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General utility functions
showSeq open strs close
Shows the strings
strs separated by commas and enclosed within the
Append the first argument to the first line of the second argument.
Map lookup that treats undefined keys as mapping to empty lists.
Map. The argument map may have several keys mapping to the same
element, so the inverted map has a list of elements for each key. | <urn:uuid:5497e193-9326-44e5-a2e9-defe3ee15c06> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hackage.haskell.org/package/feldspar-language-0.3.2/docs/Feldspar-Utils.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.813858 | 85 | 2.5625 | 3 |
There are several different ways for CCD images to be stored. Each software package has its own format for saving the data. The ST-4 can save data when used as an imaging camera. The format of the saved files is not discussed in the ST-4 manual.
The Lynxx saves data in a format that best uses its memory allocation. Since the Lynxx data is stored in 12 bits, the format rearranges the data to send 2 pixels of information in 3 bytes. This is really just a redistribution of data, so that it is sent faster and stored more efficiently. Two pixels can be represented as 3 bytes of information. The first byte contains the 8 least significant bits of pixel 1. The second byte carries two nibbles. The first nibble has the 4 most significant bits of pixel 1, and the second contains the 4 most significant bits of pixel 2. Finally the last byte contains the 8 least significant bits of pixel 2. The Lynxx manual suggests that data stored in this format be saved with a ccd extension.
The ST-6 offers its own format in compressed and uncompressed versions, along with FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) and TIFF(Tagged Interchange File Format) formats. The ST-6 format saves data in 16 bit words for each pixel value. In the uncompressed version, the data is read down with each pixel being described by a 16 bit word. The compressed version saves the data in a slightly different manner. The first pixel in a row is described by a 16 bit word. The rest of the pixels are described by an 8 bit word, provided that the value varies from the first pixel by 127 counts. If the difference is more than 127 counts, that pixel's value will be described by a 16 bit word. Clearly, the compressed format will save the data in less space than the uncompressed format.
The other formats are FITS, a common astronomical format, and TIFF, a publication format. Under the FITS format, the user has the option of saving data in either a 16 bit or 8 bit mode. To save the original image, the data should be saved with 16 bits per pixel. When 8 bit is selected, the 16 bit image data will be reduced to 8 bits and will be photometrically useless. The ST-6 also allows the observer to record information about the image collection and comments about the collection. A word of caution for those using the FITS format, the ST-6 software will record the time of the FITS creation -- not the time of the file creation. This information can be found in the comments.
The TIFF format under the ST-6 can only write in 8 bits while the ST-6 images are in a 16 bit format. This can be a disadvantage since this compresses the data and slightly alters it. This format is not suggested for images with astronomical data. This program also allows the observer to record collection conditions. | <urn:uuid:2fa219be-5cb0-479f-9bd5-0ee0769cf5ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~swolk/thesis/node65.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898838 | 601 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Q: Are there any nutritional differences between dried and fresh fruit?
A: Yes, but antioxidant activity is not one of them.
A study published in The Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology looked at the effects that freezing and drying had on antioxidants in fresh blueberries. The berries were either frozen at roughly 4 degrees Fahrenheit for up to three months, or they were dried through one of two drying processes.
Ultimately the researchers found no significant differences in antioxidant activity between the fresh, dried and frozen berries.
The real difference, said Kristin Kirkpatrick of the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute, is in sugar content. The drying process removes water, which concentrates sugar and raises the caloric content by weight. A cup of fresh or frozen blueberries has about 85 calories and 14 grams of sugar. One half cup of dried blueberries, on the other hand, has roughly 270 calories and 25 grams of sugar.
“That’s a significant increase,” Kirkpatrick said. “It makes a difference because it affects blood sugar and it affects insulin.”
If you do eat dried fruit, she added, it is best to stick with one serving a day. And when substituting dried fruit for its fresh counterpart, keep in mind the difference in sugar and calories.
“If you’re going to add some dried blueberries to your oatmeal as opposed to fresh,” she said, “don’t think that you can use a 1-to-1 ratio, because you may start to gain weight and wonder, ‘What the heck am I doing wrong?’ ” | <urn:uuid:33051c60-1a5a-4ed9-a1e0-7b085be78093> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://health.heraldtribune.com/2013/04/01/fresh-fruits-better-but-dried-still-good/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957489 | 340 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Having a drink (or two) is one way to nod off more quickly, but how restful is an alcohol-induced slumber?
The latest research, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, shows that while a nightcap may get you to doze off, you’re more likely to wake up during the night and may not feel as rested following your sleep.
Scientists reviewed 20 studies that included 517 participants who were tested in 38 sleep laboratory experiments. The volunteers drank varying amounts of alcohol, ranging from a low of one to two drinks, a moderate amount of two to four drinks, to a high of four or more drinks. While some experiments examined the results of only one night of drinking, others extended into several consecutive nights. Most of the participants were healthy young adults, and none had drinking problems.
“This review confirms that the immediate and short-term impact of alcohol is to reduce the time it takes to fall asleep,” lead author of the study Irshaad Ebrahim, director of the London Sleep Center, said in a statement. “In addition, the higher the dose, the greater the impact on increasing deep sleep.”
This helps explain why so many people rely on alcohol to fall asleep, despite warnings from experts that it merely postpones and can worsen insomnia. “The effect of consolidating sleep in the first half of the night is offset by having more disrupted sleep in the second half of the night,” Ebrahim said.
That presents a more complicated picture of how alcohol affects sleep, and the trade-off may have implications for understanding how sleep can impact overall health as well. At all doses studied, alcohol increased deep or so-called slow-wave sleep (SWS) during the first part of the night. This type of slumber is associated with healing and regeneration of bones, muscles and other tissues, as well as maintaining a strong immune system.
“SWS or deep sleep generally promotes rest and restoration,” Ebrahim said, cautioning, however, that alcohol increases in this stage can worsen sleep apnea and sleepwalking in people who are prone to those problems.
In contrast, drinking has long been known to reduce REM sleep, the deepest sleep stage in which most dreams occur and during which memories are likely stored and learning occurs. And the current review suggests that it’s the amount of alcohol people drink that may have the biggest effect on their sleep quality. One or two drinks, for example, can increase slow-wave sleep while not affecting deeper REM sleep. But more alcohol can cut into the time spent in the REM stage. So that nightcap may be helpful in getting you to doze off, while a wild night of heavy drinking is likely to make you more restless. Moderation, it seems, is the key to a good night’s sleep. | <urn:uuid:a665f98a-50f0-4b4a-99a9-1b5a47964fea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/08/sleeping-it-off-how-alcohol-affects-sleep-quality/?iid=nf-main-mostpop2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966015 | 587 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Almonds contribute vitamins, minerals and healthy fats to your diet -- and they make a great snack. A 1-ounce serving, about 25 almonds, provides 3 grams of fiber, 6 grams of protein, 35 percent of the daily value for vitamin E and manganese, 20 percent of magnesium, 15 percent of riboflavin, copper and phosphorous, 8 percent for both calcium and iron and small amounts of several other B vitamins.
The American Heart Association has given almonds its "Heart Check" designation. That means that almonds are low in saturated fat, trans fat -- less than 0.5 gram per serving -- and sodium, and they provide at least 10 percent or more of the daily value in select nutrients. In a study from the American Heart Association, individuals with high lipid levels significantly reduced their risk for coronary heart disease when almonds were consumed as a snack as part of a therapeutic diet. For a healthy heart, the American Heart Association recommends three to five servings per week of nuts, seeds and legumes -- 1/3 cup of nuts or 2 tablespoons of nut butter is equivalent to one serving.
Almond skins contain an abundance of antioxidants including flavonoids, flavonols and catechins, according to a 2005 article from the "Journal of Nutrition." Antioxidants help protect the cells against free radicals. Almonds are also one of the richest sources of vitamin E with one serving containing 35 percent of the daily allowance. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant helping to reduce inflammation within endothelial cells -- cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels -- and oxidation of LDL or bad cholesterol. Buy almonds with the skin intact to reap the antioxidant benefits from almonds.
Roughly 1 ounce of almonds -- about 20 to 25 almonds -- contains as much calcium as 1/4 cup of milk. In addition, almonds are a great source of magnesium and phosphorous, which are important minerals for building strong bones. For added calcium, pair a handful of almonds with low-fat yogurt, add chopped almonds to your morning oatmeal or top whole-grain crackers or an apple with almond butter.
Almonds are currently being studied for their potential cancer-fighting properties in colon, cervical and prostate cancer. Due to almonds' high phytochemical, fiber, monusaturated fats and vitamin E concentrations, researchers are looking into how the nutrition from these nuts can be powerful fighters in cancer protection.
- Nutrition-And-You.com: Almonds Nutrition Facts
- American Heart Association: Dose Response of Almonds on Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors: Blood Lipids, Oxidized Low-Density Lipoproteins, Lipoprotein(a), Homocysteine, and Pulmonary Nitric Oxide : A Randomized, Controlled, Crossover Trial
- Journal of Nutrition: Flavonoids from Almond Skins Are Bioavailable and Act Synergistically with Vitamins C and E to Enhance Hamster and Human LDL Resistance to Oxidation
- American Heart Association: Numbers that Count for a Healthy Heart
- almonds image by Nicola Gavin from Fotolia.com | <urn:uuid:4f2720a1-7038-44f8-80d5-e18db1c970f8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/raw-almonds-health-benefits-4597.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89107 | 630 | 2.796875 | 3 |
I was fascinated by a passage in Thomas F. Madden's Venice: a New History describing the complex process used to elect the doge of Venice. This process is explained briefly here: Wikipedia: Doge of ...
Venice's political institutions became much more inclusive between 900 and 1200 AD especially with the creation of the Consilium Sapientis. How many of Venice's population were citizens entitled to ...
The horses of St. Mark were taken to Venice. Are there any other objects that are known to have turned up elsewhere?
Russia doesn't appear in wikipedia's accounts of the Morean War or of the preceding Battle of Vienna. I find that mildly suprising. Perhaps the reason is that before Peter Russia was less active with ... | <urn:uuid:03388e92-aa67-4cb9-a0af-0ad3b96b947a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/venice?sort=votes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975529 | 151 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Last weekend I was multi-tasking by looking up important women who took part during the American Revolution. I knew it was going to be a busy week since I was hosting the Education Carnival. The purpose of the research was to update a list of important people for students to complete a biography project and to compile a Thursday Thirteen list for this week as well. Well, as many of you know the carnival ended up being rather large, and I’ve been sick all week. I’ve also taught every day since it is near impossible to actually obtain a substitute when you are sick. I never actually got the list of 13 women up because I decided to allow myself to take a day off from posting. I hope to share it later.
During the search I saw the name Polly Cooper on a list of Revolutionary War women and I was intrigued. I interrupted Dear Hubby’s television viewing by saying, “Hey, did you know you had a relative who did something important during the Revolutionary War?”
“Ummmm…really! How do you know?”
So I clicked on through and the research for my Thursday Thirteen suddenly became a picture for Wordless Wednesday. The whole story just tickled my fancy. It’s not well known, and it is also on the periphery of one of the lowest moments of the American Revolution.
Last week my students learned about General Washington’s winter quarters outside of British held Philadelphia. We discussed the three D’s of the pitiful conditions at Valley Forge----desertion, disease, and death. Though General Washington begged Congress for needed supplies they had no money. Sources indicate George Washington called the conditions at times “a little less than famine.” Another source states Washington conceded, “If the army does not get help soon, in all liklihood it will disband.” By February, the weather was a little better and by March, Nathanel Greene was appointed head of the Commissary Department. Some food began to reach the soldiers camped at Valley Forge, and of course, the military began to receive training from Baron Von Steuben.
So what does a shawl have to do with Valley Forge? Was it used by a soldier’s wife to cover the sick, the dying, or the dead? Was it something one of Washington’s officers used to tie about his waist….a present from a lovesick girl back home?
The shawl was a present, but not from a girl back home. The shawl was presented to Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman, and it was presented by Martha Washington or a group of Valley Forge officer’s wives depending on the source you view.
The Oneida nation headed by Chief Oskanondohna (Skenandoah) at the time had heard of the plight of the Patriot soldiers at Valley Forge. The tribes had long been successful traders and farmers and were one of the few tribes that allied themselves with the Americans. Many fought at various battles for the cause of independence. At Chief Oskanondohna’s (Skenandoah’s) urging some tribe members began to walk the 400 mile journey to Valley Forge carrying close to 600 bushels of dried corn. The soldiers of course were starving, and if they had eaten the corn without the proper preparation the corn could have swelled in their stomachs and caused them to die. Polly Cooper was one of the Oneida women who journeyed to Valley Forge and stayed in order to cook the corn properly for the soldiers and to help in other ways.
From an account by William Honyost Rockwell (1870-1960), an Oneida leader and descendant of Polly Cooper
So the wives of the officers invited Polly Cooper to take a walk downtown with them. As they were looking in the store windows, Polly saw a black shawl on display that she thought was the best article. When the women returned to their homes, they told their husbands what Polly saw that she liked so well. Money was appropriated by congress for the purpose of the shawl, and it was given to Polly Cooper for her services as a cook for the officers of the continental Army. The shawl is still owned by members of the Oneida Nation, descendants of Polly Cooper.
So, where is the shawl exactly? An article from CNY Business Journal (1994) explains that a Key Bank branch holds the shawl for its owner, Louella Derrick, in a safety deposit box when it isn’t on display.
The CNY article goes on to mention three mysteries remain about the gift of the shawl. The first mystery surrounds a missing bonnet. Apparently there was also a bonnet bought along with the shawl, however, family members do not know its whereabouts. The second mystery involves the shawl’s fabric. The CNY article makes note that the shawl is 62 inches on a side and is in fine condition. People who have been able to feel it state the fabric is similar to silk or fine horsehair, but it is neither. A team of Syracuse University anthropologists tried and failed to determine what it is. The third mystery involves how much the shawl is worth. The shawl’s owner states, “We know it’s valuable, but we don’t know how valuable.”
The Oneida Nation site states the shawl is one of the oldest relics of the Oneida people. The site goes on to say of the shawl:
It also symbolizes the relationship between the Oneidas and the United States. In times past, any agreement of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) was accompanied by a gift; usually it was wampum but it might be an animal skin or textile also. The gift was tied to the words of the message and the object underlined the truth and importance of the words. so it is with the shawl. As memorial to the American acknowledgment of Oneida help and sacrifice, the Polly cooper Shawl testifies to a pact of the Revolutionary War in the traditional Haudenosaunee way.
So, why don’t more of us know about this story? One website gives this possible explanation:
From The Oneida Indians of Wisconsin:
The contributions of the Oneida in early U.S. history have been largely ignored in history books, possibly because much of the history of the Revolutionary War was compiled in the 1830s at a time when the Indian nations were being "resettled" under the barbaric Indian Removal Act. Giving them credit for help with the Revolutionary War was not politically expedient
Today the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian has the entire fourth floor set aside for the Oneida Indian Nation. One of the main features of the exhibit is the statue “Allies in War, Partners in Peace”, which depicts George Washington, Polly Cooper, and Chief Oskanondohna and commemorates the bonds between the Oneida Nation and the United States. The statue details and the symbolism used within the entire piece and is absolutely amazing. This page at The Oneida Nation gives more detail about the statue and the many icons found within it. For example, the wampum belt that George Washington is holding symbolizes an agreement between the U.S. and the Oneida Nation, and acknowledges that neither will interfere in the internal affairs of the other.
Go here for a 7 minute movie from The Oneida Nation about Polly Cooper. | <urn:uuid:b26d4cce-8624-45e9-ab01-2fd54d93f245> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://historyiselementary.blogspot.com/2007/02/polly-cooper-shawl-or-how-one-bit-of.html?showComment=1258757005901 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970653 | 1,569 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Mosaic tiles commonly come on a sheet of plastic mesh that holds the small tiles in place to promote a simpler installation. When installing the tiles, it is often necessary to cut the sheets to fit around the perimeter of the installation area. Making mosaic pictures also requires you to cut individual tiles to fit into a pattern. There are two popular methods for cutting the tiles to get the size and shape you need, each with its own benefits and challenges. With care and patience, you can cut the tiles in a matter of minutes.
Using a Tile Saw
Measure the space where the tiles must fit. Make sure to allow for any spacers and expansion joints that will separate the tiles from each other or the wall. Transfer the measurements to your mosaic tile or tile sheet. Mark the tiles on the back with a pencil.
Cut through the mesh between the tiles with heavy-duty scissors where the markings are only on the mesh. Set the leftover tile sheet aside.
Pry tiles off the mesh where the marked line barely touches the edges, or is less than one-fourth of the tile width. These slivers of tile will be too difficult to cut accurately. The grout line will be slightly thicker around those tiles. Installation of that side of the tile at the wall, rather than next to surrounding tiles, conceals this difference.
Lay the tiles face down onto a piece of scrap wood. Clamp the tile or tile sheet in place on the board. Make sure the board is long enough that you can handle it without getting your hands close to the blade on the tile saw.
Set the tile saw on a stable, level surface. Plug it in to the nearest outlet. Fill the well with water as directed by the manufacturer. Familiarize yourself with how the saw works by reading the instructions if you have never operated one before. Make sure to follow all safety recommendations listed by the manufacturer.
Line up your mark with the tile saw blade. Slowly lower the blade and begin cutting through the tiles. Do not push your scrap wood under the blade too fast. Let the saw do the work, as you guide the material, rather than forcing the tiles underneath the blade.
Remove the clamps from the tiles after you finish cutting. Save the scrap wood until you have finished cutting all the tiles or sheets needed.
Scoring and Nipping
Mark individual tiles or tile pieces just as you would the tile sheets with the exception that you mark on the top of the tile. Use a wax pencil to mark the tiles and avoid discoloration or damage.
Score along the marked line with a tile scorer. This minimizes the risk of the tile breaking with jagged edges when you snap it.
Clamp the portion of the tile you will use on a level surface. Grab the excess portion of the tile and press down. This snaps the tile along the score line.
Remove rough edges from the tile using a double-sided sanding stone. Install the tile using adhesive, just as you would any full-sized tile.
Things You Will Need
- Measuring tape
- Heavy-duty scissors
- Scrap wood
- Wax pencil
- Tile nippers with scoring tool
- Double-sided sanding stone
- Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:cf2595b8-bd2e-4259-9172-0371351a3fb7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://homeguides.sfgate.com/cut-stone-mosaic-tiles-34016.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923803 | 670 | 2.78125 | 3 |
January 10, 2011: A survey of more than 200,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy has unveiled the sometimes petulant behavior of tiny dwarf stars. These stars, which are smaller than the Sun, can unleash powerful eruptions called flares that may release the energy of more than 100 million atomic bombs. Red dwarfs are the most abundant stars in our universe and are presumably hosts to numerous planets. However, their erratic behavior could make life unpleasant, if not impossible, for many alien worlds. The flares the stars unleash would blast any planets orbiting them with ultraviolet light, bursts of X-rays, and a gush of charged particles called a stellar wind.
Studying the light from 215,000 dwarfs collected in observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found 100 stellar flares. The observations, taken over a seven-day period, constitute the largest continuous monitoring of red dwarf stars ever undertaken. The illustration shows a red dwarf star unleashing a powerful flare. A hypothetical planet is in the foreground.See the rest: | <urn:uuid:2132cc51-77d1-4532-8a18-2074f8ee4c78> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/star/2011/02/results/50/layout/thumb../ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922325 | 208 | 3.96875 | 4 |
When all of the Mardi Gras festivities are over, Christians begin the season of Lent, a 40 day period of observance leading up to Easter Sunday. The week leading up to Easter, called Holy Week, is of particular importance as Christians commemorate Christ’s death and resurrection. Many composers have written music for Holy Week observances, but perhaps the most well-known of these pieces is the Miserere, mei deus by Renaissance composer Gregorio Allegri.
There is a popular story associated with this particular piece. In 1770, a 14-year old Mozart was visiting the Vatican and heard this piece performed by the choir of the Sistine Chapel. He only needed to hear it twice before transcribing the piece perfectly from memory, therefore providing us with the first “bootleg” copy of the work! | <urn:uuid:d87eb3bc-fbd1-4c1c-98af-4a06162b38ae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://indianapublicmedia.org/ethergame/mardi-gras-5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958738 | 172 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Thursday, December 16, 2004
De Atkine notes that “officers returning from the Arab world describe the cultural barriers they encounter as by far the most difficult to navigate, far beyond those of political perceptions. Thinking back on it, I recall many occasions on which I was perplexed by actions or behavior on the part of my Arab hosts—actions and behavior that would have been perfectly understandable had I read The Arab Mind.”
To speak of Arabs is to speak of Muslims, for Arab culture is permeated by Islam. Islamic hatred of America and of Israel is more intense and more widespread today than it was in 1973. American pop culture and commercial imperialism constitute a threat to the Arab’s tradition-based society, and Muslims see Israel as America’s vanguard in the Middle East.
Patai, says de Atkine, does not deny the virtues of Arab culture. “The hospitality, generosity, and depth personal friendships common within the Arab world are rarely encountered in our more frenetic society. The Arab sense of honor and of obligation to the family—especially to the family’s old and young members—can be contrasted to the frequently dysfunctional family life found in our own society ”
But such is the burning hatred Arabs bear toward Jews that many willingly use their own children as human bombs, while the Arab street cheers such self-immolation. Hatred trumps love. Arab hatred was not born with the Balfour Declaration or the establishment of the State of Israel. It precedes Muhammad and remains deeply ingrained in Arab culture.
Patai quotes Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the greatest historian ever produced by the Arabs. Khaldun’s portrait of Arab national character is that of a historian who could look back upon seven centuries of Arab history. The Arabs, he says, “are people who plunder and cause damage.” The civilizations they conquer are “wiped out.” “Places that succumb to the Arabs are quickly ruined.” “The reason for this is that [the Arabs] are a savage nation, fully accustomed to savagery ” “Savagery has become their character and nature. They enjoy it because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership. Such a natural disposition is the negation and antithesis of civilization.”
Again, “because of their savagery, the Arabs are least willing of nations to subordinate themselves to each other, as they are proud, ambitious, and eager to be the leader.” (Recall Genesis 16:12 on the character of Ishmael: “He will be a rebel. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him.”)
The Arab’s sense of honor is notorious. Any insult or injury, let alone defeat in war, must be avenged. The Yom Kippur War was nothing less than an act of revenge for Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War—and that is why the war was launched on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Any bellicose people are well-practiced in deception; as for the Arabs, however, one must add they are unequaled in the art of ingratiation. Khaldun’s disciple, Taqi al-Din Ahmad al-Maqrizi (1364-1442), an Egyptian, writes that Egyptians “are extremely inclined to cunning and deceit, from their birth they excel in it and are very skillful in using it, because there is in their character a basis of flattery and adulation which makes them masters in it more than all the peoples who have lived before them or will live after them.”
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s campaign of deception before the Yom Kippur War is documented in my book Sadat’s Strategy. But he was also a master of ingratiation. He constantly referred to Secretary of State William Rogers, whom he had met for the first time, as “Bill.” When Secretary Kissinger replaced Rogers, he became “dear Henry” just as quickly.
Countless pundits have been deceived by Sadat. A few quotes may dispel their naiveté. In an interview with al-Anwar on June 22, 1975, Sadat said: “The effort of our generation is to return to the 1967 borders. Afterward the next generation will carry the responsibility.”
In a New York Times interview dated October 19, 1980, he boasted: “Poor Menachem [Begin], he has his problems ... After all, I got back ... the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper.”
A year after signing the March 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Sadat ominously declared: “Despite the present differences with the Arab 'rejectionist' rulers over the Egyptian peace initiative, the fact remains that these differences are only tactical not strategic, temporary not permanent.”
By the way, in his Knesset speech of November 20, 1977, Sadat used the name of God 10 times in his first ten sentences. Surely a man of God would not lie about his desire for peace—a word he used 95 times in his 50 minute performance!
With astonishing insight, Ibn Khaldun points out that “The Arab can obtain authority only by making use of some religious coloring, such as prophecy or sainthood, or some great religious event in general.
Patai’s 1973 classic, says de Atkine, “has not aged at all. The analysis is just as (prescient and on-the-mark now [in post-September 11, 2001]) as on the day it was written. One could even make the argument that, in fact, many of the [Arab] traits described have become more pronounced.”
Israeli politicians and diplomats are children compared to the likes of PLO-Palestinian leaders like Abu Ala and Abu Mazen. And sending Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom to negotiate with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would be laughable if it did not have tragic consequences.
Despite its overwhelming military power vis-à-vis its Arab neighbors, Israel is retreating toward its indefensible 1949 borders. Even a Machiavellian like Ariel Sharon has become a poodle of the Arabs.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Please go to this site and read the full text of this speech given recently by Arnold Roth, the father of 15-year-old Sbarro victim Malki Roth. This man's articulate love, compassion, and good sense are, I am proud to say, thoroughly representative of the very best in Judaism.
Dear reader, if you have bought into the "moral equivalence" lie (Israel = "Palestine") of the media, please see if you can find a morally equivalent statement by an Arab leader, anywhere. Then reconsider whether or not your picture of the situation is valid.
by Sarah Honig
Among the junk mail that clogs my postbox daily, I found a Gush Shalom leaflet calling on me to fulfill my "national duty and the duty of every peace-loving person" to help remove all settlements. How do I pitch in? By boycotting anything that's settlement-made. To facilitate my task, I was supplied with a list of brands to be shunned. In case of unmarked agricultural produce, I must grill the retailer to make sure he's not selling me forbidden fruit. Moreover, I was urged to disseminate said blacklist amongst friends and relations, post it on neighborhood billboards and in my workplace.
Lastly, should I feel a tad discomfited, I was advised to ignore counterarguments that I collaborate in "depriving Jewish brethren of their livelihood." Most settlers, I was assured, anyway "aren't productive citizens but live off the public. This is why they had so much free time to participate in the violent demonstrations that preceded the Rabin assassination. "While most Israelis worked for a living, the settlers blocked roads and burned tires. Settlements constitute the chief obstacle to a historic rapprochement between Israel and Falastin."
I finally realized who's responsible for our collective distress and insecurity. I forgot about the Arab genocidal penchant for throwing us into the sea - long before any occupation or beyond-the-Green-Line settlements existed. I never asked about all the available time Gush Shalom altruists have to protest against the security fence and IDF roadblocks (which keep me and them alive). I was too reviled by the use settlers make of the right to free assembly and speech. I discovered who the parasites feeding off my honest toil were and was reminded of the dastardly mischief they were up to, which invariably led to Rabin's slaying. There's no telling what existential disaster they could drag us into. They make my skin crawl.
In ordinary times I'd quickly return to my senses and identify this as the post-Zionist fringe's self-destructive variation on entrenched anti-Semitic themes. These, however, aren't ordinary times. Ever since Ariel Sharon's epiphany, demonizing settlers is no longer an exclusive far-Left prerogative. Arik gave settler-bashing unprecedented respectability. Now that he no longer loves them, it's bon ton to vilify those freeloaders who infest our surroundings, endanger our perfect peace, dare dissent and protest against Arik's designs, and who may now be plotting the next assassination.
REINFORCED BY Tnuva's chairman, I can finally enjoy the coziness of the mainstream. It's good being in league with those who gang up on Public Enemies. It's good being on the same side as Arik, now King of the Enlightened Ones. It's good to enjoy the security of running with the majority flock, like the flock of hens that loomed large in the homespun childhood recollections Arik was once excessively fond of recounting.
Growing up in Kfar Malal, young Arik astutely observed the chickens on his family's farm. He noted that the hens clucked harmoniously most of the time; but if one took ill, its mates suddenly and ferociously turned on it, pecking, scratching, and clawing their victim to death. It was then the future general concluded that weakness encourages aggression. Those who can't defend themselves are terminated viciously. Those who don't deter, invite their own destruction. That's how it is in nature, in the barnyard, in Israeli politics, and in the Mideast. When Arik grievously injured the settlers, he must have realized he was turning them into fair game, not only for Gush Shalom's serial predators and Tnuva's chairman. Confused ordinary folk prefer being among the assaulting fowl rather than associating with pitiful pariah pullets everyone rips into.
That's why the projected construction of prison camps for entire settler families and of mock-settlements for destruction drills evoke not a grassroots murmur. Fearful folks are glad it's not happening to them and rationalize why the others have it coming. Arik counts on that. Manipulating mass psychology will win him support. It's elementary, but not without risks. The delegitimization, blackballing, and ostracism visited on slandered settlers could become the sad lot of us all.
One flock's top hen is another's ravaged prey. Arik seems to have conveniently relinquished his once-reliable chicken-sense. By retreating and dismantling veteran villages, he signals the rest of the world that Israel is weakening. He thereby turns Israel into the enfeebled chicken of this savage region and of the heartless world.
He weakens our moral claim to any part of this land in an international environment where it's already increasingly trendy to dispute Israel's very right to exist. He may be intent on dismantling some settlements. Enemies and their overseas sympathizers focus on all settlements, first outside the Green Line and later within. Like it or not, Arik, we're all in the same chicken coop.
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
Sunday, December 12, 2004
To: Brigadier General Rabbi Israel Weiss, Chief Rabbi of the IDF
From: Jonathan Pollard, 09185-016; FCI Butner, Butner NC, USA
Dear Rabbi Weiss,
As you know, our tradition teaches that a Jew does not sin unless he is afflicted by temporary insanity, a "ruach shtut". How else are we to understand why a G-d -fearing Jew like yourself, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, would declare his support for orders to uproot thousands of Jews from their homes in the Land of Israel? I refer to your recent comments on IDF Radio supporting the evil disengagement plan and identifying secular military commanders and state officials as the ultimate authority which soldiers must obey. "Refusal to carry out orders is liable to bring about the collapse of the army and the end of the People of Israel's task," you said. "The army, the state is the authority." "We can't allow a soldier to do whatever he wants. This will bring a danger that the army will end its function and this nation will end its task," you declared.
With all due respect, Rabbi, it is difficult to imagine that you truly believe that it is the state and the army alone which protect us and ensure our viability as a People! The Jewish People lived for 2000 years without a state and without an army, under the grace of G-d Almighty - it is only because of His loving kindness and His will expressed as through the Laws of Torah, that we live in the Land today and continue to thrive as a People. When you visited with me 2 months ago, I told you that HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu, shlita, is my father. You replied joyfully, "We are sons of the same father! He is my father too!" You said that you consider HaRav Eliyahu to be your superior in Torah, and that before issuing any important Halachik ruling for the army, you first consult with him.
Surely you are aware that HaRav Eliyahu has unequivocally declared that it is forbidden for G-d -fearing soldiers to obey orders to uproot Jews from the Land! HaRav Eliyahu has ruled that it is better for soldiers to sit in prison than to take part in the expulsion of Jews from their homes. Rabbi Weiss, in light of your apparent disregard for the psak Halacha of your own rabbinic superior, how can you expect thousands of soldiers to rely on you?
In my dealings with Jewish leaders over the past 20 years, it is clear to me that often Heaven raises a man up to a position of power and authority not as a reward, but as a test. It is obvious that in this lifetime, G-d has placed you, of all men, in the unique position of being able to single-handedly defeat the immoral disengagement plan. You, amongst all men, can say "No!" to disengagement, and in so doing, support thousands upon thousands of soldiers to do the same! No other rabbi living in the Land today, is in such a powerful position as your are, in regard to this issue.
Just as good government never depends on laws, but upon the moral character of those who govern, so too an army depends not upon specific orders, but upon the personal qualities (midot) of its leaders. The functioning of the army is always subordinate to the will of those who administer it. The most important element of an army is who its leaders are. And Torah is the software that transforms it into a Jewish army. Without our divine software, we are nothing but machines and uniforms.
Rabbi Weiss, it appears that you are now being tested as both soldier and rabbi. You must now choose between your officer's commission and the yoke of Torah; between serving G-d or serving man.
Your choice will set the model for all G-d -fearing soldiers. It will also determine whether your name is revered for all generations as the rabbi who stood up to secular power in defense of the Land; or, G-d forbid, remembered as the rabbi who betrayed Jewish soldiers into defaming Torah and desecrating the Land.
Therefore, I plead with you to retract your statements regarding the disengagement plan! It is imperative that you issue a new ruling in harmony with the psak Halacha of HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu. Retracting now, especially since it is Chanukah, would be a great kiddush HaShem, in the best tradition of Mattityahu HaMaccabee himself.
I implore you to act now in the tradition of Gideon, of Yehoshua Bin Nun, and of Yehuda HaMaccabee! Be a Jewish warrior in defense of the Land! Say "No!" to disengagement! Kavod HaRav, by retracting your previous position and openly encouraging soldiers not to participate in uprooting Jews from the Land, you will create a powerful model of Tshuva not only for the soldiers but for all of Israel. You will bring relief to the Nation and honor to the Israel Defense Forces.
As it is written in Tehillim: "Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses; but we rely solely upon Hashem, our G-d!" As upholders of Torah we know that G-d and G-d alone is the ultimate authority for a Jew. | <urn:uuid:bfd4deb8-c629-4c42-81cf-16ddae5af012> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://israeltruth.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96075 | 3,712 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Installing JDK is first step in learning Java Programming. If you are using Windows 8 or Windows 7 Operating System, than installing JDK is quite easy as you just need to follow instruction given by Java SE Installation wizard. Only thing which requires some attention is, choosing correct JDK installer based upon, whether you are running with 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 8 or Windows 7 OS. JDK 7 is latest Java version but JDK 6 is still most popular in software and programming world. You can choose to install JDK 7 or JDK 6 based upon your course material. In this Java tutorial, we will learn how to install JDK 7 in Windows 8 operating system by following step by step guide. Another thing, which is part of JDK installation is setting PATH for Java in Windows 8, this will enable to run javac and java command from any directory in Windows 8. See that link for step by step guide on setting PATH in Windows 8. Though, I will use Windows 8 operating system to install JDK 7, You can still install JDK 6 or 7 in Windows 7 by following those steps. In order to choose correct JDK installer, we first need to check if Windows is running with 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 8. For that you can go to Control Panel-->System and Security and check System Type, if it shows 32-bit operating system means you need Windows x86 Java Installer, if it shows 64-bit operating system than you need Windows x64 Java Installer. Let's see steps involved to install JDK 6 or JDK 7 in Windows 8 operating system.
Steps to install JDK 7 in Windows 8
Here is step by step guide to install JDK 7 on Windows 8, both 32-bit and 64-bit version. You can also install JDK 6 both x86 and x64 installer on Windows 7 by following these steps. Just remember that Windows x86 is used for 32-bit Windows 7 or Windows 8 and x64 installer is used for 64-bit Windows 7 or 8.
1. Find if Windows 8 is 32-bit or 64-bit.
As describe in first paragraph, you can find if Windows 8 or Windows 7 is 32-bit or 64-bit by checking System Type in Control Panel-->System and Security-->System and then looking at System Type Properties.
2. Download correct JDK 7 installer from Java download sites
Go to Java SE download site http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html and select Java Platform (JDK) 7u13, which is latest Java SE release.
Choose Windows X86 installer (marked as green) if you are running 32-bit Windows 8 or choose Windows x64 Java installer (marked in red), if you are running with 64-bit Windows 8 Operating system.
3. Install JDK by double clicking on Windows installer
Once you download correct JDK installer, rest of installation is like installing any other Windows based application. Just follow Instruction given by Java SE Installation Wizard. Good thing is that now JavaFX is included as part of JDK 7, so you don't need to separately install JavaFX.
4. Include JDK bin directory in Windows 8 PATH environment variable.
Once JDK Installation is complete, you can see JDK directory in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_13\. This is default JDK installation directory and Installation wizard install Java here, if you haven't changed it during installation. In order to compile Java code from any directory in your Windows 8 or Windows 7 machine, you need to include C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_13\bin directory in PATH environment variable. This is called setting PATH for Java. See this step by step Java programming tutorial to set PATH for JDK 7 in Windows 8.
That's all on How to install JDK 7 in Windows 8 operating system. As I said, You can follow same steps to install JDK on Windows 7 as well. In order to verify JDK installation, just type javac command in command prompt, if you don't see error 'javac' is not recognized as an internal or external command, it means JDK is installed and ready to use. Now, it's time to create your first Java program, See this tutorial to write Helloworld in Java. In order to learn more about PATH and Classpath see following tutorials : | <urn:uuid:3c09b8c1-faf7-4766-8af1-de8129d52092> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-install-jdk-7-on-windows-8-java-32bit-64.html?showComment=1377226217313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873136 | 928 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The holiday of Sukkot that we are celebrating this week centers on the Sukkah, the fragile structure with three walls and a roof of leaves and branches in which we eat, rest, study and even sleep during the holiday. The Torah teaches us that living to the extent possible in the Sukkah is the primary observance of Sukkot, since even the name Sukkot is just the plural of Sukkah.
But, like most Jewish symbols, the Sukkah has more than one meaning. I want to mention just three of the meanings that the Sukkah can hold for us.
First, the Sukkah reminds us of the story that our ancestors wandered in the wilderness for 40 years between the Exodus from Egypt that we celebrate on Pesach and the Israelites’ entry into the land of Canaan.
The sukkah thus fits Sukkot into the narrative of the other two festivals. We were set free from Egypt on Pesach. Then we journeyed to Mount Sinai and received the Torah, a moment that we recollect and re-enact on Shavuot.
Finally, we wandered in the wilderness, living in booths, until we became a settled people in our own land. Living in the Sukkah replicates the experience of hardship that our ancestors lived through, dwelling as nomads for 40 years. In explaining the requirements for a Sukkah, the Mishnah teaches us that it is a “not-house,” a flimsy structure that goes against much that we expect of our homes.
By living in the sukkah, then, we re-experience what our ancestors went through as they were deprived of the protection of permanent dwellings in the wilderness. A sukkah is a not-house.
Second, the sukkah can be seen as a symbolic representation of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which the prophetic readings for Sukkot remind us was dedicated on Sukkot. The sukkah is an echo of the divine habitation that was once the center point of Jewish life.
The Temple was supposed to be a “permanent” dwelling place for God, superseding the Tabernacle in the wilderness that moved from place to place.
The sukkah, then, is an ephemeral remnant of that “permanent” dwelling place. When we build a sukkah, we are seeing the shadow of the place that was once the central point of interaction between humans and the divine. The sukkah is an echo of a house, “the House,” the Temple in Jerusalem.
Third, the sukkah can be seen as a symbol of divine protection. We speak in our prayers of a “Sukkat Shalom,” a Sukkah of Peace that we ask God to spread over all of us.
When we dwell in the sukkah, we can feel that we are sheltered in God’s presence. We have the protective covering of divine care, rather than feeling naked and exposed below the sky. The experience of living in the Sukkah emphasizes the continuous divine protection and connection that we have seen from our times of wandering in the wilderness through the present day. The sukkah is a spiritual house, a home for the soul.
So which of these meanings of the sukkah is the “real” one, the “right” one? We are lucky that Jewish tradition teaches that there can be more than one right answer to any question. All of these meanings of the sukkah are present in it and available for us to explore. It is up to us to go through the experience of dwelling in the Sukkah to make its meaning our own.
Rabbi Adam Zeff serves as rabbi of Germantown Jewish Centre in Philadelphia. Email him at: [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:90bb5fde-5e65-4fe6-bb2d-f3076dbf5dc4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jewishexponent.com/holiday-sukkot-has-more-one-meaning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966411 | 800 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a report this week advising that kids, babies, and pregnant ladies not consume any raw milk or raw milk products from cows, goats, and sheep as it may be hazardous to their health.
In the report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, the AAP noted that a bunch of species of harmful bacteria—like Listeria, Salmonella, Escherichia coli and Cryptosporidium, to name a few—can be found in unpasteurized milk products (including cheese made from raw milk). According to Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, the author of the study, there is no health benefit to consuming raw milk anyway.
The report comes on the heels of a study that found that in the past 10 years in Minnesota, 17% of people who consumed raw milk got sick. Minnesota is one of the 30 states in which raw milk is legally sold. | <urn:uuid:0ca8c7f4-75fe-4bb1-a14f-424bf5eca8ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jezebel.com/raw-milk-possibly-dangerous-for-kids-and-preggos-1484122017 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963367 | 186 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Book: Shells! Shells! Shells!
Author: Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Age Range: 4-8
Shells! Shells! Shells!, written and illustrated by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace, is basically a lightly fictionalized information book about shells. Buddy the bear goes with his mother to the beach one spring morning. They spend the day collecting and investigating shells, with frequent food breaks thrown in. Buddy learns various facts about shells, some through observation and some via his mother. He also lightens the book by coming up with his own jokes about shells, like:
"What did the octopus have for breakfast?"
"Toast and butter with shelly!"
The jokes are certainly authentic, in that they feel like they were created by a pre-schooler. I suspect that this means that preschoolers will enjoy them, though I haven't yet been able to test this hypothesis.
What makes this book unique, however, is the format of the illustrations. The pictures are photographs of paper cutouts, mixed with real shells. Sand is conveyed using sandpaper, and I find this particularly visually appealing - tactile, but regular. Buddy and Mama are essentially jointed paper dolls - their medium brown fur cut from cardboard (or maybe paper bags), with lightly furred edges. The photographed shells show the imperfections that one would expect from real shells, making it easy for kids to match the shells in the book with shells picked up on their last beach trip. The front end papers show pictures of cold water shells, while the back end papers show warm water shells. I must say, though, that I think it would have added to the book to label the types of shells in those pictures (like in An Egg is Quiet and A Seed is Sleepy). Still, unlabeled they can be used for self-quizzes on the types of shells, so that's a plus.
There is not much of a story to this book. Buddy and Mama are mainly a vehicle for conveying facts about shells. However, I think that kids who like facts, especially facts about the ocean and sea shells, will enjoy it. The cut out illustrations are fun and eye-catching. I can imagine kids making their own cut-out figures, adding some real-world trinkets, and taking photographs, to make their own books. There is also a nice "do you know" page at the end with a summary of facts about shells, and another page describing how to make an "I Shell Return" bookmark. Overall, I think that this would be a good book to add to anyone's beach bag, or use to spark a day of book-making activities.
© 2009 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:e814a3d0-5151-42bc-a367-f19aa4a167eb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/shells-shells-s.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973765 | 563 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Secondary School Teachers teach one or more subjects within a prescribed curriculum to secondary school students and promote students' social, emotional, intellectual and physical development. The links below provide quick access to basic information for this occupation. Greater detail can be found using any of the page tabs above. A one page printable summary of the key statistics for this occupation can also be found under the Reports and Links tab above. Just click on the tab and follow the link for Occupational Bulletin.
This occupation may include associated occupations with varying tasks.
- presenting prescribed curriculum using a range of teaching techniques and materials
- developing students' interests, abilities and coordination by way of creative activities
- guiding discussions and supervising work in class
- preparing, administering and marking tests, projects and assignments to evaluate students' progress and recording the results
- discussing individual progress and problems with students and parents, and seeking advice from Student Counsellors and senior teachers
- maintaining discipline in classrooms and other school areas
- participating in staff meetings, educational conferences and workshops
- liaising with parent, community and business groups
- maintaining class and scholastic records
- performing extra-curricular tasks such as assisting with sport, school concerts, excursions and special interest programs
- supervising student teachers on placement | <urn:uuid:472b68e0-b821-4af4-9db0-0245a3feea9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://joboutlook.gov.au/occupation.aspx?search=alpha&code=2414 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913414 | 260 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Saccomano, Scott J. PhD, RN, GNP-BC; Abbatiello, Geraldine A. PhD, GNP-BC, PMHNP, RN, ACHPN
The origin of culture dates back to the 1870s when Sir Edward Tylor defined it as “knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”1 Many theorists, such as Campinha-Bacote and Purnell, have identified cultural awareness in nursing since the 1990s.2,3 Giger and Davidhizar also identified the need for cultural competency, diversity, sensitivity, and culturally competent care.4 Giger and Davidhizar further noted that culture is developed over time as a result of contact with social and religious structures and intellectual or artistic manifestations, rendering each individual unique.4 Purnell defines culture as “the totality of socially transmitted behavioral patterns, arts, beliefs, values, customs, ways of life, and all other products of human work/thought characteristic of a population of people that guide their world view and decision making.”5 The history of culture brings common themes to light that are discussed in today's healthcare environment: cultural competency and cultural diversity.
Cultural competency is part of individualized patient care, which demonstrates respect for a patient's healthcare beliefs and acknowledges that these beliefs play a role in effective healthcare delivery. In addition, cultural competency demonstrates the provider's understanding that illness occurs in a biopsychosocial context in response to health beliefs and practices.6 As the patient receives care, healthcare providers (HCPs) should examine their own cultural values and beliefs and ensure they do not interfere with care. Part of cultural competency is acknowledging one's own biases before providing care.
Cultural diversity in patient care refers to accepting individual characteristics, such as skin color, religion, income, gender, and geographical location and facilitating equal access to culturally competent healthcare.7 Providing culturally competent care includes referring patients to culturally appropriate resources, such as qualified medical interpreters, appropriate religious or spiritual personnel, and advanced practice nurses specially trained in evidence-based, cross-cultural practices.8
The American Nurses Association (ANA)supports the advancement of cultural diversity so that all patients can receive necessary culture-based care.9 It is important to develop a culturally competent workforce to help practitioners apply culture and diversity in clinical interventions along the healthcare continuum.7
Importance of culture in care
Patients entering hospitals in the United States are diverse. As the population changes, HCPs need to incorporate the various needs of their patients into practice. Caregivers who provide direct patient care today have contact with patients spanning a wide variety of races, religions, and ethnicities.10 The practitioner should recognize that patient responses to illnesses, such as a hospital visit or a visit to a practitioner, must include the clinical aspect of care as well as the cultural aspect of care.6
The ANA position statement (1991) on cultural diversity in nursing practice states that “Knowledge of cultural diversity is vital at all levels of nursing practice...nurses need to understand how cultural groups define health and illness; how cultural groups understand life processes; what cultural groups do to maintain wellness; what cultural groups believe to be the causes of illness; how healers cure and care for members of cultural groups; and how the nurses' cultural backgrounds can influence care delivery.”9 HCPs should incorporate transcultural nursing practice while providing care to patients with multiple cultural differences. HCPs should also modify care according to the cultural needs of the patient and his or her family members. To organize and plan care for culturally diverse populations, HCPs should recognize and understand culture, culturally appropriate care, and the aspects of culture that should be explored for each patient.6,9,11
In 2010, the Joint Commission developed new standards for culturally competent patient care and assessment. The new standards took effect in January 2011 and include the provision of culturally competent care as a response to the diverse needs of patients in American hospitals. Aspects of culture, such as religious beliefs, perception of illness, dietary needs, spiritual beliefs, and modesty issues should all be part of the admission assessment process. This assessment should include questions regarding end-of-life care, and it can be modified for any setting.12
Specific assessment questions at end of life should include the following:
* Which cultural background does the patient identify with?
* Are there cultural beliefs or traditions that the patient adheres to?
* What is the role of the family in the patient's care?
* Does the patient want family involved in the treatment plan?
* Who makes the decisions about advance directives and treatment options at the end of life? Is it the family, patient, or someone else?
* Does the patient have any religious or spiritual beliefs?
* What is the role of religion in making decisions about illness and treatment?
* Would they prefer a visit from a religious leader or clergy member?
* Who can be present for the death?
* What do they believe about the body after death? In addition, how is the body to be treated?13,14
Specific questions/items that may be needed for the care around the time of death include the following:
* How does the patient want to manage comfort and pain?
* How does the patient want to say goodbye?
* Does the patient want to die at home or in the hospital?
* Who will make final plans?
* How can the HCP honor the patient's spiritual beliefs as death approaches?
* Who will communicate between the patient and HCP?15
Culture at the end of life
Providing culturally competent care at the end of life requires the practitioner to develop cultural awareness. Many cultural issues will affect patients and families at the end of life, and cultures will differ in their preferences and practices. Here are just a few examples to help guide nurse practitioners (NPs) when interacting with patients from varied cultures:
Black American culture
Black Americans have a long documented history of mistrust regarding the American healthcare system. Mistrust in the healthcare system can cause obstacles in communication and planning at the end of life, such as advance directives. Blacks believe that advance directives may influence HCP decision for care, and they could receive lesser quality healthcare or treatment. In addition, Black Americans are less likely to formally prepare for the end of life.16
Religious beliefs also influence decisions at the end of life. Black Americans believe that a higher power such as God and faith controls their destiny. Blacks believe that God is an “intervener” in healthcare, that God is a “healer,” or that God will control the future.17
Finally, family, and faith-based support is used as a mechanism for joint decision making. Black Americans often consult family members, church members, and clergy in the decisions for care at the end of life.18 Identification of acceptable individuals with community and cultural ties to the patient, to consult with the patient, or who have decision-making abilities for care at end of life should be part of the planning.
The role of family, is an important part of the Hispanic culture. The Hispanic culture utilizes a group decision-making model, incorporating immediate and extended family to assist with decisions for end-of-life care.19 The family structure is based on a hierarchy, and the head of household (generally a man) makes the decisions. In cases where there is undefined hierarchy, the oldest child usually makes decisions for an adult.20
The Hispanic culture believes that death is part of the continuum of life and expects death at an advanced age. Hispanics believe that participating or planning for death will lead to its occurrence; therefore, many Hispanics may not start planning until the final stages of illness20; therefore, Hispanics are less likely to have advance directives.16,20 Many Hispanics prefer to receive care at home and also wish to die at home, surrounded by their family.20
Chinese culture at the end of life is focused on family and communication of information. Family members in the Asian culture may wish to avoid discussing (sometimes withholding) information from a patient with a terminal illness or impending death. The discussion of death in the Chinese culture is usually considered forbidden and offensive. The Chinese do not discuss death with HCPs. They feel discussing death can lead to hopelessness; instead, the silence regarding the patient's condition is designed to maintain hope and alleviate undo stress on the patient. Reluctance to discuss the patient's condition, especially making life-sustaining treatment decisions, often leads to a lack of preparation for advance directives.21,22
The Chinese culture maintains a patriarchal or hierarchical family structure. Traditional Chinese culture is focused on family decision making rather than individual decision making, with the family providing care at the end of life. It is the responsibility of the eldest son to provide care and respect the parents. The males in Chinese culture are the decision makers in terms of final treatment decisions, disclosure of information, and filtering health information delivered to the patient.22
When working with the Muslim culture at the end of life, the following must be considered: religious preferences, discussion of the diagnosis and prognosis, HCP involvement in care, and family responsibilities. In the Muslim culture, both life and death are under the control of God. The decision for death comes from God; however, patients should seek medical attention when ill. Muslims may accept life support, but they do not believe in euthanasia.23,24
Communication between patients and HCPs is essential, especially related to Muslim spiritual beliefs and needs at the end of life. Communication between the HCP and patient at the end of life respects the expression of Muslim beliefs and practices during this time. Muslim patients want to know their diagnosis, but without specific time frames, since they consider their life to be controlled by God. Care at the end of life in the Muslim culture is based around reducing the patient's pain and suffering.25
Family plays an important role in caring for individuals at the end of life. Families should be given the opportunity to pray with, or for, the patient. The family may have certain requests, such as having the patient face Mecca. Family presence at end of life helps the patient with fear of death.25
Integrating and assessment into end-of-life care
Cultural care at end of life is approached through the assessments available in a variety of arenas. Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and End of Life Nursing Education Consortium curriculum have identified several tools to augment an assessment of the patient and his or her family experiencing the end stages of illness. These cultural assessment tools are also available in several basic nursing texts.26
Mazanec and Panke's address “Cultural Considerations in Palliative Care” in the context of end-of-life trajectories as well as basic, cultural assessment tools. “Cultural knowledge and beliefs: a self-assessment questionnaire,” provides an organized approach to collecting culture-related information for accessing important cultural facts and beliefs from the individual's perspective.27
However, working with the patient and the family on issues related to end of life requires utilizing the information available about the culture, about diversity, and competent cultural care approaches; it begs the issue of self-awareness. Furthermore, it is important for every NP or clinician to listen to his or her thoughts as they interact with the patient, their cultural rituals and values, and map the illness's trajectory. If this is not done, ethical dilemmas and other ethical issues of care may surface.
As an NP, it is important to be culturally aware of individual and general cultural aspects in order to develop appropriate responses and ways to augment culturally competent care.28 However, once this is done, it is most helpful to expand the boundaries of the language and move toward people with sensitivity to their culture.
As the approaches to hospice and palliative care continue to be nuanced by culture, societal responses, and changes in illness trajectories, hospice and palliative care can be seen as two separate and distinct approaches to both chronic and terminal illness. The focus of end of life has shown itself in some cultures to limit opportunities to examine dialog with the patient and his/her family's quality of life (QOL), which is often a concern of palliative care. According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other physical, psychosocial, and spiritual problems.29
It is possible that expanding the dialog to issues of QOL will enhance intervention strategies.
NPs need to recognize that end of life is less a focus on “the end” as opposed to “the quality” of life, which can happen with an open-ended dialog: What does this person want, need, or hope for in order to enhance his or her health? Changing the perspective to create a good QOL amidst difficult situations begins with the NP and his/her engagement with the individual and their family. Palliative care has morphed into approaching illness from the beginning of a diagnosis to the end by discussing what will make life meaningful and important. NPs can participate in this journey through an illness to its end by recognizing the importance of the process or the journey of oneself amidst illness. How can NPs improve and enhance QOL at different points along the disease trajectory in a gentle, reassuring manner?
A focal point for integrating culturally sensitive care lies in the context of the person's understanding and meaning of a disease. What is a meaningful life for a patient in one culture may look, sound, and be experienced in a very different manner than a patient with the same disease in another culture. Yet the commitment toward living quality–especially in this stage of life–can be difficult and delicate. With the use of meaningful questions from an informed and astute NP, the patient may continue to attain a QOL as he or she progresses through to the end of life.
Palliative care, from a clinical perspective, is an invitation for the patient to encounter the meaning of life. In doing so, the NP must bring a developed and conscious sensitivity to the case on two levels: the patient's cultural background and needs integrated with the NP's own cultural perspective. This becomes a subtle yet important aspect of self-awareness, integral to the process of both the patient and the NP. Beginning with the NP's own cultural self-awareness, the NP can come to the discussion and target QOL by addressing issues related to the meaning of life questions for the individual. What essential elements would an NP pose? What might an NP consider necessary for “having a good quality of life?” How might an NP struggle with conflict between his or her values and beliefs and those he/she will be in dialog with? Furthermore, what are some techniques that could enhance an NP's ability to be open and expand their horizons during illness and at end of life?
Based on this informed sensitivity, the NP learns to articulate questions targeting meaning of life, tailor those questions to the specific patient, and efficiently use the time allotted to a case. The NP's proficient use of words on both a practical and philosophical level is the last factor to consider. Utilizing language thoughtfully is important. Thinking about the issues that will be approached in addition to being careful to leave room for dialog can help the NP and patient decide the top three concerns that need to be addressed.
In each culturally rooted family comes the struggle with specific meanings as well as more general meanings. Is the illness related to the specific behavior of this person or does a general view of spirituality oversee the situation for everyone? How does the individual, family, and communal relationships affect decision making in the individual's QOL? This implies that NPs understand the perspective of the person, the perspective of the person's family, potential issues for pain management, and the willingness to tolerate symptoms. It might also include an awareness of taboos, which may resurface throughout the course of the illness. Finally, the NP must have a solid command in regards to the trajectory of the illness and understand that potential trajectory influences the culture, environment, and meaning of time itself.
In practice, the NP focuses on “process” as opposed to “product.” Process is the meaning of life. One way to help the conversation unfold is to look at the symptoms and illnesses that the patient has at that time. This approach allows for a freedom of response. It is also a philosophical tact as opposed to an approach that may utilize answering questions with a calculated tool.
Interventions and approaches to culture and end-of-life care/palliative care
The interview begins with questions about the meaning of life. Examples include: Tell me about your illness; what do you think it means; and do you have concerns about the feeling of being tired or short of breath? At times, this mirrors the NP's concerns, and at other times, it does not. What is set in motion is trust, safety, and control. It is also a very gentle way to give the person permission to examine the thoughts and hopes that lay quietly in the background. Therefore, the person determines what a need or desire might be that could enhance the individual's QOL.
At times, a patient asks a concrete question as a message within a message. The concrete question becomes the entrance into what the emerging question might be. Listening on one level leaves the NP with only the concrete option, and a chance to meet the real issues of “meaning” or “quality of life” might be missed. The NP must address the first level of the narrative with concretely, succinctly, and consistently leaving room to address the metamessage of meaning. In each answer, the next question addresses the issue of QOL. For example, does this symptom enhance or detract from your QOL? Throughout the process, the facilitator (NP) always personalizes the exchange with questions such as: What do you want me to do or How can I help that happen?
For example, the use of opioids and antidepressants can carry personal fears for some cultures. Certain medications are correlative to suffering, and the suffering carries a meaning or value within each culture.30 Another question of meaning revolves around the reality of how debilitative the person becomes and the impact this has on the family. The NP in a North American setting now interfaces with dozens of cultures in a typical caseload. So a question pointing to a culture's strengths and challenges must be included–it is essential. The NP may ask, “How does your culture deal with support as your father declines?” One is trying to ascertain if the support would enhance or detract from QOL. The NP within a team environment can utilize the strengths of the group. For example, if the daughter is the decision maker, then the NP must be willing to have dialogs with the daughter. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act can be respected here by asking the following question: Whom would you like us to include in important issues and decisions of your needs? Many palliative teams include other disciplines, such as social worker, grief counselor, and volunteers. This is also a useful way to create an individual quality approach to care.
Another important evolution in the approach to palliative care is recognizing the importance of a narrative. The narrative can often be fictive or not exact. The process of creating and telling the story of what is helpful or not through the narrative can be adjusted as the person unfolds the story. The story is also a process told in the present and corrected in the emerging self-understanding. NPs can listen in a different way, allowing that this may be neither the beginning nor the end of the story. What becomes an impediment to the person's “end of life” care is often an inability to surrender or let go. Reconstructing the narrative is highly beneficial and reaffirming. It allows for culturally relevant metaphors that helps give the patient meaning to life through QOL.
A recent intervention with a patient may help illustrate the use and value of narrative reconstruction.
Mr. C, an 81-year-old male with an Asian background, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He had lived in the United States for many years, and his English was moderately accented. The author was called into consult regarding his palliative care plan and addressed the illness and the management of symptoms. The author then said to Mr. C to tell him a story about who you are and the important things of life for you. This enabled the patient to construct meaning about his values, fears, and his beliefs around those fears. He was the head of the family and the primary decision maker for most of his life. His need for 24-hour care, the reality of disease not changing, the fear was having dialog about his role and fear for his family; however, his death was not the issue. Rather, the effect of his acute dyspnea on his QOL and on the stress it caused his wife...he wanted to know how to deal with dyspnea...meaning given to that experience...machines/infections... should he terminate the ventilator?
As it turned out, Mr. C needed a dialog on the meaning of living and not on the meaning of dying. His family, on the other hand, was most concerned about him dying in the home and beliefs regarding the spirits he would leave behind. This approach allows for different concerns from different members of the patient's world.
The “economy of words” should be noted in a narrative reconstructive work, as noted above. This is helpful for both the patient and the NP. Parameters around the questions help to avoid rambling. Parameters around the patient's answers rely on a multifactorial approach that is culturally competent. The NP breaks down the answer into pieces. For example, what is the meaning of taking medications for a patient if continued pain is interfering with the patient's QOL? The assumption is that the patient knows what is best for him or her. What might not be readily available are the words to give the story its meaning. This might be a challenge for an NP. At times, all clinicians need to do is ask, “Is that it...is that what it means?”
An older adult Italian woman visited the author's office complaining of chest pain. The author asked all the appropriate questions about her pain but did not seem to understand what she was trying to say. Her spouse had died several weeks prior, and she was now trying to deal with her life alone. She sat clutching her chest, trying to find the right words, unable to capture it. The patient was asked to share the story of her pain. For patients who are struggling with meaning, it is wise to ask for a metaphor that can allow the boundaries of language to broaden and give a way to access new meanings. The patient responded by feeling around her heart: “It's like...no...it's like hurt...no, the pain is like something is broken. My heart...my heart is broken.” She wept. She was able to access the meanings through moving the boundaries of the language and hearing her own corrections, which unveiled self-understanding. This opened up a new way of listening.
Using narratives, metaphors, and listening to meanings emerge can be challenging for NPs; however, the experience of listening to meaning emerging and allowing for QOL with all its meaning to be dynamically adjusted is very powerful for both the patient and NP.
What is portrayed here when caring for patients is a different approach to QOL, for patients in life, until the end of life within a cultural perspective. Asking questions that target meaning of life invites a freedom for the patient to be open and honest with his or her answers. In their own words, patients articulate expectations of the illness, of the NP, of the family, and of issues speaking to physiological, emotional, and cultural value. This intervention might be the first time the patient has had the opportunity to state the value of his or her pain. In that alone, a QOL experience is provided.
NPs should become familiar and understand the cultural background and influences that can assist them in providing culturally competent care at the end of life. NPs should learn the concepts of various cultures to keep the lines of communication open. NPs should also involve patients in their care and elicit information needed to make the experience comfortable.
Cultural resources for practitioners
Transcultural C.A.R.E. Associates www.transculturalcare.net
Transcultural Nursing www.culturediversity.org/assesmnt.htm
Center to Advance Palliative Care www.capc.org
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine www.aahpm.org
End of Life Care Resources–The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization www.nhpco.org/i4a/links/?pageid=3287 | <urn:uuid:f2016a85-e711-409e-ac54-aca65d56a7c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://journals.lww.com/tnpj/Fulltext/2014/02000/Cultural_considerations_at_the_end_of_life.7.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957089 | 5,199 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The Encyclopedia features over 1,700 biographies, 300 thematic essays, and 1,400 photographs and illustrations on a wide range of Jewish women through the centuries -- from Gertrude Berg to Gertrude Stein; Hannah Greenebaum Solomon to Hannah Arendt; the Biblical Ruth to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Sorry, no pages match your query. If you searched using multiple topics, please try again using fewer search terms.
How to cite this page
Jewish Women's Archive. "Encyclopedia." (Viewed on June 27, 2016) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/toc/O>. | <urn:uuid:19c2679c-fad5-478b-95bc-c8955d561466> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/toc/O?tid=1565&field_main_topics_tid=All | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.733549 | 133 | 2.5625 | 3 |
HPV Vaccination Might Help Reduce Risk Of Throat Cancers
A study of women in Costa Rica is raising hope that getting vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, could lower the risk of throat cancers.
The research doesn't show that. It would take a much bigger and longer study to do that – if such a study could ethically be done at all.
What this study does show is that among the nearly 6,000 women in the study, those who got vaccinated against two strains of the virus had 93 percent fewer HPV throat infections four years later.
Since the virus is strongly linked to throat cancers, that should reduce the risk of these malignancies.
If it does, there's no reason to think the vaccine wouldn't lower risk of throat cancer in men, too. But that involves another set of inferences that the new study can only suggest, not support.
Two HPV vaccines are already approved for prevention of cancer of the uterine cervix in women. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, involved one of the vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix. (The other is Merck's Gardasil.)
The questions raised by the study are important ones.
This year more than 41,000 Americans will get a diagnosis of oropharyngeal cancer – affecting the throat, base of the tongue or tonsils. Nearly three-quarters of them are men.
Once cigarette smoking was the main cause of these cancers. But HPV infection is rapidly displacing cigarette smoking as the main culprit. (One relatively bright spot: HPV-caused throat cancers are less lethal than those due to smoking.)
A 2011 study found that HPV-associated throat cancers have increased from 16 to 72 percent of all such malignancies. That shift could reflect a decline in smoking-related throat cancers, an increase in those from oral sex – or both.
"If recent incidence trends continue, the annual number of HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers is expected to surpass the annual number of cervical cancers by the year 2020," the study's authors said.
Earlier this summer the role of HPV in throat cancer got a big dose of attention when actor Michael Douglas suggested his case was probably caused by HPV acquired through oral sex with women. He later amended that, saying he couldn't know the exact cause.
Heterosexual men appear to be at the same or somewhat higher risk than homosexual men of getting HPV throat infections through oral sex, perhaps because vaginal secretions contain more of the virus than are found on the skin of the penis.
It's hard for sexually active people to avoid HPV infection. Something like 80 million US adults have it, though 90 percent of the time their immune systems clear it over a period of months to years.
For the other 10 percent who get persistent HPV infections, it would clearly be a great boon if the two HPV vaccines already approved turned out to prevent throat cancer, too. But it's going to take more research – and perhaps some creative interpretation of the results – to show it. | <urn:uuid:4e89c6f7-a8d6-49c8-89ad-4369be386034> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kenw.org/post/hpv-vaccination-might-help-reduce-risk-throat-cancers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96176 | 631 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Anderson, T. Neill City of the Dead Galveston Hurricane 1900, 130 pgs. Charlesbridge Publishing Company, 2013. $16.95. Content: PG (some disturbing descriptions)
On September 8, 1900 the city of Galveston Texas was in the path of a tremendous hurricane resulting in the deadliest natural disaster in American history. This historical fiction dramatizes what may have happened to many of the victims and survivors on that day, including the children in St. Mary’s Orphanage.
Complete with maps and pictures from the era, as well as an explanation by the author of his source material, this would make a good independant read for students interested in weather, or natural disasters. This is part of the Horrors of History series EL OPTIONAL MS ADVISABLE Lisa Librarian | <urn:uuid:7946a1a4-b1c7-427b-bccf-0cd07ff7c160> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2013/07/city-of-dead-galveston-hurricane-1900.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948209 | 168 | 2.546875 | 3 |
NASA Announces SpaceShipTwo PayloadsWednesday, June 4, 2014
Twelve payloads from research institutions and private companies will be launched by Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which is under development in the Antelope Valley, NASA has announced.
The research projects are part of the $10 million Flight Opportunities Program that partners the space agency with private commercial space companies to encourage advances in space technology while providing low-cost access to sub-orbital altitudes for experiments.
Research flights could begin later this year, with the space vehicle taking up paying passengers for sub-orbital flights perhaps next year. The craft completed a flight test from Mojave in January, but commercial flights would take off from Las Cruces, New Mexico.
“Our team is working hard to increase access to the space frontier so that many more payloads and people have a chance to experience spaceflight directly,” George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic chief executive, said in a prepared statement.
Virgin Galactic is the space tourism business of British billionaire Richard Branson. Additional sub-orbital space vehicles are being made by Spaceship Co., a Virgin Galactic subsidiary, at the Mojave Air & Space Port.
Among the experiments to be taken aboard SpaceShipTwo are an electromagnetic field measurements payload from John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.; a micro satellite attitude control system from the State University of New York in Buffalo; an on-orbit propellant storage stability investigation by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.; and an experiment by Made In Space Inc. in Moffett Field to develop the use of 3-D printers in space. | <urn:uuid:a72c7786-bb99-4825-9040-d6f7790098c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2014/jun/04/nasa-announces-spaceshiptwo-payloads/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917996 | 340 | 2.640625 | 3 |
In Southern California, we are blessed with a mild, Mediterranean climate that provides a 365-day year growing season. Although limited by some winter frosts, we are able to grow most landscape ornamentals as well as vegetables throughout the year.
We also face serious water supply challenges now and into the future. Water allotments from Northern California and the Colorado river are being reduced, municipalities have issued water alerts and restrictions on water use while implementing tiered water rates meant to punish abusive water consumers.
The days of cheap imported water that allowed Southern California to flourish as a green oasis in what normally would be a desert are ancient history.
If you are considering a new or renovating an existing landscape, water conservation and using appropriate plant materials should be a top priority. Studies show 50% of a residential water bill goes toward landscape irrigation. The single greatest water consumer is turf grass utilizing overhead spray irrigation.
Do you really need that turf grass lawn? Are you an empty nestor, no longer needing the big play area for the kids? Are you a new homeowner, trying to figure out the best design and functionality for your landscape? With todays water and maintenance costs, you must make an informed decision when tailoring an appropriate landscape for your property and your own personal, functional and aesthetic interests.
So, if you have already decided the typical water guzzling turf landscape is not for you, that leaves several types of water efficient landscapes to choose from. This blog will focus on using an organic fruit and vegetable garden as an edible, beautiful and functional landscape planting.
ARE YOU THE GARDENING TYPE?
- Love to get your hands dirty
- Have the time and commitment to garden regularly and as needed
- Have a area that receives a minimum of six hours full sunlight daily
- Enjoy eating fruits and vegetables
- Have a desire to eat chemical free produce
- Enjoy saving water cost, reducing your carbon footprint
- Like to educate kids, neighbors and your community
- Like to do the right thing
If the answer to the first four items above are yes, Congratulations, you are a likely candidate to start a fruit and vegetable garden!
The traditional concept of row gardening can be easily modified and adapted to a landscape design, satisfying both functional and aesthetic considerations. Using our residence as a example, we choose to convert our worn out, old front yard cactus garden into a fruit and vegetable garden.
Overgrown, non functional cactus garden
Since this is our front yard, I wanted to create a functional yet aesthetic fruit and vegetable garden that would enhance and enliven the site characteristics. Since the site is raised and already had a segmental block retaining wall, I designed a series of raised planters with pathways on each side of the planter for ease of cruising through the garden and access to work both sides of the planter beds.
Renovated landscape with vegetable garden raised planter beds
Raised planters with pathways for access also create interest
In a few months, we celebrate our one year garden anniversary. Take a look at some of the fruits and vegetables grown this past year.
French breakfast radishes, yum
Fresh, sweet organic carrots
Sweet millions tomatoes, the sweetest yet
Pomegranate trees make great medium size ornamental tree with beautiful fruit
Gotta have a lime tree for a mojito
A beautiful, edible front yard landscape
Ready to get started? Need help? I am a professional horticulturist, a C-27 landscape contractor and a certified arborist. My company, Rappoport Development Consulting Services LLC provides professional landscape, arboriculture, horticulture and organic gardening consulting services. Got a problem with the garden? Give me a call at 858-205-4748. | <urn:uuid:714893a0-5aed-4d6a-8707-529f35d79df7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://landscapeexpertwitness.com/2011/11/26/the-edible-landscape/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927244 | 773 | 2.515625 | 3 |
All of our classroom teachers are working hard on their classroom blogs. They are using the blog as a platform to allow parents to have a peek into the classroom. It is a communication tool between school and home. It has been a steep learning curve for some to write, post, embed and upload in this new media until it is becoming a daily routine.
I wrote about this learning curve and process of teacher blogging before. My vision includes a step ladder approach as teachers are moving from a purely informational, static, one-way-communication site to a global communication center.
I am proud of how our classroom teachers are continuing to work hard and move forward in the blogging process.
A few weeks ago, our second graders created a video tutorial to teach their parents how to navigate their classroom blog. They are excited and self-motivated to check their classroom blog from home to see if their teachers posted something new. Both teachers and students are now ready to take the next step with the ultimate goal of making a global learning community out of their blog. These 7 & 8 year olds are ready to start commenting!
In class, teachers had read two books about pilgrims to the children. Outside of the classroom, teachers prepared a wall as a designated “wall blog”. They used push pins to “post” a handwritten piece of paper about their reading and added a few questions at the end. They also wrote a poster with “commenting guidelines” in addition to two images and books and a Venn Diagram poster (to compare and contrast the two stories).
As a class, we read the post and went over the commenting guidelines.
The teachers had also prepared some pre-made comments and students had to decide if they were appropriate comments following the guidelines or not. If they were not, they helped re-write the comments to make them appropriate to be pinned to the wall blog.
Then it was time for the students to comment. Each one of them received a colorful sentence strip and was instructed to then answer one of the questions from the original (paper) blog post or to comment on one of the comments that were already pinned to the wall.
There was a lively buzz going around. The students wrote great comments and it was amazing to see how their minds worked as they were trying to figure out the “best” spot to place their comments. We wanted to make sure that comments who answered the same questions were placed in close proximity to one another. We also talked about the “nested” aspect of comments.
We talked about the difference between writing on a piece of paper and writing online. What does it mean when you underline a word on a piece of paper and what does it mean when a word is underlined online?
The wall blogging exercise did not involve ANY TECHNOLOGY! It was all about reading comprehension, writing, categorizing, comparing, contrasting, reflecting, documenting and collaboratively working towards exploring a text. The students will now be able to transfer these skills to a new medium.
A new medium that allows them to practice the skills mentioned above in addition to:
- be able to do this from home
- learning how to read and write in an online environment
- connect and share with a worldwide audience (not just the people who physically can stand in front of our wall blog)
How are your preparing your students to comment? Please share your ideas. | <urn:uuid:45b84488-383d-4811-a4f3-b9e7b8227abf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/11/26/preparing-students-for-commenting-with-wall-blogging/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983028 | 701 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Southern California is overdue for 'The Big One,' study finds
Southern California is overdue for a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault, according to a landmark study released Friday.
The long-awaited study came after scientists spent years studying the geology of the Carrizo Plain area of the San Andreas, which is about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It found that earthquakes along the San Andreas fault have occurred far more often than previously believed.
"What we know is for the last 700 years, earthquakes on the southern San Andreas fault have been much more frequent than everyone thought," said UC Irvine researcher Sinan Akciz said in a statement. "Data presented here contradict previously published reports."
Added UCI researcher Lisa Grant Ludwig: "People should not stick their heads in the ground. There are storm clouds gathered on the horizon. Does that mean it's definitely going to rain? No, but when you have that many clouds, you think, 'I'm going to take my umbrella with me today.' That's what this research does: It gives us a chance to prepare."
The last massive earthquake on that part of the fault occurred in 1857. But researchers from UC Irvine and Arizona State University found that earthquakes have occurred as often as every 45 to 144 years.
That would make the region overdue for the type of catastrophic quake often referred to as "The Big One."
The finding adds weight to the view of many Southern California seismologists that the San Andreas has been in a quiet period and that a major rupture is possible.
The research, published Friday in the journal Geology, used charcoal samples to look for earthquake activity going back centuries.
-- Rong-Gong Lin II
Updated, 6:21 p.m.: Study shakes up scientists' view of San Andreas fault earthquake risk | <urn:uuid:b41ac50e-c028-4153-91d8-e7ff73100918> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/southern-california-overdue-for-major-earthquake-study-finds/comments/page/5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966642 | 368 | 3.1875 | 3 |
For the purposes of this Convention:
1 Ship means any seagoing vessel and seaborne craft, of any type whatsoever.
2 Person means any individual or partnership or any public or private body, whether corporate or not, including a State or any of its constituent subdivisions.
3 Shipowner means the owner, including the registered owner, bareboat charterer, manager and operator of the ship.
4 Registered owner means the person or persons registered as the owner of the ship or, in the absence of registration, the person or persons owning the ship. However, in the case of a ship owned by a State and operated by a company which in that State is registered as the ship’s operator, registered owner shall mean such company.
5 Bunker oil means any hydrocarbon mineral oil, including lubricating oil, used or intended to be used for the operation or propulsion of the ship, and any residues of such oil.
6 Civil Liability Convention means the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992, as amended.
7 Preventive measures means any reasonable measures taken by any person after an incident has occurred to prevent or minimize pollution damage.
8 Incident means any occurrence or series of occurrences having the same origin, which causes pollution damage or creates a grave and imminent threat of causing such damage.
9 Pollution damage means:
(a) loss or damage caused outside the ship by contamination resulting from the escape or discharge of bunker oil from the ship, wherever such escape or discharge may occur, provided that compensation for impairment of the environment other than loss of profit from such impairment shall be limited to costs of reasonable measures of reinstatement actually undertaken or to be undertaken; and
(b) the costs of preventive measures and further loss or damage caused by preventive measures.
10 State of the ship’s registry means, in relation to a registered ship, the State of registration of the ship and, in relation to an unregistered ship, the State whose flag the ship is entitled to fly.
11 Gross tonnage means gross tonnage calculated in accordance with the tonnage measurement regulations contained in Annex 1 of the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969.
12 Organization means the International Maritime Organization.
13 Secretary-General means the Secretary-General of the Organization.
Scope of Application
This Convention shall apply exclusively:
(a) to pollution damage caused:
(i) in the territory, including the territorial sea, of a State Party, and
(ii) in the exclusive economic zone of a State Party, established in accordance with international law, or, if a State Party has not established such a zone, in an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea of that State determined by that State in accordance with international law and extending not more than 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of its territorial sea is measured;
(b) to preventive measures, wherever taken, to prevent or minimize such damage.
Liability of the Shipowner
1 Except as provided in paragraphs 3 and 4, the shipowner at the time of an incident shall be liable for pollution damage caused by any bunker oil on board or originating from the ship, provided that, if an incident consists of a series of occurrences having the same origin, the liability shall attach to the shipowner at the time of the first of such occurrences.
2 Where more than one person is liable in accordance with paragraph 1, their liability shall be joint and several.
3 No liability for pollution damage shall attach to the shipowner if the shipowner proves that:
(a) the damage resulted from an act of war, hostilities, civil war, insurrection or a natural phenomenon of an exceptional, inevitable and irresistible character; or
(b) the damage was wholly caused by an act or omission done with the intent to cause damage by a third party; or
(c) the damage was wholly caused by the negligence or other wrongful act of any Government or other authority responsible for the maintenance of lights or other navigational aids in the exercise of that function.
4 If the shipowner proves that the pollution damage resulted wholly or partially either from an act or omission done with intent to cause damage by the person who suffered the damage or from the negligence of that person, the shipowner may be exonerated wholly or partially from liability to such person.
5 No claim for compensation for pollution damage shall be made against the shipowner otherwise than in accordance with this Convention.
6 Nothing in this Convention shall prejudice any right of recourse of the shipowner which exists independently of this Convention.
1 This Convention shall not apply to pollution damage as defined in the Civil Liability Convention, whether or not compensation is payable in respect of it under that Convention.
2 Except as provided in paragraph 3, the provisions of this Convention shall not apply to warships, naval auxiliary or other ships owned or operated by a State and used, for the time being, only on Government non-commercial service.
3 A State Party may decide to apply this Convention to its warships or other ships described in paragraph 2, in which case it shall notify the Secretary-General thereof specifying the terms and conditions of such application.
4 With respect to ships owned by a State Party and used for commercial purposes, each State shall be subject to suit in the jurisdictions set forth in article 9 and shall waive all defences based on its status as a sovereign State.
Incidents Involving Two or More Ships
When an incident involving two or more ships occurs and pollution damage results therefrom, the shipowners of all the ships concerned, unless exonerated under article 3, shall be jointly and severally liable for all such damage which is not reasonably separable.
Limitation of Liability
Nothing in this Convention shall affect the right of the shipowner and the person or persons providing insurance or other financial security to limit liability under any applicable national or international regime, such as the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976, as amended.
Compulsory Insurance or Financial Security
1 The registered owner of a ship having a gross tonnage greater than 1000 registered in a State Party shall be required to maintain insurance or other financial security, such as the guarantee of a bank or similar financial institution, to cover the liability of the registered owner for pollution damage in an amount equal to the limits of liability under the applicable national or international limitation regime, but in all cases, not exceeding an amount calculated in accordance with the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976, as amended.
2 A certificate attesting that insurance or other financial security is in force in accordance with the provisions of this Convention shall be issued to each ship after the appropriate authority of a State Party has determined that the requirements of paragraph 1 have been complied with. With respect to a ship registered in a State Party such certificate shall be issued or certified by the appropriate authority of the State of the ship’s registry; with respect to a ship not registered in a State Party it may be issued or certified by the appropriate authority of any State Party. This certificate shall be in the form of the model set out in the annex to this Convention and shall contain the following particulars:
(a) name of ship, distinctive number or letters and port of registry;
(b) name and principal place of business of the registered owner;
(c) IMO ship identification number;
(d) type and duration of security;
(e) name and principal place of business of insurer or other person giving security and, where appropriate, place of business where the insurance or security is established;
(f) period of validity of the certificate which shall not be longer than the period of validity of the insurance or other security.
3 (a) A State Party may authorize either an institution or an organization recognized by it to issue the certificate referred to in paragraph 2. Such institution or organization shall inform that State of the issue of each certificate. In all cases, the State Party shall fully guarantee the completeness and accuracy of the certificate so issued and shall undertake to ensure the necessary arrangements to satisfy this obligation.
(b) A State Party shall notify the Secretary-General of :
(i) the specific responsibilities and conditions of the authority delegated to an institution or organization recognised by it;
(ii) the withdrawal of such authority; and
(iii) the date from which such authority or withdrawal of such authority takes effect.
An authority delegated shall not take effect prior to three months from the date on which notification to that effect was given to the Secretary-General.
(c) The institution or organization authorized to issue certificates in accordance with this paragraph shall, as a minimum, be authorized to withdraw these certificates if the conditions under which they have been issued are not maintained. In all cases the institution or organization shall report such withdrawal to the State on whose behalf the certificate was issued.
4 The certificate shall be in the official language or languages of the issuing State. If the language used is not English, French or Spanish, the text shall include a translation into one of these languages and, where the State so decides, the official language of the State may be omitted.
5 The certificate shall be carried on board the ship and a copy shall be deposited with the authorities who keep the record of the ship’s registry or, if the ship is not registered in a State Party, with the authorities issuing or certifying the certificate.
6 An insurance or other financial security shall not satisfy the requirements of this article if it can cease, for reasons other than the expiry of the period of validity of the insurance or security specified in the certificate under paragraph 2 of this article, before three months have elapsed from the date on which notice of its termination is given to the authorities referred to in paragraph 5 of this article, unless the certificate has been surrendered to these authorities or a new certificate has been issued within the said period. The foregoing provisions shall similarly apply to any modification which results in the insurance or security no longer satisfying the requirements of this article.
7 The State of the ship’s registry shall, subject to the provisions of this article, determine the conditions of issue and validity of the certificate.
8 Nothing in this Convention shall be construed as preventing a State Party from relying on information obtained from other States or the Organization or other international organisations relating to the financial standing of providers of insurance or financial security for the purposes of this Convention. In such cases, the State Party relying on such information is not relieved of its responsibility as a State issuing the certificate required by paragraph 2.
9 Certificates issued or certified under the authority of a State Party shall be accepted by other States Parties for the purposes of this Convention and shall be regarded by other States Parties as having the same force as certificates issued or certified by them even if issued or certified in respect of a ship not registered in a State Party. A State Party may at any time request consultation with the issuing or certifying State should it believe that the insurer or guarantor named in the insurance certificate is not financially capable of meeting the obligations imposed by this Convention.
10 Any claim for compensation for pollution damage may be brought directly against the insurer or other person providing financial security for the registered owner’s liability for pollution damage. In such a case the defendant may invoke the defences (other than bankruptcy or winding up of the shipowner) which the shipowner would have been entitled to invoke, including limitation pursuant to article 6. Furthermore, even if the shipowner is not entitled to limitation of liability according to article 6, the defendant may limit liability to an amount equal to the amount of the insurance or other financial security required to be maintained in accordance with paragraph 1. Moreover, the defendant may invoke the defence that the pollution damage resulted from the wilful misconduct of the shipowner, but the defendant shall not invoke any other defence which the defendant might have been entitled to invoke in proceedings brought by the shipowner against the defendant. The defendant shall in any event have the right to require the shipowner to be joined in the proceedings.
11 A State Party shall not permit a ship under its flag to which this article applies to operate at any time, unless a certificate has been issued under paragraphs 2 or 14.
12 Subject to the provisions of this article, each State Party shall ensure, under its national law, that insurance or other security, to the extent specified in paragraph 1, is in force in respect of any ship having a gross tonnage greater than 1000, wherever registered, entering or leaving a port in its territory, or arriving at or leaving an offshore facility in its territorial sea.
13 Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 5, a State Party may notify the Secretary-General that, for the purposes of paragraph 12, ships are not required to carry on board or to produce the certificate required by paragraph 2, when entering or leaving ports or arriving at or leaving from offshore facilities in its territory, provided that the State Party which issues the certificate required by paragraph 2 has notified the Secretary-General that it maintains records in an electronic format, accessible to all States Parties, attesting the existence of the certificate and enabling States Parties to discharge their obligations under paragraph 12.
14 If insurance or other financial security is not maintained in respect of a ship owned by a State Party, the provisions of this article relating thereto shall not be applicable to such ship, but the ship shall carry a certificate issued by the appropriate authority of the State of the ship’s registry stating that the ship is owned by that State and that the ship’s liability is covered within the limit prescribed in accordance with paragraph 1. Such a certificate shall follow as closely as possible the model prescribed by paragraph 2.
15 A State may, at the time of ratification, acceptance, approval of, or accession to this Convention, or at any time thereafter, declare that this article does not apply to ships operating exclusively within the area of that State referred to in article 2(a)(i).
Rights to compensation under this Convention shall be extinguished unless an action is brought thereunder within three years from the date when the damage occurred. However, in no case shall an action be brought more than six years from the date of the incident which caused the damage. Where the incident consists of a series of occurrences, the six-years’ period shall run from the date of the first such occurrence.
1 Where an incident has caused pollution damage in the territory, including the territorial sea, or in an area referred to in article 2(a)(ii) of one or more States Parties, or preventive measures have been taken to prevent or minimise pollution damage in such territory, including the territorial sea, or in such area, actions for compensation against the shipowner, insurer or other person providing security for the shipowner’s liability may be brought only in the courts of any such States Parties.
2 Reasonable notice of any action taken under paragraph 1 shall be given to each defendant.
3 Each State Party shall ensure that its courts have jurisdiction to entertain actions for compensation under this Convention.
Recognition and Enforcement
1 Any judgement given by a Court with jurisdiction in accordance with article 9 which is enforceable in the State of origin where it is no longer subject to ordinary forms of review, shall be recognised in any State Party, except:
2 A judgement recognised under paragraph 1 shall be enforceable in each State Party as soon as the formalities required in that State have been complied with. The formalities shall not permit the merits of the case to be re-opened.
Issued in accordance with the provisions of article 7 of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001
Name of Ship
Distinctive number or letters
IMO Ship Identification Number
Port of registry
Name and full address of the principal place of business of the registered owner
This is to certify that there is in force in respect of the above-named ship a policy of insurance or other financial security satisfying the requirements of article 7 of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001.
Type of Security
Duration of Security
Name and address of the insurer(s) and/or guarantor(s)
This certificate is valid until
Issued or certified by the Government of
(Full designation of the State)
The following text should be used when a State Party avails itself of article 7(3)
The present certificate is issued under the authority of the Government of (full designation of the State) by (name of institution or organization)
At (Place)On (Date)
Signature and Title of issuing or certifying official
- If desired, the designation of the State may include a reference to the competent public authority of the country where the Certificate is issued.
- If the total amount of security has been furnished by more than one source, the amount of each of them should be indicated.
- If security is furnished in several forms, these should be enumerated.
- The entry “Duration of Security” must stipulate the date on which such security takes effect.
- The entry “Address” of the insurer(s) and/or guarantor(s) must indicate the principal place of business of the insurer(s) and/or guarantor(s). If appropriate, the place of business where the insurance or other security is established shall be indicated.
- 2009, c. 21, s. 17.
- Date modified: | <urn:uuid:b0e9c7d6-1492-4321-b4c6-3d0d1ec8c1fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/M-0.7/page-26.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93643 | 3,586 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Section 1: Introduction
We want to know what the universe is made of and how it has changed over time. Astronomers have been exploring these questions, and have discovered some surprising results. The universe is expanding, and the expansion is being accelerated by a "dark energy" that today apparently makes up more than 70 percent of the universe.
Figure 1: Type Ia supernovae, like the one shown here in the outskirts of galaxy NGC 4526, have been used to trace the influence of dark energy on the expansion of the universe.
Source: © High-Z Supernova Search Team, NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. More info
The universe that contains our planet, our star, and our galaxy, as well as 1011 other galaxies and their stars and planets, obeys the same physical laws that we have uncovered in our exploration of nature here on Earth. By applying these laws, we have learned the scale of the universe, and the surprising fact that the other galaxies appear to be moving away from us as the universe stretches out in all directions. Astronomers detected this cosmic expansion in the 1920s. They understood it by applying Einstein's general relativity—the theory of gravity—to the universe as a whole. Recent work using exploding stars to measure the history of cosmic expansion shows that the universe is not slowing down due to the familiar braking action of gravity we know from everyday experience. The expansion of the universe has actually sped up in the last 5 billion years. In Einstein's theory, this can happen if there is another component to the universe. We call that mysterious substance "dark energy," and we seek to discover its properties through astronomical observations.
Today's astronomical measurements show that dark energy makes up about 70 percent of the universe. So our ignorance is very substantial. This deep mystery lies at the heart of understanding gravity, which is no simple matter, as we saw in the first part of this course. Future observations will trace the growth of lumpy structures in the universe. These measurements can help distinguish between the effects of dark energy and possible imperfections in our understanding of gravity. We may face more surprises ahead.
This unit spells out how astronomers measure distance and velocity and describes how an expanding universe best explains these measurements. We show how recent observations of exploding stars, the glow from the Big Bang, and the clustering of galaxies make the case for dark energy as the largest, but least understood, component of the universe. | <urn:uuid:56c1f9d5-b3a1-4f25-97d7-28dc0077ce0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=11&secNum=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931406 | 495 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Barnabas Root was probably the first black man to receive a college degree in Illinois, according to Hermann Muelder in Missionaries and Muckrakers: The First Hundred Years of Knox College. (University of Illinois Press, 1984) The Galesburg Congregational Churches and many of the Knox College alumni were deeply involved with the American Missionary Society.
Knox alumna Mary McIntosh (Knox class of 1855) was called to the Mendi Mission in what is now Liberia and Sierra Leone. One of her students there was Fahma Yahny, known here as Barnabas Root. He adopted the name of a Plymouth, Illinois man who helped raise the funds for Root's education at Knox.
Root was enrolled in the Knox Academy in September 1864, and six years later he graduated from Knox (1870), having excelled in Greek, Latin, and German. As a freshman, he was elected to the Gnothautii Society, one of the college's two literary societies where he participated regularly in debates, orations and business affairs of the society.
Barnabas Root was born in Sherbro in West Africa in 1848. His maternal grandfather had been a slave in America and was returned to Africa by the American Colonization Society. Root was known there as Prince Fahma Yahny, the grand nephew of the King of Sherbro. He came to the United States with Reverend John White in 1859, but returned home. In 1863, C. F. Winship (Knox College Class of 1853), a missionary at the Mendi Mission, brought Root back to America. After his graduation from Knox, Barnabas Root enrolled in Chicago Theological Seminary. He graduated in 1873 and was ordained in 1874. He returned to Africa to engage in missionary work and died of consumption in 1877. | <urn:uuid:c404bb20-a8bc-46cd-a0f8-2de097fdb450> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://library.knox.edu/archives/exhibits/blacks/root.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979068 | 379 | 2.640625 | 3 |
To avoid slow and uneven heating when microwaving your food, try placing the plate or container on the edge of the spinning carousel instead of directly in the middle of the microwave.
To understand how this works, remember that microwaves heat food by bombarding it with microwave radiation. This creates an alternating electric field, which excites the water molecules in your food and forces them to spin as they try to line up with the field. As the water molecules spin, they dissipate energy in the form of heat. Other molecules in your food then absorb that heat, and before long the entire dish is piping hot.
In ovens where the magnetron isn't powerful or large enough to cover the inside of the cooking chamber, you can cook your food more evenly by putting the dish or container on the end of the carousel so it passes in and out of the path of the waveguide (where the microwaves are emitted and the field is the strongest.) The water molecules will spin more rapidly since both they and the field are in motion, and the result is hotter food.
It's worth noting that this trick works best in older microwave ovens, as newer ones use more efficient magnetrons that cover the cooking chamber more evenly. Even in the best case, you'll only get a marginal increase in power from one side of the cooking chamber to the other, but it could be enough to heat that Hot Pocket all the way through on the first try. Still, you're not going to cook a 5-minute TV dinner in 3 minutes with this trick; it's just more likely your food will be more evenly and thoroughly heated when the cooking time is up. Photo by Jason Rogers. | <urn:uuid:3f9f2c2f-2b95-497e-bae2-c7e34bb4dda6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lifehacker.com/5815789/microwave-food-on-the-edge-of-the-carousel-for-faster-more-even-heating | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952059 | 342 | 3.453125 | 3 |
It's no secret that turning your computer off and on again fixes a ton of problems, but if you've ever wondered why, How-To Geek explains how it works.
Restarts fix you computer for all sorts of reasons, and How-To Geek takes a look at the most important ones. For example, the Windows blue screen of death is usually caused by a low-level error and it's fixed when you restart because the problem code can start over again. The other common problem is memory leaks:
In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks.
Essentially, when you restart your computer you're clearing off the current state of your software and starting over again. You're basically dumping out the junk and starting over again fresh. This includes whatever problems you've run into. Head over to How-To Geek for the full explanation of what happens when you reboot, including the difference between hard and soft resets. | <urn:uuid:df16af0c-c5fa-4904-8e12-60500dcb6864> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lifehacker.com/why-rebooting-your-computer-fixes-problems-1445670330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943132 | 264 | 2.890625 | 3 |
By Paul Gabrielsen, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Paul Gabrielsen is a science writer based in Santa Cruz, California. He is a science communication graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has written for ScienceNOW, the San Jose Mercury News, Geospace and mongabay.com.
In the future, scientists want to be able to send spacecraft to study asteroids such as the one that will approach the Earth on Friday. A concept for these landers may look familiar to anyone who grew up in the 1970s.
Egg-shaped and weighted at the bottom, the landers - prototype designs for a possible future NASA mission - look like roly-poly Weebles, which wobble, as the old jingle goes, but don’t fall down.
The craft are still only computer simulations, a decade away from being ready to launch, but their simple design overcomes some of the biggest challenges in exploring asteroids’ alien landscapes.
Planetary scientists Naor Movshovitz and Erik Asphaug designed the landers, which they call “pods.” NASA’s Near Earth Object Program funded their work, which grew out of Movshovitz’s doctoral research on deflecting asteroids from Earth’s orbit. Movshovitz is a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Cruz; Asphaug, his advisor, recently moved to Arizona State University.
Whether attempting to deflect an asteroid or trying to land an astronaut on its surface, scientists need to know the basics of what its surface is like. Small, low-cost surface landers (less than $1 million, with no moving parts) can travel to an asteroid and provide the needed information, if they can land successfully.
Asteroids are tricky places to land a spacecraft right-side up. Spinning through space, an asteroid’s small, uneven terrain and extremely weak gravity make even the idea of “up” and “down” fluid concepts. The techniques that have safely landed the recent Mars rovers (bouncy airbags for Spirit and Opportunity, a complicated “sky crane” for Curiosity) simply don’t work on an asteroid.
“Asteroids being weird and wacky places, we have to be prepared for any situation,” Asphaug said.
Their first design was boxy, like a deck of playing cards with one side coated in bouncy-ball rubber. The idea was for these landers to bounce around the asteroid before coming to rest, nonbouncy side down.
Since asteroids are in short supply in Santa Cruz, California, the scientists tested their designs in a computer model, using a video game physics simulator. Video game physics are just as good as scientific physics models, Asphaug said, and modern graphics cards can run the simulations 100 times faster.
Movshovitz tossed the square landers onto a computer-simulated asteroid. The rubbery side bounced, as designed. But too many landers came to rest wrong-side down.
They developed a new design - an egg-shaped lander weighted on the bottom, just like the Weebles that Asphaug played with as a kid.
“I was fascinated by Weebles,” Asphaug said. The toys, first produced in 1971, could be knocked in any direction but would still come to rest right-side up. Asphaug bet Movshovitz that the wobbly pods would work better than the previous “sandwich” lander, even in microgravity.
Movshovitz made the lower half of the pod nine times heavier than the upper half. In his simulation, the lower half was colored red, the upper half green. The landers, descending to the simulated surface, look like tomatoes falling from heaven.
Every roly-poly lander popped right up, even one that had landed on its head. Asphaug won the bet.
Movshovitz also is using video game physics to study how asteroids break apart in a planet’s orbit. The physics will be key, he said, to understanding the balance between the friction that holds the asteroid together and the strong planetary gravity that could tear it apart.
Asphaug said he hopes to continue to take advantage of the computing power developed by the video game industry to advance science. Video gaming, after all, is a $65 billion industry obsessed with making graphics faster, smoother and closer to reality than ever before. NASA’s entire budget, by comparison, is less than $18 billion.
Movshovitz uses a high-performance gaming computer sporting a graphics card with around 500 processors. His black metallic keyboard features sharp, angular lines and an amber backlit glow. With such a machine, is there ever a temptation to play games?
“After hours,” Movshovitz said with a smile.
Researchers presented these ideas at the 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco in December.
Asphaug’s Arizona State University team is now working on real-life pod prototypes, about the size of two softballs end to end, to prepare for NASA’s next asteroid mission, launching in 2022.
“Time flies,” Asphaug said. “We’ll be ready.” | <urn:uuid:8e11f496-42e6-4616-8da7-d70cafa19d4d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/14/how-to-land-on-an-asteroid/?hpt=hp_c4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945004 | 1,124 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Earth Community Dialogues
An Earth Community Dialogue is a conversation focused on identifying, understanding, and articulating the differences between Empire stories and Earth Community stories, testing the underlying premises of both sets of stories against personal experience, and planning activities to expand the conversation. (See The Great Turning: Epic Passage.) It may involve as few as two people. There is no upper limit.
Growing Community through Dialogue
Dialogue is foundational to the process of developing the partnership relations of Earth Community. Through dialogue we reclaim a sense of authentic community and develop the shared language and stories of a new Earth Community culture. Facilitating such dialogue is integral to the work of every Earth Community Navigator. The dialogue best starts locally with people who are in daily contact, but ultimately it must as well be national and global.
An article or talk may open minds to new perspective and initiate a process of personal awakening. The language and stories of Earth Community become part of our lives and being, however, only as we come to use and share them in daily conversation. It is best to start experimenting with the use of the language and the sharing of the stories with a sympathetic group of friends who are on a similar journey and have already developed bonds of trust with one another. It is most productive if this is a group of people who are in a regular continuing relationship, such as members of a church, synagogue, mosque, interfaith alliance, neighborhood association, college, business, or local nonprofit organization.
Creating a Liberated Cultural Space
When you create such a conversation group, you create a liberated cultural space in which participants give one another permission to explore new ways of thinking and being. As the dialogue deepens you develop and practice an Earth Community culture within that space. As you draw others into the group, the liberated space expands. As your group connects with other groups engaged in similar processes, the liberated spaces begin to merge, further expanding the reach of the new culture and growing new potential for collaboration to shift the culture of the larger society.
Being in Communion
An Earth Community dialogue should be a spiritual experience as much as an intellectual experience. Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra suggests that such gatherings draw inspiration from the ancient wisdom of
1. Satsang: (To connect, to be in communion) The liberated space of an Earth Community dialogue creates a place to share wisdom and guidance. It calls us to experience and reflect on the oneness of all being, life and humanity and to open our minds to new possibilities.
2. Simran: (To Communicate, to share inspiration, to reflect on who we really are.) When we gather in communion to reflect on the true nature or essence of who we are we unleash the collective power of the essential connection we share. This opens us to inner transformation, a transformation of our outer relationships, and ultimately to global transformation.
3. Seva: (To support, to be in selfless service with devotion and compassion) When we experience the feeling of being one with life and humanity, the desire to serve flows spontaneously, not from any sense of duty, but purely out of love. We come to recognize that we feel most fulfilled and true to ourselves when we serve the greater good with devotion and service.
You might consider beginning the process by organizing a group to dialogue on The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community using the companion study guide. A less ambitious starting point would be a discussion of my lead article in the Summer 2006 issue of YES! magazine, which also comes with a companion discussion guide. You will find a host of ideas and resources for organizing an Earth Community dialogue on www.thegreatturning.net. | <urn:uuid:36486e79-74da-4f69-b435-d728bd786e7f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://livingeconomiesforum.org/earth-community-dialogues | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935103 | 742 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Gas-pipe purging linked to seven big explosions since 1997
The cause of the explosion at the Kleen Energy natural-gas plant has yet to be determined. But a federal safety board had recently urged stronger safety codes for the process of gas-pipe purging, which was under way at the plant in Middletown, Conn.
Richard Messina / Hartford Courant / AP
The purging of natural-gas lines is likely to be an early point of inquiry for federal investigators looking into Sunday's fatal explosion at a power plant in Middletown, Conn., given that the process is linked to at least seven major explosions since 1997 that caused numerous injuries and deaths, federal documents suggest.
Workers at the Kleen Energy Systems plant were reportedly purging gas lines at the time of the explosion, police and local officials told news outlets. Natural-gas lines are purged to remove air from the pipes before natural gas begins to flow through them, because air-fuel mixtures can be explosive.
Even before investigators from the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) determine a cause, board officials have been working to persuade organizations that set safety standards to change safety codes governing gas-line purging nationwide.
“The CSB has no enforcement authority to make these changes,” says Sandy Gilmour, a CSB spokesman. “It’s an advocacy process.”
Where to vent pipes
The Chemical Safety Board, a federal investigative body, had recently criticized safety codes for installing natural-gas systems in industrial and other facilities. Such “voluntary consensus codes” – developed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the American Gas Association, and the International Code Council (ICC) – are usually adopted as regulations by states and localities nationwide, the CSB noted in recommending certain reforms.
One major CSB criticism: Today’s code practices strongly recommend – but don't require – that gases from lines being purged be vented outdoors instead of into confined spaces or indoors.
The National Fuel Gas Code (issued by the NFPA) and the International Fuel Gas Code (issued by the ICC) describe, in identical wording, recommended practices for purging fuel-gas systems of air and for venting those purged gases. They recommend that: “The open end of piping systems being purged shall not discharge into confined spaces or areas where there are sources of ignition unless precautions are taken to perform this operation in a safe manner by ventilation of the space, control of purging rate, and elimination of all hazardous conditions.”
Just last week, feds made their case for tougher codes
Officials of the National Fire Protection Association just last week heard CSB members make their case for tougher codes governing the purging of natural-gas systems. NFPA says its roughly 300 codes and standards are “developed through voluntary consensus” of experts.
“We’re going to hold off on commenting about specific codes at this point because we don’t know enough about what happened down there" in Connecticut, says Lorraine Carli, a NFPA spokeswoman, in response to questions about the status of CSB recommendations for stronger requirements on purging gas lines. ICC officials had not returned calls at time of writing.
NFPA and ICC codes “do not explicitly require” purged gases to be vented outdoors, away from personnel and ignition sources “even where it is feasible to do so,” the CSB says. That finding was among the 40 “urgent recommendations” the board has made to address the threat it says is posed by purging gas lines indoors or in constrained spaces.
Current codes also do not define “adequate ventilation or hazardous conditions,” nor do they require evacuation of nonessential personnel during purging of fuel gas lines if the gas must be vented into the building, CSB recommendations say. Neither do they require combustible gas detectors near open vents where gases are purged, the CSB says.
“Those recommendations by the safety board and any others will be considered by the technical committee … at the end of February,” says NFPA’s Ms. Carli.
Follow us on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:1298fed5-625b-4029-97aa-78c4a2b9899b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0208/Gas-pipe-purging-linked-to-seven-big-explosions-since-1997 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946113 | 873 | 2.90625 | 3 |
It was easy to show up for your child's Little League games over the summer ... but how can you, as a parent, continue that level of involvement and support during the school year?
Many school districts and teachers work hard to get parents involved with their kids' educations. Studies have shown that students learn more effectively when there is a high level of parental involvement.
Schools and parent-teacher groups like the PTA continually work to implement programs that will include parents in their children's educations, such as parents' night, family workshops and take-home activities.
Here are some things that parents can do to stay involved in their kids' school lives.
Ask Questions And Listen: Each night, ask your child about his or her day. Be persistent in your inquiries; it's far too easy to get caught up with "adult" problems and forget that your child is discovering new things every day.
Get Involved With PTA: This will allow you to take an active role in making decisions about what your child is learning. Ask questions and talk to other parents. Knowing the important issue at your child's school will not only ease your own mind, but also show your child that you care.
Offer Regular Encouragement: Don't wait until report cards come out to find out how your child is doing in school. Commend them on their efforts and seek help for them if they are struggling.
Encourage Productive After-School Activities: Encourage your child to join sports teams or clubs. Investigate other options, such as YMCA, YWCA, Boys and Girls Club, community center or church activities, and then decide together with your child how he or she will spend after-school time. If he or she will be home without a parent, set rules about TV and computer time and enforce them.
- Know Your Child's Teacher: Perhaps more important than anything else, keep in contact with your child's teacher. Voicemail and e-mail are effective tools to combat busy schedules. Relay any questions or problems your child may have to his or her teacher, and discuss his or her academic, emotional and social growth.
Fostering a healthy relationship with your child's teacher is important. Here are some tips from ParentSoup.com to help create an effective relationship:
Make Your First Interaction Positive: A kind greeting upon introduction will leave a lasting impression. A teacher is more likely to be open to your concerns if your first interaction was positive.
Don't Get Angry Before Knowing The Facts: If something your child tells you about school upsets you, keep your cool until you know the whole story. Children may unintentionally garble important information. Get the teacher's side of the story before lashing out at anyone.
Don't Go Over Their Heads: Going directly to the principal with a problem shows a lack of respect to the teacher. Approach the teacher with a problem first, and then only go to the principal if you don't get satisfaction.
Be Sensitive: Teaching is an intensely personal job -- teachers are people who are paid to care about the thoughts and feelings of others. Remember that you and the teacher have the same goal: to do what's best for your child.
- Communicate: Teachers welcome dialogue with parents to gain better understanding of their students, and parents should expect periodic updates from teachers on their children's performance and notification about academic problems. | <urn:uuid:302c8537-b358-401d-8437-ee4068bee605> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://m.wdsu.com/Good-parents-stay-involved/16196534 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966569 | 701 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Humanitarian Assistance Remains Vital
An estimated 731,000 people remain in “crisis” and “emergency”, according to the latest findings from the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSNAU). People belonging to these households require urgent lifesaving humanitarian assistance to help meet immediate food needs, including critical nutrition and health support for those acutely malnourished, particularly children.
A further 2.3 million additional people are classified as “stressed”, meaning they are struggling to meet their minimum daily food needs. Households belonging to this group remain highly vulnerable to major shocks, such as drought or floods, which could easily push them back into food security crisis.
As a result, lifesaving humanitarian assistance and livelihood support remain vitally important throughout2015 to help food insecure populations meet their immediate food needs, protect livelihoods and build resilience.
Malnutrition Rates Remain High
An estimated 202,600 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. In some locations in the south, the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate is 33 percent, considerably more than the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 15 percent. The nationwide GAM rate of 12% is close to the emergency threshold.
Insecurity, conflict and high food prices continue to contribute to poor household food security and high malnutrition rates. Any gains made in food security and nutrition could be lost without continued humanitarian assistance as the situation is fragile, with communities recovering from many seasons of failed rains and subsequent drought.
WFP continues to focus on nutrition programmes that support the most vulnerable members of the population, namely women and children. Through supplementary feeding programmes WFP provides specialised nutritional food products to treat and prevent malnutrition. At times of greater need, during lean or dry seasons, a family ration is included as there is a likelihood of other family members also being malnourished.
Social Safety Nets
While continuing to provide targeted emergency or relief assistance when needed, WFP’s 2015 programmes aim to help some 1.9 million people cope more effectively with hardships that might affect themselves and their communities. These are aimed at providing responses that help to enhance the resilience of an individual or community by increasing household income, providing basic services and establishing predictable "safety nets" to address basic needs.
To assist communities and strengthen their resilience to shocks, WFP is funding community asset-building programmes that include the construction of reservoirs, wells and roads that make it easier to reach the markets.
WFP is also expanding its school meals programme, which provides school-going children with a cooked meal each day during the school term. School meals are recognized as one of the most important and dependable safety nets for children and their families and are a powerful incentive for families to continue to invest in education, despite their livelihoods being under stress. | <urn:uuid:b4f266f3-d4c1-49d0-bd43-337a8841e073> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://m.wfp.org/node/3584/3413/277574?device=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960665 | 582 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Getting immediate medical attention for a stroke is crucial to attempt to minimize its effects. If a person suffers from these symptoms they should seek help, according to the National Stroke Association.
- Sudden numbness or weakness in their face arm or leg. This is especially important if the symptoms occur only on one side of the body.
- Sudden trouble speaking or understanding
- Sudden vision troubles
- Sudden trouble walking, feeling dizzy or losing one’s balance
- Sudden severe headache
People who experience these symptoms are advised by the National Stroke Association to use the FAST method. This stands for: Face (smile and see if one side of the face is droopy); Arms (lift both arms and see if one arm drifts downwards); Speech (repeat a phrase and see if speech is slurred or irregular); Time (get emergency help as soon as you experience any of these symptoms). | <urn:uuid:305b7e64-3b1d-4059-95d6-3cb0d67b33c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://m.wptz.com/What-are-symptoms-of-a-stroke/19770298 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89405 | 189 | 2.734375 | 3 |
This is a unique program designed for elementary school teachers who wish to strengthen their content knowledge in mathematics and science. The curriculum focuses on national standards in mathematics and science and how to implement them in the classroom. The program emphasizes deepening the participants' understanding of mathematics and science concepts and the connections between them. The content courses are designed to increase the participants' self-efficacy with various subjects in mathematics and science, thereby enhancing their teaching with additional depth and breadth of content. The courses in the program present the content and pedagogy in a parallel manner and connect the two throughout the program. The teachers will become familiar with professional practices in mathematics, science and engineering, and will develop a research project of their own founded in mathematics and science education. The program helps teachers’ professional growth to become leaders and advocates for mathematics and science education in their own school and district.
The Master of Arts in Mathematics and Science Education is also offered through AU Online. | <urn:uuid:9ac84d48-7841-4d90-9abb-c6e3436b0e8c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mailto:[email protected]/academics/graduate/teacher-leadership-elementary/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962072 | 191 | 3 | 3 |
PASADENA, Calif. -- The first Martian rock NASA's Curiosity rover has reached out to touch presents a more varied composition than expected from previous missions. The rock also resembles some unusual rocks from Earth's interior.
The rover team used two instruments on Curiosity to study the chemical makeup of the football-size rock called "Jake Matijevic" (matt-EE-oh-vick) The results support some surprising recent measurements and provide an example of why identifying rocks' composition is such a major emphasis of the mission. Rock compositions tell stories about unseen environments and planetary processes.
"This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth," said Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who is a Curiosity co-investigator. "With only one Martian rock of this type, it is difficult to know whether the same processes were involved, but it is a reasonable place to start thinking about its origin."
On Earth, rocks with composition like the Jake rock typically come from processes in the planet's mantle beneath the crust, from crystallization of relatively water-rich magma at elevated pressure.
Jake was the first rock analyzed by the rover's arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument and about the thirtieth rock examined by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. Two penny-size spots on Jake were analyzed Sept. 22 by the rover's improved and faster version of earlier APXS devices on all previous Mars rovers, which have examined hundreds of rocks. That information has provided scientists a library of comparisons for what Curiosity sees.
"Jake is kind of an odd Martian rock," said APXS Principal Investigator Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. "It's high in elements consistent with the mineral feldspar, and low in magnesium and iron."
ChemCam found unique compositions at each of 14 target points on the rock, hitting different mineral grains within it.
"ChemCam had been seeing compositions suggestive of feldspar since August, and we're getting closer to confirming that now with APXS data, although there are additional tests to be done," said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens (WEENS) of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Examination of Jake included the first comparison on Mars between APXS results and results from checking the same rock with ChemCam, which shoots laser pulses from the top of the rover's mast.
The wealth of information from the two instruments checking chemical elements in the same rock is just a preview. Curiosity also carries analytical laboratories inside the rover to provide other composition information about powder samples from rocks and soil. The mission is progressing toward getting the first soil sample into those analytical instruments during a "sol," or Martian day.
"Yestersol, we used Curiosity's first perfectly scooped sample for cleaning the interior surfaces of our 150-micron sample-processing chambers. It's our version of a Martian carwash," said Chris Roumeliotis (room-eel-ee-OH-tiss), lead turret rover planner at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Before proceeding, the team carefully studied the material for scooping at a sandy patch called "Rocknest," where Curiosity is spending about three weeks.
"That first sample was perfect, just the right particle-size distribution," said JPL's Luther Beegle, Curiosity sampling-system scientist. "We had a lot of steps to be sure it was safe to go through with the scooping and cleaning."
Following the work at Rocknest, the rover team plans to drive Curiosity about 100 yards eastward and select a rock in that area as the first target for using the drill.
During a two-year prime mission, researchers will use Curiosity's 10 instruments to assess whether the study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project and built Curiosity. For more about the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
[email protected] / [email protected]
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington | <urn:uuid:d4367a67-a26e-4255-90fb-9e8d9ef1d9a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1375 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920911 | 949 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Programmatic Support and Technical Assistance Branch
Maryland's Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education (Birth through 5)
The supports and services provided through early intervention and preschool special education can help infants, toddlers and children and their families make the powerful connections to improve their ability to learn and play. These services are all based on the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), which ensure that all children with disabilities have the opportunity to receive a free and appropriate education (FAPE) to support their unique development and learning needs. The evidence has shown that one of the most effective ways to achieve this mandate is to reach children with developmental delays and disabilities when they are very young. Early intervention and education helps to open the window of opportunity for young children with disabilities and their families. | <urn:uuid:a8a56e3d-2daf-41eb-9d1d-2734d9d0dc52> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/earlyinterv/infant_toddlers/?WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969646 | 156 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Step 4.2. Indicate who will be responsible for collecting and analyzing outcome data.
In Step 2 you completed a chart to list (1) the outcomes of the activity that you are planning for teachers and students (2) the indicators that you will use to determine whether or not the outcomes are achieved, and (3) your expectations for when it will be possible to observe the indicators. To complete your evaluation plan you will return to the chart and indicate who will be responsible for collecting and analyzing the data on each of the indicators and when they will complete their work.
Use this chart to provide the details of your evaluation plan.
(NEXT PAGE) (PREVIOUS PAGE) | <urn:uuid:07c1b94a-11b9-4bf4-8d6f-2d3dcf30b054> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/instruction/planning_guide/step4_2.htm?WBCMODE=presentationunpublish%2525%253e%25%3E%25%3E%25%3E | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881824 | 141 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Implementation PlansBecause all 24 school systems in Maryland have unique academic and community needs, they all chose to design their programs locally. Therefore, there are 24 different implementation models around the state. Some districts require students to conduct individual service-learning projects in the community. Most school districts infuse service-learning activities into the existing curriculum to help students use their academic skills to solve real community problems. Districts are encouraged to review and revise their plans, based on lessons learned during implementation.
Despite the variance between district plans, all 24 Maryland school systems infuse service-learning into existing courses as all or part of their plan. By adding experiential, community-based service activities to existing curricula, teachers enhance their students' learning. In most cases, students complete all three service-learning elements--preparation, action, and reflection--as part of their regular school day. In other systems, students carry out one or more elements as part of a class and perform the remaining piece(s) on their own after school or on weekends.
Some school systems require that students conduct independent service-learning projects to fulfill part of the graduation requirement. In these systems, students are given guidelines stating how much service is expected and which organizations are appropriate sites for service. Students perform service projects in the community, independent of their school, and keep track of the hours of service.
Contact information for the service-learning coordinator in each school system, a summary of their implmentation plan, and their Service-Learning Fellows can be obtained through the navigation bar to the right. | <urn:uuid:a0b33dad-fb16-4b08-b08b-b0bc8b6c5506> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/servicelearning/lea.htm?WBCMODE=Prese%252525%252525%25253e%252525%25253e%25%3E | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96071 | 318 | 3.046875 | 3 |
See also the
Dr. Math FAQ:
Browse High School Euclidean/Plane Geometry
Stars indicate particularly interesting answers or
good places to begin browsing.
Selected answers to common questions:
Pythagorean theorem proofs.
- Building a Geometric Proof [06/03/1999]
Can you explain how to do a two-column proof?
- Explementary Angles [05/29/2003]
What do we call two angles that add up to 360 degrees?
- Geometry Proofs [11/07/2001]
General and specific advice for a student having trouble writing proofs
on her own.
- Is a Sphere 2-D or 3-D? [8/8/1996]
Is a sphere a two- or a three-dimensional object?
- Measuring Angles with a Protractor [02/28/2002]
I want to know how to measure acute, reflex and obtuse angles with a
- Painting Cubes [01/06/2003]
How many unit cubes would be needed to create a cube with a side
length of 3 units? If you painted the larger cube and broke it up
into unit cubes, how many faces of each unit cube would be painted?
- Remembering Area Formulas [12/23/2001]
Is there was a good way to help me memorize the formulas for areas of
- About Basic Geometry [10/14/1998]
Who developed basic geometry? What is it used for? Who uses it?
- Abraham Kaestner and Euclid's Fifth (Parallel) Postulate [12/02/1996]
Where can I find information on Abraham Kaestner?
- A-frame for Swing [07/26/1997]
I am trying to build a stand for a swing. The ends are A-frames out of 4
by 4's... what is the angle of the miter cut?
- The Algebra of Complements and Supplements [01/25/1999]
What are complements and supplements? How do you translate these concepts
- Alternate and Corresponding Angles [10/21/1996]
Please explain corresponding and alternate angles.
- Alternate Exterior Angles [06/03/2002]
What is an 'alternate exterior angle'?
- Analytical Geometry [04/11/2002]
When two straight lines meet each other perpendicularly, the product
of their slopes is -1. However, x and y axes meet at 90 degrees, but
the product of their slopes is not -1. Why?
- Angle Inscribed in a Semicircle [11/07/2001]
Prove that any angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle.
- Angles as Turns [05/29/2003]
How can angles be negative?
- Angles Greater than 360 Degrees [01/01/1999]
We know the definitions of acute, obtuse, and reflex angles, but we were
debating what kind of angle a 425 degree angle is.
- Angle, Side Length of a Triangle [9/4/1996]
What is the relation between the angles and side lengths of a triangle?
- The Angles of a Roof [11/20/1995]
I am trying to build a model house but am having trouble with laying out
the roof. The main part of the house has a peaked roof (an "A" frame
house); the angle formed when the roof meets the ground is 60 degrees.
There is an addition onto the A-frame with a 30 degree angle formed to
the walls. What angle should the addition's roof be cut at so it meets
the A-frame roof?
- Angles of Stars [08/18/1997]
What are the interior and external angles of stars built on regular
pentagons and octagons.
- Angle Trisection: Construction vs. Drawing [10/17/2001]
Has anyone ever divided an angle into three equal parts by construction?
I have been told it has not been accomplished.
- Another Grazing Cow [6/7/1995]
A man has a barn that is 20 ft by 10 ft. He tethers a cow to one corner
of the outside of the barn using a 50-ft rope. What is the total area
that the cow is capable of grazing?
- Ant and Rectangle [01/22/2001]
Does the ant walk along the diagonals of the rectangle?
- Area and Perimeter: Isoperimetric Quotient [12/05/2001]
What is the isoperimetric quotient of a two-dimensional shape? Is it a
measure of compression?
- Area and Perimeter: Mowing the Lawn [6/1/1996]
How many circuits are necessary to cut half the lawn?
- Area, Circumference of an Ellipse [7/29/1996]
How do I calculate the area and circumference of a given ellipse?
- Are All Triangles Isosceles? [09/15/1999]
Can you help me find the flaw in this 'proof' claiming that all triangles
- Are Angles Dimensionless? [08/31/2003]
If you look at the dimensions in the equation arc length = r*theta, it
appears that angles must be dimensionless. But this can't be right.
Or can it?
- Area of a Circle with Radius less than 1 [02/18/2002]
If the radius is less than 1 it just gets smaller and you get a smaller
- Area of an Ellipse Cut by a Chord [05/26/2000]
How can you calculate area of the part of an ellipse cut off by a chord,
if you know the major and minor axes, and the chord?
- Area of an Inscribed Quadrilateral [05/11/2000]
Given a quadrilateral where the midpoints of each side are connected to
form a new quadrilaterals inside the first, what is the ratio of the area
of the larger quadrilateral to the smaller one?
- Area of a Rectangle Outside a Rectangle [6/11/1996]
Find the area of the concrete border of a rectangular swimming pool.
- Area of a Reuleaux Triangle [06/13/2002]
Could you please help me find a formula to find the area of a
- Area of Intersection of Two Circular Segments [04/20/2007]
Given a circle of radius r and center c, suppose two intersecting
chords AB and CD (intersecting in P) form two circular segments. How
do I compute the area of the intersection of the two circular segments?
- Areas of House Lots [02/18/1998]
We have to determine sanitary sewer assessments of properties based on
the square feet of their lots. Many lots are 4-sided but do not have any
- Arrange 7 Points in a Plane... [10/05/1998]
Arrange 7 points in a plane so that if any three are chosen, at least 2
of them will be a unit distance apart.
- Azimuth Angle [09/08/1998]
Can you give me the formula for the azimuth angle and explain some of the
- Ball Bouncing off a Line Segment [05/04/2001]
If you take an arbitrary line on a 2D plane, e.g. x1y1 - x2y2, then take
a point that moves about the plane, say pxpy, can you tell if this point
has crossed the line at any time?
- Barycentric Calculus [01/06/1999]
How does barycentric calculus compare with trilinear or cartesian
- Betweenness of Points on a Line Idea and Proof [06/26/2008]
Could someone explain betweenness of points on a line and why it's important? I also don't understand the way my book proves it. | <urn:uuid:fde690c5-0462-4717-a8b6-5c180d871ef8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/sets/high_2d.html?start_at=1&num_to_see=40&s_keyid=40930480&f_keyid=40930481 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.851746 | 1,721 | 3.28125 | 3 |
See also the
Browse High School Calculus
Stars indicate particularly interesting answers or
good places to begin browsing.
Selected answers to common questions:
Maximizing the volume of a box.
Maximizing the volume of a cylinder.
Volume of a tank.
What is a derivative?
- Finding the Limit [10/24/1995]
For a limit to exist, the right side and left side have to equal each
other. Say you have a limit such as "lim as x->4 for function (3x-4). To
see if this function exists, you have to check it on both sides. Would
you plug in 3 for the left and for the right?
- Finding the Maximum Area of a Rectangle [1/28/1996]
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Doctor Jeremiah uses calculus to calculate how much gas a large pill-
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As I read various algebra books for high school kids, I find what
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A teacher's textbook, and his colleagues, all assume that if two geometric objects have
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- Unit and Basis Vectors in Three Dimensions [05/09/1998]
Explanations and uses of unit vectors and basis vectors. | <urn:uuid:1051b8ca-0e0b-4a94-b87e-c1e5b0abfe9a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/sets/high_defs.html?start_at=281&num_to_see=40&s_keyid=40234444&f_keyid=40234445 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.832967 | 1,690 | 3.671875 | 4 |
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What are the prefixes for 7, 8, 9, and 10? | <urn:uuid:70f22477-2952-4e61-a9a5-45db8597b4ac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/sets/mid_number_sense.html?start_at=281&num_to_see=40&s_keyid=38681185&f_keyid=38681186 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.81535 | 1,379 | 3.578125 | 4 |
- freely available
Sensors 2011, 11(12), 11056-11063; doi:10.3390/s111211056
Abstract: The pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin is used for agricultural and public health campaigns. Its residues may contaminate soils and the beneficial soil organisms, like the earthworms, that may ingest the contaminated soil particles. Due to its ecological relevance, earthworms Eisenia andrei/fetida have been used in different ecotoxicological tests. The avoidance of soils treated with cypermethrin by compost worms Eisenia andrei was studied here as a bioindicator of the influence of treatment dosage and the pesticide formulation in three different agricultural soils indicated by the Brazilian environmental authorities for ecotoxicological tests. This earthworms’ behavior was studied here as a first attempt to propose the test for regulation purposes. The two-compartment test systems, where the earthworms were placed for a two-day exposure period, contained samples of untreated soil alone or together with soil treated with technical grade or wettable powder formulation of cypermethrin. After 48 h, there was no mortality, but the avoidance was clear because all earthworms were found in the untreated section of each type of soil (p < 0.05). No differences were found by the Fisher’s exact test (p ≤ 1.000) for each soil and treatment, demonstrating that the different soil characteristics, the cypermethrin concentrations and formulation, as well as the smaller amounts of soil and earthworms did not influence the avoidance behavior of the earthworms to cypermethrin. The number and range of treatments used in this study do not allow a detailed recommendation of the conditions applied here, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported attempt to identify the avoidance of pesticide treated tropical soils by earthworms.
Agricultural and domestic uses of pesticides introduce agrochemicals to the soil environment because the synthetic and xenobiotic compounds are applied directly to the soil or some residues from the foliar or aerial applications reach the soil environment where they may persist [1,2]. Soil pollution has important consequences to all forms of life and to the food, water and air quality because the soil is the source of water and nutrients to plants and animals, as well as the habitat for many species that are important to the nutrient cycling and availability [3,4].
The soil environment contains many organisms from different trophic levels that may be all exposed even if only a few members of the soil food web are exposed. If the contaminated organisms belong to the lower trophic levels, the probability of a widespread contamination and the possibility of bioaccumulation and biomagnification of the contaminants along the food chain are even higher because they are food for several other organisms in the web, acting as a route to contaminants transference . Earthworms are one of these groups of animals that belong to the very complex soil food web. They may be exposed to pesticide residues that are directly applied or reach the soil, either because this is their main source of food or because the contaminants may be absorbed by their body surface [6,7]. Due to their ecological relevance, earthworms have been used as bioindicators and, as they are also biosensors of sublethal concentrations, they could serve as a warning sign for the early effects of soil contamination .
Despite the fact that it has been noted that Eisenia is a less sensitive earthworm species [8–10], Eisenia fetida and E. andrei are the commonest bioindicators of soil contamination with pesticides, mainly because they are easy to rear and maintain in laboratory conditions [6,7]. The determination of the bioaccumulation factor of the contaminants (BAF) and the bioassays that assess the effects of contaminants on earthworms’ reproductive parameters have been proved sensitive , but the behavioral changes have been pointed as useful to detect adverse effects generated by their exposition to sublethal doses . These behavioral changes due to the presence of contaminants in soils can be detected, for example, by the avoidance test [13,14]. The main advantages of using the avoidance behavior to evaluate the ecological risks are the short duration of the test—just 48 h—and its easiness of set up .
However, so far, the government authorities have not included the avoidance behavior of the compost worms Eisenia fetida/andrei as one of the required tests for regulation of pesticide molecules; but, the use of natural soils as substrates for bioaccumulation of chemicals in terrestrial organisms was recently adopted as a guideline . Artificial soils currently used [17,18] may give universal data, but they may be different in natural agricultural soils [8,19]. Moreover, most tests on the influence of chemicals on the avoidance behavior of earthworms use large amounts of treated soils [17,20], which may present a laboratory pollution problem at the time of disposal.
Using basically the test conditions of the ISO 17512-1 and ABNT NBR ISO 17512-1 guidelines, this work aimed to verify the avoidance of earthworms Eisenia andrei to agricultural natural soils indicated by the Brazilian environmental authorities for ecotoxicological tests that were treated with a commercial formulation of cypermethrin, or with the technical grade compound. Smaller amounts of organisms and soils were also used in order to test other meaningful and environmentally friendly conditions for the studies.
2. Experimental Setup
It is known that the soil characteristics have great influence on the environmental fate and bioavailability of pesticides and, therefore, some assays with biosensors should be done with natural soils to achieve better understanding of the possibilities of food web contamination in real environments. After application, some pesticide residues may persist in soil leading to high risk exposure of soil organisms to the product. Among them, the earthworms may be in direct contact and ingest the contaminated soil particles. However, by having sensory tubercles on their body surfaces, depending on the pollutant concentration, they can detect and avoid the contaminated soil . The avoidance behavior has been verified for some pesticides in natural soils [22–24], including cypermethrin, but only in artificial soil .
The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA) has already established three agricultural soils for some ecotoxicity tests (Table 1), whose physical and chemical parameters cover the main causes of differences in pesticide behavior . These soils were here utilized for bioindication of cypermethrin effects on the compost worms Eisenia andrei.
As one of the most recent pesticides, the pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin is widely used in agricultural and public health campaigns due to its efficiency in controlling insects . The recommended doses are from 10 to 75 g (a.i.) ha−1 soil .
Although cypermethrin is reported to have moderate toxicity to animals and a moderate persistence in soils , its residues were found in creeks after agricultural and urban soil applications . It was also found in soils and agricultural products (vegetable and fish samples) , meaning that it is persistent and mobile enough to be detected in the soil, water and organisms sometime after the application.
The earthworms’ avoidance behavior towards the three cypermethrin-treated soils was here studied basically according to the ISO 17512-1 and ABNT NBR ISO 17512-1 guidelines, using three replicates of plastic square chambers with 500 mL capacity (13 cm × 13 cm × 5 cm high) for each dose of treatment. The chambers were divided in two equal parts and 100 g of each soil moistened and maintained at 60% WHCmax during the previous week were placed in each side of the chambers. The treatment was applied to the soil in just one side of the chambers (C1, C2 or C3) and the other side remained cypermethrin-untreated—control soil (C0), along with double control chambers (C0–C0). The size of the chambers and the proportion of soil: earthworms were almost the same used by for acute toxicity test in a four day study.
The treatments were 15, 30 and 60 μg technical grade cypermethrin g−1 soil, and the double-control were treated with the maximum volume of the acetone solution (360 μL) used in the treatment. The wettable powder cypermethrin was diluted in ethanol and the treatment corresponded to 15, 25 and 35 μg (a.i.) g−1 soil, respectively for C1, C2 and C3; the double-control were treated with 5.0 mL of ethanol. The systems remained overnight in fume hood for solvent evaporation, the divider was then removed and six adult earthworms (>300 mg, with clitelum) were placed all together in the slit in the middle of the chambers. The utilized doses were much higher than the recommended ones because, in a separate study (results not reported), the earthworms did not die in contact with up to 340 μg of active ingredient of cypermethrin.
All the chambers were closed with perforated plastic film to allow air circulation, and maintained at approximately 22 °C under continuous light for 48 h. At the end of the test period, the counting of the compost worms was done on each side of the chambers. According to ISO 17512-1 , the avoidance to the different soil treatments was calculated by counting the mean number of earthworms in each concentration and compared with the mean number of worms in the untreated control soil. Before the placement of the earthworms in the chambers and after their removal, (3× approximately) 3 g samples of the treated soils were removed for monitoring the pH in order to verify other causes of the earthworms’ behavior.
The amount of earthworms was converted to percentage of avoidance by the following equation: R(%) = [(C − T)/N] × 100, where R = avoidance; C = number of worms in the control (C0) condition; T = number of worms in each dose in the same soil; N = total number of worms .
3. Experimental Results and Discussion
Although the treatments here used exceed the LC50 of cypermethrin (0.054 μg kg−1 soil) found by others , no matter the dose, no mortality was found, and the distribution of the earthworms in the C0–C0 condition was 50% in each side of the chambers with the soils PV and GM, and 60% and 40% in the chamber with the soil LV, indicating an homogenous distribution. The distribution of the worms found in the double control (C0–C0) was within the range 40%–60%, in the three studied soils, as the recommended validity criteria of the ISO 17512-1 .
Conversely, the soils treated with cypermethrin were avoided by the earthworms already at the smaller dose of the technical grade cypermethrin (C1 = 15 μg g−1) in the three studied soils (Table 2). Moreover, the Fisher Exact Test indicated that the number of earthworms in the control condition (C0) was significantly larger than in the treated conditions (C1, C2 and C3), in all three soils (p < 0.05). These results clear indicate the earthworms’ avoidance to the soils treated with cypermethrin.
In order to verify if the increase in the concentration of treatments would influence the avoidance behavior, the frequency of earthworms in each concentration was compared two-to-two by the Fisher’s test (C1 × C2; C1 × C3; and C2 × C3), for the three soils. Results demonstrate that there was no significant difference between the percentage of avoidance and the increase of technical grade cypermethrin concentrations in the soils (p from 0.3333 to 1.0000).
The earthworms’ avoidance was also observed when the soils were treated with the wettable powder commercial formulation of cypermethrin (Table 3) because the number of compost worms was always greater in the control condition (p < 0.05) than in all treated soils (C1, C2 and C3). But no mortality was observed in any soil. In the same way, the increase in concentration of the formulated insecticide did not induce an avoidance increase, and the frequency of the worms was not significantly different independently of the concentration increase of the formulated insecticide in the three soils (p from 0.0801 to 1.0000).
As the soil pH remained almost the same as before (Table 1) and after the treatments (LV: 4.6; PV: 6.2, and GM: 4.2), it is possible to conclude that the observed effects were caused by the insecticide cypermethrin, independently of its presentation. Thus, as reported by others with artificial soil , the increase in cypermethrin concentration for soil treatments did not influence the earthworms’ avoidance behavior.
The number and the range of treatments utilized in this study do not allow a detailed recommendation of the conditions here utilized, but to the best of our knowledge, these are the first reported attempt to identify earthworms’ avoidance of tropical soils treated with pesticides. The earthworms Eisenia andrei avoided the soils treated with cypermethrin, but there was no dose-related response within the range of concentration tested, independently of being formulated as wettable powder or technical grade. As no mortality was detected, the test conditions may be further studied in order to be indicated as meaningful and environmentally friendly.
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|Soil||pH (H2O)||WHCmax * (mL g−1 dry soil)||OMC **||N||Clay||Silt||Sand|
*maximum water-holding capacity;**organic matter content.
|Soil * Chambers||Control (C0#) × Treatments (C1, C2 and C3)|
|PV-1||4 2||6 0||6 0|
|PV-2||5 1||5 1||6 0|
|PV-3||6 0||6 0||5 1|
|Total (n) §||15 3||17 1||17 1|
|R (%) †||66.6||88.8||88.8|
|LV-1||6 0||6 0||6 0|
|LV-2||4 2||5 1||5 1|
|LV-3||6 0||6 0||6 0|
|Total (n)||16 2||17 1||17 1|
|GM-1||5 1||6 0||6 0|
|GM-2||6 0||6 0||6 0|
|GM-3||5 1||6 0||6 0|
|Total (n)||16 2||18 0||18 0|
*Soils: PV = Mollic Hapludalf, LV = Typic Hapludox, and GM = Typic Humaquept;#C0 = untreated-control soils, C1, C2, C3 = respectively 15, 30 and 60 μg g−1;§Total number of worms in each side of the chambers;†Percentage of avoidance to the contaminated soil: R% = [(C − T)/N] × 100, where C = number of worms in the Control condition, T = number of worms in the treated conditions, N = total number of worms.
|Soil * Chambers||Control (C0#) × Treatments (C1, C2 and C3)|
|PV-1||6 0||3 3||6 0|
|PV-2||4 2||6 0||5 1|
|PV-3||3 3||5 1||6 0|
|Total (n) §||13 5||14 4||17 1|
|R (%) †||44.4||55.5||88.8|
|LV-1||6 0||6 0||6 0|
|LV-2||4 2||6 0||6 0|
|LV-3||6 0||6 0||6 0|
|Total (n)||16 2||18 0||18 0|
|GM-1||4 2||6 0||6 0|
|GM-2||6 0||5 1||6 0|
|GM-3||5 1||5 1||6 0|
|Total (n)||15 3||16 2||18 0|
*Soils: PV = Mollic Hapludalf, LV = Typic Hapludox, and GM = Typic Humaquept;#C0 = untreated-control soils, C1, C2, C3 = respectively 15, 25 and 35 μg g−1;§Total number of worms in each side of the chambers;†Percentage of avoidance to the contaminated soil: R%= [(C − T)/N] × 100, where C = number of worms in the Control condition, T = number of worms in the treated conditions, N = total number of worms.
© 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). | <urn:uuid:1d8ba1f2-15ad-43b0-8aca-40947f6a664c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mdpi.com/1424-8220/11/12/11056/htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869271 | 5,493 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Blog ››› ››› ANDREW SEIFTER
Yale Law School Dean Robert Post took to The Washington Post to completely dismantle the bogus claim that the attorneys general investigating ExxonMobil for fraud are trampling the company’s First Amendment rights. And in doing so, he pointed to one of several opinion writers who have misinformed the Post’s readers by advancing this “free speech” defense of Exxon's alleged deception on climate change.
Writing in The Washington Post on June 24, Robert Post criticized “ExxonMobil and its supporters” in the media for deceptively “[r]aising the revered flag of the First Amendment” to condemn attorneys general who are investigating Exxon. The attorneys general are looking into whether the oil company committed fraud by deliberating withholding truthful information about climate change from shareholders and the public in order to protect its profits. As Post explained, Exxon and its allies are “eliding the essential difference between fraud and public debate,” and if Exxon has indeed committed fraud, “its speech would not merit First Amendment protection.” He added: “Fraud is especially egregious because it is committed when a seller does not himself believe the hokum he foists on an unwitting public.”
One of the conservative media figures that Post called out for distorting the Exxon investigations was The Washington Post’s own George Will, who penned an April 22 column peddling the false claim that the attorneys general pursuing Exxon are seeking to “criminalize skepticism” about climate change. And that wasn’t the only basic fact that Will butchered, as the Climate Denier Roundup explained at the time:
George Will used his column in the Washington Post to offer a lesson on how this campaign [against Exxon] is part of a larger progressive strategy to shut down debate. But apparently it’s Will that needs a history lesson, as he uses as evidence a story about a 2013 IRS investigation accusing the agency of targeting conservatives. But that investigation “found no evidence” that the IRS actions were politically motivated.
Unfortunately, Will is not the only voice on the Post’s opinion pages who has misrepresented the facts to defend Exxon.
As the Climate Denier Roundup noted, the same day that Will’s column ran, the Post also published an op-ed by two officials at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a think tank that peddled climate science denial while receiving funding from Exxon. The CEI op-ed repeated the falsehood that the attorneys general are seeking to “run roughshod” over Exxon’s First Amendment protections and prosecute “dissent.” It also engaged in carefully crafted legalese about CEI’s relationship with Exxon, as the Climate Denier Roundup observed:
Worth noting CEI’s careful phrasing about its relationship with Exxon, which CEI says “publicly ended its support for us after 2005.” With Donors Trust and others making it possible to anonymize giving, the key word is “publicly.”
Flashback to November 2015, and the story at the Post is much the same. Like Will, the Post’s Robert Samuelson claimed in a November 8 column that investigations of Exxon are an “assault” on free speech, and that the “advocates of a probe into ExxonMobil are essentially proposing that the company be punished for expressing its opinions.” Samuelson also repeated Exxon’s bogus talking point that a 1989 Exxon document proves that groundbreaking reports about Exxon by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times "'cherry-pick[ed]' their evidence."
Then there’s the Post editorial board itself, which prematurely concluded in a November 15 editorial that Exxon “didn’t commit a crime.” Perhaps the Post will reconsider after hearing from Robert Post on that matter.
From Robert Post’s June 24 op-ed in The Washington Post:
If large oil companies have deliberately misinformed investors about their knowledge of global warming, they may have committed serious commercial fraud.
ExxonMobil and its supporters are now eliding the essential difference between fraud and public debate. Raising the revered flag of the First Amendment, they loudly object to investigations recently announced by attorneys general of several states into whether ExxonMobil has publicly misrepresented what it knew about global warming.
The National Review has accused the attorneys general of “trampling the First Amendment.” Post columnist George F. Will has written that the investigations illustrate the “authoritarianism” implicit in progressivism, which seeks “to criminalize debate about science.” And Hans A. von Spakovsky, speaking for the Heritage Foundation, compared the attorneys general to the Spanish Inquisition.
Despite their vitriol, these denunciations are wide of the mark. If your pharmacist sells you patent medicine on the basis of his “scientific theory” that it will cure your cancer, the government does not act like the Spanish Inquisition when it holds the pharmacist accountable for fraud.
The obvious point, which remarkably bears repeating, is that there are circumstances when scientific theories must remain open and subject to challenge, and there are circumstances when the government must act to protect the integrity of the market, even if it requires determining the truth or falsity of those theories. Public debate must be protected, but fraud must also be suppressed. Fraud is especially egregious because it is committed when a seller does not himself believe the hokum he foists on an unwitting public.
If ExxonMobil has committed fraud, its speech would not merit First Amendment protection. But the company nevertheless invokes the First Amendment to suppress a subpoena designed to produce the information necessary to determine whether ExxonMobil has committed fraud. It thus seeks to foreclose the very process by which our legal system acquires the evidence necessary to determine whether fraud has been committed. In effect, the company seeks to use the First Amendment to prevent any informed lawsuit for fraud. | <urn:uuid:83b385bd-f331-4c7e-a154-1014315f3012> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mediamatters.org/issues/environment-science?p=175&s=15 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948481 | 1,252 | 2.515625 | 3 |
First Aid Skills
Outdoor Skills, Backpacking, Cooking, Navigation, Cycling, and Wilderness Survival Skills.
|— - Guide to Safe Scouting, VI. First Aid|
Here are the first aid resources you need for over 40 ranks and badges.Videos show you key skills.
While your handbook is your primary resource, the links below can help you learn your first aid skills. See the Disclaimers.
- Your handbook is your primary reference. See First Aid Skills for step-by-step instructions and lesson video links.
- See also: First Aid Merit Badge Pamphlet - First Aid Kit - Emergency Kit - Guide to Safe Scouting - Physcial
- Mayo Clinic First Aid Guide - Mayo Clinic: Fever
Expert Village Videos: First Aid - Basics - Basics2
About.com - offers a number of first aid videos.
ProFirstAid (PFAVideo) - an entire online first aid course for free. Pay if you want their certificates.
American Red Cross Training Online - The Greater Indianapolis Chapter offers many certified American Red Cross first aid courses for a fee.
Disclaimer: This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, emergency treatment or formal first-aid training. Don't use this information to diagnose or develop a treatment plan for a health problem or disease without consulting a qualified health care provider. If you're in a life-threatening or emergency medical situation, seek medical assistance immediately.
Please note that the only first aid materials recommended by the Boy Scouts of America are those found or listed in official BSA materials such as the current First Aid Merit Badge Book and Boy Scout Handbook. First Aid Treatments are constantly being revised. See the Guide to Safe Scouting. Neither MeritBadge.Org, nor its contributors make any recommendations.
- MeritBadge.Org Disclaimer
Bites and Stings
- Mayo Clinic: Insect bites & stings - Spider bites - Animal bites - AAFP: Stings & Bites - Cat & Dog Bites - Center for Disease Control: Dog Bites - WebMD: Bites & Stings
- Mayo Clinic: Bleeding - Harvard: Bleeding - Harvard: Direct Pressure - Harvard: Butterfly Bandage - WebMD: Bleeding - Center for Disease Control: Acute Injury Care
- Wikipedia: Tourniquet - Dangerous - you must be very knowledgable but knowledge is requried for First Aid Merit Badge
- Mayo Clinic: Broken Bones - Harvard: Broken Bones - WebMD: Understanding Fractures
- Mayo Clinic Broken Bone Symptoms & Treatments: Arm - Collarbone - Broken leg - Hand/Wrist/Fingers - Ankle/Foot -
- WebMD Broken Bone Symptoms & Treatments Arm - Collarbone - Finger - Foot - Hand - Leg - Toe
- Mayo Clinic: Bruises (also called Contusions) - WebMD: Bruises
- Mayo Clinic: Black eye - WebMD: Black Eye - Black Eye (Black eye - a bruise near the eye)
- American Cancer Society: Signs & Symptoms - Warning Signs - Mayo Clinic: Cancer Defined - Cancer Myths
- BSA Video: Tenderfoot Heimlich Maneuver (requires Apple QuickTime)
- WebMD: Choking - Mayo Clinic: Choking (Heimlich maneuver) - Harvard: Choking - Harvard: Heimlich Maneuver - Center for Disease Control: Choking
- BSA Video: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (requires Apple QuickTime)
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) - Mayo Clinic: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) - Harvard: CPR - AAFP: CPR - WebMD: CPR
Cuts - Scrapes
- Mayo Clinic: Cuts and Scrapes (also called Abrasions) - AAFP: Cuts, Scrapes and Stitches - WebMD: Cut
- Mayo Clinic: Dehydration - Spotting & Preventing Dehydration - Mayo How much water do you need? - WebMD: Dehydration
Electrical Burns - Electrical Shock
Eye Injury - Object in Eye
Head, Neck, and Back Injuries
- National Institute of Health: Hearing Loss - Mayo Clinic: Hearing Loss - AAFP: Prevent Hearing Loss - About.com: Woodworking Hearing Protection
- American Heart Association: Heart Attack - Warning Signs -Mayo Clinic: Heart attack - AAFP: Symptoms & Risk Factors - WebMD: Heart Attack
Nausea - Motion Sickness
- Mayo Clinic: Indigestion-Understand and prevent heartburn, nausea and bloating - WebMD: Nausea
- WebMD: Motion Sickness - Wikipedia - Requirement for Motorboating Merit Badge and Small-Boat Sailing Merit Badge
- Mayo Clinic: Poisoning - WebMD: Poisoning - About.com: Poisons - Center for Disease Control: Poisoning
- Mayo Clinic: Food-borne illness - About.com: Food Poisoning
Seizures - Convulsions - Epilepsy
- Treat every accident victim for shock. -Boy Scout Handbook p. 291
- Snakebite: Mayo Clinic: Snakebite - AAFP: Snakebite - Avoiding Snakebites - AAFP: Venomous Snakebites - WebMD: Snakebite
Sprains - Strains - Cramps
- See CPR
- CPR & Resuce Breathing - MSN: Rescue Breathing and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- About.com: Shortness of Breath
- Mayo Clinic: Stroke - American Stroke Association: Stroke - Medicinenet: Stroke - Stroke Awareness Foundation - AAFP: Stroke Warning Signs and Avoiding Stroke
- Warning Signs: American Heart Association: Stroke Warning Signs - Stroke.Org - AAFP: Stroke Symptoms - Stroke Symptoms
Transporting an Injured Person
Wilderness First Aid
|Emergency Preparedness-related awards | <urn:uuid:a8cfd7a1-0775-4b3b-bd19-2f8463f4a485> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Head_Injury | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.722772 | 1,255 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Wildlife Officials Hunt North African Pythons At Edge Of EvergladesThe hunt for an elusive python is on in west Miami-Dade County, where wildlife experts said they are racing against the clock to find the Northern African python before it invades the Everglades.
Python Challenge Not Netting Many SnakesOver 1,000 people put their name to paper to hunt Burmese pythons in the Everglades, but few have managed to capture or kill the invasive snakes.
House GOP Scoffs At S. Fla. Python ProblemAnyone who has traveled through the Everglades knows that large snakes like the Burmese Python are putting the ecosystem at risk. But an attempt to control the python population is running into the same old partisan gridlock everything else in Washington is hitting.
Dade Firefighters Yank Goat-Eating Giant Python From Trailer Something weird was happening down on the farm in The Redland south of Miami. Cats and chickens were missing, and then, a goat disappeared. Then, something long and scaly was spotted slipping under a trailer. That's when the farmers called Miami-Dade Fire Rescue for help. | <urn:uuid:1ea49bc3-8c3c-4e50-bc69-d528fc4722c8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://miami.cbslocal.com/tag/burmese/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928531 | 236 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Law would require new parents to learn about babies' sleep safety
Michigan health officials want to do a better job of educating parents about the dangers of co-sleeping with their babies.
Sometimes parents think they're protecting their children by keeping them close.
But that can be deadly for infants, who can suffocate in bedding or if someone rolls over on them, says Colin Parks, state manager for the Children's Protective Services office.
"That's a huge factor in these deaths -- 140-150 of these a year. They're 100 percent preventable deaths, and it's just a tragedy," Parks says. He says the message is simple, but important: "To insure that children are put to sleep on their backs, in a crib, in a safe sleep environment."
That means no co-sleeping, and no blankets or stuffed animals in a baby's crib.
Michigan's First Lady Sue Snyder spoke in support of two House bills that would establish a safe sleep education program.
The bills would also require hospitals to distribute the materials. Parents would have to sign a form acknowledging they received, read and understood them.
One of the bills would also require the Michigan Department of Community Health programs to educate parents about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). | <urn:uuid:181f3b2b-a103-4192-bd64-deb035125a94> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://michiganradio.org/post/law-would-require-new-parents-learn-about-babies-sleep-safety | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971501 | 260 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Researchers at the University of Newcastle are examining the extent and impact of mental health problems in the coal industry.
They will work with the Minerals Council and the Hunter Institute of Mental Health to identify the mental health problems of coal industry employees and the impact on workplace safety and productivity.
Mental health problems are estimated to cost the state's coal mines around $430 million in productivity losses every year.
The University's Professor Brian Kelly says researchers will also develop a mental health prevention model.
"To put in place a program of work looking at the prevention of mental health problems , the promotion of good mental health in the workplace and ways that people can get effective assistance if they're experiencing difficulties," he said.
"There's similar sort of work being done in other industries and I think is an example of the mining industry taking the lead in this area."
Professor Kelly says he will be working closely with Hunter coal mines as part of the research.
"The focus of this work will be on the coal industry so yes it will be very relevant to the Hunter region and we are looking forward to working closely with mining sites around the Hunter to look at how to support their workforce more effectively," he said. | <urn:uuid:126e327a-4ea8-421e-ad74-c9862ece35d4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-17/research-to-tackle-mining-mental-health/4430836?pfm=sm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963502 | 244 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Europe, seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas, is encouraging political leaders to step up efforts to tap the region's shale gas deposits.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, said growing tension with Russia over its actions in Ukraine serve as a "very strong wake-up call for Europe" about energy issues.
"Europe is working very decisively to reduce its energy dependency," he said last week at an EU-U.S. summit in Brussels.
Europe can pursue many long-term options such as ramping up renewable energy production and importing liquefied natural gas, both expensive propositions. But shale gas continues to be front of mind among energy ministers and policymakers.
Accessing nearby shale gas resources would be cheaper than other options and could create up to one million jobs in the coming years, according to research commissioned by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers.
"The outlook [for shale] is undoubtedly brighter now than it was a year ago," said energy analysts at Eurasia Group.
According to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, European countries are sitting on roughly 470 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale gas resources -- a huge amount considering gas demand in Europe is roughly 18 trillion cubic feet per year.
But it's not going to be an easy process: Europe's shale gas production is essentially zero right now, and it will take a coordinated effort to get moving.
Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James, says the whole process will take years.
"Over the next five years, [European] countries will have to identify where their resources are and build out the infrastructure for this industry to develop -- that can include developing pipelines and training workers," he said. "This also means getting the required rigs to drill for shale gas, which are in the U.S. and Canada, but don't really exist in Europe."
The controversial extraction process -- called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- involves injecting water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground at high pressure to crack shale rock, allowing oil and gas to flow.
This practice has spurred America's energy boom, but opponents argue fracking can contaminate local water, create earth tremors and wreak havoc on the environment.
Despite the obstacles, the United Kingdom and Poland are making the biggest strides in pursuit of shale gas production.
"Poland is the furthest along. It's conceivable that in the next five years we could see meaningful production," said Will Pearson, director of global energy and natural resources at Eurasia Group.
Lithuania, Romania and Ukraine are also keen to pursue shale, he said.
Meanwhile, other countries are less enthusiastic. Germany, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands have informal fracking bans, requiring so much onerous documentation and pre-drilling research that energy companies are hesitant. Bulgaria and France have outright fracking bans.
"It will take awhile before France and Germany change their policies toward shale," said Pearson, but "hostility toward the sector is going to dissipate" as Europe tries to decrease its dependence on Russian energy.
There's debate over when European shale gas production might start making a dent in the gas market, but experts aren't expecting anything significant until 2020 at the earliest.
"Shale gas production in Europe is effectively zero. Twelve months from now it will still be zero. Five years from now, it will be more than zero," said Raymond James analyst Molchanov.
Over the medium term, Europe is working on building more interconnected links and storage facilities to give nations more flexibility with their natural gas supplies.
The process "is not very glamorous," says Pearson, but it will help Europe reach its goal of greater energy independence. | <urn:uuid:a3bca2a9-5fbd-43af-8361-9f6b6da81f4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/31/news/economy/europe-russia-gas-fracking/index.html?section=money_mostpopular | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954164 | 767 | 2.65625 | 3 |
African-American Studies Program
The primary mission of the African-American Studies Program (AASP), an independent, free-standing program in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, is to provide an academic and scholarly course of study centered on the black male in particular, and all blacks in general, that will enlighten both scholars and laymen, and affirm black males and black society. The ultimate goal of the AASP is to provide an academic course of study that leads to a baccalaureate degree in the discipline which prepares the students who major or minor in the field for a life of rewarding and fulfilling work. Students of African-American Studies, while at Morehouse and after they graduate, will contribute to the betterment of humankind through professional work and community service.
The African-American Studies major is holistic (multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary/ transdisciplinary) and directly relates to the mission of Morehouse College in that it assumes a special responsibility for teaching students about the history and culture of black people. It also encourages students to appreciate the ideals of brotherhood, equality, spirituality, human values, and democracy. Special emphasis will be given to the culture of black males, including their history and philosophy, and social behavior and athletics. It also teaches students to think clearly and critically; to make logical and ethical judgments; and to communicate effectively with others. African-American Studies searches for truth as a liberating force and provides an environment which encourages students to develop a zest for living, learning and contributing as men in society.
The African-American Studies major actualizes the educational mission of Morehouse College to teach its students to appreciate the past, especially the foundations of civilization and the shaping of the modern world. The student is also encouraged to appreciate cultures other than his own, and to judge with heightened perception, knowledge and understanding of the people, events, discoveries, political thought, economic theories, and geographical factors that have shaped the way we live.
The African-American Studies major prepares students to become better citizens, and leaders in society. It prepares students to go to graduate and professional school, and to enter the world of work; providing a course of instruction which aids students to better appreciate the world in which they live. They grow to understand how the world works, and the dynamics of social change, emphasizing the cultural heritage of black people and preparing them to attain an informed, scholarly understanding of this legacy. The ability to understand is enhanced, and we seek to coordinate knowledge from other disciplines, reinforcing the student’s academic skills--reading, writing, speaking, listening, researching and reasoning.
The African-American Studies Program teaches the seven skills required by Morehouse College. These skills are critical thinking, creative thinking, effective writing, effective oral communication, value awareness, computer literacy and quantitative analysis. Commitment to community service is strongly encouraged. African-American Studies at Morehouse College gives the students who study here another option among many quality majors from which they may launch a professional or service career.
The student who majors or minors in African-American Studies at Morehouse College, is expected be able to recall major events, dates and persons in the chronology of the African-American experience – especially black history. The serious student would also manifest an appreciation for the totality of the black experience, and show the linkage between the African legacy, European history and the African-American experience. They must be able to give evidentiary demonstrations of how the experiences of African-Americans are linked to the experiences of other blacks in the African Diaspora; and show how the experiences of blacks have been an integral part of American and world history.
Graduates of African-American Studies at the College are expected to be able to read comprehensively, write lucidly and cogently, speak effectively, listen intently, research thoroughly, and reason logically. Upon completion of the major in African-American Studies, it is expected that graduates will enter graduate or professional school, or the world of work. Again, all graduates of the discipline are encouraged to continue their involvement in community service.
Spring 2013 - African-American Studies Newsletter (pdf)
Fall 2012 - African-American Studies Newsletter (pdf) | <urn:uuid:dd6207f9-85a9-4058-a141-2f173d4a990b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://morehouse.edu/academics/aastudies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943371 | 852 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Great-Great-Grandpa was part of the old home guard who was left behind to guard the citizenry of Monroe County, West Virginia while the young men were all of to War.
On 01 January 1864 he was fetched, along with a posse, to track down a group of renegades who were stealing clothing off citizens laundry lines. Now, this may not seem like much to us these days, but we are talking during the worst part of the Civil War, and these were folks who were poor to start with. At this time, they may have only had one change of clothing!
The posse chased the theives into Wiseman's Hollow and to a cabin.
As Great-Great Grandpa approached the cabin, one of the thieves, in the loft of the cabin, fired from a window, and Great-Great-Grandpa was shot in the head, mortally wounded and died.
He was wearing his prized beaver-skin hat at the time.
This is the hat William Bean wore that day.
It doesn't look like much... does it?
A faded, worn old hat. It's been hidden in a closet for much of its 150 years. And to the unlearned eye, it wouldn't mean much at all.
Look closely at the top of the brim, and you'll see where the bullet that shot WIlliam entered.
The dark stains that blot the front of the hat are his blood.
Family legend states that if you put the hat on your head, you'll die before the next full moon.
As a child I was told about "Cousin So and So" who put the hat on, and he died within a week! And before him, well there was "Uncle Whats-His-Name", and he died before the moon was full again!
While I've never found that to be fact, I also have heard from many who said that when offered the hat to try on... didn't take any chances and refused to put it atop their top!
Who's to say what would happen if the hat were placed upon your head.
I'm certainly not going to try it on. | <urn:uuid:7281ffca-8cd6-4ab1-b4df-eaa2256b7cee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mountaingenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/sentimental-sundaythe-old-beaver-skin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992363 | 450 | 2.53125 | 3 |
What is Hapkido?
Hapkido is the modern name of Korean Martial Arts which has been called Bisul, Yusul, Yukonsul, and Yawara, that has been developed over about twenty centuries in Korea. The most important fact about Hapkido as a martial art is that it is not only a superior art of self-defense, but also helps to develop the components of psychomotor domain to its practitioners.
The trainee of Hapkido gives an individual the mental attitude of modesty which is fundamentally based on self-confidence. The founder of modern Hapkido is Choi Young Sool. Choi Young Sool with Ji Han Jai, Won Kwang Wha, Suh In Syuk, and Kim Moo-ung were interested in revitalizing a unique Korean art of self-defense system, with the emphasis on a free-fighting combat technique using punching, kicking, throwing, locking, choking, and weaponing to repel an opponent.
Hapkido training is composed of basic training, patterned sequence movement including weapons and kyoruki (sparring). The Moo Sul Kwan Arts Institute has been affiliated with the Hapkido committee in American Martial Arts Sports and Education Association and International Council on Martial Arts Education. | <urn:uuid:4e3c27a8-36db-444c-a417-f3fa2ea5ae6c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mskhapkido.com/id2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958261 | 268 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Take a high-school male voice student whose range would best be classified as a bass. The top of his range is about F3. However, he can also sing falsetto. The lowest falsetto note for him is about G4. So, there is over an octave he seems unable to access. In certain choirs with few men, that means that much of the repertoire is unsingable for him, since the range of the one "baritone" part often falls entirely in the gap between the main part of his range and the falsetto.
One exercise I have tried is the "siren" exercise, in which he starts a tone at the bottom of his range, sings portamento up to the highest pitch possible for him, then returns portamento to the bottom. The gap is present in this exercise as well.
Are there any exercises that can be done to help him gain at least some of this "missing" range? If so, what exercises? | <urn:uuid:b314ea4f-24a3-419c-bf27-e1a86ee9e007> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/8012/how-does-one-help-a-student-sing-in-a-missing-range/8028 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985884 | 205 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important as a means of reducing greenhouse emissions, especially as data traffic has grown due to the unprecedented development and growth in global wireless communications systems over the last decade. Network operators look for the highest possible efficiency in the networks they deploy, which puts pressure on components suppliers to deliver products that are as efficient as possible, especially higher-power active components such as power amplifiers (PAs).
A significant portion of the wireless base station power budget is consumed by the transmit RF PA. Since the PA can account for more than one-half of the base station's power usage, PAs have been the focus of efforts to improve power-added efficiency (PAE). The PAE is a measure of how well a PA can convert DC power into RF/microwave power. A PA’s PAE is highly dependent upon the amplifier’s gain, with high gain resulting in higher levels of PAE.
Gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology has proven to be extremely well suited for RF/microwave PAs. GaN can achieve transistors with power densities that are as much as five times higher than conventional gallium-arsenide (GaAs) devices, resulting in improved gain and efficiency. As the manufacturing costs of GaN decrease, the technology is being chosen for more high-power and high-frequency applications due to its superior performance characteristics. A number of companies are utilizing the benefits that GaN has to offer to produce highly efficient PAs well suited for cellular communications base stations and other wireless applications.
Cree, Inc. and ETA Devices have partnered to produce the world's most efficient reported PA. By taking advantage of the performance enhancements that Cree’s GaN high-electron-mobility-transistor (HEMT) RF devices offer, the next-generation of ETA Devices’ PAs are capable of providing efficiencies that exceed 70 percent under a 4G LTE modulation format. In comparison, silicon laterally diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor (LDMOS) transistors that are employed in current-generation mobile base-station PAs can only provide efficiencies as high as 45%. This new PA solution has the potential to save mobile operators 60 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy per year. In addition, it could also save as much as 50% of the $36.5 billion used to power mobile base stations each year.
NXP Semiconductors has also responded to the demand by wireless network operators for more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions. NXP is engaged in efforts to develop switch-mode PA (SMPA) technology. The power transistors in an SMPA are driven into saturation, which cause the transistors to operate as nonlinear switching devices and achieve higher efficiency than a linear-mode amplifier. NXP has developed an amplifier topology based on the Chireix structure, which employs two Class-E amplifiers in parallel (Fig. 1). This structure, invented by Henri Chireix in 1935, utilizes vector addition of two signals of equal amplitude and different phases. The output is optimally combined by means of an out-of-phase combiner. The development of GaN transistors has enabled the Class-E Chireix topology to achieve high power efficiency. NXP believes that SMPAs will deliver significant increases in efficiency in future mobile communications infrastructure applications.
Efficiency is also an important factor in the deployment of high-power broadcast transmitters, as energy consumption can account for more than one-half of all the costs that are associated with the operation of these transmitters. Rohde & Schwarz recently introduced its model THU9, which is a liquid-cooled high-power transmitter that establishes new performance benchmarks for high-power broadcast transmitters. The THU9 integrates Doherty amplifier technology, which allows users to save up to 50% of energy costs compared with conventional transmitters.
Smart Metering Technology
Smart metering technology is being implemented in an effort to be more energy efficient. Traditional electromechanical meters operate by counting the revolutions of a metal disc, which rotates at a speed proportional to the power passing through the meter. The number of revolutions is proportional to the energy usage. Smart meters, however, are able to remotely communicate directly with the energy supplier, enabling the company to have an accurate meter reading. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is an integrated system of smart meters, communications networks, and data management systems that enables two-way communication between utilities and customers. Utility companies and energy regulators are looking to leverage this technology to improve energy conservation by implementing the Smart Grid, which is a newer and more efficient version of the current electric grid system. A Smart Grid gathers information in an automated fashion about the behavior of suppliers and consumers in order to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. AMI and Smart Grid technology are both seen as important technologies to improve energy efficiency.
RF Micro Devices, Inc. (RFMD) is committed to developing products for smart energy/AMI applications. The company recently unveiled the RFFM6403 (Fig. 2) highly integrated front-end module (FEM), which is intended for use in smart energy/AMI applications. The RFFM6403, which operates in the 405 to 475 MHz frequency range, is designed for AMI systems with high efficiency requirements.
RF Energy Harvesting
Ambient RF energy is everywhere in today's wireless world, and is available from sources such as mobile telephones, handheld radios, mobile base stations, and television broadcast stations. Energy harvesting technology is enabling low-power devices to be charged wirelessly by capturing ambient RF energy from these sources. This harvested RF energy can be converted and stored for use in other applications. Harvested RF energy, which is basically free energy, can eliminate battery replacement or extend the operating life of systems using disposable batteries. A power-generating circuit, which is linked to a receiving antenna, is used to convert RF energy into usable DC voltage. The converted power can be stored directly in a battery or accumulated in a capacitor. Although the power available from ambient RF energy is very low, it has proven to be sufficient for applications such as RF identification (RFID) tags, wireless sensor networks, and more recently, smartphones. The markets for wireless charging by means of RF energy harvesting are only expected to grow.
Powercast Corp. is recognized as one of the leading vendors of RF power harvesting technology. The company develops wireless power and RF energy harvesting solutions to provide power-over-distance transfers for low-power applications. Powercast's patented technology enables devices that typically operate on batteries to benefit from high-efficiency RF energy harvesting technology. The company's Powerharvester receivers (Fig. 3) are designed into low-power wireless products, as embedded wireless power sources that deliver renewable energy by converting radio waves to DC power, which can be stored directly in a battery for short-range applications. Powercast has partnered with a number of electronic-products providers to deliver comprehensive development kits. Powercast and Microchip Technology, Inc. have partnered to provide the Lifetime Power Energy Harvesting development kit, which is based on Microchip's low-power microcontrollers and Powercast's Powerharvester receivers. This complete development kit enables remote electronics, such as sensors and input devices, to be wirelessly powered from RF/microwave power sources at distances as far as 40 feet.
NXP is also introducing a portfolio of RF power transistors designed to enable RF energy to be used as a clean and highly efficient power source. The company is offering the BLF2425M and BLF25M series of RF power transistors, which are optimally matched to the 2.45-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band. This transistor portfolio was developed with the intention of using RF-powered solutions for home appliances, medical devices, and automotive engines. The potential energy savings that could be realized using RF power are very large. | <urn:uuid:a5c9bebf-dac2-49c4-afe9-2883f437c6b7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mwrf.com/print/semiconductors/power-amplifier-technology-targets-efficiency?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94414 | 1,648 | 2.90625 | 3 |
A new concept for a single molecule transistor is demonstrated. A single chargeable atom adjacent to a molecule shifts molecular energy levels into alignment with electrode levels, thereby gating current through the molecule. Seemingly paradoxically, the silicon substrate to which the molecule is covalently attached provides 2, not 1, effective contacts to the molecule. This is achieved because the single charged silicon atom is at a substantially different potential than the remainder of the substrate. Charge localization at one dangling bond is ensured by covalently capping all other surface atoms. Dopant level control and local Fermi level control can change the charge state of that atom. The same configuration is shown to be an effective transducer to an electrical signal of a single molecule detection event.
Because the charged atom induced shifting results in conductivity changes of substantial magnitude, these effects are easily observed at room temperature.
One electron is sufficient to achieve gating because high gate efficiency is achieved.
Because one electron achieves gating, compared to ~10^5 in a modern transistor, enormous speed, and minimal power consumption are implied.
Though enormous challenges must be overcome before this concept enables a new technology, it appears to be worth facing those challenges.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows: | <urn:uuid:eff78439-f389-421e-ac4a-ff4133034a11> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nanohub.org/resources/431?rec_ref=16473 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895901 | 261 | 2.65625 | 3 |
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In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman presented an
amazing talk entitled There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, in which he proposed making very small circuits out of molecules. More than forty years later, people are starting to realize his vision. Thanks to Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) probes and "self-assembly" fabrication techniques, it is now possible to connect electrodes to a molecule and measure its conductance. In 2004, Mark Hersam et al. reported the first experimental measurement of a molecular resonant tunneling device on silicon. This new field of Molecular
Electronics may someday provide the means to miniaturize circuits beyond the limits of silicon, keeping Moore's Law in force for many years to come.
Learn more about molecular electronics from the resources on this site, listed below. More information on Molecular electronics can be found here.
Contacting Molecules - Chemistry in Molecular Electronics
0.0 out of 5 stars
12 Apr 2004 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Ilona Kretzschmar
The study of the basic electron transport mechanism through molecular systems has been made accessible by fabrication techniques that create metallic contacts to a small number of organic...
Inelastic Effects in Molecular Conduction
1.0 out of 5 stars
12 Apr 2004 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Abraham Nitzan
Molecular electron transfer, as treated by the Marcus theory, strongly depends on nuclear motion as a way to achieve critical configurations in which charge rearrangement is possible. The electron...
Electrical Conduction through Molecules
4.0 out of 5 stars
08 Jul 2003 | Papers | Contributor(s): Ferdows Zahid, Magnus Paulsson, Supriyo Datta
In recent years, several experimental groups have reported measurements of the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of individual or small numbers of molecules. Even three-terminal measurements...
Resistance of a Molecule
29 Apr 2003 | Papers | Contributor(s): Magnus Paulsson, Ferdows Zahid, Supriyo Datta | <urn:uuid:129cd2cc-0299-4ba2-9773-da01eb0f2e0b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nanohub.org/tags/molecularelectronics/resources/view?limit=20&limitstart=140 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863629 | 466 | 3.34375 | 3 |
A youthful complexion is the outer reflection of inner health. Regardless of age, soft, clear, skin mirrors inner vitality while dull, scaly skin can be a red flag signaling any number of deadly diseases. Skin cells are replenished every few days, which is why outward signs of inner problems show up quickly. Skin reflects the body's efforts to manage life's daily effects, including free radicals, inflammation and impaired circulation. While lotions may soothe the skin's surface temporarily, these common treatments are inevitably too superficial as a long-term plan. Rather than slathering expensive cosmetics on the outside of the skin, science supports an intrinsically beautiful strategy: feeding the skin from the inside out with antioxidant enzymes, such as rutin.
Free radical damage caused by mental, physical and environmental stress can accelerate the skin's wrinkling and sagging. Free radicals are everywhere in polluted air, tobacco smoke, certain foods, and as a result of too much sun. A normal part of living, even the stress of exercise produces free radicals. Now thought to be responsible for as much as 90 percent of all the human diseases, free radical damage often shows dramatically on the faces of people suffering unknowingly from the so-called 'silent killers' (such as cancer, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, and strokes). This may be because nutrients and oxygen, delivered throughout the body in the bloodstream, reach the skin, hair and nails last, while free radicals target the skin first, breaking down the communication network in the basement membrane.
Stress itself may be unavoidable, however, you can neutralize its effects by strengthening your skin's communication system. Your skin's communication system depends on the basement membrane, a thin membrane between skin layers. It monitors your skin's strengths and weaknesses, including what it needs for optimum health. A diet that includes antioxidant nutrients, such as rutin (a flavonoid found naturally in medicinal plants) along with quercetin and diosmin, can lighten the free radical load on the skin and internal organs. Flavonoids are pigments of plants that possess several biological activities, and many of these are associated with prevention of chronic diseases.
By reducing free radical damage to the basement membrane, rutin and its partners promote good communication between skin layers. They also lessen the devastating effects of free radicals on the skin's collagen. Collagen - the 'cement' that protects the skin from premature aging and wrinkling -- supports the skin's structure underneath the outer layer. Free radical damage weakens collagen by forming cross-links in its strands, accelerating skin aging. Rutin aids proper absorption and function of vitamin C, one of the vitamins critical to maintaining collagen in a health state. A diet deficient in rutin, and its molecular cousins (especially quercetin), may result in varicose veins, a tendency toward easy bruising and/or the appearance of purplish spots on the skin.
Because the main function of the blood is to deliver nutrients and oxygen to different tissues, including the skin, overall health depends on how efficiently the blood circulates throughout the body. The body's inflammatory response can damage blood vessels, causing them to function less efficiently.
Once that happens, the nutrients from the blood begin to leak through the vessel wall. An obvious sign of this is localized swelling that may cause blotchy skin. Inflammation has now been shown to underlie many diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Rutin, and its partners, can fortify blood vessels against the inflammatory response, which can prevent the skin from getting its fair share of nutrients. These nutrients foster ageless beauty on the outside as a reflection of a real and lasting beauty - the beauty of inner health.
1. Iris Erlund; Georg Alfthan; Jukka Marniemi; Antti Aro. 'Tea and Coronary Heart Disease: the Flavonoid Quercetin Is More Bioavailable From Rutin in Women Than in Men.' Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:1919-1920.
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at your favorite health | <urn:uuid:4597bd09-df02-4e2e-8381-944c301b23e5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://naturally.com/resource-center/articles/inflammation/the-beauty-of-rutin-is-more-than-skin-deep.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912879 | 893 | 2.9375 | 3 |
used to assign distance to the subject - either to avoid going into detail, or to suggest a lack of knowledge of it. also can be used as a noun.
1. "there were about a dozen people at the party - Betty, Sue, Wilma, Christine, Peter and I, and about half a dozen random others."
2. "I didn't pull last night, but when I left, Stephen was getting off with some random guy."
3. "Nice party. Who are all these randoms?" | <urn:uuid:d437a931-f03f-4f29-86d3-9ff57079670a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nb.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Professor+Heathen+Stalking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983133 | 107 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Icon 3 — Homology
Homology is a specific explanation of similarity of form seen in the biological world. Similarities can often be explained by common descent; features are considered homologous if they are shown to be inherited from a common ancestor. For example, although the arms of four-limbed vertebrates externally appear quite different, all have the same basic underlying skeletal and muscular pattern. Such shared patterns are best explained by the inference that they were inherited from a common ancestor that also had this pattern. Proposed homologies are evaluated using comparative anatomy, genetics, development, and behavior.
Wells rides the homology merry-go-round...
Wells claims that homology is used in a circular fashion by biologists because textbooks define homology as similarity inherited from a common ancestor, and then state that homology is evidence for common ancestry. Wells is correct: this simplified reading of homology is indeed circular. But Wells oversimplifies a complex system into absurdity instead of trying to explain it properly. Wells, like a few biologists and many textbooks, makes the classic error of confusing the definition of homology with the diagnosis of a homologous structure, the biological basis of homology with a procedure for discovering homology. In his discussion, he confuses not only the nature of the concept but also its history; the result is a discussion that would confuse. What is truly important here is not whether textbooks describe homology circularly, but whether homology is used circularly in biology. When homology is properly understood and applied, it is not circular at all.
...back to the future
Before 1859, the year Darwin published the Origin of Species, homology was defined as similarity of structure and position, and distinguished (although inconsistently) from "analogy," which was defined as similarity of function but not necessarily of structure and position. An example of homology and analogy are the wings of birds and bats. The arms of birds and bats would be considered homologs because they have the same structure and position in both animals. Their wings, however, are analogs. Both wings have the same function (flight), yet the bird's wing is made of feathers, and the bat's is made of skin. They are different structures.
The pre-Darwinian basis for similarity was the idea of an "archetype." The archetype, however, was never clearly defined. The idea belongs to a morphological theory that came from the German transcendentalist philosophers of the late 1700s and early 1800s. It was largely out of fashion by the 1840s, but Richard Owen, who codified this distinction, was dedicated to a philosophy of transcendental causes, as many historians of science have noted (e.g. Russell 1916; Desmond 1982; Rupke 1993; Padian 1995a, 1997).
Yet the pattern of the biological world more resembles a genealogy than a gallery of cookie-cutter "archetypes." Darwin accounted for the similarities in structure and position among very different animals as being the result of natural selection working on shared ancestral patterns. The concept of homology shifted from reflecting a vague "archetype" to reflecting descent with modification.
Today, biologists still diagnose homologous structures by first searching for structures of similar form and position, just as pre-Darwinian biologists did. (They also search for genetic, histological, developmental, and behavioral similarities.) However, in our post-Darwin period, biologists define a homologous structure as an anatomical, developmental, behavioral, or genetic feature shared between two different organisms because they inherited it from a common ancestor. Because not all features that are similar in two organisms are necessarily inherited from a common ancestor, and not all features inherited from a common ancestor are similar, it is necessary to test structures before they can be declared homologous. To answer the question, "could this feature in these groups be inherited from a common ancestor?" scientists compare the feature across many groups, looking for patterns of form, function, development, biochemistry, and presence and absence. Many features are tested simultaneously against genealogy through a process that Kluge (1997; see also Kluge, 1998, 1999 for discussions of independent homology tests) termed testing "multiple ad hoc hypotheses of homology."
If, considering all the available evidence, the distribution of characteristics across many different groups resembles a genealogical pattern, it is very likely that the feature reflects common ancestry. Future tests based on more features and more groups could change those assessments, however — which is normal in the building of scientific understanding. Nevertheless, when a very large amount of information from several different areas (anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, etc.) indicates that a set of organisms is genealogically related, then scientists feel confident in declaring the features that they share are homologous. Finally, while judgments of homology are in principle revisable, there are many cases in which there is no realistic expectation that they will be overturned.
So Wells is wrong when he says that homology assumes common ancestry. Whether a feature reflects common ancestry of two or more animal groups is tested against the pattern it makes with these as well as other groups. Sometimes, though not always, the pattern reflects a genealogical relationship among the organisms — at which point the inference of common ancestry is made. Today, the testing process is carried out by a method called "phylogenetic systematics" or "cladistics," which can be done without assuming an evolutionary relationship among the groups — but descent with modification is the best explanation for the patterns the comparisons of features reveals.
Evolution and homology are closely related concepts but they are not circular: homology of a structure is diagnosed and tested by outside elements: structure, position, etc., and whether or not the pattern of distribution of the trait is genealogical. If the pattern of relationships looks like a genealogy, it would be perverse to deny that the trait reflects common ancestry or that an evolutionary relationship exist between the groups. Similarly, the closeness of the relationship between two groups of organisms is determined by the extent of homologous features; the more homologous features two organisms share, the more recent their common ancestor. Contrary to Wells's contention, neither the definition nor the application of homology to biology is circular.
As mentioned, new evidence from various fields of biology has expanded our understanding of homology beyond just anatomical structures. Anatomical homologies, behavioral homologies, developmental homologies, and genetic homologies can be independently diagnosed and tested.
Behavioral homology recognizes features of animal behavior that can be traced to common ancestry. For example, consider the nesting practices of birds and crocodilians. Both of these groups share the behaviors of nest-building, parental care of young, and "singing" to defend territory and attract mates. Most people know birds do these things, but fewer know that their cousins the alligators and crocodiles do these things as well. They inherited these behaviors from a shared ancestor. Because of homology, we infer these behaviors for their extinct ancestors as well; thus it came as no surprise when fossils of many non-avian dinosaurs were found nesting with their young (Horner and Makela 1979; Horner 1982; Clark et al. 1999).
Developmental homologies are features in the developmental programs of organisms. An example of this is the "pharyngeal pouches" that nearly all vertebrates acquire to some degree during their development, but which become very different structures in the adults. For example, the embryological pharyngeal pouches of jawless chordates (e.g., Amphioxus, hagfishes, and lampreys) develop into pharyngeal arches and slits, which support the gill structure and allow water to exit the pharynx after passing over the gills. In jawed vertebrates, such as sharks and fish, the pharyngeal pouches develop into gill supports and portions of the jaw skeleton. In land vertebrates (tetrapods), these arches and pouches develop into jaw skeleton and musculature, but other pouches/arches, which in gill bearing vertebrates developed into gill structure, now develop into ear bones and cavities and thyroid and tracheal cartilages (Gilbert 2000). The evolution of the different adult pharyngeal morphologies of vertebrates are the results of alterations of these embryonic structures and their components through the developmental program (Graham 2001).
Today we also recognize genetic homologies. There are similar genes that control the development of non-homologous features. For example, there is a gene, named "Pax6," possessed by fruit flies, mice, and many other organisms, which influences the development of the eye. Biologists hypothesize that the gene is inherited from a common ancestor not only because of its biochemical similarity but also because of its distribution in numerous taxa. However, the actual eyes that the gene forms are not a result of common ancestry — their shared ancestor most likely lacked eyes, although it may have had light-sensing ability. The eyes of flies, mice, and many other creatures are of different structure and position and are not historically continuous, yet the Pax6 gene is historically continuous and responsible for them all. This homologous gene functions as a "switch" that triggers the development of light-sensing organs Gilbert 2000, but the "downstream" genes that they trigger are no longer the same: they govern different developmental programs and thus build structurally different eyes in flies, mice, and other organisms. The relatively new field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo for short) deals with these processes. The discoveries made in just the last 10 years in this field have greatly increased our understanding of homology, and have made the picture more complex. Wells nearly ignores this important new field in his discussion, a surprising omission for one whose background includes a degree in biology.
Homology, evolution, and the nature of science
Some formulations of the concept of homology appear to be circular, but as discussed above, because there is an external referent (the pattern that characteristics take across groups) that serves as an independent test, the concept, properly defined and understood, is not. Wells's claim that homology is circular reveals a mistaken idea of how science works. In science, ideas frequently are formulated by moving back and forth between data and theory, and scientists regularly distinguish between the definition of a concept and the evidence used to diagnose and test it.
Homology is in fact no more circular than the methods used in geology to determine paleogeography and plate tectonics. For example, in the 1920s, Alfred Wegener used the shape of the continents, the correlation of rock strata, the correlation of fossil organisms, and the position of glacial striations as evidence for his proposal that the continents were once joined in one supercontinent and have subsequently "drifted" to their current locations. Today, geologists can estimate where a certain section of a continent used to be by looking at polar wander, paleomagnetism, glacial striations, correlation of strata and fossils, and shape. Is this any more circular than the reasoning for homology? No. Evidence was used to infer that continents had moved, and then the concept of plate tectonics was applied to different data to determine the positions of continents at different times. The analogy to plate tectonics is also relevant to Wells's implication (Wells 2000:77) that we don't fully understand the mechanisms of homology: the mechanism of sea floor spreading may not yet be fully understood, but the continents still move.
What the textbooks say
The presentations of homology in the textbooks reviewed by Wells differ only in the lengths of their discussions. Overall, textbooks give homology (usually including discussions of analogy and vestigial features) 2-10 paragraphs (Figure 7). Because the shorter introductory textbooks have little space to devote to the complexities of how homology is defined, diagnosed, and applied, their explanations verge on the circular. The longer upper-level textbooks make a clearer distinction between the explanation for homology (common ancestry) and using sets of homologies to reconstruct relationships (Figure 7). All textbooks include diagrams of the forelimbs of various vertebrates, and all but one color-code homologous elements for easy identification. Guttman includes a second figure showing homologous bones in a number of tetrapods and one fish skull, clearly illustrating how skulls have been reshaped. Futuyma, Guttman, and Campbell, et al. include the best discussions and illustrations of homology, but nevertheless earn a D from Wells.
Most textbooks include discussions of analogy and vestigial structures along with discussions of homology. Analogous features are features with similar functions (but not necessarily similar structures) that are not inherited from a common ancestor but evolved convergently, whereas vestigial features are remnant structures that have been retained from previous forms. Wells notably leaves out any mention of analogous features or vestigial structures from his evaluation (such as the limb girdles of snakes or the limb girdles of whales cited by most textbooks).
Wells's textbook evaluation
According to Wells, textbooks should explain that homologies are similarities of structure and function due not to common ancestry but to a common "archetype" or basic plan on which all forms were based (Wells is remarkably cagey as to what he means by "archetype"). When Wells proposes that textbooks revert to a pre-Darwinian view of homology, he doesn't explain what that would mean for biology or biology teaching. He doesn't explain that it would replace a testable model (descent) with a non-existent, untestable, transcendentalist construct. Wells is vague because he merely wants to advance his position and the archetype is consistent with some notion of special creation, as favored by proponents of "intelligent design" creationism and their allies.
Wells's grades (he gives only Ds and Fs) appear to correlate with the length of the textbook's coverage (Figure 7). For example, all books given Ds devote well over 200 words to the discussion of homology, whereas the three books given an F devote fewer than 200 words. This is because the difference between a D and an F for Wells is whether the book defines homology "circularly." Therefore, the ability to treat homology "well" (meaning a D) depends largely on how much space is devoted to the discussion of it. Wells does, however, allow the book to have a picture. In order to receive a B or better, textbooks must define homology as similarity of structure and position and state that homology is based on the concept of an "archetype." Further, they should state that an "archetype" could mean many things, not just common ancestry. He also wants textbooks to state — inaccurately — that mechanisms such as genetics and developmental programs do not account for homology. Finally, he wants textbooks to state that the concept of homology is "controversial." This scheme is rigged for failure because contemporary biology does not consider homology to be either controversial or based on archetypes. There is certainly no reason to accept these grading criteria.
Why we should still teach that homology is a result of common ancestry
As our current knowledge of biology suggests, there is no reason to doubt the fact that the patterns of structures, behavior, genes, and developmental programs fit best with the hypothesis that all organisms share common ancestors. Many of the similarities among these widely divergent groups are a result of that ancestry. The questions currently being debated in biology are not whether homology is real, but rather what structures are homologous and how we may best determine homology (because our diagnostic approaches are fallible). This type of discussion of reliability of methodology is typical for science in all fields, not just biology. Descent is the basis for homology; similar genes, acting through development, convey homology between generations. Genes build structures through their interactions in the developmental program. Therefore genes, development, and similarity of structure and position are discovery procedures for homology; they help biologists to determine evolutionary relationships. This fits the patterns and processes we observe in the natural world; this is what we should teach.
How textbooks could improve their discussions of homology
The biggest flaw in textbook descriptions of homology is that they, like Wells, tend to confuse the definition of homology with the diagnosis of homologous features. Textbooks need to state explicitly that homologies are similarities seen in the biological world that are best explained as being due to common descent. They should then explain how homologous structures are diagnosed by their similar structure and position, biochemical basis, developmental path, and so on. A more detailed and lengthened discussion would help to remove the appearance of circularity caused by oversimplified descriptions. Describing how homology is used as a tool to discover evolutionary relationships would make it a much more pedagogically useful concept for students because it would show them how evolutionary biologists use anatomical observations to discover evolutionary relationships. Finally, adding the notions of multiple layers of homology from genetics and developmental biology would better show students just how different lines of evidence converge to support homologies and phylogenies. Textbooks should not follow Wells's suggestion to say that homology is merely similarity in structure and position, nor should they state that there are "other" reasons for homologies beyond inheritance from a common ancestor. To revert to Wells's 19th-century notion of homology would leave students unprepared to participate in 21st-century science. | <urn:uuid:5202334b-31c7-4141-b098-aae01c286dac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/icon-3-homology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954936 | 3,631 | 3.75 | 4 |
It’s been a bittersweet Thanksgiving week for students and archaeologists digging in Harvard Yard.
Sweet because they found a major feature — a covered stone drainage ditch buried four and a half feet down that was likely an early step in transforming what was a low, wet, marshy place to the high and dry Yard of today.
Bitter because the find, thought to date to the 1700s, came just days before the end of the autumn digging season, when Harvard’s landscaping crew fills in the pit until the dig resumes again nearly two years from now.
“There’s a certain pain that comes with this profession,” instructor Christina Hodge said, looking thoughtfully into the 9-by-12-foot pit that students had dug over the last four and a half months. “There are a lot of challenges with archaeology.”
The dig is in a corner of Harvard Yard near Matthews Hall. It has been excavated by students enrolled in “The Archaeology of Harvard Yard,” which is taught by specialists from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology every other year.
Summer School students began the dig in late June and handed off their trowels in September to Harvard College students, who ended their work Monday. Many of the students who dug this fall will assemble inside for a spring term laboratory course, where they will clean, examine, research, and catalog their finds.
When the course was last held in 2009, the final days of digging offered a similar find, a foundation trench that likely belonged to the Indian College, one of Harvard’s original buildings that housed the first Native American students and a printing press that produced North America’s first Bible.
Even before discovering the culvert, this year’s students had made some interesting finds, including coins possibly dating to the 1690s, a spoon from the 17th century, and a shoe buckle from the 18th century.
Late last week, the diggers uncovered what looked superficially like a stone path, two and a half feet wide and 9 to 10 feet long. It was made of large pieces of Cambridge mudstone, a common building material that Hodge said was once quarried at the site of the present-day Fogg Art Museum. Voids between the stones indicated that the diggers had uncovered the top of a hollow structure. A measurement through one of the voids indicated a depth of 40 centimeters.
With landscaping crews scheduled to fill in the dig today, a crew of three continued working Monday, carefully documenting each stone before removing some to see what was underneath.
They found a ditch lined with stones on each side and on top, with the bottom made of soil.
Hodge and fellow instructor Patricia Capone said the Yard was originally much wetter than it is today. Early accounts by Harvard officials spoke of buildings deteriorating badly, which could have been due to excessive moisture.
“It’s pretty exciting … that you can excavate in Harvard Yard and find something that significant and that far down,” Capone said.
Junior Emily Mayer, a history concentrator who missed the day when the stones were first uncovered, was working Monday, happy to have a glimpse of Harvard’s past.
“It’s been fantastic. When I was little, I always thought that you’re not going to find anything in your own backyard, but here we are,” Mayer said.
As one of their last acts at the site, Capone and Hodge covered the bottom of the pit with a tarp. Landscaping crews will cover that with the nearby piles of dirt dug painstakingly out of the pit over the past few months. The tarp will both protect the culvert and allow students and instructors to quickly dig down to its level when the course is next offered, in 2013. | <urn:uuid:2e5e298b-346b-4943-9258-e1098f15714e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/11/from-marsh-to-yard/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969836 | 805 | 3.53125 | 4 |
for National Geographic News
The emergence of the Brood X cicadas has gardeners in more than a dozen U.S. states wringing their hands, and worrying about what to do.
Nursery attendants, entomologists, and horticulturists seem united in their advice: Unless you own a nursery or a fruit orchard, there's nothing to worry about.
"What we're telling people is, honestly, there is no big cicada scare. It's not going to do a lot of damage," said Beth Abbundi, a spokesperson for Behnke Nursery in Beltsville, Maryland. "Cicadas won't hurt your garden at all; they don't feed on vegetables and flowers. It's the egg-laying that causes the damage, and only to very young trees. On older, healthy trees, they won't cause any damage."
Mitch Baker, a horticulturist and vice president of American Plant Food, a Washington, D.C.-area nursery, concurs, albeit a bit more cautiously.
"We're in something of an epicenter, and millions and millions [of cicadas] will be emerging here," he said. "The cicadas are not a threat, but you will see evident and obvious damage to younger trees as well as older ones. It can be somewhat disfiguring, but it doesn't threaten the overall health of the trees."
"What we're trying to tell people is that this should be viewed as a natural phenomenon, not something we should fear or get all excited about. It's nature's way of pruning."
The cicadas should begin emerging in early to mid-May after spending 17 years underground as nymphs sucking on tree roots. Once they reach the surface, they quickly morph into winged creatures and spend the entire four weeks of their above-ground lives flying from tree to tree in search of a mate, mating, and then dying.
A female cicada's dream home for laying her eggs is the new growth on a branch of a hardwood or fruit tree.
"The female uses her ovipositor to dig a channel in a branch, where she leaves her eggsthat's what causes the damage," said Mike Schauff, a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.
A female bent on egg-laying could make anywhere from 5 to 20 slits in a branch before moving on to another one. Twigs or branches the diameter of a pencil or thinner are most often damaged. Around late June, the tips of tree branches will start to droop or flag.
Apple, pear, dogwood, oak, and hickory are favorite hosts, according to the Agriculture Extension Service of the University of Tennessee, but many others have been reported.
"They're not really that interested in pines or any of the evergreens, azaleas, hollies, laurels, and other ornamentals," Schauff said.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES | <urn:uuid:c72db5f5-e7a8-4c90-b1fa-955ca6ef5f83> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0419_040419_cicadagardening.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959321 | 645 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Jan 16, 2013
from 04:00 PM to 05:00 PM
|Where||Health Sciences Library, room 328|
|Contact Name||Heather Lewis|
|Add event to calendar||
The rate of weight gain is highest immediately after cessation of a structured weight-loss program. Thus, effective interventions are needed that can successfully be used following a structured weight-loss program to sustain weight loss and prevent relapse. Due to low cost, ubiquity, and ease of use, healthcare communicated through mobile technology, or “mHealth”, may be able to serve as an effective medium to reach a large number of people to facilitate weight loss behaviors. Short message service (SMS) is easy to use, ubiquitous, affordable, and can target people directly where they are regardless of geographic location, socioeconomic status, or demographic factors.
Using the Behavior Change Process and regulatory focus theory, a recently completed mobile health (mHealth) intervention based upon evidence-based content and theoretical constructs leveraged SMS to automatically deliver messages to people who recently lost weight in attempt to help them sustain weight loss and prevent relapse. Participants will understand how informatics tools such as the mHealth intervention are constructed and guided by evidence-based content and how theoretical constructs can be used to help people sustain healthy behaviors that can lead to improved health outcomes. | <urn:uuid:53bc6253-0844-4b14-8fa5-78bbf928f25b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.unchealthcare.org/som-vital-signs/2013/Jan10/a-mobile-health-intervention-to-sustain-recent-weight-loss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92285 | 270 | 2.53125 | 3 |
USF Study Finds Common Fungicide Lethal for Frogs
Researchers trying to determine the cause of worldwide amphibian declines turn to popular fungicide.
USF biologist Taegan McMahon.
USF biologist Taegan McMahon.
TAMPA, Fla. (April 12, 2011) - Chlorothalonil, a common fungicide used around the world on farms and golf courses, has been found to be lethal to frog tadpoles at levels below what regulators have said are safe environmental concentrations, says a new University of South Florida study published in one of the nation’s leading environmental journals.
In a study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, USF biologists Taegan McMahon and Jason Rohr found that nearly every frog exposed to chlorothalonil in their study either died or suffered elevated stress hormone levels and changes in their immune cell counts, conditions which could weaken the animal and leave them vulnerable to parasites.
The finding could offer insight to a worldwide investigation of factors that might be causing widespread declines of amphibians, a taxon which many scientists view as a harbinger of potentially dangerous environmental conditions for other living creatures.
The full text of the study can be found here.
Chlorothalonil was known to suppress the immune systems of oysters and fish, but was relatively untested on amphibians before the USF study, conducted in conjunction with researchers from the University of Florida Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Rowan University, and the Archbold Biological Station in Venus, Fla.
Unlike chlorothalonil, most previously tested pesticides have not directly killed frogs at or below expected environmental concentrations. The expected environmental concentration of a pesticide is a concentration expected to be found in a water body that is a standardized distance from an application site, is calculated using US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) software, and is the concentration typically used by the US EPA to determine the safety of pesticides.
Lab tests showed that, at the expected environmental concentration, the fungicide was lethal to nearly 100 percent of the tadpoles in all four amphibian species tested. Moreover, concentrations of chlorothalonil four orders of magnitude below the expected environmental concentration were associated with significant mortality in two of the four amphibian species. Outdoor field experiments generally matched the findings of the laboratory experiments, suggesting that these results might be relevant to effects in nature.
The experiments also showed that the chemical was nonlinearly associated with mortality, stress hormones, and immunity: low and high concentrations caused significantly greater mortality and stress hormone levels than intermediate concentrations and controls, a dose-response consistent with endocrine disruption. In addition, for the survivors of low-dose chlorothalonil exposure, chlorothalonil concentration was inversely correlated with the number of immune cells in their liver, suggesting potential immunosuppresion of the surviving frogs.
Chlorothalonil is the most commonly used synthetic fungicide in the U.S., with some 14 million pounds being used predominantly on peanuts, strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, and turf grass.
The fungicide is part of the same chemical family, organochlorines, as the pesticide DDT, which has been banned for decades but remains pervasive in the environment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has strict standards on the application of chlorothalonil, which is known to contaminate surface waters through runoff and soil erosion. Users are warned to not spray the fungicide near water. However, it should be noted that the concentrations tested in these experiments were based on appropriate product use.
The USF scientists are focusing their 2½-year research project on the effects of chlorothalonil on freshwater organisms. Chlorothalonil binds to glutathione, disrupting cellular respiration that can lead to cell death. “Cellular respiration is an essential process for almost all living things,” said McMahon, a USF biology graduate student.
The researchers cautioned that their study has yet to determine the mechanism by which the fungicide affects frogs, only that its use raises red flags because levels expected to be found in the environment clearly have detrimental effects on amphibians, a taxon in global decline and an important biological indicator for the health of the environment.
“We don’t quite know its role in amphibian declines, but when the expected environmental concentration is associated with nearly 100 percent mortality across four amphibian species, it’s a cause for concern,” said Rohr, an assistant professor in USF’s Department of Integrative Biology.
Vickie Chachere can be reached at 813-974-6251. | <urn:uuid:5ed8011f-43d3-4751-b60a-5a9aeaa7dd7f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?z=123&a=3313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947239 | 949 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Honey Holds Some Promise for Treating Burns
Embargo expired: 7-Oct-2008 7:00 PM EDT
Source Newsroom: Health Behavior News Service
Newswise — Can honey treat a wound? What a sweet idea.
Smeared on a burn, the sticky elixir could reduce the time it takes for the wound to heal — up to four days sooner in some cases — a new review of studies suggests.
However, honey used with compression bandages does not significantly increase healing of venous leg ulcers and the jury is still out on honey's effectiveness for other wounds, according to Andrew Jull and colleagues at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
"The evidence currently does not support the use of honey on acute wounds such as abrasions and lacerations or on minor, uncomplicated wounds left to heal"¦following surgery," Jull said.
The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this one draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Honey's history as a topical ointment for wounds stretches back into antiquity. An Egyptian surgical text, written on papyrus between 2600 and 2200 B.C., recommends the treatment, as do the Greek, Chinese and Ayurvedic medical traditions. Later, caregivers used honey-soaked bandages until topical antibiotics became widely available after World War II.
Jennifer Eddy, M.D., a University of Wisconsin researcher who is completing a study on honey treatments for diabetic foot ulcers, says patients might consider honey as part of an interest in alternative medicine or following a bad reaction to other topical treatments.
"Topical honey is cheaper than other interventions, notably oral antibiotics, which are often used and may have other deleterious side effects," she said.
Honey can draws moisture out of cells and contains hydrogen peroxide, both of which help kill off infectious bacteria. Some varieties of honey have other antibacterial properties as well, the Cochrane researchers note.
The review included 19 studies with 2,554 participants. Although the honey treatment healed moderate burns faster than traditional dressings did, Jull recommends viewing the findings with caution, since a single researcher performed all of the burn studies.
For the moment, Jull said, "health services should refrain from providing honey dressing for routine use" for most other wounds until there are more studies that show its effectiveness.
At present, people most often use honey after trying other treatments, "when the wound was not improving with standard therapy," Eddy said.
The review discloses that Cochrane authors were researchers in one of the leg ulcer studies included in the review and that the research unit that employs the authors received a small cash contribution from a manufacturer of honey dressings to conduct the ulcer study.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Health Behavior News Service: http://www.hbns.org.
Jull AB, Rodgers A, Walker N. Honey as a topical treatment for wounds. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 4.
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international nonprofit, independent organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. Visit http://www.cochrane.org for more information. | <urn:uuid:ebe100d8-323f-4497-8aac-888ef83f0aad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newswise.com/articles/view/544590/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937279 | 715 | 3.265625 | 3 |
There is a big shift from coal to natural gas power in the USA because of fracking and cheap natural gas.
Niger’s uranium production was expected to double to around 9,000 tonnes a year (2015) from around 4,000 tonnes currently, thanks to the construction of a new mine, Imouraren, which is expected to come on line in 2014.
Also, some unusual energy statistics
* Deaths by Energy Source
* Air pollution by location and location of coal plants
There is a trend towards improvement in air quality in Chinese cities.
- They are updating boilers and using low sulfur coal.
- They are moving industry away from major cities
- They are setting up coal free regions in cities
- They have set up construction site dust control
- They are improving and increasing emission standards for power plants and vehicles.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks | <urn:uuid:e08efe0c-1053-4088-bbf1-e05634cab4d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/carnival-of-nuclear-energy-109.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938659 | 198 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Portrait of a Woman (Presumed Portrait of the Marquise de Lafayette) 1793–94
On May 31, 1783, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun became the 12th and 13th women ever granted full membership in the French Royal Academy, bringing the number of female members to its limit of four.
In her earlier portraits of French nobility, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard had proven herself adept at rendering intricate details of elaborate clothing, furniture, and architecture. In Portrait of a Woman (Presumed Portrait of the Marquise de Lafayette), however, the artist created an effective image with minimal elements and ornamentation.
Labille-Guiard’s sitter wears a simple dress of the type favored by women during the early years of the French Revolution. She wears no ornate jewelry. She is not posed in an elaborate architectural setting, and even the landscape backdrop is relatively restrained. Her somewhat tentative smile emphasizes the sitter’s physical attractiveness without unduly flattering her. | <urn:uuid:77594924-00e2-460f-939e-e072252a46af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nmwa.org/works/portrait-woman-presumed-portrait-marquise-de-lafayette | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932835 | 225 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Freddie Frog visits as many of the leaves as he can on the way to
see Sammy Snail but only visits each lily leaf once. Which is the
best way for him to go?
Write down what you can see at the coordinates of the treasure
island map. The words can be used in a special way to find the
buried treasure. Can you work out where it is?
Investigate the positions of points which have particular x and y
coordinates. What do you notice? | <urn:uuid:51cac923-e703-4e4f-b456-253b432ac290> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nrich.maths.org/2653/note | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954566 | 106 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Health Facts and Benefits of Slippery Elm Powder
Slippery elm powder has also been know by other names such as: Gray Elm, Indian Elm,Red Elm and Moose Elm. It contains a fair amount of tannins which make this herb astringent. Tannins soothe inflammation, reduce swelling, and heal damaged tissues. This herb is also great for soothing a dry cough, hoarse voice soothing ulcers, stomach inflammation and healing internal mucosal tissues. It’s been known to produce a calming effect on the mucus membranes of the throat and throughout the intestinal tract. It helps heal the tissues of the body. Slippery Elm is also an ingredient in bronchitis and lung remedies.
When you add the slippery elm bark powder to water it turns pale yellow. Some Cherokee indians used inner portion of the slippery elm bark for a healing salve. Additionaly, they observed this herb as one of the most effective poultices for wounds, boils, ulcers, burns and all inflamed surfaces, soothing, healing and reducing pain and inflammation.Slippery Elm trees, Ulmus Rubra, used to be more plentiful but many of them have died due to dutch elm disease. The many uses of the Slippery Elm tree were utilized by American settlers even used as survival food although historical records show very little proof that this herb was used as a nutritious food. Most times this bark was used to chew just like gum and as gum loses its flavor so does slippery elm albeit the flavor is natural compared to that of commercialized gum. This bark gave people who used it to chew something to keep their jaws busy. Slippery elm should be viewed as an herbal supplement not as a food. According to this source Slippery Elm bark powder was consumed by 5 people for a period of time and it helped with Psoriasis. Slippery elm tree bark powder is sold for medicinal purposes more than any other bark of a tree throughout the United States.
Slippery elm tree bark powder is considered to be safe for pregnant women, the elderly and infants. There are no contraindications that are known. Applying sound nutrition principles in our lives however dictate we never use anything in excess but rather in wisdom.
How to Use Slippery Elm Bark Powder for Human Use
Many people have taken it in oatmeal, orange juice, apple juice and water. Depending on how you prefer to take herbs you can take a teaspoon of it and wash it down with water, or you can stir it in to your favorite beverage or smoothie. Overall it’s best and easier to take it in a large amount of water, especially for children so they can simply drink it.
Where to Buy Slippery Elm Powder
You can buy slippery elm powder at your local health food store. Good Earth and SunFlower Market are two places to get it in Utah. Leave a comment below and let us know of local places to you where people can get it okay.
Product Review of Slippery Elm Powder
I’ve personally tried slippery elm powder and it’s not bad tasting at all, in fact it has a very mild and soothing feeling. It doesn’t leave any aftertaste that I’ve experienced. I’ve taken slippery elm powder primarily in water and sometimes in apple juice. If you’ve tried slippery elm tree bark powder share your comments and experience below. What did you personally use it for? | <urn:uuid:3d888b72-9f80-4db2-8806-497ab7f56893> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nutritionprinciples.com/slippery-elm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951421 | 715 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Complex public health problems like obesity often don’t have simple solutions. We know, however, that to change a behavior you need to change the environment. NICHQ’s portfolio of obesity projects use a variety of approaches and strategies to affect the community organizations, families, government, industry, primary care and public health organizations responsible for the environments where children live, play and learn.
Some of the successful approaches NICHQ uses include sharing knowledge, successful practices and innovation with healthcare professionals; building partnerships across traditional professional borders; and spreading impactful, sustainable policy and practice improvements in care settings. We’ve also found training and supporting healthcare professionals in becoming advocates for policy and environmental systems change within their communities, as well as using technology to improve monitoring of weight status and intervention plans to have significant impacts.
The result of our work: healthier futures for children and the development of evidence-based best practices to keep the momentum going. | <urn:uuid:7be60d2f-b397-4c3f-9dac-feae4ec17a2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://obesity.nichq.org/solutions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94818 | 192 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Figures 2a and 2b. Two views of the same slide imaged by the multibeam bathymetry method. These figures were generated by combining seven along-slope bathymetry swaths that were collected during a day and a half of surveying and processed in near real-time. The gray scale image was rotated to mimic the viewing angle and lighting direction in Figure 1. A more regional 3-D view, with colors representing depth, shows the scarp from a different angle. The resolution of these images is 150 meters, much higher than in Figure 1. | <urn:uuid:e65aa411-55f5-415f-a887-ca7ba270f759> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/03trench/summary/media/2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971577 | 118 | 2.578125 | 3 |
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Pyrite, better known as “fool’s gold,” was familiar to the ancient Romans and has fooled prospectors for centuries – but has now helped researchers at Oregon State University discover related compounds that offer new, cheap and promising options for solar energy.
These new compounds, unlike some solar cell materials made from rare, expensive or toxic elements, would be benign and could be processed from some of the most abundant elements on Earth. Findings on them have been published in Advanced Energy Materials, a professional journal.
Iron pyrite itself has little value as a future solar energy compound, the scientists say, just as the brassy, yellow-toned mineral holds no value compared to the precious metal it resembles. But for more than 25 years it was known to have some desirable qualities that made it of interest for solar energy, and that spurred the recent research.
The results have been anything but foolish.
“We’ve known for a long time that pyrite was interesting for its solar properties, but that it didn’t actually work,” said Douglas Keszler, a distinguished professor of chemistry at OSU. “We didn’t really know why, so we decided to take another look at it. In this process we’ve discovered some different materials that are similar to pyrite, with most of the advantages but none of the problems.
“There’s still work to do in integrating these materials into actual solar cells,” Keszler said. “But fundamentally, it’s very promising. This is a completely new insight we got from studying fool’s gold.”
Pyrite was of interest early in the solar energy era because it had an enormous capacity to absorb solar energy, was abundant, and could be used in layers 2,000 times thinner than some of its competitors, such as silicon. However, it didn’t effectively convert the solar energy into electricity.
In the new study, the researchers found out why. In the process of creating solar cells, which takes a substantial amount of heat, pyrite starts to decompose and forms products that prevent the creation of electricity.
Based on their new understanding of exactly what the problem was, the research team then sought and found compounds that had the same capabilities of pyrite but didn’t decompose. One of them was iron silicon sulfide.
“Iron is about the cheapest element in the world to extract from nature, silicon is second, and sulfur is virtually free,” Keszler said. “These compounds would be stable, safe, and would not decompose. There’s nothing here that looks like a show-stopper in the creation of a new class of solar energy materials.”
Work to continue the development of the materials and find even better ones in the same class will continue at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, which collaborated on this research.
The work was done at the Center for Inverse Design, a collaborative initiative of the College of Science and College of Engineering at OSU, formed two years ago with a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. It was one of the new Energy Frontier Research Centers set up through a national, $777 million federal program to identify energy solutions for the future.
The OSU program is different from traditional science, in which the process often is to discover something and then look for a possible application. In this center, researchers start with an idea of what they want and then try to find the kind of materials, atomic structure or even construction methods it would take to achieve it.
Finding cheap, environmentally benign and more efficient materials for solar energy is necessary for the future growth of the industry, researchers said.
“The beauty of a material such as this is that it is abundant, would not cost much and might be able to produce high-efficiency solar cells,” Keszler said. “That’s just what we need for more broad use of solar energy.” | <urn:uuid:1e5bf7a1-cbb2-42e0-b47e-acaa542b3a53> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/nov/%E2%80%9Cfool%E2%80%99s-gold%E2%80%9D-leads-new-options-cheap-solar-energy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963202 | 852 | 3.59375 | 4 |
One hundred and fifty years of shame
The case for war against Pender Island, British Columbia (Part 1)
On June 15, 1859, those who hate America because we're free sent a pig into Lyman Cutler's garden on San Juan Island in Oregon Territory. That pig was a message. A message of disrespect for all we believe. Lyman Cutler answered that message in the only way a true American can. He shot the pig. Thus began what became to be know as the Pig War.
The foreigners immediately tried to arrest Cutler. The Governor of Oregon Territory responded by sending the hard charging Capt. George E. Pickett along with 66 men to San Juan Island. That angered the Governor of British Columbia (BC), who claimed the island for the Queen of England. Three British warships were sent to dislodge Pickett and the brave Americans.
The British sailors, being the prim and proper girly-man they are, refused to engage our gallant soldiers. A stand-off ensued until a group of bearded peaceniks in Washington convinced the liberal socialist Democrat president, James Buchanan, to sue for peace. To the shame of Americans everywhere, the appeasnik Buchanan agreed to joint occupation. That shame was compounded 13 years later when an Arkansas sharecropper named William Clinton forced President Grant to allow the German Kaiser, another foreigner, to decide who would own the island. Fortunately, the Kaiser recognized the American claim. He failed, however, to force the British to pay for the damage done by the pig to Cutler's garden, thus encouraging our enemies to commit further crimes against America.
The British terrorists moved across the Haro Strait to Pender Island. Their progeny live there today, smugly taunting America with their pigs and gardens. We may have the land, but the Pender Islanders have our stolen honor and they mean to keep it. That's why they have acquired weapons of mass destruction and have opened terrorist training camps. More on that in future installments.
Facts about Pender Island, BC
- Many of their official documents are written in French.
- It is part of a province named for two foreign countries.
- Their autocratic mayor, Ian McNeely, is probably French.
- Like the Arabs, they measure distance in kilometers rather than miles.
- They trade with Cuba.
- They celebrate Thanksgiving in October.
- They send children to a special childrens prison
- They play a sport called "curling" with brooms and teakettles. It's a metaphor for their goal of feminizing the world.
- They eat Christian babies on a holiday they call "Boxing Day."
- Pender Island is actually two islands. They think they're fooling us.
Clams with really big parts
The case for war against Pender Island, British Columbia (Part 2)
For years, I'd heard rumors that the freedom-hating citizens of Pender Island had launched a psychological warfare program against us. The geoducks were my first piece of proof. Geoducks are a type of clam that is easily identified by it's large syphon. While I've always felt a bit inadequate around geoducks, I've noticed that the Pender Island variety was particularly obscene. Moreover, they've caused me to have strange, unnatural thoughts. These thoughts grab hold of my mind forcing me to commit certain private sinful acts. Someday, I will sit down with Jesus to review my life, and these acts will be the source of many seconds of embarrassing silence. I'm sure that Hell will be something like those few moments.
Anyway, these clam's syphons are unnatural -- even for geoducks. They must be the result of some kind of genetic engineering project. But why? Sure, they cause me to spill some of my essence, but that only weakens me momentarily. Within hours, my seed regenerates itself. There must be more to it.
The answer came to me one day when I went to Pikes Place Market with my wife and sister-in-law, Susan. As we walked past a stack of iced geoducks, Susan whispered something in my wife's ear, and they giggled. I recognized that giggle. I've heard it a thousand times. They were making fun of my little soldier. The geoducks gave them a model of something no man can achieve. These freak clams are turning men into little more than a cheap joke. The islanders are using them to undermine the authority of the American male, thus weakening our great nation. It's a new kind of subtle warfare, a type of insidious terrorism that can bring down a nation without a shot being fired.
Island of death
The case for war against Pender Island, British Columbia (Part 3)
Every few days, I go down to the local gym and hang around the locker room to look for suspicious activity. You never know what you'll see when the men there undress. I once saw a tattoo on a white guy that was written in Chinese. He was obviously a Red Chinese spy. I followed him everywhere for months. He couldn't use the bathroom without me being there. He tried every spy trick in the book in an effort to shake my surveillance. Threats, restraining orders, arrests -- nothing stopped me.
After about 17 months of following him to no avail, I finally struck pay dirt when he grabbed a ferry to Pender Island and checked himself into a place called Camp Spartacus. I thought that it must be some kind of gladiator camp. I was absolutely thrilled because I'm a huge fan of gladiator movies. I hid outside for nearly a week, waiting for him to leave so that I could check in.
Unfortunately, once I did get in, I learned that it wasn't a gladiator camp after all. It was a secret weapons of mass destruction production site. Thank God I had my camera and was able to take the pictures posted below. I authenticated them using two different sources. First, I sent them to Judith Miller of the New York Times. She showed them to her contacts at the Department of Defense and they confirmed that these are indeed pictures of a WMD production facility. I then sent them to Donald Rumsfeld. He showed them to his contact at the New York Times, Judith Miller. She noted that she had seen similar pictures that had been authenticated. There I had it, confirmation from two sources. Pender Island was making weapons of mass destruction. | <urn:uuid:f6174101-41e4-440c-81c2-bc4d2fcbac5e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2006/12/crisis-in-north-pig-war-ii.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97184 | 1,334 | 2.796875 | 3 |
- ice cubes
- cup of water
- Float an ice cube in the cup of water.
- Carefully lay one end of a piece of string on the floating cube.
- Sprinkle a pinch of salt onto the string and wait for about 30 seconds.
- Pick up the string, and WOW, you caught an ice cube
- But what else can you use besides salt? Try sugar, pepper, sand, flour, you name it. See what works, and what doesn't, and try to figure out why!
Which of these things did you use to catch an ice cube? | <urn:uuid:c2a558e6-4dc2-4490-8cf3-71aaaf654236> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pbskids.org/dragonflytv/superdoit/ice_fishing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903115 | 125 | 2.703125 | 3 |
You may go through the units in any sequence, but we suggest first exploring Unit 1, Natural Selection.
This "Ecosystems" module has four units of instruction. Clicking on the unit titles will take you to the topic.
Each module has a "Hazards" link that leads to a menu of study units on various environmental hazards (such as oil spills, farm runoff, insecticides, and so on).
Famous Scientists: Click here if you want to review the short biographies of famous scientists mentioned in "Cells Are Us," "Organ Systems," and "Ecosystems."
Toxic Hazards: Click here to see an index of common toxic hazards that are explained in the various instructional units.
Electronic flash card self quizzing: Click here when you have finished the lessons and are ready for self-study using the Get Smart self-study test set. Note that you will be prompted to download the Macromedia player software if it is not already on your computer.
Teachers should visit the Teacher Pages before beginning the instructional units. Access to Teacher Pages is password protected. Click here to get a password.
The Module is not intended to replace current curricula, but the units will hopefully provide useful resources and learning activities to complement and enrich current teaching practices. The content is designed for middle-school students, but some of the content may be useful in high school. | <urn:uuid:6d191bb4-89c6-44cd-a035-28b6b3fd57ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://peer.tamu.edu/curriculum_modules/Ecosystems/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920531 | 288 | 3.53125 | 4 |
India Post has today issued a Stamp on S Ramanujan .Ramanujan independently discovered results of Gauss, Kummer and others on hypergeometric series. Ramanujan\’s own work on partial sums and products of hypergeometric series have led to major development in the topic. His most famous work was on the number p(n) of partitions of an integer n into summands.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician par excellence. He is widely believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa Ramanujan made significant contribution to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.
Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu. His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk in a cloth merchant\’s shop. At the of five Ramanujan went to primary school in Kumbakonam. In 1898 at age 10, he entered the Town High School in Kumbakonam. At the age of eleven he was lent books on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by two lodgers at his home who studied at the Government college. He mastered them by the age of thirteen. Ramanujan was a bright student, winning academic prizes in high school.
At age of 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled\” A Synopsis of
Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics\”. The book was simply a compilation of thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. The book generated Ramanujan\’s interest in mathematics and he worked through the book\’s results and beyond. By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake deep research. He investigated the series (1/n) and calculated Euler\’s constant to 15 decimal places. He began to study the Bernoulli numbers, although this was entirely his own independent discovery. He was given a scholarship to the Government College in Kumbakonam which he entered in 1904. But he neglected his other subjects at the cost of mathematics and failed in college examination. He dropped out of the college.
Ramanujan lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking patrons to support his work. In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where he entered Pachaiyappa\’s College. His aim was to pass the First Arts examination which would allow him to be admitted to the University of Madras. Continuing his mathematical work Ramanujan studied continued fractions and divergent series in 1908. At this stage he became seriously ill again and underwent an operation in April 1909 after which he took him some considerable time to recover.
University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship in May 1913 for two years and, in 1914, Hardy brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an extraordinary collaboration. Right from the start Ramanujan\’s collaboration with Hardy led to important results. In a joint paper with Hardy, Ramanujan gave an asymptotic formula for p(n). It had the remarkable property that it appeared to give the correct value of p(n), and this was later proved by Rademacher.
Ramanujan had problems settling in London. He was an orthodox Brahmin and right from the beginning he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems.
On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. He had been allowed to enrol in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan\’s dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in England.
Ramanujan fell seriously ill in 1917 and his doctors feared that he would die. He did improve a little by September but spent most of his time in various nursing homes. On February 18, 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and later he was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London. By the end of November 1918 Ramanujan\’s health had greatly improved.
Ramanujan sailed to India on 27 February 1919 arriving on 13 March. However his health was very poor and, despite medical treatment, he died on April 6, 1920. | <urn:uuid:6116e3a6-faaf-49e9-ace7-31ac108759dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://philamirror.info/2011/12/26/india-post-will-issue-a-commemorative-stamp-on-s-ramanujan-today/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984614 | 938 | 2.765625 | 3 |
A wave is the effect of energy propagating in a medium that has some elasticity through sinusoidal vibrations of the medium. These vibrations can be either perpendicular to the direction of energy propagation or also longitudinal. Sometimes the energy is "trapped" in space in a pattern,one then has a "standing wave".
Waves in a lake have both components: the medium vibrates and displaces incrementally the water, the molecules staying in place. Sound through a solid, the solid vibrates in place and the propagated energy activates the air according to the frequency it vibrates on. A chord on a violin has a standing wave pattern on the frequency it is tuned on, which generates sound waves, vibrations of air.
These were the waves known until special relativity arrived on the scene.
It was thought by the wise men of the time that since electromagnetic waves were waves par excellence, displaying interference etc, then there must be a medium on which they propagate, and they called it ether: a universal rest frame, everything moving moved through ether. The Michelson_Morley experiment (see link above) which measured the constant speed of light showed experimentally that there is no ether, no universal frame of reference.
So electromagnetic are the waves that need no medium to propagate the energy on. They are self sustaining: the electric and magnetic fields changing in time create the form of the wave and energy propagates at the speed of light, perpendicular to the direction of sinusoidal change of the electric and magnetic fields.
These last are the waves on which gravity waves are mathematically patterned on: changes on the gravitational field (space curvature in this case) which do not depend on an absolute reference frame but propagate the energy at the speed of light by pushing ahead the sinusoidal gravity field changes . | <urn:uuid:b3d21f5e-f19e-497b-bf31-cfbf558e0aec> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15762/what-is-a-wave/15768 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926928 | 367 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Two gamma ray photons are entangled and travel through space. The first gamma photon interacts with a low frequency photon and creates an electron positron pair. What happens to the other gamma photon, does it's motion (position, momentum, spin etc) change as well thus creating another electron positron pair?
Ignoring the fact that this is a reaction with very low probability and the difficulty of detecting such an interaction the answer is : no, nothing happens to the quantum mechanical status of the other gamma.
If by some ingenious method one managed to determine the spins in the pair produced, still the spin of the parent gamma would be unknown, since the low energy photon also has an unknown spin direction. The only entanglement the two gammas can have are with the spin properties, and this information is lost with the interaction you propose.
Entanglement in energy could happen in known cascade decays of two gammas from a nucleus. If one detects two coincident gammas and measures the energy of one of them, the energy of the other would be known. thats all. | <urn:uuid:c623282e-f331-4c2e-8813-faecea6f7985> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/62607/entangled-photons-creating-particle-pairs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935177 | 218 | 2.953125 | 3 |
A meteorite's size can range from small to extremely large. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, frictional, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star. They can range from extraterrestrial bodies that collide with Earth or an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface.
NASA has launched a new website to share details of meteor explosion events as recorded by U.S. military sensors on secretive spacecraft, kicking off the project with new details of this past February's fireball over Chelyabinsk, Russia.
The new "Fireball and Bolide Reports" website, overseen by NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, debuted Friday (March 1) with its first entry: a table with a chronological data summary of the Russian meteor explosion of Feb. 15 gleaned from U.S. Government sensor data. Scientists are calling the event a "superbolide," taken from the term "bolide" typically used for fireballs created by meteors.
Part of the worldwide interest in meteors hitting Earth stems from what is now verifiable evidence that alien lifeforms are coming along for the ride.
In 2010, Duane P. Snyder announced the discovery of the first and only known Ice Meteorite containing Extraterrestrial Life-forms. The Ice Meteorite's particle analysis, its gas analysis, and likely origin including photos of the life-forms found in the melt-water of the meteorite where also exhibited. Dr. Albert Schnieders of Tascon USA Inc, commented that they basically found nearly all elements up to 90u in the sample spherical particles tested.
The results, photos and reports where then posted on Snyder's website snydericyrite.com.
The life forms that were photographed were inside the ice meteorite, not on the ice meteorite. They choose not to melt Ice Meteorite in order to prevent the loss of valuable information and knowledge.
According to Snyder, Saturn's moon Enceladus is the only known orbiting body having a mechanism capable of launching chuncks of ice out of its gravitional influence and orbit. A gas analysis of the gases matched the results found in NASA's Cassini spacecraft's fly-through of the ice/water geyser plumes of Saturn's moon Enceladus on october 9, 2008.
In 2011, an astrobiologist working at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center outside Huntsville, Alabama has made another astounding claim. In published journal article, he claimed to have discovered a preserved alien life form residing inside a meteor that journeyed through the vast black of space before impact on our planet.
The researcher, Dr. Richard B. Hoover, had to go to extraordinary lengths to make his discovery. He reasoned that if alien microbes were to hitch a ride on a meteorite, they would likely have to do so in a special meteor.
Specifically, he zeroed in on the CI class of carbonaceous chrondite meteors. In total only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth. These meteors are rich in water, amino acids, and other organic compounds -- seemingly a virtual pantry for a microorganism.
The discovery has been met with a great deal of skepticism, but also fascination. Dr. Hoover writes in a note to the editor's note accompanying his study, "Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5,000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis. No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough vetting, and never before in the history of science has the scientific community been given the opportunity to critically analyze an important research paper before it is published."
With the paper currently peer-reviewed and published [abstract] in the Journal of Cosmology.
Dr. Hoover is confident his discovery will be validated. He comments, "A lot of times it takes a long time before scientists start changing their mind as to what is valid and what is not. I’m sure there will be many scientists that will be very skeptical and that’s OK."
"If someone can explain how it is possible to have a biological remain that has no nitrogen, or nitrogen below the detect ability limits that I have, in a time period as short as 150 years, then I would be very interested in hearing that. I’ve talked with many scientists about this and no one has been able to explain."
More recently, though, some scientists have suggested that meteors and comets slamming into the Earth brought with them the very integuments of life, including water and a host of complex organic chemicals.
If he's right, Hoover may have evidence to support that theory. He argues that the complex filaments he found embedded in the meteors are micro-fossils of extraterrestrial life forms that existed on the meteorites a long time ago prior to the meteorites' entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
"This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the Cosmos and the possibility of microbial life on in liquid water regimes of cometary nuclei as the travel within the orbit of Mars and in icy moons with liquid water oceans such as Europa and Enceladus," he writes.
Earlier this year, top British scientist claimed to have found the ultimate proof that alien life forms are very much real. Still, it took some time before Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe's announcement managed to gain momentum and draw the media attention it deserved.
Wickramasinghe discovered tiny fossils of algae, similar to the kind found in seaweed, in a meteorite fragment that crash landed in central Sri Lanka in December 2012. He believes it proves we are not alone in the universe.
The finding provides strong evidence that human life started outside Earth, he stated.
The two-inch wide rock was one of several fragments of a meteorite that fell to earth in a spectacular fireball. They were still smoking when villagers living near the city of Polonnaruwa picked them up.
The fossils were discovered when the rocks were examined under a powerful scanning electron microscope in a British laboratory.
They are similar to micro-organisms found in fossils from the dinosaur age 55 million years ago.
Though critics argued that the rock had probably become contaminated with algae fossils from Earth, Prof Wickramasinghe insisted that they are the remnants of extra-terrestrial life.
He noted that the algae organisms are similar to ones found in Earth fossils and that the rock also has other organisms they have not yet identified.
Are We Aliens On Our Own Planet?
A meteorite that exploded above Canada 11 years ago has provided strong evidence that life's building blocks came from space.
Fragments of the rock that landed on Tagish Lake, British Columbia, yielded a mix of organic compounds.
They included amino acids and monocarboxylic acids, both essential to the evolution of the first simple life forms on Earth.
Analysis of the chemicals revealed information about their history on the asteroid from which the meteorite came, and lent weight to the theory that organic material originates in gas and dust clouds between the stars.
If the theory is right, the building blocks of life would have been spread throughout our developing solar system.
Lead researcher Dr Chris Herd, of the University of Alberta, said: 'The mix of pre-biotic molecules, so essential to jump-starting life, depended on what was happening out there in the asteroid belt.
'The geology of an asteroid has an influence on what molecules actually make it to the surface of the Earth.'
The findings were published in the journal Science.
Experts are confident that the chemicals they analysed were not the result of contamination from the Earth.
Mark Sephton, a geochemist at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study told The Scientist: 'It’s real evidence of hydro-synthesis occurring in asteroids and creating compounds that might be biologically useful,'
Meteoriticist Eduardo Iadonisi said this is only the beginning of new discoveries that will number in the dozens in the next few years. "We have some evidence that meteorites will be increasing throughout 2013 and possibly 2014," said Iadonisi. "It is highly probable that the dozens of meteors soon to impact Earth will also contain some evidence of extra-terrestrial life forms." Iadonisi could not give an explanation on why more meteorites are impacting Earth, but is confident the trend of discovering alien life forms will continue.
"For all we know, this may be one way the universe is repopulating the Earth
with different species," he concluded.
Liz Bentley is a graduate in geology, professional photographer, freelance journalist and investigative reporter on fossil records and climatology. | <urn:uuid:145fbbf2-79c2-4fbd-a472-b1a81a6a95cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://preventdisease.com/news/13/040913_Increasing-Numbers-of-Meteorites-Bringing-Lifeforms-To-Earth.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952753 | 1,839 | 3.609375 | 4 |
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The Toxic Matters brochure offers practical recommendations on how to avoid exposure to common substances encountered in everyday life that can be harmful to reproductive health. This nontechnical brochure is filled with tips to protect you and your family. These tips are focused on five key areas:
- Prevent exposure at home – A healthy environment starts at home. Read about simple choices you can make in your home life that can have a direct positive impact on you and your family’s health.
- Prevent exposure at work – Toxins can be used on the job, in your office building or during a renovation project. Learn more about staying safe at work and how to avoid bringing workplace chemicals home.
- Prevent exposure in your community - Learn ways to avoid exposure to pollutants in your neighborhood, and help create a better environment for your family and everyone around you.
- Become a smart consumer – Become informed about the products you use everyday and which ingredients to avoid to keep yourself and your family as safe as possible from toxic exposures. Using your power as a consumer sends a message to companies that the public is interested in safer, non-toxic alternatives.
- Make the government work for you – Because individual action alone cannot prevent all exposures, become active in the issues about toxic substances in your environment. Learn how to do your part to influence lawmakers and help them pass laws that will reduce everyone's exposure to toxic substances.
The recommendations in Toxic Matters are based on guidance from leading authorities on environmental, occupational and reproductive health. You can learn more about the specific recommendations mentioned in this brochure on our resources page.
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Cuestiones de Salud (Toxic Matters – Spanish) Brochure
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The term medicare (in lowercase) (French: assurance-maladie) is the unofficial name for Canada's universal public health insurance system. Under the terms of the Canada Health Act, the provinces provide all residents with health insurance cards, which entitle the bearer to receive free medical care for almost all procedures. Patients are free to choose their own doctor, hospital, etc. Health institutions are either private and non-profit (such as university hospitals) or provincially run (such as Quebec's CLSC system). Doctors in private practice are entrepreneurs who bill the medicare system for their fees.
Canada has always referred to their healthcare system as "healthcare". The term "medicare" was recently adopted and spoken by former Prime Minister Paul Martin during the previous election. Canada's healthcare system provides diagnostic, treatment and preventive services to every Canadian regardless of income level or station in life.
Each Province in Canada manages their own healthcare system. For example, each Province issues their own healthcare identification cards and negotiates with the Federal Government for money to cover their healthcare costs. Each province also provides their own Prescription Drug Benefit Plan, available to every Canadian regardless of income level. The prescription drug benefit is however adjusted for income, with a higher co-payment required for those with higher personal incomes. The prescription drug benefit is very comprehensive and rarely excludes a medication. Where there is a medication excluded, which is needed by a patient, the patient applies for coverage under the plan for that drug using a Section 8 form.
Dental care is not covered by any government insurance plans. Canadians rely on their employers, individual private insurance, or simply pay cash themselves for dental treatments.
The range of services for vision care coverage is widely varied amongst the Provinces. Generally, vision care is covered (cataract surgery, diabetic vision care, some laser eye surgeries required as a result of disease); the main exception is the standard vision test, which patients pay for if they have their eyes tested more than once within a two year period.
Naturopathic services are covered in some cases, but homeopathic services are generally not covered. Chiropractic is partially covered in some Provinces. Cosmetic procedures are not typically covered.
Opinions on medicareEdit
Many Canadians highly value their medicare program. Polling data in the last few years have consistently cited it as the most important political issue in the minds of Canadian voters. Along with peacekeeping, the CBC ran a poll that found medicare to be one of the most defining characteristics of Canada. It has increasingly become a source of controversy in Canadian politics. Due to massive healthcare transfer payment cuts at the hands of recent Federal governments, and the resulting shortfalls in Provincial government budgets, combined with rising costs due to an aging population, quality of care provided has decreased through the past two decades.
Commonly referenced problems include: limited access to diagnostic equipment (such as MRIs and CT Scanners), lengthy wait times for surgeries and serious physician shortages, which are particularly prevalent for General Practitioners(GP)/Family Doctors. In some parts of the country waiting times to acquire a GP have been quoted at several years. As a result some right-wing political figures and think tanks have proposed removing barriers to the existence of a parallel private health care system. Though polling suggests support for such reforms has been increasing, it has yet to be adopted as official policy by any of the main federal political parties. There have been private clinics opened and operating in Canada, but they are few and far between. Canadians who pay for their own services at Private Clinics are not penalized or prevented from using the public healthcare system simultaneously.
Current concerns involved the need for the Federal Government to improve healthcare funding to the Provinces, after the massive cuts enforced on the system over the past 20 years. Prime Minister Paul Martin has already reduced wait times, increased the number of doctors and nurses, by giving the Provinces back the money they lost during Conservative Party Leadership. The improvement was noticeably remarkable in 2005.
Despite wait times and funding cuts, Canadians do receive a very high standard of care, on par with what a privately-insured US citizen would get. The Canadian system is much more affordable for certain items such as patented drugs and this difference in price has created a large prescription drug exporting industry in Canada. Older medicines that are off patent tend to be somewhat more expensive due to less competition as entry into the Canadian market suffers from government barriers. The Canadian governments spend a smaller amount per capita on health care as the United States governments, while almost every Canadian citizen is fully covered. In the United States there are large percentages of the population who are uncovered or only marginally covered, despite higher proportional spending along with large private investment. Even more are just a job loss away from not having coverage (although in most cases the employer must maintain health care with copayment of the patient for a period of time after employment in the United States.)
In recent years, waiting lists for some procedures and treatments were very long. However, there have been some wait-time improvements through 2005 and 2006.
Though most Canadian politicians and citizens acknowledge that there are some problems with the system, the proposed solutions often spark passionate debate. On one hand there are those who believe that the problem is simply one of under funding. They point to the rise of neo-conservative economic policies in Canada, and the associated reduction in welfare state expenditure (particularly in the provinces) from the 1980s onwards as the cause of degradation in the system. However, it is commonly estimated that costs associated with the medicare system have still been creeping upwards as a percent of total government expenditures. Again, many critics argue that neo-conservative governments merely made huge cuts to other programs as a reason for health care creeping to high percentages of government spending. The increasing costs are also directly linked to Canada's ageing population.
On the other hand, there are those who argue that the system in its current form is financially unsustainable. They suggest that the rising cost of medical technology, infrastructure and wages are partly to blame. Canada's proximity to the United States is also cited as a serious problem, on account of the infamous "Brain Drain" - a phenomenon which describes the migration of Canadian-trained doctors and nurses (as well as other professionals) to the United States, where private hospitals can pay much higher wages and income tax rates are lower.
There are other proposed reforms that come from the populist left and centre wings and also those with a special interest in health care. While right wing reforms often get more attention, there is a grass roots movement to try and keep medicare public in Canada and to avoid privatization. This is usually presented as a value that separates Canadians from Americans by mandating equality and fairness in health care.
Since the early 1990s Ontario, as with other provinces, has worked at trying to reduce health care costs. Some examples of ways that costs were reduced or could be reduced follow. None of these systems are forced on patients at the moment, but they attempt help to make the system more financially sustainable. This makes them substantially different from Health Maintenance Organizations (commonly referred to as HMOs in the US) and other somewhat similar looking attempts by the United States to reduce health care costs, which appear to have reduced the average patient's access to medical care. Therefore they have been better accepted by the public.
Currently in Ontario, people with a high enough income must pay an annual health care premium. It can range from $300-$900, depending on one's annual income. This payment is charged for those having salary above CN$20,000. Funding for medicare in Ontario also comes from a dedicated Employer Health Tax (EHT) that ranges from 0.98%-1.95% of employer profit over $200,000. Premiums also exist in British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta ($44 a month or $88 per family), though as Alberta approaches debt-free status, there has been talk of removing them.
Proposals to reduce costs have been varied. There is a movement in Ontario to try and expand 24-hour drop-in medical clinic networks. This would mean that if someone were ill, no matter what the time of day, they would be able to see a doctor at a clinic. As many evening hospital visits are because there is no available medical service for problems that cannot wait until morning, it is likely that this would reduce costs considerably.
Many Family Doctor Practices have created their own clinics, offering 24 hour service for their patients if needed. Each Doctor in the Practice takes a turn at being "on call" on an ever rotating basis. Patients who have family doctors belonging to these practices are even able to have a doctor come to their home in extreme situations. There is no additional charge for these services as they are billed to the Province, the same as an office visit.
Some major Canadian cities have restructured their Emergency services between different hospitals. For example, in London, Ontario, there are several hospitals. The hospitals worked together to streamline services. One hospital provides full emergency room care. Another sees patients who have broken limbs, minor injuries. Yet another sees patients suffering cold, flu, etc. They have divided up the care adequately so that everyone is well served and critical cases are served first and foremost.
Alternatives to fee-for-serviceEdit
There is also a movement to try and move the system away from bill for service. The Ontario government in the early 1990's helped develop many community health care centres which provide both medical and social support. The emphasis is on medical care but the over-all approach is holistic. Collective kitchens, Internet access, anti-poverty groups and groups to help people quit smoking are common and funded in various ways. While funding has decreased for these centres, and they have had to cut back, they have been quite cost effective. They are often located in low income areas. If it is possible to reduce illness before it reaches a hospital a lot of money can be saved, although it is often hard to estimate how much and thus it is easier to cut these programs. Many of these centres are filled to capacity in terms of general doctors, and there are often fairly long waiting lists, although drop in health care is provided, often for those who have no other doctor. The centres also make use of nurse practitioners, who reduce the workload on the doctors and increase efficiency.
Ontario and Quebec have also recently licensed midwives, providing another option for childbirth. While midwifery cannot always take the place of a doctor, it can still reduce costs. If the mother wishes it and the birth appears uncomplicated, a hospital need not be involved. However, hospitals are now introducing birthing areas which contain their own suite, often with a hot tub (which is good for relieving pain without medication). These births often cost much less than the traditional manner of birth but are close to hospital facilities in case the need emerges. There have been occasional problems but overall the system has worked quite effectively.
In recent years some on the political right-wing have called for an increased role for the private sector in the delivery of hospital medicare services. Currently, privately owned and operated hospitals that allow patients to pay out-of-pocket for services cannot obtain public funding in Canada, as they contravene the "equal accessibility" tenets of the Canada Health Act.
A recent Canadian court decision has ruled that a Quebec law, which outlaws private health insurance, contravened the Quebec Charter of Rights guaranteeing the right to security of the person. In June 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a Quebec law preventing people from buying private health insurance to pay for medical services available through the publicly funded system. While the ruling applies only to the province of Quebec, it is believed by some that it could fundamentally change the way health care is delivered across the country. See: Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General).
The ruling may be read here:
In November 2005, the Quebec government announced that it would be allowing residents to purchase private medical insurance to comply with the Supreme Court Chaoulli decision.
Private Insurance covering that which is not covered by Medicare, such as dental care and eye care has been available for many years and is provided by many employers as a benefit. Blue Cross, Green Shield and Manulife are all well known providers in Canada of this type of insurance.
Barriers to foreign trained practitionersEdit
Currently, Doctors arriving in Canada from other countries must meet Canadian Health Practitioner standards. Canada's health education system is above average in the world[How to reference and link to summary or text], so there is concern that doctors from other countries are not trained or educated to meet Canadian standards.
Doctors who want to practice in Canada must meet the same educational and medical qualifications as Canadian trained doctors, prior to practicing in Canada.
Provincial insurance plansEdit
Though the Canada Health Act provides national guidelines for healthcare, the provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over health under the constitution and are free to ignore these guidelines. The counterbalance to this is that the federal government requires provinces to adhere to their guidelines in order to receive federal funding for healthcare. All provinces currently abide by the Canada Health Act in order to receive this funding, however Alberta has often mused about ignoring the Act should their planned health reforms require them to do so.
The federal government has no direct role in the delivery of medicine in the provinces so each province has its own independent public health insurance program. Under the Canada Health Act, each province must provide services to members of plans in other provinces.
List of provincial programsEdit
- Canada Health Act - FAQ
- Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada - the Romanow Report
- 2001 report comparing Canadian health care to that of other nations
- 2005 The conservative Fraser Institute's view of health care compared to other nations
- Canadian Health Coalition (Canadian lobby group supporting public medicare)
- Medicare: A People's Issue
- Maple Leaf Web: The Charter & Public Health Care in Canada
- CBC Digital Archives - The Birth of Medicare
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Individual differences |
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Biological: Behavioural genetics · Evolutionary psychology · Neuroanatomy · Neurochemistry · Neuroendocrinology · Neuroscience · Psychoneuroimmunology · Physiological Psychology · Psychopharmacology (Index, Outline)
Physiology (in Greek physis = nature and logos = word) is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms.
Physiology has traditionally been divided into plant physiology and animal physiology but the principles of physiology are universal, no matter what particular organism is being studied. For example, what is learned about the physiology of yeast cells can also apply to human cells.
The field of animal physiology extends the tools and methods of human physiology to non-human animal species. Plant physiology also borrows techniques from both fields. Its scope of subjects is at least as diverse as the tree of life itself. Due to this diversity of subjects, research in animal physiology tends to concentrate on understanding how physiological traits changed throughout the evolutionary history of animals.
It was Abu Bakr Al Razi (popularly known as Rhazes) who described certain physiological parameters when he went to establish a hospital at Baghdad in the eighth century AD. Razi was followed by Al Kindi, who wrote a treatise on human physiology. Anatomist William Harvey described blood circulation in the 17th century, providing the beginning of experimental physiology. Herman Boerhaave is sometimes referred to as the father of physiology due to his exemplary teaching in Leiden and textbook 'Institutiones medicae'(1708).
Areas of physiologyEdit
Human and animalEdit
Human physiology (main article) is the most complex area in physiology. This area has several subdivisions which overlap with each other. Many animals have similar anatomy to humans and so share many of these areas.
- Myophysiology deals with the operation of muscles
- Neurophysiology concerns the physiology of brains and nerves
- Cell physiology addresses the functioning of individual cells
- Membrane physiology focuses on the exchange of molecules across the cell membrane
- Respiratory physiology goes into the mechanics of gaseous exchange at the lung
- Circulation also known as cardiovascular physiology, deals with the heart, blood and blood vessels and issues arising
- Renal physiology focuses on the excretion of ions and other metabolites at the kidney
- Endocrinology covers endocrine hormones which affect every cell in the body
- Neuroendocrinology concerns the complex interactions of the neurological and endocrinological systems which together regulate physiology
- Reproductive physiology concerns the reproductive cycle
- Exercise physiology addresses the mechanism and response of the body to movement
- Body temperature
- Secretion (gland)
- Sexual reproduction
- Thermal acclimitization
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Can You Get A Flu Shot And Still Get The Flu?
This year's flu season started about a month early, prompting federal health officials to warn it could be one of the worst in years. They're urging everyone to get their flu shots.
But like every flu season, there are lots of reports of people complaining that they got their shot but still got the flu. What's up with that?
Well, as Michael Jhung of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains, there are lots of possible reasons.
The first is that while the flu vaccine is the best way to protect against the flu, it's far from perfect. In fact, the vaccine is only about 60 percent effective. So some people can get the flu even though they were vaccinated because the shot just didn't work for them.
The vaccine, for example, tends to work less well in the elderly. That's a big problem, since the elderly are among those at greatest risk for serious complications from the flu.
Another reason is that it takes about two weeks for the vaccine's protection to kick in. So if someone gets exposed to the flu in that time between when he gets the vaccine and when his immune system has responded sufficiently, he could still get sick.
Also, it's always possible that someone could get exposed to a strain of the flu virus that's not covered by the vaccine. This year's vaccine, though, looks like it should work pretty well — the flu virus strains in the vaccine appear to be a very good match for the most common flu strains that are circulating this year.
The last reason is that someone might get exposed to another kind of virus that causes symptoms that are very similar to the flu. There are lots of other viruses out there that can cause respiratory illnesses, such as adenoviruses, parainfluenza viruses and respiratory syncytial virus.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Let's talk now about this year's flu season. The Centers for Disease Control warns that flu is spreading earlier than usual, and it's spreading fast. A least 18 children have died from the flu. The best protection is a flu shot, which is recommended even for young children. But experts say even that isn't a guarantee that you won't get sick.
To talk more about what makes this season different, we're joined by NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. Good morning.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: So health officials are warning that this could be a particularly bad year. Why is that?
STEIN: Well, there's really two reasons. The first one is, as you mentioned, that it's a relatively early flu season. The flu hasn't gotten going this early in the season in about a decade - so, about a month ahead of time. And the second reason is one of the main strains that's circulating is what they call the H3N2 strain. And in past years, that's been particularly nasty. It's gotten a lot more people sick, and they've gotten much sicker and it's caused more deaths than usual.
MONTAGNE: For that reason, then, health officials are urging people to get their flu shots. I mean, it seems a little late, but I'm guessing it can still help.
STEIN: Yes, absolutely. The flu vaccine is definitely the best way to protect yourself from getting the flu. And there's plenty of vaccine out there, and there's definitely plenty of time to get vaccinated. It'll still protect people throughout the season. And this is especially important for people who are higher risk from the flu, and that includes the elderly, children and people with health problems. They're the ones that health officials really urge strongly to go out and get vaccinated as soon as possible. And the good news is, is that the vaccine so far seems like a pretty good match. It should be, hopefully, very protective against the strains that are circulating out there. There are three strains in the vaccine, and all three seem to be fairly closely matched with the predominant strains that are circulating. So that suggests that they should provide high protection for people against getting the flu this year.
MONTAGNE: Well, right, but, I mean, I know several people who've gotten really, really sick and have had gotten flu shots. Why is that?
STEIN: Right. There are several reasons why that could be: One is that even when the vaccine works, it's not 100 percent effective. In fact, it seems in past years, typically, it's about 60 percent effective. So even if you get a shot, it doesn't necessarily you're going to be completely protected. Another reason is that it takes about two weeks for the vaccine's protection to kick in. So if you get the shot, but then get exposed to the flu before the immunity has built up, then you still could get sick. And also, there are lots of other viruses that are out there circulating that cause symptoms that are very similar to the flu. There are viruses called adenoviruses and rhinoviruses. These are kind of bad cold viruses. The flu vaccine's not going to protect you against them at all. So if you get exposed to them, you're still going to get very sick. And also, there's also a possibility of other strains that are not covered by the vaccine.
MONTAGNE: What would be the advice for people if they do get sick?
STEIN: They should go to their doctor and get tested. And there are drugs out there - antiviral drugs like Tamiflu that can shorten the course of getting sick. It's usually the most effective if you start taking it within 48 hours of getting the flu. So it's important to get in there and get the drug soon. And it's not recommended for everybody, but it is definitely recommended for people who are at high-risk from the flu. And that tends to be elderly people, children, people with other health problems or people who are very sick or in the hospital with the flu.
MONTAGNE: And how much longer can we expect flu season to last?
STEIN: Yeah, that's a key question. Because it started so early, health officials are really wondering how long it's going to last. It could end up lasting as long as it typically does, into the late winter, early spring. In that case, it could end up being a more particularly severe season. Or it could end up petering out early, and it could end up being just a normal flu season, just started early and ended early. We'll just have to wait and see. One of the thing about the flu is you can never predict what's going to happen from one year to the next.
MONTAGNE: Rob, thanks very much.
STEIN: Thank you.
MONTAGNE: Rob Stein is NPR's health correspondent.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, if you are sick with the flu, there's only so much you can do. You can get rest, drink plenty of liquids, and maybe spend some time trying to figure out who passed on the illness. And there's an app to help you with that last part.
MONTAGNE: The Facebook application is called "Help, I Have the Flu." It will search the profiles of your friends to see if they've written the words coughing or fever - those keywords.
INSKEEP: This app is, of course, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, which sells expectorants and decongestants.
MONTAGNE: But if you're not that interested in the flu blame game, you can find more scientific information. The Centers for Disease Control sponsors Flu View, which lets you use an iPhone to track influenza activity levels throughout the country. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:92d9f0c1-d394-424a-9540-22b231f188e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/can-you-get-flu-shot-and-still-get-flu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979719 | 1,629 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Everyone knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression. If you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining.
The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.john buchan
Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascod, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.thomas henry huxley
A liberal arts education remains unequalled for the exercise and development of the most valuable qualities of the mind: penetration of thought, broadmindedness, fineness of analysis, gifts of expression.Pius XII (September 5, 1957) cited in: THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS on edocere.org, 2013
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Video is a combination of light and sound, both of which are made up of vibrations or frequencies. We are surrounded by various forms of vibrations: visible, tangible, audible, and many other kinds that our senses are unable to perceive. We are in the midst of a wide spectrum which extends from zero to many millions of vibrations per second. The unit we use to measure vibrations per second is Hertz (Hz).
Sound vibrations occur in the lower regions of the spectrum, whereas light vibrations can be found in the higher frequency areas. The sound spectrum ranges from 20 to 20,000 Hertz (Hz). Light vibrations range from 370 trillion (1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000) to 750 trillion Hz. When referring to light, we speak of wavelengths rather than vibrations.
As a result of the very high frequencies and the speed at which light travels (300,000 km per second), the wavelength is extremely short, less than one thousandth of a millimeter. The higher the vibration, the shorter the wavelength.
Not all light beams have the same wavelength. The spectrum of visible light ranges from wavelength of 0,00078 mm or 780 nm (nanometer) to a wavelength of 0,00038 mm (380 nm). We perceive the various wavelengths as different colors. The longest wavelength (which corresponds to the lowest frequency) is seen by us as the color red followed by the known colors of the rainbow: orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet which is the shortest wavelength (and highest frequency). White is not a color but the combination of the other colors. Wavelengths which we are unable to perceive (occurring just below the red and just above the violet area), are the infrared and ultraviolet rays, respectively. Nowadays, infrared is used for such applications as remote control devices.
Visible light as part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Note: visible light is only visible because we can see the source and the objects being illuminated. The light beam itself cannot be seen. The beams of headlights in the mist for instance, can only be seen because the small water drops making up the mist reflect the light.
Besides differing in color (frequency), light can also differ in luminosity, or brightness. A table lamp emits less light than a halogen lamp, but even a halogen source cannot be compared with bright sunlight, as far as luminosity is concerned. Luminosity depends on the amount of available light. It can be measured and recorded in a numeric value. In the past, it was expressed in Hefner Candlepower, but nowadays Lux is used to express the amount of luminosity.
Brightness Values: Candle light at 20 cm 10-15 Lux Street light 10-20 Lux Normal living room lighting 100 Lux Office fluorescent light 300-500 Lux Halogen lamp 750 Lux Sunlight, 1 hour before sunset 1000 Lux Daylight, cloudy sky 5000 Lux Daylight, clear sky 10,000 Lux Bright sunlight > 20,000 Lux
Luminosity is the basic principle of the black-and-white television. All shades between black and white can be created by adjusting the luminosity to specific values.
There are two kinds of color mixing: additive and subtractive color mixing. The mixing of colorants, like paint, is called subtractive mixing. The mixing of colored light is called additive mixing. Color TV is based on the principle of additive color mixing. Primary colors are used to create all the colors that can be found in the color spectrum.
In video, the color spectrum contains three primary colors, namely red, green and blue. By combining these three, all the other colors of the spectrum (including white) can be produced.
red + blue = magenta (purple) red + green = yellow blue + green = cyan (blue/www.magnavox.com/electreference/videohandbook green) green + magenta = white red + cyan = white blue + yellow = white red + blue + green = white
Making colors in this way is based on blending, or adding up colored light, which is why it is called additive color mixing. Combining the three primary colors in specific ratios and known amounts enables us to produce all possible colors.
By combining the three primary colors red, green and blue, other colors can be mixed, including white.
White light is derived from a ratio of 30% red, 59% green, and 11% blue. This is also the ratio to which a color TV is set for black-and-white broadcasts. Shades of grey can be created by maintaining the ratio percentages and by varying the luminosity to specific values.
30% red + 59% green + 11% blue = white
Light refraction is the reverse process of color mixing. It shows that white light is a combination of all the colors of the visible light spectrum. To demonstrate refraction a prism is used, which is a piece of glass that is polished in a triangular shape. A light beam travelling through a prism is broken twice in the same direction, causing the light beam to change its original course.
Beams with a long wavelength (the red beams) are refracted less strongly than beams with a short wavelength (the violet beams), causing the colors to fan out. The first fan out is enlarged by the second fan out, resulting in a color band coming out, consisting of the spectrum colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There are no clear boundaries between the various colors, but thousands of transitional areas. A rainbow is a perfect example of the principle of light refraction in nature.
When white light, such as sunlight passes through a prism, it is refracted in the colors of the rainbow.
Color temperature relates to the fact that when an object is heated, it will emit a color that is directly related to the temperature of that object. The higher the color temperature, the more 'blue' the light, and the lower the color temperature the more 'red' the light. Color temperature of light can be measured in degrees Kelvin (K). Daylight has a color temperature between 6000 and 7000 K. The color temperature of artificial light is much lower: approximately 3000 K. In reality, color temperatures range from 1900 K (candlelight) up to 25,000 K (clear blue sky). Television is set to 6500 K, simulating 'standard daylight'.
Various light sources with different color temperatures. Color temperature is expressed in degrees Kelvin.
The eye tends to retain an image for about 80 milliseconds after it has disappeared. Advantage is taken of this in television and cinematography, where a series of still pictures (25 per second) create the illusion of a continuously moving picture. Other characteristics of the human eye are that it is less sensitive to color detail than to black-and-white detail, and that the human eye does not respond equally to all colors. The eye is most sensitive to the yellow/green region, and less in the areas of red and (particularly) blue. | <urn:uuid:82855f2d-5d3f-4f5b-8f5b-c28b1370104d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://repairfaq.cis.upenn.edu/sam/icets/basicp.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929923 | 1,436 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that occurs when the body’s immune system produces chemicals that attack the healthy tissues. The immune system is supposed to protect the body from harmful bacteria and viruses. The immune system can become altered and fail to differentiate between the healthy tissues from the harmful invaders; in this case it produces chemicals that result in body tissue destruction. If these chemicals attack the joints lining and tissues, then you suffer from rheumatoid arthritis which is characterized with joint inflammation, pain, stiffness and swelling. Most people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis also experience rheumatoid arthritis itching.
When the body’s immune system attacks the body’s healthy tissues, the body becomes weak and unable to avoid infections. The inflammation can also occur in the skin and therefore causing the rheumatoid arthritis itching. In addition to itching, there are presence skin rashes; actually these usually occur among the initial rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. The skin lesions come and go and can be present for a couple of weeks before disappearing never to show up again. These rashes are usually a sign that there is something wrong happening internally in the patient’s body and should consider visiting a doctor for check up. When the skin rashes and itching disappear, it doesn’t mean that the disease has also gone; it is still progressing inside the body and will show itself soon.
There are test that your doctor will carry out to check how much the skin has been affected as well as determine the actual reason for the rheumatoid arthritis itching. Actually, the skin does not just start itching or develop rashes because you have rheumatoid arthritis. There are complications that occur from healthy tissue damage and they end up infecting the skin. Tests carried out to confirm this include ANCA (antibody to neutrophil cytoplasmic antigens) which is used to test the presence of blood tissues inflammation. Among the diseases that can give positive results to this test include the Wegener’s granulomatosis which attacks many blood vessels and the skin as well; if it attacks the skin, rheumatoid arthritis itching occurs. Taking this test early enough helps start treatment for any harmful complications that might be progressing inside the body.
Once you are confirmed to be having rheumatoid arthritis itching, you are put under medication that will help save your skin from any damage from the rashes. However, different causes of skin rashes are treated differently. When oral medication may work perfectly in some people, it might fail in others and they are required to undertake more complex medication. Treatments of rheumatoid arthritis itching also depend on gender, what might work well in men might be harmful to women. Therefore the best way to treat skin rashes from rheumatoid arthritis is by going to a professional doctor who will be able to know what will work out well for you. Also remember that rheumatoid arthritis itching is among the very first symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, therefore be sure to see a doctor for further tests as soon as you note it. | <urn:uuid:6955b306-9a7b-49e3-bc0e-ffbf69c1aa4f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://rheumatoidarthritiswiki.com/understanding-rheumatoid-arthritis-itching-better.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948232 | 639 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Wisdom teeth were for our ancestor’s early diet of coarse, rough food – like leaves, roots, nuts, grass and things, they are no longer needed. The more evolved you are, the less likely you have them. If you don't have room for them, but they try to come through, you are more evolved than those who grow them normally.
From survey's done 70% of those with Rh negative blood had never had wisdom teeth at all. 25% had some or all of them come through and had to have them removed. Only 5% had grown them normally. | <urn:uuid:70b9e2c5-7469-4573-88e6-3e37ce6e3ff0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://rhnegativebloodsecrets.blogspot.ca/2013/01/wisdom-teeth-rh-negatives.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.995117 | 121 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The man that owned the Steam Engine, (Mr. John Sanders of Wintersville, Maurice's grandfather) was hired and all available men were contacted by the
grapevine (I will explain later) since we owned the only telephone in the valley. After a week of below freezing weather then things would really hum in the valley. That was a real tip for all concerned to be on their toes.
Everyone would listen for the Chug, Chug, Chug of the steam engine coming down Paddy's Mudd Road. It was used to operate the conveyor belt. Then they would really know that it was time for them to don their winter clothes and
go to work. If any snow had fallen; it would be removed. The ice had to be from 9 to 14" in thickness to be economical, because some would be lost in thawing. The men must really know how to handle the saws, tow the ice by
the gigpole and keep from falling into the icy water. The ice was scored by a plow drawn by a horse or a gasoline engine. The spaces must be correct as the dimensions of a cake of ice was standard for a given weight. The ice
was sawed and then towed by the gigpole to the chute. The endless chain conveyor would carry it to the lowest level first; then as the house was being filled the next level would be used. The ice was placed flat on a straw covered
floor then each layer would be placed on each other. The straw would be used for the ends. It would be necessary to quarry the ice in the summer as the layers would thaw together. Straw was used to cover the ice to keep it
from thawing too much. It took five good days to fill each house. If the weather was right one could get about two crops of ice from the pond because the water would freeze where you cut the ice first. Some ice was stored in
another top building to be used for commercial winter customers. All windows and doors were secured so that no warm air could enter. We had a large retail trade for summer and a year round commercial trade so we were always
happy when we got the ice houses filled. Each cake would weigh 200# and at that time ice was selling at 80 cents a cwt.
Since so many sub-divisions were built on the hills and sewage piped down into the valley it was too dangerous to cut the ice on the pond so in 1916 my father built an artificial plant. During the summer of
1917, men had been sent off to war so I was my father's helper at the plant. I would stove the furnace, remove the ashes, oil the boiler, feed pumps and watch the water gauge while my father slept a few hours.
I also carried 25# of ice to the water works each summer day for about ten years. As I said before we had the only telephone in the valley operated by the Phoenix Phone Co. and my brother called it Folke Fone--truly he was right
because it was the communication center of the village and was in constant use especially to call the Doctor. Dr. Edward J.C. Sanders was the one who made house calls during the day or night. He would travel by street car to
Alikanna; walk to our house and pick up a lantern which was only a candle in a lard bucket; because he would be traveling up and down the creek and over the hills. He was quite dubious about the light until he tried it one dark
night and from them on it was part of his equipment.
In Alikanna we could boast of having the first four family house or condominium called "Bed Bug Row" owned by a prominent family in Steubenville. As long as I can remember we had folks on relief; since my Dad was the Island
Creek Township Trustee, he wrote out store orders for clothing, coal and groceries. One wonders at times where nicknames originate. One day one of the men took his order to the famous Paul Castner Store for flour; he was given
a certain brand but refused it and demanded "Pillsbury's Best" so from that time on he was known as Pillsbury's Best Bill". I also got the name of "Ice" from the gang on the corner as I carried the ice to the water works. Some
say that nothing comes from Alikanna. What about the Stone for large paper mills around the world? Coal from the Castners mine? The good times at Stanton Park and the beautiful Casino overlooking Half-Moon? There we raised five
ministers--5 Doctors--Eisenhowers Pilot, many nurses and teachers. In looking over the territory at the present time one would think that I was telling a falsehood because there are no trace of ponds, buildings and etc. Since
New Route Seven was built the dirt was hauled to fill in the area. So it will only be the oldsters that remember the territory and it's parage of red, yellow and blue wagons every day. | <urn:uuid:7ed989d6-acd8-4055-9027-539351a944a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohjeffer/YOCUM/valleyice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988471 | 1,041 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The History of the Knights Templar, by Charles G. Addison, , at sacred-texts.com
Origin of the Templars--The pilgrimages to Jerusalem--The dangers to which pilgrims were exposed--The formation of the brotherhood of the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ to protect them--Their location in the Temple--A description of the Temple--Origin of the name Templars--Hugh de Payens chosen Master of the Temple--Is sent to Europe by King Baldwin--Is introduced to the Pope--The assembling of the Council of Troyes--The formation of a rule for the government of the Templars.
THE extraordinary and romantic institution of the Knights Templars, those military friars who so strangely blended the character of the monk with that of the soldier, took its origin in the following manner:--
On the miraculous discovery of the Holy sepulchre by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, about 298 years after the death of Christ, and the consequent erection, by command
of the first christian emperor, of the magnificent church of the Resurrection, or, as it is now called, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, over the sacred monument, the tide of pilgrimage set in towards Jerusalem, and went on increasing in strength as Christianity gradually spread throughout Europe. On the surrender of the Holy City to the victorious Arabians, (A.D. 637,) the privileges and the security of the christian population were provided for in the following guarantee, given under the hand and seal of the Caliph Omar to Sophronius the Patriarch.
"From OMAR EBNO ’L ALCHITAB to the inhabitants of ÆLIA."
"They shall be protected and secured both in their lives and fortunes, and their churches shall neither be pulled down nor made use of by any but themselves." *
Under the government of the Arabians, the pilgrimages continued steadily to increase; the old and the young, women and children, flocked in crowds to Jerusalem, and in the year 1064 the Holy Sepulchre was visited by an enthusiastic band of seven thousand pilgrims, headed by the Archbishop of Mentz and the Bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon. † The year following, however, Jerusalem was conquered by the wild Turcomans. Three thousand of the citizens were indiscriminately massacred, and the hereditary command over the Holy City and territory was confided to the Emir Ortok, the chief of a savage pastoral tribe.
Under the iron yoke of these fierce Northern strangers, the Christians were fearfully oppressed; they were driven from their
churches; divine worship was ridiculed and interrupted; and the patriarch of the Holy City was dragged by the hair of his bead over the sacred pavement of the church of the Resurrection, and cast into a dungeon, to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock. The pilgrims who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of the Holy City, were plundered, imprisoned, and frequently massacred; an aureus, or piece of gold, was exacted as the price of admission to the holy sepulchre, and many, unable to pay the tax, were driven by the swords of the Turcomans from the very threshold of the object of all their hopes, the bourne of their long pilgrimage, and were compelled to retrace their weary steps in sorrow and anguish to their distant homes. * The melancholy intelligence of the profanation of the holy places, and of the oppression and cruelty of the Turcomans, aroused the religious chivalry of Christendom; "a nerve was touched of exquisite feeling, and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe."
Then arose the wild enthusiasm of the crusades; men of all ranks, and even monks and priests, animated by the exhortations of the pope and the preachings of Peter the Hermit, flew to arms, and enthusiastically undertook "the pious and glorious enterprize" of rescuing the holy sepulchre of Christ from the foul abominations of the heathen.
When intelligence of the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders (A.D. 1099) had been conveyed to Europe, the zeal of pilgrimage blazed forth with increased fierceness; it had gathered intensity from the interval of its suppression by the wild Turcomans, and promiscuous crowds of both sexes, old men and children, virgins and matrons, thinking the road then open and the journey practicable, successively pressed forwards towards the Holy City, with the passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of the
[paragraph continues] Redemption. * The infidels had indeed been driven out of Jerusalem, but not out of Palestine. The lofty mountains bordering the sea-coast were infested by bold and warlike bands of fugitive Mussulmen, who maintained themselves in various impregnable castles and strongholds, from whence they issued forth upon the high-roads, cut off the communication between Jerusalem and the sea-ports, and revenged themselves for the loss of their habitations and property by the indiscriminate pillage of all travellers. The Bedouin horsemen, moreover, making rapid incursions from beyond the Jordan, frequently kept up a desultory and irregular warfare in the plains; and the pilgrims, consequently, whether they approached the Holy City by land or by sea, were alike exposed to almost daily hostility, to plunder, and to death.
To alleviate the dangers and distresses to which these pious enthusiasts were exposed, to guard the honour of the saintly virgins and matrons, † and to protect the gray hairs of the venerable palmer, nine noble knights formed a holy brotherhood in arms, and entered into a solemn compact to aid one another in clearing the highways of infidels, and of robbers, and in protecting the pilgrims through the passes and defiles of the mountains to the Holy City. Warmed with the religious and military fervour of the day, and animated by the sacredness of the cause to which they had devoted their swords, they called themselves the Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ. They renounced the world and its pleasures, and in the holy church of the Resurrection, in the presence of the patriarch of Jerusalem, they
embraced vows of perpetual chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the manner of monks. * Uniting in themselves the two most popular qualities of the age, devotion and valour, and exercising them in the most popular of all enterprises, the protection of the pilgrims and of the road to the holy sepulchre, they speedily acquired a vast reputation and a splendid renown.
At first, we are told, they had no church and no particular place of abode, but in the year of our Lord 1118, (nineteen years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders,) they had rendered such good and acceptable service to the Christians, that Baldwin the Second, king of Jerusalem, granted them a place of habitation within the sacred inclosure of the Temple on Mount Moriah, amid those holy and magnificent structures, partly erected by the christian Emperor Justinian, and partly built by the Caliph Omar, which were then exhibited by the monks and priests of Jerusalem, whose restless zeal led them to practise on the credulity of the pilgrims, and to multiply relics and all objects likely to be sacred in their eyes, as the Temple of Solomon, whence the Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ came thenceforth to be known by the name of "the Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon." †
A few remarks in elucidation of the name Templars, or Knights of the Temple, may not be altogether unacceptable.
By the Mussulmen, the site of the great Jewish temple on Mount Moriah has always been regarded with peculiar veneration. Mahomet, in the first year of the publication of the Koran, directed his followers, when at prayer, to turn their faces towards it, and pilgrimages have constantly been made to the holy spot by devout Moslems. On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Arabians, it was the first care of the Caliph Omar to rebuild "the Temple of the Lord." Assisted by the principal chieftains of his army, the Commander of the Faithful undertook the pious office of clearing the ground with his own hands, and of tracing out the foundations of the magnificent mosque which now crowns with its dark and swelling dome the elevated summit of Mount Moriah. *
This great house of prayer, the most holy Mussulman Temple in the world after that of Mecca, is erected over the spot where "Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite." It remains to this day in a state of perfect preservation, and is one of the finest specimens of Saracenic architecture in existence. It is entered by four spacious doorways, each door facing one of the cardinal points; the Bab el D'jannat, or gate of the garden, on the north; the Bab el Kebla, or gate of prayer, on the south; the Bab ib’n el Daoud, or the
gate of the son of David, on the east; and the Bab el Garbi, on the west. By the Arabian geographers it is called Beit Allah, the house of God, also Beit Almokaddas, or Beit Almacdes, the holy house. From it Jerusalem derives its Arabic name, el Kods, the holy, el Schereef, the noble, and el Mobarek, the blessed; while the governors of the city, instead of the customary high-sounding titles of sovereignty and dominion, take the simple title of Hami, or protectors.
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders, the crescent was torn down from the summit of this famous Mussulman Temple, and was replaced by an immense golden cross, and the edifice was then consecrated to the services of the christian religion, but retained its simple appellation of "The Temple of the Lord." William, Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gives an interesting account of this famous edifice as it existed in his time, during the Latin dominion. He speaks of the splendid mosaic work, of the Arabic characters setting forth the name of the founder, and the cost of the undertaking, and of the famous rock under the centre of the dome, which is to this day shown by the Moslems as the spot whereon the destroying angel stood, " with his drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." * This rock he
informs us was left exposed and uncovered for the space of fifteen years after the conquest of the holy city by the crusaders, but was, after that period, cased with a handsome altar of white marble, upon which the priests daily said mass.
To the south of this holy Mussulman temple, on the extreme edge of the summit of Mount Moriah, and resting against the modern walls of the town of Jerusalem, stands the venerable christian church of the Virgin, erected by the Emperor Justinian, whose stupendous foundations, remaining to this day, fully justify the astonishing description given of the building by Procopius. That writer informs us that in order to get a level surface for the erection of the edifice, it was necessary, on the east and south sides of the hill, to raise up a wall of masonry from the valley below, and to construct a vast foundation, partly composed of solid stone and partly of arches and pillars. The stones were of such magnitude, that each block required to be transported in a truck drawn by forty of the emperor's strongest oxen; and to admit of the passage of these trucks it was necessary to widen the roads leading to Jerusalem. The forests of Lebanon yielded their choicest cedars for the timbers of the roof, and a quarry of variegated marble, seasonably discovered in the adjoining mountains, furnished the edifice with superb marble columns. * The interior of this interesting structure, which still remains at Jerusalem, after a lapse of more than thirteen centuries, in an excellent state of preservation, is adorned with six rows of columns, from whence spring arches supporting the cedar beams and timbers of the roof; and at the end of the building is a round tower, surmounted by a dome. The vast stones, the walls of masonry, and the subterranean colonnade raised to support the south-east angle of the platform whereon the church is erected, are truly wonderful, and may still be seen by penetrating through
a small door, and descending several flights of steps at the south-east corner of the inclosure. Adjoining the sacred edifice, the emperor erected hospitals, or houses of refuge, for travellers, sick people, and mendicants of all nations; the foundations whereof, composed of handsome Roman masonry, are still visible on either side of the southern end of the building.
On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems, this venerable church was converted into a mosque, and was called D’jamé al Acsa; it was enclosed, together with the great Mussulman Temple of the Lord erected by the Caliph Omar, within a large area by a high stone wall, which runs around the edge of the summit of Mount Moriah, and guards from the profane tread of the unbeliever the whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the gorgeous temple of the wisest of kings. *
When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the D’jamé al Acsa, with the various buildings constructed around it, became the property of the kings of Jerusalem; and is denominated by William of Tyre "the palace," or "royal house to the south of the Temple of the Lord, vulgarly called the Temple of Solomon." † It was this edifice or temple on Mount Moriah which was appropriated to the use of the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ, as they had no church and no particular place of
abode, and from it they derived their name of Knights Templars. *
James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting account of the holy places, thus speaks of the Temple of the Knights Templars. "There is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple of immense spaciousness and extent, from which the brethren of the knighthood of the Temple derive their name of Templars, which is called the Temple of Solomon, perhaps to distinguish it from the one above described, which is specially called the Temple of the Lord. " † He moreover informs us in his oriental history, that "in the Temple of the Lord there is an abbot and canons regular; and be it known that the one is the Temple of the Lord, and the other the Temple of the Chivalry. These are clerks, the others are knights." ‡
The canons of the Temple of the Lord conceded to the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ the large court extending between that building and the Temple of Solomon; the king, the patriarch, and the prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom, assigned them various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and support, § and the order being now settled in a regular place of abode, the knights soon began to entertain more extended views, and to seek a larger theatre for the exercise of their holy profession.
Their first aim and object had been, as before mentioned, simply to protect the poor pilgrims, on their journey backwards and forwards, from the sea-coast to Jerusalem; * but as the hostile tribes of Mussulmen, which everywhere surrounded the Latin kingdom, were gradually recovering from the stupifying terror into which they had been plunged by the successful and exterminating warfare of the first crusaders, and were assuming an aggressive and threatening attitude, it was determined that the holy warriors of the Temple should, in addition to the protection of pilgrims, make the defence of the christian kingdom of Jerusalem, of the eastern church, and of all the holy places, a part of their particular profession.
The two most distinguished members of the fraternity were Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, or St. Omer, two valiant soldiers of the cross, who had fought with great credit and renown at the siege of Jerusalem. Hugh de Payens was chosen by the knights to be the superior of the new religious and military society, by the title of "The Master of the Temple;" and he has, consequently, generally been called the founder of the order.
The name and reputation of the Knights Templars speedily spread throughout Europe, and various illustrious pilgrims from the far west aspired to become members of the holy fraternity. Among these was Falk, Count of Anjou, who joined the society as a married brother, (A.D. 1120,) and annually remitted the order thirty pounds of silver. Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, foreseeing that great advantages would accrue to the Latin kingdom by the increase of the power and numbers of these holy
warriors, exerted himself to extend the order throughout all Christendom, so that he might, by means of so politic an institution, keep alive the holy enthusiasm of the west, and draw a constant succour from the bold and warlike races of Europe for the support of his christian throne and kingdom.
St. Bernard, the holy abbot of Clairvaux, had been a great admirer of the Templars. He wrote a letter to the Count of Champagne, on his entering the order, (A.D. 1123,) praising the act as one of eminent merit in the sight of God; and it was determined to enlist the all-powerful influence of this great ecclesiastic in favour of the fraternity. "By a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world, by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the Abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his successor, Eugenics the Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy St. Bernard." *
To this learned and devout prelate two knights templars were despatched with the following letter:
"Baldwin, by the grace of the Lord JESUS CHRIST, King of Jerusalem, and Prince of Antioch, to the venerable Father Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, health and regard.
"The Brothers of the Temple, whom the Lord hath deigned to raise up, and whom by an especial Providence he preserves for the defence of this kingdom, desiring to obtain from the Holy See the confirmation of their institution, and a rule for their particular guidance, we have determined to send to you the two knights, Andrew and Gondemar, men as much distinguished by
their military exploits as by the splendour of their birth, to obtain from the Pope the approbation of their order, and to dispose his holiness to send succour and subsidies against the enemies of the faith, reunited in their design to destroy us, and to invade our christian territories.
"Well knowing the weight of your mediation with God and his vicar upon earth, as well as with the princes and powers of Europe, we have thought fit to confide to yon these two important matters, whose successful issue cannot be otherwise than most agreeable to ourselves. The statutes we ask of you should be so ordered and arranged as to be reconcilable with the tumult of the camp and the profession of arms; they must, in fact, be of such a nature as to obtain favour and popularity with the christian princes.
"Do you then so manage, that we may, through you, have the happiness of seeing this important affair brought to a successful issue, and address for us to heaven the incense of your prayers." *
Soon after the above letter had been despatched to St. Bernard, Hugh de Payens himself proceeded to Rome, accompanied by Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and four other brothers of the order, viz. Brother Payen de Montdidier, Brother Gorall, Brother Geoffrey Bisol, and Brother Archambauld de St. Amand. They were received with great honour and distinction by Pope Honorius, who warmly approved of the objects and designs of the holy fraternity. St. Bernard had, in the mean time, taken the affair greatly to heart; he negotiated with the Pope, the legate, and the bishops of France, and obtained the convocation of a great ecclesiastical council at Troyes, (A.D. 11280 which Hugh de Payens and his brethren were invited to attend. This council consisted of several archbishops, bishops, and abbots, among
which last was St. Bernard himself. The rules to which the Templars had subjected themselves were there described by the master, and to the holy Abbot of Clairvaux was confided the task of revising and correcting these rules, and of framing a code of statutes fit and proper for the governance of the great religious and military fraternity of the Temple.
2:* Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. Eutychius.
2:† Ingulphus, the secretary of William the Conqueror, one of the number, states that he sallied forth from Normandy with thirty companions, all stout and well-appointed horsemen, and that they returned twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand and the wallet at their back.--Baronius ad ann. 1064, No. 43, 56.
3:* Will. Tyr., lib. i. cap. 10, ed. 1564.
4:* Omnibus mundi partibus divites et pauperes, juvenes et virgines, senes cum junioribus, loca sancta visitaturi Hierosolymam pergerent.--Jac. de Vitriaco. Hist. Hierosol. cap. lxv.
4:† "To kiss the holy monuments," says William of Tyre, "came sacred and chaste widows, forgetful of feminine fear, and the multiplicity of dangers that beset their path."--Lib. xviii. cap. 5.
5:* Quidam autem Deo amabiles et devoti milites, charitate ferventes, mundo renuatiantes, et Christi se servitio mancipantes in manu Patriarchæ Hierosolymitani professione et voto solemni sere astrinxerunt, ut a prædictis latronibus, et viris sanguinum, defenderent peregrinos, et stratas publicas custodirent, more canonicorum regularium in obedientia et castitate et sine proprio militaturi summo regi. Jac. de Vitr. Hist. Hierosol. apud Gesta Dei per Francos, cap. lxv. p. 1083.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7. There were three kinds of poverty. The first and strictest (altissima) admitted not of the possession of any description of property whatever. The second (media) forbade the possession of individual property, but sanctioned any amount of wealth when shared by a fraternity in common. The lowest was where a separate property in some few things was allowed, such as food and clothing, whilst everything else was shared in common. The second kind of poverty (media) was adopted by the Templars.
5:† Pantaleon, lib. iii. p. 82.
6:* D’Herbelot Bib. Orient. p. 270, 687, ed. 1697. William of Tyre, who lived at Jerusalem shortly after the conquest of the city by the Crusaders, tells us that the Caliph Omar required the Patriarch Sophronius to point out to him the site of the temple destroyed by Titus, which being done, the caliph immediately commenced the erection of a fresh temple thereon, "Quo postea infra modicum tempus juxta conceptum mentis suæ feliciter consummato, quale hodie Hierosolymis esse dinoscitur, multis et infinites ditavit possessionibus."--Will. Tyr. lib. i. cap. 2.
7:* Erant porro in eodem Templi ædificio, intus et extra ex opere musaico, Arabici idiomatis literarum vetustissima monimenta, quibus et auctor et imperarum quantitas et quo tempore opus inceptum quodque consummatum fuerit evidenter declaratur. . . . In hujus superioris areæ medio Templum ædificatum est, forma quidem octogonum et laterum totidem, tectum habens sphericum plumbo artificiose copertum. . . . Intus vero in medio Templi, infra interiorem columnarum ordinem rupes est, &c.--Will. Tyr. lib. i. cap 2, lib. viii. cap. 3. In hoc loco, supra rupem quæ adhuc in eodem Templo consistit, dicitur stetisse et apparaisse David exterminator Angelus. . . . Templum Dominicum in tanta veneratione habent Saraceni, ut nullus eorum ipsum audeat aliquibus sordibus maculare; sed a remotis et longinquis regionibus, a temporibus Salomonis usque ad tempora præsentia, veniunt adorare.--Jac. de Vitr. Hist. Hierosol. cap. lxii. p 1080.
8:* Procopius de ædificiis Justiniani, lib. 5.
9:* Phocas believes the whole space around these buildings to be the area of the ancient temple. Ἑν τῶ ἀρχαίω δαπεδω τοῦ περιώνῦμου ναου έκείνοὺ Σὸλομῶντος θεωρουμενοσ . . . Ἔξωθεν δὲ του ναου ἐστι περιαύλιον μεγα λιθόστωτον τὸ παλαιὸν, ὼς οῖμαι, του μεγαλου ναου δάπεδον.--Phocæ descript. Terr. Sanc. cap. xiv. Colon. 1653.
9:† Quibus quoniam neque ecclesia erat, neque certum habebant domicilium, Rex in Palatio suo, quod secus Templum Domini ad australem habet partem, eis concessit habitaculum.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7. And in another place, speaking of the Temple of the Lord, he says, Ab Austro vero domum habet Regiam, quæ vulgari appellatione Templum Salomonis dicitur.--Ib. lib, viii. cap. 3.
10:* Qui quoniam juxta Templum Domini, ut prædiximus, in Palatio regio mansionem habent, fratres militiæ Templi dicuntur.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
10:† Est præterea Hierosolymis Templum aliud immensæ quantitatis et amplitudinis, a quo fratres militiæ Templi, Templarii nominantur, quod Templum Salomonis nuncupatur, forsitan ad distinctionem alterius quod specialiter Templum Domini appellatur.--Jac. de Vitr. cap. 62.
10:‡ In Templo Domini abbas est et canonici regulares, et sciendum est quod aliud est Templum Domini, aliud Templum militiæ. Isti clerici, illi milites.--Hist. Orient. Jac de Vitr. apud Thesaur. Nov. Anecd. Martene, tom. iii. col. 277.
10:§ Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
11:* Prima autem eorum professio quodque eis a domino Patriarcha et reliquis episcopis in remissionem peccatorum injunctum est, ut vias et itinera, ad salutem peregrinorum contra latronum et incursantium insidias, pro viribus conservarent.--Will. Tyr. lib. xii. cap. 7.
13:* Reg. Constit. et Privileg. Ordinis Cisterc. p. 447. | <urn:uuid:a35c8dc7-0451-4de5-977d-b6512294cb12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sacred-texts.com/sro/hkt/hkt03.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93559 | 6,243 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Scientists in Madagascar recently discovered the remains of a giant prehistoric frog, a relative of today’s horned toads, which blew away the previous record for the largest known frog, Bennicus Bleimanicus. Dubbed Beelzebufo, meaning “frog from hell,” the Devil Frog had important differences from today’s frogs. To begin with, it was freakin huge. Susan Evans, a researcher from the University College of London, explained that if it was anything like its closest living forebears, “it would have been quite mean.” Considering the fact that it was “the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth,” it was probably a formidable predator for its time. Explained David Krause, a researcher from Stony Brook University in NY, “It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Beelzebufo took down lizards and mammals and smaller frogs, and even — considering its size — possibly hatchling dinosaurs.”
The Devil Frog was a land dwelling amphibian that probably spent most of its time laying in wait, trying to convince itself it really was just “big boned.”
more below the fold…
In addition to its outstanding size and premeditatedly sensationalistic name, the Devil Frog is also notable for lending weight to a controversial theory of plate tectonics. Because its closest living kin, nicknamed the Pac-Man frog for its enormous mouth, lives in South America, it suggests that Madagascar and South America were once linked via a long lost land bridge from Madagascar to Antarctica. Blasphemy! Penguins and lemurs living side-by-side in harmony? Sounds like a Pixar pipedream.
Special thanks to NK and Liz Carter for bringing this to our attention. | <urn:uuid:dd7315cc-c8e7-420a-a422-368b22eb46af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2008/02/18/enormous-devil-toad-remains-di/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966203 | 379 | 3.359375 | 3 |
By Botanical Name
The Botanic name for a plant is its formal Latin name and is accepted worldwide so gardeners from different countries will be able to recognize the same plant. Botanical names are plant specific and eliminate confusion. Referencing a plant by its botanical name will ensure the most accurate information for your search.
The Botanical name includes both the plant genus and species. The first name listed is the genus and refers to the structural characteristics that the plants share. The second name listed is the species and refers to where the plant is native, its appearance, or the person credited to its discovery. Varieties, Cultivars, and Hybrid are additional words used to describe further subdivisions. | <urn:uuid:b4d6cf08-b51c-4f42-9595-81319ff6f7a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://shrubsource.com/shop-by-botanical-name?genus=502&hardiness_zone=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94892 | 143 | 3.25 | 3 |
I5. The Irrationality of Rationality
According to George Ritzer, rationalization is growing out of control. He calls the rationalization of the economic sphere "McDonaldization" - a play on the overwhelming success and popularity of the McDonalds restaurant franchise.
McDonaldization is "the process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world" (1993: 1). Ritzer takes his critique largely from the work of Max Weber regarding formal rationality and applies it to economic developments that are leading us into the twenty-first century. He describes formal rationality as "the search by people for optimum means to a given end [that] is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures" (1993: 19). The social mechanism by which such formal rationality is to be carried out is the bureaucracy. "Weber viewed bureaucracy as the paradigm case of formal rationality" (1993: 20). Ritzer also describes the precedents set in the economy that led up to McDonaldization. First, he mentions the proclivity toward scientific management.
Scientific management was created [at the turn of the century] by Frederick W. Taylor, and his ideas played a key role in shaping the work world throughout the twentieth century. Taylor developed a series of principles designed to rationalize work and was hired by a number of large organizations (for example, Bethlehem Steel) to implement those ideas. Employers found that when workers followed Taylors methods, they worked much more efficiently, everyone performed the same steps (that is, their work exhibited predictability), and they produced a great deal more while their pay had to be increased only slightly (calculability) (1993:24).
These elements of efficiency, predictability and calculability are key concepts in the discussion of rationalization. Second, Ritzer describes the assembly line and the part that the automobile industry played in manipulating technology to increase the elements of rationalization described above. From here, the examples become more and more numerous, ranging from the mass-produced houses of Levittown to fully enclosed shopping malls that reinforce the kind of franchisism that the McDonalds chain made famous. Ritzer is intent to point out that "McDonaldization did not occur in a historical vacuum; it had important precursors [that] contributed some of the structural bases needed for chains of fast-food restaurants to thrive. Although the fast-food restaurant adopts elements of its predecessors, it also represents a quantum leap in the process of rationalization". As we shall see, it also seems to represent a quantum leap in the process of irrationalization (1993: 34).
Rationalization can be seen as essentially paradoxical. The rationale for rationalization, its a priori assumption, is that increased efficiency, predictability, and calculability is akin to an increase in the ability of man to manipulate his environment, to adapt, to conquer the chaotic elements of life so as to obtain a quality of life that can be considered better than previous times. It is the empirical economic realization of the notion that "social change is normal " (cf. p. 6). It is an effort to increase the standard of living of those citizens of the social order who agree to capitulate to institutionalized rational systems.
However, standard of living has come to be defined not in a qualitative manner, but rather as a quantity: of income, of gross national product, of the rise and fall of interest rates. The standard of living is measured as a numerical gesture rather than experienced as a real circumstance. The way we gauge our progress into the future is based on a notion of quantitative growth rather than qualitative happiness. It is merely assumed that a growth in production will allow us to shrug off the dangers and inconsistencies of the unpredictable natural environment; there is, in fact, a need to reevaluate this assumption. This is the paradox of rationality: it inevitably leads to irrationality. "The bureaucracy," writes Ritzer, "is a dehumanizing place in which to work and by which to be serviced. The main reason we think of McDonaldization as irrational, and ultimately unreasonable, is that it tends to become a dehumanizing system that may become antihuman or even destructive to human beings".
The ultimate proof of the irrationality of rationality lies at the end of World War II: rational systems undertaken to construct an ideal utopia for humankind have led, ironically, to our ability to develop the technology of the atomic bomb that makes the ultimate extinction of homo sapiens possible. William Shirer (1959) writes in the foreword to his history of Nazi Germany,
Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken earlier by France, Rome and Macedonia. The curtain was rung down on that phase of history, at least, by the sudden invention of the hydrogen bomb, of the ballistic missile and of rockets that can be aimed to hit the moon.
In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet (xii).
Destructive indeed! Our pursuit of the benefits that arrive with newfound technologies based on scientific principles seems irrevocably linked to the depths of the evils that plague modern socieites, including the threat of their own demise.
However, bringing the irrationality of rationality to a less apocalyptic level, it should be understood that the growth of rationalized systems has a pronounced impact on our everyday lives, both as producers and consumers. Ritzer (1993) identifies the dehumanizing aspect of fast-food restaurants in customer/employee relations ("The nature of the fast-food restaurant turns customers and employees contact into fleeting relationships"), in the simple and repetitive nature of the jobs ("Said Burger King workers, Any trained monkey could do this job") and in the dining experience of the consumer ("The diner is reduced to a kind of overwound automaton who is made to rush through the meal"). Given the rate at which the model of McDonaldization is being adopted by the business world, such a trend in the degradation of relationships between people and other people, and between people and their work, is disturbing. The individuation that accompanies rationalization is a process of isolation by which persons in our society are found to be separated from each other by invisible barriers of custom and culture that guide our relationships in directions that are not conducive to an honest and meaningful human exchange.
The omnipresence of certain cultural icons, such as McDonalds Golden Arches, leads to an unconscious state of mind that eludes the perception of change or alteration in the dimension of space that surrounds the individual. "The following advertisement appeared on September 17, 1991, in the Washington Post (and The New York Times): Where else at 35,000 feet can you get a McDonalds meal like this " (Ritzer, 1993: 6). Rationalization and the accompanying conformity in the architecture of both the physical presence of, say, a McDonalds restaurant and, perhaps more importantly, the non-physical presence (i.e., the behaviorism described above as a style of service) act as an eraser upon our perception to our movement through time and space. Due to the predictable, calculated, and controlled measures of rationalized business, we can escape from the chains of chaos that fettered our forefathers; however, we make this getaway only to run into the mouth of an even greater threat to our emancipation as individuals and historical actors - the emergence of mass society. Arendt writes that
with the emergence of mass society, the realm of the social has finally, after several centuries of development, reached the point where it embraces and controls all members of a given community equally and with equal strength. But society equalizes under all circumstances, and the victory of equality in the modern world is only the political and legal recognition of the fact that society has conquered the public realm, and that distinction and difference have become private matters of the individual.
This modern equality, based on the conformism inherent in society and possible only because behavior has replaced action as the foremost mode of human relationship, is in every respect different from equality in antiquity, and notably in the Greek city-states The public realm, in other words, was reserved for individuality; it was the only place where men could show who they really and inexchangeably were.
It is the same conformism, the assumption that men behave and do not act with respect to each other, that lies at the root of the modern science of economics [the same science that guides the businessmen in their actions], whose birth coincided with the rise of society and which together with its chief technical tool, statistics, became the social science par excellence.
The unfortunate truth about behaviorism and the validity of its laws is that the more people there are, the more likely they are to behave and the less likely they are to tolerate non-behavior. Statistically, this will be shown in the leveling out of fluctuation [regression to the mean]. In reality, deeds will have less and less chance to stem the tide of behavior, and events will more and more lose their significance, that is, their capacity to illuminate historical time. Statistical uniformity is by no means a harmless scientific ideal; it is the no longer secret political ideal of a society which, entirely submerged in the routine of everyday living, is at peace with the scientific outlook inherent in its very existence (1959: 41-42; my emphasis).
It is this behavioral uniformity, as fostered by todays corporate culture, that seems to be isolating people into narrowly privatized expressions of their own values and beliefs. This behaviorism hides from view the existence of a reflection (based upon past historical events) and stifles the existence of imagination (based upon future historical possibilities), rather than connecting people in a genuine, contemplative fashion. It is, quite remarkably, the very same mainstream corporate culture fostering this behaviorism (through rationalization) that justifies huge economic inequalities among individuals by saying that they are the result of meritocratic procedures (e.g., Hilbert earned his enormous compensation). However, such a justification cannot be valid, given the following argument: "Excellence," according to Arendt, "itself has always been assigned to the public realm where one could excel, could distinguish oneself from all others. Every activity performed in public can attain excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence, by definition, the presence of others is always required, and this presence needs the formality of ones peers, it cannot be the casual, familiar presence of ones equals or inferiors" (1959: 48-49). The existence of this public realm where excellence can exist, however, has been overtaken by a new mode of social reality. The irrational processes of rationalization have led to the arrival in modern societies of what Arendt calls the "social realm." "The phenomenon of conformism is characteristic of this modern development" (Arendt: 1959, 40).
And it is this social realm that contemporary capitalists (i.e. those who posit that they have accumulated all that they can safely possess by the virtue of their excellent character) helped to create, using modern economic science as their guide. The premise that great wealth is justified by the fact that the wealthy earned their keep is bad, for "the social realm made excellence anonymous, emphasized the progress of mankind rather than the achievements of men, and changed the content of the public realm beyond recognition" (Arendt: 1959: 49).
So it can be seen that as we have striven to eliminate chaos from our lives using the process of rationalization, the alternative to which we have turned (a conformist mass society) is both ultimately destructive to the variety of individuality (the so-called "private" realm) that emerged during the Renaissance and leads to vast economic inequalities. Is there, then, any other way out of this "iron cage" that has increasingly encapsulated our society from the time of the industrial revolution? Is there any hope for non-rationalized business to appear on the horizon? Ritzer, in fact, names several businesses that make an attempt to stray from the path of formal rationality and the conformity of contemporary capitalism. Included among them is, not surprisingly, Ben & Jerrys Homemade, Inc.
Next Section - Ben & Jerry's: The Anti-McDonald?
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- Georgia received 101,563 reports of child abuse last year (PSDS CY04)
- 30,951 of those were substantiated as victims of child abuse (PSDS CY04)
- About 85% of those children were victims of severe neglect
- About 11% were physically abused
- About 5% were sexually abused - that is about 2411 children sexually abused in CY04
- 15,119 children were in care as of December 2005
- 30% of those children have been in foster care more than 24 months
- 50% of those children were African American
- 41% of those children were less than 6 years old
- 67% were younger than 12
- About 2,237 of those children were staying with relatives
- About 8,386 were staying in foster homes
- About 1,561 were in group homes
- About 974 were housed in institutions
- Approximately 8% of the children discharged will re-enter foster care within 1 year
- Foster parents are reimbursed according to the age of the child: birth to 5, $13.75; 6-12, $15.50; 13 and above, $17.75. The rate is higher for children needing medical care or a higher level of supervision. Medical treatment and clothing costs are covered by the agency.
- Georgia 's 200 group homes are paid for about 68% of their costs (GAHSC 2005)
- Georgia 's 4,174 foster parents are paid for about 67% of their costs (USDA 2004)
- Those 4,174 families save the state approximately $34 million per year
Georgia ranks 39 out of 50 states in overall child well being (Kids Count, Family Connections).
The long-term cost of failing to meet this need appropriately raises the stakes for system improvement. A paper published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in July 2001 reports that a substantial body of research shows that:
- Maltreated children are significantly more likely than non-maltreated children to become involved in delinquent or criminal behavior.
- The prevalence of childhood abuse or neglect among delinquent and criminal populations is substantially greater than that in the general population.
- Delinquent youth with a history of abuse and neglect are at higher risk of continuing their delinquent behavior than delinquents without such a history. | <urn:uuid:02bb7d11-bd62-402f-b1d2-0f8f1a640a8f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sonnyperdue.georgia.gov/00/channel_title/0,2094,78006749_79688181,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982586 | 481 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Vol. 14 Issue 21
GERD/LPRD and Voice Management
A survey of voice clinicians
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPRD) have been well documented in the medical literature. The literature in speech pathology contains only a few references to these disorders, presenting information primarily with regard to their effects on swallowing function and only secondarily with regard to their effects on the voice.
Otolaryngologists, gastroenterologists and speech-language pathologists, particularly voice therapists, are aware that these conditions can have a negative effect on the health of the vocal folds and, subsequently, the quality of the voice. While speech therapists indicate they treat patients who manifest voice disorders and a percentage of these patients have been diagnosed with GERD or LPRD, they hesitate to report they treat the vocal symptoms specifically associated with these conditions.
This paper presents the results of a survey of speech-language pathologists who were members of the Voice and Voice Disorders Special Interest Division (SID 3) of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
GERD, a relatively common disorder of the gastrointestinal system, affects an estimated 25 percent to 35 percent of the population in the United States.1 It refers to the backflow of stomach contents into the esophagus.2
The symptoms of GERD include heartburn, stomach pain, dysphagia, persistent laryngitis/hoarseness, persistent sore throat, chronic cough, globus sensation, and inflammation of the vocal cords.3 Symptoms of GERD or LPRD that may be treated by the voice clinician include hoarseness and oral/pharyngeal phase dysphagia.
LPRD refers to a backflow of stomach contents into the throat (laryngopharynx).2 Patients who have LPRD do not usually complain of heartburn, as do patients with GERD. The most commonly reported symptoms of patients diagnosed with LPRD are dysphonia, vocal fatigue and voice breaks.4 Any of the vocal symptoms of LPRD may come to the attention of the voice clinician.
The literature in speech pathology contains only few references to these disorders, presenting information primarily with regard to their .....effects on swallowing function and only secondarily with regard to their effects on the voice.5-8 Physicians, primarily gastroenterologists and otolaryngologists, diagnose and treat GERD and LPRD. Treatment typically consists of the use of over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medications. Anti-reflux surgery is reserved for patients with severe or intolerable symptoms.
The goals of treatment are to relieve symptoms, heal damaged esophageal mucosa, and prevent further erosion of the esophagus and laryngopharynx.9 Since vocal abuse and laryngeal tension also may occur with these conditions, voice therapy may be recommended as part of the treatment regimen.10-12 Up to 50 percent of patients with LPRD also have voice disorders, data from recent research indicate.13,14
The purpose of this investigation was to assess current applications, if any, of voice therapy in cases of GERD/LPRD and, specifically, the number of voice clinicians who treat patients with these conditions.
A five-item survey was developed and posted on the professional Web site of one of the authors. The purpose of the survey was given in the request for responses, which was posted on the ASHA Listserv for SID-3. A link was provided to the Web site where the questionnaire could be found. Results from the questionnaire, questions and additional comments were forwarded to an e-mail address.
The survey items posted on the Web site were as follows:
1. Do you currently or have you seen patients for voice disorders in the past year? Responses: yes or no.
2. What percentage of your caseload consists of voice patients? Responses (in percent): 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, or 81-100.
3. Of the patients you see for voice therapy, what percentage have been diagnosed with GERD or LPRD? Responses (in percent): 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, or 81-100.
4. Of the voice therapy patients diagnosed with GERD or LPRD, what percentage is taking medication prescribed for this condition? Responses (in percent): 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, or 81-100.
5. Of these patients, what percentage are you actively treating for the vocal symptoms of GERD or LPRD? Responses (in percent): 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, or 81-100.
The total membership of the SID 3 Listserv was 830 at the time the invitation for responses was posted, according to the administrator. The total number of responses received was 121, which constituted a 14.57 percent response rate.
Figures 1-5 illustrate the responses to the survey questions. As seen in Figure 1, the vast majority of the respondents (98 percent) indicated they currently see patients with voice disorders or have seen them in the past year. Caseload percentages given in Figure 2 indicate that more than one-third (38 percent) of therapists responding to the survey reported a large portion (81 percent to 100 percent) of their caseload consists of voice patients.
In Figure 3 the survey data show 30 percent of respondents indicated 61 percent to 80 percent of their voice therapy patients have been diagnosed with GERD or LPRD. The data in Figure 4 show 41 percent of respondents report 81 percent to 100 percent of their voice patients diagnosed with GERD or LPRD take medication prescribed for the condition.
Among the voice therapy patients diagnosed with GERD or LPRD, zero to 20 percent of them are treated for the vocal symptoms of these conditions, indicated slightly more than one-fourth (28 percent) of the survey respondents. (See Figure 5). This percentage was closely followed by 24 percent of the therapists who indicated they treat 21 percent to 40 percent of the voice patients on their caseload for the vocal symptoms of GERD or LPRD.
Based on the results of this survey, voice patients seem to constitute a significant portion of the caseload for the vast majority of respondents. More than a third (38 percent) of respondents reported 61 percent to 80 percent of their voice therapy patients have been diagnosed with GERD/LPRD. Most of these patients are taking medication prescribed for the conditions.
In contrast, more than a half of survey respondents indicated they are treating 40 percent or less of the patient diagnosed with GERD or LPRD for the vocal symptoms precipitated by these conditions.
The preponderance of comments received regarding the survey items was focused on the wording of question 5: "Of these patients, what percentage are you actively treating for the vocal symptoms of GERD or LPRD?" Therapists were quick to point out that voice therapists neither diagnose nor treat GERD or LPRD or any of their symptoms. The comments stressed that only a physician can diagnose and treat these medical conditions.
In addition to the actual survey responses, unsolicited communication via e-mail was received. Therapists questioned if treating voice problems experienced by patients with GERD/LPRD is equivalent to treating the vocal symptoms of these conditions. The fact that this was a major concern for therapists who responded to the survey indicates a significant number of voice therapists treating patients diagnosed with GERD or LPRD perceive a dichotomy between treating symptoms of voice disorders and treating the vocal symptoms of GERD/LPRD. To our knowledge, no such dichotomy exists. The comments and questions received in addition to survey responses indicate that voice therapists are hesitant to report that they treat vocal symptoms, which are purely medically based.
In conclusion, the vocal symptoms associated with the relatively common conditions of GERD and LPRD are well documented in the medical literature, but there are relatively few references to these conditions in the speech-language pathology literature.5-8 Many people who seek voice therapy also have GERD or LPRD. Data from the medical literature support this observation.
Speech-language pathologists readily report they treat voice patients, many of whom have been diagnosed with GERD or LPRD; but they are hesitant to report they treat the vocal symptoms of these conditions. The speech-language pathologists who responded to the survey seem to want to differentiate between treating a voice disorder and treating a voice disorder that is associated with a purely medically-based condition.
The following crucial questions need to be answered:
• Precisely why are speech-language pathologists reluctant to report that they treat voice disorders resulting from GERD or LPRD?
• Should these voice problems be treated in conjunction with medical treatment or only after medical intervention has run its course?
• Should only patients who have developed potentially damaging compensatory behaviors be treated by speech-language pathologists?
Continued vigorous discussion among speech-language pathologists who treat voice disorders will be beneficial in moving toward a more unified view of voice therapy for patients with GERD or LPRD.
1. Scott, M., Gelhot, A.R. (1999). Gastroesophageal reflux disease: Diagnosis and management. American Family Physician, 59: 1161-69.
2. Koufman, J.A. (2002). Laryngopharyngeal reflux 2002: A new paradigm of airway disease. ENT-Ear, Nose & Throat Journal, 81: 2-6.
3. Bain, W.M., Harrington, J.W., Thomas, L.E., Schaefer, S.D. (1983). Head and neck manifestations of gastroesophageal reflux. Laryngoscope, 93: 175-79.
4. Belafsky, P.C., Postma, G.N., Amin, M.R., Koufman, J.A. (2002). Symptoms and findings of laryngopharyngeal reflux. ENT-Ear, Nose & Throat Journal, 81: 10-13.
5. Koufman, J.A., Sataloff, R.T., Toohill, R. (1996). Laryngopharyngeal reflux: Consensus report. Journal of Voice, 10: 215-16.
6. Morrison, M.D., Nichol, H., Rammage, L.A. (1988). Diagnostic criteria in functional dysphonia. Laryngoscope, 94: 1-8.
7. Mendell, D.A., Logemann, J.A. (2002). A retrospective analysis of the pharyngeal swallow in patients with a clinical diagnosis of GERD compared with normal controls: A pilot study. Dysphagia, 17: 220-26.
8. Rayhorn, N., Argel, N., Demchak, K. (2003). Understanding gastroesophageal reflux disease. Nursing, 33: 36-42.
9. Holmes, S.L. (2003). Gastroesophageal reflux disease: Pathophysiology and management. ADVANCE for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists, 13 (6), 26-27.
10. Diamant, E.S. (2002). A Primer: Reflux disorder. Treatment can be beneficial, but compliance varies. ADVANCE for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists, 12 (45): 36-37.
11. Koufman, J.A., Amin, M.R., Panetti, M. (2000). Prevalence of reflux in 113 consecutive patients with laryngeal and voice disorders. Otolaryngology-Head Neck Surgery, 123: 385-88.
12. Loughlin, C.J., Koufman, J.A. (1996). Paroxysmal laryngospasm secondary to gastroesophageal reflux. Laryngoscope, 106: 1506-09.
13. Kuhn, J., Toohill, R.J., Ulualp, S.O. (1998). Pharyngeal acid reflux events in patients with vocal cord nodules. Laryngoscope, 108: 1146-49.
14. Belafsky, P.C., Postma, G.M., Koufman, J.A. (2002). Validity and reliability of the reflux symptom index (RSI). Journal of Voice, 16: 274-77.
Peter Mueller, PhD, is director of the School of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Kent State University, in Kent, OH; and Barbara Prakup is a doctoral student and part-time instructor at the school. They gratefully acknowledge Andrew Angell for Web site coordination and the members of the ASHA SID 3 who took the time to respond to the survey. For more information, contact Prakup at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:cca0ae1a-b4f5-450b-b4e9-f0810e91bb7a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://speech-language-pathology-audiology.advanceweb.com/Article/GERDLPRD-and-Voice-Management.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916543 | 2,742 | 3.015625 | 3 |
SQL Server's datetime data type generates a lot of questions and confusion in the SQL Server community. Unlike some other major database platforms, SQL Server doesn't provide discrete date and time data types. Instead, SQL Server's datetime data type does the work of both. Here are answers to six commonly asked questions about how to use SQL Server's datetime data type. (See also, "Inside Datetime Data" and "Help for the DATETIME data type and DST on SQL Server").
6. How does SQL Server store the datetime data type?
SQL Server uses 8 bytes to store the datetime data type. The first 4 bytes make up an integer value that represents the number of days since January 1, 1900. The second 4 bytes are an integer value that represents the number of milliseconds since midnight.
5. How do I retrieve rows based on datetime values?
SQL Server recognizes date and time data enclosed in single quotes. You can couple date and time values together or use them independently. You can also combine character date formats ('May 15, 2004 4 am'), numeric date formats ('5/15/2004 04:30'), or contiguous string formats ('20040515') with standard , or = operators, as the following example shows:
SELECT * FROM orders WHERE OrderDate
4. How do I retrieve only the date or time portion of the data?
You can use T-SQL's DATEPART() function to return a subset of the values that SQL Server's datetime columns store. The DATEPART() function uses two arguments. The first argument specifies the portion of the date that you want, and the second value specifies the datetime column:
SELECT orderID, DATEPART(MM,OrderDate) AS OrderMonth FROM Orders
3. How do I insert a value into a datetime column?
To insert values into a datetime column, you need to enclose the values in single quotes, then use one of SQL Server's date formats to supply the date value that you want to insert. For example:
DECLARE @MyTable TABLE (MyDateTime DATETIME) INSERT INTO @MyTable VALUES ('May 15, 2004 11:25am')
2. How do I find the day of the week?
Using the weekday argument as its first parameter, SQL Server's DATEPART() function returns the day of the week, returning 1 for Sunday, 2 for Monday, and so on. The following example uses the GETDATE() function combined with the DATEPART() function to retrieve the current day value:
SELECT DATEPART(weekday, GETDATE())
1. How can I find the last day of the month?
You can combine T-SQL's DATEADD() and DATEDIFF() functions to calculate different date and time values. Subtract 5ms from the first day of the next month to find the last day of the current month:
SELECT DATEADD(ms,-5,DATEADD(mm, DATEDIFF(m,0,GETDATE() )+1, 0)) | <urn:uuid:3ce2dca6-4c74-4446-8e52-b23e8262e8c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sqlmag.com/t-sql/t-sqls-datetime-data-type | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.735136 | 644 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Room-Temperature Spintronic Computers Coming Soon? Silicon Spin Transistors Heat Up and Spins Last Longer!!
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2011) — University of Utah researchers built “spintronic” transistors and used them to align the magnetic “spins” of electrons for a record period of time in silicon chips at room temperature. The study is a step toward computers, phones and other spintronic devices that are faster and use less energy than their electronic counterparts. | <urn:uuid:55351b34-8d50-495e-ba55-30fe3a7fe404> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sree.cc/tag/transistors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.810639 | 104 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, AVEGA Agahozo was founded in 1995 to help widows and their dependents escape the poverty, anguish and misery that filled their lives following the genocide of 1994. Today, AVEGA has centers across Rwanda and includes among its members more than 20,000 widows and more than 71,000 dependants and orphans. Of the 300,000 to 400,000 survivors of the Rwandan genocide, widows outnumber widowers ten to one. It is the widows and orphans who witnessed the atrocities committed and, in many cases, suffered extreme violence themselves. Many are haunted by the genocide and still cannot talk about their experiences.
Sexual violence was often used to humiliate and degrade women during the killings, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped during the 100 days of violence. Many of these women were traumatized or ashamed and are seeking help now only because they are ill. For these women, AVEGA is a refuge, providing medical services, psychological counseling, education and training, housing and legal services. More than 47,000 women are receiving medical treatment through its programs.
The three health centers set up by AVEGA have provided easy access to regular medical care and made possible regular visits to those suffering from AIDS. AVEGA has coordinated the sensitizing and voluntary testing for HIV of over 10,000 of its members, and delivers antiretroviral treatment and wraparound care and treatment, including nutrition support, to more than 1,500 HIV+ widows. AVEGA is now managing a new programme, introduced last year, to provide educational support to children born of rape to women survivors, a particularly marginalized group in Rwanda.
AVEGA also assists widows who wish to testify against those accused of genocide. Members are accompanied to court and receive assistance by AVEGA in getting their cases resolved. To date, at least 800,000 perpetrators have been convicted nationwide. Originally, when many widows were unwilling to testify, AVEGA sent hundreds of trainers into the villages to teach others how to testify.
In Kigali, the organization has helped prepare witnesses for testimony in over 150 landmark legal cases. AVEGA is now teaching widows and orphans about land law as well. It has built houses for many widows and orphans, and has provided about 13,000 AVEGA members with shelter. Women had no inheritance rights before the genocide. AVEGA pushed for reform, lobbying lawmakers, judges and journalists until a law was passed in November 1999 that allowed widows the right the inherit a husband’s property.
More recently, AVEGA’s advocacy played a pivotal role in securing the introduction of Rwanda’s first Gender Based Violence Law, enacted in 2009. AVEGA has also helped women become involved in income-generating activities, such as business projects, farming, basket-weaving and other handicraft. Garments produced on modern tailoring machines are now marketed worldwide.
AVEGA received the Gruber Foundation Prize for Women’s Rights in 2011.
To learn more about the work of AVEGA, please read the AVEGA Annual Report 2010
To learn more about AVEGA’s history, please read AVEGA Achievements 1995-2010 | <urn:uuid:f551a90b-f042-4fca-aa6c-f4507a9efdab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://survivors-fund.org.uk/what-we-do/local-partners/avega/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970206 | 677 | 2.609375 | 3 |
- Strong, K., et al.
Validation of ACE-FTS N2O measurements
Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - 1680-7316. ; 8, s. 4759-4786
- The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE), also known as SCISAT, was launched on 12 August 2003, carrying two instruments that measure vertical profiles of atmospheric constituents using the solar occultation technique. One of these instruments, the ACE Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS), is measuring volume mixing ratio (VMR) profiles of nitrous oxide (N2O) from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere at a vertical resolution of about 3–4 km. In this study, the quality of the ACE-FTS version 2.2 N2O data is assessed through comparisons with coincident measurements made by other satellite, balloon-borne, aircraft, and ground-based instruments. These consist of vertical profile comparisons with the SMR, MLS, and MIPAS satellite instruments, multiple aircraft flights of ASUR, and single balloon flights of SPIRALE and FIRS-2, and partial column comparisons with a network of ground-based Fourier Transform InfraRed spectrometers (FTIRs). Between 6 and 30 km, the mean absolute differences for the satellite comparisons lie between −42 ppbv and +17 ppbv, with most within ±20 ppbv. This corresponds to relative deviations from the mean that are within ±15%, except for comparisons with MIPAS near 30 km, for which they are as large as 22.5%. Between 18 and 30 km, the mean absolute differences for the satellite comparisons are generally within ±10 ppbv. From 30 to 60 km, the mean absolute differences are within ±4 ppbv, and are mostly between −2 and +1 ppbv. Given the small N2O VMR in this region, the relative deviations from the mean are therefore large at these altitudes, with most suggesting a negative bias in the ACE-FTS data between 30 and 50 km. In the comparisons with the FTIRs, the mean relative differences between the ACE-FTS and FTIR partial columns (which cover a mean altitude range of 14 to 27 km) are within ±5.6% for eleven of the twelve contributing stations. This mean relative difference is negative at ten stations, suggesting a small negative bias in the ACE-FTS partial columns over the altitude regions compared. Excellent correlation (R=0.964) is observed between the ACE-FTS and FTIR partial columns, with a slope of 1.01 and an intercept of −0.20 on the line fitted to the data. | <urn:uuid:a65403b5-d909-41c8-80ff-0580c0b7c58c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://swepub.kb.se/hitlist?q=WFRF%3A(H%C3%B6pfner+M.)&r=;pers:(H%C3%B6pfner%20M.);pers:(Dupuy%20E.);lar1:(cth);pers:(Hannigan%20J.);pers:(Coffey%20M.);pers:(Kerzenmacher+T.+E.)&p=1&f=&g=&s=r&t=v&m=10&d=swepub | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899148 | 558 | 2.65625 | 3 |
ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – Nearly 30 percent of patients treated during the 2012-13 flu season may have been prescribed antibiotics instead of antiviral therapy, reports Live Science.
In a groundbreaking new study, researchers from the CDC and other institutions found that antibiotics, which are ineffective against the flu virus, were overprescribed.
They looked at information from over 6,700 patients in five states. About 1,020 of the patients with flu symptoms were considered at high risk for influenza complications. Less than 200 of these patients received antivirals.
Doctors prescribed antiviral medications to a relatively small percentage of patients for whom the medications were recommended and missed potential opportunities to prevent more serious complications in these patients, the researchers said.
Less than 20 percent of patients with flu symptoms who could have had benefited from antiviral medication actually received the treatments. Among patients who were confirmed to have contracted the influenza virus through laboratory tests, only 16 percent were prescribed antivirals.
Seasonal influenza causes thousands of hospitalizations in the United States each year and can lead to even more serious outcomes. 64 children died from the flu between September 2012 and February 2013. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend yearly vaccinations to prevent influenza outbreaks.
The study is published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) | <urn:uuid:18d9ce20-c770-445b-9682-931abb49d135> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2014/07/23/cdc-antibiotics-may-have-been-wrongly-prescribed-for-influenza/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962318 | 314 | 3.03125 | 3 |
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