Skip to main content
Computational study of assisted assembly of colloids
Final Report Summary - COSAAC (Computational study of assisted assembly of colloids)
The assembly of particles into ordered structures is subject of great scientific and technological interest. When the constituent particles of a material are randomly distributed in a fluid phase the material has usually little interest. However, when particles assemble into some specific pattern a material with interesting properties may arise. This is the case, for instance, of colloidal particles, that can form fluids with no particular functionality or crystals with optical properties that can be employed for photonic applications. The disorder-order transition is also important in the molecular world. For example, many drugs are presented as a solid crystallised from a solution where the solute molecules are randomly distributed.
The main idea of the COSAAC project is to investigate the possibility to aid the formation of ordered structures by using external fields or by dynamically changing the thermodynamic conditions at which the constituent particles assemble to form the ordered structure. Molecular simulations is the main research tool of this project.
The assisted formation of crystalline structures has been the main research topic of the project. The process of formation of crystalline solids has been assisted in several ways. One is the use of seeds of the target solid structure. This strategy enables lowering free energy penalty required for the formation of the crystal and, when combined with a theoretical analysis of the simulation data, gives valuable information on the crystallization process. In this way, the crystal nucleation rate of hard-sphere-like colloids has been obtained for the widest available range of pressures so far. A set of hard spheres is the simplest non-trivial system that shows a fluid-crystal transition, which is the reason why this system has been widely studied both by means of computer simulations and by experiments with spherical colloidal particles stabilised against aggregation in such way that they interact like hard-spheres. The high interest raised by this archetypal system makes the results obtained in this project highly valuable. The seeding approach has also been applied to molecular systems. The most important studied system has been water. By assisting the formation of ice via seeds it has been possible to predict the ice nucleation rate for a wide range of temperatures. Due to technical limitations, the ice nucleation rate was measured so far only in a narrow temperature window (-35 to -40 Celsius). With the results of this project we now have a simulation prediction of the ice nucleation rate available for a wide temperature range, which is important for making climate change models that take into account the important factor of ice formation in tropospheric clouds.
Another possibility that has been explored to assist the assembly of crystals is the use of potential energy wells that confine the particles in the fluid and induce the formation of crystalline regions. This sort of strategy could be achieved experimentally using optical tweezers to trap colloidal particles. This trick has been exploited as a means to measure the crystal-fluid interfacial free energy in computer simulations. This parameter controls crystal nucleation and growth. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to measure the ice-liquid interfacial free energy experimentally, so computer simulations can be used to provide reasonable estimates. A few methods were already available to do that, but that developed in this project based on the assisted formation of crystal slabs via potential molds has proven more accurate and efficient than existing alternative approaches. On the other hand, the use of potential energy molds has been exploited for the calculation of crystal nucleation free energy barriers. This issue has been focus of intense research activity. The advantage of using potential energy wells over previous approaches to the calculation of nucleation free energy barriers is that one can study arbitrarily complex crystal structures without increasing the methodological complexity. This novel approach has been conceived and developed during the project. Its use has been illustrated with archetypal systems like hard-spheres or Lennard Jones and molecular systems like water.
Both the seeding and the potential mold approaches were combined to study the effect of external fields like pressure or electric fields in the crystallization of fluids composed of dipolar molecules (such as water). By assisting the formation of the crystal with these tools it has been possible to unveil the underlying physics behind the decelerating effect of pressure on ice nucleation. This is effect is currently being exploited in the cryopreservation of biological samples, but a physical explanation that will allow for the development of the current technology was lacking. Moreover, by combining the developed methodologies, it has been proposed in the project that applying pressure in conjunction with electric fields may be a promising strategy to hinder ice formation.
There are materials, like gels or glasses, for which a disordered arrangement of particles is required in order for the material to be functional. In the project it has been investigated whether assisting the formation of these materials by means of a modulation of the thermodynamic conditions under which they are formed may improve their properties. In particular, the effort has been devoted to glasses composed of hard sphere particles, a system that can be realised experimentally with colloids. A rapid change of the pressure in the formation of the material can change the resistance of the resulting glass to crystallize. Crystallization of glasses is known as de-vitrification and it is an undesired process because the mechanic properties of the material are changed when it crystallizes. Therefore, crystallization needs to be avoided by building materials resistant to de-vitrification. The ability of glasses to crystallize when formed assisted by specific compression protocols designed to minimize the crystal content has been assessed. Furthermore, the mechanism of devitrification in colloidal glasses has been elucidated. Understanding how devitrification takes place is the first step required to try to avoid it. The investigations on de-vitrification were performed in collaboration with the Soft-Condensed Matter groups in The University of Edinbugh and in La Sapienza University in Rome.
The impact of a magnetic field in the arrangement of magnetic colloidal particles in two-dimensional sheets has also been studied. Such arrangements can be used to build colloidal vesicles or membranes of tunable permeability. This part of the project has been carried out in collaboration with the experimental group of colloids of the Physical-Chemistry department to study the kinetics of disassembly of 2D colloidal crystalline clusters after a magnetic field is applied. A remarkably good agreement between the experiments and the simulation model was observed and a mechanism for the sublimation of 2D colloidal crystalline clusters was proposed.
The use of heterogeneous seeds for the crystallization of colloidal systems was also investigated. Heterogeneous seeds are those made of a material different from that of the parent phase. In that case the assembly of the material is assisted by a heterogeneous seed whose role is usually that of lowering the interfacial free energy between the ordered and the disordered phases. There is a long-standing controversy in the comparison between experimental and simulation results of the crystallization rate of hard-sphere-like colloidal particles. The possibility that the crystallization is assisted by heterogeneous seeds has been disregarded. This issue was investigated in the context of the assisted formation of ordered structures of the COSAAC program. The results show that, indeed, the controversy is sorted by taking into account the role of heterogeneous seeds. The discrepancy mentioned above was interpreted by some scientist as an inability of computer simulations to correctly describe the process by which a fluid transforms into an ordered crystal lattice. Hopefully, the fact that the long-standing discrepancy was sorted in the COSAAC project will bring confidence in computer simulations as a good scientific tool to investigate phase transitions.
In summary, in this project different possible ways to externally affect and assist the ordering of randomly located building blocks have been investigated. Strategies like the use of pressure, potential molds, seeds, impurities or magnetic and electric fields have been considered. The results of this work have been published in 15 peer-reviewed international physical-chemistry journals.


text:
Navy pump house, Little Chebeague Island, 1947Item 67320 info
National Archives at Boston
The Navy used similar shipboard firefighting trainers at schools around the world through the Vietnam War era.
An apparently insignificant relic on the shore of a small island in Casco Bay was crucial to successful firefighting efforts on Navy ships in World War II.
In two years of operation, the Chebeague Island school trained some 15,000 sailors.
After the war, the government sold the island to a private investor. The state purchased it in 1972.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Emergency 01542 882209
Keith Surgery 01542 882209
Buckie Surgery 01542 835207
Banff Surgery 01261 812168
Why Do Cats Eat Grass?
Science Magazine recently published some interesting findings on why cats eat grass…
According to Science Magazine, scientists think they may finally have an answer for why our feline friends have a tendency to gobble up grass, only to regurgitate it again shortly after.
More than 1,000 cat owners were surveyed, all of whom spent at least 3 hours a day observing their pet. As you may have suspected, eating plants and greenery was revealed to be a common occurrence, with only 11% of owners failing to notice their cat doing it.
It's a common belief that cats eat grass precisely because it makes them throw up, but the study mentioned above revealed that only a quarter of greenery-gobbling cats were actually sick afterwards. Also, 91% of the owners surveyed revealed that their cats didn't display any symptoms associated with being unwell before they went on to ingest plants.
So why exactly do they do it?
The prevalent theory is that cats, just like many other wild animals including chimps, ingest grass because it – at one time, at least – helps to get rid of intestinal parasites. It does this by increasing the muscle activity in their intestinal tract.
Although the parasite in question is no longer a threat to our feline friends, it seems to be the case that cats picked up this strategy from a distant ancestor and that's it's simply innate behaviour.
Read more by visiting the Science Magazine website.
Concerned about your cat?
If you've noticed that your cat is vomiting excessively, it may be worth bringing them in to see us. If you have any concerns, don't hesitate to give us a call.


text:
Trace the Tweet
Migration routes, mimesis, concilience
May 19 – June 15, 2012
opening Fri May 18, 18:00
The exhibition project „Trace the Tweet" by artists – curators Getrude Moser Wagner and Claudia Mongini draws patterns of interference between scientific and artistic practices by following the vectorial traces of bird paths, both in terms of straightforward content and as an introductory idea for epistemic translation. Departing from Bosnisan artist and scientist Marica Radojčić's artistic project _fly and sing_ as well as from the scientific studies about „the bird honesty", described as a vital necessity for species reproduction, the exhibition reflects onto the issues of (im)possibility of honest communication in the contemporary info-technologicalsociety. In times in which the „tweet", the short slogan, the frantic and fragmented wording becomes a dominant mode of expression, forms of animal communication can turn into new referential motives for helping us to (re)trace the connection between the linguistic sign and the emotional and affective substrate of sense.
The experimentation of different connections between speech and sensation opens up new potentials for escaping reductionist impositions culminating in the formation of neoliberal subjectivity. And in turn, novel acts of perception and expression could lead towards the creation of more intensive eco-and ethological feelings and consequently, a into a diverse unfolding of human and nonhuman relational patterns.
Opening act by Hermann J. Hendrich and Marcus Bergner.
Panel session on June 14 as part of the exhibition. Participants: Claudia Mongini, Vít Zavadil, Radan Haluzík, Jiří Zemánek.
Project supported in cooperation with the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague.
Information about the curator's concepts and proposed artists projects:
The tweet, a particular kind of bird vocalization, not yet articulated into the complex pattern of a song, introduces the theme of the show by the middle: different artistic positions deal with scientific material centered around the generics of "songs" and "birds". But the tweet does not imply only a content, but also a method of approaching different epistemic dimensions from the point of view of their intrinsic complexity. An encounter between "foreign" disciplines, but also diverse actors, necessitates that both parts take a step back from their language and the specificity of the problems, and start tweeting, I.e. unravel their daily modes of being and of expression and experiment with different patterns, in order not only to produce a different level of understandability, but also to set the basis for diverse conditions of artistic creation. In this sense, the tweet is understood as a synthesizer between modes of expression which are distant to each other; along with the musical instrument which generates new timbres by combination of different sounds, the tweet would draw a synthesis between the diverse domains of scientific and artistic expression which are at stake in the show.
Gertrude Moser-Wagner's work has been dealing with "birds" for many years. She has developed the issue in a series of projects, made both in collaboration with ornithologists, mathematicians social and political scientists – but also in terms of critical examination boundaries between different sets of scientific and artistic practices. In 2009 Moser-Wagner has discovered the little south Italian island Ventotene which is not only a resting ground for birds migrating from Northern Europe to South Africa but also, since the time of the roman empire, an island of banishment. There, the exiled antifascist Altiero Spinelli formulated, together with his comrades, the "Manifesto for Ventotene" containing the core ideas of European Union. In her Project Zugunruhe, developed between exhibitions in Italy and Vienna, Moser-Wagner brings together the two aspects, of birds – and transnational migration. This project continued in Belgrade, in a collaboration with the artist and mathematician
REVERIE OF FLYING
Many time repeated dream during my childhood – dream of levitation (other people have had similar dream I know, but it has always its personal features and characteristics)…
Byzantine thought was very complex comprehending philosophy, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, as well as the mystical praxis of hierarchy (personal and collective one – in liturgical act). Approaching to gnosis as highest step of knowledge was the main aim in the process of following the path of hierarchy. The whole theory was founded on the antinomian basis for it was accepted as postulate that the truth (logos) cannot be approached by logical statements. The gnosis can be touched (never reached) only on emotional-aesthetical level, in the moment of personal enlightenment. Mystical praxis was a kind of living, the way of flying on the wings of light.
Moved by the child dream, Byzantine theory of hierarchy and my mathematical background I have been involved, even obsessed, during my life with all kind of flying:
flying on the wings of thoughts, on the wings of imagination, on the wings of inspiration, flying on the wings of mathematics, flying on the wings of love, on the wings of ecstasy (particularly creative ecstasy) …, flying on the wings of death (several departures and returns)…
In number of projects of mine (both scientific and artistic ones) different problems of flying were touched or developed in one or an other way.
In recent years, Claudia Mongini's work has been examining the tweet in terms of theoretical transfer between different knowledge areas. Her perspective deals both with the analysis of specific conditions of interference between current scientific and artistic practices, as well as the inquiry of their transformational conditions. Her approach is based on the concept of individuation as developed by the French epistemologist Gilbert Simondon. Simondon understands individuation as a process describing being from the point of view of its genesis, which is in opposition to examining development backwards, out of manifest conditions of existence. This perspective does not anymore entail individuated reality at the core of the attention, but rather focuses onto the process of its relational emergence. Individuation arises from a material plane of relations made up of differing potentials of energy, which is the 'pre-individual' state. In this sense, individuation is always conceived in terms of a partial and local resolution of these disparate energetic/material fields, resolution which never exhausts its primary possibilities and therefore retains the potential for further development.
The Prague project intends to operatively join together these two different artistic and theoretical approaches. By thinking "birds" through the process of individuation, the interdisiciplinary material already unraveled by past research might undergo new forms of aesthetic composition. On the other side, it is the aesthetic material itself which might "inform" theory with different transversal connections. In her exhibition work "Red thread" (wall installation, materials: red wool, nails pencil sketches) Claudia Mongini will follow the tracings of a mathematical model deriving from Chaos theory which has been at the basis of her former artistic activity. The series of numbers – i.e. the outcome of the algorithm – will not be translated to aesthetics in terms of visual spatial coordinates, but will constitute a referential pattern to be further developed in the gallery space. The intertwinings and knots produced by the numerical algorithm, will become a "lure" for further knots and interferences between pencil written problems and questions arising from current research, and the trajectory which the thread traces on the wall.
Linda Čihařová's works are mostly related to environment, natural powers, scientific studies or systems. Applying one system on the other helps her to find interesting features and new points of view.
Sher Doruff: Object One, 2010
Nine images 54 x 76cm; inkjet on Tyvek paper
In 2009/2010 artist Yvonne Dröge Wendel (NL/D) assembled nine collaborative meetings of theorists, designers, artists, archeologists, anthropologists and scientists in her studio to discuss the ontological, epistemological and aesthetic aspects of 'objects.' Each meeting produced a conceptual object she would later actualise. The Object One strip is a diagrammatic mapping of the initial six-hour conversation between Willem van Weelden, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Sher Doruff and Yvonne Dröge Wendel.
The strip/collage format takes advantage of the imaginary potential of the space between image/text renderings of the things 'gathered' in the studio space of the conversation that affected and where affected by the movement of thought that day. The relational dynamics between the discursive and non-discursive 'matters' of that discussion play out in a diagrammatic translation that traces an activating process as artistic practice.
Artists: Marcus Bergner, Linda Čihařová, Sher Doruff, Claudia Mongini, Gertrude Moser-Wagner, Marica Radojčič
Školská 28 Gallery
110 00 Prague 1

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
I found the following sentence in a reference book of English grammar, titled "These are the weak points of Japanese on English grammar - 日本人は英文法のここを間違える" edited by Japan IR and published by DHC Publishing in 2006:
"Example: There is a first time for everything.
Though you may be tempted to use "the" for "first time," here you must use "a," because it is a grand rule to use "a" after "There is." The composition, "There is" always demands "a," and "first time" just follows its demand.- P.52
I didn't know such a grand rule – A noun after "There is" should be accompanied with an infinite article exhists. Is it true? I used to write "There was the following article in the New York Times." Was I wrong?


text:
Save the Canadian Exchange Program for Educators
0 have signed. Let's get to 2,500!
In June 2019, the board of directors of CEEF (Canadian Educational Exchange Foundation) terminated the teacher exchange program. CEEF has offered the opportunity for international educational exchanges to both educators and students.
Teacher Educational Exchanges are a unique blend of professional development and international cooperation.
Benefits of a teacher exchange include:
- enable our students to develop global understandings of historical and contemporary social and cultural worlds
- create learning opportunities for our students that extend their local and national communities
- exposure to different education systems and assessment methods, bringing international perspectives to classrooms and schools
- development of new pedagogy ideas and skills for effective teaching
- acquisition of diverse perspectives to share with colleagues
- opportunity for teachers and their families to connect to a variety of cultures and communities
- developing resiliency skills and self-confidence
- building an international educational and personal network
- access to international travel opportunities and experiences
- enhanced language skills
- a cost neutral opportunity for school boards to enable a full year of extraordinary professional development for teachers which benefit students, schools, school communities, and school boards
Overview of the Exchange Program
The first recorded teacher exchanges occurred in 1899 between the UK and a small group of Toronto teachers. By the 1920s, the Ministry had taken over the responsibility, and BC and some other provinces had also begun offering teacher exchanges. The Ministries or Departments of Education for each province managed the programs until the 1990s.
In 1991 in Ontario, the Ministry of Education divested the program to OFEE (Ontario Federation for Educator Exchange). Administration of the program was by an executive and board of directors of former exchange teachers and supervisory officers with the non-financial support of the Ministry and school boards in terms of facilities, information, and promotion, etc. In 1997 OFEE and OSEF (student exchange program) for reasons of efficiency and financial expediency merged to become CEEF governed by one common board.
In 2000, the BC Ministry of Education approached CEEF to take over their program. Thereafter, NB, NS, PEI, SK, MB also approached CEEF to manage the program in their provinces. The program has exchanged teachers from within our country and with other countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Germany, United States, Denmark, Spain, and Switzerland. Organizations affording this opportunity become a part of an international network of educational authorities looking outward to become active global citizens and to strengthen educational systems.
When educators immerse themselves in other educational systems, they not only serve as ambassadors of the quality of Canadian educators on the world stage but also are allowed the opportunity to reflect on best practices at a deeper level. Exchange teachers experience first-hand inclusion, the diverse learner, indigenous education, achievement gaps, minority languages, and other important developments in education that are unfolding globally. They bring back new ideas to enrich Canadian students and the teaching profession.
Why sign the petition?
Your vote is essential to sustain the program. Your vote will demonstrate that there is a significant interest in a teacher exchange program.
Without a Canadian teacher exchange program, teachers will lose a valuable and unique opportunity to foster global perspectives, acquire international pedagogy, nurture respect and awareness of diverse cultures, and promote personal and professional growth and development.
Send us a Letter of Support
As well as signing the petition, you can also forward a letter of support to Canadian Teachers for Educational Exchanges, a group of volunteers who feel passionately about the teacher exchange program at _EMAIL_ to help in our efforts to keep the exchange program alive.
Join our Facebook group
You can also ask to join our Facebook group at Canadian Teachers for Educational Exchange at _URL_
Complete your signature
0 have signed. Let's get to 2,500!


text:
This is a compact introduction to the work of Philo (c. 20 B.C.-50 A.D.), the important Jewish thinker and scriptural interpreter. Schenck provides a guide for understanding Philo's complex works, a roadmap for topics and contents of Philo's writings, and a description of contemporary research so students can easily find their ways into Philo study.
Customer Reviews for A Brief Guide to Philo
This product has not yet been reviewed. Click here to continue to the product details page.


text:
Gardens in the Dunes
In Gardens In The Dunes, Leslie Marmon Silko writes about Indigo, a child of the Sand Lizard people, a tribe on the brink of extinction in turn-of-the-century California. Deftly using the voice of this precocious young girl, Silko — herself of Pueblo Indian descent – tells the tale of the terrible fate of the Native American people at this juncture in U.S. history.
After the death of Indigo's grandmother, Indigo and her sister leave their safe garden in the dunes in search of their mother. Once in town they are picked up by Indian police and separated. Indigo soon escapes. Hungry and in need of help, she is taken in by a Victorian couple en route to Europe. Before Indigo can find her way back to her family, she becomes the couple's ward on a tour of the elaborate gardens of New York, England, and Italy. Through the eyes of Indigo, Indigo's sister, and Indigo's white guardians, we come to learn that the clash of the white and the Indian cultures is a clash of peoples with completely different views of how to relate to nature and the universe.
Make no mistake – this is a literary historical novel. As such, it wrestles with enormous themes. Silko's faithful rendering of the voice of a young girl does manage to muffle the contentious nature of the feminist, ethnic and environmental issues, but even this sympathetic reader thought the Political Correctness Meter edged more than once into the red zone. This doesn't detract from Silko's lyrical writing, the depth of her female characters, or the sweeping range of her thematic explorations. Living for a short while in the head of charming little Indigo – a phenomenal creation — is well worth the effort.


text:
By CINDY LADAGE
CUTLER, Ind. — Adams Mill was built in 1845-46 and has stood the test of time. This beautiful mill, which could be inspiration for any rural landscape painting, was once a gristmill that produced assorted grades of flour, for more than 100 years.
Adams Mill, now a museum, was known for finely-ground specialty cake flour. Visitors can see flour sacks with the names Good Luck, Made Right and Wedding Cake, just a few of the brand names that adorn a wall of the mill.
It operated up until 1952 and while the machinery is still intact, it was also operational until a 2003 flood. Al Auffart, of the museum, said the mill was built by a John Adams.
"He bought the property and in 1831, he built a sawmill, and in 1834 he built his first gristmill on Wildcat Creek. This spot is geographically good. The gristmill was built where there is a natural flow of water," Auffart explained.
According to mill history, Adams walked along the Wildcat Creek from Lafayette toward what would become the site of Kokomo, to find a suitable site for his mill. He chose this location because of the oxbow bend at this point in the creek. The dam was built upstream and feeds a millrace that turned turbines to power the mill.
Auffart explained that Adams' first mill was torn down in 1845 to build the current one. The mill is built in the time-honored tradition of post and beam construction common among many agricultural structures in Indiana at the turn of the century. When entering the mill, visitors may admire the beautiful hand-hewn timbers that hold the framework together with shaved wooden pegs.
"I think the timber was all cut locally," Auffart said. "I think the posts, beams and joists are made from walnut, oak and poplar."
A town called Bolivar built up around the mill. "The town was plotted in 1837 and lasted until the 1870s, when the railroad came through; then, Cutler was built," he explained.
Besides the mill and Americana Museum inside it, the area is also a natural area where visitors hike, fish, canoe and camp. The nonprofit organization Adams Mill, Inc. offers dry camping in three cabins and rents out the area for weddings and festivals.
There are a few picturesque items outside the mill; there is a 1953 Ford that sits in front of a building that may eventually be made into an office. There is also a turbine wheel that, while lovely, is just for show – since this mill was operated on the turbines where the water flows across it.
"This was private property until last September," Auffart said. "Then it was sold to a nonprofit organization. It is a work in progress and it is truly historic. The organization is restoring the museum a little at a time."
The mill was previously owned by Claude Sheets, who had accumulated many collectible items, including a rare Conestoga wagon. His collection has allowed the mill to also serve as a museum filled with an array of agricultural implements and tools. Blacksmith tools most likely came from the shop that was once across the street. The cleaners, grinding floor and grist items are educational and the guide takes the visitor through the grinding process.
Over the years the building had many uses. It once housed the Wildcat Masonic Lodge 311 and the Wildcat Post Office opened in 1850 on the second floor. For a short time it also served as a school – all of these went on while the mill was actively grinding grain into flour.
The mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open mid-April through mid-October Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5 p.m., or by appointment. Call _PHONE_ or log onto _URL_ for details. Ask directions before heading out; GPS is not always accurate for this location.


text:
These days, cannabis is widely talked about as a medicine. It s not unusual to see newspaper articles or social media posts that promote its medical properties. But how does a drug become a medicine? And is cannabis really considered a medicine yet?
For cannabis and the chemicals extracted from it to be accepted as safe and effective medical drugs, they must first pass the same tests as any other potential medicine that might be helpful to the public. The system used to test this in Australia and around the world is the clinical trial process. Only by passing each stage of this process successfully, can a drug demonstrate it is safe and effective enough to be made available to the market and benefit the population.
This is not an easy process the average time from development of a drug to availability to patients is eight years, and on average, only 1 in 5 drugs make it through the tests successfully. For some medical conditions such as cancer, it s less than 1 in 10 drugs that make it through successfully. That means 9 out of 10 drugs that we read about in the paper as possible cures or treatments of cancer don t turn out to be safe enough or effective enough to actually be used.
So how does a drug move from an idea to a medication?
Click the arrows below to learn about each step a drug must take before it becomes a medicine.
The training ground
Phase 0 (also known as the preclinical stage) is like qualifications drugs have to prove their worth before they can pass on to actual human testing.
During this stage, newly developed chemicals (or recently found ones) are tested in animals or cells to find some evidence of a positive effect.
It can also be where new delivery methods are tested an old drug that was once an injection might have been turned into a pill (which patients would prefer!), but scientists need to check it still works in this new form.
In some instances, pilot studies or case studies are used these are very small trials (less than 20 people, or for case studies only one or two) used when other preclinical testing is not available.
Most of the current testing for medicinal cannabis is still in these training stages there may be some promising animal and cell data, and some interesting case studies, but usually not enough of each and that means there isn t enough evidence for it to pass to human clinical trials.
Who decides if it s ready for the next stage?
Whether a drug is ready to pass to Human Testing is decided by an ethics committee if they don t think the evidence is good enough or the risk of harm is significant, then a study can be rejected. The ethics committee will decide at each stage if a trial can continue.
Spotlight: THC and Tourette s syndrome
Tourette s Syndrome is a disorder consisting of motor and verbal tics (sudden semi-voluntary movements or vocalisations that last a short time) which are often preceded by a sensory urge.
It has been claimed cannabis can help decrease the frequency of tics. Right now, research into Tourette s Syndrome and cannabis is very limited. There have been a few pilot and case studies (which means only a few people tested) and one or two animal studies.
A recent research review of the evidence has found that the results are too vague and more evidence needs to be gathered before it can move into proper human testing.
So you can see, it s not easy for a drug to get past even the first stage!
The goal of phase 1 is to assess the safety of the drug in human volunteers.
We do this because drugs that work in animal models do not always have the same effects in humans a very effective drug in rats may have no effect on humans at all. Likewise, a safe dose for a mouse when made to an equivalent dose may be very dangerous for humans.
Only a small number of people are used in these studies (on average between 20 to 50 people). In most cases these are healthy humans, but in some cases a clinical patient group is used. This is most common in cancer trials where a drug may cause a healthy person to become unwell.
From this stage researchers learn: the maximum dose of a drug that can be tolerated, how long a drug takes to metabolise (break down in the body) and its basic effects (including side effects).
About two thirds of drugs pass this stage the main reason for failure is usually the drug having unexpected or serious effects in humans.
One reason smoked cannabis has remained so popular is that breathing in a chemical is the quickest way for it to get to the bloodstream to have its effects. However, like smoking tobacco, this can have some serious side effects when plant matter is burned it creates by-products such as tar which can irritate or damage the lungs. It is unlikely, for this reason, that smoking cannabis will become the main way for patients to take medical cannabis in the future.
A vaporiser is a device that heats water and cannabis and in doing this, creates a cannabis mist. Vaporisers have been suggested as an alternative method for taking cannabis as they might keep the best parts of smoking (fast effect) and limit the side effects (lung and throat irritation and/or damage).
Vaporisers have been tested with small groups of humans to assess their safety. So far tests have found they do have less direct negative effect on the lungs than smoking, but more testing is needed to see if they contain other chemicals such as formaldehyde that may make it unsafe in other ways.
Is it better than nothing?
The goal of phase 2 is to make sure a drug is safe for patients but also that it actually works!
Using information from phase I, the drug is now tested in a patient population. In this stage, a larger number of people are assessed (up to several hundred) and a lot of questions have to be answered.
Patients can be quite different and sometimes many trials of the same drug have to be done in order to find the best or complete potential patient population. To be successful, the drug must produce few or tolerated side effects, and must show some benefits compared to a placebo (a treatment that should not have any effect like a pretend treatment). Study times are longer in this phase, from several months to a few years.
Only a third of drugs tested pass this 3 common reasons for failure are unwanted side effects that weren t found in phase 1 or, more commonly, being unable to prove any benefit compared to placebo.
What is a placebo?
You ll often hear the word placebo used in medical research and it s not the band your dad used to listen to in the 90s!
A placebo is a fake treatment that is given to the patient so the scientists can see if any change in a patient s condition would have happened anyway, without treatment, of if the change happened because the patient thought it would. For example, if one patient is given a tic tac (a placebo, because it has no medical use) and another is given a working drug, the patient with the placebo should get no real medical benefit. If the patient seems to report a lot of benefit it could be that simply receiving medical attention has helped, or because they know they are being treated, or they could just really want to believe that it has worked.
Spotlight: CBD for Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which the sufferer can have hallucinations and confused thinking. It can also impact memory and reasoning. Current drugs to treat it can have unpleasant side effects like weight gain and trembling, and don t work for everyone. For this reason there is a lot of interest in searching for new medications.
CBD, which is one chemical in cannabis, has been suggested as a possible treatment. It has passed through stage 1 testing, meaning it was safe at the doses tested. Early experiments in schizophrenic patients seem to be reducing symptoms, but there are a few problems that need to be worked out it doesn t work for all patients, and studies have so far only been short-term.
Is it better than other treatments?
In this stage, the new medication has to prove it is equal to or better/cheaper than an existing treatment. Having a drug that works but only works half as well as the already available treatments is not going to do well what patient would want to use it?
You may hear the term randomised controlled trial used when talking about medical research this is the gold standard (the really good quality research) of phase 3. This uses a research design which randomly chooses which patient will get which drug, for example an old drug, the new drug being tested, or a placebo (a fake treatment that has no effect). This makes sure the scientist doesn t just choose his friends to get the new treatment, or people he knows will say good things about the drug.
A trial can be also blinded when either the doctor or the patient (or both) do not know which treatment or drug is being given to which patient. So while recording the effects, the scientist doesn t know if the patient in front of him took a real drug, a pretend one, an old one or the drug being tested they just see what is happening to the patient.
In this stage, the number of tested patients gets larger; thousands of people can be involved in a phase 3 trial. The trial times are also much longer to test for long-term effects. For this reason it can take several years before a result is known.
Drugs are tested against placebo as well as against an already known treatment. In this way researchers can see whether the new drug works more like the placebo (which should have little effect), like the existing/old drug, or better than both.
In both phase 2 and phase 3 the reasons for failure are similar thanks to testing in phase 1 and 2, drugs at this stage are should be fairly safe, so drugs usually fail because they aren t effective


The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham
In Brief
In post-apocalypse Canada, a young boy witnesses his friend being chased out of their strictly religious community because she has six toes. As he comes to realize that he too is "abnormal", David Strorm starts to question the Puritanical, intolerant society in which he has always lived.
Why you should read it
Arguably Wyndham's best book, this frightening and plausible account of how it feels to be different and persecuted is totally absorbing. Parallels can be drawn both to eugenics and the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War. Although the novel was written in the 1950s it is still highly relevant to issues affecting society today.
Contributor :


How to Make Date Paste
Many of our desserts and baking recipes rely heavily on date paste as a replacement for sugar. Because date paste includes the same nutrients you find in dates, it brings more nutrition to a dish than refined sugars. Date paste, however, is not easily available in most major grocery stores, which might leave you scratching your head. Never fear! Date paste is just date puree, and it's easy to make. Here are some tips for getting good results.
Apple-Date Torte
Apple-Date Torte is a wonderful dessert for trying out date paste because it's very forgiving where consistency is concerned.
1. Choose your dates.
For the best health benefit, look for whole, unsweetened dates. The ingredients label on the package should say only "dates." Some dried or chopped, candied dates contain added sugar, which you don't need.
2. Choose your amount.
Estimating your quantity is tricky, since date sizes vary by type and your ultimate volume will also depend on how much water you add. As a general rule of thumb, however, you will get approximately 1 cup of date paste for 12 Medjool dates.
3. Soak your dates.
Straight up dates will produce a paste thick enough to jam most blenders and getting a smooth consistency can be challenging. Cover your dates with warm water for 1 hour, then drain the liquid off completely, reserving the liquid.
4. Puree the dates.
Using the most powerful blending tool in your kitchen (blender, food processor, whatever you own that's strongest), puree the dates. If you're having trouble getting them to a nice paste consistency (think tomato paste for comparison), add in just enough water to reach a workable consistency.
5. Store the extra.
Because amounts can be challenging to adjust, it's not a bad idea to make date paste in a larger batch than you expect to need. Measure out 1/4 cup increments onto a parchment covered baking sheet and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Freeze for 4-6 hours, then transfer to a freezer bag for later use.


DNS Failover explained
In the best-case scenario, your DNS will always work perfectly. The name servers will be up all the time, and your visitors will get their queries resolved without any problem. Sadly the perfect case does not exist. Sometimes servers go down. Here comes the DNS Failover. It is a simple mechanism to redirect the traffic in case of a failure.
DNS Failover and how does it work
DNS Failover is a mechanism in case of a problem with a particular DNS name server. It gets triggered, and it will auto-perform action such as change the DNS A records (the IP addresses) or only notify the administrator.
 1. You have DNS records for your domain. Let's see just the A DNS records for this example. Those records link your domain to its addresses. Other typical records that benefit from the DNS Failover are the AAAA records and the SRV records.
 1. You will need to set a DNS monitoring that works with your DNS Failover. The monitor will periodically check the availability of your DNS server. Usually, it is a simple ping to see if they are responding. You can regulate the time interval between the probes. Other popular monitoring methods are using web checks, TCP, or UDP for the probes.
 1. If the monitor system detects down servers, it will trigger the DNS Failover, and it will auto-change the A records that lead to the down server with others (backup) that you predetermined. It will push the update across your DNS servers. You can set what action exactly the Failover should do. Just notify, just remove the IP address or change the IP addresses. You can also set the value, based on the % of lost packets, when exactly is the moment to trigger an action. In some cases, you can trigger the IP address change when your server is losing 50% of the packets, not 100%.
 1. The same monitoring system will be checking when the down server gets back up. When that happens, it can change the DNS records again and propagate the update to the rest of the servers. The system will get back to its normal state automatically, without any human interaction. That way, the downtime is experienced by a tiny group of visitors before the records get updated. You will have a lot better uptime, and your visitors can have a good experience. Of course, you can just set to notify when the server is back without changing the IP address.
Why should you care about DNS Failover?
Because it makes the life of a DNS administrator easier! If your website or application is down, you don't need to do anything. Just sit down and relax. In a few minutes, depending on the frequency of the DNS monitor checking, you will be back online. No need for manually changing DNS records and waiting for DNS propagation.
If your downtime only lasts a few minutes, you will continue to receive visitors on your site or users on your application, relatively uninterrupted. That means they can continue using what they want, buy or do other activities.
It is easy to setup. Just activate it for the records you want, like A or AAAA records, by adding the additional IP addresses in case of failures.
Leave a Reply


text:
A follow-up study was conducted of a double-blind trial in Argentina designed to assess the effect of calcium supplementation on incidence of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Six hundred fourteen women received 2 g per day of calcium or placebo from week 20 of gestation until delivery. Dental examinations were performed on 195 randomly selected children whose mothers participated in the study. The researchers who performed the dental exam were blinded to the mothers treatment assignment. The proportion of children who had at least 1 decayed, missing, or filled tooth was significantly lower in the calcium group than in the placebo group (63.3% vs. 86.6%; p < 0.001). The mean number of decayed, missing, or filled tooth surfaces was also significantly lower in the calcium group than in the placebo group (3.1 vs. 4.4; p < 0.001).
Comment: Calcium plays an important role in tooth development The results of the present study indicate that calcium supplementation during pregnancy can reduce the incidence of dental caries in the offspring at 12 years of age.
See Calcium Liquid with Magnesium for kids
14 November 2011


text:
The Family Medicine clerkship will focus on:
- Knowledge needed to diagnose and manage common acute and chronic conditions across age groups seen in outpatient family medicine settings.
- Clinical and Communication Skills to take accurate histories, perform focused physical exams, develop evidence based differentials, generate cost effective management plans, and communicate those plans effectively with patients in outpatient family medicine settings.
- Skills to integrate preventive care into outpatient practice
- Skills to elicit and understand patients' lives over time and how this context influences care
- Integrating evidence relevant to primary care settings, learning about quality improvement, working with population of patients, and understanding systems of care; these are concepts embodied by the Patient Centered Medical Home model


text:
Sample irrigation modernisation plan
The Modernisation Plan: Table of Contents
The purpose of this sample plan is to provide project proponents with an indication of the Department's expectations as to the content and structure of a modernisation plan. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to illustrate the kinds of matters a modernisation plan should ideally cover.
The main point to note is that the reader should be able to draw from a modernisation plan a good understanding of an Irrigation Water Provider's district, system and the challenges and opportunities facing it in the light of the data and information gathered during the planning work and the potential for reduced future water availability. From this, the reader would be readily able to understand the rationale of the modernisation/reconfiguration options that are developed, analysed and ranked by the report.
1. Endorsement of the modernisation plan by the Board of Management
Endorsement of the modernisation plan by the board of management or its equivalent should be at the front of the plan. This would see the board endorsing that the options identified in the mod plan are feasible and acceptable to the board as a basis for the future direction of the organisation. However, it is important to note that it also leaves it to the board to make decisions on future investments in accordance with the statutory responsibilities of the Board members, or in line with any other legal/regulatory obligations devolving upon the organisation.
2. Executive summary
3. A description of the grantee's irrigation district
In reading this section of the Plan, the reader should be able to understand the landscape in which the proponent is working and provide context to appreciate the rationale for the modernisation plan. This section would cover natural resource characteristics of the irrigation region, such as soils, salinity, climate, rainfall, biodiversity etc; key environmental features, nature of the agronomic activities and trends within the region, including farm size, irrigation practices, etc; customers; water extractions and use; water balance etc.
4. The Irrigation Water Provider (IWP)
This section will describe the proponent's management structure; work force and skills; legal/regulatory framework; water entitlements; financial data including revenues and sources, outlays on the system.
5. The IWP's irrigation system
This section will provide the reader with a description of the IWP's irrigation infrastructure and how it meets the current needs of its customers and other stakeholders. It would also cover how the delivery system developed over time, how it is configured, the quality, age and efficiency of the infrastructure including metering. How suitable is the current system (including water availability and entitlements) to the production of various types of crops/pastures as well as crops not traditionally grown in the area? An assessment of water losses and the findings of 'hot spots' assessment or equivalent should be included in this section. In brief, the reader should be able to derive an appreciation of the extent and efficiency of the IWP's irrigation infrastructure.
6. Consultations with customers and stakeholders
From reading this section the reader should be confident that the proponent's customers and stakeholders have had their concerns and views heard and understood, including their input on the future of the IWP and the range of modernising options before it to assist it adapt to the future. The report should describe the consultations undertaken and report upon the stakeholders' views and ideas. The consultations should cover all issues relevant to the region and its future including the preferences of irrigators/farmers based on scenarios of future water availability (such as winter vs. summer irrigation for example; how do farmers see agronomic and irrigation practices developing in the district; do they have any plans/intentions regarding future farming practices and how to transition to these practices etc).
7. Challenges and issues
In reading this section, the reader should be able to come to a full appreciation of the current trends in the region in terms of agronomic and irrigation practices, as well as other short, medium and long term factors. This would include the scope and impact of water trading both within and out of the district. The viability of agriculture based on various alternative water availability scenarios is an important consideration as well as the viability of any local or national processing or downstream industries dependent upon the district's output. Are there any other contingent factors that might have an impact, such as transport costs into and out of the region?
The chapter will outline the challenges facing the proponent and its irrigation region out to as far as a twenty year horizon. This might include the results of other studies carried out by the proponent but we would expect a full appraisal including results/findings of other studies of the system and district. The section should deal with the possibility of reduced future water availability; trends in agronomic and irrigation practices; non-farm development trends in the district which might generate competition for water in the future; and ability to meet new metering standards. It should also cover issues for the future of the IWP and the irrigation district/region that have been identified in the consultations with customers and stakeholders.
8. Options for the future
This section will set out in some detail the options available to the IWP identified for the IWP in the light of current trends within the IWP's district/region and the consultant's research and consultations. This would include such issues as improvements to the efficiency of infrastructure, systems and the management of water. It might also include options to respond to significant changes in agronomic practices in the district resulting from reduced water availability and other factors in the future. Changes to system infrastructure including rationalisation and reconfiguration should also be looked at.
9. Analysis and rankings of investment options
This section will provide the reader with an analysis of the options identified, in particular drawing together the social, economic, financial and technical aspects of the project options. In this context the analysis should include: technical feasibility; analysis of costs and benefits; identification of lasting water savings, nature of entitlements attached to water savings, timing of their availability and their costs in terms of the estimated investment requirements; identification of mechanisms and issues associated with the transfer of water savings, eg constitution, registers, fees; the contribution of the options to the long term financial viability of the IWP; and the capacity of the IWP to recoup costs through a transparent charging regime.
This chapter will also rank the options in terms of economic returns and capacity to address climate change. The ranking criteria should be explicitly identified as well as the relative weightings (where used) accorded to water volume/reliability/cost/community impact as well as any other issues identified. This chapter need not make specific recommendations to the IWP management and board as to the preferred option.


Select Citation Style
Thank you for your feedback
External Websites
Bisexuality, in biology, the condition of an organism capable of producing both male and female gametes (sex cells). In plants and microorganisms, this is often referred to as monoecism. In multicellular animals, bisexuality is usually called hermaphroditism (q.v.).


text:
Objectives: Motor vehicle-pedestrian crash is a significant public health concern. The urban campus of Georgia State University poses unique challenges due to a large number of students and university employees. The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) to examine the correlation between specific features of the built environment on and around the University campus and pedestrian crashes; and (2) to identify crash clusters in the study area using network-based geospatial techniques.
Methods: We obtained pedestrian crash data (n=119) from 2003 to 2007 from Georgia Department of Transportation and evaluated environmental features pertaining to the road infrastructure, pedestrian infrastructure and streetscape for each road segment and intersection. Prevalence rate of each feature with pedestrian crashes present was calculated. We used network-based Kernel Density Estimation to identify the high density road segments and intersections, then used network-based K-function to examine the clustering of pedestrian crashes.
Results: Over 50% of the crosswalk signs, pedestrian signals, public transit, and location branding signs (more than three) at intersections involved pedestrian crashes. More than half of wider streets (greater than 29 feet), two-way streets, and streets in good condition had pedestrian crashes present. Crashes occurred more frequently in road segments with strong street compactness and mixed land use present and were significantly (p<0.05) clustered in these high-density zones.
Conclusions: Findings can be used to understand the correlation between built environment and pedestrian safety, to prioritize the high-density zones for intervention efforts, and to formulate research hypotheses for investigating pedestrian crashes. [West J Emerg Med. 2010; 11(3): 295-302.]


Providing peace of mind through skilled guidance, compassion & simplicity
How Do the Children Divide Up Mom's Tangible Property?
Please Share!
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email
What should you do if you've been given the task to be in charge of divvying up a parent's estate that includes assorted tangible items?
Minneapolis Tribune's article entitled "A clever way to divvy up items after a parent's death" says that some families do it, by taking turns selecting which items each will keep.
The article discusses how a family decided to divide things up their mom's grand estate and how the method the family used to divvy up the tangible items could be one that other families with much smaller estates could use.
After their mom's death at 93, the brother and sister co-executors created an inventory of 724 items in her estate that had monetary or sentimental value. These included things like furniture, artwork, oriental rugs, cutlery, china, a piano and a car. They didn't include their mom's jewelry, books or linens, or her silver, gold and collectible coins. The four siblings all agreed to sell the coins and to deal with the many books, linens, and jewelry more informally, after the more significant items had been distributed.
The family didn't use the common way of disbursing tangible items of an estate, in which family members take turns choosing items. With over 700 items, that could take a while. They felt that system wouldn't maximize the value received by the four children and seven grandchildren. Instead, their process for dividing the intangible items used the following steps:
 1. The inventory was given to all four siblings and asked each one to state the items that they were interested in. This divided the 724 items into three groups: (a) stuff in which no one had an interest; (b) stuff in which only one person had an interest; and (c) those in which two or more were interested. Things in which no one had an interest, were set aside to be sold or given away, and those who were the only siblings to want certain items got them.
 2. They then made lists of items in which more than one sibling expressed an interest. Each received a list of those items. They were not given information on ones in which they weren't interested—one of two ways the system wasn't transparent.
 3. Each person was then "given" 500 virtual poker chips that he or she could use to bid for contested items. However, prior to the bidding deadline, they could talk with one another about their intentions. The result was that many had bid for several similar items, like family pictures, bookcases and oriental rugs — when they really only wanted one from each category. Thus, they agreed among themselves who would receive each one, without wasting too many chips. This also avoided two siblings using a lot of tokens to bid for a particular item, and no one bidding on another similar one.
 4. After the bids were in, the co-executors announced the results, without revealing the bids, to avoid a silent auction where bidders can see what others are bidding and readjust their bids up to the deadline. This was the second part of the system that wasn't transparent.
 5. Finally, when all the allocations were determined, the co-executors tabulated the monetary value of all the items and readjusted the estate monetary distributions to ensure that everyone came out at the same place financially. The most valuable items were a 1919 Steinway drawing room grand piano valued at $25,000; a 2005 Toyota Camry valued at $4,500; and some oriental rugs with a total value of $13,975. Those who got the big-ticket items had to pay their siblings something for them, with a total of $17,500 trading hands.
It was time-consuming and took several months, but the siblings thought that their system was very fair and the process, unlike what is done in some other family estates, relieved tensions and brought the siblings closer together.
Suggested Key Terms: Estate Planning Lawyer, Inheritance, Asset Protection, Estate Distribution


text:
Last week I wrote about my cracked iron and a desire for a tapered iron for my miter plane and J asked the following question:
I got similar queries from a few other people and the answer deserves a proper explanation:
A plane iron can be parallel, tapered so that the thick end is near the mouth, or tapered so that the thinner end is near the mouth (See picture).
If the iron is parallel the iron will stay put provided the force on the iron is less than the wedge force or the frictional force caused by the wedge bearing down on the iron. In general the friction force is going to be a lot less than the wedge force and depending on the iron and the fit of the wedge (very important) you might have to bang the wedge in pretty hard to keep the frictional force high enough so the iron stays put in use. The same force is needed to slide the iron in or out.
Japanese planes have a tapered iron with the cutting edge at the thin end. The iron is held by wedging it into notches at the side of the plane and it's the grain of the oak body that keeps the iron in place. This method of holding an iron in a plane is completely different from the Western approach.
The Western tapered iron is thicker at the cutting edge and works well because the iron is held in place by a mechanical interference between iron and wedge. There is no chance of the iron sliding so the force holding the iron in is purely a taper against the body of the plane, not parallel to the iron and is very strong. Most importantly the forces required to back off the iron are far greater than the force required to advance the iron. So a tap, tap on the back of the iron will advance the iron, and only a small tap on the wedge will lock it. Pushing back the other way takes more force. Try this and see - how hard it takes to advance a tapered iron vs the force needed to back it out.
Wedged infill planes pretty much disappear after the invention of the lever cap by Fenn in 1844. This allowed for using less expensive parallel irons, and it is far easier to fit a lever cap to a plane than a wedge. However I think adjusting a wedged plane is far easier. This changes again in 1913 when Norris introduced their adjuster. There is also an argument that a properly fitting wedge helps dampen vibration by clamping the iron over a much greater area than a lever cap. I want to think this is true but the thicker the plane iron is the less effect the wedge dampening would have.
|Comments are closed.|


text:
Waste Limitation, Management and Recycling (WLMR) Engineering Design Challenge
NASA education opportunities provide students an enhanced understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Program Summary: The WLMR Design Challenge is a competition in which students must create a water recycling system that can be used by astronauts living on other planets. Twenty-one middle school teams competed in the challenge's inaugural year.
Objective: Teams must design, construct and test a water recycling system on a simulated wastewater stream. They then submit a proposal and their results to NASA for review.
Time Frame: After nearly nine months of competition, NASA judges selected the team from the West Fargo School District team from North Dakota as the winner.
Application: The WLMR design challenge gives students the opportunity to apply critical thinking skills to solve a problem, just as a NASA scientist would, preparing them for future STEM education and careers.
› WLMR website
› Download PowerPoint file


The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing an appeal brought by a Toronto-area man, Pardeep Singh Chouhan, who was convicted of murder and is arguing changes to the way juries are selected was unconstitutional.
Ottawa tried to make juries more diverse. Critics say its changes had the opposite effect
Changes by the federal government to jury selection — brought in to diversify juries and help combat systemic racism in the courts — will actually have the opposite effect, argue a number of associations representing racialized lawyers.
The changes were introduced in the wake of the Gerald Stanley trial in Saskatchewan in 2018. Stanley, a white man, was acquitted by a jury of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 22-year-old Indigenous man Colten Boushie.
Media reports at the time said that the defence was using what were known as "peremptory challenges" to dismiss any potential juror who appeared Indigenous.
Peremptory challenges allowed both Crown and defence lawyers to dismiss a certain number of potential jurors during jury selection without having to give a reason. After the Stanley acquittal, the federal government moved to abolish the challenges.
That change now forms part of an appeal being heard at the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday, brought by a Toronto-area man, Pardeep Singh Chouhan, who was convicted of murder and is arguing the removal of peremptory challenges was unconstitutional.
A number of legal groups, including associations representing Black, Asian and Muslim lawyers, have intervened in the case, arguing that the removal of peremptory challenges does not in fact help tackle systemic racism in the courts, and harms a person of colour's right to a fair trial by jury.
They point out that people of colour accused of a crime often used the challenges to help ensure people with perceived biases didn't make it on to the jury that would ultimately decide their fate — in a system where jury pools remain significantly white and Black, Indigenous and people of colour remain overrepresented as accused persons.
Among the intervenors who argue in favour of the ban on the challenges are Toronto-based legal clinic Aboriginal Legal Services, and Debbie Baptiste, Colten Boushie's mother.
The South Asian Bar Association argues in its filing that peremptory challenges were a "crucial tool" for people of colour accused of a crime, allowing them to evaluate whether a potential juror would treat their case fairly.
"Parliament ostensibly eliminated peremptory challenges to increase jury diversity — but the change is fundamentally misguided," the association wrote in its filing.
"At the end of the day, Parliament eliminated the peremptory challenge because a white person — who already starts with every relative advantage in the criminal justice system — abused the power in order to eliminate a minority group from his jury.
"In response to that abuse, Parliament stripped every accused person of colour of his or her peremptory challenges."
The ban on peremptory challenges was introduced in spring 2018 as part of a massive piece of federal legislation known as Bill C-75, the Liberal government's attempt at revamping the justice system.
Former justice minister Jody Wilson-Rayboud said at the time that the bill "aims to bring about a wide-reaching cultural shift in the criminal justice system and how it is administered throughout the country."
But critics have argued that the removal of peremptory challenges was short-sighted, and that regulating their use would have been far better than getting rid of them completely.
"Parliament failed to give proper consideration to the impact of the abolition of peremptory challenges on Black accused, the result of which is the exacerbation of the very issue that it claimed to fix: systemic racism," says the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers in its filing.
"Historically, the primary rationale underlying the use of peremptory challenges was that it allowed the accused person to participate in the selection of his or her trier of fact, thereby adding a sense of legitimacy to the jury."
Debbie Baptiste, Colten Boushie's mother, points out that Indigenous people were systematically excluded from juries for much of Canada's history, and that peremptory challenges are a form of race-based discrimination.
Her filing states that five visibly Indigenous people were challenged by the defence during jury selection at the Stanley trial.
"From the perspective of Indigenous people who have been historically targeted and victimized, the existence of peremptory challenges as mechanisms for discrimination does not support the perception of a fair trial or an impartial jury," says the filing.
Aboriginal Legal Services also echoed the argument in their filing that the challenges have "unquestionably excluded" Indigenous people from serving on juries.
"In 2020, it is impossible to see the retention of these challenges as anything other than antithetical to every notion of fairness," says their filing.
Federal justice minister David Lametti's office said in a statement to the Star that his government's changes to jury selection addressed "long-standing and well-documented concerns that racialized Canadians were being unfairly excluded by the previous process."
Under the new rules, a party can still challenge a potential juror for bias, but it's up to the trial judge to decide whether the person should be dismissed — after hearing the potential juror's self-assessment as to whether they can judge the case fairly.
"Such challenges overlook how bias is difficult to detect by both outsiders (judges) and those who are biased (jurors)," says the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association in its filing.
Toronto lawyer Dirk Derstine, who is representing Chouhan in the appeal before the Supreme Court, said people who have been the subject of discrimination can often tell pretty quickly if someone is biased against them — but it can be difficult to persuade a judge, who is often white.
"We say (the challenge for cause procedure) is inadequate in order to ferret out those who would hold prejudicial views against people," Derstine told the Star.
Jury selection at Chouhan's Toronto murder trial was carried out under the new rules, without the use of peremptory challenges. The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the ruling that banning the challenges was constitutional, a decision which will be before the Supreme Court next week.
At the same time, the Court of Appeal ruled on when the changes to peremptory challenges should apply. The court found that the right to use peremptory challenges still applied to cases where the accused person had opted for a trial by jury before Sept. 19, 2019, the date the jury selection changes came into effect.
That decision could lead to dozens of homicide and sexual assault cases in Ontario, including Chouhan's, having to be retried because they used the new jury selection method. The Crown is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeal's ruling on this issue.
A coalition made up of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association and the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers proposes in its filing that the government could regulate the use of peremptory challenges, rather than scrap them entirely.
The coalition suggests an approach where the Crown or defence could raise with the judge if they believe the other side is using their challenges for "discriminatory reasons or that there has been a pattern of using the peremptory challenge to eliminate racialized jurors."
And if after hearing from the other side the judge finds that the challenge to a juror was motivated by a discriminatory purpose, the juror should be seated, the coalition proposes.
"I think by eliminating peremptory challenges you're going to risk having all-white juries in trials involving Indigenous accused and racialized accused, and there's going to be nothing that defence counsel can do about it," one of the coalition's lawyers, Nader Hasan, told the Star.
Jacques Gallant is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: _USER_
More from The Star & Partners
More News
Top Stories


text:
Policy Tasks to Guarantee Family Diversity: Non-marriage and Unrelated Families' Experiences and Demands of Policy Reform
Kim Young Jeong
Research Fellow, Seoul Foundation of Women & Family
Nowadays, many families are non-traditional or alternative. The non-traditional family units can be same-sex couples/parents, co-habiting couples/parents, and unrelated housemates, and the number of such families has been increasing. This study aims to explore the various forms of family, focusing on the discrimination that non-married and non-kin households experience. Second, it proposes policy changes to guarantee the of Seoul citizens' rights to family life. The research conducted surveys and focus group interviews of people living in unmarried couples or unmarried housemates and literature analysis of legal data and overseas cases.
The legal system does not recognise them as partners in life and the current family and marriage norms typically deny their relationship. Even though they live together and conduct "family practice," their rights are not protected. Disapproval of such relations and institutional discrimination resulting from this does not end at an abstract level but is experienced in everyday lives and practical livelihoods. Specific cases include the recognition of common property, exclusion from housing support policies, and the inability to play a guardian's role (hospital, police station, etc.) in emergencies.
To improve these families' lives, the study suggests launching the Seoul Civil Partnership Registration System. Although the regional approach, like the partnership registration system of Japanese local governments, is not guaranteed to be legally binding, it can be expected to improve social awareness and have ripple effects through social approval of actual family relations. In addition, even before full institutional acceptance, it can help resolve discrimination of such families. City hospitals, city-affiliated institutions, and partner companies can use the proposed partnership system to guarantee their rights and make efforts to improve the right to care, economic rights, and social awareness.
*Key words: family, intimacy, family diversity, civil partnership, living together


Last week Congress rolled out H.R. 1, the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act." Congress needs to cut taxes and rework its budget, but the proposal contains a troubling provision: It ends the federal Adoption Tax Credit.
Under current law, a taxpayer may claim $13,570 in adoption tax credits per eligible child. This is a small step the federal government takes to encourage adoption.
Considering the government estimates average adoption expenses can run anywhere from $20,000 – $50,000, the credit helps make adoption a reality for many children and families. Unfortunately, the new budget proposal would end this good tax credit.
One way the government can oppose abortion is by promoting adoption. As President Reagan told Congress in 1985,
Adoption gives women alternatives to abortion. That's why in 1995 we worked closely with Sen. Fay Boozman to pass a law in Arkansas giving families tax breaks for adoption expenses.
Congress should keep the federal Adoption Tax Credit in place. It's a simple policy; the federal government misses out on very little tax revenue because of it; but it goes a long way to help end abortion in America.


text:
A Definition Of Absorption
Source: Adapted from the National Institutes of Health
What does the term "absorption" mean? The term "absorption" refers to to take in substances through the skin or mucous membranes. To find out more about this term, please search the news section of this website for related articles and information.


text:
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Four color theorem
The four color theorem states that every possible geographical map can be colored using no more than four colors in such a way that no two adjacent regions receive the same color. Two regions are called adjacent if they share a border segment, not just a point.
It is obvious that three colors are inadequate, and it is not difficult, relatively speaking, to prove that five colors are sufficient to color a map.
The four color theorem was the first major theorem to be proven using a computer, and the proof is not accepted by all mathematicians because it would be unfeasible for a human to verify by hand. Ultimately, one has to have faith in the correctness of the compiler and hardware executing the program used for the proof.
The lack of mathematical elegance was another factor, and to paraphrase comments of the time, "a good mathematical proof is like a poem—this is a telephone directory!"
The conjecture was first proposed in 1852 when Francis Guthrie, while trying to color the map of counties of England, noticed that only four different colors were needed. At the time, Guthrie was a student of Augustus De Morgan at University College. (Guthrie graduated in 1850, and later became a professor of mathematics in South Africa). According to de Morgan:
- A student of mine [Guthrie] asked me today to give him a reason for a fact which I did not know was a fact - and do not yet. He says that if a figure be anyhow divided and the compartments differently coloured so that figures with any portion of common boundary line are differently coloured - four colours may be wanted, but not more - the following is the case in which four colours are wanted. Query cannot a necessity for five or more be invented...
The first published reference is found in Arthur Cayley's, On the colourings of maps., Proc. Royal Geography Society 1, 259-261, 1879.
There were several early failed attempts at proving the theorem. One proof of the theorem was given by Alfred Kempe in 1879, which was widely acclaimed; another proof was given by Peter Tait in 1880. It wasn't until 1890 that Kempe's proof was shown incorrect by Percy Heawood, and 1891 that Tait's proof was shown incorrect by Julius Petersen - each false proof stood unchallenged for 11 years.
In 1890, in addition to exposing the flaw in Kempe's proof, Heawood proved that all planar graphs are five-colorable.
However, it was not until 1977 that the four-color conjecture was finally proven by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois. They were assisted in some algorithmic work by J. Koch.
The proof reduced the infinitude of possible maps to 1,936 configurations (later reduced to only 1,476) which had to be checked one by one by computer. The work was independently double checked with different programs and computers. However, the "proof" was over 500 pages of hand written counter-counter-examples, much of which was Hakken's teenage son verifying graph colorings. The computer program ran for hundreds of hours. Essentially the proof stated that the theorem must be correct because all potential counter-examples were disproven, without actually giving a concrete logical reasoning. However, it provided a firm basis for later work.
In 1996, Neil Robertson, Daniel Sanders, Paul Seymour and Robin Thomas produced a similar proof which required checking 633 special cases. This new proof also contains parts which require the use of a computer and are impractical for humans to check alone.
In 2004, Benjamin Werner and Georges Gonthier formalized a proof of the theorem inside the Coq theorem prover. This removes the need to trust the various computer programs used to verify particular cases — it is only sufficient to trust the Coq prover.
Not for map-makers
The four colour theorem does not arise out of and has no origin in practical cartography. According to Kenneth May, a mathematical historian who studied a sample of atlases in the Library of Congress, there is no tendency to minimise the number of colors used. Maps utilizing only four colors are rare, and those that do usually require only three.
Textbooks on cartography and the history of cartography don't mention the four colour theorem, even though map colouring is a subject of discussion. Generally, mapmakers say they are more concerned about coloring maps in a balanced fashion, so that no single color dominates. Whether they use 4 or 5 colors is not their primary concern.
Formal statement in graph theory
To formally state the theorem, it is easiest to rephrase it in graph theory. It then states that the vertices of every planar graph can be colored with at most four colors so that no two adjacent vertices receive the same color. Or "every planar graph is four-colorable" for short. Here, every region of the map is replaced by a vertex of the graph, and two vertices are connected by an edge if and only if the two regions share a border segment.
One can also consider the coloring problem on surfaces other than the plane. The problem on the sphere is equivalent to that on the plane. For closed (orientable or non-orientable) surfaces with positive genus, the maximum number p of colors needed depends on the surface's Euler characteristic χ according to the formula
where the outermost brackets denote the floor function. The only exception to the formula is the Klein bottle, which has Euler characteristic 0 and requires 6 colors. This was initially known as the Heawood conjecture and proved as The Map Color Theorem by Gerhard Ringel and J. T. W. Youngs in 1968.
Real world counterexamples
In the real world, not all countries are contiguous (e.g. Alaska as part of the United States). If the chosen coloring scheme requires that the territory of a particular country must be the same color, four colors may not be sufficient. Conceptually, a constraint such as this enables the map to become non-planar, and thus the four color theorem no longer applies. For instance, consider a simplified map:
In this map, the two regions labeled A belong to the same country, and must be the same color. This map then requires five colors, since the two A regions together are contiguous with four other regions, each of which is contiguous with all the others. If A consisted of three regions, six or more colors might be required; one can construct maps that require an arbitrarily high number of colors.
Theorem proved: four colours suffice
The proof of the Four Color Theorem is not simple; it involved more than 1,000 hours of computing time on a 1977 computer checking more than 100,000 particular cases. To some mathematicians this is unacceptable, as the proof cannot be reviewed; but would a 1,000-page hand-written proof be any more checkable?
What the proof does not provide is any insight as to why the conjecture is true. The theorem is true, but unexplained. This is another, stronger reason that critics call the proof inelegant.
In 2002, Benjamin Werner and Georges Gonthier from INRIA formalized a proof of the theorem inside the Coq theorem prover. This removes the need to trust the various computer programs used to verify particular cases — it is only sufficient to trust the Coq prover.
- Appel, Kenneth & Haken, Wolfgang & Koch, John, Every Planar map is Four Colorable, Illinois: Journal of Mathematics: vol.21: pp.439-567, December 1977.
- Appel, Kenneth & Haken, Wolfgang, Solution of the Four Color Map Problem, Scientific American, vol.237 no.4: pp.108-121, October 1977.
- Appel, Kenneth & Haken, Wolfgang, Every Planar Map is Four-Colorable. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, 1989.
- O'Connor and Robertson, History of the Four Color Theorem, MacTutor project, _URL_
- Saaty and Kainen, The Four Color Problem: Assaults and Conquest (ISBN 0-486-65092-8)
- Robin Thomas, An Update on the Four-Color Theorem (PDF File), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Volume 45, number 7 (August 1998)
- Robin Thomas, The Four Color Theorem, _URL_
The contents of this article is licensed from _URL_ under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details


text:
top of page
Le Superstizioni Italiane
(buona fortuna = good luck sfortuna = bad luck)
Italians are superstitious and they share some of the well-known beliefs such as:
a. Do not open an umbrella indoors.
b. To break a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck.
c. Do not walk under a ladder.
But there are some Italian superstitions........
1. In addition to the number 13, in Italy the number 17 is considered unlucky. If given the choice, Italians will avoid having a room number, ticket, etc. with the number 17 on it. This belief originates from Ancient Rome and the Latin word VIXI, meaning 'I lived'. In modern Italian - vissi.
In Roman numerals the number 17 is XVII and they are contained in the word VIXI. That is to say, these numerals are associated with the meaning'I have already lived' and 'I am no longer living'.
In Italy, Friday 17th. (il venerdì 17) is the most feared date.


there is no way of specifying which specific stem/word is matched. A verb entry for -unknown might be included with some basic frames (e.g., transitive or intransitive) if in addition to a verb lexicon the grammar also used a guesser for unknown verbs.
Note that all subentries (op)POS XLE in these examples are really for categories POS_BASE, because of the XLE morph-code.
To add an alternative constraint for the ADJ reading.
 abc +ADJ XLE @(ADJ-OBL %stem on);
This states that the stem abc has an additional adjective entry in which it takes an oblique on phrase.
To cancel the ADV reading
 abc -ADV XLE;
The - operator must be accompanied by a part of speech category and a morph-code (* or XLE). This example states that any previously existing entry for abc as an adverb (ADV) known to the morphology (XLE) has been removed. This operator is often used when removing unwanted lexical items from the morphology (e.g., either mistakes or extremely rare words that are interfering with the parser).
To Do both previous. That is, to add an adjective (ADJ) reading while removing the adverb (ADV) one (and any other parts of speech that may have existed from previous entries).
To add a noun reading, and replace the ADJ constraints.
 abc !N XLE @(NOUN %stem);
!ADJ XLE @(ADJ-OBL %stem on);
The! indicates that the current noun (N) and adjective (ADJ) entries replace any such entries from previous lexicons. The ETC states that entries for other parts of speech, such as adverbs or verbs, are still valid. Note that the! is in fact optional because it is the default edit operator. However, for clarity it is recommended that you include the! operator.
To retain only the adjective interpretation from the -unknown entry.
 abc =ADJ XLE; ONLY.
The retain operator only makes sense with a disposition of ONLY (the default); if a disposition of ETC is given, the retain operator is effectively purposeless.
The retain operator is used when you don't know what other parts of speech there may be entries for. To remove just a particular part of speech, you should use the - operator.
Overlay Grammars
Sometimes a grammar writer will want to use a modified version of an existing grammar, but won't want to modify the existing grammar. This can happen if the existing grammar is maintained by someone else. If the grammar writer modifies the existing grammar, then new modifications will have to be made whenever the existing grammar is improved. One solution to this problem is to create an overlay grammar.
An overlay grammar is a grammar whose config file includes a BASECONFIGFILE. The base config file points to the existing grammar. The overlay grammar inherits all of the config entries of the base config file. It can also add to and subtract from the config entries. In addition, it can have new lexicon entries, new rule entries, and a new performance vars file. The new lexicon entries can modify the existing lexicon entries using edit entries. The new rules can modify the existing rules using edit rules. The morphology can either be replaced by the overlay grammar or it can be modified in the performance vars file.
Edit Rules
Just as edit entries allow the grammar writer to edit a previous lexical entry, edit rules allow a rule to edit a previous rule. The notation is similar to the notation for edit entries. If a rule name is preceded by +, -, &, or!, then the rule will be combined with the previous version of this rule based on the operator:
For example, the following rules:
 YP --> AP BP.
 +YP --> CP DP.
Are equivalent to:
 YP --> {AP BP | CP DP}.
Morphology Commands
There are a limited number of modifications that can be made to the morphology via commands in the performance vars file:


text:
Material handling is a function that manufacturers and other industries use to lift and transfer heavy materials without putting unnecessary strain on workers. In that way, it doesn't only serve as a function in the production process, it also helps to keep workers safe from injuries related to heavy lifting. Even so, if crane operators are not following safety procedures, material handling can become a dangerous function for everyone involved. Here is a list of safety procedures that your operators should keep in mind when lifting heavy materials with an overhead crane:
1.) Crane operators should do the following before moving a load:
- Follow a daily safety inspection sheet that includes a checklist for before, during, and after each use.
- Ensure all loose materials, parts, and packing have been removed from a load before lifting.
- Make sure that the load is not heavier than the maximum rated load capacity, which should be clearly and visibly marked on the crane.
- Remove any slack from the sling and hoist before lifting a load.
- Ensure aisles and space between equipment is wide enough and cleared of debris or unnecessary/dangerous parts.
- For a bridge crane, position the bridge directly over the load, and then position the trolley over the load before lifting. Make sure the sling is sitting in the center of the hook.
- Notify co-workers in the exposed area that you will be using the overhead crane to lift and transfer heavy materials in their work space.
- Position yourself in a place where you will have the best view of the load as possible, without putting yourself in potential pinch points.
2.) How should crane operators move loads safely?
- Ensure proper planning and careful execution each step of the way
- Avoid stopping and/or starting suddenly. This causes the load to swing, which can damage equipment nearby and be very dangerous to workers in the immediate area.
- For motorized systems, keep both hands on the pendant control. Releasing the control button—especially on accident—will cause the electric brake to automatically set.
- Remember that the pendant control—for overhead bridge cranes—moves the load in three directions: forward and backward, side to side, and up and down.
- Hold the device in the first position in order to drift into the correct position.
- Remember, ALWAYS lift the load straight up. Do not transfer the load until you have raised it to the appropriate clearance height.
3.) What should operators avoid when operating an overhead crane?
- Do not operate the crane if the limit switches are down or out of order. Check cables for defects before using the crane at all.
- Operators MUST maintain focus on the load; it's a good idea to always check the intended path before moving the load.
- Never attempt to lift a load that is heavier than the rated load capacity of the crane.Never lift a load from the side. It's important to center the load before hoisting to avoid swinging the load into equipment or workers.
- Never allow a person to ride on a load or hook; cranes are not designed to lift humans or animals.
- Do not raise the load higher than necessary to clear objects, and do not pass the load over workers on the factory floor.
- DO not walk on the crane runway or any part of the track at all.
- NEVER leave a suspended load unattended.
4.) What should operators do once they're finished with the crane?
- Remove the entire load from the crane
- Raise hooks to a mid-position or intermediate level
- Ensure that all controllers are in the "off" position before closing the main switch
- Remember to properly store all unused slings; operators should never swing or toss the pendant control when they are finished with it. Instead, they should walk it back under the bridge.
- When the crane is not in use, it should be stored in a designated area or safely out of the way.


text:
Periodicals / Journals
Revista da Faculdade de Letras : História
Pioneirismo, disciplina e paternalismo nas relações de trabalho entre proprietário e imigrantes no século XIX : o caso da colónia de Nova Lousã, em São Paulo
Oswaldo Truzzi, Ana Silvia Volpi Scott
AbstractIn 1867, João Elisário de Carvalho Monte-Negro, born in Lousã, became a farmer in Pinhal, at the hinterland of São Paulo. He called his property Nova Lousã (New Lousã) and brought to it families from his village to work as free wage labourers, in a time when slavery prevailed in Brazil. His farm succeeded and was taken as a model of free labour adoption in São Paulo. In this paper, we discuss how work was organized in Nova Lousã, and argue that paternalism and fellow countryman bonds structured the pattern of relations between rural workers and farmer in Nova Lousã.
Last Update: 2013-05-22
DestaForma, Design e Multimédia
Biblioteca Central © 2006 - All the rights - FLUP