text:
OJG Vol.6 No.7 , July 2016
Geochemical, Sedimentological and Mineralogical Characterization of Surficial Sediments in Eynak Marsh (North of Iran)
Ayda Hazermoshar1*, Razyeh Lak2, Mohammad Reza Espahbood1, Nader Kohansal Ghadimvand1, Reza Farajzadeh3
1 Department of Earth Science, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.
2 Research Institute for Earth Sciences, Geological Survey of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
3 Department of Earth Science, Kharazmi University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract: A multidisciplinary study of the sedimentology, geochemistry and mineralogy has been conducted to understand the linkage between marsh and alluvial sediments and also their potential sources in Eynak marsh, North of Iran. The influence of the upstream potential sources on recent sediment geochemistry has been discussed based on geochemical, sedimentological and mineralogical results. A spatial grain size distribution study was carried out to investigate the hydrodynamic and deposition system of the marsh. So, the surficial sediment sampling was carried out to describe the sedimentological parameters and elemental geochemistry of sediments in Eynak marsh. Mineralogical complexes are mainly made up of felsic minerals such as quartz, calcite, feldspar, pyrite, mica, and clay minerals (in very low values) indicated by high amounts of Al, Ca, and Ni. As expected, the mineralogy of sediments is controlled mainly by the rock formations. Also sediment textures are controlled by the hydrodynamic condition in the marsh. So its distribution has been influenced by distance from the entrance sediments to Eynak marsh. The results showed that there are no enrichments related to fine grain sediment distributions. An association of Al with the trace elements such as Sc, Y, La, Ce, and Zr indicates that their distributions are mainly controlled by the felsic rocks in the upstream. On the other side, due to the waste water entrance to the marsh, Ni and Pb concentration could be under the effects of anthropogenic activities around the marsh. Results represented high values for Mn concentration (min 462, max 1784 and average 1037 ppm) and it showed a significant correlation with Ca, Sr, and Mg. A redox habitat and constantly calm hydrodynamic circumstance in the study area, likely cause high concentration of Ca, Sr, and Mg, and Mn. And they are representing negative correlations with some elements such as Al, Be, Fe, K, and Na.
Keywords: Eynak Marsh, Sedimentology, Geochemistry, Element Distribution Pattern, Element Correlation
Received 12 June 2016; accepted 25 July 2016; published 28 July 2016
Improvement of our understanding in the environmental and geomorphological changes' effects on marshes and isolated waters is a critical step to address issues related to continental marshes and their responses to these changes. Also, sedimentological studies are proper tools to interpret the evolution of sedimentary environment [1] . Additionally, to assess the ecological impact of contamination to the environment, it is vitally important to understand the full extent and the level of pollution into the background in the area.
Regarding its capabilities in providing goods, marshes environments are classified as the most precious ecosystems on earth  [2]  [3] . Considering the effects of climate changes and human interferences, today the future of these important landforms and ecosystems seems to be at risk and it may cause possibly irreparable transformations  [4] - [10] . However, despite progress about geomorphology, sedimentology, accretionary processes and geochemistry, more work needs to be done to explain the sedimentology, stratigraphy and geochemistry of sediment in marshes on the subject of the evolution of the systems [1]  [11]  [12] .
The particle size and morphology of sediments are the major implements to interpret the source of sediments, transportation modes and depositional environments  [13]  [14] . Variations in grain size distribution of isolated environments (specifically marshes habitats) may reflect air surface process such as developmental process of landforms through precipitational changes  [15] . On the other side, mineral distributions are also standard tracers of regional geology, weathering characteristics in upstream and transport land mass  [16] - [23] . Moreover, trace elemental compositions of sediments are controlled by lithologies, weathering, diagenesis, sedimentary sorting and human activities in catchments and it can be useful for identification of specific geochemical processes and provenance of clastic materials  [24] . Also characterizing of the composition and the sedimentology of surface sediments is vital not only from geochemical point of view, but also from an environmental perspective. Thus variations in mineral compositions, trace elements and lithogenic components should be considered as valuable tools to find out the possible sediment sources and physico-chemical process affecting the geological records [23] .
Nowadays, Eynak marsh is strictly isolated from any riverine and oceanic sediment input (Figure 1). Anthropogenic effects (as an instance intense construction operation, sewage input to marsh and etc.) likely contribute to changing the circumstances and its natural habitat. Despite the importance of this area, there is no worthy investigation devoted to the study of geochemical, mineralogical and sedimentological signature of Eynak marsh. This investigation could be more momentous if we spot contamination of sewage entrance from the urban areas and also underground linking to GoharRood River. It is noteworthy that, GoharRood by itself is a fully contaminated river transporting sewage from upstream.
Because of its position regarding urban area, being one of the biggest marshes in north of Iran and tourism industry, this marsh represents a crucially important ecosystem in the region. Detailed sedimentological and geochemical investigations on these marshes can help us to improve our knowledge about its generation. Then it led to precise relationship being deducted between marsh and river sediments. As the other aquatic environments in south of Caspian Sea, Eynak marsh is situated in the migration way of different birds (Africa-Eurasia and Asia-Pacific skyways) then lots of bird spices fly to this region every year. Also this marsh is populated by various plant species like Myriphgllom verticillatum, Ceratophyllum submersum, Alisma plantago-aguatica, amphibians like frog and creepers like snake, turtle, lizard adapted to the environment.
Due to reflecting the privilege geology of the source area by the deposited sediments  [25] , a comprehensive study has been conducted. This paper focuses on understanding of sedimentology, mineralogy and geochemistry variation pattern in the riverine sediment of Eynak marsh (North of Iran). So the main purposes of this paper are: 1) to provide information about the sediment size distribution, mineral composition and also the main potential source of marsh sediments; 2) to improve our understanding in trace element pattern distribution in the marsh; and 3) to assess metal contamination levels in surficial sediments and particles. To achieve these goals we have analyzed surficial sediments of the marsh thoroughly.
Figure 1. Geographical location and detailed sketch map of the study area in Eynak marsh.
2. Study Area
Marshes and bays across the Caspian Sea that are under the impact of 3 major processes of longitudinal transfer of coastal sediments, increasing the level of Caspian water, and syncline-anticline structure  [26] are considered environment passages, from land to sea. Moreover, analysis of historical aerial photography depicts a relatively dynamic system in the area in which lateral migration of main channels caused some isolated small areas. So, Eynak marsh could be considered as such environments and it is located in Rasht countryside (Gilan province) and about 17 km away from Anzali costal lagoon, North of Iran. Also it is situated from 37˚16'25"E 49˚32'18"N to 37˚16'22"E 49˚33'31"N presumably is a separated pool from flowing rivers through time. It seems the main source of sediment in this marsh located in Kacha Mountain and sediments transported through Lakan and GoharRood Rivers. Nowadays Gohar rood and Lakan Rivers drain to Anzali coastal lagoon. Estimated area is about 214,650 m2. Due to being situated in Rasht countryside and industrial activities around the marsh, irreversible changes is happening there which effects on its habitat and it may cause to destroy the marsh completely in the future. Unfortunately it has not been a comprehensive investigation in the area to discover the origination of this marsh yet. Better to know, the upstream sewage discharging to Lakan River and its probable underground linking to Eynak marsh, may cause more negative effects on the marsh habitat. Also, there are some transects cutting across Eynak marsh and separated it to smaller areas. It means there might be no more Eynak marsh in the area in future unfortunately.
Study area has a humid subtropical climate that is one of the wettest in Iran. It has certain Mediterranean features such as a drier summer, but is also relatively continental with cooler winters and higher seasonal temperature variation than in much of Iran, in spite of its marine position. The average humidity is 81.2%, contrasting heavily with cities in many other parts of Iran. Sunshine hours, averaging roughly 1520 per year, are lower than in most places in Iran and also compared to most places at this latitude.
The oldest rocks in the domain area consists of early Carboniferous made up of creamy-brown to dark-green slate to phyletic clastic sediment which in partly are calcareous and belongs to Mobarak Formation. After that, grey to green arkozic sandstone and shaly mudstone belongs to late Triassic can be seen (Figure 2). Cretaceous rocks such as massive sandy limestone, silty limestone-siltstone and dark grey basaltic-andesitic lava occurrence
Figure 2. Geological map and the main hydrological features of the study area.
in the upstream area. Plain landscape is overlain by Quaternary deposits which  [27] classified them in the area into: 1-Deltaic deposits and gravel, 2-Deluvial and fluvial deposits, 3-Old fluvial deposits, 4-Alluvium floodplain and deltaic deposits and finally 5-Blown sands (Figure 2).
3. Material and Method
Figure 1 shows the total 44 collected sediment sample locations along the marsh which sampling points took by GPS receiver. The primary distance between locations was about 40meters which it changed slightly based on convenient sampling. Sampling was carried out onboard small boat using a 4liter Van Veen grab sampler. Samples were taken onboard for sedimentology, mineralogy and geochemical analysis individually. Each sample was packed in polyethylene bags, tied, labeled and brought to GSI Lab for excess analyses. Detailed grain size, mineralogy and geochemical analysis has been carried out on all collected samples in order to recognize possible anomalies and basic pattern of sediment characteristics inside of the marsh.
Afterward, on the lab, samples were dried at 70˚ and dried bulk sediment was sieved to separate various fractions using wet sieving (based on standard test ASTM for determining average grain size). Grain size analysis of the 44 surficial sediment samples performed by Analysette 19 wet sieving instrument. Therefore, samples grouped into mud, sand and gravel fraction according to Udden and Wentworth. A detailed description of grain size <63 µm fractions executed by Laser Particle Seizer (model analysette 22).
Standard practice for total digestion of 44 sediment samples for chemical analysis of various metals (according to D-4698 preparing method) has been performed. So minor and major elements determined by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES-ES Varian 735) in Geological Survey of Iran chemistry lab. Moreover, X-Ray diffractions in 44 sediment samples in the area have been performed using an automatic powder EQUINOX 3000 X-ray diffractometer. Quantification and identification of the various minerals present in the crystalline fraction has been carried out following the standard procedure  [28] .
Fractional analyses were carried out using the software package SPSS20 for windows. In addition, on all samples in Eynak marsh, detailed grain size, geochemical and mineralogical analysis have been carried out to recognize a possible correlation between their distributions and depositional environments.
4.1. Physical and Mineralogical Characteristic
Textural and size analyses are quantitative tools to determine the size frequency distribution [29] . Also, mineralogical and physical characteristics of the sediments in Eynak marsh can be influenced by rock assemblages in upstream such as basaltic-andesitic lava, dark grey limestone, slate and Arkozic sandstone which has been subjected into weathering, eroded and transported to downstream. In fact, due to terrestrial sources of sediments in Eynak marsh, it is characterized by similar mineralogical and physical features. Results showed that samples basically were angular to sub angular in shape (Figure 3), major component mineral were quartz, calcite, feldspar, and mica and minor mineral were pyroxene, evaporates along with some heavy minerals.
Grain Size Distribution
According to grading studies, 13 sedimentary types existed in surface sediments including: Gravelly Mud, Muddy Gravel, Gravelly Sand, Muddy Sandy Gravel, Gravelly Muddy Sand, Muddy Sand with a Little Gravel, Sandy Mud with a Little Gravel, Mud with a Little Gravel, Silty Sand, Muddy Sand, Sandy silt, Silt, Sandy Mud (Figure 4). Considering its pattern, east side of the marsh represented a variety of sedimentary types. Moreover, grain size distribution maps reveal that, silt and clay fractions are the most important sediment constitutes concentrated mostly in the middle and the east. Also, gravel size grains increased eastward approaching GoharRood River.
4.2. Statistical Parameters
Various statistical parameters of Eynak marsh sediments computed. Mean grain size: The variation in mean size reflects the variety of energy conditions to deposit and shows the average kinetic energy of the depositing agent  [30] . Different values obtained for textural statistical parameters varying from minimum 1.5 to maximum 6.6, i.e. thus it falls between coarse sand and medium silt. Sorting: Sorting indicate the differences in kinetic
Figure 3. Sediment grains in Eynak marsh.
Figure 4. Ternary plot showing the content of gravel, sand and mud fractions in the surficial sediments of Eynak marsh.
energy associated with these mode of depositions. In the study area sediments ranges in 3 sorts: poorly sorted, very poorly sorted, and moderately sorted. The closer to GoharRood, the sorting number increases and sediments poorly sorted. Skewness: It measures the asymmetry of frequency distribution and marks the position of mean according to median  [29] . In the present study skewness values ranges −0.43 to 0.68 with an average −0.02 represents five sorts: strongly fine skewed, fine skewed, near symmetrical, coarse skewed, strongly coarse skewed. Eastern samples showed near symmetrical to coarse skewed which it accounts as the abundance of coarse particles of energetic environment. Also, strongly fine skewed can be seen in the middle of Eynak marsh. Kurtosis: Many curves designated to minute Kurtosis and it varies from platy kurtic to mesokurtic. Also the values are among 0.5 to 2 with an average of 0.99. The platy kurtic to mesokurtic nature of sediments refers to fewer addition of finer or coarser materials to the depositional environment [30] . In general and regarding average values, sediments are fine grained (Figure 4), moderately to poorly sorted associated with very low current flow in eastern side of the marsh.
Various statistical parameters of Eynak marsh sediments computed. Mean grain size: The variation in mean size reflects the variety of energy conditions to deposit and shows the average kinetic energy of the depositing agent [30] . Different values obtained for textural statistical parameters varying from minimum 1.5 to maximum 6.6, i.e. thus it falls between coarse sand and medium silt. Sorting: Sorting indicate the differences in kinetic energy associated with these modes of depositions. In the study area sediments ranges in 3 sorts: poorly sorted, very poorly sorted, and moderately sorted. The closer to GoharRood, the sorting number increases and sediments poorly sorted. Skewness: It measures the asymmetry of frequency distribution and marks the position of mean according to median [29] . In the present study skewness values ranges −0.43 to 0.68 with an average −0.02 represents five sorts: strongly fine skewed, fine skewed, near symmetrical, coarse skewed, strongly coarse skewed. Eastern samples showed near symmetrical to coarse skewed which it accounts as the abundance of coarse particles of energetic environment. Also, strongly fine skewed can be seen in the middle of Eynak marsh. Kurtosis: Many curves designated to minute Kurtosis and it varies from platy kurtic to mesokurtic. Also the values are among 0.5 to 2 with an average of 0.99. The platy kurtic to mesokurtic nature of sediments refers to fewer addition of finer or coarser materials to the depositional environment  [29] . In general and regarding average values, sediments are fine grained (Figure 4), moderately to poorly sorted associated with very low current flow in eastern side of the marsh.
4.4. Scatter Plot
Scatter plot with mean, standard deviation and skewness can be used successfully for the distinction of the sedimentary environments, always using a large number of samples for each sedimentary body sampled [31] . Moreover, scatter plots are useful to identify geological signature of the grain size parameters [32] . Scatter plots viz. skewness versus standard deviation, mean versus standard deviation, and standard Deviation versus mean is brought in Figure 5. The scatter diagram proved that the distribution of grains belongs to fluvial and riverine sediments.
4.5. Sediment Composition
The significant correlation of elements with each other may indicate same source, chemical behavior, sediment-water interface and etc. [33] . Spearman's correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of the strength of a monotonic relationship between paired data. Unlike Pearson's correlation, there is no requirement of normality and hence it is a nonparametric statistic. Regarding unmorally in our data diversity, Spearman's correlation analysis has been conducted on the calculated data to determine the relationship between various elements and sedimentary parameters as well as to find out the main sources of elements and grains.
4.5.1. Mineral Diversity
Eynak marsh sediments were mainly composed of muddy fractions (Figure 4). Mineralogically, quartz, calcite, feldspar, dolomite, and mica were the main constitutive minerals present in surficial sediments (Table 3). Considering opposite geochemical behavior in Quartz and Calcite, high values of quartz from the middle to east and
Figure 5. Various scatter plot of surficial sediments in the study area to show the origin of grains.
west of Eynak marsh correlated to calcite and dolomite depletion. As well as, higher amounts of calcite along with pyrite and gypsum can be seen in the middle of the marsh. Also, silicates such as feldspars, mica, pyroxene and clay minerals are distributed regularly throughout the surficial sediments. Mineralogy data diversity was proofed by geochemical analysis of sediments throughout the study area.
4.5.2. Element Diversity
Usually, fine grain sediments are common hosts and controlling factor in distribution of elements, especially metals, in aquatic sediments  [34] . The correlation matrix, element composition and Dendrogram using Ward method are shown in Table 1 and Table 2 and Figure 6 respectively. Trace elements incorporated in heavy minerals like Y, Zr, Th, Cr, have lower content in the finer grained sediments (Figure 7) indicating depletion of
Figure 6. Dendrogram using Ward Method illustrating the relationship of elements in the study area.
Figure 7. Contour plots showing the distribution of sediment composition along the study area.
Table 1.Spearman correlation coefficient matrix for elements in the marsh sediments.
(a) (a)
Table 2. (a) (b) Element composition in the sediment samples of Eynak marsh.
heavy minerals in fine grain size fraction. Aluminum (Al) is the major element of sediments mostly influenced by human activities and upstream feldspathic rocks (ranging 4.2% - 8.8%) (Figure 7). After that Ca (0.9% - 11.8%), Fe (2.6% - 4.9%), K (0.6 - 1.7), Mg (0.4 - 1.3), and Na (0.2 - 1.1) are the most common elements in the area. On the other hand, an important enrichment of Ca along with Fe, K, Mg, etc. indicating a proper situation for deposition of these elements.
There are significant correlations among variety of elements through the marsh sediments. As an instance Al versus Ba, Be, Cr, Fe, K, Na, Ni, and Ti displayed significant correlations. On the opposite, Al versus Ca, Mg and Mn showed negative correlations. On the other side, there are no significant correlation in some elements versus others such as Li, Cu, P, Zn, and etc. Besides, fine grained sediments, which are the fundamental sediment components, showed significant correlations with Ca, Mn, Sr and Mg indicating identical sources and the predominant associations of these elements with clay minerals  [33] . High values for Mn concentration was observed (ranged in 462 - 1784 ppm average 1037 ppm) and it showed a significant correlation with Ca, Sr and Mg. If Mn could remobilize to the water column, it would be found in low values in the sediments [35] . So, a redox condition and constantly calm hydrodynamic circumstance in Eynak marsh, likely causes high concentration of these elements. Besides, it represents negative correlations versus some elements such as Al, Be, Fe, K, Na, and etc. Figure 7 summarizes the spatial distributions of some elements in surface sediments. According to these maps, some elements such as Al, Na, Be, Fe, Ba, Y, Zr, V, Sc, Cr, and Ti displayed similar patterns. It means that, an obvious increase of element values in the middle and also its depletion into the west and east side of the marsh has been observed. Unlikely, Mg, Ca, Zn, Sr and Mn presented a distribution in which values were low at the western side then increased locally, decreased again and finally showed higher concentration eastward. Moreover, Cu and Cd were highly irregular and it may depend on human activities or garbage dump to the marsh.
Pb concentration varies between 20 ppm and 58.5 ppm averaged at 34.4 ppm in the surface sediments. Its concentration showed a significant correlation with Ca and Sr. Zn values ranged from 46.6 ppm to 285 ppm with the average 168 ppm and it did not represent any correlation with the other elements. The low concentration of Zn in the eastern side is preferably attributed to the remobilization of trace elements in the water column during the change in bioturbation before reaching the sediments  [36] . Contrary to Sr, Ca and Mg distribution pattern, some elements like Sc, Y, V, Ba, Be, etc. showed a different trend. Therefore, it could indicate the same sources among each group of these elements and mechanism controlling the pattern.
The positive association among Fe and Mn proposing a common detrital origin and a relevant transporting phase for the grains  [37] . Regarding Mn and Fe to be the vitally important scavengers for trace metals  [38]  [39] , trace elements like La, Gd, Th and Y showed a positive correlation with Fe. Ni distribution along the marsh decreases westward and it may be attributed to the high density of this elements and its tendency to immobilization.
In order to improve our understanding of the main sediment sources in Eynak marsh, we compared its composition to Kiakelaye marsh (located in southeast of Eynak, 70 Km away from Eynak marsh) using discrimination diagram suggested by  [40] . Discrimination diagram (Figure 8) are more useful to evaluate dependence to geochemical end-members in the region and compare them with each other  [40] . Sediments from Eynak marsh have Sc-Th-Cr compositions similar to what we have in Kiakelaye, representing Cr enrichment in sediments. Moreover, increasing Cr values in distribution maps suggest the upstream as a main source for the sediments and Chromium. Also Cr concentration strongly reveals that Cr-bearing minerals such as pyroxene have been deposited in the marsh and it has been proofed by mineralogy results (Table 3). Furthermore, due to the depletion of Sc in the sediments, it could not be said that the ultramafic xenolith is the probable source rock for the sediments. Moreover, Sc-Th-La indicates an enrichment of La in Eynak marsh in comparison with Kiakelaye. So this increase in La may come from a batholith-type composition in the domain area.
Considering granulometric data, its predominant grains composed by coarse sand and medium silt (Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 7) and it represented a low energy hydrodynamic circumstance in the marsh. A few gravels in sediments considered mostly as a gastropod shell remnants (Figure 3). Textural and statistical parameters proved the predominant fluvial origin of sediments (Figure 5). It means the probable origin of sediments is mostly related to fluvial input that have precipitated in the past. Regarding the cut off occurrence between
Table 3. The summary of mineralogical data in 44 surficial sediments in the study area.
Figure 8. Discrimination diagram of Sc-Th-La and Sc-Th-Cr for surficial sediments of Eynak marsh (black dots related to Eynak marsh and red circles related to Kiakelaye).
GoharRood River and Eynak marsh, it is not nourished by the river anymore and it can be seen a very calm hydrodynamic condition in the marsh. In addition, another possible source of material could be organism shells (as instance Gastropoda) precipitated after the death. The continental shelf sediments are characterized by the high abundance of calcite derived from biogenic mechanism  [23] . Moreover, due to the distance between marsh and Caspian Sea beach (more than 30 Km), and the low values of biogenic calcite; there are no possibility and documented proof supporting the idea of the coastal sediment source in Eynak marsh.
Due to the main mineral involved in surficial sediments like quartz, calcite, feldspar, pyrite mica and clay minerals, chemical elements are mostly related to terrigenous input. These minerals derived from continental sources and weathered rocks such as granite that are covering the land mass in the upstream. Since muscovite reflects the influence of metamorphic and igneous rocks as a source of clastic sediments  [17] , the existence of this mineral in the most corners of the marsh can be explained by the riverine supply from granitic rocks in the watershed. As a result, the increased abundance of biotite, muscovite and Chloritoid could be derived from igneous and metamorphic rocks weathering. Moreover, the high content of pyrite is supported by the high values of Fe detected there and this could be related to relict sediments enriched in pyrite in Gastropod infillings  [41] . Some elements like Mg, Ca and Sr showed significant correlations with calcite distribution and it is mainly indicated by the substitution of these elements in calcite. Likely, Mg distribution shows a similar pattern, and mineralogy reported a dolomite increase to the east of Eynak marsh. Mn distribution pattern shows the maximum values in the inner part and the west side of the marsh. The existence of gypsum and pyrite in sediments could be mentioned as a proof for reduction condition in the inner side of the marsh. Considering its generation and chemical formula, the abundance of feldspars in west and east side should be related to the distribution of elements such as Al, Be, V, Na, Fe, etc.
Universally, one of the most important source of chrome to the marine environments is the household sewage and it contains about 32.2 percent of total chrome in marines  [42] . Also cupper is an element which can enter the environment through waste water  [43]  [44] . Likely, sewage entrance in the west and east part of the marsh may cause the increasing trend of these elements to both west and east sides. Niobium can be siderophile, chalcophile, or lithophile  [45] , also it aggregates in Granites, Nepheline Syenite, Alkali granites, etc. [46] . So, the highest value of Nb in the east of the marsh as well as the majority of Quartz and Feldspars in there should be under the influence of granitic and alkali granite source rock of the domain area.
Nickel value changing pattern represented an increase trend westward. The major source of nickel exposure has a direct affiliation to organic matter  [47] . Though, the entrance of organic and agricultural wastewater to the west side of the marsh could be a reason for high values of Ni in the area. As well as, Pb enrichment in the study area could be under the effects of anthropogenic activities around the marsh which has been conducted recently. Moreover, considering Spearman correlation coefficient of Mn versus Pb and Zn (showing a significant correlation), likely they should have similar sources.
Sedimentological, geochemical and mineralogical investigation was conducted in Eynak marsh to reconstruct the pathways of modern input from continental domain and also to find out the sediment generation. Surficial sediments integrate mineralogical, sedimentological and geochemical characteristics of the draining area by upstream and anthropogenic effects.
Textural investigations indicate that the sediments belong to the coarse sand to medium silt fractions suggesting that the sediments were deposited under calm or low energy condition. Moreover, sediments being poorly sorted to moderately sorted reveal texturally immature of a fluvial environment. The sedimentary fraction influences some elements fractionation in the surficial sediments. Distribution pattern of fine sediments is closer to Ca, Sr, and Mg pattern and it is supported by the correlation between fine grain sediments and these elements. Due to the depletion of fine grain sediment in clay minerals (which have a strong adsorption capacity), lower content of trace elements is reported from analyzed sediments. In another word, no correlation exists between the abundance of mud and concentration of some contaminations (like Fe, V, Ni, and Cr), making us believe that grain size cannot be used as a normalizer to assess contaminant sources in this area.
Mineral assemblages in sediments are truly controlled by source rocks of the domain area. The immature sediments of Eynak marsh with high feldspar relative to quartz could be classified as having an uplifted basement source. Normally, gypsum and pyrite indicate reduced environment. So the existence of these mineral along with calcite concentration represents a proper circumstance for such minerals. The chemical composition of the analyzed sediments is controlled by source composition, textural and mineralogy characteristics. The high amount of feldspar and quartz is supported by high value of Al, Fe, Na, K, etc. and decrease in Ca, Mg and Sr values representing the entrance of these minerals from east and west side of the marsh. The inner part of the marsh is characterized by presence of calcite, Pyrite and Gypsum and high concentration of Ca, Mg, Sr, etc. showing a reduction situation in the environment in which some minerals such as gypsum and pyrite representing higher amounts. In another word, higher pyrite content could be related to authigenic sources.
This is a part of Ph.D. dissertation of the senior author (A. Hazermoshar), the authors sincerely thank the GSI for the financial support. The first author would like to thank Mr. Mahmoud Noveiri for his efficient help and the kind corporation during sampling, preparation and analyzing samples.
Cite this paper: Hazermoshar, A. , Lak, R. , Espahbood, M. , Ghadimvand, N. and Farajzadeh, R. (2016) Geochemical, Sedimentological and Mineralogical Characterization of Surficial Sediments in Eynak Marsh (North of Iran). Open Journal of Geology, 6, 640-659. doi: 10.4236/ojg.2016.67050.
[1] Ward, L.G., Kearney, M.S. and Stevenson, J.C. (1998) Variations in Sedimentary Environments and Accretionary Patterns in Estuarine Marshes Undergoing Rapid Submergence, Chesapeake Bay. Marine Geology, 151, 111-134.
[2] Moreno, J., Fatela, F., Leorri, E., Araújo, M.F., Moreno, F., De la Rosa, J., Freitas, M.C., Valente, T. and Corbett, D.R. (2015) Bromine Enrichment in Marsh Sediments as a Marker of Environmental Changes Driven by Grand Solar Minima and Anthropogenic Activity (Caminha, NW of Portugal).
[3] Duarte, C.M., Losada, I.J., Hendriks, I.E., Mazarrasa, I. and Marbà, N. (2013) The Role of Coastal Plant Communities for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 3, 961-968.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1970
[4] Murray, B.C., Pendleton, L., Jenkins, W.A. and Sifleet, S. (2011) Green Payments for Blue Carbon Economic Incentives for Protecting Threatened Coastal Habitats. Duke Nicholas Institute Report, NI R 11-04.
[5] Delaune, R.D. and Pezeshki, S.R. (2003) The Role of Soil Organic Carbon in Maintaining Surface Elevation in Rapidly Subsiding U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coastal Marshes. Water, Air and Soil Pollution: Focus, 3, 167-179.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1022136328105
[6] Marani, M., D'Alpaos, A., Lanzoni, S., Carniello, L. and Rinaldo, A. (2007) Biologically-Controlled Multiple Equilibria of Tidal Landforms and the Fate of the Venice Lagoon. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L11402.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030178
[7] Day, J.W., Cable, J.E., Cowan, J.H., Delaune, R.D., de Mutsert, K. and Fry, B. (2009) The Impact of Pulsed Reintroduction of River Water on a Mississippi Delta Coastal Basin. Journal of Coastal Research, 54, 225-243.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2112/SI54-015.1
[8] Kirwan, M.L., Guntenspergen, G.R., D'Alpaos, A., Morris, J.T., Mudd, S.M. and Temmerman, S. (2010) Limits of the Adaptability of Coastal Marshes to Rising Sea Level. Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L23401.
[9] D'Alpaos, A., Da Lio, C. and Marani, M. (2012) Biogeomorphology of Tidal Landforms: Physical and Biological Processes Shaping the Tidal Landscape. Ecohydrology, 5, 550-562.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eco.279
[10] Ratliff, K., Braswell, A. and Marani, M. (2015) Spatial Response of Coastal Marshes to Increased Atmospheric CO2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 15580-15584.
[11] Roner, M., D'Alpaos, A., Ghinassia, M., Marani, M., Silvestri, S., Franceschinis, E. and Realdon, N. (2016) Spatial Variation of Salt-Marsh Organic and Inorganic Deposition and Organic Carbon Accumulation: Inferences from the Venice Lagoon, Italy. Advances in Water Resource, 93, 276-287.
[12] Yeager, K.M., Brunne, C.A., Kulp, M.A., Fischer, D., Feagin, R.A., Schindler, K.J., Prouhet, J. and Bera, G. (2012) Significance of Active Growth Faulting on Marsh Accretion Processes in the Lower Pearl River, Louisiana. Geomorphology, 153-154, 127-143.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2012.02.018
[13] Greenwood, B. (1969) Sediment Parameters and Environment Discrimination: An Application of Multivariate Statistics. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 6, 1347-1358.
[14] Friedman, G.M. (1967) Dynamic Processors and Statistical Parameters Compared for Size Frequency Distribution of Beach and River Sands. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 37, 327-354.
[15] Kashiwaya, K. (1987) Theoretical Investigation of the Time Variation of Drainage Density. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 12, 39-46.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.3290120106
[16] Moriarty, K.C. (1977) Clay Minerals in Southeast Indian Ocean Sediments, Transport Mechanisms and Depositional Environments. Marine Geology, 25, 149-174.
[17] Shaw, H.F. and Bush, P.R. (1978) The Mineralogy and Geochemistry of the Recent Surface Sediments of the Cilicia Basin, Northeast Mediterranean. Marine Geology, 27, 115-136.
[18] Gardner, J.V., Dean, W.E. and Vallier, T.L. (1980) Sedimentology and Geochemistry of Surface Sediments, Outer Continental Shelf, Southern Bering Sea. Marine Geology, 35, 299-329.
[19] Stein, R., Grobe, H. and Wahsner, M. (1994) Organic Carbon, Carbonate, and Clay Mineral Distributions in Eastern Central Arctic Ocean Surface Sediments. Marine Geology, 119, 269-285.
[20] Lamy, F., Hebbeln, D. and Wefer, G. (1998) Terrigenous Sediment Supply along the Chilean Continental Margin: Modern Regional Patterns of Texture and Composition. Geologische Rundschau, 87, 477-494.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s005310050223
[21] Hillenbrand, C.-D., Grobe, H., Diekmann, B., Kuhn, G. and Fütterer, D.K. (2003) Distribution of Clay Minerals and Proxies for Productivity in Surface Sediments of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas (West Antarctica)-Relation to Modern Environmental Conditions. Marine Geology, 193, 253-271.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0025-3227(02)00659-X
[22] Diju, S. and Thamban, M. (2006) Clay Mineral and Textural Variations in the Sediments of Chandragiri River, Estuary and Shallow Marine Realms off Kasaragod, Kerala. Journal of the Geological Society of India, 67, 189-196.
[23] Bernardez, P., Prego, R., Giralt, S., Esteve, J., Caetano, M., Parra, S. and Francés, G. (2012) Geochemical and Mineralogical Characterization of Surficial Sediments from the Northern Rias: Implications for Sediment Provenance and Impact of the Source Rocks. Marine Geology, 291-294, 63-72.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2011.11.003
[24] Wu, W., Zheng, H., Xu, S., Yang, J. and Liu, W. (2013) Trace Element Geochemistry of Riverbed and Suspended Sediments in the Upper Yangtze River. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 124, 67-78.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2012.08.005
[25] Friedman, G.M. (1961) On Sorting, Sorting Coefficients and the Log Normality of the Grain-Size Distributions of Sandstones. The Journal of Geology, 70, 737-753.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/jg.70.6.30066373
[26] Leontiev, O.K. (1977) Geomorphology of the Iranian Coast of the Caspian Sea. Russian Academy of Sciences.
[27] Geological Survey of Iran (GSI) (1991) 1:100000 Map of Rasht by Khabaznia, A.R., Sadeghi, A., Nogol-e-sadat, A., Bahmani, A., Jalali, A., Gharib, F., Vakil, F., Keshani, F., Saeidi, A., Helmi, F., Davari, F. and Orouj-nia, P.
[28] Chung, F. (1974) Quantitative Interpretation of X-Ray Diffraction Patterns of Mixtures: II. Adiabatic Principles of X-Ray Diffraction Analysis of Mixtures. Journal of Applied Crystallography, 7, 526-531.
[29] Nichols, G. (2007) Sedimentology and Stratigraphy. Wiley-Blackwell Publications, Hoboken, 419 p.
[30] Sahu, B.K. (1964) Depositional Mechanisms from the Size Analysis of Clastic Sediments. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 34, 73-83.
[31] Martins, L.R., Potter, P.E., Martins, I.R. and Wolff, I.M. (1997) Grain-Size and Modern Sedimentary Environments. Congreso Latinoamericano de Sedimentologia, 1o, Porlomar, Venezuela, Memórias Tomo II, 67-71.
[32] Sivasamandy, R. and Ramesh, R. (2014) Granulometric Studies of the Sediments from Kolakkudi Lake, Musiri Taulk, Trichirapalli District, Tamilnadu, India. International Research Journal of Earth Science, 2, 1-10.
[33] Sreekanth, A., Mrudulrag, S.K., Cheriyan, E. and Sujatha, C.H. (2015) Trace Metal Enrichment and Organic Matter Sources in the Surface Sediments of Arabian Sea along Southwest India (Kerala Coast). Marine Pollution Bulletin, 101, 938-946.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.10.040
[34] Lakhan, V.C., Cabana, K. and LaValle, P.D. (2003) Relationship between Grain Size and Heavy Metals in Sediments from Beaches along the Coast of Guyana. Journal of Coastal Research, 19, 600-608.
[35] Lewis, B. and Luther III, G.W. (2000) Processes Controlling the Distribution and Cycling of Manganese in the Oxygen Minimum Zone of the Arabian Sea. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 47, 1541-1562.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0967-0645(99)00153-8
[36] Saito, M.A., Moffett, J.W. and DiTullio, G.R. (2004) Cobalt and Nickel in the Peru Upwelling Region: A Major Flux of Labile Cobalt Utilized as a Micronutrient. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 18, GB4030.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003GB002216
[37] Balachandran, K.K., Joseph, T., Nair, M., Sankaranarayanan, V.N., Kesavadas, V. and Sheeba, P. (2003) Geochemistry of Suficial Sediments along the Central Southwest Coast of India: Seasonal Changes in Regional Distribution. Journal of Coastal Research, 19, 664-683.
[38] Tessier, A., Campbell, P.G.C. and Bisson, M. (1979) Sequential Extraction Procedure for the Speciation of Particulate Trace Metals. Analytical Chemistry, 51, 844-851.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ac50043a017
[39] Rubio, B., Nombela, M.A. and Vilas, F. (2000) Geochemistry of Major and Trace Metals in Sediments of the Ria de Vigo (NW Spain), an Assessment of Metal Pollution. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 40, 968-980.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0025-326X(00)00039-4
[40] Daessle, W.L., Rendón-Márquez, G., Camacho-Ibar, V.F., Gutiérrez-Galindo, E.A., Shumilin, E. and Ortiz-Campos, E. (2009) Geochemistry of Modern Sediments from San Quintín Coastal Lagoon, Baja California: Implication for Provenance. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas, 26, 117-132.
[41] Mallik, T.K. (1972) Opaque Minerals from the Shelf Sediments off Mangalore, Western Coast of India. Marine Geology, 12, 207-222.
[42] Barceloux, D.G. (1999) Chromium. Journal of Toxicology. Clinical Toxicology, 37, 173-194.
[43] Fernandes, H.M. (1997) Heavy Metal Distribution in Sediments and Ecological Risk Assessment: The Role of Diagenetic Processes in Reducing Metal Toxicity in Bottom Sediment. Environmental Pollution, 97, 317-325.
[44] Ramos, L., Gonzalez, M.J. and Hernandez, L.M. (1999) Sequential Extraction of Copper, Lead, Cadmium and Zinc in Sediments from Ebro River (Spain): Relationship with Level Detected in Earthworms. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 62, 301-308.
[45] Martin, R. and Wülser, A.A. (2014) Niobium and Tantalum in Minerals: Siderophile, Chalcophile or Lithophile, and Polyvalent. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 147, 16-25.
[46] Babazadeh, V. (2007) Metal and Nonmetal Deposits. Motarjem Publication, 535 p.
[47] Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) (2005).
Download as PDF (13011KB)


We offer industrial companies and engineering firms custom training courses that can be held on location or at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The course program can be tailored to the specific wishes and needs of the company (e.g. case studies).
In addition, personal consultation or individual pinch-training can be done. Please contact us for further information.


Brian's Taiwan: Don't phase me, Bro!
So today was the big day of the typhoon. Besides a few moments of hard rain, it was just the gusty winds. Reports say it was blowing at 60-80mph. However I don't have to worry about any of that inside the condo. The only wall that faces outside, faces a small central courtyard with two more floors above me. So no worries of sideways rain and high winds battering the windows. However during lunch and dinner, I decided to go out to see how the rest of Taipei handles the typhoon. I was suprised to see a few resturants open. People, motocycles and cars were still moving about like normal. So for dinner, instead of eating in, I headed out to the Shipai night market. It was business as usual there. I stood in line for a curry chicken (咖哩雞腿) bento. There was a long line so I had to wait 15 minutes while the winds battered my face numb. Most of the venders just string up a wind block and continue like the typhoon doesn't exist. It doesn't phase them. Meanwhile garbage, plastic stools, chopsticks, egg shells, newspapers and cardboard was flying all over the place. The gusty winds were strong enough to push my body around and catch me off balance a few times. I didn't expect the night market to be open or so busy, so I didn't bring my camera. But I did bring home dinner successfully and take a picture of that. Yum!! Typhoon curry chicken bento! Now where can I find Hong Kong style Typhoon shelter crab (避風塘炒蟹)?


Well, here's a nice surprise for a wet Wednesday morning. Sony's announced the Hi-MD Walkman, a player that comes with a built in 1.3-megapixel digital camera and support for it's new "Hi-MD PHOTO" standard. Hi-MD is a new format that supports up to 1GB's worth of digital music (and images now as well presumably).
As well as support for music playback, the MZ-DH10P Walkman includes a 1.5-inch colour LCD for viewing album art or photos you've shot. There's a dedicated shutter release button for operating the camera. Open the lens protector and the player switches to camera mode, shut it and the Hi-MD reverts to music playback. It should be out in Japan on 10th March and is priced pretty high at around 53,000 yen. Available colours will be black, silver or red.


Production rose just 0.8% in September, well below analysts expectations of a 2.3% boost. The figure compounded bad news from the previous month which saw a shocking 5.7% drop (now revised to 4.2%).
Over recent years, demand from the faster-growing emerging markets for German goods and services, particularly China and Russia, has continued to drive growth of German exports. But now that demand is weakening and Germany's dependence on emerging market growth is exposing holes in this strategy.
If there are no breakthroughs in talks between the pro-Western government in Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine by March, when the sanctions are set to be review, the measures could hold for another year.
Author: Tomas Hirst is a political reporter for Business Insider UK.


text:
STAND4Heritage
Dr Nathanael Savalle
n.savalle@civil.uminho.pt
Nathanaël Savalle obtained a Master of Civil Engineering in France in 2016. He then acquired his PhD in Civil Engineering in 2019. During his PhD, he has studied the seismic behaviour of dry stone retaining walls, which are vernacular masonry structures made of rough stone assembled without mortar. He was particularly focused on the design of such structures in low to medium seismic risk regions.
His expertise ranges from experimental campaigns (including shaking-table) to numerical and analytical modelling of retaining/masonry structures.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the S4H project, he is in charge of the experimental campaign from the improvement of the tracking performance of the shaking-table to the planning and execution of the tests.
STAND4Heritage ambitiously engages in introducing new standards for safeguarding built cultural heritage for the next generations, which is a major societal demand. Due to its large diversity, the accurate description of the structural behaviour of heritage buildings is still an open issue, particularly when subjected to earthquake ground motions. STAND4Heritage contains an analysis of the seismic signal (WP1), an extensive experimental campaign (WP2), the development and validation of intermediate numerical approaches (WP3) and an integrated analytical tool for the assessment of the seismic capacity of masonry buildings (WP4).
Institute for Sustainability in Structural Engineering (ISISE), University of Minho (UMinho) – Campus de Azurém, Guimarães 4800-058, Portugal
stand4heritage@civil.uminho.pt
Get project updates delivered directly to your inbox.
By submitting this form you are accepting our privacy policy
Linkedin Instagram Twitter Facebook Youtube
This project is funded by
Only funded by EU through ERC // Grant number 833123
© 2020 STAND4Heritage – All rights reserved
Design by Boutik.pt

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Born and raised in Derby and having worked in both Nottingham and Burton, teacher Andrew Polkey felt that there should be a book on the English Civil War as it affected the Trent Valley. Like many peple, he eventually concluded that if he wanted it doing, he`d have to do it himself !
Fortunately, Derbyshire-based publisher Walk and Write agreed with him, and the result is this mighty fine paperback book.
This is one of around half a dozen books on the Civil War that we have in stock at present, and I like to think we are currently catering for those who are new to the subject as well as those with some prior knowledge.
It`s at number 3778 in our listings. Any questions, just ask.
As you`ll appreciate, we only post details of a small section from our stock on this blog, but the whole online literary emporium can be found using the links provided. Cheers.


text:
Kimberly G. Noble: The science of lifting kids out of poverty
By KIMBERLY G. NOBLESpecial to The Washington Post
Oct 6, 2015 at 12:00 PM
What if we could draw a line from key areas of a low-income child's brain to a policy intervention that would dramatically reduce his or her chances of staying in poverty, dropping out of school and entering the criminal justice or social welfare system? Wouldn't we want to make that policy prescription as widely available as any vaccination against childhood disease?
Thanks to remarkable advances in neuroscience and the social sciences, we are closing in on this possibility.
In a study published this year in Nature Neuroscience, several co-authors and I found that family income is significantly correlated with children's brain size — specifically, the surface area of the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain that does most of the cognitive heavy lifting. Further, we found that increases in income were associated with the greatest increases in brain surface area among the poorest children.
Not surprisingly, our findings made many people uncomfortable. Some feared the study would be used to reinforce the notion that people remain in poverty because they are less capable than those with higher incomes.
As neuroscientists, we interpret the results very differently. We know that the brain is most malleable in the early years of life and that experiences during that time have lifelong effects on the mind. Work by social scientists such as Sendhil Mullainathan at Harvard University and Eldar Shafir at Princeton University has shown that poverty depletes parents' cognitive resources, leaving less capacity for making everyday decisions about parenting. These parents are also at far greater risk for depression and anxiety — poverty's "mental tax." All of this has important implications for children.
WHAT CAN BE DONE
When parents are distracted or depressed, family life is likely to be characterized by conflict and emotional withdrawal rather than nurturing and supportive relationships with children. Parents don't talk and read to their kids as often and make less eye contact with them. This accumulation of stress in children's lives has cascading effects on brain systems critical to learning, remembering and reasoning.
As a society we cannot stand by when millions of children are at risk for not reaching their full cognitive and academic potential.
So what can we do?
First, we need definitive evidence that moves beyond correlation and helps us understand the causes of these neurological differences.
That's why I am part of a team of social scientists and neuroscientists planning a large clinical trial in which 1,000 low-income mothers will be randomly assigned to receive either a large ($333) or small ($20) monthly income supplement for the first three years of their children's lives. Periodic assessments of the children and their mothers will enable us to estimate the impact of these cash supplements on children's cognitive, emotional and brain development, as well as the effect on family functioning.
Unconditional cash transfers of this sort have been tested in developing countries, with most of the evidence showing improved economic and family well-being. Research in the United States suggests that a $4,000 increase in family earnings during the first two years of a low-income child's life is associated with remarkable differences in long-term prospects, including higher adult earnings, more hours spent in the workforce and even improved health in adulthood. To date, however, the effects of cash on children's brain development remain untested.
WE SHOULD NOT WAIT
Our clinical trial is designed to provide strong evidence regarding whether and how poverty reduction promotes cognitive and brain development. This study, however, will take at least five years to complete — far too long for young children living in poverty today. We should not wait until then to push for policies that can help inoculate young children's pliable brains against the ravages of poverty.
For example, housing vouchers that allow families to move to better neighborhoods can foster upward mobility and help children escape poverty. Similarly, programs that help low-income families increase savings can pay huge dividends for low-income children. These include universal college savings account programs, currently offered in a handful of cities and states. A pilot federal program, the American Dream Accounts Act, was recently passed in the Senate as an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. One study found that low- and moderate-income children with even less than $500 in a college savings account were significantly more likely to enroll in college and to graduate.
The political battles for major expansion of these types of programs are unlikely to be won until we can provide hard scientific proof of their effectiveness. Until then, we need to do all we can to support policies that offer our most vulnerable children the best chance of reaching their full potential.
Noble is an associate professor of neuroscience and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.


West Ham were held to a goalless draw by Barclays Premier League bottom side Sunderland but it will be the Black Cats who will be more disappointed with having to settle for a share of the spoils.
The Hammers struggled to create any chances of note in a poor game at Upton Park and they remain outside of the league's relegation zone by just a point.
Co-chairman David Sullivan had said earlier in the day that manager Sam Allardyce will be at the club until the end of the season but a lacklustre display in front of a largely disgruntled crowd will have done the Hammers boss few favours.
Sunderland defender Phil Bardsley came closest to finding a winner with a long-range pile-driver that came back off the woodwork towards the end of the first half.
Gus Poyet's side need to start picking up wins but, with no league goal away from home since August 31, Sunderland know where their improvement must come from.
The game started at a high tempo as both sides looked to strike early and settle any nerves that would have been prominent at kick-off.
Mohamed Diame nutmegged John O'Shea and held off Lee Cattermole before cutting a cross back to Modibo Maiga, who blazed over with Wes Brown sliding in.
The same duo linked up again moments later with a deeper cross from Diame headed towards the back post by Maiga, with the onrushing Matt Jarvis unable to get a telling touch.
The best early chance fell to the visitors as Emanuele Giaccherini slipped a ball into the path of Jozy Altidore but the United States international's shot was tipped behind by Jussi Jaaskelainen.
The corner was only cleared as far as Ki Sung-yueng, whose rasping drive was deflected behind with the Swansea loanee blazing over from a similar position seconds later.
With the game still wide open, Jarvis' cross to the near-post was just missed by James Collins with the ball deflecting behind for a corner.
The Hammers had the ball in the net from the resulting set-piece as Guy Demel bundled it home but referee Andre Marriner had already blown for a free-kick for an infringement.
The early pace of the game was lost as the first half progressed, with Marriner coming under increasing scrutiny from the home fans for giving a number of decisions in favour of the Black Cats.
Their upset turned to anger just before the half-hour mark as Collins was instructed to hurry up with a free-kick inside his own half despite the fact Altidore was clearly not 10 yards back.
The Wales international eventually took the free-kick and it hit Altidore, with Fabio Borini breaking at an unprotected West Ham defence before shooting straight at Jaaskelainen.
Full-back Bardsley came closest to opening the scoring before the interval as his arrowed drive cracked against Jaaskelainen's crossbar with the experienced Finn well beaten.
Ravel Morrison then burst to life with two jinking and twisting runs that left more than one Sunderland defender on the ground but neither resulted in chances for the hosts.
Giaccherini saw a shot deflected behind as the half drew to a close and Demel blocked well from Borini as Poyet's side ended the half in the ascendancy.
Skipper Cattermole had the last meaningful touch of the half as he flashed in an effort that once again required Jaaskelainen to make a save.
The movement of Sunderland's attacking trio of Giaccherini, Borini and Altidore continued to cause West Ham problems at the start of the second-half as the Black Cats started on the front foot once more.
West Ham were still enjoying small spells of possession with the craft of Morrison continuing to look their most likely way through to opening the scoring.
The former Manchester United youngster hit a low shot that was well saved by Vito Mannone before Diame thrashed an effort into the side-netting after making space for himself inside the box.
The game reverted back to a pattern similar to the opening exchanges with both sides looking to break the deadlock, although neither Sebastian Larsson nor Giaccherini could test Jaaskelainen with their respective efforts.
Altidore did work Jaaskelainen after a smart turn in the box but the 38-year-old saved comfortably as the game remained goalless with 30 minutes remaining.
Poyet turned to substitutes Adam Johnson and Steven Fletcher to win him the game while Allardyce introduced Carlton Cole from the bench for the final 15 minutes as he looked to give his side more attacking clout.
But it was Sunderland who came close once again as Ki turned inside the box and saw his effort pushed away by Jaaskelainen.
Morrison flashed a shot wide with just under five minutes remaining, with West Ham seemingly shifting their game plan and aiming long balls towards Cole.
Former Sunderland defender George McCartney almost scored a lucky winner deep in stoppage time when his cross had to be tipped over by Mannone as the game ended goalless.


Fully adjustable aluminum battery holder allows to move the batteries in all directions - front/rear and also left/right. The adjustable battery holder allows for easy and comfortable weight transfer adjustment. The front/rear weight balance can be adjusted in 4mm range. The battery holders allow to mount the battery tape over the top of the battery only without the instalment of the tape under the chassis which allows increased flex of the chassis and as such helps to generate more traction. Thanks to the chassis-free instalment of the tape the ride height of the car can be slightly decreased as there is no more tape under the chassis. The adjustable holder and the battery backstops are CNC-machined from lightweight aluminum and the battery holders are machined from premium lightweight graphite material.


text:
Readers speak out
Your Letters: Oct. 1 Readers speak out Check out this story on greenbaypressgazette.com: http://gbpg.net/2dtWitN
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 4:43 p.m. CT Sept. 30, 2016
Quarterback turns back on opportunities
With his background, Colin Kaepernick ought to be singing the "Star Spangled Banner" from the 50-yard line, not hiding behind an equipment box on the sidelines.
Kaepernick was fortunate to be born into the only political system on the planet that allowed him to be rescued from abandonment by his birth family. Moreover, he was placed with a family of a different color who opened the door of opportunity for him. He was allowed to excel and realize the rewards of his effort.
Somewhere, Kaepernick got his wires crossed. He ought to know that these United States of America were not founded or perpetuated by men who took a knee or rode the pine. He ought to know how men gave up fortunes, lifestyles, blood – lives – to build this country and make it great.
Yes, the USA has its share of problems. There are dozens, hundreds, of issues to battle, but you can't fight from the sidelines.
The red stripes on the U.S. flag have come to represent the blood sacrificed to create this country and preserve the rights that allow Kaepernick to say or do anything that comes to his mind. When he disrespects the flag or the anthem, he disrespects the people who gave their blood to preserve those freedoms, and that includes people of all colors who fought in all our wars.
Kaepernick ought to know that 610,000 men died from 1861 to 1865 in the effort to eliminate slavery from the USA. The sacrifice brought an end to "our peculiar institution" but did not move this country one iota closer to erasing discrimination. Maybe the U.S. Civil War is historic proof that law and violence cannot define or advance a moral principle? Instead, we need better men, better role models.
Rather than taking a knee or insulting the country that allowed him to make his dreams come true, maybe Kaepernick ought to man up. He could help correct the social ills that undermine our country.
For starters, about 400,000 to 500,000 children are up for adoption in the USA. Most of them will age out – become legal adults – before a family can rescue them. Most of those children share circumstances of birth similar to Kaepernick's.
Maybe he ought to take a few children under his wing and open up his wallet to give them the chance his adoptive parents gave him, give them the opportunity he claims the country is denying them. Maybe he ought to become part of a reasonable, Christian solution rather than inciting more hate and discontent.
Maybe he will … but I doubt it. It's easier for his kind of social engineer to take a knee, pander to the mob and let someone else do the real work of curing the disease.
God bless the men and women who do the work.
Joe Knaapen
America a land
of diverse views
In the letter "Of course actions show disrespect" (Sept. 14), the writer states that the San Francisco 49ers' Kaepernick "outraged 85 percent of the electorate" while not standing during the pre-game national anthem.
I didn't know Kaepernick was running for political office. Seriously, as much as many didn't like the quarterback doing this, it is his constitutional right to do so. Also, the writer states that due to the "accident of Kaepernick's birth," he became a multimillionaire quarterback. What is that exactly suppose to mean?
The late Packers great (Rev.) Reggie White's held prayer services on the sidelines with other players, as that was his right. And, on the other hand, there is a long-held religion in this country whose members neither pledge allegiance or vote, and that is also their right. For this reason, African American Serena Williams, today one of the world's foremost woman professional tennis players, does not vote, not even for Barack Obama.
No one seems to get all hot under the collar over this. And, thank God, it is our flag that symbolizes that this diversity is possible to happen in a country like ours.
In another letter, "Proud to be an American" (Sept. 7), the writer there criticizes the policies of Democrat candidate Clinton (having portrayed them almost like the Sopranos of politics), but, ironically, praises the creation in the 1930s of the Civil Conservation Corps. The CCC was created by none other than by president Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat.
Garry Peterson
Habitat's ReStore
is great organization
My name is Ryan and I am 11 years old. I am a Boy Scout and I was working on my Citizenship in the Community badge. One of the requirements was to work eight hours of community service, so I chose Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
The work I did was cleaning the appliances that came in, hauling shelves and boards from the back to the front building, restocking shelves, making price tags, and helping organize the store.
Habitat for Humanity is located on 14th Avenue in Sturgeon Bay near Sturgeon Bay school and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. Inside of this store there are many appliances, including refrigerators, furniture, plumbing materials, lighting materials, tools, floor tiles, dressers, lamps, painting materials, grills, shelves, and much much more.
The ReStore accepts donations, and all proceeds go to building houses.
I encourage anyone who is willing to take a few hours a week of their busy schedule to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It is a great organization that really gives back to our wonderful community.
Ryan Melville
Read or Share this story: http://gbpg.net/2dtWitN


In 2015, I started to pay a bit more attention to my Indonesian-version food blog, All About Food.web.id. As a result, the blog actually had a bit more visitors than the English one in recent months – despite having a lot less articles!
The highest rated restaurant in our blog for 2015 was The Bridge Room that we visited for my birthday in September. At that time, they were freshly crowned as the restaurant of the year and managed to be promoted to a three-hat restaurant by the Good Food Guide. What can I say? It was such a wonderful experience!
In 2015, we reviewed 54 restaurants. As usual, the top three types of cuisines that we reviewed were: Modern Australian (12 restaurants), Japanese (8), and Indonesian (5).
Among those 54 restaurants, four were brand new types of cuisine. Earlier in the year we went to a Peruvian restaurant called Mancora. It was located in Addision St, Marrickville and they served a very nice Ceviche!
We also went to one of the two best Portuguese Charcoal Chicken restaurants in Inner West, called Silva's. There was a dish that stole our (and everyone else's) attention that day, Espetada a Madeirense – rump steak on a skewer!
The Zomato meetup at Voulez Vous was one of the more memorable events of the year. I can still remember how good the poached pear was!
We also went to another famous Charcoal chicken restaurant, but this time it was Lebanese-style, called El Jannah. The charcoal was a tad underwhelming (considering how famous they are!) but we got a redemption in the form of their skewers platter.
Other restaurants we visited this year: Vietnamese (4), Thai (4), Steakhouse (3), Italian (3), Malaysian(2), Korean (2), Coffee house(2), Vegetarian, Spanish, Mexican, Indian and Chinese.


All the data used in this tool has been carefully examined. As the software is offered to the user free of charge, no responsibility is taken by KACO new energy for the timeliness, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims against KACO new energy, referring to substantial or non-material damages, caused by using or not using the information provided or by using incorrect or incomplete information, are excluded. No responsibility is taken by KACO new energy for incorrect calculation, lost profit, downtime, defects on used hardware, data loss, business interruptions or other disadvantages. The use against regulations of the String Sizing Tool is prohibited.
Hint: Did you intend to choose a power factor (Pdc/Pac) above 1,2?
Warning: Invalid voltage and/or current values! Warning: Invalid voltage values! Warning: Invalid current values!


text:
Q: Azure AD WebApp behind reverse proxy receives 502 Bad Gateway I have an ASP.NET Core app running on a server behind a nginx reverse proxy.
The reverse proxy forwards xxx.mydomain.com to https://localhost:5000. If I use Azure AD for authentication I get a 502 Bad Gateway after the sign in procedure. The callback path seems correct /signin-oidc. I added the full address to the portal.
EDIT:
I was able to get the nginx log from the server and I get the following error:
2017/03/05 22:13:20 [error] 20059#20059: *635 upstream sent too big header
while reading response header from upstream, client: xx.xx.xxx.xxx, server:
xxx.mydomain.com, request: "POST /signin-oidc HTTP/1.1", upstream:
"https://192.168.3.20:5566/signin-oidc", host: "xxx.mydomain.com", referrer:
"https://login.microsoftonline.com/5712e004-887f-4c52-8fa1-
fcc61882e0f9/oauth2/authorize?client_id=37b8827d-c501-4b03-b86a-
7eb69ddf9a8d&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2...ch%2Fsignin-
oidc&response_type=code%20id_token&scope=openid%20profile&response_mode=form_pos
t&nonce=636243452000653500.NzRjYmY2ZTMtOTcyZS00N2FlLTg5NGQtMTYzMDJi..."

As I read in many other posts I tried to update the buffer sizes etc. but that all didn't work.
I am out of ideas where to look. Any ideas?

A: To answer this question it was the buffer size set in the nginx reverse proxy.
The problem was that i was running this on my synology and after every reboot the nginx settings will be reset. So what I ended up doing is write a small bash script that was run after the reboot and copied back my edited settings and restarted the reverse proxy.

A: I had the same issue with a Synology NAS as the reverse proxy for the application using Azure AD.
What I did:
Created a file under /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-enabled named custom.conf with the following content:
fastcgi_buffers 16 16k;
fastcgi_buffer_size 32k;
proxy_buffer_size   128k;
proxy_buffers   4 256k;
proxy_busy_buffers_size   256k;

Values should be adjusted if needed. These worked fine for me with Azure AD.
This all files under that directory are loaded by nginx.
Simply restart the nginx service using:
synoservicectl --restart nginx

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Many railway modellers include an engine shed somewhere on their layout. However, all too often the shed is squeezed into a quite improbable location and is little more than a place to 'park' engines when they are not in use. This comprehensive book, written by an experienced railway modeller, helps even the beginner to develop a far more realistic approach and to capture the unforgettable grimy but exciting atmosphere of the locomotive shed in the steam era.


hoozyu blog | What one thing most changes a young person's life?
What one thing most changes a young person's life?
I have been listening to a number of people recently who have had a very difficult start in life. One who had been in social care throughout her teens had been moved over 50 times during those years, between children's homes, foster care and so on. Another who had been in care for longer had been moved over 70 times. When asked how they got through, in every case I have heard, there was one adult who had connected with the young person at some point in their journey and who had kept in touch. That one relationship with an interested adult became the anchor by which a troubled young person managed at last to get to some kind of safe harbour and a more stable life.
The evidence I have heard further suggests that it is hard to formalise this arrangement: assigning an adult to a young person isn't the same as the process I just described. There needs to be real interest and real connection, and it needs to stand the test of time, regardless of what scrapes the young person gets themselves into along the way. A simply transactional 'relationship', on the other hand, is read as such by the young person ("they never see me as a whole person"; "I'm just some kind of a tick box exercise").
All of which has illuminated for me a key aspect of why we are building the hoozyu project. Yes, we can equip young people with fabulous information about themselves and their motivations and so on; and we can tell them who they most resemble in the world of work. What we have built is actually a framework to create and foster connection between adults and young people.
So many of the stories – amazing stories – we hear back are those where an adult has sat down with a young person to talk through their hoozyu results. The outcomes – radically changed behaviours, renewed motivation, whatever (in one case it was a young person starting to take their medication to control their Tourette's Syndrome because they now had a reason to 'be a better me'; in another it was two teenage brothers who stopped online gaming and started revising because they both now had a vision of what they could be doing with their lives) – come about not simply because they now have some better information about themselves. Rather it is because they have been affirmed in what that information is saying about them, and the possibilities that it opens up, by someone who has, themselves, already successfully transitioned to the adult world; and who has demonstrated connection and interest by giving them that most precious of gifts, time and attention.


text:
Home Sports UK women's basketball standout Rhyne Howard helps Team USA win FIBA U19 World Cup title
UK women's basketball standout Rhyne Howard helps Team USA win FIBA U19 World Cup title
Jul 30th, 2019 · 0 Comment
University of Kentucky women's basketball standout Rhyne Howard led Team USA in scoring as the Red, White and Blue captured the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup championship in Bangkok, Thailand, by going unbeaten (7-0) at the event.
For her efforts, Howard was tabbed to the all-tournament team.
No. 1 in FIBA's world youth women's rankings, Team USA started with wins against Australia, South Korea and Hungary in preliminary rounds before defeating Germany, Canada and Belgium to advance to the finals against Australia. In the championship contest against Australia, Team USA prevailed in overtime, 74-70.
UK women's basketball guard Rhyne Howard led Team USA in scoring throughout the week at the FIBA U19 World Cup championship in Thailand, averaging 13.1 points per game. (Photo courtesy of UK)
Howard, who had 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks in the championship game, led the USA in scoring throughout the week, averaging 13.1 points per game to go along with 5.1 rebounds per contest. In pool play, Howard had 10 points, three rebounds and one steal against Australia before collecting 17 points, nine rebounds and two steals vs. Korea. Against Hungary, Howard scored 18 points and added eight rebounds.
Howard has enjoyed success playing for Team USA in the past, earning most valuable player honors last summer in Mexico while helping the U18 team to a 5-0 gold-medal run.
Howard is coming off an outstanding first season at Kentucky in which she was named a unanimous national freshman of the year by espnW, USBWA and WBCA. She was also honored as the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year by league coaches and SEC Newcomer of the Year by the Associated Press. She was named WBCA All-America honorable mention, first-team All-SEC, SEC All-Freshman Team and second-team All-SEC by the AP.
All the postseason awards were on top of Howard being named SEC Freshman of the Week eight times, setting the program and league record for most rookie of the week awards. The SEC honors came on Nov. 13, 27, Dec. 11, 23, Jan. 8, Feb. 12, 19 and 26. She was named National Freshman of the Week on Dec. 26 by USBWA, the first player in program history to accomplish that feat.
The guard put herself in elite company this season as she was only the second freshman in program history to lead the Wildcats in scoring and rebounding as a rookie, joining former UK All-American Valerie Still. Howard ended the season leading UK with 16.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game while she ranked second with 68 steals and 74 3-pointers made and third in assists and blocks.
She scored in double figures in 26 games with 20 or more points in 10 games and five double-doubles. Howard was the only freshman in the country with 500+ points, 70+ 3-pointers, 75+ assists and 65+ steals while she ranked third among freshmen nationally in points and points per game.
From University of Kentucky
Tags:Australia · Bangkok · Canada and Belgium · FIBA U19 World Cup · Germany · Rhyne Howard · Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year · Team USA · Thailand · UK women's basketball · WBCA All-America honorable mention
UK women's standout Rhyne Howard named to Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List
01/8/2021· 0 Comment
Howard collects double-double as No. 13 UK women defeat No. 10 Arkansas 75-64 in SEC showdown
DePaul women hold off late UK rally, post 86-82 victory over previously unbeaten Wildcats (6-1)
12/18/2020· 0 Comment


text:
Q: Filtering string in Rails I have this method that will add tags to db.
def all_tags=(names)
  self.tags = names.split(",").map do |name|
    Tag.where(name: name.strip).first_or_create!
  end
end

It takes a string and strip it where there is a comma and add each string in db.
The problem is that a user can add duplicate tags ex 'red, blue, red'.
How can i check that user can't add tags that have the same name or remove the duplicate.

A: Use uniqueness validator in your Tag model.
class Tag < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :tag, uniqueness: true
end

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.html#uniqueness


text:
Audacious Podcasts to Challenge Beliefs
maximise your experience
Contemporary moral values are rapidly replacing old-fashioned ones. This translates into freedom and openness about your sexuality and how you express it. Statistics prove that it has also led to an endemic proliferation of affairs, sexual exploration outside the commitments of a relationship. If you have cheated on your partner, you may carry huge angst and guilt about it; if your partner cheated on you, then it may result in terrible of feelings of abandonment and worthlessness. This programme explores the world of affairs and flings, giving you insight into what you can do, whether you are the victim or the cheater.
The UK Independent pointed out in one of their articles that up until two hundred years ago, couples married for proof of genetic monogamy, to pass down their sheep and farmland to their children. This monogamy was necessary to ensure that no one cheated outside of the family lines and that property ownership stayed within the male lineage. Today, heterosexual and homosexual marriages form a legal framework for sharing property and to give their children a secure home. The hope for married and committed partners is that they share that common desire and will love each other until death. However, for over half of us, love wilts on the vine before we are anywhere near death or even old age.
You can easily find many articles on the Internet recommending how men and women can keep infidelity out of their relationships. There are countless listicles (numbered lists presented as articles) on the subject that grab one's attention with headlines like, "The Eight Reasons People Cheat on Their Partners" and "The Five Reasons Why People Have Affairs." Most of these articles (be they informed or not) blame emotional voids and sexual curiosity as the prime causes of infidelity. This may be so but there's got to be more to it than that.
The Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, states that half of American married women and nearly two-thirds of American married men will have an extramarital affair. That's an alarmingly high statistic. A University of California study twenty years ago reported that a quarter of men and less than one-eighth of women had had an affair. In only 10 years, those numbers have more than doubled. That's a fourfold increase! Alfred Kinsey's research into human sexuality stirred controversy in the 1940s and 50s. He pioneered controversial research into human sexual behaviour which grew into the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University. He also wrote two books, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (in 1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (in 1953). His work influenced societal and cultural values worldwide. He developed a scale measuring sexual orientation, now known as the Kinsey Scale, which ranges from 0 to 6, where 0 is exclusively heterosexual and 6 is exclusively homosexual. Prior to Kinsey's highly controversial data gathering methods, academic understanding of the human sexual act was until then, naively conservative. Kinsey's research blew the lid on what people got up to in the bedroom (and elsewhere of course). One must question the fourfold increase in affairs and ask if it is because people are having more of them or is it because we live in an emancipated world and admit to having had them? I suspect that it is a bit of both.
Another aspect to consider is the smudging of the definition of what constitutes cheating. In Kinsey's day, cheating involved physical contact with a person other than your committed partner. However, according to the BBC, just over a third of the Internet hosts explicit adult content. This might have once been pornographic pictures and movies but the Internet-porn industry now hosts live video streams, virtual sex chatrooms and the latest innovations, letting people interact with each other, using wearable Bluetooth remotely controlled stimulators and other sex toys. But it doesn't stop there, cybersex is not limited to porn websites and there is a growing trend for one-on-one sexting using one's PC and smartphone. I asked a young client, "If you're in some chat room masturbating, watching other people doing the same, are you really cheating?" "No," he said quickly, defended the practice and fobbing it off as inconsequential self-release. This is the first time in history that we can cheat on our partner while lying in bed next to them. Therefore, it is imperative that partners define the context and parameters of what constitutes cheating.
I don't think there's much point in delving deeply into the stats except that they might help you, if you've been cheated upon, to realise that, while it may be terrible, you are not alone. The flipside of giving these statistics is a narcissistic justification for cheating: If so many others are doing it, why shouldn't I? Eric Anderson, writing for the Washington Post in 2012 said that cheating and affairs are more common among the rich and less common in conservative cultures. They might be less frequent in conservative cultures but, from my experience, they are endemic amongst the impoverished in the townships here in South Africa. Anderson adds that the more money and celebrity men have, the more likely they are to cheat and poorer women are more likely to cheat than wealthy ones. One wonders if the latter is transactional sex to raise money or if these women, due to their impoverishment, are emotionally broken and therefore more prone to cheating. Still on the stats, the UK Independent said that it seems as if we aren't very good at choosing our lovers either because only 10% of affairs last up to a month and the rest last, at most, a year or two. Very few extramarital affairs last longer than three or four years, they say. We do know that a couple is more likely to stay married when they thoroughly discuss the whole situation. Peggy Vaughan found in her research that absolute honesty and openness in discussing the details of the affair significantly increased the likelihood of rebuilding and maintaining a relationship. In fact, 86% of those who openly and at length discussed the situation stayed committed to each other and together.
Here's a bit of trivia you can share with your mates at your next braai (oh, that's South African for a barbeque): Rafael Wlod-ar-ski and his team of researchers at Oxford University correlated the rate of infidelity and the length of a respondent's ring finger compared to their index finger. Their conclusion: the longer the ring finger when compared to the index finger, the higher the statistical chance is for cheating. This adds a whole new meaning to 'showing the middle finger!' On what basis however, do they make this claim? Well, it appears that the greater the amount of testosterone in the womb, the longer the foetus's middle finger will grow. Mm, does this then mean that men can at last, now blame their mothers for their need to cheat?
We live in a culture where around half of all marriages end in divorce. Infidelity is the reason for divorce in a third of these cases. Does this mean that as a society, we are no longer committed to monogamy? In Vietnam, as an example, adultery is endemic and it's worth noting that Vietnam is an especially repressed culture which highly values fidelity and virginity. This somehow backfires in a weird recursive loop in which wives, even when they know about their philandering husbands will keep tight-lipped and go on with their lives to preserve their families.
There are a couple of myths out there too. One of them is, "Your partner won't stray as long as you keep your sex life exciting." Monogamy though, does not necessarily offer one a lifetime of sexual contentment. Although society cherishes the idea of monogamy, the expectation of exclusive sexual activity is unsustainable for most couples. There is a growing trend in Canada, Australia and the USA towards polyamorous relationships — these are ones where a person has a few other committed partners. I spoke about this in depth in Soul Searching Episode 30, Polyamory — Committed Intimate Relationships with a Limited Number of other People.
The website divorcedwives.com lists the following eight reasons for cheating: (1) lack of attention and intimacy; (2) revenge for having been cheated upon; (3) bad sex; (4) heightened sexuality and sensuality after weight loss or plastic surgery; (5) financial independence leading to freer sexual expression; (6) compensating for low self-esteem; (7) feeling under-appreciated; and (8) to alleviate boredom. These eight reasons are common situations people find themselves in, which may lead to infidelity. Take low self-esteem as an example. It is an emotional situation (or state of mind) that, during those moments of desperation, may lead to an affair where one could find emotional support from another. These eight reasons are potential precursors to infidelity. By therapeutically resolving these problems, one makes cheating a less likely outcome. But there is more to it than that. All of us will experience some of these eight situations from time to time, yet many of us will resist the urge to go out and have a fling, why? To murder our aggressor is an opportunity we all have but sane people don't do that sort of thing. While the fantasy of murdering your aggressor might be forefront in your mind, there is another part of your thinking that controls and manages this impulse. Can you build impulse control and if so, how? There are two factors that overarch these eight infidelity reasons and describe the problem behind the problem. These two factors are: (1) the thrill of illicit sex; and (2) the lack of self-control.
Sexual motivation (libido) is a person's overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Biological, psychological, and social factors decide one's motivation levels. In most mammalian species, sex hormones control the ability to engage in sexual behaviour. However, sex hormones do not directly regulate the ability to copulate in primates (including humans); rather, they are only one influence on the motivation to engage in sexual activity. According to William Masters and Virginia Johnson, sex cycles consist of four phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. The intrinsic (inner) motivation to pursue sex arises during the excitement phase and resolution is the return to the unaroused state.
The hypothalamus is a small area at the base of your brain consisting of several groups of nerve-cell bodies that receive input from the emotional centres of your brain. Studies with laboratory animals show that destruction of certain parts of the hypothalamus causes complete elimination of sexual behaviour, leading to the belief that the hypothalamus plays a vital role in sexual arousal. The hypothalamus produces various hormones which the pituitary gland, another tiny brain structure lying near the hypothalamus, regulates and secretes. I cringe at the cruelty of vivisection but nature often has models which we can study to better understand ourselves. Voles offer just such an opportunity. They give us insight into why some of us may be more prone to having affairs and others, not. Voles are rodents and a relative of the mouse, only a bit stouter than a mouse. Prairie voles are one of the only truly monogamous mammals on earth, staying faithful to their partner for life. They are very different from their very promiscuous cousins, the mountain voles. Studies of these tiny, furry animals reveals that the one difference between the two voles is that the monogamous vole has more of the drug, vaso-press-in. The promiscuous female mountain vole had more hormone receptor inhibitors for the brain chemical oxytocin, the hormone responsible for pair bonding. Vasopressin and oxytocin affect pair bonding and the inhibition of oxytocin creates a resistance to pair bonding thus leading to more promiscuity. Interesting to note that human females when stressed have lower rates of oxytocin. Some scientists say that the high from dopamine (our feel-good drug) released by lying and hiding (the thrill of illicit sex) may also help explain why cheaters can become obsessive cheaters. So, there may well be a cellular basis for monogamy or polyamory but we don't have enough information yet to measure a person's propensity for infidelity by asking them to test their vasopressin and oxytocin levels.
Mira Kirshenbaum, a couples' counsellor, said to TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs that most cheaters say, "I never meant for this to happen," and they're being honest when they say that. Typically, they're in a committed relationship until the other person somehow floats into their world. Kirshenbaum says, the image that I have is like someone who has been wandering around with a couple of empty wine glasses who suddenly meets someone with a bottle of wine and they want a little. It starts very innocently. Very slowly they get to know each other. It's often an emotional affair to begin with until they happen to cross the line. Remorse sets in after they've crossed it but it also feels wonderful because it was a line they were hungry to cross. It's exciting yet terrifying and it keeps on going. People, in their initial encounters with an affair, become intoxicated by the feeling they get. It will however, never last. It can't. Being in two relationships is inherently unsustainable. It's like a house of cards. And the longer it keeps going, the more likely it is to come crashing down. Then the pressure mounts and the central structure becomes that of a three-way tug of war. The person who is cheating is just trying to keep everything stable, trying to keep it the same, not changing anything. The other two people, the lover and the spouse, put on the pressure. It will eventually blow up.
Can we mend our relationships after the discovery of an affair? Certainly so! The person cheated on has the talent for forgiveness and the cheater, the sincere feelings of being truly sorry. It's only egoistic revenge, spite, judgement, blame and denial that will prevent reconciliation. But, is honesty the best policy and therefore the best way to go?
Kirshenbaum has this to say: If you're going to be found out, then it's better for you to be the one to make the confession first — and I agree with her. I'm an advocate of truth and there's an entire show, Soul Searching Episode 15, I Swear to Tell the Truth, which focusses on the benefits of honesty.
Kirshenbaum has a slightly different take. She says that it took her a very long time to come around to a different way of thinking regarding the disclosure of an affair. She advocates that it isn't always prudent to disclose a once-off affair. It is a terrible thing for a person to inflict terrible pain on someone else and one can carry lots of guilt for having done so. This is the confession's consequence. It puts the other person in a permanent state of hurt, grief and loss of trust and an inability to feel safe, and it doesn't alleviate your guilt either. Your relationship is dealt a potentially devastating blow. Honesty is great, but it's an abstract moral principle. The higher moral principle, she says, is not to hurt people — and, once again, I agree with her. She adds, when you confess to having an affair, you are hurting someone more than you can ever imagine. Confessing your affair is the kind of honesty that is unnecessarily destructive.
So, is Kirshenbaum advocating deceit and conscienceless continuation? No, she's not. I like the way she resolves this dilemma of whether to confess or not: She says, if you care that much about honesty, figure out who you want to be with, commit to that relationship and devote the rest of your life to making it the most honest relationship you can have. There caveats, in the event that you put your spouse at risk because of unprotected sex and the risk of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, it's then, certainly here in South Africa, your legal obligation to tell your partner.
Kirshenbaum's advice is retrospective action but I prefer preventative action. The adage is, 'Prevention is better than cure.' I was recently listening to an audio book published by The Great Courses. Professor C. Nathan DeWall speaks of The Scientific Secrets for Self-Control. Researchers found that we have a flexible capacity to control our impulses. Earlier in this show I said that we all could murder our aggressor yet sane people don't do that sort of thing. Why not? Prof DeWall says that we have an executive override that rules against our more primitive response and calls it to a halt. Impulses are well-rehearsed shortcut responses to everyday challenges we face in life. Flight and fight is a sympathetic nervous system impulse of ours, designed to keep us safe. Shopping for your groceries is a series of shortcut impulses. Marketers have used incredible ingenuity to install shortcuts in your brain so that you will not only recognise their product but will choose it over other brands on the shelf. We recognise and buy products by the colour of their packaging, the brand font and package shape. DeWall says that every time we try to control an impulse, it reduces our self-control energy a little, like discharging a battery. We are, when we have a lot of self-control energy, able to control impulses better than we can when that energy is exhausted. He also says that you can learn to build impulse control energy, not only topping up the battery but also increasing its size too. It's useful to know that you can build control-stamina which you can later use to sidestep and affair. The longer you delay controlling your sexual-impulse, the more self-control energy you use and the weaker you get in being able to override it. The more you are sexually aroused, the more your impulse-control stamina weakens. It's so much easier nipping the affair in the bud by saying, "Thank you but I would prefer not going down this path with you because I'd like to preserve my relationship." It'd be so much easier to have this discussion long before you're in the hotel room busy getting undressed. Further imagine returning home and saying this to your partner, "Hey sweetheart, there was this person who really hit on me today at our conference and I nearly lost my balance but I said that I am in a committed relationship and the whole thing was averted."
One night in Bangkok, I can feel the Devil walking next to me — Murray Head.
Audio Insert
Listen to the podcast to hear it.
I should have known better — a song by English rock band the Beatles composed by John Lennon.
click image to order
Share this podcast with your friends using the hashtag #soulsearching…
Order your copy of It Is What It Is, Grace through Acceptance by Thomas W E Budge.
This podcast was produced for GaySA Radio and first broadcast in 2016/2017 when the series won the station's coveted Show of the Year award.
Has this podcast inspired you? Express your gratitude by sponsoring our coffee.
Shucks! This website needs muscle so please enable JavaScript to enjoy all our fancy features and functions.


text:
Výškovice jsou historická obec ležící na území Ostravy. V současné době tvoří místní část městského obvodu Ostrava-Jih a skládají se ze dvou částí – z původních Starých Výškovic a ze sídliště Nové Výškovice, které bylo vybudováno v 70. letech 20. století. Výškovice sousedí s lesoparkem Bělský les.

Název
Jméno vesnice bylo odvozeno od osobního jména Vyšek (domácké podoby některého jména začínajícího na Vyš-, např. Vyšehor, Vyšeslav). Původní tvar Vyškovici byl pojmenováním obyvatel vsi a znamenal "Vyškovi lidé". Roku 1924 byla stanovena úřední podoba Výškovice.

Pečeť
Od 18. století měla obec v pečeti ohnutou ruku držící rovnoramenné pákové váhy.

Historie
První písemná zmínka pochází z roku 1408 (Wiskowicze). V listině se praví, že Hanuš z Bělé přijal biskupské léno na Starou Bělou a Výškovice. Výškovice byly součástí starobělského léna až do roku 1558, kdy přešly pod Zábřeh. Od roku 1652 přešlo zábřežské léno, a s ním i Výškovice, do majetku olomoucké kapituly, která je připojila k Petřvaldu. Součástí petřvaldského panství byly Výškovice až do roku 1848.

Obyvatelé se živili převážně zemědělstvím, výjimkami byly někteří živnosti (např. kovář). Ačkoliv industrializace zasáhla celé území Ostravy, na převážně zemědělském charakteru obce se nijak zvlášť neprojevila. Výškovice tak spolu s Antošovicemi, Martinovem, Pustkovcem a Proskovicemi byly jediné obce, které prakticky neovlivnila imigrační vlna z přelomu 19. a 20. století.

Od svého založení spadala obec pod farnost ve Staré Bělé. Výjimkou bylo krátké období v letech 1624–1630, kdy duchovní správu vykonávala farnost ve Staré Vsi nad Ondřejnicí. Až do roku 1873 chodily výškovické děti do starobělské školy. Poté již získaly školy vlastní.

K Moravské Ostravě byly Výškovice připojeny 1. července 1941. Samostatnost získaly 16. května 1954. Opětovné připojení k Ostravě proběhlo 1. ledna 1966.

Odkazy

Reference

Související články
 Slepé rameno Odry (Výškovice)
 Výškovický bludný balvan

Externí odkazy

Sídla v Moravské bráně
Sídla na Odře

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Davido set to shut down London's O2 Arena, the Busiest Concert Venue in the World!
Davido is set to shut down the 20,000 capacity world's busiest concert venue, O2 Arena in London just like Wizkid.
It would be recalled that just after Wizkid sold out O2 Arena with his "Afro Republik" concert less than 2 months ago, Davido expressed his desire to do the same thing.
The DMW boss has announced 27th January 2019 as his concert date at O2 Arena.
Do you think Davido is going to sell out O2 Arena like Wizkid?