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example of community-based ecotourism in Tangkahan — near the Gunung Leuser National Park, an area under threat from the Aceh Government's forest plans. Fuelled by the desire to create a sustainable economy, two villages of more than 7000 people came together to establish The Lembaga Pariwisata Tangkahan (LPT). Supported by NGOs Indecon and Flora and Fauna International, in 2002, LPT signed an agreement with the National Park Authority, securing 10,000 hectares (now 17,000 hectares) for eco-tourism activities under the prerequisite that it be protected. From 55 founding members, 32 formerly worked as illegal loggers, indicating an innate wish to protect their environment while retaining the ability to feed their families.
With financial incentives for conservation, the community has transformed the area into an ecotourism destination. This has led to job creation, with various roles required to run their tourism office and multiple tour packages. LPT's website states that just a decade ago, the area was an exit point for illegal logging in the national park. With its stunning scenery and clear rivers, however, the community began to realize the potential for income from appreciative visitors.
Jessica McKelson, Director of Raw Wildlife Encounters, launched her ecotourism initiative in 2008 and said the livelihood of local people is a core pillar for why the company operates. "They are custodians of the lands that surround their communities, where we bring guests to visit, they allow us to enjoy these areas and we offer employment opportunities from guides to rangers to administration as well as education programs so they can comfortably support their families and don't have to work in legal, or illegal, logging or palm oil and can live sustainably. Most have lost all their natural resources to deforestation practices and were left with no option but working for $8-$10 per day in terrible conditions or losing that job to transmigrants."
Since the business started, McKelson says that 85% of gross earnings have gone to community and environmental programs. "This community-based eco-tourism model provides local people with stable, consistent income without damaging their own backyards and the wildlife and ecosystems within it. It's conservation through empowering and educating the community. A win-win for all!"
Along with economic benefits for local people, there is the added bonus of conservation-based skills transfer from NGOs to the community. Describing the Tangkahan initiative, The International Ecotourism Society says that skills like "ecotourism development and management, planning and policy development, conservation management, and monitoring and assessment" were merged with Karo culture and values "to ensure community ownership of the initiative and equality in the distribution of benefits." Raw Wildlife Encounters also offers guide training to the Tangkahan community to support sustainable management that is consistent with standards set out by The International Ecotourism Society.
In promoting ecotourism, emphasis must be placed on ethical management to ensure it does not transform into mass tourism, void of eco-values. McKelson says Bukit Lawang in Sumatra is an example of this. She explains that tourists ignore conventions about avoiding contact with orangutans and even pay bribes to local guides for a close encounter and the chance to feed them, which becomes encouraged by guides keen for the extra cash.
Despite the cases of mismanagement, she says, "Eco tourism in Indonesia can be a great employment model to protect natural resources via an alternative sustainable livelihood." In other words, a step in the direction of building economies that do not come at the expense of the environment.
Full article > _URL_
Gemima Harvey (_USER_) is a freelance journalist and photographer.
Raw Wildlife Encounters Founder Director and Orangutan Land Trust (OLT) Trustee Jessica McKelson is currently in Singapore for the Orangutan Land Trust workshop to determine the Trusts future direction and strategy.
Executive Director of OLT, Michelle Desilets, said of Ms McKelson's involvement and the workshop "I am so proud of you and to be a part of the efforts of Orangutan Land Trust. I am only too excited to be a part of this strategic workshop with dynamic people. You are such an inspiring woman, keep up the great work!"
OLT was founded by Lone Drescher Neilson, known internationally as a champion for orangutans, and as one of the foremost experts in the rescue, care, rehabilitation and release of these orangutans. She is the founder and manager of the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project in Central Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) operated by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. OLT is also a partner of Ms McKelson's Earth 4 Orangutans project founded with acclaimed primatologist and Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program Director Dr Ian Singleton.
"I feel privileged to be part of such an amazing organisation", Ms McKelson said of OLT.
Today Ms McKelson departs for Sumatra to meet with The Guardian (UK) Environmental freelance journalist Oliver Milman to share with him the incredible work Raw's conservation partners achieve within the unique areas of Sumatra Raw Wildlife Encounters visits. Read Milman's past articles on RWE and our conservation partners work here:Zookeepers plan to build islands for orangutans - The Age
Orangutan Land Trust
Earth 4 Orangutans
Marketing & Communications RWE
About Raw Wildlife Encounters
Raw Wildlife Encounters (RWE) is one of the world's leading eco adventure travel agencies. It provides guests with life-changing travel experiences and unique wildlife encounters while catering for an exceptional quality and comfortable journey along the way. Raw tours are lead by qualified wildlife professionals who take guests along roads less well-travelled and allow them truly unique learning experiences with exotic wildlife. Raw Wildlife Encounters fosters responsible tourism that benefits the local people, tribes and wildlife in all travel destinations through Raw's Conservation Commitment programs.
According to the Head of the Legal and PR Office of the Aceh Regional Secretariat, Makmur Abrahim, the permit, for an area of 1.605ha of lush forest peatland in Tripa, within the protected Leuser Ecosystem, was withdrawn because PT Kallista Alam was considered to be violating the existing legal regulation.
After a long battle, the withdrawal of the permit demonstrates the Governments compliance with the law and is a warning to others not to flout the law and regulations in Aceh. "This is important for maintaining legal certainty in conducting business and in investing in Aceh, and thus benefits the common people," said Teuku Muhammad Zulfikar, Executive Director of WALHI Aceh (Friends of the Earth Indonesia).
The Leuser Ecosystem is one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the world, it the only place on earth where critically endangered key species, the Sumatran orangutan, tiger, elephant and rhinoceros co-exist. In 1990 there were almost 2,000 Orangutans in the Tripa Peat forest, today it could be less than 200 due to the ongoing and illegal clearance of forest for palm oil plantations.
This is a victory for environmentalists who have worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the issue, launching a successful world-wide online campaign, Save Tripa, lead by Dr Ian Singleton, Director Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program and his team and colleagues at Walhi Aceh.Jessica McKelson, Director Raw Wildlife Encounters and Save Tripa activist said "The Save Tripa campaign has achieved its first major goal in the fight to save the Tripa peat forest. We congratulate the Aceh Government for taking this first important step in encouraging the Indonesian Government to enforce its own laws."
Author: Ian Singleton
Source: The Jakarta Post, Medan | Mon, 03/26/2012 8:04 AM
The Jakarta Post recently reported the death of a giraffe at Surabaya Zoo, found to have ingested 20 kg of plastic. This is extremely tragic, but of course by no means surprising in Indonesia's zoos, given the appalling way they are managed.
As a former zoo keeper myself in the UK, what is clear to me is that the vast majority of zoos in Indonesia hardly pay any attention whatsoever to investing in their zoo and instead see them only as potential revenue generators.
A good example is the so-called Medan Zoo in North Sumatra. For many years this occupied just a few tree-shaded hectares within the city itself and despite its poor and insanitary conditions, a number of animals somehow managed to survive there for several years. Nevertheless, they were subjected to voluminous decibels of dangdut just outside their cage every weekend and public holidays, and a barrage of peanuts were thrown at them every day.
On public holidays, more than 20,000 visitors would visit and almost all would throw copious numbers of peanuts at the animals during the day. Not exactly a nutritious balanced diet.
In its wisdom, the Medan municipality eventually decided to move the zoo to a large area of open, mostly tree-less land on the edge of the city. It was then reported that around 60 percent of the animals died during or after being transferred to the new site, built hurriedly, poorly designed and with little thought to providing shelter from the sun or rain, or clean water supplies to any of the animals.
A few survivors did manage to hang on, but could be clearly seen hiding in the few shady areas, gasping due to the heat and dehydration. The


1. Home
 2. Docs
 3. LicenceMe
What does a licensing system do?
A licence is an official permission or permits to do, use, or own something. A license can be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement between those parties. A shorthand definition of a license is "an authorization to use licensed material." Licensing systems manage the creation and validation of licences.
What does LicenceMe do?
LicenceMe allows you to manage game or application licensing by yourself, making you independent of selling platforms. You obtain the possibility to solve the three common licensing questions (and even more):
 - Creation and validation of product keys (Like: SJJDNK-KT6NL4-2RE7DH-NSCYZY)
 - Creation and validation of trials or demos.
 - Creation and validation of licences bond to devices or companies.
But how does LicenceMe do this?
It combines two methods: Partial Key Verification (PKV) (commonly used in the game industry to create product keys) and RSA (an asymmetric encryption / decryption algorithm).
PKV gives you the opportunity to create product keys and simple condition based product keys, for example username/email/… depending.
The RSA encryption allows you to create trials/demos or complex condition based licences (for example device/company/… depending),
by repacking and encrypting the PKV created product key.


Tag: Machines
The Uses Of Compressed Air
The Uses Of Compressed Air
Compressed air can be found in many places in our lives from industrial machinery to the appliances in our homes. It is as important as the electricity and gas that is sent into your home. Where are some of these places where you can use compressed air? Here are a few examples.
Pneumatic Machines
Compressed air is a vital ingredient of pneumatic machinery. To make the equipment work to the best of its ability, it is important to have someone like trybarinc.com gauge the pressure the compressor. If this is missed, it can damage or destroy the equipment. The pressurized air is forced through various parts to make them move and work. Many machines including trains and cars operate by this technology.
Under the Sea
Scuba divers use compressed air to breathe underwater as they dive deeper. They strap small tanks to themselves. The air is pushed through a tube to the mask the diver wears. They still have fresh oxygen the deeper they go.
Vortex Tubes
Compressed air can be used to cool or heat things using vortex tubes. The tubes part the air into hot or cold streams with the cold getting as low as -50 degrees Celsius and the hot getting as warm as 200 degrees Celsius. These cold types of tubes can be used to refrigerate things. However, the vortex tube is typically used to chill off cutting machinery so that the tool works efficiently.
Blasting It Away
Compressed air propels sand or other materials out during sandblasting, causing an abrasive stream to shoot out at a high velocity. This process smooths surfaces of paints and other substances that might be flaking or peeling off so that the object can be repainted. Items such as metal or glass beads, sand and even walnut shells can be used in this application to clear off whatever needs to be refinished.… Read More..


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Scientists reveal link between Sahara and Amazon
Dust to, er, rainforest, actually
Scientists have conclusively demonstrated the extent of the link between the Sahara desert and the Amazon rainforests.
It might sound unlikely, but their work has shown that the Amazon rainforest depends on dust from one tiny area of the Sahara desert to restock its soil with nutrients and minerals. Analysis of images from NASA's MODIS satellite have revealed the Bodélé, a region of the Sahara not far from Lake Chad, as the source of more than half the material that fertilises the rainforest.
The Bodélé depression was already known as one of the largest sources of dust in the world, but the scientists involved in the research say no one had any idea of the scale of the region's importance to the Amazon. It transpires that if the Bodélé was not there, the Amazon would be a mere wet desert.
Dr Ilan Koren, lead author of the paper said: "Until now no one had any idea how much dust [The Bodélé] emits and what portion arrives in the Amazon. Using satellite data, we have calculated that it provides on average more than 0.7 million tons of dust on each day that it is actively emitting dust."
The dust is swept into the atmosphere by the surface winds in the Sahara. The Bodélé region loses most of its dust during the spring and winter months, unlike the rest of the Sahara, because of its unique geography.
The Bodélé depression is located downwind (in the winter, when the Harmattan winds blow) of a huge crater-like valley between the Tibesti and Ennedi mountains. This crater narrows to a cone-shaped pass which focuses the winds, and they speed up towards the Bodélé. This is how the region, which is just half a per cent of the size of the Amazon, can produce as much dust as it does.
Dr Koren explains the process: "In the early morning on an emission day the winds speed up to the critical velocity for lifting and transporting dust when they reach the Bodélé.
"By using data from two satellites that take images of the same areas three hours apart, we can estimate the wind speed and calculate the size of the 'dust parcels' that are produced at the Bodélé. We are then able to track the progress of the parcel the next day after it has left the Bodélé and watch it progress across the desert."
The research team use the MODIS satellite to watch the dust, and the MISR instrument, which only covers a small area, to find out more about the quantity of dust in each parcel.
The work has prompted more questions, however. The team wants to know how long the Bodélé depression has been'sending' dust to the Amazon, and how long it will continue to do so.
The research is reported in the first edition of the Institute of Physics open-access journal, Environmental Research Letters. ®

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Authors: Fesinmeyer MD, Mehta V, Blough D, Tock L, Ramsey SD
Title: Effect of radiotherapy interruptions on survival in medicare enrollees with local and regional head-and-neck cancer.
Journal: Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 78(3):675-81
Date: 2010 Nov 01
Abstract: PURPOSE: To investigate whether interruptions in radiotherapy are associated with decreased survival in a population-based sample of head-and-neck cancer patients. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare linked database we identified Medicare beneficiaries aged 66 years and older diagnosed with local-regional head-and-neck cancer during the period _PHONE_. We examined claims records of 3864 patients completing radiotherapy for the presence of one or more 5-30-day interruption(s) in therapy. We then performed Cox regression analyses to estimate the association between therapy interruptions and survival. RESULTS: Patients with laryngeal tumors who experienced an interruption in radiotherapy had a 68% (95% confidence interval, 41-200%) increased risk of death, compared with patients with no interruptions. Patients with nasal cavity, nasopharynx, oral, salivary gland, and sinus tumors had similar associations between interruptions and increased risk of death, but these did not reach statistical significance because of small sample sizes. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment interruptions seem to influence survival time among patients with laryngeal tumors completing a full course of radiotherapy. At all head-and-neck sites, the association between interruptions and survival is sensitive to confounding by stage and other treatments. Further research is needed to develop methods to identify patients most susceptible to interruption-induced mortality.
Last Updated: 24 Mar 2016


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We form little groups of kids of approximately the same age. They gather up in different homes each day (the days and hours are agreed before they start). The objective is to play and learn at the same time with the help of one or two teachers.
- Educational proposal
A group of kids gather up with a teacher and get to do activities like they would do in a kindergarten, but at home by learning through the act of playing. The idea is for them to get used to what they will be doing at the actual kindergarten, for them to have their first experiences with the materials and activities. We give a lot of importance on the forming of a social environment different from their family where they start to learn about sharing and other important activities.
- Ludic proposal
A group of kids who already attend kindergarten are reunited with the objective of playing and socializing with other kids. The intention is to perform activities that they are already doing in the kindergarten in order to strengthen skills. Learning is always the objective but without setting aside the act of playing.
We form little groups of kids of an average age and reunite them in different homes of each of them, during vacations (summer and winter) with the objective of playing. There is always a teacher or two around. We count with special activities for indoors or outdoors, including games with water and without the necessity of a pool.
We gather up kids of an average age and reunite them in different homes of each of them that rotate each day with the help of one or two teachers, weekly with the objective of playing or learning about a specific activity.
- Mobile Circus and Music
The proposal is a fun world with colors, music, laughter and games; a space for playing clown, acrobats or forming bands of music. They can dance, jump, sing, shout, and do acrobatics, juggling, play instruments and much other stuff.
- Mobile Little Chefs
This is a fun way to learn about the kitchen, it includes: apron, ingredients, utensils, and didactic material for each participant. The kids take with them everything they prepared on material provided by us.
- Theater and Music Comedy Workshop
Theater classes with a little bit of singing lessons for them to have fun acting among friends.
- Art Workshop
With an art teacher in charge they can express their artistic skills by drawing and painting.
- Mobile Language Workshop
We organize little groups of kids of an average age and offer them the opportunity of stimulating their language skills in English and Italian throughout the different games.
- Playing workshop – Mother Stimulation – Babies
We invite mothers and their babies to share their first social experience with other pairs. The idea is to stimulate their kids through the act of playing. We work with mother/baby bond encouraging their interaction and sharing the experience with other moms that are at the same place.
It is the English program of music and movement most respected in the world for more than 25 years. More than 5,000 authorized educators use these workouts with babies and children of up to 7 years old in more than 50 countries. In Dulces Nanas we offer you to form a little Kindermusik group in your house for you and your kid. It is a space for you to share special and magic moments that occur through music, movement, petting, stories, sounds, etc. By this you will help your child to discover the world in different ways. In these classes you will be able to stimulate your child's learning skills throughout songs, vocal games, object exploration and musical instruments, creative movement, stories, and English in a warm and familiar environment. Classes are one hour a week. Each can come with a companion (mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, nanny, etc.)

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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Title: Guide to Storm Drain Marking
Abstract: This is a manual and how-to guide for municipalities interested in starting a storm drain marking program to reduce nonpoint source pollution. This is also a valuable resource for school districts and volunteer community groups who wish to implement a storm drain stenciling project.
Source: Lake County Stormwater Management Commission
Resource Type: Checklist - Manual/Handbook
Green Your Lesson Plan Associated Subjects:


text:
Once you have
VM role enabled with your subscription, you can start working on VM Role using
the step by step guide provided as below:
After finished creating your VHD for VMRole, and uploading using
CSUPLOAD script, you may following error:
Error: An unexpected error occurred: The requested operation requires
Reason: This error could occurred when your
Command Prompt is not running in Administrator mode.
Solution: Please start the Command Prompt in
Administrator mode to avoid this error.


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Scientific Investigations Map 3147
A study of the hydrogeology of the Central Oklahoma aquifer was started in 2008 to provide the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) hydrogeologic data and a groundwater flow model that can be used as a tool to help manage the aquifer. The 1973 Oklahoma water law requires the OWRB to do hydrologic investigations of Oklahoma's aquifers (termed "groundwater basins") and to determine amounts of water that may be withdrawn by permitted water users. "Maximum annual yield" is a term used by OWRB to describe the total amount of water that can be withdrawn from a specific aquifer in any year while allowing a minimum 20-year life of the basin (Oklahoma Water Resources Board, 2010). Currently (2010), the maximum annual yield has not been determined for the Central Oklahoma aquifer. Until the maximum annual yield determination is made, water users are issued a temporary permit by the OWRB for 2 acre-feet/acre per year. The objective of the study, in cooperation with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, was to study the hydrogeology of the Central Oklahoma aquifer to provide information that will enable the OWRB to determine the maximum annual yield of the aquifer based on different proposed management plans. Groundwater flow models are typically used by the OWRB as a tool to help determine the maximum annual yield.
This report presents the potentiometric surface of the Central Oklahoma aquifer based on water-level data collected in 2009 as part of the current (2010) hydrologic study. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Investigations Atlas HA–724 by Christenson and others (1992) presents the 1986–87 potentiometric-surface map. This 1986–87 potentiometric-surface map was made as part of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment pilot project for the Central Oklahoma aquifer that examined the geochemical and hydrogeological processes operating in the aquifer. An attempt was made to obtain water-level measurements for the 2009 potentiometric-surface map from the wells used for the 1986–87 potentiometric-surface map. Well symbols with circles on the 2009 potentiometric-surface map (fig. 1) indicate wells that were used for the 1986–87 potentiometric-surface map.
First posted March 16, 2011
Part or all of this report is presented in Portable Document Format (PDF); the latest version of Adobe Reader or similar software is required to view it. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, free of charge.
Mashburn, S.L., and Magers, Jessica, 2011, Potentiometric surface in the Central Oklahoma (Garber-Wellington) aquifer, Oklahoma, 2009: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3147, 1 sheet, scale 1:24,000.
Description of Aquifer
2009 Potentiometric Surface


Proton in magnetic field
 Proton moving in -y direction with a magnetic field pointing in the +y direction with a manitude of 5.0 T. The proton has a velocity of 3.01x10^7, What is the magnitude and direction of the magnetic force.
 2. Relevant equations
 F=q(v x B)
 3. The attempt at a solution
 The answer I think is either 0 or 1.5x10^8.
 I say it might be zero cause the cross product of anti-parallel vectors is zero right? Or I say its 1.5x10^8 because I just plugged into the above equation a solved. Which one is it? Or is it neither.
 2. Relevant equations
 3. The attempt at a solution
 2. jcsd
 3. danago
 danago 1,125
 Gold Member
 Id take your first answer, zero.
 By the looks of it, you have taken cross product to be the same thing as scalar multiplication, which is not true. Have a look at these links for more about the vector cross product:
 If you were to define the velocity vector as <0, 3.01x10^7, 0> m/s and the magnetic field vector as <0, -5, 0> T, and then proceeded to apply the cross product operation, you would end up with a zero vector, which would agree with your first answer.
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What is a headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a type of backend-only content management system. Unlike a traditional CMS architecture, a headless CMS's content repository, or "body," is separated from any presentation layer/delivery layer, or "head." This is similar to a headless site architecture, where a brand's frontend system is decoupled from its backend system. To display content in a headless content management system, content APIs deliver the content, where it can be displayed across digital channels and devices.
Benefits of headless content management systems
Managing content without the frontend display layer, or frontend, facilitates an omnichannel approach to content delivery. Content can easily be displayed across any platform or device, including websites, mobile devices, mobile apps, voice assistants, and more without impacting the user experience. This approach to content management also improves the developer experience, facilitating easier third-party integrations and certain updates, like adjusting content for new devices.


Social Security provides disability payments to qualifying workers who suffer from total disabilities that leave them unable to work. The Social Security Administration calculates how much you receive in disability by looking at your work history, but it reduces the payment amount in some cases if you have other types of income. In particular, certain pension payments will result in a smaller Social Security disability check. Below, we'll take a closer look at these provisions and how they might affect you.
Disability and pensions
In most cases, those who are eligible for pensions won't see any impact on their Social Security disability benefits. The key question is whether you had to pay Social Security taxes on the earnings that allowed you to qualify for your pension. For private businesses and for many government jobs, earnings are subject to tax withholding for Social Security, and so any pension you receive will have no impact on your disability benefits.
Certain government employers, especially state and local government agencies, do not have to withhold Social Security taxes from their employees' pay. In those cases, the Windfall Elimination Provision can apply to reduce your Social Security disability benefits. Determining the exact amount of the reduction is complicated, as it depends on the number of years you've worked at jobs where you did pay into Social Security as well as the year in which you became disabled. However, the SSA does provide a table that gives the maximum possible reduction, subject to the overarching rule that your benefits will never fall by more than half the amount of your pension. For instance, for those becoming disabled in 2015, the maximum reduction is $413 per month for those who worked 20 years or less in jobs subject to Social Security taxes. Those who've worked for 30 years or more in a Social Security tax-paying job won't see any reduction in benefits because of the provision.
Spousal and survivor benefits
If you aren't disabled but your spouse is, then you might qualify for spousal benefits under Social Security disability. Those benefits aren't subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision, but a separate offset known as the Government Pension Offset can apply if you have a pension from a job in which you didn't pay into the Social Security tax system.
The calculations for the Government Pension Offset are a lot simpler that the Windfall Elimination Provision. Your Social Security spousal or survivor benefits will be reduced by two-thirds of your pension. In some cases, that can completely eliminate your Social Security check, as there's no maximum amount for the reduction.
The vast majority of people can collect a pension with no impact on their Social Security disability payments. For the most part, only those who worked part of their career outside the Social Security system will face questions about how big their monthly checks will be from Social Security disability.


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Definition of folder
n. - One who, or that which, folds; esp., a flat, knifelike instrument used for folding paper. 2
The word "folder" uses 6 letters: D E F L O R.
Shorter words found within folder:
de del delf do doe doer dol dole dor dore ed ef el eld elf er fed feod fer fled floe foe fold for ford fore fro froe led lo lode lord lore od ode oe of old older ole or ore orle re red redo ref rod rode roe role rolf
List shorter words within folder, sorted by length
All words formed from folder by changing one letter
Browse words starting with folder by next letter


The concept of the anarchive is a key area of the SenseLab's investigations across the North American, European, and Australian hubs. What an anarchive can be is to be invented. The question is how what moves an event into taking form can be archived, as opposed to documenting the content of the event. Can traces of the event's liveness be captured, in a way that might set the stage for a next event to occur in its wake? The anarchive would then be a kind of process seed bank for the dissemination of forces of emergent taking form.
The invention of the anarchive has moved in different phases across our international hubs. These phases, more than extensions of the concept's explorations, are intensities that have grown and continue to grow processually from within, and challenge the notion of the traditional archive by veering away from habitual institutional formations. They entail conversations, movement experiments, architecting techniques and material propositions. For now, these phases are speculated as:
 - Conceptual and Material Force-Explorations – that took place from September 2015 (first as weekly sessions and is still continuing in a form of pop-up propositions)
 - and Building the Anarchive – a phase that will begin in September 2016.
Anarchiving Statement
We work with anarchival explorations that we consider process seed banks. This suggests a technique for activating and sending forth the force of form of an event. In this process, material is a force of form and so is thought. Techniques we have explored include folding experiments (both fabric and paper), mobile cartographies (creating alternative geographies and landing sites), photographic experiments (cyanotype and polaroids, with a focus on the duration of the photographic process), movement techniques (focused primarily on developing attunement), and choreographic objects (working with the co-compositional force of materiality; a large amount of neutral fabric).
In its engagement with the force of form, the anarchive is invested in the question of how to make felt the infra-perceptible. How to make operative that which resists pinning down? How to activate this surplus share of previous events without committing to a full capture of their potential? And how to view research-creation as an engagement with an event-based practice that moves beyond the artist as individual?
Explorations and Processes
*fabulation 01*
One actuator in the building of the anarchive was the appearance of a graffiti on the grass during an event in Australia in December 2014: "To avoid predetermination, generate a field with at least three elements"(Massumi in dialogue with Pereira, Australia November, 2014). The questions, discussions and continuously seeping memories around this event – more than departing points – became atmospheric attunements; flickerings in the air that in-form and participate in the re-orienting of the field of experimentation, what moves an event rather than its content. In collaboration with these flickerings, the anarchive exploration gathered momentum and moved across a series of conversations to speculate, create and invent the concept of the anarchive and with it to build what an anarchive could be.
*fabulation no2 *
At the beginning, traces from previous events were marked in different ways in the spaces: on the wall, on paper, hanging from the ceiling, etc. But it soon became clear that any static trace would depict the field rather than mobilize it. We encountered the problem of "marking". Marking states, depicts and describes in a linear manner. The anarchive needed to allow to enter into the liveness of events always differently, in its multiplicity. From the problem of the "mark" as a gesture of a traditional archive, the anarchive wondered around a question that has been resurfacing at the SenseLab for years: How else to provoke generative tracings that could be mobile, appearing and disappearing, composed and re-composed?
1, Montreal:
" This question lead us to materiality, differently. A fabric was brought into the space, together with other materials, to experiment with mobility. We wanted to develop attunement with the forces and tendencies of materiality and/or materiality and its forces were already turning us into this process. The forces of matter created an enterability into the concept of the anarchive in the act. Aligned with these ways, procedures and techniques were crafted for anarchiving, in-formed by the cloth, a raining level atlas, paper, rocks, dust, strings and more. Materiality's own memory and multiplicities became part of the anarchival machine and proliferated into speciations that we consider the next phase: to build an exhibition on material practices in relation to anarchival forces. We call this Building the Anarchive.
image 1
2, Europe:
the digital anarchive
3, Australia
"The question of how not to archive but to activate collectively generated movements sympathetic to traces of gifted ideas and materials is one we wrestle with. To begin with a gift from an emissary is to begin in the middle of something already tentatively reaching forward. How can our actions resonate with these gifts and drive adventure, how could their generosity invite care and attention, how could this flow through events impersonally. How does the gift fold into events already germinating, how is this felt in collective touch, knotting, unraveling. And, if these material traces activated this flow, how does it spread between bodies and materials, bodies-to-bodies – diagramming – so that traces are reactivated and entangled: expanded and troubled, not losing their connections but doubling them, resonating with future potentials."
Anarchiving Speciations
Within the phase of material explorations, during a period of six months, once every week, the SenseLab experimented with the concept of the anarchive through conversations and material practices that rapidly developed into anarchiving speciations. Similarly to how plants grow into difference, our experiments with materiality proliferated into various morphing formations.
Modes of existence are less species than speciations, where speciation is understood as an emergent field of relation. They are speciations because they don't name a state, but activate a modality that pushes existence to its intensive limit. They are speciations because they don't fit into existence preformed but activate the minor gestures of its most potentializing edgings into experience. As such they are ecologies, ecologies that activate differential tendencies in the milieu of their co-composition. Modes of existence act, cut, reorient: they are world-constituting procedures. (Manning The Minor Gesture 115-116)
The cloth anarchiving speciations
a long one to experiment merely with the becoming crease in a play of push and pull
image 2
a bundled one to experiment with fold-travel-unfold iterations
image 3
a triangular one to build an anarchival writing machine
image 4
a thinner one to experiment with ways of drawing movement and discover the
way architecture creates its own folds
image 5a triangular one to play with how movement moves modularly across different topologies
image 6
Anarchive emissaries
Wondering how to share the process of anarchiving across hubs, the concept of the "anarchiving emissaries" was developed. For this, a series of three traveling boxes were built full of techniques, anarchic shares, lures, propositions and accompanying invitations. These invitations were seeded as activations for working with the concept of the anarchive, in an adding and sending forth ethos. For instance, one of the boxes contained propositions, a recording, and images – including a blue print of a hand. One of the gifted propositions read: 'practice care and generosity impersonally as event-based political virtues'. The gift from the outside enables collaborative work to become more generative. It lends a hand and assists in creating the conditions for the making and sending forth a propositional gift. The Anarchive Emissaries have traveled to Germany and Australia, some have come back, others are still finding their landing sites. The idea was born from wondering what if the emissary was not a human form, what else could it look/work like?
image 7
The Anarchiving Emissaries Accompanying Invitation
Chorus (side 1)
what can 7 meters of cloth do? depart from constrained materiality; resist the quickness of scissors tend potentialities already in the making, that which is already moving, tugging, spilling inventing with and in relation to the materiality ov er t i m e. play with differential attunements rhythmically nd difference within repetition and vice versa invent pulls; lures for feeling, in duration to move with what is already moving co-composing ecologies in surplus of any 'one' wondering/wandering around with in betweens and more-thans entangling vibrations that resist capture
Refrain (side 2)
Proposition for individual or minor groupings:
please take an anarchival box for a walk* *spiralling walks, experiment different modalities of what walk can do. diagramming walks,
walks with-without displacement how could an encounter be activated with the rhythms already populating the event?
invent a durational constraint for relay
consider how a gesture generates potential and creates openings listen for when a gesture perishes
craft eventual landings.
anarchiving catches as a kite catches the wind. its process is bearing witness to its own undecidedness. a traditional archive seeks to capture value already in place. a record. an after-the-fact placement and ordering. anarchiving cares for and moves with liveliness, always imminently, doubling the rhythms that are emerging as they are happening. it asks: what could


text:
Extremely common, facial telangiectasia is often referred to as "broken capillaries." These patches of dilated veins aren't actually broken, but are simply large enough to see with the naked eye. They usually affect the cheeks, the nose, the chin, and also (with men) the beard line. The precise cause is unclear, but most physicians believe they are the result of years of trauma to the skin -- most commonly, excessive exposure to the sun during a patient's youth.
They are more common in blond hair, blue-eyed people. Facial telangiectasia can additionally, run within the family. Frequently, dermatologists misdiagnose this condition as rosacea because rosacea can also have individual visible vessels along with the typical reddish skin common to rosacea. Even this generalized facial discoloration can be effectively treated with certain lasers. This method of treatment is superior to antibiotics--either oral or topical.
Laser treatment for telangiectasia involves no anesthesia, no downtime and an immediate disappearance of the treated vein.


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Oregon Elects First-Ever Kid Governor to Help Fight Bullying
11-year-old Dom Peters has a three-point plan to combat bullying across the state.
Oregon Kid's Governor
Earlier this month, 11-year-old Dom Peters was elected first-ever Kid Governor in the state of Oregon. He ran on an anti-bullying platform and was voted in by a majority of the state's 5th-graders. A victim of bullying himself, Peters understands the pain that comes from being picked on at school or online and promised to create a comprehensive plan that ensures bullying is taken seriously in Oregon.
What even is a Kid Governor? And what powers do they hold? The Kid Governor Program began in Connecticut in 2015 and is designed to encourage students to learn about government while exploring their passion for a specific issue. Each year, a new student is elected and given a platform upon which to help raise awareness and propose changes that could make a difference in their communities.
Oregon is only the second state to join the program by creating a state-wide 'office' for civic-minded kids, and elected officials pulled out all the stops for its first-ever Kid Governor inauguration ceremony. Several top lawmakers were in attendance including Senator Peter Courtney, who spoke about the three branches of American government. Kid Governor Peters then gave his inaugural address, in which he laid out his "three-point plan" to help combat bullying at school and on the internet.
Dom Peters signing his official Oath of Office. Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson
Fatherly IQ
 Paid leave and child care
 Climate change and the environment
 Jobs and the economy
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Obviously, bullying remains a serious issue for kids across the country, as they're no longer just susceptible to teasing and harassment on the school playground. And it's clear that Peter's platform resonated with other fifth-graders. Hopefully, he can use his time in office to enact some positive change for Oregon students, not to mention learn a few things that might help get him elected to higher office someday down the road.


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Harvesting and post-harvest management are critical stages in hydroponic farming to ensure the freshness, quality, and marketability of your crops. In this chapter, we will explore the best practices for harvesting hydroponic crops and discuss techniques for post-harvest handling and storage.
- Harvesting at the Right Time: We will discuss the importance of harvesting crops at their optimal stage of maturity. You will learn how to identify the signs of readiness for harvesting, such as colour, size, and texture. Harvesting at the right time ensures maximum flavour, nutritional content, and market appeal.
- Harvesting Techniques: We will explore different harvesting techniques suitable for hydroponic crops. This may include using sharp knives or scissors for precise cutting and minimizing damage to the plants. You will learn about the proper handling and sanitation practices during harvesting to prevent contamination and maintain crop quality.
- Cleaning and Sorting: After harvesting, it is essential to clean and sort the crops to remove any debris, damaged or diseased plant parts, and foreign materials. We will discuss the appropriate methods for cleaning and sorting hydroponic crops, ensuring that only high-quality produce is further processed or sent to market.
- Packaging and Labeling: Proper packaging and labelling are crucial for preserving the freshness and visual appeal of hydroponic crops. We will explore suitable packaging materials, such as plastic bags or clamshell containers, and discuss labelling requirements, including product information, weight, and traceability. You will learn about packaging techniques that maintain the product's integrity during transportation and storage.
- Cooling and Storage: Hydroponic crops require immediate cooling after harvest to maintain their quality and shelf life. We will discuss the importance of rapid cooling and explore different cooling methods, such as hydro cooling or forced-air cooling. You will learn about optimal storage conditions, including temperature and humidity levels, to extend the shelf life of your harvested crops.
- Handling Perishable Crops: Some hydroponic crops, such as leafy greens and delicate herbs, are highly perishable and require special handling. We will discuss techniques for handling and storing these delicate crops to minimize damage and maintain their freshness and quality. You will learn about the benefits of hydroponic crops' extended shelf life compared to conventional field-grown produce.
- Transportation and Market Preparation: Proper transportation and market preparation are essential for delivering high-quality hydroponic crops to consumers. We will explore strategies for safe and efficient transportation, including temperature control during transit. You will also learn about market preparation techniques, such as product display and merchandising, to enhance the visual appeal and marketability of your hydroponic crops.
By the end of this chapter, you will have a comprehensive understanding of the best practices for harvesting and post-harvest management in hydroponics. You will be equipped with the knowledge and techniques to ensure the freshness, quality, and marketability of your hydroponic crops from harvest to the consumer's table.


text:
MCEER-06-0010 | 9/21/2006 | 350 pages
TOC: The table of contents is provided.
Keywords: Polymer matrix composite (PMC) materials. Retrofitting. Infill panel systems. Existing structures. Composite materials. Material efficiency. Construction. Structural enhancement. Seismic performance. Lateral resistance. Structural damping. Energy dissipation.
Abstract: In this research, three prefabricated polymer matrix composite (PMC) infill panel systems for seismic retrofitting were proposed. The PMC infill panels were studies using experimental methods to assess their effectiveness and response under simulated earthquake loading. Applying the concept of combined interface damping layers to the proposed panel systems was found to be highly feasible in the seismic applications. Design and fabrication procedures for each PMC infill panels were presented, and a conceptual trial design was performed using finite element analysis. To validate the proposed systems in real situations, both monotonicand cyclic-loading tests were performed on full-scale models. According to the authors, the results obtained from this research showed that the systems offer the potential to increase the damping as well as the lateral resistance of steel frames, with a relatively low cost of retrofitting. Tables, figures and references are included.


text:
Find out what your kids are learning, data on local schools and services to support young children.
Issues in Child Maltreatment
2120 Bladensburg Road NE, Washington, DC 20019
Firefighters Union Building
This training is designed to enhance the participants' knowledge including but not limited to:
- Identifying signs of child maltreatment
- Understanding the policies and procedures for responding to suspected maltreatment
- Reporting incidents or expected incidents of child maltreatment to Child Protective Services


text:
Special Issue "Disturbance Effects on Soil Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Forest Ecosystems"
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019).
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.
Interests: forest soil processes; forest fertilization and nutrition; carbon sequestration; greenhouse gas emissions; agroforestry
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Interests: soil carbon and nitrogen transformations and fluxes; management options towards greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change adaptation
Forest ecosystems are often disturbed by agents such as harvesting, fire, wind, insects and diseases, and acid deposition, with differing intensities and frequencies. Such disturbances can markedly affect the amount, form and stability of soil organic carbon in and the emission of greenhouse gases, including CO2, CH4, and N2O, from forest ecosystems. It is vitally important that we improve our understanding of the impact of different disturbance regimes on forest soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions to guide our future research, forest management practices, and policy development. Through this special issue, we aim to bring together researchers working on different aspects of forest ecology to share their findings on disturbance effects on soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions in forest ecosystems. Comparisons on disturbance effects can be made among biomes and climate regions.
Prof. Dr. Scott Chang
Dr. Yanjiang Cai
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at _URL_ by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
- Carbon stability
- Disturbance intensity
- Greenhouse gas emission
- Microbial linkage
- Soil-pant relationship


text:
As of 2009, 25 per cent of the energy used in the U.S., totalling 22.84 trillion cubic feet originated from natural gas. Over half of the homes in the U.S. use natural gas for heating, cooking, clothes dryers and other appliances. Natural gas contains methane as its main ingredient, a highly flammable chemical which can leak into the atmosphere or inside your home from pipelines storage tanks. Since gas leaks can cause explosions and fires, knowing how to tell if your gas stove is leaking can save your life and the life of your family.
- Skill level:
Things you need
- Natural gas detector
- Soap detergent
- Spray bottle
Smell the air around the stove or the room. If you smell something similar to rotten eggs, you may have a gas leak. Since natural gas has no odour, gas companies mix a sulphur-based substance with the gas to warn you of a gas leak, and sulphur has a rotten-egg odour.
Install a natural gas detector alarm to warn you of the presence of gas. Your gas detector should be installed where you can hear it anywhere in your home, and in a place like your basement, where natural gas accumulates. Install two gas detectors if your home has more than one source of natural gas.
Pay attention to how your body feels. Oxygen in your home decreases during a gas leak, resulting in feelings of nausea, dizziness, fatigue and headaches. You and your family can lose consciousness or die from high levels of natural gas in your home.
Mix 1/3 liquid dishwashing detergent with 2/3 water into a spray bottle. With gas running as usual through the stove burner, spray the solution around the pipe elbows, shut-off valves, pipe joints, and all fittings where gas may leak. You will see bubbles on the connections, if a gas leak exists. Turn off your gas stove if you have a gas leak and have your appliances serviced before you reuse them.
Tips and warnings
- Leave your home immediately if you smell a natural gas leak or if your gas detector alarm sounds. Make calls from a neighbour's home, never from your own home--your phone and cell phone can produce a spark, causing an explosion. Call 911 or your gas company from outside, away from your home.
- Since your loved ones begin to lose their sense of smell when in their 70s, make certain they have natural gas detectors installed in their homes as recommended by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
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- Hilarious things Google thinks you're trying to search for
- U.S. Energy Information Administration Energy Kids: Natural Gas
- National Institute On Deafness And Other Communication Disorders: What You Need To Know About Natural Gas Detectors
- West Virginia Fire Commission Office of the State Fire Marshal: Grill Safely this Summer!
- Alek, Wendy, Dirk, and Kyle Komarnitsky: Gas Leak Detector


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Curator of Diptera's blog
1 Post tagged with the spider_killing_flies tag
Tangled up in blue…
Posted by Erica McAlister Jul 29, 2013
After all the talk (and film) about the bee-fly and its long proboscis, I thought you should see the actual insect with the longest proboscis in terms of body size - and of course it is a group of fabulous flies - but that goes without saying! So this week's blog is all about tangle-veined flies, known as Nemestrinidae.
Nemestrinus bombiformis - showing their lovely wings
What has sparked this blog piece was my finally looking through some recent material collected by a colleague Duncan, one of the other fly curators. He has recently returned from Morocco with loads of my flies - the chunky ones including bee-flies, robberflies and these tangle-veined flies. This reminded me about some that had been collected by another colleague in South Africa. So I went to find where I had stored them, and track down all the literature I would need to identify it. But along the way I became quite obsessive about this little family.
So what are these tangle-veined flies? There are about 300 species worldwide in 23 genera, although none, sadly, are found in the UK. There is still much confusion about this family and the subject is crying out for a major overview. These flies are most closely related to the hunchback flies also known as the spider-killing flies (Acroceridae); and as with the Bee-flies and the hunchback flies, the larvae of this family are also endoparasites.
The adults are generally medium-to-large flies, often with hairy bodies, but all with a complicated vein pattern on their wings.
nemestrinidae wing.jpg
They are often brightly coloured, but if you look through the collection you will see many covered in pollen, which gives an indication to what the adults are feeding on! Within the family, some species have atrophic mouthparts - that is, they are no longer there or they are non-functional but most have the characteristic tube-like proboscis, which is often very long.
In the collection at the Museum we have 149 species registered from 14 different genera. The Museum houses about half the number of described species of Nemestrinidae.
We are always trying to increase the collections and enable greater access to them. There is not much point to a collection that is hidden away, and we are gradually enabling more of our collections be digitised for online access, as well as tweeting and blogging about them informally.
Not much is really known about this family (a common theme across the whole of Diptera). We do have some fossils - the oldest recorded is from the Middle-Upper Jurassic Karabastau Formation (a geological formation in Kazakhstan; about 160 to 145 million years ago) but when it comes to the extant flies we still have huge gaps in knowledge.
We think all the species across the subfamilies have hypermetamorphosis larvae - that is, the larval stages go through distinctly different phases of their development. And all of the family parasitise other insects (as far as we know). The female is quite extraordinary, as she can lay several thousand eggs in her lifetime on plants and surfaces that are generally off the ground (a housefly only lays about 500).
After about 10 days, these will hatch into very mobile larvae. These will disperse readily, often helped by the wind, to seek out their hosts. They can survive for up to two weeks in this state seeking out their hosts. This is just as well as they have very active hosts - the larvae of subfamily Trichopsideinae are all parasitoids of grasshoppers; the Hirmoneurinae seek out scarab beetles; and with Atriadopsinae it's bush crickets.
neorhynchocephalus larvae.jpgneorhynchocephalus emerging.jpg
(Images taken from US Department of Agriculture website)
Within our collection we have four subfamilies represented. There is still discussion about how many subfamilies there are and where the different genera should be placed but I will work on the basis of the following groupings for the moment.
 1. Atriadopsinae
 1. Atriadops
 2. Ceyloniola
 3. Nycterimorpha
 4. Nycterimyia
 2. Hirmoneurinae
 1. Hirmoneura
 3. Nemestrininae
 1. Moegistorhynchus
 2. Nemestrinus
 3. Prosoeca
 4. Stenobasipteron
 5. Stenopteromyia
 6. Trichophthalma
 4. Trichopsideinae
 1. Fallenia
 2. Neorhynchocephalus
 3. Trichopsidea
There are some nice features to tell these subfamilies apart. Being me I have to get genitalia into a blog post somewhere, and for a change it is the female genitalia that holds the key to their ID - or rather, it is her ovipositor (egg-laying tube). The subfamilies Hirmoneurinae and Nemestrininae have telescope-shaped ovipositors that have retractile segments like a pump-action egg-laying machine! The other two subfamilies have sabre-shaped ovipositors, which bare two very long and slender valvulae (a scientific term for Diptera lady bits) from which she shoots her eggs.
But there is a more obvious way the subfamilies can be split apart: by their mouthparts.
Medium proboscis.jpg
Hirmoneura anthracoides
They vary from rudimentary, reduced, short, medium and long - in some instances very long. In fact one species of Nemestrininae called Moegistrorhynchus longirostris has the longest mouthpart in relation to body size of any insect.
When I came across these in the collection I actually squealed in excitement. They have such a long proboscis because of the flowers they feed on - plants with very long necks; mainly the orchids and the irises. They do not generally fly with them out in front of them but held underneath their body:
In South Africa there are a lot of very long-tongued flies (as they are known). There are also horseflies that have evolved from blood sucking to nectar feeding, with the development a disproportionately long mouthpart. Philoliche longirostris (= "long mouth"... no point having different names if it the best descriptor!) is one such horsefly, and Dr Shelah Morati has a fab website with some amazing images of them.
The tangle-veined flies are also are adapted to feeding from long-necked plants.
long tubular flower - Lapeirousia oreogena by Judd Kirkel W.jpg
These irises seem to have 'landing strips' for flies
The irises in the photo above seem to have landing strips that help guide the fly in. Work conducted by Dennis Hansen when he was at the University of Kwazulu-Natal discovered that if you paint over these strips, the flies cannot find the nectaries at the base of the tube!
And many people have studied these groups, as they are amazing examples of co-evolution with very good models correlating corolla (the petals of the flower) length and proboscis, including work by Dr Bruce Anderson at the University of Stellenbosch! Great stuff!
The collection of tangled-vein flies the museum has been static for a while but we are now collecting more in South Africa, and recent additions to the collection prompted me to recurate the specimens. The drawers were shallow (resulting in many of the pinned specimens being put in in a jaunty angle) and they were also on slates.
uncurated nemestrinid drawer.JPG
Old-style storage
So after a week or so of updating the database and checking out any changes in nomenclature I have transferred the little cuties into new trays with spanking new labels into new deeper drawers. Job done!
curated nemestrinid drawer.JPG
New-style storage
Erica McAlister
Erica McAlister
Member since: Sep 3, 2009
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Each DITA glossary topic defines a single sense of one term. Besides identifying the term and providing a definition, the topic can identify related terms.
Why glossary?
Defining terminology is helpful to the writer so a team of writers can use the same term for the same thing. The reader can also get an explanation of unfamiliar terminology. More generally, identification of the things described by the content encourages more precise treatment of those subjects. Glossary topics can be assembled by authors or processes to create glossaries for various purposes, including books, Web sites, or development projects.
Glossary structure
The element is the top-level element for a DITA glossary topic. Every glossary topic contains a and a element and optional .
Where a term has multiple senses, the writer should create multiple topics with the same term in the element but different definitions in the element. A process can collate and group glossary entries by term when generating formatted output. Note that definitions with the same term in one language can have different terms in other languages, so translation can result in different collation and grouping of the same set of glossary entries.
Here is an example of a simple glossary entry:
 Data Definition Language
 A language used for defining database schemas.
To create a glossary, authors can group multiple entries together either by authoring in a single document under a container topic using the ditabase document type (_URL_.xsd), or by referencing the glossary topics in a map, or by using an automated process, for example electing glossary topics from a repository based on the markup in a particular collection of topics.
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OASIS DITA Version 1.1 Architectural Specification -- Committee Specification, 31 May 2007
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30 U.S. Code § 866 - Trailing cables
(a) Requirements established for flame resistant cables
Trailing cables used in coal mines shall meet the requirements established by the Secretary for flame-resistant cables.
(b) Circuit breakers; markings and visual observation of position of disconnection devices
Short-circuit protection for trailing cables shall be provided by an automatic circuit breaker or other no less effective device approved by the Secretary of adequate current-interrupting capacity in each ungrounded conductor. Disconnecting devices used to disconnect power from trailing cables shall be plainly marked and identified and such devices shall be equipped or designed in such a manner that it can be determined by visual observation that the power is disconnected.
(c) Distribution center junctions; safety connections
When two or more trailing cables junction to the same distribution center, means shall be provided to assure against connecting a trailing cable to the wrong size circuit breaker.
(d) Temporary splices; usable period; exceptions; quality
One temporary splice may be made in any trailing cable. Such trailing cable may only be used for the next twenty-four hour period. No temporary splice shall be made in a trailing cable within twenty-five feet of the machine, except cable reel equipment. Temporary splices in trailing cables shall be made in a workmanlike manner and shall be mechanically strong and well insulated. Trailing cables or hand cables which have exposed wires or which have splices that heat or spark under load shall not be used. As used in this subsection, the term "splice" means the mechanical joining of one or more conductors that have been severed.
(e) Permanent splices; quality
When permanent splices in trailing cables are made, they shall be—
(1) mechanically strong with adequate electrical conductivity and flexibility;
(2) effectively insulated and sealed so as to exclude moisture; and
(3) vulcanized or otherwise treated with suitable materials to provide flame-resistant qualities and good bonding to the outer jacket.
(f) Clamping of cables
Trailing cables shall be clamped to machines in a manner to protect the cables from damage and to prevent strain on the electrical connections. Trailing cables shall be adequately protected to prevent damage by mobile equipment.
(g) Making and breaking of connections to junction boxes
Trailing cable and power cable connections to junction boxes shall not be made or broken under load.
(Pub. L. 91–173, title III, § 306,Dec. 30, 1969, 83 Stat. 779.)
30 USCDescription of ChangeSession YearPublic LawStatutes at Large


text:
. Users can create and administer FTP servers through IIS. An FTP server and FTP client are needed to use the protocol. An FTP session has a connection, a request, and a response.
- The client establishes a TCP connection to the FTP server through port 21.
- A port number over 1023 is assigned to the client.
- The client sends an FTP command to port 21.
- If the client needs to receive data, another connection is created with the client to convey the data. This connection utilizes port 20.
- The second connection remains in a TIME_WAIT state after the data is transferred to the client. The TIME_WAIT state makes it possible for additional data to be transferred. The TIME_WAIT state ends when the connection times out.
- Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is a TCP/IP application layer protocol used to send network news messages to NNTP servers and NNTP clients on the Internet. NNTP is a client/server and server/server protocol. The NNTP protocol enables an NNTP host to replicate its list of newsgroups and messages with another host through newsfeeds with a push or pull method. An NNTP client can establish a connection with an NNTP host to download a list of newsgroups and read the messages contained in the newsgroups. Through NNTP, users can implement private news servers to host discussion groups or implement public news servers to provide customer support and help resources to Internet users. It can be specified that users need to be authenticated to read and post items to newsgroups or they can be allowed access to everybody. The NNTP service can also integrate with the Windows Indexing Service to index newsgroup content. It is also fully integrated with event and performance monitoring of Windows Server 2003.
- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a TCP/IP application layer protocol that routes and transfers e-mail between SMTP hosts on the Internet. SMTP enables IIS machines to operate as SMTP hosts to forward e-mail over the Internet. IIS can be utilized instead of Sendmail. SMTP also enables IIS machines to protect mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange servers from malicious attacks by operating between these servers and Sendmail host at the organization's ISP. SMTP can be used to forward mail from one SMTP host to another. SMTP cannot deliver mail directly to the client. Mail clients use POP3 or IMAP to receive e-mail. Windows Server 2003 includes the POP3 service for providing clients with mailboxes and for handling incoming e-mail. To use the SMTP as an IIS component, the SMTP service has to be installed first if a Windows Server 2003 Edition other than the Windows Server 2003 Web Edition is being run. The SMTP service is installed on the Windows Server 2003 Web Edition by default.
Understanding the Mail Server Role
The mail server role provides e-mail services for the network by providing the functions needed for users to both send and receive e-mail messages. A mail server has to exist for users to send e-mail to each other. When a mail server receives e-mail for a user, it stores the e-mail for the intended user until that particular user retrieves it from the mail server.
A mail server's primary functions are to:
- Store e-mail data
- Process client requests
- Receive incoming e-mail from the Internet
When a server for the mail server role is configured, the following TCP/IP based protocols are installed:
- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – is a TCP/IP application layer protocol used for routing and transferring e-mail between SMTP hosts on the Internet. IIS 6 has to be installed to install both the SMTP service and the Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) service. The SMTP service has to be installed because mail servers and clients utilize this service to send e-mail.
- Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) – mail clients use the POP3 service or IMAP to receive e-mail. Windows Server 2003 includes the POP3 service for providing clients with mailboxes and for handling incoming e-mail. The POP3 service also enables clients to retrieve e-mail from the mail server.
Understanding the Terminal Server Role
Terminal Services have the ability to operate as an application server that remote clients can connect to and run sessions from. The Terminal Services server runs the applications. The data response is transmitted back to the Terminal Services client. Clients can access Terminal Services over a local area connection or a wide area connection. Terminal Services clients can be MS-DOS based clients, Windows for Workgroups clients, (version 3.11), Windows based terminals, and Macintosh clients.
When a user connects to a Windows Server 2003 server using Remote Desktop, the server's, not the workstation's resources are used. The terminal is only responsible for the keyboard, mouse, and display. Every user has its own individual Terminal Services session. Sessions are unique and do not affect one another. In this manner, a user connecting to a Windows Server 2003 server through Remote Desktop functions as a terminal on that server.
Once a client connects with Terminal Services, it creates a Terminal Services session for the client. The Terminal Services server handles all processing. Clients use insignificant bandwidth on the underlying network when they establish a connection. Terminal Services is therefore popular in WANs where bandwidth is limited. It is also suited for mobile users who have to execute processor intensive applications over a dial-up connection. In this case, the local machine only needs to handle the console. When applications need to be installed or updated, a single instance of the application can be installed or updated on the Terminal Services server. Users will have access to the application without it having to be installed or updated on all machines.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is the protocol that manages communications between a computer running Terminal Services and a client computer running a Terminal Server client. The connection can be established with Terminal Services on a terminal server. The RDC utility can be used for complete terminal server client utilization or it can be used for Remote Administration. Remote Desktop Connection is by default installed with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. However, Remote Desktop Connection can be installed on the previous Windows Operating Systems (OSs) such as Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, Windows 98, and Windows 95. The RDC utility is backward compatible and can therefore interact with Terminal Services in Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT 4 Terminal Server Edition.
Understanding the Remote Access and VPN Server Role
The Windows Server 2003 remote access and VPN server role can be used to provide remote access to clients through either of these methods:
- Dial-up connections – Dial-up networking makes it possible for a remote access client to establish a dial-up connection to a port on a remote access server. The configuration of the dial-up networking server determines what resources the remote user can access. Users that connect through a dial-up networking server connect to the network much like a standard LAN user accessing network resources.
- Virtual private networks (VPNs) – Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide secure and advanced connections through a non-secure network by providing data privacy. Private data is secure in a public environment. Remote access VPNs provide a common environment where many different sources such as intermediaries, clients, and off-site employees can access through web browsers or email. Many companies supply their own VPN connections via the Internet. Through their ISPs, remote users running VPN client software are assured private access in a publicly shared environment. By using analog, ISDN, DSL, cable technology, dial, and mobile IP, VPNs are implemented over extensive shared infrastructures. Email, database, and office applications use these secure remote VPN connections.
A few features and capabilities that the RRAS server provide are:
- LAN-to-LAN routing and LAN-to-WAN routing
- Virtual private network (VPN) routing
- Network Address Translation (NAT) routing – NAT, defined in RFC 1631, translates private addresses to Internet IP addresses that can be routed on the Internet
- Routing features, including
- IP multicasting
- Packet filtering
- Demand-dial routing
- DHCP relay
- Assign DHCP addresses to RRAS clients
- Remote Access Policies (RAPs) – RAPs are used to grant remote access permissions.
- Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) combines Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F) of Cisco with Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) of Microsoft. L2TP is a Data-link protocol that can be used to establish Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
- Internet Authentication Service (IAS) – a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) server that provides remote authentication, authorization, and accounting for users that are connecting to the network through a network access server (NAS) such as Windows Routing and Remote Access.
Understanding the Domain Controller's Role
A domain controller is a server that stores a write copy of Active Directory and maintains the Active Directory data store. Active Directory was designed to provide a centralized repository of information or data store that could securely manage an organization's resources. The Active Directory directory services ensure that network resources are available and that users can access said network resources, applications, and programs. Active Directory also makes it possible for administrators to log on to a network computer and manage Active Directory objects on a different computer within the domain.
A domain controller is a computer running Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 that contains a replica of the domain directory. Domain controllers in Active Directory maintain the Active Directory data store and the domain's security policy. Therefore, domain controllers also provide security for the domain by authenticating user logon attempts.
The domain controller role's main functions within Active Directory are:
- Each domain controller in a domain stores and maintains a replica of the Active Directory data store for the particular domain.
- Domain controllers in Active Directory


text: In this example for the PreonVM the 4 LEDs on the Preon32 Shuttle are controlled with different frequencies. As period duration a time of 1000ms is used. Depending on the colour, the LEDs are switched on and off with 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 or 1.00 of the period duration. The example shows how different time behaviour can be implemented in parallel. Due to the internal hardware-based counters in the microcontroller, the set times in the range of milliseconds are reached very precisely. In addition to the 4 threads for controlling the LEDs, the main program is in sleep mode, which it briefly leaves every 1000ms.


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Definition of jury box in English:
A segregated area in which the jury sits in a court of law.
- Yes, that's correct there, on the judge's right hand and on the judge's left is the jury box, and the witness box.
- Using large video screens placed at either end of the jury box, the prosecutors repeatedly showed an animated simulation of a knife slicing into a human chest.
- Beyond the cold numbers generated by historic fact, McKanna puts people in the jury box, on the witness stand, and on the bench in western courtrooms.
Definition of jury box in:
- US English dictionary
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.


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Delayed population explosion of an introduced butterfly.
1. The causes of lagged population and geographical range expansions after species introductions are poorly understood, and there are relatively few detailed case studies. 2. We document the 29-year history of population dynamics and structure for a population of Euphydryas gillettii Barnes that was introduced to the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA in 1977. 3. The population size remained low (< 200 individuals) and confined to a single habitat patch (approximately 2.25 ha) to 1998. These values are similar to those of many other populations within the natural geographical range of the species. 4. However, by 2002 the population increased dramatically to > 3000 individuals and covered approximately 70 ha, nearly all to the south of the original site. The direction of population expansion was the same as that of predominant winds. 5. By 2004, the butterfly's local distribution had retracted mainly to three habitat patches. It thus exhibited a'surge/contraction' form of population growth. Searches within 15 km of the original site yielded no other new populations. 6. In 2005, butterfly numbers crashed, but all three habitat patches remained occupied. The populations within each patch did not decrease in the same proportions, suggesting independent dynamics that are characteristic of metapopulations. 7. We postulate that this behaviour results, in this species, in establishment of satellite populations and, given appropriate habitat structure, may result in lagged or punctuated expansions of introduced populations.
Boggs, CL; Holdren, CE; Kulahci, IG; Bonebrake, TC; Inouye, BD; Fay, JP; McMillan, A; Williams, EH; Ehrlich, PR
Volume / Issue
Start / End Page
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)


Econnect Communication > Newsletter > December 2013 – Communicating the odds
December 2013 – Communicating the odds
Quote of the month
"Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat was getting."
— Terry Pratchett
Surf Club
Want to reduce your odds of dying in a plane crash?
Is it smart to buy a lottery ticket? KhanAcademy has free tutorials in probability (and lots of other good stuff).
Welcome to our December 2013 newsletter: Communicating the odds
Many of us understand the concept of the odds of a horse winning a race. Or perhaps we don't and that's why the gambling industry is so profitable. When it comes to weather forecasts, climate projections and health risks, is the concept of probability any more complex?
Thanks for reading and please do share your thoughts on this with us on Facebook, Twitter or email us.
Regards from the _USER_:
Perceptions versus facts
By Jenni Metcalfe
When reporting the odds in science, it is important to remember that people don't always react rationally to the facts presented. This is due to how we perceive risk.
When people voluntarily choose an action, such as getting into a car or skiing down a steep slope, they see it as being less risky than something they don't choose to do, such as eat food which has been genetically modified without their knowledge.
This is true even when the odds of being hurt in a car accident are far greater than the minimal risk that genetically modified food might pose.
In another example, people are more likely to refuse a vaccine that has a 1 in 10,000 chance of causing death, even when without the vaccine there is a 1 in 1000 chance of catching the disease and dying.
So what does this mean for communicating scientific odds or probabilities?
 - Avoid using statistics to persuade people to make decisions about risk, especially when they feel they have no or little control over that risk.
 - Acknowledge people's concerns as being valid, even when they appear irrational; after all, it's perfectly sensible to worry about the quality of the food you and your family eat.
 - When explaining the level of risk, beware of analogies that compare an involuntary risk with a voluntary risk. For example, don't say: "You are more likely to be run over by a car than to suffer any negative side effects from this medication".
 - Seek to understand the misperceptions that people may have, and why they have them, so that you can respond to and empathise with their values and points of view.
 - Design messages that stress the correct information about a scientific issue and that reflect your understanding of the misperceptions people may have.
Using numbers, words and colours to communicate chance
By Sarah Cole
Are you a numbers, colours or words person?
How would you convey the chance of rain this afternoon?
Meteorologists make this decision whenever they communicate the odds of weather events.
If they communicate the odds well, it can help us decide when to have that family picnic, go sailing or plant crops.
Last year, in our newsletter on infographics, we wrote about using visual tools to make the intangible tangible. There are many ways to represent chance.
For example, the CliMate app gives farmers answers to questions such as: 'How likely is it that Longreach will get more than normal rainfall in the next 3 months?'
The answer is presented in multiple formats on one screen:
 - percentages (67.5%)
 - likelihoods ('7 out of 10 years' had…)
 - words ('good', 'very high')
 - pie charts which represent percentages
 - colours which represent percentages.
In the national temperature outlook (Dec 2013 – Feb 2014), Australian meteorologists have used:
 - percentages
 - colour to represent percentages
 - phrases such as "for every ten summer outlooks with similar odds to these, about six or seven of them would be expected to be warmer than average over these areas, while about three or four years would be cooler" and "chances of receiving a cooler or warmer than normal summer is roughly equal (i.e., close to 50%)".
Warmer summer days more likely for eastern Australia
Bureau of Meteorology national temperature outlook for December to February
Seeing chance displayed in a range of formats can help us understand the odds of that storm arriving in the middle of our picnic.
Risks and ratios – making sense of statistics
By Jenni Metcalfe
Relative and absolute risk
If you're communicating risk, understand the sort of risk you are talking about.
Absolute risk is the likelihood something will happen.
Relative risk is the difference in the likelihood that something will happen under different conditions. It allows you to compare different risk levels but it tells you nothing about the actual risk.
Buying a second lottery ticket doubles your chance of winning, but the chance was so small to start with that it's hardly a meaningful increase.
Here's another example of relative risk: A smoker's risk of developing coronary heart disease is two to four times that of a non-smoker's.
Always talk in terms of absolute risk, if possible.
If, for example, a substance increases the risk of cancer, describe how many extra cases it would produce in 100 people, or 1000 people, rather than the percentage risk increase.
Odds ratios – beware
Odds ratios are often reported in scientific studies. They can be hard to translate into everyday language and are best avoided.
In statistics, the 'odds' are the chance that something WILL happen divided by the chance that it will NOT happen. So, if there's an 80% chance of rain tomorrow, the odds of rain are 4 (i.e. 80/20).
An 'odds ratio' is used when you want to compare the odds of something occurring to two different groups. It is the ratio of the odds for the first group and the odds for the second group.
An example: A study examined the link between acupuncture and successful IVF. In this study the odds ratio—i.e. the odds of pregnancy through IVF and acupuncture divided by the odds of pregnancy through IVF without acupuncture—was 1.65.
You might think this means that acupuncture increases the success rate of IVF by 65%—but the improvement in this study was more like 10%. In absolute terms, 10 patients would need to be treated with acupuncture to bring about one additional pregnancy.
[Ed: This article is an edited extract from 'Understanding statistics and numbers', a module in SciJourno, an online course for journalists, which we launched in October with AusSMC (the Australian Science Media Centre) and the University of Queensland. This module was written by AusSMC.]
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According to a recent survey, Europeans have a broad conception of nature. For them, anything from primeval forests, birds of prey and swamps, to forest plantations, garden plants and large crop fields is natural. City parks scored the lowest in the 'naturalness' ranking, although half of all respondents still considered them natural to some extent. In short, for most people, nature is almost everywhere. The survey was held in nine EU Member States: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The results from this survey were published today by PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
Europeans generally believe nature is worth preserving
Another result from the survey shows that there seems to be no nature conservation 'fatigue' among Europeans. Two-thirds of respondents do not think there is too much emphasis on nature conservation. Also, two-thirds state that governments are primarily responsible for the protection and management of nature. Most people appreciate nature more for its intrinsic value, such as wildness or biodiversity, than for its role in the creation of economic value. This preference for nature's intrinsic value is strongest among higher educated people, city dwellers and young people. Nevertheless, people do think a broad spectrum of objectives for the management of nature areas is important, including – for example – in its contribution to flood prevention and the conservation of attractive landscapes.
Nature Outlook: inspiring EU nature policy
Although the attitude of citizens towards nature policies is surveyed regularly, only very few Europe-wide surveys have been carried out on how citizens see and relate to nature. In this survey – which was held in September 2014 – 9,000 respondents answered an online questionnaire. The survey was conducted as part of the Nature Outlook project by PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, and explores people's perspectives on nature and motivations for becoming involved in nature-related actions. The project aims to provide an inspirational building block for a new EU Biodiversity Strategy beyond 2020. The Nature Outlook report itself will be published early 2017.


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CCS Presents 12 Days of Reading and Math Challenge
Winter break is a great time to encourage students love of reading and writing at home. The activities in the 12 Days of Reading provide literacy experiences for children and their families that can be completed daily during the December 19th through January 3rd Winter Break. The activities and resources will provide children and families with opportunities to read together, have conversations about books and writing and have experiences that make the books they read come alive.
Download Reading Packets | Download Math Packets
In the 12 Days of Math, children in Kindergarten through 5th grade will have the opportunity to experience math challenges during Winter Break. These challenges are activities that children can engage in daily with family and friends. Engaging children in math discussions is an essential component of a child's mathematical learning. Not only can kids talk about math when completing the math challenges, they can discuss math concepts that are in books. When children are reading, look for ways that math is involved in the story. For example, in the Columbus Metropolitan Library Reading Challenge, when reading about a dinosaur, go outside with a family member and measure the size of the dinosaur by walking the distance. Families can engage in discussions about measuring, strategies used when measuring, and other opportunities we have to measure in our daily lives. Math is all around us, we just need to be on the lookout.


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New Ultrasound and Artificial Insemination
Techniques Improve Sheep Breeding
Ewes and lambs on a pasture at the University of Wyoming Livestock Farm in Laramie. Recent research by ARS may make artificial insemination of sheep easy enough for producers to tackle on their own.
Bred for meat as well as wool, sheep have been part of the American landscape since colonial times. Now, advances in genetic research are changing breeding procedures, leading to faster, cheaper, and more accurate techniques.
Using Ultrasound for Selective Breeding
New research is making it easier to predict the future—at least as far as lamb products are concerned. At the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho, research leader Greg Lewis and his colleagues have shown that ultrasound can be used to accurately predict characteristics that indicate carcass yield and value in live sheep.
This could significantly improve the speed and accuracy of selective-breeding methods. Since carcass data is difficult for producers to obtain, many of them currently rely on visual appraisals to predict carcass traits before choosing which sheep to breed. Ultrasound provides a faster, more accurate alternative.
To assess the reliability of the technology, scientists captured ultrasound images of 172 lambs before slaughter. At Ohio State University, assistant professor Henry Zerby coordinated the collection of carcass-trait data for the lambs. Lewis collaborated with ARS scientists and Dave Notter, a geneticist at Virginia Tech, to analyze the data.
Western white-face ewes and lambs on a pasture at the University of Wyoming Livestock Farm, Laramie, with university student Kalli Koepke in the background.
Results showed that a trained technician can capture an ultrasound image in about 30 seconds with reasonable accuracy. Scientists can use the images to estimate traits that influence the carcass value of market lambs—such as loin muscle area, loin muscle depth, and back-fat thickness.
Ultrasound is initially more expensive than visual appraisals, but the technique's superior accuracy may translate into better economic returns through improved evaluation and selection of breeding stock.
"Ultrasound is a great way for breeding-stock producers to get the data they need to make selection decisions," Lewis says.
Reliable predictions are timesavers for breeders because they enable them to make educated decisions about an animal's offspring without waiting for the offspring to mature. While the technology is used routinely for cattle and swine, this study demonstrates that it can also be applied to sheep.
Animal physiologist Phillip Purdy uses a water bath to thaw frozen semen for use in an insemination procedure.
Improving Surgical Artificial Insemination
Artificial insemination (AI) is an important tool for modern livestock breeding—particularly for cattle and swine. But for most sheep producers, AI isn't a viable option. The ovine cervix is relatively difficult to traverse with traditional AI tools, so techniques that work easily with cattle have been less successful with sheep. Surgical AI has a higher success rate, but is prohibitively complicated and expensive.
But help is on the way, thanks to research conducted by ARS animal scientists at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) in Fort Collins, Colorado. Researchers there are collaborating with scientists at the University of Wyoming (UW) to improve semen handling and artificial insemination on sheep farms. The work is being led by NCGRP animal physiologist Phillip Purdy in collaboration with animal geneticist Harvey Blackburn and UW colleagues Robert Stobart and Brent Larson.
"Effective AI has two components: the ability to collect and transport semen—either fresh or frozen—to producers around the country and the ability to economically inseminate the ewes," Blackburn says.
The scientists first focused on semen collection, storage, and transport. They found that sheep semen can be collected and shipped—in cooled liquid form—overnight before freezing without harming its in vitro quality. They also found that semen could be cryopreserved—or frozen for later use—after shipping without reducing its success in surgical AI.
At the University of Wyoming livestock farm in Laramie, professor Robert Stobart (left) and Phillip Purdy prepare to artificially inseminate a Suffolk ewe using an insemination gun and spiral catheter.
Further studies compared semen that had been cryopreserved immediately after collection to semen cryopreserved after 48 hours—about the time required to ship samples across the country. The scientists observed no difference in quality or fertilization ability nor in the average number of lambs born to the ewes surgically inseminated with those samples.
"These results show that there are many options available to producers to help them select for desirable traits," Purdy says. Producers could, for example, use samples from around the world, thereby expanding and improving their breeding options, increasing the quality of their flocks, and providing a better return on their investment.
This work also has benefits for conservators of genetic resources, like the NCGRP, that gather and store genetic materials.
"An efficient insemination method is important for our conservation efforts," says Blackburn, who heads NCGRP's National Animal Germplasm Program. "If we can do it more efficiently, we can reduce the number of semen samples we collect for preserving sheep genetic diversity."
Better Nonsurgical AI
The scientists have developed a rapid, economical alternative to existing surgical AI methods. The technique is an adaptation of the method used in swine. The researchers used a spiral insemination catheter to traverse the ewe's cervix and deposit thawed semen directly into the uterus. The method is easy to learn and easy to perform. Each sheep takes about 2 minutes to inseminate at a cost of $1.29, making it significantly faster and less expensive than laparoscopic surgical insemination. And it's easy enough for producers to do independently.
Though quick and economical, the technique is less reliable than existing AI methods. Early tests have had success rates of about 55 percent when using fresh semen and about 10 percent when using frozen semen.
"This difference was not observed in the previous experiments, because surgical inseminations deposit the AI dose at the site of fertilization, so minimal stress is placed on the thawed sperm," Purdy explains. "Sperm are generally weakened by the freezing and thawing processes, and this impaired function in thawed samples becomes more noticeable when using the nonsurgical method because the sperm have to travel farther to the site of fertilization."
The scientists are investigating how to hone the technique and improve its success rate by improving the timing of estrus and insemination.—By Laura McGinnis, formerly with ARS.
This research is part of Food Animal Production (#101), an ARS national program described on the World Wide Web at _URL_.
Phillip H. Purdy is with the USDA-ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, 1111 South Mason St., Fort Collins, CO 80521-4500; phone _PHONE_, fax _PHONE_.
Gregory S. Lewis is with the USDA-ARS U.S. Sheep Experiment Station, 19 Office Loop, Dubois, ID 83423-5032; phone _PHONE_, fax _PHONE_.
"New Ultrasound and Artificial Insemination Techniques Improve Sheep Breeding" was published in the October 2009 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.