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Why is the operative word in toilet seat arguments
As we've all become aware in the last year hygiene is the foundation of health.
Toilet hygiene has become a focus in the home and at work. The simple toilet seat has been focused on as never before.
Arguments over the toilet seat revolve around:
why can't I leave the toilet seat up
why should I put the toilet seat down
why do I need to close the toilet seat
why do toilet seats have a lid
The answer to all these "whys" is because of basic personal hygiene and overall community hygiene.
Harpic photos reveal the danger of not closing the toilet seat lid before flushing
Over the years, I've been asked countless times why do toilet seats have lids. Generally, my answers have centred around because it's called into law in the Plumbing and Drainage Act, which satisfied most people.
However, now I can finally answer all the questions about toilet lids.
I can better answer that perennial question of why you should always close the toilet seat lid before flushing.
The answer is simple. The lid is there for good hygiene to protect your health and community health.
I can answer these questions thanks to Harpic the #1 selling toilet cleaner in Australia and forty other countries worldwide.
Harpic commissioned a study to illustrate the dangers we all face by not closing the toilet seat when we flush. Harpic used sophisticated high-speed specialist camera technology to capture a fireworks display of thousands of tiny aerosol droplets being catapulted into the bathroom, contaminating all surfaces up to two meters away. Not only did the droplets spread over a wide area of the bathroom, but they also stayed airborne for up to a minute as they are tiny.
The photos above and below illustrate these fireworks displays graphically illustrating how far into the air a flushing toilet catapults these aerosol droplets.
Flushed toilet water aerosol droplets can contain bacteria & viruses
These photos are of a single toilet flush. Imagine what your towels, facecloths, laundry, makeup and toothbrush look like after multiple toilet flushes with the seat up.
Water in a toilet bowl that has been exposed to harmful pathogens will remain contaminated despite clean water being flushed into the toilet pan multiple times. The contaminated aerosol droplets and particles are very fine and are more than capable of reaching your lower respiratory tract. This potentially can create infections.
If you touch any surface in your bathroom contaminated by the toilet bowl flushing of aerosol droplets you can risk infections if you have cuts or touch your mouth or nose.
Would you clean your teeth with a toothbrush sprayed with flushed toilet water?
Let's face it. None of us would knowingly clean our teeth with a toothbrush that has been sprayed with contaminated toilet water. But the reality is over 50% of the population never close the toilet lid before flushing.
Unhygienic bathrooms really are dangerous
As a spokesman for Harpic stated after their research was made public, "There has never been a more important time to take extra care around our homes. Although the risks associated with germ spread in unhygienic bathrooms are high, the solution to keeping them clean is simple. We hope our new _TAG_ campaign helps inspire people to make simple changes to their cleaning routine that can have long-lasting benefits to the health of the nation."
The Harpic survey of 2000 respondents was undertaken in the UK, but I guarantee the results would apply equally to Australia.
When asked why they did not close the toilet seat lid when flushing the toilet were:
- 47% said they were unaware of the danger in not closing the lid
- 24% said they were afraid to touch the toilet seat lid
- 15% said they forgot to close the toilet seat lid
Three simple solutions to bathroom hygiene
COVID-19 has been a huge motivation to increase bathroom hygiene with Harpic, suggesting the three steps below are a simple common sense approach for a more hygienic bathroom.
Always close the toilet seat lid when flushing the toilet to prevent germs that potentially contain bacteria and viruses spreading over your bathroom.
Ensure you clean your toilet bowl, toilet seat and cistern with a toilet cleaner that removes limescale, providing a home to germs and disinfecting the toilet to guarantee ultimate hygiene.
Always wear gloves when cleaning the toilet and wash your hands afterwards.
It's simple just close the toilet seat lid every time you flush
Closing the toilet seat lid is simple hygiene that helps eliminate the potential spread of COVID-19, which we know is found in human waste.
Just remember when you flush with the toilet seat lid up the contaminated aerosol droplets spread up to two meters in all directions spraying you with the droplets as you redress for up to 35 seconds.
Teach your children always to shut the toilet seat for their health: your health and the health of the entire community.


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Based on a NASA press release
The first continuous global observations of the biological engine that drives life on Earth - the countless forms of plants that cover the land and oceans - were published in the March 30 issue of the journal Science.
This study is based on the first three years of daily observations of ocean algae and land plants from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor, or SeaWiFS, mission, creating the most comprehensive global biological record ever assembled. Scientists will use the new record of the Earth's surface to study the fate of carbon in the atmosphere, the length of terrestrial growing seasons and the vitality of the ocean's food web.
Launched to Earth orbit on August 1, 1997, the satellite's daily observations of the ocean are helping scientists understand how to look at life on a planetary scale and how remotely to track the biological productivity of Earth's vast oceans, which cover seventy percent of the planet's surface.
Researchers expect the detailed new record, which NASA plans to continue for a decade or longer, will reveal as much about how our living planet functions today as the fossil and geologic records have revealed about its past.
"We've never been able to see the Earth this way before," said lead author Michael Behrenfeld, an oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.
"These [SeaWiFS] images reveal the pulse of the planet," said Behrenfeld. "They show how the oceans drive plant life and in turn, our climate. This gives us one of the first global views of three major cycles: seasonal variations from winter to summer, nearly decadal variations from the ocean currents - like the cold El Nino and warming La Nina winds - and finally the very long period changes, like small amplitude human contributions and temperature changes."
The new study presents a global assessment of the fundamental work that plants perform to make life possible - producing food, fiber, and oxygen - and how their productivity changes from season to season and year to year in response to our changing environment.
"With this record we have more biological data today than has been collected by all previous field surveys and ship cruises," says Gene Carl Feldman, SeaWiFS project manager at Goddard. "It would take a ship steaming at 6 knots over 4,000 years to provide the same coverage as a single global SeaWiFS image." Fourteen times every day, SeaWiFS orbits the Earth from pole to pole, providing a complete global view every two days. From orbit, SeaWiFS can pick out terrestrial features as small as 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) across.
The biological record from SeaWiFS indicates that global plant photosynthesis increased between September 1997 and August 2000. Photosynthesis by land plants and algae absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ocean and thus plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric carbon levels. The initial increase in carbon fixation was largely due to the response of marine plants to a strong El Niño to La Niña transition, but the cause of the continued increase during the later portion of the record is not yet clear.
"With three years of observations we can see seasonal changes in plant and algae chlorophyll levels very well, but we don't yet have a long enough record to distinguish multi-year cycles, like El Niño, from fundamental long-term changes caused by such things as higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere," Behrenfeld added.
"The SeaWiFS record provides a baseline against which future estimates of Earth system carbon cycling can be compared," said Feldman.
The new biological record benefits ongoing studies of desertification and changes in growing-season lengths by joining an existing 20-year record of land plant productivity based on observations from meteorological satellites with the new generation of spacecraft instruments. These records will complement ongoing observations obtained on land and at sea.
"SeaWiFS not only adds finer detail to our observing capability, it supplies essential continuity between data records that is critical to long-term monitoring of changes in the biosphere," says biogeochemist James Randerson of the California Institute of Technology, a co-author of the study.
Scientists are using the biological records from SeaWiFS to monitor the health of coral reefs, track harmful "red tides" and algae blooms, and improve global climate models. More han 1600 scientists representing 35 countries have registered to use the data.
This research was conducted by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term research effort dedicated to studying how human-induced and natural change affects our global environment.
NASA plans to produce a five-year record using SeaWiFS observations and to extend the continuous biological record with two Earth Observing System (EOS) spacecraft, Terra, launched in December 1999, and Aqua, scheduled for launch later this year. This constellation of EOS satellites allows U.S. scientists to examine many different aspects of Earth's atmosphere, oceans and continents. These missions will help scientists answer questions such as how human activity contributes to changes in the Earth's environment, and how Earth's carbon cycles through the land, ocean and atmosphere.
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The Colors of Life (NASA)
The Carbon Cycle (Thinkquest)
SeaWiFs Program (NASA)
Monitoring the Earth from Space with SeaWiFS (NASA)

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Polish Russophobia is Mostly Artificial, Stoked by Russia's Enemies
Many of the conflicts between Russia and Poland have historically been, and continue to be instigated by foreign groups from the Vatican to Western Media. In reality, Russians and Poles are Slavic brothers
This article from our archives was first published on RI in September 2017
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has blasted the Polish government for inculcating anti-Russian attitudes among the population. Speaking to Sputnik, political observer Eduard Popov said that while Warsaw regularly uses Russophobia for political reasons, there's no evidence to suggest that Poles have a sort of natural hostility toward Russia.
Speaking to students and teachers at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Friday, the Russian foreign minister lamented that the Polish public is being "brainwashed" into holding "unequivocally anti-Russian" attitudes.
Check out this video at the bottom of the page of Russian and Polish women comparing their beautiful languages.
"I see here an obsession with creating an atmosphere of total resentment by society of anything related to Russia," the diplomat said, answering a question about the reasons behind Warsaw's anti-Russian policy, including the recent decision to demolish hundreds of Soviet-era war monuments."
According to Lavrov, Poland's Russophobia is being whipped up by people who "diligently" rewrite history, who are working to revise Polish nationalism based on ideals of superiority over others, and who would like to "pin the blame for all of Poland's misfortunes on [Russia]."
The West propagates the narrative of an aggressive Russia constantly attacking poor defenses Poland but in reality, Poland was regional power in its day, which often launched aggressive unprovoked invasions against Russia. Poland invaded Russia long before Russia ever invaded Poland. The above painting by Jan Matejko shows Polish King Boleslav the Brave capturing the capitol of ancient Russia, Kiev, in 1018. Legend has it he damaged his sword on the golden gate and since then it was called the notched sword. During the time of troubles in 1600's, Poland even occupied Moscow.
This includes Warsaw's claim that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the real reason behind World War II, the diplomat said. In Lavrov's view, by focusing on the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, Polish leaders seem to forget that "at the time of the Munich Conspiracy, when Czechoslovakia was divided up, Poland quietly took for itself a very tasty morsel."
"The fact that this was a very serious impetus for creating potential for conflict in Europe is something Poland prefers not to speak about, just as it prefers not to mention that long before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Great Britain and France concluded their own, similar treaty with Nazi Germany," Lavrov emphasized.
Ultimately, the senior diplomat noted that in this environment of hostility, even elementary communication and diplomacy is difficult.
Asked to comment on Lavrov's remarks, Eduard Popov, a Moscow-based political analyst whose areas of expertise include Russian-Polish relations, said that the idea of Poles' naturally-occurring anti-Russian sentiment is really only one part of the equation.
"Poland's anti-Russian traditions have a long history," the observer said, speaking to Radio Sputnik. "Here we can recall the three divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth," in which Russia took part, "the subsequent participation of the Poles in aggression against Russia on the side of the Napoleonic armies, and so on and so forth."
During their occupation of Moscow, they imprisoned, beat, and starved to death Patriarch Hermogenes of Moscow, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, over a century before any Russian army would set foot on Polish Soil, and partition it. One could argue the Poles started the conflict, and Russia merely won.
 "But anti-Russian sentiment in Poland is just one side of the coin. The other side is pro-Russian sentiment. This too shouldn't be discounted," Popov stressed.
The world popular Polish video game series, The Witcher, based on the book of the same name, was hugely successful in Russia due to it being based on their common Slavic mythology and culture. Whilst the game was popular enough in America, that Obama was given a copy by the Polish government, it will always be closer to the hearts of Slavic Russians. Below is a character who is clearly inspired by Russian-Ukrainian Cossacks, note the distinctive hairstyle and sabre. Despite Russophobia in Polish culture, Poles and Russians are very close.
The analyst drew attention to Lavrov's choice of words in saying that Poles were being "brainwashed." This was true, he said, noting that to some extent, anti-Russian views really are being artificially inculcated among the Polish public.
"Polish Russophobia, even though it has its historical roots, is something that is sufficiently engineered, something artificially imposed on Polish society. I recently spoke to representatives in the Polish opposition, and was told the following fact: about 70% of Polish media is controlled by German media structures, while the remaining 30% is controlled by Americans. Do we really need any more evidence that Polish public opinion is being formed along a deliberately anti-Russian slant?"
Ultimately, Popov said that he was optimistic, and that it wasn't worth getting hung up exclusively on the negative aspects of Russian-Polish relations.
"We must remember that along with official diplomacy there is unofficial diplomacy – people's diplomacy. Not all Poles adhere to the anti-Russian perspective being imposed on them. This is something that manifests itself in personal communication. According to polls, about 35% of Poles have positive attitudes toward Russia. This is a very important factor on which to build the foundation of future relations between Russia and a Poland that's free and independent of the West," Popov concluded.
Despite their political differences, Polish and Russian peoples are both Slavic, and share cultural and linguistic roots. Many Russians and Poles see through the Anti-Slavic agenda imposed on them by foreign powers and see each other as Slavic brothers. Check out this video to see two beautiful women comparing the Polish and Russian languages.
Source: Sputnik
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Eucommia ulmoides Oliver is one of a few woody plants capable of producing abundant quantities of trans-polyisoprene rubber in their leaves, barks, and seed coats. One cDNA library each was constructed from its outer stem tissue and inner stem tissue. They comprised a total of 27,752 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) representing 10,520 unigenes made up of 4,302 contigs and 6,218 singletons. Homologues of genes coding for rubber particle membrane proteins that participate in the synthesis of high-molecular poly-isoprene in latex were isolated, as well as those encoding known major latex proteins (MLPs). MLPs extensively shared ESTs, indicating their abundant expression during trans-polyisoprene rubber biosynthesis. The six mevalonate pathway genes which are implicated in the synthesis of isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP), a starting material of poly-isoprene biosynthesis, were isolated, and their role in IPP biosynthesis was confirmed by functional complementation of suitable yeast mutants. Genes encoding five full-length trans-isoprenyl diphosphate synthases were also isolated, and two among those synthesized farnesyl diphosphate from IPP and dimethylallyl diphosphate, an assumed intermediate of rubber biosynthesis. This study should provide a valuable resource for further studies of rubber synthesis in E. ulmoides.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Plant Science


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Insignia form an indispensable part of Masaryk Universtiy traditions. As early as the Middle Ages, insignia have stood for a sovereign symbol of universities. At first, insignia reflected the exclusive status of universities in the medieval society; in the modern times, however, the meaning of insignia was reduced only to be fulfilling a representative function. A seal, a sceptre and a medal with a chain represent the oldest insignia of the university. The university could obtain its principal insignias in a traditional way – insignias were donated by the founder of the university or by another distinguished persona.
President Masaryk commissioned Otakar Španiel to design a new medal. The foreside depicts a portrait of T. G. Masaryk; while the essential motif of the reverse side is the dedication: "To Masaryk University in Brno by the President" together with a facsimile of Masaryk's signature. The same foreside, but with different reverse side – the central national emblem – appears on the Vice-Chancellor chain medal.
The celebration ceremony of presenting insignias to Masaryk University took place in the after-Munich atmosphere on 15 December 1938. At the outset of the occupation, insignias were put in a safe at the Faculty of Law, which was occupied in November 1939 (after the closure of the university). This caused the later decision to keep the insignias in the Mortgage and Land Bank of Moravia safe (Hypoteční a zemědělská banka moravská), where they were kept until 1945. The rector's sceptre as well as the rector's and vice-chancellor's medals was sent to the Ministry of Education where they were to be destroyed. Nevertheless, owing to the patriotic clerical workers, these jewels were saved in the National Museum and at the Ministry.
In 1960, the university was renamed into the University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně. In connection with this change, a new rector chain was provided. Its medal depicted a portrait of J. E. Purkyně on the foreside – which was inspired by his plaque medal in Prague made by Josef Václav Myslbek – with the inscription of "UNIVERSITAS PURKYNIANA". Watson's and Crick's scheme of the deoxyribonucleic double spiral during its division was used for the reverse side. The sketch was drawn by Pavel Bravený. The motto of the faculty is "SCIENTIA EST POTENTIA". The author of the pictorial concept of the medal was the sculptor Andrej Peter. The medal of new rector's chain is different from its predecessors in its size – the caliber was 80 mm, while all the other examples were minted with a caliber of 65 mm. The chain had been used until the beginning of 1990 – a year when the university returned to its original name.
In 1937, a competition for designing university sceptres was announced. Designs of Václav Rada and Ladislav Bartoníček won. The lion with a double tail and a Slovak emblem on its shield was chosen for the capital of the sceptre.
The four founding faculties – the Faculty of Law, Medicine, Science and Arts – have their own traditional insignias, medals with chains and sceptres. Portraits of outstanding Czech personalities of particular science fields were chosen for the foresides of the medals in 1936. Otakar Španiel was the designer of all four medals – he also created the rector's medal. Along with him, Jaroslav Benda also contributed to the designs of the chains. The medals of particular faculties depict portraits of distinguished representatives of the subject fields at the faculties. Moreover, mottos relating to these personalities form an integral part of the portraits. In the period when other faculties were established, a need for new insignias arose. A traditional conception to present a medal with a portrait of an outstanding personality from a particular field was adopted; however, the Faculty of Social Studies decided otherwise and chose a symbol of dialogue instead.
The university sceptres of the founding faculties were made in 1938 according to the designs of Václav Rada and Ladislav Bartoníček. The chains, together with medals, are made of gilded silver, the rector's medal being an exception – it was minted in a golden compound. As for the newly established faculties, the authors of the designs and implementations of the insignias were chosen individually, on the basis of announced contests.
The Faculty of Sport Studies does not have its own insignia.
Albín Bráf is a representative of the law field of study – his portrait is depicted on the medal of the Faculty of Law; the motto "LEX DURA SED LEX" constitutes the reverse side of the medal.
The Faculty of Law chose a figure of Justice holding a sword for its sceptre.
This faculty chose a portrait of Jan Evangelista Purkyně with his motto "MEDICINAE MUNUS – SCIENTIA DE VITA HUMANA".
The main motif of the Faculty of Medicine is Aeskulap's staff with a snake.
Gregor Mendel is the main figure of the Faculty of Science sceptre with the motto "IN NATURA SPES ET VERITAS".
The sun with rays constitutes the capital of the Faculty of Science sceptre.
František Palacký with his motto "SVOJI K SVÉMU A VŽDY PODLE PRAVDY" belongs to the symbols of the Faculty of Arts.
This faculty chose the owl standing on an open book as its symbol.
The medal on the rector's chain was designed by Václav Adolf Kovanič. The foreside represents a portrait of J. A. Komenský; the reverse side depicts hands passing on a torch. The motto of the Faculty of Education is "TRADITIO LAMPADIS".
As the burning torch was chosen as the symbol of this faculty, the sceptre was made according to that (after the design by Eduard Milén). The insignias originate from 1965.
The Faculty of Economics and Administration was established in 1991; it chose a portrait of the first rector of Masaryk University and an outstanding economist Karel Engliš for the foreside of its medal. The motto "VÝKONNOST, HOSPODÁRNOST, SOLIDÁRNOST" forms its reverse side and it constitutes a part of the composition with symbolic church of wisdom and knowledge.
The capital of the sceptre bears a motive of a winged helmet. The design of the chain and sceptre was created by sculptor Michal Vitanovský. The sceptre was made by sculptor Pavel Filip, following Vitanovský's design. The faculty has been using its insignias since November 1995.
The Faculty of Informatics was established in 1994 as the seventh faculty of Masaryk University. The faculty has its own insignia since March 2007. The author of the insignia is the sculptor and art metal caster Jaromír Gargulák.
The portrait and signature of Kurt Gödel (_PHONE_) decorates the foreside of the medal. Kurt Gödel, who was born in Brno, is considered one of the most important scientists of all times working in the field of Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy. His ground-breaking results became a part of foundational theoretical results contributing to Informatics as a scientific discipline with far-reaching practical outcomes. The motif of the reverse side of the medal is the emblem of the Faculty.
The capital of the sceptre refers to the symbol of fire as represented by Prometheus's bringing fire to mankind. Fire was once essential for mankind as a rudimentary technology of versatile use, much alike the present role of Informatics.
The expanding Faculty of Social Studies has it own insignias, too. The designer is Lefteris Joanidis, who is also the author of the faculty logo. In the case of this faculty, however, the portrait of a distinguished persona was replaced by the three-dimensional depiction of the faculty symbol (used both for a one-sided medal and a capital of the sceptre). These insignias have been used since May 2004.
The Faculty of Sports Studies was established in 2002 as the nineth faculty of Masaryk University. It has used its insignia since September 2006. The insignia was designed by Lefteris Joanidis.
The dean's chain bears a medal with an engraved logo of the faculty on its foreside. An inscription kalokagathia decorates the reverse side of the medal.
The upper part of the sceptr – the capital – is composed of a medal which bears the logo of the faculty on its foreside and the inscription of kalokagathia on the reverse side. The laurel garland with gems in the faculty's colors frames the medal. In this sequence of the lower and upper parts of the scepter the symbolic appellation is hidden: there is no victory without fire.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


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Wire fences and glow-in-the-dark paint are some of the simple changes experts think could stop horrific smashes on country roads.
After decades spent on strategies to stamp out dangerous driving habits, there is now growing recognition the Australian road network needs to be better designed to accommodate another cause of serious accidents: basic mistakes.
The theory is simple - people will always make mistakes behind the wheel but when they do, infrastructure should be far more forgiving. More roads should be divided, wider, smoother and brighter at night.
However, the size of the task is daunting; the regional road network stretches millions of kilometres and government coffers are bare.
Lori Mooren, a former senior road-safety bureaucrat in NSW, said regional Australia should look to Sweden for inspiration.
Over the past decade, Swedish road authorities have presided over a massive reduction in crashes using what's known as the '2+1' approach. Two-lane, undivided roads with wide shoulders are reconfigured so two lanes run in one direction and one runs in the other (alternating every few kilometres). The lanes are divided by flexible, but strong, wire barriers, eliminating head-on collisions. Barriers are also installed on the edge of the road in some sections, to prevent cars from running off the road and into trees and poles.
The result: a 50 per cent reduction in fatalities and injuries. In Ireland, a one-year trial of the scheme lowered the rate of fatalities and severe injuries by 50 to 60 per cent.
A NSW Roads and Maritime Services spokeswoman said wire-rope barriers cost about $300 to $400 per metre to purchase and install. Put another way, between $300,000 and $400,000 per kilometre. Other estimates hover at about $150 a metre.
In 2010-11, the total national expenditure of specific safety-focused road works was $506 million – just five per cent of the total investment in Australia's road infrastructure that year.
The National Road Safety Strategy, adopted by state and federal governments last year, found that to further cut the toll, "much greater emphasis needs to be placed on initiatives that improve the inherent safety of the road transport system".
On high-speed rural routes, the installation of a roundabout can lower casualty crashes by 70 per cent. In the Netherlands, radical 'glow-in-the-dark' line markings are about to be rolled out to help prevent night-time accidents. Relatively inexpensive changes such as sealing road shoulders, clearing dangerous trees, line marking and tactile 'rumble strips', also help stop crashes or minimise their severity.
But the vast majority of the regional road network is controlled by cash-strapped councils struggling to keep pace with basic maintenance. Rebuilding roads and rolling out modern safety schemes are high on their wish-lists but low in their order of priorities.
The chairman of the non-partisan lobby outfit Australian Rural Road Group, John Coulton, said rural councils were being short-changed and needed more cash.
His group wants a central body established to independently assess which roads most require safety works and distribute funds accordingly.
"I'm cynical enough to know all levels of government often only govern with an eye to the next election and we'd like to take the politics out of the issue," Mr Coulton said.
"I think we need much more money spent on those little things that can make a big difference to road safety and if that money went where an independent assessment said it was truly needed, I can guarantee more would be going to the bush and less on things like fancy roads around Perth Airport."
Ms Mooren, now a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales, agreed safety often took a back seat.
"When I was in charge of road safety for (NSW) RTA I used to get phone calls from people in regional areas who were working on road development projects and they would often tell me when the budget was pinched or it looked like there would be a blowout, compromises were made and invariably they were safety compromises," she said.
Read more in our road safety series:


Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Practice Expedition April 2018
The Bellshill Academy Bronze Duke of Edinburgh group recently completed their first overnight expedition to Strathyre in Stirling. The group successfully navigated from Kilmahog to Balquhidder, working as a team to read the map and navigate using a compass. The group also worked on their expedition aim to track their steps and use the outdoors to increase their fitness. The school group of S6 pupils were also joined by a group of pupils from S3-4 who are completing their Duke of Edinburgh award via the local youth group in the Orbiston area of Bellshill. Both groups had an enjoyable expedition and worked hard to learn the skills they will need to pass their final expedition. The pupils are now focusing on their exams and will complete their final expedition to Auchengillan at the start of June.


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arine.
Firming agents Stabilisers maintain the uniform dispersion of substances in solid and semi-solid foods.
Flavour enhancers enhance the existing taste and/or odour of a food.
Foaming agents maintain the uniform dispersion of gases in aerated foods.
Gelling agents modify the texture of the food through gel formation.
Glazing agents impart a coating to the external surface of the food, for example, a wax coating on fruit to improve its appearance.
Humectants reduce moisture loss in foods. For example, glycerine may be added to icing to prevent it from drying out.
Preservatives retard or prevent the deterioration of food by micro-organisms, and thus prevent spoilage of foods.
Raising agents liberate gases, thereby increasing the volume of a food. Raising agents are often used in baked goods.
Sweeteners replace the sweetness normally provided by sugars in foods without contributing significantly to their available energy.
Thickeners increase the viscosity of a food. For example, a sauce might contain a thickener to give it the desired consistency.
*Sourced directly from: Food Standards Australia and New Zealand
Helpful websites and organisations
This information has been provided by Leanne Cooper from Sneakys baby and child nutrition. Leanne is a qualified nutritionist and mother of two very active boys.


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Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science
Volume 123 Issue 7 October 2014 pp _PHONE_
Many of the applied techniques in water resources management can be directly or indirectly influenced by hydro-climatology predictions. In recent decades, utilizing the large scale climate variables as predictors of hydrological phenomena and downscaling numerical weather ensemble forecasts has revolutionized the long-lead predictions. In this study, two types of rainfall prediction models are developed to predict the rainfall of the Zayandehrood dam basin located in the central part of Iran. The first seasonal model is based on large scale climate signals data around the world. In order to determine the inputs of the seasonal rainfall prediction model, the correlation coefficient analysis and the new Gamma Test (GT) method are utilized. Comparison of modelling results shows that the Gamma test method improves the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of modelling performance as 8% and 10% for dry and wet seasons, respectively. In this study, Support Vector Machine (SVM) model for predicting rainfall in the region has been used and its results are compared with the benchmark models such as K-nearest neighbours (KNN) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The results show better performance of the SVM model at testing stage. In the second model, statistical downscaling model (SDSM) as a popular downscaling tool has been used. In this model, using the outputs from GCM, the rainfall of Zayandehrood dam is projected under two climate change scenarios. Most effective variables have been identified among 26 predictor variables. Comparison of the results of the two models shows that the developed SVM model has lesser errors in monthly rainfall estimation. The results show that the rainfall in the future wet periods are more than historical values and it is lower than historical values in the dry periods. The highest monthly uncertainty of future rainfall occurs in March and the lowest in July.
Volume 128 | Issue 8
Click here for Editorial Note on CAP Mode


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RESOURCESTraining Tips, running advice + more
Mastering the Taper: Essential Tips for Race Preparation
Optimize Recovery and Performance with Effective Tapering Strategies
Tapering is a crucial phase in your training leading up to a race, where you reduce your training volume and intensity to allow your body to recover and peak on race day. Here are some tips to make the most of your taper:
- Gradually Reduce Mileage: Start tapering 2-3 weeks before your race by gradually decreasing your weekly mileage. Aim to reduce your overall volume by around 20-30% each week leading up to the race. This allows your body to recover and replenish energy stores while maintaining fitness.
- Maintain Intensity: While reducing volume, maintain the intensity of your workouts. Continue incorporating speed work, tempo runs, or race pace efforts to keep your body accustomed to running at race pace. However, ensure you have sufficient recovery time between intense sessions.
- Prioritize Rest and Recovery: Use the extra time during your taper to prioritize rest and recovery. Get adequate sleep each night, practice proper nutrition to support recovery, and consider incorporating activities like stretching, foam rolling, or gentle cross-training to promote muscle relaxation and overall well-being.
- Stay Mentally Engaged: Use the taper period to visualize your race and mentally prepare. Review your race strategy, visualize yourself crossing the finish line strong, and focus on positive affirmations. This mental engagement can help build confidence and reduce pre-race anxiety.
- Maintain Routine: Stick to your established routine during the taper to maintain a sense of familiarity. Continue with your regular pre-run rituals, hydration practices, and nutrition plan. Avoid introducing new foods, equipment, or major changes that could disrupt your routine.
- Stay Active: While reducing training volume, incorporate light, low-impact activities like easy runs, swimming, cycling, or yoga to keep your body moving and maintain fitness without adding excessive stress. However, avoid high-impact activities or intense workouts that could cause fatigue or risk injury.
- Trust Your Training: Remind yourself that tapering is an essential part of the training process. Trust in the work you have put in during your training cycle and have confidence in your abilities. Remember that the purpose of the taper is to arrive at the starting line fresh, rested, and ready to perform your best.
By following these tapering tips, you can optimize your body's recovery, reduce the risk of injury, and arrive at race day feeling refreshed and ready to give your best performance. Embrace the taper as an opportunity to fine-tune your preparation and allow your body to reach its peak potential.
5 mistakes to avoid when training for a marathon
Marathon do's and don'ts: 5 common mistakes to avoid
Here are five mistakes to avoid when training for a marathon
- Not following a training plan: Not following a training program you risk under or over training, which can lead to increase risk of injury or impact your rae performance
- Not taking rest days: Rest and recovery is just as important as training – in fact it is part of training. Skipping rest days can lead to overuse injuries, fatigue, and hinder your progress.
- Not doing strength training: Incorporating strength training into your routine is crucial for becoming a stronger and more resilient runner. It helps improve overall muscle balance, prevents imbalances and injuries, and enhances your running efficiency.
- Running too much: Running excessive mileage without proper progression can lead to burnout, injuries, and fatigue. Gradually increase your mileage to allow your body to adapt and recover.
- Skipping Stretching and Mobility Work: Flexibility and mobility are essential for injury prevention and maintaining a healthy range of motion. Incorporate dynamic warm-ups, post-run stretches, and foam rolling to improve flexibility and release tight muscles.
Prioritize these strategies to optimize your marathon training. By following a training plan, allowing for adequate rest, incorporating strength training, managing mileage, and focusing on flexibility, you'll set yourself up for a successful and injury-free race day.
How to run a faster Marathon and Half Marathon
Running faster in a marathon or half marathon requires a combination of training, race strategies, and mental preparation. Here are some essential tips to help you improve your race times:
- Train Smart: Follow a well-structured training plan that includes a mix of easy runs, long runs, speed workouts, tempo runs, and also incorporates practice races. Practice races are shorter distance events that simulate race conditions and help you gauge your fitness level, test your pacing strategies, and build race-specific experience.
- Incorporate Speed Work: Integrate interval training and speed work into your training routine. This could involve track workouts, tempo runs, or hill repeats. These workouts improve your running economy, increase your speed, and enhance your ability to sustain a faster pace.
- Strength Training: Include strength training exercises to build overall body strength and enhance running efficiency. Focus on exercises that target your leg muscles, core, and upper body. Strengthening your muscles improves your running form, power, and prevents injuries.
- Mental Preparation: Train your mind to stay focused and push through challenging moments during the race. Practice positive self-talk, visualization techniques, and set small, achievable goals to keep yourself motivated and mentally resilient during the race.
- Race Day Strategies: Develop a race day plan that includes pacing strategies and fueling/hydration strategies. Start conservatively, maintain a steady pace, and finish strong. Take advantage of aid stations for hydration and fueling, and practice your nutrition plan during your training runs and practice races.
- Rest and Recovery: Allow ample time for rest and recovery in your training schedule. Adequate sleep, proper nutrition, and active recovery techniques like stretching and foam rolling are essential to optimize your performance and reduce the risk of injuries.
- Practice Patience and Consistency: Improving race times takes time and consistent effort. Be patient with your progress and avoid the temptation to push too hard too soon. Consistency in training, focusing on gradual improvements, and listening to your body will lead to better results over time.
By incorporating these tips into your training and race preparation, you can work towards running a faster marathon or half marathon. Enjoy the process, celebrate small victories along the way, and embrace the journey of becoming a faster and stronger runner.


Is 254 a prime number? What are the divisors of 254?
Parity of 254
254 is an even number, because it is evenly divisible by 2: 254 / 2 = 127.
Find out more:
Is 254 a perfect square number?
Thus, the square root of 254 is not an integer, and therefore 254 is not a square number.
What is the square number of 254?
The square of a number (here 254) is the result of the product of this number (254) by itself (i.e., 254 × 254); the square of 254 is sometimes called "raising 254 to the power 2", or "254 squared".
The square of 254 is 64 516 because 254 × 254 = 2542 = 64 516.
As a consequence, 254 is the square root of 64 516.
Number of digits of 254
254 is a number with 3 digits.
What are the multiples of 254?
The multiples of 254 are all integers evenly divisible by 254, that is all numbers such that the remainder of the division by 254 is zero. There are infinitely many multiples of 254. The smallest multiples of 254 are:
How to determine whether an integer is a prime number?
To determine the primality of a number, several algorithms can be used. The most naive technique is to test all divisors strictly smaller to the number of which we want to determine the primality (here 254). First, we can eliminate all even numbers greater than 2 (and hence 4, 6, 8…). Then, we can stop this check when we reach the square root of the number of which we want to determine the primality (here the square root is about 15.937). Historically, the sieve of Eratosthenes (dating from the Greek mathematics) implements this technique in a relatively efficient manner.
Numbers near 254
 - Preceding numbers: …252, 253
 - Following numbers: 255, 256
Nearest numbers from 254
 - Preceding prime number: 251
 - Following prime number: 257
Find out whether some integer is a prime number


text:
Hopefully you pay attention to the news and have alerts set up on your emergency radio, because boil advisories are very common.
During a boil alert, the water may be unsafe to drink and must be treated. Other methods of water treatment can be used during a boil alert, but filtering is not going to be effective.
What Is a Boil Advisory?
Also called a boil alert, a boil advisory is issued whenever there may be contaminants in the tap water. These contaminants may include:
Boiling water for at least 1 minute will kill all of these contaminants.
To properly boil water during an alert, you should heat the water until you see bubbles coming to the surface. This is known as a "rolling boil." Start counting your 1 minute from when the water is at a rolling boil.
If you live at an elevation of above 6,561 feet, then you'll need to boil the water for at least 3 minutes. This is because water boils at a lower temperature at high altitudes.
Why Are Boil Advisories Issued?
There are four main reasons that boil alerts are issued. Depending on the reason for the boil alert, different contaminants might be present.
- Water Main Breaks: When a water main breaks, contaminants from the soil around the pipe can enter the pipes.
- Power Outages: During large-scale power outages, the water treatment plant may stop working. If your power goes out, don't use any tap water until you've checked whether there is a boil alert in place!
- Sewage Leaks: When sewage pipes leak and get into the water distribution system, there is a huge risk of viral, bacterial, and other pathogenic contaminants.
- Pressure Loss: The loss of pressure in the water system can allow contaminants to enter the pipes.
- Natural Disasters: Especially during flooding, the water treatment center is unable to handle all of the water. Untreated water gets into the distribution system. Because sewage mains overflow or break during disasters (such as earthquakes), the water could be full of contaminants.
Why Water Filters Aren't Adequate During Boil Advisories
A good water filter (I'm not talking about your standard kitchen filter) will have a micron rating of 0.2 or less. These water filters are very effective at removing bacteria and protozoa.
Water filters will NOT remove viruses though!
During some boil alerts, such as those caused by water main breaks, there is little risk of viral contamination. In theory, a good water filter could make the water safe to drink. However, the water department rarely tells us why the boil alert was issued. Always assume the worst and treat the water for viruses too.
Depending on where you live, there might actually be a big risk of viruses in your water. One EPA study looked at drinking water from 14 communities which don't treat the water with chlorine or UV light. They found that 24% of water samples contained viruses!
Boil Alerts and Chemical Spills
One time you won't hear a boil alert is after a chemical spill or other type of chemical contamination. Boiling will not remove chemicals from water. In fact, boiling actually makes the threat worse because evaporation concentrates the chemicals.
If a chemical spill occurs, your city will tell residents to only drink bottled water. These alerts are usually called "Do Not Drink" or "Do Not Use" alerts. This actually happens quite frequently, such as the 2016 chemical spill in Corpus Christi and the 2017 chemical runoff in Airway Heights.
The takeaway point? Always have bottled water in addition to a way to boil water!
Recommended: The Ultimate Guide To Emergency Water
Water Safety during a Boil Advisory
Use Only Boiled Water for:
- Drinking and cooking
- Infant formula
- Pets' water
- Brushing teeth
- Washing produce
- Making coffee (most coffee makers don't get hot enough to purify the water)
Showering during a Boil Advisory:
You can safely shower with tap water during a boil advisory. However, young children should be carefully supervised to make sure they don't swallow any water. To reduce risk, give them sponge baths until the boil alert is lifted.
Washing Dishes during a Boil Advisory:
If your dishwasher has a "hot-Sani" setting, then it can be used for washing dishes during the boil alert. Otherwise, you will need to sanitize your dishes after washing them with tap water.
To sanitize your dishes,
- Mix 1oz (6 teaspoons) of unscented bleach with 3 gallons of lukewarm water.
- Soak dishes in this solution for 1 minute.
- Let air dry.
What If the Tap Water is Yellow or Cloudy?
So long as you've boiled the water, even yellow or cloud water will be safe to drink.
Note that the water can still have a nasty taste to it. To get rid of the bad taste, add a pinch of salt and let it sit before drinking. Or, add lemon juice or powdered drinks to mask the bad taste.
Alternatives to Boiling Water
If you are unable to boil water for treating it, there are some other options.
Unscented bleach is very effective and perfectly safe for treating water. It will kill bacteria, parasites, and viruses. You can find detailed instructions on how to treat water with bleach here.
2. Water Purification Tablets or Drops
These are great to add to your disaster supplies. They are small, last a long time, and very easy to use. You can get them here.
3. UV Water Treatment
UV water treatment systems look like pens that you stick into the water. They shoot out UV rays which scramble the DNA of bacteria, protozoa, and viruses.
They are highly effective, though there is some debate about how long the effect lasts for. If you wait too long to consume the water, the DNA could "unscramble" and cause the pathogens to become activate again.
I'm not the biggest fan of UV water treatment systems for disaster prep because they rely on batteries to work and they are expensive. You can have a look at one here on Amazon if you are interested.
4. Sawyer Point Zero Two Water Filter
As a general rule, no water filter will make water safe during a boil advisory. Even the best camping water filters won't remove viruses. However, there is one exception.
The "Point Zero Two" water filter made by Sawyer filters down to 0.02 microns (hence the name). This is small enough to filter out even viruses.
The water filter is fairly pricey but it comes with a faucet adapter and lasts a lifetime.
Key Disaster Preparedness Takeaways:


text:
In front of a famous background of stars and galaxies lies some of Earth's more unusual trees.
Known as quiver trees, they are actually
aloe plants that can grow to tree-like proportions.
The quiver tree
name is derived from the historical usefulness of their hollowed branches as dart holders.
Occurring primarily in southern
Africa, the trees pictured in the
above 16-exposure composite are in
Quiver Tree Forest
located in southern Namibia.
Some of the tallest quiver trees
in the park are estimated to be about 300 years old.
is light from the small town of
Far in the distance,
arching across the background, is the majestic
central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy.
Even further in the distance, visible on the image left, are the
Small Magellanic Clouds,
smaller satellite galaxies of the Milky Way that are
prominent in the skies of
Earth's southern hemisphere.
Credit & Copyright:


text:
A wet nurse
is a woman who breast feeds
a baby that is not her own. These children may be known as milk-siblings and in some cultures share a special relationship.
Reasons for use
A wet nurse may be employed if the mother
of a baby is unable or unwilling to breast-feed her infant. The reasons may range from drug use (prescription
), to illnesses such as cancer and their treatment. Wet nurses have also been required for a perceived insufficient production of breast milk, i.e. when the mother feels incapable of adequately nursing her child, especially following multiple births
. One traditional reason for the appearance of wet nurses in all cultures was death of women in childbirth from complications, a reason that has disappeared with modern medicine.
Some wet nurses also serve as a midwife during childbirth.
A woman can only serve as a wet nurse when she is lactating
. It is often thought that this means the wet nurse must have recently given birth to a child of her own. This may be the case, but not necessarily, since regular suckling on a woman's breast can elicit the production of milk via a neural reflex through production of prolactin
The practice of using wet nurses is ancient and found in many cultures. Sometimes it is linked to social class
. Members of property-owning classes had their children wet-nursed, in the hope of becoming pregnant again quickly to ensure an heir
. (Lactation can suppress ovulation
.) Poor women, especially those who suffered the stigma
of giving birth to an illegitimate
child, sometimes had to give their baby up, temporarily or permanently, and a wet nurse would look after it.
One myth holds that the Egyptian princess Bathiah tried giving baby Moses to wet nurses, but he would not take their milk, for he was destined to speak with the Shekhinah. The prophet Muhammad was wet-nursed by Halimah bint Abi Dhuayb. Wet nursing was reported in France in the time of Louis XIV, the early 17th century. Later, Napoleon was wet-nursed by a woman called Camilla. Wet nurses were common for children of all social ranks in the southern United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Women took in babies for money in Victorian Britain, and nursed them themselves or fed them with whatever was cheapest. This was known as baby-farming; poor care sometimes resulted in high infant death rates.
Wet nursing has sometimes been used with old or sick people who have trouble taking other nutrition. John Jacob Astor and John D. Rockefeller reportedly hired wet nurses for their own use in their old age.
Sigmund Freud's theories about the Oedipal complex are speculated to have been the result of his being raised by a wet-nurse, rather than his mother. This dissociation from his mother prevented the Westermarck effect from taking hold.
Through the widespread availability of infant formula
, wet nurses are no longer necessary in developed nations
and, therefore, are not common. The act of nursing a baby other than one's own often provokes strong negative reactions in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, being compared to wife swapping
and potentially viewed as child abuse
. When a mother is unable to nurse her own infant, an acceptable mediated substitute is expressed milk (or especially colostrum
) donated to milk banks
, analogous to blood banks
The use of a wet nurse is still a common practice in many developing countries, although it poses a risk of HIV infection. The use of a wetnurse is seen as a status symbol in some parts of modern China.
Islamic law or sharia specifies the permanent family-like relationships (known as rada) incurred by people who were nursed by the same woman, i.e. who grew up together as youngsters. They and various specific relatives cannot marry, that is, they are mahram, and the rules of modesty known as hijab are relaxed, as they would be for family members.
Examples in fiction
- In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet the character Nurse had been Juliet's wet nurse. "Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat." 1.3.72
- In George Moore's novel Esther Waters, the eponymous heroine works as a wet nurse after the birth of her son while leaving him in the hands of a baby farmer.
- In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, set in a time of great poverty, a woman whose baby has just died, and consequently whose breasts are engorged with milk, wet-nurses a man at the point of death, as no other nourishment is available, a reference to Roman Charity.
- In the movie Spartacus, Crassus captures Spartacus's wife and baby. Since he wants Varinia as a concubine, he purchases a wet nurse for her baby. Varinia rejects his offer, saying, "I sent her away: I prefer to nurse the child myself."
- In Blackadder II, Nursie, the Queen's childhood nurse, is commonly perceived as being a wet nurse: "In the old days, it was all difficult choices. Should you have Nursie milk or moo-cow milk? Of course, it was always Nursie milk…."


text:
Students at Brigham Young University are developing a high-tech piece of baby wear that will help put parents worried about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at ease. Using a built-in pulse oximeter, their wireless smart sock can monitor both a sleeping child's heart and breathing rates without hindering them from getting the rest they need.
The Owlet Baby Monitor, as the students have dubbed it, won't stop whatever's responsible for SIDS-related deaths. But by connecting to a smartphone app it can immediately alert parents to a drop in the baby's heart rate or blood oxygen levels before it's too late to do anything at all.
The students are still a long ways off from releasing a commercially viable product, but they're moving forward with patent applications and refining their prototype. Eventually they hope that one day the Owlet could be responsible for reducing the number of SIDS-related deaths that occur every year. Sure, they it might not be as cute as the footsie pajamas you've got in stock, but these do so much more than just look adorable. [Owlet via Brigham Young University]


1 January 2015 - THE FIVE-COLOUR RIVER
G'day folks,
Happy New Year to you all. Let's hope it has everything that you wish for.
Now, here is something different. The Cano Cristales river, or the five color river, as the locals call it, starts its journey at the foot of a Colombian mountain range - Micarna. It continues flowing eastward to meet with the Guivero river. A traveller happening upon the crystal river may find five different colors in its waters: yellow, blue, green, black and red.
The reason for this fiesta of colors is actually biological. It is caused by the materials the many types of algae living in the river produce. The hue of the colors depends on the time of year and the swiftness of the current.
The river, which does look as if it was a path to paradise, is truly an ecological wonder, and while most of the year it hides behind a costume of dim greens and cool blues, for a short time each year it blooms with a rainbow of dazzling colors.
During the Colombian wet season, the water flows too quickly to hold the color, and during the summer there isn't enough water, but for a short few months between these two seasons, there are many types of algae colonies that for thousands of years have continued to give the river its name.
 Now, check out these shots:
Clancy's comment: Nature is amazing, eh? Many humans imagine that they are the greatest inventors.
I'm...
Think about this!


ascal's INHERITED (compare above the BeepMe methods for the LongBeeper class in ObjectPascal and Common Lisp). Method combination is a feature that enables you to specify the order in which methods of a given name will be invoked.
"Before" and "after" methods enable you to specify behavior that should execute just before or after your method is invoked. This provides you with flexibility in method combination in subtle cases because the before and after methods are not embedded in the code of the primary method. But more interesting is the manner in which Common Lisp methods are dispatched. Whereas most objectoriented systems dispatch on the class of the first argument, Common Lisp bases the method dispatch on the class of each argument passed to a method call. One example of a case in which you may want to dispatch on two arguments is when you have a Print method that can print on a variety of media. If you have a class Document that you want to be able to print into a ColorLaser stream or into an ImageWriter stream, you can define Print as follows:
(defmethod Print ((thingToPrint Document) (stream ColorLaser))
 ;; Code to print to a ColorLaser goes here
(defmethod Print ((thingToPrint Document) (stream ImageWriter))
 ;; Code to print to an ImageWriter goes here
This generalizes object-oriented programming's idea that you shouldn't have to special-case your methods: the appropriate method will be called by the system on the basis of the type of all passed arguments. In particular, if the second argument (stream) is a ColorLaser, then the first method above will be called; if the stream is an ImageWriter, then the second method will be called. The alternative would be to check what kind of stream you are writing to within a monolithic Print method.
Class libraries, which are provided with the language (some third parties sell alternative libraries or extensions), impose a model of how Macintosh events are handled, what kinds of Macintosh components (such as menus, dialog boxes) are available, and how these interact.
Both MacApp and MCL offer a set of classes to easily instantiate menu bars, menus, menu items, pull-down and pop-up menus, windows, dialogs, buttons, check boxes, static and editable text, lists, and spreadsheet tables. MacApp features extensive printer (via the TPrintHandler class) and undo (via the TCommand class) support. MCL features easy installation and handling of view objects, including menus and menu items.
Both systems support views as well as dialog and regular window classes. A view is an abstract way of defining rectangular drawing areas on the screen that are hierarchically related to other views. User interface objects, such as windows and buttons, inherit from the view class to get their scrolling behavior as well as their own coordinate system's origin. Scrolling a view scrolls its subviews within it, while the coordinate system of a view has its origin relative to the origin of its superview's coordinate system. Most useful toolbox controls and dialog items are predefined in both systems and are integrated with the view system. A set of event-handling methods defined on all views (for example, activate, draw)are automatically called by the event system, as necessary; the user need not be involved with the Macintosh inner event loop.
Table 2 compares the most important classes in MacApp and MCL.
You'll see examples of the use of some of these MCL classes in the later section "Now for an Example." For now, a note about the event system.
The MacApp class TApplication enables you to modify the handling of the Macintosh inner event loop. Instead of providing a comparable class, MCL enables you to optionally specify a function to which all events are passed. Your function can take any course of action; it can also override the regular MCL event-handling mechanism.
Table 2 A Comparison of Key Classes in MacApp and MCL
MacApp ClassMCL Class
TAssociationassociation list
TCommandnot applicable
TApplicationnot applicable
TPrintHandler not available
TDocumentnot available
TPatternnot available
not availablemenu
not availablemenu-item
1. MacApp includes a variety of list classes: these are required because of static language constraints. The regular Lisp list covers these cases.
2. These classes are distributed in example files with MCL.
3. These MacApp variations are due to static language constraints: they are handled within the sequence-dialog-item.
Macintosh OS events are regularly dispatched by MCL, even between the invocation of Lisp functions. Every few ticks (the number may vary with the version of MCL that you are using, but it usually is five ticks), MCL checks the event queue and if there's an event (including a null one), interprets the event and takes the appropriate action (for example, sends a mouseDown event to a view). Your functions can act as if they have full control of the Macintosh, since the event handling is opaque to the user. However, a macro called without-interrupts helps you to protect critical code segments, such as an operation on a Mac heap data structure (for instance, a window record) that might be disposed of by the code dispatched by an interrupting event (such as a click on the window's close box).
On the other hand, MacApp's TView class inherits its event-handling capability from the TEvtHandler class. For mouse event handling, since views are nested within each other, the most specific affected view will receive the mouse event: for example, the HandleMouseDown method of the most specific view under the mouse would be invoked on that view when the mouseDown event takes place. Events are processed by MacApp methods (primarily for TApplication, TWindow, TDocument, and certain view classes) until completion, blocking any other event handling.
In MacApp, one can generate TCommand objects, which can be created by menu or keyboard events. These objects will not only have methods that handle the event, but also conveniently store state information necessary to support Redo and Undo, which are necessarily associated with the event they represent. This provides a nice framework for Undo support, at the cost of generating and maintaining these objects. In addition, event chains can be specified within MacApp: this enables you to specify a chain of event-handling objects that are candidates for handling specific types of events. MacApp will cycle through the chain to find an object that can handle that event and invoke the appropriate method on that object. Similarly, "target chains" allow you to specify hierarchies of objects that are candidates for handling events.
In general, the MacApp event-handling system is far more articulated than MCL's. The cost of this articulation is increased complexity and some reduced flexibility. Once you understand the MacApp event system and find its constraints acceptable for your application, you may find that your workload is reduced.
Note also that menus and menu items are handled in MacApp via special menu resources. At run time, MacApp invokes the DoMenuCommand method on the TApplication instance; the latter must interpret what to do on the basis of the chosen menu item.
Both MacApp (in conjunction with MPW) and MCL offer excellent development environments. Still, each has its strong points, which we'll focus on here.
The primary advantage of the MCL environment is the ability it gives you to incrementally compile your code: you can recompile one function (or even a single expression or statement) at a time. This fact has far-reaching implications for how you develop your program.
Once you compile a function, it is automatically linked to the rest of your code. This means that you can immediately test your function. If it does not work, you either (1) go to the source code of another function and change it, recompile it, and retry your original function, or (2) modify, recompile, and retry your function. The MCL (and every other Lisp-based) debugging and browsing environment is geared to this kind of activity. Jumping from one function's source text to another one, perhaps in different files in different directories or volumes, is a simple matter. And you are not required to execute your program from a "main" but can try out each function as a separate module.
MCL provides you with the following powerful debugging tools:
 - Inspector--Enables you to inspect any value of any instance variable of any instance and also to change that value at any time. You can inspect any Lisp structure, class, or class instance. For functions or methods, the Inspector will provide you with disassembled code. Information about devices, files, packages, and other system objects can be conveniently obtained via the Inspector.
 - Backtracer--Enables you to examine the execution state of your program by looking at the program as a set of frames (like a movie's frames). Each frame is usually a function or method invocation, with information about the state of all local variables and objects last referenced. You can move through these frames backward or forward to the point where the error or user break occurred and can change any state in a frame.
 - List of definitions--Provides you with a list of definitions of variables, functions, methods, and macros within your text files. You can go to any specific entry by double-clicking on it.
 - Apropos--Allows you to search for information about any object in the system based on its name.
 - Error handling--Gives the ability to signal errors and general conditions. Deadend and continuable errors are supported. Continuable errors enable the user to change the environment so that the error state is reset and processing can restart.
See the sidebar "Evaluating and Navigating the Code in MCL"


6 Safety Management Tips For Dam Owners
Humans have increasingly become dependent on electricity, which is due in no small part to the many advances in technology. From healthcare and commerce to the way people communicate with each other, everything that makes life livable now requires electrical power.
With all the growing demand for electricity, government and business leaders are continually pressured by the public to find ways to generate more power while keeping the planet safe. Renewable energy is the buzzword for finding the balance between power generation and giving the environment a much-needed TLC (tender loving care).
That said, water is one of the most common sources of renewable energy – it generates hydroelectricity, which makes up around 44% of renewable energy in the U.S. alone. Harvesting hydropower involves harnessing the flow of water. In other words, hydropower plants require dams to be built to hold and control the water that'll turn the generators or turbines, generating electricity.
But hydropower is just one part of the equation. Water is essential for humans, without which life won't even be possible. From hydropower to drinking water supply, dams will continue to be vital for humanity's survival. Owners must manage their dams effectively to keep them safe and working. Doing so can prevent risks that may result in loss of life and property.
Challenges Posed By Dams
Most dams used for hydropower generation and water supply are man-made–they're made up of concrete. Hence, there are structural and stability challenges that need to be solved. You don't need to see a movie just to know what might happen if a dam is breached.
 There was a time when operators relied on visual inspection, photos, and interpretation by engineers to analyze a dam's safety levels. Today, there are state-of-the-art monitoring tools to help dam operators. Hence, there are now advanced solutions that allow dam owners to keep the structural integrity in check.
Take the case of Hunter Water Grahamstown Dam in Australia. This dam is designed to provide a drinking water supply and recycled water service to an area with approximately 600,000 people. As a storage dam, it constantly presents challenges that can compromise its structural integrity.
Using modern dam monitoring tools, Grahamstown Dam owners can effectively manage the dam's integrity in a remote setting. In turn, this allows nearby residents to sleep soundly at night. The secret lies in using AI technology, such as Rezatec's Dam Monitoring solution, to remotely churn out geospatial data that tracks everything–from ground movements to moisture levels. Nothing is left to chance or open interpretation. Also, fewer visual inspections are now required.
Dam Safety Management Tips
Indeed, humans have completely changed the way water is stored–whether for drinking or generating power. In a study aimed at monitoring and taking a closer look at the changing levels of global freshwater sources, researchers used NASA's satellite and found that humans are now responsible for 57% of the planet's seasonal water storage, which is happening in reservoirs and dams.
With the ever-increasing world population, it's logical for one to think that more reservoirs and dams will be built in the foreseeable future. Whether it's for drinking or harnessing hydropower, dams are here to stay. Owners and operators must learn to manage their dams dynamically.
Taking a cue from what operators did in managing the safety of the Grahamstown Dam, here are some tips on how to keep dams safe and functioning properly for years to come.
1. Create A Dam's Risk Profile
No dam is perfect. For one, there's always a trade-off among costs, location, and capacity when designing and building dams. It's left to the owners to make the best out of the dams they're managing. In a bid to reduce risks, owners should always know the status of their dams. For one, they should define risk areas and be aware of the dam's weaknesses.
By creating a dam's risk profile, managers won't be caught unaware should disasters occur. For instance, if a barrier was designed to withstand a 10-magnitude earthquake, then a reading of 11 on the Richter scale should put workers on full alert even if the dam isn't breached. Emergency inspections and responses should also be triggered.
2. Effective Dam Monitoring In Place
Dams, like the one in Grahamstown, require continued monitoring. There's no shortcut to knowing or tracking the structural integrity of a dam except via monitoring.
In the past, owners relied on photography and visual inspections. The problem was the data gathered could be biased and were open to misinterpretation. Hence, it would be best to adopt AI-based solutions to ensure accurate monitoring data.
3. Ready Access To Construction Documentation
Dams are big structures and they're often made up of different segments and materials. Making things more complicated is the fact that no two dams are the same–each has its own design features.
When managing a dam, the people responsible for it should have access to the dam's design and construction blueprint. By doing so, managers will be less likely to do things that can compromise the dam's structure and functionality.
4. Prioritize Incident Reports
Dam workers must be required to report all incidents that occur, including emergencies and operational shutdowns. Such reports will keep the management in the loop and enable key players to recommend a plan of action to prevent such incidents from happening again.
dam safety guide
5. Operations And Safety Manuals At The Ready
Dams are run by different people working in various shifts. While training workshops are essential for new and experienced workers, people tend to forget what they're trained for. It's crucial to have operations and safety manuals readily accessible to ensure that everyone is on the same page while operating the dam. This way, workers won't be left guessing on what to do in case emergencies happen.
6. Multi-discipline Management Approach
While new technologies allow remote, scalable, and cost-effective dam management, it's still vital to have human operators and engineers tracking changes or investigating anomalies. Environmental sciences should work with soil engineering and other disciplines. AI should also work with good old-fashioned human insights.
By combining multiple disciplines, dam owners will be more confident in reducing risks and meeting regulatory requirements across different sectors.
Dams are vital for human survival. They can be harnessed to provide water supply and electricity. Due to this, expect that there will be more dams built in the foreseeable future.
With that in mind, owners and operators should learn how to keep dams safe and effective to prevent loss of life and property.


text:
Patent application title: Accessory platform for archery bows
William L. Leven (Lancaster, CA, US)
IPC8 Class: AF41B520FI
Class name: For archery projector bow handle or attachment thereto for stabilization thereof
Publication date: 2010-09-30
Patent application number: 20100242940
An accessory platform for archery bows is provided. The accessory platform
includes a substantially disk-shaped portion provided with a hole in the
center thereof, a plurality of holes are provided around a periphery of
the disk-shaped portion and a base cushion is provided in the hole and
includes means to couple the disk-shaped portion directly or indirectly
to an archery bow. The accessory platform is utilized to absorb vibration
when an arrow is shot from the archery bow and to balance the weight of
the archery bow.
1. An accessory platform for archery bows comprising:a substantially
disk-shaped article provided with a hole in the center thereof;a
plurality of holes provided around a periphery of said article; anda base
cushion provided in said hole and including means to couple said article
to said archery bow, said base cushion for isolating said article from
said archery bow.
2. The accessory platform according to claim 1, wherein said disk-shaped article is made from a material selected from the group consisting of metal, plastic and elastomers.
3. The accessory platform according to claim 2, wherein said base cushion is made from an elastomer of 35 to 80 duro.
4. The accessory platform according to claim 3, wherein said hole in said disk is provided with at least one notch and said base cushion is provided with at least one projection which fits into said notch for preventing rotation of said disk.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to accessories and devices designed to absorb the vibrations generated when an arrow is shot from a bow and to balance the bow to the user's requirements.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the prior art there exists several devices for absorbing vibration of the bow during the time period when an arrow is shot from the bow. In addition, some of these devices are also capable to some extent of balancing the bow. Such prior art devices can be found in issued United States patent numbers:
TABLE-US-00001 4,135,486 4,370,670 5,273,022 6,526,957 6,802,307 6,997,174 7,318,430
While the devices described in the above-identified United States patents may absorb vibration and balance the bow to some extent, they all have one or more defects such as being heavy, cumbersome, being affected by the wind and providing limited adjustability.
INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE
Applicant incorporates by reference all of Provisional Application No. 61/209,595.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to overcome the deficiencies of the prior art.
In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide an accessory platform for an archery bow which not only absorbs the vibration but also provides substantial adjustability in balancing the bow to the user's specifications.
In keeping with the principals and objects of the present invention, the above described objects are accomplished by a unique accessory platform for archery bows. The accessory platform includes a substantially disk-shaped portion provided with a hole in the center thereof, a plurality of holes are provided around a periphery of the disk-shaped portion and a base cushion is provided in the hole and includes means to couple the disk-shaped portion directly or indirectly to an archery bow. This accessory platform is utilized to absorb vibration when an arrow is shot from an archery bow and to balance the weight of the archery bow pursuant to the requirements of the user.
IN THE DRAWINGS
The above mentioned features and objects will become more apparent with reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanied drawings wherein like referenced numerals described like elements and in which:
FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C are top, side and bottom views of one component of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of one portion of another part of the present invention;
FIGS. 3A and 3B are perspective views of still another portion of the present invention; and
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the present invention in use.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Referring to the FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3A and 3B, shown therein are the basic components of the accessory platform of the present invention. In particular, the present invention comprises a disk 2, thus is shown in the FIGS. 1A through 1C. The disk 2 can be made from a hard or pliable material such as a metal, plastic or elastomer. The disk 2 is generally disk-shaped, but could be provided in other shapes depending on the application such as a star shape, a square, a hexagon, etc. and could be made in various diameters. Around the periphery of the disk 2 is a plurality of mounting holes 4. These mounting holes 4 are for the purpose of mounting other elements to the disk 2 and the primary elements which might be added to the disk 2 are weights 6 such as are shown in FIG. 4. The weights 6 may be provided in each one of the mounting holes or depending on the balance desired by the user, again be provided in only one hole or any other number of holes and positions which the user may desire in order to provide the proper balance. Still further, the holes 4 may be threaded or unthreaded of all the same or different sizes, and of various numbers, depending on the application.
The disk 2 is further provided at its center with a hole 8. The hole 8 may be further provided with radially extending notches 10 on a bottom surface of the disk 2. These notches 10 are utilized to prevent the disk 2 from rotating on its mounting.
A cushion base comprising two parts shown in the FIGS. 2, 3A and 3B. The cushion base comprises a lower portion 12 which has a raised portion 14 which fits into the hole 8 from the bottom side of the disk 2. The bottom portion 12 is provided with the threaded means 16A and 16B provided on both sides of the lower base 12. The two threaded mounting means 16A and 16B are not connected to each other and are separate elements and are molded or installed into the lower base 12. Screw mounting 16a threads into a hole 17 in the upper base 18 so as to mount the lower base 14 and the upper base 18 together. The upper base 18 is further provided with a projecting portion 20 which includes projecting tabs 22. The projecting tabs 22 fit into the notches 10 in the disk 2 and together with the notches 10 prevent the disk 2 from rotating. Still further, the upper and lower base portions 18 and 12 are made from a shock absorbing material such as an elastomer and such elastomer can be 35 to 80 duro depending on the application.
In operation and as is shown in FIG. 4, the disk 2 with weights 6 can be attached to a stabilizer 24 of an archery bow by means of the top threaded portion 16B. The stabilizer 24 can then be attached to an archery bow, not shown. Still further and in other applications, the disk 2 may be attached by means of the cushion base directly to an archery bow, again not shown, without the utilization of a stabilizer. One or more weights 6 are provided on the disk 2 in whatever configuration the user desires in order to balance the archery bow to the user's specifications. It should be apparent that the disk itself does not function as a weight.
With the stabilizer 24 mounted on the archery bow, not shown, and the disk 2 mounted to the stabilizer 24 by means of the bottom portion 12 of the cushion base, the vibration generated when an arrow is shot from a bow is absorbed by means of the cushion base while the weights 6 provided on the disk 2 maintain the balance of the bow.
While the present invention has been described in terms of a separate cushion base from the disk 2, one of ordinary skill in the art could also make the cushion base and the disk 2 as a single molded part. It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the above described embodiment is but one of many embodiments which could be made based upon the principals and objects of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Patent applications by William L. Leven, Lancaster, CA US
Patent applications in class For stabilization thereof
Patent applications in all subclasses For stabilization thereof


Body Nonverbal Communication
Background: In contemporary society, communication is pretty important for people. However, communication is not always easy to do for diverse reasons.
Actually, body language accounts for 55% of effective communication, and even if the language is incomprehensible or stuck in the expression, it can still be conveyed in other ways, such as jewellery.
Inspired by the application of Laban movement analysis in dancing area, the names of these five brooches are: "Excited", "Depressed", "Suspended", "Collapsing", "Elated".
The designer recorded her body movements and transferred them to 3D shapes, and applied colour to each of them to emphasise the differences.
According to the topic, this collection is supposed to be highly interactive with people, no matter the wearer or viewer. The brooches can be set on a table and rock when somebody touches as well as be worn on the body as brooches which tell viewers something related to the wearer. The design method of being movable helps this collection existing with vitality.
Material: Jesmonite, Car paint, Sterling Silver, Stainless Steel
Photograph - Molly Wang
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The legendary Jacques Cousteau taught him about oceanography at the U.S. Naval Academy more than 40 years ago. Now, professor Mark Edwards of the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness at Arizona State University (ASU) would surely be making his late mentor proud with a new "top science book of the year" award for his work on how algae can revolutionize food and fuel.
"Algae is very nutritious, delicious, sustainable and affordable," said Edwards, whose book Green Algae Strategy: End Oil Imports and Engineer Sustainable Food and Fuels recently received an Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards Gold Medal.
"You can process algae into flour so it tastes great, and then use it for just about anything you would make out of soybeans, corn, wheat, or any other grain," Edwards said.
"You can also grow algae on very large water-based farms about 30 times faster than you can grow land-based crops, and you can harvest about half of the new growth daily. The result is double the protein value of land crops that would take an entire season to produce."
Instead of using freshwater, fossil fuels, and pesticides, Edwards says algae can grow using renewable sunshine, carbon dioxide, and wastewater or reclaimed water. This saves money, natural resources, and farmland which makes algae an appealing sustainable source for food.
The book summarizes algae research around the world, including an ASU project on converting algae into fuel.
"Oil from algae can be used to fuel diesel engines, cars, or jet planes," Edwards said. "When oil is pressed out of algae, the remaining material can be used for animal feed and food products."
Judges chose the book from more than 4,300 entries.


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WhiteSpace Handling in the XSL FO spec
Some thoughts about the concerns
The FO spec must address the following three concerns:
- What to do with linefeed characters in the input: consider as space or as a real linefeed?
- What to do with XML white space characters other than linefeed in the input: preserve or collapse?
These two concerns are governed by the properties linefeed-treatment and white-space-collapse.
Together these two items address the matter of pretty printing of XML documents (in this case FO documents).
- What to do with white space and other eligible characters around line breaks?
This concern is governed by the properties white-space-treatment and suppress-at-linebreak.
XML itself has a prescription for dealing with white space in the input XML file: The parser must report whether white space occurs in element content or not, allowing applications to ignore it in element content; in SAX terms, white space in element content is ignorable white space.
Because FO does not have a DTD or schema, there is no element content, and all white space is passed on to the FO processor. FO does have its own equivalent of element content. When white space occurs in flow objects which do not take PCDATA as children, it is ignored by the FO processor. White space in flow objects that take PCDATA children, however, must be taken into account. Its interpretation is governed by the first two items.
Pretty printing can also occur inside PCDATA. Editors commonly break long stretches of text into separate lines, substituting space characters with linefeed characters. They also commonly indent the lines to illustrate the nesting position of the element containing the PCDATA, replacing single spaces with sequences of spaces and tab characters. The above two concerns also undo those pretty printing effects on the output of the FO processor.
The first two items are concerned with input. Therefore they can in principle be taken care of at the refinement stage.
The third item is concerned with input characters whose representation depends on the layout, viz., which are suppressed when they occur before and/or after a line break. Therefore it can only be taken care of when the line breaks are known, i.e. at the layout or area building stage.
The formulation of this concern was flawed in version 1.0 of the FO spec. Instead of line breaks, it mentions line feed characters. This is clearly not what is needed. Users expect white space to be suppressed around line breaks, and FO processors do this, even though the spec has no good prescription for this behaviour. Version 1.1 of the FO spec tries to correct this. But the result is a mixed behaviour of the property white-space-treatment. Two of its values refer to input characters and can be taken care of at the refinement stage, the other three refer to suppression as a result of layout and must be taken care of at the layout or area building stage.
Remarks on white-space-collapse
white-space-collapse is formulated in terms of flow objects, so that it only applies to direct siblings. This can give rise to undesirable effects. Examples:
- Spaces before an fo:inline and spaces at the start of an fo:inline are not collapsed, perhaps contrary to the expectation of the user.
- fo:marker elements may have spaces at their start and end, which may become adjacent to spaces before and after the fo:retrieve-marker that inserted the fo:marker content. These spaces are not collapsed, again perhaps contrary to the expectation of the user.
The user would prefer to think in terms of collapsing of adjacent white space glyph areas. The comments of the XSL editors have made it clear, however, that white-space-collapse is strictly interpreted in terms of sibling flow objects. On the other hand, they do not make it clear why they place white-space-collapse handling at the area building stage. As a result the user must be careful not to add extra white space to inline content.
Remarks on white-space-treatment and white-space-collapse
The values ignore and preserve of white-space-treatment would better be combined with white-space-collapse into a new property, called something like white-space-treatment, with three values ignore, collapse and preserve as follows:
- white-space-treatment="ignore" and white-space-collapse="true": ignore
- white-space-treatment="ignore" and white-space-collapse="false": ignore
- white-space-treatment="preserve" and white-space-collapse="true": collapse
- white-space-treatment="preserve" and white-space-collapse="false": preserve
The property with the remaining values then could be called something like around-line-break. Unfortunately, the remaining three values have linefeed in their name, where linebreak is intended.


text:
Tagging lexical words in the text and/or linking to lemmata for purposes of indexing or search.
Explicit markup of words (tokenization) and identification of their dictionary headwords (lemmatization) are both optional. Many projects simply leave these features unmarked, or rely on automated processes in search software to detect word-breaks and link to lemmatizing tools such as Morpheus. (The Papyrological Navigator, Perseus, and the TLG all use methods similar to this.)
To explicitly mark-up lexical words in a papyrological or epigraphic text, however, each word in the text should be enclosed in a element. (For ease of processing, it is advised that inter-word spacing, punctuation and other features be left outside of this element, and if possible there should be no spaces or carriage returns within the element.)
To record the lemma or dictionary headword of the word in question, the simplest solution is to enter the uninflected form in a lemma attribute, which may be used, for example, to generate the entries in a lexical index to the corpus.
A slightly more sophisticated solution is to enter in a lemmaRef attribute a URL or other URI that points to the entry for the word in question in a database or online dictionary. This solution allows for better disambiguation of homonymous words, for example, or linking to morphological and statistical information about the word.
If a single word tag contains more than one indexable word (e.g. "populusque" in Latin or "κἀκ" in Greek), or an incomplete word is ambiguous and might correspond to either of two or more lemmata (e.g. ΕΚΦΕΥΞ), then all lemmata that should be indexed may be included in the lemma attribute, separated by spaces:


muri syntactic structure is fairly free, but it does, of course, have a least marked form. Like most other Uto-Aztecan languages, its default word order is SOV. If there are indirect objects, temporal makers, or locative markers, these typically come after the verb. In any case, the least marked syntax is not always found, as there are many exceptions.
Word order marking of focus and topicalization is heavily used. A sentence constituent may be topicalized by placing it at the beginning of the sentence. Topicalizatin of the verb requires "emphatic" words to indicate the subject. The OVS order is the order most prevalent in narratives.
There are "emphatic" morphemes. The particle [-ka] is added to subjects; the particle [-ʔe] to noun phrases filling any grammatical role, and the suffix [-ri] is an intensifier on nouns and verbs. To "emphasize" adverbs, the prefix [ʔ-] is added. Pronouns can be emphasized by repeating them within the sentence. In order to add still more "emphasis" to a word that already has emphatic particles, the postposition /-pa/ can be added.
Rarámuri questions have the following constructions. Sentence initial question particles are necessary. Yes-no questions are marked with the sentence-initial question particle [-ta], which can sometimes be accompanied by rising intonation on the final syllable. Wh-questions are marked with a level or falling prosodic pitch on the last syllable. These words also share a similar phonetic characteristic in that they all contain the allomorph prefixes [t͡ʃi-] or [t͡ʃe-], with the exception of [kóe], "where", which, contains the same affix, only as a suffix instead of a prefix.
To form a relative clause in Rarámuri, speakers need only place a suffix, [-ame], on the verb of the relative clause in order to achieve grammaticality. Relative clauses can come before or after a head, with the difference only being in emphasis. Sometimes, heads to which relative clauses refer can be repeated. In such instances, the head will occur directly before and directly after the relative clause that belongs to it. There also exists a construction that masks itself as a relative clause, but is really a repetition of the subject of the sentence. Often, the second repetition of the subject will be amplified or expounded upon in some way. This syntactic style is not unique to Rarámuri, but rather, it can be found in many other Uto-Aztecan languages, notably Nawa.
Mass media in Rarámuri[edit]
Rarámuri language programming is carried by the CDI's radio station XETAR, broadcasting from Guachochi, Chihuahua.
 1. ^ INALI (2012) México: Lenguas indígenas nacionales
 2. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Tarahumaran". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
 3. ^ Caballero 2008, p. 12.
 4. ^ Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI), Mexico; cited by Caballero 2008: 9
 5. ^ Miller 1983.
 6. ^ Dakin 2005, p. 296.
 7. ^ Valiñas 2001, pp. 114-120.
 8. ^ Ethnologue
 9. ^ [1]
 10. ^ Burgess 1984, p. 7.
 11. ^ This is a bilabial, not a labiovelar, approximant (Brambila 1976). The IPA lacks a symbol for bilabial approximant.
 12. ^ a b Brambila 1976, p. v.
 13. ^ Deimel 2001.
 14. ^ Burgess 1984, p. 8.
Works cited[edit]
 - Brambila, David. 1976. Diccionario Rarámuri-Castellano (Tarahumara).
 - Burgess, Donald H. 1984. "Western Tarahumara," Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar 4: Southern Uto-Aztecan Grammatical Sketches. Ed. Langacker, Ronald W.. Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics 56. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. Pp. 1–149.
 - Caballero, Gabriela. 2008. Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara) Phonology and Morphology. Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.
 - Dakin, Karen. 2007. Final Features and Proto-Uto-Aztecan: A Contribution Using Morphological Reconstruction. In Salmons, Joe and Dubenion-Smith, Shannon, eds. Historical Linguistics 2005: Selected Papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, pp. 295–310. John Benjamins.
 - Deimel, Claus. 2001. Nawésari: texte aus der Sierra Tarahumara. Berlin: D. Reimer.
 - Miller, Wick R. 1983. Uto-Aztecan Languages. In Alfonso Ortiz, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, 10. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 113–124
Further reading[edit]
 - Gorney, Cynthia. 2008. Tarahumara People. National Geographic, November 2008.
 - Hilton, Kenneth Simon. Diccionario Tarahumara. Tucson, AZ: Instituto Linguistico de Verano, 1993.
 - Zamarrón, Jose Luis and Hill, Jane H. Avances y balances de lenguas yutoaztecas. Cordoba: Colección Científica, 2001.
External links[edit]