., New Bedford, Mass., and Stamford, Conn. Completed at a cost of £535 million in 1982 ($2.1 billion in today's dollars), the Thames River Barrier, about the size of the one proposed for the Arthur Kill, has been raised more than 90 times. Italy plans to finish its MOSE project, a series of inflatable pontoons to protect the Venice Lagoon, by 2011.
And then there's the Netherlands: Half the nation is below sea level. Its colossal Eastern Scheldt barrier, nearly two miles long and often called the "eighth wonder of the world," most resembles the one proposed for the mile-wide Verrazano Narrows.
Human nature being what it is, Mr. Bowman doesn't see construction beginning any time soon. Without exception, the aforementioned barriers were built after – not before – major floods. The British and Dutch barriers were built after a 1953 North Sea storm caused major loss of life in both countries. The New England barriers rose after the "Long Island Express" hurricane of 1938.
In fact, in the 1960s the Army Corps of Engineers proposed something similar to block storm surges from Lake Pontchartrain, which abuts New Orleans. Never built, the barriers "might have made enough of a difference" during hurricane Katrina, says Bruce Swiren, a mitigation specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The disaster has led him to reconsider Bowman's idea. "I used to think that it was a complete pie in the sky," he says. "After Katrina, I'm starting to think maybe it's not such a crazy idea after all."
But Klaus Jacob, author of several papers on New York's vulnerability to flooding, opposes such large-scale solutions not on engineering but on philosophical grounds. They lend an "illusion of protection" that will only prove catastrophic in the end, he says. "The higher the defenses, the deeper the floods that will follow," he says.
Commonsensical preparations such as raising houses; putting electrical infrastructure in the attic, not the basement; and formulating clear contingency plans will go much further. In the end, however, Jacob sees only one viable, long-term option: Retreat from low-lying areas.
"That's the lesson learned," he says, the "price to be paid for pumping CO2 into the atmosphere."
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Kenya is experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent years. Northern Kenya is particularly affected and the government has declared the drought in this region a national disaster. The poor March to May 2011 long rains, coming successively after the failed October to December 2010, have greatly undermined the food security situation in the country. Up to 3.5 million people are affected by the drought and their plight has been worsened by high food prices resulting from both local and global factors. A mid-season assessment of the March to May long rains indicated a dismal performance of the rains and it is projected that up to 3.5 million people will need food assistance from August, a 1.1 million increase from the current 2.4 million. The actual number will be determined by the July long rains assessment, the results of which are expected in August.
The number of severely malnourished children admitted to hospital has increased by 78 percent this year compared to last year. Malnutrition rates among children below the age of five years have risen dramatically with reports of up to 37 percent in some northern districts -- more than double the emergency threshold of 15 percent. The most affected districts are Turkana, Moyale, Isiolo, Wajir, Mandera and Marsabit. WFP is providing supplementary food assistance to about 80,000 children and pregnant and nursing mothers. To curb the increase in the rate of malnutrition in northern Kenya, WFP is strengthening the supplementary food assistance safety net by linking it to general food distribution to ensure that the supplementary food is used to address malnutrition among those affected. In addition, WFP plans to give blanket supplementary food assistance to all children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating mothers in the six most affected districts in northern Kenya.
Dadaab refugee camp in north-eastern Kenya continues to receive large influxes of refugees mainly from Somalia with about 30,000 new arrivals in June alone. Kenya currently has about 447,000 refugees with Dadaab hosting about 368,000 and Kakuma in north-western Kenya about 79,000. Most of the refugees arriving in Dadaab have high malnutrition rates, having walked long distances with little or no food and water. WFP is providing the new arrivals with a 15-day ration of food at reception centres as they await registration after which they are included in the regular food register for refugees. WFP also provides refugees with supplementary food assistance for malnourished children, pregnant and nursing mothers, in addition to a mid-morning meal for all primary and pre-primary school children and a take home ration for girls.
School meals remain an important safety net for many communities. WFP is providing school meals for 670,500 pre-primary and primary school children in arid and semi arid areas and in the slums in Nairobi. The Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Education is also feeding 610,000 of school children through the Home Grown School Feeding programme.
WFP is gradually scaling down short term interventions in favour of recovery activities such as food-for-assets (FFA) and Seasonal Cash for Assets (SCFA) through which WFP, in collaboration with the government, is developing appropriate skills to enable communities to improve their resilience and adaptation to climate change in addition to encouraging them to invest in their future. About 830,000 people are benefitting under these projects. In addition, WFP is providing a market for small-scale farmers under the purchase for progress (P4P) programme. WFP, working with partners, also builds the capacity of the small-scale farmers in WFP procurement modalities, warehouse management, quality assurance and record keeping.
Kenya is a low-income food-deficit country with a GDP per capita of about US$759 (2009 World Bank) and a Gross National Income (GNI) of USD 1628 (2010 UNDP). The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report ranked Kenya among the “low human development” countries of the world, placing it 128th out of 169countries.
WFP operations in Kenya support the Government's efforts in implementing all eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
As the food assistance arm of the United Nations, WFP uses its food resources to meet emergency needs as well as to support economic and social development. WFP's mission is to save lives in emergency situations, improve the nutrition and quality of life of the most vulnerable - particularly children, pregnant women and nursing mothers - and help build assets to promote self-reliance in poor communities.
As it transitions from drought relief into recovery activities, WFP is expanding its food-for-assets (FFA) and cash–for-assets (CFA) projects which are designed to promote food security. These activities focus on rainwater harvesting for human and livestock use, soil and water conservation, rehabilitation of degraded agricultural land and the production of drought-tolerant crops. The assets and the development of appropriate skills enable communities to improve their resilience in the face of climate change and encourage them to invest in a sustainable future. In 2012, some 950,000 people will benefit from these projects, about half of them through food distributions and half through cash. Read more… http://www.wfp.org/food-assets http://www.wfp.org/cash-and-vouchers.
Purchase for Progress (P4P) is a pilot programme through which WFP is using its purchasing power to promote agricultural market development and improve market access to small holder farmers. WFP is improving the capacity of smallholder farmers to engage in agricultural markets and find secure outlets for their produce. Capacity building involves post-harvest handling, market information systems and access to storage facilities. In implementing P4P, WFP works closely with the Ministry of Agriculture as well as with partners at district level to increase production and quality, and to encourage farmers to grow drought-tolerant crops. Learn more
WFP Kenya has been assisting refugees in Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps since 1991 when the first camp was set up. Currently, nearly 550,000 refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma are receiving regular food assistance from WFP. In the early months of this year, Kakuma refugee camp started receiving an increase in the number of refugees, most of them from South Sudan.
While nutrition levels have improved considerably in Kenya’s northern districts, malnutrition rates in some areas are still higher than the World Health Organisation’s 15 per cent emergency threshold. Some 20 per cent to 50 per cent of children under five years of age in these districts are at risk of malnutrition.
To prevent worsening malnutrition, WFP is providing nutrition support through targeted supplementary feeding programmes for 100,000 moderately malnourished children under the age of five years and pregnant and nursing mothers in other districts in pastoral areas of northern Kenya. Moderately malnourished children are receiving Plumpy’Sup, a nutrient-fortified, ready-to-eat food supplement while pregnant and nursing mothers receive Super Cereal, a highly nutritious blended food that is fortified with extra protein and essential micro-nutrients.
To curb malnutrition in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, WFP is providing Super Cereal plus to some 85,000 children in a blanket supplementary feeding programme. Children who are moderately malnourished are receiving Plumpy’Sup through a targeted supplementary feeding programme at health posts in the refugee camps.
In recognition of the vital role played by nutrition in the management of HIV/AIDS, WFP provides food and nutritional support for affected households which are vulnerable. Currently, 78,000 people are supported under the project in Nairobi as well as in Coast, Western, Nyanza and the Rift Valley provinces.
WFP is providing school meals to about 630,000 million school children in Kenya. These are the most vulnerable children living in arid and semi-arid lands, semi-arid coastal districts and the slums of Nairobi. WFP provides a mid-morning meal for all primary and pre-primary school children at the refugee camps and a take-home ration for girls to encourage their enrolment and attendance. In the semi-arid regions of the country, the Ministry of Education is in chage of feeding another 650,000 school children through the national Home Grown School Feeding programme. These schools previously fell under the WFP programme but have been taken over by the Government under the terms of a gradual hand-over policy. In this regard, WFP is helping build Government capacity in a number of areas such as procurement, and monitoring and evaluation, to ensure a smooth transition.
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