text:
Spatial Concept Perspectives
We have gathered ~300 excerpts from published works about fundamental spatial concept terms. These have been cross-referenced with the concept lexicon appearing on the left. Those terms were drawn from the U.S.National Science Education Standards (NSES 1996) for topic areas B - Physical Science, C - Life Science, D - Earth and Space Science, as well as from the 1994 U.S. Geography Teaching Standards for grades 9-12. Those standards can be browsed here.


text:
transitive verb/verbo transitivo
- [amount/condition/time] estipular she stipulated payment in dollars estipuló or especificó que el pago debería hacerse en dólares the rules stipulate that … las normas estipulan or establecen que …More example sentences
- The requirement was stipulated in his bail conditions, a top prosecutor said on Tuesday.
- Among the requirements is an agreement stipulating the areas of collaboration between the foreign design firm and its mainland counterpart.
- The advice line has an automated system into which you input your holiday plans and by return get a tailored information pack stipulating both what is required and what advised.
intransitive verb/verbo intransitivo
Find out how to write letters in Spanish, including advice on greetings, layout, endings...
In Spain, pinchos are small portions of food, often on a cocktail stick, eaten in a bar or cafe. Often free, they are similar to

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


How To Plan an Easter Egg Hunt
Planning an Easter egg hunt, the greatest of the easter egg games. With every upcoming holiday our family, like most, have certain traditions that everyone looks forward to no matter what.
The one Easter tradition that none of my children want to give up is the Easter egg hunt. It's their favorite of all the easter bunny games. Since they are now in their late teens, you'd think that this one could be quietly slipped under the rug, but it has become a competition with bragging rights among them.
Even with Easter still a few weeks away, they are already talking a bit of good natured smack among themselves as to who will grab the golden egg this year. Following are a few things this easter bunny has learned about the easter egg hunt over the years.
Steps to Plan an Egg Hunt
Plan an Easter Egg Hunt
Instructions for Planning an Easter Egg Hunt:
1. Start with assorted sizes of plastic eggs. Figure about a dozen eggs per participant in the easter egg hunt, more or less depending on their ages. These eggs are best purchased the week after Easter for a fraction of what they cost right now, but if you don't have any think of it as an investment for the future as they will be used over and over. I highly recommend the hinged eggs with a small hinge on the side so the two ends stay together (there's always the child who just just can't wait to open their eggs, leaving you with multiple pieces to not only hunt but also piece back together) for an easter egg hunt.
2. Buy small wrapped candies, plastic toys, erasers, balls, dolls, hair clips, etc. Be creative, I prefer the Easter theme on these, but anything goes. Target is usually a good source for items as is the online Oriental Trading Company if you are doing a large scale easter egg hunt. I say wrapped candies, again for that child that can't wait, so no one ends up eating candy off the ground. Coins of different values are a great idea for older children – then have them practice adding up the value after the Easter egg hunt.
3. Have at least one "golden egg" in your easter egg hunt – a large yellow egg with an extra special prize. Maybe a coupon, a small stuffed animal or some paper money.
4. Fill the eggs and hide them anyplace you can think of, keeping the ages in mind. Put eggs out on the grass for the little ones and more difficult places including up in the trees for the older crowd. You're now ready to begin the Easter egg hunt.
5. Give everyone a basket and explain the rules. Rules are a) only the littlest ones can pick the eggs visible on the grass and b) only one golden egg per child (if you chose to have more than one).
6. Turn on the video camera on and holler "go". The easter egg hunt is on!
Variations to the Egg Hunt
Some Additional Options/Variations Of The Easter Egg Hunt:
A. You can time the Easter egg hunt and give a prize to the first person to collect a certain number of eggs.
B. If you have multiple ages, you can let the little ones go first and let the big ones watch with anticipation for 5-10 minutes.
C. You can use real colored hard boiled eggs instead of the plastic ones. If you do, be sure to check Eat By Date to find out the proper storage for your hard boiled eggs and to find out how long chocolate will last (if you used chocolates).
D. If you want to ensure that everyone in your easter egg hunt receives the same prizes in the end, you can have a series of items duplicated for each color of egg. Then assign each child only one color of egg to hunt.
E. You can have an easter egg hunt anywhere, we did it in a motel room one year when we went away for Easter. Like I said, my kids won't let this tradition pass – no matter what!
SEARCH Eat By Date


text:
day 3 review
Today we began with a timed self-assessment (45-min) in which we had to re-implement some of the familiar functions in the UnderscoreJS library from scratch:
- a recursive function that accepts a dom node and returns true if it finds 5 or more divs in itself and child nodes (no jQuery allowed).
- an 'each' function, which accepts a collection to iterate over and an iterator that will be called on each item in the collection.
- a 'once' function that accepts a function and executes it once, and then does not allow it to be called again
- a 'defaults' function that accepts an object and optionally any number of objects which contain default key:value pairs to be assigned to the first object if those keys are not already present.
- a 'contains' function which returns true if a given target value is found in a collection
after this we began learning about stacks and the instantiation styles of data stuctures, while also exploring the red-green-refactor approach to writing code (aka Test Driven Development). In this, we will write tests for what we want our application to do, and we will write them to fail until we write the code that fixes them.


text:
Cell-Life has conducted formal research into using SMSs to encourage people in South Africa to get tested for HIV. Here's the abstract:
Investigation into the Use of Short Message Services to Expand Uptake of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Testing, and Whether Content and Dosage Impact
South Africa has one of the highest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence rates in the world, but despite the well-established benefits of HIV counseling and testing (HCT), there is low uptake of HCT. The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of using short message services (SMSs) to encourage HCT while interrogating the impact of altering SMS content and dosage (the number of SMSs).
Materials and Methods:
About 2,533 participants were recruited via an SMS sent to 24,000 mobiles randomly sampled from a pre-existing database. Recruits were randomly allocated to four intervention groups that received 3 or 10 informational (INFO) or motivational (MOTI) SMSs, and a control group. After the intervention, participants were prompted to go for HCT, and postintervention assessment was done after 3 weeks.
In comparison with the control, receipt of 10 MOTI messages had the most impact on uptake of HCT with a 1.7-fold increased odds of testing (confidence interval 95%; p=0.0036). The lack of efficacy of three SMSs indicates a threshold effect, that is, a minimum number of MOTI SMSs is required. INFO SMSs, whether 3 or 10 were sent, did not have a statistically significant effect. The cost can be calculated for the marginal effect of the SMSs, that is, the cost to get people to test over and above those who were likely to test without the intervention. Use of 10 MOTI SMSs yielded a cost-per-tester of $2.41.
While there are methodological issues apparent in our study, the results demonstrate the potential of SMSs to influence the uptake of HCT, the importance of appropriate content, and the need to determine a threshold for SMS-based interventions. These results indicate a potential for SMSs to be used more generally for interventions encouraging people to take health-related actions, and the need for further research in this field. The reasonable cost-per-tester is promising for the scale-up of such an intervention.


text:
The actor playing the role of Ashikaga
Yorikane (足利頼兼) is easily identifiable because his robe is often decorated either
with sparrows or bamboo and sparrows combined. The pairing of these two elements
is used on the crest (mon - 紋 or もん) of the Date clan. However, this motif does not
always guarantee the absolute identification of this figure because we have
seen a Kuniyoshi with a beautiful woman standing on a beach and wearing
clothing with the same design. Perhaps this is an obtuse allusion to Yorikane, but at this point proving it is beyond our scholarship.
Students of art history are familiar with
such iconographic short cuts: a man on a cross is usually Jesus (イエス); a man being
barbecued on a grill is St. Lawrence (セントローレンス); a man studiously reading with a docile
lion lying nearby is St. Jerome (サンジェローム); a woman standing by a wheel with blade like
spikes coming out of it is St. Catherine of Alexandria (セントカサリン.アレグザンドリア) and so on. Similar
cues can be found in both sacred and profane Asian art.
John W. Dower in The Elements of
Japanese Design (p. 99) states:
"Like the lion and peony...the sparrow is
commonly depicted with bamboo. The association is a natural one, since
flocks of sparrows commonly alight in the bamboo groves..."
Merrily Baird in Symbols of Japan
(pp. 118-119) notes that there are early poetic references to sparrows and
bamboo. "The bird is said to be obsessed with its honor, especially the
repaying of debts.... Nearly three dozen family crests are based on the

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


click fraud detection
In General, the container is a container for storage and transportation of products. Therefore, depending on the products being transported, the packaging may be contaminated with different types of pollutants. And, in turn, depending on the type of pollutant - different order of recycling containers.
There are the following main ways of recycling containers:
1) grinding, which is the destruction of plastic, metal or other containers by crushing the material, followed by sending the raw material for further processing;
2) incineration;
3) cleaning of containers (at its high price) with the possibility of re-use;
4) burial;
5) and others.
To reduce disposal costs of this waste, the specialists of LLC "Ekouniversal" is recommended to involve the containers used in the economic turnover with the purpose of reuse. For example, various cans and containers of paint can be reused if their contamination is removed with solvents. If such involvement is not possible, we are ready to accept waste for disposal.
Specialists of the "Ekouniversal" ready to provide expert assistance in establishing the class of hazard and methods of disposal of containers contaminated with various types of pollutants. Waste disposal services are carried out in accordance with the applicable environmental legislation and on the basis of current permits (licenses).
Задать вопрос
Ваше имя E-mail Телефон Ваш вопрос


text:
Apply an Animated Highlighter Effect
Add an animation to a highlight annotation to appear as though you are drawing with a highlighter across the screen. This effect is ideal for drawing attention to:
- A URL
- Text within a website
- An important area on the screen
To Create This Effect:
- Click the Annotations tab.
- Click to view the highlight annotations. The preset styles appear
- Select a style and drag it onto a track on the timeline.
- To reposition the annotation, select and drag it to a new location on the track.
- To resize it, drag the handles in or out.
- Click the Animations tab.
- Drag the Custom animation onto the highlight annotation on the timeline.
- Move the playhead to the beginning of the animation.
- Select the highlight annotation on the canvas and position it where you want the highlighter animation to start.
- Click the end point of the animation on the timeline.
- Drag the handles of the highlight annotation to the position on the canvas where you
want the animation to end.
- To adjust the duration of the animation, drag the end point in or out on the timeline.
- Move the playhead to the beginning of the effect, then click Play to view the animation.
- To further edit the animation properties, click the Properties button.


text:
Escape rooms and breakout classrooms have found their way into today's elementary classroom! They are such a great way to increase student engagement and to promote collaborative learning. This multiplication escape activity is a perfect way to culminate your fourth grade multiplication unit.
Here's what's included:
-Clue 1-Students match the multiplicative comparison statements. They will use a ruler to draw a
line from the dots on the left to the corresponding dots on the right. The letters in the center of the
page that are NOT crossed out give the code for the first lock.
-Clue 2-Students find the factors of the four numbers on their recording sheet. They should look
closely at the factors and find the four factors that each number has in common.
That number combination will unlock the next clue.
-Clue 3-Students solve each of the multiplication problems. As they multiply, students should find
the product on the bottom of the recording sheet. Students will use the hieroglyphic decoder
to determine the mystery message.
-Clue 4-Students will complete the sieve of eratosthenes and use that information to find the next clue.
This can be used with Breakout Edu boxes or with your own boxes and locks. If you do not have boxes and locks, you may use the digital version, where students submit their answers on Google Forms.


text:
October 3, 2011 | A team that includes NCAR scientists Anne Boynard and Alex Guenther has found that the rate at which plant canopies emit isoprene, a volatile organic compound, is influenced by circadian rhythms. The discovery has the potential to lead to more accurate predictions of ground-level ozone, which is harmful to human health.
For the study, the researchers made measurements of isoprene in Malaysia above both tropical rain forest and oil palm plantations. They observed for the first time ever a circadian (24-hour) rhythm operating in concert across the entire tree canopy, especially in the palm plantation.
The finding changes how scientists estimate isoprene emissions from plants, as both the palm plantations and rain forest emit less isoprene than shown by computer models of emissions. This has implications for ground-level ozone, which forms when volatile organic compounds such as isoprene react with nitrogen oxides from automobiles and industry.
The researchers incorporated the circadian pattern into the NCAR Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) model to estimate isoprene emissions for input to ozone models. They then compared simulated ground-level ozone to observed ozone measurements from 290 monitoring sites in the United States. They found that model accuracy was significantly improved. Accounting for circadian impacts on isoprene emissions could especially improve ozone predictions in isoprene-sensitive regions of the world, which include the United States, Mediterranean, Middle East, Japan, and parts of Southeast Asia.
The research was published in Nature Geoscience in September.
C. N. Hewitt, K. Ashworth, A. Boynard, A. Guenther, B. Langford, A. R. MacKenzie, P. K. Misztal, E. Nemitz, S. M. Owen, M. Possell, T. A. M. Pugh, A. C. Ryan, O. Wild, "Ground-level ozone influenced by circadian control of isoprene emissions," Nature Geoscience, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1271


text:
Professional Doctorate in Educational Leadership (ProDEL)
School of Education
Reading Comprehension Skills Instruction, Students With Intellectual Disabilities, Technologically-Based Reading Instruction
This research paper reported the results from research conducted regarding technologically-based reading comprehension programs for students who have intellectual disabilities. It provided evidence-based research and theoretical bases for learning(i.e. Zone of Generativity, Constructivism, Self-Efficacy) on the issue of these students not being adequately prepared to academically compete with their non-disabled peers in the classroom in a technologically-based world which requires proficient reading skills.This paper addressed low reading comprehension skills development at the foundational elementary level for basic reading comprehension skills.This paper examined the students' academic performance and integrated commentary from educational leaders and other stakeholders. Data were collected via surveys from stakeholders to inform the work of education focus groups, curriculum developers and technologically-based reading comprehension program designers. It offered a design for action using an Improvement Science Model to address the issue which will culminate in a discussion for a student-centered technologically-based reading comprehension curriculum that integrates reading comprehension skills development and technological skills.The investigation concluded with recommendations for implementing the plan to improve reading comprehension instruction for students with intellectual disabilities through improvement inquiry in the field of Educational Leadership.
Macklin, E. (2016). Development of Reading Comprehension Skills Among Students With Intellectual Disabilities Using Technologically-Based Reading Programs (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from _URL_


text: Xylem and phloem are the two main conveyance systems in plants allowing exchanges of water and carbohydrates between roots and leaves. While each system has been studied in isolation for well over a century, the coupling and coordination between them remains the subject of inquiry and active research and frames the scope of the review here. Using a set of balance equations, hazards of bubble formation and their role in shaping xylem pressure and its corollary impact on phloem pressure and sugar transport are featured. The behavior of an isolated and freely floating air bubble within the xylem is first analyzed so as to introduce key principles such as the Helmholtz free energy and its links to embryonic bubble sizes. These principles are extended by considering bubbles filled with water vapor and air arising from air seeding. Using this framework, key results about stability and hazards of bubbles in contact with xylem walls are discussed. A chemical equilibrium between phloem and xylem systems is then introduced to link xylem and osmotic pressures. The consequences of such a link for sugar concentration needed to sustain efficient phloem transport by osmosis in the loading zone is presented. Catastrophic cases where phloem dysfunction occurs are analyzed in terms of xylem function and its vulnerability to cavitation. A link between operating pressures in the soil system bounded by field capacity and wilting points and maintenance of phloem functioning are discussed as conjectures to be tested in the future.


text:
sic] Julius Caesar, and certainly it is a noble edifice and marvellously ordered and very strange. It is called Caesar's needle, and in the middle and at the base, and even at the top, are a few ancient letters carved in the stone which now cannot well be read, but in fact they record that the body of Julius Caesar was buried there.
- Pedro Tafur's Andanças (1874 edition) referenced in the Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, Joan Corominas, José Antonio Pascual, 1987, Editorial Gredos, Tome I, ISBN 84-_PHONE_-2, entry carnicol, page 880.
- Edward Chaney, "Roma Britannica and the Cultural Memory of Egypt: Lord Arundel and the Obelisk of Domitian", in Roma Britannica: Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome, eds. D. Marshall, K. Wolfe and S. Russell, British School at Rome, 2011, pp. 147-70.
 Further reading
- Wirsching, Armin (2000), "How the Obelisks Reached Rome: Evidence of Roman Double-Ships", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 29 (2): 273–283
- Wirsching, Armin (2003), "Supplementary Remarks on the Roman Obelisk-Ships", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 32 (1): 121–123
- Wirsching, Armin (2nd ed. 2010), Obelisken transportieren und aufrichten in Aegypten und in Rom, ISBN 978-3-8334-8513-8
- D'Onofrio, Cesare (1967), Gli obelischi di Roma
 Former locations of some obelisks
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Obelisks of Rome|
- Chasing Obelisks in Rome
- Obelisks in Rome (Andrea Pollett)
- Obelisks of Rome (series of articles in Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome)
- Obelischi di Roma
- Obelisk of Psametik II and Augustus, erected by Pope Pius VI in Piazza Montecitorio
- Romeartlover.it: Obeliks of Rome


Thursday, August 31, 2006
Performance: Block Variables Breakdown
In response to my previous blog, Chris Nokleberg noted that if we're using String#equals a lot, interning will have an additional benefit...namely because String#equals short-circuits if both String objects are ==. I had forgotten about that benefit, so I thought I'd poke around for places it might have an effect.
In digging a little, I was reminded that DynamicVariableSet, which holds block-local variables, does a linear search for retrievals and mutations. Compare that to method-local variables in Scope, for which all clients must pass an index to get or set a value. I'm not sure if there's a reason why DynVars must be retrieved by name and Scope vars can be directly's probably historical from the C code or a limitation of the current parser. In any case, a linear search could theoretically represent a performance issue accessing or modifying block-local variables. So I thought I'd run some numbers to see how frequently we have to search past the 0 value in the DynVarSet. Here's the breakdown while gem installing rake:
Count of block var retrieves from indicies 0 through 6:
So a total of 787121 block variable lookups, with percentages below:
index 0: 65.6%
index 1: 28.7%
index 2: 5.4%
...with the remainder filling out the last 0.3% of accesses
What can we learn from this? Well DynVarSet currently allocates initial space for up to 8 variables, based on someone's long-past examination of code that showed a maximum of 6 was a good estimate. The numbers above show that, for RubyGems + RDoc at least, a maximum of 3 would cover 99.7% of all cases without requiring expansion of the array, and that with a subsequent expansion to 6 slots we would cover all but 0._PHONE_% of cases. So using 6 as a maximum and always allocating 8 slots is perhaps a bit generous. More profiling on more code is warranted here, but it might be safe to drop the initial size to 3 and leave in the doubling when expanding.
It also shows us that we pay the cost of two String#equals calls for 28.7% of lookups, and pay for three in 5.4% of lookups, with higher counts statistically insignificant. So although it might seem like we're unlikely to suffer much of a performance hit because most block var lookups are at index 0, our cost to lookup or modify block variables is doubled in over a quarter of cases and tripled in a twentieth of cases. If we normalize all lookups to the same cost (X * 99.7 versus X * 139.2), that translates to a 28% performance boost for block variable lookup cost. Note that I'm not measuring block variable modifications here either, which would conceivably see a similar boost.
And of course what it doesn't show (but which we know to be true) is that if we were able to eliminate both the linear search and the call to String#equals, we'd save a very large percentage of block var lookup time, since we'd reduce it to a simple array indexing. I think it's worth exploring how we could do that--especially since we already do it for Scope in all the same places.
Isn't optimizing legacy code fun?
Performance: Inlining Strings
A while ago, we decided to inline all appropriate symbolic strings as they entered the AST. This appeared to help performance a measurable amount, presumably for two reasons:
 1. The AST would take up less space in the long term
 2. Since Strings cache their hashcodes, having each identical string in the AST be the same object would reduce the number of hash calculations.
And the numbers seem to bear it out. Here's a local rake install:
Without interning AST strings:
real 1m19.894s
user 1m18.649s
sys 0m0.920s
With interning AST strings:
real 1m15.021s
user 1m13.785s
sys 0m0.948s
So it's very this case 4-5 seconds out of 80 seconds, or about a 6% gain with interning.
However this week I realized the fallacy of the second point above. In order to intern each incoming string, Java must hash them. This causes all strings entering the AST to be hashed once anyway in order to get the interned version. In fact, it could reduce performance, since we're now forced to hash strings we might never encounter during execution.
I can't confirm that this is 100% true, but it's a reasonable theory. String.intern() is native code, but logic dictates that the fastest way to intern strings would be to use an internal hash/symbol table. So I proceeded this evening to try removing interning to see how it affected performance. I hoped to get a small gain during execution due to a large gain during parsing. The numbers above show that I lose a measurable amount overall by interning. However, I do see substantial parse performance gains:
With interning AST strings ( - t method of measuring 100 parses):
Without interning AST strings:
About 1.7 seconds out of 11, or a whopping 15% gain in parse speed without interning. AARGH.
At this point I'm leaning toward removing interning and swallowing the 6% performance hit temporarily until we can figure out where it's coming from. Logically, interning everything should only add overhead, or so my brain tells me. Where's the flaw in my logic?
My London Schedule
So here's the times and places. I want to get together JRubyists to just chat a bit at some point, and it seems like Thursday or Friday would work best. The only concrete suggestion so far is the Fitzroy Tavern on the 15th, around 6:30PM-7:00PM (thanks Damian). This works for me, and it's after the conference. Here's a goofy Google Map to Fitzroy from the conference center.
I'm also planning to attend the "Pizza on Rails" event on the 13th, so folks can find me there.
I'll keep this entry updated as things come in, so it can be used for reference.
13 September, 6:00AM: Arrival in London (Heathrow)
Other than getting checked into the hotel, I have that whole day free. I don't plan to cram for my presentation or anything, since it's not until Friday (and I don't really work that way). To avoid the lag I'll probably sleep as much as I can on the plane. Getting out and about once I get there ought to get the circadians whipped into shape.
13 September, 6:00PM: Pizza on Rails
Pizza on Rails is around 6PM, with pizza at 7PM.
14 September, 9:00AM: RailsConf Day One
The "Welcome" is at 9, and it goes straight through until 8:30PM with a lunch break from 12:30PM to 2:00PM and a dinner break from 5:50PM to 7:30PM. I'll probably try to grab meals with folks from the conf.
15 September, 9:30AM: RailsConf Day Two
Lunch break is the same as Day One, and the conf is scheduled to go through until 6PM, with "Closing Remarks" coming after that. Probably be out by 6:30, and the Fitzroy is pretty close. Maybe someone not going to the conf can get there early to scope it out.
15 September, 3:00PM: JRuby on Rails
I'm in the last set of speakers, before the final plenary session with James Duncan Davidson and Dave Thomas. I'm up against cleaning up rails, adding unicode to rails, and project management for rails. I wish I could attend the unicode session, but I'll try to grab Dominic offline.
15 September, 6:30PM: JRuby Meetup
So far I think we'll just be at Fitzroy Tavern, as mentioned at the top of this post. All are welcome...I don't fly out until 1:25PM the next day, so I can stick around for a while.
16 September 10:00AM: Departure
Given the recent TERROR scare, I'm going to be extra careful and head to the airport nice and early. I'm not particularly worried about TERROR, but I am over-cautious about giving security enough time to scour my person for soda pop and lip balm.
Thus ends my first trip to London. It's too bad it will be so short, but I have business to attend to stateside immediately after the conference. Hopefully I'll stop back in when I'm in the EU for JavaPolis.
I hope to see plenty of JRubyists in London!


Tom Godwin
The Survivors
Listen in app
The Survivors (aka Space Prison) is a science fiction novel by Tom Godwin.
Ragnarok has a gravity 1.5 times that of Earth, and is populated by deadly, aggressive creatures and it contains little in the way of usable metal ores. This, combined with a terrible deadly fever that kills in hours, more than decimates the population. The novels follows the stranded humans through several generations as they try to survive there, and their unswerving goal to repay the Gerns for their cruelty.
The Survivors was first published in 1958. The novel was published again by Pyramid Books in 1960 under the title Space Prison. The novel is an expansion of Godwin's story Too Soon to Die which first appeared in the magazine Venture. AUDIO: read by Mark Nelson, reading time 5 hours 55 min. Unabridged full version. Also available as E-Book: ePUB, 54,500 words, average reading time 4 hours, 30 min.
Tom Godwin (_PHONE_) was an American science fiction author, who published three novels and thirty short stories.
Anncona Media
 How did you like the book?
 Sign in or Register


text:
Call Process Review
Following a decision by the 2015 General Convention of Synod (Resolution 151209), the then General Church Council commissioned an investigation into the LCA call process in order to hear from congregations about their views and expectations of the process and to identify ways the system could be improved.
The review made a number of recommendations. Overall it found that the system itself does not require significant structural change. However, it did identify that there is frustration about the system and a process that can be disheartening for some calling bodies. As a result, the review also identified scope for improvement in the efficiency and transparency of the process.
The General Church Board has received the report, considered its recommendations and approved a series of actions to implement them. These actions were developed in consultation with the College of Bishops. Some of them are already under development; for example, Church Worker Support is working on a framework for annual vocational reviews of pastors. Others will be developed and rolled out through this synodical period and beyond.
The focus of the actions is to support both calling bodies and pastors to:
- improve trust in the call process
- increase the chances of a good calling body/pastor fit
- improve the understanding of how the call process works, and
- ensure greater professionalism, and overall efficiency and transparency in the system.
These actions can be implemented through policy, operational processes and provision of resources to support all participants in the call system.
Click on the button below to read General Church Board's response to the recommendations of the review report.


text:
Encyclopaedia of DesignTheory: Latin squares
|Experimental||Other designs||Math properties||Stat properties|
In this representation, the Latin square is an an orthogonal array of degree n, strength 1 and index 1, over an alphabet of size n. This means that
There is another important representation of a Latin square as an array. Assume that the symbols in the square are 1,2,...,n. Then let S be the set of n2 triples of the form (i,j,k), where the symbol in row i and column j of the square is k.
For example, given the square
we obtain the following nine triples:
This is an orthogonal array of degree 3, strength 2 and index 1, over an alphabet of size n. This means that
Conversely, from any orthogonal array of degree 3, strength 2 and index 1, we can reconstruct a Latin square, by putting symbol k in row i and column j if the row (i,j,k) occurs in the array. The order of the Latin square is the number of symbols in the array.
Table of contents | Glossary | Topics | Bibliography | History
Peter J. Cameron
27 November 2002


text: This video instructs you on how to draw angles in geometry. The instructor begins by showing you 4 example angles you can create. He then draws a straight line that can be linked to any of the other four angles. The first example of an angle shown is 180 degrees. He draws a line at 50 degrees and then he continues to draw a 90 degree angle. The instructor varies whether he uses the left or right side of the protractor. He ended by noting some angles will be larger than the protractor.


Home Original Quantitative Assessments in Graduate Education (Part I)
Quantitative Assessments in Graduate Education (Part I)
Quantitative Assessments in Graduate Education (Part I)
By Dr. Gary Deel, Ph.D., J.D.
Faculty Director, School of Business, American Public University
This is the first article in a three-part series about quantitative assessments for graduate students.
Many universities frown upon the use of quantitative assessments in graduate programs. Instead, most graduate coursework relies on the use of essays and short-answer questions for assessing student understanding and proficiency.
Start a degree program at American Public University.
This trend is based on the assumption that quantitative assessments are inherently less rigorous than a test which requires students to synthesize their responses in the abstract without the prompting of choices. Quantitative assessments include true/false questions, multiple choice questions, matching questions, and any other kinds of questions with categorical, ordinal, or numerical predetermined responses.
In certain contexts, this assumption about quantitative assessments might be true. For students, it can sometimes be easier to answer questions when pre-established choices allow for the kind of deductive reasoning that would make much quicker work of a test.
For example, suppose an exam question asks "Why is the ocean blue?" If answers are provided in a multiple-choice format allow for easy filtering and elimination, then this question could become a lot less challenging than if you had to write out an explanation.
Let's say the answer choices provided to graduate students are:
A) Because the blue color allows coral to grow.
B) Because the ocean reflects the blue color from the sky.
C) Because water molecules scatter blue light more than other colors in the visible spectrum.
D) Because God decided on blue.
In this example, we can dismiss option D right away as obviously wrong. We can also easily dismiss option A after thinking just a little bit about the premise and realizing that the needs of life on our planet are shaped by the circumstances of the environment and not the other way around.
That line of reasoning leaves us with answers B and C. Even if a student had no idea which was the correct answer, he or she would at least have a 50 percent chance of answering correctly with a blind guess. And 50 percent odds would obviously be better than the odds afforded to the same student who was not given the assistance of answer choices.
Unfortunately, multiple-choice questions are commonly written in this simplistic way. As a result, tests can prove subpar in their levels of challenge to students.
Multiple-Choice Questions in Quantitative Assessments Can Be Made More Challenging
But subpar tests don't have to remain that way. Multiple-choice questions can be as challenging as free-form answer questions, and if written properly, even more so.
Don't take my word for it. Ask any law school graduate or bar examinee.
When I went through law school, I was surprised to learn that significant portions of law school exams and state bar exams consist of multiple-choice questions. If any profession demands high levels of academic rigor from their students, surely it would be the practice of law.
Yet multiple-choice questions are an integral part of assessment for law school students and bar applicants. How is this situation possible?
At first, I thought this test format would make work in law school as easy as I had found a lot of my undergraduate work to be. After all, most of the assessments in undergraduate classes were multiple-choice questions, and I had no problem reasoning through them with a moderate level of studying.
I thought law school questions would render the same advantage. Boy, was I wrong.
In the second part of this article, I'll discuss how law schools and state bar examiners create rigorous and challenging quantitative exam questions with the use of several key strategies.
About the Author
Ready When You Are
Request Information
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Validation message here
Ready to apply? Start your application today.
We value your privacy.


text:
What Is Skullcap?
Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis) is an herb commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. Other names for skullcap (alternatively spelled as "scullcap") include huang qin and baikal skullcap.
Uses of Skullcap
In herbal medicine, skullcap is typically used to treat the following:
Benefits of Skullcap
To date, few clinical trials have explored the health effects of skullcap. However, preliminary research suggests the herb may be useful in treatment of these health conditions:
1) Memory Impairment
In a 2008 study on mice, scientists discovered that oroxylin A (an antioxidant found in the roots of skullcap) may help protect against memory impairment induced by amyloid beta (a substance that forms the brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease).
2) Prostate Cancer
Compounds found in skullcap may help slow the growth of prostate cancer tumors, suggests a 2005 study on mice. Skullcap was a constituent of the herbal formula PC-SPES, a dietary supplement that was taken off the market because some batches were found to contain prescription medications. Although a number of laboratory and animal studies showed that PC-SPES may thwart the growth of prostate cancer cells, it's not known if those anticancer effects were due to the action of the herbs or the prescription medications.
3) Parkinson's Disease
Published in 2008, a study on mice found that baicalein (another skullcap-derived antioxidant) may help protect nerve cells from damage associated with Parkinson's disease (a chronic condition that causes tremor, stiffness of the limbs and trunk, impaired balance and coordination, and slowing of movement).
Is Skullcap Safe?
Although skullcap is generally considered safe, a report published in 2001 warns that the herb may have a causal association with pneumonitis (inflammation of the lung tissue). Given the potential adverse effects of skullcap use, it's important to consult a doctor before taking this herb.
Where to Find Skullcap
Skullcap is sold in many health food stores, often in supplement formulas containing other Chinese herbs.
Bonham M, Posakony J, Coleman I, Montgomery B, Simon J, Nelson PS. "Characterization of chemical constituents in Scutellaria baicalensis with antiandrogenic and growth-inhibitory activities toward prostate carcinoma." Clin Cancer Res. 2005 15;11(10):3905-14.
Cheng Y, He G, Mu X, Zhang T, Li X, Hu J, Xu B, Du G. "Neuroprotective effect of baicalein against MPTP neurotoxicity: behavioral, biochemical and immunohistochemical profile." Neurosci Lett. 2008 15;441(1):16-20.
Kim DH, Kim S, Jeon SJ, Son KH, Lee S, Yoon BH, Cheong JH, Ko KH, Ryu JH. "The effects of acute and repeated oroxylin A treatments on Abeta(25-35)-induced memory impairment in mice." Neuropharmacology. 2008 55(5):639-47.


text:
C. Gaps of Systems
Assessing Gaps of Systems asks that we consider the inclusiveness of the systems upon which our proposed action depends and that we reflect critically upon the limitations of those systems. For example, if we propose to communicate a message – upon what systems does our message depend? We must consider how we will reach people who do not speak our language, who cannot hear/read, and to what extent there may be communities who lack access media. Alternatively, if we locate a free mediation service at the court-house, we must consider whom our legal system serves and fails to serve and whether our efforts to provide alternative methods for conflict resolution might be limited due to the legal system's limitations. Ultimately, this aspect of Gap review asks whether we aware of the limitations of our existing systems and how we may create more inclusive systems.


text:
The researchers examined two types of fruit flies with variants in the foraging gene (for) known as rovers and sitters because of their different behaviours in the presence of food.
When well fed as larvae, rover adults exhibit darting exploration into open areas as they move about in search of food, while sitters show little of this behaviour. When nutritionally deprived as larvae, both rover and sitter adults exhibit darting exploration. Further, the sitters that faced nutritional adversity in early life displayed a reduction in their ability to reproduce. Rovers exhibited no effect on their reproductive fitness.
"The foraging gene makes an enzyme called PKG, which is found in the fly as well as in most other organisms, including humans. When faced with a nutritionally adverse environment while growing up, the levels of the enzyme dropped in flies," says Sokolowski. "This told us that the foraging gene listens to its environment." Transgenic manipulations of PKG levels altered darting exploration in well fed but not nutritionally deprived flies.
The research team included James Burns, a CIFAR junior fellow in Sokolowski's lab, U of T EEB professor Locke Rowe and EEB post-doctoral fellow Nicolas Svetec, as well as colleagues from the Universitiy of British Columbia and the Universit Paris-Sud. The findings are reported in the paper "Chronic food deprivation in early life affects adult exploratory and fitness traits, in the October 16, 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the Nataional Academy of Science.
The papers in the volume are authored largely by CIFAR researchers, and comprise a multidisciplinary collection of research into fields from molecular genetics, evolutionary biology and neuroscience, to social and behavioural science, epidemiology and social policy as well as the emerging field of epigenetics, which investigates deviations in a gene's ability to produce its product
|Contact: Sean Bettam|
University of Toronto


text:
A green roof is any kind of vegetation that is intentionally grown on the roof of a building or structure. Usually it takes the form of a rooftop garden. A green roof can be fairly simple and involve only ground cover plants that are self-sustaining, or it can include irrigation systems, trees, and space for people.
Poster of Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum extensive green roof (photo credit: © Conservation Design Forum
Searle Chemistry Laboratory's extensive green roof (bottom right corner)


text:
system, or report lower satisfaction with their care?
Examining time-by-region-by-race interactions; that is, secular trends in decision-making that differ from place to place, over time, and according to race.
Strategically adding fields to cancer registry databases that could enable addressing the underlying reasons for these disparities directly.
Designing and conducting studies of incident cancer patients in real time such that we can look at personal decisions related to things such as diet, physical activity, and other aspects of self-care.
Focusing on type of surgery performed, even though the current analysis found that this did not play a role in the disparity and, therefore, was not included in the presentation of their results.
No disclosures were reported.


A bike helmet concept fo the Circular Economy.
CHB_01 is allowing the user to renew the bike helmet after a crash without throwing away the whole product. Instead, the safety-relevant elements get replaced.
CHB_01 uses a modular system in which each component is dedicated to its primary function. The Modular System allows replacing broken parts, like the foam core after a crash or a certain amount of time due to the degradation through UV-rays. Additionally, this enables upgrades of functionality, through different components, in the future.
Thanks to the modular system of the CBH_01 the helmet can be easily split into single type materials. This allows a streamlined recycling process. Furthermore, the reuse of materials reduces the environmental impact by replacing individual pieces instead of buying a new helmet. In addition, new material innovations allow CBH_01 even more eco-friendly.
Besides the lower environmental impact and the cost saving benefits, modularity also allows for mass customisation. Every user will be able to create his or her very own colour theme. Thereby the consumer builds a more profound emotional bond with CBH_01 which will lead to a higher acceptance of bike helmets.
Fynn Eckstein


text:
A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says we are dramatically underestimating the role inland fisheries play in global food security.
Pollution is changing the fungi that provide mineral nutrients to tree roots, which could explain malnutrition trends in Europe's trees.
In developed and less developed countries alike, many worry about why laws are so often ignored. But there's a converse question that is even more puzzling: Why are laws obeyed at all?
Lars Andersen's business handles some of the most sensitive data there is—the names and phone numbers of children.


text:
Montreal-based agribusiness, Lufa Farms, just might have the solution we've been looking for in the global fight to move towards more sustainable food production practices. Lufa Farms grows produce in greenhouses constructed on top of buildings in Montreal. The food is grown through a water-based practice called hydroponic cultivation and requires little labor, land, equipment, and recycled water.
Now, is it too good to be true? While the start-up costs of urban rooftop farming can be quite expensive, the expense is evened by the low-cost of operation. Furthermore, rooftop farmers are able to produce food year-round while traditional local farmers are restricted to a 24 to 28 week growing season, thereby proving the potential of urban rooftop farming to become a significant source of profit.
In addition to being profitable, urban rooftop farming could be a powerful agent in promoting the movement to buy local produce.
If more rooftop farming is constructed, more varieties of produce could become available and persuade the local population to buy homegrown food.
Moreover, the locally produced food will decrease our carbon footprint created by our reliance on global trade. Rooftop farms can also help conserve energy of the buildings on which the farms rest. Lufa Farms estimates that the company has saved about 25% on heating costs for the building they operate on.
As you will see in the video below, another excellent example of this innovative concept is the RoofTop Farms project in New York, which has been gaining momentum in NYC.


text:
Feel free to add your idea or elaborate on an existing one. This listing is intended for prospective contributors, Google Summer of Code students, and others interesting in becoming part of the Mylar developer community. Also see: bugs marked helpwanted.
- Provide lightweight workflow actions (e.g. trigger a commit when a bug is closed). This involves adding workflow support to the Tasks framework and implementing task editor actions for for workflow (e.g. check-box for performing commit, action for running task context tests). Query current wofklow bugs
- bug 152415: add a buddy list to ease task assignments and CCs.
- bug 161877: improve duplicate detection mechanism and heuristics.
- Provide wiki integration. This involves providing mechanisms for rich editing and viewing of task repository comments in wiki format, potentially adding wiki editing.
- Improve the new user's experinece. This could involve creating a welcome page, cheat sheets, and streamlining the process of going from installing Mylar to having a task repository.
- bug 116487: create performance test harness
- Identify key performance bottlenecks and address existing performance bugs.
Structure bridges connect Mylar's task context model and task-focused UI to domain-specific tools and artifacts. Note that some bridge implementations fall out of the scope of the Mylar project itself and should reside in the projects that they integrate with. For documentation see: Context API
- bug 162558: C/C++ via CDT (_URL_
- bug 150772: RadRails (external)
- bug 176804: PHP via PDT (_URL_
- bug 167456: PHPEclipse (external)
- bug 161829: Texlipse Latex (external)
- bug 144564: AspectJ (external)
- bug 111700: active folding for WTP XML editor (_URL_
- bug 170894: create an example connector project to be used by integrators as a template. This connector should be simple, for example, it could provide integration with a local comma-delimited value (CSV) as the repository.
- bug 170395: create PDE wizards for automatically generating task repository connectors. These would be similar to the current PDE wizards for creating plug-in projects.
- Integrate with the Maven tasks plug-in (external)


text:
(Phys.org) -- Male beetles in Western Australia are mating with beer bottles in response to environmental change caused by human activity. A new book examines why, and the impacts on biodiversity.
Oxford University Press today announced the launch of Behavioral Responses to a Changing World: Mechanisms and Consequences by Dr. Bob Wong, of Monash University, and Ulrika Candolin from The University of Helsinki, Finland.
Drawing on international experts from across the globe, it is the first book of its kind devoted to understanding animal behavioral responses to environmental change. Behavioral Responses emphasises the vital links between environmental change, behavior and population dynamics which have been rarely examined in the context of one another.
Co-editor Dr. Bob Wong, Senior Lecturer at Monash Universitys School of Biological Sciences and an expert in behavioural and evolutionary ecology, said how animals respond to changed conditions was a growing area of research interest.
Due to human activities, almost all creatures live in environments that have been altered to some degree. The ability to behave accordingly under new conditions is crucial for survival, Dr. Wong said.
Environmental change caused by human activity is considered the greatest single threat to global biodiversity. Scientists are only now beginning to appreciate the important ecological and evolutionary implications of altered behaviours due to environmental change."
Dr. Wong said the initial response of many animals to human-induced environmental change is often behavioral, which in turn affects species interactions, population viability, evolution, and ultimately, biodiversity.
Some of these behaviors can be beneficial and buy more time for populations and species to genetically adapt to altered conditions. Some species might even thrive in urban environments. But behaviors can also be maladaptive, Dr. Wong said.
Male beetles, for example, are mating with beer bottles because they resemble female beetles and female fish in Mexico, living in polluted streams, are mating with male fish of the wrong species.
The comprehensive text discusses impacts on both the mechanisms underlying behavioral processes, as well as the longer-term ecological and evolutionary consequences. Topics as diverse as endocrine disruption, learning, reproduction, migration, species interactions and evolutionary rescue are canvassed.
Dr. Wong will officially present Behavioural Responses to a Changing World at a post-congress symposia of the 14th International Behavioral Ecology Congress on 18 August in Sweden.
Explore further: Encouraging signs for bee biodiversity


Precalculus (6th Edition) Blitzer
Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0-13446-914-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-13446-914-0
Chapter 4 - Section 4.1 - Angles and Radian Measure - Exercise Set - Page 532: 9
$\frac{4}{3}$ radians
Work Step by Step
The measure of the central angle θ = $\frac{length of the intercepted arc}{radius}.$ s = 8 yards, r = 6 yards. θ = $\frac{s}{r}$ = $\frac{8}{6}$ = $\frac{4}{3}$ radians.
Update this answer!
Update this answer


text:
been produced and refined to delineate the best areas of the Cape Flats for implementing groundwater development schemes. According to Gerber (1981) the transmissivity values for the Cape Flats aquifer range from <50 m2/d to 600 m2/d and corroborate the estimates obtained in the present study (see Table 5).
Surface water and groundwater quality
Table 6 gives a summary of the groundwater monitoring networks on the Cape Flats and the various institutions or departments responsible for the database. Aquifer exploitation takes place by means of water supply and irrigation wells to meet the needs of the specific area. In the city of Cape Town several private shallow wells or well-points exist and are in regular use (since the 2005 water restrictions) for wetting lawns and gardens in schools, public places and individual households. The water sources available are groundwater, river water and water from canals or irrigation ponds. There is a large data set for the city of Cape Town and suburbs - over 1 000 chemical analyses with records from _PHONE_.
The data collected are mainly general water chemistry, viz., anions, cations and trace metals in monitoring wells. The sampling carried out between 2005 and 2007 was aimed at describing the current trend in water quality and at filling gaps in the data by sampling from recently drilled wells. The results are presented in Appendix 1. Furthermore, precipitation samples were collected as there were no precipitation records in the database. Rain samplers were installed at UWC and iThemba Laboratory test sites, as well as around residential areas in Belhar (near Bellville) and Macassar.
Generally, groundwater samples have a TDS range of 260 to 1 600 mg/, with the exception of iThemba wells, where high Na-Cl concentrations were recorded, which may be in response to continuous long-term pumping or the presence of a historic buried river channel near the well and the proximity of the sea. The TDS within surface waters sampled within the study area was, in most cases, lower than for groundwater, with the exception of the 2 polluted ponds at iThemba, where dissolved solids ranged between 952 and 1 113 mg/ during the 4 sampling episodes. Water from the pumping well at iThemba is discharged into these ponds, coupled with the treated wastewater from the laboratories. Newlands reservoir water recorded a low TDS (98 mg/), in the range of the springs. This is raw water transported from the Berg River (several kilometres away) to be used for the city's water supply.
Figure 13 shows results of vertical EC loggings at three selected monitoring wells in the study area. A relatively higher EC with depth was observed for iThemba Labs test borehole before and after a 72-h pumping test (Fig. 13 c, d). A water quality (salinity) map (Fig. 14) was based on EC distribution across all boreholes in the study area. All the sampled wells showed nitrate levels within acceptable limits except for wells in Macassar, which are mostly in excess of the drinking water standard of 10 mg/ (as NO3-N) or 50 mg/ (as NO3). These are mostly wells used for irrigating vegetable (backyard) gardens within the residential area. This shows that the trend observed in the 1980s and 1990s of increasing nitrate concentration, reported in Adelana and Xu (2006), may have changed in recent times.
Groundwater samples from iThemba pumping well have a distinctive chemical type characterised by Na-Cl, which indicates that the chemical properties of the groundwater are influenced by high salinity
The chemical type for the other groundwater samples is varied (Ca-HCO3, Na-Ca-Cl-SO4, Na-Ca-Cl-HCO3) with the springs also falling within this range
Most of the surface water samples are characterised by Ca-HCO3 and Ca-Na-HCO3, which appears to be of calcitic type with anion dominance also tending towards the axis of sulphides and chlorides on the tri-linear Piper diagram.
The samples from springs (from 6 locations) have TDS range of 67-125 mg/, with a mean of 81.4 mg/; rainwater samples ranged from 3.2 to 67 mg/ with a mean of 32.1 mg/. Elemental ratios and isotopic compositions (i.e., anions, cations, and stable isotopes) are also similar to that of groundwater (see Appendix 1). The springs show low ion concentrations and a low depletion in isotopic composition, indicating that the groundwater circulation may be relatively quicker in the mountain area. This is discussed in the following section.
Hydrogeological model and concept of recharge
A hydrogeological model was developed to elucidate groundwater flow mechanisms and possibilities of recharge in the Cape Flats. The model is based on local climate, hydrology, geomorphology, geology and chemical and isotope geochemistry (Fig. 16). The groundwater from the Cape Flats aquifer is of meteoric origin with an isotopic regression line similar to the regional meteoric water line (Harris et al., 1999). Recharge occurs in the mountainous flanks of the western and southwestern (Cape Peninsula and Table Mountains), eastern/southeastern. In these areas, the recharge is a high percentage of the local precipitation, which exceeds 800 mm in places, e.g. Kirstenbosch (Fig. 8). Surface runoff and overland flow are sometimes high, causing tributaries to discharge (higher flows) into the main rivers (e.g. Eerste River).
In the mountainous part of the city, groundwater recharge is conceptualised as mountain front recharge, and the recharge area is located at a very short distance from the springs. All the spring samples and surface water have isotopic composition similar to that of rain water. The only exception is the Newlands reservoir (see Fig. 8) water, which is relatively more depleted in stable isotopes (δ18O: -4.78 and δ2H: -24.67 as compared to the mean value for precipitation). The reason for this is that the stable isotopes in the water may have been depleted where it originates, at higher elevations, or possibly due to the long transport distance in a pipeline, subjecting the water to a lower evaporation effect relative to surface water. Other surface waters have stable isotope values for δ18O in the range of -2.3 to -1.22 ; for δ2H between -9.64 and -4.1.
The model takes into account results of the following investigations:
Lithology as revealed through boreholes
Geomorphology or elevation
Groundwater fluctuations/variations with respect to height
Variations of δ 18O and chloride concentrations in groundwater
This model is similar to the description of groundwater flow based on 2 aquifer test sites presented in Gerber (1981). Further, a significant recharge occurs through fractures under saturated or nearly saturated conditions in the TMG (Wu, 2005). There are fracture zones in the neighbouring TMG aquifer resulting in good yield (5-7 /s). The infiltrated water moves laterally through the Cape Flats aquifer until intercepted by relatively deeper wells in the weathered shale (Malmesbury).
From an agricultural perspective, where irrigation water in farm dams and irrigation canals is used for market vegetable and potato cultivation, irrigation water infiltration can contribute to groundwater recharge. These areas are currently experiencing increased urban development. This includes the informal and low-cost formal housing of the Cape Flats, and the middle income development of the West Coast (Table View) as well as new developments such as Century City. However, the low elevation above mean sea level and the proximity to the sea sometimes implies a high local water table. Landfill sites, typically sited in such areas in the past, are prone to seepage and to groundwater contamination.
Implications for the management and development of groundwater under conditions of declining rainfall and high urban growth
The effect of climate variability (described and illustrated with rainfall variability in the previous sections) in the city of Cape Town and its suburbs is expected to increase pressure on water resources from the growing population. Cape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, and has undergone urban expansion in the past decades. The city has doubled its size since 1977 and is 7 times larger than what it was in 1945 (CCT, 2009). The continued growth of the city is of concern and has necessitated purpose-driven projects including the estimation of future urban growth rates and the development of urban growth models (CCT, 2006). Sustainable water resource management must go along with spatial planning for the future urban population.
The analysis of long-term climate data revealed impacts of variations in air temperature and rainfall and urbanisation on groundwater. Results showed drier and warmer conditions since the last 10 to 15 years (see Figs. 6 to 8). Dam levels in Cape Town were at their lowest levels in 5 years during 2005. Monitoring data from Cape Town has shown fluctuations in water level, particularly the water supply dam, due to fluctuating rainfall patterns and climatic conditions in the last decade. Climate variability is expected to alter the present hydrological resources in Southern Africa and may increase pressure on the adaptability of future water resources.
During the past 20 years, most of Southern Africa experienced droughts, the last 4 being in _PHONE_, _PHONE_, 2000-2001 and


- smillennium
To Be or Not To Be: How Do You Know Whether Ser or Estar Is Correct?
This is a very common question we hear from students learning Spanish, and not just beginners. Spanish has more than one verb where English has only "to be," and that can be confusing. Sometimes it's very clear which verb you should use, but not always.
This article will help clear up the basic difference between these two verbs. I'll start with the most common uses, where there is usually no problem in identifying when to use ser and estar correctly.
Use this verb when you are describing anything – a person, object, feeling, event, etc. – and talking about its essential characteristics. And by essential, I do mean its essence: the characteristics of a person or thing that are more or less permanent require the use of the verb ser. Here are some examples.
Physical characteristics of things:
Physical characteristics of people: body type (tall, short, thin, blonde, brunette)
Professions and occupations (teacher, student, doctor, lawyer, etc.)
Geographic or ethnic origin (she is Colombian, or she is from Colombia)
Example: "Antonio ES colombiano, ES de Bogotá. Antonio ES alto, moreno y delgado, él ES un abogado comercial. Antonio ES una buena persona"
Use this verb instead when you are referring to:
A status or mood: you should also use estar when you're talking about the condition of a person or thing. This includes how you would respond when asked a question about "how" someone or something is, for example:
- ¿Cómo estás? Estoy bien
- La mesa está sucia (dirty)
- Pedro está feliz (happy)
The physical location of either a person or a thing: whenever you're talking about positioning, it's easy to know that you should use estar. This includes any time you want to say things like:
- My parents are at home – Mis padres están en casa
- The book is on the desk – El libro está en el escritorio
- My house is in New York – Mi casa está en Nueva York
Exception: When you are talking about where an event is taking place, you will use verb ser. For example: La fiesta es en la casa de Ana, la clase es en el aula 104.
"Arturo ESTÁ en su oficina ahora, él trabaja hasta muy tarde. La esposa de Arturo ESTÁ en casa y sus hijos ESTÁN en la universidad ahora. Arturo ESTÁ muy cansado por el trabajo, su esposa ESTÁ feliz porque tienen una nueva casa en Florida, la casa ESTÁ muy cerca a la playa. Los hijos de Arturo ESTÁN muy ocupados con los exámenes de la universidad. Ellos SON muy estudiosos"
Here as you can see, we use verb ESTAR always when we talk about location and status or moods, however at the end of the paragraph we use verb SER to mention Arturo's kids characteristics, they are very studious.
Ser o Estar?
But, sometimes the use of either verb can be correct, depending on what the person really wants to express. Are you talking about a characteristic or about a status?
Compare, for example:
"Pedro ES delgado." Pedro is thin: this is a physical characteristic. We are describing Pedro's body type, which is permanent or would only change gradually.
"Pedro ESTÁ Delgado." Pedro is thin now; it seems like he's lost weight. We are noting a change in condition, a difference in status, not a more or less permanent characteristic.
You get the difference?
Now compare in a conversation between Pedro and Miguel:
M: Pedro, ERES delgado! (Pedro, you are thin)
P: Si, lo sé, SOY delgado. (yes, I know, I am thin)
M: Pero Pedro, ESTÁS delgado (But Pedro, you look thinner)
P: Si, estoy a dieta, perdí 5 kilos, ESTOY delgado. (yes, I'm on a diet, I lost 5 kilos. I am thinner)
Another example:
"Esa flor ES amarilla." That flower is yellow, which is its inherent characteristic. This could be a sunflower or daffodil.
"Esa flor ESTÁ amarilla." That flower is yellow: it looks that way now. This mean its status: for instance, the flower is dying, has had too much sun, or needs water.
Like these cases we have many, others just change the meaning completely, but I would say the key to understand when to use each one is: essential characteristics use SER, while status, condition, and location use ESTAR.
You can find more resources online. Spanish Millennium also offers workshops with specific subjects like "Ser y Estar" in addition to regular classes. Contact us if you're interested.
130 views0 comments
Recent Posts
See All


text:
John Langley Howard was a revolutionary regionalist painter known for depicting labor and industry in California as well as his reverence for the natural world. Howard took a strong stance on social and environmental issues and used his art to communicate his strong emotional response toward each of his subjects.
Table of Contents
John Langley Howard was born in 1902 into a respected family of artists and architects. His father, John Galen Howard relocated the family to California in 1904 to become campus architect of the University of California, Berkeley. It was only after attending the very same campus his father helped to create, that Howard suddenly decided he wanted to pursue a career as an artist and not an engineer as previously planned. Following this decision, Howard enrolled in the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and then transferred to the Arts Students' League in New York City.
At the school, he met Kenneth Hayes Miller who supported Howard's attitude because the "taught the bare rudiments of painting and composition, and stressed the cultivation of the ultra-sensitive, intuitive approach" (Hailey 56). After saving his money, Howard travelled to Paris for six months to seek out his own artistic philosophy. However, it quickly became apparent to Howard that he placed more value on pure talent than professional training. In 1924, Howard left art school to pursue his career and marry his first wife, Adeline Day. He had his first one-person exhibition at the Modern Gallery in San Francisco in 1927. Shortly after, he attempted portraiture.
Following the start of the Depression, Howard found himself appalled by the social conditions and began to follow "his own brand of Marxism." Howard and his wife began to attend meetings of the Monterey John Reed Club, discussing politics and social concerns. Soon, the artist became determined to communicate society's needs for the betterment of the future. His landscapes began to include industry and its effects to the surrounding region. In 1934, Howard was hired through the New Deal Public Works Art Project to create a mural for the inside of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco depicting California industry. The project called for twenty-seven artists to be hired to paint frescos inside the newly erected monument funded by philanthropist Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Each artist was to depict a scene central to California living, including industry, agriculture, law, and street scenes of San Francisco.
Howard's completed fresco drew notorious attention for showing an unemployed worker reading Marxist materials, a gathered group of unemployed workers, and a man panning for gold while watching a wealthy couple outside of their limousine. In a nearby mural by Bernard Zakheim (_PHONE_), Howard himself was used as a model. He is shown crumpling a newspaper and grabbing a Marxist book from a library shelf. This soon led to the artists being linked to a local group of striking dock workers. They were accused of attempting to lead a Communist revolution. Howard's murals as well as the work of Clifford Wight (_PHONE_) and Zakheim became highly scrutinized, and the uproar over the works led to a delay in opening Coit Tower. In order to protect their work from being defaced or completely destroyed, the muralists chose to sleep outside the tower. The SF Art Commission ultimately cancelled the opening of Coit Tower as a result of the controversy and did not open it until months later.
During this time, Howard relocated his family to Santa Fe, New Mexico citing his son's health concerns for almost two years before returning to Monterey in 1940. Following the onset of World War II, he had a renewed interest in landscape and soon ceased to include social commentary within his work, thus removing the human figure from his paintings. The artist divorced his first wife in 1949. In 1951, Howard's art took another turn when the artist painted The Rape of the Earth which rallied against the destruction of nature by technology, making Howard one of the first "eco-artists." During the same year he also married sculptor Blanche Phillips (_PHONE_). He began illustrating for Scientific American Magazine and used this medium to refine his technique.
Howard's landscapes began turning to "magic realism" or "poetic realism" as Howard preferred to call it. This method is described as the use of naturalistic images and forms "to suggest relationships that cannot always be directly described in words" (Aldrich 184). His aim was to communicate a poetic and spiritual connection with the landscape depicted. Overall, Howard lived in more than 20 different locations during his career.
In 1997, Howard attended the dedication of Pioneer Park at Coit Tower and was the only surviving member of the twenty-seven muralists included in the original project. The murals were restored by the City of San Francisco in 1990 after water damage and age dictated the need for restoration. Howard died at the age of 97 in his sleep at his Potrero Hill home in 1999.
II. AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK
"I think of painting as poetry and I think of myself as a representational poet. I want to describe my subject minutely, but I also way to describe my emotional response to it…what I'm doing is making a self-portrait in a peculiar kind of way." – John Langley Howard
John Langley Howard was widely considered a wanderer and a free spirit. While Howard did receive academic training from the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and the Arts Students' League in New York City, he chose to align himself with instructors whose opinions of art education matched his predetermined beliefs. These teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller (_PHONE_) who valued an analytical, bare bones approach to art instruction and supported greater personal development of intuitive talent. Howard expressed this viewpoint stating that:
"I want everything to be meaningful in a descriptive way. I want expression and at the same time I want to control it down to a gnat's eyebrow. I identify with my subject. I empathize with my subject" (Moss 62).
In the 1920s, Howard became known as a Cezanne-influenced landscape artist and portraitist. Tempera, oil, and etching became his primary media while his subject matter turned to poetic and often spiritually infused imagery which would resurface later in his career. Earth tones and very small brushstrokes were utilized, allowing Howard to refine his images.
Howard exhibited frequently with his brothers Charles Howard (_PHONE_) and Robert Howard (_PHONE_). Critic Jehanne Bietry wrote of their joint Galerie Beaux Arts show that: "of (the Howard brothers), John Langley is the poet, the mystic and the most complex…there predominates in his work a certain quality, an element of sentiment that escapes definition but is the unmistakable trait by which one recognizes deeper art" (Hailey 60). It is significant that a critic would accurately take note of Howard artistic aims at such an early stage because what Bietry describes ultimately became the primary focus of Howard's career.
Howard experienced a dramatic change in medium when he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Coit Tower WPA project in 1934. The project was Howard's first and only mural and provided the artist with an outlet for his newly discovered Marxist social beliefs. While Howard supported a political agenda rather explicitly in his image, his focus on deeper subject matter permeates throughout the work. Most important to Howard is "the idea of human conflict that [he] pictorializes and deplores – man's tragic flaw manifest again in this particular situation" (Nash 79). Howard's work had progressed steadily into the realm of social realism until the backlash against the Coit Tower murals led him in a new direction.
Howard abandoned explicit statements of social commentary and returned to his roots as a landscape painter. However, this did not prevent the artist from illustrating important issues because he then became one of the first "eco-artists." Through his painting, Howard investigated the role of technology on the environment and used the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Monterey to demonstrate his point of view. He continued following his original artistic tendencies by delving into "magic realism" or "poetic realism" which utilized the spiritual connection that Howard sought to find within his work. Art critic Henrietta Shore recognized the balance that Howard achieved within his work, stating that he "is modern in that he is progressive, yet his work proves that he does not discard the traditions from which all fine art has grown" (Hailey 65). Overall, Howard's career presents a unique portrait of individual expression and spiritual exploration.
1902 Born in Montclair, New Jersey
1920 Enrolls as an Engineering major at UC Berkeley
1922 Realizes he wants to be an artist
1923-24 Attends Art Students' League in New York
1924 Leaves art school
1924 Marries first wife, Adeline Day
1927 First one-person exhibition held at The Modern Gallery, San Francisco
1928 First child, Samuel born
1930 Daughter Anne born
1934 Commissioned to Paint Coit Tower mural, San Francisco
1940 Studies ship drafting and worked as a ship drafter during World War II
1942 Serves as air raid warden in Mill Valley, CA
1949 Divorces his first wife
1950 Teaches at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco
1951 Marries second wife, sculptor Blanche Phillips
1951 Moves to Mexico
1951 Paints The Rape of the Earth communicating his eco-friendly stance
_PHONE_ Illustrates for Scientific American magazine
1958 Teaches at Pratt Institute Art School, Brooklyn, NY
1965 Moves to Hydra,


Our Man Made Limestone
At Old World Stoneworks we fabricate our man-made limestone to emulate Indiana limestone also known as Bedford limestone, recognized to be the highest quality quarried limestone in the United States. Using a man-made limestone is a cost-effective alternative to natural limestone while still maintaining the inherit characteristics.
To make our limestone we use a dry mixture of finely grated aggregates and silica sand mixed with a bonding and hardening agent. We then put this mixture through a mulling machine where it is mixed with water in a forming process which makes it equally as durable and dense as natural limestone.


Ayurvedic Treatment of Low Sex Drive
11,000.00 5,199.00
Ayurvedic Treatment of Low Sex Drive
Ayurveda is a very old science effective in the treatment of low sex drive. A good and healthy relationship between the partners depends on satisfactory physical intimacy. If there is a lack of physical intimacy, it leads to several mental and physical problems. There is less amount of secretion of hormones resulting in mood swings and other disorders. Ayurveda and sex power are interrelated. Since the ancient era, low sex drive can be treated with the help of Ayurvedic and herbal medicines. Sex is essential to maintain a healthy well-being. It is also necessary for healthy offspring. If it is done in a natural way, then the body responds in an easy and relaxed way.
Ayurveda and Sex Power
Ayurveda is composed of three elements, Vata, pitta and Kapha. If there is anyone of these three elements then it can lead to the formation of low sex. A person can also become less interested in sex.
It is essential that both partners enjoy physical intimacy. Touch and ambiance develop intimacy between the partners. Two hours after dinner is the best time to initiate physical intimacy. The principle of Kamasutra gives importance to the Vajikarana Therapy. It includes the implementation of eight main brances of Kamasutra.
Cause of Low Sex Power
Sometimes it is seen that a couple suffers from low sex power. This can be due to some illness and mental tension. However, if all the conditions are healthy and still couple is suffering from low sex drive, then this can be due to some planetary positions in the birth chart of any one of person.
Mars is essential for having a good and healthy intimacy. If there is an affliction with Mars or the placement in some malefic house, then it can bring less interest in the sex in a man. If the placement of Venus is ridden, then also it makes a person less interested in the sex. Medical astrology is a branch of science that along with the Ayurveda helps in the determination of low sex drive in a couple. The study of various planetary positions along with the ayurvedic and herbal medicines helps in the treatment of low sex drive. If you are looking for a medical astrologer in India, USA and UK, then you can contact Medical Astrologer Prashant Kapoor. He is an only medical astrologer in India and has treated more than 5000 cases of low sex drive with the help of astrology and Ayurveda.
This consultation would be offered by Medical Astrologer: Prashant Kapoor
 Birth Details
 Contact Detail


and beyond such necessity for meaning: God 'makes' meaning, he is not subject to our meaning. Paradox. If he is not subject to our meaning making, how might we have a meaning of God? And how could we know what He wants? since if he is beyond human meaning, how could he instill in our meaning making any knowledge of himself? For he would then be subjecting himself to human meaning making for the purpose of establishing himself as true for humans.
 Hence Ks founding question.
 5. (Pt 2) now, it seems I just contradicted myself my indicating a human and a 'natural' situation, saying they are the same 'ethically' but using the example based in that they are not.
 Sounds pretty nonsense. But that is part of the point: our ability to make meaning when taken to its meaningful ends finds nonsense.
 How are we able, capable, then to determine the 'right' meaning? The 'ethical' meaning?
 6. I don't think that "because I am human, there is ethics" is an adequate ground for your conclusion that what was done to Nirbhaya was "absolutely wrong" and "wrong in a universal sense."
 A human could believe that Nirbhaya is essentially made of the same stuff as rocks and flowers. I don't see how this belief would lead to the ethical conclusion that what was done to Nirbhaya was absolutely, universally wrong. It seems like it could just as easily lead to the conclusion that humans can do what they want with rocks and they can do what they want with other humans. There's no qualitative difference between the two.
 I think there is equivocation in your question, "if [God] is beyond human meaning, how could he instill in our meaning making any knowledge of himself?"
 God is beyond human meaning in this respect: we do not make God meaningful. But I don't think this makes God inaccessible – unknowable. Instead, I think God is the ground of meaning, and because we have the capacity for making meaning, we can recognize God. I don't see why our meaning-making has to lead to nonsense.
 7. So if God made us for our ability for meaning, and we thus have such meaning then of Himself that he gave us, how do you account for ethical (good) people who disclaim the Bible?
 8. (Pt3) I merely mean to point out all the various ideas of God. And so it comes back to the Jesus question. There are deeply religious people who do not see Jesus as the Son of God as it tells in the Bible.
 So when it comes down to it, who is right? To you it makes sense, enough to try and tell others; but so do other people have theirs. So we all try to convince each other, but inside or in secret, everyone really holds onto the idea that they are correct and the other argument is not. Is God present in all these opinions? It would seem if he was then my personal 'belief' is not as correct as I would like it to be. If my personal belief is correct, then we are back at square one: so 'I' am going to be saved and 'you' are not.
Leave a Reply
You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )
Google photo
Twitter picture
Facebook photo
Connecting to %s


Coronavirus: Single parents at greater risk of job insecurity as half report poor mental health
·3-min read
A young boy being held by his mother with his head resting on her shoulder, looking down a suburban street.
Single parents are twice as likely to have poor mental health, compared with other family types, according to new research. Photo: Getty
Single parents in the UK are at greater risk of job insecurity as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, new research from Gingerbread and the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) has found.
As COVID-19 hit the UK in early 2020 single parents were less financially secure and on lower incomes than other family types, with mothers in coupled households earning almost twice as much per week as single mothers.
Nearly half (46%) of single parents worked in routine occupations compared to 26% of coupled parents. Routine occupations — also classed as semiand unskilled work — in retail, hotels and restaurants have been hit hard by the pandemic with lockdown closures causing many employers to cut hours and jobs.
Single parents are also twice as likely to have a zero hours contract as other family types which puts them at greater risk of job insecurity.
As many roles shifted to working from home during the first national lockdown, only 22% of single parents were able to move to remote working, compared to 35% of coupled parents, creating greater childcare challenges as schools and nurseries closed.
READ MORE: Parents hit hardest by lockdown energy costs in UK
Some 30% of single parents were furloughed under the government's Job Retention scheme (30%) compared to 21% of parents in a partnership, further reflecting single parents' caring responsibilities and highlighting that they are more likely to work in sectors affected by lockdown. It is more likely that these sectors will experience further job losses as businesses in England are hit by the second lockdown, due to last until 2 December.
Single parents were twice as likely to have poor mental health, compared with other family types, both immediately before and in the early stages of the pandemic. Overall 51% of single parents reported having depression, bad nerves or anxiety, compared with 27% of coupled parents.
Single parents reported experienced an 'impossible balancing act', as they struggled with making "constant trade-offs" between their work and caring responsibilities.
READ MORE: UK's cheapest supermarket revealed
Worries about job security, the ability to secure new work, uncertainty around work requirements and formal and informal childcare availability, have made planning for the future impossible for single parents with many respondents feeling that "the unique challenges facing them had not been sufficiently accounted for in policy and guidelines developed."
Single parent charity Gingerbread is calling on the government to do more to support single parents during the coronavirus pandemic. The charity is urging the government to change policy to help single parents to stay in work by allowing them to access the furlough scheme where they need to do so for their caring responsibilities such as when a child needs to isolate.
Gingerbread is also calling on the government to make the Test and Trace Isolation Grant available to parents on low incomes who cannot work when their children are sent home from childcare or school to self-isolate.
READ MORE: Coronavirus: UK'sleepwalking' into long-term debt crisis
Laura Dewar, policy and research at Gingerbread, said: "Single parents have been hit hard by the COVID-19 Crisis. Our research has shown that during the previous Lockdown single parents faced 'an impossible balancing act'. As the sole breadwinner and carer single parents having a job is vital for their family income and the financial security of their children.
"The government must to do more to support single parent families as we start the second lockdown. Single parents must be better supported to stay in work, find new work or re-train."
WATCH: What is inflation and why is it important?


JLARC releases guidance for drafting tax preference performance statements
January 3, 2014
Last year the Legislature passed a requirement for bills creating or expanding tax preferences to include a performance statement to identify the expected outcome for the policy change. We were very happy to work with Rep. Carlyle, Chair of the House Finance Committee, on this concept.
The Legislature also directed the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) to develop guidance on how these tax preference performance statements should be drafted. The JLARC report is now available. Among JLARC's recommendations:
A clear statement by policy makers of the public policy purpose of a preference is key to effective performance evaluation. The first and necessary step is for policy makers to state the public policy purpose and how the tax preference is intended to achieve it. To accomplish this, the Legislative Auditor recommends using the concept of a logic chain before drafting a performance statement for a particular tax preference.
How would a logic chain work?
The Legislative Auditor recommends the following steps to construct a tax preference performance statement from a conceptual logic chain:
1. Identify the ultimate policy purpose for the tax preference
2. Develop a logic chain for the tax preference that identifies the sequence of steps that logically link the tax preference to its ultimate policy purpose
3. Populate relevant steps in the logic chain with specific data measures and assumptions
a. What type of data is necessary for each relevant step?
b. What is the assumed measurement or condition for that step?
4. Identify what specific measures should be used to determine whether the preference is effective
a. What will policy makers expect up-front for determining success?
b. Is the measure related to the ultimate policy purpose, an intermediary step in the logic chain, or some other condition?
c. What is the specific target that must be achieved by that step (or other condition)?
5. Identify what specific data should be used to measure those targets
a. What type of data will be required?
b. Is the data currently available, or does the Legislature need to establish new data collection requirements?
JLARC will hold a public hearing January 7 at 10 a.m. to discuss these recommendations.
The ultimate goal for lawmakers should be that the state's tax system reflects sound principles of taxation based on the maxim "a fair field and no favors." That is, Washington should have a fair tax code with a broad base, low tax rates and very few exceptions. However, if tax preferences are to be used, they should specify the Legislature's explicit intent and have measurable performance goals. It is encouraging to see the new policy for tax preference performance statements put into practice.


Photoshop Tutorials
Tutorial 5: Soft Elliptic Border
What you'll start with: What you'll end up with:
1. Load Photoshop and open your image. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool (or press 'Shift' and 'M' to switch to it on the toolbox). Draw an ellipse around the image making sure that it is a fair distance away from the borders.
2. Go to Select, Feather and enter a value between 5 and 10. I used 6 for the above example. Press OK. Finally Go to Select, Inverse and press Backspace on your keyboard.


Posts Tagged 'Measurement'
Steven Singer Undercuts Arguments For Standardized Testing… but Misses One Sad Key Point: High Scoring Parents of High Scoring Children Cling to the Results as Validation of "Merit"
July 26, 2021 Leave a comment
Blogger Steven Singer does a fully comprehensive take-down of the rationale for standardized testing offered by two Walton Foundation funded economists Paul Bruno and Dan Goldhamer. These economists decried the decision to grant ANY waivers for the administration of tests over the past two years despite the disparate experiences of students as a result of the disparate schooling available to them. Mr. Singer undercuts each and every argument advanced by the Walton economists— who of course LOVE standardized tests because they provide seemingly precise data that can be used to "prove" various assertions they make about the effectiveness of choice and charters over "government schools".
In his take down he notes that standardized testing was designed by eugenicists in this paragraph:
He then shifts gears, effectively blaming the standardized testing industry for lobbying to sustain standardized testing. ETS, Pearson, and other major players in the testing industry ARE lobbying to keep their businesses afloat, but their lobbying is sustained and supported by the "meritocratic" parents who scored well on tests themselves and whose children also scored well. As we are witnessing in places like NYC where test scores determine admittance to "elite" public high schools, parents of children who have attained the status of admission to the Kingdom of the Elite want to ensure that their child's entry was based wholly on "merit" and that "merit" can only be measured by a standardized test. As policy makers across the country can attest, the retention of tests to sort and select children has grassroots support of the parents, ESPECIALLY those parents whose children are sorted into so-called gifted and talented programs and "honors" sections. As long as students are taught in large groups and those groups are batched into homogeneous cohorts based in part or in whole on test scores, the parents of "winning" children will want to retain the status quo. My belief is that until parents are confident that a new paradigm of schooling will meet the unique individual needs of THEIR child they will support the status quo. And, alas, the status quo at this point is still grounded in standardized tests based on age cohorts.
Standardized Tests, Used Properly, COULD Help Identify Potential Einsteins. Too Bad That is Not Happening
July 24, 2021 Leave a comment
Thomas Edsall's column in Wednesday's NYTimes, We Are Leaving "Lost Einsteins" Behind, suggests that public schools are failing to identify potential Einsteins because they are failing to administer a universal standardized test measuring each student's "spatial ability". Citing a paper by David Lubinski of Vanderbilt and Harrison J. Kell, a senior researcher at the Educational Testing Service, titled "Spatial Ability: A Neglected Talent in Educational and Occupational Settings," Edsall suggests that administering one more standardized test to children in third grade might help uncover some children who are falling through the proverbial cracks. The bulk of the article is devoted to making the case for homogeneously grouping students based on IQ test results, spatial aptitude testing, and scores on standardized achievement tests. This approach, which Mr. Lubinski and Kell advocate, would presumably uncover thousands of students who are currently falling by the wayside.
At the very end of the article, though, Mr. Edsall devotes some space to Harvard professor David Deming who reveals the elephant in the research room:
Deming argues that the focus of public concern should be on inequities in postsecondary education:
Most importantly, resource inequality is an order of magnitude larger in higher education compared to K-12. Rich school districts spend maybe 20 percent more than poor school districts. Elite private colleges are spending upwards of $100k per student per year, compared to about $10k in community colleges. In higher education, we devote the most resources to the students who need the least help.
After acknowledging the "the relentless escalation in the demand for skills of all kinds", Deming suggests that the failure for preparing the workforce lies mostly with the for profit sector and those public colleges who have abandoned admission standards altogether:
…almost all of the expansion in college degrees over the last 20 years has happened in for-profit and less-selective schools. So I think it is all part of the same problem. There are lots of colleges out there, but the best ones are not expanding. In fact, they are getting harder to access. Just look at any data on median GPA and SAT/ACT scores among entering classes at flagship universities. They have all become way more selective. There are more and more talented young people out there, but only so many slots at selective schools.
At the very end of his article, Mr. Edsall acknowledges that standardized tests have become increasingly controversial:
Testing has become a flashpoint in the larger debate over policies based on merit: Do they prevent discrimination or are they barriers to admission and advancement? One of the original purposes of testing was to identify those who were illegitimately pushed to the side. Whatever their overall impact, these tests can and do often serve as a gateway rather than a barrier to admission — that was part of what they were intended to do in the first place.
That MAY have been what they were intended to do in the first place. Indeed, I can recall two of my classmates in 8th grade being singled out for scoring high on standardized tests which forced teachers to reconsider their placement in the mid-level sections and "advancing" them to the higher tier grouping for 9th grade. Finding diamonds in the rough, the original intent, has itself been pushed to the side in favorr of using test scores to identify schools and teachers who need to be punished for their "failures". THAT is why testing is a flashpoint and, unfortunately, eliminated from any consideration of identifying hidden Einsteins.
Categories: Essays Tags:,
Texas Legislature's Laundry List Approach to History Lends Itself to Fact Accumulation Measured by Standardized Tests
July 21, 2021 Leave a comment
The link below describes the Texas Democrats' latest means of pushing back against the laws forbidding instruction about race: a laundry list of historic documents that students need to read and understand. The documents include ones that are unarguably fundamental and include specific illustrations of the FACT that our foundation documents did NOT recognize the full citizenship of people of color as well as ones like MLK's Letter from the. Birmingham Jail that the GOP would likely find divisive.
I don't like laundry lists as the basis for a curriculum for two reasons. First, they are inevitably incomplete because history is in a continuous state of interpretation and reinterpretation. Secondly, laundry lists inevitably lead to standardized tests instead of assessments that require deep learning.
As suggested in earlier posts there IS a workaround that should be accepted by both parties: a graduation requirement that all students pass the citizenship test. A debate on what knowledge is needed to become a citizen would be far more productive than a debate over a laundry list of seminal documents.


text:
The study of the properties, circulation and distribution of groundwater.
In South Africa the term geohydrology and hydrogeology are used interchangeably. In theory hydrogeology is the study of geology from the perspective of its role and influence in hydrology, while geohydrology is the study of hydrology from the perspective of the influence on geology.
Why is geohydrology important?
Geohydrology allows the understanding, quantification and management of groundwater resources.