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Many people with cancer want to take an active part in making decisions about their medical care. It is natural to want to learn all you can about your disease and treatment choices. However, shock and stress after the diagnosis can make it hard to think of everything you want to ask the doctor. It often helps to make a list of questions before an appointment.
To help remember what the doctor says, you may take notes or ask whether you may use a tape recorder. Some people also want to have a family member or friend with them when they talk to the doctor - to take part in the discussion, to take notes, or just to listen.
You do not need to ask all your questions at once. You will have other chances to ask the doctor or nurse to explain things that are not clear and to ask for more information.
Getting a Second Opinion
Before starting treatment, you may want a second opinion about your diagnosis and treatment plan. Many insurance companies will cover a second opinion if your doctor requests it. It may take some time and effort to gather medical records and arrange to see another doctor. Usually it is not a problem to take several weeks to get a second opinion. In most cases, the delay in starting treatment will not make treatment less effective. But some people with cancer need treatment right away. To make sure, you should discuss this delay with your doctor.
There are a number of ways to find a doctor for a second opinion:
- Your doctor may refer you to one or more specialists. At cancer centers, several specialists often work together as a team.
- NCI's Cancer Information Service, at 1-800-4-CANCER, can tell you about nearby treatment centers. Information Specialists also can provide online assistance through LiveHelp (https://livehelp.cancer.gov).
- A local or state medical society, a nearby hospital, or a medical school can usually provide the names of specialists.
- The NCI provides a fact sheet called "How To Find a Doctor or Treatment Facility If You Have Cancer."
The treatment plan depends mainly on the type of cancer and the stage of the disease.
Doctors also consider the patient's age and general health. Often, the goal of treatment is to cure the cancer. In other cases, the goal is to control the disease or to reduce symptoms for as long as possible. The treatment plan may change over time.
Most treatment plans include surgery, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy. Some involve hormone therapy or biological therapy. In addition, stem cell transplantation may be used so that a patient can receive very high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
Some cancers respond best to a single type of treatment. Others may respond best to a combination of treatments.
- Local therapy removes or destroys cancer in just one part of the body. Surgery to remove a tumor is local therapy. Radiation to shrink or destroy a tumor also is usually local therapy.
- Systemic therapy sends drugs or substances through the bloodstream to destroy cancer cells all over the body. It kills or slows the growth of cancer cells that may have spread beyond the original tumor. Chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and biological therapy are usually systemic therapy.
Your doctor can describe your treatment choices and the expected results. You and your doctor can work together to decide on a treatment plan that is best for you.
Because cancer treatments often damage healthy cells and tissues, side effects are common. Side effects depend mainly on the type and extent of the treatment. Side effects may not be the same for each person, and they may change from one treatment session to the next.
Before treatment starts, the health care team will explain possible side effects and suggest ways to help you manage them. This team may include nurses, a dietitian, a physical therapist, and others. The NCI provides booklets about cancer treatments and coping with side effects. These include Radiation Therapy and You, Chemotherapy and You, Biological Therapy, and Eating Hints.
At any stage of cancer, supportive care is available to relieve the side effects of therapy, to control pain and other symptoms, and to ease emotional and practical problems. Information about supportive care is available on NCI's Web site at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/coping and from Information Specialists at 1-800-4-CANCER.
You may want to talk to the doctor about taking part in a clinical trial (a research study of new treatment methods). The section on "The Promise of Cancer Research" has more information about clinical trials.
You may want to ask the doctor these questions before treatment begins:
- What is my diagnosis?
- Has the cancer spread? If so, where? What is the stage of the disease?
- What is the goal of treatment? What are my treatment choices? Which do you recommend for me? Why?
- What are the expected benefits of each kind of treatment?
- What are the risks and possible side effects of each treatment? How can side effects be managed?
- Will infertility be a side effect of my treatment? Can anything be done about that? Should I consider storing sperm or eggs?
- What can I do to prepare for treatment?
- How often will I have treatments? How long will my treatment last?
- Will I have to change my normal activities? If so, for how long?
- What is the treatment likely to cost? Will my insurance cover the costs?
- What new treatments are under study? Would a clinical trial be appropriate for me?
In most cases, the surgeon removes the tumor and some tissue around it. Removing nearby tissue may help prevent the tumor from growing back. The surgeon may also remove some nearby lymph nodes.
The side effects of surgery depend mainly on the size and location of the tumor, and the type of operation. It takes time to heal after surgery. The time needed to recover is different for each type of surgery. It is also different for each person. It is common to feel tired or weak for a while.
Most people are uncomfortable for the first few days after surgery. However, medicine can help control the pain. Before surgery, you should discuss the plan for pain relief with the doctor or nurse. The doctor can adjust the plan if you need more pain relief.
Some people worry that having surgery (or even a biopsy) for cancer will spread the disease. This seldom happens. Surgeons use special methods and take many steps to prevent cancer cells from spreading. For example, if they must remove tissue from more than one area, they use different tools for each one. This approach helps reduce the chance that cancer cells will spread to healthy tissue.
Similarly, some people worry that exposing cancer to air during surgery will cause the disease to spread. This is not true. Air does not make cancer spread.
Radiation therapy (also called radiotherapy) uses high-energy rays to kill cancer cells. Doctors use several types of radiation therapy. Some people receive a combination of treatments:
- External radiation: The radiation comes from a large machine outside the body. Most people go to a hospital or clinic for treatment 5 days a week for several weeks.
- Internal radiation (implant radiation or brachytherapy): The radiation comes from radioactive material placed in seeds, needles, or thin plastic tubes that are put in or near the tissue. The patient usually stays in the hospital. The implants generally remain in place for several days.
- Systemic radiation: The radiation comes from liquid or capsules containing radioactive material that travels throughout the body. The patient swallows the liquid or capsules or receives an injection. This type of radiation therapy can be used to treat cancer or control pain from cancer that has spread to the bone. Only a few types of cancer are currently treated in this way.
The side effects of radiation therapy depend mainly on the dose and type of radiation you receive and the part of your body that is treated. For example, radiation to your abdomen can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Your skin in the treated area may become red, dry, and tender. You also may lose your hair in the treated area.
You may become very tired during radiation therapy, especially in the later weeks of treatment. Resting is important, but doctors usually advise patients to try to stay as active as they can.
Fortunately, most side effects go away in time. In the meantime, there are ways to reduce discomfort. If you have a side effect that is especially severe, the doctor may suggest a break in your treatment.
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs that kill cancer cells. Most patients receive chemotherapy by mouth or through a vein. Either way, the drugs enter the bloodstream and can affect cancer cells all over the body.
Chemotherapy is usually given in cycles. People receive treatment for one or more days. Then they have a recovery period of several days or weeks before the next treatment session.
Most people have their treatment in an outpatient part of the hospital, at the doctor's office, or at home. Some may need to stay in the hospital during chemotherapy.
Side effects depend mainly on the specific drugs and the dose. The drugs affect cancer cells and other cells that divide rapidly:
- Blood cells: When drugs damage healthy blood cells, you are more likely to get infections, to bruise or bleed easily, and to feel very weak and tired.
- Cells in hair roots: Chemotherapy can cause hair loss. Your hair will grow back, but it may be somewhat different in color and texture.
- Cells that line the digestive tract: Chemotherapy can cause poor appetite, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, or mouth and lip sores.
Some drugs can affect fertility. Women may be unable to become pregnant, and men may not be able to father a child.
Although the side effects of chemotherapy can be distressing, most of them are temporary. Your doctor can usually treat or control them.
Some cancers need hormones to grow. Hormone therapy keeps cancer cells from getting or using the hormones they need. It is systemic therapy.
Hormone therapy uses drugs or surgery:
- Drugs: The doctor gives medicine that stops the production of certain hormones or prevents the hormones from working.
- Surgery: The surgeon removes organs (such as the ovaries or testicles) that make hormones.
The side effects of hormone therapy depend on the type of therapy. They include weight gain, hot flashes, nausea, and changes in fertility. In women, hormone therapy may make menstrual periods stop or become irregular and may cause vaginal dryness. In men, hormone therapy may cause impotence, loss of sexual desire, and breast growth or tenderness.
Biological therapy is another type of systemic therapy. It helps the immune system (the body's natural defense system) fight cancer. For example, certain patients with bladder cancer receive BCG solution after surgery. The doctor uses a catheter to put the solution in the bladder. The solution contains live, weakened bacteria that stimulate the immune system to kill cancer cells. BCG can cause side effects. It can irritate the bladder. Some people may have nausea, a low-grade fever, or chills.
Most other types of biological therapy are given through a vein. The biological therapy travels through the bloodstream. Some people get a rash where the therapy is injected. Some have flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, weakness, and nausea. Biological therapy also can cause more serious side effects, such as changes in blood pressure and breathing problems. Biological therapy is usually given at the doctor's office, clinic, or hospital.
Stem Cell Transplantation
Transplantation of blood-forming stem cells enables patients to receive high doses of chemotherapy, radiation, or both. The high doses destroy both cancer cells and normal blood cells in the bone marrow. After the treatment, the patient receives healthy, blood-forming stem cells through a flexible tube placed in a large vein. New blood cells develop from the transplanted stem cells. Stem cells may be taken from the patient before the high-dose treatment, or they may come from another person. Patients stay in the hospital for this treatment.
The side effects of high-dose therapy and stem cell transplantation include infection and bleeding. In addition, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) may occur in people who receive stem cells from a donor. In GVHD, the donated stem cells attack the patient's tissues. Most often, GVHD affects the liver, skin, or digestive tract. GVHD can be severe or even fatal. It can occur any time after the transplant, even years later. Drugs may help prevent, treat, or control GVHD.
The NCI offers a fact sheet called "Bone Marrow Transplantation and Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation." | <urn:uuid:ed27cf1d-1a75-4bed-8735-bdb1d45a70bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk/cancer/page8/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942264 | 2,641 | 2.734375 | 3 |
| Deep submicron technology enabled the design of the industry's first very large chips. The magnitude of the design effort involved in creating these chips led to the adoption of reuse methodologies and system-on-chip (SoC) design, in which various intellectual property (IP) components were created and reused to produce even larger, more complex chips. This led to the emergence of design flows and methods for handling IP protection and hierarchy, and ultimately SoC test. |
To enable SoC test, two technologies emerged:
As the industry matures in the usage of these technologies, hierarchical SoC test flows have begun to emerge, and the benefits of having an SoC test methodology are being recognized.
- Wrapper technology, in which a wrapper isolates the core from the embedded environment during test, such that the core can be tested independently from the logic in which it is embedded.
- Core Test Language (CTL), which communicates test information for the core and allows for the successful creation of a complete SoC test set.
SoCs can incorporate IP from one or more companies, and the benefit of testing the SoC hierarchically -- offering the capability to isolate each section of a design for debug -- is proving highly advantageous. By isolating the IP test, each test issue also becomes isolated to a specific block of the design.
Scan insertion completed on a flat rather than per-core basis makes the SoC design difficult to debug. If a test failure occurs, there is no way to figure out what portion of the design is failing without deeper diagnostics (it is usually difficult to tell by the pattern name).
Figure 1 illustrates how scan chains may be inserted in an SoC that is tested flat. The scan chains connect to multiple cores, or to a core plus its user-defined logic (UDL). The patterns created will test the entire design, but if a scan chain failure occurs, it is not obvious which block of logic caused that failure.
Figure 1 -- SoC scan inserted flat
Figure 2 shows another way of inserting scan chains in an SoC to allow for isolation of test. In this example, there are separate scan chains for each core.
These scan chains are connected to the top-level ports. This allows a pattern set to test a specific portion of the SoC. If that pattern set fails, it is obvious which block of the design caused the failure, making it easier to track yield issues during manufacturing test. This approach offers additional test time and cost reduction advantages, due to the use of the much shorter scan chains resulting in fewer test vectors.
Figure 2 -- SoC scan inserted hierarchically
To maintain high coverage of a core in the hierarchically scan inserted SoC, a mechanism is needed to control logic going into the core and to observe logic coming out of the core. This mechanism is needed because most functional ports of a core are not accessible from the top level of the SoC.
A wrapper boundary register (WBR), as shown in Figure 3, isolates a core by bounding that core with a chain of registers, allowing for testing of the internal logic of that core without access to the functional ports.
Figure 3 -- Core with isolation wrapper boundary register
A WBR comprises a register for each functional input and output. Flip-flops that are part of the function of the design at the input or output can be reused as a WBR cell. When no reusable flip-flop exists, a dedicated WBR cell must be placed on the functional input or output as shown in Figure 4.
The dedicated input WBR cell, rather than the input port, has the capability of driving the internal logic with the register during internal test (Intest) mode. If the input port were used instead of the WBR cell, it would generate an X in this scenario, as there is no access to logic external to the core during the Intest mode. This would cause a decrease in test coverage of the core.
During Intest mode, a dedicated output WBR cell captures responses from the functional logic into the WBR cell. The WBR added to a core can also be used to test the user-defined logic surrounding a core.
Figure 4 -- Dedicated WBR cell examples
Test isolation can be leveraged to test each core with a different methodology, such as flip-flop or latch-based scan, or BIST. This allows the best test methodology to be applied to each core, and eliminates the requirement that the entire SoC have a matched test method. Test isolation also allows for each core to be tested at different frequencies, which is often a requirement in SoC design.
When an SoC is created, it can be a massive effort to create the test patterns for screening the device, and this effort cannot be begun until very late in the design flow. With an SoC that is composed of wrapped cores, this effort can be divided in many ways.
Each core's test can be created whenever the core is completed, and much earlier in the SoC design cycle to absolutely minimize schedule impacts. Also, different resources (people, CPUs, tools) can be used at different times to allow for a more serial flow and a reduction of cost.
Once a pattern set is created for an isolated core, this pattern set can be reused every time the core is reused. If hierarchical isolation is not used, the test patterns must be created each time the core is instantiated.
If the environment allows, all of the cores can be tested in parallel. Number of pins, tester memory and power are considerations that must be taken into account for this decision.
If any of the environment will not allow for all of the cores and UDL to be tested in parallel, hierarchical testing allows for other options. One core at a time can be tested, two cores at a time can be tested, or any other combination of cores and UDL can be tested in parallel. The capability of hierarchical testing has the flexibility to test the SoC in a way that best fits the environment. In the case of an SoC flat test, the choices are much more limited.
Another advantage of testing hierarchically is that if there are unexpected problems during test, such as excess power dissipation or IR drop, they may be able to be circumvented. An example of this is if three cores are being tested in parallel and the IR drop during the test is high enough to cause data inversion or insufficient frequency measurements, then the testing order can be changed to accommodate these issues.
Test isolation also provides the ability to use the cores as a guideline to divide the power domains. The current/voltage measurements can be taken for each design entity. The separation of the power information is extremely important in an SoC environment.
A number of benefits of SoC test methodologies have been identified. These benefits are significant enough for designs to be processed in an SoC flow by partitioning the design hierarchically without the traditional IP reuse aspects of SoCs.
Teresa McLaurin is a consulting member of the technical staff at the ARM Design Center in Austin, TX. She manages and leads the DFT and Test teams and she creates DFT methodology for use across ARM. She is a member of the IEEE and the IEEE P1500 standard task force.
Rohit Kapur, Synopsys Scientist, guides the development of Synopsys design-for-test (DFT) solutions based on Core Test Language (CTL) and other open standards. He is chair of the Core Test Language, IEEE P1450.6, standard committee, and was named IEEE Fellow in January 2003 for his outstanding contributions to the field of IC test technology. | <urn:uuid:2d408f24-565b-460f-9093-acabe26d49dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.design-reuse.com/articles/9228/wrap-your-cores-to-enable-soc-test-arm-synopsys.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931618 | 1,573 | 2.78125 | 3 |
EDEN Hot Pepper Sesame Oil is a delightful combination of the nutty flavor of toasted sesame seeds and hot spicy flavor of chili peppers. Whole sesame seeds are cleaned, slowly roasted in a rotary kiln to unlock their flavor and aroma, and placed in a screw press called an 'expeller' to extract the oil. The oil is gently filtered then infused with red hot chili peppers that soak in the oil for 24 hours. The peppers are then removed.
Most of the fat in EDEN Hot Pepper Sesame Oil is monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Sesamol and sesamin, naturally occurring antioxidants found in sesame seeds and sesame oil, make unrefined sesame oil especially nourishing, and they act as a natural preservative in the oil. One of the most shelf stable unrefined vegetable oils.
In the tropical and semitropical areas of Asia where spices and peppers are frequently used, it was discovered that hot chili peppers could be infused into sesame oil to create a delightfully hot and spicy oil. Spices cause capillaries at the surface of the body to dilate, releasing internal heat and inducing perspiration so they have a cooling effect on the body and make it easier to adapt to hot climates. Japanese often use red pepper as a condiment for this purpose, especially during the hot summer months.
Sesame Sesamum indicum is a treasured herb native to Indonesia and Africa. It has been widely grown in tropical and subtropical Asia and in the Mediterranean region for thousands of years. The first known cultivation of sesame occurred around 3000 B.C. in the Middle East and 1600 B.C. in Egypt. The Egyptians are credited with being the inventors of sesame oil. Sesame seeds were introduced to Japan around 645 to 793 A.D. by Buddhist priests from Korea and China. Sesame oil production in Japan was recorded during the Heian Period (794 to 1191 A.D.).
Sesame plants grow about two to five feet and produce pretty purple cone shaped flowers. There are several varieties of the sesame plant that produce creamy white, brown, black, and red seeds. When ready for harvest the seeds are encased in a protective hard shell that rattles with its precious contents. The entire plant is cut off at the base of the stem and stacked in an upright position against racks and allowed to dry. While drying the capsules that hold the seed split open. The plant is turned upside down, shaken and the seeds drop onto a cloth.
It's best to avoid commercial vegetable oil that's heated above its smoke point, treated with the solvent hexane, washed with sodium hydroxide, and chemically bleached and deodorized at 400 degrees F. For delicious and nutritious unrefined oils, choose EDEN. | <urn:uuid:f1a6a269-ea21-4dac-8f7e-f664673baa78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_details.php?products_id=109500&eID=erik26u6prdglahqgecd0e3tq4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956776 | 584 | 2.640625 | 3 |
- Electricity trade between Canada and the U.S. begins in 1901, with a transmission line built at Niagara Falls. Canada's abundant hydroelectric power ensures that most of the benefits will subsequently flow in a northerly direction.
- The same Niagara generating station, built to supply
- southern Ontario communities, stimulates Canada's world expertise in long-distance transmission.
- In 1902, a strike in Pennsylvania's coal fields halts coal
- shipments to Ontario, and provides impetus for the formation of Ontario Hydro.
- In 1903, the world's longest transmission line (136 km) is built to transmit 50 kV from Shawinigan Electric Company to Montreal.
- Calgary Power is formed in 1909, and develops into the largest investor-owned utility in Canada. As TransAlta, it now provides two thirds of Alberta's electricity.
- In 1912, the world's first completely electric steel mill is built for the Steel Company of Canada. This event is followed a year later by Canada's first reversible mine hoist. | <urn:uuid:4ebf1e0e-1a50-4728-8d6c-a78ab82f8f9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.electricity.ca/industry-issues/electricity-in-canada/historical-review/1900-1919.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920546 | 210 | 3.609375 | 4 |
One of the great bits of repartee in The King’s Speech comes as the maverick Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue, is just getting to know His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the stammering Duke of York:
Logue: “Surely a prince’s brain knows what his mouth’s doing?” Bertie: “You’re obviously not well acquainted with many royal princes.”
No one could have imagined any such dialogue involving Archduke Otto von Habsburg, who died on July 4—not because the archduke was a fearsome personality, but because he was a pre-eminently intelligent and decent man.
The full name he was given at his baptism in 1912—Franz Josef Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius—speaks volumes about the history of his family, whose rule over central Europe extended back some seven centuries. Otto might have been thought an anachronism after his father, Emperor Karl, was driven from the throne of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in the waning days of World War I. Yet the son declined to disappear from the scene and played roles both dramatic and useful over the eight decades of his maturity.
He worried Hitler, who saw him as a potential threat to the Anschluss uniting Austria with Germany. So the Nazi Führer twice tried to meet the young Austrian nobleman when Archduke Otto was studying in Berlin in 1931-32. Otto von Habsburg not only rebuffed Hitler on both occasions, thus putting himself firmly on the Gestapo’s list of enemies; in 1938, as the Nazi vice was closing on an independent Austria, the archduke, at obvious risk to his life, volunteered to return to Austria as the head of government, to provide a national rallying point against Nazi paganism.
In June 1940, the Luftwaffe bombed the Belgian castle in which Otto von Habsburg and his family were living, just hours after the family had fled south ahead of the Wehrmacht’s drive west. Hounded by the Gestapo in neutral Lisbon, Archduke Otto and his family came to the United States at the invitation of President Franklin Roosevelt and spent the Second World War years in America. Otto von Habsburg returned to Europe after the Nazi defeat, married Princess Regina of Sachsen-Meiningen, who was working as a nurse at a Munich refuge camp the archduke visited (and whose father, Duke George III, had died in the Soviet Gulag); the couple had seven children, and lived a model Christian family life.
Elected to the European parliament in 1979, Otto von Habsburg spent 20 years as perhaps that body’s most respected member: an adroit debater in seven languages, he kept alive the vision of a post-Cold War Europe reunited as a single civilizational enterprise, built on the sturdy foundations of biblical religion, faith in reason, and commitment to the rule of law. In that sense, Otto von Habsburg was arguably the first modern “European.”
He may also have been the last. For the European Union, as it has evolved in the early 21st century, has been built around a naked public square in which biblical religion plays no role; faith in reason is faltering under the assault of post-modernism and political correctness; and the rule of law is jeopardized by what another great son of Mitteleuropa, Joseph Ratzinger, has called the “dictatorship of relativism.” In 2006, I spent a memorable evening discussing this unhappy situation with the Archduke Otto, at an Acton Institute dinner in Rome at which we were seated across the table from one another. He was not bitter, for he was a man of deep Catholic faith, and thus a man of hope. But he was concerned about Europe’s future, and his concerns have turned out to be entirely prescient.
Otto von Habsburg’s father, Emperor Karl, was beatified by John Paul II in 2004. The late pope once greeted Archduke Otto’s mother, Empress Zita, by saying that he was “happy to receive the widow of my father’s last sovereign.” It is entirely safe to say that we shall not see their likes again. May they rest in peace.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:b10dbb94-fad8-468b-aff7-b26cb6722a09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/08/the-first-and-last-european/george-weigel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974207 | 979 | 2.8125 | 3 |
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Ovarian cancer screenings have more risks than benefits, the US Preventive Services Task Force has decided.
A federal government task force said Monday that women should not get routinely screened for ovarian cancer. The cancer has a higher mortality rate than all other gynecological cancers, the Washington Post reported. It is the fifth-leading cause of cancer death for women. Nonetheless, the US Preventive Services Task Force found that women who get screened for the cancer do not have a lower risk of dying from the disease.
However, the panel's recommendations come with a major caveat: the advice only applies to women with an "average risk" of ovarian cancer. It does not apply to women who are dealing with suspicious symptoms or who have a family history of the disease, the New York Times reported.
More from GlobalPost: When the BRICs Crumble
The Task Force made its decision by reviewing studies that other people conducted. The Task Force examined an old review of studies from 2008, as well as new research from 2011. The Task Force concluded that for women with no symptoms or no increased risk, the screenings do more harm than good because of false positives.
The issue seems to be not that screening in itself is bad, but just that the screening methods available don't work so well. The tests seem to only detect ovarian cancer when it is at an advanced stage, at which point it is too late. “There is no existing method of screening for ovarian cancer that is effective in reducing deaths,” Dr. Virginia A. Moyer, the chairwoman of the expert panel, told the Times. | <urn:uuid:5d86b22d-53be-4ea9-989b-2d5758ca4b74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/120911/ovarian-cancer-screenings-dont-save-lives-us-preventive-services-task--0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951106 | 333 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Fact Sheet: Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome in Adults541
Cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) is a disorder with recurrent episodes of severe nausea and vomiting interspersed with symptom free periods. While CVS has been studied in pediatric populations, its occurrence in adults has been underappreciated. It is now thought that this crippling syndrome can occur in a range of age groups from children to adults. Recognizing and treating the condition are discussed.
DES is a rare disorder. Usual symptoms are chest pain and trouble swallowing. The chest pain can feel like a heart attack. Tests are needed to diagnose DES. DES does not lead to other serious illnesses. Most patients can be treated successfully. A review.
Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIP) is the name given to a number of rare disorders that cause impaired gastrointestinal motility (movement in the digestive tract). A diagnosis of CIP is based on symptoms that occur when the intestine is blocked and on clinical findings. In pseudo-obstruction, the symptoms are caused not by a surgically correctable tumor, twist, or ulcer in the bowel, but by a problem having to do with the strength or coordination of the contractions that move along the contents of the bowel.
Fact Sheet: Antroduodenal Manometry: Questions and Answers811
Your child is scheduled for a specialized test called antroduodenal manometry. This information will help to prepare you and your child so the experience is as successful as it can be.
Fact Sheet: Colon Manometry: Questions and Answers812
Your child is scheduled for a specialized test called colon manometry that will check the motility of the colon. This guide will help to prepare you and your child so that the experience is as successful as it can be.Topics: Anal, Rectal Disorders, Colonic inertia, Pseudo-obstruction, Hirschsprung's Disease, Motility, Tests, lower GI tract
Fact Sheet: Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome817
Cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) was first described about 120 years ago by Dr. Samuel Gee, the erudite British physician. Interest in the syndrome was revived when Kathleen Adams, a parent of an affected child founded the Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome Association in 1993. She enlisted the support of pediatric gastroenterologists, Drs. David Fleisher and B.U.K. Li, who recognized that better treatment of the disorder would only occur if the syndrome could be scientifically defined for medical researchers. This article describes CVS and approaches to treatment.Topics: CVS, Motility, Nausea, vomiting, Nausea, vomiting, Other Disorders/Symptoms, Other Disorders/Symptoms, Stomach Disorders, Stomach Disorders
Over 1,000 new cases of Hirschsprung's disease are diagnosed in the USA every year. More than half the children treated appropriately with surgery for Hirschsprung's disease suffer from chronic problems with constipation, incontinence, and/or abdominal pain. Even as adults, over half will experience occasional episodes of incontinence, and 10% will endure constipation unresponsive to medical management. Nonetheless, adjustment for teenagers and young adults with Hirschsprung's disease is not different than for healthy children; successful adjustment depends largely on family support. Revised and updated 2009.Topics: Anal, Rectal Disorders, Constipation, difficult to pass stools, Constipation, difficult to pass stools, Fecal soiling, incontinence, Hirschsprung's Disease, Incontinence, Motility
Fact Sheet: Hirschsprung’s Disease in Children and Adults839
Hirschsprung’s disease is an illness that people are born with (congenital), in which there is a lack of nerve cells (ganglion cells) in the segments of the intestinal tract located in the colon or rectum. Since the first operative curative technique for Hirschsprung’s disease was described in 1948, progress in diagnostic methods and surgical techniques have allowed the survival and successful treatment of most children with Hirschsprung’s disease. In spite of these advances, postoperative problems continue to occur. Recently, research has produced a better understanding of the disease, knowledge that will undoubtedly lead to further refinements of the surgical techniques and better treatment of these patients.
Hirschsprung’s disease is a rare illness that people are born with (congenital). It occurs annually in about 1 in 5,000 live births. In Hirschsprung’s disease there is a lack of nerve cells (ganglion cells) in segments of the intestinal tract located in the colon and/or rectum.
The treatment is surgery to remove the abnormal bowel segment and restore bowel continuity. Following surgical treatment, most children have a good outcome, but some have persistent bowel problems such as constipation, soiling, fecal incontinence, and inflammation in the colon (enterocolitis). These symptoms can impact the quality of life, which also needs to be addressed.
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The West Country's bee population is under threat from the effects of the wet summer.
The government's National Bee Unit has advised beekeepers of a starvation risk and is encouraging them to leave out emergency supplies of sugar and syrup.
Staple crops that bees feed on such as fruit blossom have been damaged by heavy rainfall in May and June.
Persistent rain can also prevent honey bees from being able to fly.
Last winter colony numbers in England also fell by 16.2%. If numbers continue to dwindle it could have a huge impact on the wider food chain.
The British Beekeepers Association says: "Honey bees are important pollinators and we rely heavily on them for much of the food that is on our plate in one way or another. All sorts of crops are pollinated by honey bees, including fruit and many vegetables." | <urn:uuid:83c6e73f-cd48-497d-829a-b9a06247acb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itv.com/news/west/topic/wet-summer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972962 | 172 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Youth Members With Special Needs
Advancement for Youth Members with Special Needs
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 39)
The following are the guidelines for membership and advancement in Scouting for persons having disabilities or other special needs.
The American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) provides the following definition of an individual with a disability:
"An individual is considered to have a 'disability' if s/he has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (e.g., . . . seeing hearing, speaking, walking, breathing, performing manual tasks, learning, caring for oneself, and working), has a record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.
"An individual with epilepsy, paralysis, HIV infection, AIDS, a substantial hearing or visual impairment, mental retardation, or a specific learning disability, is covered, but an individual with a minor, nonchronic condition of short duration, such as a sprain, broken limb, or the flu would not be covered by the ADA.
"The ADA definition protects individuals with a record of a disability and would cover, for example, a person who has recovered from cancer or mental illness.
"And the ADA protects individuals who are regarded as having a substantially limiting impairment, even though they may not have such an impairment. For example . . . a qualified individual with a severe facial disfigurement is protected from being denied employment because an employer feared the 'negative reactions' of customers or coworkers."
The Department of Education identifies a severely handicapped child as one who, because of the intensity of his physical, mental, or emotional problems, or a combination of such problems, needs education, social, psychological, and medical services beyond those that have been offered by traditional regular and special educational programs, in order to maximize his full potential for useful and meaningful participation in society and for self-fulfillment. Such children include those classified as seriously emotionally disturbed or profoundly and severely mentally retarded, and those with two or more serious handicapping conditions, such as the mentally retarded blind, and the cerebral-palsied deaf.
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 40)
The chartered organizations using Scouting determine, with approval from appropriate medical authorities, whether a youth member is qualified to register (based on the above definitions) beyond the normal registration age. The Cubmaster's signature on the Cub Scout application, the Scoutmaster's signature on the Boy Scout application, the Varsity Scout Coach's signature on the Varsity Scout application, the Advisor's or Skipper's signature on the Venturing application, or on the unit's charter renewal application certify the approval of the chartered organization for the person to register. The local council must approve these registrations on an individual basis.
The medical condition of all candidates for membership beyond the normal registration age must be certified by a physician licensed to practice medicine, or an evaluation statement must be certified by an educational administrator. Use the Personal Health and Medical Record Form. Any corrective measures, restrictions, limitations, or abnormalities must be noted. In the case of mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed candidates for membership, their condition must be certified by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist. Current health, medical, or certification records of all youth members beyond the normal registration age who have disabilities are to be retained in the unit file at the council service center.
Advancement for Boy Scout with Disabilities
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 40)
All current requirements for an advancement award (ranks, merit badges, or Eagle Palms) must be actually met by the candidate. There are no substitutions or alternatives permitted except those which are specifically stated in the requirements as set forth in the current official literature of the Boy Scouts of America. Requests can be made for alternate rank requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class using the information outlined in this chapter. No council, district, unit, or individual has the authority to add to, or to subtract from, any advancement requirements. The Scout is expected to meet the requirements as stated -- no more and no less. Furthermore, he is to do exactly what is stated. If it says, "show or demonstrate," that is what he must do. Just telling about it isn't enough. The same thing holds true for such words as "make," "list," "in the field," and "collect, identify, and label."
Alternate Requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class Ranks
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 42)
A Scout who has a permanent physical or mental disability and is unable to complete all of the requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, or First Class rank may submit a request to the council advancement committee to complete alternate requirements. Below are the procedures for applying for alternate requirements. To keep Scouts with disabilities as much in the advancement mainstream as possible, some advancement accommodations may be required. Thus, a Scout in a wheelchair can meet the requirements for hiking by making a trip to a place of interest in his community. Giving more time and permitting the use of special aids are other ways leaders can help Scouts with disabilities in their efforts to advance. The substitute should provide a similar learning experience. Bear in mind the outcome of the Scouting experience should be one of fun and learning, and not completing requirements for rank advancements, which might place unrealistic expectations on the special-needs Scout.
Step 1-Do As Many Standard Requirements As Possible.
Before applying for alternate requirements, the Scout must complete as many of the standard requirements as his ability permits. He must do his very best to develop himself to the limit of his abilities and resources.
Step 2-Secure a Medical Statement.
A clear and concise medical statement concerning the Scout's disabilities must be submitted by a licensed health-care provider It must state that the disability is permanent and outline what physical activities the Scout may not be capable of completing. In the case of a mental disability, an evaluation statement should be submitted by a certified educational administrator relating the ability level of the Scout.
Step 3-Prepare a Request for Alternate Requirements.
A written request must be submitted to the Council Advancement Committee for the Scout to work on alternate requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class ranks. The request should include the standard requirements the Scout has completed and the suggested alternate requirements for those requirements the Scout cannot complete. This request should be detailed enough to give the advancement committee enough information to make a decision. The request should be prepared by the Scout, his parents, and his Scoutmaster. A copy of the medical statement in step 2 should be included.
Step 4-The Advancement Committee Reviews the Request.
The Council Advancement Committee should review the request, utilizing the expertise of professional persons involved in Scouts with disabilities. The advancement committee may want to interview the Scout, the parents, and the leader to fully understand the request and to make a fair determination. The decision of the advancement committee should be recorded and delivered to the Scout and the Scoutmaster.
The Council Advancement Committee must then secure approval of the Council Executive Board. The Scout Executive must attach a letter to the application indicating that the Executive Board has approved the application. When applicable, the candidate's application for his award must be made on the Eagle Scout Rank Application or Quartermaster Award Application and also recorded on the Advancement Report form. In the application of these policies for Scouts with special needs, reasonable accommodation in the performance of requirements for advancement may be made. These may include such things as the extension of time, adaptation of facilities, or the use of equipment or necessary devices consistent with the known physical or mental limitations of the handicapped individual it is urged that common sense be employed.
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 42)
Certification must be given by the appropriate local council committee responsible for advancement that each Eagle Scout candidate over the age of 18 and Venturing award candidate over the age of 21 has met the requirements as stated in the current official literature of the Boy Scouts of America. (A representative of the council advancement committee must be a member of the Eagle board of review.)
The council committee responsible for advancement must then secure approval of the council executive board. The Scout executive must attach a letter to the application indicating that the executive board has approved the application.
The candidate's application for the award must be made on the Eagle Scout Rank Application or Quartermaster Award Application and recorded on the Advancement Report form.
In the application of these policies for Scouts with special needs, reasonable accommodation in the performance of requirements may be made. These may include things such as the extension of time, adaptation of facilities, or the use of equipment or necessary devices consistent with the known physical or mental limitations of the handicapped individual. It is urged that common sense be employed.
Alternate Merit Badges for the Eagle Scout Rank
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 43)
- 1. The Eagle Scout rank may be achieved by a Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, or qualified Venturer who has a physical or mental disability by qualifying for alternate merit badges. This does not apply to individual requirements for merit badges. Merit badges are awarded only when all requirements are met as stated.
- 2. The physical or mental disability must be of a permanent rather than a temporary nature.
- 3. A clear and concise medical statement concerning the Scout's disabilities must be made by a physician licensed to practice medicine, or an evaluation statement must be certified by an educational administrator.
- 4. The candidate must earn as many of the required merit badges as his ability permits before applying for an alternate Eagle Scout rank merit badge.
- 5. The candidate must complete as many of the requirements of the required merit badges as his ability permits.
- 6. The Application for Alternate Eagle Scout Award Merit Badges must be completed prior to qualifying for alternate merit badges.
- 7. The alternate merit badges chosen must be of such a nature that they are as demanding of effort as the required merit badges.
- 8. When alternates chosen involve physical activity, they must be approved by the physician.
- 9. The unit leader and the board of review must explain that to attain the Eagle Scout rank, a candidate is expected to do his best in developing himself to the limit of his resources.
- 10. The application must be approved by the council committee responsible for advancement, utilizing the expertise of professional persons involved in Scouting for people with special needs.
- 11. The candidate's application for Eagle must be made on the Eagle Scout Rank Application, with the Application for Alternate Eagle Scout Award Merit Badges attached.
Woods Services Award
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 43)
This annual award was established to recognize volunteers who have performed exceptional service and leadership in the field of Scouts with disabilities. Nomination forms are sent annually to councils every September with a December 31 deadline. One person is selected each spring for national recognition.
Torch of Gold Certificate
(Quoted from: #33088, p. 43)
This is for local council use in recognizing adults for outstanding service to youth with disabilities. Order No. 33733.
Official sources for related information
http://www.scouting.org/factsheets/02-508.html - Scouts With Disabilities and Special Needs - Boy Scouts of America
Unofficial sources for related information
http://www.wwswd.org/ - Working With Scouts With Disabilities
http://www.rfbd.org/ - Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic (enter SCOUT in the search form)
http://www.aph.org/louis.htm - American Printing House for the Blind (enter SCOUT in the search form) | <urn:uuid:3c427820-7e5c-41f5-93ca-2d71d7b32b83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php?title=Youth_Members_With_Special_Needs&oldid=14613 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946848 | 2,426 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Wilhelm von Humboldt
[New Individualist Review, 1961]
When Oswald Spengler in one of his minor books scornfully characterized German classical liberalism as "a bit of the spirit of England on German soil," he was merely displaying the willful blindness of the school of militaristic statist German historians, who refused to acknowledge as a true compatriot any thinker who did not form part of the "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern." Spengler had apparently forgotten that Germany had had its Enlightenment, and the ideals of freedom which were conceived and propagated in England, Scotland, and France towards the end of the 18th century, had found an echo and a support in the works of writers such as Kant, Schiller, and even the young Fichte. Although by 1899 William Graham Sumner could write that, "there is today scarcely an institution in Germany except the army," it is nevertheless true that there existed a native German tradition of distinguished, libertarian thought, which had, in the course of the 19th century, to some degree at least been translated into action. Of the thinkers who contributed to this tradition, Wilhelm von Humboldt was unquestionably one of the greatest.
Born in 1767, Humboldt was descended from a Junker family which had faithfully served the rulers of Prussia for generations — a fact which was later to cause surprise to some of those who heard young Humboldt in conversation passionately defend personal liberty. He was educated at Frankfurt-am-Oder, and later at Göttingen, at that time one of the centers of liberal ideas in Germany.
In the summer of 1789, Humboldt undertook a trip to Paris, in the company of his former tutor, Campe, who was a devotee of the Philosophes, and now eager to see with his own eyes "the funeral rites of French despotism." His pupil did not share his enthusiasm for the Revolution, however, for from what Humboldt had witnessed at Paris and from conversations with Friedrich Gentz (at that time a supporter of the French Revolution) there issued a brief article, "Ideas on the Constitutions of States, occasioned by the New French Constitution."
This little essay, orginally intended as a letter to a friend, is noteworthy for a number of reasons. In the first place, Humboldt appears to have arrived at some of the major conclusions of Burke, without at that time being familiar with the Briton's work. He states, for instance, that "reason is capable to be sure of giving form to material already present, but it has no power to create new material.… Constitutions cannot be grafted upon men as sprigs upon trees." For a new political order to be successful, it is necessary for "time and nature" to have prepared the ground. Since this has not been the case in France, historical analogy compels us to answer no to the question whether this new constitution will succeed.
In addition, this essay is interesting because it anticipates an idea which was central to the thesis of Humboldt's most important work on political theory, and which was never far from his mind whenever he deliberated on the nature of man — the notion that "whatever is to flourish in a man must spring from within him, and not be given him from without."
Nevertheless, Humboldt does not, in this essay, display the hostility towards the French people that was characteristic of Burke. He realizes that if the French had given themselves over to ill-considered schemes for remolding their society according to a preconceived plan, it was a reaction which might have been expected, given the provocations of the Old Regime. "Mankind had suffered at the hands of one extreme; it understandably sought its salvation at the other."
On his return to Berlin, Humboldt had been given a minor post at the law court. But the relative freedom of thought that had been enjoyed in Prussia under Frederick the Great was at this time being replaced by persecutions of the press and religious intolerance, and Humboldt did not find the atmosphere of public life congenial. Added to this was the disinclination that he felt to interfere in the lives of others (a nicety of feeling almost grotesquely out of place in a "public servant"). Most important of all, perhaps, was the new conception that he was beginning to formulate of the legitimate functions of government, a conception that virtually compelled him to look on the states of his time as engines of injustice. In the spring of 1791, Humboldt resigned his position.
The genesis of his major work on political theory, and the one of most interest to individualists, is also to be found in discussions with a friend — Karl von Dalberg, who was a proponent of the "enlightened" state paternalism then prevalent in Germany. He pressed Humboldt for a written exposition of his views on the subject, and Humboldt responded, in 1792, by composing his classic, The Sphere and Duties of Government.
This little book was later to have a good deal of influence. It was of importance in shaping some of John Stuart Mill's ideas in this field, and may even have provided the immediate occasion for his On Liberty. In France, Laboulaye, the late-19th-century individualist, owed much to this work of Humboldt's, and in Germany it exercised an influence even over such a basically unsympathetic mind as von Treitschke's. But it is also a book that has an inherent value, because in it are set forth — in some cases, I believe, for the first time — some of the major arguments for freedom.
Humboldt begins his work by remarking that previous writers on political philosophy have concerned themselves almost exclusively with investigating the divisions of governmental power and what part the nation, or certain sectors of it, ought to have in the exercise of this power. These writers have neglected the more fundamental question, "to what end ought the whole apparatus of the state to aim, and what limits ought to be set to its activity?" It is this question that Humboldt intends to answer.
"The true end of man — not that which capricious inclination prescribes for him, but that which is prescribed by eternally immutable reason — is the highest and most harmonious cultivation of his faculties into one whole. For this cultivation, freedom is the first and indispensible condition." Humboldt thus begins by placing his argument within the framework of a particular conception of man's nature, but it ought to be noted that the validity of his argument does not depend upon the correctness of his view of "the true end of man." Of primary importance are his ideas in regard to the mechanism of individual and social progress, and here even such a socially minded utilitarian as John Stuart Mill could find instruction and inspiration.
For the full flourishing of the individual, Humboldt asserts, there is requisite, besides freedom, a "manifoldness of situations," which, while logically distinct from freedom, has always followed upon it. It is only when men are placed in a great variety of circumstances that those experiments in living can take place that expand the range of values with which the human race is familiar, and it is through expanding this range that increasingly better answers can be found to the question, "In exactly what ways are men to arrange their lives?"
A free nation, according to Humboldt, would be one in which "the continuing necessity of association with others would urgently impel each gradually to modify himself" in the light of his appreciation of the value of the life patterns others have accepted. In such a society, "no power and no hand would be lost for the elevation and enjoyment of human existence." Each man, in applying his reason to his own life and circumstances, would contribute to the education of other men, and would, in turn, learn from their experience. This is Humboldt's view of the mechanism of human progress.
It should be clear, however, that this progressive refinement of the individual personality can only take place under a regime of freedom, since "what is not chosen by the individual himself, that in which he is only restricted and led, does not enter into his being. It remains foreign to him, and he does not really accomplish it with human energy, but with mechanical address." This is one of the central ideas of the book, and merits some discussion.
It is an idea that no one will dispute when it is a question of scientific progress. No one expects worthwhile scientific thought to take place where the scientist is compelled or restricted in some important facet of his work. He must be free to develop his ideas, in accordance with the self-imposed standards of his profession, out of his own orginality. But scientific knowledge is only one type of knowledge; there are other types, some at least as socially useful. There is the knowledge that consists in skills and techniques of production, and the type that, as we have seen, is embedded in values and ways of life: besides the sort of knowledge which is acquired through abstract thought, there is the sort acquired through practical thought and through action. The argument for freedom in the elaboration of scientific knowledge, therefore, is simply a special instance of the argument for freedom in general.
Professor Michael Polanyi has described the benefits of "individualism in the cultivation of science":
The pursuit of science can be organized … in no other manner than by granting complete independence to all mature scientists. They will then distribute themselves over the whole field of possible discoveries, each applying his own special ability to the task that appears most profitable to him. Thus as many trails as possible will be covered, and science will penetrate most rapidly in every direction towards that kind of hidden knowledge which is unsuspected by all but its discoverer, the kind of new knowledge on which the progress of science truly depends.
Few will doubt that scientific progress would have been appallingly retarded if, for instance, Einstein had been compelled to obtain permission from a board in charge of "planning science" before he could undertake his researches (or if a government commission had been empowered to pass on Galileo's intended work!). But if men like Henry Ford had not been free to put their ideas into operation, industrial progress would have been no less stanched. We may freely concede that the abstract scientific thought of an Einstein is a loftier thing, representing a greater achievement of the human mind. But this has no bearing on the argument.
We believe that individual scientists should be unhindered in the pursuit of their aims, because those who would be in charge of the central direction of scientific research, or those who had power to restrict scientists in essential ways, would not know as well as the scientists themselves — each of whom has an immediate knowledge of the relevant factors in his particular situation — which are the most promising lines to be explored. In addition, a self-chosen activity, or one that may be freely followed up in all of its ramifications, will summon forth energy that will not be available in cases where a task is imposed from without, or where the researcher meets up against countless frustrations in the pursuit of his goal — the free activity, in other words, will command greater incentive.
But both of these propositions are equally true of activities involving practical knowledge, or knowledge in action, of which techniques of production are an example. The socialist who believes in central direction of economic activity ought, consistently, to believe also in the central planning of science, and those who favor widespread government control of economic life, because the state "knows better," should, if they were consistent, favor a return to the system that shackled the scientific enterprise as well.
It was partly because force necessarily interferes with individual self-development and the proliferation of new ideas, by erecting a barrier between the individual's perception of a situation and the solution he thinks it best to attempt, that Humboldt wanted to limit the activities of the state as severely as possible. Another argument in favor of this conclusion is that a government wishing to supervise to even a modest degree such a complex phenomenon as society simply cannot fit its regulations to the peculiarities of various concatenations of circumstances. But measures that ignore such peculiarities will tend to produce uniformity, and contract the "manifoldness of situations" which is the spur to all progress.
But what is the indispensible minimum of government activity? Humboldt finds that the one good that society cannot provide for itself is security against those who aggress against the person and property of others. His answer to the question that he posed at the beginning of his work, "what limits ought to be set to the activity of the state," is "that the provision of security, against both external enemies and internal dissensions must constitute the purpose of the state, and occupy the circle of its activity."
As for the services that it is commonly held must fall within the scope of government action, as, for instance, charity, Humboldt believes that they need not be provided by political institutions, but can safely be entrusted to social ones. "It is only requisite that freedom of association be given to individual parts of the nation or to the nation itself" in order for charitable ends to be satisfactorily fulfilled. In this, as indeed throughout his whole book, Humboldt shows himself to be a thoughtful but passionate believer in the efficacy of truly social forces, in the possibility of great social ends being achieved without any necessity for direction on the part of the state. Humboldt thus allies himself with the thinkers who rejected the state in order to affirm society.
Parts of Humboldt's book appeared in two German periodicals in 1792, but difficulties with the Prussian censorship, and a certain apparently innate lack of confidence in his own works, caused him to put off publication of the work until it could be revised. The day for revision never came, however, and it was only sixteen years after the author's death that The Sphere and Duties of Government was published in its entirety.
For ten years after the completion of this book, Humboldt devoted himself to traveling and private studies, principally in aesthetics and the classics, linguistics, and comparative anthropology. From 1802 to 1808 he served as Prussian minister to Rome, a post that involved a minimum of official business, and that he accepted chiefly out of his love for the city. Humboldt's real "return to the state" occurred in 1809, when he became director of the Section for Public Worship and Education, in the Ministry of Interior. In this capacity, he directed the reorganization of the Prussian public education system, and, in particular, founded the University of Berlin.
That so unquestionably sincere a man as Humboldt could have acted in such disharmony with the principles set forth in his only book on political philosophy (among them, that the state should have no connection with education) requires some explanation. The reason is to be sought in his patriotism, which had been aroused by the utter defeat suffered by Prussia at the hands of Napoleon. Humboldt wished to contribute to the regeneration of his country that was being undertaken by men such as Stein and Hardenberg, and the reform of the educational system fitted his abilities and inclinations.
This task completed, Humboldt served in various diplomatic posts for a number of years, including that of Prussian minister to the Congress of Vienna, and, after peace had been established, as a member of the Council of State. But the spirit that now predominated in Berlin, as well as throughout Europe, was the spirit of Metternich, who, always able accurately to identify the enemies of his system, had already in 1814 termed Humboldt a "Jacobin." Humboldt's opposition to the reactionary policies of his government gained for him as much ill will at court as it did popularity among the people. He was hated and intrigued against by the reactionaries at court; they went so far as to open his mail, as if he had in actuality been a Jacobin. When, in 1819, Metternich induced Prussia to agree to the Karlsbad Decrees, which attempted to establish a rigid censorship for all of Germany, Humboldt termed the regulations "shameful, unnational and provoking to a great people," and demanded the impeachment of Bernstorff, the Prussian minister who had signed them.
It was clear that a man like Humboldt was an anomaly in a government that treacherously refused to fulfill its wartime promises of a constitution, and whose domestic policies were largely dictated by Metternich. In December 1819, Humboldt was dismissed. He refused the pension offered him by the king.
The rest of his life he devoted to his studies, of which the researches into linguistics were the most important and gained for him the reputation of a pioneer in the field. He died in 1835.
If we ask what are the primary contributions of Humboldt to libertarian thought, we will find the answer in his ideas on the value of the free, self-sustaining activity of the individual, and of the importance of the unhindered collaboration — often unconscious — of the members of society. The first is a conception which is finding remarkable support and application in the work of the client-centered, or nondirective school, of psychotherapists, while the second has been explored in the recent books of writers such as F.A. Hayek and Michael Polanyi. That ideas that were set forth by Humboldt should be proving so relevant to contemporary research into man and society is a sign of the clearly discernible trend towards individualism in present-day thought at the highest levels.
"Ideen über Staatsverfassung, durch die neue französische Constitution veranlasst," in Humboldt's Gesammelte Schriften, vol. i. (Berlin, 1903), pp. 77–85.
It was under this title that Humboldt's book appeared in English, in 1854. The German title is, Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeft des Staats zu bestimmen; in Humboldt op., cit. vol. i, pp. 97–254. [LibertyFund has the text here. – Ed.]
Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty, (London, 1951), p. 89.
On this very suggestive approach to psychotherapy, see Carl R. Rogers, et. al., Client-Centered Therapy, (New York, 1951). | <urn:uuid:cb8bf538-7e95-45a7-ad88-14f70d8e71c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mises.org/daily/4591/Wilhelm-von-Humboldt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977244 | 3,894 | 2.71875 | 3 |
MARION, N.C. (Sept. 6, 2012) — Breeding Eastern hellbenders in captivity isn’t for the faint of heart.
For one thing, these odd-looking animals, also called “water dogs” or “snot otters,” are notoriously difficult to keep in captivity. For another, they’re relatively hard to find in the wild, including North Carolina where they’re protected and listed as a species of special concern, so obtaining animals for captive breeding can be quite difficult.
But those factors aren’t deterring biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Working cooperatively with the N.C. Zoo, the Wildlife Commission is trying to raise to sexual maturity 10 juvenile hellbenders that it received from a Texas zoo in June,with the ultimate goal of breeding them in captivity to create more hellbenders.
Biologists are not interested in propagating hellbenders to augment wild populations, but rather to meet the increasing demand for these large, aquatic salamanders as educational and display animals for qualified state agencies, universities and other facilities.
“The Wildlife Commission has no plans or intentions to breed hellbenders for release into the wild,” said Lori Williams, a mountain wildlife diversity biologist with the Commission’s Division of Wildlife Management. “We are simply trying to eliminate the need for any facility to yank a hellbender from the wild for display purposes.
“There is no need for that practice anymore if captive stock is available.”
Currently, the 10 juvenile hellbenders are sharing two aquariums set upat the Commission’s Conservation Aquaculture Center, which is located at the Marion State Fish Hatchery in McDowell County. Staff with the Divisions of Wildlife Management and Inland Fisheries are measuring, weighing and photographing the young animals twice a year. In another year or so, they will place the growing hellbenders in a secure, concrete raceway at the hatchery.
Commission staff began modifying the raceway in July to ensure that conditions will be right for hellbenders to breed and nest when they mature.
“Some of the modifications include the addition of baffles to break up line of sight,” said Peter Lamb, the Commission’s technology center biologist. “This will help keep the animals from feeling over crowded. We will also add a substrate similar to what is found in their natural environment with places for the animals to hide and a set of hinged lids to provide shade and protection from predators.”
Because hellbenders grow more quickly in captivity than they do in their native mountain waters, Williams expects that the young animals will reach sexual maturity by 2015. A lot is riding on the next three years, Williams said. She is hopeful, yet realistic, about the captive-breeding program’s long-term success.
“No one has ever successfully bred Eastern hellbenders in captivity, although many have tried for many years,”Williams said. “It was just last year that a team in the Midwest finally got it right with the Ozark hellbender, having the first-ever successful captive-breeding event with that species.
“We’re hoping for similar results with the Eastern hellbender.”
Their current location at the Marion facility marks a return home of sorts for the young hellbenders, which started out as an egg mass removed from a stream in the French Broad River system in North Carolina in 2010. The egg mass was taken to the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas for a research project looking at the effects of two organic chemicals found in two river systems on growth and reproductive organs. More than 200 baby hellbenders hatched from the clutch, leaving the Ft. Worth Zoo with a large stock of leftover hellbenders that needed a new home, because they couldn’t be released into the wild.
Several agencies and other institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums received the leftover hellbenders, with the Commission being one of three in North Carolina that had the proper permits, expertise and equipment to care for the hellbenders. The Wildlife Commission is the only North Carolina facility attempting a captive-breeding project. The other North Carolina facilities receiving hellbenders will use them only as display and educational animals.
While the Fort Worth Zoo provided the hellbenders to start the project, the N.C. Zoological Society was instrumental in the project’s initial success. John Groves, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the N.C. Zoo in Asheboro, provided Commission biologists with technical advice on hellbender reproduction and husbandry — big challenges when working with captive animals that need very specific parameters of dissolved oxygen, water flow, temperature and nesting habitat.
In addition to providing much-needed guidance, the N.C. Zoological Society paid to renovate the raceways at the conservation center.
“This project is critical since it will provide the opportunity in the future to attempt captive breeding of this important member of the aquatic ecosystem in North Carolina,” Groves said. “This project will also give us a wonderful opportunity to study this salamander in captivity in a large, naturalistic enclosure where additional aspects of its behavior and ecology can be more fully understood.”
The Eastern Hellbender — “An Indicator of Good Water Quality”
As its name indicates, the Eastern hellbender is found throughout the Eastern part of the United States from New York to Mississippi. It is one of North America’s largest salamanders, generally reaching lengths up to 24 inches. With its wide, flat head, small, beady eyes and broad, flat tail, the hellbender can be a scary sight for those not familiar with this mostly nocturnal animal. However, the hellbender is nonvenomous and completely harmless, spending its entire life in the clean, fast-moving mountain streams and rivers of North Carolina where it eats mostly crayfish, small fish and other salamanders.
While its preferred food is crayfish, hellbenders are scavengers and will eat just about anything,including bait, or fish on a stringer, which is why anglers can catch them unintentionally.
It’s these unintentional catches that lead many people to think that hellbenders are harmful to fish populations— a myth that Williams is quick to dispel.
“Hellbenders do not eat enough fish to have a negative impact on fishing,” Williams said. “In fact, finding a hellbender in a stream is actually a good thing because hellbenders do well only in clear, clean water.
“So, finding one is an excellent indicator of good water quality, which also supports game fish populations, like trout and smallmouth bass.”
Williams advises anglers who catch a hellbender to cut the line as close as possible to the hook and release theanimal back into the water as quickly and carefully as possible.
Surveys Determine Hellbender Abundance in Five Western North Carolina River Basins
Until recently, biologists had very little information on hellbender populations in North Carolina, although they suspected that hellbenders had declined in many streams due to the usualsuspects — poor water quality from silt, sediment and other pollutants, over-collection, human interactions, habitat disturbance, and dams and impounded waterways.
Since 2007, the N.C. Zoo and the Wildlife Commission have surveyed more than 50 waterways in five western North Carolina river basins that were known to have hellbenders at one time or have never been surveyed before.
Preliminary survey results revealed a decline in some hellbender populations while other populations have remained stable. As biologists expected, hellbenders’ success is directly correlated to human density: hellbenders tended to do better in areas with fewer people and less human interactions.
Staff from the N.C. Zoo and the Commission will continue the surveys for another four or five years.
“North Carolina has one of the largest populations of hellbenders in the United States,” said Groves, who has worked with Williams to conduct the surveys. “However, we are finding many populations that are declining or possibly gone. Constant monitoring is important, not only to help protect this aquatic salamander, but also to monitor our waterways.”
Read more about the surveys here.
Even though surveys are ongoing, biologists still have little data on hellbenders. They are asking the public to report any hellbender sightings to firstname.lastname@example.org. For more information on hellbenders in North Carolina, download an information sheet here.
For more information on wildlife conservation in North Carolina, visit the Conserving page.
A high-resolution version of the photographs above are available for download here
Please credit Lori Williams for photo of hellbender on a blue bag and TR Russ with remaining photos. For additional photos related to this story, as well as a fact sheet suitable for printing, contact Jodie Owen, email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:5fe10b15-1a3e-467e-a95c-241450992e49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncwildlife.org/News/NewsArticle/tabid/416/IndexID/8290/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939911 | 1,893 | 2.59375 | 3 |
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Fluids & Electrolytes
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Water at beaches along Lake Erie contains a pathogen associated with human fecal contamination, Arcobacter species, which are known to cause gastrointestinal illness in humans, and levels correlate with beach advisories, according to a study published in the August issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
To investigate whether recreational water is a potential source of Arcobacter transmission, Cheonghoon Lee, Ph.D., from The Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues measured Arcobacter levels and other fecal genetic markers in water sampled 35 times from four beaches along Ohio's Lake Erie coast, which were known to be contaminated with fecal pollution, in the summer of 2010.
The researchers found Arcobacter at all beaches (75.2 percent of 129 samples), with occurrence and densities in concordance with the level of fecal contamination. The human-specific fecal marker Bacteroides 16S rRNA gene showed a significant correlation with Arcobacter density. Arcobacter levels from the four beaches correlated with beach advisories. Most of the Arcobacter were closely related to Arcobacter cryaerophilus, a species known to cause gastrointestinal disease in humans.
"In summary, our results demonstrate that human-pathogenic Arcobacter was prevalent in the water at four Lake Erie beaches during the 2010 swimming season," Lee and colleagues conclude. "Since the major contamination sources of Arcobacter may originate from human-associated fecal contamination, it is important to identify and manage its sources to minimize public health risks linked to Arcobacter exposure in this region."
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The integrating power of the eye has been tested for short flashes of light, ranging in duration from 10-2 to 8 × 10-9 sec. The shorter flashes were produced by passing the image of the straight filament of an electric lamp across a narrow slit, the light having been reflected from a mirror mounted on an air-driven turbine. The longer flashes were produced by means of a sectored disk. In all cases the number of flashes received by the eye was great enought to avoid flicker and the intensity was well above that required to produce the sensation of vision. It was concluded that the response of the eye depends only upon the total amount of light in the beam and is independent of the length of the light flash. The limit of error was 1.5 percent.
THOMAS E. GILMER, "The Integrating Power of the Eye for Short Flashes of Light," J. Opt. Soc. Am. 27, 386-386 (1937) | <urn:uuid:8b63c035-96b4-4881-8a5a-f7c76b74fc8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opticsinfobase.org/josa/abstract.cfm?uri=josa-27-11-386 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967327 | 198 | 3.171875 | 3 |
The spiritual-cognitive components of anger were long recognized by our Church Fathers. St. Basil recognized the loss of reason in anger. "It makes a man completely bestial...In fact, it does not even allow him to be a man at all, because he ho longer has the help of his reason."
An interesting spiritual issue arises in this context. In order for us to perceive ourselves to be "intruded on" to the extent that it justifies, anger, vengeance, and retaliation we have to have to see ourselves as 'important.' St. Basil tells us "Anger nurses a grievance. The soul, itching for vengeance, constantly tempts us to repay those who have offended" (St Basil the Great, Homily 10). I am so important, so above others I have the "right" to act uncharitably toward other.
What is the root of this reaction? The passion and sin of pride. St Mark the Acetic (Philokalia V. I) wrote: "The passion is strengthened especially by pride. And as long as it is so strengthened it cannot be destroyed. ...Thus the structure of evil in the soul is impossible to destroy so long as it is rooted firmly in pride." From the Shepard of Hermas (Book II Commandment 5) who saw the Holy Spirit choked by anger: "For he is choked by the vile spirit, and cannot attend on the Lord as he wishes, for anger pollutes him. For the Lord dwells in long-suffering, but the devil in anger." Abba Agathon wrote that anger can produce spiritual death: "An irascible man, even if he is capable of raising the dead, will not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven." Another holy desert father Abba Poimen saw anger as obliterating he who would consider himself a monk: "A complaining, vindictive monk, prone to anger, cannot exist,". That is to say that, any who have such faults are not actually monks, even if they wear the schema."
Mankind is created in the image of God and as creatures of God we are called to be "like" Him. (Gen. 1:26) The Church Fathers define the image of God in us as our free will and intelligence. To be like Him meant that mankind must choose "the good." For our first parents, choosing good was to obey their Creator — not to make themselves into gods by tasting the fruit of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). Noting mankind coveted a spiritual power above it's created nature Blessed Augustine interpreted this passage to mean that Adam and Eve thought of themselves as having the knowledge of God.
When God further revealed His Will in the form of the Law: the Ten Commandments (Deut 5: 6-21). and other proscriptions listed for His people. When the fullness of time had come and God sent His "only Begotten Son" our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, He revealed to us the fullness of what it was to be "like" Him. Our Lord tells us "And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another." (John13:34,35).
What greater love could the Father have for us that even though He is God, nevertheless, send His Son to take on our nature so we — all mankind — can be lifted up to Him? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." (John3:16). Let us ponder some of the things Our Lord has told us about love. "If you forgive the faults of others your Heavenly Father will forgive yours. If you do not forgive the faults of others, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you." (Mt. 6:14-16). "My son your sins are forgiven." (Mk. 2:5). "If you want to avoid judgment, stop passing judgment. " (Mt. 7:1).
How do we achieve this love shown to us by the Father and His Son, Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ? St. Paul tells us: "Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God as forgiven you in Christ." (Eph. 4:31). Our calling as part of God's creation, as a member of Christ's body, the Church, is to grow and actualize ourselves; to find those imperfections in us that are barriers preventing us from being "like God"; that prevent us from loving and forgiving. In keeping with St. Paul's words, our emotions, such as anger, are just such an imperfection or barrier. By making ourselves less angry we can grow in the love of God and our neighbor.
Current research psychology has helped us understand the cognitive structure supporting and triggering anger. Besides aiding in helping us to understanding how anger comes about, this research also helps us to employ psychological techniques that can aid in overcoming and preventing anger. The cognitive-behavioral model of emotional dysfunction (Beck, Shaw & Emery, 1979; Ellis, 1962) has been shown to be effective in this regard.
Beck points out the theme of anger is "significant intrusion." We feel some one has intruded on us or on someone or something we love and posses that we consider to be an extension of ourselves. According to this model, emotions such as anger are produced by distorted or irrational beliefs, attitudes and cognitions. Situations (something that someone has said or done or events that have happened) do not produce or cause our upset.
We upset ourselves over people and events, by our "interpretations" of them, thereby making ourselves dysfunctionally angry, anxious or depressed or simply functionally annoyed, concerned and disappointed. If our thinking is clear, rational and non-distorted we have normal feelings like: bearable nuisances, caring and livable letdowns. If our "interpretations" are irrational or distorted we get enraged, intensely worried and despondent. Ellis has long pointed out that emotions such as anger add to our problems like in a 'domino effect.' Originally we have a problem, the "Activating Event." Our angry emotional response is a new problem added to the original, which in turn is linked to other dysfunctional outcomes, etc.
This was so clearly perceived by one of our spiritual fathers so early after Our Lord's message, the Shepard of Hermas said: "But anger is foolish, and fickle, and senseless. Now, of folly is begotten bitterness, and of bitterness anger, and of anger frenzy. This frenzy, the product of so many evils, ends in great and incurable sin." (Book II, Commandment 5)
Cognitive psychological research has found support for seven cognitive distortions relating to anger and the other dysfunctional emotions:
- Selective Abstraction is focusing on one event to the exclusion of others. A mother , for example, pays attention to the "D" on her son's report card while ignoring the "A's" and "B's." This "D" now becomes the focus of anger.
- Arbitrary Inference is drawing a conclusion unwarranted by the facts in an ambiguous situation. For example, a parishioner says "Hello" to the Parish Priest in the Church Hall, the Priest doesn't reply, the person concludes the Priest doesn't like him or her and has a right to be angry.
- Personalization, an event occurs that an individual concludes is directed to them personally. A patron in a busy restaurant perceives the waiter is purposely not waiting on his or her table. The patron never entertains the waiter may be under stress attempting to serve other patron's needs. The patron, concludes, they have a 'right' to be angry.
- Polarization is the tendency to see things in all or nothing terms. 'Cynthia, Jack's wife misses making dinner one evening, because he 'categorizes' events into polarities he views her as a "bad" wife. All the categories between the absolute categories of good and bad are missed. He has the right to be angry at a "bad" wife.
- Generalization is the tendency to see things in always or never categories. 'Jack' comes home late from work. His wife 'Jill' feels her husband will always be inconsiderate and never change. Not only is she angry at his lateness, but his future lateness as well.
- Demanding Expectations, the belief that there are laws or rules that must or have to be obeyed. A mother believes he son should not talk back because she is his "mother." She has the "right" to be angry. (Note God gave us free will, He 'asks' us to obey His commandments. Like Christ, parents can 'prefer and constructively work' toward obedience from their children, but they have no guarantees their children will respect them.) Of spiritual help here is to reflect on the life of Our Lord. He was bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, crucified and died for our salvation. He Himself told us: No servant is greater than his master (Mat. 10:24) —-why would we expect to be treated any differently than Our Lord. It is a blessing if we are treated and honored, but we have no guarantee) A program of rewards for appropriate behavior and punishment, without anger, for inappropriate behavior would be constructive.
- Catastrophizing, the perception that something is more that 100% bad, terrible or awful In the example above, the mother feels that it is terrible, the end of the world, her son answered back, which of course triggers increasing anger.
After recognizing our recognizing and labeling the cognitive distortions , eliciting anger, clinicians aid patients in re-structuring them. There are three questions that lead to restructuring.: 1) Where is the evidence? 2) Is there any other way of looking at it?. 3) Is it as bad as it seems? Using the examples above some restructured interpretations might be: (Selective Abstraction): True, my son got a "D", but he also received some A's and B's); (Arbitrary Inference): "Father didn't say Hello, he may not like me, but maybe he has something on his mind and he didn't even hear me." (Personalization): "The waiter is so busy with other tables, maybe he doesn't even see me." (Polarization): "My wife, Jill missed dinner today, there are many other things that make up our relationship besides one dinner" (Generalization): "Let me talk to Jack about his work schedule and at least ask him to call me if he is going to be late" (Demanding Expectations). "I prefer that my son not talk back to me, let me praise him when he talks correctly and fine him a nickel whenever he talks back."
In addition to the above restructuring questions the "mental ruler technique" (Burns, 1980) is particularly helpful in dealing with Catastrophizing. A situation in the example above a child 'talking back' to his/her parents is evaluated on a 0 to 100 scale, with 0 being the most pleasant thing you could picture happening to you. People infrequently have trouble imaging a very pleasant event (0). Sitting on a sun drenched tropical beach is a typical image. People frequently need help imaging a "graphic" worst event (100).
Use of an example such as the particularly horrifying death of a medical missionary in Southeast Asia several years ago can be of help. After starvation failed to kill this individual, his captors placed chopsticks in his ears and hammered then in, a little each day, until the chopsticks penetrated his brain and the missionary died. Using the "mental-ruler technique' and the restructuring questions, it can be seen that the mother whose son answered back is surely not the same as chopsticks in the ears, in fact, it is probably no more that a 10 or 20 on the mental-ruler scale. Thus successful catastrophizing challenging and a more realistic evaluation. Instead of viewing this a "catastrophe" is now is viewed as a manageable problem to be solved.
These psychological techniques have to be applied rigorously and consistently. They should be used whenever we find ourselves starting to become angry. One helpful way is to excuse yourself and leave the room for a few minutes to collect our thoughts, making sure the psychological "restructuring and reinterpretation is also permeated by Our Lord's teaching and His self-emptying life for us.
We can reflect on the words of St. Mark the Acetic: Do you want the tree of disorder — I mean the passion of bitterness, anger and wrath — to dry up within you and become barred, so that with the axe of the Spirit it may be 'hewn down and cast into the fire' together with every other vice (Matt. 3:10) ...If this is really what you want keep the humility of the Lord in your heart and never forget it...Call to mind who He is, and what He became for our sakes. Reflect first on the divine light of His Divinity revealed to the essences above [the angels] (Eph 1:21)...Then think to what humiliation He descended in His ineffable goodness, becoming in all respects like us who were dwelling in the dwelling of darkness and the shadow of death (Mat 4:16)." Petition Our Lord's help in this way to help restructure.
This "time-out" can be accomplished by something as simple as going to the restroom. Restructuring should can also be incorporated into evening prayer, especially during the examination of conscience and prayer for forgiveness of sins. This active approach toward our becoming like Christ is our vocation as Christians. St. James tells us "So you see, then, it is his actions that a person is put right with God, not by his faith alone" (James 2:24). All the wishing or prayer we do, if it does not lead us to actively make ourselves like Christ is empty.
"Since you are God's dear children you must try to be like him, Your life must be controlled by love ..." (Eph. 5: 1-2). Work, vivified by prayer and the sacraments, is the way to advance in our likeness in Christ. Only then will we be able to say with Christ: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" (Lk 23: 34) This is true anger management.
Beck, A.T., Rush, S., Shaw, B. & Emery, G (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. NY: Guilford Press.
Burns, D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. NY: The New American Library.
Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. NY: Lyle-Stuart.
Palmer, G.E.H., Sherrard, P. & Ware, K. (1979). The Philokalia 1, London: Faber and Fager
Visit Fr. Morelli's Facebook page.
V. Rev. Fr. George Morelli Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist.
He is the Coordinator of the Chaplaincy and Pastoral Counseling Ministry of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese and Religion Coordinator (and Antiochian Archdiocesan Liaison) of the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology and Religion.
Fr. Morelli is also Assistant Pastor of St. George's Antiochian Orthodox Church, San Diego, California.
Fr. Morelli is the author of: | <urn:uuid:9f453504-49be-4e11-96a0-6d196bf82a14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/OT/view/morelli-the-beast-of-anger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959419 | 3,289 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Bipolar Disorder: Hypomanic Episodes
Hypomanic episodes can occur in people who have mood disorders. Hypomanic episodes are less severe than manic episodes, although a hypomanic episode can still interfere with your ability to function properly.
Hypomania may be diagnosed if:
- A distinct period of elevated or irritable mood occurs in which the mood is clearly different from a regular nondepressed mood.
- Three or more of the following symptoms last for a
significant period of time:
- Inflated self-esteem or unrealistic feelings of importance
- Decreased need for sleep (feels rested after only a few hours of sleep)
- Racing thoughts or flight of ideas
- Being easily distracted
- An increase in goal-directed activity (work or personal)
- Irresponsible behaviors that may have serious consequences, such as going on shopping sprees, engaging in increased sexual activity, or making foolish business investments
- The mood or behavior change is noticeable to others.
- The episode is not severe enough to cause impairment in social or job functioning and does not require hospitalization.
- The symptoms are not caused by Reference substance abuse Opens New Window.
If you feel that you or someone you care about may be experiencing a hypomanic episode, contact your doctor to discuss the possible causes and the treatment options.
|By:||Reference Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: Reference March 1, 2012|
|Medical Review:||Reference Patrice Burgess, MD - Family Medicine
Reference Lisa S. Weinstock, MD - Psychiatry | <urn:uuid:cf6b712a-8b66-47e4-a30e-29c063f0b066> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pamf.org/health/healthinfo/index.cfm?A=C&hwid=aa167947 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914609 | 323 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Issues: Environment & Climate
California’s rich and diverse soils, vast farm and ranch lands, climate, air, water, and native species must be protected and in many cases restored so that future generations can enjoy the same quality of life that we have. ROC believes that among several other key dynamics, the food system will not be sustainable until agriculture greatly reduce and/or eliminates its huge impacts on climate, air and water pollution. Roots of Change joins with farmers and ranchers, nonprofit organizations, public officials, entrepreneurs, and concerned citizens to ensure that stewardship incentives exist, that vital environmental research is funded, and that the knowledge gained is shared.
Learn more about how how agriculture can be a powerful tool to fight climate change and reduce nitrogen pollution, click here.
Check out our forum page on the environment & climate.
The movement for healthy food and agriculture began and has grown largely as a result of non-profit organizations. The non-profits we have highlighted here reflect the breadth of issues covered by the movement.
Roots of Change believes that abundant, safe, healthy, fresh, and affordable food is a foundation for a positive future for all Californians. In a market-based economy, powerful solutions must come from entrepreneurs who apply sustainable principles and practices in their businesses.
Roots of Change is working together with California’s farmers and ranchers to ensure that every aspect of our food—from the time it’s grown to the time it’s eaten—is healthy, safe, profitable, and fair for those who grow it and for the state where it’s grown. | <urn:uuid:9eb1ade2-5ef5-44bd-b6ac-e3005245bf85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsofchange.org/content/issues-0/56 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924818 | 331 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Big Data – What Is It?
Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth, availability and use of information, both structured and unstructured. Much has been written on the big data trend and how it can serve as the basis for innovation, differentiation and growth.
According to IDC, it is imperative that organizations and IT leaders focus on the ever-increasing volume, variety and velocity of information that forms big data.1
- Volume. Many factors contribute to the increase in data volume – transaction-based data stored through the years, text data constantly streaming in from social media, increasing amounts of sensor data being collected, etc. In the past, excessive data volume created a storage issue. But with today's decreasing storage costs, other issues emerge, including how to determine relevance amidst the large volumes of data and how to create value from data that is relevant.
- Variety. Data today comes in all types of formats – from traditional databases to hierarchical data stores created by end users and OLAP systems, to text documents, email, meter-collected data, video, audio, stock ticker data and financial transactions. By some estimates, 80 percent of an organization's data is not numeric! But it still must be included in analyses and decision making.
- Velocity. According to Gartner, velocity "means both how fast data is being produced and how fast the data must be processed to meet demand." RFID tags and smart metering are driving an increasing need to deal with torrents of data in near-real time. Reacting quickly enough to deal with velocity is a challenge to most organizations.
Big data according to SAS
At SAS, we consider two other dimensions when thinking about big data:
- Variability. In addition to the increasing velocities and varieties of data, data flows can be highly inconsistent with periodic peaks. Is something big trending in the social media? Perhaps there is a high-profile IPO looming. Maybe swimming with pigs in the Bahamas is suddenly the must-do vacation activity. Daily, seasonal and event-triggered peak data loads can be challenging to manage – especially with social media involved.
- Complexity. When you deal with huge volumes of data, it comes from multiple sources. It is quite an undertaking to link, match, cleanse and transform data across systems. However, it is necessary to connect and correlate relationships, hierarchies and multiple data linkages or your data can quickly spiral out of control. Data governance can help you determine how disparate data relates to common definitions and how to systematically integrate structured and unstructured data assets to produce high-quality information that is useful, appropriate and up-to-date.
Ultimately, regardless of the factors involved, we believe that the term big data is relative; it applies (per Gartner’s assessment) whenever an organization’s ability to handle, store and analyze data exceeds its current capacity.
Examples of big data
- RFID (radio frequency ID) systems generate up to 1,000 times the data of conventional bar code systems. Tweet
- 10,000 payment card transactions are made every second around the world.2 Tweet
- Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions an hour.3 Tweet
- 340 million tweets are sent per day. That's nearly 4,000 tweets per second.4 Tweet
- Facebook has more than 901 million active users generating social interaction data.5 Tweet
- More than 5 billion people are calling, texting, tweeting and browsing websites on mobile phones. Tweet
Uses for big data
So the real issue is not that you are acquiring large amounts of data (because we are clearly already in the era of big data). It's what you do with your big data that matters. The hopeful vision for big data is that organizations will be able to harness relevant data and use it to make the best decisions.
Technologies today not only support the collection and storage of large amounts of data, they provide the ability to understand and take advantage of its full value, which helps organizations run more efficiently and profitably. For instance, with big data and big data analytics, it is possible to:
- Analyze millions of SKUs to determine optimal prices that maximize profit and clear inventory.
- Recalculate entire risk portfolios in minutes and understand future possibilities to mitigate risk.
- Mine customer data for insights that drive new strategies for customer acquisition, retention, campaign optimization and next best offers.
- Quickly identify customers who matter the most.
- Generate retail coupons at the point of sale based on the customer's current and past purchases, ensuring a higher redemption rate.
- Send tailored recommendations to mobile devices at just the right time, while customers are in the right location to take advantage of offers.
- Analyze data from social media to detect new market trends and changes in demand.
- Use clickstream analysis and data mining to detect fraudulent behavior.
- Determine root causes of failures, issues and defects by investigating user sessions, network logs and machine sensors.
"High-performance analytics, coupled with the ability to score every record and feed it into the system electronically, can identify fraud faster and more accurately."
Many organizations are concerned that the amount of amassed data is becoming so large that it is difficult to find the most valuable pieces of information.
- What if your data volume gets so large and varied you don't know how to deal with it?
- Do you store all your data?
- Do you analyze it all?
- How can you find out which data points are really important?
- How can you use it to your best advantage?
Until recently, organizations have been limited to using subsets of their data, or they were constrained to simplistic analyses because the sheer volumes of data overwhelmed their processing platforms. What is the point of collecting and storing terabytes of data if you can't analyze it in full context, or if you have to wait hours or days to get results? On the other hand, not all business questions are better answered by bigger data.
You now have two choices:
- Incorporate massive data volumes in analysis. If the answers you are seeking will be better provided by analyzing all of your data, go for it. The game-changing technologies that extract true value from big data – all of it – are here today. One approach is to apply high-performance analytics to analyze the massive amounts of data using technologies such as grid computing, in-database processing and in-memory analytics.
- Determine upfront which big data is relevant. Traditionally, the trend has been to store everything (some call it data hoarding) and only when you query the data do you discover what is relevant. We now have the ability to apply analytics on the front end to determine data relevance based on context. This analysis can be used to determine which data should be included in analytical processes and which can be placed in low-cost storage for later availability if needed.
" Now you can run hundreds and thousands of models at the product level – at the SKU level – because you have the big data and analytics to support those models at that level."
A number of recent technology advancements are enabling organizations to make the most of big data and big data analytics:
- Cheap, abundant storage and server processing capacity.
- Faster processors.
- Affordable large-memory capabilities, such as Hadoop.
- New storage and processing technologies designed specifically for large data volumes, including unstructured data.
- Parallel processing, clustering, MPP, virtualization, large grid environments, high connectivity and high throughputs.
- Cloud computing and other flexible resource allocation arrangements.
Big data technologies not only support the ability to collect large amounts of data, they provide the ability to understand it and take advantage of its value. The goal of all organizations with access to large data collections should be to harness the most relevant data and use it for optimized decision making.
It is very important to understand that not all of your data will be relevant or useful. But how can you find the data points that matter most? It is a problem that is widely acknowledged. "Most businesses have made slow progress in extracting value from big data. And some companies attempt to use traditional data management practices on big data, only to learn that the old rules no longer apply," says Dan Briody, in the 2011 Economist Intelligence Unit's publication, "Big Data: Harnessing a Game-Changing Asset."
Big data solutions from SAS
How can you make the most of all that data, now and in the future? It is a twofold proposition. You can only optimize your success if you weave analytics into your big data solution. But you also need analytics to help you manage the big data itself.
There are several key technologies that can help you get a handle on your big data, and more important, extract meaningful value from it.
- Information management for big data. Many vendors look at big data as a discussion related to technologies such as Hadoop, NoSQL, etc. SAS takes a more comprehensive data management/data governance approach by providing a strategy and solutions that allow big data to be managed and used more effectively.
- High-performance analytics. By taking advantage of the latest parallel processing power, high-performance analytics lets you do things you never thought possible because the data volumes were just too large.
- High-performance visual analytics. High-performance visual analytics lets you explore huge volumes of data in mere seconds so you can quickly identify opportunities for further analysis. Because it's not just that you have big data, it's the decisions you make with the data that will create organizational gains.
- Flexible deployment options for big data. Flexible deployment models bring choice. High-performance analytics from SAS can analyze billions of variables, and those solutions can be deployed in the cloud (with SAS or another provider), on a dedicated high-performance analytics appliance or within your existing IT infrastructure, whichever best suits your organization's requirements.
1 Source: IDC. "Big Data Analytics: Future Architectures, Skills and Roadmaps for the CIO," September 2011.
2 Source: American Bankers Association, March 2009
3 Source: http://www.economist.com
4 Source: http://blog.twitter.com
5 Source: http://newsroom.fb.com/ | <urn:uuid:e694774a-c3fa-481b-8122-ceacc42086f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sas.com/big-data/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920879 | 2,128 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Framework for Economic Development in Scotland
Part 1 The Framework
1.1 The Vision and Objectives of the Framework
The first Framework for Economic Development in Scotland1 had a clear vision:
to raise the quality of life of the Scottish people through increasing the economic opportunities for all on a socially and environmentally sustainable basis.
This remains the vision of the Executive. It reflects the kind of society that we would like to see in 5-10 years time and the nature of the economy that we believe is necessary in order to achieve this goal.
It is reflected in the Executive's Partnership Agreement for a Better Scotland2, which sets out the principles underpinning this administration. It notes succinctly that:
"Growing the economy is our top priority. A successful economy is key to our future prosperity and a pre-requisite for building first class public services, social justice and a Scotland of opportunity."
The primary challenge in the Scottish economy is, therefore, to establish an accelerated and sustainable rate of economic growth.
The Executive's economic objectives are on two levels: at the top level, there are the principal outcome objectives, which are underpinned by the enabling objectives that support the achievement of these outcomes.
The principal outcome objectives. FEDS is focussed on achieving four key outcomes that are fundamental to Executive policy:
- economic growth - with growth accelerated and sustained through greater competitiveness in the global economy;
- regional development - with economic growth a pre-requisite for all regions to enjoy the same economic opportunities, and with regional development itself contributing to national economic prosperity;
- closing the opportunity gap - with economic growth a pre-requisite for all in society to enjoy enhanced economic opportunities, and with social development in turn contributing to national economic prosperity; and
- sustainable development - in economic, social and environmental terms.
The Framework for Economic Development in Scotland
The enabling objectives. The achievement of these desired outcomes depends upon a complex array of economic drivers. Establishing the underlying conditions and context for economic growth to flourish is, therefore, a critical step. There are four key enabling objectives:
- a stable and supportive macroeconomic environment;
- a facilitating national economic context: encompassing the physical, human and electronic infrastructure;
- dynamic competitiveness in Scottish enterprises; and
- economic policies and programmes to secure the social, regional and environmental objectives.
The first objective here is widely acknowledged as being a pre-requisite for economic growth and stability. It is clearly the primary responsibility of the UK Government - although the Executive bears responsibility for supporting and contributing to this objective - while the other three enabling objectives form the focus of the Executive's approach. It is in these respects that the public sector has potentially the greatest contribution to make to the success of private sector entrepreneurial activity and to the overall growth performance of the Scottish economy.
1.2 The Strategic Approach
Fulfilling the vision set out in FEDS requires a well-articulated strategic approach to address the Executive's economic growth, social justice and sustainability objectives, while acknowledging their clear interdependence. FEDS is designed to be a comprehensive framework for growth.
The productivity of enterprises and of the public sector
Increasing our economic growth rate will be secured through sustained increases in our competitiveness in international and domestic markets. This competitive edge will itself fundamentally depend on raising the underlying productivity of both our enterprises and of our public sector.
The principal focus of the Framework is therefore upon securing a more dynamic economy in which enterprises and individuals are able to respond rapidly and effectively to the continuous change and intense pressures of the global economy. It must be a long-term strategy that secures fundamental change and sustainability, and one that is a partnership between the private and public sectors.
The productivity and associated dynamic competitiveness of our enterprises remains the fundamental driver of our economic performance. It is equally the key challenge.
Productivity is driven by a range of factors upon which the devolved Scottish government will continue to focus its energies. These are, in part, integral to the operation and management of enterprises themselves and, in part, constitute the wider economic environment in which enterprises need to operate. The most important factors are:
- the basic education and skills of our key resource - our people - and their capacity to renew and enhance these skills on a continuing basis. A skills and learning strategy must embrace the full range of skills, including basic skills of literacy and numeracy for all; the skills required of employees, managers and entrepreneurs; and the skills of our research and academic community.
We must improve the skills of the whole population through further support for the basic education system, by strengthening lifelong learning, and by nurturing higher and further education. This must include a concern for raising our manual and vocational skills. Better skills are the key to improving individual life chances, increasing the flexibility of the labour force and maintaining competitiveness. Scotland has to embrace the knowledge economy and the reality of continual learning if it is to compete in the global marketplace.
- the generation of knowledge is a key element in the growth of the Scottish economy. Competition in the knowledge-intensive global markets will be as acute as in the labour-intensive markets in which Scotland once prospered.
- the physical infrastructure underpins the competitiveness of enterprises, whether it be transportation systems or the electronic infrastructure. High-quality infrastructure is a pre-requisite for thriving and successful enterprise in Scotland as well as delivering an adequate supply of housing. Planning and development structures are also important. With the new National Planning Framework, steps have been taken to ensure that, while competing and sometimes conflicting objectives must be addressed, the contribution of the planning system to economic development is explicitly recognised and is taken into account. It is clear that the planning system needs to be reformed to make it more efficient, more rapid in its processes and more attuned to the needs of business and housing requirements. Transport will continue to be a high priority, with a clear focus on improved strategic planning, infrastructure investment, reducing road congestion and improving public transport.
- the basic entrepreneurial drive and competitiveness of enterprises remain critical elements and are the foundations on which any strategy for growth must build. Entrepreneurial drive continues to be determined by a complex set of factors, ranging from the skills and knowledge of potential entrepreneurs and business people to the confidence they have in the opportunities that Scotland offers.
- without the confidence that Scotland is a buoyant and profitable place to conduct business, entrepreneurs will be cautious and risk averse. Attitudes to business - from primary school through to higher and further education - need to be positive and supportive. The Executive will continue its efforts to promote the enthusiasm and confidence in the Scottish economy that will help create a climate in which enterprise can flourish;
- innovative behaviour of entrepreneurs and managers is a necessary condition for a dynamic economy. The application of the large body of knowledge that is already available - and now more accessible from all over the world - and the cutting-edge knowledge that is generated within the Scottish research community itself is of great importance. Competitiveness rests on innovation leading to a continual process of business development, where the production and marketing of new and refined products is essential;
- the levels of research and development in Scottish business remain very low relative to our major competitors. When the key to securing a continuing productivity advantage lies to a large extent in the ability to access innovative and new methods of working and producing goods and services, this is a crucial challenge;
- an outward focus is equally critical. While the importance of securing new export markets in fast-growing economies and in rapidly growing sectors is familiar, analysis of the strategies of successful businesses suggests a need to encourage companies to be bolder in seeking opportunities beyond exporting. The Global Connections Strategy reflects a shift from focussing on traditional manufacturing-based inward investment and exporting to a new range of business partnerships built on the exchange of knowledge, technology, ideas, skills and people. The Executive campaign to promote Scotland's International Image will also help build overseas business by demonstrating Scotland's cultural, academic and economic strengths.
In addition, the Executive will focus on the continual improvement of public sector productivity through its management of the public finances. As a major element in the Scottish economy in its own right, the Scottish public sector has a crucial role to play. The Executive's expenditure decisions impact both directly and indirectly on economic activity, and the effectiveness and efficiency with which these expenditure programmes are undertaken therefore affect our economic performance. High standards of appraisal and evaluation will be maintained, and there will be a continual drive to identify more innovative and effective mechanisms for delivering and supporting public services. In addition, the strategic approach to raising our own resources through personal and business taxation will play an important role in FEDS in view of their importance for business and personal incentives and behaviour. We will, where appropriate, take the opportunity to provide incentives for growth, through, for example, the Small Business Rates Relief Scheme. Specifically, the Executive's strategy has been to set the maximum annual increase in the poundage rate equal to the growth in the Retail Price Index, while it will not make use of the powers to vary the basic rate of income tax at this time.
The underlying principles
The Framework for Economic Development in Scotland is based on several underlying principles:
Long-term approach. FEDS requires a long-term strategic approach that focuses on the key determinants of economic development. Many of these need, by their very nature, to be addressed through consistent and sustained policy implementation over many years. Some have very long lead times - for example, the investment in the early years of children's education to provide eventual but long-lasting economic and social returns. Others relate to the economic behaviour of individuals - and, especially the basic attitudes, risk taking and decision making of individual entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs - where the necessary culture change may take many years of sustained effort.
Complementarity of the public and private sectors. Economic growth is primarily determined by the success of enterprises in developing products that can compete effectively both domestically and throughout the world. While Government can make a contribution, it is the dynamism of the private sector on which future prosperity depends.
The Executive can help to encourage increased productivity and the competitiveness of Scottish enterprises in a number of ways. It can seek to respond to market failure in the exploitation by business of science and research; it can ensure that Scotland has a physical and electronic infrastructure that supports growth; and it can provide through the education system at all levels for the skills which the competitive economy of the future will require. And it can work in partnership with the private sector to anticipate and respond to the global challenges from which no open economy can be immune.
The prevailing set of economic powers. FEDS takes the present constitutional settlement, and notably the definition of powers and responsibilities as set out in the Scotland Act (1998), as its basis. Consequently, while the devolved Scottish government has control over a very significant array of key economic development powers and policy instruments, it does not have powers over the policy areas reserved to the UK level. These include UK macroeconomic and microeconomic policies relating notably to tax and welfare, programmes to provide work incentives, competition, and some regulatory policy. The strategic approach in FEDS is based on the assumption that the present distribution of powers remains unchanged.
Importance of sustainability. FEDS takes seriously the responsibility of preserving for future generations the economic opportunities and environmental resources that we enjoy today.
The economic linkages between different sectors of the economy continue to be important. For example, the flows of knowledge and research into the enterprise sector are of paramount importance, as is the understanding within the worlds of education and training of individuals' needs for education and lifelong learning in an ever-changing economic environment. Similarly, the economic importance of the physical infrastructure and the planning framework is immense, both factors bearing heavily on the decision-making process within enterprises.
Economic growth is a national priority. It is not the sole responsibility of one area of government, or dependent on one sector. Economic prosperity is only secured through the efforts and contributions of a wide range of individuals and bodies, working in an integrated and collaborative manner. This means that all the Departments within the Executive play a part in determining - and contributing to - Scottish economic development.
Balancing other objectives with these economic objectives will be challenging, especially as regards the identification of sustainable economic policies and the enhancing of regional and social opportunities. The devolved Scottish government's vision clearly demands the delivery of the key outcomes for both the present and future benefit of Scottish society as a whole. Importantly, however, FEDS is predicated on the understanding that achieving our equity and sustainability objectives is closely tied to achieving our economic objectives.
While the fundamental economic analysis and the strategic direction of recent years remain valid, there are issues that have progressively increased in importance in the years since the first directions were set out in the original edition of FEDS. These are accorded a greater emphasis here as integral elements of the Executive's economic strategy. Each is discussed in greater detail below, but, in summary, they include:
- managing public finances, so that we are efficient and effective in procuring and providing public services and investment, upholding the highest standards of financial and economic management;
- raising the environmental sustainability of economic development to safeguard the interests of future generations;
- demographic change in Scotland, which poses a set of challenges that we have to meet to guarantee the long-run sustainability of the economy; and
- the planning system, since it can facilitate or constrain enterprise and business development, and the quality of life.
Within this Framework, the devolved Scottish government has identified five key drivers of economic development that are especially important and to which it will give priority.
These are key elements in promoting both private sector and public sector productivity:
- basic education and skills: crucial to any strategy for economic growth and the bedrock for the foundation of a competitive economy;
- research & development and innovation: the foundations for improvements in productivity and for sustainable global competitiveness;
- entrepreneurial dynamism: the creation of new enterprise and a positive, risk-taking attitude to enterprise are central to the establishment of a dynamic economy;
- the electronic and physical infrastructure: joining business to business, consumer to business, and ensuring the efficient movement of goods, people, and ideas to the right places at the right times; and
- managing public sector resources more effectively: improving the efficiency and effectiveness with which resources are deployed in the provision of public services.
1.3 The Scale of the Challenge
The scale of the challenge is evident from the present size of the productivity gap between Scotland and many of the advanced economies of the world. While there are various definitions of productivity and there are familiar difficulties in measurement, the data all tell a similar story: namely, that the UK lags behind its major competitors and Scotland lags behind the UK.
The table below demonstrates the magnitude of the challenge on the basis of one critical measure, GDP per hour worked. The gap in Scottish productivity is long-standing and it is clear that it has widened over the period from 1996 to 2002.
GDP per hour3worked 1996 - 2002 (UK = 100) | <urn:uuid:f6752a14-177a-494f-8282-f245107a14f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/09/19872/42433 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937962 | 3,078 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Argonne National Laboratory
Any algorithm seeks to find a balance between requirements of accuracy, software complexity, and performance. In the early days of computers, floating point operations were by far the most expensive operation, leading to an analysis of algorithmic efficiency that focuses on floating-point operations. Modern computers, however, can perform hundreds of floating point operations in the time it takes to read one word from main memory. This talk will illustrate the need for new criteria for evaluating numerical algorithms and discuss some of the opportunities for developers of new algorithms. | <urn:uuid:209c62a4-b7d6-4581-9c59-8a3f89fb9d4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siam.org/meetings/cse03/invited/gropp.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943842 | 108 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Nail treatments are defined as the deliberate altering of the appearance or shape of the nails, typically for the purpose of cosmetic enhancement.
Nails are the hard, horn like piece at the end of human fingers and toes. Deliberate alteration of the touch, feel, or appearance of the nail is called a treatment. Nails are often the subject of many types of treatments, including coloring, reshaping, dipping, and moisturizing. An individual who performs nail treatments is called a manicurist.
The word manicure, defined as a treatment to improve the appearance of fingernails, derives from the Latin word manus meaning hand, and cura meaning care. Centuries ago in India, henna (a type of dye) was used for manicures. The word pedicure comes form the Latin words pes, which means foot, and cura, which means care. Pedicures - treatments to improve the appearance of toenails- have been traced back to ancient Egypt where a carving of a pharaoh's official was noted as representing pedicures and manicures.
Other services for nails include the application of artificial nails such as nail tips, acrylics and artificial nail gels. A manicurist may also apply treatments to real nails, such as filing, polishing and painting. Nail treatment sometimes may involve cutting the cuticle, the small line of raised skin surrounding three of the nail's edges.
Nail treatments do not appear to affect the physiological functioning of the people. However, nail treatments remain popular because of their cosmetic appeal.
Ablation, acrylic nails, cotton balls, cuticle, cuticle oil, cuticle remover, emery board, finger brush, fingernails, fungus, hand lotion, hand towels, hot oil manicure, ingrown toenail, manicure, massage lotion, nail clipper, nail fungus, nail polish, nail polish remover, nail scissors, nails, paraffin, pedicure, podiatrist, tinea unguium, trimming. | <urn:uuid:ac5343a4-745c-41dd-80e9-5b1020f4a1af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wellness.com/reference/health-and-wellness/nail-treatments | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951639 | 422 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Wet winter weather increases icy road risk
13 November 2012
Hampshire road users are being reminded to take extra care this winter as the saturated ground means that water runoff from fields makes it more likely that rural roads will ice over during cold weather.
According to the Met Office, this summer has officially been the wettest in one hundred years and there appears to be no let up in rain as winter approaches. The Environment Agency has recently released a warning that, following further wet weather in September and October, rivers are full and the ground is saturated, with the result that current groundwater levels in some areas are extremely high and water is seeping onto Hampshire's roads. Roads that would normally dry quickly after precipitation are more likely to remain wet and ice over when the road surface temperature drops below zero.
Councillor Mel Kendal, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Hampshire County Council said:
"Road users need to take extra care this winter because, due to the saturated ground, even a small amount of rain or snow means that roads are more likely to experience water running on to them which can easily ice over when the temperature freezes. We have recently experienced our first frosts of the winter and our salting teams have been out treating Hampshire's main routes but, although temperatures may rise slightly in the days to come, drivers still need to take care as some roads may be covered with deep puddles.
"Hampshire County Council takes road safety extremely seriously and invests heavily to maintain and improve the 5,000 plus miles of road in the county. Keeping Hampshire Moving is a priority of the Council - the road network is a vital support for our regional economy and people need to be safe when going about their day-to-day business, whatever the weather. We have a long-term strategic programme of road maintenance and enhancement, Operation Resilience, which aims to make our roads more resilient to the damaging effects of weather extremes and increasing traffic levels, as well as to improve the overall condition of the roads." | <urn:uuid:b3cbe89e-6cf1-4961-9172-ffd9369059e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hantswebnewslist.htm?id=561858 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97172 | 410 | 2.625 | 3 |
Provides visual examples of assistive technology (AT) products to help parents learn about AT for their children. Includes questions to be considered when trying to identify AT devices, icons identifying whether a device is high-tech, mid-tech or low-tech and a list of vendors. This link opens a PDF document.
Assistive Technology Options for Your Children
Mon, 08 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT | <urn:uuid:d207cd6d-3b50-483a-975f-cc55b67727bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://accesstechnews.blogspot.fr/2012/10/assistive-technology-options-for-your.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.85786 | 85 | 2.59375 | 3 |
This automated translation tool is powered by Google Translate. Although every effort is made by Google to ensure translation accuracy, errors may occur. Bat Conservation International does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy or reliability of this tool.
The California myotis ranges throughout western North America from southern Alaska south into Guatemala and is one of the most abundant bats in desert scrub habitats, though it also can be found in oak and ponderosa pine woodlands. Throughout its range it roosts beneath loose bark and in crevices of old snags, as well as in tree crevices. It also forms small maternity colonies in cliff crevices, buildings, and bridges. Like many species, California myotis switch roosts on a regular basis, sometimes within a few feet, sometimes up to a mile apart.
Roost switching may aid in finding ideal roost temperatures as well as in avoiding predators and parasites. In most cases, roosts are located near feeding areas. These bats are among North America's smallest, enabling them to feed on especially tiny insect prey. It was not until miniature radio-transmitters could be outfitted to weigh less than half a gram that these bats could be tracked and their roosts identified. | <urn:uuid:48c8332a-2a00-4b9b-a0fd-fbc42d7db6c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://batcon.org/index.php/all-about-bats/species-profiles.html?task=detail&species=1750&country=43&state=all&family=all&start=20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964358 | 251 | 3.265625 | 3 |
From our friends at the BPL Southern History Department:
Getting the Most Out of the Census: Finding Ancestry Clues in Census Records, 1790 – 1940
The Birmingham Public Library (BPL) Southern History Department is hosting a workshop presented by Frazine Taylor on digging deeper into the information found in the censuses that even seasoned researchers overlook.
Ms. Taylor is the retired Head of Reference for the Alabama Department of Archives and History with over twenty years of experience as a librarian, archivist, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of “Researching Your African American Ancestor: A Resource Guide.” One among Taylor’s many honors is working on Tom Joyner’s and Linda Johnson Rice’s segments in the PBS series, “African American Lives 2.”
This workshop does not require registration. Contact the Southern History Department of BPL at 205-226-3665 for more information.
Event: “Getting the Most Out of the Census: Finding Ancestry Clues in Census Records, 1790 – 1940”
Presenter: Frazine Taylor
Date: Saturday, June 30, 2012
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Place: Central Library, Arrington Auditorium
Registration: Not required | <urn:uuid:530061f4-846e-40bd-86b7-7bfdffdf1580> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://birminghamgenealogy.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/upcoming-bpl-program-getting-the-most-out-of-the-census-finding-ancestry-clues-in-census-records-1790-1940/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=309c070579 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8878 | 272 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Women around the world face grave challenges like: rape, infanticide, female genital mutilation, and sex trafficking. Last week the Thomson Reuters Foundation released a survey listing the five worst countries in the world to be a woman. The survey ranked each country by six factors: health, discrimination and lack of access to resources, cultural and religious practices, sexual violence, human trafficking, and conflict-related violence. The results showed that Afghanistan was the worst place in the world to be a woman followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia in decreasing order and interestingly all but India are also listed in the top 12 of Foreign Policy and Fund of Peace’s Failed States Index. In each of these counties woman face different challenges that pose a significant risk to their lives.
According to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Afghanistan has the second highest lifetime risk of dying from maternal related causes, in Afghanistan that risk is 1 in 8. Compare that to a 1 in 4,800 chance in the United States or a 1 in 47,600 in Ireland which has the lowest lifetime risk. Women in Afghanistan also face domestic abuse, lack economic rights, and access to doctors. Many women are unable to leave the home without seeking permission from their husbands or a male relative. The poll also shows that 87% of Afghan women are illiterate and 70%-80% of women face forced marriages. All of these challenges are amidst the continuing conflict making Afghanistan the most dangerous place to be a woman in the world.
The next most dangerous place to be a woman is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The most shocking and tragic statistic that makes the Congo the rape capital of the world is that every day 1152 women are raped. These rapes target all age groups including elderly women and children as young as 3. Women in the Congo are not just raped, but often gang raped and raped with bayonets or guns. Another major threat to women’s lives in the Congo is childbirth. Women in the Congo also have a very high lifetime risk of dying from maternal related causes at 1 in 13 women.
Pakistan is the third most dangerous place to be a woman in the world. Pakistan has various cultural practices that endanger the lives of women among them: acid attacks, child marriage, and honor killings. Over 1,000 girls and women are the victims of honor killings every year in Pakistan and 90% of Pakistani women will experience domestic violence in their lives. Women in Pakistan also have a high lifetime risk of dying from maternal related causes at 1 in 74.
The fourth worst place to be a woman is India. There is a preference for boy children in India which has led to infanticide or feticide of girl children or fetuses. This has an estimated 50 million “missing” girls over the past century. There is also a cultural tradition of child marriages with 44.5% of all girls married before the age of 18. Another major threat to women and girls is trafficking, with about 100 million women and girls being trafficked in India. Women in India also face a 1 in 70 lifetime risk of dying from maternal related causes.
Lastly, ( I think you say lastly instead of last when you’re putting it in front like this)coming in at the number five worst place to be a woman, is Somalia. The biggest threat to virtually all women is female genital mutilation which is performed on 95% of Somali women mostly between the ages of 4 to 11. Somali women also face a large threat to their lives in childbirth with only 9% of childbirths occurring in a health facility. This leads to Somali women having a very high lifetime risk of dying due to maternal related causes with the risk at 1 in 12.
Looking at the five worst countries for women to live in makes me think about what we can do to make life better for women in those countries. One important thing we can do is push the United States to take a leadership role to ensure that countries around the world are working to advance the rights and status of women. One way the United States can show its leadership is by ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
CEDAW is an international human rights treaty that focuses exclusively on women’s rights and gender equality. The convention sets a global definition for discrimination against women and outlines a plan to end that discrimination. Those states that ratify the convention are required to take, “all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”
The failure of the United States to ratify CEDAW is a glaring blemish on our record of advocacy for human rights around the world and a disservice to the women of the world. The United States is one of only seven countries who have not ratified the convention along with Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Palau, Nauru, and Tonga. Is this the kind of company the United States wants to keep? It is time for the U.S. Senate to think of women around the world and step up to ratify CEDAW.
Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager | <urn:uuid:1af5b6a3-db26-4b72-b3a3-0d68075464ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.populationinstitute.org/2011/06/21/worst-places-in-the-world-to-be-a-woman/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954401 | 1,080 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Salmon, Atlantic – Europe (Sake, Ikura)
Atlantic Salmon is an anadromous species, meaning it migrates from freshwaters to ocean waters to feed and then back to freshwaters to spawn. It is found throughout the North Atlantic, but there are over 1,500 distinct Atlantic Salmon river populations that exhibit high variability in many life history traits.
Most fishing for Atlantic Salmon occurs in coastal and river waters of European countries, with Norway and Scotland accounting for the highest catch. The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization has helped to substantially reduce fishing exploitation on Atlantic salmon populations. However, abundance of Atlantic Salmon has continued to decline over the last of couple decades, and many European river populations are below the spawning biomass levels required for sustainability.
Atlantic Salmon are caught with a wide range of gears, including fixed trap nets and seine nets, which may cause some habitat damage, and by anglers using rod and line. Bycatch levels in Atlantic Salmon fisheries are unknown.
This fish may have high levels of PCBs that could pose a health risk to adults and children. More contaminant info here. | <urn:uuid:f6b3de25-8daf-4fde-bafd-3d08cf9d87ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blueocean.org/seafoods/salmon-atlantic-europe-sake-ikura/?showimg=311 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944063 | 225 | 3.359375 | 3 |
One helpful way to think about child discipline is to see it as another way to teaching your child life lessons rather than as something you do to punish your child for misbehaving.
When you show your child what is appropriate behavior and provide the security that comes from loving but firm boundaries and expectations, you are laying down the foundation from which she will grow to make good choices for herself. Child discipline is about how to prevent behavioral problems so that punishment for misbehavior is a rare and unnecessary occurrence.
What Child Discipline Is About
An important part of child discipline is showing your child what good behavior is. The times when your child is selfish or mean or lies about something are opportunities for you to step in and say, "How could you have handled this better?" Not to use a cliché, but that is why they are called "teachable moments."
- Setting Boundaries
Children who do not have rules and parameters are, contrary to what some parents might think, happy-go-lucky. Lack of boundaries makes children feel insecure, lost, and unable to discipline themselves.
When a child is disciplined in a loving, positive, and logical way for doing something wrong, he will learn to take responsibility for his actions. For instance, if he fails to set the table after being asked several times, he may lose privileges such as TV time. When the rules are clear and the consequences for breaking those rules are logical and appropriate, your child will learn how to discipline himself and regulate his own actions.
- Showing Respect
How would you like your child to speak to you? That is how you should speak to your child, especially when you are handling matters of child discipline. Make sure you explain to your child that while you may not like something he did or said, that you love him and respect him. Listen to his opinions and let him express his feelings, and then explain what is correct behavior and why.
If you set up a rule one day and then let is slide the next -- or suddenly declare that something you’ve repeatedly said is okay is suddenly something your child will be punished for doing -- your child will end up confused and resentful. Consistency is a cornerstone of child discipline for a reason. It helps kids know what to expect and what’s expected of them.
Child discipline is not about parents dictating their child’s every move or imposing their will like a dictator over his country. Parents can sit down with a child -- even a child as young as 5 years old -- and get her opinion on what she thinks about certain rules and consequences in your household. This is a very important way of showing your child that you care about her opinions and feelings, and teaches your child that what she thinks matters. It also teaches her the importance of having rules and helps her understand why some rules exist and why they are beneficial for her.
What Child Discipline Is Not About
When you set boundaries and expectations for good behavior, you are laying down the foundation and giving your child the tools to work toward self control and self regulation. Child discipline is not about punishing bad behavior; it is about guiding your child toward positive behavior.
That does not mean that bad behavior should be ignored. If a child breaks the rules, there must be clear and consistent consequences. What’s important is that those consequences -- be it a time out or loss of privileges or other repercussions -- are used as tools to calmly correct behavior rather than punish a child out of anger.
- Expressing Anger
Few parents can say they’ve never lost their temper in the heat of the moment when a child is being defiant or difficult. That said, it’s important for parents to keep in mind that keeping a cool head is an important part of correcting bad behavior.
By staying calm, parents can better explain to a child why disciplinary action is being taken, what exactly they are disappointed about, and what a child can do in the future to avoid making the same mistake. And when parents explain things in a loving manner, children will understand that their behavior may have been wrong but that their parents love them, no matter what.
Setting boundaries does not mean not letting your child make choices or giving him room to make mistakes. Children who are disciplined in a positive manner know that their opinions will be heard and that their parents respect them even when they don’t agree with them. This will give them self-confidence as they explore and grow, even as they learn what choices are wrong and harmful and what choices are positive and healthy. | <urn:uuid:28442e1f-80ef-48ff-9b7e-cf7b99f45378> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://childparenting.about.com/od/behaviordiscipline/a/What-Child-Discipline-Is-And-What-It-Is-Not.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967835 | 928 | 3.390625 | 3 |
An accessor method is an instance method that gets or sets the value of a property of an object. In Cocoa’s terminology, a method that retrieves the value of an object’s property is referred to as a getter method, or “getter;” a method that changes the value of an object’s property is referred to as a setter method, or “setter.” These methods are often found in pairs, providing API for getting and setting the property values of an object.
You should use accessor methods rather than directly accessing state data because they provide an abstraction layer. Here are just two of the benefits that accessor methods provide:
You don’t need to rewrite your code if the manner in which a property is represented or stored changes.
Accessor methods often implement important behavior that occurs whenever a value is retrieved or set. For example, setter methods frequently implement memory management code and notify other objects when a value is changed.
Because of the importance of this pattern, Cocoa defines some conventions for naming accessor methods. Given a property of type
type and called
name, you should typically implement accessor methods with the following form:
The one exception is a property that is a Boolean value. Here the getter method name may be
isName. For example:
This naming convention is important because much other functionality in Cocoa relies upon it, in particular key-value coding. Cocoa does not use
getName because methods that start with “get” in Cocoa indicate that the method will return values by reference. | <urn:uuid:fa5c2fa1-af36-4ff5-8788-a254b8275e51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/AccessorMethod.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8814 | 334 | 4.3125 | 4 |
Postprint version. Published in International Journal of Obesity, Volume 33, Issue 10, October 1, 2009, pages 1183-1190. Copyright © 2009 Nature Publishing Group. The definitive version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.147.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the dietary strategies, and use of fat- and sugar-modified foods and beverages in a weight loss maintainer group (WLM) and an always-normal weight group (NW).
Subjects: WLM (N=172) had maintained ≥10% weight loss for 11.5 years, and had a body mass index (BMI) of 22.0 kg m-2. NW (N=131) had a BMI of 21.3 kg m-2 and no history of being overweight. Three, 24-h recalls on random, non-consecutive days were used to assess dietary intake.
Results: WLM reported consuming a diet that was lower in fat (28.7 vs 32.6%, P<0.0001) and used more fat-modification strategies than NW. WLM also consumed a significantly greater percentage of modified dairy (60 vs 49%; P=0.002) and modified dressings and sauces (55 vs 44%; P=0.006) than NW. WLM reported consuming three times more daily servings of artificially sweetened soft drinks (0.91 vs 0.37; P=0.003), significantly fewer daily servings of sugar-sweetened soft drinks (0.07 vs 0.16; P=0.03) and more daily servings of water (4.72 vs 3.48; P=0.002) than NW.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that WLM use more dietary strategies to accomplish their weight loss maintenance, including greater restriction on fat intake, use of fat- and sugar-modified foods, reduced consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and increased consumption of artificially sweetened beverages. Ways to promote the use of fat-modified foods and artificial sweeteners merits further research in both prevention- and treatment-controlled trials. | <urn:uuid:008c8093-b9ef-4910-bb51-035ab993b517> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/kine_fac/32/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90971 | 444 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.via NY Times
The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.
In the experiment, two macaques first used a joystick to gain a feel for the arm, which had shoulder joints, an elbow and a grasping claw with two mechanical fingers.
Then, just beneath the monkeys’ skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.
Scientists have to clear several hurdles before this technology becomes practical, experts said. Implantable electrode grids do not generally last more than a period of months, for reasons that remain unclear.
The equipment to read and transmit the signal can be cumbersome and in need of continual monitoring and recalibrating. And no one has yet demonstrated a workable wireless system that would eliminate the need for connections through the scalp. | <urn:uuid:1bd021f5-8b4d-4320-b4e0-ea2ad7f02752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2008/05/monkeys-think-moving-artificial-arm-as.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966546 | 302 | 3.53125 | 4 |
It's that time of year. When the heat and sunshine cast out those cold and rainy days making the conditions ripe for the emergence of those dormant and overwintering garden insects.
The other day when I was puttering around in my garden I uncovered a whole array of different insects taking up residence. I have been studying insects and their management over the last 5 months so this was geek-out central for me and needless to say, a very exciting discovery. However, for many gardeners, the sign of pests in their garden is anything short of exciting.
My specimens included spittlebug, aphids, whitefly, silverfish, leafminer, spider mites, a beet armyworm (one of the many destructive caterpillars found in gardens) and all kinds of incubating eggs. This was the optimal time to do some de-bugging before the numbers of these guys increased, which in some cases can be as fast as 48 hours.
The world of insects and the control of them is a vast subject that people devote their entire life to studying. So in the interest of keeping this brief and not boring you to tears, here are a few tips on how to keep those buggers in check.
Now is the time to become proactive in your gardens. Early detection is key in controlling pests. Once the population becomes large, it may be too late to control it, so check your plants regularly, 2-3 times a week if possible. Get up close and inspect all parts of your plants and its inhabitants - the stems, the leaves - especially the undersides - the soil, and underneath any pots, mulch or other crevices that earwigs, snails, slugs, or sowbugs can hide under.
If in your monitoring you notice any pests, removing them is essential. Handpick and destroy insects like caterpillars, slugs, or snails. Wipe off any eggs found on the undersides of leaves. Spray aphids off with a strong jet of water.
Keep your soil healthy by regularly tilling and amending. Select healthy, organic plants and untreated, certified organic seeds and plant them correctly. Use sticky traps to capture male insects and prevent mating. Use crop rotation to break the cycle of pests and disease. Encourage natural enemies and beneficial insects by increasing the diversity of crops in your garden, i.e., companion planting and intercropping. Water appropriately according to the needs of your plants. Remove and destroy severely diseased plants.
While I highly recommend all the above methods FIRST, there are some instances where pesticide use is necessary. Pesticides can be organic or inorganic. Insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical substances are all agents that fall under the pesticide definition. If you use a pesticide, read and use it according to the label and be informed of the potential human and environmental affects. Although not devoid of it's potential hazards, I typically use OMRI www.omri.org approved products. They are considered certified "organic" (we could have a whole discussion about that alone) and are relatively non-toxic and safe for the environment. Some commonly used organic pesticides are horticultural oils, neem oil, insecticidal soaps, and BT (Bacillus thuringiensis). Refrain from the use of toxic pesticides as they cause long term harm for a short term result.
It is unlikely that you will ever get rid of all your garden pests nor would you want to since part of keeping a balanced ecosystem is maintaining the presence of beneficial insects which means providing them with a food source - your garden pests. We live in a world where our food can be purchased perfectly unblemished from the grocery store. But when you grow your own edibles, some damage is inevitable. The holes in your kale, the nibbles on your lettuce, bruises on your apples, or disfiguration of your tomatoes is ok and actually quite special because in the natural order of mother nature, everything is imperfectly balanced. | <urn:uuid:0541c775-3716-45d5-90c0-6b65a824a6bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hmharvest.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946568 | 820 | 2.625 | 3 |
The Physics Factbook™
Edited by Glenn Elert -- Written by his students
An educational, Fair Use website
topic index | author index | special index
The purpose of this analysis is to determine the evolution of gravity in the Mario video game series as video game hardware increases.
Gravity is force which is responsible for keeping us on the ground. It is also the force that prohibits us from jumping 50 feet in the air. However, in Mario's world, gravity does not quite work that way. Mario is able to jump 5 times his height and fall with accelerations that would be deadly to humans.
We will find Mario's acceleration due to gravity by using the formula
s = s0 + v0t + ½ at2
where s is the distance he falls, s0 is his initial distance, which is 0, v0 is his initial vertical velocity, which is also 0, a is his acceleration due to gravity, and t is the time it takes for him to fall. When we solve this formula for a, we get
a = 2s / t2
First, you must find the time it took Mario to fall from the edge of the ledge to the ground in each game. To do this, we opened each clip in Quicktime movie player, and using the frame by frame option, found the total number of frames it took Mario to fall. We then used the formula:
Time = (Number of Frames) / (Frame Rate)
To find the time of each of Mario's falls. Once we knew the time, we needed to figure out the distance Mario fell in each game. We used a screen shot of Mario next to the ledge he fell from in each game, and found the height of Mario and the ledge in pixels. According to Wikipedia, Mario is "a little over five feet tall.", so we used 5 feet, or 1.524 meters, as Mario's height. We used the formula:
HeightMario[m] / HeightMario[pixels] = Distance[m] / Distance[pixels]
Distance = (HeightMario[m] / HeightMario[pixels]) x Distance[pixels]
Once we had the distance Mario fell in each instance, we were able to use the formula
s = s0 + v0t + ½ at2
to find Mario's acceleration in each game. Mario was in free fall in each case, so this acceleration was equal to gravity. His initial velocity was 0, as was his initial position. Our results in m/s2 as well as in multiples of g are outlined in the table below.
|Height of Mario
|Distance of Fall
|Distance of Fall
|Super Mario Bros.||15||0.5||39||292||11.4||91.28||9.31|
|Super Mario Bros. 2||12||0.4||45||255||8.6||107.95||11|
|Super Mario Bros. 3||15||0.5||35||265||11.5||92.31||9.42|
|Super Mario World||15||0.5||38||193||7.7||61.92||6.32|
|Super Mario 64||10||0.33||86||217||3.8||69.22||7.06|
|Super Mario Sunshine||23||0.77||119||988||12.7||43.05||4.4|
|Super Paper Mario||12||0.4||288||748||4||49.47||5.05|
Finally, we graphed the acceleration due to gravity in each game as the bit rate of the graphics processor increased. Since Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3 were from the same console, we took an average of the three values. Also, the Nintendo Wii never clearly defined its bit rate, but sources say that it is 96 Bits, which is actually less than that of the Nintendo GameCube. As for the other systems, the NES is an 8 Bit system, the SNES is 16 bit, the N64 is 64 Bit, and the GCN is 128 Bit. We set a power fit to this graph, and the result is shown below.
We determined that, generally speaking, the gravity in each Mario game, as game hardware has increased, is getting closer to the true value of gravity on earth of 9.8 m/s2. However, gravity, even on the newest consoles, is still extreme. According to Wikipedia, a typical person can withstand 5 g before losing consciousness, and all but the very latest of Mario games have gravity greater than this. Also, with gravity that great, it is a wonder Mario can perform such feats as leaping almost 5 times his own body height!
The primary source of error in this experiment would be the assumption that Mario is 5 feet tall, and that his height stays constant in each game. In most Mario games, he can become bigger by consuming mushrooms or other powerup objects, and the 5 foot height may be referring to this state. Also, in the 3D Mario games, the camera angle was always angled down, so when measuring the height of Mario and the ledge, this angle caused the measured distance to be different than the actual distance.
Adam Lefky, Artem Gindin -- 2007
External links to this page:
Physics on Film pages in The Physics Factbook™ for 2007
|Another quality webpage by
|home | contact
bent | chaos | eworld | facts | physics | <urn:uuid:01cf0aab-1e40-4f28-ac0c-7c3ac31aa266> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/mariogravity.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940438 | 1,154 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Summary traits of southern Appalachian orogen
major components (described from foreland to hinterland): Map from USGS shows some of these major divisions and the distinction between the Northern and Southern Appalachians, with New York City close to the switch over location. One questions that can be asked is what in the geologic history led to the difference between the northern and southern sections. We are focusing on the Southern Appalachians simply because I know it a bit better.
- Valley and Ridge foreland fold-thrust belt.
- thin-skinned, no basement involvement.
- Pennsylvanian (Alleghanian in age).
- North American shelf sediments involved in the deformation, Cambrian
and Ordovician passive margin wedge of strata.
- In above map from the USGS, while the details are not clear, the thickening of the Paleozoic strata to the east is clear. This is the passive margin associated with the Iapetus, which when closed produced the Appalachians.
- Rome shale as a detachment
- Blue Ridge:
- North American basement (Grenville) involvement
and Iapetan rift sediments in western part.
- rocks are metamorphosed, with polyphase,
- eclogites and ultramafites in eastern part.
- folded thrust nappes, but thin skinned, and underlain by Paleozoic carbonates.
- seems likely that any suture in here somewhere.
- Brevard zone - major fault separating Piedmont
from Blue Ridge. Early thrust component, large late major dextral motion.
- complex of terranes. Larger ones Carolina
terrane and Avalon terrane.
- Pine Mountain thrust window - see through
crystalline thrust sheet into underlying N. American cratonic
- large scale folds, and an extensivenetwork of dextral
strike-slip faults active in Alleghanian.
- Alleghanian magmatism also occurs, mainly granites, some gabbros. Alleghanian granites carry dextral shear fabric.
- Mauritanides in northwest Africa are the
other half of orogen.
- Triassic rift basins along its interior (in the Piedmont).
- Coastal Plain composed of Cretaceous and Tertiary passive margin sediments.
Valley and Ridge province of the Appalachians outlined by two white lines in the USGS Tapestry Map, Image source: http://tapestry.usgs.gov/features/features.html .
This is a shaded relief DEM image taked from the NASA Visible earth site . See if from the description you can pick out the following: anticlines and possiple thrusts in the Valley and Ridge, the approximate contact between the Valley and Ridge, the Brevard zone. The land surface as a geologic signature simply because erosion selectively etches into the underlying geologic structure.
Some major events:
- Taconian deformation
(Late Ordovician, circa 440 Ma) of North American marigin clear
in the northern Appalachians. First major accretion event - obduction
- A slew of other events inbetween Taconian
and Alleghanian - assigned to Acadian.
- Significant Alleghanian crustal thickening,
and hinterland dextral strike-slip suggests decoupled oblique
convergence. Associated clastics from Appalachian extent all
the way into Nebraska.
- Map above showing simplified Pennsylvanian paleogeography. Note the extensive shoreline 'swamp areas' where coals were deposited. Image from USGS site http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/continents/ .
- Map above showing the details of the Appalachian coal basin, with the eastern edge involved in the Valley and Ridge folding. Image source from USGS site http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs115-99/fs115-99.html .
- Subsequent Triassic rifting.
- Some things as basic as the polarity of subduction
are still in debate.
Map showing two of the better exposed, studied and known Triassic grabens in the Appalachians - the Newark and Connecticutt River basins. More basins lie buried underneath the Coastal Plain Province. This rifting started perhaps some 50-60 millions after the Alleghanian deformation stopped - not along time. Image source: http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/mesozoic/mesozoicbasins.htm .
Penetration of Appalachian strain and fluids into the continent.
- calcite twin analysis
- squee-gee model and Mississippi Pb-Zn deposits.
- why are they still high, still mountains?
- are the Alleghanian granitoids from subduction,
crustal anatexis, lithospheric delamination?
- what was the polarity of subduction before
final continental collision?
- when was the Carolina terrane accreted?
materials for Plate Tectonics, GEOL 3700, University of Nebraska
at Omaha. Instructor: H. D. Maher Jr., copyright. This material
may be used for non-profit educational purposes with appropriate
attribution of authorship. Otherwise please contact author. | <urn:uuid:00918d42-c7b9-4caa-9232-5776d96b0f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://maps.unomaha.edu/Maher/plate/week8/Appalachian.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86875 | 1,129 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Small molecules in the blood might gauge radiation effects after exposure
Ohio State University cancer researchers have identified molecules in the bloodstream that might accurately gauge the likelihood of radiation illness after exposure to ionizing radiation.
The animal study, led by researchers at The Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), shows that X-rays or gamma rays alter the levels of certain molecules called microRNA in the blood in a predictable way.
If verified in human subjects, the findings could lead to new methods for rapidly identifying people at risk for acute radiation syndrome after occupational exposures or accidents such as the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor incident. The microRNA markers might also help doctors plan radiation therapy for individual patients by taking into account how different people respond to radiation treatment, the researchers say.
The findings are reported in the journal PLOS ONE.
"Our paper reports the identification of a panel of microRNA markers in mice whose serum levels provide an estimate of radiation response and of the dose received after an exposure has occurred," says senior author Dr. Arab Chakravarti, chair and professor of Radiation Oncology, the Max Morehouse Chair in Cancer Research and co-director of the Brain Tumor Program.
"Accurate dose evaluation is critical for making medical decisions and for the timely administration of therapy to prevent or reduce acute and late effects."
The findings might also one day allow doctors to evaluate radiation toxicity during the course of therapy based on an individual's biology. "This would particularly benefit leukemia and lymphoma patients who receive total body irradiation in preparation for stem-cell transplantation," Chakravarti says.
First author Dr. Naduparambil Jacob, a research assistant professor in radiation oncology, noted that the study could be an important step in the development of biological dosimetry, or biodosimetry, a technology for identifying people at risk for acute radiation illnesses that develop within weeks of radiation exposure, and cancers and degenerative diseases that can occur months or years later.
"Biodosimetry is an emerging concept that could enable us to identify individuals who need immediate treatment after a radiation exposure and to better develop personalized radiation treatment plans for patients," Jacob says.
For this study, Chakravarti, Jacob and their colleagues evaluated dose-dependent changes in levels of 88 individual microRNAs in serum from mice after a single acute radiation exposure, and after fractionated doses of radiation that are typical of radiation treatment prior to stem-cell transplantation. Samples were collected from exposed and control animals 24 or 48 hours after exposure.
Key technical findings include:
- After a one-time exposure, miRNA-150 showed a clear decrease over time with increasing radiation dose, with a drop of 30 percent after 24 hours and of 50 percent after 48 hours, even at the lowest exposure of one gray of radiation.
- miRNA-200b and miRNA-762 showed increased levels after radiation exposure, with the changes more pronounced in animals receiving higher doses.
- Animals receiving fractioned doses showed similar changes; e.g., miRNA-150 dropped about 50 percent after 24 hours in animals receiving 4 gray.
Journal reference: PLoS ONE
Provided by Ohio State University Medical Center
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Learning more about Australia’s children
- Minister for School Education
- Minister for Early Childhood and Youth
This week more than 7500 government and non-government schools across Australia will start taking part in the world’s most comprehensive collection of information about the development of Australia’s children.
Minister for Early Childhood and School Education Peter Garrett today visited the Mount Rogers Early Links to Learning Playgroup in Canberra to launch the second data collection for the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI).
“Australia is the first country in the world to have collected comprehensive and population based data on young children across the entire nation,” Mr Garrett said.
“The second national AEDI data collection is ground breaking because, for the first time, governments and communities will be able to track progress in their work to improve the health, education, social competence and emotional development of children across Australia.
“It’s a vital tool for educators, Governments and the community, as it helps us understand the importance of early intervention and provides information about the support children and families need.
“It’s time to get the basics of early learning right, because we know that by supporting children in the years before school we greatly increase their chance of a successful transition to school as well as being happy and productive in their later years,” Mr Garrett said.
The AEDI measures five key areas of young children’s development: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge.
Mr Garrett said the Gillard Government made an important investment with the first national implementation of the AEDI in 2009 and has committed to collecting this data every three years with an investment of $28 million for each cycle.
“We’re already seeing some incredible programs being delivered across Australia as a direct response to the 2009 results, including the Early Links to Learning playgroup in Canberra, which offers literacy and numeracy support to children before primary school at no cost to parents,” Mr Garrett said.
“The AEDI is just one part of the Gillard Government’s national reforms to early childhood; from our commitment to giving all children access to 15 hours of early childhood education and care for 40 weeks a year by a university-trained teacher by 2013, to improving staff to child ratios in child care and the qualifications of those staff.”
The 2012 AEDI data collection will occur from May to 31 July 2012, during which time teachers in schools across Australia will complete the AEDI Checklist for all children in their first year of full-time school. Results of the data collection are expected in 2013.
For more information on the AEDI go to www.aedi.org.au. | <urn:uuid:fd95dcc7-1cdc-48df-ab65-15e019657af8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/garrett/learning-more-about-australias-children | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950396 | 578 | 2.703125 | 3 |
One property of gold that distinguishes is from all other metals is its universal status as a monetary standard. Gold has been used as a medium of exchange since 3000 B.C. In the late 1700's it became the world monetary standard.
Most of the world production is absorbed by governments. Some metal is used in coinage, but the chief use is for backing currency and to settle international trade balances. Probably over one-half of the total world production is in government vaults or central banks.
The major non-monetary uses are both decorative and functional. The decorative uses include jewelry, religious items, etc. Functional applications occur in electronic and space industry. It is usual to make electrodepositions of gold on electronic components, including heat shields, diodes, printed circuits, tube pins and plugs. Thin gold films are excellent infrared reflectors with corrosion resistance and low contact noise.
Other functional applications include dental alloys, electrical contacts, chemical equipment, photography, etc | <urn:uuid:a3311aa0-c98e-4746-bb0d-fc96a8458bda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nautilus.fis.uc.pt/st2.5/scenes-e/elem/e07930.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933926 | 199 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Science and religion don’t mix, right? Wrong. Or at least Israel’s College of Management and Academic Studies Robotic Research Institute doesn’t think so.
Students at the college have been working on robots which can carry out a Jewish Passover ceremony from start to finish, even mechanically breaking off bits of Matza for fellow robot guests at the table.
Seder, the Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of Passover, requires that each attendee drink no less than four cups of wine, which is not a problem, as the robots appear to be able to pour flawlessly, and with the added benefit of retaining sobriety throughout.
Bitter herbs? The robot seems to have no trouble dolloping it onto various plates. Eat your heart out Pharoah.
Now, you see, if only the robots had been able to build the pyramids instead of Jewish slaves, or better yet, use SatNav capabilities to guide the Jews through the desert to the Holy Land afterwards, then none of us would have to suffer our way through a whole week of unleavened bread. | <urn:uuid:26a39a19-46af-4529-ae3e-b00b7c705a77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.techeye.net/science/robots-celebrate-passover | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938916 | 228 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Identifying time lags in the restoration of grassland butterfly communities: a multi-site assessment
Woodcock, B.A.; Bullock, J.M.; Mortimer, S.R.; Brereton, T.; Redhead, J.W.; Thomas, J.A.; Pywell, R.F.. 2012 Identifying time lags in the restoration of grassland butterfly communities: a multi-site assessment. Biological Conservation, 155. 50-58. 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.05.013Full text not available from this repository.
Although grasslands are crucial habitats for European butterflies, large-scale declines in quality and area have devastated many species. Grasslandrestoration can contribute to the recovery of butterfly populations, although there is a paucity of information on the long-term effects of management. Using eight UK data sets (9–21 years), we investigate changes in restoration success for (1) arable reversion sites, were grassland was established on bare ground using seed mixtures, and (2) grassland enhancement sites, where degraded grasslands are restored by scrub removal followed by the re-instigation of cutting/grazing. We also assessed the importance of individual butterfly traits and ecological characteristics in determining colonisation times. Consistent increases in restoration success over time were seen for arable reversion sites, with the most rapid rates of increase in restoration success seen over the first 10 years. For grasslands enhancement there were no consistent increases in restoration success over time. Butterfly colonisation times were fastest for species with widespread host plants or where host plants established well during restoration. Low mobility butterfly species took longer to colonise. We show that arable reversion is an effective tool for the management of butterflycommunities. We suggest that as restoration takes time to achieve, its use as a mitigation tool against future environmental change (i.e. by decreasing isolation in fragmented landscapes) needs to take into account such time lags.
|Programmes:||CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 onwards > Biodiversity|
|CEH Sections:||CEH fellows
|Additional Keywords:||arable reversion, calcareous, grassland enhancement, mesotrophic, functional traits, recreation|
|NORA Subject Terms:||Ecology and Environment|
|Date made live:||12 Sep 2012 15:38|
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:4cc9b21b-9ac9-4733-b1e7-35a758cedd90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/19510/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885742 | 497 | 2.84375 | 3 |
OSU's Science & Math Investigative Learning Experiences (SMILE) is a partnership between the university and 14 Oregon school districts - mostly rural, many with a high proportion of American Indian and Hispanic students - to provide science and math enrichment for underrepresented and other educationally underserved students in grades 4-12.
Since its launch in 1988, SMILE has served as a pathway for introducing thousands of students to science learning, moving many of them on to post-secondary education and careers in science. The program also offers workshops for teachers to build their science education skills.
The program conducts a year-round schedule of activities designed to provide hands-on science experience, strengthen students' knowledge, and raise their academic and career aspirations. OSU resource faculty and SMILE Program professional staff provide scientific and pedagogic expertise, access to equipment, mentoring, computer networking, teacher training, and administrative support; the schools provide energetic students and dedicated teachers.
Ocean sciences programming is provided by the Cooperative Institute for Oceanographic Satellite Studies (CIOSS), with NOAA support, and by the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. An annual SMILE Oceanography challenge, a day and a half long event in April on the campuses of OSU and Western Oregon University, brings student teams together to solve an open-ended, community-based problem related to oceanography, challenging them to work together to gather data and create and present a plan to address the problem. | <urn:uuid:070fed70-15bd-455f-a308-6e1bda1e7f76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oregonstate.edu/marinesciences/smile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949116 | 298 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Some of the most common oral mucosal diseases include oral lichen planus and mucous membrane pemphigoid. Martin Greenberg, DDS, chief of oral medicine at Penn Medicine, joins host Dr. Lee Freedman to discuss how primary care physicians can diagnose these conditions, some of which are chronic. Oral lesions are often the first symptoms of various underlying systemic diseases, including Crohn's disease and sarcoidosis. At what point should a physician be concerned that an oral lesion might be the sign of a more serious condition?
Source: ReachMD | Originally Aired: December 28, 2009 | Length: 13 min | <urn:uuid:13a43183-601a-4313-878f-e5e9e77ada39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://penn-medicine-physician-interviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/oral-mucosal-diseases.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94143 | 129 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Ordinary glass used for making household windows, mirrors, etc. Such glass contains many impurities compared to the far more transparent optical glass used by better manufacturers for making optical components.
This is easily demonstrated by holding a piece of window glass and looking at the edge. The glass will appear to have a greenish tint - it wont be clear. Unfortunately, many cheap lens filters are made with poor-quality window glass.
cf. optical glass, transparent.
Entry last updated 2002-04-27. Term 1310 of 1487.
Previous term: Wi-Fi.
Next term: Windows. | <urn:uuid:be6153ea-8540-47fb-8414-c6be921b1747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/photo-entry.pl?id=Windowglass | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889181 | 124 | 2.640625 | 3 |
You are browsing the web and suddenly come across a page that displays numbers
instead of letters? You see four numbers inside a little box instead of letters? Well then you might just be missing a Unicode font. Here is a simple fix.
Those four numbers inside the little box are the hexadecimal code for the letter. If you have not got the font that translates those four numbers into a character or glyph you will only be able to see the number.
Here you can find a list of all Unicode fonts as well as a comparison of those Unicode fonts.
Having a look at the list, "GNU Unifont" clearly stands out with 63,446 characters 63,449 glyphs. As the name already suggests GNU Unifont is free to use and to download. You can get the GNU Unifont for Mac and Windows from here. Download the WinZip archive for Mac or Windows, it is 3MB in file size.
Once downloaded simply unzip the file and copy it to your systems fonts folder.
If you have trouble with that have a look here for Windows 7 users and here for Windows XP users. Basically in Windows the fonts are located at c:\windows\fonts.
Mac users can check this out to install the font.
Additionally here is a link to the Unicode 6.0 Character Code Charts. | <urn:uuid:2ec01d0c-807c-44a2-b57d-bcae60101f03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technolux.blogspot.com/2011/05/numbers-instead-of-letters.html?showComment=1330194151258 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894804 | 277 | 2.515625 | 3 |
In the treacherous and rewarding arena of adult education, trainers often find themselves at a crossroads. On one side lies a bounty of motivated learners ready to engage in the most thrilling of activities, and on the other lies a gray mass of drones preparing to be pushed into the next mandatory session. Both groups possess a commonality that is often referred to in adult education, but often misinterpreted. This is the theory that all adult learners are self-directed.
Malcolm Knowles, a central figure in U.S. adult education in the second half of the twentieth century and author of Informal Adult Education (1950), The Modern Practice of Adult Education (1970) and The Adult Learner (1973), moved the field of adult education in a way that has prompted deep thought and discussion. However, while his theory about self-directed learning, which emphasizes that adults are self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions, is highly useful, it skews slightly from its target by assuming that self-directedness begins with the decision to engage. Here is where the fork in the road takes some learners to the green pastures of self-enlightenment and others to the gray corners of training dismay. To merge their paths toward a common destination, the necessary "road work" must be done before the road forks.
Though self-directed learning is an ideal that often occurs naturally within the adult learner, forced learning theory recognizes that the self-directed learning Knowles talked about is a natural paradigm held by the adult learner once engaged in the learning activity, not an impetus for involvement. What does this mean? Though Knowlsian followers might criticize the thought that adult learners do not largely "self-direct" themselves, forced learning theory posits that for most adults, involvement in education and/or training programs is externally forced upon them by their organization, the economy, society and/or the culture within which they live and work. The key to forced learning theory is that, by and large, only when forced into the learning environment will the adult learner's natural tendency to be self-directed become evident.
If the adult learner is only self-directed once engaged in the learning activity, the focus of trainers and other adult educators shifts. Rather than seeking to shift the paradigm of the adult learner, we can dig deep and seek to shift our paradigms on how adults respond best when "invited" into a training program. Trainers must answer three basic questions to have a greater chance of sparking participants' self-directedness prior to involvement: Why will the adult learner sincerely appreciate this training opportunity? How will the adult learner apply what he learns immediately, and for what personally identifiable gain? What approach to engagement will the adult learner respond to most favorably?
Organizations know why they want employees to complete a particular training program, so the focus must be placed on approaching the employee in a thoughtful way that ignites self-directedness toward training. Only through a critical self-reflective approach and thoughtful, learner-centered implementation of their programs will trainers have a shot at tapping the natural self-directed inclination of the adult learner.
It is also critical to realize that human capital is an end product of human development brought into existence best when driven internally by the learner. When we forget to value this truth, we alienate the adult learner and prevent her from engaging cognitively and emotionally, even if forced to do so physically.
This recognizes that while "forced" engagement precedes true self-directedness, the crux of the learning activity must still be founded on a more substantial human basis than bottom-line reasoning. As training professionals, we must hold fast to our personal philosophies of adult education. When we are successful in transforming our sincere purpose into trust relationships, engagement becomes less forced and allows for self-directedness to emerge, take hold and grow.
Nicholas Phillips is the CEO and president of HR Department Unlimited. email@example.com | <urn:uuid:f97bac20-c993-4d98-8174-edcea942a7c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://trainingmag.com/article/forced-learning-theory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954074 | 816 | 2.515625 | 3 |
LEDs & the environment
Climate change is commonly accepted to be the greatest threat to our environment. It will result in us all experiencing more extreme weather – with wetter winters and drier summers. This has been caused by the levels of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), which have been released into our atmosphere. In the UK, business produces almost half of our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Even one small office can emit three to five tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
It is a known fact that industry can realise significant money savings by simply upgrading old lighting systems with new more energy efficient lighting; but of greater importance is the reduction in greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere as a result. By drastically reducing the electricity demanded from the power utilities by local authorities and business and industry, a substantial impact can be had on the reduction of CO2 emissions released, and on industry’s carbon footprint as a whole. Add the option for the responsible reuse of the existing lighting system fixture, and project costs can be further reduced while putting even less of an effect on the environment. The environment wins and your project wins considering UKLED offers the perfect balance of buying cost, performance and low operating/consumable costs over the long term for a favourably short return on investment time.
One kilowatt-hour of electricity will cause 1.34 pounds (610 g) of CO2 emission. A GU10 Halogen downlighter rated at 50W on for an average of 8 hours a day will, over a year, cause 195 pounds (89kg) of CO2. The 3-watt LED equivalent will only cause 11 pounds (5 kg) of CO2 over the same time span, a reduction of around 94%! . A building’s carbon footprint from lighting can be reduced, typically, by between 64% and 95% by exchanging all legacy lamps and tubes for new LED lamps and tubes. | <urn:uuid:1ab42086-e47e-4c0c-918a-b3aef0f2e591> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ukled-ltd.co.uk/our-products/leds-the-environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940291 | 393 | 2.90625 | 3 |
John Rogers Cooke (9 June 1833–10 April 1891), Confederate army officer, was born at Jefferson Barracks, in Saint Louis County, Missouri, and was the son of Rachel Wilt Hertzog Cooke and Philip St. George Cooke, a native Virginian and career army officer. He shared his name with an uncle (1788–1854) who served prominently in the Convention of 1829–1830. His younger sister Flora Cooke married James Ewell Brown Stuart, later a Confederate major general, and became principal of a female preparatory school in Staunton after the Civil War. His first cousins Philip Pendleton Cooke and John Esten Cooke both achieved national fame as writers.
Cooke took preparatory courses at the University of Missouri in Columbia from 1845 through 1847 and then spent about a year enrolled in school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where his father was post commander. He attended school in Alexandria, Virginia, for a time and then studied civil engineering at Harvard University's Lawrence Scientific School during the 1851–1852 academic year but did not graduate. Cooke worked on railroad construction in Ohio and Missouri before his father secured him a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army on 22 July 1856 (to date from 30 June 1855). He served with the 8th Infantry in New Mexico Territory and Texas.
Cooke was promoted to first lieutenant on 29 March 1861, to date from 28 January. During the secession crisis, he returned to Missouri, and after the Civil War began, he resigned his commission and traveled to Virginia in order to join the Confederate States Army, actions that caused a bitter division with his father, who remained in the regular army and became a Union brigadier general later that year. Named a first lieutenant, Cooke was assigned to Brigadier General Theophilus Hunter Holmes's staff. Following the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), Cooke raised a company of light artillery, which he commanded until February 1862, when he was promoted to major and became chief of artillery in the Department of North Carolina.
In April 1862 Cooke was elected colonel of the 27th Regiment North Carolina Infantry. During the Antietam campaign his regiment participated in the seizure of Loudoun Heights overlooking Harpers Ferry. At Sharpsburg (Antietam) on 17 September, Cooke was ordered to lead his men and an Arkansas regiment in an exposed attack on a Union line of defense. The attack failed after the Confederate units exhausted their ammunition. Reassuming their original positions, Cooke's troops, without benefit of shot, held their line against repeated Union counterattacks. Cooke was promoted to brigadier general on 1 November 1862. At the Battle of Fredericksburg in December he fought at the stone wall on Marye's Heights. Two of his regiments suffered heavy casualties, while he sustained a serious wound just above his left eye.
Cooke recovered sufficiently to resume command of his brigade early in 1863. His troops, stationed for a time in South Carolina, saw little action until they fought at Bristoe Station, in Prince William County, Virginia, in October 1863. The brigade sustained heavy casualties, and Cooke received another severe wound that kept him out of action for the remainder of the year. On 5 January 1864 in Richmond he married Nannie Gordon Patton. They had five daughters and three sons.
Cooke returned to the battlefield in the spring. His North Carolinians performed admirably at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. After receiving a leg wound at Spotsylvania Court House, Cooke became incensed when a superior presumed to assume command of his troops and lead them in an attack while Cooke stayed in the field. He fought at the Battle of Reams's Station, in Dinwiddie County, on 25 August 1864. His brigade remained at Petersburg until the Union army breached the Confederate defenses early in April 1865. During the retreat Cooke successfully extricated his troops from Sutherland Station, in Dinwiddie County. On 9 April 1865 he surrendered the 560 men left under his command at Appomattox Court House.
After the war Cooke worked in Richmond briefly as a route agent for a company that handled business along several area railways and then for about four years managed a large agricultural and stock-raising operation in King William County. By 1877 he had established himself as a Richmond grocery merchant. Active in local and civic affairs, Cooke was a member of the city's Democratic Committee and served as president of the board of directors of the state penitentiary. Remaining devoted to the Confederate cause, he was the third commander of the R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1, Confederate Veterans, and helped found and served as manager of the R. E. Lee Camp, Confederate Soldiers' Home, in Richmond. Cooke was a member of the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia and sat on the executive committee of the Southern Historical Society. He acted as chief of staff at the laying of the cornerstone for Richmond's Robert Edward Lee monument in 1887 and at the unveiling of the bronze equestrian statue sitting atop it three years later.
Late in the 1880s Cooke reconciled with his father and ended the estrangement that had separated them since the beginning of the Civil War. John Rogers Cooke died of pyaemia, a form of blood poisoning, at his Richmond residence on 10 April 1891. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery.
Contributed by Brian S. Wills
This biography, with a bibliographical note, appears in John T. Kneebone et al., eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: The Library of Virginia, 1998– ), 3:436–437.
Copyright 2006 by the Library of Virginia. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:e4cef7a1-bfcc-433a-b172-b54186c979dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://virginiamemory.com/online_classroom/union_or_secession/people/john_cooke | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980201 | 1,173 | 2.515625 | 3 |
An insect pest native to Asia that suddenly appeared this past summer in Pennsylvania has caught the attention of California entomologists.
They are warning of a possible new threat to the state’s grape growers, tree fruit producers and other farmers.
The brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) was first sighted in North America in 1996 in tree fruit orchards in northeastern Pennsylvania, says Larry Hull, a Pennsylvania State University entomologist at the Fruit Research and Extension Center at Biglerville.
Although it has since been found in parts of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, the insect had not caused any significant damage to tree fruit crops until this past season.
“Some growers in Maryland and northern Virginia had complained about damage from the insect in 2009,” Hull says. “But, 2010 was the first year when things really got out of hand.”
Some Pennsylvania peach growers lost as much as 50 percent to 60 percent of their crop to the insect, which feeds directly on the fruit. Damage to fruit may include water-soaked lesions and/or cat-facing, ranging from mild to severe.
Conditions in Pennsylvania this past season — an unusually early bloom and very dry, very warm weather — may have spawned a perfect storm, Hull says.
“All the forces came together to create very high BMSB populations, which caught everyone off guard. Whether or not that happens next year, we don’t know, but we’ll certainly be looking for the insect much earlier.”
In the meantime, scientists have launched a major research effort to determine the best ways to control the pest, including appropriate types of insecticides and timing of applications. Pyrethroids, for example, will kill BMSB on contact, but this group of chemicals also kills beneficial insects.
“Using pyrethroids to control BMSB would ruin everything we’ve worked for in terms of Integrated Pest Management over the past 40 years,” Hull says.
In addition to insecticide studies, the researchers are also trying to develop a pheromone specific to BMSB for use in trapping the insects to track populations. Monitoring movement of the insect is complicated by its very broad range of hosts.
It feeds on at least 250 different species of plants; in addition to grapes and tree fruits such as apples, cherries and pears, other hosts include corn, legumes, vegetable crops and landscape ornamentals.
In western states, BMSB has been found in tree fruit orchards in Oregon and, two years ago, in a cargo shipment at an airport in Southern California, says entomologist Walt Bentley, University of California Cooperative Extension IPM specialist.
He advises growers to take finds of unknown species of stinkbugs seriously and to quickly report them to county agriculture commissioners.
The concern about the possibility of BMSB spreading to California and the threat it poses to many of the state’s crops comes on the heels of ongoing efforts by grape growers to turn back the recent invasion of the European Grape Vine Mouth (EGVM).
To prevent a repeat of the problems that pest has caused, he’s calling on grape growers to be vigilant for any signs of BMSB.
“We missedEGVM for a few years and then it became established,” Bentley says. “BMSB has the potential to feed on grapes and, more significantly, to impart an off-flavor to wine if it falls into picking bins. We need to be aware of it before it gets here.”
The insect looks very similar to a number of stinkbugs found in California — including Brochymena. That’s why it’s important to know the identifying characteristics of BMSB, he says. Photos and more information about the insect is available on the UC IPM website:
Because BMSB moves among so many different hosts, migrating throughout the season, there can be considerable overlapping of generations.
“This makes control more difficult, especially if you’re not aware of the insect’s presence,” Bentley says. “You could control for one generation only to have a new group of BMSB move in a few weeks later.” | <urn:uuid:51c13354-57ec-417e-874b-95972fdf4cb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://westernfarmpress.com/potential-new-insect-threat-vineyards | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953096 | 886 | 3.265625 | 3 |
A diplomatic crisis is engulfing part of Borneo, after Filipino rebels seized control of a remote section of Malaysia’s Sabah state as part of an unresolved territorial dispute that stretches back centuries. Malaysian security forces have surrounded 100 to 200 members of the Royal Army of Sulu, who have holed up in the village of Lahad Datu for the past two weeks in order to press their historic claim to the land. The Philippine and Malaysian governments are now engaged in tense negotiations in order to resolve the dispute without the use of force. The rebels, who hail from the autonomous island province of Sulu in the southwestern Philippines, had been given until midnight on Tuesday to voluntarily leave the area, but Manila has been desperately trying to negotiate an extension to this deadline to avoid bloodshed and a tense standoff currently hangs in place.
The leader of the rebel unit is the brother of Jamalul Kiram III, one of the two main claimants to the title of Sultan of Sulu. Back in the 17th century, before the Philippines existed in its present form, the two principle sultanates in the region were Sulu and Brunei. In 1658, the Sultan of Brunei for some reason gave Sabah to the Sultanate of Sulu, which today is considered part of the Philippines. However, the picture is further complicated by an 1878 deal between the Sultanate of Sulu and the British North Borneo Company, in which Sabah was leased to the Europeans on a rolling contract. To this day, the Malaysian government pays a token sum, equivalent to around $1,500, to the Philippines every year in recognition of this continuing arrangement. The Royal Army of Sulu interprets this deal as a lease that can be canceled, while Malaysia believes that it represents the permanent transfer of the territory.
It does not appear that the Malaysian authorities are willing to give up the land, which boasts valuable petroleum reserves, palm-oil plantations and also serves as an agricultural and manufacturing hub. Regional commentators have accused the Sulu rebels of trying to exploit past claims as a gateway toward ensuring future prosperity. “The governments of Malaysia and the Philippines are trying to manage this incident carefully,” Jonah Blank, senior political scientist specializing in Southeast Asia for RAND Corp., a global policy think-tank, tells TIME. ”We’ve seen many Muslim rebel groups arise or take refuge in the southern part of the Philippines, and Malaysia has brokered a fragile cease-fire: neither Kuala Lumpur nor Manila is eager to see that fall apart.”
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday appealed to Kiram to instruct his brother to end the occupation. “If you are truly the leader of your people, you should be one with us in ordering your followers to return home peacefully,” he said during a statement aired on national TV. On Sunday, Manila sent the Philippine navy ship BRP Tagbanua to Borneo carrying Filipino-Muslim leaders, social workers and medical personnel for a “humanitarian mission” to bring their compatriots home. However, Royal Army of Sulu sources indicate that the rebels are not willing to entertain such a retreat.
Some observers believe that the timing of the occupation is designed to disrupt the Malaysian national elections that are due before the end of June, and the issue has now become a political hot potato domestically. The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, a Philippine NGO, on Tuesday released a joint statement condemning the arbitrary detention of three al-Jazeera journalists who were in Sabah to report on the standoff. The group was eventually released after being held and interrogated for at least six hours. Liew Chin Tong, a Democratic Action Party MP and shadow Defense Minister for the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition of Malaysia, tells TIME that the country is now suffering the consequences of decades of poorly enforced border controls. “Sabah is a key state which was previously seen as a safe zone for the government but now keenly contested by the opposition,” he says. | <urn:uuid:8f830757-4651-4164-af8b-bf91bc721caa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/sabah-standoff-diplomatic-drama-after-sulu-militants-storm-malaysia/?iid=gs-article-mostpop2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963717 | 820 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Key Term Definitions
Acoustic Clarity Technology:
This Polycom patented technology allows you to enjoy instantaneous natural conversation. When paired with a full duplex speakerphone, echo is eliminated and both callers are able to speak simultaneously without experiencing voice dropouts. The voice clarity on conference systems that feature this technology is incredibly crisp and clear.
Dynamic Noise Reduction:
One of Polycom's signature features, Dynamic Noise Reduction (DNR) eliminates the unwanted background noise that plagues more traditional conferencing methods. This technology was first introduced in the 1980's and targeted noise reduction in long distance communications. DNR can cut down clatter by as much as 10 decibels and can be paired with similar systems. The Polycom systems that carry this feature provide the user with optimum microphone sensitivity while removing dynamic noise. DNR can really make a difference when conferencing with client's long distance, the level of professionalism will be much appreciated.
Analog is the original telephone technology, a system that converts air vibrations (like those created by the human voice) into similar electrical frequencies. Analog lines can support phones, fax machines, and modems and are typically found in homes or small office settings. Analog systems measure data in one continuous variable while digital breaks down and manipulates the data. One of the advantages of analog systems is that they dot not require a filter for band-limiting. Several SoundStation models operate on an analog system with features that are specifically designed for day to day communication.
Automatic Gain Control:
This adaptive technology is a standard feature in most electronic devices. Automatic Gain Control (AGC) takes the average output signal level and adjusts the gain to the appropriate level for input signal levels. For example, when a signal is too strong the AGC reduces its volume and when the signal is too weak the AGC increases the volume. In telephones the AGC is most commonly used when a conversation is recorded. The AGC will take the large signal from the local user and the small signal from the long distance user and produce a recording that is well balanced.
All microphones have directional characteristics, which are determined by the way a microphone picks up sounds. Microphones can pick up signals from several directions or from one focused point. A cardioid microphone, the most popular of conferencing systems, picks up sound/signals primarily from the front of the microphone. When the pattern of cardioid sound pickup is graphed the shape resembles that of a heart, hence the name. These microphones focus on the sound in front of them and lessen ambient noise from the back or sides. | <urn:uuid:9cfcf9ee-306f-480e-85f1-13fe6e7a19e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.101phones.com/details/2114-11031/polycom-2200-07880-160.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920562 | 528 | 2.796875 | 3 |
No coal fired power stations. No SUV’s.
And they are warning the planet's atmosphere could have similar levels of the greenhouse gas within hundreds of years.
An international team led by German scientists and involving University of Queensland Environmental Geologist Dr Kevin Welsh has found tropical palms grew on the coast of Antarctica 52 million years ago.
At that warm period in the earth's history, there was twice as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is now and winter temperatures of 10C meant Antarctica's 4km thick ice sheet didn't exist.
Fancy that, no ice in Antarctica 52 million years ago.
Below is what I wrote on the same subject for Menzies House on 24th July 2011:
Global warming. Rising sea levels. Massive volcanic activity around the world. Widespread climate change.
It’s not a scene from the Hollywood disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow, but the Earth as it appeared during the mid-to late-Cretaceous geological period, 145 million to 65 million years ago, when the largest dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex ruled the planet.
Our planet during the late Cretaceous period was very different than it is today. Not only were dinosaurs like T-Rex present, but the climate was extremely warm and global sea levels were significantly higher than they are today. This was a time when there were no glaciers in either the Arctic or Antarctic.
Late Cretaceous atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were two to four times higher than today, which resulted in a greenhouse climate with tropical sea-surface temperatures rising to more than 34 degrees Celsius, 3 to 7 degrees Celsius warmer than today.
Calderia and Rampino concluded in their 1991 paper - The mid-Cretaceous super plume, carbon dioxide, and global warming - that carbon dioxide emissions resulting from super‐plume tectonics could have produced atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre‐industrial value of 285 ppm. Carbon dioxide levels today are around 390 ppm. According to Calderia and Rampino, temperature sensitivity to carbon dioxide increases used in the weathering‐rate formulations, would have caused global warming of from 2.8 to 7.7°C over today's global mean temperature.
Further supporting Calderia and Rampino’s 1991 paper is John Tarduno and his collaborators 1998 paper - Evidence for Extreme Climatic Warmth from Late Cretaceous Arctic Vertebrates.
In 1996, Tarduno’s expedition team literally stumbled across a unique fossil find: vertebrate remains from fish, turtles and Champsosaurs.
The fossils indicate that at least once in Earth's history, high amounts of the greenhouse gas warmed Earth to much higher temperatures than usual.
The highlight of the expedition find are bones that belonged to an eight-foot Champsosaur, a now-extinct crocodile-like beast with a long snout and razor-sharp teeth.
The reptiles, which were tied to their freshwater environment on Axel Heiberg Island, needed an extended warm period each summer to survive and reproduce. Based on the numbers and sizes of the animals found, the Tarduno’s team estimated that the annual mean temperature in the Arctic during the late Cretaceous period, from about 92 million to 86 million years ago, was about 14 degrees Celsius. That means it was rarely if ever freezing during the winter, and summer temperatures consistently reached between 27 and 32°C.
The Arctic today is defined as being the area where the average temperature for the warmest month (July) is minus 10°C.
The fossils of the Champsosaur are a record of what was happening in the Arctic just as extreme volcanism on Earth was winding down.
Most of the volcanic activity didn't resemble spectacular eruptions like Mt. Pinatubo. Instead, the eruptions were "basaltic" – billions of tons of lava oozed out, and carbon dioxide floated skyward. Besides huge amounts of lava in the Arctic, where hardened lava rock today measures more than a kilometre thick in some places, magma oozed from volcanoes in the Caribbean, in the Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia, in the Indian Ocean, off the coasts of Madagascar and Brazil, in South Africa and in the Southwestern United States.
Understanding how our past atmosphere, land and ocean system interacted while in this global greenhouse mode is very relevant if we want to understand the fate of our future climate.
It also further illustrates that we live on a dynamic planet who's climate is always changing over the millennia.
Whilst no one denies that the world’s industrialisation has increased considerably the output of greenhouse gases, to ascribe the current phase of our ever changing climate to one single variable (carbon dioxide) or, more specifically, to a very small proportion of one variable (i.e. human produced carbon dioxide) is not science, for it requires us to abandon all we know about our planet Earth, the Sun, our Galaxy and the Cosmos.
And believing that putting a price on Carbon Dioxide will make any difference to the Earth’s climate is madness. The only sensible action to tackle climate change is by adaption, as trying to prevent it is a fool’s game. | <urn:uuid:30bc0048-2d31-4c07-afe0-15786ed57ea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.andysrant.com/2012/08/what-do-you-knowantarctica-had-rainforests-50-million-years-ago.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948546 | 1,080 | 3.765625 | 4 |
The fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG5) aims at improving maternal health. Globally, the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) declined from 400 to 260 per 100000 live births between 1990 and 2008. During the same period, MMR in sub-Saharan Africa decreased from 870 to 640. The decreased in MMR has been attributed to increase in the proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel. Global improvements maternal health and health service provision indicators mask inequalities both between and within countries. In Namibia, there are significant inequities in births attended by skilled providers that favour those that are economically better off. The objective of this study was to identify the drivers of wealth-related inequalities in child delivery by skilled health providers.
Namibia Demographic and Health Survey data of 2006-07 are analysed for the causes of inequities in skilled birth attendance using a decomposable health concentration index and the framework of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health.
About 80.3% of the deliveries were attended by skilled health providers. Skilled birth attendance in the richest quintile is about 70% more than that of the poorest quintile. The rate of skilled attendance among educated women is almost twice that of women with no education. Furthermore, women in urban areas access the services of trained birth attendant 30% more than those in rural areas. Use of skilled birth attendants is over 90% in Erongo, Hardap, Karas and Khomas Regions, while the lowest (about 60-70%) is seen in Kavango, Kunene and Ohangwena. The concentration curve and concentration index show statistically significant wealth-related inequalities in delivery by skilled providers that are to the advantage of women from economically better off households (C = 0.0979; P < 0.001).
Delivery by skilled health provider by various maternal and household characteristics was 21 percentage points higher in urban than rural areas; 39 percentage points higher among those in richest wealth quintile than the poorest; 47 percentage points higher among mothers with higher level of education than those with no education; 5 percentage points higher among female headed households than those headed by men; 20 percentage points higher among people with health insurance cover than those without; and 31 percentage points higher in Karas region than Kavango region.
Inequalities in wealth and education of the mother are seen to be the main drivers of inequities in the percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel. This clearly implies that addressing inequalities in access to child delivery services should not be confined to the health system and that a concerted multi-sectoral action is needed in line with the principles of the Primary health Care.
There is increasing evidence on the existence of pervasive inequalities in health and health care that are related to socio-economic position as may be measured by household income/expenditure/wealth, occupation, gender, area of residence etc. both between and within countries [1,2]. The existing evidence unequivocally reveals that morbidity and mortality are more prevalent at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. In contrast, access to health services is concentrated among those at the upper end of the socio-economic spectrum.
The overwhelming evidence on socio-economic inequalities in health and health care has led to renewed interest globally and nationally to understand the causes of health sector inequalities and develop appropriate policy responses .
The differential in maternal health indicators is perhaps the largest differential in health status between rich and poor countries [4,5]. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the adjusted maternal mortality ratio in 2008 was 640 per 100,000 live births, as compared to 14 per 100,000 in the developed regions. Similarly, while the life time risk of maternal death is 1 in 31 in Sub-Saharan Africa, the corresponding figure in the developed regions of the world is 1 in 4,300 .
In the period 2000-2008, about 96% of child deliveries were attended by skilled health personnel in the European Region of the World Health Organization. However, despite global improvement in the proportion of women delivered by skilled health workers, the situation in Africa has not changed . In the African Region only 47% of births were attended by skilled health personnel. The situation in Namibia is much better compared to this average - about 81% of births attended by skilled health personnel.
Data from low and middle-income countries also show significant within country gradients in health outcomes and utilization of health services. In the poorest 20% of the population, an infant is more than twice as likely to die before the age of 1 year and an under-five child is more than three times as likely to be stunted (short-for-age) compared to children from the 20% economically better-off households .
At the dawn of the current Millennium, World Leaders agreed to reduce maternal mortality by 75% in 2015 compared to its 1990 levels. One of the indicators for MDG 5 is the proportion of deliveries attended by trained health providers, which include doctors, nurses or midwives. Delivery by trained providers is necessary to reduce maternal mortality and is easy to monitor regularly and at reasonably short intervals compared to maternal mortality.
Global improvements mask inequalities both between and within countries. In Namibia, there are significant inequities in births attended by skilled providers that favour those that are economically better off . Identifying the determinants of inequities in health and health care is essential to designing equitable interventions .
In line with the conceptual framework of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, access to delivery services by skilled health providers is shaped by political, social and economic forces. It then follows that addressing inequities requires a concerted multi-sectoral action, which is also in line with the Principles of Primary Health Care. The objective of this study was to identify the drivers of wealth-related inequalities in child delivery by skilled health providers using a decomposable health concentration index and the framework of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH).
Brief country profile
Namibia is a country in the South Western part of Africa covering a land area of 824,000 square kilometers. According to the 2001 population and housing census, the population was about 1.8 million with an inter-censal growth rate of 2.6% per annum . The country is divided into 13 Administrative Regions, which also correspond to the health regions.
Table 1. Namibia: selected health and development indicators
As can be seen from Table 1, although the country is better off than many countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of resources for health and development, there is a significant amount of inequity and inefficiency. The potential loss in human development due to inequalities in each of the dimensions of the HDI (life expectancy at birth, gross national income per capita and schooling) amounts to about 44%. The HDI falls to a level which is less than that of countries classified as low human development (HDI = 0.393) . Furthermore, the GNP per capita rank minus the HDI rank was -14 indicating inefficiency in translating resources into welfare, i.e. the country did not achieve the level of human development that could potentially have been achieved given its resources.
Antenatal care from a skilled provider (at least one visit) was about 95%. However, the proportion of pregnant women who received four or more antenatal care visits was only about 70%. The maternal mortality ratio of 449 per 100,000 live births in 2006/07 is a significant increase from the 1992 level, which was 225 per 100,000 live births. Apart from the direct and indirect causes of maternal mortality; limited access to emergency obstetric care and lack of transport and communication facilities also contribute to maternal mortality.
To reverse the increasing trend of maternal mortality and consequently accelerate the progress towards the achievement of the 5th Millennium Development Goal (MDG 5) of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015, the Government has embarked on a number of initiatives, including development and implementation of a Roadmap for Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and Neonatal morbidity and mortality.
In measuring equity in a health outcome or access to health interventions, the following are required:
- indicator of the health intervention of interest (delivery by skilled health providers)
- a variable (stratifier) capturing socio-economic status against which the distribution is to be assessed (wealth); and
- a measure of socio-economic inequality to quantify the degree of inequity in the indicator variable of interest.
A concentration index (C) is used to measure wealth-related inequalities in the observed use of delivery services by skilled health providers. The concentration index of a health care variable y (utilization of delivery services by trained health providers) can be defined using the concentration curve that links the cumulative proportion of individuals ranked by wealth to the corresponding cumulative proportion of y (use of delivery services by trained health providers). The concentration curve plots shares of the health care variable (y) against quantiles of the measure of socio-economic status (asset-based wealth index) .
The concentration index is defined as twice the area between the concentration curve and the line of equality and assumes values between -1 and +1. A negative value of the concentration index denotes inequity in skilled care at birth that is to the advantage of the lower wealth quintiles implying that women of lower socio-economic status are delivered by skilled health providers more than their counterparts who are wealthier. In this case the concentration curve lies above the line of equality. On the other hand, a positive concentration index implies inequality in the use of delivery services by skilled providers that favours women who are wealthier (the concentration curve lies below the line of equality). When the value of the concentration index is zero, there are no wealth related inequalities in the use of delivery services by skilled providers. The concentration curve overlaps with the 45-degree line.
From individual level data, the concentration index can be computed using the following formula :
hi is the health variable of interest (delivery by skilled health providers);
μ is the mean of hi;
Ri is the fractional rank of individual i in the distribution of socio-economic position; and
(; i = 1 for the poorest and i = n for the richest).
Decomposing the concentration index
Wagstaff et al. demonstrated that the concentration index of a health variable is additively decomposable to the concentration indices of the determinants of that health variable. In other words, the concentration index of the health variable of interest can be expressed as the sum of the contributions of the various determinants of that variable, together with unexplained residual component.
In decomposing the concentration index of delivery by skilled providers, the following steps are pursued:
1. Regressing the health variable against its determinants:
Where: yi = 1 if the delivery was conducted by a skilled health provider;
xk: a set of exogenous determinants of delivery by trained health provider;
βk: coefficient of determinant xk; and
εi: random error term.
The dependent variable (delivery by skilled health personnel) is a binary variable with values of 1 (delivered by skilled provider) and 0 (otherwise). The linear probability model (LPM) in Equation 2 above has been used in order to satisfy the linearity assumption of the decomposition analysis, although the estimates are inefficient and the probability of delivery by skilled health providers may not fall within the conventional values of 0 ≤ p ≤ 1 and has heteroskedastic errors . However, the estimated probabilities from the LPM model have been constrained within the conventional values and a comparison with a probit model has not shown significant variations between the coefficients of the LPM and the marginal (or average) effects of the probit regression derived using the dprobit Stata command . Furthermore, to adjust for heteroskedasticity, the predicted values from the regression model have been saved and used as weights to run weighted least squares (WLS) using the "aweight" option in Stata
2. Calculating concentration indices for the health variable and for its determinants (and generalized concentration index of the error term):
For any linearly additive regression model of the health variable of interest (yi) such as Equation 2 above, the concentration index for y, can be written as:
Cy: concentration index of skilled care at birth (i.e. concentration index of yi);
: mean value of determinant xk;
μ: mean of the outcome variable yi - that is the mean of deliveries by skilled health providers
ck: concentration index of determinant xk
GCε: residual component that captures wealth-related inequality in skilled care at birth that is not accounted for by systematic variation in determinants across wealth groups.
The term in parenthesis in Equation 3 above expresses the impact of each determinant on the probability of delivery by skilled health providers. In other words, it denotes the elasticity (ηk) of the outcome variable (delivery by skilled health providers) with respect to the determinant xk evaluated at the mean value of yi (delivery by skilled health providers). The concentration index of delivery by skilled health providers is thus a weighted sum of the inequality in each of its determinants, with the weights equal to the elasticities of the determinants:
The social determinants of health framework
Report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health revitalized the need for sustained and concerted efforts to achieve health equity through action on the social determinants of health. The Commission's social determinants framework takes a holistic view of inequities in health and health care within and between countries. Inequities in health/healthcare are caused by the unequal distribution of power, income, goods and services nationally and internationally (Figure 1) .
Figure 1. Commission on Social Determinants of health conceptual framework.
The social determinants of health are the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn influenced by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies and politics .
The social determinants framework suggests that interventions to address health inequities have to be geared towards:
1. The circumstances of daily living, which include: differential exposure to health risks in early life, the social and physical environments and work associated with social stratification; and health care responses.
2. Structural drivers including the nature and degree of social stratification; biases, norms and values within society; global and national economic and social policy; and processes of governance at all levels.
As observed in Figure 1, the health system is an important social determinant of health influenced by and influencing the other social determinants. However, the health system is not the only social determinant of health. The effect of the each of the factors in Figure 1 in the genesis and perpetuation of health/health care inequities may vary from one country to another. It is therefore important to try to identify the effect of the various social determinants of health on health outcomes and access to health care in order to design evidence-based interventions and policy instruments.
Data and Variables
Data from the Namibia Demographic and Health Survey 2006-07 was used for this study. The data is available on the MEASURE DHS website for registered users.
In the linear probability model of the determinants of delivery by skilled health providers and the decomposition analysis the following variables have been used:
1. Dependent variable: delivery by skilled health providers, which takes a value of 1 if the delivery has been attended by skilled health providers and a value of zero otherwise.
2. Independent variables:
• Place of residence - urban/rural;
• Wealth as computed from the asset indices;
• Education of mother in years of schooling completed
• Head of household - a dummy where female household assumes a value of one; and
• Insurance coverage - a dummy with a value of one if the woman has insurance coverage.
In NDHS 2006-07, a representative two-stage probability sample of 10,000 households was selected. The first stage consisted of selection of 500 primary sampling units (PSUs) from a sampling frame of 3,750 PSUs with probability proportional to size; the size being the number of households in the 2001 Population Census. The second stage involved the systematic selection of 20 households in each PSU .
The demographic and health surveys do not contain data on household income or consumption expenditure. Instead wealth index is used as a proxy. The wealth index is based on household ownership of consumer goods (such as radio, television); dwelling characteristics; type of drinking water source; toilet facilities and other characteristics related to the household's socio-economic status. The asset indices are constructed using the method of principal component analysis (PCA) . Studies have shown a close relationship between asset ownership and consumption expenditure in developing countries and that household asset is a good indicator of the long-run economic status of households
Data was analyzed using STATA 10 statistical software and MS Excel.
About 80.3% of the deliveries were attended by skilled health providers. A breakdown by various maternal and household characteristics is provided in Table 2.
Table 2. Delivery by skilled health provider by various maternal and household characteristics
Delivery by skilled health providers is observed to differ by the various characteristics provided in Table 2. Most pronounced differences are seen by the household wealth status and mother's level of education. Skilled birth attendance in the richest quintile is about 70% more than that of the poorest quintile. The rate of skilled attendance among educated women is almost twice that of women with no education. Furthermore, women in urban areas access the services of trained birth attendant 30% more than those in rural areas.
Use of skilled birth attendants is over 90% in Erongo, Hardap, Karas and Khomas Regions, while the lowest (about 60-70%) is seen in Kavango, Kunene and Ohangwena. Parturient women in Erongo, Hardap, Karas and Khomas utilize the services of skilled attendants by more than 40% compared to those in Kavango. In six out of the thirteen regions, use of skilled delivery is less than the national average of 81%.
The concentration curve (Figure 2) and concentration index show statistically significant wealth-related inequalities in delivery by skilled providers that are to the advantage of women from economically better off households (C = 0.0979; P = < 0.001). The concentration curve in Figure 2 lies below the main diagonal indicating that economically better off women are skilled birth attendants more than those who are economically worse off.
Figure 2. Concentration curve: delivery by skilled health providers.
The decomposition analysis clarifies how each determinant of delivery by skilled providers contributes to the total wealth-related inequality in delivery by skilled health providers . As can be observed from formula 4 (), the contribution of each determinant depends on: (i) its impact on delivery by skilled health providers (elasticity); and (ii) how unequally distributed over wealth the determinant is (its concentration index). The results of the decomposition analysis are depicted in Table 3.
Table 3. Results of the decomposition analysis
The concentration indices of Erongo, Hardap, Karas, Khomas have a high pro-wealthy concentration index (P < 0.001) implying that most of the relatively wealthy people inhabit this regions. In contrast, most of the relatively less wealthy people live in Ohangwena, Omusati and Oshikoto regions (P < 0.001). The concentration indices for urban residence, education of mother, and insurance coverage have a statistically significant positive value indicating that they are more prevalent among the relatively wealthier segment of the population. On the other hand, female household heads are seen more among those that are less wealthy.
It is also observed that the three regions (Kavango, Kunene and Ohangwena) with the lowest rates of skilled birth attendance are mainly inhabited by the poor, as demonstrated by the negative concentration indices.
As discussed above, the contribution of each of the determinants to the total concentration index of delivery by skilled health providers depends on the impact of the determinant and its concentration index. A determinant that has a high impact but with no wealth-related gradient will have less contribution to the overall concentration index as opposed to one that with a high impact and high wealth-related inequality.
Figure 3 presents a summary of the contribution of the determinants to the overall concentration index of the variable, delivery by skilled health providers.
Figure 3. Contribution of the determinants to the concentration index of delivery by skilled health providers.
It is clearly observed that most of the inequality in delivery by skilled health providers that is to the advantage of the wealthier segment of the population is explained by inequalities in income, education and urban residence. The variables: region, insurance coverage and female-headed household seem to have inequality reducing effect, although not substantial.
To the best of our knowledge this is the first study of its kind in Namibia. An attempt is made to identify the drivers of wealth-related inequalities in child delivery by skilled health providers using a decomposable health concentration index and the framework of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Addressing inequities in health and health care requires action on the social determinants of health . Design of appropriate evidence-based policy responses entails identification of those social determinants of health and health care that significantly influence inequities.
The findings of this study highlight the significant role that social determinants play in access to child delivery services by trained providers. Health systems are a social determinant of health that influence and are influenced by the other social determinants. Inequalities in wealth and education of the mother are seen to be the main drivers of inequities in the health system variable - delivery by trained health providers. This brings to the fore that addressing inequalities in access to child delivery services should not be confined to the health system and that a concerted multi-sectoral action is needed in line with the principles of the Primary Health Care .
In Namibia, inequality in wealth is found to be one of the major contributors of inequity in access to child delivery by trained providers. The country is one of those with the highest income inequality in the world. It is therefore imperative to address this unacceptably high level of income inequality, in order to improve inequities in access to delivery services by trained health providers. There has been a debate on the relationship between income inequality and health; findings and conclusions have been far from consistent . However, income inequality is one of the markers of the unequal distribution of goods and services including health-enhancing ones. Addressing inequities in delivery care by skilled attendants is essential for achieving MDG targets for maternal health . Hence, addressing wealth inequalities contributes to improving equity in delivery by skilled attendants and consequently to achievement of the MDG related to improving maternal health. It is, however, important to note that redressing wealth inequalities alone can not be an effective intervention to inequities in access to maternity care in the absence of interventions that also tackle the other social determinants such as education .
The link between education of the mother and use of delivery services by trained health providers is well established . Influences of maternal education can be observed in two ways: (i) education can improve the ability of individuals to produce health (without relying on health services) by influencing their life style; and (ii) increasing the use of health care services through improved knowledge, attitude and practice . A study in Thailand using data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) found that education of the mother is the major determinant of inequities in delivery by skilled health workers . Our study indicates that inequality in maternal level of education is the major driver of inequities in delivery by trained health providers. Hence, bridging inequalities in the maternal levels of education is an important undertaking to narrow inequities in the use of delivery services by skilled health providers.
The other determinant of inequities in delivery by skilled providers is distribution according to residential location. It has been observed that there is a very high positive concentration index in urban residence implying that there is a high concentration of the economically better off segment of society in urban areas. It may be difficult in the current study to identify the mechanisms by which inequalities in urban residence influence inequities in delivery by skilled attendants. It may partly be explained by supply-side factors, where there is commonly a differential access to services favoring urban areas (urban-bias). There may also be a high concentration of the economically better off and the better educated in urban areas, which may contribute to the influence of inequalities of urban location to inequities in delivery by skilled attendants. It is thus important to carefully understand the mechanisms of influence and take appropriate equity-enhancing measures accordingly.
The social determinants of health such as education, income and place of residence are closely linked to access, experiences and benefits from health care, which is itself a social determinant of health . The findings of this study are in line with this assertion of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Therefore, addressing inequities in the use of delivery services by skilled health providers requires tackling these social determinants of health systems through a concerted multi-sectoral action. The four sets of Primary Health Care reforms that include: (i) the universal coverage reforms; (ii) service delivery reforms; (iii) public policy reforms; and (iv) leadership reforms are very relevant here in bridging the observed inequities in the use of delivery services by skilled health providers and consequently contribute to the achievement of the MDG 5 targets.
Most of the inequality in births attended by skilled health personnel, which is skewed towards the wealthier segment of the population, is explained by inequalities in income, education and urban residence. The region, insurance coverage and female-headed household variables seem to have inequality reducing effect, although not substantial.
Therefore, the fact that inequalities in wealth and education of the mother are the main drivers of inequities in the percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel implies that policy interventions for addressing inequalities in access to child delivery services should be multi-sectoral in line with the principles of the Primary health Care.
List of abbreviations
C: Concentration index; CSDH: WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health; DHS: Demographic and Health Survey; HDI: Human Development Index (HDI); LPM: Linear probability model; MDGs: Millennium Development Goals; MMR: Maternal mortality ratio; MICS: Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey; PHC: Primary health care
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
EZ conceived the research, performed the analysis and drafted the manuscript. DO, TM, CNM and JMK contributed to the drafting of and review of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
The authors would like to thank all the teams that conducted the Namibia Demographic and Health Survey. The manuscript contains the analysis and views of the authors only and does not represent the decisions or stated policies of the institutions that they work for.
The Lancet 2007, 370:1153-63. Publisher Full Text
Journal of Econometrics 1997, 77(1):87-103. Publisher Full Text
World Health Organization: Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health. Final report of the Commission on Social Determinants of health. Geneva; 2008.
World Health Organization: Ouagadougou Declaration on primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa: Achieving better health for Africa in the new millennium. Brazzaville: WHO Regional Office for Africa; 2008.
The Lancet 2008, 372:1661-69. Publisher Full Text
The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here: | <urn:uuid:ad9f5ec9-66f4-453b-a9a4-911269d8f1e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/11/34 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94535 | 5,717 | 2.78125 | 3 |
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU)Article Free Pass
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), former industrial union in the United States and Canada that represented workers in the women’s clothing industry. When the ILGWU was formed in 1900, most of its members were Jewish immigrants employed in sweatshops—i.e., small manufacturing establishments that employed workers under unfair and unsanitary conditions. Successful strikes in 1909 and 1910 in New York City by the ILGWU resulted in a “protocol of peace” between the women’s clothing industry and labour. The protocol greatly improved conditions for the garment-makers; wages were increased, working hours were reduced, the union was recognized by the clothing manufacturers, and a board of arbitration was established to handle labour-management disputes. David Dubinsky, who later served as the union’s president from 1932 to 1966, led a successful battle against a communist attempt to gain control of the ILGWU in the 1920s. When resolutions that would have allowed craft unions to organize the workers in mass-production industries were defeated at the convention of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1935, the ILGWU and seven other AFL unions formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). All eight were expelled from the AFL in 1937. When the CIO became the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1938, the ILGWU withdrew and two years later returned to the AFL.
Under Dubinsky’s leadership the union grew from 45,000 members in 1932 to 450,000 in the 1960s. He transformed the ILGWU from a faction-ridden, insolvent regional union into a strong and progressive international organization that succeeded in improving the pay and working conditions of its members. The union was also a founder of the Liberal Party in New York state.
From the 1970s the ILGWU’s membership shrank as firms in the United States shifted much of their apparel production to Asia and Latin America to take advantage of lower labour costs. In 1995 the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union to form a new union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.
What made you want to look up "International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU)"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:ea1b9bd2-9088-4791-b1ec-ed616867904c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/291003/International-Ladies-Garment-Workers-Union-ILGWU | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975536 | 496 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Stop by the library to fill out an application to get a library card. To get a card, the hopeful patron must present a photo identification and at least one proof of residence (a utility bill, an envelope mailed to yourself). Minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. This spring, everyone will be recieving a brand new card to celebrate the activation of the One Card Network, a project of the sister libraries belonging to the Washington County Library System. The updated cards are free and each will automatically link to our Overdrive electronic book database.
GREAT SCHOOLS offers ten easy tips for inspiring children to make reading a part of everyday life. Great Schools Website
YOUTH COMPUTER STATION - Visit a quiet corner of our sunny children's room to play (and learn) on our children's computer. The computer provides a myriad of games to encourage many skills and some games just for fun. Parents may also choose to use this work station themselves while their children read books, play with our puppet theatre or learning games, explore our interactive science display, or simply sit at a table to draw in a sunny room.
STOP HUNGER AND LEARN - Every correct answer you give while playing this online brain-building game earns ten grains of rice for the United Nations World Food program. Visit Free Rice.
ONE BOOK, LOTS OF FAMILY FUN - Copies of Suzanne Bloom's picture book The Bus for Us are available at all Pennsylvania pubic libraries. Reading aloud is one of the best activities you can do to prepare your child for school. Make time to read aloud every day, using lots of expression while taking time to enjoy the pictures and asking thought-provoking questions. Before reading the book: Look at the cover, point out the title and author. Ask your child to tell you everything he or she knows about riding a bus and going to school. While reading the book: Occasionally run your finger under the words as you read them. Use facial expressions and vary your voice. Ask questions about the story (Is this the bus, or it is another type of truck? What do you think the children have in their bags?) Have your child help you read the repeated question, "Is this the bus for us, Gus?" After reading the book: Talk about the emotions the children in the story felt. Point out their expressions in the drawings. Talk about the different vehicles shown in the story. Read books about trains, boats, airplanes, dirigibles,trucks or cars. Stop by your California Information Station to pick up an activity book outlining additional ideas, including games to play, activities to develop STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Skills, and tips on safety and preparing for school. For information about the book and its creator, visit www.paonebook.org. | <urn:uuid:2eac1533-a580-48a0-9d16-f60afed89bad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calpublib.org/patrons.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931426 | 573 | 2.890625 | 3 |
It is explained on page 4 of the documentation.
Vm is the power supply pin for the chip and the steppers. It takes +7.2 to +16.5 vdc.
Vd is used for a clamping diode between pins 1 and 16.
Any time you turn power on then off with a coil in a circuit (the motors), you will get back voltage returned from the coil. This voltage can rise pretty high and spike components in that circuit if not dealt with.
If you look at figure 12 on page 9 you can see the voltage will be returned to the supply + side. | <urn:uuid:18c703e2-517c-4e5f-a4ec-30c3361eabe6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_electronics_discussion/31831-noob_help_needed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938884 | 127 | 2.875 | 3 |
Pastels For Dummies
Drawing with pastels can be both fun and intimidating, but a few tips and tools can help you set pastel compositions and choose colors like a pro. With your sketchbook, viewfinder, and color wheel in hand, you’re ready to create artwork.
Choosing Pastel Colors with the Color Wheel
When working with pastel (or any art medium), a color wheel is a tool you should be familiar with because it helps you understand hue relationships and choose colors for pastel compositions. The following color wheel and terms can help you select colors for your artwork:
Primary hues: Red, blue, and yellow. Theoretically, all other hues are made from these hues.
Secondary hues: Violet, orange, and green. Secondary hues are a mix of two primary hues and situated halfway between those primary hues on the color wheel.
Tertiary hues: Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet. Tertiary hues are a combination of a primary hue and a secondary hue.
Analogous hues: Three to five hues next to each other on the color wheel, such as red, red-orange, orange, and yellow-orange.
Complementary hues: Hues directly across from each other on the color wheel, such as red/green, violet/yellow, and blue/orange.
Warm/cool hues: Warm hues include the hues from red through yellow and yellow-green on the color wheel. Cool colors include the hues from blue-green through blue to violet on the color wheel. The leftovers — red-violet and green — appear warm when surrounded by cool hues and cool when surrounded by warm hues.
You can use the color wheel to help you determine colors for your pastel composition two ways: when choosing colors for modeling (giving realism to) individual objects and when choosing the overall patterns of colors in the composition. For example, understanding the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors helps you blend pastel colors to make new colors you don’t have in your pastel palette (such as creating just the right orange out of red and yellow. You can also choose a set of analogous hues, selecting a color for the body of the object and then hatching (stroking) cooler and warmer colors from nearby on the wheel into the shadowed and lighter areas
Making and Using a Viewfinder to Set Pastel Compositions
A viewfinder helps you focus your scene and determine your pastel work’s orientation. You can buy various adjustable and window viewfinders, but you can easily make your own as well. Your pastel composition will thank you.
When you use a viewfinder, you hold it so that you can see the scene you are drawing in its window. The viewfinder isolates your scene by cropping out everything except the part of the scene you want to draw so that you can see exactly what it will look like on your paper if you transfer it accurately. The viewfinder also helps you establish accurate positions of your subjects on the paper in your initial drawing. If you bisect the window of your viewfinder with threads, you can draw lines on your paper to bisect it in a similar manner so that you can use them as guides to transfer your image, drawing the shapes according to their positions on the grid you created.
To make a basic window viewfinder, stick to these simple steps:
Take an index card and cut a window in the center using the same proportion of height and width as the paper you’re using.
For example, if your paper is 12 inches x 16 inches, measure and cut a window 1-1/2 inches x 2 inches in the center of the card.
Use a metal ruler and a utility knife to cut straight edges.
After you cut the window, mark the middle point of each side and tape a thread from one side to the opposite side, bisecting the window horizontally and vertically.
See our following example.
To use the viewfinder, look through the window at your scene and notice where objects in your scene line up with the threads or corners of the viewfinder. Lightly mark the halfway points on each side of your paper and use them to help you map the size, shape, and positions of the objects in your scene.
Coming Up with Fresh Ideas to Draw with Your Pastels
Whether you’re new to drawing with pastels or have drawn hundreds of pastel works, you may find yourself in need of fresh subject ideas. When the idea tank is dry, fill it up with the following drawing strategies:
Draw something from a different point of view. Changing your point of view forces you to think more consciously about what you’re drawing. Try mouse-eye and bird’s-eye views, which are very low (as if you were lying on the floor looking up at your subject) and very high (as if you were standing over the subject looking down on it) in relation to your subject, respectively.
Use your viewfinder to find an interesting but unrecognizable section of a larger object. Instead of drawing the same old shapes you’re used to, this strategy lets you focus on the textures, colors, and so on your work may not typically show. Hold your viewfinder so that you can see through its window and look for an interesting composition of shapes, textures, colors, or values of light and dark. Dramatic combinations of dark and light shapes are particularly effective.
Make a collage out of images cut from magazines and photographs and then use it to create a pastel drawing. This playful idea helps you break out of the realistic box. You can put impossible, dreamlike images together as you find in the work of surrealist artists Salvador Dali or Rene Magritte, or you can make an abstract design. Start to build an image by adding clippings to an existing photograph or by putting many clippings of photographs together (but keep the collage simple the first time you try it). After you make the collage, refer to it as you make your pastel drawing.
Choose a masterpiece and put a portrait or figure of yourself in the picture or update the masterpiece to modern times. Secretly adding yourself to your study of a masterpiece or making yourself the main focus of the work adds a humorous element to it and breaks up the monotony you may be feeling in your normal drawing. In another approach, updating a masterpiece gives you the chance to put your own spin on a time-honored work, like creating West Side Story out of Romeo and Juliet.
Do an inside/outside drawing that incorporates an interior with a view outside the window. This kind of composition helps you think about how to balance color, light, and competing areas of focus in a way your usual work may not. Decide where you want the viewers to look first and work out how to use contrasting colors to attract their attention. At the same time, determine where to use similar colors to quiet areas of the composition and make them recede.
Make a pastel drawing that incorporates the past, present, and future into the picture. This strategy adds the element of time that may be missing from your everyday work to the picture and tells a story. Try depicting a scene that tells all the events of a story in one picture or show a sequence of movements in a still scene. | <urn:uuid:2ff60d85-3617-4cb6-9459-7d763983c1cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/pastels-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924965 | 1,555 | 3.75 | 4 |
Bar Harbor, Maine -- Jackson Laboratory researchers and their collaborators have reported their discovery of a gene implicated in an acute and severe form of glaucoma known as angle-closure glaucoma (ACG). The gene's activity points to previously unsuspected mechanisms involved in both ACG and infant eye development.
Glaucoma is one of the most common eye diseases and a leading cause of blindness. An increase in fluid pressure in the eye (intraocular pressure or IOP) leads to damage to the optic nerve, causing loss of vision. Most people with the more familiar chronic (open-angle) glaucoma don't even know they have the disease until it's detected in an eye exam. The condition develops slowly and can usually be managed with eyedrops and laser surgery.
But ACG can be another story: acute attacks of ACG are a medical emergency. Sudden, debilitating symptoms include severe eye pain, headache, blurred vision, nausea and vomiting, and without prompt intervention to reduce IOP, very rapid loss of vision can occur.
Simon W.M. John, Ph.D., the Jackson Laboratory professor and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator who led the glaucoma research team, describes ACG as "a particularly severe and debilitating subtype of glaucoma, which is very poorly understood at the molecular level." ACG, which affects about 16 million people worldwide, accounts for half of all glaucoma blindness.
ACG patients typically have eyes that are slightly smaller than normal, with a lens that is large for the size of the eye, and an abnormally short axial (front-to-back) length of the eye. These features predispose to blockage or closing of the angle of the eye, which contains an important drain for ocular fluid. As a result, the fluid does not drain properly and can quickly build up, sharply raising IOP. However, notes study author Sai Nair, Ph.D., project head and associate research scientist in the John lab, "It's now clear that the mechanisms of IOP elevation are more complicated than simple blockage by the iris, and must include other physiological disturbances."
The research team identified a mouse strain that has anatomical features similar to those seen in patients with ACG, and that develops high IOP. Because this IOP elevation causes the optic nerve to degenerate, these mice represent an important and much needed mouse model for ACG.
Further, studies in the mouse suggest that depending on genetic background, the mutated gene can cause variable reduction in axial length, ranging from modest to severe. In collaboration with Mounira Hmani-Aifa and colleagues at Université de Sfax in Tunisia, they found that mutation in the same gene can result in severe reduction in axial length in people with extreme hyperopia.
In finding a genetic mutation in the mice that produces a previously unknown protein (one that acts as a protease to break down other proteins), the researchers make the first link between the protein's activity and ACG, as well as eye development in infants.
The John research group also included Zain Ali, Alison Kearney, Danilo Macalinao, Ioan Cosma, Gareth Howell and Richard Smith. Funding was provided by the National Eye Institute, the Barbara and Joseph Cohen Foundation and the Tunisian Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur, de la Recherche Scientifique et de la Technologie.
This is the third major paper on glaucoma to come out of the John lab since early March. In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the researchers reported on their new analysis technique that detects early stages of glaucoma in mice, and on their success in blocking the disease by targeting some of the molecular events in those early stages. And a paper in Science demonstrated their findings that RNA granules—key players in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing—can affect eye development, leading to juvenile cataracts and glaucoma in humans and mice.
The Jackson Laboratory is a nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.
Nair et al.: Alteration of the serine protease PRSS56 causes angle-closure glaucoma in mice and posterior microphthalamia in humans and mice. Nature Genetics, May 1, 2011, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.813.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:620df5c6-464c-498d-a8b6-cc188fdd8db5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-05/jl-jlt043011.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92664 | 993 | 3.28125 | 3 |
HistoryHistory to Independence
The Twa were the original inhabitants of Rwanda and were followed (c.A.D. 1000), and then outnumbered, by the Hutus. In the 14th or 15th cent., the Tutsis migrated into the area, gained dominance over the Hutus, and established several states. By the late 18th cent. a single Tutsi-ruled state occupied most of present-day Rwanda. It was headed by a mwami (king), who controlled regionally based vassals who were also Tutsi. They in turn dominated the Hutus, who, then as now, made up the vast majority of the population. Rwanda reached the height of its power under Mutara II (reigned early 19th cent.) and Kigeri IV (reigned 1853–95). Kigeri established a standing army, equipped with guns purchased from traders from the E African coast, and prohibited most foreigners from entering his kingdom.
Nonetheless, in 1890, Rwanda accepted German overrule without resistance and became part of German East Africa. A German administrative officer was assigned to Rwanda only in 1907, however, and the Germans had virtually no influence over the affairs of the country and initiated no economic development. During World War I, Belgian forces occupied (1916) Rwanda, and in 1919 it became part of the Belgian League of Nations mandate of Ruanda-Urundi (which in 1946 became a UN trust territory). Until the last years of Belgian rule the traditional social structure of Rwanda was not altered; considerable Christian missionary work, however, was undertaken.
In 1957 the Hutus issued a manifesto calling for a change in Rwanda's power structure that would give them a voice in the country's affairs commensurate with their numbers, and Hutu political parties were formed. In 1959, Mutara III died and was succeeded by Kigeri V. The Hutus contended that the new mwami had not been properly chosen, and fighting broke out between the Hutus and the Tutsis (who were aided by the Twa). The Hutus emerged victorious, and some 100,000 Tutsis, including Kigeri V, fled to neighboring countries. Hutu political parties won the election of 1960; Grégoire Kayibanda became interim prime minister. In early 1961 a republic was proclaimed, which was confirmed in a UN-supervised referendum later in the year. Belgium granted independence to Rwanda on July 1, 1962.
Kayibanda was elected as the first president under the constitution adopted in 1962 and was reelected in 1965 and 1969. In 1964, following an incursion from Burundi, which continued to be controlled by its Tutsi aristocracy, many Tutsis were killed in Rwanda, and numerous others left the country. In 1971–72, relations with Uganda were bitter after President Idi Amin of Uganda accused Rwanda of aiding groups trying to overthrow him. In early 1973 there was renewed fighting between Hutu and Tutsi groups, and some 600 Tutsis fled to Uganda.
On July 5, 1973, a military group toppled Kayibanda without violence and installed Maj. Gen. Juvénal Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu who was commander of the national guard. In 1978 a new constitution was ratified and Habyarimana was elected president. He was reelected in 1983 and 1988. In 1988 over 50,000 refugees fled into Rwanda from Burundi.
Two years later Rwanda was invaded from Uganda by forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), consisting mainly of Tutsi refugees. They were repulsed, but Habyarimana agreed to a new multiparty constitution, promulgated in 1991. In early 1993, after Habyarimana signed a power-sharing agreement, Hutu violence broke out in the capital; subsequently, RPF forces launched a major offensive, making substantial inroads. A new accord was signed in August, and a UN peacekeeping mission was established. However, when Habyarimana and Burundi's president were killed in a suspicious plane crash in Apr., 1994, civil strife erupted on a massive scale. Rwandan soldiers and Hutu gangs slaughtered an estimated 500,000–1 million people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The RPF resumed fighting and won control of the country, but over 2 million Rwandans, nearly all Hutus, fled the country.
The RPF named Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu, as president, but there were reprisals against Hutus by elements of the Tutsi-dominated army, and real power lay with RPF leader Paul Kagame, who became vice president and defense minister. The Hutu refugees remained crowded into camps in the Congo (then called Zaïre) and other neighboring countries, where Hutu extremists held power and, despite relief efforts by the United Nations and other international organizations, disease claimed some 100,000 lives. In 1995, a UN-appointed tribunal, based in Tanzania, began indicting and trying a number of higher-ranking people for genocide in the Hutu-Tutsi atrocities; however, the whereabouts of many suspects were unknown. A number of former senior Rwandan government and military officials were convicted of organizing the genocide or having participated in it. Many more individuals were tried and convicted in Rwandan courts over the next two decades, with nearly 2 million suspects, most of whom were accused of looting and other property crimes, tried in semitraditional community courts. Over a million Hutu refugees flooded back into the country in 1996; by 1997, there was a growing war between the Rwandan army and Hutu guerrilla bands.
In 1998, Rwandan soldiers began aiding antigovernment rebels in the Congo who were attempting to overthrow the Congolese president, Laurent Kabila; Rwanda had helped Kabila overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko 18 months earlier. President Bizimungu resigned in Mar., 2000, accusing the parliament of using an anticorruption campaign to attack Hutu members of the government. Kagame officially succeeded Bizimungu as president in April, becoming the first Tutsi to be president of Rwanda.
Fighting in 1999 and 2000 between Rwandan and Ugandan forces in the Congo has led to tense relations between the two nations and occasional fighting between proxy forces in the Congo; each nation also accused the other of aiding rebels against its own rule. Rwandan troops were withdrawn from the Congo in 2002 as the result of the signing of a peace agreement, but Rwanda forces fighting Hutu rebels subsequently made incursions into the Congo and Burundi as well. (In 2010 a leaked UN report on the Congo civil war accused Rwanda's army and its Congolese allies of massacring civilian Rwandan and Congolese Hutus during the conflict.) Also in 2002, Bizimungu, who had become a critic of the government and established an opposition party, was arrested and charged with engaging in illegal political activity; he was convicted in 2004, but released in 2007 after being pardoned.
In May, 2003, votes approved a new constitution. In the subsequent presidential election in July, President Kagame faced three Hutu candidates, the most prominent of which was former prime minister Faustin Twagiramungu. The election, the first in which Rwandans could vote for an opposition candidate, was won by Kagame, with 95% of the vote, but some observers accused the government of voting irregularities, and the campaign was marred by continual government interference with opposition rallies. The RPF also won a majority of the elected seats in the Chamber of Deputies in September. The main Hutu rebel group, based in E Congo (Kinshasa), announced in Mar., 2005, that it would disarm and return peacefully to Rwanda, but the Rwandan government said that rebels who participated in the 1994 genocide would face trial when they returned.
In late 2006, a French judge investigating the crash that killed Habyarimana and provoked the genocide concluded that Kagame and a number of his aides should be tried for their roles in shooting down the plane; the judge was investigating the crash because of the deaths of the plane's French crew. The Rwandan government, which had accused extremist Hutus of assassinating Habyarimana and which also was investigating what it said was French complicity in the massacres that followed the crash, angrily denounced the judge's action and expelled the French ambassador. Ties between the two nations were fully reestablished only in late 2009.
In Aug., 2008, a Rwandan report was released that accused France and French leaders of playing a direct part in the genocide (France rejected the charges), and a Jan., 2010, report again blamed Hutu extremists in the government for the killing of Habyarimana. A new French investigation concluded in Jan., 2012, that the most likely perpetrators of the attack on Habyarimana were elite Rwandan presidential troops. In the Sept., 2008, legislative elections the RPF received more than 78% of the vote for the popularly elected seats.
Rwanda joined the Commonwealth of Nations in Nov., 2009, becoming only the second nation with no historic ties to Britain to join that body. In Feb., 2010, Human Rights Watch accused the government of intimidating the opposition in advance of the presidential election scheduled for August. Kagame won reelection with 93% of the vote, but the only candidates he faced were from parties in the governing coalition; opposition candidates were excluded from the campaign. In mid-2012 Rwanda's military was accused of aiding antigovernment rebels in Congo-Kinshasa, and a number of nations cut or suspended aid to Rwanda.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Rwanda History from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Rwandan Political Geography | <urn:uuid:76ea4a1f-30ce-4187-9e02-175ab0a6bb2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/world/rwanda-history.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978494 | 2,034 | 3.875 | 4 |
While it’s well known that keeping the brain challenged over the summer can prevent kids from experiencing a backward slide in their academics, not every summer activity screams “learning opportunity!” But, it is possible to make even the simplest and non-educational activity into one that gets kids’ cognitive wheels turning over the summer break.
The trick is to get kids thinking actively about whatever they are about to do. After all, active learning is not a skill restricted to the classroom. In fact, the more that children develop this skill outside of the classroom, the more they are able to apply it in class.
The best way to help your children develop active thinking and learning skills is to ask questions that will them help them “turn on their brains”. Do this during any adventure or activity, whether it is walking in the woods or reading a book together.
Before the activity to signal to kids start thinking about something. For instance, try asking, “What do we already know about what we are about to do?” or “What do we think that we might learn?”
During the activity to draw connections or highlight details: “What else is this like?” or “What does this remind you of?”
After your adventure, reflect on the experience. For example, “What did you notice or learn that was new?”
And when you are having conversations with your child about day-to-day experiences, whether it’s flying a kite, riding a bike, or walking on a beach, remember to always ask for their opinions and seek specific answers.
Oxford Learning provides supplemental education services across North America. It offers programs for young people from preschool through university, and its cognitive approach goes beyond tutoring to ignite a lifelong love of learning. Find out more at http://www.OxfordLearning.com. | <urn:uuid:7de3846a-afe3-42ef-a85b-cb5fe5c3c02e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fromdatestodiapers.com/how-to-challenge-the-brain-with-any-fun-summer-activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950965 | 393 | 4 | 4 |
March 31, 1912: TITANIC - The Largest Ship in the World is Completed!
Sunday, March 31, 1912
TITANIC, the largest liner in the world is completed.
At 882 feet 9 inches long and 92 feet 6 inches wide, she had the same dimensions as her older sister. Her hull was built with 2 thousand 1 inch thick steel plates, held together with over 3 million rivets. Her displacement weight is 52,310 tons, even more than Olympic at 52,067 tons making Titanic larger.
Titanic had three anchors, one for each side with a central anchor stored in reserve on the forcastle deck. The 2 side anchors weighed 7 7/8 tons a piece and the central anchor weighing 15 3/4 tons. The 2 side anchors were raised and lowered with 96 tons of anchor chain.
29 boilers will produce enough steam to power her 3 story tall reciprocating engines and single turbine, generating up to 46 thousand horsepower. The reciprocating engines turned the outer wing propellers both at 23ft in diameter, and the single turbine turned the center propeller which was 16ft in diameter. Titanic and Olympic were called triple screw steamers because of the three propellers.
Pictured Below: A photograph of Titanic's boilers, engines, turbine rotor, and propellers.
The cost of building and equipping Titanic came to 1.5 million pounds or 7.5 million dollars. Nearly 125 million dollars by today's standards. The White Star Line expects a quick and glorious return on its investment. | <urn:uuid:1b57d31f-d6fa-465f-bf97-4b6e1c7c1bd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jmilfordrmstitanic.com/2011/02/titanic-is-completed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956285 | 319 | 3.125 | 3 |
General Information / Education / Medical / Cultural / Entertainment
The History ... Cumberland Gap has been used as a crossing point in the Appalachian Mountains. Animals have used it as a path to the green pastures of Kentucky. Native Americans used the Gap as the Warrior's Path that led from the Potomac River down the south side of the Appalachians through the Gap and north to "The Dark and Bloody Ground" known as Kentucky and on to Ohio.
In 1750 Dr. Thomas Walker found the Gap and mapped its location, but the French and Indian Wars closed the new frontiers.
Daniel Boone and many other long-hunters used the Gap to the Kentucky hunting grounds. In 1775, after the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals ended most Indian troubles, Boone and thirty men marked out the Wilderness Trail from what is now Kingsport Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky. Part of the Wilderness Road can be walked in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee by the Iron Furnace.
Before the Revolutionary War over 12,000 people crossed into the new frontier territory. By the time of Kentucky's admission to the Union, over 100,000 people had passed through the Gap. By 1800 the Gap was being used for transportation and commerce, both east and west. In the 1830's, other routes west caused the Gap to decline in importance.
During the Civil War the Gap was called the Keystone of the Confederacy and the Gibraltar of America. Both armies felt the invasion of the North or South would come through the Gap. Both armies held and fortified the Gap against the invasion that never came.
The Gap exchanged hands four times to be finally abandoned in 1866 by the Federal Army.
Today the Cumberland Gap is the main local route North and South, via Cumberland Gap Parkway (Hwy. 25E). By the mid 1990's a four lane tunnel under the Gap will open a new North-South, East-West route and the Cumberland Gap will be restored like the first pioneer saw it.
Claiborne County located on the Tennessee-Kentucky-Virginia borders in East Tennessee, one of the state's three "Grand Divisions." It was formed in 1801 from parts of Hawkins and Grainger Counties. The county seat is Tazewell.
The communities of Tazewell and New Tazewell are in Claiborne County, Tennessee. We are located in the beautiful mountains of the Cumberland Gap area. Cumberland Gap is located where Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia meet.
Claiborne County is a rural county with a population of 28,828. The county covers 2400 square miles. Tazewell, the county seat, is located about 40 miles north of Knoxville, Tennessee. Along with our beautiful mountains we have beautiful Norris Lake with 850 miles of shoreline. Norris Lake was the first T.V.A. lake built in the late 1930's. The lake is fed by two large rivers, the Clinch and the Powell. The lake is enjoyed by fisherman and water lovers of all ages.
Some of the larger communities in the county are Tazewell, New Tazewell, Harrogate, Speedwell, Forge Ridge, Midway, Springdale, Cumberland Gap, Cedar Grove, Dogwood Heights, and Lone Mountain.
Population in Claiborne County 28,828
Communi Comm Services
Claiborne County Utility District
United Cities Propane Gas
The Claiborne County area is home to 11 schools. The Claiborne County Board of Education consists of 7 members.
For additional information contact our superintendent of schools is Dr. Roy K. Norris. You can contact the central office at Box 179, Tazewell, Tennessee 37879. The phone number is (423)626-5225.
Welcome to Lincoln Memorial University (LMU). For more than 100 years, LMU has helped serve the higher education needs of our tri-state area and beyond. We are excited by that heritage, and we invite you to share it! The University offers a talented, dedicated faculty and staff, a strong and varied curriculum, a well-rounded student life, a beautiful campus, and excellent facilities.
In keeping with its Lincoln legacy, LMU prides itself in providing well developed and relevant academic programs for today's students destined to compete in tomorrow's competitive workplace. Some of our nation's most competent lawyers, doctors, nurses, artists, veterinarians, business persons, and writers have their academic roots at Lincoln Memorial University
Claiborne County Hospital and Nursing Home 1850 Old Knoxville Road P.O. Box 219 Tazewell, TN 37879 (865) 626-4211
The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum houses one of the most diverse Lincoln and Civil War collections in the country. Located on the beautiful campus of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee.
Exhibited are many rare items - the silver-topped cane Lincoln carried the night of his assassination, a lock of his hair clipped as he lay on his death bed, two life masks made of Lincoln, the tea set he and Mary Todd owned in their home in Springfield, and numerous other belongings. Over 20,000 books, manuscripts, pamphlets, photographs, paintings, and sculptures tell the story of President Lincoln and the Civil War period in America.
The Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Cumberland Gap is a natural opening in the mountains made famous by Daniel Boone. The Indians used this path long before Boone arrived. Today, you can visit the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and enjoy the history and beauty of our area.
If your interested in fishing, boating, or any water activity, then Norris Lake offers all that and more. There are several marinas and boat docks throughout the county.
Toll Free 800-747-0713 | <urn:uuid:8f8ec58b-1a8f-4afd-8a3e-5e77c6bbf2ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knoxville-tn.com/claiborne.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941477 | 1,195 | 3.90625 | 4 |
You Can Prevent Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
What is CMV?
CMV, or cytomegalovirus (si-to-MEG-a-lo-vi-rus), is a virus that is found in all parts of the world.
What causes CMV?
How is CMV spread?
CMV spreads from one person to another in saliva (spit), semen, vaginal secretions, blood, urine, and breast milk. You can get CMV when you touch these fluids with your hands, then touch your nose or mouth. People can also get CMV through sexual contact, breastfeeding, blood transfusions, and organ transplants.
What are the symptoms of CMV?
Comment on this
A blood test can tell you if you have CMV, but this test is not commonly performed. CMV doesn't always cause symptoms. When they first contract CMV, some people have:
But these are also symptoms of other illnesses, so most people don't know it when they get CMV.
Viewers share their comments
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:4f0a0687-eb66-4a56-a9ed-e732536edf8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/cytomegalovirus_cmv/article.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927524 | 239 | 3 | 3 |
NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Cold and Flu
Catching Colds and Flu
I wasn`t sure which catergory this would come under, but it involves catching a cold or the flu. I know that germs are the cause of getting these conditions and being outside in the cold whether without a jacket doesn`t cause someone to get them. But someone told me that if you are exposed to a cold environment and then warm one, back and forth, it can make someone sick with the cold or the flu, and does involve germs somehow. If that is true, can you please explain how that happens? Thanks
A cold or flu is caused by a viral infection, and viruses tend to be very contagious. They are spread primarily by droplets, or in other words, by saliva and mucus either sprayed into the air or by direct human contact. Going repeatedly from a cold to a warm environment and back should not increase one's chances to become infected. However, when the weather turns colder, people tend to begin spending more time indoors. This creates closer human contact and thereby increases the likelihood of infection. This is in large part why cold and flu season is during the colder months.
Allen M Seiden, MD
Professor of Otolaryngology, Director of Division of Rhinology and Sinus Disorders, Director of University Taste and Smell Center, Director of University Sinus and Allergy
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati | <urn:uuid:ff296fbf-229d-4b32-9143-e1023cdf4f1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netwellness.uc.edu/question.cfm/68811.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959128 | 332 | 3.453125 | 3 |
A person will be continually exposed to a low level of radiation throughout their life, this is perfectly normal and does not cause any health effects. Exposure to large amounts of radiation however can cause sterility, cataracts or even death.
Northumberland County Council may be required
to respond to a radioactive incident within the County of
Northumberland. The County Council Resilience Team has produced a
plan to ensure that robust and effective arrangements in place to
meet the requirements outlined in the Radiation Emergency
Preparedness and Public Information Regulations (REPPIR) 2001.
The Regulations place specific duties on the
County Council which include the dissemination of public advice in
conjunction with partner agencies.
REPPIR covers all of the key agencies involved
in responding to radiological emergencies, including the operators,
carriers and Local Authorities. The Regulation with most
importance to Local Authorities is Regulation 17.
The purpose of Regulation 17 is to ensure
members of the public actually affected by a radiation emergency
are informed promptly of the details and facts of the emergency,
and the measures to be taken to ensure their health and well being | <urn:uuid:24988783-0805-40a8-ae58-21de44fbd52f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=1314&StyleType=LargeFont&StyleClass=FontSize | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935379 | 237 | 3.25 | 3 |
News of the Wild
Get the latest animal news
Early one spring on Southern California's Black Mountain, a quail stands on a tree stump at the edge of a clearing in a forest of conifers. The bird does not seem to notice that it is being stalked at this very moment by...a fox? A coyote? Elmer Fudd? No, a squirrel. A western gray tree squirrel, to be precise. Hunkered down in a predatory crouch, the squirrel approaches with a rustle of fallen pine needles and tree leaves. When the rodent is within a few inches of the stump, it pounces upon the quail, a brief struggle ensues, but the quail escapes, leaving the luckless squirrel to try again later.
Biologist J.R. Callahan, of the University of New Mexico, recounted his observation of this stealth squirrel in a recent article in the scientific journal Great Basin Naturalist, in which he showed that the bushy-tailed animals we think of as cute little park dwellers have a dark side. Callahan compiled a list of squirrel victims that range from doves, blue jays and other birds to lizards, rabbits, mice and even other squirrels.
The whole squirrel family gets into the act. A 1991 study showed that tree squirrels were the chief predators of juvenile snowshoe hares in parts of British Columbia. Ground squirrels feed on other burrowers, such as moles and gophers. Chipmunks living along coastal Mexico eat crabs, while some U.S. chipmunks indulge in lizards and eggs.
Callahan suspects that squirrels prey on other animals not for the meat, but for the bones. One bird-killing fox squirrel, for example, avoided the meat of its prey and gnawed the bones. Callahan hypothesizes that squirrels may supplement their predominantly vegetable-food diet with animal matter during seasonal declines in certain plant food nutrients. | <urn:uuid:dfdf41d1-2df5-432f-9a05-58a165e48b6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/1996/News-of-the-Wild-Dec-Jan-1996.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947964 | 399 | 3 | 3 |
Giving is the Most Natural Thing in the World
By Drs. Rick and Jan Hanson
page 4 of 4
In sum, over three or four million years, the groups of hominid ancestors that developed giving, generosity, and cooperation to a fine art were the ones that survived to pass down the genes that are our endowment today. As a result, we are "born and bred" to want to give, to contribute, to make a difference.
When Generosity is Thwarted
One way to see the centrality of that impulse in the human experience is to observe what happens when it's thwarted:
On the job, even well-paid workers who feel they lack ways to contribute and add value have much less job satisfaction.
In mid-life, when the developmental task of what Erik Erikson called "generativity" (versus "stagnation") is not fulfilled, depression and a sense of aimlessness are the result.
In adolescence today, getting shunted off to quasi-reservations of high schools and malls - away from the world of adult work that was the natural province of teenagers throughout most human history - breeds a sense of alienation and irrelevance that in turn fosters poor motivation and a predilection for drugs and other risky behaviors. One reason so many adolescents are angry is that there's no way for them to be useful.
So, have faith that your son will appreciate more and more the rewards of sharing and giving, cooperation and generosity. In the beginning, the rewards will take the form mainly of enlightened self-interest in the rough-and-tumble real world of children, boiling down to: "If I scratch your back after you scratch mine, probably you'll scratch mine again." Over time, the rewards will naturally become more internalized, more emotional, and more abstracted, evolving into a quiet, almost unnoticed pleasure in simply being a good person. Like everyone else, deep down, in the whole wide world.
* * *
Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, Jan Hanson, M.S., L.Ac., is an acupuncturist/nutritionist, and they are raising a daughter and son, ages 16 and 19. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the first and second authors of Mother Nurture: A Motherís Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin. You can see their website at www.nurturemom.com or email them with questions or comments at firstname.lastname@example.org; unfortunately, a personal reply may not always be possible.
<< Previous Page 1 2 3 4 | <urn:uuid:98ecb48d-182c-450f-9ae7-bced504beab1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentingweekly.com/parenting_information/giving-is-the-most-natural-thing-in-the-world4.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941795 | 555 | 2.609375 | 3 |
By Richard Asinof
EAST PROVIDENCE – It’s better to safe and single, than dating and in danger, according to Christie Rizzo, a child psychologist with the Bradley/Hasbro’s Children’s Research Center.
As many as one in four teens, both male and female, have been in physically abusive relationships, and two-thirds have experience some form of sexual coercion, according to national research.
In Rhode Island, in 2011, in a survey of high school students as part of the statewide Youth Risk Behavior Study, about 8 percent of all students surveyed said that they had been hit by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past year, and 7 percent reported that they had been raped.
Rizzo, an active researcher on adolescent dating violence, says that many parents are in the dark about their child's situation because teens are very good at hiding the signs of abuse.
“Depression is strongly associated with dating violence, so if your teen is in a relationship and suddenly begins doing poorly in school or is isolating themselves from their friends, these may indicate that he or she is in an unhealthy relationship,” Rizzo said.
Sometimes, teens may not even realize they’re experiencing early signs of abuse. A predominant indicator of an abusive relationship is extreme jealousy, according to Rizzo. The most important thing for parents is to have an ongoing dialogue with their teen, Rizzo said. “Kids are so inexperienced with dating, they don’t recognize that a partner’s extreme jealousy is a form of abuse, so if you encourage an open and ongoing dialogue, you're more likely to have your teen report to you,” she said.
For parents who might not know where to start, Rizzo suggests they begin by talking about what is healthy in a relationship versus what is not. Teens may be experiencing psychological violence and not put it in the same level of seriousness as physical abuse, but data show that a victim of psychological abuse is more likely to experience physical violence down the road.
It is also vital for parents to understand that in teen relationships technology (cell phones, text or instant messenger [IM], social networking sites) is often a tool of abuse. One in three teens say they are text messaged up to 30 times an hour by a partner inquiring where they are, what they’re doing, or who they are with. “Control and intimidation through technology can be just as serious as face-to-face violence, Rizzo said. “Parents need to have a dialogue with their teens about how to set healthy limits in-person and online.” | <urn:uuid:e2e00915-d6d3-4552-a199-8929787a8eac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbn.com/Tips-for-parents-on-teen-dating-violence,65762?category_id=138&list_type=most_viewed&sub_type=stories,packages | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97141 | 552 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Conception/Leipzig. Even the snow on Aconcagua Mountain in the Andes is polluted with PCBs. An international team of researchers detected low concentrations of these toxic, carcinogenic chlorine compounds in samples taken from America's highest mountain. The snow samples taken at an altitude of 6200 metres are among the highest traces found anywhere in the world of these substances, which have been banned since 2001. In particular, the samples contained more persistent compounds like hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB 138) and heptachlorobiphenyl (PCB 180). Mountain ranges could be a natural trap for persistent organic pollutants that are transported by the atmosphere all over the world, say the scientists from IIQAB in Barcelona (Now IDAEA), the UFZ in Leipzig and the University of Concepcion in Chile, writing in the journal Environmental Chemistry Letters. According to the researchers, these findings highlight the need to investigate further the role of mountains in the spread of these pollutants and the associated risks. Just a few weeks ago, Swiss researchers found similar persistent environmental pollutants in glacial lakes in the Alps and pointed to potential risks to drinking water supplies.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are among the 'dirty dozen' persistent organic pollutants banned worldwide under the Stockholm Convention. Until the 1980s, PCBs were used primarily in transformers and capacitors and as hydraulic fluids and diluents. As well as causing chronic effects like acne, hair loss and liver damage, PCBs are also a suspected cause of male infertility. The toxin also represents a danger to a large number of animals because it accumulates in fatty tissue and is passed on via the food chain.
The study of environmental pollution in remote mountain regions is difficult because they are not easily accessible. "This is compounded by the fact that the concentrations are often so small that researchers have to bring back large quantities of snow just to reach the detection limit. While conventional extraction methods need at least a litre of snow, the solvent-free method we used works with 40 ml," explains Peter Popp of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), who analysed the samples in the laboratory in Leipzig. Roberto Quiroz of IIQAB, the Spanish research institute for environmental chemistry (now researcher at the EULA Chile Environmental Sciences Centre), adds, "On expeditions to high mountain peaks, every gram counts. We would never have been able to carry 40 litres of snow per sample. So we were very pleased that only 40 ml per sample were required for analysis in Leipzig." Aconcagua is in the southern Andes, close to the Chile-Argentina border, and has five large glaciers. It was a holy mountain of the Incas. As one of the Seven Summits (the highest mountains of each of the seven continents) Aconcagua is now a popular destination for mountaineers. The first to reach the summit was Swiss mountaineer Matthias Zurbriggen in 1897.
During the 2003 expedition, the Chilean researchers took samples at altitudes of 3500, 4300, 5000, 5800 and 6200 metres. The concentrations measured do not represent any immediate danger to mountaineers, who melt small quantities of snow to obtain water. The PCB concentration on Aconcagua was less than half a nanogram per litre. Compared with the values measured in other mountain and polar regions, the concentrations on the mountain peak in the Andes were relatively low. Concentrations four times higher have been measured in the Italian Alps, for instance – an indication that pollution in the southern hemisphere is less severe than in the northern hemisphere.
The PCB concentrations measured around the peak of Mount Aconcagua were approximately one-tenth of those found in earlier samples taken from Sierra Velluda, a mountain just 3500 metres high on the west side of the Andes in Chile. "This could be because of the way in which these pollutants accumulate in the snow. But it could also have something to do with the three hydroelectric power stations on the lower slopes of Sierra Velluda. Their transformers are potential sources of PCBs," suggests Ricardo Barra of the EULA-Chile Centre for Environmental Research at Concepcion University. "However, detecting PCBs in the snow on top of Aconcagua clearly shows that these compounds are transported to the Andes by the atmosphere and accumulate there."
The research findings are also relevant in relation to climate change: "The shrinking of the glaciers could lead to the pollutants stored in the glacier snow being carried down with the melt water," fears Roberto Quiroz. South America is not the only part of the world in which water from melting glaciers plays an important role in irrigation for farming and as a source of drinking water. | <urn:uuid:c3e80b2d-2be0-4118-b330-c15d3c60178f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencecodex.com/white_but_not_pure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952176 | 990 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The central part of Indiana, prior to settlement, was primarily covered in forest.
Today, with all residential, commercial, industrial and transportation land cover, most of the forest areas have disappeared.
That means many children have lost any association with what forests are or were.
However, a new website, "Finding My Forest," has developed to provide some connections to the forest again.
The site offers interdisciplinary lessons allowing parents, teachers and outdoor educators to connect with children's diverse learning styles.
The free forest conservation educational material and curriculum may be accessed at www.findingmyforest.org.
Today's children have little free time, between school, scheduled activities, television, computers and cell phones.
"Finding My Forest" provides the tools needed to help integrate the wonder of forests right into youth education efforts.
Interested individuals may start by taking a "virtual hike," downloading the curriculum or exploring the rest of the site to find information about forests, what to do when there and ways to connect with other "forest friends."
The material is designed for grades 3-8. The curriculum helps make natural spaces, from the schoolyard outside, to public forests around the country, more relevant to students.
The site offers simple ways to create a classroom blog and link it to the iForest Network Google Map, which connects participating classrooms from across the nation.
The site includes tools and resources from partner organizations.
One area of the site that is particularly fun is the online (by zip code) field guide, at www.enature.com/zipguides/.
It is a great site to learn details about birds, butterflies, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, trees, wild flowers, for the area chosen.
Pictures, habitat information and in the case of the birds, interested individuals may even listen to their sounds.
"Finding My Forest" is part of a USDA Forest Service and AdCouncil campaign aimed at connecting children and parents with nature.
For more information about the campaign and other resources, visit www.DiscoverTheForest.org.
Additional conservation education resources from the USDA Forest Service may be accessed at www.na.fs.fed.us.coned/. | <urn:uuid:e45290fd-4ddf-41cc-83c8-d6c08699f5ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebraziltimes.com/story/1678362.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935697 | 450 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Buried inside Robert Bryce’s relatively new book entitled Power Hungry is a call to “aggressively pursue taxes or caps on the emissions of neurotoxins, particularly those that come from burning coal” to generate electricity such as mercury and lead. This is notable not because Bryce agrees with many environmental and human health experts, but also because the book credibly debunks the move to tax or cap carbon dioxide emissions both from technical and political perspectives.
The word “neurotoxic” literally translates as “nerve poison”. Broadly described, a neurotoxicant is any chemical substance which adversely acts on the structure or function of the human nervous system.
As its subtitle signals, Power Hungry also declares policies subsidizing renewable sources of electricity, biofuels and electric vehicles as too costly and impractical to make a significant difference in making the U.S. power and transportation systems more sustainable.
So why take aim at mercury and lead, which is certain to drive up the cost of coal-fired electricity just as a carbon cap or tax would? Because, Bryce asserts, “arguing against heavy metal contaminants with known neurotoxicity will be far easier than arguing against carbon dioxide emissions. Cutting the output of mercury and the other heavy metals may, in the long run, turn out to have far greater benefits for the environmental and human health.” Bryce draws a parallel to the U.S. government ordering oil refiners to remove lead from gasoline starting in the 1970s.
In the book, which has has received predominantly good reviews on Amazon.com, Bryce makes some valid points about the carbon density of our energy sources. Among his overarching messages is that the carbon density of the world’s major economies is actually declining (see graph below). Not to be missed: his attack on carbon sequestration, pp. 160-165. His case about the threat of neurotoxins begins on p. 167.
There’s a lot more to this challenge of reducing America’s reliance on coal-fired power plants than this. But considering the failure by the U.S. Congress to agree on a carbon tax or cap, his idea has serious merit and deserves a broad discussion, especially as Congress reassess its budget priorities. This includes billions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives for oil and other fossil fuels. | <urn:uuid:ed7842f6-485f-401b-96c7-6ca3e6045411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theenergyfix.com/2011/05/07/tax-toxins-not-carbon-dioxide-from-coal-fired-power-plants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955607 | 481 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The theme for the 2011 Native American $1 Coin is "Supreme Sachem Ousamequin, Massasoit of the Great Wampanoag Nation Creates Alliance with Settlers at Plymouth Bay (1621)." Its reverse design features hands of the Supreme Sachem Ousamequin Massasoit and Governor John Carver, symbolically offering the ceremonial peace pipe after the initiation of the first formal written peace alliance between the Wampanoag tribe and the European settlers. The design includes the required inscriptions, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and $1, along with the additional inscription WAMPANOAG TREATY 1621.
Introduction: Diplomacy—Treaties with Tribal Nations
Within Native American culture, the ability to make peace was historically as highly prized as leadership in war and often conducted by a separate peace chief, who stepped in when the time for the warriors had passed. For centuries, tribes created alliances with each other that spanned hundreds of miles. One of the first treaties for a mutual alliance with settlers in what became the United States of America occurred between the Puritan settlers at Plymouth and the Massasoit of the Pokanoket Wampanoag in 1621. Historians credit the alliance with the Massasoit with ensuring survival of the Plymouth colony.
From the Declaration of Independence until 1868, the U.S. made some 370 treaties with Indian tribes. Congress suspended formal treaty-making in 1868, but since then, government-to-government relations between the U.S. and sovereign tribes have taken a variety of other legal forms. Current U.S. policy states that federal relations with recognized tribes are conducted on a government-to-government basis.
Contribution: Supreme Sachem Ousamequin, Massasoit of the Great Wampanoag Nation Creates Alliance with Settlers at Plymouth Bay (1621)
In the spring of 1621, Ousamequin, the Massasoit (a title meaning head chief) of the Wampanoag Indians, made a formal treaty with the English who settled at Patuxet (in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts). The document might well be the first written treaty between an indigenous people and European settlers in what is now the U.S. It consisted of six provisions, recorded in William Bradford's "History of Plimoth Plantation."
Massasoit promised to defend the Plymouth settlers against hostile tribes in return for their intervention if his people were attacked. His intermediaries—Tisquantum, Samoset and Hobbamack—gave the settlers invaluable tips on survival.
The Plymouth settlers honored the treaty later that summer by coming to Massasoit's rescue when they thought he had been captured by enemies. In mid-October 1621, Massasoit and 90 of his tribesmen celebrated a harvest feast at Plymouth for three days (a traditional English folk celebration). The 1621 feast inspired the legend of the first Thanksgiving, as it was called 220 years later. The treaty at Patuxet lasted more than 50 years. | <urn:uuid:f66d29f4-63be-4648-bece-bd286744b374> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/nativeAmerican/?action=2011NADesign | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939551 | 625 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In Rom. archæol., a room in a large dwelling. The word occurs in Vitruvius and Pliny, in ways that have suggested to modern writers the idea that it had a technical meaning; but it was merely the Greek word transferred.
Sorry, no example sentences found.
‘œcus’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Looking for tweets for œcus. | <urn:uuid:f1340efb-f81a-4023-8c00-1919121db3a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/%C5%93cus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92283 | 97 | 2.578125 | 3 |
What is the National Health Interview Survey?
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is a continuous, nationwide
in-person survey of approximately 35,000 households, or about 87,500 persons,
in the civilian non-institutionalized population. The NHIS over samples
African-American and Hispanic respondents. NCI periodically sponsors a Cancer
Control Supplement (CCS) which is administered to a randomly selected sample of
The NHIS serves as the main source of data on health. It has historically been used
for monitoring health patterns and trends, and tracking progress towards national goals.
Data from NHIS also are widely used for research and policy analyses.
First administered in 1957, the NHIS consists of two parts:
- a core set of basic health and demographic questions on a broad range of topics; and
- one or more sets of supplemental questions on specific health topics, including cancer.
The NHIS is conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is administered by the US
Survey content in the NHIS is updated periodically. Information on the NHIS, including
questionnaires, documentation, and datasets, is available on the National Center for Health Statistics NHIS Web site. | <urn:uuid:5b3a4b1c-3b32-4e77-b951-107000d8aa32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://appliedresearch.cancer.gov/surveys/nhis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918523 | 263 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Children who are exposed to violence experience wear and tear to their DNA that is similar to that seen in aging, according to a new study that may help explain why they face a heightened risk of mental and physical disorders as adults.
In a long-term study of 118 pairs of identical twins, researchers at Duke University found that boys and girls who had experienced violence had shorter genetic structures called telomeres than youngsters who had more peaceful upbringings.
The children in the former group had been physically abused by an adult or bullied frequently, or had witnessed domestic violence between the ages of 5 and 10. And the more types of violence a child had experienced, the faster his or her telomeres eroded, said study leader Idan Shalev, who published the findings Tuesday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Telomeres are strands of protective DNA that cap the tips of chromosomes inside the cell. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres get a little bit shorter. After about 50 to 60 cell divisions, the telomeres become so small that the cell begins to shut itself down.
Scientists have demonstrated a link between shortened telomeres and susceptibility to disease, suggesting that they are a useful gauge of biological age, Shalev said. Stress seems to speed up the telomere erosion process, he added.
Previous research had already established that people who had experienced childhood stress had shorter telomeres as adults. Shalev and his colleagues sought to find out whether the DNA damage occurred around the time that stressful events took place.
They turned to children from the British Environmental-Risk Study, which tracked 1,116 sets of same-sex twins born in 1994 and 1995. All of the children provided cells through cheek swabs when they were 5 and 10 years old, but because it was too costly to measure telomeres in all of the children, the Duke researchers focused on a subset of identical twins who lived near London, including many with teenage mothers.
The researchers measured telomeres in tens of thousands of cells from each child, ultimately establishing an average telomere length. Through interviews with primary caregivers, the team also assessed the subjects' exposure to violence at ages 5, 7 and 10.
Telomere length declined in all the children as they got older. But it plummeted in the 39 children who had experienced multiple types of violence, Shalev said.
He hazarded a rough estimate that these children had lost perhaps seven to 10 years of life compared with children who had more tranquil lives.
"Kids who are raised in poverty and hardship have more disease. This might explain why," said Dr. Owen Wolkowitz, a psychiatrist at UC San Francisco who has studied the link between depression and telomere length in adults. He was not involved in the Duke study.
The Duke team has not yet evaluated whether the British children had developed health issues, Shalev said. They are in the process of collecting more DNA from the twins and looking for evidence of incipient health problems such as increased blood pressure or diabetes.
"We think the health problems will probably be seen in later life," he said. | <urn:uuid:f02d3295-c6e5-4eb3-9bfe-da6bf465ee33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/25/health/la-he-violence-aging-20120425 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980483 | 640 | 3.140625 | 3 |
TAG | Risk Of Heart Disease
How many numbers do we remember each day? Phone numbers, alarm codes, passwords, bank account balances, birthdays. None of these is as important as knowing your health numbers. An up-to-date knowledge of your health numbers can literally save your life.
Brenda Watson discusses knowing your numbers and how you can test them at home in her revolutionary Heart of Perfect Health PBS special airing nationwide on PBS stations throughout March. The show covers the myths about cholesterol, the nutrients you need to get your health back on track and reduce your risk of heart disease, how to check your health numbers, and the simple, transformative steps you can take every day to reverse America’s #1 killer, heart disease.
The 3 Numbers You Must Know
The three top signs of heart disease risk are also the three top signs of silent inflammation, a chronic pre-disease state in the body that many of us have without knowing it. Research is linking silent inflammation to the root of heart and cardiovascular disease, not to mention conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and even certain cancers.
The good news is you can reverse your silent inflammation by knowing your health numbers and taking the necessary steps to get these numbers within a healthy range. The 3 health numbers you need to know are:
- Cholesterol, which should be no higher than 200mg
- Blood pressure, which should be no higher than 120 over 80
- Blood sugar (fasting blood glucose), which should be no higher than 85
High cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar are the top 3 signs your body is in a state of silent inflammation, and they are major heart health risk markers. Together these high numbers double your risk of cardiovascular disease by causing the arteries to harden and thicken, by stimulating plaque build-up along blood vessels, and by increasing bad LDL cholesterol.
You should be testing yourself more often than once a year to see where your numbers are and you can perform these tests at home. You can get your cholesterol checked at lab sites online, buy your own blood pressure cuff for at-home use, and find a do-it-yourself glucose meter at your local drugstore to monitor your blood sugar levels. There is no need to wait for your annual doctor’s visit when you should know these numbers throughout the year to see how well you are doing in keeping them within a healthy range.
Check back in the next couple of days to learn more about the #1 nutrient that helps reduce your risk of heart disease and helps keep your cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar healthy!
Belly fat is usually detectible—people generally have a good idea if they tend to accumulate fat in their midsection, as opposed to their hips and bottom. But how do you know if your liver is fat? Well, abdominal fat and liver fat often go hand in hand. In fact, fat from the liver can be sent to the belly, and vice versa. Often, an underlying feature of both of these is inflammation, which may come from the gut. Nutrients and other substances—including fat, toxins and inflammatory compounds—are absorbed from the small intestine and travel straight to the liver via the portal vein.
A recent study found that obese individuals with high amounts of abdominal fat and liver fat are at increased risk for heart disease. The researchers found that liver fat is strongly associated with increased secretion of very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), which contain the highest amounts of triglycerides, known to increase heart disease risk.
It has long been known that abdominal fat can be dangerous. The increasing knowledge about the dangers of liver fat adds to the story, as these two go hand in hand, each setting the body up to be more susceptible to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Together, belly and liver fat mean trouble.
Both liver and abdominal fat can be reduced with exercise and weight loss. These steps, in addition to addressing any underlying gut dysfunction that may be contributing inflammation to the liver, can help reverse these metabolic precursors to heart disease. Gut imbalance may be addressed by taking probiotics, the beneficial bacteria naturally found in the gut. | <urn:uuid:4f1ca454-fc19-4d9d-806d-f30773dc81fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.renewlife.com/tag/risk-of-heart-disease/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938111 | 863 | 2.515625 | 3 |
May 17, 2013 Leave a comment
In January this year, large parts of southern Australia were ablaze with fierce bush fires, while most of the UK was covered in snow. Half a world away from each other, and at one point nearly 40ºC apart, there aren’t too many similarities to be drawn between the two locations. And yet, there is a water weed, Crassula helmsii, that survives happily in both extremes – and in the UK, where it has been introduced, this adaptability is proving extremely problematic.
Crassula helmsii, also known as Australian swamp stonecrop or New Zealand pygmyweed, is a small semi-aquatic plant in the Crassulaceae family. As its common name implies, this low-growing succulent originates from the antipodes, but was introduced to Britain from Tasmania almost 100 years ago. Initially sold by garden and aquatic centres as an oxygenating plant, by the 1950s it had established in the wild, and from there it has spread to numerous ponds, lakes and waterways throughout the UK. | <urn:uuid:01d6d260-ca73-461d-8263-e796b8c6c6c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cabiinvasives.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979448 | 223 | 2.859375 | 3 |
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3.4 Review and Practice
In this chapter we have examined the model of demand and supply. We found that a demand curve shows the quantity demanded at each price, all other things unchanged. The law of demand asserts that an increase in price reduces the quantity demanded and a decrease in price increases the quantity demanded, all other things unchanged. The supply curve shows the quantity of a good or service that sellers will offer at various prices, all other things unchanged. Supply curves are generally upward sloping: an increase in price generally increases the quantity supplied, all other things unchanged.
The equilibrium price occurs where the demand and supply curves intersect. At this price, the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied. A price higher than the equilibrium price increases the quantity supplied and reduces the quantity demanded, causing a surplus. A price lower than the equilibrium price increases the quantity demanded and reduces the quantity supplied, causing a shortage. Usually, market surpluses and shortages are short-lived. Changes in demand or supply, caused by changes in the determinants of demand and supply otherwise held constant in the analysis, change the equilibrium price and output. The circular flow model allows us to see how demand and supply in various markets are related to one another.
- What do you think happens to the demand for pizzas during the Super Bowl? Why?
Which of the following goods are likely to be classified as normal goods or services? Inferior? Defend your answer.
- Used cars
- Used clothing
- Books reviewed in The New York Times
- Macaroni and cheese
- Legal services
Which of the following pairs of goods are likely to be classified as substitutes? Complements? Defend your answer.
- Peanut butter and jelly
- Eggs and ham
- Nike brand and Reebok brand sneakers
- IBM and Apple Macintosh brand computers
- Dress shirts and ties
- Airline tickets and hotels
- Gasoline and tires
- Beer and wine
- Faxes and first-class mail
- Cereal and milk
- Cereal and eggs
A study found that lower airfares led some people to substitute flying for driving to their vacation destinations. This reduced the demand for car travel and led to reduced traffic fatalities, since air travel is safer per passenger mile than car travel. Using the logic suggested by that study, suggest how each of the following events would affect the number of highway fatalities in any one year.
- An increase in the price of gasoline
- A large reduction in rental rates for passenger vans
- An increase in airfares
- Children under age 2 are now allowed to fly free on U.S. airlines; they usually sit in their parents’ laps. Some safety advocates have urged that they be required to be strapped in infant seats, which would mean their parents would have to purchase tickets for them. Some economists have argued that such a measure would actually increase infant fatalities. Can you say why?
The graphs below show four possible shifts in demand or in supply that could occur in particular markets. Relate each of the events described below to one of them.
- How did the heavy rains in South America in 1997 affect the market for coffee?
- The Surgeon General decides french fries are not bad for your health after all and issues a report endorsing their use. What happens to the market for french fries?
- How do you think rising incomes affect the market for ski vacations?
- A new technique is discovered for manufacturing computers that greatly lowers their production cost. What happens to the market for computers?
- How would a ban on smoking in public affect the market for cigarettes?
- As low-carb diets increased in popularity, egg prices rose sharply. How might this affect the monks’ supply of cookies or private retreats? (See the Case in Point on the Monks of St. Benedict’s.)
- Gasoline prices typically rise during the summer, a time of heavy tourist traffic. A “street talk” feature on a radio station sought tourist reaction to higher gasoline prices. Here was one response: “I don’t like ’em [the higher prices] much. I think the gas companies just use any excuse to jack up prices, and they’re doing it again now.” How does this tourist’s perspective differ from that of economists who use the model of demand and supply?
- The introduction to the chapter argues that preferences for coffee changed in the 1990s and that excessive rain hurt yields from coffee plants. Show and explain the effects of these two circumstances on the coffee market.
- With preferences for coffee remaining strong in the early part of the century, Vietnam entered the market as a major exporter of coffee. Show and explain the effects of these two circumstances on the coffee market.
- The study on the economics of obesity discussed in the Case in Point in this chapter on that topic also noted that another factor behind rising obesity is the decline in cigarette smoking as the price of cigarettes has risen. Show and explain the effect of higher cigarette prices on the market for food. What does this finding imply about the relationship between cigarettes and food?
- In 2004, The New York Times reported that India might be losing its outsourcing edge due to rising wagesNoam Scheiber, “As a Center for Outsourcing, India Could Be Losing Its Edge,” New York Times, May 9, 2004, p. BU3. The reporter noted that a recent report “projected that if India continued to produce college graduates at the current rate, demand would exceed supply by 20% in the main outsourcing markets by 2008.” Using the terminology you learned in this chapter, explain what he meant to say was happening in the market for Indian workers in outsourcing jobs. In particular, is demand for Indian workers increasing or decreasing? Is the supply of Indian workers increasing or decreasing? Which is shifting faster? How do you know?
- For more than a century, milk producers have produced skim milk, which contains virtually no fat, along with regular milk, which contains 4% fat. But a century ago, skim milk accounted for only about 1% of total production, and much of it was fed to hogs. Today, skim and other reduced-fat milks make up the bulk of milk sales. What curve shifted, and what factor shifted it?
- Suppose firms in the economy were to produce fewer goods and services. How do you think this would affect household spending on goods and services? (Hint: Use the circular flow model to analyze this question.)
Problems 1–5 are based on the graph below.
- At a price of $1.50 per dozen, how many bagels are demanded per month?
- At a price of $1.50 per dozen, how many bagels are supplied per month?
- At a price of $3.00 per dozen, how many bagels are demanded per month?
- At a price of $3.00 per dozen, how many bagels are supplied per month?
- What is the equilibrium price of bagels? What is the equilibrium quantity per month?
Problems 6–9 are based on the model of demand and supply for coffee as shown in Figure 3.10 "Changes in Demand and Supply" You can graph the initial demand and supply curves by using the following values, with all quantities in millions of pounds of coffee per month:
|Price||Quantity demanded||Quantity supplied|
- Suppose the quantity demanded rises by 20 million pounds of coffee per month at each price. Draw the initial demand and supply curves based on the values given in the table above. Then draw the new demand curve given by this change, and show the new equilibrium price and quantity.
- Suppose the quantity demanded falls, relative to the values given in the above table, by 20 million pounds per month at prices between $4 and $6 per pound; at prices between $7 and $9 per pound, the quantity demanded becomes zero. Draw the new demand curve and show the new equilibrium price and quantity.
- Suppose the quantity supplied rises by 20 million pounds per month at each price, while the quantities demanded retain the values shown in the table above. Draw the new supply curve and show the new equilibrium price and quantity.
- Suppose the quantity supplied falls, relative to the values given in the table above, by 20 million pounds per month at prices above $5; at a price of $5 or less per pound, the quantity supplied becomes zero. Draw the new supply curve and show the new equilibrium price and quantity.
Problems 10–15 are based on the demand and supply schedules for gasoline below (all quantities are in thousands of gallons per week):
|Price per gallon||Quantity demanded||Quantity supplied|
- Graph the demand and supply curves and show the equilibrium price and quantity.
- At a price of $3 per gallon, would there be a surplus or shortage of gasoline? How much would the surplus or shortage be? Indicate the surplus or shortage on the graph.
- At a price of $6 per gallon, would there be a surplus or shortage of gasoline? How much would the surplus or shortage be? Show the surplus or shortage on the graph.
- Suppose the quantity demanded increased by 2,000 gallons per month at each price. At a price of $3 per gallon, how much would the surplus or shortage be? Graph the demand and supply curves and show the surplus or shortage.
- Suppose the quantity supplied decreased by 2,000 gallons per month at each price for prices between $4 and $8 per gallon. At prices less than $4 per gallon the quantity supplied becomes zero, while the quantities demanded retain the values shown in the table. At a price of $4 per gallon, how much would the surplus or shortage be? Graph the demand and supply curves and show the surplus or shortage.
- If the demand curve shifts as in problem 13 and the supply curve shifts as in problem 14, without drawing a graph or consulting the data, can you predict whether equilibrium price increases or decreases? What about equilibrium quantity? Now draw a graph that shows what the new equilibrium price and quantity are. | <urn:uuid:244bed77-a76a-4eea-9a42-1647b7753cfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/5230?e=rittenberg-ch03_s05 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924551 | 2,341 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Why is the shamash on a pedestal?
The Chanukah menorah is such a beautiful sight! Every night we add a new flame until we have eight in a straight row. The shamash is also part of the chanukiyah, yet it’s not next to all the other flames. It has a unique placement. It’s not permitted to be in the same row as the rest, and many chanukiyot are designed with the shamash higher than the rest. Why the special treatment?
To better understand the uniqueness of the shamash, we need to know what the word “shamash” means. The best way to understand what a word means is by looking at the first time the word is mentioned in the Torah. At the covenant between the parts between God and Abraham (Bereshit 15, 12) we read, “Vayehi hashemesh lavo” – and the shemesh was setting. This is the first time the Torah refers to that “Great light to rule by day” (Bereshit 1, 16) – the sun – as the shemesh. How strange! The word shemesh literally means a servant. Why is the Torah referring to the mighty great light that rules by day as a servant?
More importantly, why does the Torah refer to the sun as the shemesh in relation to a covenant that God made with Abraham? Abraham lived in a pagan world that attributed divinity to anything that exerted power over mankind. Abraham’s contribution to the world was that he understood that no matter how powerful anything may be – even if it is a “great light” that rules by day, that heats up and illuminates the entire solar system and provides photosynthesis, enabling life on earth – it’s still a shemesh, a servant of God.
Abraham understood that everything in the universe has a purpose through its connection to serving God to make the world a place where the Divine presence can reside. Everything has the ability to mirror the kindness of God in this world. Abraham’s entire life was a manifestation of being the ultimate human shemesh, as he introduced kindness to the world. When everything in the universe is perceived by mankind as a servant of God’s kindness to the world, then the world has achieved its purpose. Disconnecting powerful things from the ultimate source leads to paganism. Abraham succeeded to such an extent that God desired to make an eternal covenant with him and promised him the Land of Israel. This is the best time to introduce to the world what the most powerful force in our universe really is – a shemesh, a servant.
The Chanukah story involves the battle between the pagan forces of Greece and the Jewish belief that everything serves God. The chanukiyah is a symbol of Jewish victory, that God indeed runs the world and can make oil miraculously burn for eight days, hence the eight flames. But those eight flames cannot represent anything if there’s nothing to serve them and enable them to illuminate.
The shamash fits that role. There’s no mitzvah to light a shamash, but without its dutiful sole existence of serving God to enable the mitzvah to be done, we would have no light at all. Something or someone that focuses on the will of God alone deserves special treatment, and, yes, to even be higher than all the rest.
Rabbi Yossi Michalowicz is spiritual leader of the Westmount Shul in Thornhill, Ont. | <urn:uuid:420e86fe-bc48-4af4-9a8a-e07b2885905d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cjnews.com/contest?q=node/98580 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960577 | 745 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Loggerhead sea turtle -
photographer DuBose Griffin
Sea turtles are among the largest reptiles in the world and inhabit almost every ocean. Fossil evidence indicates sea turtles shared the Earth with dinosaurs over 210 million years ago. Sea turtles are cold-blooded, air breathing, egg laying reptiles that deposit their eggs on dry, sandy beaches. Sea turtles differ from freshwater turtles because they have flippers instead of feet, cannot retract their heads and spend all of their life in salt water, except when females come ashore to lay eggs. There are seven species of sea turtles in the world. They are the loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, green, leatherback, Australian flatback, hawksbill and olive ridley. The loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, green and leatherback sea turtles can be found in South Carolina's near shore waters April through November or nesting on our beaches from May through October. Loggerheads are the most common sea turtle found in our state's coastal waters and nesting on our beaches. Sea turtle nests and strandings in South Carolina can be followed in real time on the SCDNR Sea Turtle Program web site: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/.
Loggerhead hatchling -
photographer Barbara Bergwerf
All sea turtles have a similar life history. Since loggerheads are the most common species found in South Carolina, the following life history information is specific to this species. The reproductive season begins when males and females mate in early spring. Females crawl onto the beach at night, 30 days after breeding, from May to August and deposit an average of 120 white, leathery eggs similar in appearance and size to a ping pong ball. They deposit these eggs in a nest cavity that is approximately 18 inches deep. The cavity is dug with their hind flippers in the dry sand above the high tide line. Each female will nest, on average, four times per season with two week intervals between each nesting event. The eggs incubate for approximately 60 days and during this time are susceptible to predation by raccoons, feral hogs, coyotes and ghost crabs. The temperature of the nest during the second trimester of incubation will determine the sex of the hatchlings. Hatchlings emerge from the nest at night and crawl towards the ocean using several cues, primarily celestial light reflecting off the ocean, to find their way.
Please click here for video footage of this emergence: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/videos/julyvideo_logger.wmv.
Once they reach the ocean, they swim continuously for about 36 hours to escape predators that may prey on them in coastal waters. They swim offshore in search of large clumps of Sargassum seaweed where they are camouflaged while feeding on a variety of small invertebrates. During the next 10 – 12 years they lead a pelagic existence and float actively and passively in the North Atlantic Ocean gyre. Once they reach approximately 20 inches in shell length, they move back into coastal waters along the Continental Shelf and begin feeding on bottom prey such as crabs and mollusks. They spend the rest of their juvenile and adult lives in these Shelf waters.
Sea turtles face many natural and human-caused threats during all stages of their life cycle. The primary natural predator of juvenile and adult sea turtles is the shark. A significant threat is accidental capture in commercial fisheries. Long line fishing, gill nets and bottom trawling can result in the lethal capture of sea turtles.
The use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) by shrimpers has reduced the occurrence of sea turtle deaths. However, these species still face many challenges for survival. Collisions with boats, including propellers, are becoming a significant problem as coastal areas continue to develop. Artificial light visible from the beach is harmful because it disorients adults and hatchlings, causing them to wander away from the ocean. Disoriented hatchlings are more susceptible to nocturnal predators. Pollution can cause sea turtle mortality. For example, plastic bags may be mistaken as food and ingested, and sea turtles can become entangled in monofilament line. Beachfront development interferes with the natural erosion and accretion along dynamic barrier islands which results in the loss of nesting habitat. Climate change is a threat to sea turtles, especially when coupled with beachfront development. Rising oceans move dynamic beaches landward. When this occurs on developed beaches, nesting habitat is lost when sand cannot migrate landward because of infrastructure or when beaches are armored to protect property. Warming temperatures can also alter the natural ratio of male to female turtles that are produced in a nest.
All four species of sea turtles found in South Carolina are protected by state and federal law, principally by the US Endangered Species Act of 1973. Additionally, all species of sea turtles are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). They are also listed as endangered or vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Endemic Sea Turtles
Loggerhead sea turtle -
photographer Tom Murphy
Loggerheads (Caretta caretta) are the most widespread and commonly found sea turtle that nests in the southeastern United States. They were designated as the official South Carolina state reptile in 1988. Loggerheads are named for their massive heads and powerful jaws that enable them to feed on hard-shelled prey, such as whelks, crustaceans and conch. Loggerhead turtles have an oval-shaped carapace that is dark reddish-brown while their flippers and lower plastron are light yellow. Adult loggerheads can weigh as much 300 pounds and reach up to four feet in shell length. Loggerhead nesting has been well documented and has averaged 3,378 nests per year over the last 10 years in South Carolina. For more specific information on loggerhead sea turtles, please visit the following Web pages:
Kemp's ridley sea turtle -
photographers Phil and
Kemp's ridleys (Lepidochelys kempii) are the smallest and rarest of the seven sea turtle species, weighing approximately 100 pounds and as adults, growing to two feet in shell length. Adults have a round grayish-black to olive carapace (which lightens in color as the turtle ages) that is as wide as it is long. They feed on fast swimming crabs, such as blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus). Kemp's ridleys nest primarily near Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. They do not typically nest in South Carolina but can be found in inshore and near shore waters from April through November. However, a Kemp's ridley nest was recorded on Litchfield by the Sea in 1992 and South Litchfield in 2008 (less than a mile from the 1992 nest site). For more specific information on Kemp's ridley sea turtles, please visit the following Web pages:
Green sea turtle -
photographer Barbara Bergwerf
Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) are the largest hard-shelled sea turtle species. Their common name is derived from the green fat, or calipee, in their body due to their herbivorous diet. They have a serrated jaw for tearing grass, weigh approximately 300 - 350 pounds as adults and average five feet in shell length. In September 1996, the first documented green turtle nest was laid on South Island in South Carolina. Since 1996, green nesting has become more frequent. Although green turtles do not typically nest in South Carolina, juvenile turtles consistently utilize South Carolina’s inshore and near shore waters as foraging grounds from April through November. For more specific information on green sea turtles, please visit the following Web pages:
Leatherback sea turtle -
photographer Matthew Godfrey
Leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea) are the largest and widest ranging sea turtles. These sea turtles are unique because they do not have a hard shell, but a leathery shell with distinct longitudinal ridges. Although cold blooded, they can maintain a body temperature warmer than ambient. They range from 800 - 1,300 pounds and reach six feet in shell length. Leatherbacks feed on jellyfish in South Carolina near shore waters in the spring and fall while migrating between Nova Scotia feeding grounds to tropical nesting beaches. In 1996, the first South Carolina record for a leatherback nest was documented on St. Phillip’s Island. Since 1996, leatherback nesting has become more frequent. For more specific information on leatherback sea turtles, please visit the following Web pages:
- Sea turtles are revered in many cultures. Around the world there are numerous indigenous tales and legends that depict turtles as guardians or creators of life on Earth. In Hawaii, the turtle is a symbol of good luck and a Hindu symbol depicts the world as resting on the back of a turtle.
- Leatherbacks dive deeper than any other turtle species with recorded dive depths of up to 4,000 feet. Given the pressure and temperature at this depth, this is a remarkable dive for any air breathing vertebrate.
- Loggerhead hatchlings born on the beaches of South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia live the first years of their lives in the pelagic environment off the west coast of Africa.
- It takes loggerheads 25 – 30 years to mature and reproduce. You cannot age a turtle and no one knows exactly how long they live.
- About 100 species of animals and plants have been recorded living on one single loggerhead, making them an entire mobile, living, breathing ecosystem.
- The smallest sea turtle is the Kemp’s ridley. The largest recorded leatherback was found stranded on the coast of Wales in 1988 and weighed roughly 2,020 pounds.
Biologists urge the public to assist with sea turtle conservation by reporting all dead or injured sea turtles to 1-800-922-5431. Additionally, the following tips are useful:
- Never disturb a sea turtle crawling to or from the ocean.
- Once a sea turtle has begun nesting, observe her only from a distance.
- Do not shine lights on a sea turtle or take flash photography.
- Turn out all lights visible from the beach, dusk to dawn, from May through October.
- Turn off all outdoor and deck lighting to reduce disorientation for nesting adults and hatchlings.
- Close blinds and drapes on windows that face the beach or ocean.
- Fill in holes on the beach at the end of each day as adults and hatchlings can become trapped.
- Do not leave beach chairs, tents etc. on the beach overnight.
- Never attempt to ride a sea turtle.
This publication was made possible in part with funds from SCDNR endangered species appropriations, SCDNR Check-off for Wildlife funds, SCDNR endangered species license plate sales, US Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries Endangered Species Act Section 6 funding.
- Carr, Archie. So Excellent a Fishe. The Natural History Press, Garden City, New York. 1967.
- Carr, Archie. The Windward Road. University of Florida Press, Tallahassee Florida. Republished 1979.
- National Research Council. Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. 1990.
- Safina, Carl. Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth’s Last Dinosaur. Henry Holt and Co., LLC, New York, New York. 2006.
For more information about sea turtles in South Carolina, visit the Web sites below:
- SCDNR Sea Turtle Conservation Program web site: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/
- Sea Turtle Outreach and Educational Materials: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/outreach.htm
- SCDNR Loggerhead State of the Resource: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/pub/stateofloggerhead.pdf
Author credentials: Arturo Herrera and DuBose Griffin, Marine Turtle Conservation Program, Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
The above information on the sea turtle is available in a brochure, please download the Sea Science - Sea Turtle information pamphlet which is in the Adobe PDF file format. Adobe® Reader® is required to open the files and is available as a free download from the Adobe® Web site. | <urn:uuid:c58f1c00-d007-4911-81a1-8c24b1ecf1d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dnr.sc.gov/marine/pub/seascience/seaturtle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924102 | 2,579 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Dualism
(From Lat. duo, two).
Like most other philosophical terms, has been employed in different meanings by different schools.
First, the name has been used to denote the religious or theological system which would explain the universe as the outcome of two eternally opposed and coexisting principles, conceived as good and evil, light and darkness, or some other form of conflicting powers. We find this theory widely prevalent in the East, and especially in Persia, for several centuries before the Christian Era. The Zend-Avesta, ascribed to Zoroaster, who probably lived in the sixth century B.C. and is supposed to be the founder or reformer of the Medo-Persian religion, explains the world as the outcome of the struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman. Ormuzd is infinite light, supreme wisdom, and the author of all good; Ahriman is the principle of darkness and of all evil. In the third century after Christ, Manes, for a time a convert to Christianity, developed a form of Gnosticism, subsequently styled Manichaeism, in which he sought to fuse some of the elements of the Christian religion with the dualistic creed of Zoroastrianism (see MANICHAEISM and ZOROASTER). Christian philosophy, expounded with minor differences by theologians and philosophers from St. Augustine downwards, holds generally that physical evil is the result of the necessary limitations of finite created beings, and that moral evil, which alone is evil in the true sense, is a consequence of the creation of beings possessed of free wills and is tolerated by God. Both physical and moral evil are to be conceived as some form of privation or defect of being, not as positive entity. Their existence is thus not irreconcilable with the doctrine of theistic monism.
Second, the term dualism is employed in opposition to monism, to signify the ordinary view that the existing universe contains two radically distinct kinds of being or substance -- matter and spirit, body and mind. This is the most frequent use of the name in modern philosophy, where it is commonly contrasted with monism. But it should not be forgotten that dualism in this sense is quite reconcilable with a monistic origin of all things. The theistic doctrine of creation gives a monistic account of the universe in this sense. Dualism is thus opposed to both materialism and idealism. Idealism, however, of the Berkeleyan type, which maintains the existence of a multitude of distinct substantial minds, may along with dualism, be described as pluralism.
Historically, in Greek philosophy as early as 500 B.C. we find the Eleatic School with Parmenides as their chief, teaching a universal unity of being, thus exhibiting a certain affinity with modern German monism. Being alone exists. It is absolutely one, eternal, and unchangeable. There is no real becoming or beginning of being. Seeming changes and plurality of beings are mere appearances. To this unity of being, Plato opposed an original duality--God and unproduced matter, existing side by side from all eternity. This matter, however, was conceived as indeterminate, chaotic, fluctuating, and governed by a blind necessity, in contrast with mind which acts according to plan. The order and arrangement are due to God. Evil and disorder in the world have their source in the resistance of matter which God has not altogether vanquished. Here we seem to have a trace of the Oriental speculation. Again there is another dualism in man. The rational soul is a spiritual substance distinct from the body within which it dwells, somewhat as the charioteer in the chariot. Aristotle is dualistic on sundry important topics. The contrast between the fundamental conceptions of matter and form--a potential and an actualizing principle--runs through all branches of his system. Necessarily coeternal with God, Who is pure actuality, there has existed the passive principle of matter, which in this sense, however, is mere potentiality. But further, along with God Who is the Prime Mover, there must also have existed from all eternity the World moved by God. In his treatment of cognition Aristotle adopts the ordinary common-sense view of the existence of individual objects distinct from our perceptions and ideas of them. Man is an individual substantial being resulting from the coalescence of the two principles--form (the soul) and matter.
Christianity rejected all forms of a dual origin of the world which erected matter, or evil, or any other principle into a second eternal being coexistent with God, and it taught the monistic origin of the universe from one, infinite, self-existing spiritual Being who freely created all things. The unfamiliar conception of free creation, however, met with considerable opposition in the schools of philosophy and was abandoned by several of the earlier heresies. The neo-Platonists sought to lessen the difficulty by emanastic forms of pantheism, and also by inserting intermediate beings between God and the world. But the former method implied a materialistic conception of God, while the latter only postponed the difficulty. From the thirteenth century, through the influence of Albertus Magnus and still more of St. Thomas Aquinas, the philosophy of Aristotle, though subjected to some important modifications, became the accredited philosophy of the Church. The dualistic hypothesis of an eternal world existing side by side with God was of course rejected. But the conception of spiritual beings as opposed to matter received fuller definition and development. The distinction between the human soul and the body which it animates was made clearer and their separability emphasized; but the ultra-dualism of Plato was avoided by insisting on the intimate union of soul and body to constitute one substantial being under the conception of form and matter.
The problem of dualism, however, was lifted into quite a new position in modern philosophy by Descartes (q.v.). Indeed, since his time it has been a topic of central interest in philosophical speculation. His handling of two distinct questions, the one epistemological, the other metaphysical, brought this about. The mind stands in a cognitional relation to the external world, and in a causal relation to the changes within the body. What is the precise nature of each of these relations? According to Descartes the soul is res cogitans. Its essence is thought. It is simple and unextended. It has nothing in common with the body, but is connected with it in a single point, the pineal gland in the centre of the brain. In contrast with this, the essence of matter lies in extension. So the two forms of being are utterly disparate. Consequently the union between them is of an accidental or extrinsic character. Descartes thus approximates to the Platonic conception of charioteer and chariot. Soul and body are really two merely allied beings. How then do they interact? Real reciprocal influence or causal interaction seems impossible between two such disparate things. Geulincx and other disciples of Descartes were driven to invent the hypothesis of occasionalism and Divine assistance, according to which it is God Himself who effects the appropriate change in either body or mind on the occasion of the corresponding change in the other. For this system of miraculous interferences Leibniz substituted the theory of pre-established harmony according to which God has coupled pairs of bodies and souls which are destined to run in parallel series of changes like two clocks started together. The same insoluble difficulty of psycho-physical parallelism remains on the hands of those psychologists and philosophers at the present day who reject the doctrine of the soul as a real being capable of acting on the body which it informs. The ultra-dualism of Descartes was immediately followed on the Continent by the pantheistic monism of Spinoza, which identified mind and matter in one infinite substance of which they are merely "modes."
The cognitional question Descartes solves by a theory of knowledge according to which the mind immediately perceives only its own ideas or modifications. The belief in an external world corresponding to these ideas is of the nature of an inference, and the guaranteeing of this inference or the construction of a reliable bridge from the subjective world of thought to the objective world of material being, was thenceforth the main problem of modern philosophy. Locke similarly taught that the mind immediately apprehends only its own ideas, but he assumed a real external world which corresponds to these ideas, at least as regards the primary qualities of matter. Berkeley, accepting Locke's assumption that the mind immediately cognizes only its own ideas, raised the question: What grounds have we for believing in the existence of a material world corresponding to those ideas? He concludes that there are none. The external cause of these ideas is God Who awakens them in our minds by regular laws. The dualistic opposition between mind and matter is thus got rid of by denying an independent material world. But Berkeley still postulates multitude of real substantial minds distinct from each other and apparently from God. We have thus idealistic pluralism. Hume carried Berkeley's scepticism a step farther and denied the existence of permanent spiritual substances, or minds, for grounds similar to those on which Berkeley rejected material substances. All we know to exist are ideas of greater or less vividness. Kant repudiates this more extreme scepticism and adopts, at least in the second edition of his chief work, a form of dualism based on the distinction of phenomena and noumena. The mind immediately perceives only its own representations. These are modified by innate mental forms. They present to us only phenomena. But the noumena, the things-in-themselves, the external causes of these phenomenal representations, are beyond our power of cognition. Fichte rejected things-in-themselves outside the mind, and reduced the Kantian dualism to idealistic monism. The strongest and most consistent defenders of dualism in modern philosophy have been the Scotch School, including Reid, Stuart, and Hamilton. Among English writers in more recent times Martineau, McCosh, Mivart, and Case have carried on the same tradition on similar lines.
The problem of dualism, as its history suggests, involves two main questions:
- Does there exist a material world outside of our minds and independent of our thought?
- Supposing such a world to exist, how does the mind attain to the cognition of it?
The former question belongs to epistemology, material logic, or general philosophy; the latter to psychology. It is true that dualism is ultimately rejected by the materialist who reduces conscious states to functions, or "aspects" of the brain; but objections from this standpoint will be more suitably dealt with under materialism and monism. The idealist theory since Berkeley, in all its forms, maintains that the mind can only know its own states or representations, and that what we suppose to be an independent, material world is, in the last analysis, only a series of ideas and sensations plus belief in the possibility of other sensations. Our conviction of the objective reality of a vivid consistent dream is analogous to our conviction of the validity of our waking experience. Dualism affirms, in opposition to all forms of idealism, the independent, extramental reality of the material world. Among its chief arguments are the following:
- Our belief in the existence of other minds is an inference from their bodies. Consequently the denial of an external material world involves the rejection of all evidence for the existence of other minds, and lands the idealist in the position of "Solipsism".
- Physical science assumes the existence of a material world, existing when unperceived, possessing various properties, and exerting various powers according to definite constant laws. Thus astronomy describes the movements of heavenly bodies moving in space of three dimensions, attracting each other with forces inversely proportioned to the square of the distance. It postulates the movement and action of such bodies when they are invisible as well as when they are visible through long periods of time and over vast areas of space. From these assumptions it deduces future positions and foretells eclipses and transits many years ahead. Observations carried out by subsequent generations verify the predictions. Were there not an extramental world whose parts exist and act in a space and time truly mirrored by our cognitions and ideas, such a result would be impossible. The branches of science dealing with sound, light, heat, and electricity are equally irreconcilable with idealism.
- The teachings of physiology and psycho-physics become peculiarly absurd in the idealist theory. What, for instance, is meant by saying that memory is dependent on modifications in the nervous substance of the brain, if all the material world, including the brain, is but a collection of mental states?
- Psychology similarly assumes the extramental reality of the human body in its account of the growth of the senses and the development of perception. Were the idealist hypothesis true its language would be meaningless. All branches of science thus presuppose and confirm the dualistic view of common sense.
Granted, then, the truth of dualism, the psychological question emerges: How does the mind come to know the material world? Broadly speaking there are two answers. According to one the mind immediately perceives only its own representations or ideas and from these it infers external material objects as the cause of these ideas. According to the other, in some of its acts it immediately perceives extended objects or part of the material world. As Hamilton says: "What we directly apprehend is the Non-ego, not some modification of the Ego". The theory which maintains an immediate perception of the non-ego he calls natural dualism or natural realism. The other, which holds a mediate cognition of the non-ego, as the inferred cause of a representation immediately apprehended, he terms hypothetical dualism or hypothetical realism. The doctrine of immediate or presentative perception is that adopted by the great body of Scholastic philosophers and is embodied in the dictum that the idea, concept, or mental act of apprehension is non id quod percipitur sed medium quo res percipitur -- not that which is perceived but the medium by which the object itself is perceived. This seems to be the only account of the nature of knowledge that does not lead logically to idealism; and the history of the subject confirms this view. But affirmation of the mind's capacity for immediate perception of the non-ego and insistence on the distinction between id quod and id quo percipitur, do not dispose of the whole difficulty. Modern psychology has become genetic. Its interest centres in tracing the growth and development of cognition from the simplest and most elementary sensations of infancy. Analysis of the perceptive processes of a later age, e.g. apprehension of size, shape, solidity, distance, and other qualities of remote objects, proves that operations seemingly instantaneous and immediate may involve the activity of memory, imagination, judgment, reasoning, and subconscious contributions from the past experience of other senses. There is thus much that is indirect and inferential in nearly all the percipient acts of mature life. This should be frankly admitted by the defender of natural dualism, and the chief psychological problem for him at the present day is to sift and discriminate what is immediate and direct from what is mediate or representative in the admittedly complex cognitional operations of normal adult life. IN FAVOUR OF NATURAL DUALISM:--RICKABY, First Principles of Knowledge (New York and London, 1901); CASE, Physical Realism (New York and London, 1881); UEBERWEG, Logic, tr. (London, 1871); HAMILTON, Metaphysics (Edinburgh and London, 1877); McCOSH, Exam. of Mill (New York, 1875); MARTINEAU, A Study of Religion (Oxford, 1888): MIVART, Nature and Thought (London, 1882); MAHER, Psychology (New York and London, 1908); FARGES, L'Objectivit de la Perception (Paris, 1891). AGAINST NATURAL DUALISM:--BERKELEY, Principles of Human Knowledge, ed. FRASER (Oxford, 1871): ed. KRAUTH (Philadelphia, 1874); MILL, An Exam. of Sir W. Hamilton (London, 1865); BRADLEY, Appearance and Reality (New York and London, 1899). | <urn:uuid:b44cf511-507c-404b-ae35-fbba504ca840> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Dualism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94836 | 3,391 | 3.015625 | 3 |
|Description: A map of Santa Rosa County showing county lines, the county seat (Milton), railroads, canals, and principal auto routes connecting the major cities current to 1917.|
Place Names: Santa Rosa, Milton, Chumuckla, Bagdad, Munson
ISO Topic Categories: boundaries, inlandWaters, transportation
Keywords: Santa Rosa County, physical, political, transportation, physical features, county borders, roads, railroads, boundaries, inlandWaters, transportation, Unknown,1917
Source: C.O. Sylvester Mawson, Geographic Manual and New Atlas (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1917) 168
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman. | <urn:uuid:b2e5bb1f-f9f6-44e1-926d-5fae55ab569e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/maps/pages/1200/f1293/f1293.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.769317 | 157 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Peanut Allergy! Peanuts Are Among The
Top Eight Allergy Foods!
The peanut is native to Brazil where
they have been cultivated for 2000 years. They came to
North America by way of Africa with the slaves. Peanuts
grow in a peculiar way. The white blossoms are
fertilized and then the pods lowered several inches on
strings where they enter the ground. The ‘nut’, actually
a bean, is developed under ground where it is harvested
by pulling up the plant. A plant will have many such
strings hanging to the ground as the plant matures.
Although peanuts are generally considered to be a
healthful food, peanuts are among the eight most common
foods that produce allergic reactions. Two percent of
the population is allergic to them, so peanuts and
peanut products should be introduced cautiously to
It is best to not expose children to
peanuts until they are four years old. Such small
amounts; as the residue from an improperly cleaned
utensil is sufficient to trigger a violent reaction.
Even the smell of peanuts is sometimes enough to evoke
the problem. Peanuts and honey are two of the few foods
that are generally considered to be healthful, but that
should not be given to babies.
Peanuts and peanut products are used in so many
food products, baked goods, and as fillers in processed
foods. This makes the process of keeping peanuts from
small children a difficult task, requiring home
preparation of foods a wise choice until the child is
old enough to safely try peanuts in a small amount
before admitting them to the child’s diet. This may seem
to be an over emphasized problem, but the reactions can
be very severe, even leading to death.
Peanuts are a quarter to a third protein and up to half
fat, making them an energy powerhouse. | <urn:uuid:a920f6ab-b57d-4535-abbd-959107dae00c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthrecipes.com/peanuts.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95383 | 398 | 3.25 | 3 |
Grade Range: 5-12
Resource Type(s): Interactives & Media, Reference Materials
Date Posted: 7/10/2012
In this post, students will learn about the oldest sound recordings preserved toda, found at the Museum. These experimental phonograms were made starting in 1881 by the Volta Laboratory Association, which consisted of telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell, scientific instrument maker Charles Sumner Tainter, and chemist Chichester A. Bell. Written by Dr. Patrick Feaster, an instructor in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University and a Lemelson Center Fellow, this post is published on the Museum's "O Say Can You See?" blog.
Historical Thinking Standards (Grades K-4)
Historical Thinking Standards (Grades 5-12)
Standards in History (Grades K-4)
World History Standards (Grades 5-12) | <urn:uuid:020a46bb-c5aa-45d0-976f-398e29d3f0b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/?key=7106 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.861153 | 189 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day
October 3, 1863
Here’s another version, with a different preview.
When Abraham Lincoln was 7, his family was forced out of their home, and he went ot work. When he was 9, his mother died. he lost his job as a store clerk at age 20. he wanted to go to law school but didn’t have the education. At age 23, he went into debt to be a partner in a store. Three years later his business partner died, and it took years to pay the debt.
It took three tries for him to be elected to Congress and he only served one term. His son dies at 4 years old. When Lincoln was 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. He ran for the Vice Presidency and lost and at 51 he was elected to the President of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War in 1863, established the annual celebration of Thanksgiving. Lincoln had learned how important it is to stop and thank God in the midst of great difficulties.
Here’s what Lincoln wrote
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hears, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that the gifts of God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore invite my fellow citizens…to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”More Related Info | <urn:uuid:26879451-9536-44c8-a1fb-ebb8ca88698a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marthazoller.com/lincolns-thanksgiving-proclamation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988345 | 452 | 3.5625 | 4 |
A double-stranded DNA molecule containing one or more mispaired bases.
A double-stranded DNA in which the base sequences are not completely complementary due to recombination or mutation.
A DNA molecule that is formed by base pairing between strands that are derived from two DNA molecules that are not identical in sequence.
a double-helix formed where one strand is RNA and the other is DNA
A double-stranded DNA molecule or DNA-RNA hybrid, where each strand is of a different origin, and consequently containing one or more mismatched (non-complementary) base pairs. A DNA duplex is prepared by the hybridization of single-stranded DNA molecules derived from two different sources. Where the two DNAs have identical or very similar sequences, a double-stranded molecule will be established, whereas where the two DNAs differ in sequence, single-stranded regions will remain. A heteroduplex will be revealed as single-strand "bushes" when DNA is observed electron microscopically. A map of homologous and non-homologous regions of the two molecules may thereby be constructed. This process is known as heteroduplex mapping.
Hybrid structure formed by the annealing of two DNA strands (or an RNA and DNA) that have sufficient complementarity in their sequence to allow hydrogen bonding.
A double-stranded nucleic acid molecule in which each strand has been derived from a different individual.
A heteroduplex is a double-stranded (duplex) molecule of nucleic acid originated through the genetic recombination of single complementary strands derived from different sources, such as from different homologous chromosomes or even from different organisms. One such example is the heteroduplex DNA strand formed in hybridization processes, usually for biochemistry-based phylogenetical analyses. | <urn:uuid:1d8284f1-6a8e-4958-8ba4-dae59b6c50a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://metaglossary.com/meanings/851353/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944052 | 379 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said today, according to the Associated Press.
The Russian newspaper Pravda reported: “Moscow is suffocating. Thick toxic smog has been covering the sky above the city for days. The sun in Moscow looks like the moon during the day: it’s not that bright and yellow, but pale and orange with misty outlines against the smoky sky. Muscovites have to experience both the smog and sweltering heat at once.”
“Russia has recently seen the longest unprecedented heat wave for at least one thousand years, the head of the Russian Meteorological Center,” the news site Ria Novosti reported.
Various news sites report that foreign embassies have reduced activities or shut down, with many staff leaving Moscow to escape the toxic atmosphere.
Russian heatwave: This NASA map released today shows areas of Russia experiencing above-average temperatures this summer (orange and red). The map was released on NASA’s Earth Obervatory website.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, based on MODIS land surface temperature data available through the NASA Earth Observations (NEO) Website. Caption by Michon Scott.
According to NASA:
In the summer of 2010, the Russian Federation had to contend with multiple natural hazards: drought in the southern part of the country, and raging fires in western Russia and eastern Siberia. The events all occurred against the backdrop of unusual warmth. Bloomberg reported that temperatures in parts of the country soared to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit), and the Wall Street Journal reported that fire- and drought-inducing heat was expected to continue until at least August 12.
This map shows temperature anomalies for the Russian Federation from July 20-27, 2010, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2000 to 2008. The anomalies are based on land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Areas with above-average temperatures appear in red and orange, and areas with below-average temperatures appear in shades of blue. Oceans and lakes appear in gray.
Not all parts of the Russian Federation experienced unusual warmth on July 20-27, 2010. A large expanse of northern central Russia, for instance, exhibits below-average temperatures. Areas of atypical warmth, however, predominate in the east and west. Orange- and red-tinged areas extend from eastern Siberia toward the southwest, but the most obvious area of unusual warmth occurs north and northwest of the Caspian Sea. These warm areas in eastern and western Russia continue a pattern noticeable earlier in July, and correspond to areas of intense drought and wildfire activity.
Bloomberg reported that 558 active fires covering 179,596 hectares (693 square miles) were burning across the Russian Federation as of August 6, 2010. Voice of America reported that smoke from forest fires around the Russian capital forced flight restrictions at Moscow airports on August 6, just as health officials warned Moscow residents to take precautions against the smoke inhalation.
Posted by David Braun
Earlier related post: Russia burns in hottest summer on record (July 28, 2010)
Talk about tough: These guys throw themselves out of 50-year-old aircraft into burning Siberian forests. (National Geographic Magazine feature, February 2008)
Photo by Mark Thiessen
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Select the links below for specific information on Parthia and its rulers.
There was a district named Partukka or Partakka which was known to the Assyrians as early as the seventh century B.C., and it may have formed a part of Media. Media was conquered by Cyrus (Kurush) the Great, founder of the Achaemenid empire.
The Achaemenids ruled Iran from 550 B.C. to 330 B.C. and their authority extended from the Danube river to the Indus river at its zenith. Under the Achaemenids, there was a satrapy named Parthava, probably gained by conquest between 546 and 539 B.C. during Cyrus the Great's campaign south and east of the Caspian Sea. (Debevoise, Political History, 4) At that time the satrapy included Hyrcania, which lay between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian Sea. Parthava revolted in 521 B.C., but was subdued and probably remained united with Hyrcania at the death of Darius. Later it was apparently separated from Hyrcania and then joined with Chorasmia. In the army of Xerxes, there was a contingent of Parthians under the command of a certain Artabazus son of Pharnaces, probably the satrap of Parthia. Among the Parthians killed in Xerxes' Greek campaign was a cavalry leader named Arsaces. (Aeschylus, Persae, 4) The last ruler of the Achaemenid line was Darius III Condomannus who was defeated by Alexander the Great. The Parthians fought on the side of the Achaemenids against Alexander at Arbela and Darius' satrap of Parthia, Phrataphernes, surrendered to Alexander in Hyrcania. (Arrian, Anabasis, iii)
After defeat by Alexander, Amminapses, a Parthian from Egypt, was made Alexander's satrap of Parthia, which had been joined with Hyrcania. In 318 B.C. Pithon, satrap of Media, seized Parthia and installed his brother Eudamus. But other satraps became alarmed and united under Peucestas of Persis to drive Pithon back to Media. (Justin xiii, 4. 23) After 316 B.C. the province was apparently joined to Bactria under the command of Stasanor. But after nearly a century of Macedonian Greek rule by Alexander and his Seleucid successors, the nearly continuous war with Egypt weakened the Seleucids to the point that Diodotus of Bactria revolted and declared himself king circa 253 B.C. (Justin xli, 4. 5)
The origins of the Parthian people are clouded. Strabo (xi, 515) says the first Arsaces was a Scythian man with the semi-nomadic Parni tribe, a part of the Dahi, nomads who lived along the Ochus (Tejend or lower Oxus) River, who invaded and conquered Parthia. Strabo also mentions those who claim Arsaces was a Bactrian who escaped from Diodotus after a failed revolt. Justin (xli, 1) agrees Arsaces was a Scythian. Frye's analysis is that we can believe the Parni origins, but it was more likely a migration than an invasion that brought them, and Arsaces, to Parthia. (History, p. 207) These people would not be known as Parthians until they moved southward into the Persian province of Parthava sometime before 250 B.C. Achaemenian and early Greek references to "Parthians" refer to earlier inhabitants of Parthava, not the Arsacid Parthians. (Debevoise, Political History, 2; W. M. Montgomery, Early Empires).
The Parthians took encouragement from Diodotus' success and in 247 B.C. rose against Andragoras, satrap of Parthia for Antichus II Theos (261-247 B.C.). This date is fixed by a double-dated tablet discovered by George Smith (Assyrian Discoveries, London, 1875). The revolt was led by the brothers Arsaces and Tiridates. Arsaces became king and his name the honorific used by all subsequent Parthian kings.
During the second century B.C., the Parthians were able to extend their rule to Bactria, Babylonia, Susiana, and Media, and under Mithradates II (c. 123 - 88 B.C.), Parthian conquests stretched from Armenia to India. After the victories of Mithradates II, the Parthians began to claim descent from both the Greeks and the Achaemenids. They spoke a language similar to that of the Achaemenids, used the Pahlavi script, and established an administrative system based on Achaemenid precedents.
The most confused period of Parthian history is from the late years in the reign of Mithradates II (ended c. 88 B.C.) to the establishment of the sole rule of Orodes II c. 57 B.C. While Mithradates II was still in power, we have coins from Gotarzes I (c. 95 - 90 B.C.), Orodes I (c. 90 - 80 B.C.). And during the period immediately following the reign of Mithradates II, we see overlapping coinages of Orodes I (c. 90 - 80 B.C.), an Unknown King (I) c. 80 B.C., another Unknown King (II) (c. 80 - 70 B.C.), Sinatruces (c. 77 - 70 B.C.), and Darius of Media Atropatene (c. 70 B.C.). Phraates III appears to have consolidated control in the years around and following 70 B.C., and Orodes II took firm control c. 57 B.C. See the expanded discussion of this very confused period at the page on The Dark Age in Parthian History.
In 53 B.C. Crassus and over 40,000 Roman troops were annihilated by the Parthian forces of Orodes II and the peoples from the Mediterranean to the Indus understood the strength of Parthia. But by 40 B.C. even Rome had to acknowledge a Parthia whose forces, under the joint command of Pacorus I and Q. Labienus, a Roman, had struck directly into the heart of the Roman East and captured the provinces of Asia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Syria; even as far south as Petra, Parthia's word was law. For two years this vast area, so vital to Roman interests, was under Parthian occupation. Possession of the Carian and perhaps the Ionian coast by foreigners struck close to home as many Romans were native to that part of the world or did business there. The occupiers were no sooner pushed out by Ventidius than another Roman army under Anthony was defeated and barely escaped annihilation at Parthian hands. [Debevoise, 208]
The tug of war with Rome on the western border of Parthia continued almost without cease while Parthia had to constantly see to other threats from the north and east. The western border between Rome's dominions and Parthia gradually stabilized on the banks of the Euphrates, but war was always a threat and though major campaigns by the Romans were seen in A.D. 116, 161, 195, 217 and 232, Parthia was never conquered.
The Parthian landed nobility gained power and influence due to their their military power and increasing rights over the land and its peasants. As these grew, they were sufficient to allow the nobles to resist then defy the king, refusing to pay levies and failing to answer the call to arms that had been Parthia's source of power. Concurrently, the royal Arsacids fell to internal disagreements over succession which often ended in murder and a continued slide in their power. The resulting disorganization and fragmentation of the empire made way for successful Roman incursions into Parthian territories where rich commercial centers and royal treasuries were plundered, and territories lost to invaders. Petty kings rose to fill the power void; this power redistribution culminated in a direct attempts to overthrow the monarchy.
In A.D. 224, Ardashir, Parthian governor in the Achaemenid home province of Persis (Fars), overthrew Artabanus IV and established the Sasanid dynasty. The last Parthian king, Vologases VI, issued his last dated coin in A.D. 228. The Sasanians would rule Iran until the Islamic conquest in A.D. 641. The Sasanians were ardent Zoroastrians in conflict with their Armenian subjects who originally were Zoroastrians but subsequently embraced Christianity. The years of Sasanid rule saw a continuation of the struggle between Persia and Rome begun in the Parthian period. References to Parthia by Romans after A.D. 228 are to the Sasanid empire.
This page last updated 17 Apr 2008 | <urn:uuid:61bf66f9-5432-46b7-bee9-c19b861de427> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parthia.com/parthia_history.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966545 | 1,937 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Robots that can mimic the exact brush strokes of master painters or calligraphers could recreate their work, a Japanese researcher said Tuesday.
"We have been able to teach this robot to successfully copy the brush strokes of a master of calligraphy," said Seiichiro Katsura, an associate professor of system design engineering at Keio University.
A perfect copy of a work by long-dead artists such as Monet or Picasso is not possible, as the robot needs a living model to imitate, applying the same pressure and making the same gestures, Katsura said.
But the technology could be used in complex surgery or mechanics.
"In Japan, where the population is quickly ageing, there are fears that valuable skills may not be handed down to younger generations," said Katsura.
The robot was on display at Asia's biggest tech fair—the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) exhibition—which opened on Tuesday at Makuhari, near Tokyo.
Explore further: Smartphones control smart homes at Asia tech fair | <urn:uuid:9f7005ef-c09d-4f68-bc3f-d970626456de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news/2012-10-robot-artist-masters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958943 | 215 | 3.28125 | 3 |
As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, once approximately every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days.
This happens during Saturn's equinox, when the sun is directly over Saturn's equator. At this time, the rings, which also orbit directly over the planet's equator, appear edge-on to the sun. During equinox, light from the sun hits the ring particles at very low angles, accenting their topography and giving us a three-dimensional view of the rings.
"The equinox is a very special geometry, where the sun is turned off as far as the rings themselves are concerned, and all energy comes from Saturn," said Dr. Michael Flasar of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
During Saturn's latest equinox August 11, the rings reached a temperature of 382 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the coldest yet observed, as seen by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. CIRS was developed at NASA Goddard, and Flasar is the Principal Investigator for the instrument.
"The whole point of the CIRS observations of Saturn's rings, other than producing some cool pictures, is to learn something about the physical properties of the ring particles: their spin rates, how sluggish they are in storing and radiating heat (a diagnostic of size and composition), and their vertical distribution in the ring 'plane'," said Flasar.
Although the rings are wide, they are only about 30 feet thick. They are made of particles that are mostly water-ice. Scientists continue to debate the rings' origin and age. Some think they could be remnants of a shattered moon or captured comets, while others think they could have formed along with Saturn from the primordial disk of gas and dust that gave birth to our solar system.
"At first glance, Saturn's rings look broad and bland, but then we got close-up images from the Voyager flybys, and our reaction was: oh, my gosh, there's structure everywhere - what's going on?" said Dr. Linda Spilker, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
Researchers have discovered that while most of the ring particles are as small as dust and pebbles, there are a few chunks as big as mountains, and even some small moons several miles across embedded in the rings. Instead of orderly orbiting around Saturn, the particles clump together and drift apart, and the rings ripple and warp under the gravitational influence of Saturn's swarm of more than 60 moons.
"The closer we look at the rings, the more complex they get," says Spilker, Deputy Project Scientist for the CASSINI mission and a Co-Investigator on CIRS. She is leading the instrument team's investigation of the rings.
"Because Saturn's rings are so extended, going out to more than twice Saturn's radius (from the cloud tops), the furthest rings get less heat from Saturn than the innermost rings, so the ring temperatures at equinox tend to fall off with distance from Saturn's center," said Flasar.
However, the CIRS team discovered that the A-ring - the outermost of the wide, bright rings - did not cool off as much as expected during the equinox. This might give clues about its structure and evolution. "One possibility is that the gravitational influence of moons outside the A-ring is stirring up waves in it," said Spilker. "These waves could be much higher than the typical thickness of the rings. Since the waves rise above the ring plane, material in the waves would still be exposed to sunlight during the equinox, which would warm up the A-ring more than expected."
"But we have to carefully test this idea with computer models to see if it produces the temperatures we observed with CIRS," adds Spilker. "That's the challenge with CIRS. It's not like seeing a close-up picture of Mars, which can tell you something about its geology right away. We have to look at the CIRS data from different times and sun angles to see how the ring temperatures are changing, then make computer models to test our theories on what those temperatures say about the rings."
The effort to understand the rings could help us understand our origin. "Our solar system formed from a dusty disk, so by understanding the dynamics in a disk like Saturn's rings, we can gain insight into how Earth and the other planets in our solar system were made," said Spilker.
The equators of both Earth and Saturn are tilted compared to their orbit around the sun. This tilt makes the sun appear to rise higher and lower in the sky throughout the year as Earth progresses in its orbit, causing the seasons to change. Likewise, Saturn's tilt makes the sun appear higher and lower in the sky as Saturn moves in its orbit, which takes about 29.5 years to complete.
Saturn experiences two equinoxes per orbit, just as Earth does, when the planet's equator lines up edge-on to its orbital plane, causing the sun to appear directly over the equator. For a viewer on Saturn, the sun would seem to move from south to north around the time of the August 11 equinox.
Technically, the equinox is the instant when the sun appears directly over the equator, but Saturn's situation gives the rings an extended twilight. Saturn is about 10 times farther from the sun than Earth. Since Saturn is farther from the Sun's gravitational pull, it moves relatively slowly in its orbit compared to Earth, which makes it take longer for the sun to noticeably appear higher or lower in the sky. Also, even as far away as Saturn, the sun is large enough to appear as a disk, not a point, according to Spilker.
So, before the August 11 equinox, a viewer embedded in Saturn's rings would have seen sunlight fade as the top edge of the solar disk appeared to touch the rings first. This would be followed by darkness around the equinox as the solar disk slowly crossed the ring plane. Full sunlight would have returned when the sun's bottom edge rose above the ring plane, about four days from when the sunlight first began to fade.
Source: JPL/NASA (news : web)
Explore further: NASA launching experiment to examine the beginnings of the universe | <urn:uuid:a375f17c-fb83-4a04-8aad-e7f32ed9f6d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news175584836.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960052 | 1,360 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Migrants to the United States are a diverse population. This diversity, captured in various migration theories, is overlooked in empirical applications that describe a typical narrative for an average migrant. Using the Mexican Migration Project data from about 17,000 first-time migrants between 1970 and 2000, this study employs cluster analysis to identify four types of migrants with distinct configurations of characteristics. Each migrant type corresponds to a specific theoretical account, and becomes prevalent in a specific period, depending on the economic, social and political conditions. Strikingly, each migrant type also becomes prevalent around the period in which its corresponding theory is developed.
This paper studies the impact of internal migration and remittance flows on wealth accumulation and distribution in 51 rural villages in Nang Rong, Thailand. Using data from 5,449 households, the study constructs indices of household productive and consumer assets with principal component analysis. The changes in these indices from 1994 to 2000 are modeled as a function of households’ prior migration and remittance behavior with ordinary least squares, matching, and instrumental variable methods. The findings show that rich households lose productive assets with migration, potentially due to a reduction in the labor force available to maintain local economic activities, while poor households gain productive assets due to a reduction in the consumption burden and an influx of remittances. Regardless of wealth status, households do not gain or lose consumer assets with migration or remittances. These results suggest an equalizing effect of migration and remittances on wealth distribution in rural Thailand.
Background: Human cadavers are crucial to numerous aspects of health care, including initial and continuing training of medical doctors and advancement of medical research. Concerns have periodically been raised about the limited number of whole body donations. Little is known, however, about a unique form of donation, namely co-donations or instances when married individuals decide to register at the same time as their spouse as whole body donors. Our study aims to determine the extent of whole body co-donation and individual factors that might influence co-donation.
Methods and Findings: We reviewed all records of registrants to the University of Hawaii Medical School’s whole body donation program from 1967 through 2006 to identify married registrants. We then examined the 806 married individuals’ characteristics to understand their decision to register alone or with their spouse. We found that married individuals who registered at the same time as their spouse accounted for 38.2 percent of married registrants. Sex differences provided an initial lens to understand co-donation. Wives were more likely to co-donate than to register alone (p = 0.002). Moreover, registrants’ main occupational background had a significant effect on co-donations (p = 0.001). Married registrants (regardless of sex) in female-gendered occupations were more likely to co-donate than to donate alone (p = 0.014). Female-gendered occupations were defined as ones in which women represented more than 55 percent of the workforce (e.g., preschool teachers). Thus, variations in donors’ occupational backgrounds explained co-donation above and beyond sex differences.
Conclusions: Efforts to secure whole body donations have historically focused on individual donations regardless of donors’ marital status. More attention needs to be paid, however, to co-donations since they represent a non-trivial number of total donations. Also, targeted outreach efforts to male and female members of female-gendered occupations might prove a successful way to increase donations through co-donations.
Prior work has modeled individuals’ migration and remittance behavior separately, and reported mixed empirical support for various remittance motivations. This study offers an integrated approach, and considers migration as a mechanism for selection in a censored probit model of remittance behavior. This approach leads to different conclusions about the determinants of remittance behavior in the Thai internal migration setting. To the extent that these determinants capture different remittance motivations, as prior research has presumed, the analysis also provides varying support for these motivations. These results suggest that migration and remittance behavior are interrelated, and it is crucial for an analysis of remittance behavior to control for the selectivity of migration.
Students of social inequality have noted the presence of mechanisms militating toward cumulative advantage and increasing inequality. Social scientists have established that in-‐ dividuals’ choices are influenced by those of their network peers in many social domains. We suggest that the ubiquity of network effects and tendencies towards cumulative advant-‐ age are related. Inequality is exacerbated when effects of individual differences are multi-‐ plied by social networks: when persons must decide whether to adopt beneficial practices; network externalities, social learning, or normative pressure influence adoption decisions; and networks are homophilous with respect to individual characteristics that predict such decisions. We review evidence from literatures on network effects on technology, labor markets, education, demography, and health; identify several mechanisms through which networks may generate higher levels of inequality than one would expect based on dif-‐ ferences in initial endowments alone; consider cases where network effects may amelior-‐ ate inequality; and describe research priorities.
To evaluate the distributional impact of remittances in origin communities, prior research studied how migrants’ selectivity by wealth varies with migration prevalence in the community or prior migration experience of the individual. This study considers both patterns, and examines selectivity separately in low and high prevalence communities and for first-time and repeat migrants. Based on data from 18,042 household heads in 119 Mexican communities from the Mexican Migration Project, the analyses show that (i) first-time migrants in low prevalence communities come from poor households, while repeat migrants in high prevalence communities belong to wealthy households, and (ii) higher amounts of remittances reach wealthy households. These results suggest that repeat migration and remittances may be mechanisms for wealth accumulation in the study communities. Descriptive analyses associate these mechanisms with increasing wealth disparities between households with and without migrants, especially in high prevalence communities. The study, similar to prior findings, shows the importance of repeat migration trips, which, given sustained remittances, may amplify the wealth gap between migrants and non-migrants in migrant-sending communities. The study also qualifies prior findings by differentiating between low and high prevalence communities and observing a growing wealth gap only in the latter.
We describe a common but largely unrecognized mechanism that produces and exacerbates intergroup inequality: the diffusion of valuable practices with positive network externalities through social networks whose members differentially possess characteristics associated with adoption. We examine two cases, the first to explicate the implications of the model, the second to demonstrate its utility in analyzing empirical data. In the first, the diffusion of Internet use, network effects increase the utility of adoption to friends and relatives of prior adopters. An agent-based model demonstrates positive, monotonic relationships, given externalities, between homophily bias and intergroup inequality in equilibrium adoption rates. In the second, rural/urban migration in Thailand, network effects reduce risk to persons whose networks include prior migrants. Using longitudinal individual-level migration data, we find that network homophily interacts with network externalities to induce inequality in migration rates among otherwise similar villages.
Sociological research often examines the effects of social context with hierarchical models. In these applications, individuals are nested in social contexts—like school classes, neighborhoods or villages—whose effects are thought to shape individual outcomes. Although applications of hierarchical models are common in sociology, analysis usually focuses on inference for fixed parameters. Researchers seldom study model fit or examine aggregate patterns of variation implied by model parameters. We present an analysis of Thai migration data, in which survey respondents are nested within villages and report annual migration information. We study a variety of hierarchical models, investigating model fit with DIC and posterior predictive statistics. We also describe a simulation to study how different initial distributions of migration across villages produce increasing inter-village inequality in migration.
This paper studies how increasing migration changes the character of migrant streams in sending communities. Cumulative causation theory posits that past migration patterns determine future flows, as prior migrants provide resources, influence, or normative pressures that make individuals more likely to migrate. The theory implies exponentially increasing migration flows that are decreasingly selective. Recent research identifies heterogeneity in the cumulative patterns and selectivity of migration in communities. We propose that this heterogeneity may be explained by individuals’ differential access to previously accumulated migration experience. Multi-level, longitudinal data from 22 rural Thai communities allow us to measure the distribution of past experience as a proxy for its accessibility to community members. We find that migration becomes a less-selective process as migration experience accumulates, and migrants become increasingly diverse in socio-demographic characteristics. Yet, selectivity within migrant streams persists if migration experience is not uniformly distributed among, and hence not equally accessible to, all community members. The results confirm that the accumulation and distribution of prior migrants’ experiences distinctly shape future migration flows, and may lead to diverging cumulative patterns in communities over time.
This paper investigates how migrant social capital differentially influences individuals’ migration and cumulatively generates divergent outcomes for communities. To combine the fragmented findings in the literature, the paper proposes a framework that decomposes migrant social capital into resources (information about or assistance with migration), sources (prior migrants), and recipients (potential migrants). Analysis of multi-level and longitudinal data from 22 rural villages in Thailand shows that the probability of internal migration increases with the available resources, yet the magnitude of increase depends on recipients’ characteristics and the strength of their ties to sources. Specifically, individuals become more likely to migrate if migrant social capital resources are greater and more accessible. The diversity of resources by occupation increases the likelihood of migration, while diversity by destination inhibits it. Resources from weakly-tied sources, such as village members, have a higher effect on migration than resources from strongly-tied sources in the household. Finally, the importance of resources for migration declines with recipients’ own migration experience. These findings challenge the mainstream account of migrant social capital as a uniform resource that generates similar migration outcomes for different groups of individuals or in different settings. In Nang Rong villages, depending on the configuration of resources, sources and recipients, migrant social capital leads to differential migration outcomes for individuals and divergent cumulative migration patterns in communities.
A review of the sociological research about gender and migration shows the substantial ways in which gender fundamentally organizes the social rela- tions and structures influencing the causes and consequences of migration. Yet, although a significant sociological research has emerged on gender and migration in the last three decades, studies are not evenly distributed across the discipline. In this article, we map the recent intellectual history of gender and migration in the field of sociology and then systematically assess the extent to which studies on engendering migration have appeared in four widely read journals of sociology (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and Social Forces). We follow with a discussion of these studies, and in our conclusions, we consider how future gender and migration scholarship in sociology might evolve more equitably.
Employing longitudinal data from Thailand to replicate studies of cumulative causation, we extend current knowledge by measuring frequency of trips, duration of time away, level of network aggregation (village or household), and sex composition of migrant networks to estimate a model of prospective migration among men and women in Thailand. We find that trips and duration of time away have distinct influences upon migration; that household level migrant networks are more influential than village level migrant networks; that female migrant networks and male migrant networks have different influences upon migration outcomes; and, that migrant social capital influences men and women's migration differently. Our elaboration provides significant quantitative evidence as to how gender and family variously imbue migration dynamics. | <urn:uuid:8c0d771e-f919-499b-a733-2242cd2c7114> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scholar.harvard.edu/garip/publications/heterogeneous-migration-flows-across-destination-and-gender-thailand | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930051 | 2,409 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Students will gather as much information as possible from the sculpture of Rosa Parks before reading about her role in the Montgomery County Bus Boycott. They will bring the lesson to life by role playing and participating in skits.
Students will be able to:
- Describe a sculpture.
- Differentiate between realistic and distorted features of the sculpture.
- Identify clues to Rosa Parks’s story in the sculpture.
- List questions left unanswered by the sculpture.
- Use other sources of information to find answers to these questions.
- Use what they learn about Rosa Parks, the Montgomery County Buss Boycott, and the Civil Rights Movement to produce original illustrations and skits.
- Develop their ability to use nonviolent techniques for resolving interpersonal problems through role playing.
- Reproduction of Marshall D. Rumbaugh’s Rosa Parks
- Opaque projector
- Photograph of Rosa Parks
- Handout 5: “Chronology of Rosa Park’s Arrest and the Montgomery County Bus Boycott” | <urn:uuid:c3a3fdde-dc98-4f04-9916-3817c45bc76f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smithsoniansource.org/display/lessonplan/viewdetails.aspx?TopicId=1032&LessonPlanId=1003 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881917 | 212 | 4.09375 | 4 |
For the first time ever, developing countries lead yearly investment in clean energy — representing about $72 billion in spending in 2010, versus $70 billion in rich countries. So while U.S. lawmakers argue about efficiency standards in light bulbs, the 800-pound dragon, China, is dominating. Meanwhile, Brazil, India and various Middle Eastern countries are catching up.
The figures, which were put together by Bloomberg New Energy Finance for the UN Environment Program, show that total global investment grew by 30% in 2010 to $211 billion:
China, with US$48.9 billion in financial new investment in renewables (up 28%), was the world leader in 2010. However, other parts of the emerging world also showed strong growth: South and Central America: up 39% to US$13.1 billion; Middle East and Africa: up 104% to US$5 billion; India: up 25% to US$3.8 billion; and Asian developing countries excluding China and India: up 31% to US$4 billion.
It may be somewhat inaccurate to say that the developing world is winning – it’s pretty much China. But others are emerging fast. As leading developing countries continue their rapid economic growth, their hunger for all types of energy is increasing, including renewables. As the importance of the G8 countries is eclipsed by the G20 countries, the leading industrialized renewable energy investors are now being cumulatively outpaced by emerging countries.
“The investment activity in the developing world is not only leading to innovations in renewable energy technologies. Furthermore, it will open up new markets as first mover investors are facilitating a range of new business models and support entrepreneurship in the developing world,” explains Udo Steffens [President of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.]
Another interesting trend is the scale of projects around the world. While we hear mostly about large-scale projects being developed, the largest percentage increase was in small-scale projects – up 91% from 2009 to $60 billion. That increase came mostly from the solar PV sector.
– Stephen Lacey
[Joe Romm: While China still has a great deal of developing to do, perhaps a new category is needed for them, since they are not an “industrialized country” but they seem quite different than the overwhelming majority of “developing countries." Perhaps they need to be called a hyper-developing country, since their staggering growth in coal consumption threatens to finish off the destruction of a livable climate begun by the rich countries.] | <urn:uuid:6795faf2-d4f3-4a4a-8763-2133f5fb63e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/08/263963/industrialized-countries-are-now-losing-the-clean-energy-race/?mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953142 | 518 | 2.515625 | 3 |
By Richard Froeb, M.D. [August 19 2010]
It can happen to anyone. You stumble off the curb and end up with an ankle that's swollen and bruised. Or, you spend a day cleaning out the garage and end up with a sore back. Unlike fractures, when bone is injured, sprains and strains are injuries to the soft tissues. A sprain occurs when a ligament (the tissue that connects bones at the joint) is stretched or torn. A strain occurs when a muscle is stretched or pulled or a tendon (the tissue that connects muscle to bone) is stretched or torn.
Although painful, sprains and strains are usually minor injuries, provided you treat them properly. To remember the first aid for sprains and strains, learn the acronym RICE:
- Rest. Give the injured area a rest. You may continue some physical activity, but avoid activities that cause pain or swelling.
- Ice. Apply ice as soon as possible after the injury occurs to help limit inflammation, bruising and pain. Use a cold pack (a bag of frozen peas will work in a pinch) or place the injured area in a slush bath (fill a bucket with ice and water) for 15 to 20 minutes and then repeat every two to three hours for the first 48 to 72 hours.
- Compression. Wrap the injured area with an elastic bandage until the swelling stops. Begin wrapping at the area farthest from your heart and take care not to wrap so tightly that you slow circulation.
- Elevation. Prop the injured area so it's elevated above your heart, especially at night. Gravity will help reduce swelling by draining excess fluid.
You can take an over-the-counter pain reliever such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. After two days, try to use the injured area gently. You should see gradual but steady improvement. Most sprains and strains will heal in about two to four weeks, but see your doctor if swelling, pain or weakness persists.
Richard Froeb, M.D., is an orthopedic surgeon and chief of the Division of Orthopedics at The Hospital of Central Connecticut. He is in private practice in New Britain and may be reached at (860) 223-8553.
Visit our Joint Care section. | <urn:uuid:7e049c50-98cf-47e7-b900-81d4bb6c7ca7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thocc.org/whatsnew/expert-articles_details.aspx?ExpertArticleID=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936773 | 468 | 2.65625 | 3 |
New to Typophile? Accounts are free, and easy to set up.
In current practice, usage of the term case most likely refers to the use of uppercase (capital) or lowercase letters. See some examples below. In letterpress practice, case refers to the physical box (case), usually wooden, that a given set of letters is stored. Capital letters were stored in the upper (top) case and lowercase letters were stored in the lower (bottom) case.
ALL CAPS -- All letters are capitalized.
Title Case -- The first letter of each word is capitalized.
Sentence case -- where the first character is capital and the remaining words are lowercase.
Camel Case -- Also called internal caps where one or more characters in a given word (or string) has a capitalized letter. This is often used in programming languages and increasingly seen for naming or branding companies or products.
Greek OpenType Features | <urn:uuid:06038c8e-90d1-4164-95a8-b7f743ee2869> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://typophile.com/node/12862 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901676 | 194 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Scientists studied 6,183 women over age 65, tracking their fat consumption and changes in their mental abilities over four years. The women completed a food questionnaire at the start of the study, then periodically took tests of mental ability.
The researchers assigned a “change score” to each volunteer, summarizing changes in memory and abstract thinking over time — the lower the score, the greater the decline. The study appeared online Thursday in the journal Annals of Neurology.
After controlling for many health and socioeconomic factors, the researchers found that women who consumed the most saturated fat were 60 percent more likely than those consuming the least to have change scores that put them below the 10th percentile. On the other hand, women who reported consuming the most monounsaturated fat were 44 percent less likely to have change scores in lowest one-tenth. Consumption of polyunsaturated fats and trans fats was not associated with any change, nor was total fat.
“People might consider making changes or substitutions in their diet, switching out saturated fats in favor of monounsaturated fats,” said the lead author, Dr. Olivia I. Okereke, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard. | <urn:uuid:a3c708a1-c4f4-4472-98db-77c7ce5a9253> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/some-fats-may-harm-the-brain-more/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963679 | 245 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Multiplying two digit by one digit numbers
How to multiply a two digit number by a one digit number
(for example 59 * 7).
- Place one number above the other so that the ones'
place digits are lined up. Draw a line under the bottom number.
- Multiply the two ones' place digits (9 * 7 = 63). This number is larger
than 9, so place the six above the tens' place column and place the three below the
line in the ones' place column.
- Multiply the digit in the tens' place column (5) by the second number (7).
The result is 5 * 7 = 35. Add the 6 to the 35 (35 + 6 = 41) and place the answer
below the line and to the left of the 3. | <urn:uuid:6ee99fe6-bf7f-48c8-a881-0ab8db658a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aaamath.com/B/g7_310mx.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.786687 | 171 | 3.359375 | 3 |
|born on||11 March 1611 at 12:00 (= 12:00 noon )|
|Place||Southwick, England, 50n50, 0w13|
|Timezone||LMT m0w13 (is local mean time)|
|Astrology data||20°32' 15°14 Asc. 17°30'|
British scientist, a brilliant linguist and mathematician. He was the son of a non-conformist clergyman who died when the boy was five and left the legacy of a good library. Pell was a bright and multi-lingual student and very handsome. Famed in philosophy and math, he established a school in Sussex.
Married in 1632, he had eight kids. Also unpractical and improvident, he struggled with his financial position and died in poverty 12/12/1685.
- Relationship : Marriage 1632 (Lasting)
- Death, Cause unspecified 12 December 1685 (Age 74)
chart Placidus Equal_H.
- Death of Father 1617 (When he was five)
Martin Harvey in Nativitas I, "His youngest uncle guessed 'about noon.'"
- Notable : Famous : Top 5% of Profession
- Notable : Extraordinary Talents : For Languages
- Vocation : Science : Mathematics/ Statistics (Mathematician)
- Family : Parenting : Kids more than 3 (Eight)
- Family : Relationship : Number of Marriages (One)
- Family : Childhood : Family traumatic event (Age five when dad died)
- Lifestyle : Financial : On the edge (Impractical; died in poverty) | <urn:uuid:2bd8bc63-0ea9-4134-8957-a9c8e63a7056> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Pell,_John | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89329 | 342 | 3 | 3 |
Ips pine bark beetle
Order Coleoptera: Family Scolytidae
Importance: Ips beetles are commonly found throughout the South. They usually attack injured or stressed trees, freshly felled trees or logging slash. Infestations are frequently initiated in trees stressed by lightning, logging injury or fire damage. Ips beetles usually attack and kill only one-to-a-few trees in a location. However, in areas in which trees have undergone severe drought stress, ice or wind/hail damage, they frequently buildup large populations and may kill large numbers of trees. Ips beetles are second only to the southern pine beetle in the number of trees killed by southern forest insects.
Hosts: Ips beetles attack the major pine species grown in
Evidence: Depending upon which of the four Ips species are involved, an infestation is initiated by adults attacking the tree trunk, the trunk and scaffold limbs or only scaffold limbs. Often, the first recognized sign of attack is yellowing or reddening of needles in tree crowns. Unfortunately, by this time most of the beetles have completed their life cycle (approx. 21 days to several months depending upon temperature) and emerged from the tree. Other signs of attack include the formation of amber, popcorn-shaped pitch tubes on the tree trunk, or if the tree is severely stressed, only the presence of small boring holes and brown boring dust found in bark crevices and on spider webs resulting from adults boring through the tree bark. Ips pitch tubes are ½ inch-or-less in diameter are formed as resin exuded as a defense against the beetles boring through the tree bark hardens.
Identification: Ips beetles are one of three major groups of important pine bark beetles in the South. The rear end of adult Ips beetles are concave (scoopedout in appearance) with four-to-six pairs of spines on either side of the concaved areas. Adults are cylindrical in shape, usually dark browntoblack and range in length from 2 to 7 mm (0.10.3 inch).
Other important pine bark beetles in the South are the southern pine beetle (SPB) Dendroctonusfrontalis Zimmermann and the black turpentine beetle (BTB) Dendroctonus terebrans (Olivier), which have rounded rear ends.
Damage: Male Ips beetles initiate attack by boring through the bark and constructing mating chambers. From two to four females (depending on species) join each male. Egg galleries radiate out from the mating chamber with eggs being deposited at regular intervals along the sides of the galleries. The galleries usually groove the sapwood and are generally free of boring dust. Ips egg galleries are usually parallel to the grain of the sapwood and are roughly Y, H or I shaped (except for the small Ips avulsus). Ips beetles introduce blue stain fungus into egg galleries on which larvae feed and which will ultimately cause the death of the tree. Once Ips beetles successfully attack a tree and construct egg galleries the tree usually cannot be saved, even if treated with an insecticide to kill the larvae.
Contact your county extension office or your local state forestry commission/department for more information.
G. K. Douce. 1993. Pine Bark Beetles. Univ. GA, Coop. Ext. Serv., Col. Agr. and Envir. Sci., Bull. 1097, 8 pp.
Anonymous. 1989. Insects and Diseases of Trees in the South. USDA Forest Service Southern Region. Protection Report R9-PR 16. 98p.
Image 1: Forest Insects and Their Damage Photo CD vol. 1 no. 88. Gerald Lenhard, Louisiana
Image 2: Forest Insects and Their Damage Photo CD vol. 2 no. 12. Ronald Billings, Texas Forest Service.
Image 3: Forest Insects and Their Damage Photo CD vol. 2 no. 17. Ronald Billings, Texas Forest Service.
[ Home ] | <urn:uuid:d384b1f0-5a11-4fd8-931c-f94a1e10a183> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.barkbeetles.org/ips/ips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924254 | 815 | 3.125 | 3 |
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|Understanding and Working with Children in Military Families|
Understanding and Working with Children in Military Families by Angela J. Heubner, Ph.D. presented at the SERC Conference, "Understanding and Working with Children who have Survived Trauma" on May 11, 2012 at the Courtyard Cromwell, CT. | <urn:uuid:ef3acf42-a08b-4ab3-9165-50e816c674ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctserc.org/s/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1107%3Aunderstanding-and-working-with-children-in-military-families&catid=3%3Anewsflash&Itemid=144&2fa6f942252db2ec6c621fe255459617=e2872bfeb95d56054225ad22e3d5f0c7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86507 | 145 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Asthma is a long-term (chronic) disease of the respiratory system that causes inflammation and spasm or tightening in the bronchial tubes, which carry air to the lungs. The inflammation causes periodic episodes of difficulty breathing, wheezing, chest tightness, and coughing.
Although asthma cannot be cured, most people can control their asthma by following a plan, avoiding triggers, and taking medicine.
Asthma often begins during childhood and may last throughout a person's life.
The cause of asthma is not clearly known. It is more common in people who also have allergies.
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Find out what women really need.
Pill Identifier on RxList
- quick, easy,
Find a Local Pharmacy
- including 24 hour, pharmacies | <urn:uuid:1cbcca0e-c2de-44d2-b3d9-cebb6394b022> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=133293&ref=129845 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933653 | 209 | 3.453125 | 3 |
It came in March 1982 during the days before the Falklands War, after Argentina established an unauthorized presence on Britain's South Georgia island amid talk of a possible invasion of the Falklands, long held by Britain.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher realized there was little that Britain could do immediately to establish firm control of the contested islands, and feared Britain would be seen as a paper tiger that could no longer defend even its diminished empire. She was told that Britain might not be able to take the islands back, even if she took the risky decision to send a substantial armada to the frigid South Atlantic.
"You can imagine that turned a knife in my heart," Thatcher told an inquiry board in postwar testimony that has been kept secret until its release by the National Archives on Friday, 30 years after the events it chronicles.
"No one could tell me whether we could re-take the Falklands—no one," she told the inquiry board. "We did not know—we did not know."
The assessment is more downbeat than the view offered in Thatcher's memoir, "The Downing Street Years."
Thatcher's handling of the Falklands crisis is remembered as one of the key tests of her leadership. The former prime minister, now 87, has been hospitalized since having a growth removed from her gall bladder shortly before Christmas. She has stayed out of the public eye in
Argentina did invade on April 2, and Thatcher launched a naval task force to take back the islands three days later, after the United Nations condemned the invasion. Britain succeeded by mid-June. The war claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 British soldiers, along with three elderly islanders.
Thatcher testified she had been terrified that by sending the seaborne force which would take weeks to reach the Falklands (known as Las Malvinas in Spanish) she would provoke even more aggressive action by the Argentines while the vessels were in transit. She feared this might make the military operation even more hazardous when they arrived.
She persisted in the bold mission despite the risk of an Argentine troop buildup that might force her to turn the armada back, a result that she said "would have been the greatest humiliation for Britain."
She doesn't state the obvious political cost: The mission's failure would have cut short the career of Britain's first female prime minister with her almost inevitable ouster as party leader.
The vivid picture of Thatcher's feelings of helplessness and rage—and eventual resolve—are portrayed in thousands of pages of formerly Secret documents released by the National Archives.
Historian Chris Collins of the Thatcher Foundation—which plans to make the documents available online—said Thatcher's testimony before the inquiry chaired by Oliver Franks was "very carefully prepared" because she felt politically vulnerable.
"She was concerned at the damage the report might do her, because there was much potential for embarrassment at the government's pre-war policy of trying to negotiate a settlement with Argentina ceding sovereignty while leasing back the islands for a period, plus suggestions that Argentine intentions could have been predicted and invasion prevented," he said.
She concedes to the committee that her political analysis was incorrect because she believed Argentina's junta would not invade, as it was making progress at the United Nations in its effort to build diplomatic support for its claim to the disputed islands. She said she thought the junta wouldn't risk this support with unilateral military action.
"I never, never expected the Argentines to invade the Falklands head-on," she told the inquiry board, which was investigating, among other things, whether the government should have been better prepared. "It was such a stupid thing to do, as events happened, such a stupid thing even to contemplate doing. They were doing well."
The papers detail how Thatcher urgently sought U.S. President Ronald Reagan's support when Argentina's intentions became clear, and reveal Thatcher's exasperation with Reagan when he suggested that Britain negotiate rather than demand total Argentinian withdrawal.
The documents describe an unusual late night phone call from Reagan to Thatcher on May 31, 1982—while British forces were beginning the battle for control of the Falklands capital—in which the president pressed the prime minister to consider putting the islands in the hands of international peacekeepers rather than press for a total Argentinian surrender.
Reagan's considerable personal charm failed on this occasion. Thatcher, in full "Iron Lady" mode, told the president she was sure he would take the same dim view of international mediation if Alaska had been taken by a foe.
"The Prime Minister stressed that Britain had not lost precious lives in battle and sent an enormous Task Force to hand over the Queen's Islands (the Falklands) immediately to a contact group," says the memo produced the next morning by Thatcher's private secretary. She told the president there was "no alternative" to surrender and re-establishment of full British control.
The newly public documents also reveal an extraordinary draft telegram written several days later by Thatcher to Argentinian leader Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri in which she describes in very personal terms the death and destruction both leaders would grapple with in the coming days unless Argentina backed down.
She tells her counterpart that the decisive battle is about to begin, imploring him to begin a full withdrawal to avoid more bloodshed.
"With your military experience you must be in no doubt as to the outcome. In a few days the British flag will once again be flying over Port Stanley. In a few days also your eyes and mine will be reading the casualty lists. On my side, grief will be tempered by the knowledge that these men died for freedom, justice, and the rule of law. And on your side? Only you can answer the question."
The telegram was never sent, and Galtieri resigned in disgrace several days after Britain reclaimed the islands.
National Archives: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
Margaret Thatcher Foundation: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/ | <urn:uuid:5b1dc4ee-a719-4c6f-a753-3b35794f2513> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eveningsun.com/nationworldnews/ci_22270060/thatcher-papers-worst-moment-her-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975128 | 1,220 | 2.78125 | 3 |
click to view large map
- To protect a representative cross section of the atoll's habitats, including windward and leeward peripheral reefs, the atoll lagoon with its patch reefs, and sea grass beds.
- To protect at least some of the cuts or passes in the reef, as these are considered ecologically very important in terms of water flow and exchange, for movement of larvae, for species with feeding migrations, and species such as lobsters which migrate back and forth between the lagoon and deeper water for spawning purposes.
- To provide an undisturbed area for recruitment of species to adjacent areas, and to protect nursery and spawning areas such as the spawning banks east of Long Caye and Middle Caye.
- To provide an area for recreational diving, sport fishing, boating, and appreciation of the marine environment.
- To provide a relatively undisturbed area with representative natural ecosystems that can be used for applied research.
Use and Entry
- No extractive uses are allowed, with the exception of subsistence fishing by registered residents of the atoll (under review), and catch-and-release sport fishing by licensed fishermen.
- Spear fishing is not permitted by the subsistence fishers.
- Anchors cannot be deployed in areas where moorings are provided.
- Divers must register with the Reserve Manager.
- Dive boats must obtain a license to operate in the zone. | <urn:uuid:25e70023-56e9-42ae-807f-125fbb2aac09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gloversreef.org/conservation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93342 | 291 | 2.734375 | 3 |