The Portuguese Renaissance produced a plethora of poets, historians, critics, theologians, and moralists, for whom the Portuguese Renaissance was their golden age. The Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende (printed 1516) is taken to mark the transition from Old Portuguese to the modern Portuguese language.
John I of Portugal acceded in 1390 and ruled in peace, pursuing the economic development of his realm. The only significant military action was the siege and conquest of the city of Ceuta in 1415. By this step he aimed to control navigation of the African coast. But in the broader perspective, this was the first step opening the Arab world to medieval Europe, which in fact led to the Age of Discovery with Portuguese explorers sailing across the whole world.
Contemporaneous writers describe John as a man of wit, very keen on concentrating power on himself, but at the same time with a benevolent and kind personality. His love for knowledge and culture was passed to his sons, often collectively referred to by Portuguese historians as the "illustrious generation" (Ínclita Geração): Edward, the future king, was a poet and a writer; Peter, the Duke of Coimbra, was one of the most learned princes of his time; and Prince Henry the Navigator, the duke of Viseu, invested heavily in science and the development of nautical pursuits. In 1430, John's only surviving daughter, Isabella, married Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and enjoyed an extremely refined court culture in his lands; she was the mother of Charles the Bold.
Under king Edward, the colony at Ceuta rapidly became a drain on the Portuguese treasury, and it was realised that without the city of Tangier, possession of Ceuta was worthless. In 1437, Duarte's brothers Henry and Ferdinand persuaded him to launch an attack on the Marinid sultanate of Morocco. The expedition was not unanimously supported: Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra, and the Infante John were both against the initiative; they preferred to avoid conflict with the king of Morocco. Their instincts proved to be justified. The resulting attack on Tangier, led by Henry, was a debacle. Failing to take the city in a series of assaults, the Portuguese siege camp was soon itself surrounded and starved into submission by a Moroccan relief army. In the resulting treaty, Henry promised to deliver Ceuta back to the Marinids in return for allowing the Portuguese army to depart unmolested. Duarte's youngest brother, Ferdinand, was handed over to the Marinids as a hostage for the final handover of the city.
Meanwhile, colonization progressed in the Azores and Madeira, where sugar and wine were now produced; above all, the gold brought home from Guinea stimulated the commercial energy of the Portuguese. It had become clear that, apart from their religious and scientific aspects, these voyages of discovery were highly profitable. Under Afonso V (1443–1481), surnamed the African, the Gulf of Guinea was explored as far as Cape St Catherine (Cabo Santa Catarina),   and three expeditions (1458, 1461 and 1471) were sent to Morocco; in 1471 Arzila and Tangier were captured from the Moors. Under John II (1481–1495) the fortress of São Jorge da Mina, the modern Elmina, was founded for the protection of the Guinea trade. Diogo Cão, discovered the Congo in 1482 and reached Cape Cross in 1486; Bartolomeu Dias doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, thus proving that the Indian Ocean was accessible by sea.
After 1492 the discovery of the West Indies by Christopher Columbus rendered desirable a delimitation of the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of exploration. This was accomplished by the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494), which modified the delimitation authorized by Pope Alexander VI in two bulls issued on May 4, 1493. The treaty gave to Portugal all lands that might be discovered east of a straight line drawn from the Arctic Pole to the Antarctic, at a distance of 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. Spain received the lands discovered west of this line. The known means of measuring longitude were so inexact, however, that the line of demarcation could not in practice be determined (see J. de Andrade Corvo in Journal das Ciências Matemáticas, xxxi.147–176, Lisbon, 1881), so the treaty was subject to very diverse interpretations. On its provisions were based both the Portuguese claim to Brazil and the Spanish claim to the Moluccas (see East Indies#History). The treaty was chiefly valuable to the Portuguese as a recognition of the prestige they had acquired. That prestige was enormously enhanced when, in 1497–1499, Vasco da Gama completed the voyage to India.
The tendency to secrecy and falsification of dates casts doubts about the authenticity of many primary sources. Several historians have hypothesized that John II may have known of the existence of Brazil and North America as early as 1480, thus explaining his wish in 1494 at the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas to push the line of influence further west. Many historians suspect that the real documents would have been placed in the Library of Lisbon. Unfortunately, due to the fire following the earthquake of 1755, nearly all of the library's records were destroyed, but an extra copy available in Goa was transferred to Lisbon Tower of Tombo during the following 100 years. The Corpo Cronológico (Chronological Corpus), a collection of manuscripts on the Portuguese explorations and discoveries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007 in recognition of its historical value "for acquiring knowledge of the political, diplomatic, military, economic and religious history of numerous countries at the time of the Portuguese Discoveries."
While the Crown was thus acquiring new possessions, its authority in Portugal was temporarily overshadowed by the growth of aristocratic privilege. After the death of Edward, further attempts to curb the power of the nobles were made by his brother, D. Pedro, duke of Coimbra, who acted as regent during the minority of Afonso V of Portugal (1438–1447). The head of the aristocratic opposition was the Duke of Braganza, who contrived to secure the sympathy of the king and the dismissal of the regent. The quarrel led to civil war, and on 20 May 1449, D. Pedro was defeated and killed at the Battle of Alfarrobeira. Thenceforward the grants made by John I were renewed and extended on so lavish a scale that the Braganza estates alone comprised about a third of the whole kingdom.
An unwise foreign policy simultaneously injured the royal prestige, for Afonso married his own niece, Joanna, daughter of Henry IV of Castile, and claimed the kingdom of Castile in her name. At the Battle of Toro, in 1476, he fought an indecisive battle that made him realize that his claims to the Castilian throne were not achievable. However, Portugal defeated Castile in the naval war (1475–79) of the same conflict (War of the Castilian Succession), capturing a large Castilian fleet -full of gold- in the Battle of Guinea (1478).
In 1479 Ferdinand and Isabella and Alfonso signed the Treaty of Alcáçovas, by which Joanna was relegated to a convent and Portugal won the hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean.
His successor, John II (1481–1495), reverted to the policy of matrimonial alliances with Castile and friendship with England. Finding, as he said, that the liberality of former kings had left the Crown "no estates except the high roads of Portugal," he determined to crush the feudal nobility and seize its territories. The Portuguese Cortes held at Évora (1481) empowered judges nominated by the Crown to administer justice in all feudal domains. The nobles resisted this infringement of their rights, but their leader, Fernando II, Duke of Braganza, was beheaded for high treason in 1483; in 1484 the king stabbed to death his own brother-in-law, Diogo, Duke of Viseu; and eighty other members of the aristocracy were executed afterwards. Thus John "the Perfect," as he was called, assured the supremacy of the Crown. He was succeeded in 1495 by Manuel I, who was named "the Great" or "the Fortunate," because in his reign the sea route to India was discovered and a Portuguese Empire founded.
John II (r. 1481–1495) famously restored the policies of Atlantic exploration, reviving the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government, pushing south the known coast of Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India and breaking into the spice trade. Manuel I (r. 1495–1521) proved a worthy successor to his cousin John II, supporting Portuguese exploration of the Atlantic Ocean and the development of Portuguese commerce.
Under John III (r. 1521–1557), Portuguese possessions were extended in Asia and in the New World through the Portuguese colonization of Brazil. John III's policy of reinforcing Portugal's bases in India (such as Goa) secured Portugal's monopoly over the spice trade of cloves and nutmeg from the Maluku Islands. As a result, John III has been called the "Grocer King". On the eve of his death in 1557, the Portuguese empire spanned almost 1 billion acres (about 4 million square kilometers). During his reign, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to make contact with both China, under the Ming Dynasty, and Japan, during the Muromachi period (see Nanban trade). John III abandoned Muslim territories in North Africa in favor of trade with India and investment in Brazil. In Europe, he improved relations with the Baltic region and the Rhineland, hoping that this would bolster Portuguese trade.
Sebastian of Portugal was the penultimate Portuguese monarch of the House of Aviz. He was the son of John Manuel, Prince of Portugal, and his wife, Joanna of Austria. Sebastian succeeded to the throne at the age of three, on the death of King John III, his paternal grandfather. Soon after his birth, his mother Joanna of Spain left her infant son to serve as Regent of Spain for her father, Emperor Charles V. After his abdication in 1556, she served in the same capacity for her brother Philip II of Spain. Joanna remained in Spain until her death in 1573, never to see her son again. Since Sebastian was still a child, the regency was handled first by his paternal grandmother, Catherine of Austria, and then by his great-uncle, Cardinal Henry of Évora. During this period Portugal continued colonial expansion in Angola, Mozambique, and Malacca, as well as the annexation of Macau in 1557.
D. Sebastião I. R. de Portugal XVI.
During Sebastian's short personal reign, he strengthened ties with the Holy Roman Empire, England and France through diplomatic efforts. He also restructured much of the administrative, judicial and military life in his kingdom. In 1568, Sebastian created scholarships to provide financial assistance to students who wished to study medicine or pharmacy at the University of Coimbra. In 1569, Sebastian ordered Duarte Nunes de Leão to compile all the laws and legal documents of the kingdom in a collection of Leis Extravagantes known as Código Sebastiânico (Sebastian's code).
During the great plague of Lisbon in 1569, Sebastian sent for doctors from Seville to help the Portuguese doctors fight the plague. He created two hospitals in Lisbon to take care of the afflicted. In his concern for the widows and orphans of those killed by the plague, he created several Recolhimentos (shelters), known as the Recolhimento de Santa Marta (shelter of Santa Marta) and the Recolhimento dos Meninos (shelter of the children), and provided wet nurses to take care of the babies.
Sebastian created laws for the military, the Lei das Armas, that would become a military organization model. In 1570 Goa was attacked by the Indian army, but the Portuguese were successful in repulsing the assault. Also in 1570, Sebastian ordered that Brazilian Indians should not be used as slaves and ordered the release of those held in captivity.
The Celeiros Comuns (Communal Granaries) were inaugurated in 1576 on Sebastian's orders. These were lending institutions intended to help to poor farmers when farm production decreased, giving credit, lending seeds and commodities to the needy, and allowing them to pay back with farm products when they recovered from losses.
In 1577 Sebastian's ordinance Da nova ordem do juízo, sobre o abreviar das demandas, e execução dellas decreased the time for handling legal actions, regulated the action of lawyers, scribes and other court officials, and created fines for delays.
Sebastian disappeared (and was presumably killed in action) in the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, after the brief reign of King Henry triggering the Portuguese succession crisis.
The unification of the peninsula had long been a goal of the region's monarchs with the intent of restoring the Visigothic monarchy.
The history of Portugal from the dynastic crisis in 1578 to the first Braganza Dynasty monarchs was a period of transition. The Portuguese Empire's spice trade was peaking at the start of this period. It continued to enjoy widespread influence after Vasco da Gama had finally reached the East by sailing around Africa in 1497–98.
Portugal's long shoreline, with its many harbours and rivers flowing westward to the Atlantic ocean was the ideal environment to raise generations of adventurous seamen. As a seafaring people in the south-westernmost region of Europe, the Portuguese became natural leaders of exploration during the Middle Ages. Faced with the options of either accessing other European markets by sea (by exploiting its seafaring prowess) or by land (and facing the task of crossing Castile and Aragon territory) it is not surprising that goods were sent via the sea to England, Flanders, Italy and the Hanseatic league towns.
Having fought to achieve and to retain independence, the nation's leadership had also a desire for fresh conquests. Added to this was a long struggle to expel the Moors that was religiously sanctioned and influenced by foreign crusaders with a desire for martial fame. Making war on Islam seemed to the Portuguese both their natural destiny and their duty as Christians.
One important reason was the need to overcome the expensive eastern trade routes, dominated first by the republics of Venice and Genoa in the Mediterranean, and then controlled by the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, barring European access, and going through North Africa and the historically important combined-land-sea routes via the Red Sea. Both spice and silk were big businesses of the day, and arguably, spices which were used as medicine, drugs and preservatives was something of a necessity—at least to those Europeans of better than modest means.
The Portuguese economy had benefited from its connections with neighbouring Muslim states. A money economy was well enough established for 15th century workers in the countryside as well as in the towns to be paid in currency. The agriculture of the countryside had diversified to the point where grain was imported from Morocco (a symptom of an economy dependent upon Portugal's), while specialised crops occupied former grain-growing areas: vineyards, olives, or the sugar factories of the Algarve, later to be reproduced in Brazil (Braudel 1985). Most of all, the Aviz dynasty that had come to power in 1385 marked the semi-eclipse of the conservative land-oriented aristocracy (See The Consolidation of the Monarchy in Portugal.) A constant exchange of cultural ideals made Portugal a centre of knowledge and technological development. Due to these connections with Islamic kingdoms, many mathematicians and experts in naval technology appeared in Portugal. The Portuguese government impelled this even further by taking full advantage of this and by creating several important research centres in Portugal, where Portuguese and foreign experts made several breakthroughs in the fields of mathematics, cartography and naval technology. Sagres and Lagos in the Algarve become famous as such places.
The successive expeditions and experience of the pilots led to a fairly rapid evolution of Portuguese nautical science, creating an elite of astronomers, navigators, mathematicians and cartographers, among them stood Pedro Nunes with studies on how to determine the latitudes by the stars and João de Castro.
Until the 15th century, the Portuguese were limited to coastal cabotage navigation using barques and barinels (ancient cargo vessels used in the Mediterranean). These boats were small and fragile, with only one mast with a fixed quadrangular sail and did not have the capabilities to overcome the navigational difficulties associated with Southward oceanic exploration, as the strong winds, shoals and strong ocean currents easily overwhelmed their abilities. They are associated with the earliest discoveries, such as the Madeira Islands, the Azores, the Canaries, and to the early exploration of the north west African coast as far south as Arguim in the current Mauritania.
The ship that truly launched the first phase of the Portuguese discoveries along the African coast was the caravel, a development based on existing fishing boats. They were agile and easier to navigate, with a tonnage of 50 to 160 tons and 1 to 3 masts, with lateen triangular sails allowing luffing. The caravel benefited from a greater capacity to tack. The limited capacity for cargo and crew were their main drawbacks, but did not hinder its success. Limited crew and cargo space was acceptable, initially, because as exploratory ships, their "cargo" was what was in the explorer's feedback of a new territory, which only took up the space of one person. Among the famous caravels are Berrio and Caravela Annunciation.
With the start of long oceanic sailing also large ships developed. "Nau" was the Portuguese archaic synonym for any large ship, primarily merchant ships. Due to the piracy that plagued the coasts, they began to be used in the navy and were provided with cannon windows, which led to the classification of "naus" according to the power of its artillery. They were also adapted to the increasing maritime trade: from 200 tons capacity in the 15th century to 500, they become impressive in the 16th century, having usually two decks, stern castles fore and aft, two to four masts with overlapping sails. In India travels in the sixteenth century there were also used carracks, large merchant ships with a high edge and three masts with square sails, that reached 2000 tons.
In the thirteenth century celestial navigation was already known, guided by the sun position. For celestial navigation the Portuguese, like other Europeans, used Arab navigation tools, like the astrolabe and quadrant, which they made easier and simpler. They also created the cross-staff, or cane of Jacob, for measuring at sea the height of the sun and other stars. The Southern Cross become a reference upon arrival at the Southern hemisphere by João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar in 1471, starting the celestial navigation on this constellation. But the results varied throughout the year, which required corrections.
To this the Portuguese used the astronomical tables (Ephemeris), precious tools for oceanic navigation, which have experienced a remarkable diffusion in the fifteenth century. These tables revolutionized navigation, allowing to calculate latitude. The tables of the Almanach Perpetuum, by astronomer Abraham Zacuto, published in Leiria in 1496, were used along with its improved astrolabe, by Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral.
Besides coastal exploration, Portuguese also made trips off in the ocean to gather meteorological and oceanographic information (in these were discovered the archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores, and Sargasso Sea). The knowledge of wind patterns and currents, the trade winds and the oceanic gyres in the Atlantic, and the determination of latitude led to the discovery of the best ocean route back from Africa: crossing the Central Atlantic to the latitude of the Azores, using the permanent favorable winds and currents that spin clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere because of atmospheric circulation and the effect of Coriolis, facilitating the way to Lisbon and thus enabling the Portuguese venturing increasingly farther from shore, the maneuver that became known as the "volta do mar" (English: return of the sea).
It is thought that Jehuda Cresques, son of the Catalan cartographer Abraham Cresques have been one of the notable cartographers at the service of Prince Henry. However the oldest signed Portuguese sea chart is a Portolan made by Pedro Reinel in 1485 representing the Western Europe and parts of Africa, reflecting the explorations made by Diogo Cão. Reinel was also author of the first nautical chart known with an indication of latitudes in 1504 and the first representation of a Wind rose.
With his son, cartographer Jorge Reinel and Lopo Homem, they participated in the making of the atlas known as "Lopo Homem-Reinés Atlas" or "Miller Atlas", in 1519. They were considered the best cartographers of their time, with Emperor Charles V wanting them to work for him. In 1517 King Manuel I of Portugal handed Lopo Homem a charter giving him the privilege to certify and amend all compass needles in vessels.
In the third phase of the former Portuguese nautical cartography, characterized by the abandonment of the influence of Ptolemy's representation of the East and more accuracy in the representation of lands and continents, stands out Fernão Vaz Dourado (Goa ~ 1520 – ~ 1580), whose work has extraordinary quality and beauty, giving him a reputation as one of the best cartographers of the time. Many of his charts are large scale.
It was the genius of Prince Henry the Navigator that coordinated and utilized all these tendencies towards expansion. Prince Henry placed at the disposal of his captains the vast resources of the Order of Christ, of which he was the head, and the best information and most accurate instruments and maps that could be obtained. He sought to effect a meeting with the half-fabulous Christian Empire of "Prester John" by way of the "Western Nile" (the Sénégal River), and, in alliance with that potentate, to crush the Turks and liberate the Holy Land. The concept of an ocean route to India appears to have originated after his death. On land he again defeated the Moors, who attempted to retake Ceuta in 1418; but in an expedition to Tangier, undertaken in 1437 by King Edward (1433–1438), the Portuguese army was defeated, and could only escape destruction by surrendering as a hostage Prince Ferdinand, the king's youngest brother. Ferdinand, known as "the Constant", from the fortitude with which he endured captivity, died unransomed in 1443. By sea Prince Henry's captains continued their exploration of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1433 Cape Bojador was rounded; in 1434 the first consignment of slaves was brought to Lisbon; and slave trading soon became the most profitable branch of Portuguese commerce, until India was reached. The Senegal was reached in 1445, Cape Verde was passed in the same year, and in 1446 Álvaro Fernandes pushed on almost as far as Sierra Leone. This was probably the farthest point reached before the Navigator died in 1460. Another vector of the discoveries were the voyages westward, during which the Portuguese discovered the Sargasso Sea and possibly sighted the shores of Nova Scotia well before 1492.
The effort to colonize and maintain territories scattered around the entire coast of Africa and its surrounding islands, Brazil, India and Indic territories such as in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Japan, China, Indonesia and Timor was a challenge for a population of only one million. Combined with constant competition from the Spanish this led to a desire for secrecy about every trade route and every colony. As a consequence, many documents that could reach other European countries were in fact fake documents with fake dates and faked facts, to mislead any other nation's possible efforts.
1147 — Voyage of the Adventurers. Soon before the siege of Lisbon by the crusaders, a Muslim expedition left in search of legendary Islands offshore. They were not heard of again.
1336 — Possible first expedition to the Canary Islands with additional expeditions in 1340 and 1341, though this is disputed.
1412 — Prince Henry, the Navigator, orders the first expeditions to the African Coast and Canary Islands.
1419 — João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira discovered Porto Santo island, in the Madeira group.
1420 — The same sailors and Bartolomeu Perestrelo discovered the island of Madeira, which at once began to be colonized.
1422 — Cape Nao, the limit of Moorish navigation is passed as the African Coast is mapped.
1427 — Diogo de Silves discovered the Azores, which was colonized in 1431 by Gonçalo Velho Cabral.
1434 — Gil Eanes sailed round Cape Bojador, thus destroying the legends of the 'Dark Sea'.
1434 — the 32 point compass-card replaces the 12 points used until then.
1435 — Gil Eanes and Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia discovered Garnet Bay (Angra dos Ruivos) and the latter reached the Gold River (Rio de Ouro).
1441 — Nuno Tristão reached Cape White.
1443 — Nuno Tristão penetrated the Arguim Gulf. Prince Pedro granted Henry the Navigator the monopoly of navigation, war and trade in the lands south of Cape Bojador.
1444 — Dinis Dias reached Cape Green (Cabo Verde).
1452 — Diogo de Teive discovers the Islands of Flores and Corvo.
1458 — Alvise Cadamosto discovers the first Cape Verde Islands.
1460 — Death of Prince Henry, the Navigator. His systematic mapping of the Atlantic reached 8° N on the African Coast and 40° W in the Atlantic (Sargasso Sea) in his lifetime.
1461 — Diogo Gomes and António Noli discovered more of the Cape Verde Islands.
1461 — Diogo Afonso discovered the western islands of the Cape Verde group.
1471 — João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar crossed the Equator. The southern hemisphere was discovered and the sailors began to be guided by a new constellation, the Southern Cross. The discovery of the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe is also attributed to these same sailors.
1472 — João Vaz Corte-Real and Álvaro Martins Homem reached the Land of Cod, now called Newfoundland.
1479 — Treaty of Alcáçovas establishes Portuguese control of the Azores, Guinea, ElMina, Madeira and Cape Verde Islands and Castilian control of the Canary Islands.
1482 — Diogo Cão reached the estuary of the Zaire (Congo) and placed a landmark there. Explored 150 km upriver to the Yellala Falls.
1484 — Diogo Cão reached Walvis Bay, south of Namibia.
1488 — Bartolomeu Dias, crowning 50 years of effort and methodical expeditions, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean. They had found the "Flat Mountain" of Ptolemy's Geography.
1490 — Columbus leaves for Spain after his father-in-law's death.
1492 — First exploration of the Indian Ocean.
1494 — The Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain divided the world into two parts, Spain claiming all non-Christian lands west of a north-south line 370 leagues west of the Azores, Portugal claiming all non-Christian lands east of that line.
1494 — First boats fitted with cannon doors and topsails.
1498 — Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut.
1498 — Duarte Pacheco Pereira explores the South Atlantic and the South American Coast North of the Amazon River.
1500 — Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on his way to India.
1500 — Gaspar Corte-Real made his first voyage to Newfoundland, formerly known as Terras Corte-Real.
1502 — Returning from India, Vasco da Gama discovers the Amirante Islands (Seychelles).
1502 — Miguel Corte-Real set out for New England in search of his brother, Gaspar. João da Nova discovered Ascension Island. Fernão de Noronha discovered the island which still bears his name.
1503 — On his return from the East, Estêvão da Gama discovered Saint Helena Island.
1505 — Lourenço de Almeida made the first Portuguese voyage to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and established a settlement there.
1506 — Tristão da Cunha discovered the island that bears his name. Portuguese sailors become the first Europeans to reach Madagascar.
1509 — The Bay of Bengal crossed by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. On the crossing he also reached Malacca.
1511 — Duarte Fernandes is the first European to visit the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand), sent by Afonso de Albuquerque after the conquest of Malaca.
1512 — António de Abreu discovered Timor island and reached Banda Islands, Ambon Island and Seram. Francisco Serrão reached the Moluccas.
1512 — Pedro Mascarenhas discovered the island of Diego Garcia, he also encountered the Mauritius, although he may not have been the first to do so; expeditions by Diogo Dias and Afonso de Albuquerque in 1507 may have encountered the islands. In 1528 Diogo Rodrigues named the islands of Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodrigues the Mascarene Islands, after Mascarenhas.
1512 — João de Lisboa and Estevão Frois reached the La Plata estuary or even perhaps the Gulf of San Matias in 42°S in modern Argentina between 1511 and 1514 (1512) according to the manuscript Newen Zeytung auss Pressilandt in the Fugger archives of the time. Christopher de Haro, the financier of the expedition, bears witness to the trip to La Plata (Rio da Prata) and the news of the "White King" to the interior and west, the Inca emperor – and the axe of silver obtained from the natives and offered to the king Manuel I.
1513 — The first trading ship to touch the coasts of China, under Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello later in the same year.
1517 — Fernão Pires de Andrade and Tomé Pires were chosen by Manuel I of Portugal to sail to China to formally open relations between the Portuguese Empire and the Ming Dynasty during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor.
1525 — Aleixo Garcia explored the Rio de la Plata in service to Spain, as a member of the expedition of Juan Díaz de Solís, and later – from Santa Catarina, Brazil – leading an expedition of some Europeans and 2,000 Guaraní Indians, explored Paraguay and Bolivia. Aleixo Garcia was the first European to cross the Chaco and even managed to penetrate the outer defenses of the Inca Empire on the hills of the Andes (near Sucre), in present-day Bolivia. He was the first European to do so, accomplishing this eight years before Francisco Pizarro.
1529 — Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas.
1542 — The coast of California explored by João Rodrigues Cabrilho.
1543 — António Mota, Francisco Zeimoto, and possibly Fernão Mendes Pinto became the first Europeans to reach Japan.
1557 — Macau given to Portugal by the Emperor of China as a reward for services rendered against the pirates who infested the China Sea.
^ B. W. Diffie, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415 -1580, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, p. 28.
^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Almeida" . The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.
^ José Nicolau da Fonseca, Historical and Archaeological Sketch of the City of Goa, Bombay : Thacker, 1878, pp. 47–48. Reprinted 1986, Asian Educational Services, ISBN 81-206-0207-2.


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text:
Etsy is an online marketplace that connects people across the globe to buy and sell handmade and vintage goods.
Founded in 2005 in Brooklyn, Etsy has grown rapidly.
As a result, Etsy has need to scale its infrastructure to serve its growing user-base as well as its developers.

In this talk, Bethany Macri, Core Platform Engineer at Etsy, will discuss three software projects that demonstrate how Etsy changed its infrastructure to scale and maintain high availability:

a four-year data migration project

writing a new API that allowed clients to fetch data concurrently, and

scaling datasets infrastructure.

This talk will propose a model for scaling as well as discussing possible ways Etsy will continue to scale as it grows.

The speaker is on the Core Platform team which is an Infrastructure team.

36 Million Items for sale

22 Million active buyers

Transacts nearly every country in the world

9 offices in 7 countries

800 employees. 51% women

Certified B corporation

Etsy Engineering culture: Code as craft:

More senior engineers take junior engneers under heir wing  - apprenticeship model

Practical ways practicing the craft:

Continous Integration – push to the site 35 times daily. (a push is not a release).

Measure everything - metrics driven organization.

Blameless most mortems.

Scalability

<q>Scalability: It's the ability of a program or a system to continue to function as its input grows in size and/or quantity.</q>

Scalability on Wikipedia

Growth in terms of

Number of users (increased traffic and data to store, more shops, more images)

Size of code base

Number of engineers (over 200 now)

Number and complexity of features.

Sharding

API v3

Big Data Access pattern

Technical stack

PostgreSQL

PHP

LAMP stack

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Sean Hannity's America
Why they didn't do this when he was in office I'll never know. But this is pretty good:
Steve in Manhattan
5:30 pm • Wednesday • September 2, 2009
Forget It, Levi, It's Wasillatown Waving The Bloody Sock
Marcel Parcells
Cheney's never wrong! Back then, he was just constrained from telling us everything by imaginary national security concerns. Now, he can tell us the real deal (torture=the best) because there are socialists in the whitehouse.
IanJ
Pff. Too little, too late, dems. You guys really think tossing out this useless, mouldy old bone helps anything now? We all know he's a dick. Tell us something we need to know, like, "Healthcare is going to be fucked until we man up and realize that we are all living longer, and we have to pay for that somehow. Tax hikes for everyone!"
@IanJ: Well, let's see what Mitch at BOHQ sent today…
Opponents of health insurance reform have power. Some reap huge profits from the status quo. Others take large campaign contributions from those who profit.
So they'll do anything to keep the current system in place. When fact-based arguments don't work, they attack President Obama with outlandish lies about a government takeover and euthanizing the elderly. And once that doesn't work, they'll go even further.
They got "lies" into the second graf, which is an improvement. But it's still too NPR-ish for my taste. No $25 from me until I see bared teeth.
Oh, and I guess it should be mentioned that Barry has scheduled a joint-session healthcare speech next Wednesday night. Maybe he'll pull this one out of the hat yet, instead of out his arse.
@nojo: I also want to see health insurance companies put in their place. They've been money-grubbing bastards for far too long. I don't normally think of myself as a "trash it all and start over" person on big things like this, but it kind of looks like the right choice. Nuke the healthcare insurers from orbit once you've got a national single-payer system in place. We need them just long enough for the transition, no longer.
@IanJ: Nuke the healthcare insurers from orbit once you've got a national single-payer system in place.
That's apparently the endgame, as seen by friend and foe alike. The public option is just a foot in the door for a better system later.
Which is why, even though it's not single-payer Medicare for All, progressives are drawing a line in the sand in front of it. If you can get the precedent established, the rest may be less difficult.
(Of course, given the inevitable histrionic opposition, the proposal for a staged expansion of Medicare coverage may have been easier to pitch instead of a "public option" that nobody understands. But this is where we're at.)
The Onion nails it again. My favorite bit:
"I can't tell you the number of patients I've had to deliver the bad news to over the years," said Haige's longtime family physician, Dr. Howard Silverman. "It's never easy to look someone in the eye and tell them it's going to have to be out-of-pocket. For most of these poor people, prayer is the only hope."
@Mistress Cynica: And…
According to sources, the 46-year-old was laid to rest at Fairplains cemetery, surrounded by friends, family members, and more than $300,000 of mounting debt.
I guess our best hope is to pray that all those town hall yokels get diagnosed with a preexisting condition.
There's going to be a love-in against the anti-Obama "preacher" this week.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/tempe/articles/2009/09/02/20090902tr-preach0904.html
@Jamie Sommers: Which reminds me I have to do a survey about Andersen.
Tommmcatt Floats
/TJ
and speaking of chupacabras…
@Jamie Sommers: Fun!
Goldfinger 2009
007: You expect me to pay $10,000 a year for basic family medical??
Cigna CEO: No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.
@Original Andrew: No. There's no such thing at that price – without taking on unlimited liability.
The Nabisco Quiver
@IanJ: I agree. What's the point of going against the CheneyBot, unless it is to distract attention from the town halls threatened to continue into September.
@nojo: Second speech to both houses of congress in seven months? Bush and Clinton each did a total of two in eight years. Yes we are in several crises right now, but if he doesn't bring his A game along with some serious performance enhancers, the bully pulpit is going to far less effective down the road.
@Tommmcatt Floats: Oh and, totalmente awesome!
@The Nabisco Quiver:
It's a greyhound, but still.
10:34 pm • Wednesday • September 2, 2009
@Tommmcatt Floats: Oh, but as the taxi-dermist says "I prefer to call it chupacabra"!
@The Nabisco Quiver: If you think about it, it is the only way to present a complete argument on a complicated issue directly to the public, instead of it getting sound-bited into incomprehensibility.
The fact that he appears rational, sane, and intelligent, at all times, and speaks in complete sentences, and doesn't drool, cry, or rage, has value, just to see someone who has an air of "not crazy and stupid" about him will have a positive impact, I think.
@The Nabisco Quiver: The difficult thing here is writing a speach which does not have one single phrase in it which, taken out of context, exxagerated, and repeated ad absurdeum, will not give the liars another hook to start screaching about.
You know how if you take just about any word at all, and just repeat it to yourself enough, it comes to seem foreign and strange? Cliff, cliff, cliff, what a strange word, why do we call a steep precipice a cliff, thats an absurd word, cliff. Thats what the GOP does, they isolate any one simple and sensible phrase that a dem says, and just repeat it over and over, drawing out ridiculous illogical supposed meanings and implications, until the most harmless and sensible thing comes to seem evil. "Compassion," there's an evil genius to being able to make the word "compassion" become sinister and evil, as happened with Sotomayor, the evil woman who was going to bring the evil socialist value of "compassion" to the Supreme Court, and thus make the founding fathers cry.
@Tommmcatt Floats: I'm trying to convince Mr. SFL that we can adopt a greyhound rescue. Just need to find an old lazy one that doesn't have separation anxiety and doesn't mind chilling on the sofa for 10 hours a day.
My secretary told me today I'm working too many hours and I need to get a dog or a kid so I stop coming in so early and staying so late. Ergo, a greyhound.
@SanFranLefty: I'd love to have a greyhound. So sweet. They do get cold, though, so in SF you might be forced to invest in doggie coats.
@Promnight: sound-bited.
I'm thinking "sound-bitten". What say you, SFL?
@SanFranLefty: Ex gf of mine had a greyhound … if they're 2 yrs old, they l0st … if they're 4, they've won, but no matter. They are sweet dogs. Go for it.
8:24 am • Thursday • September 3, 2009
@Mistress Cynica: I vote for sound-bitten.
10:06 am • Thursday • September 3, 2009
@blogenfreude: @Mistress Cynica: Another vote for the greyhound rescue. My brother has had a couple, great dogs. Sure they need their exercise, but they are also very accomplished layabouts, and sweet. Although there has always been something too angular about them that turns me off personally.
I had never heard the cold bothered them, Cyn. Northeast winters here, and none of the bro's dogs ever had to put on a costume sweater far as I know.
flippin eck
@SanFranLefty: Most people are surprised to learn that greyhounds are actually low-energy dogs. I have two friends with rescue greyhounds and both dogs are mellow, sweet dogs who are content to go run at the dogpark for half an hour, then sleep or chill the rest of the day. Go for it!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Hydrodynamics of a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures Using the Radioactive Particle Tracking Technique
Document Type : Research Note
Shabnam Sanaei 1
Navid Mostoufi 1
Ramin Radmanesh 2
Rahmat Sotudeh Gharebagh 1
Jamal Chaouki 2
1 School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11155-4563 Tehran, I.R. IRAN
2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, P.O. Box 6075 Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec, CANADA
Effect of temperature on hydrodynamics of bubbling gas-solid fluidized beds was investigated. Experiments were carried out in the range of 25-600 ºC and different superficial gas velocities in the range of 0.17-0.78 m/s with sand particles. Time-position trajectory of particles was obtained by radioactive particle tracking technique. These data were used for determination of mean velocities of upward-moving (including bubble wake and ascending clusters) and downward-moving (descending clusters) particles. It was found that the upward velocity increases by increasing temperature up to 300 ºC, however, it decreases by further increase in temperature. Due to the wall effect, there is no significant change in the mean velocity of downward-moving clusters. The change in hydrodynamic parameters with temperature can be a consequence of changing physical properties of the bed which have been represented by Reynolds number in this study.
Fluidized bed
Radioactive particle tracking
Fluid Mechanics, CFD
[1] Xu Ch., Zhu J.X., Effects of Gas Type and Temperature on the Particle Fluidization, Particuology, 4, p. 114 (2006).
[2] Formisian B., Girimonte R., Mancuso L., Analysis of the Fluidization Process of Particle Beds at High Temperature, Chem. Eng. Sci., 53, p. 951 (1997).
[3] Formisiani B., Girimonte R., Pataro G., The Influene of Operating Temperature on the Dense Phase Properties of Bubbling Fluidized Beds of Solids, Powder Technology, 125, p. 28 (2002).
[4] Guo O., Yue G., Suda T., Sato J., Flow Characteristics in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperature, Chemical Engineering and Processing, 42, p. 439 (2003).
[5] J.Subramani H., Balaiyya M.B.M., Miranda L.R., Minimum Fluidization Velocity at Elevated Temperature for Geldart's Group-B Powders, Experimental Thermal Fluid Science, 32, p. 166 (2007).
[6] Geldart D., Kapoor D.S., Bubble Sizes in a Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures, Chem. Eng. Sci., 31, p. 842 (1976).
[7] Kai, T., Furusaki, S., Behavior of Fluidized Beds of Small Particles at Elevated Temperatures, J. Chem. Eng. Japan, 18, p. 113 (1985).
[8] Hatate Y., Ohmagari K., Ikari A., Kondo K., King D.F., Behavior of Bubbles in Cylindrical Fluidized Bed at an Elevated Temperature, J. Chem. Eng. Japan., 21, p. 424 (1988).
[9] Kunii D., Levenspiel O., "Fluidization Engineering", Butterworth-Heinemann, New York, Second Edition, (1991).
[10] Lettieri P., Newton D., Yates J.G., The Influence of Interparticle Forces on Fluidization Behavior of Some Industrial Materials at High Temperature, Powder Technology, 110, p. 117 (2000).
[11] Lettieri P., Newton D., Yates J.G., High Temperature Effects on the Dense Phase Properties of Gas Fluidized Beds, Powder Technology, 120, p. 34 (2001).
[12] Cui H., Sauriol P., Chaouki J., High Temperature Fluidized Bed Reactor: Measurements, Hydrodynamics and Simulation, Chem. Eng. Sci., 58, p. 3413 (2003).
[13] Cui H., Chaouki J., Effects of Temperature on Local Two-Phase Flow Structure in Bubbling and Turbulent Fluidized Beds of FCC Particles, Chem. Eng. Sci., 59, p. 3413 (2004).
[14] Radmanesh R., Mabrouk R., Chaouki J., Guy C., The Effect of Temperature on Solids Mixing in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed Reactor, Inter. J. Chem. Reactor Eng., 3, A16, (2004).
http://www.bepress.com/ijcre/vol3/A16/.
[15] Larachi F., Chaouki J., Kennedy G., 3-D mapping of Solids Flow Fields in Multiphase Reactor with RPT, AIChE J., 41, p. 439 (1995).
[16] Mostoufi N., Chaouki J., Local Solid Mixing in Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds, Powder Technology., 14, p. 23 (2001).
[17] Mostoufi N., Chaouki J., On the Axial Movement of Solids in Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds Source: Chem. Eng. Res. & Des. Part A Transactions of the Institute of Chemical Engineers., 78, p. 911 (2000).
[18] Stein M., Ding Y.L., Seville J.P.K., Parker D.J., Solids Motion in Bubbling Gas Fluidized Beds, Chem. Eng. Sci., 55, p. 5291 (2000).
[19] Mostoufi N., Chaouki J., Flow Structure of the solids in Gas-Fluidized Beds, Chem. Eng. Sci., 59, p. 4217 (2004).
[20] Mabrouk R., Chaouki J., Guy C., Effective Drag Coefficient Investigation in the Acceleration Zone of an Upward Gas-Solid Flow, Chem. Eng. Sci., 62, p. 318 (2007).
[21] Bai D., Jin Y., Z.Q., Acceleration of Particles and Momentum Exchange Between Gas and Solids in Fast Fluidized Beds, in: M. Kwauk, M. Hasatani (Eds.) "Fluidization VI, Science and Technology", Science Press, Beijing, 46-55, (1991).
[22] Gidaspow, D., "Multiphase Flow and Fluidization, Continuum and Kinetic Theory Description", Academic Press, San Diego, CA, (1994).
[23] Cui H., Mostoufi N., Chaouki J., Characterization of Dynamic Gas-Solid Distribution in Fluidized Beds, Chem. Eng. J., 79, p. 133 (2000).
May and June 2012
Sanaei, S., Mostoufi, N., Radmanesh, R., Sotudeh Gharebagh, R., Chaouki, J. (2012). Hydrodynamics of a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures Using the Radioactive Particle Tracking Technique. Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (IJCCE), 31(2), 65-70.
Shabnam Sanaei; Navid Mostoufi; Ramin Radmanesh; Rahmat Sotudeh Gharebagh; Jamal Chaouki. "Hydrodynamics of a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures Using the Radioactive Particle Tracking Technique". Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (IJCCE), 31, 2, 2012, 65-70.
Sanaei, S., Mostoufi, N., Radmanesh, R., Sotudeh Gharebagh, R., Chaouki, J. (2012). 'Hydrodynamics of a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures Using the Radioactive Particle Tracking Technique', Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (IJCCE), 31(2), pp. 65-70.
Sanaei, S., Mostoufi, N., Radmanesh, R., Sotudeh Gharebagh, R., Chaouki, J. Hydrodynamics of a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed at Elevated Temperatures Using the Radioactive Particle Tracking Technique. Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (IJCCE), 2012; 31(2): 65-70.


My guest author for the day, who would like to remain anonymous, is a friend from Reddit. His comment in our discussion about adopted children reuniting with birth families caught my attention, so I asked permission to repost.
The author as a child, with his adoptive mother. Photo credit is his.
I added the bold below; what are your thoughts on this perspective?
I think your description of the adoptive mother's commitment and how you would find it complicated for a birth mom to get emotional traction with your child is an important insight for adoptees who are on the hunt for bio connections.
In my case, I was always curious, but in the end I waited many years for my Mom to pass. Then I waited ten more years to make sure my feelings for her would not be damaged, and even then, my children were concerned to not have their grandmother leave their affections.
I think the youthful rush to find an original mom is misplaced, and reflects a 'grass-is-greener' attitude, which in fact is exactly the wrong message for everybody.
I have now connected with my bio mom, and some siblings, and we visit and enjoy each others' company. But I have no illusions; the bio mom did not raise me, and my siblings and I never had to be part of the same family growing up. We have fun, we respect each other, and connecting is pretty easy. But also I am 1500 miles away, and we can all modulate and control our contact.
These re-connections are frequently unsuccessful, and there are many support groups for those who have found their bio parents only to discover they are still not wanted or that there are some very good reasons that the adoption took place. The point is, the person with the commitment and the emotional investment is the adoptive parent, and it is rare for an adoption not to work.
In the end, there is no substitute for good and committed parenting. I read your lines, and that is what I see: a good person, a good parent, have your feet on the ground and are focused on the right things. That covers the ground for producing fine children, and ultimately that is why we are here.


text:
#include <iostream>
#include <glm/gtc/type_ptr.hpp>

#include "chrono_opengl/shapes/ChOpenGLBars.h"

using namespace glm;

namespace chrono {
namespace opengl {

ChOpenGLBars::ChOpenGLBars() : ChOpenGLObject() {}

bool ChOpenGLBars::Initialize(ChOpenGLShader* _shader) {
    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Initialize - on entry"))
        return false;

    if (!super::Initialize()) {
        return false;
    }
    PostInitialize();
    this->AttachShader(_shader);

    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Initialize - on exit"))
        return false;

    return true;
}

void ChOpenGLBars::AddBar(double left, double right, double top, double bottom, glm::vec3 color) {
    vec3 A(left, bottom, 0);
    vec3 B(left, top, 0);
    vec3 C(right, top, 0);
    vec3 D(right, bottom, 0);
    int index = (int)this->data.size();

    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(C, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));
    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(B, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));
    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(A, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));

    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(D, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));
    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(C, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));
    this->data.push_back(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN(A, color, glm::vec3(1, 0, 0)));

    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 0);
    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 1);
    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 2);
    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 3);
    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 4);
    this->vertex_indices.push_back(index + 5);
}

void ChOpenGLBars::Clear() {
    this->data.clear();
    this->vertex_indices.clear();
}

void ChOpenGLBars::Update() {
    std::size_t pcn_size = sizeof(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN);

    glBindVertexArray(vertex_array_handle);

    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertex_data_handle);
    glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, this->data.size() * pcn_size, &this->data[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);

    glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertex_element_handle);
    glBufferData(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertex_indices.size() * sizeof(GLuint), &vertex_indices[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);
}

bool ChOpenGLBars::PostInitialize() {
    std::size_t pcn_size = sizeof(ChOpenGLVertexAttributesPCN);

    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::PostInitialize - on entry"))
        return false;
    // Generation complete bind everything!
    if (this->data.size() == 0) {
        return false;
    }

    if (!this->PostGLInitialize((GLuint*)(&this->data[0]), this->data.size() * pcn_size)) {
        return false;
    }
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(0);
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(1);
    glEnableVertexAttribArray(2);

    glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, (GLsizei)pcn_size, (GLvoid*)(sizeof(vec3) * 0));  // Position
    glVertexAttribPointer(1, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, (GLsizei)pcn_size, (GLvoid*)(sizeof(vec3) * 1));  // Color
    glVertexAttribPointer(2, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, (GLsizei)pcn_size, (GLvoid*)(sizeof(vec3) * 2));  // Normal

    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0);
    glBindVertexArray(0);

    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::PostInitialize - on exit"))
        return false;

    return true;
}

void ChOpenGLBars::TakeDown() {
    data.clear();
    super::TakeDown();
}

void ChOpenGLBars::Draw(const mat4& projection, const mat4& view) {
    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Draw - on entry"))
        return;

    if (data.size() == 0) {
        return;
    }

    glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
#ifndef __EMSCRIPTEN__
    glPolygonMode(GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_FILL);
#endif
    // Enable the shader
    shader->Use();
    this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Draw - after use");
    // Send our common uniforms to the shader
    shader->CommonSetup(value_ptr(projection), value_ptr(view));

    this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Draw - after common setup");
    // Bind and draw! (in this case we draw as triangles)
    glBindVertexArray(this->vertex_array_handle);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertex_data_handle);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, this->vertex_element_handle);

    glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLES, (GLsizei)this->vertex_indices.size(), GL_UNSIGNED_INT, (void*)0);
    this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Draw - after draw");
    glBindVertexArray(0);
    glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0);
    glUseProgram(0);

    if (this->GLReturnedError("ChOpenGLBars::Draw - on exit"))
        return;
}
}
}


text:
Chlorofile – grupa organicznych związków chemicznych obecnych między innymi w roślinach, algach i bakteriach fotosyntetyzujących (np. w sinicach). Nadaje częściom roślin (głównie liściom) charakterystyczny zielony kolor.

Funkcją chlorofili w organizmach przeprowadzających fotosyntezę jest wychwytywanie kwantów światła i przekazywanie energii wzbudzenia do centrum reakcji fotoukładu, skąd wybijane są elektrony, spożytkowane następnie w dalszych etapach fotosyntezy.

Znaczna zawartość chlorofili w organizmach fotosyntetyzujących jest odpowiedzialna za ich zieloną barwę. Zielony kolor chlorofilu spowodowany jest wysoką absorpcją w czerwonej i niebieskiej części spektrum światła, a niską absorpcją w zielonej części spektrum światła (długość fali 500–600 nm).

Wyróżnia się wiele rodzajów chlorofili. Najbardziej rozpowszechnione w przyrodzie to chlorofil a i chlorofil b występujące u wszystkich roślin przeprowadzających fotosyntezę. Chlorofile c i d występują jedynie u części glonów. U prokariontów zdolnych do przeprowadzania fotosyntezy mogą występować: chlorofil a (tylko u sinic) oraz wiele rodzajów bakteriochlorofili oznaczanych literami od a do g.

Budowa chlorofili

Cząsteczka każdego chlorofilu zbudowana jest z pochodnej porfiryny określanej feoporfiryną. Feoporfiryna to pięciopierścieniowa porfiryna z różnymi podstawnikami. Cztery z pierścieni to pierścienie pirolowe, a piąty pierścień tworzą same atomy węgla. Wiązania pomiędzy atomami tworzącymi pierścienie to następujące po sobie wiązania pojedyncze i podwójne składające się na układ wiązań sprzężonych.

Centralne miejsce w układzie porfiryny zajmuje atom magnezu łączący się z atomami azotu każdego z pierścieni. Porfiryna tworząca kompleks z magnezem posiada zdolność do absorpcji promieniowania elektromagnetycznego w zakresie widzialnym. Obecność magnezu wpływa na zdolność agregacji cząsteczek chlorofilu, co ułatwia przekazywanie energii wzbudzenia pomiędzy cząsteczkami.

U większości chlorofili (poza chlorofilami c) feoporfiryna łączy się poprzez wiązanie estrowe z alkoholem o 20 atomach węgla – fitolem. Przyłączony alkohol izoprenowy nie wpływa znacząco na zdolność absorpcji światła. Jego rolą jest tworzenie hydrofobowego fragmentu cząsteczki łączącego chlorofil z błonami białkowo-lipidowymi. W bakteriochlorofilach zamiast fitolu może występować inny alkohol farnezol lub geranylogeraniol występujący niekiedy w bakteriochlorofilu a.

Do układu porfiryny w różnych miejscach przyłączone są dodatkowe grupy. Wpływają one na niewielkie zmiany zdolności absorpcji kwantów światła przez poszczególne rodzaje chlorofili.

W zależności od rodzaju podstawników układu porfirynowego wyróżnia się następujące typy chlorofilu:

Numeracja atomów węgla patrz "układ porfirynowy"

Dwa najpowszechniej występujące chlorofile, chlorofil a – niebieskozielony, chlorofil b – żółtozielony, stanowią przeważającą większość masy wszystkich barwników w organie fotosyntetyzującym.

Absorpcja światła i udział w fotosyntezie

Maksimum absorpcji dwóch najczęściej występujących chlorofili wynosi 430 i 662 nm dla chlorofilu a oraz 453 i 642 nm dla chlorofilu b. Po raz pierwszy widmo absorpcyjne chlorofilu wyznaczył w 1883 r. niemiecki biolog Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann. Maksymalny molowy współczynnik absorpcji dla chlorofilu a wynosi 105 M−1 cm−1 i jest jednym z najwyższych wyliczonych dla związków organicznych.
Cząsteczka chlorofilu po zaabsorbowaniu kwantu światła (fotonu) ulega wzbudzeniu. Pochłonięcie kwantu światła czerwonego wiąże się z przejściem do pierwszego stanu wzbudzonego, pochłonięcie kwantu światła niebieskiego skutkuje przejściem do drugiego stanu wzbudzonego. Stan wzbudzenia przekazywany jest przez kolejne cząsteczki chlorofilu do centrum reakcji – pary cząsteczek chlorofilu a w specyficznym otoczeniu białkowym. Z chlorofili stanowiących centrum reakcji elektron jest wybijany, dochodzi do fotoindukcyjnego rozdziału ładunków, i następnie przechwytywany przez kolejnych pośredników zlokalizowanych w obrębie fotosystemów, a następnie na kolejne przekaźniki w obrębie błony tylakoidów, biorące udział w fotosyntetycznym łańcuchu transportu elektronów. Transport elektronów w błonach tylakoidów jest konieczny do wytworzenia NADPH (tzw. "siły redukcyjnej") oraz gradientu protonowego w poprzek błony tylakoidu, co jest konieczne do produkcji ATP przez chloroplastową syntazę ATP.

W chloroplastach, chlorofil wchodzi w skład większych kompleksów barwnikowo-białkowych (tak zwanych fotosystemów oraz układów antenowych).

Stosunki ilościowe chlorofili w roślinach zależą między innymi od warunków siedliskowych: rośliny cieniolubne (cienioznośne) mają więcej chlorofilu b, rośliny światłolubne (światłożądne) – chlorofilu a.

Synteza chlorofili
Miejscem syntezy chlorofili u roślin są plastydy. To w nich przebiegają wszystkie reakcje prowadzące do wytworzenia cząsteczki chlorofili.

Początkowym substratem służącym do syntezy chlorofili jest jeden z aminokwasów białkowych – kwas glutaminowy. Pierwszym etapem jest aktywacja aminokwasu polegająca na przyłączeniu cząstki tRNAGlu przez syntazę glutamylo-tRNAGlu. Reakcja ta wymaga hydrolizy jednej cząsteczki ATP do AMP i PPi. Powstający glutamylo-tRNAGlu redukowany jest do 1-semialdehydu glutaminianowego przez reduktazę Glu-tRNA. Reakcja ta wymaga zużycia cząsteczki NADPH. Powstały 1-semialdehyd glutaminianowy przekształcany jest przez aminotransferazę semialdehydu glutaminianowego do kwasu δ-aminolewulinowego (ALA).

Dwie cząsteczki tego niebiałkowego aminokwasu w reakcji kondensacji katalizowanej przez enzym dehydratazę ALA przekształcane są do porfobilinogenu (PBG). Deaminaza porfobilinogenowa odłączając reszty aminowe -NH2 łączy cztery cząsteczki porfobilinogenu w hydroksymetylobilan. W kolejnej reakcji następuje zamknięcie pierścienia przez syntazę uroporfirynogenu III. Powstający uroporfirynogen III ulega dekarboksylacji i przekształcany jest w koproporfirynogen III przez dekarboksylazę uroporfirynogenu III. Koproporfirynogen III jest utleniany przez oksydazę porfirynogenu III do protoporfirynogenu IX i przez oksydazę protoporfirynogenu IX do protoporfiryny IX. Reakcje prowadzące do powstania protoporfiryny IX zachodzą w stromie plastydów.

Kolejne etapy syntezy zachodzą na błonach osłonki plastydu w której znajdują się odpowiednie enzymy. Do pierścienia protoporfiryny IX Mg–chelataza wprowadza atom magnezu. Transferaza przyłącza resztę metylową w pozycji 15, a cyklaza zamyka piąty pierścień obecny w chlorofilu. Powstały diwinyloprotochlorofilid a redukowany jest do monowinyloprotochlorofilidu a przez reduktazę winylową zależną od NADPH. Powstały po redukcji monowinyloprotochlorofilid a redukowany jest do chlorofilidu a przez oksydoreduktazę protochlorofilidu. Reakcja ta wymaga udziału NADPH oraz światła, ponieważ redukcji może ulec jedynie monowinyloprotochlorofilid wzbudzony kwantem światła. Podczas redukcji likwidacji ulega jedno z wiązań podwójnych IV pierścienia pirolowego. Chlorofilid a łączony jest w reakcji estryfikacji z dwudziestwęglowym alkoholem izoprenowym – fitolem przez syntazę chlorofilową. Powstały chlorofil a może bezpośrednio służyć do absorpcji światła lub zostać przekształcony przez oksygenazę chlorofilu b do drugiego z najczęściej występujących chlorofili. Dwie ostatnie reakcje, a więc wytworzenie chlorofilu a lub chlorofilu b zachodzą w błonach tylakoidów.

Jeśli roślina nie znajduje się na świetle protochlorofilid, lipidy oraz oksydoreduktaza NADPH-protochlorofilid gromadzą się strukturach określanych jako protylakoidy. Dopiero oświetlenie roślin (np. po wykiełkowaniu) pozwala na zakończenie syntezy chlorofili i przekształcenie protylakoidów w tylakoidy. Rośliny okrytonasienne, które nie mają dostępu do światła ulegają etiolacji, czyli rosną bez wykształcenia chlorofilu i chloroplastów, a w ich plastydach dochodzi do wykształcenia jedynie protylakoidów.

Metody badania chlorofili
Chlorofile są dobrze rozpuszczalne w rozpuszczalnikach organicznych (aceton itp.) i tłuszczach, a praktycznie nierozpuszczalne w wodzie. Chlorofile w roztworach wykazują silną fluorescencję. Fluorescencja chlorofili in vivo zależy od stanu funkcjonalnego układu fotosyntetycznego i jest wykorzystywana do pomiarów parametrów wydajności fotosyntezy (metoda PAM, ang. Pulse Amplitude Modulated chlorophyll fluorescence).

Zastosowanie chlorofilu jako barwnika

Chlorofil A (E140, C.I. 75810, naturalna zieleń 3) jest używany jako barwnik w przemyśle spożywczym do produkcji np. zup, sosów, oliwy z oliwek, oleju sojowego, lodów oraz fermentowanych napojów mlecznych. Został uznany za nieszkodliwy w zastosowaniach spożywczych. Rzadko spotykanym działaniem niepożądanym chlorofilu jest uczulenie na światło.
Jest również wykorzystywany w produktach takich jak antyperspiranty i płyny do płukania jamy ustnej.

Przypisy

Bibliografia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Il grande colpo dei 7 uomini d'oro è un film del 1966, diretto da Marco Vicario, sequel del precedente 7 uomini d'oro, diretto dallo stesso Vicario nel 1965.

Trama
La scalcinata banda di ladri del precedente film, dopo essere stata colta sul fatto per un furto, anziché venire tratta in arresto, viene ingaggiata al completo da alcuni esponenti politici per rubare un carico di 7000 tonnellate d'oro. Favoriti da attrezzature all'avanguardia messe a disposizione dai loro committenti, la banda riesce a portare a termine la missione ma, una volta in possesso del maltolto e con l'aspettativa di potersi ritirare definitivamente a una tranquilla vita agiata sostenuta da tale rendita, nessuno dei componenti è disposto a disfarsi dell'oro. Dal momento della mancata consegna, inizierà per la banda una lotta per accaparrarsi il bottino da ambedue le parti.

Produzione

Distribuzione

Collegamenti esterni

Film commedia
Film polizieschi


Managing Reputational Risk shows how any organisation can apply simple risk management principles to build stakeholder confidence and safeguard and enhance reputation. It positions reputation and its associated threats and opportunities where they rightfully belong: in the domain of the board room, at the heart of good corporate governance, leading-edge strategy development, effective risk management, corporate responsibility, comprehensive assurance and transparent communications.
* Illustrates, through numerous examples of good - and not so good - business practice, the importance of respecting and nurturing reputation as a critical intangible asset.
* Demonstrates how mastery of reputation risks can enable an organisation to be seen as responsible and responsive, as well as equipping it to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Jenny Rayner is an independent UK-based consultant. In 1999 Jenny founded Abbey Consulting to provide consultancy and training on the positive management of risk to improve performance and protect and enhance reputation. Her previous corporate career spanned over 20 years in a wide range of sales, marketing, purchasing, logistics, supply chain and general business management roles, latterly as a Chief Internal Auditor with ICI.
Jenny writes and lectures extensively on risk management, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and reputation. She is executive editor of the Business Risk Management Handbook and joint executive editor of the Corporate Social Responsibility Monitor. Her study, Risky Business: towards best practice in managing reputation risk, was published by the Institute of Business Ethics in 2001. Jenny lives in Cheshire with her husband Keith and daughters Jo and Dani.
Chapter 2. The Business Case for Reputation Risk Management.
Chapter 3. Risk Management: An Overview.
Chapter 4. Identifying, Prioritising and Responding to Risks.
Chapter 5. Making Reputation Risk Management Everyone's Business.
Chapter 6. Managing Threats and Opportunities to Reputation.
Chapter 7. Reputation in the Spotlight.
Chapter 8. Peace of Mind Through Audit and Assurance.
Chapter 9. Bolstering Reputation Through Transparent Reporting and Communications.
Chapter 11. Towards a Sustainable Reputation.
Chapter 12. Future Challenges and Opportunities.
Appendix A: The Hermes Principles.
Appendix B: Appendix to the Turnbull Report.
Appendix C: BP's Policy Commitment on Ethical Conduct.
Appendix D: Twelve Steps for Implementing a Code of Business Ethics.


text:
Q: debezium - change of topic name gives the error cross-database references I am using this debezium-examples
source.json
{
"name": "inventory-connector",
"config": {
    "connector.class": "io.debezium.connector.mysql.MySqlConnector",
    "tasks.max": "1",
    "database.hostname": "mysql",
    "database.port": "3306",
    "database.user": "debezium",
    "database.password": "dbz",
    "database.server.id": "184054",
    "database.server.name": "dbserver1",
    "database.whitelist": "inventory",
    "database.history.kafka.bootstrap.servers": "kafka:9092",
    "database.history.kafka.topic": "schema-changes.inventory",
    "transforms": "route",
    "transforms.route.type": "org.apache.kafka.connect.transforms.RegexRouter",
    "transforms.route.regex": "([^.]+)\\.([^.]+)\\.([^.]+)",
    "transforms.route.replacement": "$3"
}
}

jdbc-sink.json
{
"name": "jdbc-sink",
"config": {
    "connector.class": "io.confluent.connect.jdbc.JdbcSinkConnector",
    "tasks.max": "1",
    "topics": "customers",
    "connection.url": "jdbc:postgresql://postgres:5432/inventory?user=postgresuser&password=postgrespw",
    "transforms": "unwrap",
    "transforms.unwrap.type": "io.debezium.transforms.UnwrapFromEnvelope",
    "auto.create": "true",
    "insert.mode": "upsert",
    "pk.fields": "id",
    "pk.mode": "record_value"
}
}

I have run this example its working fine.But when I have made some changes as discuss in the following scenario. it giving me 'cross-database references' error.
Scenario
I have remove these properties from source
    "transforms": "route",
    "transforms.route.type": "org.apache.kafka.connect.transforms.RegexRouter",
    "transforms.route.regex": "([^.]+)\\.([^.]+)\\.([^.]+)",
    "transforms.route.replacement": "$3"

now it creating topic in kafka as follow
dbServer1.inventory.products

dbserver1.inventory.products_on_hand

dbserver1.inventory.customers

dbserver1.inventory.orders

When I specified topic= dbserver1.inventory.customers in jdbc-sink, it giving me the following exception
 ERROR:  cross-database references are not implemented:
"dbserver1.inventory.customers" at character 14
postgres_1   | STATEMENT:  CREATE TABLE "dbserver1"."inventory"."customers" (
postgres_1   |  "last_name" TEXT NOT NULL,
postgres_1   |  "id" INT NOT NULL,
postgres_1   |  "first_name" TEXT NOT NULL,
postgres_1   |  "email" TEXT NOT NULL,
postgres_1   |  PRIMARY KEY("id"))
connect_1    | 2019-01-29 09:39:18,931 WARN   ||  Create failed, will attempt amend if table already exists   [io.confluent.connect.jdbc.sink.DbStructure]
connect_1    | org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: cross-database references are not implemented: "dbserver1.inventory.customers"
connect_1    |   Position: 14

Note: Its not duplicate as other question is also posted by me, which is covering different scenario

A: change inventory -> dbserver1
(databasename).(schemaname).(tablename)
{
"name": "jdbc-sink",
"config": {
    "connector.class": "io.confluent.connect.jdbc.JdbcSinkConnector",
    "tasks.max": "1",
    "topics": "customers",
    "connection.url": "jdbc:postgresql://postgres:5432/dbserver1?user=postgresuser&password=postgrespw",
    "transforms": "unwrap",
    "transforms.unwrap.type": "io.debezium.transforms.UnwrapFromEnvelope",
    "auto.create": "true",
    "insert.mode": "upsert",
    "pk.fields": "id",
    "pk.mode": "record_value"
}
}

A: The table.name.format sink property solved this for me. It allows you to override what the destination table name will be. See https://docs.confluent.io/3.1.1/connect/connect-jdbc/docs/sink_config_options.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Connect Physical Health sells quackery to NHS
A constant theme of this blog is that the NHS should not pay for useless treatments. By and large, NICE does a good job of preventing that. But NICE has not been allowed by the Department of Health to look at quackery.
I have the impression that privatisation of many NHS services will lead to an increase in the provision of myth-based therapies. That is part of the "bait and switch" tactic that quacks use in the hope of gaining respectability. A prime example is the "College of Medicine", financed by Capita and replete with quacks, as one would expect since it is the reincarnation of the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health.
One such treatment is acupuncture. Having very recently reviewed the evidence, we concluded that "Acupuncture is a theatrical placebo: the end of a myth". Any effects it may have are too small to be useful to patients. That's the background for an interesting case study.
A colleague got a very painful frozen shoulder. His GP referred him to the Camden & Islington NHS Trust physiotherapy service. That service is now provided by a private company, Connect Physical Health.
That proved to be a big mistake. The first two appointments were not too bad, though they resulted in little improvement. But at the third appointment he was offered acupuncture. He hesitated, but agreed, in desperation to try it. It did no good. At the next appointment the condition was worse. After some very painful manipulation, the physiotherapist offered acupuncture again. This time he refused on the grounds that "I hadn't noticed any effect the first time, because there is no evidence that it works and that I was concerned by her standards of hygiene". The physiotherapist then became "quite rude" and said that she would put down that the patient had refused treatment.
The lack of response was hardly surprising. NHS Evidence says
"There is no clinical evidence to show that other treatments, such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), Shiatsu massage or acupuncture are effective in treating frozen shoulder."
In fact it now seems beyond reasonable doubt that acupuncture is no more than a theatrical placebo.
According to Connect's own web site "Our services are evidence-based". That is evidently untrue in this case, so I asked them for the evidence that acupuncture was effective.
I'd noticed that in other places, Connect Physical Health also offers the obviously fraudulent craniosacral therapy (for example, here) and discredited chiropractic quackery. So I asked them about the evidence for their effectiveness too.
This is what they said.
Many thanks for your comments via our web site. In response, we thought you might like to access the sources for some of the evidence which underpins our MSK services:
Integrating Evidence-Based Acupuncture into Physiotherapy for the Benefit of the Patient – you can obtain the information you require from www.aacp.org.uk
The General Chiropractic Council www.gcc-uk.org/page.cfm
We have also attached a copy of the NICE Guidelines.
So, no Cochrane reviews, no NHS Evidence. Instead I was referred to the very quack organisations that promote the treatments in question, the Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists, and the totally discredited General Chiropractic Council.
The NICE guidelines that they sent were nothing to do with frozen shoulder. They were the guidelines for low back pain which caused such a furore when they were first issued (and which, in any case, don't recommend chiropractic explicitly).
When I pointed out these deficiencies I got this.
Your email below has been forwarded to me. I am sorry if you feel that that that information we pointed you towards to enable you to make your own investigations into the evidence base for the services provided by Connect Physical Health and your hospital did not meet with your expectations.
' ' '
Please understand that our NHS services in Camden were commissioned by the Primary Care Trust. The fully integrated MSK service model included provision for acupuncture and other manual therapy provided by our experienced Chartered Physiotherapists. If you have any problems with the evidence base for the use of acupuncture or manual therapy within the service, which has been commissioned on behalf of the GPs in Camden Borough, then I would politely recommend that you direct your observations to the clinical commissioning authorities and other professional bodies who do spend time evidencing best practice and representing the academic arguments. I am sure they will be pleased to pick up discussions with you about the relative merits of the interventions being procured by the NHS.
Mark Philpott BSc BSc MSc MMACP MCSP
Head of Operations, Community MSK Services
Connect Physical Health
35 Apex Business Village
Cramlington
Northumberland NE23 7BF
So, "don't blame us, blame the PCT". A second letter asked why they were shirking the little matter of evidence.
In response to your last email, I would like to say that Connect does not wish to be drawn into a debate over two therapeutic options (acupuncture and craniosacral therapy) that are widely practiced [sic] within and outside the NHS by very respectable practitioners.
You will be as aware, as Connect is, that there are lots of treatments that don't have a huge evidence base that are practiced in mainstream medicine. Connect has seen many carefully selected patients helped by acupuncture and manual therapy (craniosacral therapy / chiropractic) over many years. Lack of evidence doesn't mean they don't work, just that benefit is not proven. Furthermore, nowhere on our website do we state that ALL treatments / services / modalities that Connect offer are 'Evidence Based'. We do however offer many services that are evidence based, where the evidence exists. We aim to offer 'choice' to patients, from a range of services that are safe and delivered by suitably trained professionals and practitioners in line with Codes of Practice and Guidelines from the relevant governing bodies.
Connect's service provision in Camden is meticulously assessed and of a high standard and we are proud of the services provided.
This response is so wrong, on so many levels, that I gave up on Mr Philpott at this point. At least he admitted implicitly that all of their treatments are not evidence-based. In that case their web site needs to change that claim.
If, by "governing bodies" he means jokes like the GCC or the CNHC then I suppose the behaviour of their employees is not surprising. Mr Philpott is evidently not aware that "craniosacral therapy" has been censured by the Advertising Standards Authority. Well he is now, but evidently doesn't seem to give a damn.
Next I wrote to the PCT and it took several mails to find out who was responsible for the service. Three mails produced no response so I sent a Freedom of Information Act request. In the end I got some
"Connect PHC provide the Community musculoskeletal service for Camden. The specification for the service specifically asks for the provision of evidence based management and treatments see paragraph on Governance page 14 of attached.. Patients are treated with acupuncture as per the NICE Guidelines (May 2009) for the management of low back pain … . .. Chiropractors are not employed in the service and craniosacral therapy is not provided as part of the service either."
Another letter, pointing out that they were using acupuncture for things other than low back pain got no more information. They did send a copy of the contract with Connect. It makes no mention whatsoever of alternative treatments. It should have done, so part of the responsibility for the failure must lie with the PCT.
The contract does, however, say (page 18)
The service to be led by a lead clinician/manager who can effectively demonstrate ongoing and evidence-based development of clinical guidelines, policies and protocols for effective working practices within the service
In my opinion, Connect Physical Health are in breach of contract
Another example of Connect ignoring evidence
The Connect Physical Health web site has an article about osteoarthritis of the knee
Physiotherapy can be extremely beneficial to help to reduce the symptoms of OA. Treatments such as mobilizations, rehab exercises, acupuncture and taping can help to reduce pain, increase range of movement, increase muscle strength and aid return to functional activities and sports.
There is little enough evidence that physiotherapy does any of these things, but at least it is free of mystical mumbo-jumbo. Although at one time the claim for acupuncture was thought to have some truth, the 2010 Cochrane review concludes otherwise
Sham-controlled trials show statistically significant benefits; however, these benefits are small, do not meet our pre-defined thresholds for clinical relevance, and are probably due at least partially to placebo effects from incomplete blinding.
This conclusion is much the same as has been reached for acupuncture treatments of almost everything. Two major meta-analyses come to similar conclusions. Madsen Gøtzsche & Hróbjartsson (2009) and Vickers et al (2012) both conclude that if there is an effect at all (dubious) then it is too small to be noticeable to the patient. (Be warned that in the case of Vickers et al. you need to read the paper itself because of the spin placed on the results in the abstract.). These papers are discussed in detail in our recent paper.
Why is Connect Physical Health not aware of this?
Their head of operations told me (see above) that
"Connect does not wish to be drawn into a debate [about acupuncture and craniosacral therapy]".
That outlook was confirmed when I left a comment on their osteoarthritis post. This is what it looked like almost a month later.
Guess what? The comment has never appeared..
The attitude of Connect Physical Health to evidence is simply to ignore it if it gets in the way of making money, and to censor any criticism.
What have Camden NHS done about it?
The patient and I both complained to Camden NHS in August 2012. At first, they simply forwarded the complaints to Connect Physical Health with the unsatisfactory results shown above. It took until May 2013 to get any sort of reasonable response. That seems a very long time. In fact by the time the response arrived the PCT had been renamed a Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) because of the vast top-down reorganisation inposed by Lansley's Health and Social Care Act.
On 8 May 2013, this response was sent to the patient, Here is part of it.
I have received your email of complaint from the NHSNCL complaints department regarding your care.
I am sorry to read of your experience as we take the quality of care seriously in NHS Camden CCG.
You raise some very clear concerns and I will attempt to address these in order.
1) The fact that you felt pressurised into having acupuncture is a concern as everybody should be given a choice. As part of the informed consent relating to acupuncture you should have been told about the treatment, it's [sic] benefits and risks and then you sign to confirm you are happy to proceed. I understand that this was the case in your situation but I have reinforced that the consent is important and must be adhered to by the provider Connect Physical Health. There are clear standards of clinical practice that all Chartered Physiotherapists must follow which I will discuss further with the Connect Camden team Manager Nick Downing.
I do disagree with you around acupuncture; there is no conclusive evidence for acupuncture in frozen shoulder but I have referenced a systematic review which concludes the studies were too small to draw any conclusions although shoulder function was significantly improved at 4 weeks (Green S et al. Acupuncture for shoulder pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005; 18: CD005319). There is a growing body of evidence supporting the use of acupuncture and until such time as there is specific evidence against it I don't think we would be absolutely against the practice of this modality alongside other treatments.
.Best wishes
Strategy and Planning Directorate
NHS Camden CCG
75 Hampstead Road
This response raises more questions than it answers.
For example, what is "informed consent" worth if the therapist is his/herself misinformed about the treatment? It is the eternal dilemma of alternative medicine that it is no use referring to well-trained practitioners, when their training has inculcated myths and untruths.
There is not a "growing body of evidence supporting the use of acupuncture". Precisely the opposite is true.
And the statement "until such time as there is specific evidence against it I don't think we would be absolutely against the practice of this modality alongside" betrays a basic misunderstanding of the scientific process.
So I sent the writer of this letter a reprint of our paper, "Acupuncture is a theatrical placebo: the end of a myth" (the blog version alone has had over 12,000 page views). A few days later we had an amiable lunch together and we had a constructive discussion about the problems of deciding what should be commissioned and what shouldn't.
It seems to me to be clear that CCGs should take better advice before boasting that they commission evidence-based treatments.
Stories like this are worrying to the majority of physiotherapists who don't go in for mystical mumbo-jumbo of acupuncture. One of the best is Neil O'Connell who blogs at BodyInMind. He tweeted
Physio fail, sigh RT@david_colquhoun: Yet more #acupuncture. Sold to the NHS by private contractor @ConnectPHC http://t.co/HylkwMCVTh
— Neil O'Connell (@NeilOConnell) June 10, 2013
It isn't clear how many physiotherapists embrace nonsense, but the Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists has around 6000 members, compared with 47,000 chartered physiotherapists (AACP), so it's a smallish minority. The AACP claims that it is "Integrating Evidence-Based Acupuncture into Physiotherapy". Like most politicians, the term "evidence-based" is thrown around with gay abandon. Clearly they don't understand evidence.
The Advertising Standards Authority has, one again, upheld complaints against the UCLH Trust, for making false claims in its advertising. This time, appropriately, it's about acupuncture. Just about everything in their advertising leaflets was held to be unjustifiable. They've been in trouble before about false claims for homeopathy, hypnosis and craniosacral "therapy".
Of course all of these embarrassments come from one very small corner of the UCLH Trust, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (previously known as the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital).
Why is it tolerated in an otherwise excellent NHS Trust? Well, the patron is the Queen herself (not Charles, aka the Quacktitioner Royal), She seems to exert more power behind the scenes than is desirable in In a constitutional monarchy
I wrote to Dr Gill Gaskin about the latest ASA judgement against RLHIM. She is the person at the UCLH Trust who has responsibility for the quack hospital. She previously refused to do anything about the craniosacral nonsense that is promoted there. This time the ASA seems to have stung them into action at long last. I was told
In response to your question about proposed action:
All written information for patients relating to the services offered by the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine are being withdrawn for review in the light of the ASA's rulings (and the patient leaflets have already been withdrawn). It will be reviewed and modified where necessary item by item, and only reintroduced after sign-off through the Queen Square divisional clinical governance processes and the Trust's patient information leaflet team.
Gill Gaskin
Dr Gill Gaskin
Specialist Hospitals Board
UCLH NHS Foundation Trust
It remains to be seen whether the re-written information is accurate or not.
The rules for advertising
The Advertising Standards Authority gives advice for advertisers about what's permitted and what isn't.
Acupuncture The CAP advice
Craniosacral therapy The CAP advice
Homeopathy The CAP advice and 2013 update
Chiropractic The CAP advice.
Tagged acupuncture, badscience, chiropractic, College of medicine, Connect Physical Health, craniosacral, evidence, National Health Service, NHS | 17 Comments
Cranial Osteopathy at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, and inaction by Dr Gill Gaskin
Last year the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital was rebranded as the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM). The exercise seems to have been entirely cosmetic. Sadly, they still practise the same nonsense, as described in Royal London Homeopathic Hospital rebranded. But how different will things be at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine?.
Recently I came across a totally disgraceful pamphlet issued by the RLHIM [download pamphlet].
If you haven't come across craniosacral therapy (and who could blame you, a new form of nonsense is invented daily), try these sources.
EBM-first has an up-to-date collection of references.
Why Cranial Therapy Is Silly, by
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
What is Craniosacral Therapy?
Wikipedia gives the history and criticisms
And the ASA Adjudication on Craniosacral Therapy Association
In short, it is yet another weird invention of an eccentric American osteopath, dating from the 1930s. Like Osteopathy and Chiropractic, there is no ancient wisdom involved, just an individual with an eye for what makes money.
What the UCLH pamphlet claims
The claims made in this pamphlet are utterly baseless. In fact there isn't the slightest evidence that craniosacral therapy is good for anything. And its 'principles' are pure nonsense.
No doubt that is why the Advertising Standards Authority has already delivered a damning indictment of rather similar claims made in a leaflet issued by the Craniosacral Therapy Association (CSTA)
The Advertising Standards judgement concluded
" . . the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 50.1 (Health and beauty products and therapies)."
"We noted that the CSTA believed that the leaflet was merely inviting readers to try CST to see if it could alleviate some of their symptoms and did not discourage them from seeing a doctor. However, we considered that the list of serious medical conditions in the ad, and the references to the benefit and help provided by CST, could encourage readers to use CST to relieve their symptoms rather than seek advice from a medical professional. We therefore concluded that the ad could discourage readers from seeking essential treatment for serious medical conditions from a qualified medical practitioner.
Complaint through the official channels. It took 3 months to extract "No comment" from Dr Gill Gaskin
Given that I have every reason to be grateful to UCL Hospitals for superb care, i was hesitant to leap into print to condemn the irresponsible pamphlet issued by one of their hospitals. It seemed better to go through the proper channels and make a complaint in private to the UCL Hospitals Trust.
On 21st December 2010 I wrote to the directors of UCLH Trust
I have just come across the attached pamphlet.
"Craniosacral" therapy is a preposterous made-up invention.
More to the point, there is no worthwhile evidence for the claims made in the pamphlet.
The leaflet is, I contend, illegal under the Consumer protection regulations 2008. It is also deeply embarrassing that UCLH should be lending its name to this sort of thing.
If you can think of any reason why I should not refer the pamphlet to the Advertising Standards Association, and to the office of Trading Standards, please let me know quickly.
David Colquhoun
On 7th January 2011 I got an acknowledgment, which told me that my letter had been forwarded to the Medical Director for Specialist Hospitals for a response.
The Specialist Hospitals of the Trust include the Eastman Dental Hospital, The Heart Hospital, The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery (the famous Queen's Square hospital) and, yes, The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. I've been a patient at three of them and have nothing but praise, Queen's Square and the UCLH baby unit saved the life of my wife and my son in 1984 (see Why I love the National Health Service).
The Medical Director for Specialist Hospitals is Dr Gill Gaskin, and it is to her that my letter was forwarded. Of course it is not her fault that, in 2002, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (as it then was) was acquired by the UCLH Trust in 2002, The excuse given at the time was that the space was needed and the nonsense espoused by the RLHH would be squeezed out. That hasn't yet happened.
After that nothing happened so I wrote directly to Dr Gaskin on 14th February 2011
Dear Dr Gaskin
The letter below was sent to the Trust on 20 December last year. I am told it was forwarded to you. I'm disappointed that I have still had no reply, after almost two months. It was a serious enquiry and it has legal implications for the Trust. Would it help to talk about it in person?
I got a quick reply, but sadly, as so often, the complaint had simply been forwarded to the object of the complaint. This sort of buck-passing is standard procedure for heading off complaints in any big organisation, in my experience.
From: <Gill.Gaskin@uclh.nhs.uk>
To: <d.colquhoun@ucl.ac.uk>
Cc: <jocelyn.laws@uclh.nhs.uk>, <Rachel.Maybank@uclh.nhs.uk>
Dear Professor Colquhoun
I received your email in January.
I have now received the response from the Associate Clinical Director of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, which is as set out below.
The brochure makes no claims of efficacy for Craniosacral Therapy (CST). In terms of safety, only two randomised trials have reported adverse effects, neither found an excess of adverse effects of CST over control interventions (disconnected magnetotherapy equipment and static magnets respectively):
(Castro-Sanchez A et al. A randomized controlled trial investigating the effects of craniosacral therapy on pain and heart rate variability in fibromyalgia patients. Clin Rehabil 2011 25: 25–35. published online 11 August 2010 DOI: 10.1177/0269215510375909
Mann JD et al. Craniosacral therapy for migraine: Protocol development for an exploratory controlled clinical trial. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2008, 8:28 published 9 June 2008 doi:10.1186/1472-6882-8-28)
The only reports of adverse effects of CST relate to its use in traumatic brain injury. (Greenman PE, McPartland JM. Cranial findings and iatrogenesis from craniosacral manipulation in patients with traumatic brain syndrome. J Am Osteopath Assoc 1995;95:182-88).
The RLHIM does not treat this condition and it is not mentioned in the brochure.
The Craniosacral Therapy Association is planning a safety audit, to be launched later this year. The RLHIM intends to participate in this.
I don't know who wrote this self-serving nonsense because there is no sign on the web of a job called "Associate Clinical Director of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine".
It is absurd to say that the leaflet makes "makes no claims of efficacy". It says "Craniosacral therapy can be offered to children and adults for a variety of conditions:" and then goes on to list a whole lot of conditions, some of which are potentially serious, like "Recurrent ear infections and sinus infections, glue ear " and "Asthma". Surely anyone would suppose that if a UCLH Hopsital were offering a treatment for conditions like these, there would be at least some evidence that they worked. And there is no such evidence. This reply seemed to me to verge on the dishonest.
Remember too that this response was written on 16th February 2011, long after the Advertising Standards Association had said that there is no worthwhile evidence for claims of this sort, on 8th September 2010.
I replied at once
Thanks for the reply, but I thought that this was your responsibility. Naturally the RLHIM will stick up for itself, so asking them gets us nowhere at all. The buck stops with the Trust (in particular with you, I understand) and it is for you to judge whether pamphlets such as that I sent bring the Trust into disrepute
I'd be very pleased to hear your reaction (rather than that of the RLHIM) to these comments. It seems a reasonable thing to ask for, since responsibility for the RLHIM rests with you
On the 13th March, after a couple of reminders, Dr Gaskin said "I will respond to you tomorrow or Tuesday,". No such luck though. On 25th March, more than three months after I first wrote, I eventually got a reply (my emphasis).
I do not wish to comment further on the matter of the leaflets as a complaint to the advertising standards authority would be dealt with formally.
I am aware of your views on complementary medicine, and of course am entirely open to you pointing out areas where you believe there is misleading information, and I ask colleagues to review such areas when highlighted.
I would make several additional comments:
– patients are referred into NHS services by their GPs (or occasionally by consultants in other services) and cannot self-refer
– patients attending the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine report positively on NHS Choices
– GPs continue to make referrals to the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine and many request that patients stay under follow-up, when UCLH seeks to reconfirm this
– UCLH is engaging with North Central London NHS commissioners on work on their priorities, and that includes work on complementary medicine (and combinations of conventional and complementary approaches)
I think you will understand that I will not wish to engage in lengthy correspondence, and have many other competing priorities at present.
So, after three months' effort, all I could get was 'no comment', plus some anecdotes about satisfied customers -the stock in trade of all quacks.
I guess it is well known that complaints against any NHS organisation normally meet with a stonewall. That happens with any big organisation (universities too). Nevertheless it strikes me as dereliction of duty to respond so slowly, and in the end to say nothing anyway.
The Advertising Standards Authority have already given their judgement, and it appears to be based on sounder medicine than Dr Gaskin's 'reply'..
There are plans afoot to refer the UCLH pamphlet to the the Office of Trading Standards.IIt is for them to decide whether to prosecute the UCLH Trust for making false health claims. It is sad to have to say that they deserve to be prosecuted.
28 March 2011. Two days after this post went up, a Google search for "Dr Gill Gaskin" brought up this post as #5 on the first page. Amazing.
On 25 May, the same search alluded to this post in positions 2, 3, 4 and 5 on the first page of Google.
Despite several judgements by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against claims made for craniosacral therapy, nothing was done.
But after UCLH Trust was comprehensively condemned by the ASA for the claims made for acupuncture by the RLHIM, at last we got action. All patient pamphlets have been withdrawn, and patient information is being revised.
. It isn't obvious why this has taken more that two years (and one can only hope that the revised information will be more accurate)
Tagged acupuncture, craniosacral, Gill Gaskin, quackery, Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, UCL Hospitals, UCLH | 17 Comments


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text:
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