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In Italian, translating from the Italian wikipedia as accurately as I can muster,
a "complemento" is a part of a sentence (one or more words) that specify, clarify and enrich the meaning thereof.
Italian has a loooong, punctilious list of various possible types of "complemento", for example:
I can't find anything like this on the English wikipedia - although adjuncts sound suspiciously similar, I'd say none of these are temporal, locative, modicative, causal, instrumental, conditional or concessive - although there certainly are some that are, and not all require prepositions:
The next closest thing would be adverbial complements, but most of these aren't required for the sentence to make sense, or tied to the verb.
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_USER_ then they probably are adjuncts. I added preposition-less examples to make sure I didn't give the wrong idea. – badp Nov 5 '11 at 16:23
All your examples are of either adjuncts or adverbial complements. Adverbial complements are required for the sentence to make sense; adjuncts aren't. – Daniel Nov 5 '11 at 16:26
_USER_ I guess then that for all the distinctions we make, the one between adjuncts and adverbial complements is one we don't do. That, or I'm making the wrong examples in the attempt to make each one short. :) – badp Nov 5 '11 at 16:28
3 Answers 3
up vote 3 down vote accepted
The Italian Wikipedia appears to call both complements and adjuncts complementi. Therefore I conclude that an Italian complemento is a very broad category, and it is not the same as an English complement. I'd call it a constituent. The Italian list includes both complements, like subject and object, and adjuncts, like adjuncts of time and location.
Complementi essenziali e circostanziali
Under this sub-header, it explains that there are complementi that are essential (essenziali) to the structure of the sentence, and those that are not (circostanziali).
In English, a complement is a part that cannot be left out, while an adjunct (also called satellite) can be left out without too much fuss.
I like pigs.
Here, pigs is the object to the verb like: it is essential and a complement. I like is not a grammatical sentence, because the object cannot be left out.
I like pigs sometimes.
Here, sometimes is an adverbial constituent of time; it is not essential and hence an adjunct. Note that the distinction between what is essential and what isn't is not always clear: the categories complement and adjunct/satellite are by no means clear cut. There is often debate about various practical examples.
Since the Italian word seems to include both complements and adjuncts, it must signify a constituent, which is basically a building-block in a sentence that has its own syntactic function. The above sentence has three constituents: I, pigs, sometimes. Subjects and object are complements; constituents of time are mostly adjuncts (but not always).
Many of the examples in your question are adverbial; some are adverbial adjuncts, others adverbial complements. Note that adverbial constituents are usually adjuncts.
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Hm, in "I like pigs", pigs would be an object, not a "complemento." – badp Nov 5 '11 at 17:37
_USER_: Then how about this: it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complemento_oggetto Oggetto is also in the list on your page. – Cerberus Nov 5 '11 at 17:48
...duh, you're right :D Sorry – badp Nov 5 '11 at 17:56
From looking at Wikipedia's page on adverbials, I gather that any complemento is also an adverbial; in your examples, either an adjunct or an adverbial complement. Wikipedia says:
In grammar an adverbial is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial phrase or an adverbial clause) that modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'. Look at the examples below:
Danny speaks fluently. (telling us more about the verb)
Lorna ate breakfast yesterday morning.
Adverbials are typically divided into four classes:
adverbial complements (i.e. obligatory adverbial) are adverbials that render a sentence ungrammatical and meaningless if removed.
John put the flowers in a vase.
adjuncts: these are part of the core meaning of the sentence, but if omitted still leave a meaningful sentence.
John helped me with my homework.
conjuncts: these link two sentences together.
John helped so I was, therefore, able to do my homework.
disjuncts: these make comments on the meaning of the rest of the sentence.
Surprisingly, he passed all of his exams.
About adverbial complement:
An adverbial complement is an adverbial that is obligatorily subcategorized for by a verb, such that if removed, it will yield an ungrammatical sentence:
 - She put the cheese back.
 - *She put the cheese.
In linguistics, an adjunct is an optional, or structurally dispensable, part of a sentence that, when removed, will not affect the remainder of the sentence except to discard from it some auxiliary information.
Single word
She will leave tomorrow.
She will leave in the morning.
She will leave after she has had breakfast.
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In its broadest sense, a complement in English grammar is anything that completes a clause or a phrase. To that extent, it has some similarity with Italian complemento: in your first set of examples, (the) diamonds is the complement of the prepositional phrase that begins with of. More specifically, however, it describes, in the words of one grammarian, 'a slot in a sentence that expresses attributes of the Subject or Object.' In this sense, it is perhaps best known as a description of the words that follow a copular verb: good in This looks good, or my destiny in This is my destiny.
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CSIR Mathematics Question Paper with Answers June And December 2013.
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L A stream of ants go from point A to point 13 and return to A along the same path. All the ants move at a constant speed and from any given point 2 ants pass per second one way. It takes 1 minute for an ant to go from A to B. How many returning ants will an ant meet in its journey from A to B?
1. 120 2. 60
3. 240 4. 180
A large tank filled with water is to be emptied by removing half of the water present in it everyday. After how many days will there be closest to 10% water left in the tank?
1. One 2. Two
3. Three 4. Four
A lucky man finds pots of gold coins. He counts the coins in the first four pots to be 60, 30, 20 and 15, respectively. If there is a definite progression, what would be the numbers of coins in the next two pots?
1. 10 and 5 2. 4 and 2
3. 12 and 15 4. 12 and 10
A 16.2 m long wooden log has a uniform diameter of 2 m. To what length the log should be cut to obtain a piece of 22 m3 volume?
1. 3.5m 2. 7.Om
3. 14.Om 4. 22.Om
The distance between two oil rigs is 6km. What will be the distance between these rigs in maps of 1:50000 and 1:5000 scales, respectively?
1. 12 cm and 1.2 cm
2. 2 cm and 12cm
3. 12O-cm-and-12 cm__
A bird perched at the top of a 12 m high tree sees a centipede moving towards the base of the tree from a distance equal to twice the height of the tree. The bird flies along a straight line to catch the centipede. If both move at the same speed, at what distance from the base of the tree will the centipede be picked up by the bird?
1. 16m 2. 9m
3. 12m 4. 14m

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


text:
Home » Psychology, Psychiatry, & Social Work »
An ideal teaching text or practitioner reference, this book offers a complete introduction to doing cognitive therapy with children and adolescents. A systematic yet flexible approach to case conceptualization and treatment planning is presented. The authors review the essentials of orienting children and families to cognitive therapy, structuring each session, and implementing commonly used cognitive and behavioral techniques. Concluding chapters describe strategies for addressing specific clinical problems: depression, anxiety, and disruptive behavior. Included are over a dozen useful reproducible worksheets and forms.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Hyacinthoides non-scripta (bluebell)
Bluebells, almost half the global population of which is found in the UK, can create a stunning carpet of woodland colour during the spring.
About this species
Hyacinthoides non-scripta has a bulb and nodding heads of blue flowers; it is native to western Europe, where it is found in deciduous woodlands, flowering in late April or early May. A woodland floor covered with flowering bluebells is a stunning sight, and often forms a popular, seasonal tourist attraction. H. non-scripta was for a long time known as Scilla nutans and then Endymion non-scriptus, and may well be encountered in earlier literature under these names. Bluebells grow best in undisturbed soil and need plenty of light in early spring. Their rich nectar provides food for many butterflies and other insects. Bluebells contain toxic glycosides and humans can be poisoned if the bulbs are mistaken for spring onions and eaten. Cattle, horses and dogs have been reported to suffer digestive problems after eating bluebell leaves.
Geography & Distribution
Hyacinthoides non-scripta grows wild in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Portugal and Spain, and has become naturalised elsewhere in Europe.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Image: Wolfgang Stuppy)
A bulb with flower stalks up to 50 cm tall and 3-6 linear leaves up to 50 cm long and 25 mm wide. Each flowering stem bends downwards towards the tip and bears 4-16 flowers along one side. The pendent, strongly sweetly scented flowers are violet-blue, or rarely pink or white. The perianth (petals and sepals) is tubular-bell-shaped, 14-20 mm long, with the free lobes curling up at the tips. The outer three stamens are fused to the perianth for over three quarters of their length. The anthers are cream-coloured.
Threats & Conservation
Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Image: Wolfgang Stuppy)
In the UK, Hyacinthoides non-scripta is protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) which prohibits landowners from removing bluebells from their land for sale, and prohibits anyone from digging up bulbs from the countryside. Its listing on Schedule 8 of the Act in 1998 made trade in wild bluebell bulbs or seeds an offence (unless special licenses are issued by the UK Government or devolved administrations permitting sustainable collection of seeds). Current threats to bluebells include the loss of ancient woodland habitat, the illegal collection of bulbs and cross-breeding with non-native bluebells.
There is some concern that non-native bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica and numerous Hyacinthoides hybrids and cultivars) that have escaped from cultivation may pose a threat to British H. non-scripta populations. Scientists at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh are studying native and non-native bluebells in the wild to evaluate the actual threats to H. non-scripta.
Kew News – 14 September 2009 - Scientific survey reveals the future of British bluebell woods is under threat
Bluebells make an attractive ornamental addition to woodland gardens or sites in semi-shade. They are commonly found in British woodlands which have been in existence since at least 1600 AD, and are therefore considered to be environmental indicators of ancient woodland. A glue obtained from bluebells was traditionally used as a means of sticking flights to arrow shafts and in book-binding. The bulb is reported to have diuretic and styptic properties. Bluebells have been used in traditional medicine to treat leucorrhoea (discharge of mucus from the vagina). Starch derived from the bulb has been used in laundering.
At the beginning of the 20th century special "Bluebell Trains" took tourists on excursions to see the spectacular bluebell displays in the deciduous woodlands of the Chiltern Hills in southeast England. Although the special train services no longer run, the bluebells can still be seen in what has since been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
There is yet another link between bluebells, tourism and railways – the flower lends its name to the famous "Bluebell Railway" in East Sussex, not far from Wakehurst Place. With its steam locomotives, the railway has the distinction of being the world's first preserved standard gauge passenger line. It is a popular tourist attraction running through attractive wooded countryside where, at the right time of year, you can see bluebells.
Bluebells and our changing climateMore Information
Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Image: Peter Gasson)
The thick carpet of nodding, fragrant bluebells stretching away into the distance under the trees in Kew's Conservation Area captures the very essence of English woodland in springtime, alive with the drone of bumblebees, birdsong and the first butterflies, all making the most of the warm sunshine. It seems so timeless a sight that it is difficult to imagine it could be threatened as our climate shifts almost imperceptibly around us.
Kew staff have been recording the first flowering dates of plants in the Gardens each year for over 50 years. This kind of study, called phenology, which links the timing of natural events, such as flowering, with the weather is very valuable in tracking the effects of climate change on plants and animals. The Kew results show that the dates on which the first bluebells open can vary by several weeks from year to year depending on the severity of the preceding winter. However, the average opening dates taken over five yearly periods have advanced by as much as two weeks over the last 30 years, corresponding to the period during which scientists believe that man-made climate change has accelerated. It seems that spring is getting earlier and earlier.
This makes it difficult to predict when the peak time for bluebells will be each year and also signals an important warning for their future. Almost 50% of the world's bluebells occur in the UK and they are superbly adapted to burst into leaf and flower on the woodland floor before other woodland plants have come into leaf to cover the ground, and in advance of the foliage overhead forming a dense canopy. It appears that different plants respond to climate change at different rates and the warming climate enables other plants to make an earlier start as well. Although bluebells are appearing above ground earlier in the year, their emerging leaves are finding an increasingly crowded environment and one that is more heavily shaded by the tree canopy above. It is widely feared that our bluebells are suffering as a result. Phenology has a lot to teach us about the ways in which the natural world is responding as our climate warms, bringing changes which will in the longer term have profound impacts on human life too.
Millennium Seed Bank: Seed storage
Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Partnership aims to save plant life world wide, focusing on plants under threat and those of most use in the future. Seeds are dried, packaged and stored at a sub-zero temperature in our seed bank vault.
Description of seeds: Average 1,000 seed weight = 5.53 g.
Number of seed collections stored in the Millennium Seed Bank: Nine.
Seed storage behaviour: Orthodox (the seeds of this plant survive drying without significant reduction in their viability, and are therefore amenable to long-term frozen storage such as at the MSB)
Germination testing: 100 % germination was achieved with a pre-sowing treatment (seed scarified - chipped with scalpel), on a 1% agar medium, at a temperature of 11°C, on a cycle of 12 hours daylight/12 hours darkness.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta in woodland (Image: Peter Gasson)
Bluebells require plenty of moisture during the winter and spring (when they are in growth), but cool shade in the summer, and soil that is not waterlogged. In Britain, it is important to plant the true native bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and not the Spanish bluebell (H. hispanica), as this is often more vigorous and can take over the garden, out-competing native bluebell populations. It can also hybridise with the native bluebell, and could ultimately destroy the pure species. The bluebell is really a plant best enjoyed in its natural setting; large populations can be seen at both Kew and Wakehurst Place.
This species at Kew
Bluebells in the grounds of Queen Charlotte's Cottage (Image: RBG Kew)
Bluebells have long grown in the Natural Areas (Conservation Area) at Kew, situated near Queen Charlotte's Cottage, and are indicators of ancient British woodland. Every spring they fill the woods with an ocean of colour, best seen when the sun is low. Bluebells can also be seen in the Loder Valley Nature Reserve and Bethlehem Wood at Wakehurst Place.
Alcohol-preserved specimens of Hyacinthoides non-scripta are held in Kew's Herbarium, where they are available to bona fide researchers by appointment. The details of some of these specimens can be seen online in Kew's Herbarium Catalogue.
Keep up to date with events and news from Kew
- Asparagus officinalis (garden asparagus)
- Camassia leichtlinii (great camas)
- Chlorophytum tuberosum (musli)
- Dracaena jayniana (red dragon tree)
- Drimia maritima (maritime squill)
- Eucomis bicolor (pineapple


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Researchers: Password Crack Could Affect Millions
A well-known cryptographic attack could be used by hackers to log into Web applications used by millions of users, according to two security experts who plan to discuss the issue at an upcoming security conference.
Thu, July 15, 2010
IDG News Service — A well-known cryptographic attack could be used by hackers to log into Web applications used by millions of users, according to two security experts who plan to discuss the issue at an upcoming security conference.
Researchers Nate Lawson and Taylor Nelson say they've discovered a basic security flaw that affects dozens of open-source software libraries -- including those used by software that implements the OAuth and OpenID standards -- that are used to check passwords and user names when people log into websites. OAuth and OpenID authentication are accepted by popular Web sites such as Twitter and Digg.
They found that some versions of these login systems are vulnerable to what's known as a timing attack. Cryptographers have known about timing attacks for 25 years, but they are generally thought to be very hard to pull off over a network. The researchers aim to show that's not the case.
The attacks are thought to be so difficult because they require very precise measurements. They crack passwords by measuring the time it takes for a computer to respond to a login request. On some login systems, the computer will check password characters one at a time, and kick back a "login failed" message as soon as it spots a bad character in the password. This means a computer returns a completely bad login attempt a tiny bit faster than a login where the first character in the password is correct.
By trying to log in again and again, cycling through characters and measuring the time it takes for the computer to respond, hackers can ultimately figure out the correct passwords.
This all sounds very theoretical, but timing attacks can actually succeed in the real world. Three years ago, one was used to hack Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360 gaming system, and people who build smart cards have added timing attack protection for years.
But Internet developers have long assumed that there are too many other factors -- called network jitter -- that slow down or speed up response times and make it almost impossible to get the kind of precise results, where nanoseconds make a difference, required for a successful timing attack.
Those assumptions are wrong, according to Lawson, founder of the security consultancy Root Labs. He and Nelson tested attacks over the Internet, local-area networks and in cloud computing environments and found they were able to crack passwords in all the environments by using algorithms to weed out the network jitter.


Why was clemency trending last week?
[muhl-cher] /ˈmʌl tʃər/
a person or thing that mulches.
a machine or device that cuts up grass, leaves, etc., for use as mulch.
Origin of mulcher
mulch + -er1 Unabridged
Cite This Source
Examples from the web for mulcher
 - At first they bought a mulcher for small bales but soon realized they needed a mulcher for the round bales.
 - In addition to the no-till drills and mulcher, the district also has prescribed burning equipment for rent.
 - The mulcher is mostly used to spread straw or hay over newly seeded areas.
 - Additionally, they are purchasing a leaf loader and mulcher to expand community clean-up events.
 - Turn your existing mower into a mulcher by purchasing a mulching kit available from your local power equipment dealer or retailer.
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text:
Lua does not support classes the way that languages like C++, Java and ActionScript do. But Lua is a multi-paradigm language and have roots from prototype-based languages. In Lua, each object can define its own behaviour through metatables. Therefore, it is possible to emulate OO programming and classes in Lua.
(For the detailed discussion of object oriented programming in Lua, please refer to _URL_
Gideros follows the same paradigm in its API design. Each instance created by Gideros API is a Lua table with a metatable attached.
Instances in Gideros is created through
new function. For example, to create
Bitmap and a
local sprite = Sprite.new() local texture = Texture.new("image.png") local bitmap = Bitmap.new(texture) local timer = Timer.new(1000, 0)
Core.class function is used to create your own classes through inheritance. You
can create your own classes like:
MyClass = Core.class()
or inherit from Gideros API's own classes (
Sprite, etc.). For example, you can create your EventDispatcher class as:
MyEventDispatcher = Core.class(EventDispatcher)
By using Inheritance, you can design and implement the visual elements of your game separately:
StartButton = Core.class(Sprite) -- create your own start button class Menu = Core.class(Sprite) -- create your own menu class Player = Core.class(Sprite) -- create your own player class function Player:walk() -- walk logic end function Player:jump() -- jump logic end stage:addChild(Player.new()) -- create and add a player instance to the stage
When an instance is created,
init function is called to do the initialization:
Player = Core.class(Sprite) function Player:init() -- do the initialization of Player instance self.health = 100 self.speed = 3 end local player = Player.new() -- after Player instance is created, init function is called
Whether to use inheritance or not is related to your programming taste. It's possible to implement a whole game without creating custom classes. You can refer to "Jumping Ball" and "Jumping Balls" examples to see the difference between designing your code with classes or not.


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Business Energy Editor's Blog
Friday, June 14, 2013 5:17 PM
NREL Puts a New Spin on Utility Claims for Spinning Reserve
The utility industry has a history of publicizing solar and wind intermittency as being detrimental and costly to spinning reserve equipment. But new research from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) tells a different story. Moreover, it echoes information given 6 years ago, by Karl Pfirrmann, Interim President and CEO of PJM Interconnection.
In 2007, Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future interviewed Pfirrmann on the subject of wind intermittency. PJM is the world's largest grid operator, and responsible for keeping a network of public and private utilities running smoothly across 14 states in the northeaster and southern US. Pfirrmann noted that wind did not pose significant costs as a result of its variable nature because the transmission system is sufficiently flexible and can readily accommodate changes in power flows. As to the impact on spinning reserves (standby generators) to mitigate intermittency, Pfirrmann said that costs were modest and deducted from payments wind generators received for energy deliveries. So even then, renewables paid for any impact to spinning reserve equipment. Moreover, he observed that most generators are sufficiently flexible and can be backed down with minimal effects on their operating efficiency.
Confirmation of Pfirrmanns's observations were just published by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory in a two-phase project, "The Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS)", one of the largest regional wind and solar integration studies to date. Phase 1, published in 2010, analyzed the operational impacts of high penetrations of wind and solar power on the Western Interconnection power system of the United States. It found "no technical barriers to the integration of high penetrations of wind and solar power (up to 35%), if certain operational changes could be made. The two most important changes are increased balancing authority coordination and sub hourly scheduling between balancing authority areas."
In 2012, NREL completed Phase 2 (WWSIS-2) after examining new data and address utility concerns about damage to fossil-fueled generators as they vary their output to manage intermittency from renewables. This was in response to the claim from utilities that heat rates and emissions from fossil-fueled generators could be higher during cycling than during steady-state operation. At the time of Phase 1, there was little available information on wear-and-tear costs because this information was considered proprietary by plant owners. For Phase 2, researchers worked with industry partners to analyze data collected from cost studies on 400 fossil-fueled plants over several decades. The simulations and analysis conducted for WWSIS-2 determined that "the impacts of wind-induced cycling are minimal and capped the wear-and-tear costs at 2% of the value of wind and the emissions impacts at +/- 3%. Although there are wear-and-tear and emissions impacts from generator cycling, these are modest compared to the overall benefits of replacing fossil-fueled generation with variable renewable generation."
So, according to the latest findings from the NREL, it's a case of strong evidence of weak consequences. But according to Ken Skylar, manager of renewable services at PJM, there is an issue facing distributed renewables. But it relates to the design and age the transmission infrastructure of the grid. "Upgrades are needed to the distribution system because it wasn't designed to accommodate large amounts of variable frequency resources on these individual feeders," Skylar explains. "There could be significant changes in voltage on a feeder and reverse power flows on the lines if a system isn't designed to handle that. A lot of the PJM members that own distribution systems have indicated that it's a big concern for them."
Ultimately those upgrades would occur as utilities adopt smart grid technology, and smart grid technology offers a good return on investment to utilities, and government programs that help fund the upgrades. For example, a recent study by the US Department of Energy (DOE), "Economic Impact of Recovery Act Investment in the Smart Grid," found that smart grid projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) resulted in roughly $7 billion total economic output, 50,000 jobs, and a return of $1 billion in government tax revenue. The study reviewed $1.48 billion in ARRA investments from the Smart Grid Investment Grants and Smart Grid Demonstration Program programs, plus $1.48 billion in matching investments from grant recipients in the private sector between August 2009 and March 2012. In short, $3 billion in smart grid project funding returned $6.83 billion in total economic output.
Now, that's some news that needs no spin.


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Contributed by Dr. Meteo McFool and his meteorological accomplices
For too long, we have tolerated so called Hydrologists claiming to use their voodoo magic to make enhanced forecasts or claim they know anything about the water cycle. These so-called 'scientists', 'engineers' and 'experts' (seriously?) are dangerous as they talk to the public, decision makers and politicians, pretending to possess some esoteric knowledge about extreme events such as floods or droughts — without acknowledging that all their wisdom comes from the only true science: meteorology.
Initiatives such as this pompous HEPEX have to be stopped, as only the pure scientific discipline of meteorology can be triumphant. It is time to give this deluded, doomed initiative a true focus and a real future … and rename it MEPEX!
Although the wisdom of MEPEX is obvious, here are 15 FACTS describing the necessity of the new regime:
- Hydrology IS NOT a science, just merely a ponderous extension of the Atmosphere. Actually, hydrology is really "the science of already solved problems". Simple example: lot of rain == flooding; no rain == drought! How hard can it be??
- Hydrology is irrelevant! 0.04% of the global water is stored in the atmosphere and only meager 0.006% can be found in rivers. Meteorologists are also very good friends with the oceanographers, who take care of 97% of all the water on earth, so who are you?!
- Hydrological faux-scientists copy from superior meteorologists and then claim progress – no example necessary because we all know it after a glance at the scientific literature. The hydrology journals basically just propagate the achievements of meteorologists but with some years of delay and loss of impact (factor).
- Even so, 'hydrologists' have somehow failed to learn from meteorologists about the need to apply the laws of physics – it is obvious that every river catchment can be easily modeled without all that frankly embarrassing empiricism and uncertainty.
- Hydrologist's 'knobology' models resort to sketchy calibration and while numerical weather models are based on physics so (once parameterized and, ahem, just ever-so-slightly and carefully tuned and nudged to perfection) they just run and produce beautiful, physically harmonious output.
- Meteorology uses verification to check model output, which means we are actually seeking the absolute TRUTH. Hydrologists do not even bother to assess their forecasts, or at best just use slippery concepts like validation or benchmarking — just plain lazy!
- Meteorology uses BIGGER computers and has BIGGER office buildings, which is enough evidence for superiority.
- Meteorology is on the TV and radio every single day – Hydrology, rarely so. If no journalist is taking it seriously, how can YOU?! Maybe it's because the 'water people' can NEVER give a simple answer. It's always a tiresome 'blah blah soil moisture blah blah rain-on-snow blah blah infiltration' and never just 'it flooded because it rained really damn hard for too long'! Again, it's not brain surgery! More like accounting.
- Meteorology is a true university subject taught at thousands of old and very prestigious universities. Hydrology is a hodge-podge pseudo-science that hides behind disciplines such as geography, civil engineering, forestry and many other derived-meteorology disciplines. Some insular anomalies on obscure campuses exist, but their universities don't brag about them.
- Meteorology has been around since ancient Greece, whereas hydrology was invented by the ancient Egyptians who were clearly…clearly… erm… ok, you win that one. But still, they were merely engineers, not scientific geniuses like Aristotle!
- The British Queen acknowledges Meteorology (there is a Royal Meteorological Society!). Hydrologists in the UK have a British Hydrological Society which is not incorporated in the Royal Charter. Any monarchist can therefore only recognize the one true science.
- In Switzerland, a republic, the hydrological society is joint with the limnological society, while the meteorological society is acknowledged to be a science by itself.
- Hydrologists in many countries are so unimportant that they can only find work in agencies devoted to other scientific purposes, such as the 'Geological Survey' or the 'Weather Service', and they are so far down in the chain of command that most of their bosses have no idea what they actually do (and don't care as long as they keep quiet).
- Even a lazy meteorologist can do a hydrologist's job (e.g., to get out of the shift work), but hydrologists are not allowed anywhere near meteorology, as they have little hope of grasping and applying the elegant complexities of the superior science.
- In many countries hydrology and meteorology are managed by the same institute, and meteorology always comes first in the acronym SMHI, SENAMHI, NIMH, ….
Well, ok, not always, but very often!
We can't be even bothered to think of more reasons, it is common sense and plain obvious – simply ask the true meteorologist next to you.
Before citing this article we strongly suggest to check the author's name and date of publication.


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Where are the women on the Spanish Wikipedia?
Only 11.6% of its registered editors the Spanish-language version of Wikipedia are women. An interdisciplinary research project carried out by the UOC used a method to quantify more accurately the gender gap on the Spanish-language Wikipedia site
With its more than 40 million articles in 301 different languages, Wikipedia is one of the largest human collaboration efforts in history. One of the main pillars on which this wish to bring together the sum of all knowledge is based is the achievement of a neutral space. However, several studies suggest that the site suffers from a persistent gender bias as regards both content and the composition of its community. An analysis of the gender gap in the Spanish-language version of Wikipedia by an interdisciplinary team at the UOC has revealed that only 11.6% of its registered editors are women.
According to the new study, which has been published in the journal PLOS One, the difference could be partially due to female editors being less persistent. "Women edit less and give up sooner. This is part of the reason the gap is not narrowing," note the authors. In spite of this, the results reveal a small group of veteran female editors, some of whom have edited more than men, a fact that could help design measures to highlight and increase women's participation in this space.
The paper is signed by UOC researchers Julià Minguillón of the Learning Analytics for Innovation and Knowledge Application in Higher Education group (LAIKA), of the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications, Julio Meneses and Sergi Fàbregues of the Gender and IT group (GenTIC), of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, and by Professor Eduard Aibar of the Philosophy for Contemporary Challenges group (MUSSOL) of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Núria Ferran, a researcher at the Faculty of Audiovisual Media of the University of Barcelona, also took part.
A new method for identifying gender
With over 1.58 million pages, the Spanish version of Wikipedia is the ninth largest, as well as the fourth largest by number of registered editors (around 17,000). One of the challenges facing the new study has been identifying these people's gender, as many of them have chosen not to reveal it in their Wikipedia personal profiles. To ascertain this, in addition to collecting the information published by the users themselves, the researchers also created a systematic method to establish their gender based on their names and the use of grammatical gender in the descriptions appearing in their profile. This procedure made it possible to identify the gender of 49% of editors, as compared with only 38.8% who had specified it on their personal page.
According to the results of this innovative process, the number of active female editors in the Spanish-language version of Wikipedia accounts for 7.4% of all existing profiles, a figure that rises to 11.6% if you take into account only those profiles whose genders we know for certain. "These differences mean that the Spanish-language Wikipedia site is a male-dominated territory that may plausibly be considered a misogynistic place by female editors. Additionally, the high percentage of unknown profiles hinders efforts to reduce this perception, as women perceive anonymous editors as more critical of their contributions," the researchers highlight.
Lower retention rates among female editors
In general, the study also found differences in editing practices, as women have lower retention rates. According to the authors, this can be explained "partly by female editors being less persistent and tending to leave Wikipedia much more quickly, particularly in the first few weeks." However, an analysis of the most active people on the site revealed the disappearance or even reversal of gender differences between men and women in some cases: "There is a small group of veteran female editors who have edited more than male editors in terms of editing practices and involvement in different parts of Wikipedia," they highlight.
The types of contributions made are another differentiating factor between men and women. According to the study, female editors edit a higher percentage of non-article pages; in other words, in places whose specific purpose is to interact with other participants, particularly discussion pages, where articles' flaws and possible improvements are discussed. These findings seem to corroborate those of previous studies suggesting that men tend to be contributors while women tend to behave more as collaborators. However, the researchers highlight that "when taking into account only the most active editors, although women have a higher average number of edits in all namespaces, the differences between women and the most active men are not statistically significant."
Greater interest in gender-related matters
The researchers also found differences between the two groups' interests based on an analysis of the categories used by Wikipedia to group articles by subject area. Although the authors describe these categories as "too general," the study suggests that women are "slightly less" interested in editing science and nature pages.
As for content pages, men always outperform women by three to one. In fact, women often do not contribute at all or contribute significantly less, although with one exception: gender gap-related pages and WikiProjects. "We found only two groups of pages in which women seem more active than men: the 'Women' and 'Feminism' WikiProjects and another group of pages relating to gender issues. It therefore appears that women are more interested in making contributions in this field," they stress.
Highlighting the work of the most active female editors
In view of this bias, the researchers suggest a variety of measures to encourage participation by women. Firstly, they propose changes to the way the website works, such as facilitating editing — particularly regarding the management of references — to "avoid incomplete or erroneous edits that are almost certain to be subsequently deleted." They also recommend improving the identification of "abusive behaviours," particularly by veteran editors who may be "less than fully impartial in relation to gender issues, a problem that is not exclusive to women and may also affect other minority groups," they note.
They additionally emphasize the importance of supporting female editors for longer after taking part in Wikipedia welcome activities such as WikiProjects or Wikimarathons, where they get together in one place to edit and improve a subject matter or group of articles. Highlighting the involvement of the group of most active female editors is another recommendation made by the researchers, who assert that "raising awareness of women's successful experiences could provide a good starting point to encourage other women to continue editing and thus promote their long-term commitment to Wikipedia." Finally, the conclusions of the paper also stress the need to research why women stop editing Wikipedia and take a closer look at the role of Wikimarathons to encourage more women to take up and maintain the editing habit over time.


text:
|(Permission is granted to redistribute this material as long as the Kollel
header and the subscription info at the end are included.)
brought to you by Kollel Iyun Hadaf of Har Nof
Rosh Kollel: Rabbi Mordecai Kornfeld
Email - _EMAIL_
Bava Metzia Chart #8
|[ ] = This is not taught explicitly in the Mishnah||(A)
THE FINDER MAY KEEP THE FIND (1)
THE FINDER MUST ANNOUNCE THE FIND(2)
|1)||AN OBJECT THAT HAS NO SIMAN,
WITH A VESSEL
| [fruits in front of a vessel;
coins in front of a purse](3)
| fruits *in* a vessel;
coins *in* a purse(4)
|2)||FRUITS (PEROS)||scattered fruits(5)||fruits in a pile(6)|
|3)||COINS (MA'OS)||scattered coins(7)||coins in a pile(6)|
|4)||SMALL SHEAVES OF GRAIN (KERICHOS)||sheaves in Reshus ha'Rabim(8a)(8b)||sheaves in Reshus ha'Yachid(9)|
|5)||FISH AND MEAT
| fish strung together(10);
pieces of cut meat
|[pieces of cut fish;
partially eaten fish](11)
|cake of pressed figs(10) [with a potsherd inside], according to the Rabanan(12)||cake of pressed figs with a potsherd inside, according to Rebbi Yehudah(12)|
|7)|| LOAVES OF BREAD
|loaves of a commercial baker(13)||loaves of a Ba'al ha'Bayis(14)|
|8)||SHEARINGS OF WOOL
|shearings in their raw state ("mi'Medinasan")(15)||shearings after they have been processed ("mi'Beis ha'Uman")(16)|
|9)||FLAX, PURPLE WOOL
|bundles of flax;
strips of purple wool(15)
|[barrels of wine, oil, grain, and figs](18)||barrels of wine and oil(17)|
(1) None of these objects can be identified by their number (Minyan) or their place (Makom), according to Rava (22b) because they were found in a manner that indicates that they fell ("Derech Nefilah") and were not placed there intentionally -- with the exception of Kerichos (22b; Tosfos 21a, DH Elu; see footnote 8). According to Rabah, these items belong to the finder whether they were found in a manner that indicates that they fell ("Derech Nefilah"), or whether they were found in a manner that indicates that they were placed there ("Derech Hinu'ach"), because Raba holds that the place in which they were found (Makom) is not a valid Siman (Tosfos 21a, DH Elu). Their number (Minyan) is also not a Siman because only one was found (Tosfos 24a, DH Aval). Therefore, if the item was found in Reshus ha'Rabim even in a manner that indicates that it was placed there intentionally, "b'Derech Hinu'ach," the finder may keep it (see footnote 8). If it was found in Reshus ha'Yachid, he may take it only if it was found in a manner that indicates that it fell, "b'Derech Nefilah," (since if it was found in a manner that indicates that it was placed there, the finder must assume that the owner did not yet despair of retrieving it -- Pnei Yehoshua on Tosfos 21a DH Elu; see also Rebbi Akiva Eiger. This is in contrast to the Maharsha and Mahadura Basra there.) In all of the cases in this column, a reason must be given for why it is not "Yi'ush she'Lo mi'Da'as."
(2) In all of the cases in this column, the find must be announced because it has a Siman. The Mishnah does not state simply, "One must announce any find that has a Siman," because the Mishnah wants to teach a Chidush with regard to each of the objects that it mentions (see RITVA 21a). With regard to the objects in this column for which the Siman is their number (Minyan) or the place in which they were found (Makom), a reason must be given to explain by each why their number or location is considered to be a valid Siman even if it is found in Reshus ha'Rabim, where objects tend to be kicked around. In addition, according to Rabah (22b), a reason must be given to explain why the Siman is not expected to be effaced due to trampling, in Reshus ha'Rabim.
(3) This is taught by the Beraisa (25a), and inferred from the wording of the Mishnah (24b). This ruling applies only when the objects are completely outside of the vessel. If the objects are such that they roll easily out of a vessel (for example, they are round and smooth), then even if they are found outside of the vessel, the finder may not keep them unless the opening of the vessel is facing *away* from the objects, or the opening of the vessel has a rim which would impede some of the objects from rolling out (and since no objects are left inside we may assume that the objects did not come from the vessel). However, since there is a vessel there with the fruits, the case is clearly not one of fruits that were found in the place of threshing. If so, according to Abaye, who maintains that "Yi'ush she'Lo mi'Da'as" is not considered Yi'ush, why may the finder keep these fruits? See Insights to 25a for the answer.
(4) Both the fruit (or money) and their container must be returned to the person who identifies the container with a Siman. Since part of the fruit or money is still in the container, we assume that all of the fruit or money was lost with the container (see above, footnote 3).
(5) According to Rava, this applies even when there are more than one Kav of fruit and they are scattered in less than four Amos, if the fruits were found "b'Derech Nefilah" (since there is no Siman on ordinary fruits). According to Abaye, who maintains that "Yi'ush she'Lo mi'Da'as" is not considered Yi'ush, this ruling applies only when one finds a Kav (or less) of fruit in four Amos (or more), and only when they are found in the place of threshing, where the fruit is an "Aveidah mi'Da'as" (i.e. the owner intentionally left it there without intention to come back for it, because of the inconvenience involved in picking up all the fruit) 21b; TOSFOS 21a, DH v'Kamah. (According to the Gemara's conclusion, this ruling applies according to Abaye even in a place which is not a threshing floor, see footnote 3 above, and Insights to 25a.)
(6) This refers to when there are at least two piles and therefore the number of piles is a Siman (see Tosfos 24a, DH Aval, and Insights there), or the place in which they were resting is a Siman (since they were resting there in a manner that indicates that they were placed there with intention) (25a). Why, though, should the number (Minyan) or place (Makom) be a Siman, if the fruits get trampled and kicked around by passers-by and animals? For an answer to this, see Insights to 25a.
(7) Coins have no Siman. They are not considered "Yi'ush she'Lo mi'Da'as" because a person constantly checks his pocket to make sure his money is still there, and thus immediately after they fell he realized it and was Meya'esh, as Rebbi Yitzchak teaches.
(8a) According to Rabah, this refers to Kerichos that have a Siman, but the owner is Meya'esh since a "Siman he'Asuy li'Dares" is not a Siman. According to Rava, this refers to Kerichos that have no Siman, but which were found resting in a manner of "Derech Hinu'ach." Even though their place (Makom) is normally a valid Siman, since they were found in Reshus ha'Rabim it is *not* a valid Siman, because they are kicked around by people and animals walking there and will not be found in their original place (22b). (The other objects which belong to the finder (in column A) belong to him even when found in Reshus ha'Yachid, because they were found resting in a manner of "Derech Nefilah." Everything that is found in such a manner has no Siman of "Makom" (Tosfos 21a, DH Elu).)


Surgeons test stroke patients drug based on chemical in broccoli
Surgeons are trialling a new drug based on a chemical found in broccoli to try to improve outcomes for stroke patients.
Diederik Bulters, a consultant neurosurgeon at Southampton General Hospital, and his team will assess the effect of experimental drug SFX-01 on patients who have received treatment for a bleed on the brain known as a subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), which is a type of stroke.
SFX-01 is a synthetic form of sulforaphane, a small molecule that occurs naturally in the vegetable and is part of a group of chemicals found in plants - phytochemicals - that are strong antioxidants and can help regulate some of the body's functions.
Mr Bulters said: "It is essential we work to improve outcomes for patients who have a subarachnoid haemorrhage as many of those who survive are left disabled and suffer long term cognitive and emotional problems, changing their lives forever.
"Despite the need, there have been no significant clinical developments since the introduction of nimodipine more than 20 years ago, so we are absolutely delighted to offer patients the opportunity to be involved with this exciting new treatment."
He added: "This is also a significant moment for me and the team as, having researched the potential benefits of sulforaphane in this patient group, we were frustrated that there was no practical way to administer it - until the development of SFX-01."
More than 6,000 people in England - mainly aged between 45 and 70 - are admitted to neuro-intensive care units with the condition every year.
Around half of all cases are fatal, while 50% of survivors suffer some long-term impairment such as epilepsy, brain dysfunction or emotional issues.
Initially, patients who develop SAH, which is normally caused by a weakness in the wall of a blood vessel that bursts open, undergo a surgical procedure to repair the bleed.
They then receive medication in the form of drug nimodipine to prevent common complication cerebral ischaemia, which restricts blood flow to the brain through narrowing of the arteries and commonly occurs in the first few days after a haemorrhage.
Nimodipine, which was successfully trialled at Southampton General Hospital in a landmark study published in 1989, is currently the only drug proven to improve outcomes for patients who have suffered SAH.
SFX-01 will be taken in capsule form, either by mouth or nasogastric tube, in 300mg doses in combination with nimodipine during the trial, which will involve 90 patients over two years.
It is hoped the drug could help to prevent complications after SAH by improving blood flow to the brain.
Ardalan Zolnourian, a neurosurgical clinical research fellow and part of the study team, said: "SFX-01 contains a synthetic and stable version of sulforaphane, a known antioxidant and anti-inflammatory that was first discovered in broccoli.
"With SFX-01, we now have a reliable way of delivering what we hope will be an effective dose in a pharmaceutical formulation."
He added: "We hope that, when used in conjunction with current treatment nimodipine, it will further reduce the complications by reducing inflammation and improving blood flow."


China Product Hazard Monthly Summary Bulletin, January 2014 | CPSC.gov
China Product Hazard Monthly Summary Bulletin, January 2014
April 16, 2014
Recall #
Description of Hazard
Folding bicycle's frame can break during use, posing a fall hazard to the rider.
Dehumidifiers can overheat, smoke and catch fire, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers.
The molded foam padding inside the hockey elbow pads can become cracked, fractured or split, posing a risk of injury to the elbow.
The tail rotor grip used for securing the tail rotor blade to the tail rotor hub can separate and release from the remote controlled helicopter, resulting in loss of flight control and injury hazard to bystanders.
The weld between the mounting plate and the mounting ring on the television wall mount can fail, allowing the monitor for flat panel display or TV to fall, posing a risk of injury to bystanders.
The joints can fail to support the weight of the chandelier pendant causing it to fall, posing the risk of injury.
The magnet contained in the striker portion of the gate latch assembly can come loose, preventing the latch from securing a hazardous area.
Pacifier holder clips can crack and a small part can break off, posing a choking hazard to small children.
The notification appliance circuit module of fire alarm control panels can cause the panels to fail to activate an audible or visual alarm in the event of a fire.
Broken motor mounts of oscillating fan heaters can cause the units to overheat, catch fire and ignite nearby items.
The wooden legs of science tables can split, causing instability, which poses an injury hazard to those using the table.
The chairs of card table sets can collapse unexpectedly, posing a fall hazard and a risk of finger injury, including finger amputation.


text:
Facilitating scientific research is one of the four objectives of Ontario's Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act. This advances our learning about protected areas and enhances Ontario Parks' ability to maintain ecological integrity. Much of this research is conducted by universities and graduate students. In the last two years Ontario Parks has received over 300 applications to conduct research in parks.
A PhD biology student from Queen's University has made an important discovery that could inspire the manufacturing industry worldwide to better understand the long-term environmental damage to lakes and other bodies of water, caused by emissions that cause acid rain. The impacts of acid rain were first noticed early on at one of Ontario's most famous provincial parks – Killarney.
Andrew Labaj of the of the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory or PEARL, chose to study three lakes in Sudbury and two in Killarney Provincial Park to measure their recovery from acid rain caused by decades of nickel mining and smelting.
Acid rain 101
Acid rain occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (the by-products of smelting and refining certain metals) enter the air and mix with water in the atmosphere to produce highly corrosive nitric and sulfuric acid. The acid then falls as rain, snow, fog or is carried by the wind. In the nickel-rich Sudbury area, one of the largest deposits in the world, the environmental damage caused by mining and smelting, caused entire species of fish to die off because the lakes were too acidic for them to thrive. The damage also spread to the soil, water table and vegetation, causing many to describe part of Sudbury as a moonscape.
"The goal of my study was to look at the changes happening in the lakes through time, and determine whether they have begun to recover"
Fascinating methodology and findings
Labaj extracted sediment samples from the bottom of three lakes in Sudbury and two in Killarney Provincial Park using a device called a corer. Then back at his lab, he extracted tiny crustaceans (known as cladocerans) buried deep within the sediment to study the health of these tiny water fleas and thereby the overall health of the lakes.
"I chose to look at the cladocerans because they live in these lakes and are feeding off the algae, and in some cases other small zooplankton species that live there," says Labaj. "So instead of just looking at the algae, I chose to study the cladocerans because they are right in the middle of the food web and are also being preyed on by other invertebrates and fish so they give a very good representation of what is happening in the whole lake."
According to his findings, the cladocerans, or water fleas as they are sometimes known, are flourishing and the acidity of the lakes appears to be going down.
"After these lakes were damaged from acidification, everyone started to realize there was a problem when all the fish began to die and the landscape was becoming devegetated. There were studies done, including many from our lab, which showed the lakes were starting to become quite acidic, and that something needed to be done.
"So as a result, industry and government worked together and controls were put in place to reduce these harmful emissions. They installed what are known as exhaust scrubbers, which prevented a lot of the sulphur dioxide from going up the chimneys of the smokestacks and out into the atmosphere. That also removed a lot of the metals. The government also placed limits on the amount of emissions that were able to be put out by the metal smelters."
Labaj says the efforts did have a "very positive effect on the Sudbury lakes" and in fact, he says, the pH levels have been significantly restored over the past 30 to 40 years, which is consistent with his findings.
The potential value of what Labaj studied reaches beyond the borders of Sudbury, Ontario. Labaj hopes that by studying the environmental impact of acidification caused by manufacturing and going back 40 years later to study environmental remediation efforts, there could be a take away message for other manufacturing industries worldwide.
"These lakes are recovering and that is excellent news, however, more importantly these lakes are an excellent reminder of what could happen elsewhere. There are other countries in the world, for example China and India and other places, where manufacturing occurs and where pollution is still a major threat. We can look at these Canadian lakes that experienced extremely intense acidification and get some idea of what could happen to other lakes or bodies of water in the event that an industry goes unchecked and more importantly, what happens after."
Andrew Labaj was a Masters Student at Queen's University when he conducted the Sudbury lakes study. He is now a PhD student at PEARL studying paleolimnology, or the study of lakes over time. The PEARL lab is a group of about 30 research scientists, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and other scientists dedicated to using paleolimnological and other techniques to provide historical perspectives to environmental change.


text:
recently reported method
Recent studies have shown that not partitioning but adsorption is the main mechanism for sorption of hydrophobic organic compounds to soot and soot-like materials. For compounds that adsorb by van der Waals forces only, variation in soot-water distribution coefficients will result from differences in these forces for adsorption, as well as the maximum number of accessible sites. This maximum number of accessible sites may a priori be expected to vary due to differences in both sorbent characteristics and sorbate dimensions. In this modeling study, variation in maximum adsorption capacities is explained from sorbent and sorbate properties. Maximum adsorption capacities were calculated using (a) literature values for soot-water distribution coefficients for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorobiphenyls on 10 different soot and soot-like materials and (b) Langmuir affinities for adsorption at a carbonaceous surface estimated using a recently reported method. The variation in maximum adsorption capacities could be explained by the variation in sorbent specific surface area, sorbent organic carbon content, and the sorbent-sorbate contact area. Furthermore, increasing sorbate thickness was related to a decrease in maximum adsorption capacities, which points to adsorption in micropores. Maximum adsorption capacities decreased by 1-2 orders of magnitude as the contact area increased by 50%. This points to adsorption sites being hardly larger than sorbates.
Modeling gravity driven unstable flow in a water repellent soil
Nguyen, H.V. ; Nieber, J.L. ; Ritsema, C.J. ; Dekker, L.W. ; Steenhuis, T.S. - \ 1999
Journal of Hydrology 215 (1999)1-4. - ISSN 0022-1694 - p. 202 - 214.
waterafstotende gronden - hydrofobiciteit - simulatiemodellen - stabiliteit - bodemwater - infiltratie - water repellent soils - hydrophobicity - simulation models - stability - soil water - infiltration
Relation between mass-transfer and biodegradation of hydrophobic pollutants in soil
Mulder, H. - \ 1999
Agricultural University. Promotor(en): W.H. Rulkens; A.M. Breure. - S.l. : Mulder - ISBN 9789058080875 - 208
bodemverontreiniging - biodegradatie - massaoverdracht - bodem - volksgezondheidsbevordering - polycyclische koolwaterstoffen - hydrofobiciteit - soil pollution - biodegradation - mass transfer - soil - sanitation - polycyclic hydrocarbons - hydrophobicity
The Dutch soil is contaminated at numerous locations with toxic organic compounds, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). To reduce the risks at these sites bioremediation can be applied as an alternative for the more destructive and energy intensive physicochemical soil sanitation techniques. During bioremediation microorganisms convert pollutants to less harmful compounds. Implementation of bioremediation is, however, limited because the strongly hydrophobic PAHs possess low water-solubilities and interact with soil organic matter. This results in a low mobility of PAHs in the soil as well as a low rate at which they become available for microbiological transformation. This thesis describes a study on the mutual influence of mass transfer and biodegradation processes which has been performed to gain a better insight in the mechanisms causing the persistence of PAHs in soil.To achieve this goal, well-defined experimental systems have been applied to obtain reproducible results. In these systems, PAHs were used in defined solid states, either solid phase PAHs immobilized in stainless steel cups with a specified surface area, or PAHs adsorbed on chromatographic porous spheres (Amberlite resins) of hydrophobic material.The influence of mixing on the dissolution rate and biodegradation rate of solid phase naphthalene has been investigated with the PAH immobilized in stainless steel cups in stirred fermentors (Chapter 2). Results of combined dissolution and degradation experiments have shown the necessity of quantification of the hydrodynamic flow conditions when studying the conversion of poorly water-soluble compounds. When the potential biodegradation rate of the bacterial population present exceeds the maximum dissolution rate, mass-transfer becomes limiting for naphthalene conversion. The maximum dissolution rate is strongly related to the extent of mixing and an increase of the latter results in an increase of the PAH biodegradation rate under such circumstances.During the above-mentioned experiments biofilm formation by the applied bacterial strain ( Pseudomonas 8909N) has been observed at the naphthalene-water interface. On the basis of relatively long-term experiments, in which biofilms have been grown in chemostats, it was shown that the presence of a biofilm on the solid-liquid interface resulted in a 90% reduction of the biological availability of the solid naphthalene (Chapter 3).The low solubilities of PAHs in water result in relatively low dissolution rates. The apparent solubility of hydrophobic compounds can be increased by the addition of surface active chemicals (surfactants) resulting in higher mass-transfer rates. This implies that the bioavailability can be increased by the use of surfactants. It was shown in Chapter 4 that the model system used in the foregoing chapters is very suitable for the investigation and modeling of the influence of surfactant addition on the dissolution and biodegradation of (initially) solid naphthalene. Results indicate that besides the increase in the apparent solubility due to the partition of naphthalene in micelles (aggregates of surfactant molecules), also the diffusion coefficient of micelles is a determining factor for the efficiency of surfactant addition. The flux of PAH to the bulk liquid phase is positively correlated with an the partitioning of the PAH in the micelles and the micellar diffusion coefficients.When PAHs are present as diffuse soil contaminants, they will exist in a sorbed physical state. To gain insight in the influence of sorption processes and mass transfer in porous soil aggregates on the biodegradation of PAHs, chromatographic material (Amberlite XAD4 and XAD7) is used as a model soil system (Chapter 5). A mathematical model was developed that simultaneously accounted for nonlinear sorption, for internal and external mass transfer, and for nonlinear bacterial transformation kinetics. This model was checked for its applicability on the basis of experiments with naphthalene as a model pollutant. By variation of the mixing conditions in the reactors it was shown that characterization of the external diffusion limitations is necessary in the system used. The fate of naphthalene in the porous particles could be predicted adequately by the mechanistic model. The crucial model parameters that determine the mass transfer of PAHs in soil aggregates are: the particle size, the sorption coefficient, and the effective diffusion coefficient. Nonlinear sorption results in relatively low desorption rates compared to linear sorption and, therefore, a longer clean-up period is necessary.To check whether the model developed in Chapter 5 could be used to describe the fate of PAHs in real soil aggregates, experiments were performed with Koopveen soil (Chapter 6). Aggregates with three different size fractions but with equal organic matter content (± 30%) were produced from this peat soil and proved to be stable during dynamic desorption and biodegradation experiments. These aggregates were artificially contaminated with either naphthalene or phenanthrene. The experimental results indicated that solid PAHs were probably present in the two lower size fractions due to the contamination method. However, mass transfer and biodegradation processes could be adequately modeled in the case of the largest naphthalene contaminated fraction. Results with similar soil material, that were fitted in earlier research with an empirical compartment model, could equally well be described with the current mechanistic model. The predictive capabilities of the current model are, however, superior because model parameters are related to measurable quantities.Finally, three different physical states of PAH pollutants in soil have been postulated and mass transfer models have been developed to predict the release of PAHs to an aqueous phase (Chapter 7). The effect of the different physical states of PAHs in soil on the period necessary for a certain degree of bioremediation are calculated by coupling of the mass transfer models to a biodegradation module. It was calculated that, under mass transfer limited growth conditions, micro-organisms can effectively lower the dissolved PAH concentration and maximize the driving force for mass transfer. Therefore, simple mass transfer models can be applied to calculate bioremediation periods under these conditions.The main conclusions that are formulated on the basis of the findings in this thesis and some recommendations for future research are presented in Chapter 8. The most important conclusion is that the use of model soil systems is a very powerful tool to investigate the interactions between mass transfer and biological transformation of hydrophobic compounds. These interactions could be studied in both model systems and models could be developed that make it now possible to estimate the behavior of PAHs in soil. These models can be useful to estimate ecotoxicological risks on the basis of released quantities instead of total concentrations and to estimate the feasibility of soil bioremediation or the development of new sanitition treatments.
Long-term


Prescient Precedent
New technologies always lend themselves to personal and artistic expression and a new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives _PHONE_, illustrates how technology and the artistic impulse have gone hand in hand for well over 100 years. The invention of the calotype in 1941 not only allowed photographers to use readily available fine writing paper to make multiple prints, but also made photography more accessible to a broader population. The particular qualities of the paper negative (softening of details and ethereal light and shadow) lent themselves perfectly to the picturesque tendencies of the time


20 April 2018
WLTP-based motoring taxes must be fair government told
The UK government - and administrations across Europe - must ensure that the transition to a motoring tax regime based on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions measured under the new Worldwide harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) regime does not negatively impact on taxation.
The call came from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) as it published its 2018 Tax Guide, which contains the most recent information about taxes on vehicle acquisition (VAT, sales tax, registration tax), vehicle ownership (annual circulation tax, road tax) and motoring (fuel tax).
ACEA secretary general Erik Jonnaert said: "The new Tax Guide shows a wide variation in both the basis for taxation and tax levels across the European Union. Several member states tax cars on their power, price, weight, cylinder capacity or a combination of these factors. Increasingly, however, countries are adopting CO2-based taxation."
Since September 2017, CO2 emissions of new models launched have been measured using the new test, called WLTP - from September 2018 WLTP testing will be the mechanism used for measuring CO2 emissions from all new cars. It is more rigorous than the previous New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test and results in a higher CO2 value for a specific vehicle.
The actual performance of the car itself is not affected: the increase in CO2 is due only to the technical differences between WLTP and NEDC, and is a reflection that WLTP better represents driving reality.
However, said ACEA, if national governments simply applied existing CO2-tax schemes to the new WLTP CO2 emission values, they could put a new car type introduced to the market after September 2017 in a higher tax band than a similar car with NEDC values which came on the market before that date.
Today, national tax regulations continue to be based on NEDC values, and each member state can decide when it will implement the shift to WLTP. The earliest WLTP taxation will be applied is from July 2018 (eg Denmark), while the UK will not adopt the system until April 2020.
Mr Jonnaert said: "Governments must ensure that the transition to WLTP will not negatively impact vehicle taxation. A failure to do so could increase the financial burden on consumers and lead to overall confusion."
In the UK, company car benefit-in-kind tax, Vehicle Excise Duty and capital allowances are all linked to vehicle CO2 emissions. Industry organisations, including ACFO and the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association, have called on HM Treasury to ensure that the change in the way vehicles are tested should not be seen as a mechanism for raising more tax.


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Portuguese Pronunciation Tool - Phonetic Transcription Translator (Beta Version)
First time here?
Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"
Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"
Greetings from the developer Timur
Find out how to activate your brain and learn faster (4 min.)
Phonetic transcription can help you improve your Portuguese pronunciation
Portuguese pronunciation may present some difficulties to people starting to learn Portuguese. The pronunciation rules in the Portuguese language are pretty complicated. There are a lot of Portuguese letters that can be pronounced in different ways.
This online translator allows you to convert Portuguese text to phonetic transcription using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols.
This tool will serve as a Portuguese pronunciation guide. It will help you save time during your first steps in Portuguese, while you are still learning the pronunciation rules. If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with Portuguese audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the Portuguese language will improve.
This phonetic translator supports both European and Brazilian Portuguese.
Highlighting of high-frequency Portuguese words
If you click Advanced options, you will see a special option that allows you to highlight high-frequency Portuguese words. The words from different frequency intervals will be highlighted in the following colors:
If you want to make the frequency analysis of your text and obtain the detailed statistics, please use Portuguese word frequency counter.
Check our Portuguese phonetic subtitle converter and obtain something like this:


text:
Tom Johnson (University of York) has published the following article: "Soothsayers, Legal Culture, and the Politics of Truth in Late-Medieval England," Cultural and Social History (published online on 31 Aug. 2020). Here's the abstract:
Soothsaying or divination has generally been understood by historians within the context of magic, popular culture, and lay religion. This article considers what it might be able to tell us about legal culture in late-medieval England. It argues that soothsayers not only offered people an alternative to the pursuit of justice in law-courts, but also different means of conceiving what justice was: they did not necessarily aim at the conclusion of peace between parties, but rather claimed to unveil the truth. Elaborating this comparison, it argues that this casts a different light on the publicity of late-medieval legal culture.
Further information is available here.


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After the hurricane passed, some of the lilacs in my yard were lying on their sides with half their roots out of the ground. Can I do something to save them?
It's best to leave the righting of large, heavy plants like trees to the professionals (as well as the decision of whether or not a tree can be saved). But straightening a toppled shrub is not difficult. Do it now, while the soil is still soft from all the rain.
All you have to do is firmly shove the shrub back into an upright position, then pound a few tall stakes vertically into the ground to keep it upright. Position the stakes where they will provide support for the shrub; you may need to tie branches to the stakes.
Try to protect the already compromised roots from further disturbance. If roots have been pulled out of the ground, you may need to carefully excavate a hole for them on the lilac's upwind side. Then replace the soil, burying the roots at the same depth they were before the storm. Finish with a layer of organic mulch. Ideally, the shrub should be secure enough so that another strong wind won't rock the plant and tug on the root system.
If the roots were damaged severely, consider pruning some of the top growth to compensate for the loss. Selectively remove a few of the oldest stems, cutting them all the way to the ground. This practice, called renewal pruning, rejuvenates older lilacs and promotes better flowering, even when the shrub hasn't been pushed over by a hurricane. —Doug Hall


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|Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003
|Microsoft PowerPoint® 2002
Whether you're pitching your ideas at a company meeting or creating a special, presentation-based photo album for the family reunion, using sounds or music can spice up your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. When you're adding sound and music to a presentation, it's important to understand the difference between embedded and linked objects.
The differences between linked and embedded objects
The term "object" in this article refers to a sound (including a piece of music). An object can be the sound itself, or it can be the file that contains the sound.
The main differences between linked objects and embedded objects are where you store them and how you update them, if need be, after you place them in the destination file (in this case, your presentation).
Linked object A linked object is created and stored in a separate source file, and then it is linked to the destination file. Because the two files are linked, when you make changes to one file, the changes appear in both the source and destination files.
Embedded object An embedded object is created in a separate source file too, but then it is inserted into the destination file, becoming part of that file. If you make a change to the original source file, the change will not show up in the destination file.
An embedded object
A linked object
The source file that contains the linked object
How to choose the best file type
Let's say you've created a presentation to which you've added several music files that act as a soundtrack. You've set up all the transitions and timings and such, and it works like a charm on your computer. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself before considering this project finished. In fact, you can save yourself a lot of time if you think about these things before you add your sound files.
How big is each sound file?
Use these criteria to choose a file type based on size:
- If each individual sound or music file is 50 megabytes (MB) or less, you can insert it as either a linked or embedded object. (Note that embedded objects larger than 100 KB may slow down the performance of your presentation, however.)
- If your file is more than 50 MB, it should be linked — it won't play in your presentation if you embed it. The default setting in PowerPoint for the allowed maximum size of embedded objects is 100 kilobytes (KB), but you can change it to a maximum of 50,000 KB (50 MB).
How do I change the maximum size allowed?
- On the Tools menu, click Options.
- On the General tab, increase the Link sounds with file size greater than ___ Kb setting to a size just larger than your largest sound file, up to 50,000 KB (50 MB).
- Click OK.
Will you use the same computer to create and show the presentation?
Consider the following:
- If you plan to show your presentation using the computer you created it on, you can insert either embedded or linked files (assuming your linked files are within the size limits described above).
- If you plan to show your presentation on another computer, you must be careful about using linked files. Make sure that the source file that contains your linked sound files, as well as the folder it's in, are saved on the computer you're using to present. Otherwise, the sound files won't play because the presentation won't know where to link to — the source files will be on a different computer.
- If you're saving your presentation on a floppy disk or CD-ROM, one way to ensure that your linked files go with you to the new computer is to use the Package for CD (PowerPoint 2003) or Pack and Go Wizard (PowerPoint 2002) feature.
Use Package for CD
If you want to run your presentation, distribute it on CD, or save it to a folder or network share, you can use the Package for CD command on the File menu. Package for CD copies your presentation along with any supporting files either onto a CD or to a single folder or network share. When you package your presentation, you can make your slide show play automatically. Also, the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 Viewer is included by default, which means the computer that plays the CD does not need to have PowerPoint installed. For more information, see the Help topics About packaging and copying a presentation to CD and Package a presentation for CD.
Use the Pack and Go Wizard
Will you need to change the objects after they've been added to the presentation?
If you want to update the objects after adding them to your presentation, think about these points:
- If you plan to make changes to the source file, use linked objects. When you make changes to the source file, the changes will be recognized in the presentation because the files are linked.
- If you don't plan to make any changes to the source file, you can use embedded objects. When a file is embedded, information in the destination file doesn't change if you modify the source file.
You can usually get away with using either linked or embedded sound files if your sound files are 50 MB or less (for embedded sound files) or if you present and create the presentation on the same computer (for linked files). Below are a few guidelines to consider when including music and sound in your presentations.
|Type of file
||When to use it
- Your files are 100 KB or less. This is the recommended maximum size. You may embed files that are up to 50 MB, but it may slow down the performance of the presentation.
- You want all the pieces of your presentation contained within that presentation.
- You don't plan to make any changes to the source files.
- You plan to use the same computer to create and display your presentation.
- Your files are large.
- You plan on making changes to the source files.
Note If the path name of a linked file exceeds 128 characters, Microsoft Office PowerPoint is not able to find and play that linked file. In such a case, you can either rename the linked file, or shorten the path name by copying the linked file into the folder where your presentation is located. Then either update links automatically by using the Package for CD feature, or update them manually by removing the sounds from the presentation and then adding them again.


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8 Reading Problems Caused by Vision Problems
This video shows where a poor reader was looking when she was reading.
- Reversing letters like b and d
- Skipping words and lines when reading
- Very poor spelling
- Difficulty copying off the board
- Words appear to move, or are blurry or double
- Not understanding what was read
- Reading slowly
- Getting eyestrain or tired when reading
Reversing letters is caused by erratic eye movements when reading. Eyes wobbling - constantly moving left to right, and right to left. So they read 'b' both from left to right and from right to left - which is what makes it look like a 'd'.
Because their eyes move too much, it's very easy for them to skip words and lines.
Errratic eye movements mean they don't look at every letter when they read. You can read if you only look at a few letters in a word. But to spell correctly you need to remember every letter.
Copying off the board requires looking at the board, then at your paper, then back again. If it is hard to control your eye movements and focus, then it will be hard to go back to the correct place.
Most poor readers have focus issues. When one eye is looking at one letter, the other eye is looking at a different letter. This means their brain receives two images at the same time. If the brain alternates which image to process, it causes the text to appear to move.
Alternatively the brain can take the two images and use both of them, which makes the words look blurry or double.
Fluent readers look at around 150 points per minute when reading. But poor readers look at around 1,000 - mostly in the wrong place. So they spend a lot of brain power filtering out the wrong points. Then they don't have enough processing power left to understand what they've read.
Because they make too many eye movements it takes their brain a long time to realise what the next letter / word should be. So they keep rescanning the text until their brain can make sense of it.
When you read, you need to refocus your eyes every time they move. For a poor reader this can be around 1,000 times per minute. No wonder it is tiring and can cause sore eyes.
Play Engaging Eyes to improve all these reading problems. Engaging Eyes is a set of online vision training games that helps both the excessive eye movements, and the visual focus issues, that cause these problems.
It contains 3D games which require you to focus both eyes on the same point. And it contains eye tracking games which train you to make the right eye movements.
Play Engaging Eyes daily to improve all of the above symptoms - and improve reading speed, accuracy and comprehension.
- Takes 10 minutes to play.
- Can be played on any PC or Mac.
- Suitable for ages 5+


text: Introduction: Our tertiary care institution embarked on the Choosing Wisely campaign to reduce unnecessary testing, and selected the reduction of ankle x-rays as part of its top five priority initiatives. The Low Risk Ankle Rule (LRAR), an evidence-based decision rule, has been derived and validated to clinically evaluate ankle injuries which do not require radiography. The LRAR, is cost-effective, has 100% sensitivity for clinically important ankle injuries and reduces ankle imaging rates by 30-60% in both academic and community setting. Our objective was to significantly reduce the proportion of ankle x-rays ordered for acute ankle injuries presenting to our pediatric Emergency Department (ED). Methods: Medical records were reviewed for all patients presenting to our tertiary care pediatric ED (ages 3- 18 years) with an isolated acute ankle injury from Jan 1, 2016-Sept 30, 2016. Children with outside imaging, an injury that occurred >72 hours prior, or those who had a repeat ED visit for same injury were excluded. Quality improvement (QI) initiatives included multidisciplinary staff education about the LRAR, posters placed within the ED highlighting the LRAR, development of a new diagnostic imaging requisition for ankle x-rays requiring use of the LRAR and collaboration with the Division of Radiology to ensure compliance with new requisition. The proportion of patients presenting to the ED with acute ankle injuries who received x-rays was measured. ED length of stay (LOS), return visits to the ED and orthopedic referrals were collected as balancing measures. Results: At baseline 88% of patients with acute ankle injuries received x-rays. Following our multiple interventions, the proportion of x-rays decreased significantly to 54%, (p<0.001). This decrease in x-ray rate was not associated with an increase in ED LOS, ED return visits or orthopedic referrals. There was an increase uptake of the dedicated x-ray requisition over time to 71%. Conclusion: This QI initiative to increase uptake of the LRAR, resulted in a significant reduction of ankle x-rays rates for children presenting with acute ankle injuries in our pediatric ED without increasing LOS, return visits or need for orthopedic referrals for missed injuries. Just as in the derivation and validation studies, the reductions have been sustained and reduced unnecessary testing and ionizing radiation.


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Fix My Pix
Export Layers to File
A simple plug-in to Export layers (all or selective layers) to individual image files.
1. Can manipulate the layers in layer group
2. Can export texts, patterns and layer filters
3. Prefix name for the image files has to be given
4. Can export only in jpg, png, bmp formats but the required formats can be added easily
Batch Image Watermark Script
This post is a copy of my website post; Please see original blog post for any updates:
In short: This script allows you to add an image watermark to a directory of pictures!
Lets start (Linux users please adjust where necessary!)
Golden-ratio circle effect
acv2gimp: convert Photoshop curves to gimp format
It converts Photoshop curves files to Gimp format.
Example usage:
Subscribe to RSS - GPL3


Can A Guinea Pig Be Happy Living Alone?
Can you sleep with your guinea pig?
There are a few reasons for the same.
Can guinea pigs be left alone for 2 days?
It is fine to leave your guinea pigs alone for a day or a little bit more, but anything more than two days can be threatening. There are lots of problems which your guinea pigs might get into, right from lack of hay, water to hurting themselves by fighting or escaping their cage.
Why do guinea pigs die so easily?
Respiratory illnesses, especially pneumonia, strike guinea pigs hard. Adenovirus, an illness that doesn't always directly cause death, can lead to pneumonia as the guinea pig's immune system weakens. Guinea pigs also can suffer a stroke or heart attack at any age, often for no apparent reason.
How do you know if your guinea pig is sad?
What happens if a guinea pig is alone?
If your guinea pig has to be kept alone you must provide companionship by interacting with them daily. Guinea pigs can develop abnormal behaviour and may suffer if left without company and nothing to do for long periods. Places to escape from companions if they want to.
Do guinea pigs like to live alone or in pairs?
Guinea pigs are social animals and they thrive on interaction with a companion so you should always adopt two guinea pigs to avoid a singleton suffering from loneliness. Having said that there are extreme and rare circumstances when a guinea pig can thrive on their own.
Do male guinea pigs like being alone?
How can you tell if your guinea pig is lonely?
what are the signs and behaviour of a lonely guinea pig? A happy one or an unhappy one? A depressed guinea will sit in its hut, not interact, often have a diminished appetite or be picky about food. A happy guinea pig will be waiting for you to play and interact with it.
Is it better to have 1 guinea pig or 2?
At what age is a guinea pig fully grown?
Guinea pigs are typically considered adults from 6 months to about 5 years of age. Adults are no longer growing but still require macro-nutrients like fiber and protein, as well as micro-nutrients like the vitamins and minerals that are found in a timothy hay-based, uniform fortified food.
What is the most common cause of death in guinea pigs?
PneumoniaPneumonia. Pneumonia is actually the leading cause of death in Guinea pigs. It is generally caused by a bacterial infection. Some of the symptoms of pneumonia include wheezing, trouble breathing, discharge from the nose or mouth, weight loss, reddish eyes, and depression.
What do you do with a dead guinea pig?
Can a guinea pig die of loneliness?
The surprising truth is – yes, guinea pigs can die of loneliness. They need a companion in their life because they are social animals. … If you don't have time to play with them and to show them affection you need to get a second guinea pig otherwise they could get sick and die of loneliness.
Do guinea pigs like to be kissed?
Many guinea pigs enjoyed being kissed on the top of their head. They will understand the love and affection from you, but they don't show it in the same manner. … Not only guinea pigs, but most of the pets also exhibit their love by licking. But with proper training, you can also teach your guinea pig to kiss you back.
Are female guinea pigs nicer than males?
As you have already known by now, that male guinea pigs have an active, outgoing, and dominant personality while the female guinea pigs have a timid and shy one. It is quite easy to train a male guinea pig than a female one, but again females are friendlier with their cage mates than males do.


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The term latent typing is used to describe a computer language, such as Scheme, for which you cannot, in general, simply look at a program's source code and determine what type of data will be associated with a particular variable, or with the result of a particular expression.
Sometimes, of course, you can tell from the code what the type of
an expression will be. If you have a line in your program that sets the
x to the numeric value 1, you can be certain that,
immediately after that line has executed (and in the absence of multiple
x has the numeric value 1. Or if you write a procedure
that is designed to concatenate two strings, it is likely that the rest
of your application will always invoke this procedure with two string
parameters, and quite probable that the procedure would go wrong in some
way if it was ever invoked with parameters that were not both strings.
Nevertheless, the point is that there is nothing in Scheme which
requires the procedure parameters always to be strings, or
always to hold a numeric value, and there is no way of declaring in your
program that such constraints should always be obeyed. In the same
vein, there is no way to declare the expected type of a procedure's
Instead, the types of variables and expressions are only known – in general – at run time. If you need to check at some point that a value has the expected type, Scheme provides run time procedures that you can invoke to do so. But equally, it can be perfectly valid for two separate invocations of the same procedure to specify arguments with different types, and to return values with different types.
The next subsection explains what this means in practice, for the ways that Scheme programs use data types, values and variables.


text:
How the COVID-19 Fight has Hurt Digital Rights in East Africa
The fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda has dealt a blow to the promotion and preservation of human rights in the region. Moreover, the outbreak of COVID-19 could not have come at a worse time, as the countries were preparing for their respective general elections (October 2020 for Tanzania, January 2021 for Uganda, and a potential referendum in 2021 and the August 2022 elections in Kenya). Even before confirmation of COVID-19 cases in the region, the three East African countries had instituted COVID-19 mitigation measures. Many of these measures are still being implemented, and some of them have negatively affected peoples' fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, access to information, privacy and data protection as well as freedom of assembly and association. On March 18, 2020, Uganda instituted its first set of measures that included the closure of schools and a ban on all political, religious, and social gatherings. A week after the March 22, 2020 confirmation of the first case in the country, the Ministry of Health issued the Public Health (Control of COVID-19) (No. 2) Rules, 2020 that introduced further restrictions including a dusk-to-dawn curfew, the closure of institutions of learning and places of worship, the suspension of public gatherings, a ban on public transport and the closure of the country's borders and the international airport to passenger traffic. In Kenya, the government introduced several measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 that included the suspension of public gatherings and other social distancing requirements; limitation of travel into and outside the country; imposition of a dusk-to-dawn curfew under the Public Order Act, 2003; as well as inter-county travel bans between the capital, Nairobi, and three other high-risk counties of Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale. A day after the government confirmed its first coronavirus case, Tanzania introduced a series of measures that included the closure of schools and the suspension of sports events on March 17, 2020. Additional directives, including quarantining travellers from countries with confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the travellers' own cost, were announced by President Pombe Magufuli.


text:
Musicians have used artillery to engender shock for centuries, dating back to classical music of the late 1700s. As conductor Leon Botstein wrote in The New York Times, "The anticipation and experience of soldiers marching and the ominous sounds of battle have been captured by music." Sometimes this has been done quite literally, the most obvious example being Tchaikovsky's "The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49," a.k.a. the "1812 Overture," with its climactic cannon part. This was actually not the Russian composer's idea—less famously, Italian opera composer Giuseppe Sarti did it first with his "Te Deum," also known as the "Russian Oratorio" in 1789 to celebrate the Russo-Turkish War's Seige of Ochakov. Beethoven also tried his hand at composing with sounds straight from the battlefield. His "Wellington's Victory," a commemoration of the Duke of Wellington's triumph at the 1813 Battle of Vitoria in Spain, calls for muskets. It's known as one of Beethoven's worst works.
The Atlantic, "Bang! The Long, Loud History of Gunshots in Music"


PE/Health Curriculum Coordinators
Elementary: Mike Bray, EPO
Secondary: Cheri Lyman, SKHS
South Kitsap High School PE Department
Focused Fitness Website
Mission Statement
South Kitsap Physical Education is dedicated to preparing all students for lifelong fitness and health.
Core Values
 - Provide a positive and safe learning environment for all students
 - Provide a variety of meaningful and engaging fitness activities
 - Use a variety of assessments to evaluate student learning
 - Preparing students for lifelong fitness and goal setting
 - Collaborate to align curriculum with national/state standards to ensure appropriate progression
 - Provide education to all students using aligned curriculum to understand the relationship between exercise and nutrition
 - Provide exemplary facilities and equipment
 - Employ certificated physical education and health teachers
 - Communicate the importance of physical education and health with students, parents, staff, and community.
 SKSD Physical Education Scope and Sequence
Grades K-5 Grades 6-8 Grades 9-12


The Montevideo Maru - 1945
The Montevideo Maru: 10,000 tonne Japanese merchant ship
Numbers of Australians POWs on board: 1,053
Number of Civilians on board: 208
Date of sinking: 1st July 1942
Prime Minister: John Curtin (Labor) _PHONE_
On 22nd June 1942 the Montevideo Maru, a Japanese merchant ship, left Rabaul, New Britain bound for Japan with civilian and military Prisoners of War.
An American submarine, the USS Sturgeon, intercepted the ship en route to Hainan Island and torpedoed the Montevideo Maru on 1st July 1942.
The ship sank off the northern coast of Luzon within 10 minutes and only 17 Japanese crewmen and three guards survived.
Australia's largest maritime disaster
The sinking of the Montevideo Maru and subsequent loss of Australian lives became the largest maritime disaster in Australian history. Controversy still surrounds the way in which the sinking was officially reported. Japan had only recently entered the war and was anxious to ensure that its internees were treated well by Australia. Japan did not notify the International Red Cross of the attack and subsequent sinking of the vessel and it was not until three and a half years later that official notification was given to families in Australia as to the fate of the POWs and civilians. With confusion and hearsay surrounding the sinking of the Montevideo Maru, many relatives did not believe the official story. Some believed that the POWs had been executed in Rabaul. However, there was supporting documentation and evidence to confirm that soldiers and civilians marched to the port to embark on Montevideo Maru.
A group of nurses from Rabaul remained with their patients and were captured by the invading Japanese forces on the 23rd January 1942. These nurses were interned in Japan and were treated mainly with hostility and contempt; the Japanese did not inform the International Red Cross of the nurses' capture.